On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, Kevin L. Crawford wrote:

>
> True, he does, but a well balanced group _without_ a necro is far better
> than a well balanced group _with_ a necro.

You can say the same thing about pretty much most of the
classes. A "well balanced group" typically means cleric,
2 warriors, enchanter, and 2 hard nukers.

> A good group will kill things
> far faster than a necro can solo thus his "real" damage never gets started.
> Necro's are very weak in groups because there's no time for their DoT's to
> ramp up in dmg. Typically it takes a full minute or more for a Necro DOT to
> realize full potential in dmg. Most fights with a good group last far less
> than that (unless you're talking dragons/planes).

Most fights don't last this long because people are (1)
killing stuff that's too easy for them, or (2) overnuking.
The /con and exp system is a bit screwy in this game so I
won't go so far as to say exp is better if you kill at an
optimal rate, but all other things being equal it is.
Remember, being grouped *increases* your survival time, so
(nuking mana permitting) you are free to let fights go on
*longer* than if you're playing solo. Fighting a mob of
proper difficulty for the group (i.e. the R ratio I came up
with being less than but close to 1), the fight duration will
be near the survival time for the group.

--
John H. Kim
kim@...