The Necromancer

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style="font-weight: bold;">Necromancer

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/93781/"> style="font-weight: bold;">Calling: Mage

Role:
DPS

Primary Attribute:
INT

Of all the various souls available to a Mage in style="font-style: italic;">Rift, the
Necromancer
is one of the few that you will want to consider focusing the majority
of your Soul Points on as you level up. Any points spent in the other
two trees with Necromancer as your primary role are truly just
sprinkles on top of an already perfect soul tree sundae.

Pros

• Exceptional survivability
• Able to solo more challenging content with relative ease
• Well suited as a primary soul tree focus
• The option between Tanking and DPS pets keeps the soul
  viable whether solo or grouped
• Solid Tank pet agro abilities help you avoid
  casting interrupts

Cons

• Pet abilities rely heavily
  on exclusive use of Necromancer spells
• Offers very little utility
  to groups until later into the tree
• Lacks the buffs and crowd
  control found in other Mage souls
• Less effective in PvP than
  many other Mage souls

Overview

The Necromancer is a very powerful soul that can be used almost
exclusively as a Mage. In fact, due to the strong synergy between the
caster and pet abilities, you’re going to get the most benefit from
your pets by focusing wholly on using Necromancer spells whenever
possible.

Solo Play

The Necromancer soul is exceptionally well suited for solo PvE
gameplay, though lacks the kind of burst DPS needed to down more
difficult mobs before they burn through your pet’s relatively weak
defenses. Your Charge meter becomes even more important than managing
your mana, as you’ll constantly need to replenish it to fuel your
primary pet healing spells, Revivify and Soul Purge. Still, unlike many
of the other Mage souls, the Necromancer is an excellent tree for
soloing straight out of the gates, and only gets more powerful the more
points you spend in it. This is doubly true once you cross the 20 point
threshold, as that is when you’ll gain the optional pet upgrades and
ability to feign death in the branches of the tree, and you only
continue to grow more powerful and self-sufficient from there.

Group Play

The only potential downside to the Necromancer is that it offers very
little utility in groups until very late in the tree outside of base
DPS, and your tank pets typically lack the defenses needed to properly
off-tank dungeon mobs. If you’re looking to provide some solid buffs,
crowd control, or other utility to groups, you may want to consider
swapping to another role in group situations.

Pairs Best With

Warlock

Perhaps the best soul to pair with the Necromancer is the Warlock,
mainly for the second tier passive ability, Opportunity. A 10 point
passive ability, Opportunity provides a 10% chance for your next spell
to become instant-cast. This is a huge help with building enough Charge
to fuel your pet healing abilities, and can grant some additional burst
damage.




Along the way you’ll also gain an additional instant-cast DoT,
Dark Touch, which helps your overall DPS and ability to replenish your
Charge bar.

Chloromancer

First tier spells Radiant Spores and Withering Vine can help take some
of the pressure off of constantly needing to build and expend Charge to
heal your pet. Bloom, a relatively cheap spell at only 6 points spent
in the Chloromancer tree, can also provide you with a much needed
direct heal to round out your survivability arsenal.