2nd Class with Necromancer?

[Dongmyeong]

I just bought the main game and AoM and for nostalgia reasons, I definetely want to make Necromancer my primary class.
I wonder though what for 2nd. I've read many recommendations to make a Death Knight, but I never liked playing melee classes in ARPGs. So I'm looking for a Mage-style 2nd class.

Another question: What's the recommended difficuly to have most fun? I don't want a Dark Souls style die a lot fest, but if a game is too easy it can also make it less engaging. So what's a good balance? "Normal" difficulty can mean anything these days.

[Faust Wither]

combine it with arcanist and soldier for good balance. for pet combo go shaman or occultist, great mobility demolitionist, oathkeeper and nightblade.

[Mochan]

If you are looking to go Necro and want to go caster, the most important question is are you going Pet or not?

Decide which way you are going to go. If you are going Pet, you will want to get either Occultist or Shaman, Occultist is preferred but Shaman also works.

If you're not going Pet, then you need to decide what skill you'll be focusing on. For Necro melee is actually the easier path. Necro's caster skills actually are not very good, is better to go Pet. But if you want to go caster style, you will probably want to go Drain Essence and Bone Harvest, which means a Vitality build. That means Occultist or Shaman anyway.

So likely your best choices are Occultist and Shaman, in that order.

For a caster type though I actually recommend using Occultist attack spells rather than Necro. Drain Essence is hard to get to work early in the game, it's just not very good until it gets item support in the higher levels. Bone Harvest is crippled by its cooldown so you can't rely on it without having to melee or cast something else.

[LotusBlade]

'Normal' in Grim Dawn means "nothing can kill you, except act bosses", so you don't need to use potions, buff flasks, faction augments etc. But there is "veteran" mark so you can ramp difficulty up and it get's more interesting.

'Elite' is not much different, but you will have to max all resistances to 80%, which is challenging + must find 'life steal %' on few items. Elite here feels closer to Diablo 2 normal difficulty or Titan Quest first 2 acts on normal.

...

As for Necromancer and overall Grim Dawn, unfortunately, i haven't found mage or range classes viable and most builds i did became melee. Monsters will still get you and will hit for 4k dmg from one shot, so you can't just make glass cannon mage and hope to stop them before they reach you. After dieing for few times you will become angry and start either pet build or melee knight.

[Pisaro]

Elite is like first 2 acts in Titan Quest? Sure? I mean, the first 2 acts in Titan Quest are veeeeeeery easy.

[Canteu]

Oathkeeper goes well because of the vitality synergy. Ravenous Earth can be used for the entire game.

If you know what you're doing, GD is pretty low in terms of challenge.

[FormerFishFarmer]

I've never had much luck with Casters, personally, however, I have found that, in this game, many of the "traditional" caster rolls are filled by firearms.
If you go Necromancer/Inquisitor, you can get Dual Pistols early on. Pair the high damage and rate of fire on a good set of pistols with a Necromancers' lifesteal abilities and you have at least a manageable amount of survival. Honestly, I wouldn't expect to go all the way through Ultimate on my first try, anyway.
Mess around with whatever sounds fun, see if it works, and then use that character as a mule if it turns out as a dud. Use what you learned and earned to start your next character out a little better planned and equipped.
Hope this helps.

[Mochan]

Originally posted by LotusBlade:

'Normal' in Grim Dawn means "nothing can kill you, except act bosses", so you don't need to use potions, buff flasks, faction augments etc. But there is "veteran" mark so you can ramp difficulty up and it get's more interesting.

'Elite' is not much different, but you will have to max all resistances to 80%, which is challenging + must find 'life steal %' on few items. Elite here feels closer to Diablo 2 normal difficulty or Titan Quest first 2 acts on normal.

...

As for Necromancer and overall Grim Dawn, unfortunately, i haven't found mage or range classes viable and most builds i did became melee. Monsters will still get you and will hit for 4k dmg from one shot, so you can't just make glass cannon mage and hope to stop them before they reach you. After dieing for few times you will become angry and start either pet build or melee knight.

Have to agree, Necro just isn't very good at anything but pets and melee. Ravenous Earth and Bone Harvest are nice but the cooldown means you are gonna need to find something else to do while waiting for the skill to come back online... which usually means melee.

[Dongmyeong]

Pets were part of my Diablo 2 Necromancer build back in the day and relying on them to avoid having to melee yourself actually fits with how I'd view a Necromancer in combat.

I wouldn't mind playing a firearm 2ndary class instead of a mage one, I just don't like melee in ARPGs. Is that one the Inquisitor that was mentioned? Consensus so far seems to be that one, Shaman or Oathkeeper.
Either way even if mage/range has a bad rep, I guess I can play it anyway and select "normal" instead of "elite" difficulty with it, to make it harder than normal from playstyle.

Willing to listen to more opinions though. My mouse is acting up and the replacement is still in the mail, so I wont start playing it for a few days.
Also some advice for the first few skills to learn would be handy.

[FormerFishFarmer]

The Inquisitor is a duel wielding ranged character with access to auras, traps, and channeled spells. It's generally not considered a "best in class" option to pair with the Necromancer for a pet build, but you have made it clear that you want to stand back and do ranged damage while your minions tank your enemies. And the class can be very, very good at that. It also gives you immediate access to ranged dual wielding and lots of AoE elemental attacks that activate off of your default attack.

[Mochan]

Originally posted by Dongmyeong:

Pets were part of my Diablo 2 Necromancer build back in the day and relying on them to avoid having to melee yourself actually fits with how I'd view a Necromancer in combat.

I wouldn't mind playing a firearm 2ndary class instead of a mage one, I just don't like melee in ARPGs. Is that one the Inquisitor that was mentioned? Consensus so far seems to be that one, Shaman or Oathkeeper.
Either way even if mage/range has a bad rep, I guess I can play it anyway and select "normal" instead of "elite" difficulty with it, to make it harder than normal from playstyle.

Willing to listen to more opinions though. My mouse is acting up and the replacement is still in the mail, so I wont start playing it for a few days.
Also some advice for the first few skills to learn would be handy.

I would caution against doing a hybrid character if you are serious about doing Ultimate later on. Hybrid - as in part pet build and part not-Pet build - is generally weak in Grim Dawn. You'll be fine in Normal but the seams will start coming undone in Elite and if you make it to Ultimate you'll regret your choice and probably switch to another build. Hybrid Pet is difficult to do in Grim Dawn due to the nature of how pet and player bonuses work.

For a first time through the game it shouldn't be an issue though while you're playing Normal.

[Dongmyeong]

Originally posted by TheEvilFatGuy:

The Inquisitor is a duel wielding ranged character with access to auras, traps, and channeled spells. It's generally not considered a "best in class" option to pair with the Necromancer for a pet build, but you have made it clear that you want to stand back and do ranged damage while your minions tank your enemies. And the class can be very, very good at that. It also gives you immediate access to ranged dual wielding and lots of AoE elemental attacks that activate off of your default attack.

Sounds interesting!

Originally posted by Mochan:

I would caution against doing a hybrid character if you are serious about doing Ultimate later on. Hybrid - as in part pet build and part not-Pet build - is generally weak in Grim Dawn. You'll be fine in Normal but the seams will start coming undone in Elite and if you make it to Ultimate you'll regret your choice and probably switch to another build. Hybrid Pet is difficult to do in Grim Dawn due to the nature of how pet and player bonuses work.

For a first time through the game it shouldn't be an issue though while you're playing Normal.

Not very serious. I played other ARPGs over the last few years and generally once completing a game on standard difficulty I prefer to play again with a different class, rather than with the same character on a higher difficulty.
Just in case, though: How exensive is re-speccing?

[Takeda]

Arcanist

Lvl 95 Spellbinder .. decent gear (yes purple stuff) but not the rarest of the rare .. just installed Forgotten Realms and I've been out of the loop for at least 4 months .. 189k DPS

I see around the 95k mark crits on an ultimate level target dummy..

11.4k health .. perfect resistances .. Mark of Torment/Mirror of Ero/Oxera's Freeze .. not much gets into melee range and there's a lot of damage mitigation when it does

[Jonny Sparta]

respeccing is cheap and easy from what i've seen. I don't know if we can reset class chioce but it seems like all the pts can be refunded cheaply and easily.

[Faust Wither]

Originally posted by Jonny Sparta:

respeccing is cheap and easy from what i've seen. I don't know if we can reset class chioce but it seems like all the pts can be refunded cheaply and easily.

nah you can't reset class, you need mod or 3rd party program for this.

[Dongmyeong]

Started playing today. Some more questions:

1. Not been suggested in this thread, but I've read elsewhere that if you want a 2nd class that gives who some bonus to your pets, without committing you totally to a pet-focused build like Occultist and Shaman would you should go for Demolitionist. With Flame Touched and Temper making your Skeletons stronger, while otherwise providing active skills that would fit for Pyromancy Mage.
Any of you tried that or is my info outdated?

2. I "lost" my first character after quitting. With my 2nd one I made sure to go back to town first and also exiting to main menu first and then quitting from there. Would rather not do that every time.
What exactly do I need to do to make sure my character is saved?

3. Playing on my TV from a distance I like being able to scale the UI, but that sometimes cuts off the text. Is that a bug the developers haven't fixed yet or a problem on my end?
My mouse pointer does not disappear at the edges of the screen so it can't be an overscan issue.