Ih8regin's Alternate Necromancer guide

### Introduction

This guide was written as a result of some experiments with Necromancer's Invocation-based power side, and found to be somewhat decent. It can be used as a guideline in the power range of e160 mysteries up to at least e300. This way a Necromancer can be played using both short and long types of runs, with short being around an hour of idle play, and long taking 8h to several days, depending on the player's personal time.

This guide largely ignores items, as its writer does not possess high level items and expects others at this stage of the game to also not have more than several legendaries and uniques.

This guide was written for game version 1.49.2, with all the balance tweaks imposed over the ages in place.

### Attributes

In order of importance:

* Max out Patience. This is the necromancer's primary attribute, as it provides the most to the character's own power, and the base to most of its spells.
* Max out Mastery. Same reasons.
* 125 Spellcraft. The primary reason is the boost to Incantation Efficiency, that multiplies other boosts, and this necromancer will be running 4 or 5 incantation spells in its burst, as well as no less than 3 in buildup phase.
* Max out Empathy. Our pet will be a Risen Giant, which has two interesting properties in its power, both would be used to great extent. Not to mention that it gives extra patience base to the powerhouse.
* Extra attributes to taste largely. If you have a lot left, use Intelligence > Insight > Wisdom > Dominance, if not (under 100), use Insight as the place for all of them.

### Gear

Emphasize Incantation Efficiency over anything else. Other stats preference: Idle bonus >=Evocation efficiency > Character power >= Pet ability power > Profits.

Two exceptions:

* First, if you have a legendary Collection Of Samples, use that, as Grimoire profits available on them are in the base of mana income due to Dreaded Script Of Harvest being core spell;
* If you are about to leave the game closed for extended amount of time, don Light Of Eighth Star to gather those crafting reagents. You can also put on gear for per experience in such a case as well, like Companionship Ring.

### Short run sequence

#### Build-up phase

* Pet: Zombie -> Risen Giant. Short run means your pet needs to be as buffed as possible, yet you would still be able to rack up about +e4 mysteries per run that would last an hour.
* Equipment: Pet experience, character experience, or just leave intact. If you're seriously meta-gaming, you know this better than me anyway.
* Spells: Magic Missile, Spell Focus, Nightfall, Void Lure, Void Automaton, Animate Festering Abomination or the best summon your character level can afford. If no Nightfall, use Ritual Of Power. All spells on Reckless. Magic Missile should be set to Careful unless you gain profit on spell shards in your pool. Be sure to swap in Nightfall once your character is of enough level. Using MM with Focus adds quickly to Nightfall charging, as well as builds up character experience. If you're unsatisfied with your Void Automaton, swap it off for Ritual of Power and just click the entities, or just run Synthetic Entity in place of Void Lure.

This phase should run for about 2/3rds of proposed run time, it's aimed to raise the character and pet level to the highest available extent.

(PS: I think the guide on "how to raise your character/pet right after an exile" is badly needed to be made and cited here)

#### Void gathering phase

Goal: get as much Void Mana as possible. But since the character's Insight is most likely at zero, no item changes are proposed to maximize void mana. Instead, select the largest Incantation Mastery gear for this phase. This stage lasts until your Void Mana would stop growing.

* Spells: Dreaded Script Of Harvest, Animate Festering Abomination, Nightfall (to charge up), Void Lure -> Void Radiance, Ritual Of Power, Voracious Plague. Tactics is pretty simple: collect all Void Entities, click on Void Lure, then swap it for Void Radiance, selecting it to run reckless. Everything else is actually for buffs.
* Equipment: Swap pet/character stuff into spellcasting stuff. Both necromancer's set Ancient Bones and spellcrafting set Power Armor are good choices here. Incantation Mastery would deterine the overall void mana levels, so it should be selected the highest.

#### Burst phase

Goal: profits. This phase lasts until either your Shard Pool would deplete, or your Void Mana would drop down to about 1/4 of what was at the start of this phase. Check your mysteries after completion to determine whether you want another burst right away. Best run 2-6 times.

Spells: Dreaded Script Of Harvest, Empower, Nightfall, Magic Missile, Ritual Of Power, Voracious Plague. Magic Missile with all the evocation buffs would provide about 1e13 on mana per second, and would result in about 1e3 casts over the phase, also enabling Nightfall to not be interrupted. Make sure you are in Idle Mode before bursing, otherwise don't swap spells before it'll kick in. Once you start bursting, just revel in incoming power and buy more grimoires to squeeze extra juice of the running steam. After MM would run out of shards or void mana, swap off to Void gathering phase's spells, which would also generate you more shards to fuel your next burst, or exile if you think you won't get more than you have received.

### Long run sequence

In fact, long run goes about as simply as the short one, with a significant pause between phases 1 and 2, which would then be used to stack up Nightfall and RoP, as well as increase the idle time base for the burst bonus. Use pet experience equipment and anything related to crafting while leaving the game for a prolonged interval. Once you return, go to Void gathering phase of the short run sequence; with higher experience base and idle time the results would be definitely better.

Spells: Nightfall, Ritual Of Power, Synthetic Entity, Animate Festering Abomination, Magic Missile, Spell Focus. Leave them all running for a minute before calling it a day; this way you might expect more casts of Nightfall to be accumulated over idling.

PS: this guide should be read with a grain of salt; it's by no means perfect, but it's suitable enough to be employed. Feel free to add or edit if inconsistencies would be found.