Which Race is better for Necromancy?

[Acebrandon117]

In Relation to my Previous Discussion about the necromancers.

[AnimeKnowAll]

It all boils down to ur preference on which race u like to use or most familiar with cause ghoul units share the same function as their living counterparts. They do lean slightly more to support units due to a research which grants all support units "Heal Undead". If ur Shadowborn then their lifesteal research gives their melee units a keen edge. However some race bonuses are useless, for example fast healing wont work since ghouls cant heal by themselves.

Ghouls are immune to blight resistant to frost but weak to fire and spirit and cant be mind controlled by normal means. So you can choose some races to try and offset their weakness.

[MrNo]

My personal preference is Goblin:

-Cheaper reanimators and deathbringers
-Lesser reanimate on swarm darters/untouchables (which I usually spam)
-Use untouchables as expendable units, raise them as cadavers if they die. Raised cadavers keep ranks. Easy to get quick gold-rank cadavers.
-High rank blight doctors inflict huge morale penalties, works well with lost souls, and as Anime pointed out, they get Heal Undead pretty fast.
-You're already in the swarm mentality, keep with it. Also, swarms combine well with Bone collector and Corpus Furia; your front ranks may well fall, but your followup will crush your opponent.
-Inflict Weakened at max racial governance.
-Pop bonus to help offset necromancer's slower growth

Disadvantages lie in fragility (you almost always want embalmers guild) and effectiveness vs undead: necro is already bad at dealing with other undead, and making a ton of your units blight focused doens't help. Blight doctors don't do enough to offset this.

Other races I've experimented with:
-Elves: Lightning helps vs enemy undead, though you lose the total immunity to blight. Reanimators get Total Awareness

-Orcs: Throw curse on reanimators, bonus health offsets Ghoul minus, very high physical damage (what I find necro most often lacks).

-Frostling: I never much liked them as necromancers, but the frost/fire damage on witches/whatever unit they buff can be nice, and if you can push out an early deathbringer (so, before late game) their units are very good for promoting ghouling.

[Caulder]

Ive always liked human necros for the fact there base 10 production bonus helps with the lower growth and they get super calvery fast to help deal with your horrable early game

[Lacho]

In the forums i have read Halflings are regarded as premiere Necromancers. Personally i like

Draconian:
-Pseudo Global Assault with profet racial governance bonus + Cathedral of Bones and units enhancement building. You will be producing units with 3-4 medals right off the bat. Kind of like a warlord, but with the ability to swarm.
-Cadavers keep the rank from the unit they spawn, so your defeated elite units will reanimate into cadavers with resurgence.

Other perks include:
-Embalmers Guild + Draconian Elders + Healers of the Dead
-Draconian Reanimator has Bane Fire
-Draconian Crusher becomes a though to defeat unit with greater life stealing + regrowth
-Draconian Charger gets insanely good with lesser flying + regrowth + greater life stealing
Picture the above with Power Ritual.

Plus draconians negates the starting fire weakness while losing their ice weakness.

[MrNo]

Geeze, how could I forget halflings... well, I don't play them under any circumstances is how, but anyways:

The benefits of halflings run along the lines of being able to boost undead to extremely high morale (reanimators give happiness boost, +puppets happiness bonus), from which they cannot be brought down, resulting in an extremely high crit rate all the time.

[liosalpha]

did the undead have morale? (i never played them succesfully thou)

[hiliadan]

You can check the stats here for an indication: www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=ladderstats

Necromancer Draconians was selected by 17 players (2% of total)
Necromancer Dwarves was selected by 13 players (1% of total)
Necromancer Elves was selected by 7 players (1% of total)
Necromancer Frostlings was selected by 23 players (3% of total)
Necromancer Goblins was selected by 7 players (1% of total)
Necromancer Halflings was selected by 2 players (0% of total)
Necromancer Humans was selected by 14 players (2% of total)
Necromancer Orcs was selected by 4 players (0% of total)
Necromancer Tigrans was selected by 9 players (1% of total)

Frostlings and Draconians come on top.
Halflings are almost not used at all.

Personally, I prefer Draconians because I play with Weak starting armies and it usually means 3 Hatchling (sometimes less because of the bonus for starting army Necro enjoys) which can evolve into stronger units, which is great for a crazy start.
Also, Draconians have Fire resistance as noted by several other people, which compensate the weakness of Ghouls.
And Draconians have a flying T3, great on the strategic and tactical map.

[Gloweye]

Originally posted by liosalpha:

did the undead have morale? (i never played them succesfully thou)

Yes, but they're no affected by most modifiers.

The only ones that work are Master of Puppets (ghouls only), Halfling Reanimator's Memories of Joy, and Halfling RG's 200 boost.

The negative ones pretty much all work, but they're immune to despair and have 100% blight resistance, so it doesn't happen as much.

Most relevant are Broken Spirit, Immolation, and Weakening that affect their morale.

I like Frostlings as a race for them, since the Royal Guards can become just insane, with Life Drain, Tireless(gold medal), strong damage. They punch out (unlevelled) Manticores in 1 on 1 battles. And that's without White Witch Support.

Halfling is a weird one. Early game is even harder due to the -1 Defense from ghouls and the 20% physical weakness from race. However, it's offset by their even stronger late game produced units - their Deathbringers with 400 Morale, backstab and lucky are insanely strong, their reanimators trigger lucky in all their units to become more likely.

Draconian: Just try Chargers with Greater Life Steal and regrowth buffed by Elders....these guys do insane damage.

[Morphic]

I second Halflings for the ridiculous Morale bonuses equating to high Crit Procs and Lucky. Though Frostlings is a straight up synergy with Necromancer. Nothing like rolling Cathedral of Bones + Ice Palace to essentially have ~Elite-Champion Medal Recruits lol.

With that said; my favourite Necromancer combo is Humans with Shadowborn Adept and Wild Magic Mastery.

Wild Magic for using easy combo'es like Spontaneous Mutation and Unstable Mutation on "Trash" like Cadavers. Shadowborn for Lifesteal and various bonuses.

Humans is mostly for 3 reasons. Easy keeping Calvary alive which equals early Knights and cheaper Upkeep. Priests being naturally resistant to Spirit while doing Spirit Damage which gives you a nice soft counter to other Necromancers. Finally the Production Racial Trait helps Early Game growth plus the Governance options are nice. Fast Learner or increased Pop Growth, more damage etc.

Oh yeah, can't forget the Medal Bonus stacking Necromancer gets... ergo getting new Calvary 1 medal away from Knighthood lol. I could be biased but I feel Human Necromancer gives more versatility than any other Race since you'll have soft counters to other Necromancers and other Race units. Undead Knights with Strongwill essentially are naturally better than normal ones etc.

[glythe]

The most powerful combination I've seen for the Necromancer are Draconians or Tigran. Both races give you access to fire attacks (more from Draconians) which gives you a nice boost against undead units. I play both with Shadowborn Mastery and Water Adept. The Lifesteal and passive buffs from Shadow really make lower tier units a lot more powerful. Water gives you the ability to freeze enemies on water/make bridges as well as giving you rot which trivializes encounters with high tier undead/machines. Water also gives you the baby Kraken which is not always useful but can be very strong on the right map.

Both races have nice resistances that round out the necromancer very well. Tigran gives you 40% spirit resistance. Draconian gives you 20% fire resistance. Both have a 20% cold weakness which overall does not impede necromancers much. Draconian gives more mana and Tigran gives more gold both of which are helpful.

On racial governance both have an easy to skip alternative that gives +1 rank on creation. Draconian crushers/chargers get regeneration early on and get fire damage with the deity level. Tigrans get +1 physical and double chance to critical hit on deity level, with a slightly better overall economy.

As far as early units go the Tigran sungard is crazy in that it gets +60% fire protection. Tigran cheetah is also very strong with pounce as it can attack and end in guard mode. Tigran Mysitic has break control which is also extremely nice and deals fire/spirit damage (trumping the human mage in overal versatility).

Draconian hatchlings can be annoying to use and evolve into units on rank up (random). Draconian crushers/chargers are pretty overpowered with lifesteal from embrace darkness+regrowth (and borderline broken when you unlock vampiric hunger). Draconiam Mystic has a nice fire damage boost that also sheilds against fire damage.The Draconian Flamer is very strong vs grouped up units. Both the Mystic and Flamer have lava walking which can completely change the underground game.


My first necro race was a goblin. It was a lot of fun but the problem is that you only have physical and poison damage. Similarly Frostling gives you way too much in the cold category. Those can be fun and might be a nice hard counter if you knew your enemy was going to play a specific build. Try playing as Tigran/Draconian and see for yourself if anything comes remotely close.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

I still like Goblin necromancers best. Yes, you only get blight and physical damage, but you also get spells that give everyone Weakened (60% blight vulnerability) and your class units inflict extra blight damage where applicable. (Reanimators & Deathbringers)

Also, stacks of buffed Butchers and Reanimators are some of the most cost-effective cannon fodder out there. With up to triple life-stealing, possible Resurgence on the Reanimators, and the ability to reanimate any butchers that do die, they can and will slaughter tier 3 and 4 opposition for hardly any gold at all. (Volunteer butchers!) Add in Deathbringers to complete the fun times.

Undead Trolls with Regrowth are also a lot of fun.

That said, if you're looking for a competitive option, Glythe is correct. It's better to have access to fire damage and good resistances.

[glythe]

Overall my favorite three choices are Draconian, Goblin and Tigran. For whateve reason the others are just kinda boring to me by comparison or are much weaker.

Draconins have better military units (flamer is aoe, flamer/elder immune to fire+lavawalking, regrowth on crusher/charger. Fire works well on pretty much everything except a few select enemies - Draconians, Tigran Sun guard, Expert Tigran Sphinx, Nightmares (etc) . Against Draconians your undead can lifesteal and they cannot do the same so you automatically win.

Goblins are amazing at killing anything living but they struggle more than the other two options against undead. Getting Undead plague with expander can make your first city very large if you get it early on with fertility rites. The only bad matchup as goblins (besides undead) are special blight creatures, elementals and other goblins (mostly big beetles). Once again you win against the living because of leech. Gold medal versions of Big Beetle+Goblin Blight doctor= -1400 morale debuff. Combos very well with lost souls/Banshee (who can subtract 500 morale more). Weaken from the doctor will subtract another 200 but you can also get weaken with the Death Bringer . It is no surprise that worst morale units convert a lot more often. This combo is part of why I think you might like goblins.


Tigran bonuses kind of look like crap on paper. I go for patron/diety military and put everything else into economic (prophet can go either way but economic helps get more critical hits). On a big map Tigran economic bonuses can add up. Critical hits combined with a class that has many ways of reducing morale can cause some massive damage and trivialize certain encounters. Sprint is also extremely powerful against non AI (but works just fine against the AI too). But overall Tigrans are not as good as Draconians because their early tier units eventually can't compete with tier III-IV unts. Draconian crushers (make sure they are embalmed) can last you the entire game. When you start getting them over 100 hp they're pretty much invulnerable if you use them defensively. But on the other hand Tigran Mystics shut down the Theocrat's ability to turn undead.


Other reasons to play Draconian:

Fire resistance helps vs Dreadnought's end tier units.
Fire immunity/resistance is a lifesaver on several tactical maps.
Fire Damage wins easily against every other necromancer.
Fire Damage trivializes high tier fights against undead (especially with rot)
Fire Damage does well against end tier units from just about every class. ( beware of exceptions like the draconian warlord manticore)


Reasons not to play Draconian:

Draconian theocrat will be a very tough match. (therefore you always go Shadoborn Master)
You want to counter a Theocrat player so you chose Tigran instead.
Goblins make more cute noises.
Getting non Draconian necromancer heroes can mess up Dragon Ancestry
You might get bored steamrolling everything with tier 1 units ( rewrowth+lifesteal= OP)
Hatchlings are really annoying because they won't ever turn into what you want.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by glythe:

Goblins make more cute noises.

Truth. Very important.

I also don't like the idea of a Draconian necromancer as much as a Frostling or Goblin or Tigran. To be quite honest, Draconians are my second-least favourite race simply for aesthetic reasons.

[glythe]

Do me a favor and post your leader :P


http://s1124.photobucket.com/user/Glythe/media/AOWL1.png.html?sort=3&o=0

http://s1124.photobucket.com/user/Glythe/media/AOWL2.png.html?sort=3&o=1

http://s1124.photobucket.com/user/Glythe/media/AOWL3.png.html?sort=3&o=0


Before we go making fun of Draconians I want to point out the reason I use that helmet on the goblin is because their ears/teeth are pretty damn goofy looking.

These are my favorite Necros based on power as well as aesthetics (in this order). Playing without water on my Goblins certainly makes the game interesting. If you get your expansion powers early you can outpace the growth of the AI on the highest setting (who most likely has a cheat for that).

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

I like that Tigran a lot. May take inspiration from that one.

As for goofy Goblins: that's pretty much the point. That way, when they conquer the world with their zombie armies, it's terrifying AND embarassing for the enemy.

Anyway, here's a couple of mine:

Goblin[s32.photobucket.com]
Frostling[s32.photobucket.com]