Necromancer Empires of Kunark Spells

Without a level cap increase, it is unusual for necromancers to get much more than utility or support spells. In Empires of Kunark, only 3 spells are added to the necro spellbook. This is typical for EQ because the desire for new spells has to be balanced with power creep when the level cap remains the same.

These can be purchased in Lceanium, the hub zone for EOK. The spell merchant is named Janeil Mon`estra. 

• Level 101
• Pact of Destiny - A transfer life over time spell. Heals your target at the expense of your own health. Very unlikely to have any practial use for a necromancer. At Rank III it heals for 8k per tick.

• Level 102
• Malevolent Alliance - A fun tool for grouping necromancers. Does nothing solo, but a non necromancer can receive boosted DoTs and trigger a large nuke recourse. It does have a grey area in quick killing groups where it takes too much time to set up to be better than some swifts. Deals up to 2.7 million damage at Rank III, but requires 4 DoT hits from necromancers that are NOT the caster to trigger the effect. It's not bad on raids either, even though it won't help your parse, if you have several necros using it, the fight length will be shortened, which is better for the raid team as a whole.

• Level 104
• Remote Sphere of Decay - Drops a skull that radiates area damage from the cast point. It can be cast on a location instead of a mob. Situational use, however those situations typically involve killing low level monsters for farming tradeskill materials. There is some potential power leveling use, as the damage is not attributed to the caster (similar to damage shields). It does up to 111,723 per tick at Rank III. It is quite a bit of fun if you can find a use for it though, so give it a try.

Necro Group Spell Lineup: Level 105

Just a quick rundown of how I do business in a group setting. In any of these sets, I will fill any unused gems with regular DoTs in case a named spawns, I won't have to change anything to do a decent burn.

Option #1 - Average Kill Speed 30s - 1 Minute per mob

1. Pyre of Jorobb
2. Call Skeletal Mob
3. Swift (Fire)
4. Swift (Disease)
5. Swift (Magic/Lifetap)

Option #2 - Sub 30s Kill Speed

Same as #1, except I will Start with swarm. If the group is killing REALLY fast, you can pop right into the 3 swifts. Feel free to nuke, I like to use Soulrend just for a chance to farm up a few Essence Emeralds.

Option #3 - Utility Role

This can be used in conjunction with the other sets. Just set up your extra spell slots however you see fit to support the group in other ways besides damage. Pick and choose any of these you like.

Slow - Combust Bones and AA Death's Malaise

Mana Regen - Mind Extraction spell line, actually pretty good believe it or not!

Be Flexible!

This is just what I've had the best experience with. It is true, necros aren't huge DPS in groups, simply because the speed of kills. There are tons of other things to do though! Don't be content just sitting and casting a couple spells if your group is tearing through them like nothing else. You can pull, park adds, mana tap, and use all sorts of other cool abilities. We have one of the largest class toolboxes in the game, feel free to dig around and see what is in there!

Fellowship Experience Sharing: Vitality

Catching up another character or a friend can be a tedious chore if you are not a strong power leveling class. Necro are not particularly well suited for it, but there is a solution.

Fellowships

Fellowships are groups of players that are formed independently of guilds, although they share a few similarities. Primarily, they have a chat channel, a message of the day, and a method of transport (campfires) which will not be covered in detail in this guide.

The noticeable difference is that you can share experience. This was intended to help groups of players keep the less active players caught up, but as always, it tends to get more use for your own alts than actual friends.

Sharing Experience

Each player can turn on or off his own sharing, but only the fellowship leader can change other member's settings.

Members must be within the level limit to group with a player normally in order to utilize sharing. That is the lower level character takes his level, and adds half of it again to his level to find the maximum he can group with. A level 70 adds half (35) and can group with a 105.

Vitality

Think of sharing as a hose, it has to be open at both ends for anything to go through. Both your guys must have sharing on in order to send xp to the alt. The experience is saved in a pool called Vitality.

Vitality shows up as a green bar underneath your experience and AA experience bars. This is the same pool, not two separate ones. This pool can hold a value equal to 10 levels or that characters max unspent AA cap.

Using vitality is slightly confusing. You have to turn off the hose before you grind xp on the lower character, or it just shares right back to the other. Once you start spending your pool, it will give you a bonus per xp gain or 3x for normal experience, or 5x for AA experience until the pool is depleted.

An example of its use, if the pool is completely full, and you are level 85 with a 100 AA stored cap. Using normal experience only, it would take you to 95. On AA, you could only gain 100 before the pool was depleted. You can see how it is far better for use on level experience, as AA will be easier to get for the alt at a higher level.

Essence Emeralds: A Primer

Unique to the Necromancer, essence emeralds are quite the handy little gem. Their primary purpose, and only real use, is to provide a reagent for necro resurrection spells. We will take a look at one other use, just for some interesting history. It is a safe bet you won't ever use it though.

There are a few methods to obtain an essence emerald. In order that they were implemented into the game, they are:

• Sacrifice
• Venin line nukes
• Soulrend

Making Essence Emeralds

Sacrifice

The old school method. The gift of resurrection spells was not given to necromancers lightly. In order to revive a corpse, a sacrifice had to be made. The spell Sacrifice actually, take a look.

Spell: Sacrifice

To make this work, you need to be grouped with a player level 46 or above. You cast on them, and they get a permission pop up, just like a translocation spell. If they accept, they are instantly killed. That corpse can NOT be resurrected for experience! It truly is, a sacrifice.

It was quite profitable in the older days of EQ to pay for these sacrifices, and then sell the essence emeralds. At a time when 10k platinum was a small fortune, you could pay someone 150 platinum per sacrifice, and turn around and sell the gems in the bazaar for 300-500 PP. This could vary by server of course, just an idea how they were basically money in themselves. Some people would take alts from 60+ all teh way down to 45, when they could no longer sacrifice that character.

Venin and Other Poison Nukes

At level 71, necromancers were given a new spell ability. The poison nuke was an upgrade, but had the added effect of a small shot at a free essence emerald. It required two different luck factors. You had to get the kill shot on the monster, which could not con trivial, and even then it is only a 5% chance. It is pretty hard to time it just right, and then still only have a 1 in 20 shot at a gem, but it was FREE which was awesome. At least, the nuke itself was not terrible, but in current content, mob HP has scaled so much, its even harder, only doing 1-2% per nuke.

Soulrend

The latest addition to the set is the level 103 Spell: Soulrend. This is the easiest one to use, but has the lowest chance. It has a fixed chance of 2% per cast to create an essence emerald. There is less timing involved, and more ability to just spam it constantly. It isn't too bad for a lifetap itself, and can be helpful in a group that kills too fast for DoTs.

Uses for Essence Emeralds

Resurrection

The primary use is to give necros a rez spell. There two versions. Each consumes one essence emerald.

Convergence Spell - Level 53 spell, 93% rez

Convergence AA - Level 95 Alternate Ability, maxes out at 96%

Useless / Historic Uses for Essence Emeralds

Just for completion, here are the other uses for essence emeralds, even though they are either far outdated, or just never were useful. Each of these costs one essence emerald to cast.

Spell: Infusion - Level 55, refills 1,000 mana

Spell: Trucidation: Level 60, 1,500 point lifetap

Never Have Trouble Finding a Group Again

This is loosely directed at necromancers, but most of it will be useful to any class. Adjust accordingly! Soloing all the time can be tedious, and sometimes we just want to relax and hop in a group.

Every Class is Useful

EverQuest is far easier than it has ever been to get a group started. With mercenaries, and the somewhat newer change to allow melee classes to fight while a pet tanks, there is a use for ANY class. You probably don't want 6 warriors, but at the same time, its not unheard of to take on a second one, just to get the benefit of his wizard mercenary. The point to take home here is that you do not need a perfect setup to start a group.

Build a Personal Network

Odds are, you've seen someone shout LFG and asked them right away, only to get the reply that they have already been taken. I have been on both ends of this, it is usually a result of them having history with a group. It can be as simple as having grouped with them the day before and done a good job. It can also be the extra push to convince a group to drop a merc and let you join, even if the merc is a better fit or higher damage.

To build a network of friends, you don't need to do anything special. You just need to be around more people. You also need to provide value to the person you want to be around. Even having fun is valuable, so don't get too focused on just being the "best". It sure does help if you greatly increase their kill speed though. Basically, if you are pleasant to be around, you are doing well. Character skill comes secondary usually, but is still a factor. Asking people for help to get better will show them you care as well, but talk strategy, not asking for help getting better gear. In short, if you feel like extra work to be around, people will avoid you.

Take the Lead, Start a Group

The best way to add value to other people's game experience, is to be a leader. This is a surefire way to build a network. I've seen 3 people in general chat say LFG at the same time, and be a perfect fit for making a good group. A few minutes later, all three are still Looking For Group. Why is this? Because nobody wanted to take the lead and put it together.

Remember, we already said before how it only takes two people, of almost any class, to start a group. A necromancer should never have this problem, because our pet and a merc healer is the foundation for a basic group already. It may not be ideal for hunting high end, but it will get you into content instead of sitting in the guild hall. Pets are capable of named hunting, but they need to be taken care of a little closer than normal.

So if you see even one other LFG, grab them, and start something. Do this for even just a few days, and you will see, when people log in, they will ask you if you are running anything today. Leading a group isn't hard, you aren't their boss. The only real commanding you have to do is "meet me at X camp" and start pulling.

You should never have the problem of being without a group, if you put in just a little effort. It pays back with interest in the long run when people actively seek you out as a contributing member.

New Necromancer Spell: Malevolent Alliance

A very interesting addition to the necromancer arsenal, Malevolent Alliance encourages necros to work together. This was a huge success in the group game, but would likely not be as useful in a raid scenario. One of the main reason it is so cool, is simply that it is an entirely new concept. We have spell lines that have been the same thing, just upgraded, all the way from the beginning of EverQuest. Classics are great, but we love seeing new things come around.

Spell Description for Necro Alliance Spell

There are two parts to the spell, but first realize that a solo necromancer gains no benefit whatsoever for using this spell. Keep in mind that it becomes instantly more amazing after even one other Necro joins you. For added fun, get three or more together, and you can cycle this on nearly every pull. It has a recast of 1 minute, and a duration of 18 seconds.

Part 1 of the spell, is pretty straight forward. It adds a total damage to any DoT that lands on the mob, from Necromancers only, NOT including the caster. Remember this is a slightly odd mechanic, in that it adds the damage to the total of the spell, so not 32k per tick, but 32k, divided among the base ticks the DoT spell has.

Part II is the cool part. If 4 DoT spells that are not from the caster hit before it wears off, the alliance spell explodes the target for 2.3 million damage (rank I). These are any 4 DoT hits, it can be 4 from the same person on a single tick, or 2 spells over 2 ticks, etc. This doesn't show up as your damage, but it is obvious when it hits. Don't worry, it works! In Frontier Mountains, new expansion yellow cons were taking between 40 and 55% hp in instant damage. It probably doubled our kill speed when I had partners to use it with. It was noticeable when they left.

There is one minor stacking issue: If two people have the same rank, it will not stack. If one guy has Rk. I, and the other has Rk. II however, they will both land and proc. Ultimately this doesn't matter too much, as long you get a good rotation going with your partner. If you cast the same rank, and the other has it on already, it just won't land, and eats up 13k mana for nothing.

If you are level 102, and have the new Kunark expansion, try this out. You will not regret it! It is one of the most unique spells that we have gotten in a long time, that is also useful.

Pet Tanking in Empires of Kunark

Pet tanking has had its ups and downs for sure. One major improvement, which wasn't from this expansion, is the ability for pets to hold agro even when a player is in melee range. This opens a lot of doors for groups. Monks and rogues are no longer limited to weak throwing weapons when no real tank is available. Overall, great improvement for the group game.

On to the topic at hand: how do necromancer pets do in the new content? Pretty well from my experience actually, which was surprising. In the Frontier Mountains, I was able to fairly easily tank the trash without any babysitting. Named proved a bit tough, but doable. On the named, it was important to have it slowed, and to cycle Companion's Aegis AA, and Cascading Doomshield. These helped a lot for the mercenary healer to keep up. As always, you can use your Pestilent Paralysis to boot adds away, and skeleton swarm spell to hold another. at the time of this testing, I have Enhanced Minion XX, which is raid level, but several expansions behind the max.

Remember though when you pet tank a zone that is tough, take care of the pet first, and work in the DPS after pet seems stable. With even just 2 players and mercenaries, you can knock out tons of content. Use a healer and a DPS, I wouldn't bother with the tank merc if you can handle them at all with your little minion.