Raiding

This topic is to discuss what Necros can do for a Raid, and what the group should do to take advantage of the Necro's unique abilities

Necros have a great spell called Corruption that increases Energy & intelligence by 24%. Some classes have similar skills, but a Necro won't just cast this on anyone because of the side effects (life & Strength decreased by 10%) - so you have to ask for it. It may or may not stack with similar effects.

If the boss the raid is taking on is big on curses a Necro is often the only thing that stands between the party succeeding and the party failing. That's because their remove curse is an instant cast with instant refresh (that's what it says anyway, in actual practice there's about 0.5s cool down period).

In combat, there are a few must haves that need to happen before the combat. Now, I'm a newbie at raiding and I just completed my 2nd overland raid yesterday - so I'm not an expert....here goes:

1) The necro remove curse requires line-of-sight. This can be tricky based on terrain and hopefully the raid leader can account for it. Yesterday one poor Rogue finally sent a message saying “never mind, it expired on its own”. The problem was I didn’t have line-of-sight to him/her and couldn’t find them in the crowd to cast it fast enough (presumably they were behind the target, but some bit of the hill must have been in the way).

2) Identify who has priority at the start. I’m sure experienced raiders know this sort of thing, but that wasn’t me. Knowing which group and their location in the raid-setup would have helped speed up the process. I was quite surprised at how long it was taking me to locate the person in the appropriate group, click on them, and then cast (remember the whole Raid screen thing is pretty new to me). I knew keeping the main tank curse-free and alive was a high priority. I should have asked before the start who the main tank was. Fortunately when he did get cursed he not only used the identification macro and asked for it on Vent clearly identifying his character – but he was at the top of the group list in group one which made him easy to find.

3) I didn’t realize the Cleric would be a priority until it came over vent and the first time she got cursed she died just as I was casting. She was the second to the bottom of the list which I’ve determined is the group slot that it takes the longest to find someone (for me anyway). It just took that long to locate her. Once I knew she was a priority and where she was on the list I was able to locate her quickly the next time.

4) People that didn’t indicate what group they were in on their "I'm cursed" macro were pretty much toast – I think of myself as a fairly fast reader but a lot of those elvish names were long and similar looking plus I was trying to keep an eye out on the raid chat for other “cursed” messages of priority targets.

5) Thank you to everyone that used an alternate color in the cursed message. I like to think I spotted everyone that called for help alternate color or not, but I doubt it. Ideally, everyone would use the same color.

6) Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone that sent the “Curse removed” message. Curse removal isn’t a specific science so I don’t otherwise know if it succeeded unless I’m told. This should also be in some other color to catch my eye. I must have cast remove curse 4 times on the cleric because I didn’t receive a removed message (or possibly missed it) – perhaps I never removed it I don’t know. After 4 attempts I figured priority or no I should switch to another target.

The Plague Bearer minion is the most useful minion in a normal raid because they debuf the target making your spiritual or physical spells more powerful. However, you'll need to watch the target's debufs as some things will be immune to their magic.

In a raid, you need to move fast. If you're being mana starved then Ritual of the Servant is a great minion for a Necro that has the wraithform as it returns energy to the necro (and after some patch, anyone around him) and health to the skeletal form.

WARNING: In the current patch there's a bug where your minions attack your target automatically. Normally no problem, but if you're mezzing undead adds, be sure to delete them before you start.

Carrion of Depravity I increases life and strength by 22% and reduces intelligence and energy by 34%. It is the single spell that most people seem to be aware of from the necro class. Obviously fighters love it, in fact the feeding frenzy it inspires is down right scary.

Unfortunately, they're always asking for it and then you have to go through and explain in small words for your fighter that you need a corpse to make it.

Also important is that the spell has a great range. The last time someone went to get a corpse for me they pulled a critter and it killed me. Twice. (Yes I had feigned death, but they brought it right up to me and then it did its AOE which one-shoted me). Stupid fighters....

There's another version Carrion of Depravity II which a raiding necro can get that increases life and strength by 24% and reduces intelligence and energy by 32%.

Setup a macro to cast this spell that clears the target, otherwise the meat will come up under that corpse and fighters will look at you like you just call them a pansy. Mine looks like:

/cast "Carrion of Depravity I"
/cleartargets
/xgsay < green=>Fighter Meat up!
/raid < green=>Fighter Meat up!

The gsay is optional (don't put the space between the < and the color, it's only done here to get the angle bracket to show). Occasionally it turns out to be a corpse you can't use and then you've gotten their appetites all up - might be dangerous for Gnomes. If in a raid I'll change gsay to xgsay so the group doesn't get an extra message. Changing the message color is important so people notice it, but if you're using ventrilo I've found it's best to announce you're going to bring up the fighter meat before the end of the combat (before everyone runs off).

Note: If the spell completes, but there's no fighter meat - look up. While headed toward the librarian I cast this and the meat ended up stuck to the ceiling of an archway.

Despoiling Blight drains an opponents constitution, dexterity, intelligence, strength and wisdom by 51, granting those same points temporarily to your party. Party unfortunately means your group in the raid, and not you or your other raiding allies. It's an in-combat buff, so it can't be thrown on each group independently.

Casters typically already exceed 900 (any increase beyond 900 doesn't increase any damage) in a raid on their int, and other than wisdom derive very little benefit. This presents a challenge for the raid leader in terms of where to put the necro.

Soul Meld is the necro resurrection skill. Unlike most classes ability, this skill can be used in combat with a 4 second cast and uniquely recharges instantly. You don't get this spell from a vendor, see Necro Books for a walk through.

While this sounds incredibly powerful, it also comes with a dark side. Those rezzed will not only be suffering from the the typical rez sickness, but they have no health and no energy.

On the up side the Soul Meld won't take critical time from a healer healing. On the down side any attack (e.g., AoE) would put them right back down.

Still, for a part of the DPS or healing crew in the back in a safe place, these seems like a good opportunity. Obviously, anyone rezzed this way ought to try and get clear before any AoE occurs.

Death Walk is known as the "necro" levitate and loved by raiders because since it has "other" abilities, it isn't stripped by "remove levitate" skill.

Most players hate levitate, so this isn't something to just cast on people.

But, one of the two bufs I suspect is often overlooked by fighters and well worth the annoyance of levitate. The really useful buf is a +271 physical resistance. After seeing how much more damage my spiritual spells do after casting Soul Blight (a 400 pt spiritual debuf) I have gained a very healthy respect for resistance magic. The second buf is that it removes the need to breath, which since you can't levitate under water is pretty much only good for dealing with creatures that have a strangle effect.

When I first took the wraithform I believed the description that said you had to be in wraithform in order to get the benefits. So I did all my adventuring with that levitate and really hated it for a couple of levels. But, like anything else you get use to it. I keep Death Walk up all the time on myself. I don't take direct physical damage usually, but I do get hit by AoEs and every little bit of resistance helps.