As I said in the ´being a necro´ section, necromancers have got a wide range of spells, so there are several different ways your can take down a monster. Not all of them are suitable in every situation, so you´ve got to know which one is the most adviceble depending on where and what are you planning to hunt.
I´ll describe them out for you three different strategies and when to pick up one in stead of the others : Darkness-Fear-DoT combo , SoW-Darkness-Dot combo and lifetap mellee fighting.
Now, out of all the solo hunting strategies in the game, this is the most outstanding of them all. Not even duids´s kitting or mage´s earth-root-caster pets can best a necro when using this technique. Fellows necromancers, learn this soon and feel the power within you !!
This combo is meant to be used in open-flat-karanas-alike zones, where you can easily spot your prey and other monsters wandering arround that could jump on you whilst dealing with your first monster.
Steps to follow :
1. Find the propper area for your level, considering what I have just said above (must be an open fields zone). Check out the ´where to hunt´ section in order to find out.
2. Find a clear spot within that zone where no critter walks by and have your pet to guard it ( /pet guard here command). Usually, the zone limits walls are the best place for this. Also, ensure that although no monster passes by there, they do so somewhere not very far away (you don´t want to cross the whole zone to find a prey and then to pull it along all the way back !).
3. Spot the monster out. From the distance pull it with Darkness spell (DoT and slows the monster down) and run the hell back to the place you have had your pet to guard, and send him in straight away ( /pet attack command)
4. If Darkness didn´t get hold on the monster, recast Darkness till it sticks on it. Why is Darkness do important? Because it slows it down, and therefore when you cast Fear, the critter won´t escape away out of your sight. Now, if it did, cast Fear and see how the monster runs away from you and your pet. If Fear doesn´t succeed, probably the critter will pass over your pet and head staright ahead towards you. Don´t worry, remember darkness is on him so he won´t be able to run any fast, so just run backwards a bit and recast Fear.
5. Cast away every single DoT spell you have memorized. This will slowly reduce its HPs (hit points). DoTs are necros´s main weapon. It might not look as impressive as wizzard´s or mages´s nukes, but believe me, they are far more effective.
6. Now, your dutty is to wait till Fear spell wears off. It has a random longevity, deppending on the critter´s level and some othe factors. So just keep an eye on it. When it wears off, recast it quickly since the prey won´t anylonger stick to your pet but yourself !!
7. Once Fear is recast, just finish the monster off with the lifetap series spells or with whatever nuke (direct damage spell) you´ve got in that moment.
8. Type /cheer command, sit down in the inicial spot (where pet is guarding) and meditate mana up till full, smoke a cigarette and get ready for next battle. You are powerfull necro : )
Advantages of this strategy : It´s just an amazing one. If everything goes as it´s supposed to, nor you or your pet will be hit even once !! On top of that, it kills the mobs very quickly (1 minute or so per battle) and you won´t need to burn out the whole mana bar, meaning shorter medding downtimes.
Drawbacks : Very few : The area must be outdoors and as flat as possible. Why not in dungeons? Because if you cast fear on the monster, it will start running thru the tunnels and probably you´ll loose its track, and when Fear wears off, it´ll be back with a gang of its mates running nastily towards you with no good intentions at all !!. Another inconvenient could be that Fear and specially Darkness spells have got a high resistance rate, so if the prey you are to fight´s got a high MR (magic resistance) you could be in problems because they´ll keep resisting your spells. Avoid such situation and go in stead for low magic resistance ones. In the ´where to hunt´ section I have chosen preys for you with low MR ( hey, I´m a nice guy, am I not? ). Finally, I must mention that while the critter is running away due to the Fear spell efects, another crittet could jump in the fight if it was passing by, or if Darkness brakes free while monster´s Feared away. That why is important to choose a quite spot to pull your preys into.
Ok, I acknowledge it, this is not a necro´s original strategy. It´s just a plain copy of druids´s kitting technique, but hey, It´s worth to give it a try, aint it?
Well, first of all you gotta know that SoW (Spirit of Wolf spell) is a druid´s, shamman´s and high lvl ranger´s spells that allows you to almost double your running speed up.
Steps to be followed :
1. Much alike the previous combo, you´ll need a openfield zone in order to run arround.
2. Ask any kind druid or shamman to cast SoW on you. You might have to tip him (2 pp should be enough).
3. Type ´/pet no taunt´ in order to obligate him not to stop the critter on its way towards you.
4. Spot any clear, mob-free area and pull the monster with Darkness. Send pet in straight off.
5. Now, cast away all your DoTs. This, along with the /pet no taunt command, will make the critter to aggro on you like a maniac.
6. Run forrest, run!!. With the SoW and Darkness effects combined up, you can easily outrun it. Picture this : You´r running arround in wide circles, critter is following you full DoTed, and pet´s kicking its back (actually the pet could be considered as another DoT in this strategy).
7. The main issue will be to keep darkness up, and renew DoTs as needed. If darkness wears off and you don´t renew it, your pet won´t be able to follow the critter and you´ll have to enlarge your running circles, and that´s dangerous cause there´ll be more posibilities for another monster to join in the train, and you definitily don´t want that !!
8. Eventually, the monster will drop dead to floor due to your nasty powefull DoTs.
Adventages : Again, you should be able to finish the battle with your HP bar full up, and as long as SoW´s effects are up, you won´t be in real danger since you can outrun the critter in case something turns out wrong.
Drawbacks : There are more drawbacks than in the previously shown combo : First, you need an outdoors zone. Second, you need to get a druid or shamman to cast SoW on you (not always easy to get because this spell is highly demmanded and SoW casters may get annoyed of people keep begging for it). Third, it will take longer time than the Darkness-Fear-DoT combo to kill the monster. Fourth, you´ll burn much more mana too, meaning longer medding downtimes. Fifth, and this is the main one, since you are running arround, another critters could join up the first one on its way towards you, and then you´ll have an ugly train on you. Is this comes to happend, do not hesitate : head to zone staight away, or cast either gate or feign death (check the spells list section if you don´t know theese spells). One way to solve this out is to have the widest view possible hitting in the keybord F9 and moving the mouse till you find the propper angle. This will allow you to have a large oversight of the area you are running in.
3. Lifetap series mellee fighting :
Lifetap series are one of the main series of the necromancer´s armaments. They ´steal´ a certain amount of the monster´s HP to be added on yourself. Check the spells list section if needed.
This technique is only feasible in early levels since later on the critters will hit just too hard to handle it. Using this strategy you´ll put yourself into mellee distance and therefore assume that you´ll get hit by the monster you are hunting in that moment. But hey, an adventurer´s life is always risky, isnt it?
Steps to follow :
1. Spot your next pray, no matter whether inside a dungeon or outdoors. Only requirement is it to be alone.
2. Have your pet to attack him.
3. Cast Siphon strengh (check spells list for more info) in order to debuff him, so his blows won´t hurt that much. Now, count few seconds and cast one DoT. Count again few more seconds and cast a second one. This is because if you cast few spells on a row on a critter, it´ll will forget about your pet and will focus its attacks on you. So let the pet to take some damage, but do not let him die at any rate.
4. When your pet´s life is more than half gone, it´s time for you to put your boxing gloves on and get into mellee distance. It would be adviceable for you to be brandishing any kind of weapon (since this strategy is only meant for low levels, I´d go for a runed totem staff - DMG 9, DLY 36, 2 hands, price 15 pp) and use it against your prey in autoattack mode (press ´a´ button in the keyboard). The monster will forget about your pet, turn arround and face you within seconds.
5. Now, it´s all about timing. If you try to cast lifetap with no timing sense, the monster´s blows with brake up your concentartion stopping your casting. What you´ve got to do is to hold on till it hits you, and straight after cast your lifetap series spell. Most of the times you´ll have time enough to cast it succeesfully between blows. This way you will recover back some of the HP lost out of the moster´s strokes.
6. If you see that your HP are dropping down too fast and that you won´t be able to make it, just step back few meters and let the pet to take some more damage while you cast few more lifetaps. With this new extra life you have just gained, walk again into mellee (by this time your pet´s HP bar should be dangerously aproaching its very end).
7. When everything is finished, sit down and meditate long minutes. Have your pet to sit down too ( /pet sit down command) and he´ll start regenerate his own HP much fater.
Adventages : Actually, since low levels DoTs really suck, this will be your only way to hunt untill you reach level 12, when you get two powerfull DoTs (Engulfing darkness and Heat blood) and then you´ll be able to use the first combo descrived above. Also, you don´t cast Fear with this strategy, so you can use it in whatever zone you want to hunt in, and thats always nice.
Drawbacks : Necromancers are casters, and as casters they haven´t got plenty of HP . Therefore, getting yourself into mellee is always risky. Also, you´ve got to have the timing practiced, or the monster won´t let you cast those lovely refreshing lifetap spells away. Finally, since you and your pet will get pretty kicked, medding up times will be a bit longer (HP regeneration is slower than mana points regeneration), but as i said before, there´s not really any other way of hunting at low levels.
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