As we made our way down to the first open area of the dungeon, we were immediately beset upon by some elite mobs (Drowned Ones), only there was no way of telling they were elite apart from them well and truly kicking our asses on the first go. Thankfully, our guide, Jørgen Djuve, was playing the healer, a Cimmerian Bear Shaman, and he did a very good job in keeping us all alive and resurrecting us quickly if, no, when, we were defeated. Everyone was coming from different games being played beforehand, so the fundamentals to group play were there at least: tanks in first, melee DPS in next, ranged DPS to hang back a bit, and healers and pet classes at the back. These were tactics that got us through, barely, but very soon we discovered these team roles were somewhat malleable. For example, the Bear Shaman has melee combos that increases the effectiveness of their buffs and heals, so the Priest archetype in 'Age of Conan' in general is not the Priest archetype you might be familiar with in other MMOs. I have to admit it was pretty cool to see a Priest class in there with the Guardian, Dark Templar, Conqueror, Assassin, and Barbarian. 'Age of Conan' will certainly encourage those preferred to playing Priest/healing classes to think outside the box and not pigeon-hole themselves simply as a "healer class". From what I saw, a Bear Shaman or Priest of Mitra could be as deadly as any melee or ranged class as long as the player knows what they are doing.
Eventually we got our collective groove on and we able to take down these elite mobs within about 30 seconds, but like any dungeon raid in any other game, we still had to be careful not to pull too much agro; the Guardian is able to tank only so much (and these are elite mobs we're talking about), and the healer classes could only do so much healing. Having said that, however, it was very cool to see the cone heals in-play. A Priest class will have to place themselves so that everyone is caught in the cone for efficient team healing, and this is going to require some solid communication and organization within the team, not so much with PvE in general, but certainly with dungeon raids. I believe the Priest classes will have one or two PBAoE heals and "insta-heals" for emergencies available to them in case the situation goes somewhat awry.
The Necromancer itself plays very well, and as someone that is not usually accustomed to playing caster/pet classes, I found this class especially fun to play especially within a team-based environment. I wish I could comment on how well the Necromancer does in a solo situation, but we weren't given that opportunity, unfortunately.
In the group situation, I felt quite comfortable sitting back and firing off my spells, although I did find myself eating the dirt (dying) quite a bit because I would fire off every single one of the attacking spells on my hotbar at an opponent as well as having my pets on assist attacking the same target. This would bump-up my DPS and as a result draw more agro; enough to make even the Guardian lose its hold on the opponent. Now, this could have been the complete fault of the person who was playing the Guardian, because one thing we do know about the Guardian is that they have an inherent ability in their combos that increases the hate towards them when they use their attacks on the opponent. Some classes, like the Assassin and Ranger, have combos that have the opposite effect, i.e. hate/aggro reduction. With all my spell-casting and my pets giving the opponent so much love, I quite often got the attention, hence the eating of dirt. So as I was resurrected (again) I limited myself to using three ranged spells (decent DPS and secondary effects), and saving my more powerful spells like my AoE for more dangerous situations.
