I made about 15 necro casters on rogue/permadeath. Skills were Necro/Math/Wizarding/Perception/Blood Magic/Ley Walker/Fleshsmithing. Most died on the first floor, usually in the first few rooms. A few made it to floor 2, one to floor 3. So let me start by saying that I love having seriously powerful spells that are also dangerous to the caster. It's one of the most interesting concepts I've seen in an RPG. There are some things I don't like though. Necronomiconomics doesn't know whether it's a caster or a melee line, and Eldritch Inhabitation (the 5th skill) is worthlessly weak. Mark of Cthon and Pact of Fleeting Life are not useful to pure casters. That makes it feels like Tenebrous Rift (the 6th skill) costs 4 skill points. Tenebrous Rift is pretty good but not THAT good, considering it also hurts the caster. All in all the line is fun in a FUN way but could use some tweaks in my opinion. Deathly Hex (1st skill) is pretty unique. It costs very little mana (2 mana on floor 3 on my best character) and does decent damage. It also deals 2 necromantic damage to the caster for 3 turns and lowers your maximum life by 1 for each cast. You can reduce self damage to zero simply by taking Pact of Fleeting Life and Eldritch Inhabitation (4th and 5th skills) to get 2 necromantic resistance. Before having 2 necromantic resistance, using Deathly Hex is just going to get you killed. Despite the low mana cost, you can't mindlessly spam this or you're going to reduce your maximum hp to dangerously FUN levels. You want to alternate it with other spells or supplementary damage. Nightmare Curse (2nd skill) is a powerful DoT with a chance to sleep the target. It lowers your mana regeneration and maximum mana. The sleep component of the spell is very important, because when you open a door and find a monster right in your face, the sleep part will make sure you won't take a hit. It's a rudimentary escape mechanism and makes bosses much easier. Unfortunately it seems that the chance to sleep the target monster each turn goes down VERY quickly as you descend into lower dungeon floors, so I fear that the sleep component will become worthless in lategame. The mana regen and maximum mana penalty doesn't actually have that much of an impact early on (just drink a lot of booze), but I think they will have a much bigger one later when your mana regen is down to 1/2/3 turns. Eldritch Inhabitation (5th skill) is garbage due to low single-target damage, high mana cost, and the damage being delayed by a few turns. It still seems exceptionally weak for its mana cost. Once you take this skill, your Deathly Hex actually becomes "safe" to use (due to having 2 necromantic resists) which means there's little point in even casting Eldritch Inhabitation. I think this spell should be changed. Tenebrous Rift (the 6th skill) does good aoe damage. Casting it will sometimes hurt yourself (having low maximum hp due to Deathly Hex use and getting unlucky (or reckless) with Tenebrous Rift self damage is how I died in my two best attempts). Considering how three of the previous skills are useless on their own and how the spell is a danger to the caster, I think that the spell could be improved a little. I don't know if the self damage can be countered with mecromantic resist. I found that items or effects that increase maximum hp are very nice to have as necro caster. Increased vision radius is pretty much a must for "safe" Tenebrous Rift usage. Instant self healing also seems quite useful. That explains the rationale behind taking Fleshsmithing (self buff that increases max hp, plus an INSTANT self heal) and Perception. Mathemagics is purely for teleporting. Based on all this I would suggest these changes to Necronomiconomics: - Deathly Hex. Also grants 1 necromantic resist to stay consistent with other skills. Self-damage changed to 5 necromantic damage, once. The rationale is to make Deathly Hex less suicidal before you become immune to its self-damage. It still takes 5 points to become immune to self-damage. I would also like to see this spell remaining viable in the lategame (I have not seen late game yet, just throwing out a concer). - Nightmare Curse: Also grants 1 necromantic resist. Make the sleep reliable in lategame because necromancers really do need it: 100% chance to sleep on first turn for 2 turns, 50% chance after turn 2 to sleep for 1 turn regardless of target monster level. The mana regeneration penalty should automatically become significant enough in lategame to discourage mindlessly spamming this, so it should be fine. - Mark of Cthon: Also grants 1 necromantic resist. I don't know what else to say. I don't think even melee builds use this skill due to high upkeep cost. It might be worth changing this also. Radically. - Pact of Fleeting Life: Still grants 1 necromantic resist. Would be cool if this was more useful for a caster, but if the rest of the tree is good enough, there's no real need to change it. It's a pretty powerful ability with certain builds. - Eldritch Inhabitation: Still grants 1 necromantic resist. As mentioned, this spell needs to be looked at. Just be careful to not make it a "better Deathly Hex" because Deathly Hex is cool and unique and shouldn't be made obsolete. - Tenebrous Rift: Still grants 1 necromantic resist. Self-damage/risk/cost vs reward of this versus alternatives seems a bit off. That's all I'm going to say. Also I want to throw out the idea of making Eldritch Inhabitation and Tenebrous Rift deal guaranteed unavoidable self-damage, but being all that more powerful in return. The necro caster would then revolve around self-healing to offset self-damage, juggling the penalties which is what makes it fun. Also, if you're wondering how I even got this character build to level 2, the answer is gargoyle traps and some luck. I had to restart often if it didn't work out in the first few rooms... If you get 2 pierce resist, you can also melee your way through much of the first floor.
I would like to see the following changes to Necro: -More specific tooltips: The tooltip for Minor Blood Debt says "Health Regen-1", and mentions nothing about the 2 damage for 7 turns, which is what kills you at level 1. The tooltips for the Nightmare Curse debuffs mention nothing that would explain my maximum mana going up and down like a yo-yo. As an experiment, I casted NC on six different enemies, after which my debuffs were "Curse of the Mind: -1 Sagacity, -2 Spellpower, -2 Mana Regen, 5 turns remaining" and "Soul Price: Mana Regen -1, 1 turn remaining". On my actual character sheet, my mana regen is sitting at -11. :| As I walked around, the Soul Price stayed at 1 turn remaining for 5 turns as my mana regen increased every step I took, then it disappeared. Curse of the Mind stayed at 1 turn remaining for a few steps, then was replaced with Lingering Dullness, after which my mana regen was back to normal. Obviously the side effects of casting Nightmare Curse stack, but there is no indication of that, just the # of turns remaining, which itself is innacurate. There seems to be no distinction between -1 Heart meaning -1 HP or -1 max HP. Having to manage one's resources based on vague and/or misleading information is extremely frustrating. -I agree wholeheartedly with the OP: Necro spells should have a flat cost of mana AND health, with perhaps a Lingering Weakness/Dullness debuff. That would make the spells consistently dangerous to use, but it would be something you could consistently compensate for. The health cost could scale the same as mana cost as the character grows more powerful. If it's just 5 damage, it would be extremely dangerous to use on floor 1, and a pittance later on. -Necromancy Damage Resistance should not affect the damage caused by the character casting Necro spells. I feel that this logic is flawed: Necro Spells hurt you-we'll put almost enough Necro Resist as a bonus to taking Necro skills so they won't. What I have seen in many other games of all kinds is that if a character is sacrificing health in exchange for ANYTHING, then that damage CANNOT be mitigated. Imagine the Necromancer cutting his arm for blood to fuel his dark magic- that damage wouldn't be miraculously prevented by Necro resist because he's hurting -himself- on purpose. This is an extremely enjoyable game, but some skills, however attractive in theory, are just too badly broken and laden with inconsistencies to take.
Just had another death, on dungeon floor 2. Once again Tenebrous Rift was involved, which makes it cause of death #1 for characters that reach dungeon floor 2. I had 4 tiles between me and the target tile. I was flanked by 2 diggles, casted Pact of Fleeting Life to melee them down (had only 10 mana left), and missed twice in a row, dropping to 5 hp. I used a mushroom to go invisible and died on the next turn to something. I think it was Tenebrous rift backfire. It's not all that clear.
Necronomicon is easily the best tree atm if you know what you are doing with it. It doesn't need to be any better than it is. There are no risk if you keep in mind that return damage is based on your magic power and you can just keep that down to reduce your return damage. A 19 magic power necro with max necro tree (3 resist) takes no return damage and still ditch out decent damage, this means he can equip heavy armor while using necronomicon, that he can melee and cast.
Then you obviously didn't die from return damage. You die from being at Rift's range. That's not a spell you cast on top of yourself. Damage self is very common in this game. Pretty much every single pyro skill is like that.
Tenebrous Rift extends 4 tiles out from the center. Since I know this, I took extra care to have 4 tiles between me and the target tile. There wasn't anything else that could damage me while being invisible besides the backfiring.
Actually yes, there are no return damage, but it also have a few - max health. Normally it's fine unless you are down to 2 life. If you use Necro for a WARRIOR based build, it's fine. You got a relatively low magic power, you got regular attack, you get huge leech, and you got rift for zoos. The problem is trying to make Necro a mage. Try this and see if you do any better Necro Weapon skill of your choice (personally chose unarmed) Vampirism Smithing Blood Mage Magic Training Artful Dodger.
I must have watched twenty pairs of eyebrows wince in pain and die trying to use Necro Feet on GR-PD, often within the first few rooms, and usually by Poison Diggles. I swapped Magic Training with Assassination and he hasn't stopped kicking yet. So far I've taken Dodger 2>Smithing 4->Unarmed 2 (couldn't help myself, plus a lot of good combat stats)->Blood Mage 2. Gonna get Blood 3 before I start down Necro, to compensate for not having Magic Training.
Surviving floor 1 takes a bit of getting used to, but it's really not that bad since vamp changes on 1.05. Once your character hit level 2 you really shouldn't have any more problem. Since you ditch magic training, you probably want to use the Magical Sombrero instead of Sir Albrecht's Helm.
Currently on Level 6- had some close calls, but Necrosassin Feet has been doing well. Cthon+Pact jumps my health up superquick. I'm guessing I probably won't ever have enough mana regen to have Cthon up all the time. Anyway, I got a Magical Sombrero finally, but the Vampire Hunter's Hat seems better. My Magic Power is at 15 right now, with Pact up, I have around 80 Health and 75 Mana, 27 Dodge, 56 Block & 12 Absorb. Equipping the Sombrero would get me 5 Magic Power, but I would lose 2 Putrefying damage, 2 Necro Resist (dropping it to 3), 3 Crit, 3 Counter, 2 Dodge and 1 Magic Resist. I have 2 Vamp hats, so I plan to gamble one on an Anvil, having gotten an Acid Burn effect on my Xbow. So what would the benefit be of doing the Sombrero over the Vamp hat? I'm no comprende on the Necronomiconomics math.
The Magic Sombrero is a way to equip warrior shields/armors/boots while keeping magic up. Vampire hat by contrast does not offer enough defense on it's own, which will be much needed once you hit floor 7. Again it really doesn't matter as long as you are surviving with it. Survival shouldn't be a problem as long as you got 2 warrior shields on. I assume you got the smith up to 4 and have gotten the 2 ring of iron thorns, if not, you might experience problems. Counters are obviously important as it block damage and leech health.
Dredmor down. I actually wound up using a different equipment setup: Albrecht's Helm/Embossed Serpentine Platemail/Sabatons/Ring of Iron Thorns x2/Orb of Nothing x2: Counter 43; Absorb 21; Block 68; Dodge 33; Pierce Resist 10; Necro Resist 9; Magic Power 24; HP 88; MP 151 My original setup: Magic Sombrero/Armored Archmage's Robe/Sabatons/Ring of Iron Thorns x2/Ensigiled Shield-Rune Crusader's Shield: Counter 43; Absorb 22; Block 70; Dodge 39; Pierce Resist 13; Necro Resist 5; Magic Power 23; HP 89; MP 91 I never did find any rocket boots. The Orbs worked very well- I subbed in a Molten Orb on Floor 9 for the fire resist, and the Orb of Nothing's necro resist lets you stack up your magic power a bit higher. His mana pool was ridiculous, and I was Pact-kicking through Arch-Diggles, no problem. Thoughts?
Here are the 3 tradeoffs (per magic power) Orb of Nothing -> Ensigiled Shield(12 magic power difference) 0.417 armor 0.833 block 0.25 piercing resist 0.833 magic resist Sombrero -> Albrecht's Helm(9 magic power difference) 0.556 armor 0.889 block 0.222 piercing resist Armored Archmage -> Embossed Serpentine (15 magic power difference) 0.4 armor 0.533 block 0.067 piercing resist So for every magic power, you get the most out of retaining the shield, and the least out of the armor. Now if you REALLY needed the mana and are willing to trade the magic resist for it, that is up to you. Since I took magic training mana was not a problem, so using both Ensigiled Shield and Albrecht's Helm was just obvious. However I am starting to have doubt about magic training over assassination. For your build. You can also try having 1 orb of nothing, 1 ensigiled shield, and the armored archmage. 120 mana is more than enough IMO. 5 Necro resist can block up to 33 magic power worth of return damage. You really don't need to raise it further with 20ish magic power.
necromancy is flawed. Its bad design to force you to keep your spell power low or stack up resistance just to use any skill on the tree. If you dont take 0 damage from the feedback, its pretty much suicide to even use it sparingly. On the other hand, if you take 0 damage you got some great powerful skills without any consequences. Like someone said earlier, the feedback should be a flat damage that is unresistable. Lower skills should damage you less while powerful ones should take a significant amount of hp.
It think it's interesting. Reminds me of the dark magic in the Well of Darkness series. That said, I've only tried it like.. once, and I died to my own spell. xD I was all like... whoa. That was before the patch, though. I want to try it again sometime.
Necro plays very well with Vampirism for a hybrid build. You don't need very high magic power for necro to do lots of damage, even in lower floors, and it's all about gearing yourself for necrotic resistance.
