General Strategy

    A lot of the general strategy for creating and leveling a necro is included in the sticky post on the Necro VN board so I won't rehash everything here.  Find the post here: http://vnboards.ign.com/Necromancer_Forum/b22324/77530979/?2

Servant Strategy

    I will, however, copy the servant necro guide put together by avalean since this site is mainly focused on servant necros:

Necro Servant FAQ Post!


(Credit goes to avalean for compiling this.)

Which is faster to 50 from 40, servant or sight?

# Sight I would say, ESPECIALLY if you do not have a buff bot. Sight has more options for where to hunt, while servant pretty restricted till you hit 49-50. - Galac_Usul

# servant with a level 50 enhance bot will level a ton faster than sight, make sure you have a couple mana regen ra's though like mcl, rp, and serenity so you can pull non-stop - Timthe

# no bot? HELLLLLL NO , for servant spec u need full buffs and the red border heal proc, sight spec is ur only option for unbuffed necro farming imo - Gharikreborn

# Final spec target: 47 Servant/ 25 Sight/ 8 Pain

Thoughts:
Servants can kill more XP/h than sight necros
Kill power comes primarily from PBAoE, Damage Shield, and level of the buff-bot
Waiting around to regen power is a real time sink
Need to be able to pull aggro off of bot

So:
Spend first 5 RP on MCL1
Make sure to have at least 37 Servant at level 40 to get the second best PBAoE
Get to level 44 damage shield and 47 PBAoE as fast as possible
Can't spec full servant at level 40, because I'll need some powertap
Spec at least 2 in Painworking to get Str/con insta-debuff


Plan
Level__Servant__Sight__Pain
40.0 __ 38__ 12__ 2 (initial spec)
44.0 __ 44__ 12__ 2 (top damage shield)
45.0 __ 44__ 16__ 2 (better combat lifetap)
47.0 __ 47__ 16__ 2 (top PBAoE)(Let the big killing begin)
47.5 __ 47__ 18__ 2 (better powertap)
49.0 __ 47__ 23__ 2 (better combat lifetap)
50.0 __ 47__ 25__ 8 (done!)
- Redh_Armor

# Even without MCL it's not too bad. You can still regain the same amount of power from mobs with a level 12 powertap, you just can't kill a mob with it because it doesn't do enough damage. Only difference is every 5-7 pulls you need to dmg-shield pull a single so you can FP some powertaps on him to get your power bar back up, and of course for those other 5-7 pulls you're getting 4x the exp a sight spec necro can get - Blehhhh

# The major points i would add to this that are an absolute must for anyone new that wants to do this respec at 40 thing.

You MUST have the following.

A fully SC'ed suit with max melee resists. With a couple pairs of backup gloves/boots if you have a lvl 51 suit made as they will burn up extremely fast. I would bet it would take at least 6-10 pairs to go from 40-50 if the suit is lvl 51.

A Bot.... some will say it can be done with less than 49 but i do not agree. I feel that the bot needs to have Red health Proc. If your bot isn't 50 you not going to have a good time. The other down side of having low bot is if he pulls agro he is dead.


I respecced at 50 with a lvl 45 bot and no SC'ed gear. I could not maintain decent pulls for long without something going wrong. The pet just took way to much damage resulting in cleric having the heal mid pull which would end up with cleric being dead fast with multiple high mobs on low cleric.

The only exception was when a nice sight necro was killing at the gobs and he threw my pet an abs buff then everything was coo. - Meneldar

# I respeced at 40 from sight to servant, granted I had a lvl49 enchancecleric with me for topbuffs. breezed through 40 -> 42 at danoian clerks, gaining a bub of exp every 15'th minute or so tho I slacked on pulls. couldnt come even close to that number at lvl39 as deathsight necro. problem is just finding camps big enough if you are servant-spec. 43 -> 47 is probably bit rough unless I missed some camp but 47 -> 49 should be alot faster once you can do those pygmy goblins - walowalo

# Trust me on this i switched over to servant at 50 but my bot was only 45 i had a horrible time trying to PL my bot. Cost me another 6p to switch back to sight.

IMO i wouldn't switch to servant unless you have a lvl 49 bot or better the cleric heal proc is a must IMO.

I am not saying you cant level with a lower bot but it is definately slower than sight without being able to pull more than 6-8 mobs at a time. - Meneldar
 

One thing I'd like to add to this, copy to Pendragon and test out servant spec before you spend your precious respec stone on your live server.  You get a respec when you copy to the server, plus you can buy respec stones in Camelot from the imp merchants near the Magic Shop.  Turn in respec stones in Camelot where you get a guild emblem, there are two women in that building that take skill and respec stones.  Ceriac stones are what you want for skills.

Buffing

One of the more commonly asked questions on the boards, how do I buff the pet and shade?

As of patch 1.72 spec AF does nothing for pets of any kind.  Use the highest possible buffs on the pet, there is no cap since they are treated in the game as mobs.  If you cleric has 25% buff bonus from ToA you can use the yellow dex/qui buff on your shade since you will cap that anyway.  All other shade buffs should be red.

What transfers to the pet?

Base stats from the necro do not transfer since the pet has its own base stats.  Buffs do not transfer (int adds to the shade's power pool which the pet draws from).

The following bonuses from items DO transfer:

Other ToA bonuses (these need confirmation testing)

Summoning Suit vs. Fighting Suit

Ahhhh, nothing like working the system!  Because of the way bonuses transfer to our pet when we summon it there are a few tricks that you can do to maximize your pet's health.  The way you do that is by adding as much CON and HP as you can at a maximum of +101 con and +400 HP.  When you summon your pet no other item bonuses matter so you don't have to spend a huge amount of time SCing a summoning suit, just put in the time to get the items you need.  Put on all your items to maximize your HP and CON, summon your pet, then put your fighting suit back on.  I keep my summoning suit on the first page of my inventory to make it easy to get to.  Its also a good idea to give yourself a visual reminder of which suit you are wearing, either dye them a different color, have one hood up and one down if you exchange a cloak, etc. 

Some items to give you +con cap and +HP cap:

For your fighting suit you want to maximize the following as much as possible:

Note on item caps:
Stat cap = level * 1.5
Skill cap = level/5 + 1
Hits = level * 4
Power = level/2 + 1

+Stat cap = 26 (supposed to be 25, its actually 26)
+Hits cap = 200
+Power cap = 25
melee haste, archery haste, spell haste, melee damage, style damage, archery damage, spell damage, archery range, and spell range = 10%
Buffing bonus, healing bonus = 25%

(I may have missed some there, let me know if I have)

Necro Specs

There are a few spec templates for necros, depending on what you are going for;

Most of the strategies on this site assume either of the specs above.  They both can pretty much do the same thing but are optimal for the type of killing you are doing.  Some additional specs:

There are of course tons of variations, but these are the more common templates.  Pain is generally considered to be an inferior spec, although it can be good in a support role in RvR because of the AE spells.

Bot Specs

For those of you on Mordred and Gaheris, clerics are the best bot for a necro because of the heal proc in the enhancement line so I will focus on clerics here.  Obvious goal for any of these specs to get as much bonus to healing and buffing as possible, you can get 22% bonus to each just from the easy Oceanus armor quests.

Realm Abilities

Necros unfortunately do not benefit from many of the same RAs as everyone else, but there are some that can be quite beneficial to us in leveling and in RvR. 

Bot RAs

This section will be small but its important.  The single best RA you can get for your bot is Divine Intervention up to level 2 at a minimum.  MCL is next,  Mastery of Healing is a nice one to have especially for those of you with only 20 rejuv on your bot.  Don't bother with Aug Dex or Aug Acuity, the points are better spend in direct healing (unless you have the points to spare).

to be continued...