Necro or enchanter...Go!

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by Tuljin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Which is why I put "best" in quotes haha - you can come to the p99 forums with the Johnny Cochran Legal Team and no matter what you say about a partcular class enc or shaman will always be the "best" class.

And I will argue them, and tell those people that their thinking is limited, and they are less effective human beings because of it. If you limit yourself to thinking one set thing without understanding the why, then you let yourself become a blind follower. When you understand the why, then you understand the value judgments that go into it, and in that way, you can hone what exactly you mean, and deliver unparalleled clarity. That only falters when people permit it to, and I refuse to let such ignorance slide. (EDIT: Lest I look like an ass, I am not saying you're like this. I am referring to those you refer to in your quote)

Originally Posted by Tuljin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Also, most people who play this game are so solo-centric (i.e. the EQ Asperger's Syndrome) that when it comes to the odd skills that a Necro has that are very valuable to others (HP feed, twitch, EE rez) they won't really register as legitimate reasons to choose a class. Its either pure DPS, JBB root rot, or AOE mez/charm.

This is your value judgment. I play this game as I am raid-centric, not solo-centric. I have numerous friends who are group-centric, who spend most days in Charasis. That's what they love. I, however, am raid centric. I love maintaining a charm pet on a Loathing Lich while dishing out the twitches and heals.

Both of our claims are based purely on individual speculation, rather than any empirical data. Due to that, both of our claims stand on tenuous grounds. So, I do not agree that "most" people are solo-centric, I agree only insofar as there are people who are solo-centric. Until I see a legitimate survey (which would have to be a census given the small server population is about the necessary sample size of a legitimate sample), that is as much as I will accept in that regard.

Originally Posted by Tuljin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And I would agree that with FD its quite easy to stay alive =) Again a big reason people argue enc is that as a high level nec its damn near impossible to post up LFG and get a group, whereas if you're an enc people will kick people out of the group to get you lol. High level necs really need to have a couple good buddies that they can group with or go solo HS, theres really no other choice to move the bar at high lvl.

But your previous quote said people are solo-centric, so why should the speed of grouping matter at all? You see what I mean? It is subjective interpretation on what is most important for you. If getting into a group incredibly fast is what you want, Enchanter is for you. If you want to play the game of balancing a charm pet with necro heals and twitching, managing your HP and your mana in this (which is an incredibly complex thing to do, a high to which I have found no comparison in this game), then you should be playing a Necromancer.

Originally Posted by Tuljin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I may get crucified for saying this but I will say enc is probably the "easier" option! =)

Easier in what way? Enchanters have their own challenges. The most expensive piece of gear that is fundamental to a Necromancer is a 5k pair of jboots, lol. Enchanters need a Goblin Ghaz at minimum to really be effective. I would say it is far easier to be a Necromancer at the start, but it becomes more difficult as time goes on. By comparison, Enchanters are harder at the start when you have lower gear, inconsistent charms, whereas Necros have stable, reliable fears.

But when you get into challenging content, such as clearing rooms, Enchanters are able to AE mez and have an "easier" time getting through it than a Necro would. A necro cannot AE mez, and must instead Charm a mob inside the room, pop DA, absorb any DTs, back the pet out, root each of the mobs in turn, and then reverse charm through the pack to clear a room, whereas an Enchanter can go one at a time.

I have an easier time getting rezzes, I have an easier time getting from point A to point B, I have an easier time killing anything without caring about faction, I have an easier time. I have an easier time powerleveling other players. I have an easier time levitating. I have an easier time getting a pet. An enchanter will have an easier time in numerous other places.

So once again, I will ram home my point by paying it is all about looking at the objective facts of each of the classes, and judging for ones' self which has the tools and abilities they most desire to get the most out of the game.

[Tuljin]

I agree!!

I am very subtly ripping on the p99 Sperglord Hivemind. Most people don't give a shit about anybody else when they play the game besides themselves and you can see that in most people's choice of class or discussion of pros and cons of certain classes. It always comes back to what can they can play with the least effort/danger/trouble getting a group to move the xp bar/get phat lewtz and pay for an chardok aoe proxy to lvl their next toon lol

[Potus]

Originally Posted by Uteunayr [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

See, when you write like this, I don't honestly understand. I am sorry, but I must be missing something. Whne you say "your pet can compensate whenever you have resists or trains or adds...", it sounds as if you intentionally throw your pet in to absorb damage for you... That's not a Necro pet. Skeletons are brittle, weak. If a pull goes bad, or you get resists, you pop your mage clickie and Feign Death out of the situation. I have never, at any point in my EQ career, felt I needed to throw my pet at something, to have it tank something, to compensate for me. That's something I have always seen as a Mage tactic.

I have never, once, felt gimped by the fact that the rogue and monk pet die quickly. Yes, they die quickly, but they shouldn't be taking damage in the first place if you're doing it right. Instead of scaling up HP (which is NOT what necro pets are, or ever were, for), they scaled up their damage by adding some nice variety to it with the backstabbing pet, and a cool looking warrior pet.

The stun bash does is brief, and the DPS it does is minor relative to the backstab. Warriors Bash, Monks Flying Kick, Rogues Backstab. I'll take the Backstab over a Bash any day of the week. My DPS with a Rogue backstab is much higher than an EoT with Bash.

Sorry, there's some major disconnect happening between us. I have never, nor can I ever imagine, a situation in which I feel it would fall on my pet to need to take hits for me. They are not tanks, they should not be tanks, they are another DoT effect. That's it. So, you are obviously doing something very different from how I have been playing the class since back in the day as well for the crux of your argument to be relevant. I am not saying you're wrong, just that for your argument to stand, I believe you're playing Necromancer in a strange way.

How exactly are you soloing? Are you root rotting or fear kiting? Because with fear kiting adds happen. It's just a part of the game; you'll never play from 1-60 and not have another mob aggro on your pet, or your snare wear off while you're trying to reapply it and the monster runs into an area it shouldn't, or you get a series of resists and your pet ends up tanking briefly. 1-49 the pet is great at dealing damage and staying alive so you can keep soloing. Post 50 the pets don't do enough damage to outweigh them dying instantly from adds. Verant knew this, that's why they tried to sell the monk and rogue as being really awesome, and then when people summoned them they felt duped.

Convergence is the rez, and yes, it uses an EE. But, just as on P1999, just as back on live, you did not have to delevel a person, as you could EE a level 60 through some janky mechanics. Even back in Kunark you were capable of getting EEs without something sacrificing their levels. Further, I do not buy "it wasn't really a rez.", it's a 93% rez at any point that I want without a Cleric or Paladin. Yes, you have to pay dearly for the component to do it, but that's the cost of convenience. How much would you be paying a Cleric or Paladin to run all the way out to City of Mist to grab you? How much would it cost to use one of your EEs? The convenience makes a Necromancer independent, and the rez is a part of that. So, I disagree and believe you undervalue the necro rez here, and overemphasize the losses.

How are you sacrificing people and they're not losing experience? Getting to level 60 on live was a ton of work, just as it is here. Lots of hours of play time. People wouldn't sell sacrifices without you coughing up A LOT of platinum up front. I recall the only people willing to do it were at the lowest level possible for a sac because they could (I presume through pretty dubious means) level back up quickly.

Again, it really was a gimmick. Sure you can rez, sure it made you more independent. But at a huge cost that wasn't really practical. You hear rez and you're excited for the expansion, and then you learn that you have to pay tons of money to convince people to eat exp loss. You're not going to replace a cleric or a paladin except in very, very, very limited situations, like when a raid wipes and you feign death. That's great, but like I said previously, it only makes Necromancers more well-rounded and gimmicky, not powerful.

[Kadron]

I usually pay 350-450 plat per sac. What would you pay to have someone come res you? Plus think about camping items. I can corpse lore items and res myself with ease. It's a huge benefit. I can spend hours camping something and get a few items with never leaving my camp and lose very little experience. Both classes are awesome, it's all about what you want to play.

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How exactly are you soloing? Are you root rotting or fear kiting? Because with fear kiting adds happen. It's just a part of the game; you'll never play from 1-60 and not have another mob aggro on your pet, or your snare wear off while you're trying to reapply it and the monster runs into an area it shouldn't, or you get a series of resists and your pet ends up tanking briefly. 1-49 the pet is great at dealing damage and staying alive so you can keep soloing. Post 50 the pets don't do enough damage to outweigh them dying instantly from adds. Verant knew this, that's why they tried to sell the monk and rogue as being really awesome, and then when people summoned them they felt duped.

When you're root rotting, you shouldn't have a pet engaging the enemy, as they will break roots.

When you're fear kiting, yes, adds happen, but if you have eyes on what you're fear kiting (which you should), you know when to pull back your pet, or when to pre-cast a Darkness before it aggros so it comes to you first for a fear. Further, you can minimize the occurrence of these by letting the mob get close to you before a re-fear, and if you are good at counting your Darkness ticks, you will *never* be caught unaware. Further, appropriate use of Invoke Fear v Fear can help you maintain positioning far better. You don't use Invoke if there are enemies within range, use regular Fear for the shorter duration, so you can pull it back to you after it is over. It hurts the DPS, but is far safer in such a situation.

The number of times a mob aggros my pet rather than aggros me is infinitesimal in the grand scheme. If you're playing right, the mobs should be aggroing the necromancer, not the pet. You get a series of resists, you do what I said: Reclaim clickie and FD. You don't want your pet to tank, otherwise you lose the mana investment, and even if you can get the mob snared and feared, and your pet is dead. Instead, you reset the pull and put it up to bad luck. How often do you get chain-resists in post 50? That shit happens a lot at earlier levels, sure, but chain resists at max level, against higher level blues? Generally if the mob is resisting, they are immune, if they don't resist, they are not. It is pretty rare to get random resists in the 50-60 range. I cannot think of even once having fear resisted on spectres or bloodgills, a root resisted on nobles, or a root resisted on charm killing shit in Charasis. Some dots often get resisted, but those do not even have a hope of landing.

Pets do enough damage to outweigh them dying if you fuck up. There's no reason your pet should ever be getting aggro if you're playing well. And if you're not playing well, your pet will die and you will deserve the loss of the pet, because you fucked up.

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How are you sacrificing people and they're not losing experience? Getting to level 60 on live was a ton of work, just as it is here. Lots of hours of play time. People wouldn't sell sacrifices without you coughing up A LOT of platinum up front. I recall the only people willing to do it were at the lowest level possible for a sac because they could (I presume through pretty dubious means) level back up quickly.

I didn't say without losing experience, I said without getting "deleveled" as you said. You made it sound as if to get the EEs, people had to be deleveled for it. A 60 can suicide to a guard 6 times from 100% into 60, and go to 59. Then, you sacrifice them 5-6 times, and then you get a cleric to rez the 6 suicide corpses. They re-ding 60, boom. You have EEs, they are still 60, and their kills are not wasted. This is always how it was done to get a bunch of EEs without making it as malicious as:

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

which usually meant you had to pay some poor guy getting deleveled.

Rogues were notorious for this, because they couldn't farm stuff in any way but groups. So, they could also make EEs since they capped XP damn easily.

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Again, it really was a gimmick. Sure you can rez, sure it made you more independent. But at a huge cost that wasn't really practical. You hear rez and you're excited for the expansion, and then you learn that you have to pay tons of money to convince people to eat exp loss. You're not going to replace a cleric or a paladin except in very, very, very limited situations, like when a raid wipes and you feign death. That's great, but like I said previously, it only makes Necromancers more well-rounded and gimmicky, not powerful.

It was practical, and it remains practical. Yes, you have to pay. You're a Necromancer that is bringing people back from the dead, lol. Not as a skeleton, but as a fully living being (this is getting into fluff, Ill do that in a sec). How much do people pay for a Cleric to run out to City of Mist for a rez? 400pp? 500pp? I've seen people offer 1k for rezzes in the depths of Kaesora, or in LOIO. A Necromancer can pop a 350pp EE, and a 50pp Coffin, and be done. Certainly, prices are inflated on the server relative to classic, but the pricing was within grasp.

Again, you say it doesn't make them more powerful. Define power? What aspect of power? That is a value ridden term, heavily subjective. To me, having a 93% rez on demand is powerful. Incredibly powerful. Especially since I am a far more self-sufficient class than a Paladin or Cleric, I would much rather pay 350pp-400pp to have a rez than try to find a Cleric to do a rez for me.

It even fits with the traditional fluff of the Necromancer, in that Necromancers are not people who create or destroy life, they are those which transfer life energy. Just as Evocation alters energy, Conjuration creates new energy, Necromancy is the evocation of life energy. A cleric can create new life, as their power is divine, but a Necromancer cannot. So the Necromancer becomes a conduit through which life is transferred. The Necromancer can drain life from the opponent to channel it through their magic into their ally. The Necromancer can burn that life energy to empower their spells (lich), and they can burn huge amounts of life energy to use far more powerful spells. It is for this reason that later in xpacs, Necromancers developed means of creating EEs out of enemies as a more advanced magic tech.

So, ultimately no, I do not agree in the least. I do not agree that it is "not powerful", because I do not believe it is reasonable in any form to say that having a 350pp gem in your bag that lets you use a 93% rez at any point you want is nothing more than a gimmick. That is power. It isn't hard power, but hard power is not the only kind of power.

Originally Posted by Kadron [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I usually pay 350-450 plat per sac. What would you pay to have someone come res you? Plus think about camping items. I can corpse lore items and res myself with ease. It's a huge benefit. I can spend hours camping something and get a few items with never leaving my camp and lose very little experience. Both classes are awesome, it's all about what you want to play.

Quoted for agreement.

[Potus]

Originally Posted by Uteunayr [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When you're root rotting, you shouldn't have a pet engaging the enemy, as they will break roots.

When you're fear kiting, yes, adds happen, but if you have eyes on what you're fear kiting (which you should), you know when to pull back your pet, or when to pre-cast a Darkness before it aggros so it comes to you first for a fear. Further, you can minimize the occurrence of these by letting the mob get close to you before a re-fear, and if you are good at counting your Darkness ticks, you will *never* be caught unaware. Further, appropriate use of Invoke Fear v Fear can help you maintain positioning far better. You don't use Invoke if there are enemies within range, use regular Fear for the shorter duration, so you can pull it back to you after it is over. It hurts the DPS, but is far safer in such a situation.

The number of times a mob aggros my pet rather than aggros me is infinitesimal in the grand scheme. If you're playing right, the mobs should be aggroing the necromancer, not the pet. You get a series of resists, you do what I said: Reclaim clickie and FD. You don't want your pet to tank, otherwise you lose the mana investment, and even if you can get the mob snared and feared, and your pet is dead. Instead, you reset the pull and put it up to bad luck. How often do you get chain-resists in post 50? That shit happens a lot at earlier levels, sure, but chain resists at max level, against higher level blues? Generally if the mob is resisting, they are immune, if they don't resist, they are not. It is pretty rare to get random resists in the 50-60 range. I cannot think of even once having fear resisted on spectres or bloodgills, a root resisted on nobles, or a root resisted on charm killing shit in Charasis. Some dots often get resisted, but those do not even have a hope of landing.

Pets do enough damage to outweigh them dying if you fuck up. There's no reason your pet should ever be getting aggro if you're playing well. And if you're not playing well, your pet will die and you will deserve the loss of the pet, because you fucked up.

It's all fine to say you should never be caught unaware and you should use different fears and keep mobs routinely controlled. And if you can do that with regularity congratulations. Sadly it's just not realistic, the random number generator will trip you up and you will run into adds unless you're playing overly conservative.

Mob aggro on pets right now is flatout broken on this server, but on live it was a much larger problem, and considering the devs are probably going to restore it you'll see this as an issue again. As for resists on those mobs I'm impressed you don't have resists on bloodgills or spectres. I've not camped Bloods here, but on live they do resist spells and spectres (which I have killed here and on live) do as well. If you haven't got root resisted that's...really just hard to believe. P99 50+ sounds like a paradise compared to live or even the resist code on Red.

I didn't say without losing experience, I said without getting "deleveled" as you said. You made it sound as if to get the EEs, people had to be deleveled for it. A 60 can suicide to a guard 6 times from 100% into 60, and go to 59. Then, you sacrifice them 5-6 times, and then you get a cleric to rez the 6 suicide corpses. They re-ding 60, boom. You have EEs, they are still 60, and their kills are not wasted. This is always how it was done to get a bunch of EEs without making it as malicious as:

Not sure I get this. You take a 60 who is maxed on exp and then you sac him 5-6 times, right? Why do you have him suicide on guards and get resurrected?

Again, you say it doesn't make them more powerful. Define power? What aspect of power? That is a value ridden term, heavily subjective. To me, having a 93% rez on demand is powerful. Incredibly powerful. Especially since I am a far more self-sufficient class than a Paladin or Cleric, I would much rather pay 350pp-400pp to have a rez than try to find a Cleric to do a rez for me.

So, ultimately no, I do not agree in the least. I do not agree that it is "not powerful", because I do not believe it is reasonable in any form to say that having a 350pp gem in your bag that lets you use a 93% rez at any point you want is nothing more than a gimmick. That is power. It isn't hard power, but hard power is not the only kind of power.

That's fine. To me power is spells actually getting better with each level or at least keeping pace with the the progression of mob's power and other classes. I'd rather have better lifetaps and pets and dots that do a lot more damage than receive a resurrection spell with strings attached. When you consider how much better melees got post 50, and how much stronger monsters got, the necromancer was hosed in nearly every category.

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's all fine to say you should never be caught unaware and you should use different fears and keep mobs routinely controlled. And if you can do that with regularity congratulations. Sadly it's just not realistic, the random number generator will trip you up and you will run into adds unless you're playing overly conservative.

It isn't that hard to keep your eyes on a mob and where it is running. It really isn't. Watching the ticks of your Darkness is more complex, and no one can blame you for that, but if Darkness breaks and it starts sprinting into mobs, you should still, with reasonable ease, tell your pet to back off, without much of an issue.

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Mob aggro on pets right now is flatout broken on this server, but on live it was a much larger problem, and considering the devs are probably going to restore it you'll see this as an issue again.

If you are keeping your pet up front and having them tank, they are going to get aggro and die on live. Right now, you can easily pull aggro from them with DoTs. That doesn't change the fact that if you back off your pet appropriately, which isn't a high mental taxing activity, your pet shouldn't, 99/100 get hit.

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As for resists on those mobs I'm impressed you don't have resists on bloodgills or spectres. I've not camped Bloods here, but on live they do resist spells and spectres (which I have killed here and on live) do as well. If you haven't got root resisted that's...really just hard to believe. P99 50+ sounds like a paradise compared to live or even the resist code on Red.

I remember it similarly on live. Resists became less and less a difficulty the higher the level you got. Certain mobs will be able to break roots faster and so on. But being a high level significantly reduces the number of random resists, and it sorts into near immunity vs. easy to land. We seem to remember things very differently.

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not sure I get this. You take a 60 who is maxed on exp and then you sac him 5-6 times, right? Why do you have him suicide on guards and get resurrected?

You cannot sacrifice a level 60 character. You can only sacrifice a level 46-59. So, you have to have them die to a PvE style death, so they go down to 59 (6 deaths). Then, you can sacrifice them 5-6 times, and rez the suicide corpses (since you can't rez the sacrifice corpses), and they will come back with 20-36% experience.

Originally Posted by Potus [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's fine. To me power is spells actually getting better with each level or at least keeping pace with the the progression of mob's power and other classes. I'd rather have better lifetaps and pets and dots that do a lot more damage than receive a resurrection spell with strings attached. When you consider how much better melees got post 50, and how much stronger monsters got, the necromancer was hosed in nearly every category.

Then you would like what they did to Necro on live post-60, where they shafted twitch, necro heals, long DoT ticks, and made it so Necromancer is a 14-dot rotating machine.

Sorry, but you're comparing us to melee, the consistent DPS group. No, we wont DPS like a Monk or a Rogue, and it is silly to think that we should be balanced relative to them in terms of DPS. We weren't equal to them before, we weren't in Kunark, and we certainly aren't now on live.

Necromancer isn't a DPS class. It is a support class. That is the fundamental difference in our thinking, I believe.

Further, I'll add that I disagree that we are as worse off as you seem to suggest. All enemies were scaled up, and I have not seen anything empirically sound to say that the scaling up of Necromancer damage (counting in your pet damage) is proportionately worse than that that it was at relative to other classes in the pre-Kunark era. If you have such an analysis, please do share. I know I take longer to kill things post-50 than pre-50, but I also know other classes do too. I'd like to see some proof, because it really isn't (from the two necromancers I have leveled through the 50s) as devastating as you seem to be making out.

[element08]

Originally Posted by diplo [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

i'd roll a mage.

just kidding they suck now.

RIP

[pasi]

Resists become less frequent at 60 because of the level gap. Keep in mind that while Kunark does have a level 60 cap, the vast majority of the high-level content was designed for 50s play. Most folk in raiding guilds were not 60 when Velious hit.

Take a look at Sebilis, the majority of the frogloks up top are in the upper-mid 40s with nameds being 50-55. Hell, even the Fungi King is only level 56. You are killing blue mobs that are 12 levels lower than you. Contrast this with leveling where you're mostly killing stuff 4-5 levels below you.

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by pasi [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Resists become less frequent at 60 because of the level gap. Keep in mind that while Kunark does have a level 60 cap, the vast majority of the high-level content was designed for 50s play. Most folk in raiding guilds were not 60 when Velious hit.

Take a look at Sebilis, the majority of the frogloks up top are in the upper-mid 40s with nameds being 50-55. Hell, even the Fungi King is only level 56. You are killing blue mobs that are 12 levels lower than you. Contrast this with leveling where you're mostly killing stuff 4-5 levels below you.

True. But I am talking about 40+. After leveling up 2 Necromancers, what I noticed is a significant drop off in resists to thinks like Darkness. The early levels, you really notice every time you cast an initiating Darkness just to have it resisted, because it is absolute chaos trying to recover, even when fighting dark blues. But you also come to notice the drop off. This may handily be to the fact that as you go above 40+, you stop fighting things that would be White or nearly White, though. I'd need to test a level 50 flinging spells at a higher 40 Dark Blue.