Stalking Blastbones is Necro's BEST damage ability. Please reconsider the change.

AScarlato · January 29

sh4d0wh4z3 wrote: »

This skill idea is bad. It completely kills off Magrco and Necro in general. I get they want to make the class more accessible, but this seems like just tossing darts at random ideas on a wall instead of actually trying to fix the class. Necros are already weak, this nerfed them even further.

Honestly this was the only skill that I felt was pretty satisfying to use as my magcro. Aside from the ult I guess. Luckily I changed mains this year and leaving my Necro behind....which sucks after 3 years on him.

CameraBeardThePirate · January 29

sh4d0wh4z3 wrote: »

Remiem wrote: »

JerBearESO wrote: »

Also a good idea to change skeleton summon instead if blastbones. I mainly want the new effect for use WITH blastbones.

Clearly not the intent, this stupid Stalking blastbone change looks like an attempt at helping PvE players who were fat fingering their rotation in PvE, so ZOS wanted to give them a way to play without Blastbones.
If both current Stalking and this new buff exist in necro's kit then both skills would be indispensable and bad PvE players would still have to play with Blastbones to maximize DPS.

They just went with this change without even thinking about PvP.

They went with the change without even thinking about PvE either. I'm really hoping they would reverse this. If not, this change along with scribing completely kills off necro as a viable class.

This. It takes all of 2 minutes to look at a parse and realize sacrificing Stalking Blastbones for 20% to only some of your abilities isn't worth it.

JerBearESO · January 29

I wonder if it works with rapid strikes....

CameraBeardThePirate · January 29

JerBearESO wrote: »

I wonder if it works with rapid strikes....

Rapid Strikes isn't a DoT, so it wouldn't.

Urvoth · January 29

AScarlato wrote: »

sh4d0wh4z3 wrote: »

This skill idea is bad. It completely kills off Magrco and Necro in general. I get they want to make the class more accessible, but this seems like just tossing darts at random ideas on a wall instead of actually trying to fix the class. Necros are already weak, this nerfed them even further.

Honestly this was the only skill that I felt was pretty satisfying to use as my magcro. Aside from the ult I guess. Luckily I changed mains this year and leaving my Necro behind....which sucks after 3 years on him.

I agree, it was the only fun and actually useful damage skill in the entire class, let alone the only skill you could actually combo with your ult to have decent burst.

OtarTheMad · January 29

I don’t have time to make another class my main. ZOS you’re killing me here.

Avowed looking real good in Summer lol.

Reginald_leBlem · January 29

Someone test it out, I'm curious if this means skull is the cro spammable now

Remathilis · January 29

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Someone test it out, I'm curious if this means skull is the cro spammable now

Wasn't it supposed to be? Its not super-great, but maybe smashing a skeleton into yourself and then skull spamming might be good.

Estin · January 29

AScarlato wrote: »

sh4d0wh4z3 wrote: »

This skill idea is bad. It completely kills off Magrco and Necro in general. I get they want to make the class more accessible, but this seems like just tossing darts at random ideas on a wall instead of actually trying to fix the class. Necros are already weak, this nerfed them even further.

Honestly this was the only skill that I felt was pretty satisfying to use as my magcro. Aside from the ult I guess. Luckily I changed mains this year and leaving my Necro behind....which sucks after 3 years on him.

I just started a magcro a few months ago that I intended to turn into a EC Cro. After playing nightblade for so many years, the magcro rotation felt more relaxed and funner to use because of blastbones. I know blighted will still function the same, but the problem is that it's stamina, and no matter if you're mag or stam, blighted would be too hard to sustain. I'm surprised they didn't even think of any of the issues this change would cause. It's effectively a dead class if it goes through.

Aldoss · January 29

Tell me the dev working on this has never played necro without telling me the dev working on this has never played necro...

I was bracing for disappointment, but wow. I'm always impressed by how creative ZOS is with their ability to come up with new ways to drop the ball.

Necro needed some serious help and bare bones solutions honestly could be implemented overnight by adding a few buffs to skills. No reworks to animations needed. Obviously more than that is needed, but that fact is partly why you're seeing a lot of unified (justified) hate for the changes in this pts.

Instead of adding in those simple named buffs, they literally deleted the best skill in the kit, and that's not even being over dramatic. They actually literally deleted the skill from the game and replaced it with something completely pointless.

There is no reason to slot graveyard anymore, it was nerfed into oblivion during the same patch that harmony was nerfed into oblivion - a legendary one-two punch that won't be forgotten by anyone who cares about necro.

There is no reason to slot skulls because the skill is poor performing, offers no buffs, and the animation is second only to warden's dive as the worst spammable animation.

There is no reason to slot summons because the skill offer no buffs, doesn't even follow normal DoT standards, and can't be controlled.

There is no reason to slot siphon because the skill offers a weak unnamed buff, has pitiful dmg, can be mitigated by 30% with the new meta of easily sourced and 100% uptime of maj and min evasion, can't be controlled like other ground aoes, and turns itself off when the caster los's it or runs out of range.

To see this happen in a patch where there are dk buffs (again) is laughable.

They deleted the class, they just forgot to remove it from the game to help their players know that it's been deleted.

OtarTheMad · January 29

Remathilis wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Someone test it out, I'm curious if this means skull is the cro spammable now

Wasn't it supposed to be? Its not super-great, but maybe smashing a skeleton into yourself and then skull spamming might be good.

Maybe but the skulls spammable is still really slow and new BB still takes time to form so question is: which is faster doing this or casting some other non-necro abilities which you can shoot faster?

I am guessing the non-necro abilities path. You could probably hit LA-force pulse-other ability/LA before you even get off Skulls.

Estin · January 29

Remathilis wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Someone test it out, I'm curious if this means skull is the cro spammable now

Wasn't it supposed to be? Its not super-great, but maybe smashing a skeleton into yourself and then skull spamming might be good.

It would be better if the effect was on Skeletal Mage/Arcanist. A 20% damage bonus to all dots and gravelord skills means you could spam skulls for good damage and cast blastbones at the same or even lower rate as Grim Focus, Shulks, Armaments to deal even more damage. This would've helped necros everywhere whether they were at the top or bottom end. Now necros are only capable of being the bottom end.

CameraBeardThePirate · January 29

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Remathilis wrote: »

Reginald_leBlem wrote: »

Someone test it out, I'm curious if this means skull is the cro spammable now

Wasn't it supposed to be? Its not super-great, but maybe smashing a skeleton into yourself and then skull spamming might be good.

Maybe but the skulls spammable is still really slow and new BB still takes time to form so question is: which is faster doing this or casting some other non-necro abilities which you can shoot faster?

I am guessing the non-necro abilities path. You could probably hit LA-force pulse-other ability/LA before you even get off Skulls.

Skulls also has the downside of accidental skill queues.

If you spam an ability in this game, there is a buffer for when the ability will "queue" up another action or ignore the input.

If I press Force Pulse twice in rapid succession (like literally rapidly clicking the input), it will only cast once in order to prevent accidental queues. You have to wait until a certain portion of the animation has started before ESO queues a second ability.

Because each cast of Skulls counts as a unique ability, you will often accidentally queue an extra cast. The game doesn't ignore the input because it doesn't view the second input as the same. This is why Skulls feels so gross and sluggish to light attack weave. It frequently queues an extra cast.

Araneae6537 · January 29

Throwing a skull is what you do if you’re a failed necromancer. A real necromancer summons a bone colossus.

Remiem · January 29

This change also goes as far as nerfing things that are already considered meme-tier, Animate blastbones basically lost the Stalking damage modifier so it's not even worth using it as a joke build now.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · January 29

The worst part is the new skill could of given Necromancers Major Sorcery but nope could not even do that, instead you get a 20% buff to grave lord and DOT skills only, surely it could do more???? like restore magicka or something???? its not even worth using.

CameraBeardThePirate · January 29

Remiem wrote: »

This change also goes as far as nerfing things that are already considered meme-tier, Animate blastbones basically lost the Stalking damage modifier so it's not even worth using it as a joke build now.

I am not exaggerating when I say this is the most disappointing part if this change goes live.

Animate Blastbones is one of the only ultimates Necro has that really feels like a Necromancer. It's also unusable with Blighted Blastbones because the damage just isn't there.

OtarTheMad · January 29

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

The worst part is the new skill could of given Necromancers Major Sorcery but nope could not even do that, instead you get a 20% buff to grave lord and DOT skills only, surely it could do more???? like restore magicka or something???? its not even worth using.

Truthfully even with major sorcery it wouldn’t be worth slotting either. The other Necromancer damage abilities are just so bad. I would still have meh abilities like entropy on my bar for the mere fact that it’s a DoT and I need one.

ChRiS_the_GaMeR · January 29

I think our feedback won‘t even matter for this change. The overall idea of having a skill buff necromancer abilities isn‘t that bad because every little buff would be a good starting point to improve the necromancer at this point but implementing it in a way there you completely rework specifically blastbones is not. Additionally their whole reasoning and or intention wasn‘t even to buff necro but to change specifically this skill because it was to complicated/stressful to use in their eyes.

There are some nice suggestions in this thread but I think we can say what we want this will go through …

ZOS this feels more like you are taking something away than improving something, it’s not hybridization not every skill in this game has to be easy to use for everyone.

In theory the effect is a nice idea but if you really want to improve the class please move this change and make it an additional effect of another skill with rebalanced %

I know you want to leave one morph untouched but firstly stalking blastbones was the better morph and secondly it should then have it‘s cost being dynamic like for some arcanist abilities or have it cost mag and stam like dragonknights whip.

But that’s still no smart solution. Just imagine other necro skills get buffed and or reworked to a point where it‘s better to use this new version of blastbones. At that point it wouldn’t even matter that you left us one morph unchanged because we would be forced to use the new one because it’s more effective.

CoolBlast3 · January 29

ZOS- please revert this. Blastbones is clunky but even if this new ability gave you an 100% global dmg bonus it'd still be bad because it's boring. You're making the class so much more passive and almost afk-esc...

TX12001rwb17_ESO · January 29

ChRiS_the_GaMeR wrote: »

I think our feedback won‘t even matter for this change. The basic functionality of this new version buffing your whole class kit isn‘t even bad and would be a good starting point for improving/reworking the necromancer if it would have been on another skill BUT their whole reasoning and or intention wasn‘t even to buff necro but to change specifically this skill because it was to complicated/stressful to use in their eyes.

There are some nice suggestions in this thread but I think we can say what we want this will go through …

ZOS this feels more like you are taking something away than improving something, it’s not hybridization not every skill in this game has to be easy to use for everyone.

In theory the effect is a nice idea but if you really want to improve the class please move this change and make it an additional effect of another skill with rebalanced %

I know you want to leave one morph untouched but firstly stalking blastbones was the better morph and secondly it should then have it‘s cost being dynamic like for some arcanist abilities or have it cost mag and stam like dragonknights whip.

But that’s still no smart solution. Just imagine other necro skills get buffed and or reworked to a point where it‘s better to use this new version of blastbones. At that point it wouldn’t even matter that you left us one morph unchanged because we would be forced to use the new one because it’s more effective.

You say the functionality of this new version buffing our whole class kit isnt even bad?

Well here is the thing, it only buffs grave lord skills and DOT effects, Major Sorcery would also buff all of them as well plus every other skill they have as well.

OtarTheMad · January 29

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

ChRiS_the_GaMeR wrote: »

I think our feedback won‘t even matter for this change. The basic functionality of this new version buffing your whole class kit isn‘t even bad and would be a good starting point for improving/reworking the necromancer if it would have been on another skill BUT their whole reasoning and or intention wasn‘t even to buff necro but to change specifically this skill because it was to complicated/stressful to use in their eyes.

There are some nice suggestions in this thread but I think we can say what we want this will go through …

ZOS this feels more like you are taking something away than improving something, it’s not hybridization not every skill in this game has to be easy to use for everyone.

In theory the effect is a nice idea but if you really want to improve the class please move this change and make it an additional effect of another skill with rebalanced %

I know you want to leave one morph untouched but firstly stalking blastbones was the better morph and secondly it should then have it‘s cost being dynamic like for some arcanist abilities or have it cost mag and stam like dragonknights whip.

But that’s still no smart solution. Just imagine other necro skills get buffed and or reworked to a point where it‘s better to use this new version of blastbones. At that point it wouldn’t even matter that you left us one morph unchanged because we would be forced to use the new one because it’s more effective.

You say the functionality of this new version buffing our whole class kit isnt even bad?

Well here is the thing, it only buffs grave lord skills and DOT effects, Major Sorcery would also buff all of them as well plus every other skill they have as well.

It wouldn’t increase damage since necro has that buff via other places. It would just change where we got the buff.

ChRiS_the_GaMeR · January 29

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

You say the functionality of this new version buffing our whole class kit isnt even bad?

Well here is the thing, it only buffs grave lord skills and DOT effects, Major Sorcery would also buff all of them as well plus every other skill they have as well.

Sorry my English is not the best. I meant or was trying to say that the overall idea of having a skill buff necromancer abilities isn‘t that bad because every little buff would be a good starting point to improve the necromancer at this point but implementing it in a way there you completely rework specifically blastbones is not.

I hope that better.

Alaztor91 · January 29

U35
Scorch: Stir a group of shalk that attack after 3 seconds, dealing [6641 / 6714 / 6787 / 6860] Magic Damage to enemies in front of you. After the shalk complete their attack, they burrow underground for 6 seconds and then resurface again, dealing [9223 / 9324 / 9426 / 9527] Magic Damage to enemies in front of you.

Developer Comment: The changes to Scorch and their morphs were done in attempts to try and help the class feel less intensely focused on buff management and allow for other actions in combat, while still trying to retain their burst-oriented nature, to a more balanced degree when comparing them to other burst skills and taking their total time before impact better into account. By separating the damage, we can also better allow the skill to function as a burst skill or a sustained DPS skill, where recasting it earlier will result in more total DPS, whereas waiting for the bigger explosion will result in those dopamine printing burst combos.

U41
Blastbones: Reworked this ability and the Stalking Blastbones morph.
Renamed this ability to Sacrificial Bones.
This ability and the Stalking Blastbones morph (which has also been renamed) now summon a skeleton that, after their formation delay, jump to their owner to infuse them with power for 10 seconds, increasing your damage done with Grave Lord and Damage over time effects by 15%.
These abilities no longer require a target to activate, but instead require you to be in combat.

Developer Comment: We’re finally taking a stab at adjusting this ability to help Necromancers who don’t want to constantly manage a short duration ability, as it put a significant demand on creating complex and dynamic rotations in real combat. The reworked version will allow you to use the ability itself more dynamically, where you can continue to frequently activate it to produce and gobble up corpses or use it less frequently and simply enhance the rest of your toolkit, so you can focus on other elements of gameplay like spell slinging or tether interaction.

In this pass we’re also trying to ensure there’s a way to continue playing the way many Necromancers have become accustomed to, with a high skill mastery and robust rotation, so we’re making sure one of the morphs is left alone - while making it slightly less cost heavy - so it remains accessible to most build types.

Grim_Overlord · January 29

I ran a few parses with this on PTS, and while I'm not the best Magcro dps, across the past few years I have been able to pull over 100k with the class. With both morphs on PTS, I cannot scratch that threshold now. Blighted, while maintaining the previous rotation, suffers from being a worse damage type that isn't boosted by things like Engulfing Flames and having a lower damage tooltip to start. The new skeletal sacrifice morph that replaced Stalking Blastbones, while boosting everything else, is a boring rotation consisting of skull spam that barely pulls ahead, at least for me, of its blighted counterpart. If blighted was the morph that left, this might not be the worst change, but even then I don't think 20% is enough of an increase to the DOT and Gravelord damage given that Necromancers have a single class DOT with boneyard and we are still losing over 20% of our previous damage that Stalking Blastbones offered. On top of this, as has been mentioned above, the rotation becomes abysmally boring compared to the previous iteration of the rotation. This buff would be much appreciated in the class kit overall if it were tied to say, Skeletal Arcanist, nerfed to 15%, and Arcanist still dealt its damage.

If the goal is to create a morph of Blastbones that does slightly less damage, but requires less micromanagement, then something akin to Shalks that has a delayed second burst or attaching a dot onto Blighted Blastbones would be the more effective way to grant that playstyle.

React · January 29

Actually insane they thought this change was a good idea.

If anything, they should have made the damage buff a flat buff to class abilities, and then slotted it into something like the arcanist/archer to be active all the time while that ability is up. Then stalking blastbones, the bread and butter of the necro class, would actually do enough damage to be a threat again.

OtarTheMad · January 29

Legitimate question. Okay are we all dumb and just not playing Necromancer correctly?

Is ZOS going to come out with an ESO Live or video and say: “This is how we intended Necromancer to be played, which fits with how we built the class.” And we are all gonna be like “oh, we dumb.”

NB gets buffed, DK gets buffed, Arcanist gets nerfed but cautiously (thanks btw for that). But Necromancer gets what? A hug and a smile? I’m lost.

Grim_Overlord · January 29

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

I ran a few parses with this on PTS, and while I'm not the best Magcro dps, across the past few years I have been able to pull over 100k with the class. With both morphs on PTS, I cannot scratch that threshold now. Blighted, while maintaining the previous rotation, suffers from being a worse damage type that isn't boosted by things like Engulfing Flames and having a lower damage tooltip to start. The new skeletal sacrifice morph that replaced Stalking Blastbones, while boosting everything else, is a boring rotation consisting of skull spam that barely pulls ahead, at least for me, of its blighted counterpart.

My internet settled down a bit more, and after doing some testing Blighted Blastbones settled in around 96k with Whorl, Aegis, Kjalnar, Maelstrom Inferno backbar, and 2h frontbar and Stalking's new version came in around 98k. The Blighted morph, when compared to an old parse, did roughly 4k less than the old Stalking Blastbones. I neglected to use Avid Boneyard's synergy because it was being wonky the first few tests I did due to internet issues, but that should add another couple thousand to each parse. The damage loss isn't as bad as I made it sound in the previous post, so I apologize for that, and the new Stalking does seem to still be stronger than Blighted however as stated before, it is very boring to play and I found myself refreshing it early for extra corpses due to the corpse despawn timer sometimes cheating me out of a corpse.

While the new Stalking Blastbones isn't as much of a dps loss as I initially thought it would be, it isn't fun to use or thematic with the class which is the biggest issue here I think.

MashmalloMan · January 29

I'm not a Necro main, so forgive this opinion if it's off base.. but I feel like making 1 of the morphs completely unique is a step in the right direction, just terribly implemented.

Knowing ZOS, they're not going to revert this change, so lets focus on how we can fix the issue. It will take them literal years to reverse something players hate IF they do it at all. Just look at the Necro crit chance execute passive.. It's gone all over the place, I'm pretty sure I've seen 4%, 5%, 8%, and now 10%. Isn't this what it was originally at launch?

So solutions?

Sacrificial Bones:

Bump that 20% to 30%. With the ability to use this on your class skills and any dot (many of which are coming with Scribing), a Necro can ACTUALLY build as a dot class for the first time ever like they imply the class should be.
Add a weak aoe dot to the caster for the 20s (Eg. Deadly Cloak/Soul Barrage/Hurricane).

Blighted Blastbones:

Give the damage bonus that was lost from Stalking Blastbones, keep the Major Defile.
Make the cost dynamically scale. Whatever Necro mains think is more useful, lowest max resource or highest max resource, my vote would be lowest so Mag Necro has a light Stam dump and vise versa.

This way, you want to play old style Necro, good, Blighted is there. Bursty.

You want to play dot Necro? Great, Sacrifical is there. Sustained pressure over time.

CameraBeardThePirate · January 29

MashmalloMan wrote: »

I'm not a Necro main, so forgive this opinion if it's off base.. but I feel like making 1 of the morphs completely unique is a step in the right direction, just terribly implemented.

Knowing ZOS, they're not going to revert this change, so lets focus on how we can fix the issue. It will take them literal years to reverse something players hate IF they do it at all. Just look at the Necro crit chance execute passive.. It's gone all over the place, I'm pretty sure I've seen 4%, 5%, 8%, and now 10%. Isn't this what it was originally at launch?

So solutions?

Sacrificial Bones:
Bump that 20% to 30%. With the ability to use this on your class skills and any dot (many of which are coming with Scribing), a Necro can ACTUALLY build as a dot class for the first time ever like they imply the class should be.

Add a weak aoe dot to the caster for the 20s (Eg. Deadly Cloak/Soul Barrage/Hurricane).

Blighted Blastbones:
Give the damage bonus that was lost from Stalking Blastbones, keep the Major Defile.

Make the cost dynamically scale. Whatever Necro mains think is more useful, lowest max resource or highest max resource, my vote would be lowest so Mag Necro has a light Stam dump and vise versa.

At bare minimum they need to throw Stalking's modifier to Blighted. Blighted simply doesn't deal enough damage without it. Sure Defile is strong, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking Defile + Stalking's modifier would be too strong.