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Post by undeath on Jun 18, 2008 21:57:51 GMT
The last time there was a serious proboards discussion in regards to Necro Skilling was started by Peblo in January of 2003. At that time it was the general consensus that Staff was the way to go and that the only other viable option was Knife to Longsword conversion.
However, with the insertion of traits into the mix this seemingly provides some more viable options for necromancer skilling. Obviously it would still be somewhat insane to try and raise Two Handed Axe as a necromancer, but I am curious what other skills that the traits have opened up for other necromancers.
The most obvious one seems to be Longsword, which for humans (or Lunger's with Exceptional Strength) allows for some highly damaging non-unique single handed weapons. However, what of the other options? Does anyone think using Club, Axe, Curved Blade, or Rapier would be a good option?
And let me save Lunger the trouble, groan another newbie.
Undeath ;D
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Post by sinister on Jun 19, 2008 2:21:55 GMT
Newly created Half Elven necros could raise 2hs to try for Elvenheart.
Elven Necros, suicide now.
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Post by Gromlakh on Jun 19, 2008 2:23:59 GMT
Honestly, I never cared for raising skills. I concentrated on staff and that's it. If I ever manage 100 staff with Albeleo, I might start looking at something else (probably longsword).
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Post by undeath on Jun 19, 2008 2:47:36 GMT
I think I am going to be looking at primarily Staff first just due to the variety of 'good' staves out there right now (Tarran, Tetty, Iron Shod, Protection, Elemental, etc) and then later on look at Longsword once I am high enough to stand behind a big old lich and take whacks at things.
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Post by sinister on Jun 19, 2008 12:30:24 GMT
Here is my anticipated sequence for raising skills:
1) Staff 2) Longsword 3) Two Weapon
end of skill raising.
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Post by Blain20 on Jun 19, 2008 13:14:23 GMT
Two weapon with a necro? Wow. Dual knives! rawr!
Anyway, Blain was an elf necro once upon a time, and he fared okay. I was forced with elf because I demote from wiz and made hiim an elf perm mage. After two deaths, I decided I wasn't savvy enough for mage and switched to necro. I did okay. I think I usually got 50-75k/hr by myself when I pushed it, but I've ALWAYS lacked know-how on kills in the game. So I usually just did a few select places, and I always played it safe with alignment kills.
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Post by nine on Jun 23, 2008 13:15:22 GMT
Here is my anticipated sequence for raising skills: 1) Staff 2) Longsword 3) Two Weapon end of skill raising. Just out of curiosity, what do you plan to dual wield when working 2w? I've been decidedly unimpressed with the choices for dualing either staffs or longswords.
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Post by sinister on Jun 23, 2008 13:52:32 GMT
I haven't decided yet, since it's so far down my list of things to do. I've never dual wielded before, not even with my fighter alt so when the time comes I'll probably just ask around and wing it.
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Post by Blain20 on Jun 23, 2008 14:30:46 GMT
Dual knives!
Biscuit!
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Post by shin00bi on Nov 3, 2008 18:58:46 GMT
I think Skill Focus is pretty much a must-have for new necros these days. Wield any of the big weapons at the 20-skill range, and it's already better than max'd knife, and your on the road to beating out staff. You will only skill slightly slower than Staff, and if you're really devoted, you can just focus all your exp on that one trait; probably creating a sort of snowball effect for your skills. You can hardly call those traits wasted but I think the speed at which you gain the skills needed to be dealing more physical damage than your Lich more than makes up for it. Hypothetically speaking.
Longsword for people who can't be bothered with unwielding and rewielding fast, all the time. Two-Handed sword for Helves and *gasp* Elves, who are up to the challenge. Two-Handed Axe for the ones who are patient, but not Two-Weapon-patient, and Two-Weapon for Lunger, who doesn't play much anymore, but will suddenly take a break from the occasional newbie-line sarcasm, and binge 50million EXP per week for a couple months. Oh and Club if you're really impatient, although I imagine it's about the same as Longsword, either way, you're in good territory with having ready-access to HJEM/O.Sword, you lazy one-alias wand-waver you.
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Post by sinister on Nov 3, 2008 20:43:33 GMT
Word.
I'd just like to claify a point that Shin00bi mentioned. For the player with a necro alt, skill focus any particular weapon is ok, but for the player whose main/sole alt is their necro, imo it'll be a waste not to have two weapon as their skill focus choice, since eventually any weapon type you choose will reach 80+ naturally.
More importantly, and this is something I haven't figured out yet at least for a non-elven necro, is the choice for weapon expert.
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Post by shin00bi on Nov 3, 2008 22:27:05 GMT
For the hardcore necros, like you Sinister, I can see Skill Focus Two Weapon as being the only real choice. For most people though, keep in mind no necro has ever gotten Two Weapon high enough for it to finally pay off in damage, so the aspiring Necro might just end up frustrated. For non-fighters/Rangers, Two Weapon is very bleak until you're essentially "done" skilling it. Staff is still good, because chain-staff is stellar with Two Weapon to back it up, so with that mind, I think a Necro who has that kind of trait in mind, they might as well get their staff up, and treat everything normally ignoring two weapon, until about 80 staff, at which point, they can make an educated decision (Can't go wrong. Very few necros have reached that level of skills). Thing is, when it's finally time to start skilling Two Weapon, you're taking a major hit to your weapon-damage, and that's going to continue like that for an unbelievably long time. It'll take AGES to make Two Weapon worthwhile, just a word of warning to newer necros. From what I could tell on my alts, it doesn't even start to even out with your single-wielding counterpart, until maybe the 50ish Two Weap range. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
You hardcore types have a lot of patience and of course, power-playing to make it worthwhile. First it'll take forever to get your regular weapon to 65+ (recommended minimal skill for diving into two-weapon), but since Two Weapon is going to take forever, no matter what, you might as well learn the skill that you ultimately want to dual-wield. Then learn shortsword or club (if you're a dwarf) for the purpose of using the skill-oriented weapons like steel butterfly swords, and well-balanced hammers.
I'm not authority on this just having a bunch of alts in the 20s instead of one level-30 char, but I think one will see that dumping at least 3 skill-focus with only a tiny bit of scattered cheap-traits (innate evil, clean spirit), will be worthwhile. For two-weapon, you'd probably want to max out your skill-focus as well; so add more to misc. traits, get it to Skill Focus 3, add more misc traits, nothing too expensive, then get it to four, then add some exceptional stats, and then get it to 5.
Personally, even with my 3rd Necro, I'm not too sure it'll be my mainstay character. I thought ranger would be for awhile, then it got kind of boring, so I raised my fighter. My fighter is kind of my old-faithful. For the time-being, I definitely play him when dodger-armour is out, because it's just way too good an opportunity for soloing/skilling to pass up. He's not really good enough to be a good basher with Two Weapon yet, so I've hardly bashed at all, only occasionally if my friend's over and since he doesn't care too much about how much damage I'm dealing.
Couple other traits to think about as a necro, weapon-wise. One might have to look into strongarm for the offhand str-requirements. Weapon-expert... I'm not sure, but I THINK if you go weapon-expert two-weapon, it only affects your off-hand, and if that's the case, it's still worth it in the long run, since ultimately you'll be swinging about the same amount with both hands, and it'll be more versatile, plus no matter what two weapons you're wielding the weapon expert will always help (which is great for the skilling-minded type). But if you already know what your main-hand(s) is and always will be and it's NOT two weapon, the choice is obvious.
All in all, I believe for non-fighters, in the long run Crescent/Elvie and Two Weapon will mostly be about even, damage-wise. The plus side about two weapon is the that the skilling will never end. Whereas the real-damage, real-quick person will hit a dead-end skill-wise, which will be boring, but less frustrating. You'll probably get to level 50, three times over before you get 1700, 6 times if you didn't focus on Two Weapon. It's like the rabbit versus the turtle, the latter being the dual-wielder.
So Sinister... how's your Two Weapon doing?
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Post by tehlung on Nov 4, 2008 0:28:02 GMT
i'll venture to say that two weapon as a necro will never be for damage. any damage you do with your weapon is lagniappe anyway. two weapon is for working knife up to 70ish and then raping it back down to 30 with carcera for other skills. i wielded a longsword to get the first skill, and then didn't touch one till ls was 50. judging by staff's rate, you MIGHT get 1 skill per day using staff from 16ish to 50ish. by using knife, you can get 4-5 super easy, if you know what to kill to work knife skills.
hint: it involves information from rangers/clerics and knowing what to kill at what skill level.
speaking of those 50mill binges, i've been thinking about doing some. are the same 4 people playing 24/7 and hogging all the blueprints/uniques? has ironwood been downgraded yet? if the answer to both of those is NO, i may gracing yall with my presence again very soon. (as well as being the #1 helper on the newbieline)
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Post by sinister on Nov 4, 2008 4:07:07 GMT
Wow, I didn't know you could use weapon expert on TW. Weird.
Nevertheless, I still haven't started the two weapon skill yet, so it's still at zero. I'm taking a detour atm so I still have quite a while to go actually before I start
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