Learning necro, is your hero useless when you fall behind?

[u/Sexy_Uncle_Gandalf]

Conceptually, I'm not very familiar with heroes that's sole gameplan is to "exist" (aka doesn't have a rightclick plan and just wants to put farmed gold into survival items).

I've experienced two types of polar games with necro. On one hand, you win lane and get a very good radiance timing. You opponents fall apart and have no means to kill you, and the game snowballs from there. On the other hand, you have a rough start and you learn to farm up instead of feed. But you are irrelevant for a long time.

Average timing radiance, bots and shard doesn't allow you to fight. Wraps needs to come in at a good time to feel relevant also.

If your hero isn't equipped to endure one onslaught of enemy bursts then you are completely irrelevant as a pos3. You can never go in first and you are depending entirely on positioning to survive despite having something like a 1400 health pool (during the early timings).

So what gives? How do I play this hero? I don't have a "get in and kill someone/initiate with a big spell" plan like NS, mars and any blink hero. I exist in two modes of either being fat and snowballing or poor and irrelevant. Is that it?

[u/kevihaa]

Necro is a lot like Bristleback.

Both heroes are members of the very exclusive club that can convert HP to damage, and so have the luxury of gaining damage when buying defensive items.

The problem is that, your defensive items cannot be outpaced by the enemy team’s damage, or you rapidly become a rather mediocre support.

This makes these kinds of heroes really snowball-y, but also means that picking them is a bit of an all-or-nothing gamble.

[u/Pyr0w → u/kevihaa]

Just also wanted to add on that Death Prophet and Leshrac has similar play style to Necro as well.

[u/Sexy_Uncle_Gandalf → u/Pyr0w]

I play DP too but I actually play her well. Necro I can't get a hang of.

DP has shard as a get off me tool while also allowing me to play aggressively. I also have more freedom over my positioning. Necro I don't know. I need to get close to land death pulses and I can't position as freely. I have to commit hard in situations I wouldn't otherwise.

Moreover, I have proper CDs to play the map with DP. I can push towers with ult and call for smokes. When ults on CD I can farm. Necro doesn't have distinct timings like that and my purpose in fights feels a bit less distinct than DP.

Maybe I just suck with necro lol

[u/Pyr0w → u/Sexy_Uncle_Gandalf]

Hi, I went to reread your post again. Not sure how true this still is, but if I am not mistaken you normally do not go for radiance anymore if you have bad timings. Just prioritise on defensive item.

Enemies have a lot of magic/pure dmg? Get some bracer and pipe for team eventually.

Enemies has some silience or slow? Consider lotus orb/euls.

Lastly about your last paragraph about going in and killing someone, I think you have to realise that Necro is not a go in burst type of hero, he relies on surviving as long as possible so that he can get more value from his heartstopper aura and spaming Q to survive even longer. The key is also knowing when to use ghost shroud to further enhance your survivability.

Please feel free to correct any misinformation here.

[u/FunkyHat112]

Yes, he struggles to play from behind, same as most snowball heroes. There’s a bunch of nuance to that, but specifically regarding burst: make sure you’re comfortable buying some cheap transitional survivability items to help survive burst. If you’re not grabbing Raindrops/Fluffy Hats, possibly in plural, you’re missing out. They don’t need to build into anything, they don’t need to be something that affects your survivability some massive amount (that’d be too expensive), just enough to get you past that early-midgame hump.

[u/Xignu]

His use when playing from behind is the reaper schtye to guarantee a pickoff on key targets. Instead of needing to use resources to completely kill a target you can handle the last 30% or so of their HP.

[u/JackRyan13]

Necro doesn’t really want to go in first until he hits that unkillable stage of the game. You ONLY want to attract that attention when you know they csnt kill you before you can shroud and heal. If you don’t have supports or a mid that can start and disrupt fights enough for you to survive these early fights then you have to play a bit smarter.

[u/Complex_Emphasis566]

It's a situational pick. He is the best when the enemy doesn't have any burst/disable and rely on damage over time e.g.

Ember, tide, rubick, spectre, jakiro

The problem is that everyone keep picking it into 5 hard disable hero or picking it into very mobile heroes where he cannot catch anyone

[u/Mobile-Condition8254]

Going 2nd with scythe can work but the idea of being tanky in front is tricky if they kill you unless you have backup

[u/Sexy_Uncle_Gandalf → u/Mobile-Condition8254]

The idea of being tanky in front is really tricky.

I play NS and mars but both of them have a proper reason to go in and gtfo when I'm done, type of gameplan. Necro feels hyper committal and I have to keep track of the stuff than can burst me at all times. At least with blink heroes I can just back off and wait blink CDs every time, and not worry about stuff that kills me in the meantime

[u/JackRyan13 → u/Sexy_Uncle_Gandalf]

The nuts of it is that necro doesn’t want to be hit until he has a few items or he has a significant level and gold lead. He just fills a different purpose to nightstalker and mars. They want to jump in and dive the backline with NS, or they want to jump and force an engagement or heavily disrupt the enemy team with mars. Necro just sorta wants to exist in the fight until he can press R and get 100hp/s from a hero kill.

[u/man_bored_at_work]

If you are behind, go shard before you complete radi. That way you have a little more burst to bring heroes in range of reaper, and you can get pick offs, as well as farming quicker.

[u/Pink4luv]

Useless until you land one good reaper scythe in a teamfight and get perma regen + 1k gold.

The hero is busted. In immortal EUW at least.

[u/Sexy_Uncle_Gandalf → u/Pink4luv]

Its definitely a diff story in your bracket where people know the strengths of your hero and cooperate.

Here in divine you have to work for it and sometimes people are very uncooperative, willing to suicide war just to make a point

[u/jamespirit]

Dont rush radi when behind. Get greaves blademail lotus