Active skills for Necromany/Dark Miasma?

[deastr]

I just stared to play Necromancy and picked Dark Miasma as secondary. I've found a few builds but they all have to seem to leave all the work to the minions and I fear that I'll just have to stand there other than maybe using Twilight Grasp to heal or something. Are there any skills I can pickup to spam while the minions are doing their thing? Necromancy has some but none of the builds are using them so I assume they are bad? I can change from Dark Miasma to something else if needed. I'm trying to be ranged DPS if that matters.

[Statesmandy]

I tend to skip the ranged attacks for my necromancer, but you can still keep okay busy, it will just take a while for dark miasma to really mature. But by the time you've applied tar patch, fearsome stare and maybe darkest night or a twilight grasp, the fight should be pretty much over. And as necromancer you will need to re-summon zombies a lot, anyway. :)

 

If you're worried about dark miasma though, /kinetics feels pretty good and is very active. Fast zombies!

[Nexros]

I've mained necro/dark for a long time and it is a very strong combination. You'll find that dark is an aggressive set, more so than most supports. By aggressive, I mean focused on your enemies, not your minions (with the exception of twilight grasp). One of the hidden gems with necro/dark is the amount of cc and support that is possible: 3x aoe fear -to hit (you, lich, and servant), 2x twilight grasp (you and servant), 3x 2.0 magnitude hold (you, lich, and servant again. Yes you can perma hold elite bosses!). It is also one of the only combinations where every single minion has a strong, damaging self heal (life siphon) as opposed to a frequent, weak aoe heal like demons. Again, a more aggressive play style.

Zombies do start off VERY squishy, but I don't even run with twilight grasp anymore because they're so insanely hard to kill once they're enhanced and have aoe resist/defense. Besides, the dark servant heals more than enough on it's own.

If you want to go ranged DPS, zombies is a bad choice. The Lich is ranged but more focused on debuff and cc than damage. The real damage comes from the Grave Knights, but their big hits are melee. If you want to do a ranged MM I'd recommend something like bots or mercs.

Hope that helps!

[Nic Mercy]

I have a Necro/Dark and I prefer to be more active so I took Dark Blast and Life Drain (and later Soul Storm and Soul Tentacles from the Soul Mastery Patron Pool). Other active things you can besides Twilight's Grasp is laying down Darkest Night and Tar Patch to debuff foes. You can also cast some Fearsome Stare to make foes tremble in fear (and not attack you or your pets unless attacked) and debuff their accuracy even more. Howling Twilight is also great to use even when no team members are dead because it is also an auto hit CC AND -regen (especially good vs Elite Bosses and AV's)