Tips for getting my Necro into UW/Fissure

So I have a lvl 20 N/E. I can sit in Temple of Ages for a LONG time saying, "N/E20 lfg for fissure/UW" and not get one single invite. Is there some sort of secret password that the cool kids know that I missed out on? How do I convince people to group with a N/E? Any advice would be great.

No clue... Maybe dont do PUGs just do it with guild mates or friends? Most people dont like me either ^^

Not to be rude or anything but.... I find that Necros, especially with secondary ele, are absolutely useless in fissure runs. Only the decent necros seem to be the one with mesmer secondary.

^^^ Why are necros useless in fissure runs? I'd think that with an elementalist attribute at 12+ I could at least be helpful, but even if I "advertise" that in Temple still no one wants me. We have some really powerful spells and I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks we suck so bad for late game stuff.

You should just start your own group to get to UW/Fissure.

Every time me and my guildmates head into Fissure or Underworld, we make sure we have atleast 1 Necro. I don't see why noone would want you.

I think you need to be a bit more descriptive in terms of what you do. A N/E sounds like the perfect recipe for a mish mash of skills and attributes - if a team wants some to do offensive magic, they'll use an elementalist. Promote the N part, and whether you specialise in blood or death magic and then you'll find out whether Necro's really are unecessary in ToA... personally I much prefer balanced teams over biased groups - though an N/Me is probably the best choice for PvE as the mesmer class is a superb secondary.

I've been in teams many times for both UW and FoW and every time, they have been 100% glad that they bought me
I'm a N/Me. Focusing on Blood (They love blood ritual and well of power, and life siphon and vampiric gaze for you own good) and a bit domination (chaos storm (120 AoE dmg, + energy loss when enemies cast spells) and backfire/empathy).
And of course res signet.
Necros aren't useless, as long as there is only 1 in the team.

_Zexion

You will need three skills

Well of Power
Ward against Melee/Foes
Blood Ritual

You will soon be the monks favorite player.

All the Ele Primaries will shun you for not doing mass damage.
The warriors will shun you for not being "in the middle" of battle.
End the end, you will make the differance in your team.

I say this, but I cannot get a group to pick me up for UW/Fissure with my Necro, but I have gone down to the Underword with my Guild and we had no problem, partly because our monks had energy and were not easily targeted.

Other skills you may want to bring:

Vampiric Gaze
Armor of earth
Shadow strike
I tend to carry a glyph of lesser power and a Earthquake/Eruption skill to help out with the destruction, but of course a Pure Fire Ele will do more damage, so your focus should be support first and damage seccond.

So, your Necro is suddenly one of the most powerful support classes out there. Good luck.

Especially the first Well and Ritual! I never want to go to Fissure without a Necro again after grouping with someone who had those!

Why not go curses with a 12 in it and pumped to 16?
Mark of Pain, Shadow of Fear, Enfeebling Blood
Have everybody attack the MoPed target with a longbow, casters included (just keep on switch).
{The rest of the points are up to you}
Much better than an ele spell that costs 20 energy and does 50 damage once.

This means bring a ranger or two w/ quick shot. ONE warrior with high tactics for tanking. (Note to eles, in my experience with Aatxes, Meteor Shower draws them to you. Use fireball, firestorm, incendiary bonds, meteor. Save the MS for later)

Ohh yes an I have another build idea for those areas.

Build around Order of the Vapire and Order of Pain

Warriors with Berserkers Stance
Rangers with Barrage

Order of the Vampire causes extra damage to each attack +16 and the extra health on each attack +16. This may be what keeps the monks bored and the target dying fast.

I have not gotten to try it, yet. So, don't flame me if you have tried it and it doesn't work.

No one seems to know about blood ritual and BiP.

+3 regen on energy for 14 seconds and +6 regen on energy for 10 seconds is a BADASS thing to have.

team mates will LOVE you.

So true... So true.

I really wish that Necros could see the energy levels of their teamates in the "group" window. As a monk now, I always broadcast my energy level whenever it drops below 25%. A good necro will come and take care of me. (In which case, I'll usually tell him that he's my daddy )

Unfortunately, only 2 out of every 10 necros respond accordingly. It's tough, since you have to be close to each other (geographically), but well worth it. I've now started to quiz necros before entering fissure, to make sure that we can set up such a beneficial relationship.

So, it doesn't surprise me that a N/E may be shunned. Most of you deserve it. I don't envy your challenge of finding a group. That's why I picked monk. I'm always loved

Read post #9 your is post 13.

Blood is Power is great in theory, but with Blood Ritual, I can keep those extra three bars of regen on two monks indefinately.

Try that with Blood is Power. I switched my secondary to Mo to try to make this skill work. Nope.

I could probably make it work with Mending and Succor from someone else. but monks are not willing to part with one arrow of energy regen prior to a battle even if they have a Necro telling them they spam Blood Ritual and Blood is Power. Then they just don't bring the Enchantments I ask for. So they CAN'T get the enchantments I planned on bring them.

That goes back to the Guild thing.

The general thoughts of people can easily be generalised into:
Warrior: tough guy that likes to get spanked, Monk: cool d00d that h34lZ, Elementalist: DAMAGZ0R!!!!, Mesmer: Just some dude that annoys you with some pink magic(supergay!), Necro: ugly looking people summoning ulgier things out of corpses.
so basicly the general repuation of a necro is not so good also due to the fact the necro class is the least known of all, but I believe and have witnessed that great necro builds exist!
Hopefully after time goes by more people will understand why necros make great teammates.

Necros are common as dirt!!! I see way more necros then Mesmers. Like Rangers, which I do play, alot of noobs play them and play them wrongly I might add. So your not picked because some noob necro/ranger got his/her group wiped too many times.

I would never under estimate Mesmers!!! They are really a class that not many people play or understand how to play. I don't see many new Mesmers but I do see a few high level ones.


Sorry if that seemed off topic just replied to a post on the front page

you need to have the 2 elites that are useful in each area.

for FoW bring Lingering Curse, it raelly makes all the monks there unahhpy people.

for UW you need Well of Power, in the enclosed places where there are a lot of "flesy" MOBS dying it is an invaluable spell to heal and give excellent energy regen.

just advertise those 2 things and you should find a group no problem. (but i wanr you PUGS for either of those areas are dangerous as good ones are not real easy to find)

When I run fissure or UW I'm looking for 2 warriors, 2 monks, 3 elementalists and one of something else (This is because I prefer to run a body blocking build with the warriors and once they have the monsters settled down, have the elementalists blow the bajeeses out of them). So a necromancer has a very small shot to making it onto the team.

Now if I saw a Necromancer advertising that their using Blood Ritual or BiP to keep the casters charged (specially the Eles at the end of a fight) I would definally think twice about puting them in.

The other thing is that I love have in UW is Malestrom since those MindBlades are definally the hardest monsters in any of the temple missions and Malestrom pretty much neuters them. Any E/? or ?/E thats advertising that their running Malestrom is getting in to the team. I'll even loose one of the Elementalist primaries in my build for a secondary Elementalists using this spell.

yo need to broaden your horizons son

Well Of Power Kicks BR's ass since it is a group heal and energy regen

+5 health and +2 energy regen a second for 18 seconds is a kickass thing to have in UW

and with a 39 foot width it covers a lot of area as well

My idea of playing the good UW or FoW necro is the use of blood ritual/blood is power, demonic flesh and blood renewal (Just to keep my health going) order of pain/vampire and then spam enfeeble...

There are alot of ways for necros to help, spiteful spirit is REALLY good because alot of times enemies clump together, same with mark of pain...

this changes a bit of course, I pack wells when I hit the underworld, I avoid corpse targets in the fissure of woe.

necro's with curses and blood are good weaken things then give +3 energy regen to monks when need be.......necro's are aight

You picked the wrong secondary.

Yes, it seems rather counterintuitive that monk is not the best secondary for healing. I started out my career as a N/Mo as well, and when I finally got BiP I realized it wasn't really doing me much good. Instead, I switched to mesmer secondary for ether feast. Show me a monk spell that can heal yourself for roughly 125 points for 5 energy.

The only viable alternative on the monk side of things would be healing touch, and that requires a high divine favor, which means you'll be parting with soul reaping. Another option for a secondary might be the ranger for troll unguent, which is also extremely cheap and has a fast recharge time.

For now, what I've ended up with is a somewhat strange, but rather effective, N/Me build.

Blood: 10+1+3
Soul Reaping: 8+1
Inspiration: 12

Life Siphon
Ether Feast
Vampiric Gaze
Blood is Power
Well of Blood
Inspired Hex
Energy Tap
Resurrection Signet

As I said, quite an unusual build, but also mostly self sufficient. It doesn't seem like much, but ether feast makes a world of difference. Keeping BiP up constantly on more than two people will require the monks to throw a few healing spells your way now and then, but I find that most monks don't mind making that tradeoff once they realize what you're doing.

The thing I don't like about BiP is that the huge life sacrifice requires you to commit most (if not all) of your skill slots to it just to make it function, unless you're in an organized group - probably with your guild mates - that includes a monk whose task it is to heal you (in which case BiP is absolutely amazing, it will outperform WoP/BR any day). Then again, I hate using blood ritual even more, since I often find myself spending way too much time running back and forth between players.

A note to the original poster: Look around for people that are forming new groups, and quickly invite yourself. Most people don't mind accepting a necro into their group when they know they'll still have 4-5 more slots available for the "necessary" classes.


ManaCraft

I find Well of Power and Well of Blood to be of limited use in UW since I perfer controling my engagements. By controling it, I mean only having the warriors get hit by the monsters. In UW that is very easy to control the engagement in any fight that matters. A well is mosly useless when your monks are keeping the warriors healed and everything is dying at your warriors feet. Basically there are better necroskills to bring.

Now if your talking about Fissure, wells perform much better since it is a whole lot harder to control the engagements. In fissure your casters are much more likly to get attacked by monsters that matter, and then that extra health and energy regen (for WoP) is a whole lot more useful.

Actually I really dont like wells in UW/Fissure, its counter-productive to keeping the monsters on the warriors, you usually wind up with some wussy caster taking way more damage than they should be and probably dying as a result... Thanks, but no, I'll just keep our healing monk around and charged up.

Unless you plan on only having the warriors in the well, at which point the majority of its advantage is annulled

Not to mention that a lot of monsters in UW don't produce corpses at all, which makes depending on wells a bad thing.

Fissure is more tolerable from a corpse perspective.


ManaCraft

in UW with all the bottlenecks Well of Power is the perfect elite to bring. not well of blood which i never use anyway.

it is easy to block mobs in the UW because of many choke points there. fissure is where you should not use it because of the wide open spaces.

i hate to disagree with you but Fissure is full of undead my friend. while UW is highly populated with fleshy beings.

you ahve it backwards

Ya, but first you need a corpse, and second, monks are usually in the background healing people so they can't run up to the well to get energy or they will get smacked.

I Do Curses/Death for both of them and PvP, I don't have room for blood.

N/Mo

Death 16
Curses 12
Soul Reaping 7
Protection Prayers 2

Animate Bone Fiend
Verata's Sacrifice
Lingering Curse/Spiteful Spirit (It's better than anything else for UW without going into blood)
Shadow of Fear
Enfeebling Blood
Aegis (All great skills for tankers and fiends getting attacked)
Mark of Pain (Only if fiends and minions attack what I'm attacking this would own everything)
Rebirth (If most of your party dies out you want your people out of the mobs)

I usually don't have a problem getting into groups, I may change a district a few times but it's not too hard.

hrm.. i find necros pretty useful in uw/fissure. keep the monks energy up is great; will barely ever see anyone's health go down that far. going without one is doable, but necros using blood rit., bip, well of power makes the runs so much easier. necros just have a bad name because 99% of them only use to summon horrors,fiends,minions.

as a necro/elm just worry about using energy regain skills for the monks,elms and well of blood or well of power. then wards are exellent for uw/fissure runs. then just be patient with getting a team. at least your not a n/w or a mesmer; very rare they get teams :P

In the beginning maybe, but after you move to the Chaos Plains, the Cold Wastes and beyond your looking at a whole 'nother ball game.

Well, UW may have the potential to be a better place for corpses.

However, most UW groups I've been in seem intent on always killing smites first, which involves a lot of ghostly things and doesn't really provide a lot of corpses. Other stuff I always seem to be doing a lot are the souls quests, where I find corpses to be... well, not plentiful.

For some reason, pickup groups have a certain life span that they cannot sustain themselves beyond, which I guess is part of the reason why I almost never get to go anywhere other than "the usual places" (for me anyway). Also, most FoW groups I've been in so far go straight for the forgemaster quests (or wailing lord) after the initial bit with rastigan, avoiding a lot of the skeletal groups most of the time (after which they run into aforementioned life span limit).

But then again, that's just my personal experience.


ManaCraft

Thats the exact opposite of how I see that wells should be used in the Temple.

In UW your tanks should be able to body block everything except for the Grasping Darknesses. This means everything is dying at your tanks feet, so only 2-3 people are getting the benifit of the well. However, in fissure the open spaces make it so its much harder for the tanks to hold down the monsters, so your casters are also taking damage, and things are dying all over the place. This means all eight people have the potenal to make use of the well.

Fissure also has many more ranged attackers then UW does, so your casters will get hit more for that reason also.

For those reasons I find the wells are of much more use in Fissure.

2 reasons why i disagree.

1. wide open spaces are just not good for wells cause you will rarely be in them

2. Lingering Curse is much better elite then WoP cause there are many monk mobs and LC is hands down the best monk debuffing spell in the game.

Bring enfeebling blood - one of the best skills you can bring to UW / Fissure. Sure it doesn't do damage, but sure as hell mitigates a lot

I would have to refute your first point by pointing out that everyone has legs. If someone is not smart enough enough not to use their legs get into the well when they need a recharge, well now you know their intellegence level and/or knowledge of the game, and do you really want to be partied with that person?

Your second point about Lingering Curse, isn't really a point about using wells in open or closed areas, so I won't really say anything about it.

I would also point out that my previous point about how more people will take more damage in open areas then in closed areas thus making the well much more useful in a closed area has not be refuted.

Therefore I still have to stick with my orignal conclusion.

Unless there are other points that have been missed and should be considered?

Just s you know it is a point. do you know now many monks there are in FoW??? a lot!!!!

LC is by far the best elite a necro can bring in to take them down. and did you know that well of power is an elite??? and d you know how many elites you can bring at one time???

if anything it seems as if you should play a necro before you comment on what and where they should play

But how is the revelvant to what we were discussing? Your orignal quote was as follows...

Your orignal point was that WoP should not be used in Fissure because of the "wide open spaces". I think I presented compelling arguments against that point.

Now if you want to start a different disscuession and say that LC is superious to WoP in Fissure because of its application, thats a whole nother story that I don't necessary disagree with you on. I don't fully agree with you because it can be which elite to bring can be debated and is very dependent upon the team build, but I don't really disagree either.

As for your last comment, how do you know that I haven't played a necromancer? Have you asked me? I have said in this thread that I play a warrior, but have I said I don't played a Necromancer? Theres no reason for trying to take a cheap shot like that even if you put a smiley face at the end. (And in answer to the question, yes, I do play as a Necromancer. I just prefer to play a warrior in the temple missions since I can lead a group better by leading from the front, and because it fits best in the team build that I run.)

I'm sure I'm not the only one who runs the type of build, or something similar to it, that I posted in my original message. If a Necromancer wanted to get into this type of build, I know I would not be too impressed with him/her advertising that their using either WoP or LC. Now if your telling me that you can recharge my three elemenliasts and my two monks with energy during a fight with either Blood Ritual or BiP, that would probally get my attention. This may be argued to be a narrow minded view because the Necromancer can do much more then recharge casters, but for me or someone like me who is attempting to running a well rounded damage build, it is a strong selling point to get into the group.