19 réponses à ce sujet

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Hullo there. I would like your opinion on a Necromancer build that I have. I have been trying to make the Necromancer specialization work and be useful. 

Spells

 

Necromancer Specialization- 10 (Horror+, Spirit Mark+, Walking Bomb+, Death Siphon, Blinding Terror, Power of the Dead, Simulacrum)
Inferno School - 6 (Immolate, Wall of Fire+, Flashpoint, Pyromancer, Clean Burn)
Winter School - 3 (Fade Step+, Winter Stillness)
Storm School - 6 (Energy Barrage+, Static Cage+, Conductive Current, Static Charge)
Spirit School - 6 (Barrier+, Dispel, Peaceful Aura, Guardian Spirit, Rejuvenating Barrier)

Tactical Quickbar 

 

1) Horror.
2) Spirit Mark.
3) Walking Bomb.
4) Energy Barrage.
5) Wall of Fire.
6) Fade Step .
7) Static Cage. 
8) Barrier.

 

Explanation

The idea is to make an extremely flexible mage than can provide support and offense all at once without relying on anyone else in the party. I mean the Necromancer specialization is very much a support-style specialization that can do high damage over time so why not add in some flexibility to this. 

 

The build has damage over time, area of effect, debuffs, all types of elemental attack and some protection.

 

If I add leeching enchantments to my Inquisitor's staff, meaning 1% Health on Hit enchantment, when my Inquisitor dies and gets revived as a spirit due to Simulacrum passive, the Inquisitor will keep refilling their health just like normal. However, once the skill is over, your Inquisitor will not go unconscious and will still be alive since they have generated health during their duration as a spirit and will trick the game into thinking you were never dead. 

 

By the way, yes the build costs 31 points in total but consider this :- You will get 5 extra skill points throughout the entire game as an Inquisitor. There is one in Crestwood, one from Celene & Briala if you choose to unite them together, one in Forbidden Oasis, one from The Fade and one from the War Table. If you are a human, you will get 6 extra skill points because you are a human. As such, if you are a completionist freak like I am, you should be able to get this build at Level 26 or Level 25, which are the levels most reach at end game. 

 

Then there is the fact that you do not really need to give much crap about Focus and can just not bother with investing points or perks in them. 

 

So theoretically, you should be able to make a mage Inquisitor who is immortal and flexible. 

 

Downsides 

 

Mana. Necromancers have issues with mana, unlike Rift Mage or Knight Enchanters. 

 

The second is spell cost. Necromancer spells are very high in terms of their costs. 

 

The solutions to this is to enchant your gear appropriately and wear accessories that would reduce this issue. 

 

Teamwork

 

This would combo very well with Solas as a Rift Mage in your party. All that damage over time combined with Pull of the Abyss is just awesome. 

 

Additionally, while the fear and panic effect for Horror will not apply on enemies immune to them, the spirit damage over time, which you will get if you upgrade Horror, will still apply, if I am not mistaken. 

 

The only issue here is Cole. I have heard that he disapproves every time you toggle your Spirit Mark on or off. 

 

Thoughts & Comments ?

[Gya]

Interesting build, any plans to test it out? I would, but I'm still only halfway through my current rift mage pt, and even that's on hiatus while I MP it up a bit.

I love the idea of a DoT monster, which would play very differently from my self-combo heavy rift mage style, and keep things fresh if I can bring myself to grind through again some time in the future. I also like self sufficient builds, which allow for companion flexibility, and as far as theorycrafting goes, this build should work very nicely.

The only drawback I can see is the ff from WB, which will knock any melee characters on their butt, and I imagine it could be difficult to control the secondary explosions unlike a places spell such as immolate or fire mine.

Also, +1 for no focus ability, I also currently don't bother with one.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Interesting build, any plans to test it out? I would, but I'm still only halfway through my current rift mage pt, and even that's on hiatus while I MP it up a bit.

I love the idea of a DoT monster, which would play very differently from my self-combo heavy rift mage style, and keep things fresh if I can bring myself to grind through again some time in the future. I also like self sufficient builds, which allow for companion flexibility, and as far as theorycrafting goes, this build should work very nicely.

The only drawback I can see is the ff from WB, which will knock any melee characters on their butt, and I imagine it could be difficult to control the secondary explosions unlike a places spell such as immolate or fire mine.

Also, +1 for no focus ability, I also currently don't bother with one.

 

I tried playing without friendly fire but the game is just simply not optimized for it. Its as if Bioware developers just half arsed the friend fire so badly so that people do not use it which allows them to not bother with it in their future games. 

 

If you wish to play with friendly fire on, I recommend using Sword & Shield tanky characters to mitigate the effect of Walking Bomb.

 

Another thing about Simularcrum. If you have Death Siphon and Simulacrum and you kill someone in Spirit / Lich mode, when Simulacrum expires you will just resurrect normally because your character will gain health. This immortality thing gets more effective if you have lifesteal enchantments since Death Siphon is not known to trigger reliably all the time. 

 

As for Necromancer abilities, remember to detonate Walking Bomb when you have upgraded it and have cast the spell on an enemy that is surrounded by others. That way, the Walking Bomb spreads. For Spirit Mark, do not forget to deactivate it and for higher difficulty, just use it as a means to stack more damage over time. The occasional pet Giant is funny though.

 

I played as a Rift Mage previously and the issue with it is that it is like the Knight Enchanter in that once you know what to do, the game becomes cakewalk boring. For Knight Enchanter, all you need to do is mash Spirit Blade, Fade Cloak and Fade Step. For Rift Mage, just spam Pull of the Abyss and Fire Mine or Pull of the Abyss and Static Cage. 

 

I did playtest this a bit and the thing that stood out to me the most is this :- There is no such a thing as a bad build for the simple reason we can craft our own gear and towards end game you will be higher level than most opponents so you can just steamroll through them. 

 

So this build works fine but more importantly this build is fun. 

[Gya]

I tried playing without friendly fire but the game is just simply not optimized for it. Its as if Bioware developers just half arsed the friend fire so badly so that people do not use it which allows them to not bother with it in their future games.

If you wish to play with friendly fire on, I recommend using Sword & Shield tanky characters to mitigate the effect of Walking Bomb.

Another thing about Simularcrum. If you have Death Siphon and Simulacrum and you kill someone in Spirit / Lich mode, when Simulacrum expires you will just resurrect normally because your character will gain health. This immortality thing gets more effective if you have lifesteal enchantments since Death Siphon is not known to trigger reliably all the time.

As for Necromancer abilities, remember to detonate Walking Bomb when you have upgraded it and have cast the spell on an enemy that is surrounded by others. That way, the Walking Bomb spreads. For Spirit Mark, do not forget to deactivate it and for higher difficulty, just use it as a means to stack more damage over time. The occasional pet Giant is funny though.

I played as a Rift Mage previously and the issue with it is that it is like the Knight Enchanter in that once you know what to do, the game becomes cakewalk boring. For Knight Enchanter, all you need to do is mash Spirit Blade, Fade Cloak and Fade Step. For Rift Mage, just spam Pull of the Abyss and Fire Mine or Pull of the Abyss and Static Cage.

I did playtest this a bit and the thing that stood out to me the most is this :- There is no such a thing as a bad build for the simple reason we can craft our own gear and towards end game you will be higher level than most opponents so you can just steamroll through them.

So this build works fine but more importantly this build is fun.

Re crafting, with you 100%. Tier 3 schematics make nightmare too easy even for me! I never bother crafting more than 1 T3 item, which has for my 3 playthroughs, been a weapon for my inquisitor. Armour? Don't need it when everything is dead DPS for companions? Don't need it when everything is dead. I suppose it would make dragons go down a bit quicker when fighting them while underlevelled, but otherwise unecessary.

Also, I agree with regards to friendly fire. I play with it on, simply because it was too easy to spam PotA + fire mine without it, but it does seem somewhat poorly implemented especially goddam facing piece of schplit chain lightning, gah.

[hellbiter88]

Cole disapproves when you cancel spirits? That's beyond funny, if true. Makes a weird kind of sense, too. It has to be a bug though, because I've rolled an entire playthrough with necro AND cole in my party and this has never happened to me.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Cole disapproves when you cancel spirits? That's beyond funny, if true. Makes a weird kind of sense, too. It has to be a bug though, because I've rolled an entire playthrough with necro AND cole in my party and this has never happened to me.

 

Hopefully it is a bug.

[Thunder Basket]

I was thinking about a build similar to this.  My thinking in strategy is: Walking Bomb>Static Cage>Wall of Fire. Enemies will panic, then get dragged together while Walking Bomb does its thing.  Thoughts? 

[Arvaarad]

If I add leeching enchantments to my Inquisitor's staff, meaning 1% Health on Hit enchantment, when my Inquisitor dies and gets revived as a spirit due to Simulacrum passive, the Inquisitor will keep refilling their health just like normal. However, once the skill is over, your Inquisitor will not go unconscious and will still be alive since they have generated health during their duration as a spirit and will trick the game into thinking you were never dead.

Mana. Necromancers have issues with mana, unlike Rift Mage or Knight Enchanters.

The second is spell cost. Necromancer spells are very high in terms of their costs.

Right... but mana literally doesn't matter for necros with the +1% health on hit effect.

Simulacrum

If you are knocked unconscious, a spirit you control takes on your likeness and fights on your behalf for a short time. The spirit draws magic directly from the Fade, casting spells without cost. You cannot be revived by any means until the spirit leaves.

So just cast Fire Mine underneath the necro before casting any expensive necro spells. Give your necro a bunch of expensive utility spells and a decent crit chance, and they'll be a crowd control god. The rift mage will wish their mana regen was faster.

[ottffsse]

Right... but mana literally doesn't matter for necros with the +1% health on hit effect.
 

Quote

Simulacrum

If you are knocked unconscious, a spirit you control takes on your likeness and fights on your behalf for a short time. The spirit draws magic directly from the Fade, casting spells without cost. You cannot be revived by any means until the spirit leaves.

So just cast Fire Mine underneath the necro before casting any expensive necro spells. Give your necro a bunch of expensive utility spells and a decent crit chance, and they'll be a crowd control god. The rift mage will wish their mana regen was faster.   

 

 

...exactly. that's how I am running through the dlc now at high level as a duo on nightmare (inquisitor-necromancer and sera). it still requires some thought-character is lvl23 atm and though my ablilities and defense is decent but if not careful I do get wiped because a lot of the enemies can one hit you. in tac game lol I do not take damage as I can micro manage but in realtime its a fun challenge.

 

and I found a build I like: my abilities now run: 1. Barrier+, 2. Fade Step+, 3. Energy Barrage, 4. Walking Bomb+, 5. Fire Mine+,6. Ice Mine, 7. Static Cage+, 8. Mark of the Rift. I tried to get lots of defensive passives - upgraded my barrier with strength of spirits and chaotic focus, and mana surge.And I have Static Charge. Standing on an Ice Mine I have Ice Armour which combined with some armor upgrades now gives me 80% physical defence, 80% ranged defence, and 80% magic defence. 

 

And Similicrum becomes actually awesome as long as you always have a character to res you (when I am in Similicrum I usually nuke the enemies, 2. Cast barrier on Sera so she can revive me). Thunking about it I probably do not even need fade step with this and should rather get gathering storm and clean burn. 

[themageguy]

Spirit mark, has this skill been improved?

used it with Dorian and the spirit was actually attacking enemies rather than just stand there like it used to do.

[ottffsse]

 

Downsides 

 

Mana. Necromancers have issues with mana, unlike Rift Mage or Knight Enchanters. 

 

The second is spell cost. Necromancer spells are very high in terms of their costs. 

 

The solutions to this is to enchant your gear appropriately and wear accessories that would reduce this issue. 

 

 

 

Thoughts & Comments ?

 

just a specific point addressing downsides, in case going down and going into similicrum is not attractive for you: all you need is flashpoint (fire tree)+mana surge (winter tree). flashpoint=score a crit (max your crit %), cast your choice of walking bomb, static cage or fire mine free!. mana surge = your barrier expires / enemies destroy your barrier = they are frozen, and you can cast static cage, walking bomb, or fire mine for free (or another barrier). 

 

Between that and death siphon is all you need. You probably will also have winter stillness too to boot, which also reduces cooldown times in addition to mana recovery. 

 

Having those abilities gives you even better defenses for nightmare, and make certain things like conductive current and clean burn unnecessery. Of course if I had an ability point to spare I would still get clean burn. 

[Tharkun]

I was under the impression that the infinite mana thing was bugged in Simulacrum.  Was I mistaken?  Also does it have an internal cooldown?  Because if it doesn't I am going to make an insane suicidal necromancer.  It is almost like an odd form of blood magic where you pay for your power with your own death and get revived if you can draw enough blood from your enemies.

 

Is the Simulacrum version of yourself invulnerable?  I thought I saw this trigger on Dorian the other day and he fought on while his icon was a skull.  Is that correct?  I may have to try this out by controlling Dorian now.  

[ottffsse]

I was under the impression that the infinite mana thing was bugged in Simulacrum.  Was I mistaken?  Also does it have an internal cooldown?  Because if it doesn't I am going to make an insane suicidal necromancer.  It is almost like an odd form of blood magic where you pay for your power with your own death and get revived if you can draw enough blood from your enemies.

 

Is the Simulacrum version of yourself invulnerable?  I thought I saw this trigger on Dorian the other day and he fought on while his icon was a skull.  Is that correct?  I may have to try this out by controlling Dorian now.  

It all works try it yourself. I do not know what bioware was thinking considering if you have the capacity to always revive the necro in the middle of a fight (you should should at this stage with a decent party-it only takes two seconds and ou can position one of the chars to always be near dorian) there are absolutely no penalties for dying like a million times in the middle of an encounter. Keep in mind though that while abilities do not have cost they are still "cast" and have a cooldown,it seems. That's the only gimp. As for taking damage under that form. My impression 80% of the time was that the char is in "fade cloak" status or something like that so I think invulnarability is similar, I never went down pre 10secs under it. 

 

But quite honestly I do not think it is broken on nightmare difficullty in the dlc - enemies hit so hard, and have so much health you need all the help you can get. 

 

What is a bit weird, is am under the impression if you have heal on kill equipment or modifiers there is is actually a chance you have "self revive" after similicrum ends even in single player. Im MP that is definately the case. The best way to check this is by using spirit mark - if you die and have a minion under your control the minion dies but the passive from death siphon (get 10% health when an enemy dies nearby) also triggers because it is at the time of your "death" you get back health and self auto resurrect. I notices simply recently in SP, having a staff with a 11% HoK modifier that sometimes I would actually come back to life at the end of similicrum. 

[Tharkun]

You convinced me.  My next playthrough will be a Necromancer.  I want to see this in person

[ottffsse]

You convinced me.  My next playthrough will be a Necromancer.  I want to see this in person

Yeah just two small tips: pre skyhold get wall of fire ASAP. Once you have the lvls and ability points, you can respec to go Static Cage (down the Energy Barrage side of the lightning tree)+Walking Bomb, can't go wrong with those two, plus whatever you feel rounds out your playstyle. 

[Tharkun]

Yeah just two small tips: pre skyhold get wall of fire ASAP. Once you have the lvls and ability points, you can respec to go Static Cage (down the Energy Barrage side of the lightning tree)+Walking Bomb, can't go wrong with those two, plus whatever you feel rounds out your playstyle. 

Those are both excellent tips, thank you.  I have already learned the power of Wall of Fire pre-skyhold.  It is amazing.  And Static Cage is one of my favorite mage abilities.

[ottffsse]

here is a video of me taking what is the closest to a "fortress" in the dlc. In the dlc there are enemies like archers and stalkers which deal insane amounts of damage and can take you and barrier out in a hit or two, so strategy is really important on nightmare. a few things of note: 1.) I was most surprised by how good the ai is becomming. I personally piloted Sera in the vid and let the computer pilot my necro inquisitor, but for instance for the basics: fade step and barrier was done by the ai really well, and what surprised me even more was at one point the necro places an ice mine under her feat to proc ice armour...which a lot of players do not realize to do not to mention the ai. The only thing is that walking bomb was underused and used too passively by the ai (although I did put a star on it in the tactics menu). It can and should be used much more agressively to trigger its explosion and "knock" enemies down for 2 seconds sooner- its actually another great crowd control spell that way. further, I made a mistake in that as I was in a mental state of piloting the archer, I forgot to place some crowd control before trying to res Sera at one point, and died in the process, but Similicrum saved me as I was able to complete the action in the ghost state and continue the fight. what's funny looking at this video is that I can actually play with friendly fire on this way - I had it turned off just because of Walking Bomb explosion which would knock me down too should it be on, which I consider rather stupid with that ability but oh well.
 

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[Bayonet Hipshot]

So ottffsse, after playing with Necromancers a lot, even in high level content like the Jaws of Hakkon, what is your take on them ?

 

I mean I played mainly the main game and mostly rushed it but you seemed to take your time so I am curious about your experience as a necromancer ?

 

Is it crappy compared to the other mage specializations like ? I did not try my build against bosses or high dragons or Avvar barbarians but you did so it would be interesting to hear your thoughts. Does the immortality aspect of the Necromancer help against high damage spike Avvar ?

 

Also, it appears that Horror is relatively useless from most people's experiences. What are your thoughts ? What about Haste as a Focus ability ? Is it any good ? 

 

Cheers. 

[ottffsse]

So ottffsse, after playing with Necromancers a lot, even in high level content like the Jaws of Hakkon, what is your take on them ?
 
I mean I played mainly the main game and mostly rushed it but you seemed to take your time so I am curious about your experience as a necromancer ?
 
Is it crappy compared to the other mage specializations like ? I did not try my build against bosses or high dragons or Avvar barbarians but you did so it would be interesting to hear your thoughts. Does the immortality aspect of the Necromancer help against high damage spike Avvar ?
 
Also, it appears that Horror is relatively useless from most people's experiences. What are your thoughts ? What about Haste as a Focus ability ? Is it any good ? 
 
Cheers.

Here is the play video again on youtube. I think buffering is better. there. It gives a good idea for what a necro should be doing to help the party. As I said, my only gripes with the ai is that it was not using walking bomb really effectively. Actually I made the bigger mistake somewhere in the middle when trying to res Sera by forgetting place crowd control in place before doing so as I was running the archer in the video and was in that state of mind. 
 


 
The biggest strength of the class is crowd control + single target distruption abilities like making them paniced or frozen. Since the new dlc and possibly future installments show that enemies have many moves which "incapacitate" you+have ways of doing massive spike damage - a few hits from enemy archers or mages or the brutes spin move, not to mention the stalkers simply destroy your barrier, guard, and health, those are all good things to be able to disrupt enemies. KEs and Champions who rellied on spam generating barrier and guard now are much more vulnerable, especially KEs since you will be incapacitated suddenly more often and in that time you cannot generate attacks and barrier bad things may happen.
 
Now specific to the necro tree: while it does not have the shear defensive potential of KE (fade shield/cloak) it has good and perhaps the best mage passives (exluding fade shield), among them things to make your panics you inflict last longer. Plus death siphon takes care with the right other specs and abilities of your health and mana needs. Also Walking Bomb is argueably a better offensive weapon than fade cloak or spirit blade. Now in comparison to rift mage and their signiture abilities of weakening the enemies and pull of the abyss. Weakening enemies is certainly nice but given the massive damage some enemies now inflict it generally worse than all out incapacitating them for a few seconds, it can act as a powerful combo primer (sleep), but so can panic / frozen. Pull of the abyss is a great ability and does that but it does not last long and does not deal damage itself - necro abilities with buffs inflict panic statuses for a longer time. So a pyromancer as  the base crowd controller + some winter tree abilities for additional control and defense is probably the best way to go if you want to be most supportive to your party. Also in the vid you see that Similicrum, in addition to suddenly allowing you to cast a bunch of spells free for a period of 10 seconds also give a total invulnerability state in which you can revive anyone.
 
In terms of all classes damage output on consistent basis is about high middle (average) - not nearly as high as assassin or tempest archer or reaver, but you have a better survivability than a tempest archer. If the ai was piloting Sera in the video she would have been down a lot more. Where the spec really shines is unit and crowd control. Another case in point: I just for fun without using any upgrades to fire resistence or potions went into the highland raveger fight with some of my favorite classes: Sera, Me (Inquisitor), Iron Bull and Verric. I also did not bother with focus abilities to see this. Again I piloted Sera. What happened was eventually everyone was burned including Sera, but my Inquisitor stayed up when just doing her thing through the ai, eventually it got to the point where I saw that resing my companions was a waste of time and was depleting my resources and I just finished the fight myself, quite easily. I also have good gear crafted for all my companions, of course there is a dearth of good belts, amulets and rings to go for everyone. 
 
Although I enjoy piloting the tempest archer as in the video, or iron bull, there were times like at high level fade rifts lvl23+ where I had to solo finish the fight with my inquisitor. One was taking on three despair demons at once and another was when I was lvl 23 and the rifts spammed l 4 lvl26 Rage demons+2/ or3 Fear Demons which brutalised Sera. I will try to finnish the DLC today or tomorrow just with two characters but someone did it solo with Tempest archer so I think it will be fine. 
 
In terms of fade-touched Items, guard generation still helps and is very useful when you have abilities that lead to multiple hits (DW, Energy Barrage, Long Shot etc). The two best though are fade-touched dawnstone as on my staff (10% on hit to grant walking fortress for 5 seconds) and the golden Halla hide in case you have it. 
 
In general in the way I a build it the necro is a very well rounded classes with many strengthes and few weaknesses (even those deadly stalkers which come from stealth and can instakill you can be easily immobilized with an ice mine - longer than a knock down blast from fade cloak or veilstrike).  Of course there are still situations where the combination of enemy numbers and their types may pose challenges and can overwhelm you (when a group of archers decide they want you dead as in one point in the video, there is not much you can do) but to sum it up, I think the class and right build can take on and handle a lot. Cheers.

Modifié par ottffsse, 30 mars 2015 - 01:40 .

[themageguy]

I saw the video and it just makes me appreciate my Tempest Inquisitor archer all the more.

been looking into making a new mage character and the decision is between necromancer and rift mage.