The Massive Solo Necro Guide
Originally Published by Inde
by: greaterlych
Alright, here it is. Weighing in at 5,797 words this guide should contain every bit of information you could ever want on the underworld solo build. Enjoy!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Massive Solo Necro UW Guide by Greater Lych
Index
- Introduction
- Theory
- Skills
- Kcp's build
- My build
- Equipment and Attribute Points
- Practice
- griffins
- minotaurs
- trolls
- How to...
- kill two or three bladed aatxe
- kill a single bladed aatxe
- avoid rend enchantments from dying nightmares
- kill grasping darkness groups
- kill smite groups
- kill coldfire night groups
- Specific Scenarios
- two dying nightmares in a fight
- dying nightmare agros
- Walkthrough of a Smite Run
- FAQ
- Outro
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Introduction
I am hoping this guide can finally stop the torrent of “55 Necro Help!” threads that have been flooding the boards for the last month. I am going to do my best to carefully detail every aspect of the 55 necromancer solo underworld smite run. I’m putting every scrap of knowledge I have of this build and the run into this guide so I hope someone can find something of value in it. Although I’m writing this guide from my own experience in the underworld, the original build was created by Kcp and he deserves credit for his excellent work. Thank you very much Kcp.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Theory
First off, what does 55 mean? 55 is a reference to the amount of health someone using the basic invinci-monk skills has. These skills are as follows:
- Protective Spirit
- Healing Breeze
- Mending
- Balthazar’s Spirit
- Essence Bond
Spiteful Spirit is the damage dealer in this build. At 16 Curses, SS does 37 damage per shot and lasts for 21 seconds. SS is triggered when the hexed enemy uses a skill or attacks. You’ll notice the damage SS does is also shadow damage. Shadow damage ignores armor and does its full damage potential on every hit. The real advantage of SS is that it damages enemies in a fairly large radius around the hexed foe but isn’t considered AoE by the AI, so enemies don’t flee.
With SS damaging your enemies and the 55 system keeping you alive, you become very powerful. But, this build is not infallible as you will realize very quickly in your first Underworld runs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Skills
i. Kcp’s build
Kcp is the creator of the original Underworld solo necro build. His skill set up is:
- Protective Spirit
- Healing Breeze
- Guardian
- Spiteful Spirit
- Shadow of Fear
- Mending
- Balthazar’s Spirit
- Essence Bond
ii. my build
My build is exactly the same as Kcp’s, with one very minor change.
- Protective Spirit
- Healing Breeze
- Vigorous Spirit
- Spiteful Spirit
- Shadow of Fear
- Mending
- Balthazar’s Spirit
- Essence Bond
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Equipment and Attribute Points
The attribute point setup is exactly the same for both Kcp’s and my build:
Blood Magic: 5
Soul Reaping: 4
Curses: 16
Healing Prayers: 8
Protection Prayers: 10
To achieve the previous attribute setup and the required total health points of 55, you need to stock up on superior runes and scar pattern armor. Buying the armor from Droknar’s Forge is really unnecessary seeing as protective spirit eliminates the need for armor with high protection. Your AC can be 30 or 60, you will still take 5 damage. Your shopping list should include:
- 4 scar pattern armor pieces at 150 gold a piece
- 1 curses +1 facial scar at 150 gold
- 32 rolls of parchment, if you’re thrifty, 70 gold a piece
- 1 superior curses rune, 1200 gold
- 1 superior blood magic rune, 1200 gold
- 3 superior soul reaping runes, 900 gold (we need 5 superiors, and soul reaping is the cheapest)
I’ve got 105 health. What’s wrong? The key to getting 55 health is the -50 HP grim cesta found in the Cities of Ascalon quest offered by Symon the Scribe in Ascalon City. Yes, the item is still available. Anyone that says otherwise can shove it. There are 2 wands that you can use in the underworld. The first is a collector’s curses truncheon you can pick up from Uderit Ignis in the crystal desert. The 20% fast recharge is nice for spamming SS, but I prefer the next weapon. Villnar’s Claw is in my opinion the best weapon for soloing in the underworld because of its 20% fast cast when using SS. The occasional fast cast can help you avoid an interrupt or give you an extra couple seconds to think about what to do next. Villnar’s Claw is relatively cheap, a guildmate just bought one for 15k recently. You will need to customize the wand to do enough damage to take care of nightmares however, so you might want to stick to the collector’s truncheon if you don’t like the idea of customizing green weapons.
You will need to do the two 15 attribute point quests to get the required attribute levels. Curses is at 16 so you can do the maximum damage with SS. Healing is at 8 so mending will give you 3 health regeneration. The rest of the points are placed in protection and soul reaping to give you a good PS duration and a bit of energy when your foes perish.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. Practice
Just like everything else in life, practice makes perfect when soloing. I recommend trying the following before wasting all your money in the underworld. For all of these fights, I recommend swapping Shadow of Fear out with Insidious Parasite. Insidious Parasite is great for dealing damage as well as healing yourself. It has saved my life in a lot of situations.
i.griffins
Griffins are in my opinion the easiest high level enemies to take down with this build. They come in small groups and don’t have interrupt skills. All in all, easy kills. Several groups of griffins can still be found East of Destiny’s Gorge in the Crystal Desert. There aren’t any other enemies in the way, so throw on your enchantments and head for the first group.
Once you have Mending, Balthazar’s Spirit, and Essence bond on yourself, wait for your energy to regenerate to a decent amount and then track down your prey. Sit outside of the griffin’s agro range and cast SS on the closest one. As they hurry towards you, cast PS and then HB to keep your health up. Once that is done, wait until SS has recharged and hit the other griffin. Always make sure PS is on you. If it runs out, you are dead. No ifs ands or buts. HB is just as aid in keeping up your health, Mending does a decent job on its own and you’ll find in a lot of fights that you don’t even need it. If you feel the need, cast Vigorous Spirit to give you that extra bit of healing. Like I mentioned earlier, sometimes all you need is VS to handle your healing. I try to stay away from HB unless I really need it. The extra energy in reserve for a PS emergency or an extra shot of SS is more useful in my book. Keep the rhythm going until all the griffins are dead. As long as you remember to keep up PS, you should do fine. Once you go through enough groups of griffins that you feel confident, try some minotaurs.
ii. minotaurs
The best minotaur group can be found in the very beginning of the ascension mission, Elona Reach. Head into the mission, cast your three permanent enchants and then talk to the ghost directly in front of you. I am probably going to save a lot of you some trouble in saying, remember to target yourself after talking to the ghost! It took me quite a few runs to figure out why my character always started running back to the ghost when I tried to cast PS. Once the door has been opened and your character is once again selected, head to the right of the splinter mine and down towards the group of minotaurs congregating near the skeleton in the sand. This is where Insidious Parasite really shines. As you near the group, cast PS and then HB. Before casting SS and “bringing on the hurt” cast IS on the nearest minotaur to help keep up your health. Then target the next closest and cast SS. Keep up PS and HB while SS is recharging and then cast it on a third minotaur when it is ready. As soon as IS is ready again cast it on a minotaur with a relatively high amount of health. Casting IS and SS on the same minotaur or minotaurs with low health will only cause the hexes to run out faster and end up being a waste of energy. Cast VS whenever you can to give yourself that extra bit of healing and ensure you aren’t going to be ripped to shreds. Always remember to keep up PS and HB and cast IS and SS whenever they recharge. Keep this up for long enough and you’ll have a big ol’ pile of dead minotaurs littering the ground around you. Then, rinse and repeat. The next fight is pretty tricky.
iii. trolls
Trolls can be a huge pain in the ass if you get interrupted. Honestly, I’m not very good at fighting them myself. Using Guardian instead of VS can really increase your chances of staying alive though. Casting Guardian before any of your other skills is the key in avoiding interrupts. Use the same strategy as the minotaurs, keep up your core skills and make sure IS is up as well. Cast Guardian before any other skills and go for SS whenever you can. In case you don’t know where the infamous troll cave is, here is a map. The map shows the locations of two trolls bosses within the cave. Head from the portal in the South East corner of the map that happens to be Droknar’s Forge. On your way to the two boss locations you’ll encounter a big, nasty group of trolls.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. How To…
i. kill two or three bladed aatxe
Taking down aatxe is a lot easier than most people think. As long as you keep up your enchantments you will do fine. I’m going to go over the fight itself in this section, I will go over the approach later on. The first thing to do in any fight is cast PS. The aatxe will hit you with Sever Artery pretty quickly, so getting HB up after PS is important. The bleeding caused by Sever Artery will negate Mending, so healing breeze will be your only source of health regeneration. After casting PS and HB, cast Vigorous Spirit to give you a little more healing. By now the aatxe will probably have used their interrupt skill, Savage Slash. You should be ok to cast SS on one of the attacking aatxe, but make sure you’ve been hit by Savage Slash twice or three times (depending on the number of attacking aatxe) in the last 10 seconds so you won’t be interrupted. If you are interrupted however, it isn’t a big deal. Using skills will often trigger the aatxe to attempt an interrupt, especially with skills that have long cast times. If you want to ensure the aatxe will waste their Savage Slash attacks, cast Mending a second time. With its 2 second cast time and the fact that having it interrupted will not affect you in the least, using mending as a diversion works very well. Following this routine of enchants, waiting for Savage Slash, and then SS will keep you alive and the aatxe dying. Always watch your energy and your enchantment times. Never let PS run out and try to keep HB on at all times. Vigorous Spirit will help keep you alive and help draw Savage Slash but it isn’t necessary. Each barrage of SS will do drain 1/3 of an aatxe’s health, so casting it 3 times will drop the aatxe.
ii. kill a single bladed aatxe
Killing a single aatxe is actually a little more tricky than killing two. Because there is only one enemy you won’t have as much energy. Luckily, HB isn’t required when you’re fighting one on one. Vigorous Spirit will keep you alive as long as you’re attacking the aatxe. In the beginning of the fight, cast PS and then VS and begin attacking. If the aatxe doesn’t use Savage Slash, wait a little while until you’re comfortable with your energy level and then recast PS and VS. Usually casting VS will cause the aatxe to use Savage Slash, so you shouldn’t run into this problem very often. Keep up the PS, VS, and SS rhythm and the aatxe won’t be standing much longer.
iii. avoid rend enchantments from dying nightmares
Dying Nightmares are the biggest problem in the underworld. Why? Rend Enchantments. This skill will render you completely helpless to any attackers. There’s nothing quite as tough as taking on two Bladed Aatxe without a single enchantment on. The easiest way to deal with these pesky nightmares is to take that customized truncheon you picked up earlier and wand the hell out of them. Most of the time two hits with a max damage customized wand will kill a nightmare. I say “most” because there is the occasional time when it will take 3 hits. The trouble with most people new to the underworld is that they use SS to agro aatxe and begin the fight far away from where a nightmare will spawn. Before every fight, I cast VS and then PS. Then, I will run up to the aatxe and get nice and comfy with them. Staying back will increase the distance between you and any nightmare that might pop up, and in turn will increase the time it takes you to start attacking the nightmare. Speed is everything when it comes to killing nightmares. As soon as they pop up they will start casting Rend Enchantments. If you don’t kill the nightmare in time your enchantments are stripped and you’re most likely dead. The other tricky bit about nightmares is that they don’t appear until you have gotten close enough to agro them, or an enemy they are grouped with. This means that until you are in range they will be completely hidden from you. Like I said earlier, your best chance is to get VS and PS on, run up close to the aatxe, and then wait for a nightmare to pop up. If 5 seconds goes by and you don’t see a nightmare, you’re in the clear. Cast HB and get on with the fight. If one does pop up, attack is ASAP and pray to whatever god suits your fancy. With any luck you’ll take it down and can then deal with the aatxe.
iv. kill grasping darkness groups
Grapsing Darknesses are your next challenge in the underworld. Unlike aatxe I always agro them with SS. Because they use “Fear Me!” energy management during a fight can be difficult. I always follow this pattern:
1.) Cast PS on myself
2.) Get close enough to cast SS on the nearest Grasping Darkness, but not close enough that they will agro
3.) Cast SS and wait for them to approach
4.) Sit through the first wave of knock downs
5.) Cast HB
6.) Wait until PS starts blinking, then recast
7.) Wand any enemies still alive after SS runs out
I keep wand attacks going through all of these steps, as it takes a little more than one 21 spout of SS to kill them. Following these steps, the darnkesses shouldn’t pose much of a threat.
v. kill smite groups
Smite Crawlers hit hard, they remove SS using Smite Hex, and Shield of Judgement makes attacking them a very bad idea, but once you get a good rhythm going they drop quickly. Smites can quickly kill you with their plethora of attacks but Mending, HB, and VS will keep you alive against many of them. I don’t recommend fighting more than one group at a time as anything above 6 smites can overwhelm your healing ability. The trick to fighting them is using Shadow of Fear as a cover hex to prevent them from removing SS. What this means is that after casting SS, cast SoF and they will remove the latter instead. When I begin a fight I get PS, HB, and VS going and then cast SoF on the group. I then start cycling through the smites by hitting tab until I find one that had recently used Smite Hex. I cast SS on this one, and then immediately cast SoF again to cover SS. I then recast PS, HB, and VS and then find the next smite that uses Smite Hex. Sometimes when they get really aggressive spamming your healing skills will give you that +8 health from VS and help keep you alive. As always, make defense your top priority. Cast SS and SoF whenever you can, but don’t sacrifice your time or energy on one an offensive skill when you should be recasting HB. After 2 or 3 good bouts of SS, the smites should be dead. If one remains, I usually wand it and hope it doesn’t put SoJ up. If it does cast SoJ, i’ll let my energy regenerate for a bit and then hit it with the SoF and SS combo.
vi. kill coldfire night groups
I have to admit, if there’s one thing I hate more than nightmares in the underworld, it’s the Coldfire Nights. These bloated spellcasters love to shut down soloists with a combination of Shard Storm and Maelstrom. What happens when you’re stuck in the middle of an AoE interrupt spell with your speed reduced by 66%? Nothing good. The trick with coldfires is to keep moving. Cast SS whenever you can, and try to keep them grouped up for the full effect. As for healing, I try to stick to PS and VS only so I can have a little more energy for emergencies and SS. Watch out for maelstrom and you should come out fine. If you are interrupted while casting PS, get the hell out of there and try again. There’s no point in sticking around and getting interrupted a second time. I try to avoid colfires as they are a pain in the arse and don’t drop ectos anyway. I’ll go over the groups you have to kill in the underworld run overview later on.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Specific Scenarios
i. two dying nightmares in a fight
This doesn’t happen very often, and you’ll survive it even less but it’s worth mentioning because it’s something to brag about if you live. Having one nightmare jump up in a fight is irritating, having two pop up just proves the internet really does hate you. My recommendation is hit each nightmare with your wand once and then run like you stole something. At least one nightmare will die because of your wand hit and then Rend Enchantments. If you manage to get away fast enough the aatxe will break off and you can come back and deal with them later. If you can’t get away, hit PS, HB, and then wand the remaining aatxe. Unfortunately without Essence Bond and Balthazar’s Spirit up you will have energy problems. I suggest getting them up as fast as possible. Of course, make PS and HB your priorities. If you manage to get all your enchantments back up, kudos. Just finish the fight like you normally would. I’ve only encountered this dual nightmare situation around 5 times, and managed to survive using the above method only once. However, I really think it was dumb luck that got me through. The other times I was quickly dispatched by a group of particularly vicious aatxe.
ii. dying nightmare agros
A dying nightmare agro is my name for what happens when a nightmare is agro’d before a group of aatxe and the whole group joins in. Sometimes a nightmare you can’t see yet will detect you and the aatxe grouped with it will come running while you’re still out of range. On top of being confusing, your instinct is to run away and that will only lead to death. In this situation, casting PS and then running up to the group to find the nightmare is your best chance of survival. With the small area inside the underworld running doesn’t work too often and dealing with a nightmare once it is above ground can be tougher than killing it as it pops up. There is a small delay in the time it takes a character to stop moving and starting attacking. If the nightmare notices you as you’re getting close it might be able to cast rend enchantments before you can take it down. Your best bet if aatxe start running at you is to charge in right back at them. At least when this happens you absolutely know a nightmare is bound to pop up. Being in range when it comes up is a lot better than having your back turned and a couple of aatxe in tow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Walkthrough of a Smite Run
For those of you that really don’t know what you’re doing, the way to get into the underworld is to kneel in front of Grenth’s statue in the Temple of the Ages and give 1 platinum to Grenth’s Avatar. You’ll be teleported into the middle of a small area covered in Bladed Aatxe. First things first, throw on your three basic enchantments and wait for your energy to recover. Waiting for your energy to completely recover between casting each spell can speed this process up. I’m assuming you’ve read all the previous sections and know how to deal with the fights I will be discussing now. I will not be going over any fight specifics in this walkthrough. I’ll just be saying when and where to start your next battle. Attack the group of aatxe to your left to start. If there aren’t 3 aatxe standing in a tight group, wait for the single aatxe patrolling to get near enough that you can fight all 3 at once. Once they are all down, head left down the path towards the door to check to see if any nightmares show up. Doing this gives you a good idea of how many to expect later on in this area. If one pops up it’s most likely one less nightmare you will encounter later on. After you’ve done your sweep do a 180 and head back towards the staircase you ran up first, but take a left and head towards the next group. Move slowly towards them making sure you don’t miss a nightmare and have it come up behind you. Like the first group, if there is an aatxe patrolling near by try and agro it along with the two that are stationary. Once those three are toast do a quick check of the area for nightmares and then head up the stairs towards the next two. This is the only time I advise using SS before agroing the aatxe. There are never nightmares near these two. You may encounter the occasional nightmare on the staircase but should have already picked it off with your sweep anyway. Take these two out and you’re ready for the last big group. Head back down the stairs and take out the two aatxe waiting for you. Again, if there is another aatxe patrolling hear these two try to agro it to speed up your run. Once this group is down head to the left and up the stairs. Depending on how the aatxe spawned you may have two singular aatxe waiting for you. Take them on one at a time as nightmares spawn often at the top of the staircase and running by a nightmare is a very bad idea. Once the first aatxe is dead take the second and then keep going past him to see if there any nightmares hiding towards the tip of the small ledge. Once all the aatxe in this area are dead head back towards where you started. Talk to the ghost directly in front of the spawning platform to initiate a quest. The doors originally locking you in this room will open and three groups of Grasping Darknesses will enter. Take out the group to the left first. By the time they are down another group should be approaching you from the right, take them out of commission and then head back down the stairs and onto the platform. If you have worked quickly the third group should be approaching the top of the staircase to the right of the platform. Take them out and then head right towards the door. Wait until two aatxe run in through the door. Agro them and then drag them back into the original room so you don’t have to fight in the cramped doorway. Once they are dead head back to the doorway and watch for the group of darknesses slowly patrolling in a triangular pattern in the next room. Wait until they approach and then begin moving away. Sneak behind them and then head left around the corner into the next room. There should be another two aatxe waiting to die here. If they were patrolling between the two rooms, just use PS and then pull them into the second room to avoid the grasping darkness patrol. Once this final group of aatxe is dead, head past them and up the stairs towards your first group of smites. Destroy them and then find your way into the large cavern filled with smites and coldfires. This is where my walkthrough ends, the coldfires usually have the same patrols every time you enter here but the smite groups vary in size and location so you’re on your own. Work your way through the coldfires (sneaking by if you can) and take out the smite groups. Remember to lure them to a safe area away from the coldfires and you will do fine. You may find the occasional nightmare but they are never tied to the smites or coldfires so they aren’t very threatening. I usally head right and then turn around and go in the opposite direction until I hit a large throne room with a massive door on one end. If you find this door, you are done your smite run. There is more to do in the underworld after the run but your inventory will probably be full so there it’s best to get out and sell your wares.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. FAQ
Thank you to Cygnus Zero, novawhiz, chrislee149, Francis Crawford, and Valkyries for these questions.
Q: What order should I cast my spells in? How should they be stacked?
A: I try to cast my spells in order of descending importance. I cast PS, HB, and then VS. This way even if two enchantments are removed I still have PS keeping me alive.
Q: What enemies does this build not work against?
A: Large groups of mesmer are a real problem. Having your enchantments stripped regularly will cause a lot of problems. But, these are not your biggest concern. Necromancer’s health stealing skills are not actually considered damage so PS does not reduce their effectiveness at all. This does not apply to health stealing spells that cause health degeneration but instant health steals like Vampiric Gaze will one hit kill you.
Q: When do I renew skills during battle? When they start flashing?
A: This depends on how many enemies you are fighting. When you are being assaulted by a large group, spamming spells to trigger VS can keep you alive. But this also drains your energy very quickly. My suggestion is to use your skills as much as possible. Try not to drop below 10 energy in case PS starts to flash. Without PS, you’re dead.
Q: Where is the best place to farm besides UW and FoW with a 55 necro?
A: When not in the underworld I farm the minotaurs in elona reach and the trolls in the cave outside of drok’s. Occasionally I farm the griffins west of destiny’s gorge.
Q: Are hydras good to farm? I never seem get any good drops.
A: Although this may just be speculation on my part it has been my experience that hydras rarely drop gold items, but when they do the items are often very good. I find farming hydras to be rather boring because of the slow fights so I don’t often farm them. I usually take on one or two groups at a time when fighting hydras but I have successfully take 9 hydras at once several times before. I cast PS and HB and then wait out their initial waves of meteor. After casting it they run in and begin melee attacks and fire spells that don’t cause knock downs.
Q: Why aren’t the minotaurs dropping anything good?
A: Minotaurs hardly ever drop anything of real value. With these fights it’s quantity over quality. It is possible to make a fair amount of gold off of the minotaurs if you maximize your time and go as fast as possible.
Q: How do I deal with dying nightmares in the underworld?
A: I have gone over nightmares in sections 6 and 7. Check them out to find the answer.
Q: How do I deal with constantly being knocked down?
A: There are two things to do that will really help you out in a fight against hammer warriors spamming knockdowns. First off, kill your attackers. Hit the warriors with SS and watch them die. Next, be pre-emptive with your enchantments casts. Try to cast PS and HB as much as possible to ensure that you have enough time to recast before they run out, even if you are knocked down trying to cast them the first time.
Q: Is there any point in fighting mixed groups?
A: Fighting mixed groups can be more of a challenge and more entertaining. Just watch the mesmers. Make sure you know what you are hexed with, and ensure that PS is covered by another enchantment.
Q: Where does this build not work?
A: Any area with a high concentration of mesmers will ensure death. Also, any area with necromancers using health stealing skills will be impossible to solo in.
Q: Where can I capture Spiteful Spirit?
A: Spiteful Spirit is one of the easiest to capture elites in the game. You can capture the skill right outside of Camp Rankor, to the South East. The boss is name Nhy Spinechill. The best part is that you can see the group from the entrance to rankor, just run straight out of the portal until you hit the wall in front of you and then cycle through your nearest targets. If you don’t see him, rezone and try again. The fight isn’t very difficult, just load up on henchies and bring skills that don’t need corpses.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Outro
Thank you for checking out my guide. I’m hoping at least a couple people will find the information in here useful. If you have any further questions post them in this thread or whisper me in game. My in game name is Greater Lych. Happy farming!
Also, please post any suggestions you have on how I could improve this guide. More questions, updates, and corrections are appreciated. I am going to link all of the skills, weapons, locations, and enemies to their pages on Guildwiki, but the site is down right now so I will have to do it later.
MMO Guru Network
