I've played around with a few different things, but tend to favor; Winterborn (Infused Fire Staff front bar + ring, necklace, and belt), Vateshran Destruction Staff on the back bar, 5x Torug's Pact on the body, 1x Skoria, and Malacath Ring. Armor is 5 light, 2 heavy, with traits being a mixture of Reinforced, Nirnhoned, and Impenetrable. I'm using health enchants on the big pieces and magicka on the small ones (tri-stat on at least big pieces would generally be better, but I haven't bothered yet). And while the penetration from Skoria is nice, I think there's definitely an argument to be made for something like Domihaus as well...especially since my stamina is only a little over 12k Stamina in no-CP.

All 3 jewelry pieces have the Swift trait, with 2 magicka regen enchants and 1 spell damage. If you don't mind burning through more potions than I prefer to, you could run more damage enchants instead. My Vateshran Destruction Staff dropped as Perfected Lightning with the Precise trait, though Perfected-vs-Normal doesn't really matter on the back bar. The staff type also doesn't really matter too much, though I wouldn't necessarily want to run a second Fire Staff; Lightning allows you to at least heavy attack on dodge spammers, while Frost could provide a little extra Magicka if you can fit in a fully charged heavy attack + block once with the shield on...which wouldn't be super common on this setup to be honest. As for the trait, I've left mine as Precise so far just because it can help a little with heals.

I've switched Mundus Stones around here and there, but have lately been using The Lover, along with tri-stat food and tri-potions. Since I'm allergic to PvE and really don't like doing it any more than I have to, I tend to try and be fairly sparing with potions, but currently have a decent stock of Crown tri-pots.

Skill setup is as follows:
Front bar:

• Expunge and Modify (Hexproof is probably better in the current meta, but the extra Stam can let you dodge roll more).
• Crushing Shock (damage isn't very good really, but the interrupt is sometimes nice, though it's mostly to proc Winterborn).
• Stalking Blastbones.
• Flame Clench (try to time it early enough that your Blastbones won't be in the air when this lands, or the skeleton will often fall apart mid-leap without doing any damage.
• Degeneration (this is a really bad skill, but the only way to get Major Sorcery without chugging certain potions on cooldown).
• Ultimate varies, but honestly 99 times out of 100 I'm using the one on my back bar. Something with a passive bonus, like Temporal Guard, would probably provide the most benefit. But I'll oftentimes keep an offensively focused Ultimate slotted "just in case."

Back bar:

• Summoner's Armor
• Spirit Guardian
• Elemental Drain
• Resistant Flesh
• Elusive Mist (Frankly, Race Against Time is probably superior in most cases, but I wanted to justify not curing Vampirism and staying at Stage 1. There are also some situations where Mist Form can be better, like absorbing a Meteor when you know an unblockable Streak is coming).
• Ravenous Goliath for the ultimate.

This setup means that the Corpse Consumption and Death Knell passives are completely wasted, and the Penetration from the Dismember passive will only be active while your Blastbones is assembling itself (or during your Colossus' duration, if you use that Ultimate). Still, the proc-burst provides some actual killing power, which the Magicka Necromancer otherwise sorely lacks. Most of the time that the class has been in existence, I've been playing it as a main without proc sets or pre-nerf Graverobber cheese, and it's downright awful under those circumstances, even if all of your passives are in full effect. The current state of procs is really the sole reason that Magicka Necromancer is even remotely viable, though it's still basically bottom of the barrel.

The current state of procs is really the sole reason that Magicka Necromancer is even remotely viable, though it's still basically bottom of the barrel.

This. It is pretty painful to play. Your only remotely viable instant CC causes your burst to disassemble...that says it all.

Even with procs, are there any magicka proc sets that are even equal to the stam proc sets? Calurrion, Winterborn, Icy Conjuror are pretty sub-par compared to stamina options, in my opinion. There is a reason why mag builds are using Syvarra's.

For magicka procs, Necro is one of the worst classes to leverage them. It only has % damage increases for dots. It does not have a good health based heal, compared to Warden or Sorcerer.

Thx for your ideas, ill try out some of em. and @Vizirith im not a stam fan, so i have to play MagCro or Delete the Class lmao

@Waffennacht im personaly a fan of a Monsterset on MagCro. Had Alot Fun with Kjalnar and if im in a Group, doin large fights, ill swap to the good old Bloodspawn^

Waffennacht wrote: »

There's one aspect of Necro that a few people are overlooking. Im working on a build and so far have actually been pulling in solid BG numbers.

Dropped running a full monster set like @wheem_ESO mentioned above

@katorga is also on, IMO im deciding IF BB is actually worth running vs the CC. Cant bring myself to drop it... yet, but the thought is there.

Mag procs are weaker except a handful. And then there's CP; in no CP the procs do better. Dunno about OW.

You can still use Blastbones with Flame Clench, you just have to be careful with the timing and recognize that there are some cases where you're just going to counter yourself (especially if you need to stun defensively while BB is active...which hurts your ability to counterpressure). It's not exactly an ideal situation, since you really want the stun to land at the same time as your delayed burst, but I'll often go with Blastbones -> Flame Clench -> Crushing Shock, which still has the damage landing close together.

And I've personally never liked CP-enabled PvP, but I don't think going full procs is particularly good in that situation, and Magicka Necromancer is likely not very worthwhile at all.

Vyseman wrote: »

Thx for your ideas, ill try out some of em. and @Vizirith im not a stam fan, so i have to play MagCro or Delete the Class lmao

If you weren't entirely joking about deleting the character, it's worth pointing out what has happened with Magicka Warden over the years. When the class first came out, the only thing it had going for it was a spammable that couldn't be dodged. It was a bad class that was hands-down worse than virtually everything else, while Stamina Warden was outstanding, and easily among the best PvP classes in the game (which is a position that it has retained). For a while after Morrowind's release, Magicka Warden ate numerous nerfs, including the loss of Cliff Racer's undodgeable "trait." But now, multiple years later, it's probably one of the overall best magicka classes (if the relevance of the HP-based heal fades once again, it'll lose a bit of power, but should still be fairly solid outside of 1v1).

I've been hoping that the same will happen for Magicka Necromancer, ideally without taking as long as it did for Warden. It'd be a bummer to delete the character only to have it get buffed up to competitive status in a patch or two (hey, I can dream...)

@wheem_ESO yes i know all about MagDen.. i also loved the Class since release. After the undodgeable Birds nerf, everyone stoped playin it, but me not. still played it for years, also did my first EMP with Magden but now i feel not good on it ôo
I miss alot of damage from the Older MagDen, had no prob with my "hybrid" Shackle + Necro 2h + Resto build. Where u get ur 2h ult back after a kill LOL

And ye.. i realy dont know about MagCro. i mean, the Skills looking AMAZING. My biggest Problem on MagCro is the Damage. Drunkbones dont do anything for me in PvP. 80% they stay next to me and drink a beer lol. and also the Healing is meeh

Shields are now capped then halved.

So you get capped at your health, then PvP BS is applied to cut it in half.

Before you had to hit the cap after being halved which was unlikely.

This makes shields based on magicka completely worthless in PvP

Edit: is another reason for the heavy armor meta and stacking health, its far easier to hit a higher bone shield or posture than dampen ot hardened.

Waffennacht wrote: »

Shields are now capped then halved.

So you get capped at your health, then PvP BS is applied to cut it in half.

Before you had to hit the cap after being halved which was unlikely.

This makes shields based on magicka completely worthless in PvP

Edit: is another reason for the heavy armor meta and stacking health, its far easier to hit a higher bone shield or posture than dampen ot hardened.

Well THAT did not make it into the patch notes. Was it intended or yet another thing that got broken?

FYI, for all of the forum complaints about the health/proc meta, it really is the only way to play reliably given current server performance. Health gives you a buffer when dodge/block don't go off or shields won't cast. Procs always seem to go off, while skills don't.