The Necromancer is a Mage class based on summoning pets and casting spells that deal unholy or cold damage.
Description[]
Necromancers bring the cursed and the dead back from beyond the mortal realm to do their bidding. The true power of the Necromancer is two-fold. With mastery of necromantic magic, they animate the dead and corrupt the living. This is complimented by their ability to marshal the freezing winds of death itself and deal devastating cold damage on those who would cross their path. Thus the icy touch of death is instilled in everything the Necromancer does and they have a wide variety of spells and magic to call upon.
Spells like ‘Flesh to Worms’ and ‘Pestilential Blast’ deal unholy damage to their targets while ‘Gelid Bones’ and ‘Ice Strike’ inflict cold damage. The power of death itself provides the Necromancer with this tainted arsenal and their ability to manipulate it is unsurpassed.
Not content with simply smiting their foes, the Necromancer can also use their dark arts to boost their allies. Spells like ‘Runed Flesh’ allow the Necromancer's team to absorb some damage, while ‘Bone Ward’ increases the Necromancer's defenses.
Finally, the Necromancer may also command the dead themselves. Animating the corpses of the fallen, the Necromancer can summon forth a series of twisted cadavers to do their bidding.
With the ability to summon various types of creatures including Undead Minions, Deathless Acolytes and Dread Archmage, the Necromancer can ensure that their minions are at hand to deal with any enemies that get too close.
Like much of the magic in Age of Conan, the abilities of Necromancers are greatly enhanced by their later abilities. For example, the pinnacle of their power, Tome of Epithur, provides a boost to ‘Ice Strike’ and ‘Deathly Blizzard’ spells and triggers an additional freeze effect.
Likewise, their ‘Pestilential Blast’ and ‘Blasphemous Ruin’ spells benefit from an additional ‘Gangrenous Touch’ effect. Additionally, it increases the amount of health returned from the Lifeleech spell and while active, any attacks against the Necromancer have a chance of applying a healing effect on the caster. Finally, ‘Pestilential Blast’ grants additional cold and unholy damage to the caster's team.
Their mastery over death means that Necromancers are among the most feared practitioners of magic on the battlefield. Their icy grasp and command of undead mean that they are a threat not to be taken lightly.[1]
Game Description[]
The air around Necromancers chills as they spread their corruptive and devastating magic. Necromancers can raise the dead and command them to do their bidding and wield the cold and unholy sorceries of the grave.
Class Fantasy[]
Necromancers summon and command the undead and they are legion. Their ghoulish minions are capable of tearing men apart or casting their own death magic. The rotten corpses of the dead follow, wherever the necromancer leads. Evil and twisted Necromancers bring the cursed and dead back from beyond the mortal realm to do their bidding.
The dark magic wielded by necromancers ranges from the unholy to pestilent corruption and the freezing touch of death. Through careful study they can develop the ability to call corpses from the earth to rise up and surround a foe or even attain lichdom, turning themselves into terrifying undead archmages.
The master of unholy magic, the Necromancer animates the dead and corrupts the living. Looking down on the Demonologist for needing to strike bargains for power, the Necromancer needs no such crutch, relying on their own mastery of death to dispatch their enemies.
Summoning Pets[]
The Necromancer's pet summoning is based on a point system. The Necromancer can accrue up to 8 "pet points" by level 20. The Necromancer can also increase their pet points via the One with Death feat that can be invoked up to three times. However, each application costs -50% to all invulnerabilities. At most, the Necromancer will then have 11 pet points, which may be allotted to summoning pets of different levels of power. For instance, a high-level necromancer character can use all eleven points to summon eleven minions as pets, or the they may summon four (five with 2x One With Death) low-level magic pets that cost two points each or two Arch-level magic pets costing 4 points each. The Necromancer may have more than 11 creatures out at one time, because of additional abilities that create temporary units which live on a timed life (i.e. Frozen Hate Beasts, and Parasitic Skulls).
Pet Abilities[]
Different pets will have different functions. In addition to doing damage they have abilities to drain stamina or mana, inflict extra unholy damage, heal the Necromancer (and party), boost the damage of the Necromancer (and party), cast AoE spells, and more.
Notable Feats[]
A Necromancer that focuses heavily in the Nightfall feat tree can actually be compared to a Demonologist, doing a bit less damage but being notably more durable given the various self healing abilities the Necromancer can obtain either directly or through their pets, along with a comparable number of crowd control abilities involving slowing, freezing or scaring away their enemies. The feat Spell - Despoil the Soul in particular grants spells to turn on and off sacrificing pet points for strong boosts to your magic damage output, when maxed with all 8 points the Necromancer's attack spells are effectively pound-for-pound matches to those of the Demonologist. A Necromancer in this state is said to be Despoiled, or in Despoiled Mode.
Tactics[]
Melee Bosses[]
Necromancers can also be surprisingly adept at soloing bosses with slightly different strategies needed for each type. For Melee bosses you need to make good use of the Necromancer's Root and Slowing abilities. All mage root abilities in the game like the Necromancer's Frost Blast or a Demonologist's Storm Chains instantly break when a hostile attack spell is cast on them. However, melee attacks from the Necromancer's pets do NOT break roots and because enemy NPCs always target the Necromancer instead of his or her pets, they won't be killed. A Necromancer can start off at long range and cast any damage dealing spell, then root the boss when its in range, move back, and get more range without attacking, while their pets attack the boss for the entire duration of the root. By the time it breaks the boss should have taken enough damage that the Necromancer can finish it off.
Note, as a Necromancer its highly unlikely to solo a melee heavy Boss (the second tier), due to them having so much health that they will be able to catch up to you and hit you past when your root and Slowing abilities last.
Ranged Bosses[]
For a ranged boss, especially a mage-type, find a large obstacle that can block the boss's line of sight. Then start the fight and order your pets to attack the boss while circling the obstacle and occasionally using Instant Cast damage spells. A Mage type boss that starts casting a spell at you will continue the entire casting animation and not fire the spell if you move behind the obstacle while they are casting.
All in all, you'll find this ability of using your pets to inflict reasonable constant damage on an enemy while you are out of range, out of sight, and constantly moving or even running to be very handy again and again (or just sit still and blast them with spells at the same time), making the Necromancer very adaptable to quite a large number of situations.
Images[]
References[]
- ↑ http://community.ageofconan.com/wsp/conan/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=1562&sort=PRIORITY&table=CONTENT Class Preview - Necromancer (2 Mar 07)
| Classes | |
|---|---|
| Priest | Priest of Mitra - Tempest of Set - Bear Shaman |
| Soldier | Conqueror - Dark Templar - Guardian |
| Rogue | Barbarian - Ranger - Assassin |
| Mage | Herald of Xotli - Demonologist - Necromancer |