Is Bone Horror it?

As a necromancer I could only summon a Bone Horror. Is this
the only thing in the game? I would think there would be an
array of creatures that would open up as you advance through
the levels.

Makes it a bit more interesting i think.

There are 3 types of summons, a fiend, a horror, and a minion.

The fiend attacks from range and can be as high as lvl 12, the horror is melee and can be as high as lvl 12, the minion summons two minions who can be as high as lvl 8 I believe.

There are two other summoned minions Necromancers can get. The three are:

Bone Horror
Bone Fiend
Bone Minions

There are also various necro skills that take advantage of summoned minions.

As the other posters have said, there are three different Necromancer animation skills. However, Animate Bone Horror is hands down the best of the three, so if you're planning on doing the reanimation thing you should get used to it, because you're going to be using it a lot. =)

Peace,
-CxE

Because you summon two at once?

No, because I made a retarded mind goof. Bone Horrors are the best, because they cost you 15 instead of 25. Can you tell I won't touch a death Necro? Something about a skill line with zero synergy that requires people to die before it becomes useful.

Peace,
-CxE

Now here's somebody who sounds tired

Lies, I was pwning with a Elementalist/necro (glyph of lesser energy and extra energy did come in handy ALOT). Always nice to pop up some extra firepower out of NOTHING

I've seen some interesting builds based around using minions- they aren't quite as worthless as Charles indicates, though they can be difficult to use effectively, especially in PvP. Bone Horrors can be very nice since you get two minions, and bone fiends have an advantage in that they have a ranged attack, and deal a fairly decent amount of damage.

Problems with Death Magic:

1) The line sits there dead until players start dying. The vast majority of the skill line is useless without a corpse, and you don't have any corpses until the game starts to turn. If their Monks are going down, adding a Bone Horror is just piling on - if your Monks are going down, then they aren't going to save you. The line does nothing when you're still jockeying for position, trying to make that first kill, or save someone before resources are depleted.

2) The entire line steps on itself. How many skills can you reasonably use that exploit a corpse? Two? Corpses are an extremely limited resource in PvP, and as such you can't overload on Death Magic - you just want one skill that you can use on every single corpse, since that maximizes the corpse resource with a minimal investment.

3) You get into all sorts of trouble when more than one person wants to use corpses. An opposing player with just Well of Blood can deny you corpses, keeping you from ever getting started. That's one skill that isn't even there as a counter that shuts down an entire attribute.


I'd avoid Death Magic like the plague. If I wanted to play with corpses, I'd use Well of Blood like there's no tomorrow, which puts me into a better attribute and still maximizes the corpse resource while denying it to my opponents. What's not to like?

Peace,
-CxE

let me say one thing, NOT EVERYONE GIVES A DAMN ABOUT PVP

But that is, what most people tend to care about

I can solo Riverside District drunk off my ass at 4 AM with one hand down my pants. Whether skills are good or not is largely irrelevant in a PvE environment. I stand by my statement - Death Magic is terrible. The fact that you can run, say, a Death Magic / Tactics Necro Warrior with a Hammer and Unnatural Signet on a necklace, and still experience some success, doesn't change that fact.

Peace,
-CxE

I have to agree that PvP is more, how shall I say, "important" to a lot of people. Killing all the monsters in the world is great but it still comes down to the fact that they're designed to die, whereas another player is designed to survive.

When I think of skill choices, I rarely consider what would be best used against monsters... maybe I'm alone on this (but I bet that I'm not).

My only experience with the Necromancer was a Warrior/Necromancer that turned out to be pretty decent... back when we could start at level 15... so it was a lot easier to test it. I also avoided the Death Magic (corpse requiring at least) as it really was dependant upon... well... corpses. Even in PvE, you'll come across a boss that has only one minion maybe... that's not allowing for a lot of corpse-useful skills.

Who am I to say though? My experience with Necromancers is limited to Life Siphon mostly, .

Yikes! That's an image I didn't need... now I'm going to feel this compulsion to wash after running missions with Charles.

More on point, Charles, you know that there are certain things that have to be in the game for the players who are expecting 'flavor'. We had that discussion about how all the Ranger skills with animal names were suddenly in the 'Beastmastery' line, remember? Thank Balthazar they got over that madness.

The Necromancer 'Death' line is part of that requirement that there be certain 'flavors' that casual or image-oriented players expect.

For myself, I find it problematic to play a Necromancer primarily on account of the excessively long casting times on spells. When I play one at all, I tend to play it as a secondary to Mesmer just so I can load points into Fast Casting.

—Siran Dunmorgan

can you do it WITHOUT a tricked out warrior/monk?

[color=red]Let us be perfectly clear here. Everything posted here is simply an opinion. You're entitled to yours and someone else is entitled to theirs. You can argue whether or not that opinion is right. What you cannot argue is whether or not someone should hold that opinion. Insulting them, impugning their intelligence or their integrity is simply outside the boundaries of what is acceptable at this site. Confine yourself to the facts and issues at hand and leave the name-calling and bickering at home because it is far from welcome here. This is my final warning on the subject.

-Sausaletus Rex[/color]

apparently a lot of people were doing it with an army of fog nightmares:
http://vnboards.ign.com/Guild_Wars_G...0/83340115/?91

I was making an assumption in my statement that you were doing it where you actually had to fight stuff

Having been in voicechat with Charles this explains so much. Siran, don't use up all the hot water because I think I'm going to need a bath, too, now.

And, for the record, I've soloed Zealots in riverside with a Mesmer/Elementalist. Just me, no henchies, no other players. It's not that hard to do unless you're playing a character with no offense like a Healing or Protection Monk.

Last i heard there was more than just zealots, I recall justiciars and big groups of em

Be sure to use enough water for both of us, because I'm not using any.


I understand that. Not having the Death line for the Necromancer would be a huge design mistake, because as you say a ton of people are expecting it. Just because those skills exist does not mean they are automatically good, however. The Death line has a ton of inherent problems that keep it from ever being on par with other attributes, and Death Necromancers are just inherently weaker than what can be done with other attributes and classes. They're flavorful, sexy, and pretty much unplayable in a competitive environment.

But the second point is that PvE is not a competitive environment - it's static, with known challenges, and even a severely handicapped character can experience success because of that. When a well designed character made specifically for a given challenge can do it by himself, even a poorly made character being run by a mediocre player can experience success with a team of six. PvE is balanced for the flavor players, for the players who want to do something unique, for people just experimenting - so unless you're going outside the normal rules of the game to crank up the difficulty, what you use really doesn't matter.


Yes. Yes I can.

Warrior/Monks and Warrior/Necros have zero problems going through Riverside - they have the durability to survive the packs of Mantles, and while the going is slow if you're trying to kill everything you're not at any huge risk of dying yourself.

If you're just going after the good drops, you can kill everything relevant one on one with pretty much anything. Elementalists can win the race, Monks and Warriors have durability, and Mesmer/Necros are probably going to have problems but if you can't find a solution somewhere in that skillset you're not trying hard enough.

Of course anything can knock out huge swaths of the level just by crashing the undead into Mantles, and picking up the pieces. This isn't entirely brainless, but it's completely doable.

Perhaps the best pharming character here, though, is the Zealot's Fire Monk. You have all of the durability of the Warrior combinations, but you're dealing AoE damage while focusing entirely upon yourself. Toss in Balthazar's Spirit and things get easier the bigger the pack is.

I'm sure there are even more combinations that can easily mop up Riverside - it really isn't that difficult a mission, the threats are known, and the skill pool is deep.


Why would you put requirements like that into place? Use every tool at your disposal. When you start putting arbitrary rules on the problem that don't actually exist you're just making things harder and you're lead to bad conclusions. If you're trying to be as successful as possible, you need to use the entire space available, every trick, every skill.

Though the fact remains that you do *not* have to do this in PvE, because it is balanced for people who simply don't think about the game that much. Play a role playing character who actually roleplays, put a bunch of arbitrary restrictions on your character, use bad skills - and still succeed, because PvE plans on you doing just that.


It's too late, it doesn't come off. The harder you scrub, the dirtier you feel. You're going to be feeling the effects of that image for the rest of your life.

Peace,
-CxE

Then your scenario is flawed.

And what's your name so i know who to sic the hordes of undead upon in pvp when i level up my elementalist/necro

lol, for your sake, hopefully your team is winning so that you have many corpses from which to raise the hordes that you wish to send...

When i start fire bombing them im sure i will

[color=red]This thread is now closed.[/color]