Rise of the Necromancer.

[Reddicediaries]

Ok take the priest debate to another thread please. This one is about the Necromancer.

Sorry. My main point about the priest is using him as the priestess is the wrong way to play him. (typo above has been fixed).
In a necro matchup, the priest would likely focus on a HA griffen or something and controlling the middle of the board. Perhaps a slightly aggressive temple.
Staying in the corner and meditating against the necro might work for the priestess vs necro, but I severely doubt that.
If it doesn't work for her in the matchup, it sure as heck won't work for the priest.
You want to engage the necro and depending on the specific matchup, take out the graveyard or the creatures first. Or in some cases go for the mage kill.
I actually think in the priestess vs necro and the priest vs necro matchup, the priest likely has to play better since in my opinion, he's harder to use. As in his abilities are harder to use than the priestess' relatively straight foreword ones. Use that HA on a griffen or what not and control the center of the board.

[RomeoXero]

 Here's an honest opinion of why necro has risen so high lately. One word. Resilient. They have in school access to the most infinite armor creatures of any other mage in the game besides the warlocks, and his mage abilities support those creatures better than the warlock. The fact is that damage in this world is usually applied with dice. More dice=more damage potential. So the necromancer has a large suite of creatures that completely ignore 2/3rds of all dice thrown. Luck is immediately on the side of the necro. Add poison immunity and now neither he or his zombies take DoT, at least not the most efficient ones. Piercing, poison, psychic, bleed, sirens call, cripple, pacify, songs in general,  all of these have absolutely no effect on zombies. Skellies too except piercing works on them.
These are just facts. Necro creatures are by and large under priced for what they do. Cannot be reliably killed, and can be brought back infinitely (eternal servant). And we have what? Fire for burns, and acid for corrode. Nothing but acid ball does a reliable amount of corrode, and even them out only rolls 2 dice. Necros are popular because they are strong, but moreso i feel because zombies are a tad OP, entirely due to resilient.

[Reddicediaries]

The Ballista is not meant to be used against skellies and zombies. However, it still is free 5 dmg.

How do you know how the ballista is meant to be used? Is anything meant to shoot something with aegis then? Is ballistas purpose to shoot heavy armor conjurations only? I agree with your conclusion that it is still 5 dice. I still feel free to shoot whatever I want with it

Priest is not weak. He's really strong in the right hands and is best used now being played like the priestess imo.
I also don't think the priestess is the strongest Holy mage. She and the Paladin are tied for me and Priest isn't very far behind.

Must disagree here! If you play priest as priestess, but without priestess abilities and -1 channeling, how can you say they are even close? Priest is much worse especially if you play him as you are telling us!
Play priest with avenger and burns to use his skills and he gets better, but is still worse.
What you are actually saying is, that holy school is very strong, even when playing the weak mage wrong.

I'm infering the ballista's prefered targets based on what it does as a card.
The priest if anything is a high skill cap mage. Imo, being a good priest player likely requires more thinking and effort than being a good priestess player simply because he abilities are harder to use correctly.

[drmambo23]

Here's an honest opinion of why necro has risen so high lately. One word. Resilient. They have in school access to the most infinite armor creatures of any other mage in the game besides the warlocks, and his mage abilities support those creatures better than the warlock. The fact is that damage in this world is usually applied with dice. More dice=more damage potential. So the necromancer has a large suite of creatures that completely ignore 2/3rds of all dice thrown. Luck is immediately on the side of the necro. Add poison immunity and now neither he or his zombies take DoT, at least not the most efficient ones. Piercing, poison, psychic, bleed, sirens call, cripple, pacify, songs in general,  all of these have absolutely no effect on zombies. Skellies too except piercing works on them.
These are just facts. Necro creatures are by and large under priced for what they do. Cannot be reliably killed, and can be brought back infinitely (eternal servant). And we have what? Fire for burns, and acid for corrode. Nothing but acid ball does a reliable amount of corrode, and even them out only rolls 2 dice. Necros are popular because they are strong, but moreso i feel because zombies are a tad OP, entirely due to resilient.

I agree! Like i said before i played him bc he is my favorite, same way you play priest. And hell, i even asked on a thread before "i want to play necro in tournament settings but i feel he sucks bc a, b, and c..help please" (paraphrase). But since then, learning ins and outs of him i love the mage even more and know much more about him...but still the general consensus is what romeo and others have stated. And not bc its a bs opinion but bc its pretty spot on.

The Ballista is not meant to be used against skellies and zombies. However, it still is free 5 dmg.

How do you know how the ballista is meant to be used? Is anything meant to shoot something with aegis then? Is ballistas purpose to shoot heavy armor conjurations only? I agree with your conclusion that it is still 5 dice. I still feel free to shoot whatever I want with it

Priest is not weak. He's really strong in the right hands and is best used now being played like the priestess imo.
I also don't think the priestess is the strongest Holy mage. She and the Paladin are tied for me and Priest isn't very far behind.

Must disagree here! If you play priest as priestess, but without priestess abilities and -1 channeling, how can you say they are even close? Priest is much worse especially if you play him as you are telling us!
Play priest with avenger and burns to use his skills and he gets better, but is still worse.
What you are actually saying is, that holy school is very strong, even when playing the weak mage wrong.

I'm infering the ballista's prefered targets based on what it does as a card.
The priest if anything is a high skill cap mage. Imo, being a good priest player likely requires more thinking and effort than being a good priestess player simply because he abilities are harder to use correctly.

Please debate your priest concerns in a priest thread

[Reddicediaries]

Here's an honest opinion of why necro has risen so high lately. One word. Resilient. They have in school access to the most infinite armor creatures of any other mage in the game besides the warlocks, and his mage abilities support those creatures better than the warlock. The fact is that damage in this world is usually applied with dice. More dice=more damage potential. So the necromancer has a large suite of creatures that completely ignore 2/3rds of all dice thrown. Luck is immediately on the side of the necro. Add poison immunity and now neither he or his zombies take DoT, at least not the most efficient ones. Piercing, poison, psychic, bleed, sirens call, cripple, pacify, songs in general,  all of these have absolutely no effect on zombies. Skellies too except piercing works on them.
These are just facts. Necro creatures are by and large under priced for what they do. Cannot be reliably killed, and can be brought back infinitely (eternal servant). And we have what? Fire for burns, and acid for corrode. Nothing but acid ball does a reliable amount of corrode, and even them out only rolls 2 dice. Necros are popular because they are strong, but moreso i feel because zombies are a tad OP, entirely due to resilient.

I agree! Like i said before i played him bc he is my favorite, same way you play priest. And hell, i even asked on a thread before "i want to play necro in tournament settings but i feel he sucks bc a, b, and c..help please" (paraphrase). But since then, learning ins and outs of him i love the mage even more and know much more about him...but still the general consensus is what romeo and others have stated. And not bc its a bs opinion but bc its pretty spot on.

The Ballista is not meant to be used against skellies and zombies. However, it still is free 5 dmg.

How do you know how the ballista is meant to be used? Is anything meant to shoot something with aegis then? Is ballistas purpose to shoot heavy armor conjurations only? I agree with your conclusion that it is still 5 dice. I still feel free to shoot whatever I want with it

Priest is not weak. He's really strong in the right hands and is best used now being played like the priestess imo.
I also don't think the priestess is the strongest Holy mage. She and the Paladin are tied for me and Priest isn't very far behind.

Must disagree here! If you play priest as priestess, but without priestess abilities and -1 channeling, how can you say they are even close? Priest is much worse especially if you play him as you are telling us!
Play priest with avenger and burns to use his skills and he gets better, but is still worse.
What you are actually saying is, that holy school is very strong, even when playing the weak mage wrong.

I'm infering the ballista's prefered targets based on what it does as a card.
The priest if anything is a high skill cap mage. Imo, being a good priest player likely requires more thinking and effort than being a good priestess player simply because he abilities are harder to use correctly.

Please debate your priest concerns in a priest thread

I must say, Remeo essentially summed much of the issue up in one go. Props to him.
Zombies are so annoying that a lot of people just ignore them and go for the mage.
Taking out the graveyard is very possible though and should be done if possible imo. You just need to commit to it 100%.

[drmambo23]

Cloak + tanglevine makes it hard for someone to rush the mage and ignore zombies.  Then you're caught in the hoard.

Im interested to hear from skeleton necro players. I dont play them so i cant input too much but i am curious to playstyles from them and their thoughts on the rise of necros using skeletons

[MrBubu]

Has anyone ever done some calculations on how much more likely you are to overkill resilient creatures? Eperience and some back on the envelope stuff suggest to me, that one point that makes resilient so strong is the higher variance in the damage you throw, together with the lower mean damage, thus leading to higher overkills.
I have not done anything concrete however. Would be interesting to put a number on it.
So you effectively waste dice on zombies. And it makes it hard(er) to plan the turn, when you cannot really say if a creature is going to die or not.