I'm only circling every 5 or so, but I finished blood wolves around 25th, then took a long break from combats to catch up survivals.


I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

IDK... I've only had my account back no longer than three weeks. I'm working on a pace of about a circle a day so far. I Feel really good for not playing in over two years, and not being able to use genie either.

What you need for circle: 30
You have enough 4th Survival (Evasion) for Circle 23 and need 26 (110) ranks for circle 30
You have enough Thanatology for Circle 23 and need 19 (90) ranks for circle 30
You have enough Tertiary Survival (Stalking) for Circle 24 and need 24 (110) ranks for circle 30
You have enough 6th Survival (First Aid) for Circle 25 and need 14 (90) ranks for circle 30
You have enough 8th Survival (Climbing) for Circle 26 and need 12 (80) ranks for circle 30
You have enough Secondary Survival (Perception) for Circle 26 and need 15 (120) ranks for circle 30
You have enough 5th Survival (Hiding) for Circle 27 and need 8 (90) ranks for circle 30
You have enough Primary Survival (Foraging) for Circle 27 and need 9 (120) ranks for circle 30
You have enough 7th Survival (Swimming) for Circle 28 and need 5 (80) ranks for circle 30
You have enough Primary Magic (Power Perceive) for Circle 29 and need 1 (110) ranks for circle 30

58th and need to move to 3rd tier snoblins, or somewhere else entirely if their gen still sucks.

<<The best way to learn thanatology is to use 2he.>>

Agreed!! Compared to two-handed weapons I find crossbow, Thrown, ME, and LE feel like a big old chore. Though I guess they give me something to do while I fill up defense pools after locking 2HE and Than.

Plowing through swarms with 2HE, Heighten Pain, and Mudman is some of the most fun I've had on my Necro. $$$

>support construct
- Var

I use a Katar, so maybe I'm coming from a different perspective, but I find critters die pretty quickly with LE. I think once I get to 40th I'll start back training up some other weapons.


I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

Cast Heighten Pain, Remove Crossbow, Wield Left Blades, Pre Vivi 20, Aim, Target, Hide/stalk, Cast, Poach, Throw left is my favorite "combo"

I prefer something more along the lines of attack (once), perform preserve on creature, perform arise on creature, repeat.

>>Harvest something you fail on. Locks thanatology and skinning rediculously quick.
Know this is old but I'm reading back through old posts since I'm a new necro.

This no longer appears to be true if it was before. It seems like I joined necros too late with all the decent ways to train Thanatology as a young necro being fixed. I joined necros with sufficient combat skills to fight sand sprites, tried harvesting a creature way above my Thanatology level (having just join-level skill) and failed, never took thanatology off clear. As it is I cycle through 12 weapons and harvest every corpse and without a swarm don't go above 2 or 3/34. Skinning and first aid experience seems tied to the critter skill level but are still slim to none (best I think I've seen is 3/34) which makes the Thanatology/Skinning requirements all the more brutal since most rituals are mutually exclusive to skinning.

Trying hard not to make this a whine post, especially since I'm so close to 20 now and the apparent holy grail (sarcasm intended) of thanatology: arise. Hopefully after that thanatology won't be quite the chore it has been and I'll be able to enjoy playing my necro more.

>>If you can't harvest from a critter your hunting, then you should put up Butchers Eye.
Gotta say, I have it because of spell reqs but I don't currently see it as that useful a spell at the moment. To get thanatology you have to kill something, to kill something you have to have the combat skills. Even considering weapons are a tiertary skill set, to learn thanatology it seems like you're going to probably keep weapons skills up with thanatology because you're going to earn more weapon experience killing the critter than thanatology experience from ritualizing it unless you only kill with magic. Seems unlikely, even for a combat crazy like myself, to have so much more combat than thanatology that you'd need Butcher's Eye to ritualize it. The exception might be when you first join if you were a commoner for a while (like I was) in which case your magic skills probably suck (like mine did) and you're not likely to get a very good BuE cast.

>>I never had a problem locking thanatology from preserve.

Considering I pumped physical stats and rotated about 12 to 14 weapons and still didn't get over 5/34 until I got harvest, and then I only got above 5/34 on what equates to wall ranks since the exp change... I think you may have been in the minority or perhaps they've changed the xp bits since you were my size.

Consider this: I currently have 51 thanatology. I currently have about... 15 weapons over 40 ranks. Whenever I needed thanatology to circle I stayed in combat non stop just rotating weapons as they locked. I did not dance at all (thankfully my defenses were sand sprite level before joining), if it was alive I was working to fix that and I ritualized every corpse. I did this in areas where the critter swarmed. Thanatology being a secondary skill and weapons being a tiertary, why is my thanatology so low?

>Gotta say, I have it because of spell reqs but I don't currently see it as that useful a spell at the moment.
Wasn't the original problem that he couldn't harvest or preserve critters he was killing? And not like, he's got 50 ranks of thanatology and is hunting griffons, instead, he's got 50 ranks of thanatology and is hunting sand sprites.

BUE would more then amply bring critters like that into his skill range. I recall taking down rock trolls when I had around 60-70 thanatology, and not being able to always successfully harvest them. With BUE up, I was getting excellent or perfect chunks. So. You do the math; if you can't train thanatology on what you're hunting, try BUE. I imagine, that in addition to being useful for creating Risen when the time comes, that BUE is a tool PRECISELY for backtraining Thanatology after your ability to kill critters has outstripped your understanding of what makes them tick, so to speak.


I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

Well, lets address these one at a time:
BUE stands as a way to provide a boost to Thanatology so you can more effectively perform rituals on critters. While I haven't had a problem since learning Arise with training Than, I do spend a fair amount of time training magics, and as such, can easily envision a scenario where I'll be able to overhunt. Yes, we are weapon and armor tert, but being evasion prime means evasion will move quickly, and because of the toolbox we've been given for killing stuff (PV, VOD, VIVI, HP, PHP and CH), it is actually pretty easy to envision a scenario in which you are killing critters above your Thanatology range. So, BUE has a purpose there.
But lets just focus on the young Necros. BUE will be an early spell picked up, and will facilitate the awkward first 20 or so circles of not being able to be certain about your rituals. Like I said, I could kill Rockies before I could harvest them, so I used BUE while hunting. You don't need a 20 mana cast; indeed, I was using min preps to bring them into my range. We're magic secondary; if your magic skills suck that much, they're probably holding you back from circling.
I'm not disputing that I never use BUE anymore (Arise works just dandy, and my thanatology is higher then my main weapon), but I feel it principally exists for the extremely inexperienced (like the OP on this topic) or the extremely experienced (for whenever Risen are released).

As for EotB, I concur that the messaging is prohibitive towards staying in one place for very long, but that is exactly what our guild should be avoiding anyway. If you worry that someone will see the messages, search you out, and point you out before you can move through the area, I suggest you try a different guild.



I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

I have in fact been kept back by specifically magic and thanatology. I wasn't kidding when I said I'm weapon crazed. When I joined I had enough of everything except thanatology and magic to reach level 20 for my lowest skills and level 30+ for some of my highest ones.

What you say is conceivable, and I mentioned the magic hunting as one of the possibilities, but being only magic secondary... I mean target is used for any spell that can kill, unless you kept using target even after you were locked... I guess I can't see it being as likely as it would be with say a Moon Mage. But still, we aren't entirely disagreeing with each other and I still wish the spell had more uses. I think the perception spell should have been incorporated as a higher level function of BuE but I suppose this isn't the suggestions folder.

In any case, the main reason I responded was to mention that as far as I can tell, utterly failing does not teach thanatology anymore if it ever did, so keep that in mind when considering what to fight for thanatology. I had to go all the way back to goblins when I started and I wanted to make sure other young necros were aware of this.

>Consider this: I currently have 51 thanatology. I currently have about... 15 weapons over 40 ranks. Whenever I needed thanatology to circle I stayed in combat non stop just rotating weapons as they locked.

Training a bunch of low ranked weapons isn't as quick...

Thanatology plays into your construct size and probably affects its skills too. The same might be true of zombies but it's difficult to pin down because they don't have size levels.

So BUE will potentially make your minions more powerful.

I had good luck with giant wasps for a while. Quick to take down and each failed harvest was moving me up 2-3 mindstates. I'm not sure where it capped, though.

---

Is that the end rushing towards me, or is that the floor?

<<So BUE will potentially make your minions more powerful.>>

<<I have yet to see any convincing proof from my testing >>

yeah, i didn't notice any difference casting BUE beforehand.

still got a small <human-sized> construct. this is with 152 TM. working on it.

---

the world is broken

Hang in there, it will get better.

You're still not training weapons at a tertiary pace. That'll only happen when they reach 100.

What i did was: Train as a commoner up to sand sprite level with 8 weapons and 2 armors. Joined the guild, picked up 8 new weapons and 3 new armors and went back to kill hogs and preserve them.
Worked my way up the creature ladder again and, upon reaching sand sprites, went back to a two-armor setup and kept training all 16 weapons up to 100.

At 100 i dropped 6 weapons.

Now, with 120 in weapons and 175 thanatology i can still mind lock thanatology without using arise. I use arise to quickly reach 10/34 and simply preserve from then on.

Did you say you have 15 weapons above 40? How far above? With 45-55 ranks in weapons i find it hard to believe you're killing sand sprites fast enough with most of the weapons. Killing time really does make a big difference.

Here's a copy of an exp report from my last day in sand sprites. It was on the 15th of February. Dont know if exp has been tweaked since then:

Light Edged: 82 09% -> (30/34)
Medium Edged: 81 20% -> (30/34) Heavy Edged: 77 80% -> (31/34)
Medium Blunt: 81 03% -> (33/34) Heavy Blunt: 79 23% -> (32/34)
Long Bow: 80 98% -> (34/34) Short Staff: 78 95% -> (31/34)
Quarter Staff: 77 13% -> (31/34) Brawling: 82 13% -> (29/34)
Arcane Magic: 124 98% -> (34/34) Harness Ability: 125 02% -> (34/34)
Power Perceive: 128 79% -> (33/34) Evasion: 103 48% -> (1/34)
Appraisal: 159 43% -> (32/34) Thanatology: 107 34% -> (32/34)

That was simply preserving... didnt have arise by then.