Secondary professions for a Necromancer

Necromancer Warrior
The Necromancer Warrior (refered to as N/W or Necro/Warrior) is a rare choice of professions. Players using this combination will most likely die very often until they figure out how to play this character's niche.

Finally, the advantage of being a Warrior is you can employ shields for extra armor and use Adrenaline based attacks in addition to Energy based attacks. This allows you to continue to deal damage when either are depleted. Mark of Pain and Barbs can also be cast and combined with Flurry to increase damage caused by physical attacks. Direct damage spells are also nice for taking out a Ranger who likes to evade, or for times when you are blinded.

Necrotic Armor and Tormentor's Armor are recomended for this combination, as they have 10 more than the best armor available for the other spell caster professions. This can make up for some of the fragility that other spell casters have when being attacked in melee combat.

Unlike the Warrior Monk, the Necro/Warrior should not immediately run to the front lines of a battle. Necro/Warriors have relatively light armor so they will most likely be killed on the front lines.

See Meleemancer for a complete look at this combination.

Example Builds:
 * N/W Death's Shadow

Necromancer Ranger
The Necromancer Ranger (N/R) is a somewhat common combination that merges the spells of a Necromancer with the pet and nature spirits of the Ranger. Contrary to popular belief, Favorable Winds does not increase the power of Bone Fiends as their projectiles are not arrows.

The N/R combination of skills is very popular among players who want to be dedicated to raising undead minions. The General minion mastery guide has specific advice on this topic.

Another less used build for necromancer/rangers includes using either pet or bow attacks to inflict conditions, such as bleeding or crippled, on enemies, and then hitting the target with the necromancer elite, Virulence.

Example Builds:

Necromancer Elementalist
The Necromancer/Elementalist (abbreviated as N/E or Necro/Ele) can prove a potent combination for both PvP and PvE. The Necromancer's primary Soul Reaping attribute capably fuels the Elementalist's deadly, but Energy intensive skills, especially using the more lethal Fire Magic. Similarly, the Elementalist has several group-affecting skills that nicely complement animated corpses from the Necromancer's Death Magic skill set.

One effective build for this profession is to focus on particular element, such as Air Magic and combine a few Blood Magic skills to maintain one's Health from the powerful melee opponents that may target you. This offers a decent mix of life preservation and offensive capability. Another, more unusual build is using Glyph of Renewal to keep Verata's Sacrifice on undead minion, thus keeping them alive for at least 180 seconds with no real effort.

Example Builds:

Necromancer Mesmer
Necromancer Mesmer (N/Me) is a profession combination usually associated with specialization in status effects like hexes. N/Me is one of the most challenging combinations to play, but is very effective, particularly in PvP.


 * Access to a wide range of hexes from both professions.
 * Access to two effective energy-management attributes (Soul Reaping and Inspiration).

Many of the Necromancer Curses can be combined with Mesmer skills to increase the effects of both spells. Other strategies may make use of the mesmer's Fragility spell along with several necromancer spells to cause conditions.

Example Builds:
 * N/Me FoC Spiker
 * N/Me SS Nuker

Necromancer Monk
The Necromancer Monk (N/Mo) is one of the most popular support classes. The combination allows for easy self-healing, Blood Magic and Healing Prayers, and when the combination is used to create a Minion Master build the N/Mo can create longer-lived minions.

The popular Barrage with Pet build for the Tomb of the Primeval Kings uses Order N/Mo's to enhance their damage output.

A N/Mo is a classic support player for any PvP group. The N/Mo can easily heal itself when sacrificing for Order of Pain or Order of the Vampire (Sees most of its use in IWAY or Ranger Spike), or completely take over the Protection role with the Soul Reaping energy recharge and Condition transfer, such as the skill Martyr.

Example Builds:
 * Team - Blood Spike.
 * N/Mo Orders Necromancer

Necromancer Assassin
With the powerful curses of the necromancer and the torrental attack speed of the assassin, this combination is a powerful crowd killer. This combination shares much with the Necromancer Warrior combination.

Mark of Pain with Assassin Dagger chains can inflict massive damage on all nearby foes. Consider Repeating Strike with Rigor Mortis to ensure multiple unstoppable hits.Life stealing skills such as Vampiric Touch can extend the survivablity of close quarters melee attackers. Many assassin combinations inflict conditions on the target, making skills like Virulence attractive. With the many curses available to necromancers, skills like Iron Palm and Entangling Asp are easier to complement.

However, without Critical Strikes, several key defensive and healing skills are ineffective. Damage from primary attacks will be much lower then a pure assassin. The toughest necromancer armor is only as good as basic assassin armor, and signifigantly thinner then basic warrior armor.

Example Builds:

Necromancer Ritualist
Soul Reaping, the primary attribute of necromancers, triggers on deaths of all creatures, including spirits (Although only half the energy is gained from these creatures). A N/Rt spirit spammer does not have to worry about running out of energy.

Necromancer teleports, unlike shadow stepping, allows one to carry bundles with them. A N/Rt can be a melee bomber by teleporting into a clump of foes when one dies, dropping the Ashes of Cruel Daoshen, and then running away. This strategy works equally well as a Rt/N.

Example Builds: