Necromancer Spell Line Ups

[Antibane]

Howdy Folks,

I'd like to discuss necromancer spell line-ups with the other necromancers, and this seemed like the prudent place to do it. During Fippy tonight (02/01/2010), I saw both Fellid's Grasp and Splart land on Fippy more than once, and that concerns me - there is no reason to load either of those spells in a DPS raid line up. They are poor DPS, and they're basically unfocusable. The key to maximizing our damage and making sure we're performing our roles as primary DPS requires that we balance an effective and high damage spell set constantly.

With tribute DoT haste on (which you need if you don't have it - check out Twinge of Pain), you can easily weave 10 DoTs (11 if you're quick on the drop with FD) and keep them up constantly on a mob that doesn't stun or put slow on you (like Fippy 40-20 and 20-dead). It takes basically constant casting, and you have to FD every two or three casts to avoid taking agro, but it's very doable. Work on your FD so that you flop and are back up in the global recast time (1.5 seconds - doable, since the cast on AA FD is 0.5 seconds). Also work on any other AA abilities you use to make sure they fly during global refresh (which doesn't apply to AAs). Examples of AAs you might want to practice with include Rise of Bones, AotD, Skelly Swarm, and (not AA, but still prudent) Epic clicky and BP rat (if you have SoD BP).

Here's the spell line up I use. I'll put down the spells in the order I load them, and then I'll describe what a typical round looks like for me (on a hard burn). Most of my spells are Rk3, but fill in Rk2 if it's appropriate for you.

Soul Reaper's Pyre
Reaver's Pyre
Ashengate Pyre
Mortal Coil (this one has resist problems, but as long as debuffs are happening, it lands consistently enough)
Pyre of the Forgotten
Slitheren Venom
Fellid's Pallid Haze
Scorching Shadow
Venonscale Venom
Searing Shadow
Drain Essence
Exigency for Blood

I have heard arguments about dropping Exigency for an 11th DoT - I've tried it, and the parses are basically the same. Exigency gives a nicer hard burn, though, if you can get it to proc. Here's my casting line up:

SRP - RP - AP - MC - (Feign) - EfB - PotF - 3rd Spire/CoA Robe - SlithVen - FPH - (Feign) - EfB - SRP - RP - AP - MC - (Feign) - ScorchShad - VenVen - SearShad - EfB - (Feign) - Repeat

Soon as 3rd/Robe wears off, hit 7th (if you have it and if it's hard burn). Robe wears off first - don't hit 7th until spire goes away, I do not think they stack. Second round, hit swarms (if appropriate) between the 30 second DoTs. Doing that layering of rounds (30/42/30/90 repeat) lets you keep all the DoTs up.

I would welcome suggestions and additions to this - I've spent a great deal of time parsing and testing this line up, and it works nicely. The typical parse fight I use is the first Head Scryer in Tower 4, and I've come extremely close to 10k DPS with this line up (9745 was the actual number).

Best Regards,
Antibane

[Zephur]

Thats a good lineup to have currently. I use Ignite Energy RK3 over VV, but there are some stacking issues with multiple necros.

There is no reason a necro should be using low cost (low DPS) mana conserving spells like spart or fellid's grasp on raids. They can use bigger dmg spells than spart for dps and lifetap instead of FG for heals with death bloom to regen mana back.

Would also suggest everyone gets the T8 chest from UF asap. The clicky is on same timer as the rat but gives a 58-68% increase in damage to the next 20 dots that hit. Not as good as the EfB proc but works when you want it.

And with death bloom AA, I don't see a reason any necro should go OOM on raids even casting the most expensive spells, unless it gets changed.