Necromancer Skill: Stalking Blastbones VS Grave Lord's Sacrifice.

dcrush

Stalking Blastbones

I have a Necro healer and a Necro build I use for IA and both of them I only use with random groups because of the rez ult. That’s it. That’s practically the only good skill left on necros and it’s a backup for when something goes wrong. Says a lot.

I’ve changed the BB morph to the stam one on my IA build even though it’s a mag character, meaning I will have less stamina to block and dodge roll than I had before. Horrible change.

Aldoss

Stalking Blastbones

112 votes now and still above 90% agreement.

I attempted another build with this skill last night. I hit up the BGs. It's entirely unusable.

You need to be in combat before you can use it. If you're melee, good luck.

Targets don't stand still, so you're constantly moving around. In my testing, you won't get the buff sooner than 4 seconds into a fight. That's 4 seconds someone with a working class toolkit is smacking the crap out of you with their working skills.

In order to stay alive, you need your summoners armor, mender, and resistant flesh. That's 3 backbar skills right there. You'd be crazy not to run vigor. That's 4 right there. You need a working source of major breach (graveyard is not a working source of major breach), so you have to run a destro staff or snb on the back bar (unless you want to do something weird with crushing weapon or can sustain razor caltrops), and those skills claim the final slot.

On your front bar, you have GLS, leaving 4 skills. You need major brutality and GLS buffs dots, so you have to use degen. Now comes the question, do you buff your necro skills by 15% or another dot. Necro has no sticky dot, so if you want a dot, you have to use a weapon or guild skill. If you want to buff a necro skill, you have to use skulls because there is no other necro spammable. We'll choose skulls. That's 3 skills left.

Necro has no cc immunity in its kit, so you have to use rat or elude. No other class has to sacrifice this much just to have a usable build. Dks, NBs, wardens, and sorcs all have snare immunity on top of robust class kits. Templars don't, but do have purify. Still, they'd run rat anyway to get minor force. 2 skills remain.

This build has no stun yet. The only builds that operate without access to a stun are Xv1 zerg builds. So we'd need to use totem, which is a weak delayed stun (and we don't even get to use our own synergy from it), scythe for the off-balance into medium attack stun, or we need to use a weapon or guild skill. 1 skill left. Dealer's choice! Take your pick of any of the left over necro skills that are super weak and awful performing or fill it with another sticky dot like soul splitting trap.

Wow... What a build! We lost a skill that used to do 13k dmg every 3 seconds in BGs for one that doesn't even make degen do more than 800dmg every 2 seconds... We lost a skill that used to do 13k dmg every 3 seconds for now having to spam skulls 3 times to get an aoe burst that, even with a 15% buff from GLS, still hits less than a warden slamming you with dswing every other second on top of having their burst skill hit for 9-10k on average builds.

Can someone please post a build where this skill doesn't completely cripple the already worst performing class in both PvE and PvP?

Who here is actually putting out dot pressure that rivals a dk? Who here has a build that was actually improved by GLS?

This skill is shockingly bad.

Urvoth

Stalking Blastbones

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

It should be castable out of combat, though. Make it a nice 20s backbar buff. 👍👍

Tell me you haven't played necro without saying you haven't played necro

Urvoth

Stalking Blastbones

mariliaribas wrote: »

Not trying to call someone out or anything, but I would truly like to know what do the people that voted for Grave Lord Sacrifice like about the skill. I tried to use it in different scenarios, but ultimately the fact that it has to be casted in combat and that you can line of sight your own buff prevented me from using it seriously. But looking at the skill, even if those two major problems were solved, it would still be a clunky skill that would make an even more convoluted rotation of having to cast skull three times before even being able to cast boneyard and do actual damage with dots. It's such a weird way to begin a fight, you have to:

- summon skeleton
- use skull once to get into combat
- use grave lord Sacrifice for the buff
- use skull three times to generate a corpse
- finally use boneyard to apply the dot
- skull three times
- detonating syphon



That's like ten seconds into the fight before you can actually start to do damage. By the time you get to the end of applying all your dots, the first one is halfway through already. Nevermind bad damage in boss fights, necros are now completely useless in trash pulls and you can wipe the floor with them in pvp.

How did you guys that voted for GLS made such a skill work?

Short answer is they probably didn't and they also likely haven't even played necro in any higher level pve content or pvp. They're either troll votes or people that haven't played necro enough to have a relevant opinion.

IncultaWolf

Stalking Blastbones

Urvoth wrote: »

mariliaribas wrote: »

Not trying to call someone out or anything, but I would truly like to know what do the people that voted for Grave Lord Sacrifice like about the skill. I tried to use it in different scenarios, but ultimately the fact that it has to be casted in combat and that you can line of sight your own buff prevented me from using it seriously. But looking at the skill, even if those two major problems were solved, it would still be a clunky skill that would make an even more convoluted rotation of having to cast skull three times before even being able to cast boneyard and do actual damage with dots. It's such a weird way to begin a fight, you have to:

- summon skeleton
- use skull once to get into combat
- use grave lord Sacrifice for the buff
- use skull three times to generate a corpse
- finally use boneyard to apply the dot
- skull three times
- detonating syphon



That's like ten seconds into the fight before you can actually start to do damage. By the time you get to the end of applying all your dots, the first one is halfway through already. Nevermind bad damage in boss fights, necros are now completely useless in trash pulls and you can wipe the floor with them in pvp.

How did you guys that voted for GLS made such a skill work?

Short answer is they probably didn't and they also likely haven't even played necro in any higher level pve content or pvp. They're either troll votes or people that haven't played necro enough to have a relevant opinion.

I recognize one of the names of a player who voted for GLS, and they only play nightblade in pvp/pve, I've seen them multiple times in-game lol. So yeah it's pretty much a troll vote.

Aldoss

Stalking Blastbones

Urvoth wrote: »

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

It should be castable out of combat, though. Make it a nice 20s backbar buff. 👍👍

Tell me you haven't played necro without saying you haven't played necro

To explain this for people who are otherwise unaware:

GLS replaced Stalking Blastbones which is a Grave Lord skill. Necro is a class with no class execute, just like DK and Warden. To "make up" for this, necro was given the Death Knell passive which increases our crit chance on targets under 25% hp by 10% for each Grave Lord ability slotted (buffed from 8% per skill to 10% this last patch).

To put GLS on your back bar, you are willfully giving up your ability to do damage in execute range because you have no class execute and if you choose to take a slot away to use a weapon execute, then you're losing out on 10% crit chance, which is one of the strongest crit chance buffs in the game considering a fully loaded front bar of Grave Lord skills would boost your crit chance by an insane 60% (5 skills + 1 ultimate). No one actually gets that full benefit from Death Knell though because necro doesn't have access to one very specific buff... Let me explain:

Here's a log I pulled from one of the top dps'ing necro's in vSE. Forums won't let me insert this image for some reason...

Couple things we can learn from this player:
1. They clearly also know that GLS is worthless, despite them using at least 5 non-class dots, all of which would be boosted 15% if they chose to use GLS
2. This player's top dmging ability is Blighted Blastbones, despite that ability not being allowed access to the group's Encratis or Engulfing modifiers nor the 10% minimum bonus that Stalking got. This player took a dmg nerf this patch because of this insane nerf to our class.
3. This player is only getting 50% from Death Knell because I can see they have camo hunter in the buff aura, which would obviously be on the front bar, making the rest of the slots filled with Venom Skull, Blighted, Boneyard, Mystic Siphon, and Colossus. They have to take the 10% hit in execute to get Major Savagery for the other 75% because lol necro doesn't get access to that buff in its kit. Imagine if ZOS were to put that buff on Skeletal Mage.... this player would actually get to use another dmging ability in their rotation (which unfortunately still performs less than other dots because ZOS can't be bothered to correct the indirect nerf they hit it with with the dot homogenization) and they'd get full use of Death Knell during execute phases.
4. Do I need to state the obvious that this player is the stereotypical EC buffer?

This is all to explain:

No, Grave Lord's Sacrifice cannot be a back bar ability because it is a skill in the Grave Lord tree. No skill in this tree is a back bar skill because if they were, the strongest passive in this class tree wouldn't make sense.

mariliaribas

Stalking Blastbones

There is not a single way to make this ability work. I, for one, am determined to not come back to this game until they fix this class. We're not even asking to make Necro strong, we're just asking to make it playable.

C_Inside

Stalking Blastbones

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno We're still waiting for any of you folks to address our concerns. Where's that improved communication we were promised? Or is it only if there are issues brought up with the clown store or the gambling crates?

StarOfElyon

Stalking Blastbones

C_Inside wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno We're still waiting for any of you folks to address our concerns. Where's that improved communication we were promised? Or is it only if there are issues brought up with the clown store or the gambling crates?

I'm sure they will respond eventually. Maybe lay off for a bit. We're stuck with this until update 42.

moo_2021

Stalking Blastbones

They can change the basic Sacrificial Bones to Grave Lord's Sacrifice, and restore the old morph. That nobody would lose anything.

C_Inside

Stalking Blastbones

StarOfElyon wrote: »

C_Inside wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno We're still waiting for any of you folks to address our concerns. Where's that improved communication we were promised? Or is it only if there are issues brought up with the clown store or the gambling crates?

I'm sure they will respond eventually. Maybe lay off for a bit. We're stuck with this until update 42.

We saw what effect laying off had during the PTS cycle didn't we? We gave them time, hoping that our concerns would be addressed but got complete silence in return. I'm sure templar mains were also patient in voicing their concerns about jabs and that also resulted in nothing. So clearly that approach doesn't work.

I know we're stuck with this until the next update. I don't expect them to change anything until then but I'd at least like to know what their plans for the future of the class are and if our feedback has even been noticed up to this point. As I mentioned, being patient doesn't work so it's time to try the complete opposite.

And if @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno find my constant tagging annoying or if it is in breach of TOS then they're more than free to suspend or ban me. Although, ideally i'd like my point in the previous paragraph to be addressed first.

StarOfElyon

Stalking Blastbones

C_Inside wrote: »

StarOfElyon wrote: »

C_Inside wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno We're still waiting for any of you folks to address our concerns. Where's that improved communication we were promised? Or is it only if there are issues brought up with the clown store or the gambling crates?

I'm sure they will respond eventually. Maybe lay off for a bit. We're stuck with this until update 42.

We saw what effect laying off had during the PTS cycle didn't we? We gave them time, hoping that our concerns would be addressed but got complete silence in return. I'm sure templar mains were also patient in voicing their concerns about jabs and that also resulted in nothing. So clearly that approach doesn't work.

I know we're stuck with this until the next update. I don't expect them to change anything until then but I'd at least like to know what their plans for the future of the class are and if our feedback has even been noticed up to this point. As I mentioned, being patient doesn't work so it's time to try the complete opposite.

And if @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno find my constant tagging annoying or if it is in breach of TOS then they're more than free to suspend or ban me. Although, ideally i'd like my point in the previous paragraph to be addressed first.

No, we didn't lay off them. We told them in no uncertain terms that this was a terrible change and they pushed it through anyway. So, seeing as how they will ignore our feedback and do what they want, maybe just ping them less frequently.

dcrush

Stalking Blastbones

StarOfElyon wrote: »

C_Inside wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno We're still waiting for any of you folks to address our concerns. Where's that improved communication we were promised? Or is it only if there are issues brought up with the clown store or the gambling crates?

I'm sure they will respond eventually. Maybe lay off for a bit. We're stuck with this until update 42.

Maybe they can do a Q&A, like they did with update 45.

Oh wait.

i11ionward

Stalking Blastbones

I support the idea of Blastbones morphs can have different gameplay, but the necro is not a class that can withstand extreme skill experimentation right now. Either introduce something decent and fun, or leave it alone.
It's terrible that such changes coming up on a live server.

mariliaribas

Stalking Blastbones

i11ionward wrote: »

I support the idea of Blastbones morphs can have different gameplay, but the necro is not a class that can withstand extreme skill experimentation right now. Either introduce something decent and fun, or leave it alone.
It's terrible that such changes coming up on a live server.

And for god's sake, they have to LISTEN TO FEEDBACK. Otherwise there's not even a reason to keep a PTS around, if they're not going to hear what people have to say about the changes, especially when the reaction to those changes is so unanimous as the rejection of GLS was during PTS

Aldoss

Stalking Blastbones

i11ionward wrote: »

I support the idea of Blastbones morphs can have different gameplay, but the necro is not a class that can withstand extreme skill experimentation right now. Either introduce something decent and fun, or leave it alone.
It's terrible that such changes coming up on a live server.

I think this might be the best summed up critique to the GLS change.

It recognizes the goal of the devs who designed it, calls attention to extreme dichotomy between GLS and BB, gives appropriate critique that the skill is extremely experimental, and then addresses the fact that necro was the exact wrong class to attempt that on.

I'm all good with ZOS wanting to play with new mechanics, but the way they went about this one was just wrong, wrong, wrong.

That, coupled with the trademarked ZOS Silent Treatment that they're giving us, is what is compounding this into absurdity.

moo_2021

Stalking Blastbones

i11ionward wrote: »

I support the idea of Blastbones morphs can have different gameplay, but the necro is not a class that can withstand extreme skill experimentation right now. Either introduce something decent and fun, or leave it alone.
It's terrible that such changes coming up on a live server.

There are many useless skills they can experiment on.

But they just had to choose the one that everyone used.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

mariliaribas wrote: »

There is not a single way to make this ability work. I, for one, am determined to not come back to this game until they fix this class. We're not even asking to make Necro strong, we're just asking to make it playable.

This is the crux of the issue for many I think. Necromancer is a Class people payed to access. I do not think it's an unreasonable expectation that the Class perform just as well as others. The implementation of GLS and deletion of BlastBones is a massive step in the wrong direction, not just thematically and practically but mathematically. The quality of the product we bought has been intentionally degraded over time and is just not fun to play anymore.

mariliaribas

Stalking Blastbones

moo_2021 wrote: »

i11ionward wrote: »

I support the idea of Blastbones morphs can have different gameplay, but the necro is not a class that can withstand extreme skill experimentation right now. Either introduce something decent and fun, or leave it alone.
It's terrible that such changes coming up on a live server.

There are many useless skills they can experiment on.

But they just had to choose the one that everyone used.

Yaaaaas omg this exactly! Empowering grasp has such a beautiful animation, but it's a completely useless skill, why didn't they use it to experiment on?

IncultaWolf

Stalking Blastbones

Wow 120 people so far on the forums took the time to vote for stalking blastbones and the console release isn't even out yet. Can we get this change reverted, or at least update GLS to buff class heals? That might actually make it worth slotting.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Wow 120 people so far on the forums took the time to vote for stalking blastbones and the console release isn't even out yet. Can we get this change reverted, or at least update GLS to buff class heals? That might actually make it worth slotting.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno

I expect there will be an influx of Console players to the forums and this thread voicing their dissatisfaction. GLS as it is has issues working on PC. I can't imagine that things are better on some slower consoles.

Aldoss

Stalking Blastbones

132 votes and still above 90%. As noted, console release hasn't even happened yet.

No response from the devs regarding the state of this class and the death blow they dealt to us, but someone goes and fibbs to ZOS about Thrass gaining stacks from target dummies in Cyro and that gets an immediate reply.

@ZOS_Kevin are the devs aware of this poll? Will ZOS put the investment into necro that it needs to be brought out of the dumpster? Will we see changes next pts cycle or should we expect to have to wait until Q3 to see anything happen to necro?

Communicate. Please.

CameraBeardThePirate

Stalking Blastbones

Aldoss wrote: »

132 votes and still above 90%. As noted, console release hasn't even happened yet.

No response from the devs regarding the state of this class and the death blow they dealt to us, but someone goes and fibbs to ZOS about Thrass gaining stacks from target dummies in Cyro and that gets an immediate reply.

@ZOS_Kevin are the devs aware of this poll? Will ZOS put the investment into necro that it needs to be brought out of the dumpster? Will we see changes next pts cycle or should we expect to have to wait until Q3 to see anything happen to necro?

Communicate. Please.

You are quite literally shouting into the void. They've made their decision.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

132 votes and still above 90%. As noted, console release hasn't even happened yet.

No response from the devs regarding the state of this class and the death blow they dealt to us, but someone goes and fibbs to ZOS about Thrass gaining stacks from target dummies in Cyro and that gets an immediate reply.

@ZOS_Kevin are the devs aware of this poll? Will ZOS put the investment into necro that it needs to be brought out of the dumpster? Will we see changes next pts cycle or should we expect to have to wait until Q3 to see anything happen to necro?

Communicate. Please.

You are quite literally shouting into the void. They've made their decision.

They've reversed unpopular changes before and Console player input is incoming. There is also their own bottom line to consider. Having a product, one of only a handful of playable Classes and not one of a hundred forgettable cosmetic options, being widely considered inferior by the player base isn't going to fly forever.

Alaztor91

Stalking Blastbones

One would expect after seeing how well received Arcanist was and after they started adding QoL changes to other classes like ''while slotted on either bar'' that ZOS would apply that knowledge here.

Instead, they do a complete 180 and give you a skill that:
-Has an ''in-combat'' requirement to cast, despite being a self-buff skill.
-Has the buff effect delayed because you have to wait for the Skeleton to jump to your player character.
-Has a chance of the buff being delayed even more due to multiple things that can disrupt the Skeleton like LoS or CC.
-Forces you into using a specific spammable or lose the only way to generate Corpses from range.
-Hurts your sustain because of the massively reduced benefit it receives from Reusable Parts.

How can a skill with so many flaws not only leave the PTS, but also replace the main skill that Necro has been using since 2019. Seriously how can ZOS release a patch that on one side has the reworked Siphoning Strikes and on the other side has Grave Lord's Sacrifice? What am I missing here?

Stefirex

Stalking Blastbones

My only question is this. Why was this skill point not refunded so that people could put it into the other morph?!? Seriously. I don't come read the forums often. I never read patch notes. Today I log in and my Blast Bones appears to be blasting me til I finally mouse over it to find the name and description changed. Bad Form ZOS!

RedFireDisco

Stalking Blastbones

I'm not sure I've seen worse handling of a class in 10 years.

What they should have done is make Blighted apply the same rules as Stalking and make it gain extra damage per time spent chasing et al

This is beyond insulting. I'm actually really angry. People put thousands of hours into MMOs and the least you can do is LISTEN to them.

Necro needs massive buffs and instead they get a nerf to shields and a nerf to their biggest damage sources.

Brilliant.

You need to buff them before the next patch instead of buffing sorc and NB every time.

mariliaribas

Stalking Blastbones

They need to call back these changes asap. Experiment more on the PTS with other skills, come back to planning and return with something better, but stalking blastbones needs to return. Loosing stalking blastbones was an unnecessary nerf to the class that was already the weakest in game.

Shagreth

Stalking Blastbones

I'm surprised this made it live, hell, I'm more surprised they even came up with such a bad idea in the first place.

C_Inside

Stalking Blastbones

Maybe they're hoping that by some ungodly miracle console players will like the new skill. Personally I hope that if some console players actually wind up liking Suckrifice more then they will actually come along and explain to us their point of view. Because the PC players that like it are as silent as the devs.

Obligatory @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno tag.