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

Urvoth · March 27

Stalking Blastbones

C_Inside wrote: »

Urvoth wrote: »

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Hundmann wrote: »

After that patch, I had to completely switch to the stamina version of everything. It's okay with the bow, but I liked the staffs and the mage more. But what can you do, life is pain

Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Couldn’t you play mag still with the stamina bones? I do enjoy hybrid builds on several of my characters, especially DK and Arcanist, still all attributes to one stat if it’s for PvE DPS. I haven’t made such a build satisfactory with Necro yet, but I would think it should be possible.

It's not really a magcro if your primary damage skill is stamina

Terms like stamcro and magcro in regards to your skills were made obsolete all the way back in U34. There is literally no reason to limit yourself to only 1 attribute cost type as no matter what the skill costs it always scales with the higher of your max stam or mag. In fact you're actively hurting yourself if you limit your skills to only mag or stam as you'll be hurting for sustain and will need to run sustain food.

The optimal way to build nowadays is to have a decent split between mag and stam skills. That way you can run single or double stat food to maximize your damage. For example on my necro I run Venom Skull, Bllighted BB, Quick Cloak, and Barbed Trap as stam skills. Unstable Wall of Fire, Boneyard, and Mystic Orb are Mag. Syphon is free. I don't have any sustain issues this way and can easily run parse food in any content. Before Suckbones was introduced I obviously ran Stalking BB and my sustain was even better.

You're talking about PvE here and yes, in PvE, you'd be correct. For PvP, you almost always have to run sustain food anyway, and over-hybridizing on certain classes can make things rough. You're typically better off going mostly mag or mostly stam with your damage skills primarily as one or the other and then maybe a few utility skills as the off-resource.

CameraBeardThePirate · March 27

Stalking Blastbones

It's wild to me that they decided to overhaul one of the most used class abilities, meanwhile half the kit (the corpse consumers) literally haven't functioned correctly since Necrom, and despite reporting multiple times (including in the PTS report post), it still hasn't been fixed or even acknowledged.

I am legitimately begging for nothing more than a functional class kit and the devs are still radio silent.

https://youtu.be/JiyHWrKV2Ew

Kalle_Demos · March 27

Stalking Blastbones

Marto wrote: »

Ok so

I think if we look at Grave Lord Sacrifice as a way to turn Flame Skull into a longer range, lower damage, more reliable Blastbones, the skill is actually a good addition to Necro's arsenal.

However, I think that 2.5s delay is absolutely awful for gamefeel. And should either be removed, or reduced to 1s or 2s, to make it meld better with your rotation.
Imagine for example a delay of 2s; you cast Grave Lord Sacrifice, you cast 2 different AoE or DoT skills, and then you cast your Flame Skull. I think something like that would be more acceptable.

The skill also needs to be castable out of combat, for the gamefeel of such a rotation to be acceptable.

As for Blighted Blastbones, I think the stamina cost is mild enough that "magicka builds" shouldn't really worry about using it. But it could use a bit of a damage buff. Not just because of its performance, also as a way to differentiate it from Grave Lord Sacrifice. You want more damage but not instantly?
You use Blastbones. You want less damage but more reliable and stacking on top of Flame Skull? You use Grave Lord Sacrifice.

The problem with this is that we are now forced to use Flame Skulls, a skill with issues of it's own. And instead of immediately having a corpse at distance for bonus damage as we did after casting BB, we now have to wait after three Skulls for that damage. That is of course accounting for GLS 'in combat' requirement, then it's delay and other aforementioned issues that make GLS itself unreliable. You can't 'look at' GLS through a single lens as benefiting a single skill because it affects everything and not for the better.

As for sustain, apart from the loss of damage compared to BB, the last thing Necro needed, Blighted now saps the same resources as blocking, running and dodging. Perhaps inconsequential in Normal level content but more of a negative impact for Magcrows in all other content with Blighted hitting weaker and less often. And Blighted was the inferior morph from conception as many Stamcrows even opted for BB with the main difference being that their off-resource wasn't being drained. Bad deal all around. And the Class issues this was all meant to fix are still present if not worse.

Hapexamendios · March 27

Stalking Blastbones

Looked at new one. Didn't even want to try it after reading description. Immediately changed morph.

C_Inside · March 28

Stalking Blastbones

Marto wrote: »

Ok so

I think if we look at Grave Lord Sacrifice as a way to turn Flame Skull into a longer range, lower damage, more reliable Blastbones, the skill is actually a good addition to Necro's arsenal.

I completely disagree with this statement. How exactly is Flame Skull more reliable for corpse generation? In pve Stalking BB (and blighted) would always hit their target as enemies are too stupid to dodge or LoS it. Therefore you had a corpse every time you cast BB. Yes, yes I know BB could occasionally bug when it loses its target for some reason, like when the dragons in Sunspire fly off but that's not at all something that happens all the time and is definitely not enough to make it an unreliable corpse generator, unlike what I'll describe in a bit when I talk about Suckrifice.

In pvp Flame Skull is such an easy skill to dodge that it's practically even less reliable to generate corpses with it. And let's not forget Stalking/Blighted generate corpses every cast if they hit. If you use Flame Skull for that purpose then you not only have to actually hit someone with it (good luck) but you also have to make sure to hit them on the 3rd cast. Again, how is this more reliable?

Also, do keep in mind that in order for you to generate a corpse you have to have Suckrifice active. This means that if you're in a situation where you cast your 3rd skull but Suckrifice runs out at the same time, or you just miss the timing to refresh it, you won't generate a corpse. Now you're in the situation where the unforgivable sin of not recasting your buff in time will completely mess up your rotation by not allowing you to refresh syphon or use the empowered Boneyard, and forcing you to not only use a dead cast on Suckrifice, but to completely forget your rotation entirely and start spamming skulls. No other buff in the game can completely ruin your flow like this if you miss refreshing it. Needless to say, Stalking/Blighted don't have this issue. For the 3rd time, how is Flame Skull more reliable?

"Just git gud skrub an refrush ur buf in time". Even that's not reliable. Remember, the skeleton must chase you down and jump at you in order for the buff to work. If it's a stationary fight then sure, you can get the timing down, but if it's a mobile fight then the actual time it takes between you casting Suckrifice and it buffing you becomes wildly unpredictable. You can have it take 3 seconds if you're next to it, 5 if you sprint away, or even never if it gets LoS-ed. The result of this is that in a mobile fight you're never sure when exactly you need to recast it to have 100% uptime. This combined with the previous paragraph makes me ask the following for the 4th and final time: How. Is. This. More. Reliable. Than. Stalking/Blighted Blastbones?

Zodiarkslayer · March 28

Grave Lord's Sacrifice

So, I already posted this in another thread, but wnsted to reirerate it here. I have tried and tested it under many circumstances in the game and moved away from it.

GLS is a step in the right direction. But as of now it is awful. With instant casting, out of combat casting (pre buffing), 30s duration and most of all damage increase, this would be an allround good option. It would enable players to choose between diffrent playstyles, rather than choosing between blue and green icons, as was previously the case.

CameraBeardThePirate · March 28

Stalking Blastbones

C_Inside wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

Ok so

I think if we look at Grave Lord Sacrifice as a way to turn Flame Skull into a longer range, lower damage, more reliable Blastbones, the skill is actually a good addition to Necro's arsenal.

I completely disagree with this statement. How exactly is Flame Skull more reliable for corpse generation? In pve Stalking BB (and blighted) would always hit their target as enemies are too stupid to dodge or LoS it. Therefore you had a corpse every time you cast BB. Yes, yes I know BB could occasionally bug when it loses its target for some reason, like when the dragons in Sunspire fly off but that's not at all something that happens all the time and is definitely not enough to make it an unreliable corpse generator, unlike what I'll describe in a bit when I talk about Suckrifice.

In pvp Flame Skull is such an easy skill to dodge that it's practically even less reliable to generate corpses with it. And let's not forget Stalking/Blighted generate corpses every cast if they hit. If you use Flame Skull for that purpose then you not only have to actually hit someone with it (good luck) but you also have to make sure to hit them on the 3rd cast. Again, how is this more reliable?

Also, do keep in mind that in order for you to generate a corpse you have to have Suckrifice active. This means that if you're in a situation where you cast your 3rd skull but Suckrifice runs out at the same time, or you just miss the timing to refresh it, you won't generate a corpse. Now you're in the situation where the unforgivable sin of not recasting your buff in time will completely mess up your rotation by not allowing you to refresh syphon or use the empowered Boneyard, and forcing you to not only use a dead cast on Suckrifice, but to completely forget your rotation entirely and start spamming skulls. No other buff in the game can completely ruin your flow like this if you miss refreshing it. Needless to say, Stalking/Blighted don't have this issue. For the 3rd time, how is Flame Skull more reliable?

"Just git gud skrub an refrush ur buf in time". Even that's not reliable. Remember, the skeleton must chase you down and jump at you in order for the buff to work. If it's a stationary fight then sure, you can get the timing down, but if it's a mobile fight then the actual time it takes between you casting Suckrifice and it buffing you becomes wildly unpredictable. You can have it take 3 seconds if you're next to it, 5 if you sprint away, or even never if it gets LoS-ed. The result of this is that in a mobile fight you're never sure when exactly you need to recast it to have 100% uptime. This combined with the previous paragraph makes me ask the following for the 4th and final time: How. Is. This. More. Reliable. Than. Stalking/Blighted Blastbones?

They aren't saying it's more reliable in its current form, they're saying the idea of GLS turning Skulls into a reliable, AOE burst that produces corpses is a good one.

It's just poor implementation. GLS is great in theory, but the skill itself sucks. If they wanted to turn it into a buff, they needed to ACTUALLY make it a buff skill - not some weird, clunky, delayed pet that might buff you if it manages to path to you and not die or get stuck along the way.

Skulls also needs work. It does crazy strong damage, but the weird unique animations per cast hurt the ability to weave it, and the projectile speed is laughably slow - a single dodge roll can dodge 2 (sometimes 3) consecutive casts of the ability.

Vulkunne · March 28

Stalking Blastbones

Grave Lord's Sacrifice is out there 'doing things' and I think that's great also.

Urvoth · March 28

Stalking Blastbones

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

C_Inside wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

Ok so

I think if we look at Grave Lord Sacrifice as a way to turn Flame Skull into a longer range, lower damage, more reliable Blastbones, the skill is actually a good addition to Necro's arsenal.

I completely disagree with this statement. How exactly is Flame Skull more reliable for corpse generation? In pve Stalking BB (and blighted) would always hit their target as enemies are too stupid to dodge or LoS it. Therefore you had a corpse every time you cast BB. Yes, yes I know BB could occasionally bug when it loses its target for some reason, like when the dragons in Sunspire fly off but that's not at all something that happens all the time and is definitely not enough to make it an unreliable corpse generator, unlike what I'll describe in a bit when I talk about Suckrifice.

In pvp Flame Skull is such an easy skill to dodge that it's practically even less reliable to generate corpses with it. And let's not forget Stalking/Blighted generate corpses every cast if they hit. If you use Flame Skull for that purpose then you not only have to actually hit someone with it (good luck) but you also have to make sure to hit them on the 3rd cast. Again, how is this more reliable?

Also, do keep in mind that in order for you to generate a corpse you have to have Suckrifice active. This means that if you're in a situation where you cast your 3rd skull but Suckrifice runs out at the same time, or you just miss the timing to refresh it, you won't generate a corpse. Now you're in the situation where the unforgivable sin of not recasting your buff in time will completely mess up your rotation by not allowing you to refresh syphon or use the empowered Boneyard, and forcing you to not only use a dead cast on Suckrifice, but to completely forget your rotation entirely and start spamming skulls. No other buff in the game can completely ruin your flow like this if you miss refreshing it. Needless to say, Stalking/Blighted don't have this issue. For the 3rd time, how is Flame Skull more reliable?

"Just git gud skrub an refrush ur buf in time". Even that's not reliable. Remember, the skeleton must chase you down and jump at you in order for the buff to work. If it's a stationary fight then sure, you can get the timing down, but if it's a mobile fight then the actual time it takes between you casting Suckrifice and it buffing you becomes wildly unpredictable. You can have it take 3 seconds if you're next to it, 5 if you sprint away, or even never if it gets LoS-ed. The result of this is that in a mobile fight you're never sure when exactly you need to recast it to have 100% uptime. This combined with the previous paragraph makes me ask the following for the 4th and final time: How. Is. This. More. Reliable. Than. Stalking/Blighted Blastbones?

They aren't saying it's more reliable in its current form, they're saying the idea of GLS turning Skulls into a reliable, AOE burst that produces corpses is a good one.

It's just poor implementation. GLS is great in theory, but the skill itself sucks. If they wanted to turn it into a buff, they needed to ACTUALLY make it a buff skill - not some weird, clunky, delayed pet that might buff you if it manages to path to you and not die or get stuck along the way.

Skulls also needs work. It does crazy strong damage, but the weird unique animations per cast hurt the ability to weave it, and the projectile speed is laughably slow - a single dodge roll can dodge 2 (sometimes 3) consecutive casts of the ability.

They'd also need to give necros some additional damage skills that it could buff. If they made DK's whip into a skill that buffed your class skills and dots 15% for instance, it might actually see a lot of use since the DK kit is loaded with other great damage skills. For necro, the entire damage kit IS blastbones, so removing it to add a buff doesn't help at all.

C_Inside · March 28

Stalking Blastbones

@ZOS_Kevin The fact that you replied to a single person asking about crown sales 2 minutes after they created a thread yet you've ignored what has to be hundreds of necro players over the course of more than a month now is absolutely appalling and really shows where ZOS' priorities are. Not that we didn't already know, but the fact that it's so blatantly obvious is just disgusting.

OsUfi · March 29

Stalking Blastbones

Guessing this is the start of a small series of Necro changes. Now I'm wondering what'll be in Update 42 for us (PTS in a few weeks?), of if they'll wait for 43 after Gold Road for the next change.

Alaztor91 · March 29

Stalking Blastbones

OsUfi wrote: »

Guessing this is the start of a small series of Necro changes. Now I'm wondering what'll be in Update 42 for us (PTS in a few weeks?), of if they'll wait for 43 after Gold Road for the next change.

I certainly hope so. Stalking Blastbones was basically untouched since like 2019 so I would rather prefer if ZOS took some of the pages and pages of feedback into account and improves Grave Lord's Sacrifice, Blighted Blastbones and other mediocre Necro skills before the class 10th anniversary.

Kalle_Demos · March 30

Stalking Blastbones

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

So, I already posted this in another thread, but wnsted to reirerate it here. I have tried and tested it under many circumstances in the game and moved away from it.

GLS is a step in the right direction. But as of now it is awful. With instant casting, out of combat casting (pre buffing), 30s duration and most of all damage increase, this would be an allround good option. It would enable players to choose between diffrent playstyles, rather than choosing between blue and green icons, as was previously the case.

I disagree that GLS is a step in the right direction. I believe it's the opposite. Just as the changes have had the opposite of their intended impact. Even if all it's myriad issues were resolved Necro would still be in a worse place than if it hadn't been touched. A step in the right direction would look something like the GLS effects being applied one of Necro's pets or an underutilized skill like grasping.

Deleting the Necro's primary damage skill, as the Class struggles with damage in all content, replacing it with a buff that forces the use of another class skill with its own drawbacks in order to access certain class passives and making the Necro's corpse mechanic less reliable and harder to use is what a step in the wrong direction looks like.

StarOfElyon · March 30

Stalking Blastbones

I will continue to say that a skill that relies on non-class skills to make your build viable is a garbage skill. A class that relies on non-class skills is also garbage.

I'm making an updated version of my Necro ideas thread from 2023 (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/633137/suggestions-for-necromancer-changes). One thing that ZOS has been doing lately is making skills require less micromanagement and loading them with multiple functions:

Cephaliarch's Flail:
Infuse your arm with abyssal magic to form tentacles that lash out at your foes dealing 1939 Physical Damage, healing yourself for 969, and generating Crux. Enemies are immobilized for 3 seconds and marked with Abyssal Ink for 20 seconds. Deals up to 100% more damage to enemies with less than 50% Health. You deal 5% increased damage to enemies drenched in Abyssal Ink.

Tome-Bearer's Inspiration:
Etch a series of runes onto your weapon that pulse with power once every 5 seconds. Each pulse enhances your class abilities, and striking an enemy with one deals an additional 1161 Magic Damage and generates Crux if you have none. While slotted on either ability bar, gain Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 20%.

The Necro needs this same treatment.

Blighted Blastbones: cost determined by the highest resource.
(I have mourned the loss of Stalking Blastbones and I have accepted that fact that I'm just going to have to change my Necro)

Death Scythe:
As I have seen suggested on the forums, both morphs of the Necro scythe should get execute scaling. I agree that this would be a great and very needed addition.
- Hungry Scythe: should also apply life steal to all enemies hit.

Skeletal Arcanist/Archer: grants major sorcery/brutality when slotted on either bar. Increase the damage that their attacks do.

Shocking Siphon: while slotted on either bar grants major prophecy/savagery and increases damage done by 3%. The AOE remains on the ground even if the tether breaks early. *Increase the radius size.
- Mystic Siphon: the increased Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery persists even if the tether breaks early.
- Detonating Syphon: the damage AOE now sticks to you.

Flame Skull:
- Riccochet Skull/Venom Skull: applies burning/poisoned status effects. (Increase travel speed)

Spirit Mender: when active, applies minor cowardice to attackers.

Bone Totem: summons an effigy of bones up to 28 meters away. After 1 second, the totem begins fearing nearby enemies every 2 seconds, causing them to cower in place for 4 seconds. (Changed to allow both morphs to be targeted)
- Warding Totem: (Formerly Remote Totem) grants minor protection when standing in the area of effect.
- Agony Totem: afflicts enemies in the area of effect with minor vulnerability.

Restoring Tether: the effects persist on the player even if the tether breaks early.

Render Flesh:
- Resistant Flesh: (remains unchanged)
- Blood Sacrifice: consumes a corpse to grant you Major Courage (or Major Berserk) for 10 seconds.

Expunge: reduces the cost of all your abilities by 3% while slotted on either bar.

Bitter Harvest: when slotted on either bar, reduces your damage taken by 3%.

ULTIMATES:
Frozen Colossus: Unleash a decayed Flesh Colossus to pulverize enemies in the area. The Colossus smashes the ground three times over 3 seconds. Dealing damage applies Major Vulnerability to any enemy hit for 12 seconds.
- Glacial Colossus: does frost damage and stuns enemies on the second hit instead of the third.
- Pestilent Colossus: smashes the ground only once and does disease damage. Afflicts enemies with a pestilence that does damage over time.

Animate Blastbones: instead of resurrecting allies, this ultimate summons up to three blastbones to attack the nearest opponent. Summoned Blastbones are immune to being crowd controlled (other than by another ultimate). Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 200, down from 320, to make it more usable.

(3-15-2024: a video discussing these ideas)

https://youtu.be/s03c5jlZhaQ?si=wZUIjM1YkDQSMqnC

mariliaribas · March 30

Stalking Blastbones

Still no answer? By now even the few people that prefer GLS must realize that the skill is crap the way it currently works. A self buff that can only be cast in combat, has a few seconds delay to activate and needs to have a target? Not to mention that the same targeting issues that Stalking had still remain in this skill. They couldn't make this skill worse even if they tried.

mariliaribas · March 30

Stalking Blastbones

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

So, I already posted this in another thread, but wnsted to reirerate it here. I have tried and tested it under many circumstances in the game and moved away from it.

GLS is a step in the right direction. But as of now it is awful. With instant casting, out of combat casting (pre buffing), 30s duration and most of all damage increase, this would be an allround good option. It would enable players to choose between diffrent playstyles, rather than choosing between blue and green icons, as was previously the case.

So what you mean is... If it were an almost completely different skill it would be good? Yeah, I agree. Too bad we have to work with reality and not with what we wish were true.

Kalle_Demos · March 30

Stalking Blastbones

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I will continue to say that a skill that relies on non-class skills to make your build viable is a garbage skill. A class that relies on non-class skills is also garbage.
I'm making an updated version of my Necro ideas thread from 2023 (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/633137/suggestions-for-necromancer-changes). One thing that ZOS has been doing lately is making skills require less micromanagement and loading them with multiple functions:
Cephaliarch's Flail:
Infuse your arm with abyssal magic to form tentacles that lash out at your foes dealing 1939 Physical Damage, healing yourself for 969, and generating Crux. Enemies are immobilized for 3 seconds and marked with Abyssal Ink for 20 seconds. Deals up to 100% more damage to enemies with less than 50% Health. You deal 5% increased damage to enemies drenched in Abyssal Ink.

Tome-Bearer's Inspiration:
Etch a series of runes onto your weapon that pulse with power once every 5 seconds. Each pulse enhances your class abilities, and striking an enemy with one deals an additional 1161 Magic Damage and generates Crux if you have none. While slotted on either ability bar, gain Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 20%.

The Necro needs this same treatment.

Blighted Blastbones: cost determined by the highest resource.
(I have mourned the loss of Stalking Blastbones and I have accepted that fact that I'm just going to have to change my Necro)

Death Scythe:
As I have seen suggested on the forums, both morphs of the Necro scythe should get execute scaling. I agree that this would be a great and very needed addition.
- Hungry Scythe: should also apply life steal to all enemies hit.

Skeletal Arcanist/Archer: grants major sorcery/brutality when slotted on either bar. Increase the damage that their attacks do.

Shocking Siphon: while slotted on either bar grants major prophecy/savagery and increases damage done by 3%. The AOE remains on the ground even if the tether breaks early. *Increase the radius size.
- Mystic Siphon: the increased Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery persists even if the tether breaks early.
- Detonating Syphon: the damage AOE now sticks to you.

Flame Skull:
- Riccochet Skull/Venom Skull: applies burning/poisoned status effects. (Increase travel speed)

Spirit Mender: when active, applies minor cowardice to attackers.

Bone Totem: summons an effigy of bones up to 28 meters away. After 1 second, the totem begins fearing nearby enemies every 2 seconds, causing them to cower in place for 4 seconds. (Changed to allow both morphs to be targeted)
- Warding Totem: (Formerly Remote Totem) grants minor protection when standing in the area of effect.
- Agony Totem: afflicts enemies in the area of effect with minor vulnerability.

Restoring Tether: the effects persist on the player even if the tether breaks early.

Render Flesh:
- Resistant Flesh: (remains unchanged)
- Blood Sacrifice: consumes a corpse to grant you Major Courage (or Major Berserk) for 10 seconds.

Expunge: reduces the cost of all your abilities by 3% while slotted on either bar.

Bitter Harvest: when slotted on either bar, reduces your damage taken by 3%.

ULTIMATES:
Frozen Colossus: Unleash a decayed Flesh Colossus to pulverize enemies in the area. The Colossus smashes the ground three times over 3 seconds. Dealing damage applies Major Vulnerability to any enemy hit for 12 seconds.
- Glacial Colossus: does frost damage and stuns enemies on the second hit instead of the third.
- Pestilent Colossus: smashes the ground only once and does disease damage. Afflicts enemies with a pestilence that does damage over time.

Animate Blastbones: instead of resurrecting allies, this ultimate summons up to three blastbones to attack the nearest opponent. Summoned Blastbones are immune to being crowd controlled (other than by another ultimate). Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 200, down from 320, to make it more usable.

(3-15-2024: a video discussing these ideas)

https://youtu.be/s03c5jlZhaQ?si=wZUIjM1YkDQSMqnC

I agree. The Necro needs a lot of attention. One of Necros's problems is damage and now lack of damage abilities. The return of SBB isn't out of the question as GLS and Blight just don't cut it. Forcing the use of GLS and skulls when the Necro was better off using non-class skills just added to the mess.

Wolf_Eye · March 31

Stalking Blastbones

I was willing to give it a chance, but the fact that you can't cast it out of combat is just an awful design choice. And I think it might be the only buff skill in the game that you can't cast before getting into combat.

Also, the cast time is listed as "instant", even though it takes a few seconds for skeleton to form and give you the buff.

Aldoss · March 31

Stalking Blastbones

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I was willing to give it a chance, but the fact that you can't cast it out of combat is just an awful design choice. And I think it might be the only buff skill in the game that you can't cast before getting into combat.

Also, the cast time is listed as "instant", even though it takes a few seconds for skeleton to form and give you the buff.

GLS is the ONLY buff skill in the game that requires that. It is also the ONLY buff skill in the game that:

- Has a variable delay
- Can be immobilized
- Can be stunned
- Can be killed
- Can be LOS'd by the caster
- Can fail to deliver the buff, and gives 0 resources back when it does
- Cannot be spammed*

For a list of drawbacks that long, the skill would need to deliver way more than the pitiful 15% it gives. It needed to give more than the 20% that they originally proposed.

*Seriously. Just like BB, you cannot cast this buff a second time to cancel the original. If you hit the buff, but then get knocked off a platform, you HAVE to wait until the skele is able to find you, which takes multiple seconds, dies, or despawns before you are even allowed to recast the buff.

It's unacceptable.

Wolf_Eye · March 31

Stalking Blastbones

Aldoss wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I was willing to give it a chance, but the fact that you can't cast it out of combat is just an awful design choice. And I think it might be the only buff skill in the game that you can't cast before getting into combat.

Also, the cast time is listed as "instant", even though it takes a few seconds for skeleton to form and give you the buff.

GLS is the ONLY buff skill in the game that requires that. It is also the ONLY buff skill in the game that:

- Requires a target to cast
- Has a variable delay
- Can be immobilized
- Can be stunned
- Can be killed
- Can be LOS'd by the caster
- Can fail to deliver the buff, and gives 0 resources back when it does
- Cannot be spammed*

For a list of drawbacks that long, the skill would need to deliver way more than the pitiful 15% it gives. It needed to give more than the 20% that they originally proposed.

*Seriously. Just like BB, you cannot cast this buff a second time to cancel the original. If you hit the buff, but then get knocked off a platform, you HAVE to wait until the skele is able to find you, which takes multiple seconds, dies, or despawns before you are even allowed to recast the buff.

It's unacceptable.

Yeah, I couldn't play with the skill, so had to take it off my bar and replace it with something else. It wasn't for lack of trying, but it's just too bulky and not worth it.

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

CameraBeardThePirate · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

Aldoss wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I was willing to give it a chance, but the fact that you can't cast it out of combat is just an awful design choice. And I think it might be the only buff skill in the game that you can't cast before getting into combat.

Also, the cast time is listed as "instant", even though it takes a few seconds for skeleton to form and give you the buff.

GLS is the ONLY buff skill in the game that requires that. It is also the ONLY buff skill in the game that:

- Requires a target to cast
- Has a variable delay
- Can be immobilized
- Can be stunned
- Can be killed
- Can be LOS'd by the caster
- Can fail to deliver the buff, and gives 0 resources back when it does
- Cannot be spammed*

For a list of drawbacks that long, the skill would need to deliver way more than the pitiful 15% it gives. It needed to give more than the 20% that they originally proposed.

*Seriously. Just like BB, you cannot cast this buff a second time to cancel the original. If you hit the buff, but then get knocked off a platform, you HAVE to wait until the skele is able to find you, which takes multiple seconds, dies, or despawns before you are even allowed to recast the buff.

It's unacceptable.

Technically it doesn't require a target, just to be in combat.

To get in combat you obviously need a target, so it's sort of a moot point, but if you're stuck in combat in Cyrodiil with no one around you can still cast it.

Doesn't make it any less garbage though.

It should give its buff immediately on cast, and the leap should give you the self corpse.

TaSheen · April 1

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

Means that the caster has direct Line of Sight to you.

Wolf_Eye · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

TaSheen wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

Means that the caster has direct Line of Sight to you.

I am so sorry TaSheen. I am not the brightest bulb in the pack, and I am afraid I still do not understand what this entails.

Dragonredux · April 1

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

Means that the caster has direct Line of Sight to you.

I am so sorry TaSheen. I am not the brightest bulb in the pack, and I am afraid I still do not understand what this entails.

Line of Sight refers to if the Caster can see the target before they cast a spell. So if the target runs behind a wall, tree, pillar, etc., the Caster cannot cast their spell and is forced to reposition.

In this context, GLS won't apply if you run behind a pillar or something before it lands on you.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

Means that the caster has direct Line of Sight to you.

I am so sorry TaSheen. I am not the brightest bulb in the pack, and I am afraid I still do not understand what this entails.

Line of sight on someone just means that you are able to see them.

Abilities cast on a target require line of sight - if someone walks behind a tree, you won't be able to cast an ability on them because you don't have LoS. LoS can also be a verb; if you LoS someone, that means you are using cover to prevent them from targeting you.

Grave Lord's Sacrifice requires that the Skeleton has line of sight on the user, or else the user won't get the buff. If you cast the ability, and run around a tree, or jump off a ledge, the skeleton will not have line of sight on you, and thus will not jump you and will not give you the buff.

Aldoss · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I was willing to give it a chance, but the fact that you can't cast it out of combat is just an awful design choice. And I think it might be the only buff skill in the game that you can't cast before getting into combat.

Also, the cast time is listed as "instant", even though it takes a few seconds for skeleton to form and give you the buff.

GLS is the ONLY buff skill in the game that requires that. It is also the ONLY buff skill in the game that:

- Requires a target to cast
- Has a variable delay
- Can be immobilized
- Can be stunned
- Can be killed
- Can be LOS'd by the caster
- Can fail to deliver the buff, and gives 0 resources back when it does
- Cannot be spammed*

For a list of drawbacks that long, the skill would need to deliver way more than the pitiful 15% it gives. It needed to give more than the 20% that they originally proposed.

*Seriously. Just like BB, you cannot cast this buff a second time to cancel the original. If you hit the buff, but then get knocked off a platform, you HAVE to wait until the skele is able to find you, which takes multiple seconds, dies, or despawns before you are even allowed to recast the buff.

It's unacceptable.

Technically it doesn't require a target, just to be in combat.

To get in combat you obviously need a target, so it's sort of a moot point, but if you're stuck in combat in Cyrodiil with no one around you can still cast it.

Doesn't make it any less garbage though.

It should give its buff immediately on cast, and the leap should give you the self corpse.

Thanks for providing context that I failed to deliver. I edited the post to reflect that.

Aldoss · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

Means that the caster has direct Line of Sight to you.

I am so sorry TaSheen. I am not the brightest bulb in the pack, and I am afraid I still do not understand what this entails.

You mitigate 100% of the damage that you never take. This is the strongest form of defense in this game.

When you see 1vXers in cyro constantly running behind cover, this is what they're doing. It doesn't matter if they have 10 people chasing them, the moment the go behind the box, none of those 10 people can target them with ranged direct damage. It gives them the ability to get some resources back and stay in the fight longer.

As others have said with GLS, if you cast it, but then get knocked off a platform, or run behind a tree, the skele will jog itself around the tree until its center can draw an unobstructed line to your center. Once that happens, and the delay timer is up, and its within range of the jump, it will jump and provide the buff.

That jogging mechanic is what we're pissed off about because the jog creates a delay longer than the 2.5sec the skill claims. I'm not sure exactly how long the skele can be kited for, but it's longer than 5sec for sure. If you LoS your skele and get outside of its jump distance, it will take much longer to give you the necessary buff.

No other buff in the game has this obvious drawback. Either the devs didn't realize that would be a problem (which is nonsense, because we told them during pts), thought the reward was worth the drawback (it's not), or don't play the class and didn't even know how the skele mechanics work (my money is on this one). We told them everything they needed to know, but it's clear that reading feedback on the pts forum is low on their priority list and they're not interested in admitting that they wasted their time and money investing dev time on this atrocious skill.

Wolf_Eye · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

@Dragonredux @CameraBeardThePirate

Thank you both so so much for taking the time to explain this to me! I greatly appreciate you both!

And HOLY HECK! So not only do you need to be in combat, but the skeleton needs an unobstructed view of you?? So you just have to casually hang out in the open, where you could be attacked, while your skelly takes it's sweet sweet time sauntering over to you??

That's utterly ridiculous. No other buff I know of does this in the game, so that is just not fair to Necros.

If they wanted to turn this into a true buff, why did they not just removed the skeleton NPC aspect of it? I feel like it would have solved most of the problems with this skill if it was just a buff that you cast on yourself without the skeleton middleman (so to speak).

EDIT: And also! When you're in a fast paced situation and having to be on the move in combat, this essentially means you won't be able to rely on your skelly accurately finding you and giving you the buff that you might need. You have a buff that may or may not actually buff you. That's just not good.

~

Wolf_Eye · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

Aldoss wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

Means that the caster has direct Line of Sight to you.

I am so sorry TaSheen. I am not the brightest bulb in the pack, and I am afraid I still do not understand what this entails.

You mitigate 100% of the damage that you never take. This is the strongest form of defense in this game.

When you see 1vXers in cyro constantly running behind cover, this is what they're doing. It doesn't matter if they have 10 people chasing them, the moment the go behind the box, none of those 10 people can target them with ranged direct damage. It gives them the ability to get some resources back and stay in the fight longer.

As others have said with GLS, if you cast it, but then get knocked off a platform, or run behind a tree, the skele will jog itself around the tree until its center can draw an unobstructed line to your center. Once that happens, and the delay timer is up, and its within range of the jump, it will jump and provide the buff.

That jogging mechanic is what we're pissed off about because the jog creates a delay longer than the 2.5sec the skill claims. I'm not sure exactly how long the skele can be kited for, but it's longer than 5sec for sure. If you LoS your skele and get outside of its jump distance, it will take much longer to give you the necessary buff.

No other buff in the game has this obvious drawback. Either the devs didn't realize that would be a problem (which is nonsense, because we told them during pts), thought the reward was worth the drawback (it's not), or don't play the class and didn't even know how the skele mechanics work (my money is on this one). We told them everything they needed to know, but it's clear that reading feedback on the pts forum is low on their priority list and they're not interested in admitting that they wasted their time and money investing dev time on this atrocious skill.

I really appreciate you taking the time to give me this in-depth explanation! Especially as I do not PVP often, so I may not have realized this fully on my own.

For fast paced situations such as PVP, it is vitally necessary to be constantly on the move. You cannot stop for nothing, or you will likely lose. So this jogging (and honing in) behavior that the skelly displays could very much result in you doing an awkward "dance" with your skelly where your skelly keeps trying to "find" you but you keep moving away (out of necessity). And so you either get a delayed buff or it times out and you get no buff (I imagine it would time out eventually).

Either of these situations would result in a distinct disadvantage, because you can't just go into a fight where your opponent has all their buffs up pretty immediately but you don't. And you can't even pre-buff, because you need to be in combat to begin with.

So yeah...they should have just gotten rid of the skelly NPC to begin with. No skelly, then no need to jog and "find" you. And no need to wait just to get a buff. Honestly, they should just turn it back into a bomb.

Kalle_Demos · April 1

Stalking Blastbones

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Aldoss wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

Btw, what does LOS'd mean?

Means that the caster has direct Line of Sight to you.

I am so sorry TaSheen. I am not the brightest bulb in the pack, and I am afraid I still do not understand what this entails.

You mitigate 100% of the damage that you never take. This is the strongest form of defense in this game.

When you see 1vXers in cyro constantly running behind cover, this is what they're doing. It doesn't matter if they have 10 people chasing them, the moment the go behind the box, none of those 10 people can target them with ranged direct damage. It gives them the ability to get some resources back and stay in the fight longer.

As others have said with GLS, if you cast it, but then get knocked off a platform, or run behind a tree, the skele will jog itself around the tree until its center can draw an unobstructed line to your center. Once that happens, and the delay timer is up, and its within range of the jump, it will jump and provide the buff.

That jogging mechanic is what we're pissed off about because the jog creates a delay longer than the 2.5sec the skill claims. I'm not sure exactly how long the skele can be kited for, but it's longer than 5sec for sure. If you LoS your skele and get outside of its jump distance, it will take much longer to give you the necessary buff.

No other buff in the game has this obvious drawback. Either the devs didn't realize that would be a problem (which is nonsense, because we told them during pts), thought the reward was worth the drawback (it's not), or don't play the class and didn't even know how the skele mechanics work (my money is on this one). We told them everything they needed to know, but it's clear that reading feedback on the pts forum is low on their priority list and they're not interested in admitting that they wasted their time and money investing dev time on this atrocious skill.

I really appreciate you taking the time to give me this in-depth explanation! Especially as I do not PVP often, so I may not have realized this fully on my own.

For fast paced situations such as PVP, it is vitally necessary to be constantly on the move. You cannot stop for nothing, or you will likely lose. So this jogging (and honing in) behavior that the skelly displays could very much result in you doing an awkward "dance" with your skelly where your skelly keeps trying to "find" you but you keep moving away (out of necessity). And so you either get a delayed buff or it times out and you get no buff (I imagine it would time out eventually).

Either of these situations would result in a distinct disadvantage, because you can't just go into a fight where your opponent has all their buffs up pretty immediately but you don't. And you can't even pre-buff, because you need to be in combat to begin with.

So yeah...they should have just gotten rid of the skelly NPC to begin with. No skelly, then no need to jog and "find" you. And no need to wait just to get a buff. Honestly, they should just turn it back into a bomb.

On top of ^^^ALL OF THAT^^^ the most egregious aspect, to me, is that GLS was implemented in the worst possible fashion. The Necro has a number of lackluster skills but for reasons unknown Stalking Blast Bones, the Class' primary damage skill, was the one chosen to sacrifice. Necro runs even further behind in the damage race, left with inferior options as the Class' issues are only exacerbated further.