Secondary profession for necro?

I'm almost lvl 8 on my necro now, and i'm quite new to this game. I need some advise... what should i choose as secondary profession?

It's really all up to personal preference. Look at the character stats in the handbook and see what you would want to use best. There are so many different possible builds because of the different attributes that there's really no single "best" build. Everything is balanced.

OK, Any other opinions?

I would say don't choose warrior or ranger. Any of the others are good.

Monk - you can heal yourself independant of corpses or targets.
Elementalist - Firestorm helps take out multiple targets (if you can stand the long casting time)
Mesmer - a conjure phantasm to supplememnt your life syphon.....you will be golden!

I don't do this often but I would like to say that ranger works rather well, at least in PvE (I don't know about PvP, haven't really tried it yet other than Ascalon/Yak's/LA.) If you do it correctly, it can really work. I focus in blood, death, and marksmanship, but there are other builds I've tried that can work well (for instance, curses and wilderness survival worked well but I prefer ranged fighting, so I switched to marksmanship.) But again, it's really up to personal preference. Though I would say definitely don't go with warrior as a secondary with any class because you don't really get too many useful skills out of it. Just try different classes and see what you like and remember, you can change your secondary later on in the game if you end up not liking it.

[QUOTE=LadyCallipyge]I would say don't choose warrior or ranger. Any of the others are good.

Actually I have a N/W 20 vampire necro and in close combat it is really hard to kill and is able to heal itself with the life combo and vamp skills. So suggesting not choosing a warrior or ranger as a 2nd profession is a very biased hint. on the warrior part of things all you need are some good skills like cripple or knockdown attacks to put up a good offensive or defensive role.

Do the sampler quests with a good selection of the potential 2ary class skills equipped... get a feel for whether you like the style. As an 8th level they shouldn't be too hard.

A well made nec/warrior is the only warrior secondary who I don't mind seeing in close combat, they actually have survivability unlike mesmers and elementalists, and unlike monks, they don't need to focus their attention on the group.

Nec/Ranger would be awesome. I currently have a ranger/nec, and bow attacks have excellent synergy with curses (like double shot, distracting shot, and mark of pain all used together). The biggest problem this character has is energy, and expertise doesn't affect necro spells, so I'd imagine a nec/ranger would be similar but far more powerful.

I wouldn't recommend elementalist, necro has enough damage spells, many aoe, and there isn't any synergy necro has with non-energy storage spells, except glyphs, which are a huge waste of a skill slot.

Monk secondary would go great with a death magic minion build.

Mesmer would provide good energy support with inspiration, and a combo of necro curses and illusion could let you easily reach 10 degen on a target. If you go this route though, fast casting would be a better primary since many nec skills are pretty slow cast, annoyingly so, and the necs primary is pretty useless if you don't gear yourself specifically for it (like having a sacrifice char on your team, and using the temporary monk res enchants on him, or just having a minion build). Still good to go nec primary for monk/ranger/warrior though, since for a monk you'll want death magic anyways, and for the other two you need more energy then ranger/warrior armor have to offer.

I also use a Necro/Ranger build and it works exceedingly well in PVE (I know because ppl comment on it so much!) I basically got my Blood Magic and Death Magic up to around 13 each and Beast Mastery up around 6ish... I basically am a support function that can also have a monster pet army. I give the healers energy regens during fights, cast blood wells to support healing and then have my pet and minions add dmg with an occasional staff attack from me. Plus having a pet is nice because a lot of times in a big fight I let my pet die off so I can use it as either a source for a Well of Blood or a minion... All in all the build works great for PVE and if you get a good weapon like a staff that is 20% cast and skill reset for Blood or Death magic that will be helpful as well (I never use a bow cuz I dont want to put skills into Marksmanship)

I also have been thinking of switching my skills around a bit to become better at setting traps... That is another great N/R build if interested.

I'm playing a Necro/Elementalist, and it is very satisfying.

The Necro portion gives me life stealing (vampiric gaze, life siphon), low-level team healing (well of blood), and minions. Having Necro primary also gives me the soul reaping, which gives plenty of energy to fuel Elementalist spells.

The Elementalist portion gives me raw damage ability that is useful in almost all situations. Firestorm and meteor shower are my two favorites. (Meteor shower is great for disrupting bosses!) Using the glyph of energy can even give me free necro minions!

This combo is very easy to play, in my opinion. It doesn't take skill that playing a Ranger or Mesmer requires. (It took me until level 20 to figure out the best way to use my Ranger, but by 10th level my N/E was already kicking butt!)

Well, that's my two cents! Enjoy!
Dwig

I chose nec/ele, and im satisfyed with that

Thanks for your help!

My N/Me treats me well. Blood and Domination primarily and a few points in Illusion and Soul Reaping I'm an anti-caster build predominantly. Mark of Subversion and Backfire stack ever so nicely.

lvl20 N/E here...and all I can say is i love this combo.

with my current build I can heal my team to an extent...
Weaken a whole group buy giving health degen of -6 plus I gain health back at the same time.
slow them down to half speed so they cant attack as much
heal myself and then rain metor shower/fire storm on the big guys and still have energy left because of soul reaping

I always seem to be the last one alive in a party if we get attacked. Monks usually never have to worry about healing me...
And when people see metor shower come raining down on a lvl28 baddie i get cheers! lol N/E was definatly a good choice...now just figure out what your going to drop your points into. Basically i am a supporting Blood/curse/fire N/E

I like using Mesmer as my secondary for the energy tap.

i love my necro mesmer i can use phantasm and life siphon and pwn almost anything also i use my minions to do damage while i use weaken armor so that they can kill things easyer. this combo is very good for people who want to have fun kiling things and also it is good for pvp

I am a N/E20 with max Blood magic (level 18 after Awaken the Blood) and I use the Blood skills as primary attack and then Fire Ele spells for AoE (Fire Storm, Meteor Shower) and quick shots (Flare)

I can steal LOTS and LOTS of life in a short amount of time 450+ in under 10 seconds.

well im in the position Nitradamus was in, this post was great coz id been thinking of uses a Ne primary, and this conmfirms it, NE/R looks like the most fun, so i'll give it a go.

game is bought tommoroow, so i might not see the light of day for a 4-5 days.


sorry bout the spelling, im a wee bit drunk

You're better off doing elementalist primary if you wanted it as a secondary. Soul reaping is nice for pve; you'll be a god, but in pvp it's dwarfed by energy storage.