Notes/Tips for Necromancer.

[Victory Skeleton]

Hello, I just wanted to share my experience so far, what's been working well and stuff I've figured out, I was hoping to get some other people's perspectives as well. I play on Legend.

Base Kit: Malediction is amazing and 20% damage against burning things is huge.
Don't sleep on dumping your overcharge by "reloading" a skeleton. It's a little clunky to pull out the skull in the middle of combat, but once you get the muscle memory down it's super useful not only if you need to use your staff more, but to avoid the attack speed penalty from having high overcharge.

Talents:
Level 10: I haven't used anything other than Reaping for the infinite cleave + Power. It's just absolutely amazing clearing the whole screen with a heavy attack, multiples elites at a time, etc.

Level 20: When I tried out Cursed Blood it didn't trigger that often. You have to set an enemy on fire and then crit them, which can be pretty situational. Soul Harvest is really solid for extra crits, but you need to make sure enemies are on fire first. There's ways around it, but it means you can't just throw heavy attacks with the Scythe. Changes the playstyle a bit. Withering Touch is currently my favorite. Even releasing a skelly at zero overcharge to get the flame on all attacks. 15 seconds of setting things on fire is amazing, and allows you to just Soul Rip / Spam Heavies without worrying about setting things on fire first.

Level 25: Lost Souls is awesome and a ton of temp health. Using it I was full of temp hp the whole game. Spirit Leech is my favorite, though. Getting your skellies back faster is really effin' good.

Level 30: I have tried all three but have had the best results with Army of the Dead. Spamming skeletons is a really fun strat and gives you lots of targets for releasing them. Plus it makes purple potions hilarious. It makes it so you can just hit your career skill every time you have it and it's one less thing to think about. Highly recommend.

Reaper:
This thing is great. Only two dodges, but that's fine. Light 2 and the Push Attack set enemies on fire for Malediction purposes or for farming Soul Harvest. Heavy 1+2 and Light 3+4 are all side to side sweeps. The heavies definitely cleave through multiple armored targets.
Combos:
Spam Light Attacks - Very effective for fighting a single enemy or low density things or in a choke point like a doorway or a hallway. Also something you can do while you're panicking.
Push Attack, Heavy Attack - This is what I used for Soul Harvest spam. Set some enemies on fire and then do a big sweep. Has the added benefit of doing decent stagger. You will eventually run out of Stamina.
Push Attack, Heavy Attack, Light 3, Light 4 - Same as above, but gives you some time to recover some stamina, Light attacks are good for crit fishing.
Light 1, Light 2, Block Cancel - Can opener for chaos warriors. Seems slightly faster than other options and allows you to dodge dance easily.
Spam Heavy Attacks - Works great for everything. Basically all I use while running Withering Touch.

Soulstealer:
Man I sure do love brain burst.
Primary attacks for setting things on fire. You can spam it easily at a horde while it's running up to you. If you can't oneshot something with soul rip, throw a light attack first to get the 20% damage buff from Malediction.

Soul rip has been one shotting everything on Legend with Enhanced Power and 10% vs Chaos. (I haven't fought beastmen yet) Light Attack, Soul Rip, Soul Rip also kills Chaos Warriors, or Withering Touch and two soul rips also kills them. Pretty neat and very consistent, but it's kinda slow in tense situations. Also charging the soul rip does a small amount of damage and staggers a lot of things before the Pop. I've staggered gas rats, leeches, assassins, and the dual axe berserkers. Neat.

Curious to hear what other people's experiences have been like so far!

[Lord Inquisitor =||=]

Thank you for the help.

[Prince Lestat224]

legit as ive been testing stuff on cata now in my personal opinion all the skellies die almost instantly EXCEPT if you grab the level 30 talent that gives them more hp and damage, ON TOP OF getting BOTH attack and defense buffs and a charge attack which lets your skellies stagger everything short of a monster and hunt them down, ive found allot of value out of the corpse explosion thing just because it also activates on RANGED crits letting me occasionally one shot chaos targets ( not chaos warriors mind you but maulers berserkers ) ect) been absolutely LOVING the flamimg fail on necro so far, not just because its good for armour but because heavy 1 leaving an easy fire dot in an aoe.

[Victory Skeleton]

Originally posted by Prince Lestat224:

legit as ive been testing stuff on cata now in my personal opinion all the skellies die almost instantly EXCEPT if you grab the level 30 talent that gives them more hp and damage, ON TOP OF getting BOTH attack and defense buffs and a charge attack which lets your skellies stagger everything short of a monster and hunt them down, ive found allot of value out of the corpse explosion thing just because it also activates on RANGED crits letting me occasionally one shot chaos targets ( not chaos warriors mind you but maulers berserkers ) ect) been absolutely LOVING the flamimg fail on necro so far, not just because its good for armour but because heavy 1 leaving an easy fire dot in an aoe.

I forgot about the fire damage on Heavy 1! I'll definitely have to give this a try.

[Ing. Ithiridiel]

Originally posted by Prince Lestat224:

legit as ive been testing stuff on cata now in my personal opinion all the skellies die almost instantly EXCEPT if you grab the level 30 talent that gives them more hp and damage, ON TOP OF getting BOTH attack and defense buffs and a charge attack which lets your skellies stagger everything short of a monster and hunt them down, ive found allot of value out of the corpse explosion thing just because it also activates on RANGED crits letting me occasionally one shot chaos targets ( not chaos warriors mind you but maulers berserkers ) ect) been absolutely LOVING the flamimg fail on necro so far, not just because its good for armour but because heavy 1 leaving an easy fire dot in an aoe.

I've been playing some cata without those talents, and if you order skellies to defend they can tank an elite overhead, i'd even say they can tank several of them.

[Qua2ar]

Originally posted by Ing. Ithiridiel:

Originally posted by Prince Lestat224:

legit as ive been testing stuff on cata now in my personal opinion all the skellies die almost instantly EXCEPT if you grab the level 30 talent that gives them more hp and damage, ON TOP OF getting BOTH attack and defense buffs and a charge attack which lets your skellies stagger everything short of a monster and hunt them down, ive found allot of value out of the corpse explosion thing just because it also activates on RANGED crits letting me occasionally one shot chaos targets ( not chaos warriors mind you but maulers berserkers ) ect) been absolutely LOVING the flamimg fail on necro so far, not just because its good for armour but because heavy 1 leaving an easy fire dot in an aoe.

I've been playing some cata without those talents, and if you order skellies to defend they can tank an elite overhead, i'd even say they can tank several of them.

Skaven slave overhead maybe.

[Ing. Ithiridiel]

Originally posted by Qua2ar:

Originally posted by Ing. Ithiridiel:

I've been playing some cata without those talents, and if you order skellies to defend they can tank an elite overhead, i'd even say they can tank several of them.

Skaven slave overhead maybe.

They easily tank chaos warriors, maulers, stormvermin overheads, as well as berserker flurries for quite some time. You just have to command them.

[Formous]

I have had less effect with Army. It's overall the worse option of the three. Given it's basic skeletons. I would like if that skill also reduced overall cooldown as well, since you give up meaningful buffs. Or at least let them last longer. The CD is just too high to make it useful.