My poor squishy zombies

I love my zombies but they just don't hold up. My bots/dark almost never resummons and just destroys everything. Wether solo or in a team, (especially on teams though) my zombies are just dieing all the time.

I have a level 28 necro/dark, a 36 necro/storm, and a 41 necro/thermal. I know the usual slot lich for -to hit but I'm hoping there is a simple solution here. I love how bots play, so much nice ranged aoe and a bt of support. I hate robots though.

Necro seems so much better in theory then in game. Any suggestions?

Well a few reasons robotics works because robots have resists that enemies to use alot and the protector bots heal and gives force fields out. so robots have a buffbot in the group and the assault boss is sort of a debuff bot abit. So a theres a few reasons but not all sets are as good as others. The main thing is foy you to have fun and if you put a sovereign right: resistance bonus aswell would help I think

Yes, zombies (and Ninja) are the super-squish. I have a necro/therm but not as high a level as you do, he's a lowbie right now, but I notice the difference the fire sheilds make, but they're still pretty frail.

My nin/PD on the other hand, has the loveabe "paper-dragons" but keeps them alive longer with the secondary, once W.O.P is obtained then it gets even better. Have you given /PD a try yet?

The simplest solution (although not cheap) would be to purchase the following IOs:

Pet Defense: Buy two +5% defense IOs (one in the Pet Damage: Edict of the Master set, and one in the Recharge Intensive Pets: Call to Arms set)

Pet Resistances: the two +10% resistance (except for psi) IOs (one in the Pet Damage: Sovereign Right set, the other in the Recharge Intensive Pets: Expedient Reinforcement set).

With the defense from Shadow Fall / Steamy Mist and the defense IOs, plus all that -to hit, plus boosted resists, and any damage reduction you get from Darkest Night, you'll notice a big difference in zombie survivability. You can also get maneuvers (and tactics, why not? ) to further boost your minions' toughness, if you like.

When I am running my melee MM's....I pretty much almost ALWAYS pick up provoke and heavily slot it. I generally turn it on auto in fights and I find that my zombies and ninjas live A LOT longer. Might be something to consider.

It may sound like a jackass thing to say, but I've found the simplest solution is not to let resummoning zombies bug me. The role of my zombies is to beat the crap out of things and probably die, so why worry about it? It's not like it'll hurt their feelings, just pull some more out of my pocket and keep going.

The problem with Zombies when compared to Bots is that there is a large difference between defense and resistance when it applies to low health entities. This is very noticable on pets. bots have comparable resists to zombies, but they also have moderate to high defense and when this is coupled with the dark -to hits, or additional defense they become very durable. Another factor is that bots do all their attacks from range so they are out of range of PBAoE and stronger Melee attacks more often than melee pets.

However there are IO options and new tactics that can help to create less pet deaths. Most of them have been spelled out throughout this thread. double stacked Pet aura IOs go a long way this is more prevalant with /pain, /therm, and /dark to a lesser effect. The other good advice was keeping aggro on you with either debuffs or provoke. I will tell you that taking the alpha strike is the real key for zombies, because after that the Lich's controls and debuffs bring their survivability up.

On a slotting note, make sure to slot your Lich for -to hit debuff. I personally haven't found slotting him for hold or fear makes much of a difference, since all of his attacks have a -to hit it makes a nice difference.