Magician or necro?

[Nagash]

Playing both at level 50+ (mage 52, necro 53):

Solo wise: both are great, when it comes to xp, I found my mage faster than my necro but this may have to do with my necro being an iksar. Overall a tie. When it comes to cash target, the survivability of the necro gives them an edge.

In group, it depends what you want to do: prefer being a support class with some dps thrown in, go necro, prefer being on the offensive, go with mage. Both have a genuine place in group although few necro know how to play their class in group giving us a bad rep. However I can tell you that anyone I grouped with on my necro will happily have me again grouping with them and I think I still have a lot to learn on that front.

[Poosammich]

I truly tried to play something else when I came to P99.... I gave it about 9 lvls, and I just had to have my Necro back. Its all I played in live, but I was a forehead, and am now a lizard. Ikky Necro all the way!

[Darkwinter]

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

Playing both at level 50+ (mage 52, necro 53):

Solo wise: both are great, when it comes to xp, I found my mage faster than my necro but this may have to do with my necro being an iksar. Overall a tie. When it comes to cash target, the survivability of the necro gives them an edge.

In group, it depends what you want to do: prefer being a support class with some dps thrown in, go necro, prefer being on the offensive, go with mage. Both have a genuine place in group although few necro know how to play their class in group giving us a bad rep. However I can tell you that anyone I grouped with on my necro will happily have me again grouping with them and I think I still have a lot to learn on that front.

This is really good info! Thank you much.

How would you rate mana regen on the magician? Obviously necros have their own built-in mana regen, but in groups both are probably equal if there's a chanter around.

I would think soloing for a magician, I would need to stop by EC tunnel and pay for some clarity or something. Other than that, sitting on my caboose a lot [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Halius]

I can't speak much to necromancer (only have a level 10) but for Magician it is going to be a lot of sitting. But this could actually be a benefit to you when you get to a higher level, as you sit to med you can always have a character logged into red and play a different class (that's what I have been doing lately).

Unless you have a pocket chanter ready to hit you with clarity you will be medding a lot. One way to mitigate this is to only throw low level nukes at a mob once your pet gets them running but then pet will eat 50% exp and around level 25 or so pets begin to get overpowered by mobs so you will be using mana healing or chain summoning anyways.

As Samwise said, a good option is to find a healing duo partner so that you don't have to worry about pet dying and the 50% exp penalty is negated since you are in a group.

[NegaStoat]

Mana regen on the Magician is really, really slow. But you can cheat and plot out which mobs you want to go after at different levels and use the P1999 wiki to research them, especially their health values. With this you can plan how much spell damage you need to inflict while factoring in the Neutral damage delt from a damage shield on the pet so that you barely beat the pet out on doing over half, while using the least amount of mana.

Later, you can chain pet cast using Reclaim (either a spell or your focus item) on targets that make keeping your pet's health topped off not worth it. In my heart, I KNOW for a fact that the Necro is an overall stronger class. It's really hard to argue against that. But the Magician's effectiveness as a DPS class is absurdly good, and very relaxing to play in a group. A mage doesn't have to pull, or employ crowd control, or stare at health bars, and they don't have to overly stress melee damage aggro levels or do a lot of position dancing.

They park a pet at a good angle for pulling for when the tank has their engage point and facing set, they sit, and they /assist and blow shit up. And they won't be a Necro screaming in Velious about how none of their DoT's are working on Raid mobs. So they have that going for them.

[DarkwingDuck]

Ok, I'll chime in here, I have a lowbie necro and a 53 Mage. Both are awesome, I've always loved Mage and played epic on pvp live.(Mage epic is hardest and best epic in game)
But IF you're worried about your pet taking EXP you're doing it wrong. GET your Mage pet focus items that beef your pet up when u summon them, then once the mobs running.. Click your focus item (instant reclaim energy) finish it off with a lowbie nuke.. Or your burnt wood staff life me (333 dmg clickie) game over. The 49 fire pet is a beast and a major game changer, as fire pets self DS way better than any cast able DS in game, make fire pets your friend and let the mobs best themselves to death.

[Velerin]

They both can level solo pretty fast. Difference is necro can do a lot more things and styles.
The most efficient and fastest mage solo tactic is actually pretty boring (but also relaxing).
Find lowest single pull blue cons possible (as NegaStoat said above) that focused fire pet can solo. Sit and med, when mob gets really low on health reclaim pet (will get amount of mana back based on health, if targeting right mobs could be >50%), cast low level nuke for full exp (if nuke doesn't quite finish the mob, don't nuke again unless its running far. Just summon a new pet to finish it off if life left<your nuke damage)
Repeat. You'll always be good on mana and have continuous pulls.

[Ravager]

Necros are a one-man-group and have many more options for mobs to kill because faction is rarely an issue. Also, who would even want to be in the same class as Navir?

[Rinarch]

I played an Iksar Necro to 35 then switched to a mage which just dinged 20 last night so here is my experience playing both classes.

It should be noted that I highly enjoy grouping, yes I know I picked solo classes but they both offer benefits to a group and I enjoy utilizing that aspect of the classes more so then soloing.

As a necro, Soloing was more taxing in terms of play style as well as resist begin to cause much more problems. Mob resisting darkness snare would add a good amount of time to the kill rate, same with fear resists. As I stated I will always chose to group over soloing, even if the xp is slower... As a necro I was FORCED to solo, people do not want to group with necros, simple as that. Sad fact is too many necros play the class exactly the same in a group situation and that gives us a bad rap. I loved playing my necro in groups, the support you give can truly speed up any group composition if you know what your doing and the ability to basically become a battery for the group can really push a sub par group into a killing machine.

Cleric running out of mana? take over spot healing and dump some mana his way

Have a camp with a mix of weak/strong mobs, you heal the tank during weak mobs and let the healer handle the hard hitting stuff

Casters? ST them to stop heals/nukes

All the above taken care of... pump the wizard full of mana and let him rain hellfire down on the mobs

the list goes on and on, a well played necro in a group is truly an asset. The problem is you will hardly ever get a chance to show that side of the class as people see necro LFG and the "lawl go solo nub" spam starts flowing.

I could also be a lot more reckless with my necro cause I had FD and ST to fall back on, so I would try more things and harder pulls without fully thinking them through and I enjoyed playing the class more as a "I'll figure it out what to do in XXX situation should it arise" Overall it's a fun class, I still have the naked character which I do plan to re gear and play with once I find a good group of people that know I can play the game and will openly invite me into groups.

As a mage, never had trouble finding a group, ever... Your role in the group is much more DPS focused, with a small side role of support in terms of summoning throwing daggers/arrows for pullers, Damage shielding the tank, and using pet to help with mez breaks/offtanking mobs hitting the healer before tank can pick them up. Since you have a much more simple role in groups compared to necros you should be expected to control your pet better and use it to more full of an advantage IE: buff it, equip it etc. As a mage in a group you can expect to:

Summon supplies as people need, often times I do a supply check ever hour or so.

Learn when to nuke casters. especially healing mobs, to cause them to run instead of starting a heal spell, this is big if you use the water pet in groups like I do for the increased DPS. Note you do have the air pet stun if the majority of pulls will involve casters its much better to use the air pet for the stun.

Keep up damage shield on the tank, it surprises me how many mages seem to forget this aspect of the class.

It's a much more simple role in grouping but it does have a skill aspect to it and the skills transfer fairly well into playing a wizard if you decide to make one down the line. Necro in a group is more akin to a bard(which I also have a level 20 bard) in a group it's a very active playstyle that can get tiresome and groups can quickly overload you with responsibility if they are lacking in too many departments. You must be able to prioritize what the group needs the most from you on the fly and most the times in the worst of pulls your responsibilities and what is needed from you changes as the situation changes... You will not have enough spell gems to do everything you need to sometimes so spell choices change with the group/camp.

I love my necro and I love my mage, if the group situation wasn't what it was on this server I would probably have kept on playing my necro. But, if you want to play in groups and you don't have a good stable of friends that know you know how to play prepare to be turned down a lot as a necro. If you do decide to go necro and you do get in a group... PLEASE do us a favor and learn to play the class like it should be played in a group, it will go a long way in turning the stigma people have around!

[Darkwinter]

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

I love my necro and I love my mage, if the group situation wasn't what it was on this server I would probably have kept on playing my necro.

How is the group situation on blue? Is it pretty common to find other people at all level ranges?

I see about 900 people on for the past 2 nights, but are they all high level? If I can't find many groups, I will go necro for sure.