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Thread: The Raid Necromancer

  1. #1

    Post The Raid Necromancer

    Ahoy!

    This thread is supposed to give a short introduction to playing the Necromancer. The guide focusses on raiding, especially on what you'll need to suceed as a Necro in Toth Amon's Fortress, i. e. the T3 raid dungeon, as most classes only really need their true potential from T3 onwards.

    It is not the one, true word on all things necromantic. Some details aren't included, some things can be done better - the focus is on simplicity, not on depth, as most people in my experience have most problems cutting through the complexity of the class. The finer points will follow with experience, and everybody develops his own style anyhow.

    You'll notice, for example, that I'm a big believer in Lifestrike and Night of the Harvester, as these provide a way to regain Mana and Life without outside help. Others see this as a waste of feat points. Which "side" is right may depend on the encounter, equipment, group setup - and also on personal preference. So, try things out and make up your own mind.

    If you've got something to add or find something which is unclear or even plain wrong, I'd be happy for you to post here or sent me a PM. Any questions or suggestions for additional information are of course welcome, too.

    The guide was originally written in German in our guild forum, which can be visited here if that helps:

    http://www.nachtwind-gilde.com/forum...329-nekromant/

    Also, there's been some peer reviewing and discussion about the Necromancer class in the version stickified in the German language section:

    http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=180615

    Khaletohep
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 25th December 2013 at 11:07.
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    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
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  2. #2

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    Introduction

    The Necromancer's function in a raid are
    - dealing damage and
    - debuffing.

    The class is most similar to the Demonologist, but is more complex due to a higher number of spells and pets and some very peculiar mechanics.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

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  3. #3

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    Feat builds

    Build: General Purpose - Reanimation/Nightfall
    This build is something like the Swiss army knife of Necro builds - it has something handy for just about any situation.

    The build
    http://joharaoc.eu/feat?link=v5_1291...45c9148ea14439

    Pro and contra
    Pro:
    - very good damage output
    - maximum Mana-/Stamina-Drain
    - Ghoulish Feast freely usable (5% Life-/Mana-/Stamina-Tap for the whole group = awesome)
    - AoE-Pets freely usable

    Contra:
    - very high aggro

    Cast rotation
    When attacking, one should focus on
    - using the cool skills with cooldowns as often as possible,
    - keeping the DoTs up and
    - filling the gaps between the cooldown abilities / keeping up the DoTs with the most powerful direct damage skills you have, i. e. Ice Strike or Pestinental Blast + Chill.

    A cast sequence may look like this:
    - Mark of the Devourer
    - Flesh to Worms
    - Pestinental Blast
    - Chill
    - Pestinental Blast

    - Gangrenous Stench
    - Lifestrike
    - Ice Strike (repeat until the Pestinental Blast DoT is almost done)
    - Chill
    - Pestinental Blast
    - and so on

    The blue colored steps drain a lot of Mana for a relatively little damage gain. If you're low on mana, leave this out. Details to the Pestinental Blast + Chill combo follow later!

    Pets
    This build is layed out for the following pet setups:
    - 2 Blighted Ones + 3 Reaper (for single target damage, playing solo or PvPing) or
    - 2 Archmages (for fighting groups of opponents, e. g. T2, Hathor Ka, grinding in Keshatta) or
    - 8 Blighted Ones (for Favored of Louhi or to annoy people in PvP).

    Feat Build: PvE Raiding - Reanimation/Nightfall/General

    The build
    Once you reach a certain level of equipment, the hybrid build posted above tends to get less useful in a raid, as you produce a lot more aggro than the tanks can come up with. There are some fights - e. g. Arbanus - where this point comes very early. This build is for those moments when you really don't want to pull aggro, but still want to top the damage parser.

    http://joharaoc.eu/feat?link=v5_1296...43d8145c914438

    Pro and contra
    Pro:
    - good damage output
    - maximum Mana-/Stamina-Drain
    - Ghoulish Feast freely usable (5% Life-/Mana-/Stamina-Tap for the whole group = awesome)
    - AoE-Pets freely usable
    - almost instant aggro reduce

    Contra:
    - none

    Cast rotation
    The cast rotation is the same as before.

    Pets
    The build is layed out for the following pet setups:
    - 4 Arcanist (for single target damage) or
    - 2 Archmages (for AoE damage) or
    - 8 Mutilator (for single target damage if you've got a ToS and/or other classes in your group which boost melee damage).

    Feat Build: Single Target Damage - Reanimation/Nightfall

    The build
    In some encounters, there's only one thing needed - single target damage. Examples include the Entity in T4 and Arbanus in T3 if you've got really, really good tanks.

    This is what this build is set up for.

    http://joharaoc.eu/feat?link=v5_1291...44391518214a7a

    Pro and contra
    Pro:
    - extremly high single target damage output
    - maximum Mana-Drain
    - Ghoulish Feast freely usable (5% Life-/Mana-/Stamina-Tap for the whole group = awesome)

    Contra:
    - weak crowd control
    - no aggro reduction

    Cast rotation
    The cast rotation is the same as before.

    Pets
    The build is layed out for the following pet setups:
    - 4 Reapers
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 30th December 2013 at 21:52.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

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    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
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  4. #4

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    Alternative Advancement Perks


    There're only a few AA perks you'll need to know about:

    Basic
    My advice: Always use Decisive Strikes + Pressing Strikes.

    Decisive Strikes
    More Crit. Yes. This.

    Pressing Strikes
    More Hit. More Crit Damage. Also good.

    Archeytpe
    My advice: Use Enchanter and Will of the Sublime. Exchange Will of the Sublime with Unbinding Charm if needed for the encounter.

    Subtle Illusion
    Note: Doesn't need a perk slot.
    Reduces the amount aggro you have already got by 20%. Good thing. Use this before getting aggro. The cast time is too slow to be effective after you got aggro. E. g.: Use at 80% of the boss's HP, then whenever the cooldown is through, i. e. every two minutes.

    Enchanter
    Increases rogues' damage by a huge amount. Why is this a good thing? Because rogues drawing aggro is a useful early warning sign. When the first assassin dies, tone down your damage a bit.

    Will of the Sublime
    Gives you a small amount of additional +Critical damage for every 100 points of Intelligence. Not great, but heck, more than nothing. Does NOT increase critical chance as some seem to believe, just the damage done when you actually crit. Not that great.

    Unbinding Charm
    This spell removes certain debuffs from you and a group member. Only needed in some special encounters (e. g. Coppice of the Heart, Mithrelle in T4). Use as follows: Target the debuffed group/raid member. Move close to him. Very close. Then cast the spell.

    Class
    My advice: Learn and use "Supreme Lich" first. When you've got the other important AA feats maxed, start learning Chiling Breath, then ... and switch to those.

    Chilling Breath
    This perk increases the cast time of Ice Strike, but increases the spell damage coefficient. This brings a minor increase in DPS, but the more relevant effect is - surprising to many - a reduction in mana usage. The reason is simple: At 5/5, cast time increases by +50%. That means you'll only cast two Ice Strikes in the time you needed to cast three Ice Strikes. And this in turn means that you've only used mana for Ice Strikes. This is a mana cost reduction of about 33% for Ice Strike. Depending on play style, this can be quite significant.

    Some numbers:
    ...

    Personal note: I prefer Chilling Breath to Supreme Lich, but this is a very sensitive issue. A lot of Necromancers are very convinced about the Supreme Lich perk instead. I say they're part of an evil clown conspiracy trying to make Necromancers look stupid, but maybe I'm part of an anti clown conspiracy trying to remove all fun from the world and kill off the circus business.

    Decays of Nature
    Adds a DoT to Lifestrike. A very weak DoT. Ticks for about ... on my Necro. A parse on some T4 bosses said it made ...% of my total damage. It's really not great, but better than the other one-slot-perks to add to Chilling Breath.

    Funeral Rites
    This gives you a new spell. It's similar to Draw Forth the Heart, but kills three minions instead of one. Useful for Killykki. Not useful in other encounters. Take one point if you do T1 raids regularly and want to suck up the raid lead. Else, skip it.

    Supreme Lich aka Alien Fish aka Clown Fish
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgWJr_x3NjM
    This gives you a permanent buff (+45.5 magic damage bonus, +7.5% base spell damage, +60% resistance to Fear, +10% Unholy Invulnerability) and a permanent visual morph effect. Until 2011, it gave you a naked green body (without genitals) and a weird alien head. People complained, and to teach people not to complain, Funcom showed us what the "Fun" in Funcom stands for: evil clowns.

    The buff is pretty decent. Some people believe it to be superior to all other effects, esp. because of the base spell damage bonus, which works well with Chill rotations.

    Personally, I'm not all that convinced, but it's relatively easy to get, and you'll want it eventually anyhow. So, if you're just starting your AA learning, I recommend starting with this. Your gear probably looks like a second hand shop after a police search anyhow, and so, looking like Evil Krusty (TM) won't be much of a loss.

    Unearthly Apprentice aka Minime
    Gives you a new minion. It looks like a miniature Necromancer in T1 gear. It has two attack modes:
    - It casts Ice Strike, Pest Strike, Flesh to Worms
    - Else, it casts ..., which does a small amount of unholy damage.

    On paper, the Apprentice does a lot of damage, but even after several raids of trying it out in T3, it just didn't beat four regular caster pets. I believe the main difference is his dependance on you standing there and cast your nukes, whereas with four arcanists, you can do anything you want and keep up acceptable DPS, e. g. flame people in global, sort your inventory, craft 1000 steelsilk gloves or cast Blizzard on random people in your group and tell them they've got a bomb on them or sth.

    But maybe that just me and I afk too much in raids. Try it out yourself - if anybody makes better experiences than me, tell us. The pets looks pretty cool, so it would be cool to have the numbers justifying its use.

    Nightmare Companionsaka The Three Stooges
    Don't take this. Seriously. It's bad.
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 30th December 2013 at 19:34.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

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  5. #5

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    Equipment


    Age of Conan being an MMO, looking for equipment will keep you busy your whole career, and a guide like this cannot give you a whole program from level 1 to T4. On some points, however, some words need to be said.

    Your first raiding gear
    When you reach level 80 with your Necro, all is great. You now need about 10 G to buy a set which will last you for quite some time. Buy this from the tradepost or let somebody craft it for you:

    Armor
    Fine Steelsilk Clothing. Level 80 crafted cloth armor. Looks stupid, but has actually pretty great stats. Fill all slots with "Cabochon Azurite" gems. Often found at the tradepost with gems already put in. You'll spend about 1.5 to 2.0 G on the whole set.

    Rings
    Buy two "Dreamer's Keepsake" at the tradepost. Great rings - you probably won't find anything better until T3. And even then, you'll still love them for the HP bonus. Fill slots with "Omnific Marquise Pushparagam", a blue quality level 80 gem.

    Prices varies for rings and gems. Anything up to 3 G is okay, more is... well, they're really good rings, so pay whatever is needed.

    Necklace
    Do your destiny quest, get an epic necklace. Quite a good one, actually.

    Cloak
    Visit a Vistrix raid. If you don't have a quest for an epic cloak leading you there, ask if anybody's got it, and ask the raid leader nicely (and not during a boss fight or some other really stupid moment) to switch you into a group with the quest guy. Have him share it with you. Say "Thank you, kind Sir." to him. He's done you a great favor. Or she. Be extra nice if it's a she.

    Weapons
    If you don't have a "good" weapon, consider buying 2x Codex of Mystic Virtues on the tradepost, a blue level 73 talisman with Con, Mana Reg and Damage. It's nothing to brag about, but two of those are better than some weapons I've seen people show up in T1 raids, and they typically sell for less than 10 S.

    If you're loaded with money, buy a "Lemurian Firestick", sells for about 15 G. Good weapon, but very expensive.

    Whatever you buy, it will last you to what you should be going for next:

    As a Necro, there is a great great epic weapon you can get from a quest in Black Ring Citadel (T2 raid dungeon), wing 2.

    Get this as follows:
    - Finish your destiny quests.
    - Visit Conan and Khalentes, until you get a quest to get a Dragon Tooth from Vistrix' Lair.
    - Join a T1 raid. Learn using Teamspeak/Ventrilo, adjust your graphics settings to whatever your computer can handle and get accustomed to 23 people running around like beheaded chicken.
    - Finish the dragon tooth quest and follow up quests, until you're sent into Black Ring Citadel.
    - Visit Dexitheus in Conan's Castle. Get the quest "Army at the Gates of the Abyss". If he doesn't give you the quest, ask people to share it with you.
    - Join a T2 raid, Wing 2. Kill Seruah. Get a weapon looking like an oversized Q-Tip with great damage and mana leech.

    Most steps can be skipped by somebody just sharing the quest with you, which is possible at level 80, and directly joing a T2 raid.

    Kithai, Vile Nativity and Ardashir Fort
    Some 6-person-Dungeons give you great gear, equal or superior to T3 gear. There're multiple choices, none of them being the one and final truth, but as an example, aim for this set:
    - Hood of the Putrescent. Drops in Ardashir Fort.
    - Blade's Bracers of the Black Arts. Bought from the Brittle Blade at faction rank 4.
    - Blade's Boots of the Black Arts. Bought from the Brittle Blade at faction rank 4.
    - Blade's Belt of the Grim Cabal. Drops in Yun Rau.
    - Blade's Grips of the Grim Cabal. Drops in Reliquary of Flame.
    - Blade's Straps of the Grim Cabal. Drops in Den of the Crowmen. OR: Summoner's Straps of Prestige. Drops in Pagoda.
    - Blade's Tunic of Arcane Death. Bought from Brittle Blades. No rank needed, but 196 hard mode tokens.
    - Blade's Breeches of the Grim Cabal. OR: Summoner's Leggins of Prestige. Both drop in Enigmata of Yag.
    - Shroud of the Ghost Crows' Spite. Cloak. Drops in Vile Nativity.

    Weapons, Rings and Necklaces from Kithai aren't that great. If you've got time to spare, go for them, but raid weapons are usually better and easier to get. But avoid the T1/T2/T3 Demo staffs - they are terrible, as they lack +Crit chance.
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 30th December 2013 at 16:32.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

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  6. #6

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    Pets

    Choosing and using pets in a sensible manner is one of the most important tools of the Necromancer. With typical equipment and of the pet based feat builds mentioned above, your pets should be doing 20% to 40% of your total damage. That's a lot.
    As pets continue to attack when the Necromancer is running around (typically frantically crying for the tanks to get the boss off of him), is stunned, has no mana left or is not able to attack for whatever other reason, your Pets keep on going. That's one of your great assets as a Necromancer: You even do a lot of Damage even if you're not really doing anything.

    Let's look at some information about the pets useful in endgame situations. In my description, I assume that the Necromancer is feated like mentioned above.

    Ranged Pets


    Arcanists
    These boring bureaucrats
    - deal frost damage (with some splash damage),
    - debuff Holy-/Unholy protection (up to -1250) and
    - add up to 5% to the group's base spell damage.

    The damage bonus doesn't look like a lot, and it actually is even less. Why? Because base spell damage, again, only means the damage without any boni from equipment.

    The effect is, however, more useful for your group. Demonologists, Tempests of Set and so on profit a bit more from base spell damage boni, as their spells have a higher base spell damage. If you're in a group filled with casters, this bonus becomes somewhat useful, but will probably never decide between succeeding and failing.

    Reaper
    Dressed in white coats, these fun loving things
    - deal unholy damage (with some splash damage),
    - debuff Holy-/Unholy protection (up to -1250) and
    - give a very, very little heal effect on your group.

    Reaper do a little less damage - on paper. The joke about these guys is that the deal unholy damage and debuff unholy protection. This allows them to do more damage in a lot of situations than the Arcanist, as the Arcanist relies on other effects (ToS, Demonologist, Necromancer's Blizzard) to lower enemy resistances, whereas the Reaper can do that himself.
    In a raid situation, this usually is of little importance, as the protection debuffs usually are stacked to x5 very quickly. But playing solo, in small groups or in PvP, this is a point to consider carefully.

    The healing done my Reapers can only be described as modest. You'll hardly (if ever) even notice it.

    Archmagi
    These are the big brothers of Arcanists and
    - deal frost damage (with a huge AoE) and
    - debuff Holy-/Unholy protection (up to -1250).

    There's not much to say on these - a solid package. These pets are especially useful for long sequences of trash mobs in T2/BRC and to kite adds in the Hathor Ka encounter in T3.

    Blood Arcanists
    Blood Arcanists are a difficult subject. Theoretically, they are the ultimative Ub0rpets. In actual performance, however, they tend to dissapoint. They
    - deal unholy damage (with a huge AoE),
    - debuff Holy-/Unholy protection (up to -1250),
    - occasionally give some of their own HP as healing to your group and
    - heal themselves, when they deal damage.

    All of that would be great, if a.) the healing effect wouldn't be so small that you don't actually notice it and b.) the damage the pets do to themselves wouldn't take away about a whopping 50% of their HP.
    This also shows why Blood Arcanists are not suited for kiting at the Hathor Ka encounter. Hathor Ka's adds occasionally attack your pets - and if these are half dead already, a single hit will take them out.

    Melee Pets

    All melee pets deal - not surprisingly - melee damage. The damage dealt is more or less the same (+/- 10%) with all pets. The additionall effects they provide make the real difference.

    Some words on the pets available, starting from the most useful ones:

    Mutilators
    These hunchbacked red zombies aplly an interesting debuff to your enemies. Everybody - including your pets - attacking the target deals additional damage to a target with this debuff.
    It stacks to x10. About 6 Mutilators are enough to keep it at x10 all the time. The bonus damage done to a staw puppet was about 100 to 150 per hit, up to 300 on a crit. Adding this to every melee hit is quite a lot.

    Blighted Ones
    These gray coloured, dual wielding skeleton dudes...
    - debuff Holy-/Unholy protection (up to -1250),
    - damage Mana,
    - damage Stamina,
    - but do not give Mana or Stamina to the Necromancer, as is often thought.

    The Holy-/Unholy-Debuff shouldn't be underestimated. Necromancers are the only class capable of debuffing Holy/Unholy Protection, and Blighted Ones are the only melee pets capable of doing this.

    Blighted Ones have a special use when fighting the Favored of Louhi and in PvP because of their mana/stamina damage. If you use Void a lot, you can almost completely shut down some classes in PvP. You won't kill the character, but you'll annoy the player behind the character - a lot.

    Life Stealer
    This red-white-and-not-very-blue Guys...
    - occasionally give a very limited heal. The effect is so small that it's even difficult to measure.
    - deal splash damage, i. e. do melee damage to a whole group of enemies if they're standing together close enough.
    - have a slightly bigger range than other melee pets. This allows them to attack effectively even if they cannot really get close to the enemy.

    Harvester
    These blue lizard people...
    - give a little mana and stamina to the group. The effect is very limited.

    Corruptors
    These gray zombies have a very stiff way to walk and
    - deal a small amount of unholy damage. This damage can be increased by a feat in the reanimation tree. As the damage is lower than the one usually done by the mutilators' effect even if fully feated, there's little reason to use Corruptors. An exception might be made for bosses especially vulnerable to magic damage, but you'd be using caster pets on those anyhow.

    So... let them rest in their graves where they belong.
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 30th December 2013 at 16:31.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

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    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
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  7. #7

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    Spellweaving

    General Buffs
    Spellweaving gives you several buffs, which increase with the duration you're spellweaving. This is displayed by the "x1" to "x6" multiplier above the spellweave icon above your HP bar.

    The tooltip lists various effects.

    http://img3.fotos-hochladen.net/uplo...vb43s6o0cu.png

    If it say "%", it means percentage points, not percentage.

    The most import effects:
    - Base spell damage is increased. Base spell damage is the... well, base damage, i. e. without applying boni from equipment. As the Necromancer's spells have notoriously low base spell damage values, this isn't that much of a bonus except for Chill (more on that later).
    - The radius / splash damage of many spells is increased. Ice Strike, for example, transforms into a very powerful AoE spell, that hit half the hemisphere.
    - Some spells get splash damage added to their effect, i. e. do damage to enemies near the primary target. This includes Flesh to Worms.
    - The splash damage of some spells is increased. This has some weird effects: Chill's splash damage gets bigger than the damage on the primary target.
    - Last, but not least: The damage bonus for critical hits is increased massively, i. e. +50 percentage points at Spellweave x6. Combined with Death God, this is an awesome damage boost.

    Arcane Renewal
    Duration: 6.5 seconds
    Effect: 6 Energy/second x 6.5 seconds

    This buffs increases the time you can keep spellweaving without going out of energy.

    Parasite Host
    Duration: 8 seconds
    Effect: Whenever you cast Ice Strike, Pestinental Blast, Blasphemous Ruin or some other spells, a Parasitic Soul spawns.

    Parasitic Souls are those friendly little skulls that bite your opponents.
    The damage done appears to be very limited. Tested on a straw puppet, a skull did 40 damage per hit, 55 on a crit. Hitting about every 3 seconds, that's only about 13 DPS per skull.
    However, this adds up. If you can spellweave long enough, you can get up to 10 skulls working for you, wich gives about 130 DPS alone for this. If there's a ToS in your group, this damage is increased even further.

    Arcane Surge
    Duration: 10 seconds
    Effect: All spells do maximum damage.

    This sound better than it actually is. Maxium damage only means setting the variable part of the spell's damage to maximum.
    Let's give some numbers on what that means: Ice Strike has about 30 points of variable damage, i. e. maximizing it gives a bonus of 15 points on average. Ice Strike with good equipment (and even without Chilling Breath) does about 600 damage, which makes 15 points of additional damage a mere 4% increase. That's more than nothing, but not very much so.

    Death God
    Duration: 20 seconds
    Effect: +100% Crit-Chance, +200% Mana cost on most spells

    This makes every spell crit. Yes, it's that awesome. With full Spellweaving buff und good equipment, this can more than triple the damage done by Chill and Ice Strike.

    Small disadvantage: When "Death God" is active, the Feat "Withered Soul" doesn't work, i. e. cannot give you a instant cast Ice Strike.

    Death's Channel
    Duration: 10 seconds
    Effect: +2.5% Base spell damage for each pet

    Base spell damage is the damage without any equipment or other damage boni, e. g. about 180 damage for an Ice Strike. 180 base damage x 2.5% bonus = 4.5 damage, which isn't much. Buuut this can add up quickly: 10 Parasitic Souls (gained via Parasite Host!) + 8 melee pets give 18 x +2.5% = +45%, which would be 180 x 0.45 = 81 damage. Combined with Death God, this gives a substantial damage boost.

    Tactics
    One - but not the only - powerful way to use Spellweaving goes as follows:
    - Death God, whenever it's ready
    - else, choose Parasite host, until you've got 10 Parasitic Souls
    - else, choose Death's Channel, giving you a huge spell damage bonus.

    With Ghoulish Feast, Life Strike and Cannibalism, the mana cost increase cost by Death God can be compensated. Use Cannibalism after very Ice Strike.
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 30th December 2013 at 16:31.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

    Khaletoheps AoC-Youtube-Channel:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Khaletohep

    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
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  8. #8

    Default

    Notes on particular spells


    Ice Strike or Pestinental Blast + Chill?

    There're very strong opinions on wether to use Pestinental Blast + Chil every time it's ready or not. The story behind this is as follows: Chill does more damage if the DoT from Pestinental Blast is running on the target. The DoT is removed by Chill, however.

    You can base three routines on this:

    - Pestinental Blast, Chill, ...[do something else, until the DoT is almost done], Chill, Pestinental Blast and so on

    or

    - Pestinental Blast, Chill, Pestinental Blast, ...[do something else, until the DoT is almost over], Chill, Pestinental Blast and so on

    or

    - Pestinental Blast, Chill (<- removes the DoT), Pestinental Blast (<- renews the DoT), ...[do something else, until the cooldown on Chill is gone], Chill, Pestinental Blast and so on.

    The difference lies in how often you detonate the DoT from Pestinental Blast. Some people think that this increases damage a lot, others emphasize the harsh increase of mana used.

    The numbers on my test necro (1189 Dmg bonus, Bursting Bomb not skilled) were as follows:

    Pestinental Blast: 2.5 Sek Cast Time, 130 Mana ~ 200 Dmg (x1.5 on Crit) +
    Chill: 0 Sek Cast Time, 417 Mana, ~ 850 Dmg (x2 on Crit, 100% Splash) =
    Total: 2.5 Sek Cast Time, 547 Mana, ~1050 Dmg =
    ~ 400 DPS, ~ -200 Mana/Sec

    Ice Strike: 2,0 Sek Cast Time, 234 Mana, ~550 Dmg =
    ~ 225 DPS, -117 Mana/Sec

    Ice Strike with Chilling Breath (AA-Perk) 5/5: 3.0 Sec Cast Time, 234 Mana, ~950 Dmg =
    ~315 DPS, ~ -78 Mana/Sek

    One can see: Pestinental Blast + Chill does more damage, but uses up a lot more mana. If you've got a good crit rating, Ice Strike may profit a bit more, as Pestinental Blast only crits with +50%. If you spellweave a lot, Chill gets some weird damage buffs which may outweigh this difference.

    An honest word from me on this: In T2 and T3, I almost exclusively used Ice Strike. That was more than enough to top the damage parses and steal all bosses from the tanks. It possible to increase your damage by some percentage with a well thought out Pestinental Blast + Chill routine - but that's not really necessary in most encounters. Use your attention on keeping alert instead of burdening yourself with overly complicated cast sequences. Knowing when to spellweave, bringing enough mana potions, having a ToS in your group and not drawing aggro is what's most important in T1 through T3.
    In T4, however, there are fights where you can and even should go for this little extra.

    Gangrenous Stench
    This spell is often underestimated as being only a weird debuffing spell, but it isn't. In fact, it's a very, very good damage spell. It has three effects:
    - The targets receive +10% damage from melee attacks.
    - The targets deal 5% less damage themselves. I'm not sure if that works on raid bosses. Debuffs of this kind usually don't. The debuff is shown, which implies it working, but that's not true on some others, too.
    - It does 9 ticks of damage to all targets in range. Yes, 9 ticks, although the tooltip says something else.

    The damage on my test necro (1289 magic damage bonus, Chilling Breath 5/5) was as follows:

    Ice Strike: ~1030 Damage / 3 Seconds Cast time = ~343 DPS
    Gangrenous Stench: ~2115 Damage / 1.5 Seconds Cast time = 1410 DPS

    Yes, that one little button does about four times as much non crit damage on single target as an Ice Strike, has a better radius and also does some debuffs.

    Consider the mana cost, however. It uses up 913 Mana - don't ever cast that spell while Death Good (Mana cost x3!) is running.

    Blizzard
    The damage done by this spell isn't great, and Ice Strike is usually better even in AoE fights.

    But there are situations where it's useful:
    - If you've got not ToS, Conq or Demonologist in your group or raid, you're responsible for debuff the elemental protection on your enemies, which will increases the damage done by your Ice Strike, Chill and Arcanist/Archmage pets.
    - Against enemies which run around or die very quickly, Blizzard can be better than Ice Strike. If the target of an Ice Strike spell dies or breaks the line of sight, the spell is disrupted. Blizzard, on the other hand, will hit whatever is in range. Example: Seruah (T2, Wing 2)

    Parasitic Soul Swarm
    This spell isn't great. Not at all. Damage, Radius and additonal effects are clearly inferior to Ice Strike in most situations. Some like to use it in the Sabazious encounter (T2, Wing 1), but... Ice Strike is fine there as well.
    There's one dirty little secret about the spell: It keeps getting channelled even if your target moves out of range (not true if it runs out of line of sight, however). This can be interesting against enemies running away from you, e. g. the Hollow Knight in T3.

    If you've got problems putting all your favorite spells into the GUI... leave this one out. It's situational at best.
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 30th December 2013 at 16:30.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

    Khaletoheps AoC-Youtube-Channel:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Khaletohep

    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
    http://www.nachtwind-gilde.com/guide...-age-of-conan/

  9. #9

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    (reserved)
    Last edited by Khaletohep; 30th December 2013 at 16:25.
    Make Hyboria raid again!

    Khaletoheps AoC-Youtube-Channel:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Khaletohep

    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
    http://www.nachtwind-gilde.com/guide...-age-of-conan/

  10. #10

    Default

    (reserved for AA guide)
    Make Hyboria raid again!

    Khaletoheps AoC-Youtube-Channel:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Khaletohep

    Guides zu Klassen & allen HM-Solo-Inis:
    http://www.nachtwind-gilde.com/guide...-age-of-conan/

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