Necromancer (Warcraft III)

Though they retained their Humanity after making a pact with death, Necromancers became the most terrifying agents of the Scourge. These dark, insidious men were once thought to be aspiring geniuses by the Magocracy of Dalaran. However, their insatiable lust to delve into the secrets of the dark arts drove them to forsake their very souls. Ner'zhul, the Lich King, granted these malevolent sorcerers true power over the dead in exchange for their loyalty and obedience. The shadowy Necromancers have the power to command various types of Undead and even spread the foul undead plague as well.

Information
Necromancers are very popular among experienced undead players as they can raise lots of Skeletons to support your existing troops. If the enemy doesn't have Destroyers or Faerie Dragons (the latter of which can be fatal to Necromancers) then the sheer amount of skeletons can overwhelm enemies.

Necromancers work well with 3-4 Meat Wagons and 2 Obsidian Statues. The Meat Wagons provide fresh corpses for the Necromancers to use, while the Obsidian Statues allow them to contribute to the battle for as long as possible. You may want to add more or less Meat Wagons depending on the amount of Necromancers you use, however.

Keep Necromancers in the back and well protected. Good microing skills can allow Necromancers to survive, especially if they get targeted by heavy air or artillery units, who can easily kill them.

ripple

 * Reduces movement speed by 75%, attack rate by 10%, and damage by 25% of target enemy unit.

Cast this spell on extremely powerful units like Frost Wyrms and Tauren to weaken them significantly. Don't cast the spell with any Dryads nearby or the spell will go to waste.

Use Dispel.
 * Cripple Counters

aise Dead (Autocast)

 * Raises 2 Skeletons from a target corpse.

Once the Skeletal Mastery upgrade is researched, Raise Dead will raise 1 Skeleton Warrior and 1 Skeletal Mage per corpse. There's a cap to the amount of skeletons that can be summoned, and excess skeletons will automatically die if it goes over this amount, with the oldest ones taking priority.

This spell is not on by default. This is to prevent the Necromancer from raising Skeletons from the Graveyard after he is created wasting his mana if you happen to build your Graveyard next to the Temple of the Damned. It's recommended to keep the spell set off so he can reserve mana for his more powerful spells.

Skeletons initially last 40 seconds. Research Skeletal Longevity to increase their time 15 seconds to a total of 55 seconds.

Tip: Raise Dead yields the same result regardless of what type of corpse it is cast on. If you have a Death Knight on your team, save powerful corpses for Animate Dead. You can kill a critter and get the same result from Raise Dead on its corpse as you would on, say, a Tauren, or an Abomination. Raise Dead prioritizes lower-ranked corpses first; for example, a critter corpse will take priority over a Ghoul's.

Use Dispel. If not available, target the Necromancers if they can't be reached, or use AoE abilities and skills to clear the skeletons.
 * Skeleton counters

nholy Frenzy

 * Sacrifices a friendly Undead unit, causing all nearby non-mechanical units to go into a frenzy, increasing their attack speed by 50% but causes them to take 3 damage per second. Lasts 45 seconds.

Previously this spell was an Adept-tier spell which could be targeted on a single unit to increase their attack speed by 75% at the cost of 4 hitpoints per second. Now, the player needs to kill a friendly Undead unit to cause other units to become affected, make sure you have several skeletal warriors, mages or Carrion Beetles on hand as fodder for the spell, as all Undead units provide the same effect and duration. The frenzy has a small area of effect around the sacrificed unit, so make sure key units are nearby so they benefit the most from the spell. The Necromancer cannot cast the spell on himself (as it would kill him, but another friendly Necromancer can cast it on him, but is not recommended) and on friendly Undead heroes.

Beware - Unholy Frenzy now affects enemy units in range, so make sure you don't give Unholy Frenzy to them either. If there is a concern of the spell going to enemy units, bring a few Destroyers to rob them of the buff and use as mana for their own, or target them with Cripple before targeting them if you don't want your Destroyers to steal them. Allied Spell Breakers can also work for this purpose.

Unholy Frenzy stacks with Bloodlust, so try to use it on units affected by Bloodlust so they have 90% increased attack speed.

Unholy Frenzy works very well in combination with the Dread Lord's Vampiric Aura on Abominations and other advanced melee units and on melee heroes such as the Dread Lord. Vampiric Aura will help heal the damage of the Unholy Frenzy for any melee units given it. For ranged units, the Obsidian Statue's Essence of Blight can alleviate most of the passive damage taken from Unholy Frenzy.

Use Dispel.
 * Counters

Upgrades

 * Ncromancer Adept Training
 * Increases mana capacity by 100, mana regeneration rate by 30%, hit points by 40, and gives them the ability to cast Raise Dead.


 * BTNNecromancerMaster.png
 * Ncromancer Master Training
 * Further increases mana capacity by 100, mana regeneration rate by 30%, hit points by 40, and gives them the ability to cast Unholy Frenzy.


 * {| class="darktable" style="text-align:center"

! Research Cost !! Researched At !! Requirements !! Upgrade Time
 * - class="alt"
 * 100 150  || Temple of the Damned || Necromancer Adept Training, Black Citadel || 45 sec.
 * }


 * Skeletal astery
 * Causes one of the two skeletons created by Raise Dead to be a Skeletal Mage.

Quotes

 * See Warcraft III Necromancer quotes

Trivia

 * He's voiced by Michael Bell.