Necromancer Optimization (Not what you think)

[Giegue]

I need help. I am playing a Necromancer character, and want help optimizing him. However, he is not of the necromancer mage build from heroes of shadow. Nor is he of any class from Wizards refluffed as a necromancer. No, this Necromancer is a Dread Necromancer, a homebrew class created by ThePlansewalker of the wizards community that can be found at this link.

Since this is a homebrew class for which there exists no guides, I am looking to you all for help. I want you to help me optimize this. My race will be dragonborn, and I want to go for a minion-using, leader-y build rather then a strait controller. While I have a general idea of what powers I want to choose, I need help selecting feats and items. Since I want to go melee I plan on picking up scale and eventually plate(In epic) but am unsure about what other feats to pick up. The campaign will not be high op and will be more focused on RP then combat, so I don't need to break the game. I do, however, want to make a competent character and thats what I am asking you all for. Anybody think they can help me out?

[Kurald Galain]

Gee. That's an impressive document for a badly written class.

For starters, avoid the "spend a surge to make an ally deal more damage" power like the very plague; it's not nearly enough damage to make it worthwhile. Second, avoid the "spend a bunch of surges to recharge a daily power" too, except on level-1 dailies, and then you should do it between combats to avoid wasting a standard action.

If you want melee, play a class capable of making melee attacks; this one isn't. Even if you do want melee, spending feats on scale and plate is rarely worth it. Note that light armor is just as effective as heavy armor, since you get to add your int or dex bonus to your AC.

If you want a leader-y build, play a class capable of leading; this one isn't either. For a good minion-using leader (not leader-y, but actual leader) build play a Shaman.

Sorry to sound so negative but you write you want a leader-y melee character, and this clearly doesn't match that.

[NecroRebel]

I agree with Kurald; the class features suck. Badly. The Corrupt keyword is essentially useless as well; never use it, and doubly never use it in battle. Looking at the powers, most of them seem underwhelming, too. Unfortunately, there's no real secondary stat for the class - Int gives a bonus to damage on some attacks, but nothing else, and Con does... well, nothing that it doesn't for everyone, but you're not going to be using your surges for the class's abilities (because they suck). You should thus focus your attributes on Charisma and Dexterity, because Int's usefulness is minimal and your Dex boosts your initiative.

The best at-will power is obviously Skeletal Minion, which, after a standard action to create it, gives you an at-will minor-action attack once per round. Poisonous Burst sucks, starting weak and getting even weaker as you level; no damage roll = no implement, feat, or... basically any other damage bonus, so it just deals straight Cha damage +the ongoing at all levels. ~7 damage at level 1 is OK, but ~10 at level 30 isn't, and that's how it's gonna scale. Scythe of Dread is boring, but practical enough. Withering Strike is much the same.

You're going to want items that change your damage type. The class is a one-trick pony with necrotic damage, so any undead enemies or others with necrotic resistance will basically completely rape you unless you've got a damage-type replacer. That severely limits your options for magic weapons; if it doesn't let you change the damage type of your attacks, you don't take it. Armor should be hide, since you should (as mentioned above) have a good Dex and thus should have as good or better AC with hide than with chain or plate. Other items involve things that will boost your minions, as even if the only one you've got is the Skeletal Minion that's so outrageously useful that you might as well buff it and it looks like other minion powers are among the strongest of their levels, things to ignore resistances, and things to boost your own survivability as normal.

Feats... Well, things that give bonuses to your minions' attack and damage rolls are going to be the best, followed by defensive boosters (lower priority than for most summoners, as you've got an at-will one). Again, and I cannot stress this enough, you're not going to be using healing surges to power this class's powers or abilities (because they suck), so things that grant bonus surges aren't any better than normal.

Powers to especially avoid that I noticed while going through to check whether there were any healing surge-based powers that were actually decent include Darkcinder Blast, Frost Nova, Dreadful Rage, and Necrotic Nova. These powers drain a healing surge from you as part of their Hit line, and have multiple targets. For every target you hit you lose a healing surge. Dreadful Rage is a close burst 20; use it and every single one of your remaining surges went into the toilet. These are so incredibly terribad that I must imagine that this ThePlaneswalker person must either never have played 4e or made grievous mistakes when he was creating this document.

Healing surge-based powers that are decent-to-good include Vampiric Regeneration (allows 1 target to heal from 1 hit point to full for 1 healing surge during a short rest) and Transfer Life (transfers a surge to an ally and gives them a tiny amount of surgeless healing). Transfer Life probably shouldn't be taken, however, as Shade Form on the same level is better (lets you heal from 1 hit point to full during a short rest without needing to spend a surge).

[Sol]

I don't have a whole lot to add.

There's a lot of poorly-worded powers that end up more powerful than they look like they were intended to be because of it (such as all of the sustain minor at-will and encounter powers), and a lot of poorly-thought-out-and-therefore-a-trap powers.

Particularly terrible is the "recharge a power with the corrupt keyword as a standard action by spending healing surges equal to its level." Not only do dailies not have this keyword, but...no one has 20+ surges, for higher level powers...and wasting a standard action to recharge an encounter power (even if there were no ludicrous resource cost) is never a good idea.

If you're just effing around with friends and don't care that the class is poorly written/thought out, go for it, do whatever you want and have fun. But you or your DM will have to make rulings on several of the powers (because otherwise they won't work).

But it's worth reminding you that one of the best things about 4e is that you can re-flavor anything you want, any way you want...and this makes the need for a class like this pretty limited. And, as stated earlier, it's really neither suited for melee nor does it have a leader secondary worth using. Even a beastmaster ranger re-flavored as a necromancer with a scythe and a skeleton would be more melee-friendly, more leadery, and more able to contribute in a meaningful way than this.

I'd put it in the category of "if you must..." at the best. But, if you must, take several of the sustain minor skeleton summoning encounter powers, and spend all of your actions every round summoning new ones and sustaining the old ones, up to your maximum of 3 sustain actions.

[Tegu8788]

A melee class that focuses on dark powers and summoning, sounds like the hexblade. I'm not sure how leadery it can be made, but it would be easy to fluff up a scythe and make the summons into zombies and the like.