Roll call (or meet the boyz)

So the GirlsGoneWoW posse wrote a post about realising that you 'click' with your character, and whilst this was being applied Warcraft I guess the same could be said for all games where you actually 'invest' in your character.  I'm still dabbling in Rift; unlike a lot of people I'm happy to potter between both Rift and WoW presently, without feeling the urge to pick one or other, but it's taken me a while to really find a character that I 'get'.  I love my druid cleric (mainly because of the fae pet) but she's fundamentally melee which is a PITA where rifts are concerned.  Also I'm just still a bit out of my comfort zone with hitting things up close, so she's on stop for a little while.  I've dabbled with other builds (mainly of the mage variety) but when Himself actually rolled (and seemingly has committed to) a rogue on the Guardian side, I figured that maybe I'd give Guardians a shot.  But NOT as a High Elf.  Don't get me wrong, I love the way they look, the girls are really sweet, but it's just too clichéd for me to be able to take myself seriously.  And we all know that I'm actually a dorf, and, as Himself reliably informs me, female dorfs are the most underplayed in any MMO.  So I made a dorf necromancer, and don't tell anybody, but I think I'm in love. Necromancers in Rift play are bloody interesting.  To start with, they play a great deal like an aff-lock does in WoW.  But you get better minions.  Sorry, but you do.  Meet Frederick, Sebastian, Bartholomew and Jeffrey. (They're basically named after boys I went to Pony Club with in my youth.)

To start with, you get a skelly.  Mine's called Frederick.  He's good for a few levels, but doesn't make the ground shake.

Say hullo to Sebastian.  He's my second minion and he's been with me since about level 10.  He's a kick-ass warrior tank.  Excellent threat generation (but mainly on single targets - struggles with multiple mobs) and his DPS isn't too shabby. 

Bartholomew is one of my newest minions.  He's a proper stabby-stabby rogue. Happiest behind the target (see what I mean about being a proper rogue) he doesn't have a huge amount of threat gen, but get an eyeful of those daggers and imagine the DPS he can put out.

Jeffrey is my knight and, sadly, is set to become Sebastian version 2.0.  He's my upgraded tank.  He holds threat against a whole bunch of mobs and whilst he won't do much DPS, if he can hold 'em whilst I spell 'em to death... that's cool and groovy. 

I've one left to get; I think he comes along around level 26 and I'm only level 21 at the moment.  He will be a mage and I need to think of another name.  If I'm sticking to the theme, he'll either have to be Edward or Alexander (staggeringly, there weren't that many boys at Pony Club...!)

So - why have I clicked with this specific build?  I'm not 100% sure to be honest.  I'm basically deep (as much as one can be at my level) necro with a few points in warlock and the entry level talents in chloromancer.  Warlock gives me shadow bolt void bolt, useful DoTs and a debuff that makes mobs take extra magic damage. Chloro gives me a spell that works as a DoT on the mob and a HoT (based on damage dealt) to me and other party members.  Necro gives me da aforementioned boyz and a fair array of debuffs.

However necro also provides some interesting healing mechanics.  Both of which involve transferring my health across to another party member (actually I think it's any ally but I'm not certain...)  So, for example, in rifts I can either give someone who is struggling a 2 second cast 'big' heal, which removes n of my health and gives them the equivalent of 2n (good for times when someone is looking a bit low on health but the long cast doesn't make it ideal) or I can use my DoT/ HoT.  This removes n of my health over 8 seconds and gives them 2n (I think) over the same amount of time.  This is an extraordinarily good spell (as it can tick on multiple players), when coupled with something else - soul purge, which is similar to drain life; it removes life from the mob and transfers it to both my minion and I.  Whilst the heals work off mana, soul purge works off charge so if you're doing it right, you can HoT up your allies then use soul purge, so as they take your health, you take it from the mob. Your heals use mana but create charge.  It's a fascinating way of balancing healing that's new to me.  Now, just to be clear, I wouldn't want to even contemplate being a 'primary' healer as a necro, but for off healing, or just for when things start to look sticky, it's fabulous.  Himself has talked about a game (that name of which I can't recall) which had a 'blood mage' class with a similar sounding mechanic.

So basically, I have an aff-lock with properly situational minions and heals.  What's not to love about this?  I'm not sure, yet.  I know what every ability on my toolbar does, that's something I should mention, and one of the reasons why I feel like I've 'clicked'.  As daft as it sounds, all my other characters have had a toolbar full of stuff of which I know what about 75% of it does and I use about 50%. All L2Play comments aside, I kind of like using most of my abilities regularly.  My rotation is pretty simple, as it involves DoT, DoT, DoT, debuff, debuff, debuff, direct damage (re-apply DoTs and debuffs as necessary), heal minion either directly or through soul purge, repeat as necessary (yeah right - like the mob hasn't fallen over already!)  I don't use my chloro direct damage as it's a 2 second cast and well... it ain't all that, and I rarely use all my warlock stuff (I have a reclaim mana spell through necro so rarely use my warlock equivalent) but it doesn't matter as I know what it all does.  This is A Big Deal to me. This makes me feel like I'm actually playing my class to its fullest degree.  And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes it fun.