Looking for a fun PvE mage build...maybe with necro as primary. Please help!

Hello all.

While I love my war/ele I'm thinking about rolling a new character. I'm an old skool caster. While it's cool to beat things til they stop moving my heart yearns for the days of old with magic thunderbolts and pet commanding.

Since there isn't a true pet class (or is there?) on this game I was thinking about building something around the necromancer's summons.

One thing that gets to me is while they are effective they die way too soon. Is there someway to counter that with....hmmm I dunno a monk secondary to pump health/buffs? I take it that there may not be a way to do so as 2 necromancers I grouped with recently just let their pets fall to the side.

I'm just looking for a super fun, killing machine in PvE......if necromancer as a primary class might not work then please tell me about the mesmer or ele lines as a primary.

Thanks all and please all build suggestions and advice will be appreciated!

Ranger is a pet class, you can charm wolfs, spiders, striders and lizards etc...

I have a Ranger/Ele now and I'm quite happy with the combo even though I don't use the pets. That combo should suit you, maybe even Ele/Ranger since the pet charm isn't primary attribute and you may like the elementalist more.

You can heal the bone minions but I'm pretty sure they do get faster and faster health loss, so at some point it becomes futile.

That ele/ran doesn't sound bad actually. That might be nice...but please tell me are there like a billion pet skills to lug around in order to make it work well? I mean since it seems like you get 1 pet how does it level? And while we are on the subject how many necromancer summons are there? And besides lvl I guess what are the main differences?

Also what skills would one bring along? As well as what weapon? Since ranger is a bow class (or is it???) I can't think of what skills would work well with a caster type. What would a skill setup look like with caster/ran?

Oh and what about weapons? If a ranger were secondary would you pack wands, staves and the like? Or pull out a bow? Hmm very confusing lol!

Now that I've had some time to think about it that would be a fun build....but after looking over some other threads about pet skills how could you make it work with only 8 skills. Also what would you put points into?

In order to keep your necro minions alive longer you need Veratas Sacrifice, which you get pretty late in the game (S. Shiverpeaks). There is a point where you can't keep them alive very well, because Veratas has a longer cooldown than casting length by 10-12 seconds or so at 12 death, as I've seen my minions health bars not move up at all with veratas on, meaning they had 10 degen from being alive so long.

3 necro summons. horrors are cheap, melee, and decently strong. fiends and minions are both costly at 25 mana, but fiends are much stronger and ranged and minions you get two, making them great for death nova bombs.

If you want to get a pet get ranger as your secondary. Otherwise you'll have to take too many points away from expertise/marksmanship if it's your primary and you really are focusing on a pet.

I'm not quite sure what you're looking for, but I'll give you what I use sometimes on my pve necro/monk when I'm pure summoner/healer to give you an example.

12+1 death
9 soul reaping
9 healing prayers

Death Nova
Heal area
Healing breeze
Summon minion/horror/fiend (fiend vs weaker enemies, minions vs stronger, horrors early on)
Heal other
Veratas Sacrifice
Healing Seed
Ressurect

That build looks good Zeru....I don't want to be a main healer anyways. One thing I'm wondering about. How exactly would that build worlk out in terms of energy management? Does soul reaping include gathering energy from enemies?

See your build works with an item I found way back. A focus item....with +5 to healing prayers (or whatever it was) you get +20 energy. A good item sure but I was never able to pull the total value I wanted from this item. It had a nasty -1 regen attached to it.

Now if necromancers get energy from enemies, dead things and minions wouldn't that keep a person's energy bar full all the time for heals and the like? Forgive me if I'm wrong, I'm still a noob! See does energy regen even matter to a necromancer if he/she can get back energy seemingly at will? Or am I reaching for too much?

If you want a pet you need to be a ranger. I love my pet sooooo much. Almost all my atrib. points go into my beastmastery and my strider is the best pet ever! He kicks but in the arena! I got him when i was level 2 , he was level 1 and he levels as fast as i do. Can you tell how much i love him XP His name is Mr Feathers by the way.

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Use Taste of Death. Instant healing and you can detonate your minions that have death novas attached to them.

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Started a ranger yesterday.....mmmm not bad but the thought of Leggo-ing it up and being stuck with a bow doesn't sit well with me....although rangers look uber cool. However my guild cape has somehow made my overcoat go missing! BAD!!! Can't figure out how to get rid of it lol....plus I am stuck with that silly puma. Where is a trader so I can ditch it? I'm thinking about wolf anyways.

Now I plan to start a necromancer today....I think it was mentioned in another thread about how weird it is to be nec/mon lol....or as someone great once said "it's an ultimate principle of backwards heresy" or whatever lol.

But which one to go....mon/nec or nec/mon? As I said Zeru's build isn't bad at all....but isn't the same possible if you switch the order?

I was also thinking about ele/ran since all I want are pets but I'm not sure if that will work out either. However that's about as close as I can come to a classic enchanter type unless I go mesmer/ranger.

Thanks for all the help so far and please keep it coming!

my secondary is elementalist.
I put my stats into marksmanship and fire magic... besides beast mastery