Mag necro DPS dungeon vs PVE solo

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Returning to the game. The new char is mag necro DPS, and I just hit 160cp. Thief stone. High Elf. I need help to do more DPS and likely correct some issues in my gameplay.

I know that there are many builds on these forums and elsewhere. I have gone through a lot of them.

Question 1: What source is the best place to get resources for necros/what players are at the top of their game and trustworthy?

Question 2: What is your build like for a) dungeon trash mobs, b) dungeon main mobs, and c) solo PvE? (I mean your spells/skills).

Question 3: What is your gear like for each of these roles? (Dungeon DPS vs PVE solo)?

For a dungeon, I would likely have this slotted:

Mystic Siphon
Skeletal Arcanist
Ricochet Skull
Stalking Blastbones
Unnerving boneyard
R: Glacial colossus

For PVE, I will use

Ricochet
Hungry scythe
Unstable wall (fire)
Stalking
(whatever else I feel is needed for the situation)

R: Bone Goliath

Question 4: Is it essential to have two bars? I feel like where I lose a ton of DPS is trash mobs. I do often load wall of the elements with a fire staff.

Question 5) This is related to question 4. How can I do more DPS on trash mobs?

My gear: It's a Hodge podge. I was waiting to hit CP160, which I just have. I want Bashei's for dungeons, but I will need people to run that trial (that's my issue!). I was told that Kinra's wrath and Mother's Sorrow, as well as Julianos, can do the trick.

Question 6: What gear set(s) should I aim for (dungeon and PvE), including weapons and rings/neck?

Question 7: Can we talk mystic syphon? I move around to place myself to it hits the mob. I was told that its graphics are only a guide and that it hits, I think, 5 meters around. How the heck do I measure those meters? How do I know that I'm hitting what I want to hit?

Sorry for all the questions, but I read about 100 guides and have about 15 bookmarked. I'm getting to a point where I'm more confused than anything else.

Thanks in advance for your input.

Edit reason: Making this more legible.

Triplesixtyson · September 2022

Theres alot there but what i can say is dont get overwhelmed trying to figure out 10 things all at once.

For starters, focus on getting 2 complete sets. Id recomend Orders Wrath (crafted) and Mothers Sorrow (overland). Both very easy to aquire and will work for solo and dungeons. Slimecraw monster set or whatever else you choose will compliment those sets nicely.

Second start working on what skills your using and the rotation. For necro at the most basic level; blastbones, 2 skills (AoEs), blastbones, 2 skills...rinse repeat. once all AoEs are up and ticking you will be using your spamable (i use ricochet skull) for your 2 skill casts until AoEs need to be recast. Ensure you have both bars full with dps spells and 1 heal for safe measure. You need to utilize orb, degeneration, barbed trap etc. So that means using more then just necro spells.

Dont overthink past that my friend. Work on those two things and come back with more specific/advanced questions in the future, i would be glad to help further.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Triplesixtyson wrote: »

Theres alot there but what i can say is dont get overwhelmed trying to figure out 10 things all at once.

For starters, focus on getting 2 complete sets. Id recomend Orders Wrath (crafted) and Mothers Sorrow (overland). Both very easy to aquire and will work for solo and dungeons. Slimecraw monster set or whatever else you choose will compliment those sets nicely.

Second start working on what skills your using and the rotation. For necro at the most basic level; blastbones, 2 skills (AoEs), blastbones, 2 skills...rinse repeat. once all AoEs are up and ticking you will be using your spamable (i use ricochet skull) for your 2 skill casts until AoEs need to be recast. Ensure you have both bars full with dps spells and 1 heal for safe measure. You need to utilize orb, degeneration, barbed trap etc. So that means using more then just necro spells.

Dont overthink past that my friend. Work on those two things and come back with more specific/advanced questions in the future, i would be glad to help further.

Thank you so much for your detailed response, Triplesixtyson.

First, you're right about the overwhelming part. I was a top 3 DPS worldwide/server wide in Everquest 1. Even if I gave my rotation to every other necro in my class and did my best to train those in my guild, I always did 2-3x more DPS. I feel bad knowing my DPS isn't up to par in dungeons. I just started dungeons with this event (I'm an OCD finisher of zones, including sets, so I have not progressed as quickly as I would like...but that is my choice. The dungeons have been giving me skill points which have been great as I miss so many. I'm at about 92, and some were put in crafting as I also was THE guild master crafter that people came to for materials and for help (always free- I never charged a platinum/gold in EQ1).
I see doing my research as something very important because spending on crown time reducers for research is a waste of crowns. I want that research done ASAP (for myself and others. I know that MANY have almost every recipe, but my OCD will not be satisfied. I WILL have EVERY recipe/motif/diagram and so forth. I know how difficult that will be and how much farming will require. Some people would rather shoot themselves in the foot than get this done. It isn't about being better or more than... I want to make that extremely clear. I am always the one helping if I can and never putting down others. It's a game, and the goal is to have fun. This is just how I play MMOs. What you said was comforting. You basically told me that I just came back and to chill a little... I likely needed to hear that. I thank you.

I have read many, MANY builds. I am mainly basing myself on https://arzyelbuilds.com/magicka-necromancer-pve-build-eso/
as they seem to be fairly knowledgeable. I know that once I am fully built up, I will need to test my DPS on dummies and will not be able to rely on the builds of others. This person (and I thank you if you read this, Arzyel) has clearly communicated many builds. I found out about the necrotic orb and the barbed trap from them. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. The main skills that I use are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. It's likely teaching me ''bad habits'' not to use those two bars! What is your opinion on this, Triplesixtyson?

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

I knew what I was getting into when I chose the necro. It is one of the most challenging classes to manage due to all the swapping you mentioned. My DPS is very likely horrible because I'm using one bar. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. My primary skills are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. (I just gave that response above and copied and pasted it because you mentioned the issue, and I now recognize that it is a big mistake of mine). I was able to handle 24 spells in Everquest 1 (all dots) as a necromancer, so I think I can do it. I hope so! If there is no amelioration once I get proper gear and my bars are correctly set up, and I've had a few weeks of practice, I will follow your advice and go to a warden. I don't mind healing, either. It's another big reason why I chose necro. I know they are not the best healers, and I'm working up healing skills following a guide from Arzyel, but I need my DPS gear first to get my primary role under control before I can even consider doing anything else. It would be stupid to be learning two roles poorly/learning terrible habits in both.

On double barring. I get that I should be using my ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet... I'm not sure what you mean by the sorc skill that you mentioned. I think this was likely just a slip, as you're probably used to talking about sorc skills. Just to ensure, can you let me know what necro skills you'd consider irrelevant in a second bar? If you do not know the skills of the necro enough because, as you said, you didn't ''really'' play a necro other than to help out/provide a service/help guildies/friends/people, it is totally fine. I will not discount your experience and advice over something silly like that! You know what you're doing with your sorc!

I did watch a lot of Youtube tutorials as well! I thank you for pointing this one out!! I may not have seen it, and will watch it!! I fully agree with your music analogy: ''1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music''. I knew this ahead of time/I looked at the necro class before picking it up. I managed 24+ dots in EQ1; some were 30 seconds while others were 1 minute and 30 seconds. I realize that no dot has this length here and that 24 would be impossible. I need to get my timing correct to keep the dots that need to be there on time and do whatever other skills need to be cast in between that time! I will be totally honest (you know this already without me being honest), I just started doing dungeons, and I never did the bar swapping other than to put the skills I'm working on within the back bar and switch to level those skills as I turn out dungeons/quests. I think I will need to stop doing that for dungeons and only be able to do it for solo quests. I'm learning bad habits, so I came here to be told what I somewhat figured out but wanted to hear from veteran players. I know this is a game, but I take pride in performing my roles correctly. Especially since my disabilities prevent me from leaving the house as much as I did when I was fully healthy. It's nice to escape to this ''magical world,'' but it's not entirely magical as you need to learn your role there too, or you will not be chosen for many ''things''.

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Can you guys talk to me about trash vs main mobs in dungeons? I know that I do better with main mobs. I lose a ton of DPS with trash. I can go from 25%-30% to 16% after we hit a patch of trash and go back up after the main mob. This is not acceptable. I am slowing down my groups and even if most everyone has been really kind once I mention that I'm new (even lying to me to make me feel better- now that is going out of your way to being kind but it doesn't make me better).

I also have issues with reading stuff. I guess that I need to do these dungeons with guildies who understand and will wait, right? At times, another new player will stay and we will go back and read as much as we can and loot while we're at it. I found expensive motifs that way. I'm a major ''loot ***'', (pardon the term). I know that in pugs, it's called follow and hurry up.

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Can you guys talk to me about trash vs main mobs in dungeons? I know that I do better with main mobs. I lose a ton of DPS with trash. I can go from 25%-30% to 16% after we hit a patch of trash and go back up after the main mob. This is not acceptable. I am slowing down my groups and even if most everyone has been really kind once I mention that I'm new (even lying to me to make me feel better- now that is going out of your way to being kind but it doesn't make me better).

I also have issues with reading stuff. I guess that I need to do these dungeons with guildies who understand and will wait, right? At times, another new player will stay and we will go back and read as much as we can and loot while we're at it. I found expensive motifs that way. I'm a major ''loot ***'', (pardon the term). I know that in pugs, it's called follow and hurry up.

my mag necro has the opposite problem, excellent with dealing with trash, but terrible in single target fights

but i have him more set up as an almost bomber (dark convergence, plaguebreak, prior thierric with occult overload) so trash dies extremely fast, but on single hard targets like bosses i only manage about 16-20k dps lol

Everest_Lionheart · September 2022

What I have done with Magcro is load up with 20 second dots to keep the bar swapping down to a minimum. To achieve this I run master inferno on backbar and use flame reach as a sticky dot. My other backbar dots are detonating siphon, barbed trap and the smelly pet, either morph will do but the stam morph hits harder. Detonating siphon for additional aoe damage when it explodes which you can control as long as there is another corpse available to cast again. This is how you can move the aoe damage around in mobile fights and finish off some mobs.

Front bar I run daggers and use blade cloak, another 20 second dot, if you have a staff you can run degeneration instead. I also run boneyard which has only a 10 second duration but since it’s front bar you can recast as it runs out in place of your spamable. My spamable is skulls but I also like to run force pulse for certain fights if I am using a staff for more consistent damage.

So using the 1-2-3 principle. It’s pretty straight forward on your front bar so when it comes time for back bar dot refreshing it’s a few seconds of swapping followed by sustained time on front bar again. That part of your rotation looks like this: 1-swap-2-3-swap, 1-swap-2-3-swap and that’s 6 GCD of a 20 GCD rotation, if you are going slow call it 8 of 20 leaving 4 series of 1-2-3 on your front bar before the swap phases.

Most mobs will die in 1 phase and you may not even cast siphon. So for trash fights 1-swap-2-3-4-swap followed by front bar rotation. Any sets that require stacks will not fall off using this principle so long as you are good at light attacking.

Note also that my bar setups leave 2 flex spots. You can double bar inner light for more damage or camo hunter for flanking damage. You could slot a heal in the front bar flex spot and a shield in the back bar slot. You could also double slot blastbones if bar swapping really is a problem but make sure you adjust sets accordingly because you won’t be able to utilize sets that require stacks unless they are on the body. I don’t recommend this option but it is there for those with serious disabilities that can’t swap quickly.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

I knew what I was getting into when I chose the necro. It is one of the most challenging classes to manage due to all the swapping you mentioned. My DPS is very likely horrible because I'm using one bar. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. My primary skills are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. (I just gave that response above and copied and pasted it because you mentioned the issue, and I now recognize that it is a big mistake of mine). I was able to handle 24 spells in Everquest 1 (all dots) as a necromancer, so I think I can do it. I hope so! If there is no amelioration once I get proper gear and my bars are correctly set up, and I've had a few weeks of practice, I will follow your advice and go to a warden. I don't mind healing, either. It's another big reason why I chose necro. I know they are not the best healers, and I'm working up healing skills following a guide from Arzyel, but I need my DPS gear first to get my primary role under control before I can even consider doing anything else. It would be stupid to be learning two roles poorly/learning terrible habits in both.

On double barring. I get that I should be using my ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet... I'm not sure what you mean by the sorc skill that you mentioned. I think this was likely just a slip, as you're probably used to talking about sorc skills. Just to ensure, can you let me know what necro skills you'd consider irrelevant in a second bar? If you do not know the skills of the necro enough because, as you said, you didn't ''really'' play a necro other than to help out/provide a service/help guildies/friends/people, it is totally fine. I will not discount your experience and advice over something silly like that! You know what you're doing with your sorc!

I did watch a lot of Youtube tutorials as well! I thank you for pointing this one out!! I may not have seen it, and will watch it!! I fully agree with your music analogy: ''1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music''. I knew this ahead of time/I looked at the necro class before picking it up. I managed 24+ dots in EQ1; some were 30 seconds while others were 1 minute and 30 seconds. I realize that no dot has this length here and that 24 would be impossible. I need to get my timing correct to keep the dots that need to be there on time and do whatever other skills need to be cast in between that time! I will be totally honest (you know this already without me being honest), I just started doing dungeons, and I never did the bar swapping other than to put the skills I'm working on within the back bar and switch to level those skills as I turn out dungeons/quests. I think I will need to stop doing that for dungeons and only be able to do it for solo quests. I'm learning bad habits, so I came here to be told what I somewhat figured out but wanted to hear from veteran players. I know this is a game, but I take pride in performing my roles correctly. Especially since my disabilities prevent me from leaving the house as much as I did when I was fully healthy. It's nice to escape to this ''magical world,'' but it's not entirely magical as you need to learn your role there too, or you will not be chosen for many ''things''.

Not a slip, sorcs have pets that need to be double barred or they unsummon when you swap. Point is those and perhaps some passive skills are the only skills you should ever double bar. Nothing on Necro should be double barred.

A "turn in" bar is certainly useful for quests and leveling skills, but lets be honest, it has nothing to do with how to actually build a necro for real content, which is what i presume we are talking about. Unless doing a specific oakensoul build for one bar, you should 100% be using both bars when playing any end game content.

There is no one way to do it but as a general rule, put longer duration skills on your back bar, and put shorter ones on your front bar. That includes things like class Apex skills (blastbones in the case of necro) any spammables (skull, scyth) and any passive skills you only slot for the buffs (inner light, cammo hunter, etc).

Because necro is on that 1,2,3 rotation, i suggest trying to pair skills as much as possible, both on the bar they are on and on your skill slots for ease of casting. Necro is really a handful of mini 3 second rotations, so try to keep the 2 and 3 count for each rotation next to each other whenever possible. For example, you dont want to go blastbones, swap to a back bar skill, swap to a front bar skills, then back to blastbones if you can avoid. It just gets confusing. Much easier to either have a front bar rotation, where its blastbones, skill, skill, or back bar rotation, where its blastbones, swap, skill, skill, swap Blastbones. Get used to the idea that every time you come back to your front bar, blastbones is your first cast. And dont mix and match the 2 and 3. Keep the skill pairings consistent, and try to pair skills with similar duration.

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Can you guys talk to me about trash vs main mobs in dungeons? I know that I do better with main mobs. I lose a ton of DPS with trash. I can go from 25%-30% to 16% after we hit a patch of trash and go back up after the main mob. This is not acceptable. I am slowing down my groups and even if most everyone has been really kind once I mention that I'm new (even lying to me to make me feel better- now that is going out of your way to being kind but it doesn't make me better).

I also have issues with reading stuff. I guess that I need to do these dungeons with guildies who understand and will wait, right? At times, another new player will stay and we will go back and read as much as we can and loot while we're at it. I found expensive motifs that way. I'm a major ''loot ***'', (pardon the term). I know that in pugs, it's called follow and hurry up.

my mag necro has the opposite problem, excellent with dealing with trash, but terrible in single target fights

but i have him more set up as an almost bomber (dark convergence, plaguebreak, prior thierric with occult overload) so trash dies extremely fast, but on single hard targets like bosses i only manage about 16-20k dps lol

This can help me with trash. Thank you.

I know that I'm not likely going to be a major help, but my main mob routine is ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet...Colossal Frost is my R. and that weaving in between with light attacks. I was surprised by how much DPS I gained by ensuring that I did more weaving. I know that my DPS, in general needs to get a lot better!! I'm just hoping that exchanging small tips can help us. Thank you so much for your tips on trash mobs.

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

What I have done with Magcro is load up with 20 second dots to keep the bar swapping down to a minimum. To achieve this I run master inferno on backbar and use flame reach as a sticky dot. My other backbar dots are detonating siphon, barbed trap and the smelly pet, either morph will do but the stam morph hits harder. Detonating siphon for additional aoe damage when it explodes which you can control as long as there is another corpse available to cast again. This is how you can move the aoe damage around in mobile fights and finish off some mobs.

Front bar I run daggers and use blade cloak, another 20 second dot, if you have a staff you can run degeneration instead. I also run boneyard which has only a 10 second duration but since it’s front bar you can recast as it runs out in place of your spamable. My spamable is skulls but I also like to run force pulse for certain fights if I am using a staff for more consistent damage.

So using the 1-2-3 principle. It’s pretty straight forward on your front bar so when it comes time for back bar dot refreshing it’s a few seconds of swapping followed by sustained time on front bar again. That part of your rotation looks like this: 1-swap-2-3-swap, 1-swap-2-3-swap and that’s 6 GCD of a 20 GCD rotation, if you are going slow call it 8 of 20 leaving 4 series of 1-2-3 on your front bar before the swap phases.

Most mobs will die in 1 phase and you may not even cast siphon. So for trash fights 1-swap-2-3-4-swap followed by front bar rotation. Any sets that require stacks will not fall off using this principle so long as you are good at light attacking.

Note also that my bar setups leave 2 flex spots. You can double bar inner light for more damage or camo hunter for flanking damage. You could slot a heal in the front bar flex spot and a shield in the back bar slot. You could also double slot blastbones if bar swapping really is a problem but make sure you adjust sets accordingly because you won’t be able to utilize sets that require stacks unless they are on the body. I don’t recommend this option but it is there for those with serious disabilities that can’t swap quickly.

I use mystic syphon. In 95% of the guides/builds/videos that I read/studied/watched, it was the one recommended. What is your opinion on that topic, if you do not mind me asking? And I'm NOT saying that your choice is wrong, btw!!! It works with your build, so that's awesome.

I really appreciate all the info that you gave me!! I need to get 2 more skills to try what you're recommending. Of course, I can do it without, but it will be best if I get those skills. I'll work on getting those next. How do you feel about using daggers on a mag char? I'm not against the idea, btw. It will just feel a tad odd because I always play mag classes with staff. That is, of course, only a ''habit'' due to not having the choice of using anything else in most games.

I REALLY appreciate you reading about the fact that I posted about my disabilities and including it in your advice!! I am able to switch quickly, but I know that many cannot. I hope it's OK, but I will link this to a friend who has more advanced MS and who finds it more difficult to switch. I helped them find out of game gadgets that support their wrist and give them more comfort while playing, but in-game advice is not something that I had to offer, so your advice is EXTREMELY welcome!!

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

I knew what I was getting into when I chose the necro. It is one of the most challenging classes to manage due to all the swapping you mentioned. My DPS is very likely horrible because I'm using one bar. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. My primary skills are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. (I just gave that response above and copied and pasted it because you mentioned the issue, and I now recognize that it is a big mistake of mine). I was able to handle 24 spells in Everquest 1 (all dots) as a necromancer, so I think I can do it. I hope so! If there is no amelioration once I get proper gear and my bars are correctly set up, and I've had a few weeks of practice, I will follow your advice and go to a warden. I don't mind healing, either. It's another big reason why I chose necro. I know they are not the best healers, and I'm working up healing skills following a guide from Arzyel, but I need my DPS gear first to get my primary role under control before I can even consider doing anything else. It would be stupid to be learning two roles poorly/learning terrible habits in both.

On double barring. I get that I should be using my ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet... I'm not sure what you mean by the sorc skill that you mentioned. I think this was likely just a slip, as you're probably used to talking about sorc skills. Just to ensure, can you let me know what necro skills you'd consider irrelevant in a second bar? If you do not know the skills of the necro enough because, as you said, you didn't ''really'' play a necro other than to help out/provide a service/help guildies/friends/people, it is totally fine. I will not discount your experience and advice over something silly like that! You know what you're doing with your sorc!

I did watch a lot of Youtube tutorials as well! I thank you for pointing this one out!! I may not have seen it, and will watch it!! I fully agree with your music analogy: ''1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music''. I knew this ahead of time/I looked at the necro class before picking it up. I managed 24+ dots in EQ1; some were 30 seconds while others were 1 minute and 30 seconds. I realize that no dot has this length here and that 24 would be impossible. I need to get my timing correct to keep the dots that need to be there on time and do whatever other skills need to be cast in between that time! I will be totally honest (you know this already without me being honest), I just started doing dungeons, and I never did the bar swapping other than to put the skills I'm working on within the back bar and switch to level those skills as I turn out dungeons/quests. I think I will need to stop doing that for dungeons and only be able to do it for solo quests. I'm learning bad habits, so I came here to be told what I somewhat figured out but wanted to hear from veteran players. I know this is a game, but I take pride in performing my roles correctly. Especially since my disabilities prevent me from leaving the house as much as I did when I was fully healthy. It's nice to escape to this ''magical world,'' but it's not entirely magical as you need to learn your role there too, or you will not be chosen for many ''things''.

Not a slip, sorcs have pets that need to be double barred or they unsummon when you swap. Point is those and perhaps some passive skills are the only skills you should ever double bar. Nothing on Necro should be double barred.

A "turn in" bar is certainly useful for quests and leveling skills, but lets be honest, it has nothing to do with how to actually build a necro for real content, which is what i presume we are talking about. Unless doing a specific oakensoul build for one bar, you should 100% be using both bars when playing any end game content.

There is no one way to do it but as a general rule, put longer duration skills on your back bar, and put shorter ones on your front bar. That includes things like class Apex skills (blastbones in the case of necro) any spammables (skull, scyth) and any passive skills you only slot for the buffs (inner light, cammo hunter, etc).

Because necro is on that 1,2,3 rotation, i suggest trying to pair skills as much as possible, both on the bar they are on and on your skill slots for ease of casting. Necro is really a handful of mini 3 second rotations, so try to keep the 2 and 3 count for each rotation next to each other whenever possible. For example, you dont want to go blastbones, swap to a back bar skill, swap to a front bar skills, then back to blastbones if you can avoid. It just gets confusing. Much easier to either have a front bar rotation, where its blastbones, skill, skill, or back bar rotation, where its blastbones, swap, skill, skill, swap Blastbones. Get used to the idea that every time you come back to your front bar, blastbones is your first cast. And dont mix and match the 2 and 3. Keep the skill pairings consistent, and try to pair skills with similar duration.

I get what you mean. My apologies for not having understood what you were saying about the pets vanishing if another is summoned. I read it again now that you explained, and it makes perfect sense!

I fully agree with you about the turn-in bar. I need to get rid of this and have another build ready to change when I am turning in quests. Not using those 2 bars properly is very likely causing me to have major DPS loss. I have a question for you. The hrrm...I forget the name. Magelight?! It stops applying the bonus if you go back to the bar that doesn't have it loaded, right? Does nothing stay from 1 bar to another? I just want to double-check by asking you.

It makes a lot of sense to put the 1,2,3 together. I was honestly putting them together by categories. I'm changing it all the time. It is definitely not helping me learn where what is and therefore, having it become automatic... I will change my order once I log in. Thank you!

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

What I have done with Magcro is load up with 20 second dots to keep the bar swapping down to a minimum. To achieve this I run master inferno on backbar and use flame reach as a sticky dot. My other backbar dots are detonating siphon, barbed trap and the smelly pet, either morph will do but the stam morph hits harder. Detonating siphon for additional aoe damage when it explodes which you can control as long as there is another corpse available to cast again. This is how you can move the aoe damage around in mobile fights and finish off some mobs.

Front bar I run daggers and use blade cloak, another 20 second dot, if you have a staff you can run degeneration instead. I also run boneyard which has only a 10 second duration but since it’s front bar you can recast as it runs out in place of your spamable. My spamable is skulls but I also like to run force pulse for certain fights if I am using a staff for more consistent damage.

So using the 1-2-3 principle. It’s pretty straight forward on your front bar so when it comes time for back bar dot refreshing it’s a few seconds of swapping followed by sustained time on front bar again. That part of your rotation looks like this: 1-swap-2-3-swap, 1-swap-2-3-swap and that’s 6 GCD of a 20 GCD rotation, if you are going slow call it 8 of 20 leaving 4 series of 1-2-3 on your front bar before the swap phases.

Most mobs will die in 1 phase and you may not even cast siphon. So for trash fights 1-swap-2-3-4-swap followed by front bar rotation. Any sets that require stacks will not fall off using this principle so long as you are good at light attacking.

Note also that my bar setups leave 2 flex spots. You can double bar inner light for more damage or camo hunter for flanking damage. You could slot a heal in the front bar flex spot and a shield in the back bar slot. You could also double slot blastbones if bar swapping really is a problem but make sure you adjust sets accordingly because you won’t be able to utilize sets that require stacks unless they are on the body. I don’t recommend this option but it is there for those with serious disabilities that can’t swap quickly.

I use mystic syphon. In 95% of the guides/builds/videos that I read/studied/watched, it was the one recommended. What is your opinion on that topic, if you do not mind me asking? And I'm NOT saying that your choice is wrong, btw!!! It works with your build, so that's awesome.

I really appreciate all the info that you gave me!! I need to get 2 more skills to try what you're recommending. Of course, I can do it without, but it will be best if I get those skills. I'll work on getting those next. How do you feel about using daggers on a mag char? I'm not against the idea, btw. It will just feel a tad odd because I always play mag classes with staff. That is, of course, only a ''habit'' due to not having the choice of using anything else in most games.

I REALLY appreciate you reading about the fact that I posted about my disabilities and including it in your advice!! I am able to switch quickly, but I know that many cannot. I hope it's OK, but I will link this to a friend who has more advanced MS and who finds it more difficult to switch. I helped them find out of game gadgets that support their wrist and give them more comfort while playing, but in-game advice is not something that I had to offer, so your advice is EXTREMELY welcome!!

Mystic Siphon is a no brainer in PVE DPS and should be on your front bar. Good Damage, helps sustain, damage buff just for being slotted, and it's a free cast. In fact, this might be the one exception to what I said earlier about not double barring skills. They only real debate here is what morph to use. Detonating siphon is more damage, mystic is better sustain.

This skill does unfortunately suffer from the necro problem of needing corpses, and it can be a bit buggy at times, but for PVE DPS it should absolutely be on your bar. Necro is probably the buggiest class to play, unfortunately.

Necrotech_Master · September 2022

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Can you guys talk to me about trash vs main mobs in dungeons? I know that I do better with main mobs. I lose a ton of DPS with trash. I can go from 25%-30% to 16% after we hit a patch of trash and go back up after the main mob. This is not acceptable. I am slowing down my groups and even if most everyone has been really kind once I mention that I'm new (even lying to me to make me feel better- now that is going out of your way to being kind but it doesn't make me better).

I also have issues with reading stuff. I guess that I need to do these dungeons with guildies who understand and will wait, right? At times, another new player will stay and we will go back and read as much as we can and loot while we're at it. I found expensive motifs that way. I'm a major ''loot ***'', (pardon the term). I know that in pugs, it's called follow and hurry up.

my mag necro has the opposite problem, excellent with dealing with trash, but terrible in single target fights

but i have him more set up as an almost bomber (dark convergence, plaguebreak, prior thierric with occult overload) so trash dies extremely fast, but on single hard targets like bosses i only manage about 16-20k dps lol

This can help me with trash. Thank you.

I know that I'm not likely going to be a major help, but my main mob routine is ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet...Colossal Frost is my R. and that weaving in between with light attacks. I was surprised by how much DPS I gained by ensuring that I did more weaving. I know that my DPS, in general needs to get a lot better!! I'm just hoping that exchanging small tips can help us. Thank you so much for your tips on trash mobs.

the way i usually work my character is the spammable is shock clench (to help spread plague, although i hate the lack of range), with a starter blast bones to help finish something off to start the cascading booms

i need to do a few tweaks on his skill bar though to try to optimize him a little better

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

I knew what I was getting into when I chose the necro. It is one of the most challenging classes to manage due to all the swapping you mentioned. My DPS is very likely horrible because I'm using one bar. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. My primary skills are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. (I just gave that response above and copied and pasted it because you mentioned the issue, and I now recognize that it is a big mistake of mine). I was able to handle 24 spells in Everquest 1 (all dots) as a necromancer, so I think I can do it. I hope so! If there is no amelioration once I get proper gear and my bars are correctly set up, and I've had a few weeks of practice, I will follow your advice and go to a warden. I don't mind healing, either. It's another big reason why I chose necro. I know they are not the best healers, and I'm working up healing skills following a guide from Arzyel, but I need my DPS gear first to get my primary role under control before I can even consider doing anything else. It would be stupid to be learning two roles poorly/learning terrible habits in both.

On double barring. I get that I should be using my ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet... I'm not sure what you mean by the sorc skill that you mentioned. I think this was likely just a slip, as you're probably used to talking about sorc skills. Just to ensure, can you let me know what necro skills you'd consider irrelevant in a second bar? If you do not know the skills of the necro enough because, as you said, you didn't ''really'' play a necro other than to help out/provide a service/help guildies/friends/people, it is totally fine. I will not discount your experience and advice over something silly like that! You know what you're doing with your sorc!

I did watch a lot of Youtube tutorials as well! I thank you for pointing this one out!! I may not have seen it, and will watch it!! I fully agree with your music analogy: ''1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music''. I knew this ahead of time/I looked at the necro class before picking it up. I managed 24+ dots in EQ1; some were 30 seconds while others were 1 minute and 30 seconds. I realize that no dot has this length here and that 24 would be impossible. I need to get my timing correct to keep the dots that need to be there on time and do whatever other skills need to be cast in between that time! I will be totally honest (you know this already without me being honest), I just started doing dungeons, and I never did the bar swapping other than to put the skills I'm working on within the back bar and switch to level those skills as I turn out dungeons/quests. I think I will need to stop doing that for dungeons and only be able to do it for solo quests. I'm learning bad habits, so I came here to be told what I somewhat figured out but wanted to hear from veteran players. I know this is a game, but I take pride in performing my roles correctly. Especially since my disabilities prevent me from leaving the house as much as I did when I was fully healthy. It's nice to escape to this ''magical world,'' but it's not entirely magical as you need to learn your role there too, or you will not be chosen for many ''things''.

Not a slip, sorcs have pets that need to be double barred or they unsummon when you swap. Point is those and perhaps some passive skills are the only skills you should ever double bar. Nothing on Necro should be double barred.

A "turn in" bar is certainly useful for quests and leveling skills, but lets be honest, it has nothing to do with how to actually build a necro for real content, which is what i presume we are talking about. Unless doing a specific oakensoul build for one bar, you should 100% be using both bars when playing any end game content.

There is no one way to do it but as a general rule, put longer duration skills on your back bar, and put shorter ones on your front bar. That includes things like class Apex skills (blastbones in the case of necro) any spammables (skull, scyth) and any passive skills you only slot for the buffs (inner light, cammo hunter, etc).

Because necro is on that 1,2,3 rotation, i suggest trying to pair skills as much as possible, both on the bar they are on and on your skill slots for ease of casting. Necro is really a handful of mini 3 second rotations, so try to keep the 2 and 3 count for each rotation next to each other whenever possible. For example, you dont want to go blastbones, swap to a back bar skill, swap to a front bar skills, then back to blastbones if you can avoid. It just gets confusing. Much easier to either have a front bar rotation, where its blastbones, skill, skill, or back bar rotation, where its blastbones, swap, skill, skill, swap Blastbones. Get used to the idea that every time you come back to your front bar, blastbones is your first cast. And dont mix and match the 2 and 3. Keep the skill pairings consistent, and try to pair skills with similar duration.

I get what you mean. My apologies for not having understood what you were saying about the pets vanishing if another is summoned. I read it again now that you explained, and it makes perfect sense!

I fully agree with you about the turn-in bar. I need to get rid of this and have another build ready to change when I am turning in quests. Not using those 2 bars properly is very likely causing me to have major DPS loss. I have a question for you. The hrrm...I forget the name. Magelight?! It stops applying the bonus if you go back to the bar that doesn't have it loaded, right? Does nothing stay from 1 bar to another? I just want to double-check by asking you.

It makes a lot of sense to put the 1,2,3 together. I was honestly putting them together by categories. I'm changing it all the time. It is definitely not helping me learn where what is and therefore, having it become automatic... I will change my order once I log in. Thank you!

That answer is not as straight forward as you might think. For the most part, flat bonuses stick to the bar in question, proc type bonuses often carry over to both bars.

For skills mage light, cammo hunter, even siphon, that give some sort of damage boost for being slotted, its safe to assume that those benefits are only available when on that particular bar. That is why you typically put them on your front bar, along with your spammables. That way when you use a spam, you are getting all the benefits. Furthermore, lets say you swap to your back bar, yes in that moment your damage goes down, but if you say apply a ground DOT, then go back to your front bar, those ticks now get the benefit. I wouldnt over think it too much. Most builds spend most of their time on the front bar.

My rule of thumb is try to avoid more than 2-3 consecutive back bar casts, in the case of necro, it should rarely be more than 2, because you should be casting blastbones again on your front bar after two skills. There are of course exceptions. A lot of builds will use the back bar to buff up pre combat and that sort of thing. Lots of skills can be cast ahead of a fight, an obvious example is something like your skeletal mage/archer. Even blast bones you can cast 3 seconds before you actually engage the fight. (Look at the prebuff section of that video I linked).

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Can you guys talk to me about trash vs main mobs in dungeons? I know that I do better with main mobs. I lose a ton of DPS with trash. I can go from 25%-30% to 16% after we hit a patch of trash and go back up after the main mob. This is not acceptable. I am slowing down my groups and even if most everyone has been really kind once I mention that I'm new (even lying to me to make me feel better- now that is going out of your way to being kind but it doesn't make me better).

I also have issues with reading stuff. I guess that I need to do these dungeons with guildies who understand and will wait, right? At times, another new player will stay and we will go back and read as much as we can and loot while we're at it. I found expensive motifs that way. I'm a major ''loot ***'', (pardon the term). I know that in pugs, it's called follow and hurry up.

my mag necro has the opposite problem, excellent with dealing with trash, but terrible in single target fights

but i have him more set up as an almost bomber (dark convergence, plaguebreak, prior thierric with occult overload) so trash dies extremely fast, but on single hard targets like bosses i only manage about 16-20k dps lol

This can help me with trash. Thank you.

I know that I'm not likely going to be a major help, but my main mob routine is ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet...Colossal Frost is my R. and that weaving in between with light attacks. I was surprised by how much DPS I gained by ensuring that I did more weaving. I know that my DPS, in general needs to get a lot better!! I'm just hoping that exchanging small tips can help us. Thank you so much for your tips on trash mobs.

the way i usually work my character is the spammable is shock clench (to help spread plague, although i hate the lack of range), with a starter blast bones to help finish something off to start the cascading booms

i need to do a few tweaks on his skill bar though to try to optimize him a little better

Thank you for the tip. Something that I will try! Appreciate your time!

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

I knew what I was getting into when I chose the necro. It is one of the most challenging classes to manage due to all the swapping you mentioned. My DPS is very likely horrible because I'm using one bar. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. My primary skills are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. (I just gave that response above and copied and pasted it because you mentioned the issue, and I now recognize that it is a big mistake of mine). I was able to handle 24 spells in Everquest 1 (all dots) as a necromancer, so I think I can do it. I hope so! If there is no amelioration once I get proper gear and my bars are correctly set up, and I've had a few weeks of practice, I will follow your advice and go to a warden. I don't mind healing, either. It's another big reason why I chose necro. I know they are not the best healers, and I'm working up healing skills following a guide from Arzyel, but I need my DPS gear first to get my primary role under control before I can even consider doing anything else. It would be stupid to be learning two roles poorly/learning terrible habits in both.

On double barring. I get that I should be using my ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet... I'm not sure what you mean by the sorc skill that you mentioned. I think this was likely just a slip, as you're probably used to talking about sorc skills. Just to ensure, can you let me know what necro skills you'd consider irrelevant in a second bar? If you do not know the skills of the necro enough because, as you said, you didn't ''really'' play a necro other than to help out/provide a service/help guildies/friends/people, it is totally fine. I will not discount your experience and advice over something silly like that! You know what you're doing with your sorc!

I did watch a lot of Youtube tutorials as well! I thank you for pointing this one out!! I may not have seen it, and will watch it!! I fully agree with your music analogy: ''1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music''. I knew this ahead of time/I looked at the necro class before picking it up. I managed 24+ dots in EQ1; some were 30 seconds while others were 1 minute and 30 seconds. I realize that no dot has this length here and that 24 would be impossible. I need to get my timing correct to keep the dots that need to be there on time and do whatever other skills need to be cast in between that time! I will be totally honest (you know this already without me being honest), I just started doing dungeons, and I never did the bar swapping other than to put the skills I'm working on within the back bar and switch to level those skills as I turn out dungeons/quests. I think I will need to stop doing that for dungeons and only be able to do it for solo quests. I'm learning bad habits, so I came here to be told what I somewhat figured out but wanted to hear from veteran players. I know this is a game, but I take pride in performing my roles correctly. Especially since my disabilities prevent me from leaving the house as much as I did when I was fully healthy. It's nice to escape to this ''magical world,'' but it's not entirely magical as you need to learn your role there too, or you will not be chosen for many ''things''.

Not a slip, sorcs have pets that need to be double barred or they unsummon when you swap. Point is those and perhaps some passive skills are the only skills you should ever double bar. Nothing on Necro should be double barred.

A "turn in" bar is certainly useful for quests and leveling skills, but lets be honest, it has nothing to do with how to actually build a necro for real content, which is what i presume we are talking about. Unless doing a specific oakensoul build for one bar, you should 100% be using both bars when playing any end game content.

There is no one way to do it but as a general rule, put longer duration skills on your back bar, and put shorter ones on your front bar. That includes things like class Apex skills (blastbones in the case of necro) any spammables (skull, scyth) and any passive skills you only slot for the buffs (inner light, cammo hunter, etc).

Because necro is on that 1,2,3 rotation, i suggest trying to pair skills as much as possible, both on the bar they are on and on your skill slots for ease of casting. Necro is really a handful of mini 3 second rotations, so try to keep the 2 and 3 count for each rotation next to each other whenever possible. For example, you dont want to go blastbones, swap to a back bar skill, swap to a front bar skills, then back to blastbones if you can avoid. It just gets confusing. Much easier to either have a front bar rotation, where its blastbones, skill, skill, or back bar rotation, where its blastbones, swap, skill, skill, swap Blastbones. Get used to the idea that every time you come back to your front bar, blastbones is your first cast. And dont mix and match the 2 and 3. Keep the skill pairings consistent, and try to pair skills with similar duration.

I get what you mean. My apologies for not having understood what you were saying about the pets vanishing if another is summoned. I read it again now that you explained, and it makes perfect sense!

I fully agree with you about the turn-in bar. I need to get rid of this and have another build ready to change when I am turning in quests. Not using those 2 bars properly is very likely causing me to have major DPS loss. I have a question for you. The hrrm...I forget the name. Magelight?! It stops applying the bonus if you go back to the bar that doesn't have it loaded, right? Does nothing stay from 1 bar to another? I just want to double-check by asking you.

It makes a lot of sense to put the 1,2,3 together. I was honestly putting them together by categories. I'm changing it all the time. It is definitely not helping me learn where what is and therefore, having it become automatic... I will change my order once I log in. Thank you!

That answer is not as straight forward as you might think. For the most part, flat bonuses stick to the bar in question, proc type bonuses often carry over to both bars.

For skills mage light, cammo hunter, even siphon, that give some sort of damage boost for being slotted, its safe to assume that those benefits are only available when on that particular bar. That is why you typically put them on your front bar, along with your spammables. That way when you use a spam, you are getting all the benefits. Furthermore, lets say you swap to your back bar, yes in that moment your damage goes down, but if you say apply a ground DOT, then go back to your front bar, those ticks now get the benefit. I wouldnt over think it too much. Most builds spend most of their time on the front bar.

My rule of thumb is try to avoid more than 2-3 consecutive back bar casts, in the case of necro, it should rarely be more than 2, because you should be casting blastbones again on your front bar after two skills. There are of course exceptions. A lot of builds will use the back bar to buff up pre combat and that sort of thing. Lots of skills can be cast ahead of a fight, an obvious example is something like your skeletal mage/archer. Even blast bones you can cast 3 seconds before you actually engage the fight. (Look at the prebuff section of that video I linked).

Thanks so much for the response. It verified that DOTS would profit with a bar switch and that is great! I won't overthink it, but it definitely matters/will affect what I put on the second bar! Appreciate all your help and the time to type this out very much!

Everest_Lionheart · September 2022

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

What I have done with Magcro is load up with 20 second dots to keep the bar swapping down to a minimum. To achieve this I run master inferno on backbar and use flame reach as a sticky dot. My other backbar dots are detonating siphon, barbed trap and the smelly pet, either morph will do but the stam morph hits harder. Detonating siphon for additional aoe damage when it explodes which you can control as long as there is another corpse available to cast again. This is how you can move the aoe damage around in mobile fights and finish off some mobs.

Front bar I run daggers and use blade cloak, another 20 second dot, if you have a staff you can run degeneration instead. I also run boneyard which has only a 10 second duration but since it’s front bar you can recast as it runs out in place of your spamable. My spamable is skulls but I also like to run force pulse for certain fights if I am using a staff for more consistent damage.

So using the 1-2-3 principle. It’s pretty straight forward on your front bar so when it comes time for back bar dot refreshing it’s a few seconds of swapping followed by sustained time on front bar again. That part of your rotation looks like this: 1-swap-2-3-swap, 1-swap-2-3-swap and that’s 6 GCD of a 20 GCD rotation, if you are going slow call it 8 of 20 leaving 4 series of 1-2-3 on your front bar before the swap phases.

Most mobs will die in 1 phase and you may not even cast siphon. So for trash fights 1-swap-2-3-4-swap followed by front bar rotation. Any sets that require stacks will not fall off using this principle so long as you are good at light attacking.

Note also that my bar setups leave 2 flex spots. You can double bar inner light for more damage or camo hunter for flanking damage. You could slot a heal in the front bar flex spot and a shield in the back bar slot. You could also double slot blastbones if bar swapping really is a problem but make sure you adjust sets accordingly because you won’t be able to utilize sets that require stacks unless they are on the body. I don’t recommend this option but it is there for those with serious disabilities that can’t swap quickly.

I use mystic syphon. In 95% of the guides/builds/videos that I read/studied/watched, it was the one recommended. What is your opinion on that topic, if you do not mind me asking? And I'm NOT saying that your choice is wrong, btw!!! It works with your build, so that's awesome.

I really appreciate all the info that you gave me!! I need to get 2 more skills to try what you're recommending. Of course, I can do it without, but it will be best if I get those skills. I'll work on getting those next. How do you feel about using daggers on a mag char? I'm not against the idea, btw. It will just feel a tad odd because I always play mag classes with staff. That is, of course, only a ''habit'' due to not having the choice of using anything else in most games.

I REALLY appreciate you reading about the fact that I posted about my disabilities and including it in your advice!! I am able to switch quickly, but I know that many cannot. I hope it's OK, but I will link this to a friend who has more advanced MS and who finds it more difficult to switch. I helped them find out of game gadgets that support their wrist and give them more comfort while playing, but in-game advice is not something that I had to offer, so your advice is EXTREMELY welcome!!

Mystic Siphon is a no brainer in PVE DPS and should be on your front bar. Good Damage, helps sustain, damage buff just for being slotted, and it's a free cast. In fact, this might be the one exception to what I said earlier about not double barring skills. They only real debate here is what morph to use. Detonating siphon is more damage, mystic is better sustain.

This skill does unfortunately suffer from the necro problem of needing corpses, and it can be a bit buggy at times, but for PVE DPS it should absolutely be on your bar. Necro is probably the buggiest class to play, unfortunately.

My setup and rotation with siphon on back bar is a daggers example. I would probably put on FB and move degeneration to the back bar to keep the 20 second rotation. I use mystic when I run EC but everywhere else I run detonating. I actually run a lot of stam skills on Magcro since hybridization because of the damage scaling. Necro and DK benefited the most from these changes.

I also like the idea of double barring siphon and often do that when running Medusa or Tzogvin front bar.

So what I like most about detonating over mystic is the ability to control the explosion by recasting it early much like unstable wall. Both are good and unless you are min/maxing for hard mode trials the morph you use is up to you.

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

What I have done with Magcro is load up with 20 second dots to keep the bar swapping down to a minimum. To achieve this I run master inferno on backbar and use flame reach as a sticky dot. My other backbar dots are detonating siphon, barbed trap and the smelly pet, either morph will do but the stam morph hits harder. Detonating siphon for additional aoe damage when it explodes which you can control as long as there is another corpse available to cast again. This is how you can move the aoe damage around in mobile fights and finish off some mobs.

Front bar I run daggers and use blade cloak, another 20 second dot, if you have a staff you can run degeneration instead. I also run boneyard which has only a 10 second duration but since it’s front bar you can recast as it runs out in place of your spamable. My spamable is skulls but I also like to run force pulse for certain fights if I am using a staff for more consistent damage.

So using the 1-2-3 principle. It’s pretty straight forward on your front bar so when it comes time for back bar dot refreshing it’s a few seconds of swapping followed by sustained time on front bar again. That part of your rotation looks like this: 1-swap-2-3-swap, 1-swap-2-3-swap and that’s 6 GCD of a 20 GCD rotation, if you are going slow call it 8 of 20 leaving 4 series of 1-2-3 on your front bar before the swap phases.

Most mobs will die in 1 phase and you may not even cast siphon. So for trash fights 1-swap-2-3-4-swap followed by front bar rotation. Any sets that require stacks will not fall off using this principle so long as you are good at light attacking.

Note also that my bar setups leave 2 flex spots. You can double bar inner light for more damage or camo hunter for flanking damage. You could slot a heal in the front bar flex spot and a shield in the back bar slot. You could also double slot blastbones if bar swapping really is a problem but make sure you adjust sets accordingly because you won’t be able to utilize sets that require stacks unless they are on the body. I don’t recommend this option but it is there for those with serious disabilities that can’t swap quickly.

I use mystic syphon. In 95% of the guides/builds/videos that I read/studied/watched, it was the one recommended. What is your opinion on that topic, if you do not mind me asking? And I'm NOT saying that your choice is wrong, btw!!! It works with your build, so that's awesome.

I really appreciate all the info that you gave me!! I need to get 2 more skills to try what you're recommending. Of course, I can do it without, but it will be best if I get those skills. I'll work on getting those next. How do you feel about using daggers on a mag char? I'm not against the idea, btw. It will just feel a tad odd because I always play mag classes with staff. That is, of course, only a ''habit'' due to not having the choice of using anything else in most games.

I REALLY appreciate you reading about the fact that I posted about my disabilities and including it in your advice!! I am able to switch quickly, but I know that many cannot. I hope it's OK, but I will link this to a friend who has more advanced MS and who finds it more difficult to switch. I helped them find out of game gadgets that support their wrist and give them more comfort while playing, but in-game advice is not something that I had to offer, so your advice is EXTREMELY welcome!!

Mystic Siphon is a no brainer in PVE DPS and should be on your front bar. Good Damage, helps sustain, damage buff just for being slotted, and it's a free cast. In fact, this might be the one exception to what I said earlier about not double barring skills. They only real debate here is what morph to use. Detonating siphon is more damage, mystic is better sustain.

This skill does unfortunately suffer from the necro problem of needing corpses, and it can be a bit buggy at times, but for PVE DPS it should absolutely be on your bar. Necro is probably the buggiest class to play, unfortunately.

My setup and rotation with siphon on back bar is a daggers example. I would probably put on FB and move degeneration to the back bar to keep the 20 second rotation. I use mystic when I run EC but everywhere else I run detonating. I actually run a lot of stam skills on Magcro since hybridization because of the damage scaling. Necro and DK benefited the most from these changes.

I also like the idea of double barring siphon and often do that when running Medusa or Tzogvin front bar.

So what I like most about detonating over mystic is the ability to control the explosion by recasting it early much like unstable wall. Both are good and unless you are min/maxing for hard mode trials the morph you use is up to you.

Thanks for the info. I definitely need to play around with detonating and get a feel for it. I bought that build-changing character (that orc didn't exist back in 2014 when I used to play). I need to create more builds for different situations instead of always changing skills back and forth.

FrancisCrawford · September 2022

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Triplesixtyson wrote: »

Theres alot there but what i can say is dont get overwhelmed trying to figure out 10 things all at once.

For starters, focus on getting 2 complete sets. Id recomend Orders Wrath (crafted) and Mothers Sorrow (overland). Both very easy to aquire and will work for solo and dungeons. Slimecraw monster set or whatever else you choose will compliment those sets nicely.

Second start working on what skills your using and the rotation. For necro at the most basic level; blastbones, 2 skills (AoEs), blastbones, 2 skills...rinse repeat. once all AoEs are up and ticking you will be using your spamable (i use ricochet skull) for your 2 skill casts until AoEs need to be recast. Ensure you have both bars full with dps spells and 1 heal for safe measure. You need to utilize orb, degeneration, barbed trap etc. So that means using more then just necro spells.

Dont overthink past that my friend. Work on those two things and come back with more specific/advanced questions in the future, i would be glad to help further.

Thank you so much for your detailed response, Triplesixtyson.

First, you're right about the overwhelming part. I was a top 3 DPS worldwide/server wide in Everquest 1. Even if I gave my rotation to every other necro in my class and did my best to train those in my guild, I always did 2-3x more DPS. I feel bad knowing my DPS isn't up to par in dungeons. I just started dungeons with this event (I'm an OCD finisher of zones, including sets, so I have not progressed as quickly as I would like...but that is my choice. The dungeons have been giving me skill points which have been great as I miss so many. I'm at about 92, and some were put in crafting as I also was THE guild master crafter that people came to for materials and for help (always free- I never charged a platinum/gold in EQ1).
I see doing my research as something very important because spending on crown time reducers for research is a waste of crowns. I want that research done ASAP (for myself and others. I know that MANY have almost every recipe, but my OCD will not be satisfied. I WILL have EVERY recipe/motif/diagram and so forth. I know how difficult that will be and how much farming will require. Some people would rather shoot themselves in the foot than get this done. It isn't about being better or more than... I want to make that extremely clear. I am always the one helping if I can and never putting down others. It's a game, and the goal is to have fun. This is just how I play MMOs. What you said was comforting. You basically told me that I just came back and to chill a little... I likely needed to hear that. I thank you.

I have read many, MANY builds. I am mainly basing myself on https://arzyelbuilds.com/magicka-necromancer-pve-build-eso/
as they seem to be fairly knowledgeable. I know that once I am fully built up, I will need to test my DPS on dummies and will not be able to rely on the builds of others. This person (and I thank you if you read this, Arzyel) has clearly communicated many builds. I found out about the necrotic orb and the barbed trap from them. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. The main skills that I use are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. It's likely teaching me ''bad habits'' not to use those two bars! What is your opinion on this, Triplesixtyson?

An armory assistant or station (any platform) or add-on (PC/Mac only) can help you change skills -- and also gear! -- quickly before quest turn-in.

Or you can just change them by hand (that's a lot easier for skills than for gear).

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Triplesixtyson wrote: »

Theres alot there but what i can say is dont get overwhelmed trying to figure out 10 things all at once.

For starters, focus on getting 2 complete sets. Id recomend Orders Wrath (crafted) and Mothers Sorrow (overland). Both very easy to aquire and will work for solo and dungeons. Slimecraw monster set or whatever else you choose will compliment those sets nicely.

Second start working on what skills your using and the rotation. For necro at the most basic level; blastbones, 2 skills (AoEs), blastbones, 2 skills...rinse repeat. once all AoEs are up and ticking you will be using your spamable (i use ricochet skull) for your 2 skill casts until AoEs need to be recast. Ensure you have both bars full with dps spells and 1 heal for safe measure. You need to utilize orb, degeneration, barbed trap etc. So that means using more then just necro spells.

Dont overthink past that my friend. Work on those two things and come back with more specific/advanced questions in the future, i would be glad to help further.

Thank you so much for your detailed response, Triplesixtyson.

First, you're right about the overwhelming part. I was a top 3 DPS worldwide/server wide in Everquest 1. Even if I gave my rotation to every other necro in my class and did my best to train those in my guild, I always did 2-3x more DPS. I feel bad knowing my DPS isn't up to par in dungeons. I just started dungeons with this event (I'm an OCD finisher of zones, including sets, so I have not progressed as quickly as I would like...but that is my choice. The dungeons have been giving me skill points which have been great as I miss so many. I'm at about 92, and some were put in crafting as I also was THE guild master crafter that people came to for materials and for help (always free- I never charged a platinum/gold in EQ1).
I see doing my research as something very important because spending on crown time reducers for research is a waste of crowns. I want that research done ASAP (for myself and others. I know that MANY have almost every recipe, but my OCD will not be satisfied. I WILL have EVERY recipe/motif/diagram and so forth. I know how difficult that will be and how much farming will require. Some people would rather shoot themselves in the foot than get this done. It isn't about being better or more than... I want to make that extremely clear. I am always the one helping if I can and never putting down others. It's a game, and the goal is to have fun. This is just how I play MMOs. What you said was comforting. You basically told me that I just came back and to chill a little... I likely needed to hear that. I thank you.

I have read many, MANY builds. I am mainly basing myself on https://arzyelbuilds.com/magicka-necromancer-pve-build-eso/
as they seem to be fairly knowledgeable. I know that once I am fully built up, I will need to test my DPS on dummies and will not be able to rely on the builds of others. This person (and I thank you if you read this, Arzyel) has clearly communicated many builds. I found out about the necrotic orb and the barbed trap from them. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. The main skills that I use are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. It's likely teaching me ''bad habits'' not to use those two bars! What is your opinion on this, Triplesixtyson?

An armory assistant or station (any platform) or add-on (PC/Mac only) can help you change skills -- and also gear! -- quickly before quest turn-in.

Or you can just change them by hand (that's a lot easier for skills than for gear).

Thank you, Francis! I have the armoury assistant but I have not used him yet. I will make a set called ''quest turnin'' to make things easier and to free that second bar as it's clearly a big problem/explanation for my poor DPS due to having skills being worked on there at the moment.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Triplesixtyson wrote: »

Theres alot there but what i can say is dont get overwhelmed trying to figure out 10 things all at once.

For starters, focus on getting 2 complete sets. Id recomend Orders Wrath (crafted) and Mothers Sorrow (overland). Both very easy to aquire and will work for solo and dungeons. Slimecraw monster set or whatever else you choose will compliment those sets nicely.

Second start working on what skills your using and the rotation. For necro at the most basic level; blastbones, 2 skills (AoEs), blastbones, 2 skills...rinse repeat. once all AoEs are up and ticking you will be using your spamable (i use ricochet skull) for your 2 skill casts until AoEs need to be recast. Ensure you have both bars full with dps spells and 1 heal for safe measure. You need to utilize orb, degeneration, barbed trap etc. So that means using more then just necro spells.

Dont overthink past that my friend. Work on those two things and come back with more specific/advanced questions in the future, i would be glad to help further.

Thank you so much for your detailed response, Triplesixtyson.

First, you're right about the overwhelming part. I was a top 3 DPS worldwide/server wide in Everquest 1. Even if I gave my rotation to every other necro in my class and did my best to train those in my guild, I always did 2-3x more DPS. I feel bad knowing my DPS isn't up to par in dungeons. I just started dungeons with this event (I'm an OCD finisher of zones, including sets, so I have not progressed as quickly as I would like...but that is my choice. The dungeons have been giving me skill points which have been great as I miss so many. I'm at about 92, and some were put in crafting as I also was THE guild master crafter that people came to for materials and for help (always free- I never charged a platinum/gold in EQ1).
I see doing my research as something very important because spending on crown time reducers for research is a waste of crowns. I want that research done ASAP (for myself and others. I know that MANY have almost every recipe, but my OCD will not be satisfied. I WILL have EVERY recipe/motif/diagram and so forth. I know how difficult that will be and how much farming will require. Some people would rather shoot themselves in the foot than get this done. It isn't about being better or more than... I want to make that extremely clear. I am always the one helping if I can and never putting down others. It's a game, and the goal is to have fun. This is just how I play MMOs. What you said was comforting. You basically told me that I just came back and to chill a little... I likely needed to hear that. I thank you.

I have read many, MANY builds. I am mainly basing myself on https://arzyelbuilds.com/magicka-necromancer-pve-build-eso/
as they seem to be fairly knowledgeable. I know that once I am fully built up, I will need to test my DPS on dummies and will not be able to rely on the builds of others. This person (and I thank you if you read this, Arzyel) has clearly communicated many builds. I found out about the necrotic orb and the barbed trap from them. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. The main skills that I use are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. It's likely teaching me ''bad habits'' not to use those two bars! What is your opinion on this, Triplesixtyson?

An armory assistant or station (any platform) or add-on (PC/Mac only) can help you change skills -- and also gear! -- quickly before quest turn-in.

Or you can just change them by hand (that's a lot easier for skills than for gear).

Thank you, Francis! I have the armoury assistant but I have not used him yet. I will make a set called ''quest turnin'' to make things easier and to free that second bar as it's clearly a big problem/explanation for my poor DPS due to having skills being worked on there at the moment.

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

I knew what I was getting into when I chose the necro. It is one of the most challenging classes to manage due to all the swapping you mentioned. My DPS is very likely horrible because I'm using one bar. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. My primary skills are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. (I just gave that response above and copied and pasted it because you mentioned the issue, and I now recognize that it is a big mistake of mine). I was able to handle 24 spells in Everquest 1 (all dots) as a necromancer, so I think I can do it. I hope so! If there is no amelioration once I get proper gear and my bars are correctly set up, and I've had a few weeks of practice, I will follow your advice and go to a warden. I don't mind healing, either. It's another big reason why I chose necro. I know they are not the best healers, and I'm working up healing skills following a guide from Arzyel, but I need my DPS gear first to get my primary role under control before I can even consider doing anything else. It would be stupid to be learning two roles poorly/learning terrible habits in both.

On double barring. I get that I should be using my ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet... I'm not sure what you mean by the sorc skill that you mentioned. I think this was likely just a slip, as you're probably used to talking about sorc skills. Just to ensure, can you let me know what necro skills you'd consider irrelevant in a second bar? If you do not know the skills of the necro enough because, as you said, you didn't ''really'' play a necro other than to help out/provide a service/help guildies/friends/people, it is totally fine. I will not discount your experience and advice over something silly like that! You know what you're doing with your sorc!

I did watch a lot of Youtube tutorials as well! I thank you for pointing this one out!! I may not have seen it, and will watch it!! I fully agree with your music analogy: ''1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music''. I knew this ahead of time/I looked at the necro class before picking it up. I managed 24+ dots in EQ1; some were 30 seconds while others were 1 minute and 30 seconds. I realize that no dot has this length here and that 24 would be impossible. I need to get my timing correct to keep the dots that need to be there on time and do whatever other skills need to be cast in between that time! I will be totally honest (you know this already without me being honest), I just started doing dungeons, and I never did the bar swapping other than to put the skills I'm working on within the back bar and switch to level those skills as I turn out dungeons/quests. I think I will need to stop doing that for dungeons and only be able to do it for solo quests. I'm learning bad habits, so I came here to be told what I somewhat figured out but wanted to hear from veteran players. I know this is a game, but I take pride in performing my roles correctly. Especially since my disabilities prevent me from leaving the house as much as I did when I was fully healthy. It's nice to escape to this ''magical world,'' but it's not entirely magical as you need to learn your role there too, or you will not be chosen for many ''things''.

Not a slip, sorcs have pets that need to be double barred or they unsummon when you swap. Point is those and perhaps some passive skills are the only skills you should ever double bar. Nothing on Necro should be double barred.

A "turn in" bar is certainly useful for quests and leveling skills, but lets be honest, it has nothing to do with how to actually build a necro for real content, which is what i presume we are talking about. Unless doing a specific oakensoul build for one bar, you should 100% be using both bars when playing any end game content.

There is no one way to do it but as a general rule, put longer duration skills on your back bar, and put shorter ones on your front bar. That includes things like class Apex skills (blastbones in the case of necro) any spammables (skull, scyth) and any passive skills you only slot for the buffs (inner light, cammo hunter, etc).

Because necro is on that 1,2,3 rotation, i suggest trying to pair skills as much as possible, both on the bar they are on and on your skill slots for ease of casting. Necro is really a handful of mini 3 second rotations, so try to keep the 2 and 3 count for each rotation next to each other whenever possible. For example, you dont want to go blastbones, swap to a back bar skill, swap to a front bar skills, then back to blastbones if you can avoid. It just gets confusing. Much easier to either have a front bar rotation, where its blastbones, skill, skill, or back bar rotation, where its blastbones, swap, skill, skill, swap Blastbones. Get used to the idea that every time you come back to your front bar, blastbones is your first cast. And dont mix and match the 2 and 3. Keep the skill pairings consistent, and try to pair skills with similar duration.

I get what you mean. My apologies for not having understood what you were saying about the pets vanishing if another is summoned. I read it again now that you explained, and it makes perfect sense!

I fully agree with you about the turn-in bar. I need to get rid of this and have another build ready to change when I am turning in quests. Not using those 2 bars properly is very likely causing me to have major DPS loss. I have a question for you. The hrrm...I forget the name. Magelight?! It stops applying the bonus if you go back to the bar that doesn't have it loaded, right? Does nothing stay from 1 bar to another? I just want to double-check by asking you.

It makes a lot of sense to put the 1,2,3 together. I was honestly putting them together by categories. I'm changing it all the time. It is definitely not helping me learn where what is and therefore, having it become automatic... I will change my order once I log in. Thank you!

That answer is not as straight forward as you might think. For the most part, flat bonuses stick to the bar in question, proc type bonuses often carry over to both bars.

For skills mage light, cammo hunter, even siphon, that give some sort of damage boost for being slotted, its safe to assume that those benefits are only available when on that particular bar. That is why you typically put them on your front bar, along with your spammables. That way when you use a spam, you are getting all the benefits. Furthermore, lets say you swap to your back bar, yes in that moment your damage goes down, but if you say apply a ground DOT, then go back to your front bar, those ticks now get the benefit. I wouldnt over think it too much. Most builds spend most of their time on the front bar.

My rule of thumb is try to avoid more than 2-3 consecutive back bar casts, in the case of necro, it should rarely be more than 2, because you should be casting blastbones again on your front bar after two skills. There are of course exceptions. A lot of builds will use the back bar to buff up pre combat and that sort of thing. Lots of skills can be cast ahead of a fight, an obvious example is something like your skeletal mage/archer. Even blast bones you can cast 3 seconds before you actually engage the fight. (Look at the prebuff section of that video I linked).

Thanks so much for the response. It verified that DOTS would profit with a bar switch and that is great! I won't overthink it, but it definitely matters/will affect what I put on the second bar! Appreciate all your help and the time to type this out very much!

If you follow the rule that Spam skills and skills that give buffs for being slotted go on your front bar, then go longest to shortest in terms of duration (longer on back bar), you will be right 99% of the time. Necro might have you break that rule to keep pairs of skills together. And some classes require a certain class skill line to be on a bar to get a specific passive, but otherwise, its usually a safe approach. Of course, dont hesitate to juggle your bars to fit your needs, and there are exceptions to most rules.

As an example, a lot of meta builds put Trap on the front bar. Its a 20 second skill (longer, which suggests back bar), but it also gives a bonus for being slotted due to FG passives (suggests front bar). I usually back bar it TBH. Just easier for me personally most of the time for me.

And yes, using the armory to swap to a turn in bar is a fine idea. The second armory slot on all my characters is a crafting/turn in bar. It has all the passives needed to do crafting writs, but I also slot skills that still need leveled as writs give XP. If you are on PC, I think addons are actually better than armory if you just want to switch bars. If you want to switch Skill Points and more, than armory is better.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · September 2022

Triplesixtyson wrote: »

Theres alot there but what i can say is dont get overwhelmed trying to figure out 10 things all at once.

For starters, focus on getting 2 complete sets. Id recomend Orders Wrath (crafted) and Mothers Sorrow (overland). Both very easy to aquire and will work for solo and dungeons. Slimecraw monster set or whatever else you choose will compliment those sets nicely.

Second start working on what skills your using and the rotation. For necro at the most basic level; blastbones, 2 skills (AoEs), blastbones, 2 skills...rinse repeat. once all AoEs are up and ticking you will be using your spamable (i use ricochet skull) for your 2 skill casts until AoEs need to be recast. Ensure you have both bars full with dps spells and 1 heal for safe measure. You need to utilize orb, degeneration, barbed trap etc. So that means using more then just necro spells.

Dont overthink past that my friend. Work on those two things and come back with more specific/advanced questions in the future, i would be glad to help further.

All my rantings aside, this is really solid advice. LOL

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Triplesixtyson wrote: »

Theres alot there but what i can say is dont get overwhelmed trying to figure out 10 things all at once.

For starters, focus on getting 2 complete sets. Id recomend Orders Wrath (crafted) and Mothers Sorrow (overland). Both very easy to aquire and will work for solo and dungeons. Slimecraw monster set or whatever else you choose will compliment those sets nicely.

Second start working on what skills your using and the rotation. For necro at the most basic level; blastbones, 2 skills (AoEs), blastbones, 2 skills...rinse repeat. once all AoEs are up and ticking you will be using your spamable (i use ricochet skull) for your 2 skill casts until AoEs need to be recast. Ensure you have both bars full with dps spells and 1 heal for safe measure. You need to utilize orb, degeneration, barbed trap etc. So that means using more then just necro spells.

Dont overthink past that my friend. Work on those two things and come back with more specific/advanced questions in the future, i would be glad to help further.

Thank you so much for your detailed response, Triplesixtyson.

First, you're right about the overwhelming part. I was a top 3 DPS worldwide/server wide in Everquest 1. Even if I gave my rotation to every other necro in my class and did my best to train those in my guild, I always did 2-3x more DPS. I feel bad knowing my DPS isn't up to par in dungeons. I just started dungeons with this event (I'm an OCD finisher of zones, including sets, so I have not progressed as quickly as I would like...but that is my choice. The dungeons have been giving me skill points which have been great as I miss so many. I'm at about 92, and some were put in crafting as I also was THE guild master crafter that people came to for materials and for help (always free- I never charged a platinum/gold in EQ1).
I see doing my research as something very important because spending on crown time reducers for research is a waste of crowns. I want that research done ASAP (for myself and others. I know that MANY have almost every recipe, but my OCD will not be satisfied. I WILL have EVERY recipe/motif/diagram and so forth. I know how difficult that will be and how much farming will require. Some people would rather shoot themselves in the foot than get this done. It isn't about being better or more than... I want to make that extremely clear. I am always the one helping if I can and never putting down others. It's a game, and the goal is to have fun. This is just how I play MMOs. What you said was comforting. You basically told me that I just came back and to chill a little... I likely needed to hear that. I thank you.

I have read many, MANY builds. I am mainly basing myself on https://arzyelbuilds.com/magicka-necromancer-pve-build-eso/
as they seem to be fairly knowledgeable. I know that once I am fully built up, I will need to test my DPS on dummies and will not be able to rely on the builds of others. This person (and I thank you if you read this, Arzyel) has clearly communicated many builds. I found out about the necrotic orb and the barbed trap from them. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. The main skills that I use are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. It's likely teaching me ''bad habits'' not to use those two bars! What is your opinion on this, Triplesixtyson?

An armory assistant or station (any platform) or add-on (PC/Mac only) can help you change skills -- and also gear! -- quickly before quest turn-in.

Or you can just change them by hand (that's a lot easier for skills than for gear).

Thank you, Francis! I have the armoury assistant but I have not used him yet. I will make a set called ''quest turnin'' to make things easier and to free that second bar as it's clearly a big problem/explanation for my poor DPS due to having skills being worked on there at the moment.

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

patrick.loiselleb16_ESO wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

My 2 cents on magcro. I have never mained one for any length of time, but I recently did a trifecta TTT prog on one because we needed the Colos.

First, you have to be comfortable with a 3 second rotation. Blastbones, skil, skill Blastbones, skill, skill, repeat. This is the main source of your damage, and if you dont want to do that, pick another class. They require a lot of bar swapping, and if you dont swap cancel, you are going to feel the DPS loss. They also are a class that require time to build their DPS It can often take a full 15 seconds to get all your DOTs runnin. They work great on trial fights, but I find them to be overly complex in most four man content.

You have most of the right skills, maybe not necessarily in the right places. For the love of all that is holy, dont double bar skills that have no reason to be double barred. Sorc pets and maybe a handful of skills you slot only for passives are the only skills that should ever be on both bars.

Youtube is certainly your best resource for build advice, and any mag DPS gear is gong to work. Gear is not your issue, its mastering and executing a proper rotation, and Magcro is one of the harder ones. Think of a magcro roation as pairs of skills, that are always cast together with a blastbones in front of them. Another way to think of it is 1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music, with blastbones always on the one. You can definitely build a static rotatoin, but its likely going to be long. Last time I parsed on necro, it was a 30 second static rotation with a LOT of bar swapping.

Its Dated, but this is a pretty good necro guide and gives you an idea of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbksvVKnxNI

I knew what I was getting into when I chose the necro. It is one of the most challenging classes to manage due to all the swapping you mentioned. My DPS is very likely horrible because I'm using one bar. My big issue is that I am keeping skills I'm working on in my back bar. So when I go to turn in a quest/point in a dungeon, these skills get the XP. My primary skills are already maxed out (morphed and IV). I will likely need to stop that and use two bars if I want to DPS properly. (I just gave that response above and copied and pasted it because you mentioned the issue, and I now recognize that it is a big mistake of mine). I was able to handle 24 spells in Everquest 1 (all dots) as a necromancer, so I think I can do it. I hope so! If there is no amelioration once I get proper gear and my bars are correctly set up, and I've had a few weeks of practice, I will follow your advice and go to a warden. I don't mind healing, either. It's another big reason why I chose necro. I know they are not the best healers, and I'm working up healing skills following a guide from Arzyel, but I need my DPS gear first to get my primary role under control before I can even consider doing anything else. It would be stupid to be learning two roles poorly/learning terrible habits in both.

On double barring. I get that I should be using my ricochet, aoe, aoe, ricochet... I'm not sure what you mean by the sorc skill that you mentioned. I think this was likely just a slip, as you're probably used to talking about sorc skills. Just to ensure, can you let me know what necro skills you'd consider irrelevant in a second bar? If you do not know the skills of the necro enough because, as you said, you didn't ''really'' play a necro other than to help out/provide a service/help guildies/friends/people, it is totally fine. I will not discount your experience and advice over something silly like that! You know what you're doing with your sorc!

I did watch a lot of Youtube tutorials as well! I thank you for pointing this one out!! I may not have seen it, and will watch it!! I fully agree with your music analogy: ''1,2,3,1,2,3,1,2,3, like music''. I knew this ahead of time/I looked at the necro class before picking it up. I managed 24+ dots in EQ1; some were 30 seconds while others were 1 minute and 30 seconds. I realize that no dot has this length here and that 24 would be impossible. I need to get my timing correct to keep the dots that need to be there on time and do whatever other skills need to be cast in between that time! I will be totally honest (you know this already without me being honest), I just started doing dungeons, and I never did the bar swapping other than to put the skills I'm working on within the back bar and switch to level those skills as I turn out dungeons/quests. I think I will need to stop doing that for dungeons and only be able to do it for solo quests. I'm learning bad habits, so I came here to be told what I somewhat figured out but wanted to hear from veteran players. I know this is a game, but I take pride in performing my roles correctly. Especially since my disabilities prevent me from leaving the house as much as I did when I was fully healthy. It's nice to escape to this ''magical world,'' but it's not entirely magical as you need to learn your role there too, or you will not be chosen for many ''things''.

Not a slip, sorcs have pets that need to be double barred or they unsummon when you swap. Point is those and perhaps some passive skills are the only skills you should ever double bar. Nothing on Necro should be double barred.

A "turn in" bar is certainly useful for quests and leveling skills, but lets be honest, it has nothing to do with how to actually build a necro for real content, which is what i presume we are talking about. Unless doing a specific oakensoul build for one bar, you should 100% be using both bars when playing any end game content.

There is no one way to do it but as a general rule, put longer duration skills on your back bar, and put shorter ones on your front bar. That includes things like class Apex skills (blastbones in the case of necro) any spammables (skull, scyth) and any passive skills you only slot for the buffs (inner light, cammo hunter, etc).

Because necro is on that 1,2,3 rotation, i suggest trying to pair skills as much as possible, both on the bar they are on and on your skill slots for ease of casting. Necro is really a handful of mini 3 second rotations, so try to keep the 2 and 3 count for each rotation next to each other whenever possible. For example, you dont want to go blastbones, swap to a back bar skill, swap to a front bar skills, then back to blastbones if you can avoid. It just gets confusing. Much easier to either have a front bar rotation, where its blastbones, skill, skill, or back bar rotation, where its blastbones, swap, skill, skill, swap Blastbones. Get used to the idea that every time you come back to your front bar, blastbones is your first cast. And dont mix and match the 2 and 3. Keep the skill pairings consistent, and try to pair skills with similar duration.

I get what you mean. My apologies for not having understood what you were saying about the pets vanishing if another is summoned. I read it again now that you explained, and it makes perfect sense!

I fully agree with you about the turn-in bar. I need to get rid of this and have another build ready to change when I am turning in quests. Not using those 2 bars properly is very likely causing me to have major DPS loss. I have a question for you. The hrrm...I forget the name. Magelight?! It stops applying the bonus if you go back to the bar that doesn't have it loaded, right? Does nothing stay from 1 bar to another? I just want to double-check by asking you.

It makes a lot of sense to put the 1,2,3 together. I was honestly putting them together by categories. I'm changing it all the time. It is definitely not helping me learn where what is and therefore, having it become automatic... I will change my order once I log in. Thank you!

That answer is not as straight forward as you might think. For the most part, flat bonuses stick to the bar in question, proc type bonuses often carry over to both bars.

For skills mage light, cammo hunter, even siphon, that give some sort of damage boost for being slotted, its safe to assume that those benefits are only available when on that particular bar. That is why you typically put them on your front bar, along with your spammables. That way when you use a spam, you are getting all the benefits. Furthermore, lets say you swap to your back bar, yes in that moment your damage goes down, but if you say apply a ground DOT, then go back to your front bar, those ticks now get the benefit. I wouldnt over think it too much. Most builds spend most of their time on the front bar.

My rule of thumb is try to avoid more than 2-3 consecutive back bar casts, in the case of necro, it should rarely be more than 2, because you should be casting blastbones again on your front bar after two skills. There are of course exceptions. A lot of builds will use the back bar to buff up pre combat and that sort of thing. Lots of skills can be cast ahead of a fight, an obvious example is something like your skeletal mage/archer. Even blast bones you can cast 3 seconds before you actually engage the fight. (Look at the prebuff section of that video I linked).

Thanks so much for the response. It verified that DOTS would profit with a bar switch and that is great! I won't overthink it, but it definitely matters/will affect what I put on the second bar! Appreciate all your help and the time to type this out very much!

If you follow the rule that Spam skills and skills that give buffs for being slotted go on your front bar, then go longest to shortest in terms of duration (longer on back bar), you will be right 99% of the time. Necro might have you break that rule to keep pairs of skills together. And some classes require a certain class skill line to be on a bar to get a specific passive, but otherwise, its usually a safe approach. Of course, dont hesitate to juggle your bars to fit your needs, and there are exceptions to most rules.

As an example, a lot of meta builds put Trap on the front bar. Its a 20 second skill (longer, which suggests back bar), but it also gives a bonus for being slotted due to FG passives (suggests front bar). I usually back bar it TBH. Just easier for me personally most of the time for me.

And yes, using the armory to swap to a turn in bar is a fine idea. The second armory slot on all my characters is a crafting/turn in bar. It has all the passives needed to do crafting writs, but I also slot skills that still need leveled as writs give XP. If you are on PC, I think addons are actually better than armory if you just want to switch bars. If you want to switch Skill Points and more, than armory is better.

You know, I totally forgot about the addon I got for this. I got it over a month ago or so. I did a lot of research when I came back, and took 5-6 days to set up my UI. You likely can tell what type of person I am with this info lol. I have all addons set up except 2-3, which I didn't use because I was not doing dungeons until the Undaunted event. Yes, I should have, but I've had so much to catch up on that it wasn't a priority. The only times that I should need the armoured then are PVE to PVP to dungeons, to maybe trials and Mael. Maybe but not likely for tradeskilling. Thanks for making me think about that. It will help a lot.

And yes, you're right about these rules. I honestly had been under 50 and 160CP, not caring that much as long as things died, I got more skills, upgraded/morphed the right skills and so forth. My DPS is clearly crap if I'm casting 4-5 skills when I should be casting a good 8 (situational, as you stated). 3 skills not being casted = a ton of lost DPS. I have the right skills, and I've changed how I use them depending on the dungeon, but fast-changing skills in a dungeon are a loss of DPS. I'm going to work on having both bars full, getting the right equipment, getting into a groove of usual cast order (situational, once again, as you mentioned), and once that is done, if I see people doing 5k-10k more DPS, I will ask again with more precise questions and fix the specific issues. For now, the issue is me. I knew it was. I just needed to hear others telling me what the biggest issues were, and I'm so happy that I asked. I now have a really good place to start, and I'll get there, thanks to everyone who was kind instead of telling me to shut up and go watch tutorials. I'm watching the one tutorial that someone posted here. I had not seen that one. It's been VERY informative. I'm taking notes of the important points. Every little bad habit that I get rid of now is a bad habit that won't form and that I won't have to undo. It's easier to form a good habit and keep it up than it is to undo a bad habit. Appreciate all your help!

Vorkk8383 · September 2022

No ranting btw. All solid advice!