Posted by Uli on April 28, 2000 at 04:36:39:
A day or two ago someone wanted the necro tips, but I was
busy and couldn't answer immediately. Here's what I can say.
1. Lichedom.
I don't know about liches, so all my tips are for those
below level 47.
2. Picking up race.
I do not recommend you drow. Very low hp gains + very high
exp penalty + every rager-schoolboy with jewelled broadsword
in one hand and jewelled dagger in the other hand will make
it nearly impossible to play.
If you plan to lich, arial is also bad, because imms will
give you 3 of 4 items from underwater areas, believe me.
If you just want to have fun at mid-levels (35-40), arial
is the best because of fly. Human and half-elf are also nice.
3. Zombies.
There are many rumors about how to increase the probability
of successful animate. I'll speak about what I have seen myself.
It is level-based. I mean, 25 necro will most likely fail
animating elite storms. I'd recommend elite dwarven guards or
rangers from Emerald forest until you are about 35 rank.
Also, looks like it depends on percentage of spell, so study hard.
Some people say, it works better if you embalm the corpse before
animating. I think it is not true, or affects your chances to a
very little extent. Taking into account that embalm fails
frequently, I woudldn't recommend to do this.
Some people say you animate better when naked, but IMHO it's
ridiculous.
4. What should be perfected and how to do it.
Sleep must be perfected. It is easy: get some small creature,
and cast sleep repeatedly. The same with most maledictions,
they can be perfected on slept creatures. One more thing is
dispel magic: since sleep affects its victims as "skill", it won't
be dispelled. But you don't need all this perfected on low ranks.
Sleep and blindness are just enough. Blindness may save your life.
Animate dead doesn't require target, so you can just cast it
until it is perfected. It takes long time, but it's worth it.
Do not waste your time perfecting summon: it will be 100% very
quickly without any special efforts from your side.
Most important thing is: PERFECT VAMPIRIC TOUCH. With 100 vampiric,
you're almost as survivable as a healer. It heals you pretty well.
And don't say it's difficult: look at the invokers.
Wraithform is also worth perfecting. BTW, last time I checked
there was a bug in help file. Wraithform starts protecting from
bash on rank 36, not 37 as written in help.
Word of recall is best practiced on your inner cabal guardian, and
should be 100% as soon as you can spend enough time on it.
Embalm can be practiced, if you want it, in the following way:
embalm already embalmed corpse until it is destroyed (7-8 times
usually).
And don't forget about parry. It helps a lot :-)
5. Estimating your power.
Vs mobs: normally, at rank 33, when you get mummy, you must be
able to kill elite storm without any help from outside. Just
remember that blindness + weaken + poison + curse make a mob much
softer. Also, any caster mobs become available to you on very
low ranks compared to other classes because their spells are
distributed among all your army. So, mobs are not a problem,
especially if you're aquainted with wand locations.
Vs players: ragers are pain in the ass. The main problem is
their amount. One on one they suck vs a necro, but they count
all your pets and come in that amount. A ranger, + a fighter,
+ an assassin, + a bard will beat you to nothing unless your
name is Zorszaul. Also, if your zombies are busy with, say,
the destructor, you can't do much, so necromancers aren't good
in solo raids. (Zorszaul is an exception, again, but he doesn't
need my tips). So, if you find a solo rager, and you have some
followers, don't be afraid. Beware the bards, however.
Prefer teleport over recall when possible, because ragers will
stand on your recall point waiting for you, while others are
trying to make you scared (they always do that :-).
Non-rager players are only dangerous in huge amounts. One on one
they have no chance.
6. Ranking
With 600 hp, perfected parry and vampiric you can tank pretty
well (just have wraithform on and eat stone skin). Wraithform is
very good, but you will need 100% spellcraft for wraithform to
last longer. So well, if you know you can tank, it is easier to
rank. Invoker will be your best companion when he gets shields.
But yes, normally noone wants a necro as a groupmate. Why so?
Hope that helps...