This idea just came to me sitting at work, but I do not know what to do with it. So I am asking for some direction as I can not test this for some time as I am at work.
I have an E/N that works very well running Fire, Blood, and energy storage and is the foundation of what came to mind here.
N/Mo
Blood Magic 10+1+1
Smiting 11
The rest of the attribute points I am not 100% certain. Being necro primary should have some in soul reaping. How much I am not certain. Minimum I would guess something like 6+1 and the maximum would be 10+3, depending on the need of a fourth attribute line.
The idea behind this build is a damage build (yeah like I said generated from thinking like a E/N). The blood line would be used for shadow damage as I am not a huge fan of sacrificing health or of minions. The monk side use for smiting. So a little dark and a little light, you know with out darkness there is no light and without light there is no darkness. So you throw up Life Siphon maybe Life Transfer, Shadow Strike, and Vampiric Gaze (save your monk some energy or emergency situation when monk is out of energy or keep tank up). Where I am weak is that I do not run a smiting monk (gasp I know the only person who doesn't). So I am not certain which smiting skills would play well with this or of the third (maybe fourth attribute line).
Necro thought
IndyCC
IndyCC
Oh come on, some nice person out there must care about necro builds...
Thanas
I've tried a smiting necro with blood in the past and its fairs OK, but it's not great. Smiting requires you get in nice and close and well necros aren't really built for melee. Plus a lot of the smite line is energy high and necros don't have an exhaustable supply of energy. It runs out pretty quickly!
BTW where did you get the +1 for smiting from?
BTW where did you get the +1 for smiting from?
Nash
Life steals are trash, especially hex ones.
Necro primary is gimp.
Necro primary is gimp.
IndyCC
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Originally Posted by Thanas
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Originally Posted by Nash
Life steals are trash, especially hex ones.
Necro primary is gimp. I disagree with the life steal comment as I use it on my E/N and it works great for degen purposes. As for necro primary being gimp, whether or not that is true is beside the point for this build because for a build based on damage soul reaping would provide more benefit than divine favor.
Charcoal Ann
basically life sacrifice is the necros forté.
i never used life sacrifice when using my necro and i was a lot weaker because of it. Aura of the Lich is a good spell to use with life sacrifice and life steal spells. dmg wise i kinda like minions. either high lvl ones that can tank quite well or low lvl ones that you send out with death nova on them as little smart bombs. problem with minions is you need corpses for it to work. necros can deal a lot of dmg. just gotta have corpses around 
JoDiamonds
Assuming you want to this for PvE, I'd just dump the rest of your attributes into Soul Reaping so you can keep up energy.
There are a number of ranged Smiting skills, including simple things like Smite, Banish, and Bane Signet. Combined with various Shadow attacks from the Blood line, this should work fine. Include one or two life stealing attacks for healing, and I think this could be a fine build. Some other people may tell you it isn't the most powerful or whatever, but that's probably not the point. Straddling darkness and light sounds like fun.
stumpy
necros primaries aren't gimp. They are very useful in tombs. But Life Steal is gimp alone. A necro is a key support to a team and should better use of his skills. Life transfer and vamp gaze are just not utilizing a necro in a tombs situation. They are more a comp arena idea where you have to be more self sufficient. Tombs is TEAM play so utilizing things that will benefit your team is where you want to look at. I would offer more assistance but I am not sure of your goal on this. Tombs? teams? Random? PvE?
IndyCC
Ok I have been doing some more thinking about this.
To answer the question my original thought for this was for PVP. However, I have only ever done random arenas (I find them more fun then finding a PUG for team arenas and my guild is never on when I am for Tombs and whatnot). Here are the skills I have begun to consider after more research Res Smite Banish Judges Insight Awaken the Blood Life Siphon Mark of Subversion Shadow Strike Vampiric Gaze - switch over to Barbed Signet if energy management becomes a problem Well of Blood Order of Pain My initial thought would be judges insite and order of pain work well together so I either take them both or dump them both. My initial thought was a direct damage dealer, but these two skills may be worthwhile. I am not sure. So if I dump life siphon and Vampiric Gaze then that leaves me with seven skills, so maybe dump well of blood for judges insight and order of pain (still assuming they stack). I still question if remaining attribute points should be used in soul reaping or something else. If a fourth attribute line is used I am not sure what would be best (curses?) and what skills should be dropped to fill it. I can also foresee that energy could be a problem for this build. So any recomendations? Edit: perhaps i should have included Bath Aura in there as I read more...dunno...
Nash
Quote:
Originally Posted by IndyCC
My initial thought would be judges insite and order of pain work well together
If by working well together, you mean not working at all, sure.
IndyCC
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nash
If by working well together, you mean not working at all, sure.
Yes, yes this is exactly what I meant because I have never used the skills in combination and reading the description here on GWG they sound like they may be a decent combo.
You can stop posting here anytime Nash as your comments certainly are not helpful or constructive.
Nash
OK. Have fun stacking JI with Orders.
LoneDust
IndyCC: read the descriptions again. JI changes the attack to holy damage. The attacks will not trigger order bonus.
unclepunchy
lemme guess Nash, your a warrior?
talk about boring.... if you dont like Necros, why are you posting comments? go off a kill things with your spare time... sheesh minions+order of vampire anyone know if it works?.... mobs are droppin fast with it.....but i donno if its healin the minions cuz of their degen....
Mariena Feladon
Hate to break it to you, but Nash knows what he's talking about. But Ensign still beats Nash! .. <3
IndyCC
I am sure he knows what he is talking about. He is simply not being helpful or constructive about it. I simply read the descriptions and what i got from it was JI changes attack to holy and adds armor penetration, while orders adds some damage. Perhaps they do not stack that way, i would not know hence I post in a forum to ask about it. Notice I had more in my post than just those two skills I was questioning as well, so there was more going on than those two skills and he was simply jumping in with one line comments that had little to no meaning or aid.
Originally Posted by IndyCC
Afterall the description on GWG may be different than in game (like always). I was just useing GWG as I am at work! Notice the following... Quote: Rook Parcade
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Afterall the description on GWG may be different than in game (like always). I was just useing GWG as I am at work!
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Minions
OoV and OoP only affect party members, not summoned creatures. You could try barbs instead, or mark of pain.... although convincing your minions (or indeed party members) to attack your target can be troublesome.
IndyCC
Here is what I tested last night in random arena
Smiting 11 Blood Magic 10+1+1 Soul Reaping 10+3 Banish Life Siphon Shadow Strike Bane Signet Life Transfer - ha I dont have this skill unlocked so I replaced it with Smite Dark Pact Well of Blood - thinking Soul Feast might work better here, but I dont have that skill unlocked Res Sig - Res was just too slow Seems to have worked pretty decently got more kills with it than my ranger, but I was targeted sooner and weaker armor than my ranger so I died a lot more often. This is why I am thinking Soul Feast would be useful. Used the 20/20 staff for smiting skills to help the slow recharge issues, which worked for for the most part, it was rare that I had to wait for a skill to open up. Used Scar Patterns for my armor because I thought energy would be a problem. With that my energy seemed to work just fine as I began to run low someone died and I got enough energy to go until someone else died. Averaged about 50 dmg per hit. I was told by a guildmate that a good smite build does 100 dps, so obviously this doesn't compete with that and needs more tweaking. Spura
Quote:
Originally Posted by stumpy
necros primaries aren't gimp. They are very useful in tombs.
Yea, they have many uses in tombs. Like putrid. And putrid. Oh and there's putrid. If you don't like that, you could also take putrid. I've also heard some good necros take putrid.
Carinae
Quote:
Originally Posted by IndyCC
Averaged about 50 dmg per hit. I was told by a guildmate that a good smite build does 100 dps, so obviously this doesn't compete with that and needs more tweaking.
Go back to life stealing. It's not trash. With Shadow strike, Vampiric Gaze, Vampiric Touch, and Dark Pact, heres the damage you deal:
@ Blood = 18 Shadow Strike = 110 (55 shadow damage + 55 life steal) Vampiric Gaze = 68 life steal Vampiric Touch = 83 life steal Dark Pact = 51 shadow damage You can cast all of these in order, in 4.75 seconds, for a whopping 312 points of damage. This comes out to 67.7dps. Not bad at all for a necro. But wait, there's more.... Not only did you just deal 312 points of damage, but you STOLE 206 health in 3.75 seconds. Which comes out to -54.9dps (yes, negative 54.9) This means your opponents have to do MORE than 54.9dps JUST TO BREAK EVEN. And they are still taking the full 67.7dps at the same time. If you figure the full exchange of health, that comes to 518 points exchanged in 4.75 seconds. That's a super whopping 109dps. Trash indeed. Moreover, you get all that for just 40 mana. Which comes out to 12.95 damage/mana. (518/40) My girl, in full Vampiric glory can COMFORTABLY take on two warriors at once and win easily.
arredondo
As much as I like Necro ownage, I have to make a small correction to the post above. The total cast time will be 2.75+2.75+.75+1.0= 7.25 seconds. You always have to include after cast when making calculations.
I don't think there's an aftercast with skills like Vampiric Touch (need to check), and you don't factor in the final after cast because the damage is inflicted the moment the spell is finished casting. That makes the rate of damage come down to 43 DPS, or 39 DPS if VT has an aftercast.
Carinae
VT is a skill, so it shouldn't have an aftercast. And you added an extra second to VG. It has a 1 sec cast, so 1.75 including aftercast. (assuming .75 aftercast??)
Which is 49.9dps (not including the life steal) and 82.9 including. Good call. IndyCC
Thanks for all the information and numbers. I knew I wasn't totally crazy for looking at a build like this. Not 100 dps but sexy nontheless. Never hurts to be more creative than FotM. So here is what I will test tonight. As I am trying to stay away from touch attacks until I prove if I will get swarmed by the enemy or not I dropped Vampiric Touch for Life Siphon. If I end up getting totally mobbed, I will throw it back in. Additionally if that is the case smite will be replaced with holy strike.
Banish Bane Signet Smite/Holy Strike Res Sig Shadow Strike Vampiric Gaze Life Siphon/Vampiric Touch Dark Pact White Designs
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Originally Posted by IndyCC
Never hurts to be more creative than FotM. So here is what I will test tonight.
Yes it does, it hurts alot in this case. After the recent update the FotM towards Necros in Tombs is mostly to not have them, or for wells, and you have neither.
Life steal sucks, and your smiting skills have no coordination whatsoever with the rest. Its as if you said, 'hey, smiting is cool, life steal is cool, let's combine it for no reason.'
Glasswalker
Quote:
Originally Posted by White Designs
After the recent update the FotM towards Necros in Tombs is mostly to not have them, or for wells, and you have neither.
Life steal sucks ::Sigh.:: Whitey, we seem to end up on opposite sides of every argument. I've made a pretty good living thus far as a Blood Necro, and my monks have often thanked me for the fact that they never had to worry about me because of my life stealing. Care to back up your blanket statements with actual facts? We got some numbers up above to show that they are in fact effective, and experience has convinced me of this as well. Refute them with something real, and maybe you can contribute. OP: My one big drawback was Energy Management, so I fell back on bow attacks when I ran low. Your smite skills are going to hurt just as much as your Blood Magic (I almost just put BM there, but that left a nasty double meaning...), so I don't know what you are going to do about it. The signet will still work of course, but with its recharge you will still be sitting around, ineffective. The only reason I can think of for the Monk secondary on a Necro is for the awesome combination of Draw Conditions and Plague Signet{E}. If you have a M/N on your team running Virulence/Epidemic/Fragility, you've got some major condition damage working! But I digress -- that isn't your build at all. My recommendation, in short, is to consider a different secondary. A Warrior, Ranger, or Mesmer will either give you options to keep your energy up, or something to do with your downtime. Good luck!
neoflame
How the hell can you count self-healing as DPS? Even if you're counting health advantage (not DAMAGE per second), that makes 2 assumptions that are both totally insane: firstly, that you gain the full effect of the life steal on every skill; and secondly, that your target recieves no healing.
Oh, and 40 energy is a lot.
Carinae
Its the same. It's negative dps for you. By the same amount you took. It counts.
1) Why wouldn't my life steal get the full effect? It ignores armor. 2) No I dont. I never said anything about healing. No assumption made. Those spells I wrote will do that much 'health advatage' regardless of healing. He might not die, but the spells work that way. White Designs
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Originally Posted by Glasswalker
::Sigh.:: Whitey, we seem to end up on opposite sides of every argument. I've made a pretty good living thus far as a Blood Necro, and my monks have often thanked me for the fact that they never had to worry about me because of my life stealing. Care to back up your blanket statements with actual facts? We got some numbers up above to show that they are in fact effective, and experience has convinced me of this as well. Refute them with something real, and maybe you can contribute.
First of all, I don't feel I have to explain every last bit in detail all the time. If I say something sucks, then I'm contributing to an argument by giving my opinion on it; its not a flame, and it can be considered or not by the OP.
Here is the explanation though since it was requested. I know since I've been tombing a lot the last few days, and have seen quite a few builds. Most of the decent teams either have no Necro (in my opinion rightfully so, as Me/N does most of it better) or a Necro specializing in corpse skills, ie Well of the Profane (which is acceptable too, since its a somewhere where Soul Reaping is helpful.) Life stealing sucks since often the health gained will be wasted, leaving you with bad DPS. Life Transfer/Siphon are awful skills that are easily removed and even when in place have the healing part wasted. Life Steal sucks for the same reason why tanks suck: it makes a character do damage and heal and the same time and do both poorly (neither of which a Necro should be doing anyways, in my opinion).
neoflame
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Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood
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DPS stands for damage per second. Explain how you can possibly count healing yourself as an addition your own damage. That's what I mean (in response to 2.)
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1) Why wouldn't my life steal get the full effect? It ignores armor.
You're at full health. You use Vamp Gaze on some sucker. You gain 0 life. Your HPS for that spell = 0.
Carinae
What don't you get about it? If me and an opponent start at 50% health. 200 health, lets say. And I VG him for 68 life steal. He now has 132 health and I have 268. It's EXACTLY the same situation as if we both had 268 to begin with, and hit him for 136 points of pure damage. You'd count it as damage if an Ele did it in that situation, but not a necro's life steal? Hmmmm.
VG does 136 points of health advantage for 10 mana. Pretty good. SS does 165 points, also for 10 mana. Hmmmm, yea, these spells clearly suck. And yea, if I'm at full health, I don't gain the life steal. Wow. I never though of that. Clearly I'm gonna have to learn the ins and outs of my own spells. Man, I bet a Monk spell wouldn't heal me if I was full either. Monks suck!!! Spura
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood
What don't you get about it? If me and an opponent start at 50% health. 200 health, lets say. And I VG him for 68 life steal. He now has 132 health and I have 268. It's EXACTLY the same situation as if we both had 268 to begin with, and hit him for 136 points of pure damage. You'd count it as damage if an Ele did it in that situation, but not a necro's life steal? Hmmmm.
VG does 136 points of health advantage for 10 mana. Pretty good. SS does 165 points, also for 10 mana. Hmmmm, yea, these spells clearly suck. And yea, if I'm at full health, I don't gain the life steal. Wow. I never though of that. Clearly I'm gonna have to learn the ins and outs of my own spells. Man, I bet a Monk spell wouldn't heal me if I was full either. Monks suck!!! You assume you both start at 50%. If you have 100% and you attack some monk your steals benefit you nothing while the damagers on the enemy team kill your monk. Also shadow strike sucks once you they go under 50%. Overall your damage is quite small compared to what an air ele can do, your energy cost is much higher(because ele has attunements) and your HP gain from steals in inconsequential. In short, you fail at killing stuff in tombs or gvg. If blood was good damage, good guilds would use it, yet they don't, for the reasons I listed.
Glasswalker
Necros make a soft target, and I make a big nuisance of myself, so while it's true that when your health is at 100% the life steal benifits you little, I spend most of the match <80%. And assuming you had some sacrifice spells, you can guarentee room to improve your health.
Carinae: Your comment about the monk spell was pretty silly, since no monk is going to heal you when you are at full health, but you are still likely to cast vampiric gaze at full health. That's the difference -- and it's one that people who read (and benifit from) these discussions should take into account. Now, hello to those people, go back and read my first paragraph.  Counting the added health in the mathematics isn't insane because to win, the enemy has to kill you. When you add health to your bar, you make the enemy have to hit you again to take that away. Now, I don't usually go for self-heals because you could be doing something more important, but in the case of necros, you are still ganking the other team. You didn't take time out. If you are a good necro, you are hitting the called target... I just don't see the downside. Perhaps someone can help me? And last but not least, I will agree that Life Transfer sucks, mainly because it holds a valuable Elite position in the bar. But Life Siphon is a great skill despite the fact that it's easily removed, and despite the fact that 3pts of degen/regen rarely if ever won a match. The reason it is great is because it's fairly cheap, and has a good recharge, and it covers other spells nicely. Like say, for instance, Fragility. About the time the enemy is ctrl+clicking on Fragility, you've cast LS on him. That one gets removed instead, and when the monk follows up with Martyr, you've got a dead target. There are other cover spells that cost and recharge nicely, but this one is very obvious when it's removed because of the benifit to you. Cast it again. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The true strength of the necro is that he's the ultimate team player. There is no team build that wouldn't benifit from a strategic necro addition. [/Blanket_Statement] [EDIT]Sorry, I forgot one. I'll shut up after this. Air/Whatever Elemental attacks have their counters. A ward, or the proper armor, and most of that damage is mitigated. This is not true for Necro damage. In many combat tested scenarios, a Blood Necro will far out-damage his Elementalist counterpart. To some degree you play what you want. But if the 'best guilds' aren't playing a Necro anywhere, I think they should be.[/EDIT]
Carinae
Quote:
Originally Posted by Glasswalker
Carinae: Your comment about the monk spell was pretty silly, since no monk is going to heal you when you are at full health, but you are still likely to cast vampiric gaze at full health.
I agree with your entire comment.
About my comments... I was venting, sorry. I fully understand that VG isn't going to heal you if you are at 100% health. I thought it was obvious, not a revelation, so I proposed a silly counter-example. In my earlier post, describing a necro attack build, I use Vampiric Gaze, Shadow Strike and Dark Pact. Dark Pact has a 10% sacrifice, which gets replentished when you use VG on the second round. So only the VERY FIRST use of VG wastes the life steal. Maybe I should lead off with DP to avoid even that waste. I am also aware that Shadow Strike isn't a good spell when the opponent falls below 50% health. I can read the spell description. VG/VT/DP still work to the full effect in when this happens. Being a necro means you have to THINK. It's not a button mashing character. Warriors and Elementalists fill that roll. "Do I want to cast DP now? I'm taking a lot of damage." or "Good, he's below 50% drop SS from the rotation"
Enigmatics
Even a nerfed, battered, and shamed Renewal Smiter is holding his own better than a N/Mo that smites. If you're adding a few skills in your bar to life stealing, they may postpone your death for a few seconds; but if your monk isn't concentrating on healing you, you might as well resign yourself to dying. If you have more smiting on your bar, you'll realize soon enough that brute force in terms of energy as well as Ether Renewal overshadow a N/Mo with smiting skills and skills like Vampiric Gaze. When someone comes up with a build that doesn't depend on blood magic, but utilizes the necromancer primary (which is difficult in itself), then they'll have a viable build.
neoflame
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Originally Posted by Carinae Dragonblood
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Under this logic, Healing Signet is one of the best damage skills in the whole game; if both an opponent and I have 200 health, and I HS for 135 points, that's exactly the same as if we both started at 335 and I hit him for 135 damage! And it's free and has a 6-second recycle! WTFPWNED
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And yea, if I'm at full health, I don't gain the life steal. Wow. I never though of that. Clearly I'm gonna have to learn the ins and outs of my own spells. Man, I bet a Monk spell wouldn't heal me if I was full either. Monks suck!!!
Have fun healing people at full health.
Enigmatics
That's a pretty bad comparison, putting sarcasm aside. Monk heals are numerous and cheaper than Necro blood magic.
Carinae
Fine. Don't call it 'damage'. Call it 'Health Exchanged' It needs to be included in the math though, because you have to get me to zero to win, and I can use YOUR health against you.
If you use HS, you have to stop damaging me. Your dps goes down down down. I can use VG to damage you and heal myself at the same time. Hell, in the time it takes you to use HS, I can take over 135 life from you. You effectively used HS to heal ME. Thanks. Please, use it again in 6 seconds.
Carinae
Quote:
Originally Posted by neoflame
Seriously, this isn't a 1v1 game....
I can't wait for 1v1 arenas! Necro's will shine in 1v1.
IndyCC
I appreciate all the help and the discussion over my crazy light/dark build. I have actually been using this build in PVP arenas and having a lot of luck. Warrior get pissed because they beat and beat on me and I kill them only ever going down to half life. Recharge is a minor problem but I can run through my skill bar twice before having a problem hit once with my staff then begin to run through it again. So all in all I do not consider it a major problem. Energy has not been a big problem either, only time it is a problem is when there is a monk I am attacking and my group isn't focusing on killing the same target. Then all my damage gets healed, no one dies so soul reaping doesn't kick in, and now I am out of energy with a live monk enemy and a team full of dolts who soon die.
All in all I am quite pleased with this tactic. Throw some dark, throw some light and enemy player dies. I get a lot more kills than with my ranger, a lot more consequitive wins too, but a lot more personal deaths when I get spiked on (most of my deaths are from backfire which is my own fault as I am still getting used to being a pvp caster or from elem lightning attacks). My plan is to switch over to adding the two touch attacks. Not only do I think I will do more dmg this way because there are always baddies near me, but I also think it provides some better combos for my skills such as bane signet and holy strike. I do agree that Life Siphon isn't doing me much good other than just being another condition they have to contend with. Most of the time I have noticed it does not get removed so that is something that counters a lot of debate about it being removed. Most see the three pips and shrug it off. For the moment I have not unlocked anything better to take its spot. I may just hang onto Smite and dump Life Siphon until I unlock something better. I think I am done with the debate for now. If you think this is silly then there is no changing that. But if you found this made you curious then I think you should try it, you will be pleasently surprised. Just a pure armor ignoring build, I am pleased with it till I come up with something better. entropy
Well I have used a N/Mo and it works decently. I chose to play a sacrafice necro and it worked great except for the energy management. Basically it was to be mainly used against wars and im talking in comp arena where there is many of them.
dark aura dark pact touch of agony Those are your main skills. Cast dark aura touch of agony and then dark pact over and over and go down to somewhere of 150 some health. Grenth's balance {E} Use grenths balance on someone else with around decent health and then continue The only major problem i see with this build is the lack of energy. Orison of healing Heal Area Res sig With dark pact and dark aura taking away around 10% of your health each timeyouwill need some major healing. I believe you need healing/blood/curses or death(forgot which one dark aura is in) I guess yuo could also go N/Me and then go with energy stealing and ether feast to healing along with a few blood spells. Take 2 superior runes so that the 10% of yuor health isn't that big of a deal |