User:Erasculio/Necromancer

Necromancer
My necromancer was the first character I ever created, back at the October 2004 World Preview Even for Prophecies. She's not my main character, as I don't have a main character, but it is on her that I have felt many of the main changes on the game.

For example, back on the WPE, all minion spells took 5 seconds to be cast. It was funny - the event began on Lion's Arch with our level 15 characters, and when doing the first mission (Alessio), PUGs would be far, far away before I had managed to cast a single Animate Bone Horror >.> In other hand, Soul Reaping gave two points of energy per rank on it (without any of the current limits it has), so I could use skills as if I had infinite energy. I remember being very happy when my entire group died and yet I managed to kill the enemies, thanks to all the energy those deaths gave me. Of course, we were against three terrible menacing Fire Imps (-_-#), but it did felt like a huge accomplishment to kill them at the time.

Later, during the Prophecies Beta Weekend Events, we could play with those same characters, and slowly an economy began. I remember when I found my first Superior Rune (doing the Gates of Kryta mission) - I went back to the outpost (yep, those undead defeated me a couple times ;_;) and tried to sell the rune, but I told everyone "Watch out, that reduces your maximum health". No one thought it was worth the extra attribute points : P So I ended selling it to the merchant. A couple weeks later, Superior Runes became the "In" thing - we did not have a Rune Trader (or Dye Trader or almost* any other), and the players decided that all Superior Runes would be expensive. Yep, all of them, including the very useless ones like Superior Soul Reaping.

* Almost, because we had a cool feature that was removed from the game before release: Skill Charm traders. Before my time there were Skill Gems (I missed those : ( I'm sure they were very shiny), but I did get to see the Skill Charms: a player could talk to a NPC and make a Charm of any skill he knewn. Said Charm could then be used by other characters to learn that skill. Which meant that skill trading was actually a reality back them (and of course, Firestorm was among the really, really expensive skills : P). The first time I saw a Well (I think it was Well of Blood; and yep, it was again on the Gates of Kryta mission), I was like "Zomg, I need to get one skill charm of that, it's sooo pretty *_*". I never managed to get one before they were removed from the game, though.

Gates of Kryta was a very popular mission, not only because it was the main entrance to Lion's Arch (that was the first big GW city ever created, as far as I know), but also because people could farm Drakes there. Those Drakes had quite a punch (no idea why, but the damage they did was nerfed months later), but they were by far the best source of loot around. No one solo farmed them, but people did farm in small groups, and that was the first time I learned of players scamming each other (a player would kill a few Drakes, then make sure the other players would die before they managed to get their items, and then wait until the item was not assigned to them anymore; sounds like something no one would fall for now, but that did trick a lot of people at the time). The time an item was assigned to a player was far less than what it currently is.

After Lion's Arch, players actually complained that the missions were too difficult : P I remember the first time I walked out of Lion's Arch (of course without any henchmen, I had no idea what those were) into the explorable area right outside. By then, some of the animations were bigger than they are today (the animation for armor penetration, that today is a small shield being broken, filled almost half of my screen), so when I got pzwned right outside (by a couple Mergoyles and one melee enemy...) it was definitely a "Whoa o.O" moment. The Wilds mission was a nightmare - players and more players complained that it was waaaay too hard, that no new player would be able to make it past that, and so on. Would be very amusing if we knew, at that time, how something called "Hard Mode" would be introduced, much later, to the game : P

Then came release, the huge cries as the community torn itself asunder, and so on. One thing that persisted for a long time were Refund Points - we could change attribute points up and down anytime, but doing so cost 1 refund point per change (so someone changing Soul Reaping from 10 to 0 would need 10 refund points). We could have at most 20 refund points at any given moment, and we earned more either by finishing a mission (even if we had done it before) or by earning 250 experience points. In practice, this made build experimentation something not exactly viable - the template system didn't exist nor could it exist under such restrictions. I remember that as soon as I created my Necromancer, I chose the build I would play with through the majority of the game, as I was rather limited in how to change my attribute points. Of course, it was a horrible, horrible build (Deadly Swarm, Animate Bone Horrors, Shadow Strike, Vampiric Gaze, Life Siphon, Well of Blood, Ressurrect and one elite), but I think I should try it again in GW:EN, just out of nostalgia : D

Another thing that has been changed are the Signets of Capture. Now they're very easy to use, but it used to be that you had to use the signet right after the boss used the skill you wanted to capture. Literally right after - so if the boss used another skill during those 2 seconds of casting time, sorry, you would capture the wrong skill. No menu to chose from, the signet would be lost and you would learn a skill that you could probably get for free later on the game. Incredibly annoying, but it had its perks...There's a quest in the Northern Shiverpeaks in which we find Verata, the former-necromancer-teacher-turned-evil. Now he's an ally, but he used to be an enemy we could run to - we could never kill him, first because he was too strong (yep : P) and second because he would run away past one of the portals and remain there, out of reach. However...He did use some of his skills, like Verata's Sacrifice, and Animate Bone Fiends (one skill that would be made available only much, much later in the game). I managed to capture both from them (granted, me and plenty of other players, but anyway), so I was enjoying my level 6 Bone Fiends very early in the game : D

...And of course, I think I used them very few times at all (mostly to impress players in PUGs, with the whole "zomg, look at THAT!" thing possible when the game was still young). At the first few months after release, no one knew how to play the game, so it was very easy to join any PUG, and there were no cookie-cutter build. Later, though, the cookie cutter mentality of set in, and the veredict was - Warriors, Elementalists and Monks were uber, while Rangers, Necromancers and Mesmers were useless. No one cared about a Minion Master (the build wasn't that common, Verata's Sacrifice was a skill hard to find, many areas were filled with bodyless undead, and the enemies stood too far from each other) or about Spiteful Spirit (tanking still sucked back then, so the enemies rarely stood together that long).

Then...Came Sorrow's Furnace. And it completely changed how people saw Necromancers. A huge number of corpse-leaving enemies in a relatively small area made minions extremely powerful in there; and the Gear Trick (as long as a character were holding an item, like one of the Gears in Sorrow's Furnace, all enemies would attack him and only him) made it easy to place all enemies close to each other, so Spiteful Spirit suddenly became very, very powerful. Soon 5 men farming groups formed there, with one warrior, a SS necromancer, one Minion Master, one bonder monk and one healing monk (although sometimes people would skip the healing monk for an elementalist).

(It also helped that we got an update allowing us to see "indirect" damage at that time - before, when using skills like Backfire or Spiteful Spirit, or even on indirect sources of damage like minions and pets, we did not see the yellow numbers showing how much damage was being done. When those were made visible, suddenly players became able to see all the yellow numbers poping up when using SS or when marching with an army of minions at your command.)

Now, I defend balance in PvE very strongly, and I don't think players should have overpowered skills in PvE. But for those first few months, it was very, very cool to be a Minion Master in there : D The current limit of how many minions we may have did not exist, and Verata's Sacrifice could be kept on almost 100% of the time (100% if you used Archane Echo, but I never liked that). The result is that huge armies of minions were possible - I think the maximum I ever reached was around 35 minions at the same time, and it was very nice to see those minions running around killing stuff. I remember once, when doing the Orozar quest, that my entire team but me died, and I kept making minions. The party leader told me, "Stop making minions, because when you die they will become hostile and will kill Orozar", to which I replied, "Who said I'm going to die? : D" Terribly cocky, I know, but there were only two enemies left (both rangers, and I was hidden out of their line of sight) against more than a dozen minions, so we did win at that time : ) The update that created the minion cap, right before Factions was released, severely nerfed that build but it did deserve a nerf.

Having done everything I wanted with this character, she now stays at the only outpost in the Charr Homelands, Doomlore Shrine (also the title of one of the best songs in Guild Wars). Her favourite heroes were Jora (Swordsmanship warrior with a pet), Gwen (Domination/Illusion mesmer) and Ogden (Healing Prayers monk).

Armor

 * Fanatic Tunic (Bonelace, Minor Curses)
 * Fanatic Gloves (Survivor, Minor Soul Reaping)
 * Fanatic Leggings (Survivor, Superior Vigor)
 * Fanatic Boots (Bloodstained, Minor Death Magic)


 * Kurzick Tunic (Tormentor, Minor Blood Magic)
 * Kurzick Gloves (Survivor, Minor Soul Reaping)
 * Kurzick Leggings (Survivor, Major Vigor)
 * Kurzick Boots (Survivor, Minor Death Magic)


 * Monument Tunic (Tormentor, Minor Curses)
 * Monument Gloves (Survivor, Minor Soul Reaping)
 * Monument Leggings (Survivor, Superior Vigor)
 * Monument Boots (Bloodstained, Minor Death Magic)


 * Elite Sunspear Tunic (Minion Master, Minor Blood Magic)
 * Elite Sunspear Gloves (Survivor, Minor Curses)
 * Elite Sunspear Leggings (Survivor, Major Vigor)
 * Elite Sunspear Boots (Bloodstained, Minor Soul Reaping)


 * Luxon Scar Pattern (Survivor, Superior Curses)
 * Kurzick Scar Pattern (Survivor, Superior Death Magic)
 * Norn Scar Pattern (Survivor, Superior Blood Magic)
 * Ragged Scar Pattern (Survivor, Superior Soul Reaping)

Weapons

 * The Stonereaper
 * Insightful Bone Staff of Fortitude
 * Death Magic 9
 * Energy +5
 * Halves casting time of Death Magic (20%)
 * Health +30
 * Insightful Destroyer Blood Staff of Fortitude
 * Blood Magic 9
 * Energy +5
 * Hale and Hearty (5)
 * Health +26
 * Undead Soul Reaping Focus of Fortitude
 * Soul Reaping 9
 * Health +30

Other

 * Red Iris Flowers
 * Preserved Red Iris Flower
 * Rose Focus
 * Mursaat Tokens
 * Miniature Necrid Horseman
 * Grenth's Visage
 * Grenth's Regalia
 * Platinum Longbow

Things to get

 * Health +30 (staff)
 * Focus inscription

Builds
Note: those suck. I'm not aiming at the most efficient build possible, but rather at something I have fun playing with. And while it's not fun to have ten party wipes, I'm not against playing with a "bad" build if I enjoy it.

Curses
Spiting Charrs  Template code: OANDY8x9QVV5BCNjB3gui7ioRA 

The build I used the most in the Charr Homelands, and probably the build with the highest number of PvE only skills. With the almost unlimited energy given by Soul Reaping, this build can do considerable damage, be it spamming Necrosis or through Spiteful Spirit, or even throwing ice damage at the fire-based around GW:EN.

Deadly Bile  Template code: OANDUsx9QVVnO1MKgZBdBtQoRA 

Completely useless against a single enemy, or a small group of enemies far from each other, but amazingly fun when fighting large mobs. Necrosis would likely work better than Deathly Chill, but then again I'm not that fond of PvE only skills. There's a variation with Putrid Explosion instead of Well of Suffering, but the well has a larger ranger.