Necromancer is the penultimate boss of Castle Crashers and also one of the 31 Playable Characters. His magical attacks are Non-Elemental and his starting weapon is the Evil Sword.
Necromancer's specialties include easy basic juggling and combo locking.
Information
Background
The Necromancer first appears flying above the lava along with the Evil Wizard very close by; and the Necromancer, along with the Evil Wizard, take notice of the player(s) and the Necromancer decides to halt their progress by resurrecting Skeletons to fight off the player(s) in the Lava World level. After the player(s) have received the Ship's Wheel, the Necromancer along with again, the Evil Wizard fly near the buried grave of the recently deceased Cyclops and the Necromancer resurrects the Cyclops, turning him undead. After sometime, the Necromancer along with once again, the Evil Wizard, appears at a mass grave site and the Necromancer resurrects 8 Skeletons and the Evil Wizard turns 4 of the Skeletons into Beefy enemies in the Marsh level. Later on, the Necromancer reappears along with yet again, the Evil Wizard, while also being around the Painter and the Undead Cyclops as they take the Evil Wizard's castle to the skies in the Wizard Castle Takeoff level. Finally, the Necromancer appears flying in his chamber of dead bodies on the ground, with skeletons hanging on the walls, and mountains of the skeletons of dead warriors near the bottom of the Necromancer's room and resurrects a huge army of enemies that the player(s) have fought before until the Necromancer himself fights them head on in Wizard Castle Interior.
Involvement
The Necromancer is responsible for the resurrection of all the Skeletons roaming the land. He is also responsible for resurrecting the Cyclops the player(s) have defeated earlier in the game. The Necromancer is believed to be the Evil Wizard's most highly ranked and loyal servant, as he is seen with the Evil Wizard most of the game.
Defeat
Upon defeat, he will fly up into the air out of sight. Shortly after, he will drop his Evil Sword. Continue the path to destroy another large purple crystal and you will be able to progress into the final boss: the Evil Wizard in the Final Battle level.
Strategy
Remember to prepare health potions and anything else before fighting, as the second wave is often considered difficult because of the enhanced speed of the enemies and the fact that there are Beefy-type enemies resurrected as well. Though bomb throwing enemies (Fencer, Royal Guard, Conehead) may be annoying, you can use them to your advantage. Since bombs can also damage your enemies you can try to get the bomb thrower's ability to backfire and hit their allies.
Necromancer flies out of your attack range at the beginning and revives two waves of dead warriors that you must defeat before you engage him in battle.
- These are the enemies that the Necromancer resurrects in order of whom he summons first:
This is the easiest of the two waves of enemies as there are 5 lightweights, 1 heavyweight, and 1 mediumweight. Typically the lightweights usually are the easiest to dispose of; followed by the Conehead/Fire Demon and finally, the Fire Demon/Conehead.
Make sure you get a running start after the Conehead or Fire Demon dies in order to prepare for the carnage that is the 2nd wave.
- These are the enemies that the Necromancer resurrects in order of whom he summons first:
This is the hardest of the two waves as there's 4 lightweights, 2 mediumweights, 2 heavyweights, 3 Beefy enemies with the Bear and Barbarian able to get juggled (Typically A+XXXXXYY XYY XY XY XYY, repeat at XY until maximum height or do it however you feel like is better to Beefy Juggle/Typically X+SSSSSTT STT ST ST STT, repeat at ST until maximum height or do it however you feel like is better to Beefy Juggle). Once the Necromancer starts resurrecting the very first few enemies, your main priority target is the Alien as the Alien will start spamming his Magic Projectile and knock you down easily with it, leaving you susceptible to getting sandwiched by the other enemies nearby. Once the Alien dies, you can do one of three things here in order to ease the fight:
- Kill the Saracen
or
- Kill the Beefy Bear and Beefy Barbarian
or
- Kill the Snakey and Fire Demon
One thing to watch out for if you attempt to prioritize the two mediumweights is that the Beefy enemies can grab you while you're juggling the mediumweights. Killing the Saracen also makes Snakey somewhat more easier to deal with; the only problem with this is that now the Royal Guard will always make a beeline towards you and maneuvering around the Royal Guard can be tricky. If attempting to kill the two Beefys, use the Beefy Juggle or use Bombs to kill them quickly.
After killing either of these first, you want to kill any of the lightweights you have possibly missed after hopefully prioritizing Alien to ease the fight:
Once everything is done in this order, you are left with 3 enemies:
One thing to watch out for is after killing the Royal Guard, the Brute will start to relentlessly follow the player(s) until he is killed. After the Brute finally dies, this sublevel is essentially over as the Conehead will easily die and the Necromancer doesn't do nearly as half as the enemies do with their attacks and magic attacks.
Character specific strategies
Red Knight
Red Knight has the easiest Insane Mode Necromancer fight out of any of the other playable characters as the second wave is pretty much finished after 6-9 consecutive and complete Splash Attacks, though the threat of getting sandwiched still lingers so killing Alien is still a nice option to prioritize out of all the enemies summoned. In fact, the Red Knight is so powerful that he can kill the Brute quicker than any other playable character. Two things to think about while playing as the Red Knight is that he can get his Splash Attack canceled by any of the other enemies that aren't caught in it and after a complete Splash Attack session, Red Knight's mana takes a while to grow back, so maneuvering and juggling an enemy is an option to kill the timeframe before another Splash Attack session.
Pink Knight
Similarly with Red Knight, Pink Knight can use his Splash Attack to set up juggles pretty easily against enemies from the stunlock and the long range of the Splash Attack. Alternatively, you could Spellweave and pelt enemies with possible Critical Strikes from the Air Projectiles, though not as reliable as the first strategy.
Conehead, Royal Guard, and Gray Knight
Conehead, Royal Guard, and Gray Knight have the ability to Spellweave through the entire fight, since most of the enemies present in the fight are weak to Fire and the Air Projectile directly hits any enemy from below at a good angle than most characters. A good thing about doing is this is that the only threat from doing this is getting grabbed by the Brute; though prioritizing the Alien is still needed to ease the fight.
Fencer and Industrialist
Fencer and Industrialist have the best Splash Attack in the entire game, which allows for safe juggles, and they can spam it with succession of killing the Beefy enemies quicker than anyone bar Red Knight. Like most other boss slayers, getting sandwiched or combo'd is the most likely cause of death, so be careful of the timing of the Splash Attacks.
Green Knight
Green Knight, if you can master the different timing on his juggle, has one of the easiest Necrosane fights as many enemies are weak to Green Knight's Poison magic as well as the extra DoT from it. Moving from place to place and spamming Splash Attacks can even kill the Beefys faster than all the other enemies if given enough focus.
Brute and Snakey
Similar strategy shown in Fencer and Industrialist, except that the Brute and Snakey's Splash Attack when casting, very rapidly shows up and very easily can squeeze in many hits on the Beefys.
Fire Demon
Like the Fencer and Industrialist strategy plus the Brute and Snakey strategy, the Fire Demon has an amazing Splash Attack that comes out immediately once cast. Given how nearly all of the enemies in the fight are very weak to fire damage, the Fire Demon has an easier time clearing out the enemies in the 2nd wave.
Principles of play
- Use the D-pad. It allows for quicker movements. Practice your juggling skills. Being able to juggle both lightweight and middleweight enemies makes the battle easier. Remember to have all 5 potions with you at the time of battle. Buy bombs as well if you have extra cash. Level your character to 99 if you’re still having trouble.
- 1st wave: Juggle the lightweight enemies in the middle of the screen (A+X XYY, repeat until you feel like you're overkilling the enemies/X+S STT, repeat until you feel like you're overkilling the enemies). Take out Conehead with the Level 50 combo (XXXYY/SSSTT). Take out Fire Demon (A+X YY, repeat at X until maximum height/X+S TT, repeat at S until maximum height).
- 2nd wave: Spam magic in the middle of the screen. Avoid getting hit by the Brute even if it means getting hit by another enemy. Keep an eye on Snakey unless you're targeting him after killing Alien. Dodge the Brute as best as you can, even if it means aborting your juggles. Run through characters and dodge characters that are at the point of using their magic attacks.
- Take advantage of the enemies spawning: Doing this allows for an early juggle; especially during the first few seconds of the 2nd wave where all of the enemies aren't summoned just yet. Saracen and Alien are your best bets for starting the juggle. If extremely lucky, you can kill all of the lightweights and mediumweights without ever being interrupted by the Beefys in one single juggling session.
Screen positions to avoid
- Blindspots: It’s best to place yourself in positions in which you can see your character at all times. If you’re all the way at the bottom of the screen, a lot of times the skeletons in the background shield your vision of what’s going on. Not only will you not be able to see your character, but you won’t know where the enemies are as well. Getting hit unexpectedly is likely to happen.
- Corners: It’s a very natural reaction to want to maintain distance from enemies. And often times what happens is players often corner themselves doing so. There are eight possible directional patterns in which your character can move to dodge an enemy’s attack (up, down, left, right, and the four diagonal directions). By cornering yourself you eliminate three possible escape routes making your possibilities being 5/8 nearly ½ reduction. That’s not to say you should never corner yourself in absolute necessity, but you always want to leave that option available for emergency cases. Situations arise when moving forward to dodge will result in you getting hit, and it would be safer to simply back up.
- Sandwich: A sandwich position is when enemies are coming at you from both directions. If a situation arises in you getting hit by enemies from both ends, you’re likely to use potions much quicker than you’d like. For the most part, you can only attack enemies directly in front of you. Try to keep enemies on one end of the screen for as long as you possibly can. By the time you end up being in a sandwich position, it can serve as a good indicator to run to the opposite side of the screen.
Enemies to look out for
- Bomb Throwers: Conehead, Fencer, and Royal Guard.
- Snakey: Snakey can be very lethal to the player(s), as whenever he uses Dagger Toss or Vine Whip, it does just as much damage as the Beefy Brute does with his punch. Second, if holding the Snakey Staff in the Original versions of Castle Crashers, the Snakey can potentially Critical Strike the player and instantly kill them in the process if low enough.
- Beefys: Beefy Barbarian, Brute, and Bear can grab the player(s) regardless of height. Beefy Barbarian does the most negligible amount and is the Beefy that someone will most likely hope to get thrown by when simultaneously getting grabbed by say, the Brute. Killing the Beefy Bear lets the Snakey follow the Saracen/Royal Guard, making him marginally easier to take out (assist character). Note: Some of the Beefys can land Critical Strikes, like any other enemy.
- Brute: Brute is by far the most dangerous enemy to encounter in the Necromancer fight. He can grab the player(s) regardless of height, does the most damage in the fight (bar Snakey), can potentially Critical Strike in all versions of Castle Crashers, is very hard to "calm down" (turn into a assist character), is very fast (neutral character), and, once the Royal Guard goes down with the "Boss Slayer" method, the Brute will keep on chasing the player until the player dies or he dies.
- Depending on the order of the enemies, the Brute can change into an assist character very quickly. A good method to complete this task is as follows:
- Kill the Beefy Bear, Beefy Barbarian, Fire Demon, Iceskimo, and Snakey.
- Depending on the order of the enemies, the Brute can change into an assist character very quickly. A good method to complete this task is as follows:
- Alien: Alien is a very valuable target to take out. Once all the enemies are summoned, it is nearly impossible to flush out the Alien and kill it fast, due to the increased health it gets on Insane Mode. Once killing the Alien, the Beefy Bear will follow the Saracen/Royal Guard (assist character). Alien, himself, can knock the player(s) down, leaving them susceptible to getting sandwiched and combo'd faster.
- A good way to knock out the Alien is to gather momentum and wait for the Alien to spawn. As soon as the Alien spawns, take it near the right edge of the screen, in the middle area of the screen, and juggle it to death.
- Iceskimo: Although not very hard to avoid, the Iceskimo has a very high amount of health, just slightly lower than the Brute's health. If hit by the Iceskimo's Splash Attack, the player(s) will very likely get sandwiched and die if they don't escape the ice in time.
- Saracen: When juggling, the Saracen can use his Splash Attack at a certain height to interrupt the juggle and hit the player(s). Very first enemy to be summoned in the fight, so the Saracen will pursue the player(s) until he dies.
- Royal Guard: Once the Saracen dies, the Royal Guard will pursue the player(s) for the remainder of the fight until he dies. Does a fair amount of damage, especially with his Magic Jump, and is tricky to dodge. Recommended to save the Royal Guard, the Conehead, and the Beefy Brute for last to kill under many circumstances.
- Fire Demon: Minor annoyance, but certainly something to look out for.
Necromancer
Once Necromancer engages you in battle, his main attack will consist of hitting you with his sword up close or creating a wave of magic to hit you from a distance. He will occasionally throw a skeleton at you. Don't attack up close for longer than a few swipes of your sword, as Necromancer will strike you quickly and will deal considerable damage. His magic is quite weak though. For more detail, see the magic section.
He uses his shield to block any attacks that can juggle him. He uses the "shield slam" or "perfect block" technique, which means he puts up his shield right as the player sword was about to collide with him, this deals 1 damage and knocks the player back. When he is air-borne or frozen by magic, players can juggle him. He is not as light as a medium weight, but not as heavy as a heavy-weight; juggle him the same way you would juggle a Beefy. You can also throw the Necromancer by holding Y and aiming upwards to start juggling him. Another good idea is to bring up your shield when you are low on magic, then shoot projectiles at him when you recharge.
Time your projectiles to hit him the moment he gets up. Magic also has the additional power of actually being able to freeze, burn, poison, shock, and stun this boss. If playing a co-op game, when he lands get him in between you and just spam him with magic to prevent him from retaliating. Better yet, if both players have max agility, one can hold their shield and the other can attack him with arrows across the screen.
The Necromancer does not fall back when hit by an arrow, so you can spam it effectively. When he targets the other player(s), simply switch places in who's blocking and who's spamming arrows. If you knock him down, go over his body and use heavy attack to stomp on him while he is down, this is especially useful for multiplayer.
An experienced player can also make short work of Necromancer, as keeping him in the air eliminates his ability to fight back. A good player can also exploit the mentality of Necromancer acting like a regular enemy. This means you can stun the Necromancer with the Boomerang and peck at him with arrows while he's stunned and follow up with a Magic Jump. Or you can just use the Level 50 combo on him until he corners you at any end of the room, in which you simply relocate yourself between you and the Necromancer and repeat the process.
Animal Orbs to use
- Piggy: After slaying an enemy, the enemy drops exactly one fruit item. Piggy can increase the health gain from the item by 2x. This considerably makes Piggy one of the most invaluable pets to use during the fight for longevity.
- Snoot (Remastered): Snoot gives you +4 Strength. Combine this with the Gold Skull Mace or Man Catcher, and you potentially have a very quick Insane Mode Necromancer fight. Given, if you can react accordingly to the very fast moving threats and make them slow in time by killing assist characters.
- Zebra (Remastered): Zebra gives you +2 Magic and +2 Agility. The Magic gained from Zebra is a nice bonus if you play as say Red Knight to wipe out the enemies in the 2nd wave even more faster. The most important thing about using Zebra is the added Agility. The Agility is particularly useful since you cannot tank the enemies in the 1st or 2nd wave as they do too much damage and they will most likely kill you in 2-4 seconds; even when at Level 99 with max Defense and using the Evil Sword + Snailburt or Spiny. Agility makes you shoot arrows fast, which is useful for deterring the Royal Guard from hitting you for about ~2 seconds and spamming arrows when the moment arises. Mainly, you'll use the Agility bonus for dodging the enemies and using the momentum from running for a short while to start up a juggle.
- Hawkster: After slaying an enemy, in addition to the enemy dropping the fruit item, Hawkster will create another fruit item from the same fallen enemy. In any situation, Piggy is better in almost every single way because of his instant food restoration times two factor. Whereas Hawkster can heal for the same amount, except that he unreliably targets fallen enemies, which is very common during the fight from the bomb throwers. You can't afford to always get to Hawkster reliably, especially when the enemies can damage you before you can even benefit from the extra food item, barely giving you any health back. Not recommended if attempting to go for a No Potions run.
- BiPolar Bear: BiPolar Bear is a fantastic choice to use during the Necromancer fight. BiPolar Bear can maul severely weakened enemies to death and indicates overkill from the juggles, saving more time from killing, say, Alien. BiPolar Bear can also kill the Necromancer when lowered enough, which is a nice bonus. The only downside to using this pet is that the BiPolar Bear will kill you if you spectacularly remain with 11 health after running out of health potions, which in that case, don't let this happen to you.
- Scratchpaw (Remastered): Scratchpaw gives you +2 Strength and +2 Agility. A fairly decent pet to use during the fight. If you feel lazy and don't want to use Snoot or Zebra or Burly Bear, use this pet.
- Burly Bear (Remastered): Burly Bear gives you +3 Strength and +1 Defense. Like Snoot, Burly Bear works really well with weapons like the Man Catcher, but in addition to this, with Burly Bear, you can use weapons that provide a good amount of Strength and Defense, such as the Buffalo Mace, Dual Prong Sword, and Club. Used only as an alternative to Snoot, so whether or not if you want the Defense and flinch time reduction bonuses over raw damage, use this pet.
Magic
Splash Attack
"Skeletal Hands"Element: Non-Elemental
Max Hits: 1 per upgrade level (max 7)
Damage/Hit: Base Magic Damage x 0.5
Skeletal hands pop out of the ground in front of you, doing 1 hit. Each upgrade adds an extra hand segment, up to 7 segments. Unlike most splash attacks, this one is very weak against beefy enemies, bosses, and heavyweight regular enemies.Necromancer's splash attack is most similar to Sawblades. It moves forward at the same speed, and the sprite remains visible for three times longer than normal, like the Sawblades. The problem is that it only has seven hits, so even though the sprite is still visible, it doesn't hit enemies, who just walk straight through it, while in the same situations, sawblades would've knocked the enemy off their feet.
When cast, the damage dealt occurs at the same speed as the sawblades' splash attack when it has not been upgraded (only one sawblade). It just has one hit per segment, which is why the damage seems slow.
It may be considered similar to sawblades with less hits and less time spent actively damaging enemies while the sprite is visible. This attack comes out in front of you, and it doesn't come out at your sides or behind you, which eliminates the protection sawblades add while spamming. This, combined with the lack of time actively damaging enemies, seriously diminishes the crowd control value of this attack.
The one thing this attack has in common with sawblades besides staying out longer and their movement speed, is its ability to start a juggle. The best part is that you don't need to upgrade Magic in order to use it for this. That's good, because if you want to use this efficiently then you're going to want to add a lot of stats to Agility, so you can get into position, and keep up with any enemies you're juggling while in the air. Besides, adding to Magic and increasing the range would be useless for this tactic anyway, because then you'd hit the enemy while they're far away from you, and you wouldn't have enough reaction time to start the juggle, so it actually helps to not add to Magic, so you have an easier time catching the enemy in the juggle.Magic Projectile
"Kamikaze Skeleton"Element: Non-Elemental
Damage: Base Magic Damage
Sends a Skeleton running across the screen in a straight line. Explodes on contact with enemies or with the edge of the screen. The damage dealt is 59 at max, or 75 when buffed up with bonuses granted by weapons and/or animal orbs. It can be used as an alternative to bombs, as it doesn't have limited range on the ground and it's the fastest moving projectile in the game.Air Projectile
"Kamikaze Skeleton"Element: Non-Elemental
Damage: Base Magic Damage
Sends a Skeleton running across the screen in a straight line. Explodes on contact with enemies or with the edge of the screen. When this move is used in the air as an Air Projectile, unlike most projectile magic attacks, the skeleton continues to run rather than ending as soon as it comes in contact with the ground. However, when used as an Air Projectile, instead of being a straight attack, it goes through the air for a bit and then falls to the ground. The damage dealt is 59 at max, or 75 when buffed up with bonuses granted by weapons and/or animal orbs.
It can be used as an alternative to bombs, as it doesn't have limited range on the ground or air and it's the fastest moving projectile in the game.If you know how to use the Fly (Fastfall) Combo, you can spellweave Air Projectiles or if you also know how to use the Fly (Slowfall) Combo, you can again, spellweave Air Projectiles, but with potentially more space to spellweave.
Elemental Infusion
"Armor Pierce"Element: Non-Elemental
Damage: Base Magic Damage^2 + Base Melee Damage^2
Use 
/ 
to perform. This attack pierces armor, and it deals two times normal damage. That means it deals as much damage to a Barbarian or Thief on Normal Mode as it does to a Stove Face or Cult Minion on Insane Mode.
Magic Jump
"Skeletal Jump"Element: Non-Elemental
Damage: Base Magic Damage
Jumps using an exploding skeleton, which damages overlapping foes. This can make starting up the Fly (Slowfall) Combo a whole lot easier.
Gallery
Trivia
- If you know how to use the Fly (Fastfall) or Fly (Slowfall) or Hover (Fastfall) or Hover (Slowfall) Combo, then you can fly just like the Necromancer.
- During the battle with Necromancer, he has a shadow on the wall while flying. When he begins to revive the dead, his shadow won't change and will continue to move as if he is still flying in idle.
- Necromancer resurrects two bosses and nearly every unlockable character by the time you face him.
- Necromancer is a C Rank character (C).
- Even though as a NPC the Necromancer can fly, he will retract his wings when engaging the player(s) in battle. As a playable character, he will not have wings under any circumstance.
- However, the Necromancer's Back off Barbarian avatar has wings.
- On Insane Mode solo, the fight with the Necromancer is considered to be by far the hardest fight in the entire game; mainly due to the 2nd Wave of the fight.
- The Necromancer is the only playable boss in the entire game, not counting Bear Boss since Bear Boss's Splash Attack deals Lightning damage.
- Necromancer, Conehead, Fire Demon, Civilian, and Stove Face share the same exact Shield.
- Necromancer, Conehead, and Stove Face share the same body besides Beefy form.
- Necromancer, Conehead, and Stove Face even share the same exact character portrait background, player tag, and attack color, which is Red (#521036).
See also
- Playable Characters
- Character Tiers
- Weapons
- Weapon Tiers
- Evil Sword
- Conehead
- Stove Face
- Civilian
- Lava World
- Marsh
- Wizard Castle Takeoff
- Wizard Castle Interior
- Necromancer's Room