Necro ability tweaks/changes

robpr

Yes, its another thread about Necro, but before you go - this thread is aimed mostly at PvE and should not affect PvP much, but if something seem to be broken in PvP please comment so I can adjust.

Personal pain points:
-Not much fitting the theme of Necromancer from other games (fits the theme of Necro in TES games: controlling one undead at the time)
-Rotations rely on Blastbones and feel really clunky if BB for some reason can't reach the target. Can't recast BB to unstuck current BB, unlike Shalks.
-AoE skills typically consume all corpses in target area and sometimes you don't have any corpse to use for other skills.
-Skull animation is clunky and difficult to weave properly (uses the same animation as Overload that has the same problem)
-No class Major Sorcery/Brutality or Prophecy/Savagery (similar to Templar, but got finally in stamina Jabs)
-Archer and Ghost both have wonky AI and require babysitting

Proposed changes:
GRAVE LORD:
1. Skull: skill is fine on its own, just speed up the animation, even just by 0.1s. Both Venom and Ricochet skull could force apply its status effects (to get a boost from Rapid Rot)
2. Blastbones - Summon skeleton: Probably biggest change of the combat flow - base skill summons a skelly warrior that chases and melees the target, sort of NB shade.
Blighted Blastbones - Summon skeleton army: summons 3 skellies instead of 1. Every 5s skellies do a heavy attack that snares and apply Major Defile.
Stalking Blastbones: same as it is, so people could use their old rotation if they like it. (Yes, the same functionality as they are live)
3. Boneyard: Another big change to combat fighting for corpse between skills. No longer consumes corpse to deal more damage - creates the corpse every 5s. This change solves two things: inability to have tethers exactly where you want and having more corpses for other skills.
Avid Boneyard: Creates a corpse every 3s, self-synergy stays
Unnerving Boneyard: Bumps duration to 20s
4. Skeletal mage: While slotted on any bar, provides Major Prophecy/Savagery while active
5. Siphon: fine as it is, paired with Graveyard change, just tweak the aiming radius so it wont take the Archer/Mage corpse that is on your side instead corpses in the front
6. Collosus: fine as it is, though I would like the visual to be changed to bone dragon like on concept arts instead of vision blocking fleshy boi.

BONE TYRANT:
1. Scythe: base skill is fine
Ruinous Scythe: healing is fixed value, but does increased damage. Gives potent class melee spammable option for the skull.
Hungry Scythe: fine as it is
2. Bone Armor: base skill is fine
Summoner's Armor: no longer reduces cost of summons (I feel Reusable Parts does that enough), gives Major Sorcery and Brutality instead
Beckoning Armor: fine as it is
3. Bitter Harvest: fine as it is
Deaden Pain: Increase healing and duration, but Major Protection is provided while slotted instead. Back when Major Protection was pretty rare, this morph was useful, but not so now. With this change, you could use it instead Revealing Flare on the bar while still having benefits of slotting Bone Tyrant skill and ult gen.
Necrotic Potency: fine as it is
4. Bone totem: base skill have no changes
Agony totem: applies Minor Vulnerability each pulse instead of the synergy. 3 players can synergy instead of one.
Remote totem - Death Totem: increase radius, can be placed remotely, no longer stuns. Your summons deal increased damage or healing when walking through the field (like current Empowering Grasp). Your Skeleton and Skeleton Army get a speed boost.
5. Grave grasp: all fields immobilize
Empowering grasp: all fields immobilize. Allies hit get unique 10% LA damage on top of Empower
Ghostly embrace: all fields stun (use the skeletal hand animation that for example Oraneth in EH1 uses)
6. Bone Collosus: skill is fine for its entirety, maybe increase the duration for a tiny bit, I don't know, 5s?

LIVING DEATH:
1. Render Flesh: fine as it is
Blood Sacrifice: I have mixed feelings about this, this could for example split the cost into health and magicka to heal two targets instead of using the corpse, but at the same time it can interfere with Corpse Consumption passive. Maybe just leave it as it is.
Resistant Flesh: fine as it is
2. Expunge: fine as it is
Expunge and Modify: purges yourself and one additional ally in front of you. All additional effects stay.
Hexproof: fine as it is
3. Life amid Death: skill is fine in its entirety.
4. Spirit Mender: base skill is fine. Skill focuses healing on the caster
Intensive Mender: no longer heal twice as much, just twice as often (every 1s) and no longer decreases duration.
Spirit Guardian: increase its health and let it also heal itself when healing the player.
5. Restoring Tether: increase width of the tether a bit
Braided Tether and Mortal Coil: fine as it is
6. Reanimate: base skill is fine
Reanimate Blastbones: animates blastbones, but also refunds some of the ult back when they do damage
Renewing Animation: fine as it is

Did not touch the passives because I think they are fine for the most part.

Please comment your opinions on this

OsUfi

Another necro thread, another list of changes I don't really care for. I love the necro the way it is.

CameraBeardThePirate

"These changes shouldn't affect PvP that much".

Proceeds to delete Necro from PvP by removing their delayed burst (Blastbones).

For the last time, stop requesting that blastbones be turned into another useless pet. There's already a "minion" pet in Necro's toolkit - a rather bad one at that. People should be asking for Archer/Mage to be buffed if they want a minion skill. Start by reverting the stealth nerf that gutted its damage by 50%. Make the skill summon 2 minions, idk make it more interesting, but leave blastbones alone.

Changing blastbones to another pet like that would completely and utterly kill the class in PvP. It needs to be a burst ability in order for the class to function in PvP.

PrinceShroob

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Changing blastbones to another pet like that would completely and utterly kill the class in PvP. It needs to be a burst ability in order for the class to function in PvP.

Would it be acceptable if the Blastbones gained an addendum such as "If this skill is recast after 2.5 seconds, the Blastbones explodes where it is and a new Blastbones is summoned"?

I find wrangling the Blastbones to be annoying and if it could be recast without waiting the entire 7 seconds it'd be far easier to use. But since it does so much damage, it can't simply explode whenever it's recast.

***

In general I feel like Necromancer's major problems are its clunky gameplay due to Blastbones needing to hit confirm and several dud skills due to things like the Empower change dropping Grave Grasp out of the meta entirely. I think making Blastbones function more smoothly and adding Major Sorcery and Brutality to the class' kit would got a long way to making me play the class more (Major Sorcery and Brutality on Summon Skeletal Mage and morphs is fine; ideally, I'd love a rework of Grave Grasp into, say, a skill that passively buffs pet damage while granting Major Sorcery and Brutality). Some extra self healing would also be nice, though Death Scythe actually isn't bad if you treat it like a Heal over Time in PvE.

Some people have asked that Death Scythe be turned into an execute; I think that's a bit redundant since Necromancer already has an execute passive in Death Knell, but also, please remember that Hungry Scythe is Necromancer tank's heal.

OtarTheMad

The only thing I’d love to see added to Blastbones is a DoT to enemies hit. That’s about it.

Yeah it’s pathing can be horrible and it still stands there lost a lot but when it works it’s good.

Edit- I also want to say that we need to get away from the idea that adding Major Brutality/Sorcery is doing anything. We already have that as Necro’s in other skill lines, it gives us nothing. Improve the skills or maybe give necro the minor version of that buff, that would be unique.

robpr

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

"These changes shouldn't affect PvP that much".

Proceeds to delete Necro from PvP by removing their delayed burst (Blastbones).

I left magicka BB the same as they are now. Stamina BB barely anyone use, so I turned them into rotation friendly pets, that's it. Edited to clarify.

CameraBeardThePirate

PrinceShroob wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Changing blastbones to another pet like that would completely and utterly kill the class in PvP. It needs to be a burst ability in order for the class to function in PvP.

Would it be acceptable if the Blastbones gained an addendum such as "If this skill is recast after 2.5 seconds, the Blastbones explodes where it is and a new Blastbones is summoned"?

No - the reason why that still wouldn't work is because you'd have to waste a global to detonate it.

Delayed Burst abilities work because they explode/deal damage without having to use a global in that moment. Since they're delayed, they allow you to line up other skills/abilities with it so that all the damage hits at the same time.

If you had to recast the ability to detonate it, you'd no longer be able to line up an ultimate with the detonation.

CameraBeardThePirate

robpr wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

"These changes shouldn't affect PvP that much".

Proceeds to delete Necro from PvP by removing their delayed burst (Blastbones).

I left magicka BB the same as they are now. Stamina BB barely anyone use, so I turned them into rotation friendly pets, that's it. Edited to clarify.

Stamina Blastbones has Major Defile - a debuff only used in PvP. Don't change either morph. They don't need to be another pet that does middling damage when they're already great abilities.

CameraBeardThePirate

OtarTheMad wrote: »

The only thing I’d love to see added to Blastbones is a DoT to enemies hit. That’s about it.

Yeah it’s pathing can be horrible and it still stands there lost a lot but when it works it’s good.

Edit- I also want to say that we need to get away from the idea that adding Major Brutality/Sorcery is doing anything. We already have that as Necro’s in other skill lines, it gives us nothing. Improve the skills or maybe give necro the minor version of that buff, that would be unique.

Saying that major sorcery/brutality wouldn't do anything is categorically false. If it were added to a passive or an already commonly used Necro ability, you'd have more bar space for other abilities. More bar space is always good, and claiming otherwise is silly.

OtarTheMad

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

The only thing I’d love to see added to Blastbones is a DoT to enemies hit. That’s about it.

Yeah it’s pathing can be horrible and it still stands there lost a lot but when it works it’s good.

Edit- I also want to say that we need to get away from the idea that adding Major Brutality/Sorcery is doing anything. We already have that as Necro’s in other skill lines, it gives us nothing. Improve the skills or maybe give necro the minor version of that buff, that would be unique.

Saying that major sorcery/brutality wouldn't do anything is categorically false. If it were added to a passive or an already commonly used Necro ability, you'd have more bar space for other abilities. More bar space is always good, and claiming otherwise is silly.

What other abilities? LoL. Necro ones? Pass. Skeletal sucks, graveyard is PvE only pretty much, tether sucks, skulls is too slow, fear totem is still busted right? Scythe is more of a tank heal or public dungeon trash mob sweeper. Wraith heal is meh now (I replaced that with deaden pain). A lot of these are really PvE only since NPC’s are dumb, PvP is a different monster though.

They have to make some of these abilities better to make them worth slotting otherwise necro will get no real changes. I’ll even go as far as to say if ZOS did give necro this buff you’ll have people on the forums and in game after going “why does my necro still suck, they got sorcery now.” Why in the world would I slot any of those just because they got that buff? The ability still sucks. Let’s say they put it on deaden pain, well I’d probably still have the same bars because that ability is more defensive and I’d be losing an offensive slot to it which hurts dps.

Entropy sucks as an ability unfortunately but at least I can control who it goes on so my damage is more focused and controlled.

If necro was to get any of the brutality/sorcery buffs I’d say let’s have the Minor version because no one really has that besides Templar and it would increase our damage since we can combo it with Major.

CameraBeardThePirate

OtarTheMad wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

The only thing I’d love to see added to Blastbones is a DoT to enemies hit. That’s about it.

Yeah it’s pathing can be horrible and it still stands there lost a lot but when it works it’s good.

Edit- I also want to say that we need to get away from the idea that adding Major Brutality/Sorcery is doing anything. We already have that as Necro’s in other skill lines, it gives us nothing. Improve the skills or maybe give necro the minor version of that buff, that would be unique.

Saying that major sorcery/brutality wouldn't do anything is categorically false. If it were added to a passive or an already commonly used Necro ability, you'd have more bar space for other abilities. More bar space is always good, and claiming otherwise is silly.

What other abilities? LoL. Necro ones? Pass. Skeletal sucks, graveyard is PvE only pretty much, tether sucks, skulls is too slow, fear totem is still busted right? Scythe is more of a tank heal or public dungeon trash mob sweeper. Wraith heal is meh now (I replaced that with deaden pain). A lot of these are really PvE only since NPC’s are dumb, PvP is a different monster though.

They have to make some of these abilities better to make them worth slotting otherwise necro will get no real changes. I’ll even go as far as to say if ZOS did give necro this buff you’ll have people on the forums and in game after going “why does my necro still suck, they got sorcery now.” Why in the world would I slot any of those just because they got that buff? The ability still sucks. Let’s say they put it on deaden pain, well I’d probably still have the same bars because that ability is more defensive and I’d be losing an offensive slot to it which hurts dps.

Entropy sucks as an ability unfortunately but at least I can control who it goes on so my damage is more focused and controlled.

If necro was to get any of the brutality/sorcery buffs I’d say let’s have the Minor version because no one really has that besides Templar and it would increase our damage since we can combo it with Major.

There are far more abilities that you could slot in place of a spell damage buff outside of the class line. Breach, any arena set skill, utility like flare or inner light or camo hunter, or literally anything else you want.

OtarTheMad

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

The only thing I’d love to see added to Blastbones is a DoT to enemies hit. That’s about it.

Yeah it’s pathing can be horrible and it still stands there lost a lot but when it works it’s good.

Edit- I also want to say that we need to get away from the idea that adding Major Brutality/Sorcery is doing anything. We already have that as Necro’s in other skill lines, it gives us nothing. Improve the skills or maybe give necro the minor version of that buff, that would be unique.

Saying that major sorcery/brutality wouldn't do anything is categorically false. If it were added to a passive or an already commonly used Necro ability, you'd have more bar space for other abilities. More bar space is always good, and claiming otherwise is silly.

What other abilities? LoL. Necro ones? Pass. Skeletal sucks, graveyard is PvE only pretty much, tether sucks, skulls is too slow, fear totem is still busted right? Scythe is more of a tank heal or public dungeon trash mob sweeper. Wraith heal is meh now (I replaced that with deaden pain). A lot of these are really PvE only since NPC’s are dumb, PvP is a different monster though.

They have to make some of these abilities better to make them worth slotting otherwise necro will get no real changes. I’ll even go as far as to say if ZOS did give necro this buff you’ll have people on the forums and in game after going “why does my necro still suck, they got sorcery now.” Why in the world would I slot any of those just because they got that buff? The ability still sucks. Let’s say they put it on deaden pain, well I’d probably still have the same bars because that ability is more defensive and I’d be losing an offensive slot to it which hurts dps.

Entropy sucks as an ability unfortunately but at least I can control who it goes on so my damage is more focused and controlled.

If necro was to get any of the brutality/sorcery buffs I’d say let’s have the Minor version because no one really has that besides Templar and it would increase our damage since we can combo it with Major.

There are far more abilities that you could slot in place of a spell damage buff outside of the class line. Breach, any arena set skill, utility like flare or inner light or camo hunter, or literally anything else you want.

But I have those on my bar already, I have different bars for different situations and those skills are on at least one of them. Same thing with potions, I use different potions for different situations so I am never pigeonholed into one for all types.

Plus, that’s the issue, I feel like it’s a necessity to slot these over class skills because class skills are weak. It should be a choice. Every other class I play I sometimes struggle because I want a skill on my bar but it does not fit, that’s not an issue with necro. Since a lot of the class skills are blah, I have plenty of room.

PrinceShroob

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

PrinceShroob wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Changing blastbones to another pet like that would completely and utterly kill the class in PvP. It needs to be a burst ability in order for the class to function in PvP.

Would it be acceptable if the Blastbones gained an addendum such as "If this skill is recast after 2.5 seconds, the Blastbones explodes where it is and a new Blastbones is summoned"?

No - the reason why that still wouldn't work is because you'd have to waste a global to detonate it.

Not what I meant at all. It would still pursue its target and explode as usual. However, after 2.5 seconds (the time period after which the Blastbones normally leaps at its target), recasting the skill detonates the existing Blastbones where it is and summons a new Blastbones, which similarly pursues its target and explodes and can be detonated after 2.5 seconds.

The intention is to allow you to explode your current Blastbones if it gets lost without having to wait the entire 7 seconds for it to despawn, and to streamline rotations by not requiring that the Blastbones reach its target before using the skill again.

CameraBeardThePirate

PrinceShroob wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

PrinceShroob wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Changing blastbones to another pet like that would completely and utterly kill the class in PvP. It needs to be a burst ability in order for the class to function in PvP.

Would it be acceptable if the Blastbones gained an addendum such as "If this skill is recast after 2.5 seconds, the Blastbones explodes where it is and a new Blastbones is summoned"?

No - the reason why that still wouldn't work is because you'd have to waste a global to detonate it.

Not what I meant at all. It would still pursue its target and explode as usual. However, after 2.5 seconds (the time period after which the Blastbones normally leaps at its target), recasting the skill detonates the existing Blastbones where it is and summons a new Blastbones, which similarly pursues its target and explodes and can be detonated after 2.5 seconds.

The intention is to allow you to explode your current Blastbones if it gets lost without having to wait the entire 7 seconds for it to despawn, and to streamline rotations by not requiring that the Blastbones reach its target before using the skill again.

Yes, this would be a good change. Sorry for misunderstanding.

Elyu

Will just quote myself from another thread and see if it adds anything to the discussion on this thread:

Elyu wrote: »

Yes to the sentiment.

Necro pets are proof there needs to be a clear distinction between temp pets, perma pets, and "skills that look like pets but aren't".
Colossus ulti isn't a pet, blastbones is, mage/archer is but why does it have a duration and isn't permanent like sorc pets?

Colussus ulti should be brought in line with sorc atro - a short summon, pet appears, deals damage, disappears. This would make it buff-able by pet sets buffs, and less OP for pvp as it has less burst potential.

Blastbones should be affected by pet buffs, but shouldn't be a summon, it should function like the warden shalk skill - you hit the button, an animation plays where it appears and leaps at the target you were targeting when you hit the skill, and it's travel time should be the same speed as the skull spammable currently is.
Then it should leave a corpse at it's death location

Siphon should be a ground cast skill that attaches to whichever corpse you target when you cast it. So - cast blastbones, leave a corpse at target location, cast siphon, have a reliable ground based AoE DoT at a chosen location.

Skull spammable should, from baseline skill, be an AoE attack (single target skill, you shoot it, deals small AoE dmg around enemy when it hits). Magicka morph deals increased dmg based on number of enemies hit, stamina morph should deal increased single target and / or apply a disease DoT.
Also travel speed should be greatly increased (say to match NB class spammable for spammability)

Or alternatively, go back to the inspiration for the original stam/mag split between classes and give stam/mag necros distinct identities (as I have suggested in my previous threads on the topic of class identity https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/642544/class-identity)
For example - mag necro works with spirit summons (e.g. ghosts etc) and use all 3 magic-element types for their dmg, while stam necros use physical summons (skeletons, flesh atros etc) and deal disease dmg.