53 réponses à ce sujet

[Forsythia77]

Howdy guys and gals!  I have been playing my latest game as a Necromancer on hard.  Typically when I mage I am a KE because I like to melee.  I thought I should broaden my horizons!  Anyhow,  I am finding that Zoey is not built up to the best of her ability.  Or maybe it is the party?  I had trouble killing a dragon and I've never had trouble killing a dragon (the one in the graves) as a mage before, or as a warrior or DW rogue.  Here are the abilities I have on her:

 

Barrier

Dispell

Mind Blast (I still have a tendency to play all up in the fight so this comes in handy for me)

Mark of the Inquisitor

Static Cage (upgraded)

Winter's Grasp

Walking Bomb

Immolate (upgraded)

 

I feel like I've gotten her spread to thin?  Should I just respec her and go full lightning?  I don't want to go fire because I always let Dorian go full fire and carry him around as my second mage.  It would pain me if you told me I should swap out Dorian for another mage because two necromancers do not work well together (but (I'd be willing to have less Dorian if I had to).  I have all of the necromancer passives, and  the fire tree critical hit passive, mana surge from the winter tree passive, and the passive that shocks you from the storm tree (I think there is one other I'm forgetting but I'm old).

 

Party wise, I take Dorian Sera/Varric and Iron Bull (I always drag my char's love interest around if they are playable).  And my preferred set up is two mages, a warrior and a ranged rogue.  Normally I don't take bull around since he is kind of squishy, but I have him deep in the vanguard tree and he has a weapon that generates guard on hit, as well as armor that generates walking fortress, as well as a guard belt. so I think he is... okay.   Bull (all my warriors, actually) is also set to follow himself rather than to follow the controlled character.

 

Any thoughts?  Is it party composition or am I just necromancing wrong?

[Elhanan]

Would Horror be better as a primer than using Mind Blast? Have only used Necro as a NPC, so pls get confirmation. And while I like the versatile build, being able to select before battle may create the need to drop one choice instead of more options of another element.

[Forsythia77]

Well, I use mind blast because I like to be in the melee and use it to get ppl off of Zoey (and I also like to make boxes explode).  I also have a tendency to freeze people and then mind blast them to get the shatter effect on them.   I had horror spec'ed, but Dorian uses it all the time so we were just horroring the same group of jerks. Seemed redundant?  I want to keep him around as my secondary mage but I also don't want us to be redundant in as much as possible.

[Bigdawg13]

I know you don't want to go more fire, but I'd rather have wall of fire than horror or mind blast any day.  However, the real caveat I see is that you have mostly AoE and little single-target. 

 

By usage your skills fall into:

 

(2) Survival:  Barrier, Mind Blast

 

(2) Utility: Dispel, Winter's Grasp

 

(5) AoE Damage:  Mark of Inquisitor, Static Cage(+), Walking Bomb, Immolate, Mind Blast

 

(2) Single Target Damage:  Walking Bomb, Winter's Grasp

 

You only have 2 single target damage spells, and honestly winter's grasp damage kind of sucks.

 

Based on your skill tree, I'd just swap out a few spells depending on the battle.  Considering you have Static Cage, I'd make sure you pick up Energy Barrage and swap it out accordingly depending on the fight.  Big bad in the mix?  Swap Energy Barrage for Mind Blast.

 

I'd also consider swapping out wall of fire with mind blast.  Wall of Fire will keep most enemies away from you, and will do nice damage in a pinch.  Plus Immolate already acts as an eldritch detonator (plus it causes damage, a damage over time debuff, AND you can place it anywhere you want).

[PapaCharlie9]

 

Based on your skill tree, I'd just swap out a few spells depending on the battle.  Considering you have Static Cage, I'd make sure you pick up Energy Barrage and swap it out accordingly depending on the fight.  Big bad in the mix?  Swap Energy Barrage for Mind Blast.

 

I'd also consider swapping out wall of fire with mind blast.  Wall of Fire will keep most enemies away from you, and will do nice damage in a pinch.  Plus Immolate already acts as an eldritch detonator (plus it causes damage, a damage over time debuff, AND you can place it anywhere you want).

+1. I had the toughest time with Necromancer, until I went Pyro/Necro. I put everything that wasn't in Necromancer into Inferno. Things got much easier then.

 

The other alternative is to go all Electro/Necro. Upgraded Walking Bomb on a mob stuck in Static Cage is kind of cool.

 

You could also skip all the active skills in Necro and just use the passives. Take MoTR for a focus ability and then go Pyro and Electro, plus Barrier. With the passives, you'll have no lack of health.

[Heyokah]

Use FROST STEP liberally!  Mind blast is a waste of resources in my opinion.

 

Guardian Spirit, Mana Surge, and Revival as soon as you can get them in that order.

 

Concentrate on one damaging tree after that...storm is good seeing that you have fire covered with Dorian.

 

For added cheese on your nachos...erm I mean necro...put Fade Cloak and +5 guard on hit on your armor and staff.

 

Once done switch to nightmare mode and thank me later.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Oh wait....I just read your initial post again....I must say Dorian, Sera, and Iron Bull was my absolute favorite combination due to the banter.  I am not going to tell you to get rid of Dorian although Viv (hate her) or Solas would be a better choice.  Having said that you should concentrate on crowd control and let Dorian do whatever Dorian wants (he seems happier that way).  Set up Iron Bull as you would a tank.  Heck I set him up with a 2 handed sword and using Reaver abilities while drawing aggro just cuz he is friggin' Iron Bull!  Sera will end up killing everything in quick order anyway so no worries....hehe.

 

edit - I tend to solo NM and when bored I had a naked group of Dorian, Sera, and IB following me around just for the chuckles.

[ottffsse]

Soloing on nightmare the optimal strongest build around lvl 14 is:

Barrier
Fade step +
Energy barrage
Walking bomb +
Wall of fire
HHorror
(iimmolate) rarely use everything is dead after 2 walking bombs and an energy barrage or panicked through wof / horror
Mark of the rift

It is a breeze. Of course I got lucky as I got a belt of supreme focus on killing the first dragon. plus an fade touched +30% masterwork for focus gain. I now have +60% focus gain and can spam haste or mark of the Rift every fight. And I killed lots of snowfleur to get get the heal on hit masterwork for my staff. I can auto res whenever I am about to die due to wall of fire / energy barrage.

It is still a fragile class which requires a lot of mobility. But with this build you can still take on any fight on nm head on without cheezing it. Just don't panic when you are knocked into similicrum state rather plan where to place a wall of fire or launch an energy barrage at the last moment to ensure you self revive.

You really should go inferno because of Flashpoint and wall of fire. No necro plays to their full potential without those two. Of course you could and I say could try mana surge instead of Flashpoint as you can freeze enemies which destroy your barrier and then use mind blast for them as a combo. If you insist on using mind blast look at ice armour and ice mine further down the winter tree. With ice mine you can stand in the midst of melee most of the time and have 50% damage resistance through ice armour on your ice mine. Should anything approach it will be frozen and you can detonate it with mind blast (if it works in single player). I would still highly recommend fade step though as necro is generally better and safer at mid and not melee range. That way since you are playing in a party you can give inferno to Dorian and still have at least mana surge to power your more expensive spells like wb or static cage.

[Forsythia77]

I'm not interested in soloing on nightmare!  If I'm gonna go it alone I'll put in the Witcher 3.   Did a nightmare run and won and now it's just for fun and party banter. 

 

Let's say I don't want to go into the inferno tree any further than I already have (past immolate and flashpoint for the cooldown).  Sometimes I feel like fire is the path of least resistance and everyone takes it because well, fire. I don't necessarily need to do the most damage, and I'm okay with Zoey doing more support damage rather than being the outright stone cold killer that my KEs were.  What are my options then? I have chain lightning (not currently in my mix) but not energy bolt. I'm stuck in the Winter Palace right now so I can't do any respecing right now.  But I can once I force myself to finish my least favorite mission ever.

 

I also think maybe I was having a bad day, because yesterday I beat the Sandy Howler one level below her quite handily. She is one of the dragons that gives me more trouble generally and I usually save her for last.

[Elhanan]

While I play on NM, my experience with a Necromancer is limited to Dorian. Walking Bomb is the most recommended spell others mention, and I have used Horror to what appears to be helpful effect.

For Electrical magic, I can recommend Energy Barrage as a detonator, and as I understand (unless it has been patched), the second upgrade is not effective; maybe not necessary. Chain Lightning is a decent AoE spell, and will recharge my Barrier as a KE. I skip Lightning Bolt for Static Cage, but having both in the party is effective as LB has greater distance.

I am more curious over the Ice magic, as Winter's Grasp and Fade Step are the only ones I have experienced thus far. As for Fire magic, Immolation and Wall of Fire have been helpful; the others not so much.

P.S. Also recommend setting Graphics Quality to Low; most spells and FX appear to be more natural, and it aids FPS, and reduces glare, flash, and smoke/ fog density. And by setting Floating Text to Off, the Player is not hunting for mechanical totals to appear, but still gets visual cues when combos do occur.

[PapaCharlie9]

I'm not interested in soloing on nightmare!  If I'm gonna go it alone I'll put in the Witcher 3.   Did a nightmare run and won and now it's just for fun and party banter. 

 

Let's say I don't want to go into the inferno tree any further than I already have (past immolate and flashpoint for the cooldown).  Sometimes I feel like fire is the path of least resistance and everyone takes it because well, fire. I don't necessarily need to do the most damage, and I'm okay with Zoey doing more support damage rather than being the outright stone cold killer that my KEs were.  What are my options then? 

Storm. Maybe take Winter's Chill in case you run into Rage demons.

[Forsythia77]

Well, I didn't do a full respec, but I did take energy barrage and upgraded it, swapping out winter's breath for that.  Also made two almost identical staffs - one is fire, one is ice, but the specs are almost identical.  One gives 1% more health on kill, and the other has five hidden blade hits instead of four.  Swap them depending on what mission I'm on.  Took out the Highland Ravager easy peasy two levels below her. So thanks for the advice, everyone. And you'll be happy to know I kept mind blast so I can destroy my boxes (I really get a kick out of blowing up boxes.. every time I do it I giggle!  Why yes, I really AM easily amused). 

[Bigdawg13]

I've been strongly considering a necromancer run.  It is one of the few specs I have never made of an inquisitor.

[ottffsse]

The truth of the matter is that if you know what you are doing with heal health on hit masterwork and energy barrage you literally cannot die. Even if you solo. Just make sure you have lots of dots. Once you go into similicrum just count to nine (seconds) and hit energy barrage. (after you self revive and are low health hit fade step/barrier to get out of immediate harms way while similicrum cooldown resets in like 5 seconds) I previously did not bother with heal on hit / kill masterworks but I have now used them to fight dragons just after skyhold to farm tier 4 mats. And take on those Templar in the emlrise at lvl 12.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

No love for Spirit Mark ? I mean its not stellar but it does do decent damage over time.

[draken-heart]

No love for Spirit Mark ? I mean its not stellar but it does do decent damage over time.

 

I think it is the "pet" issue that gets it dropped.

[Forsythia77]

Well, Dorian had Spirit Mark in his eight.  And I didn't want Dorian and Zoey to have so much overlap since I'm a two mage party girl and Dorian is always in my party unless I have to take another mage for a personal quest.  I am done with my necromancer run though.  Once I got Zoey horror everything seemed to get easier.  but I think mostly it was because I was at the point where the game is just easy and I was mad overleveled.

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Well, Dorian had Spirit Mark in his eight.  And I didn't want Dorian and Zoey to have so much overlap since I'm a two mage party girl and Dorian is always in my party unless I have to take another mage for a personal quest.  I am done with my necromancer run though.  Once I got Zoey horror everything seemed to get easier.  but I think mostly it was because I was at the point where the game is just easy and I was mad overleveled.

 

Really ? I thought Horror is a bad ability. From the description, it costs too much mana, and has a small AOE. By contrast, Wall of Fire does what Horror does and it does it better due to its larger radius.

 

I am curious how you made Horror work for you.

[Forsythia77]

I went electricity and primarily used energy barrage and  upgraded static cage. I tended to use Horror to pick off annoyance archers and lone mages from afar rather than large hordes.  I let Dorian spec into fire and do what he does with it.   I used Static Cage for groups. Also, I'm a weirdo who likes to apparently do things off the beaten path?  LOL!

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Here is how I play the Necromancer. After much consideration, I decided to play the Necromancer as a utility / support / jack of all trades playstyle.

 

Setup

1. Ice Mine.
2. Energy Barrage.
3. Wall of Fire.
4. Fade Step.
5. Static Cage.
6. Walking Bomb.
7. Barrier.
8. Mark of the Rift.

Explanation

 

Why Ice Mine ? The answer is Ice Armor. Ice Armor is godly in that it gives you 50% damage reduction. The idea is to cast Ice Mine and then standing on it to trigger Ice Armor. If you want, you can upgrade Ice Armor to act both as an excellent debuffer and a good trigger for Ice Armor. Just don't use friendly fire.

 

Energy Barrage is a must have for all mage build so no point in explaining that.

 

Wall of Fire does everything Horror does, only better. Wall of Fire does fire damage in a large area of effect, it triggers the fear / panic effect, it does good damage over time and it does all this with a low mana cost.

 

Fade Step is the mobility tool to dodge away and to deal ice damage. I upgrade this because Ice Mine, despite its usefulness, does not do any damage and is primary used to trigger Ice Armor and protect the Inquisitor.

 

Static Cage is the non-Rift Mage version of Pull of the Abyss. It has a large radius, it paralyzes enemies that try to leave it and when upgraded it does damage in a way that synchronizes really well with other damage over time spells.

 

Walking Bomb is the only good Necromancer spell across all difficulties. In fact, I would say that the right side of the Necromancer tree is far superior to the left one due to the presence of Simulacrum which defines the Necromancer specialization and Blinding Terror which is an excellent debuffing passive.

 

Barrier is, like Energy Barrage, a bread and butter spell for mages. Not having it is like Rogues not having Stealth. If you can, pick up Rejuvenating Barrier and Peaceful Aura.

 

I find that Mark of the Rift to be a far superior Focus ability to Haste. Many would ditch Focus abilities but I keep Mark of the Rift because to me it is like the Inquisitor's version of Fus Ro Dah. It is a signature ability from the Inquisitor defining feature (the Mark) that you get early on in the game and it works on mostly everything and does not require you to spend any points. Yes, this is sentimental but I don't care.

 

Like others have echoed, get drain life enchantments on your staff in order to take full use of the Simulacrum passive. Additionally, try to find some fade touched materials or enchantments to boost your magicka or magicka regeneration in some way.

 

Conclusion

 

This build to me is the perfect offensive support mage. That sounds like an oxymoron but with this build you can tank, you cannot die, you can dish out decent damage, you are mobile, you have AOE, you have DOT, you have CC and you can deal all types of elemental damage. The only real concern is mana regeneration management.

[Nightsoul1]

starforge has a awesome necro mage build . see his group  Starforge builds.  or look for it on youtube.

[andy6915]

For me, walking bomb's explosion only doing 200% weapon damage is what made me decide necromancer sucked far too much to be worth it. Too bad that a glitched skill is the reason it's bad. Without that glitch and if walking bomb did the advertised damage, it would actually be pretty good.

[Bigdawg13]

For me, walking bomb's explosion only doing 200% weapon damage is what made me decide necromancer sucked far too much to be worth it. Too bad that a glitched skill is the reason it's bad. Without that glitch and if walking bomb did the advertised damage, it would actually be pretty good.

 

Wow!  That really sucks.  I didn't know Walking bomb was bugged.  Does anyone know if it's bugged on console as well as PC?

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Wow!  That really sucks.  I didn't know Walking bomb was bugged.  Does anyone know if it's bugged on console as well as PC?

 

Walking Bomb itself is not bugged. It is doing the 200% weapon damage as intended. However, Walking Bomb is not dealing the 600% explosion damage.

 

The incredibly stupid and silly thing is that this problem affects on the the single player game on all platforms. Walking Bomb and passives such as Death Syphon work just fine in multiplayer.

 

The only thing in the Necromancer's arsenal that does not work properly in both single player and multiplayer across all platforms is Spirit Mark. Which can actually be remedied by giving the Necromancer control over the raised spirit instead of letting it auto-attack. There is no need for tactics or anything, just let us click on it and attack the target we want.

 

Personally, the Necromancer specialization in DAI depicts the game and Bioware perfectly. The specialization has a lot of potential to be strong but lazy game design (not letting us control pets) and lazy bugfixing (just copy the multiplayer spell into single player to fix Walking Bomb) prevent it from being the beast that it should be.

 

What's more Bioware has not bothered to respond to the bugs regarding this specialization, just like they are playing deaf towards the Rift Mage bugs. Weirdly, they have time for the Knight Enchanter which they addressed in one of the patches.

[Bigdawg13]

Considering Walking Bomb only ticks 6 times over 10 seconds (Ref), that equates to 1200% damage from a dot (no crit, no bonus from flanking, etc).  That is really crummy considering it's 65 mana cost.  People weren't kidding when they say that necromancer passives are the only thing of value from it's specialization.

[andy6915]

Considering Walking Bomb only ticks 6 times over 10 seconds (Ref), that equates to 1200% damage from a dot (no crit, no bonus from flanking, etc).  That is really crummy considering it's 65 mana cost.  People weren't kidding when they say that necromancer passives are the only thing of value from it's specialization.

What's weird is that even the wiki doesn't list the bug, you only find mention of it in forum posts and stuff. Because of that, I doubted it for a while... Until I tested it myself with my own copy, and learned that it is indeed bugged. The explosion's damage was very minimal, too low for it to be 600% weapon damage. So I can confirm myself that the explosion only does as much damage as a single tick of the damage-over-time. So yeah, it being bugged basically ruins the whole specialization. It is, in fact, the worse specialization in the game thanks to it and Spirit Mark being bugged.