So i need some help starting a necro i just made a destro mage but i heard once you get to a certain level you get screwed....so should i start a new mage or just continue and kind of just move away from destro or have like conjuation in left and ice in the other...

If not tell me a build.

Race:
Skills:
Gender: Male...
Good/Evil:
Necro/warrior hybrid?

Race: Breton
Skills: Conjuration (Duh), Destruction (So you can help kill stuff), Alteration (to Protection yourself), Restoration (if you want the anti-undead spells)
Gender: Male
Evil, most necromancers wouldnt be too bothered killing someone in order to get a more powerful undead slave....but you can play a good-guy necromancer.

Necro-warrior works well with the bound weapons under conjuration.

altmer, there are no good necros

In D&D prior to 3 edition all healing spells were classed as Necromancy. So I guess technically there can be.

Don't forget enchanting. Got to find a use for all those trapped souls

Necromancy is fun but it svcks compared to atronach summoning unfortunately. For the following reasons:

1) Relies on corpses. This means you have to kill someone first to be able to have a summon. Atronachs have no such limitations.

2) Reanimations take too long. When you summon a Dremora Lord he's already killed 2 bandits by the time the "portal" closes. When you raise a corpse you're already half dead by the time he stands up.

3) Summons turn to ash when they die. If your Atronach expires or is killed you can summon another one immediately, only cost is magicka. If it happens to your undead you have to find a different corpse because it turns to ash and is unusable.

4) Power of Summon relies on power of corpse. If you're fighting 3 draugers and 1 drauger deathlord, That drauger you killed then raised will be worthless against the Deathlord, but if you summon a Storm Atronach it can hold its own. Also the fact that you can raise Draugers from the dead, which have already been raised once before obviously, shows that my point #3 makes no sense.

5) Undead summons can't transition between zones. When you go from "Ruins Cavern" to "Ruins Crypt" your zombie companion turns to ash immediately even if you just raised him moments before.

I find necromancy in this game lacking, you always need corpses and most of the time their too high level for your current spell to work.

Andymac55 nailed it, necromancy can be fun but it has some serious problems as was pointed out. You're better off using Antronochs (and better still Dremora Lords when available) until you max out your skill. Dread Thrall's at master level eliminate most of the issues with necro summons and are well worth playing around with once your skill is high enough to use them.

edit -> huh, weird how that was all bold, this new forum is... meh

Some suggestions I have for improving necromancy:

First, and most important by far, corpses don't turn to ash when they die.

Second, speed the raising animation up a bit.

Third, Instead of just increasing the level cap of corpses you can raise, have the higher level spells make corpses you raise more powerful. While a plain Bandit raised with Dread Zombie never be as powerful as a Bandit Chief, it will still be much more powerful than a Bandit raised with Raise Zombie.

Actually Necromancy is much more powerful than Atronach ... but at high level , you need the master spell ..

Your 1) and 2) are irrelevant since you raise your powerful summon a long time before the fight occurs , before you even enter the dungeon , and it's not advised to attempt to raise a corpse during a tough fight , it's a waste of mana , you raise the bodies before the fight or you don't raise them , you just summon Daedras or Atronach if your Thrall dies (which is very rare if you choose your thralls carefully )

Your 3) is totally wrong (except at low level ... ) , there is a spell called "Death Thrall" which makes summons Permanent , if you play on the PC , there is a mod that allows you raise even more different types of summons (like Drauger Over Lords , Briar Hearts etc ) , because in vanilla , you can't raise any NPC that is above level 40 (which is stupid ) but even in vanilla , Necromancy is much more powerful than Atronach because you can make an army of Death Thrall by giving them Summoning Staves , that means you get a group of 8 guys entering the dungeon including yourself , your 2 Thralls + their 2 summons , Your companion+ its own summon , and your dog ... You're just an unstoppable force ...

You can "Thrall" extremely powerful guys like Orchendor (even in vanilla ) or Sebastian Lort , they annihilate any Atronach in a few seconds , they use magic like masters and are almost immune to it .... Your lonely atronach would be pathetically weak next to them , even next to a normal Draugr Death lord who uses a shout and uber weapons that you carefully upgraded for him ( Atronach cannot have upgraded gear )

4) and 5) are incorrect too , your thralls will make short work of almost everything you encounter in the game (on pc you can open the console and type "getlevel" to know the level of the corpse and if it's worth raising , anything below level 30 is worthless later on ) .

The thing i agree with you is that when you do not have "Dead Thrall" , then yes Necromancy is not really powerful and Atronach (well storm atronach ) are superior in most cases , but " Dead Thrall " is the main objective for any necromancer .
I also agree that with some Thrall (mainly Daugr) , it's sometimes tedious inside dungeons because their pathfinding is either horrible or too slow , so you often have to retreat back behind them when you meet some opposition . But not all Thralls have bad pathfinding , for instance master conjurers or master vampires have decent pathfinding

Half of the time my necromancer is conjuring atonarchs, and then switching to lightning. It's fun when I can raise a zombie but you can't have them consistently.

I'm not talking about Dead Thrall I'm talking about the Necromancy you'll be using through the majority of the game.

dead thrall is the best conjuration spell in the game if you know how to use it you can get perma dremora lords with it but before that atronachs/dremora lord are ALOT better and the 40+ limitation is beyond stupid if you go into a dragur dungeon with 10+ high level dragur your dead thralls and your follower + their atronachs die really fast they need to remove the 40+ limitation

Fair enough Andy , it's true that until you get Death Thrall , it's more efficient to use Atronach , on this i agree

It's just that one should not be discouraged to be a necromancer , because in the end , it is really worth it and a lot of fun (and arguably one of the most powerful spell/ability in the game , if not the most powerful IMHO ) to collectionate powerful bodies and look for them by exploring (gives more reasons to explore)

It also depends how you play , personally with my Necromancer , i powerleveled conjuration as a priority (soul trap dead humanoid bodies , bought training ) , so yeah , until level 25 , i would use mainly atronachs and destruction , but beyond level 30 , i don't hang around without my permanent Thralls

It's true you need dedication as a Necromancer , you cannot really be a "jack of all trades " , unless you are ok to wait until level 45-50 to get dead thrall , but i'm not that patient

Can you enchant arrows with a reanimate spell? (to shoot bodies and reanimate them)

I'm pretty sure you can't enchant arrows at all and why would you want an arrow spells not that different both are ranged

I mean enchant bows with the spell. I know arrows can't be enchanted, was a lapsus...

And for the spell, you need a perk in illusion to avoid casting detection, want to try shooting arrows.

I'm at level 42 and I have all the necro perks, I'm still using atronarchs and demora lords.

If necromancy is still worth it at the end then that's still an issue, it should be viable from start to finish.

What they should have done IMHO , is give Dead Thrall from the start , but make it level capped :

For instance if you are level 10 , you can thrall only creatures of your level and below (if you have say 50 in conjuration minimum ) , if you are level 60 same etc ..

it would have made Necromancer build able to depend only on necromancy during the whole playthrough

Janus , no you cannot enchant this powerful spell on any weapon

ok im going to start a breton conjurer..cuz i like conjuration...i used to conjuate skeles, go into sneak mode and shoot em with a bow (in oblivion to power boost my skill) but i might to atronach conjure on my main, pure mage with destro,conj., and illusion, i'm using a flame atronach..thanks for all the input i'm going to do a video here soon...