Which DoTs to use on Necro?

[VincentVolaju]

So I am trying out Necro, I am only 9 atm so only have a couple DoTs, but I was wondering are there any specific DoTs I should be using as a Necro for solo leveling grinding? My poison bolt seems to get resisted like 50% of the time, wondering if its not even worth using, kinda like Immolate on a Druid? Should I just use the Engulfing Darkness like of spells for DoTs?

Also whats the quickest way to level in the lower levels? At the moment I am just sending pet in, throwing engulfing darkness on and a few lifespikes. Is there a faster or more efficient way for me to be leveling?

[Allizia]

I would probably just group or kill undead until level 29 when you get dooming darkness and fear doesn't cost so much mana

I haven't played a necro in like 10 years, but I remember most of the lower level dots etc being pretty crappy with the exception if the ignite blood series and VoS to an extent

ignite was almost unresistable(with the exception of lavastorm/solusk areas) and caused like 0 agro
poison line was easily resisted
asytole line was easily resisted and caused HUGE agro on live
disease wasn't really worth it due to duration and lack of upgrades in classic for necros
nukes didn't exist until like 44 iirc

so basically I would either group or send pet on a skeleton/undead and ward undead/ignite with lifetaps as needed

[Bubbles]

You will spend a lot more time using the dark compact line of heals and having your pet tank than you realize. The actual pet heal is pretty lolbad, so just give the pet your health for 0 mana and tap your health back from the mobs.

Most of your fearkite mobs later on (giants, seafuries, specs, etc) are way overcamped so you will spend a lot more time dungeon crawling than you think right now. Also don't be afraid to duo. You can bring a ton of utility (heals, lull, mes, fear, root, snare, etc) to almost any duo. I spent a lot of time duoing with mages, wizards, necros, druids, clerics, monks, etc. Soloing is good xp, but duoing is generally even faster (and far safer) xp, and can be done almost anywhere, not just outdoor zones (like fear kiting is used to). You can really tear up unrest, befallen, najena and such with a duo, places you'd be way overwhelmed in solo.

If you do choose to go this method, be warned that you will likely Specialize in Alteration by default, which could turn this into a 10 page debate over what you *want* to be spec'd in. For those who dream of spec'n in conjuration, duoing/grouping is going to make it very hard to make that dream come true.

Just remember there's 800 people here on peak times, and all the good "solo" spots are quite busy. Don't be afraid to group up with someone else and share in the xp and lewtz.

As for what Allizia said, I'll expand:

Boil Blood and Scourge lines are excellent for actual fear kiting, since they last for a zillion ticks. Blood draws little aggro, scourge (being disease based) causes lots of aggro, so be ready.

Darkness is a mixed bag, high level cascading causes incredible damage and lasts for a lot of ticks, but you're dot stacking so hard at 49+ that nothing short of a planar mob/fire giant is going to last long enough for it to run it's course. Also it draws insane aggro, many use the dooming version to keep a mob snared without drawing as much heat onto the necro.

VoS/poison line is fast-acting high dmg high mana cost, it's one of the few dots you can use effectively in a grouping situation, altho i've always had more trouble sticking it on mobs than any other dot.

Assy Toes is a great debuff and huge taunt, when I'm kiting sea furries i like stacking Asy and cascading to go along with....

Bond of Death. Ya, the vamp curse upgrade, way mana efficient when you consider it will continue to heal you even after the mob is dead, and it's a fairly low taunt and does 80 a tick dmg/heal. This spell will always he on a high hotkey for you once you reach the level. At low levels, Leach is nice, although it loses its potency FAR before you get your vamp curse upgrade.

At your level, expect to do a lot of tanking for pet, jousting in and out of combat to keep pet alive, then tapping to heal yourself.

meh, there's probably more I'm forgetting but oh well. feel free to pm me any additional questions. I'm not the best necro out there (heh by far) but I know a few tricks.

[VincentVolaju]

Ahh yeah thats it feels like right now, sending pet in and hes nearly dying each fight. My only nuke I have really is the 10-11dmg Likespike lol. So I cant even nuke that hard. I forgot all about fear kiting actually, but yeah Fear takes hella mana at this level, and my DPS is low atm from 5dmg a tick DoTs (where 1 fails like 3 or 4x before it sicks) that I have to re fear like 3 or 4x per fight, and a level 8 pet that does crap dmg. Not even worth fear kiting atm I dont think.

I honestly don't mind grouping much, but I dont think many groups will want a necro lol, I dont really have much to offer atm =/ Duoing would prob be best I guess

[Chicka]

Actually, I believe fear kiting begins to work for you in your early 20s, at least it did for me back on live. Prior to that, yep, lots of tanking for the pet.

[Allizia]

Darkness is a mixed bag, high level cascading causes incredible damage and lasts for a lot of ticks, but you're dot stacking so hard at 49+ that nothing short of a planar mob/fire giant is going to last long enough for it to run it's course. Also it draws insane aggro, many use the dooming version to keep a mob snared without drawing as much heat onto the necro.


Good info, I'd like to comment on the darkness line though

The reason I stopped with dooming darkness is because that is the first snare line that will slow mobs down to walking speed

The darkness line does good damage, however it has a pretty bad mana/damage ratio and you will start having issues with the casting time not to mention high mana fizzles etc.

I literally used dooming darkness from 29 through planes of power without ever using an upgrade more then once or twice for testing, there are other dots more suited for damage etc.

Basically, the darkness line is used to snare and nothing else, you want it to be as cheap/reliable/fast casting as possible

[Allizia]

Actually, I believe fear kiting begins to work for you in your early 20s, at least it did for me back on live. Prior to that, yep, lots of tanking for the pet.

You can, it's just more annoying/less efficient since you will be chasing mobs quite a bit instead of medding due to a gimp snare and high mana costs of snare+fear


I would probably start with ignite while sending pet, poison to steal agro for a bit and tap/swap tanking with pet as bubbles said
Then benefit of killing undead is that you can use one of the most mana effecient line of nukes in the game and kill quite a bit faster, which speeds everything up

[HippoNipple]

Slow with clinging darkness at 9, throw on your poison dot even though it sux, just gotta deal with it, and run, the mob will go after you as your pet hits from behind. Once you get 12 you get your heat blood spell an engulfingdarnkess which is a lot better. You will also get lich around there which is never resisted adn gives you health over time. This is good for mana regen with your dark pact spell.

You don't have to fear kite, just aggro kite with your snare. Fear kite later on once you get dooming darnkes at 29. I'm 24 and I killed giant skeles in rathe mountains from 22-24 and half of em conned red. Just slowing, dotting and running as they chase you is easiest and mos mana efficient. It also allows you to control where you kite instead of following the feared mob which can run ino other mobs.

[Nagash]

At your level I was soloing in North Ro and killing the drowned citizen (undead) in the southern secret tunnel of West Freeport (4 of them but no social aggro, no faction hit and nice cash back for us non twinked). My killing method was to cast poison bolt (or whatever the poison dot name is) and alternate between tanking for my pet (to raise my defense skill) and let my pet tank (when I was starting to get low on mana and life. Worked well for me. I have to had that as an erudite, I have this nice Noclin's Femur that procs a 5dmg/tick DoT which helped nicely but didn't make or break this method.
From level 12 onward you can tank all the way. I'm now 16 and the only armor I have are silk pieces bought from the merchants/looted on low level mobs plus a couple of +2 int rings so it starts to get harder but still more orless manageable.

[hueylewis187]

soloing. use your snare and disease cloud. Than just run in a circle or what have you.

Once you get Fd and charm. Can do unrest or lowerguk. charm put pet haste on than fd. Stand up at end of fight and do a nuke. have gate in and fd for protection. Also you get screaming terror which is great to interrupt casters than charm them.

bond of death and ignite blood are my favorite dots at 50. I just charm bond and lich. Root is priceless also in a dungeon.

[jyaku]

necro's don't get charm, chanters do. the first necro snare does'nt really slow a monster down at all, but the one at 12 does allowing for kiting. what i would do would be send in your pet, let him get a few hits in then start DoTing with darkness, poison and then desise to pull aggro away from the pet.

[Humwawa]

You can aggro kite with Engulfing Darkness.

Necros get Charm undead. I had terrible luck with the level 20 version, but the next rank was solid.

I never used my pet to tank. Once you get Engulf you can kite. Dooming just makes things easier.

As for dots, use your fire line. You can stack them. Vamp Curse and the fire dots help you stay efficient.

[Wrot]

I just did 10 through 16 in the bandit camp in WK, marked #3 on this map. You may want to wait till you hit 11 or 12 though.

http://www.eqmacwiki.com/eqatlas/westernkaranamap.html

When you get there observe which mobs path in and out of camp. There are two that spawn within the camp that you can split if you want, but the roamers will probably be enough for you for now.

Ignore the brigands for now, they will be red until you hit 13. Avoid the half elf bandits, they are casters and can eat you up unless you have the mana to fear kite. Ignore the pack of 4 at the bottom of the hill.

Generally, pull with Darkness, then hit em with poison bolt. Kite till your pet overtakes threat and let him tank while you sit. If his health is getting low, get in there and tank for him till he has more health than the mob and back out again. Keep Disease Cloud ready, use it only for when you must pull the mob off your pet ASAP before Jobaber dies. It's a hard camp until 11 or 12 (especially since your snare is only 30% till 12). Be sure your pet is the max level that can be summoned, and then give him two weapons. By level 12 you will be running the hell out of this spot. The exp is awesome, by 13 or 14 you can start splitting the two bandits that stay in camp. Just be aware of your surroundings as you are essentially camping roamers. Gate instantly if anything happens fishy.

Once you hit 12 just go with Engulfing Darkness and Heat blood. Use poison bolt if your pet is gonna tank the whole thing down and you just want to do a little damage to get the exp (or melee it once if mana is bad). Leach is high mana and kinda high threat, use it only when the mob is snared, you are ready to kite and health is low.

You have three resources: your health, your mana, and your pet's health. If one is full, then that's time lost. Switch up kiting, pet tanking and you tanking so you are always generating all 3. Good luck!

[Bubbles]

You have three resources: your health, your mana, and your pet's health. If one is full, then that's time lost. Switch up kiting, pet tanking and you tanking so you are always generating all 3. Good luck!

^^^

I really like how you worded this.

[apollyon arali]

Dont worry about fear kiting..dotting etc...right now

Do Befallen...and more Befallen...and more Befallen till like 18. Usually high levels camping gynok which dont mind buffing most the time.

Orc highway till 20ish.

Group in upper guk and more upper guk and more upper guk..should get u to 30 quick

[PhelanKA]

I have a piece of my own advice to impart. If you're 29+ and kiting even or tougher cons (ex: giants, guards, etc) I highly recommend using your lower level snare (Engulfing Darkness) over Dooming Darkness. The reason for this is mainly two-fold: Your snares WILL be resisted on a regular basis if your fighting anything stronger than blue cons so you want to make sure you're not wasting mana for the simple utility of snaring. Secondly, Dooming Darkness takes a full 3 seconds longer to cast than Engulfing. When you've got an angry, charging giant you want your snare cast time to be as short as possible or no amount of added runspeed is going to widen out that distance to target. I hope that makes sense.

The difference in snare strength between Dooming and Engulfing is about 5%. The biggest difference between the two spells is Dooming lasts 30 seconds longer. Here's one reason why the shorter duration of Engulfing can be used to your advantage: Start your pull by snaring first, immediately start running away. When your spells become active again throw on your Vampiric Curse (lvl 29 Leach). This is important because if timed correctly you can use the Leach icon on your Spell Effects window to see approximately when your snare will be up. Basically when it starts flashing I know I have about 10 secs left on my snare.

I hope these tips help some of you middle aged necros out :)

[PhelanKA]

Dont worry about fear kiting..dotting etc...right now

Do Befallen...and more Befallen...and more Befallen till like 18. Usually high levels camping gynok which dont mind buffing most the time.

Orc highway till 20ish.

Group in upper guk and more upper guk and more upper guk..should get u to 30 quick

Befallen is crap.

Dervish camp and Kodiaks in WC is a much better and safer bet.

At 18 I highly recommend going to East Karanas and solo Crag spiders not only are they fantastic XP but they also drop u between 2-10 silks per kill EVERY TIME. After leveling up from 18 to about 24 in a short amount of time you will also be filthy rich from selling all those silks. Once you're mid to upper twenties try soloing the Warden camp in Upper Guk. It's decent money and good XP as well. It's also challenging in a fun way. and will teach you the finer points of getting your timing down for spawns if you haven't done that before.