Necro mage with spellweaving

Hi, returning player trying to sort all my characters out. My mage atm is 

Magery 
Evaluate Int 
Meditation 
Necromancy
Spirit Speak 
Spellweaving 
Resist Spells

I'm finding on my server getting a arcane crystal is near impossible (I don't want to make a second account) making weaving a bit of a waste.
Loving command undead, would be great to be able to stable them somehow though. 

I'm thinking of ditching spellweaving and taking either anatomy for defence to stop me getting beaten up while aoe wither, or poisoning. Any thoughts please 

Mystic mage far stronger 

If you have the spellweaving mastery active,you can generate an arcane focus without anyone else standing in the circle with you.  Unfortunately, it will only be focus of 3.  That’s much better than a 0, but not nearly as good as a six for word of death spell.

I've tried very hard to actually kill things with necro spells.  You actually see damage to difficult mobs with necro spells?   The best I could come up with is corpse skin and use fire damage. 

Wither good for tot in some dungeon and for champ spawns but it's short range sucks realistically if not for vampiric embrace and wraith form it would seldom be used

This is my favorite mage:

Spellweaving 120
spirit speak 120
eval 120
mage 100
necro 100
heal 100
anat 100

I stick with the Spellweaving mastery for Mana Shield and Summon Reaper. Attune weapon, WoD, and the heal over time spell I use a lot.

This template is hard to gear because you need to dump int and pump dex for bandages, and you wear non-med gear for over capped LMC. You sustain mana entirely with wraith form. It can be frustrating not having resisting spells.

It would be interesting to go the necro mastery route instead of having spellweaving:

Necro 120
Spirit 120
Eval 120
Mage 100
Heal 100
Anat 100
Poisoning 100 or med or inscription or parry

I took the above necro mastery template to TC and enjoyed it conceptually, though I could only really practice on lower level stuff.

I find the process of procuring skeletal dragons to be more annoying than getting a full focus while on the spellweaving mastery. Additionally, I've seen quite a few complaints on their pathing and AI since they do not behave like bonded pets. Keeping to wraith form makes things better since you are not moving at mounted speed.

I intend to try this template out at the next event. I foresee the skeletal dragons dying quickly and leaving the mastery feeling useless relative to spellweaving which offers so much. I've been pondering what it would look like to take veterinary for keeping the dragons alive while you wither.

Necro 120
Spirit 120
Eval 120
Vet 100
Mage 100

Hiding 100 and stealth 80 for something different?
Poisoning 100 and rest in med?
Resist 120 and rest in med?
Heal + Anat for something more complicated and defensive wrestling?

In general, though, necro does seem less popular in PVM because the spells don't work with slayers. The curses are probably more useful in PVP. I personally struggle to target things in UO and find wither fun to use.

Don't think you can heal them with vet?

Pretty sure they do. I think you can use vet on most non-evil controllable pets, even elementals. I was going to double check, but the skeletal dragon was a paragon, and I didn’t have the patience to kill it (another annoyance of the necro mastery). At a certain point, why not just make a tamer? :P

So all I have seen that necromancy can do is spam whither over and over, which does not synergize with corpse skin.

240 points could go towards something more beneficial.