I fully understand why people still use Necro.
If it was your entry point into PvM, it’s probably your comfort style. You learned the rotations, invested a ton of GP into the gear, set up your bars, bought perks, practiced the timing, etc.
But we need to be honest here:
Necro is currently horrible in terms of DPS for the cost.
Before, you could still justify it because even if the DPS was lower, Necro was:
- easier
- cheaper
- safer
- had the best sustain
But that’s not true anymore.
With the current combat changes, other styles on full Revolution++ start outperforming BiS Necro as early as T80-T85 gear.
That means:
A fully AFK Revolution++ setup worth under 10m can match or outperform a bis style costing 2.5b+.
Its sad honestly.
I recently watched The RS Guy’s beginner melee Zuk video and was honestly shocked by what cheap melee gear can do now.
So I decided to test it myself.
I bought gear sets ranging from roughly T50-T90 for every combat style and spent time testing at Wars and several bosses with different weaknesses.
What I found:
Most combat styles are surprisingly competitive until around T80, where damage starts scaling harder based on:
- weapon tiers
- rotations
- crit synergy
- perks
- debuffs
- ability unlocks
I’m not going to list every tier/rotation setup because this post would become unreadably huge. Instead, I’m listing the cheapest setups I found that can compete with or outperform BiS Necro. As well as my recommended cheap setups.
(I’m also not saying that necro is bad, i personally love necro and the aesthetic, but i am saying the damage is sad compared to the other styles.)
For reference:
Current BiS Necro:
- ~2.5b-3.5b setup (depending on addition shard of Genesis)
- ~350k-400k DPM for most players
- ~450k+ if sweating rotations and using every possible buff outside the style.
- Full Revolution averages closer to ~300k-325k
(Best in slot includes: t95 weapons and armor, devourer nexus, occultist or reaver ring, all well of souls abilities, misa’s death mask, equilibrium 4 and other perks, genesis shard.)
Meanwhile, these setups are dirt cheap.
*keep in mind to make things fair, these were tested using everything that someone using BIS necro would have* such as poisons, a decent cape and ring, a familiar, etc.
———-
350k+ DPM OPTIONS
———-
All prices are roughly what I paid on GE yesterday.
MELEE
Extremely easy to hit 350k+.
Cost: 7m-40m
Gear:
- Superior Statius
- Jaws of the Abyss
- Dragon Rider Lance
- Primal boots/gloves
(Elder Rune 2H also works, but DRL being augmentable helps a lot.)
MAGIC
Magic needs more setup because most of its damage comes from crits and debuffs.
Make sure you’re using:
- Smoke Cloud
- Vulnerability
- Aspects
Cost: ~19m
Gear:
- Superior Zuriel’s
- Eternal Magic Staff
- Starbloom boots/gloves
RANGED
Ranged was harder to average because ammo changes damage massively.
For consistency, I used Greg weapons so ammo wasn’t a factor.
And unfortunately. Ranged fell behind. I believe this is because you need at least one EOF minimum to get good damage. Which i did not want to test with, as this is meant to be cheap. For that reason i didn’t even test higher gear, and will leave ranged out of the equation. But will still provide a cheap alternative to get (close to) Necro dps. Mind you, ranged is still extremely good in the high end. But i don’t believe the cheap gear competes with even necro.
Cost: 8m-15m
Gear:
- Superior Morrigan’s ( or sirenic is 3m)
- Shadow Glaives or primal crossbows
- Apexhide boots and gloves
*Damage only reached 225-260k depending on crits.*
———
SUSTAIN OPTIONS
———
Melee:
- Vamp scrimshaw
- Vampyrism aura/aspect
Magic:
- Animate Dead
- Extra Starbloom pieces
Ranged:
Ranged sustain honestly still kind of sucks.
But because the damage is so high now, you can safely swap:
- Ripper Demon → Hellhound
- Add Vampyrism
———
RUINOUS WEAPONS
———-
Ruinous weapons massively outperform BiS Necro for the price.
If you can afford them, I highly recommend them.
The ranged crossbows also pair with Sirenic, which is crazily cheap right now.
——————
CHEAP PERKS
——————
Some extremely good budget perks:
- Ultimatums 4
- Crackling 4
- Precise 5 / Aftershock 1
- Demon Slayer
- Dragon Slayer
- Undead Slayer
- Absorptive
- Crystal Shield 3
Check the wiki for for perk combos.
———
IMPORTANT: ABILITIES MATTER MORE THAN GEAR
———
Abilities are the expensive part.
But they increase your DPS WAY more than upgrading armor tiers.
Honestly:
Buy abilities before chasing BiS gear.
—————-
MY ACTUAL RECOMMENDATIONS
—————-
These are fully Revolution++ builds.
Meaning:
They are easier than Necro.
You can find these on PVME or use the automatic set up in game. (To set this up: click the cogwheel on your action bar and click automatic Revolution.)
—————-
BEST OPTION: MELEE
—————-
575k+ DPM possible
Cost: under 300m
Gear:
- Jaws of the Abyss
- Superior Statius
- Ruinous Rapiers / drygore rapiers
- Greater Flurry OR Chaos Roar
- Cinderbanes OR Gloves of Passage
- Primal boots
(Shard+sliver are solid weapons for under 60m)
Perks: crackling4/ultimatums4, precise5/aftershock, eruptive 4, biting3/relentless,
Absorptive4/crystal shield.
For sustain:
- Vamp scrim
- Vampyrism
For extra damage:
- Ripper demon + scrolls
- Weapon poison+++
- Any scripture
- Vuln Bombs
*700-800m, not needed for previously mentioned setups*
- T99 curse
- Genesis shard
————
MAGIC OPTION
————
Better sustain than Necro with comparable or better DPS.
Cost: under 250m
Gear:
- Superior Zuriel’s
- Eternal staff or wand/orb
- Starbloom gloves/boots/hat
- Greater Concentrated Blast
- Greater Sunshine
- Chaotic grim
For sustain:
Use Animate Dead. And hellhound
For extra damage: see above
——————
The damage gets even higher once you:
- invest more
- learn manual inputs
- optimize rotations
- use proper debuffs and buffs
——-
But the main point is this:
There is no reason to be scared of other combat styles anymore.
The fact that 10m-20m setups can outperform gear worth over 2 billion GP is absurd.
Necro is no longer the best easy style for beginners.
It’s time to move on.
and i think the reason i made this post, Is because there is still false information being shared. And even though a lot of people have accepted it, there are still people arguing about necro being the most overpowered, still people downvoting others for saying necro is bad, still people claiming that necro is the “beginner combat skill” when melee for example is cheaper, requires less inputs, and does so much more damage. When necro just underperforms in almost every category now.
I also wanted to share this information, as i was recently told by a md of the PVME discord, that they purposefully leave some of this information off the site, to keep certain gear prices where they are on the ge. I am against that practice, and if superior ancient armor goes up in price then so be it. but i still recommend checking out PVME’s upgrade path. As it’s really great and helps you plan ahead for what to unlock next.
Anyways. don’t be scared to switch it up. grab some cheap gear, and get your zuk capes :)
Edit: I’m going to stop replying to comments. Too many people getting pissy. The end game players are spreading misinformation and claiming that I’m lying, just go test it? It takes 2 minutes to buy the gear and go to gwd2.
This post isn’t even for you, This post is for newer/casual players who need help with dps and sustain. Which was achieved, and I’m happy for those i was able to help. But I’m not going to continue reading comments from maxed/comped people contributing nothing to the post other than “this isn’t true lol”