PTS Update 24 - Feedback Thread for Necromancer

Vercingetorix

Patch 5.2.0 - "Thanks for the Necro Money, Now F*** Off"

LiquidPony

Necromancer feedback:

1. These changes are almost universally awful.
2. I'm seeing roughly a 25-30% DPS nerf on my stamnecro builds.
3. Instead of doing something interesting like allowing other classes to compete in the meta by granting damage buffs/debuffs on their DPS ultis, of course you took the lazy way out and just nerfed Major Vulnerability. As if this debuff hasn't been obviously OP to anyone with half a brain for the past 5 months.
4. Boneyard was already a pretty poor skill, and did not need further nerfs or a cost increase.
5. The 50% nerf to the Skeletal Archer/Mage is ridiculous. Come on, 50%? For a brain-dead pet that spends half of its time attacking invulnerable or inconsequential targets anyway? Why can't I control what target it hits again?
6. Literally who cares if you nerfed Shocking Syphon. The skill doesn't work in actual gameplay anyway.
7. The "temporary" fix to take Syphon off the GCD so that people might actually be able to use it is just as ridiculous in practice as it looks on paper. It's incredibly clunky in a rotation and seems to behave very oddly. It seems something is up with ability queuing here because my character is casting the Syphon animation randomly when I didn't cast the skill.
8. Blastbones animations are still broken half the time. The skill still blacks out or just doesn't play the animation despite being cast.

Eniredir

As a guy who pre-purchased Elsweyr exclusively for the Necromancer class, I feel like I might as well had flush 70€ down the toilet. First a class filled with bugs and clunky animations, not fixed after three months of being live, and now they just nerf it to the ground, since they got the money they needed from this broken new class.

I ran away from LOTRO essencially because of problems like these, but this company is a disappointment even compared to them. What a mess.

InvictusApollo

Nerf to Collossus is a very bad idea. Even if I perfectly line up my totem behind an enemy to make him enter its range as it arms up, the Colossus Major Vulnerability will never hit him because he will roll dodge away. Even on live we are able to make Colossus hit only once. Once! We need that Major Vulnerability on the first hit, not the last.

As for Skeletal Mage it was useless before, got even more useless now.

I understand why dots and aoe dots are being nerfed. FOrtunately I haven't run an AOE dot build in PvP.


However here is what needs to be fixed!
Necromancer has ver, very, very little burst. Blastbones should behave like a projectile, not a mob that runs to enemy. Their damage should be buffed by distance to enemy, not by the time spent "pondering the meaning of it's existence".

Skander

Do you want all necromancer to be stamina?

Couse these patch notes make no *** sense

wheem_ESO

Zalathorm wrote: »

wheem_ESO wrote: »

Zalathorm wrote: »

What they have done is make stacking necros MORE NECCESSARY to get major vuln.

They achieved the OPPOSITE of adding variation. Instead of average guilds getting away with 2-3 necros, now they'll need more.

They needed to make mobs IMMUNE to major invuln for X seconds after it was used once. This way, you could only use 2-3 necros and adding more would not give you more uptime.

Here is what colossus should do:
- Applies major invuln on last hit, it lasts for 5 seconds, or 7 seconds, or whatever.
- Enemies afflicted with major invuln cannot be afflicted again for the next 10 seconds, or 15 seconds

The seconds of uptime vs immunity would balance eachother. Longer duration = longer immunity.

Your suggestion would leave the ultimate in a state of uselessness for PvP. It would be far better for either the Major Vulnerability to take effect on the first hit of the ultimate, or remove that debuff entirely and replace it with something else. I'm tired of the class being utter garbage in PvP just so it's not "too strong" in scripted PvE content.

I had already ditched the Colossus as an ultimate in PvP, mostly due to how easily it gets avoided in most cases - one dodge roll generally means that my 225 cost ultimate did 0 damage and applied 0 debuffs. The only class skills that are worthwhile for offense on the live servers are Blastbones and the Skeletal Mage, and the impending damage nerf for the Mage will remove it from that "list." And since Blastbones is so unreliable, it barely deserves a slot...if there were basically any other alternative for burst, Blastbones would also go on the trash heap.

Having the Major Vulnerability apply on the first Colossus hit would leave it at least quasi-useful, at least for premade groups with good coordination (and a cooldown on the debuff would be fine, IMO). But frankly, I'd rather it just be changed to something else, so that the ultimate could actually be more useful in PvP, while not encouraging "class stacking" in PvE.

You're right, I dont pvp. For the sake of PVP, how about major vuln on first hit for x seconds (5, 7, whatever they decide). The same target cannot receive it again for x seconds (10, 15, 20 however it balances with the duration).

We want colossus to be impactful, but not a full raid of necros to be impactful. Easy solution, extend the duration a bit and get rid of stacking.

Shifting the Major Vulnerability to the first tick, or better yet causing it to instantly apply to anyone in the area, even if they dodge roll out of it before taking any damage, would certainly be better for PvP than having it apply on the last damage tick. Still, it would have fairly limited value if you're not running with an organized group using voice comms.

Applying on the first tick would also help the ultimate slightly in PvE I suppose, since its own damage would benefit from the debuff, like it does on live. Having a cooldown on the Major Vulnerability would also discourage stacking one class as deep as possible for PvE, while not really impacting PvP in a negative way.

That said, I would personally rather they just remove the Major Vulnerability all together and change the ultimate to do something else (and hopefully not be so easy to avoid). I don't anticipate ZOS actually doing that any time soon, if ever, but having a few more useful class abilities on a Magicka build would be nice. PvP on Mag Necro feels like you're playing a Stam build and loading up on "generic" abilities, except that you're drastically less effective than those Stamina builds are.

katorga

Skander wrote: »

Do you want all necromancer to be stamina?

Couse these patch notes make no *** sense

2H/2H stamina no less. Bow is wrecked unless you want to slot a defending trait bow for expedition on roll dodge. DW is completely hosed up with its clunky "gap closer", and the upcoming nerfs. 1H got wrecked last patch.

Next patch, build for penetration and proc sets - and man those heals are going to be OP. So update 25 will be 50% nerfs and 20% cost increases to all heals.

phileunderx2

Took my magcro out and did some stuff. Am very dissatisfied.

wild_kmacdb16_ESO

So skeleton mage goes back to throwing water balloons at people in terms of damage? I was liking feeling at least a little like a necromancer.

Well at least there is blastbones that runs up and stares menacingly at your opponent before falling down on the ground, not exploding... and spirit healer that is usually more concerned about an ally that is out of range over it’s masters health, resulting in it not paying attention to you until you’re almost dead.

No source of brutality or sorcery when almost every other class got that this patch.
No execute.
Dumbest ‘pets’ in the game. .
Cumbersome abilities that barely function due to needing to wrestle with a corpse system that likes to troll players.


Necros shouldn’t get a bounty in town; they should get laughed at in their current iteration.

wheem_ESO

wild_kmacdb16_ESO wrote: »

So skeleton mage goes back to throwing water balloons at people in terms of damage? I was liking feeling at least a little like a necromancer.

Well at least there is blastbones that runs up and stares menacingly at your opponent before falling down on the ground, not exploding... and spirit healer that is usually more concerned about an ally that is out of range over it’s masters health, resulting in it not paying attention to you until you’re almost dead.

Necros shouldn’t get a bounty in town; they should get laughed at.

Not only is the damage apparently being nerfed down to less than what it was with the Elsweyr patch, it will still cost double what it did then.

Malyck

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Necromancer has ver, very, very little burst. Blastbones should behave like a projectile, not a mob that runs to enemy. Their damage should be buffed by distance to enemy, not by the time spent "pondering the meaning of it's existence".

I thought that I heard them say on the stream that they don't know how to fix BlastBones? That makes me feel like not investing any more time into this class until we can see some solid fixes for basic class skills that should have worked at the release of this class. Never mind the Stamcro dual wield/bow build being nerfed into the ground, we have basic class skills that still don't work!

RexyCat

Malyck wrote: »

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Necromancer has ver, very, very little burst. Blastbones should behave like a projectile, not a mob that runs to enemy. Their damage should be buffed by distance to enemy, not by the time spent "pondering the meaning of it's existence".

I thought that I heard them say on the stream that they don't know how to fix BlastBones? That makes me feel like not investing any more time into this class until we can see some solid fixes for basic class skills that should have worked at the release of this class. Never mind the Stamcro dual wield/bow build being nerfed into the ground, we have basic class skills that still don't work!

It is a bit funny when you think about it. We actually need to create corpses in rapid section to have access to selfbuffs or to be able to use skills like Tethering (Detonating Siphon). When our damage is going down it also make it impossible to both survive or do damage as both are depending on corpses (which vanish faster then you can even use Necropotence to buff up your ulti and get some heal from).

Necromancer lack any skill that can hit target from range, don't access from class skills to large enough CC (Ghostly Grasp is only on target for each patch which is three in total) and it is most useful for melee range.

Blastbone and Pestilent Colusses both can't be activated on PTS until I make mobs hostile, so they are useless as first attack to clear up mobs or hit a boss from range as a starter ability. My bow can't be used to move target in the small AoE line to even get hit by Detonating Siphons with only a slow from Draining Shot and a lot of mobs are more then one NPC running towards you so it is rather useless ability with cost increase.

I did watch ESO Live and how combat team explained how they thought about those changes, but they obvious never thought about Hawk Eye passive that interact with how far a target is and that knock back is part of that damage change or lack of when you change it into a slow instead.

To make it perfectly clear I talk about PvE where you have minibosses for some WB, large groups of NPC that you need to interrupt from distance and where you use mobility as part of medium armour to control and avoid heavy damage like during Dragon Fights in Elsweyr. Knock back in PvP is annoying, but shouldn't be used as an argument without taking into account how bow as a whole are supposed to work. For me the best change where that Draining Shot didn't need to stun to give a heal, which where a big problem when you fight WB that are immune against CC.

//RexyCat

Barbaran

Stamcro is waterd down stamsorc.
Usually compared to warden, but warden has projectile shields and stupid healing, so not even in the same category.

Stamsorc has speed and darkdeal
Stamcro has blastbones ( very unreliable), and a stupid little ghost for 10% mitigation and a tiny heal.
You killed Dswing with the loss of stun, so you killed both classes.
Spamming skulls isn't killing anyone unless you greatly increase dmg and fluidness to be on par with something like suprise attack.

#firegilliam

JamuThatsWho

After reading the PTS patch notes, I seriously have to wonder whether the combat team has ever actually played the game at all, ever.

I'd love my Magcro to use lots of nefarious dark magic, but it looks like I'm gonna be slotting mostly Destro skills since Skeletal, Blastbones, Boneyard and Siphon will be hitting like warm butter.

I've been looking forward to this class since launch, immediately rolled one during Elsweyr early access, and played him religiously every day since after retiring my MagDK. And now? I'm just... Tired. Tired and disappointed.

Drako_Ei

Why nerf Siphoning Shock? Fix it before nerfing it

OtarTheMad

I am probably going back to sorc or warden if all of this stays the way it is. Honestly, all of these changes (not just to this class) seem like a huge price to pay just because some stubborn players didn't want to slot Purge.

I'd said it before and I will say it again they need to put BB back to where it was in Elsweyr PTS because back then the only thing wrong with it was that the damage was bugged (pets were broken most of that pts) but no one listened and got it nerfed and now we have this pile of confused poo to throw at people.

TrinityFlint

JamuThatsWho wrote: »

I'd love my Magcro to use lots of nefarious dark magic, but it looks like I'm gonna be slotting mostly Destro skills since Skeletal, Blastbones, Boneyard and Siphon will be hitting like warm butter.

Right. And Stalking Blastbones is a 50/50 prospect. Still not working correctly.

Gahmerdohn

One thing I've noticed testing all my builds is that the Magicka sustain on a Mag necro TANK is getting very bad even when focussing full-on Magicka regen.

Update 23 was already pushing this active tanking style really dependen on using potion on cooldown, increasing, even more, the cost of spells is making that even when spamming potions we still run out of Magicka fast enough.

Boneyard is already, on live servers, the skill responsible for most of out Magicka drain as Tanks so now that it gains ~1k mag cost...

I understand that all the damaging aoes have to respect the same standards so maybe possible options could be reducing the cost of non-damaging abilities like:

- Bone Totem
-Spirit Mender

with a reduction in the cost of these two, it'd be fine

Cloudless

I love how they always open feedback threads, buttloads of people tell them how bad the changes are, but in the end they'll just ignore any feedback and still go for whatever the hell they want.

Royalthought

Drako_Ei wrote: »

Why nerf Siphoning Shock? Fix it before nerfing it

Agreed.

In fact get rid of the tether. Siphoning shock and mortal coil should, once activated, create two seperate aoe auras. One around the corpse and another aura around the player.

That way the class wont be punished by mobile fights, Los, etc..

satanio

1. Siphon and coil works almost ok on PTS. It works when casted at the same time with non-cast time skills (barbed trap, skeletal archer...) but bugs out when casted at the same time with taking aim or dizzying swing.
2. I see 20 to 30% nerf in my overall dps on stamina necro, which is about right if I compare it to other classes right now.
3. Collosus ulti could receive ulti cost reduction in exchange for its nerf. It is worse than agressive warhorn now in group scenario and worse than dawnbreaker(WD one) or ballista in single target scenario. Really look at the ulti and buff it somehow.
4. Ultis overall on necro are too expensive and not worth the cost.
5. If you are considering skeletal archer as a single target DOT, (because you nerfed it the same way), you may aswell consider that Bloodthirsty trait on jewellery is not affecting its dmg dealt.

Qbiken

The changes to colossus are very questionable. I´m not going to deny that necromancer (specifically stamina) was overperforming in PvE, but by making major vulnurability only afecting a target after being hit by all 3 smashes makes necro very limited for PvP. Here´s what I would like to see:

Similar to how PvE bosses has a cooldown on the off-balance debuff, I suggest ZOS adds a cooldown to how often a boss NPC can hafe major vulnurability on them. Make it so that a boss NPC can only be affected by major vulnurability once/10 seconds, but let each smash of the colossus apply the debuff as it is on live. This way you tune it down for PvE, but let necromancer keep some of it´s usefullness in PvP.

Zalathorm

satanio wrote: »

1. Siphon and coil works almost ok on PTS. It works when casted at the same time with non-cast time skills (barbed trap, skeletal archer...) but bugs out when casted at the same time with taking aim or dizzying swing.
2. I see 20 to 30% nerf in my overall dps on stamina necro, which is about right if I compare it to other classes right now.
3. Collosus ulti could receive ulti cost reduction in exchange for its nerf. It is worse than agressive warhorn now in group scenario and worse than dawnbreaker(WD one) or ballista in single target scenario. Really look at the ulti and buff it somehow.
4. Ultis overall on necro are too expensive and not worth the cost.
5. If you are considering skeletal archer as a single target DOT, (because you nerfed it the same way), you may aswell consider that Bloodthirsty trait on jewellery is not affecting its dmg dealt.

Explain how colossus ulti (30% increased damage for 3 seconds raid wide) is worse than dawnbreaker... Even nerfed, you can still stack stamcros for a huge dps boost in a raid

Zalathorm

Qbiken wrote: »

The changes to colossus are very questionable. I´m not going to deny that necromancer (specifically stamina) was overperforming in PvE, but by making major vulnurability only afecting a target after being hit by all 3 smashes makes necro very limited for PvP. Here´s what I would like to see:

Similar to how PvE bosses has a cooldown on the off-balance debuff, I suggest ZOS adds a cooldown to how often a boss NPC can hafe major vulnurability on them. Make it so that a boss NPC can only be affected by major vulnurability once/10 seconds, but let each smash of the colossus apply the debuff as it is on live. This way you tune it down for PvE, but let necromancer keep some of it´s usefullness in PvP.

Yes, they need to fix stacking the ability, not nerf the ability itself by its duration.

It's probably still optimal to stack 8 necros for colossus even with it lasting 3 seconds. Make major vuln last 5 seconds, and mobs are immune for the next 20s. Boom, you just fixed the class diversity problem by making it pointless to have more than 2 necros in a raid.

satanio

Zalathorm wrote: »

Explain how colossus ulti (30% increased damage for 3 seconds raid wide) is worse than dawnbreaker... Even nerfed, you can still stack stamcros for a huge dps boost in a raid

You mean this?

satanio wrote: »

3.... worse than agressive warhorn now in group scenario and worse than dawnbreaker(WD one) or ballista in single target scenario.

I wanted to say that dawnbreaker and ballista are better for solo single target. And in group scenario, Warhorn with 10 sec of Major Force is better.
Let's say group dps now on live is 430k. Dmg on PTS is nerfed by 20 - 30%, so let's assume it will be around 350k. Our combat window is 10 sec. First we try how one cast of Major Force(lasts 10 second) would be during those 10 sec. Roughly 65% of the dps comes from crits ~ that's 227k. We apply major force, that's 261k dps + 123k(non-crit) dps = 384k dps, times 10 - to get overall damage done throughout our combat window = 3840k damage.
Now let's see how one cast of Colossus performs in our window. 350k dps, for 3 sec. we got dps increased by 30% and that's it.
350k*1,3*3 + 350k*7 = 1365 + 2450 = 3815k damage.

So wouldn't be better to stack Warhorns for max Major force uptime?

MehrunesFlagon

Zalathorm wrote: »

satanio wrote: »

1. Siphon and coil works almost ok on PTS. It works when casted at the same time with non-cast time skills (barbed trap, skeletal archer...) but bugs out when casted at the same time with taking aim or dizzying swing.
2. I see 20 to 30% nerf in my overall dps on stamina necro, which is about right if I compare it to other classes right now.
3. Collosus ulti could receive ulti cost reduction in exchange for its nerf. It is worse than agressive warhorn now in group scenario and worse than dawnbreaker(WD one) or ballista in single target scenario. Really look at the ulti and buff it somehow.
4. Ultis overall on necro are too expensive and not worth the cost.
5. If you are considering skeletal archer as a single target DOT, (because you nerfed it the same way), you may aswell consider that Bloodthirsty trait on jewellery is not affecting its dmg dealt.

Explain how colossus ulti (30% increased damage for 3 seconds raid wide) is worse than dawnbreaker... Even nerfed, you can still stack stamcros for a huge dps boost in a raid

That is implying that they sll don't just dump it at the same time.

wheem_ESO

Zalathorm wrote: »

satanio wrote: »

1. Siphon and coil works almost ok on PTS. It works when casted at the same time with non-cast time skills (barbed trap, skeletal archer...) but bugs out when casted at the same time with taking aim or dizzying swing.
2. I see 20 to 30% nerf in my overall dps on stamina necro, which is about right if I compare it to other classes right now.
3. Collosus ulti could receive ulti cost reduction in exchange for its nerf. It is worse than agressive warhorn now in group scenario and worse than dawnbreaker(WD one) or ballista in single target scenario. Really look at the ulti and buff it somehow.
4. Ultis overall on necro are too expensive and not worth the cost.
5. If you are considering skeletal archer as a single target DOT, (because you nerfed it the same way), you may aswell consider that Bloodthirsty trait on jewellery is not affecting its dmg dealt.

Explain how colossus ulti (30% increased damage for 3 seconds raid wide) is worse than dawnbreaker... Even nerfed, you can still stack stamcros for a huge dps boost in a raid

In PvP it's worse than Dawnbreaker because it frequently gets hardcountered by a single dodge roll. Spending 225 Ultimate to do 0 damage and get 0 seconds of Major Vulnerability stinks. By limiting the Major Vulnerability to only the last tick of damage, ZOS is basically ensuring that the debuff never applies in PvP. Opponents won't even need to dodge roll, just eat the damage for a tick or two while casually walking out of the AOE.

Given the Colossus' damage-to-cost ratio in PvP, and how telegraphed and easy to avoid it is, it'll immediately go to the trash heap if the current PTS version makes it to live. Getting maybe 1 tick of damage and no debuff just won't be worth it at all.

Like I said before, I think it'd probably be best if Major Vulnerability was just removed all together, and ZOS did something else with the Ultimate. Make it actually useful in PvP while simultaneously encouraging more class diversification in PvE.

SFDB

Starting in update 24, if you summon a Skeletal Mage in town, you will be branded a criminal and be given a fine. Because they don't want you trying to defend their town with powers that have been nerfed into uselessness.

Use only the best abilities, it's not just a good idea, it's the law!

John_Falstaff

satanio wrote: »

Zalathorm wrote: »

Explain how colossus ulti (30% increased damage for 3 seconds raid wide) is worse than dawnbreaker... Even nerfed, you can still stack stamcros for a huge dps boost in a raid

You mean this?

satanio wrote: »

3.... worse than agressive warhorn now in group scenario and worse than dawnbreaker(WD one) or ballista in single target scenario.

I wanted to say that dawnbreaker and ballista are better for solo single target. And in group scenario, Warhorn with 10 sec of Major Force is better.
Let's say group dps now on live is 430k. Dmg on PTS is nerfed by 20 - 30%, so let's assume it will be around 350k. Our combat window is 10 sec. First we try how one cast of Major Force(lasts 10 second) would be during those 10 sec. Roughly 65% of the dps comes from crits ~ that's 227k. We apply major force, that's 261k dps + 123k(non-crit) dps = 384k dps, times 10 - to get overall damage done throughout our combat window = 3840k damage.
Now let's see how one cast of Colossus performs in our window. 350k dps, for 3 sec. we got dps increased by 30% and that's it.
350k*1,3*3 + 350k*7 = 1365 + 2450 = 3815k damage.

So wouldn't be better to stack Warhorns for max Major force uptime?

For one, warhorn rotation is already something that is being done in a raid, so the answer to what is better is 'both'. For another, the issue of Colossus is that you add two or three more necros, and get 100% Major Vulnerability uptime in that combat window - and the warhorn in the calculations above is blown right out of the water.

OtarTheMad

They need to spice up the Arcanist/Archer a bit, make it worth while to slot. Idk, maybe add Major or Minor Sorcery/Brutality to them. It's a little messed up that most of the damage abilities for necro are useless or don't work.