How is Flame Skull as spammable after recent buff?

candyflippin · June 2023

The damage spike for 3rd cast Flame Skull was buffed from 20% to 50%, and as far as I understand it was the only balance change for Necromancer in this update.

I know this class needs some love and I know a lot of people are talking about Necromancer design flaws as a class, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned or discussed anything about this
buff even if it is a minor and meaningless change. Yes, they should have changed the animation. Yes, they could have improved the projectile speed. But I won't get into the whole Necromancer discussion right now.

I wanted to know if anyone tried using Flame Skull as a spammable after the patch. Has parsing improved in PvE? Has the 3rd cast damage become noticeable in PvP? Things like that. Just like everyone else, I haven't been using it as a spammable because it feels clunky as hell. But I was starting to wonder if I should try and replace Force Pulse or Destructive Clench with Flame Skull if there was an appreciable difference.

Melzo · June 2023

If you take a morph that deals poison damage, then it's not bad. But it's still worse than the sorcerer's crystal, since it works only from the skills of a necromancer, but the fiery skull, as it was ***, remained. The problem of the necromancer in all the mechanics of the class. In PvE, the skull changes did little to increase damage. Maybe 0.01 percent only, but in pvp if you only play in close combat only. The ranged staff necromancer is already dead and buried. The necromancer needs a class rework and not adding bones as an enhancement to some skill. A problem with skills that deal AoE damage, a HUGE problem with corpses and with all skills at least somehow interact with them. This list could go on and on. There is no feature now. And this applies to both pvp and pve. The class looks much better than the arconist but much worse in gameplay.

Necrotech_Master · June 2023

with the buff it makes it more useful, but the skill doesnt feel great to weave because your character has 3 different animations for the skull (with the flame skull), and the skull projectile travel time is still a tad slow

NordSwordnBoard · June 2023

candyflyp wrote: »

The damage spike for 3rd cast Flame Skull was buffed from 20% to 50%, and as far as I understand it was the only balance change for Necromancer in this update.

I know this class needs some love and I know a lot of people are talking about Necromancer design flaws as a class, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned or discussed anything about this
buff even if it is a minor and meaningless change. Yes, they should have changed the animation. Yes, they could have improved the projectile speed. But I won't get into the whole Necromancer discussion right now.

I wanted to know if anyone tried using Flame Skull as a spammable after the patch. Has parsing improved in PvE? Has the 3rd cast damage become noticeable in PvP? Things like that. Just like everyone else, I haven't been using it as a spammable because it feels clunky as hell. But I was starting to wonder if I should try and replace Force Pulse or Destructive Clench with Flame Skull if there was an appreciable difference.

I've tried using skulls in the past, and the problem isn't the damage its the list of things you mentioned mainly. From my experience, clench and crushing shock/pulse offer better utility, secondary effects, and of course the speed or "dodge-ability" factor of the skill even hitting its intended target. Since the only change is to damage, I have to say no to your question. So Necros use the skills mentioned above to be almost as good as classes that get to use awesome skills from their class kit.

One morph could put a DoT (what? to synergize with our passive? why?) on enemies and be undodgeable. The other morph could be better for PvE/parsing. We keep throwing ideas out, only to get a damage buff to something not being used for reasons other than flat damage.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2023

It's always been fine in PvE, it's still garbage in PvP.

It's simply too slow. You can literally outrun the projectile with sufficient movement speed, and dodge roll when you see it close in on you.

It's also garbage to light attack weave still because the skill still has three distinct animations with different lengths.

It needed to be reworked entirely, not just be given a boost in damage.

KlauthWarthog · June 2023

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's also garbage to light attack weave still because the skill still has three distinct animations with different lengths.

This. As long as this skill continues to be such a pain in the behind to weave, especially at higher latencies, it will continue to be garbage.

MindOfTheSwarm · June 2023

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's also garbage to light attack weave still because the skill still has three distinct animations with different lengths.

This. As long as this skill continues to be such a pain in the behind to weave, especially at higher latencies, it will continue to be garbage.

“Casting Flaming Skull immediately after a fully charged heavy attack, will fire 2 extra skulls that deal 75% less damage.”

This would effectively be a 50% damage increase after a fully charged heavy and alleviate the need for Light Weaving altogether when using it.

Another option is to simply have consecutive casts increase its damage up to 3 times, enough that it covers the need for Light Weaving it.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2023

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's also garbage to light attack weave still because the skill still has three distinct animations with different lengths.

This. As long as this skill continues to be such a pain in the behind to weave, especially at higher latencies, it will continue to be garbage.

“Casting Flaming Skull immediately after a fully charged heavy attack, will fire 2 extra skulls that deal 75% less damage.”

This would effectively be a 50% damage increase after a fully charged heavy and alleviate the need for Light Weaving altogether when using it.

Another option is to simply have consecutive casts increase its damage up to 3 times, enough that it covers the need for Light Weaving it.

Or or or.... and hear me out..... we make the skill function like every other skill in the game and remove the unnecessary unique animations.

SandandStars · July 2023

Flame Skulls + Cliff Racers are just too slow, wayyy too slow, to hit any decent/average player in PvP.

All the “dmg buff” etc bonuses they try to add to these skills are pointless without addressing the fundamental problem that they won’t actually hit anyone.

JerBearESO · July 2023

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Make skull undodgable, and make portion of it's damage a stacking DoT.

Identity

YandereGirlfriend · July 2023

Or have it always apply Burning or something.

Wouldn't solve anything for PvP but would make it much more interesting for PvE.

Utt of the Freezing Tomb · July 2023

Read my post about necromancer balance
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/639032/necromancer-need-some-love-again-here-some-suggested-of-changes-to-balance-necromancer#latest

OtarTheMad · July 2023

Skulls is just too slow. I dodged a skull the other day and it was right next to my face. They could buff the damage to one shot trial bosses, it’d still be extremely dodgeable.

MindOfTheSwarm · July 2023

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Or have it always apply Burning or something.

Wouldn't solve anything for PvP but would make it much more interesting for PvE.

Remember when birds were undodgable? No thanks

Zodiarkslayer · July 2023

Skulls and birds are the worst spammables in game, because of the animations and the travel time. No amount of buffing is ever going to change that.

Necromancer needs a melee single target spammable, something that hits as hard as veiled strike or whip.

And it's not scythe, because that follows the AoE standards, meaning weak against single enemies and too expensive for this, too. 😕