Duo with a Necro?
 

Recommendations on a duo with my friend’s 45 Necro? I have a 36 monk (non twink) that is kind of becoming boring. Really considering a shaman but open to suggestions.

Necromancers are powerful allies for almost any class in the game if the necromancer knows what he/she is doing. Monk/Necro is a very powerful combo and you are already level 36. At 45 your friend will not have access to the game changing Shadowbond (heal over time 500hp), but they will have Pact of Shadow (heal over time 324hp) that is still pretty handy from 45-50. You need to make sure your friend is keeping you healed or he is playing his necromancer the wrong way.

Charming on a necro at 45 is pretty shity. At 49 the Necromancer gets a huge power spike from a new Life Tap spell, Bond of Death (self heal drain), Lich, Cajole Undead(charm), and the ever powerful Paralyzing Earth(3 min root).

The Monk/Necromancer only get more and more powerful as the Necromancer raises in level. You get to a point at 50ish where you two could really do some damage in places like upper CoM, KC, and HS basement - but honestly the necro is doing the heavy lifting.

The role of the Monk will be to pull and tank while the necomancer heals and does DPS via Charming. There are so many undead zones in the game that not charming after 49 is pretty stupid.

Personally I would stick with the Monk. You can both Feign Death and the duo really starts to get super OP when the necromancers gets Shadowbond. Having a monk pull for the necro really speeds things along. However if you are dead set on changing things up - Enchanter/Shaman/Necromancer(2x)/Monk/SK/Cleric/Bard are all A+ Necromancer partners.

The synergy with shaman Canni and Necro heals is awesome, basically unlimited mana and you can both root rot. SK/Monk can both FD so you can dungeon crawl in relative safety as long as your not trying to push the limits too far (a lot of the time its more efficient for the Monk/SK to just chain pull in Mobs/Pets for the necro to root and take out via Charm, its like a safety valve for the necro and it takes away pet XP). Enchanter is super OP with CC and an additional charm pet (the necro can heal the enchanter making up for one of the enchanters key weaknesses). Bards can sing damage songs and play regen, and Clerics CHing pets is pretty well documented as the most OP thing on the server.

TLDR:
Basically your friend needs to hit 49 and whatever you want to play wont matter much. Necromancers can sail their way from 50-60 pretty easily and you will likely just be a leech no matter what class you play (I don't mean that in a mean way, its just how P99 is)

1. Necro/enchanter -- Must be around undead.
2. Necro/necro-- Kill anything anywhere, but ideally around undead.
3. Necro/cleric-- Cleric needs CH and must be around undead


Those are the top three. I'd throw bard in for honorable mention.

The necro/monk combo isn't bad once the necro can keep the monk healed with bond/pact. it's not near these others though.

Too late to edit but I'd also throw druid up there for honorable mention. Could be difficult to find an ideal zone but if you can find good charm targets for both the druid and necro you can just fear kite with those pets outdoors.


Bardp1999 is right, though, necro can combo well with anything because the necro has such a versatile skill set. The most effective duos are all going to revolve around charming, however.

As far as necro/monk and charming at the same time, that could be pretty difficult to pull off. The necro has to keep bond up, pact up, and charm up, his life up from lich all the while the monk has no way to help the necro out on charm breaks so the necro is going to eat a lot of damage on breaks potentially and then they will have to tap for themselves. Very difficult and extremely mana intensive.

What's your friends play style? Do you already have other classes in XP range of the Necromancer? You're already 'behind' on the monk; how do you plan to get a fresh character 'caught up'.

What do you find boring on the monk? Just standing there meleeing? Or feeling like a third wheel to your friend and his pet? Perhaps switch how you play. Instead of fear kite tank and spank (or vice versa). Perhaps you can play his wingman; supplying pulls, training away wandering mobs before they add to the combat, etc.

Maybe try a new dungeon or to hunt a specific mob/item. Dalnirs has a lot for untwinked monks and necromancers. Tower of Frozen Shadow is another challenging zone with a few nice loot options, if that is what you are after.

Necromancer is a versatile duo mate, it will match with anything really. I remember them being my preferred group mate on my ranger 55-60. They loved my slow proc, regen and buffs to their pet! Based on that, if it's shaman you want to play then why not?

Necro / necro in any undead-ish area is lots of fun and non-stop exp.

Bardp1999: charming on a 45 necro is shitty? Why is that? I leveled a couple necros and always started charming before level 20 and I thought it was always awesome (with a CoS of course).

Stick w/ the monk. If y'all really want to spice things up, toss a shaman who is LFG in there and trio the world.

Nice thing about monk / necro is it almost eliminates the "oh shit" moments of necro charm pet breaking right as root fades, etc. The monk will just keep on tanking...making the necro's life far easier. Additionally, in places like HS where harm touches are plentiful, you can have the necro pets eat the HTs. As the pet gets low, kill it for full XP and get another one.

Its quite effective once you get the gist of it. Like I said...anytime you can find a shaman to add into the mix you've got one the best trios in the game.

The necro could basically plvl (or at the very least really speed) you up to a closer level range. As long as you're not grouped and you do more than 50% of the dmg on the mob you're gonna get full xp.

Surprised no one mentioned fear kiting mobs with a melee. The whole reason melee are great to duo with a necro is because it's like having another pet for the necro. Fear + snare and you and the pet beating on it are more than enough to kill things. Granted, this strat won't work in dungeons, but at your levels, leveling on Snarlers in FV or moving to DL north wall would work just as well.

As others have said, if you don't want to play the monk anymore, any class will do just fine. Necros are the most efficient soloers in the game. They can't solo as much as a shaman or enchanter can, but they can do a lot of things. So any class on top of that is going to enhance it. The reason why a mnk/shm/nec trio works so well is because any two of those work very well together.

So basically, play whatever you want. Just know that you'll have a lot of catch up to do if you make a new character.

The fact he's considering starting over makes want to say that he should consider a bard. The only class with a realistic chance of catching up to his friend in a short period of time.

I also charmed a lot starting pretty early (20s). In a group setting where you are only focusing on DPS, charming is fine. I was more referring to the HS basement style of solo/duo play where at 45 you are going to struggle to keep mana and life up due to not having all the tools in the tool bag.

Maybe its just a hindsight thing but from 48 to 49 your necromancer will feel like he just gained 10 levels not 1.

Having paralyzing earth changes what you are capable of doing. That spell alone is a god send to charmers.

I doubt OP is going to be able to pull off swarming (no offense OP but I can barely do it and I have practiced a lot - its tedious, time consuming, and prone to failures)

Fear kiting is possibly the worst EQ experience I can think of as a melee. Chasing fleeing mobs constantly is a huge kick in the pants. Is it viable? Yes absolutely. Is it fun? After about 1 level I was done with it.