Hard time trying to get into Necromancer Class

Humor

Hello all,

So, I wanted to come back to ESO, due to the lack of other Mmorpg's out there, and decided I'd buy all the major expansion packs, which included the Warden, and Necromancer.

I can't remember the last time I played, that was probably way back when "Champion Points" were introduced, but my main character, and still max level class is a Templar, mostly Magic focused.

So, off I go to try the new class, one which I thought I would enjoy, the Necromancer. I have looked up videos, and read up on what "seemingly" looks like a neat class, however, right off the bat, the very first skill I got the skull bomb or whatever it was called seemed incredibly weak, at least if I'm comparing this to how I first remember my Templar playing out. So fine, no big deal, it's the tutorial, I'm sure the class will get better, so I sort of begrudgingly carry on, and hope that my interest will soon peak with the Necromancer.

Finished the tutorial to Skyrim, couldn't figure out if I was actually able to do the real tutorial or not, so created another character (Warden), just to test it out. Started in Skyrim again, so, I look up on if you can actually start in Coldharbour again, doesn't seem like it, however, you can get a quest to go there. So sure, let's do that, and play the game as I remember. Swap back to my Necromancer, and goto Coldharbour do all the quests there, go off to do Bleakrock, and Bal Foyen, gaining, a few new abilities along the way, and finally make it to Davon's Watch (Ebonheart Pact maps).

So first thing i remember my Templar being able to do was goto Crows Wood at a fairly early level, and being able to solo all the boss monsters with absolute ease, and I'm not too sure WHY I think a Necromancer would generally just be a better DPS than a Templar, it's a silly mindset consider quite a few classes in this game are viable as a Tank, Healer, and Dps, either or, that's what I thought.

So by the time I got to Crows Wood, I was around level 13, had had Morphed the skull to Richochet, and got Stamina/Disease Blast bones, and the Stamina Scythe skill, Moprhed Bone armor to pull in ranged enemies (That one is entirely on me, I thought it did something different in my mind), and had got the Bone collossus transformation for my ultimate.

So in crows wood, the only thing I found with a Necromancer that was "easy" to kill was the wolves, and maybe, spiders, and bats. Everything else felt like an absolute chore to try and kill. Especially the bosses (Borun the Ghost being an exception). Every other boss, I died multiple times to, even trying to swap in and out skills, from healing skills, to bone armor, to this, and that. Nothing seemed to really do the trick. I think after 5 attempts at least on each boss, I finally managed to get lucky, and take them down.

Finally out of Crows wood, and got to the Dragongourd Temple Graveyard thingy, and FINALLY got something I feel would improve the damage output I was doing, which is Boneyard, as I'm mixing a Destruction Staff (Inferno right now) wall of elements with this, and I'm just really not feeling the Necromancer at all.

All of the Necromancer skills feel insanely weak, they (as far as I can tell) have next to no AoE, and the ones they do have feel useless...

Skull Ricochet- The third hid bounces up to two additional enemies, and does 20% more damage. This skill would be better if it instead initially started off hitting multiple targets, having every third hit become an AoE is silly, and the only way I could actually see having any fun with it, is if your casting speed was ridiculous fast.

Blast Skeletons- It takes too godamn long to cast, there's a cooldown time, and only one skeleton. I might have chose the wrong morph for this, but again, I was thinking I would be able to effectively do more damage if I spent less time managing just a Mana Pool. So I was staggering Magick, and Stamina.

Boneyard- Just got it, can't really tell too much about it, so far it's only doing like 800-900 damage a tick, which couple with fire wall, I could do around 2K a tick, which I don't know, doesn't really feel like it's doing a whole lot. What's worse, is in order to do increased damage with it, you need to use a corpse, which hey, that's great, and all, but this is usually a combo starter for me, along with Firewall, so there's usually no dead corpses, though now that I think about it, videos did say Blast Skeletons leave corpses... So that's my fault I guess.

I don't really know why I'm not feeling the Necromancer, it feels kind of boring, and I usually just find myself spamming one button. Just got to level 16 with it, and maybe the ability to weapon swap will help out now, but, from the short time I played the Warden to test out the beginning tutorial zones, I think the 10 minutes spent on the Warden class was actually more enjoyable than the entirety of hitting level 16 with the Necromancer.

I don't just wanna toss the character, I want it to be more fun.

I mean again it's been a while since I've played, the whole "Scaling" everything might be what's turning me off as well, seeing how everything has a massive health pool. Either or, just my thoughts on this class right now.

GrumpyDuckling

Your skills are going to feel weak when you are leveling because unfortunately, the way this game is designed, the strength of your skills is mostly determined by:

• Max scaling (how many attribute points you have into stamina or magicka)
• The sets you have equipped
• Where you put your Champion Points

Suggestion: If you have other characters who are already champion level, don't forget to toss champion points into your Necromancer because the champion points are account-wide. Even if you are low level, the champion points can give you a boost.

Joxer61

What Grumpy said and i will add, yes, Necro can feel very clunky. To me its due the the BB needing to have a target to fire. If you arent spot on with your cursor it blacks out. Have always wished that they fired like the Warden shalks, still a delay and all that but you can "preload " them and fire at what you are facing. The class (Necro) does get stronger later on cuz passives are a HUGE deal in this game...…they really make a Class/build stronger.
also, maybe swap over and give Warden a go for a bit, they are really fun...and you get a Bear!!

Red_Feather

The skull is not a good skill.
And scythe can feel boring.
And summoning gravestones looks silly.

But I stuck with it and use blast bones, mender and bitter harvest. I think they are fun and cool looking.

Luckylancer

Every PvE enemy scale to your level. Back then maybe you were higher level than them and you could beat them. Not any longer.

Devs balance all classes with excel files so if necro felt weak for you, all classes will feel same. All of them are aequal when it comes to numbers.

Athyrium93

So part of the problem might be mixing stam and mag abilities, either go all in on one of the other, hybrids really don't work.
You said you picked stamina morphs but have a destruction staff, if you like the staff, go reset your morphs at shrine and take the magicka morphs or if you like the stamina morphs go pick up a sword or some dual wield weapons. Put all your stats into either stamina or magicka.
Another thing to keep in mind is templars get their best overland skill first. Jabs/sweeps is fantastic it does damage and heals, it adds a ridiculous amount of survivability, and does good single target and multi target damage. No other class has such a loaded single ability at low levels.

BXR_Lonestar

My Magcro can hit around 50K dps without parse meta sets (siroria/spell strategist), my dude is heavily based on on AOE and ST dots. I use graveyard, wall of elements, the syphon that restores magika (forget the title), flame staff clench, soul magic dot (forget what its called) and mystic orb as my main attacks. I'll swap in blast bones in and out for the skeletal mage because blast bones is mostly unreliable except on stagnant targets.

You basically lay out your AOE's and ST DoTs and light attack in between and hit mystic orb as often as you need to to keep it on/near your target at all times.

I'm sure I'm not taking FULL advantage of all the magcro abilities, passives, and whatnot, but this setup feels natural to play, whereas if I try to set myself up to take full advantage of the magcro's kit, I feel like the play is a little wonky.

Oryctolagus

Definitely respec your attributes to magicka and fix your morphs to all magicka.

It took me a bit to get cranking on my necro and now I'm not really interested in any other class. I really dig it. This is just my current setup at around 35 and is not ideal (I just like it):

Bar one - Blastbones, Skeletal Arcanist, Spirit Guardian, Unnerving Boneyard, Shocking Siphon
Bar two - Elemental Blockade, Hungry Scythe, Bone Totem, two randomly leveling skills

Blastbones is usually cast every 3 skills, so I just go 1-2-3-1-4-5-1. For trash 3 packs I don't even bother to swap, I just stand there and they melt. I add Blockade, maybe Bone Totem, weave light attacks and keep up the dots (including summons) if it's going to go longer than around ten seconds. Whack them with the scythe if I forget to block or dodge or am paying too much attention to Person of Interest reruns.

You can do better if you add in Degeneration or Inner Light from the Mage's guild and Weakness to Elements from destruction staff.

Wandering_Immigrant

Necro is a class you grow into the more you play and level. They have a lot abilities and boosts that seem to only have a subtle effect on a fight or make it feel slow, but together they make for really strong class.

It also takes some getting used to corpse management. You just have to get out of the mindset that corpses come from kills; between your bone armor and blastbones and skeletal pets you should pretty much always have a corpse available. You'll eventually just subconsciously know when and where your next corpse will be and can even force a corpse by recasting your armour and pets early.

It's a fun class, much more so than Templar in my opinion.

Kwik1

I personally much prefer stamina necro and would say stay with it.

Get the Brawler 2h skill for a nice shield every swing and/or scythe for a decent heal every swing.

I was basically unkillable from lvl 5-50 with just using those 2 skills when needed.

If you are on PC send a tell to @kwik1 and I will help with some gear for ya.

Humor

Athyrium93 wrote: »

So part of the problem might be mixing stam and mag abilities, either go all in on one of the other, hybrids really don't work.
You said you picked stamina morphs but have a destruction staff, if you like the staff, go reset your morphs at shrine and take the magicka morphs or if you like the stamina morphs go pick up a sword or some dual wield weapons. Put all your stats into either stamina or magicka.
Another thing to keep in mind is templars get their best overland skill first. Jabs/sweeps is fantastic it does damage and heals, it adds a ridiculous amount of survivability, and does good single target and multi target damage. No other class has such a loaded single ability at low levels.

I've seen quite a few videos, and guides that say it's best just to run Magick, or Stamina either. I don't buy that though.

Just reached level 30. Using half, and half (Magicka/Stamina) so far.

I'm not really noticing much of a difference in the damage I do, even in lower leveled Area's. Of course, since I'm level 30, i'm not exactly looking for the best, of the best, when it comes to gear, however, when I can, I do stack gear to be more attuned to Magicka, and Magicka Recovery, since the only skills I'm using for Stamina, are ones to heal me, and or just form corpses.

So far my Damage rotation seems to go like this "Blasting bones" (stamina build, because the damage on it is stupidly weak anyways, and conserves Mana, using stamina), Skeletal Mage, which after a while will create another corpse, then I go onto using Boneyard, the morphed one where I can freely activate the synergy myself doing burst damage. From that, I straight up go for Wall of Elements from a Destruction Staff, right now it's lighting, run into my Boneyard, cast Synergy for the burst, than spam the Scythe regaining health, and doing a fair bit of damage.

usually before the fights, I will use bone armor morphed into the one where ranged enemies get sucked into my DoT skills.

So far, this build I've created thus far seems to be doing well. Granted it's definitely not min-maxing anything, it get's the job done, does a good job at managing Magicka/Stamina, while giving me great defense, and DoT on pretty much anything that should hit me, near, or far.

I still have yet to try out more skills as I've yet not reached the rank for them, but I'm really glad the Necro is turning around for me, sadly, it really disheartens me seeing people who are 50+ CP run into public dungeons, and just faceroll everything. Still kind of feeling like a Necro can't do it.

the1andonlyskwex

Blastbones should be one of your highest damage skills. The reason "the damage on it is stupidly weak" for you is that you're using the wrong morph for the rest of your build and you're splitting your stats between mag and stam.

Humor

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Blastbones should be one of your highest damage skills. The reason "the damage on it is stupidly weak" for you is that you're using the wrong morph for the rest of your build and you're splitting your stats between mag and stam.

Really?

Granted the videos I've seen were older, but quite a few people had mentioned this skill was bugged an actually does less damage than the skill says it does.

The other Morph relies on the skeleton running before it hit's it target. If I'm going to be be more or less focused on DoT's, and pulling in 6-8 enemies at once, they'll all be up on me , thus Blasting bones won't ever get the chance to "Run", which equals it's damage output percentage, or according to the skill description 10% damage boost each second it spends chasing an opponent. When opponents are in my face, this skill seems absolutely useless, and regarding the poor damage it already does, it's better used to start combo's, or increase the damage of other spells due to the corpse.

I'm not going to poke fun or anything, but, could you explain to me in which scenario, this skill would be better suited for the other morph? I can only see it as a means to give myself a corpse to enhance my other skills, thus it's much better suited to be stamina based.

This is also true, in the fact I'm trying to keep as many enemies as possible in my Area of Effect, Damage over Time skills, as such, I won't be running out of my effective Damage over time area's.

the1andonlyskwex

The damage of blastbones (and most other abilities) is higher if you have a bigger pool of the resource you're using to cast it. If you split your attribute points between mag and stam, all of your abilities will do reduced damage, and if you equip mostly mag gear all of your Stam abilities will be even weaker. This difference is much greater than the unreliable 10% damage increase of the magicka morph (which can be contrasted to a 0% damage increase on the stamina morph, because it's bonus is major defile, not extra damage).

Oryctolagus

Humor wrote: »

Athyrium93 wrote: »

So part of the problem might be mixing stam and mag abilities, either go all in on one of the other, hybrids really don't work.
You said you picked stamina morphs but have a destruction staff, if you like the staff, go reset your morphs at shrine and take the magicka morphs or if you like the stamina morphs go pick up a sword or some dual wield weapons. Put all your stats into either stamina or magicka.
Another thing to keep in mind is templars get their best overland skill first. Jabs/sweeps is fantastic it does damage and heals, it adds a ridiculous amount of survivability, and does good single target and multi target damage. No other class has such a loaded single ability at low levels.

I've seen quite a few videos, and guides that say it's best just to run Magick, or Stamina either. I don't buy that though.

Choice 1: ignore best practices and do your own thing, mix stats, mix morphs. This is absolutely fine for solo, but it WILL under-perform. This is the reason for your thread, I thought - a "what am I doing wrong?".

Choice 2: Follow best practices and advice from the experienced folks and ramp up your necro's performance. This means putting all your attributes in magicka and using magicka morphs. It's not something you can debate, it's just numbers born out of the game's design.

Anything you're having trouble with at the moment an adjusted necro build will faceroll just like all the other classes you see zipping through places. You don't have to believe this - do the experiment, it's easy. Flip everything over and if you don't see a huge difference, go back to doing your own thing.

On the blastbones morph -- the stalking piece of the magicka morph is a nice bonus sometimes, but it's not the reason to use it. A lot of the added effects of morphs are only situationally useful.

Go here https://alcasthq.com/eso-solo-magicka-necromancer-build-pve/ to see some explanations of skill synergy. It's helpful to understand how the skills feed off of each other. I also like eyeballing things at https://www.hacktheminotaur.com just to see what skills work together well. There is a lot of out-dated information out there, like the blastbones bug(s) that have been worked on. These two are active and knowledgable. Don't take them as gospel, just use them for knowledge.

Kwik1

I lead with blastbones on my stamina necro and the group of mobs is already under half by the time I start spamming my DD. I destroy WB's with a combo of blast bones and Poison Spray. Blast Bones is not weak in any way for me.

If you find Blastbones stupidly weak you might consider the fact you are half stamina and half magicka so you are basically getting half dmg. The blastbones bug that I know of has nothing to do with damage but on how it sometimes won't hit. I personally have never had a problem but have heard others have.

There is a reason every guide in the game says put ALL your points into stamina if you are a stamina build and vice versa with magicka.

At lvl 10 with my Stamcro I was already soloing world bosses, and at lvl 20 as a test I soloed Fungal Grove to see if Stamcro's were as good as people were raving about. They are.

Before you jump on an advice forum and tell people to do the opposite of what every build in the game knows is a necessity for max damage, read first.

Alcast is a GREAT website for learning classes and getting an idea on how to build a character.

BTW as the poster above already stated, if you want to see high dmg, max your stamina stat and then get glyphs that add stamina. Don't put a single point into magicka if you are a stamina build. Don't even put a point into health until you hit CP levels.

Wandering_Immigrant

It's not till you get into the 30s that the power difference between a hybrid and a full mag or stam setup really starts to become noticeable. Until then it works pretty easily due to stats being boosted by level sync.

I was a lot like you when I was new, playing with a hybrid warden, bow/destro, wondering what the big deal was. Then I got somewhere in the 30s and fights just started taking forever.

By all means, continue to experiment on your own, that's a better way to learn the game imo than looking up guides. But when you do feel kills are taking longer try switching to mag or stam just to see if you can tell the difference. I had other characters that were full mag and Stam at the time as a point of reference so for me it was instantly noticeable when she started feeling weaker, I don't know if you do.

This isn't to say hybrids can't work to some degree for solo play and even PvP, I have a hybrid sorcerer in my stable now, but it takes a setup built around being hybrid, which takes a lot of game knowledge and resources to put together. Also, and I guess this is just my opinion, but Necro isn't a very good hybrid candidate anyway. They already have morphs for Stam and mag on most of their abilities, so you're not really gaining anything since there's nothing a Stam necro can do that a mag one can't and vice versa, all you're doing is sacrificing power.

Just keep having fun doing your thing, not everything has to cookie cutter this game is very flexible. But experiment and learn along the way, and don't get so stuck on trying to make something work that you start blaming the class or other outside factors, all classes are strong, they can all do everything equally well almost to a fault even. So if something isn't working try something else. I don't use guides, I've barely even been to any content Creator's sites except in reference to something specific, and I think I do pretty well, but I've probably abandoned more concepts than I've kept because I accept that if a character doesn't feel strong it's probably my fault, and so I try something else.

Humor

Well, I just got to Deshaan now, I suppose it doesn't hurt to try and experiment with throwing everything into one stat.

A lot of people do recommend it. I'll give it a shot.

I personally don't like to follow others guide's/builds, I guess I'm a hipster in that manner.

The important part about the game is the fun though. Still, I'll give it a try, I'm not that close minded.

Thanks for the responses, and advice, I appreciate it.

Everest_Lionheart

I was doing a similar thing with my warden. Splitting the attributes and trying to run a balanced set of skills. I was running a destro front bar and SnB backbar. Things were all over the place. I killed a lot of stuff but struggled compared to others I was watching. A guild member reached out to help me out and I put all the points in stamina switch to DW/Bow and never looked back.

Now I do run a somewhat hybridish build still even with all my points into stamina. For instance I’m running the magicka morph of fungal growth to take the stress off my stamina pool when my health gets low. I also run a shield that costs magicka. I run gripping shards, soul consuming trap and green lotus as well. Even though I don’t have points in magicka I still have enough in the pool to get the green lotus, gripping shards, soul trap and a heal/shield if I need them all in a row. I do run tri stat food when soloing. And yes all my points are in stam even though half my skills cost magicka.

How it works in combat since I am a Stamwarden my stamina deals the dmg and the magicka supports me plus has some bonus dmg to drive my numbers higher. When running trials I drop the shield and gripping shards and slot an extra range skill (poison injection or cutting dive) and trap beast in place. Having all your points in stam or magicka actually gives you more flexibility to play solo or in groups depending on which skills/morphs you have unlocked that you can swap in on the fly. I know it seems counterintuitive to balance to build an unbalanced character but there are other ways to cover certain deficiencies. You can use 2pc monster sets to support one attrubute or another, you can use enchants for health in your armour or run a heavy chest piece for extra mitigation on a dps build. There are better ways to balance your build than attributes. Each class works but they all have the flexibility to be a hybrid if that’s what you choose.

Good luck with your build whatever you do. There is solid advice here for the necro class. I haven’t played it yet though stamcro is my next toon to try. I realize magicka is BiS for Necro but I can’t handle doing another run of mages and psijic quest lines again after doing it twice in a row for magplar and MagDK!

newtinmpls

Humor wrote: »

Just reached level 30. Using half, and half (Magicka/Stamina) so far.

One small caution is that since One Tamriel, non "Vet" characters are severely buffed by the game. Wait till you hit CP 160 and see how things play out.

fred4

Athyrium93 wrote: »

Another thing to keep in mind is templars get their best overland skill first. Jabs/sweeps is fantastic it does damage and heals, it adds a ridiculous amount of survivability, and does good single target and multi target damage. No other class has such a loaded single ability at low levels.

This!

Algorax

Humor wrote: »

So by the time I got to Crows Wood, I was around level 13, had had Morphed the skull to Richochet, and got Stamina/Disease Blast bones, and the Stamina Scythe skill, Moprhed Bone armor to pull in ranged enemies (That one is entirely on me, I thought it did something different in my mind), and had got the Bone collossus transformation for my ultimate.

This.

Accordint to what you just wrote you morphed an ability with a samina morph and another one with a magika morph. Chose one side.

Grianasteri

@Humor

The fact is Necro is a higher skill cap than most of the other classes. It is absolutely fiddly and a bit unwieldy to use the skill and carry out effective rotations and making it work is quite a different playstyle from some other classes.

But it can also be extremely effective. I know one of my guildies for instance pulls well over 90K dps with his necro. So its a question of getting used to it and executing the skills in the correct sequence to make the most out of them. This, perhaps more than some other classes is key. You need to create corpses and you need to keep Blastbones flowing, for instance. That, and of course having the rest of your build optimised.

Personally I love the class, even though Im very average with it, no where near as proficient as I am with most of the other classes.

Blastbones is an excellent AOE, the morphs are both very useful when used correctly in builds. I mean, an AOE debuff to enemy resistances? Whats not to like.

Further AOE comes from the tether skill (cant remember its name off hand and cant be bothered checking), which dish out huge amounts of damage if you are built right.

Skulls is a perfectly good spammable if you want to use it. I find you can fire it really fast with practice so not sure where that criticism stems from. I tend to opt for a different spammable on my Necro though. I hate skulls and am fed up seeing them in fantasy genres lol, its like designers just wheel out a tired trope, its lazy.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST... youre at level 16 mate. Youre only scratching the surface at best. Judge when you have unlocked every skill and morph and played magica and stamina variants.