Necro or Beast/Thermal?

Ive been wanting to make a MM for some time now and I think I want to make a Necro or Beast paired with Thermal. I definitely want to have a heal to keep my minions alive and I figured the shields would help with that. So my question really is, are either or (Necro, Beast) a good pair with Thermal? Or maybe there is a better combination? Any Advice is appreciated.

Necro

stay away from beast + merc

Beast that bad??

I have one of each and I have to say that the Beast/Thermal is a lot more fun to play than the Necro/Thermal.

Not saying that Beast is a better set, just that I find it more fun. As a matter of fact I found it so much fun that it's the first character in my nearly 8 years in the game that once I started playing it I couldn't stop playing it. Got it to 50 a couple weeks ago and have been running Incarnate content off and on between playing a new Staff/Elec Brute and other alts.

From a purely min/max outlook, I can see that Beast is probably not going to do as well as Necro simply because Necro has a LOT of different damage types in it (smashing, lethal, toxic, neg. energy) where Beast is limited to lethal (maybe a bit of smashing) and is mostly single target at that, and some cold (AoE) damage from the Dire Wolf.

I say if you're just looking for something fun to play and you feel like paying the 800 points for Beast Mastery, make them both and play them to at least 32 so you can see what all 3 tiers of pets can do with that last upgrade.

I would say though if you're on the fence about Beast Mastery then blowing 800 points may not be a good idea. Ask around and try teaming with some Beast MM's and see what they do and form an opinion that way.

Now, I don't HATE my Necro/Thermal (or any of my other alts for that matter, otherwise they'd be deleted), I just don't find it AS fun as the Beast/Thermal. But now I think I'll go dust it off and see if I can get back into it.

Im on the fence between necro/ and beast/ all the time, and usually go by synergy with the secondary.

For example Necro/Dark is extremely cool, oodles of -tohit. Its really one of those things you don't just want a bit of, you want enough to make em weep.

Another example from the opposite direction is Beast/Time. Beast/ has 11% defence at its lowest, 5% from aura and 20% from /Time, add a 14% -tohit from the PBAoE debuff toggle and presto, your pets got reasonable defense. The same as a necro and your pets would get hit about twice as often, be even more vulnurable to red and purple mobs.

But you are thinking about a resistance based secondary set, and like -tohit and defense you really want alot of it. Short example why:

Attack of 1000 damage:
0% resistances: 1000 damage taken
10% resistances 900 damage taken
.
.
.
80% resistances 200 damage taken

The interesting thing is this, you can see that the total amoun is always the same, you get -100 damage per 1k attack per 10% resistance. But the interesting thing is the relative difference, because gaining -100 damage on a 200 damage attack means halving the damage you receive, while gaining -100 damage on a 900 damage attack ... thats just 12.5% less damage taken(800 instead 900, so 800 * 1.125 = 900), its boring and hardly noticeable.

An easy way to visualize this is looking at the extreme ends. Going from 0% to 10% means taking a fraction less damage. Going from 90% to 100% would mean your not taking ANY damage anymore. And most every resistance buff in this game is additive, while there are limits in place for players and pets, its very worthwhile to get to these limits as close as possible since the difference between 40% to 50% is quite a bit greater than between 20% to 30%.


Long story short, Necros lack lethal resistance in tier 1 and lethal AND smashing in tier 2 and 3. So they will have about 23% resist towards that from your secondary. Beast tier 2 and 3 have about 30% smashing and lethal resists, for a total of about 50%.

The difference between 30% and 50% is quite big(i give and take a bit here, necro can have 10% extra resist due to aura but not everyone threeslots their shields). I.e. a 1k damage attack would do 700 damage to a lich or grave knight, but only 500 damage to a lioness or direwolf, and taking 200 damage less from 700 is alot more than 20%(its actually exactly 40%, i swear i wasn't trying to go for even numbers), which means beast/thermal will take 40% less damage on every smashing/lethal attack than necro/thermal(edit: actually i mixed that up, necro/therm will take 40% more damage, not beast/therm 40% less, and yeah its not the same i hate math too).

And now think about all those superpowered punchhappy/hugesword wielding bosses etc, this is litereally the difference between surviving a blow and getting oneshotted. Having heals is pointless if your pet dies in one hit. Even with 2 res auras and a 2 defense auras on necro your still looking at about 20% resistance and 6% defense lead in favour of beasts. Meaning there is no GOOD synergy between necro/thermal compared to a set that actually HAS good synergy.

Edit: Beast use their heals when they are low on health, necros use their lifedrain as an normal attack. If a beast at the softcap gets hit once in a blue moon it will have an heal ready, a necro might or might not be about to use their lifedrain.

Edit2: Rereading that ... this is really min/maxxer land, both sets will totally kick *** because your a MM that can heal. Its down to style really, i don't like how zombies have trouble following and squat down after taking a small jump. I also like the singleminded chargein of beasts, its actually very refreshing to send your melee pets on something and have them actually give chase and jump the bugger, they are the dogs to the ninjas cats.

Well I'd like to thank everyone for their incite. I believe I will be going with Beast/thermal, I think it will be more fun then necro/thermal, and besides I can set my wolves/cats on fire, and who would want to fight wolves/cats that are on fire running at you and clawing your face off, lol

But beast does go well with thermal, only demons go better with it.

Its simple really, dead pets do no dps and beast are alot more survivable with /thermal than necro. Really its not just a small difference, its night and day.

Warmth is hardly able to keep your pets up against massive AoE damage on its own(necro tier 2 and 3 pets are basically even weaker against physical attacks than ninja), fortify pack and the def IOs mean your beast pets are well past the softcap for defense. Its a bit mindboggling to me why anyone would think that worse resistances, defenses and heals would somehow make a set more attractive. Might aswell play ninja/thermal.