what is a good necromancer character combo for a noob to start with?

hi all,
i'm going to buy the game, and was thinking of creating a necromancer / monk;for a caster -heal balance. what do you guys think? or maybe N/W; for a combat -caster balance...
or, what necro combos have you guys tried, and just didn't work out?
thanks

i tried searching, but only found necromancer lvl20 combos..

i went R/N, just because i found a few good bows with my other toons. i suppose N/Mo wouldn't be too bad, but havent tried yet myself. as a necro primary, you'd probably not want to go warrior secondary. my opinion, if you wanted to use that combo, go W/N that way you could use warrior armor. i've seen a bunch of N/Me as well. the silent damage mesmer would go good with creating minions i think.

As klep said Warrior is a bad Necro secondary. I would either go Monk or Mesmer. Necros have afew really powerful skills to regen health and of course monks are masters at that. And Mesmers are great support characters with lots of DoT. Either will be fine.
Special note the easiest character of all would be a W/Mo.... Brainless Tank... At least that is my 2 cents

i've seen quite a few postings of necro/mesmer, but i think i like that W/N combo instead of N/W, do you think you think i won't be able to use certain necro abilities with W/N?

The way you generally play a N/Mo is as a minion master. You can heal your minions between fights and eventually gain a rather large following of minions.
N/Me's are perhaps the best support class in the game. Do Curses/Domination and focus on hexing your enemies. There are alot of really useful Necromancer hexes and the domination magic will deal some damage for you.
N/E's are an okay build but Soul Reaping isn't as effective as Energy Storage. If you want to make a nuker, E/Me is probably your best bet.
N/W's are just plain n00b builds. They ALWAYS die. They think Vampiric Touch and Vile Touch are the greatest things in the world but most of the time get dropped before they can use them more than once.
N/R's aren't very good either. Why have a pet when you can have a half-dozen minions? Wilderness Survival mostly provides nature rituals which generally aren't very useful outside of PvP.

I speak from a PvE point of view so some of the more whiney PvPers will probably disagree on some of the things I've said.

Also Hannibal, keep in mind that all of the build listings here are all for level 20 characters. They're basically suggestions on how your character should end up. Not a complete step-by-step guide on when to put your points where. It really doesn't take very long to get up to level 20 in this game.

I am trying N/W right now.. I just started a new toon and it seems not so bad.. at first sight. He's just lvl 9 and at ruin of surmia..

I'll see in the next few mission if he worth it.. otherwise, he will ge deleted

the fact that you can heal your minions is pretty cool, i thought they were time based. i guess if this is the case i'll go with N/Mo, thanks alot Sovetskeey...

I have a necro/mes and a monk/necro ... very very versitile combos ... soooo versitile that I often find myself out of refund points right afterI get them back. So I am constantly goin u/W to get more. Minion builds can be fun, death curses can seriously do some damage (passively) ... the benefit of necro/monk is soul reapin ... but the benfit of monk necro is divine favour .... I would try the necro /mon out. it has potential./

Necro/Warriors are nice - early on. Once enemies start doing an appreciable amount of damage (roughly in the desert) the combo starts to suck horribly. Your touch attacks don't steal nearly enough health to keep you alive, and you just end up being a huge burden on the party Monk.

Necro/Ranger? Blah. That's a specialized combination if there ever was one. Use at your own risk.

Necro/Mesmer is the ultimate 9th man, always picked last for the team. You have a wide variety of 'support' options, but really can't do anything for yourself. Use at your own risk.

Necro/Elementalist is decent - just don't try and be the ultimate nuker. Sticking more with the supporting Ele skills - water snares and earth protections - will go a long way to supporting standard Necro functions.

Necro/Monk is traditional and still probably the best - raise your minions while taking care of both them and the rest of their team. Not much more to say.

Peace,
-CxE

Currently running a N/R, and she's not too bad. I have necro curses to spread - and when I run out of mana, poison all around! (not to mention traps & blood magic)

Right now i have a lvl 20 N/W and i have to say i love it. Why not the warrior as a primary? Because i put necro runes on my armor for much more potent skills. Also with the life transfer and life syphon combo you can give some1 a life degen of 10 while i get a life regen of 10. As for the warrior part , when i run out of energy i have REAL ATK power to confront ppl who are fighting me(yes ppl will target you).

I know of one N/R with 16 Death who carries a pet around and puts zero points in Beast Mastery so that the pet is weak in battle and she has a guaranteed corspe during long dry spells. If one carries the spell which rezzes the pet, it's kind of a smart strategy actually. That's actually the only reason she has Ranger at all, and doesn't use it for anything other than the dead pet, lol.

I like the N/Mo combo for using Heal Area on my horrors inbetween encounters, and it's always good to have a Res spell and Heal Other on hand when there aren't any corpses around. However...

Since you're just starting, you may not realize that attribute points come very slowly. For a long time, its going to be a challenge to invest in more than 3 attributes and have any one of them be seriously effective. And with Necro there are sooo many good spells that are most effective when used in concert with other necro spells, and often across attribute classes, that it's tempting to have every necro attibute at least somewhat high, and then very easy to have too many choices for the skil bar... we can only carry 8, and if we carry a signet to capture elites, then it's really only 7.

So basically, don't be surprised if you end up only carrying one spell/skill from your secondary no matter what you choose, and discover that most of your attribute points are being sunk into necro attributes only. I'd recommend looking at the skill listings for each profession, and find like your top 3 from each one, then choose from there. I keep Healing Prayers high specifically for Heal Area, since it costs less energy then Blood of the Master, and doesn't have a health sacrifice hit to it... like to save that for Blood is Power instead.