Sacrobones + Flaming Skull = Sustain Nightmare

Snowybear · February 20

I want to start off by saying that I 100% disagree with the change made to stalking BB. I feel like I am losing all of my burst DPS and class fantasy. In what world would you ever summon a skeleton to attack yourself in order to obtain a buff? Also, why would I want to use a stamina morph (green color) version as a magika based necromancer when everything else I cast is blue?

Anyway...I ran into a major magika sustainability problem when using the new Sacrobones skill. Before with stalking BB we could use one skill to obtain a corpse at the target's location. We now have to use three flaming skulls to get the same effect. As a stage 4 vampire the cost of my stalking BB is 1593 magika, and the cost of one flaming skull is 2385. With the new update I now have to spend 7155 magika just to get one corpse on top of my target. If I want to cast both boneyard and siphon that is going to cost me 14,310 magika just so I can use two Grave Lord abilities.

Sadly, I think we all know by now that stalking BB is on it's way out the door, but can we at least get 50% magika reduction of skulls or something while sacrobones is active? Arcanist get 1 crux with each cast of their spammable, why do I have to use three flaming skulls to get the same effect???

MashmalloMan · February 20

Snowybear wrote: »

Also, why would I want to use a stamina morph (green color) version as a magika based necromancer when everything else I cast is blue?

I totally agree with the rest of what you said, but I think you're playing the wrong game at this point based on this part ^. It's been this way since hybridization, like it or hate it. The best builds have some form of stam dump if they're mag based or vise versa. I'm not saying I agree with forcing BB as a stam morph, it should have dynamic cost, but some form of stam skill like Trap or Archer is beneficial in your build.

For Sacrifice, tying its corpse generation to specifically skulls despite the skill giving 15% class and dot damage is so ridiculous, I can't comprehend who came up with that.

Why should I have to cast this skill (in combat) then another skill to make up for its downsides. Didn't they attempt to move away from this with changes like Burning Light for templar so it procs from all damage instead of specifically within the class. Yeah, as a templar you probably want to use jabs, it's still great, but the option to use anything appeals to players that want it. Like a ranged plar or werewolves, etc.

So now, if you use Sacrifice, you basically have to use Skulls as a spammable or you're nerfing yourself more than you already are by losing BB.

Simple fix. Make the skill itself spawn skeletons with lower damage than Blighted that give back some aoe and corpse gen without forcing you into specifically using 3rd cast skulls. It really feels like they just traded the 3 second minigame of BB for a 3 cast minigame of Skulls. How is this any easier to manage and as OP pointed out, more costly?

Grim_Overlord · February 20

Testing this latest change to Necromancer, the goal of making the rotation less complex by have Grave Lord's Sacrifice has backfired as now with Skulls being the main source of corpses, if you want to run a Magicka stacking setup, you need to spam Ricochet Skull even more than you used to with Stalking Blastbones. We replaced Blastbones every three casts with making sure to hit Skull three times before your graveyard or siphon need to be refreshed on top of managing Grave Lord's Sacrifice which itself needs to be cast every 17 seconds. This has done nothing to solve the complexity of Necromancer DPS as they still have 0 bar space flexibility with these changes and are now just as micromanagy as before while hitting slightly less hard and with the glowing skeleton hugging the caster instead of exploding on enemies.

To summarize here, this change has created the exact same scenario for Necro DPS as the morph change intended to address, just with a focus on skulls rather than Blastbones, which in turn has made the class's rotation's flow even clunkier than before, with the clunkiness being located in the obsessive counting of skull casts to ensure enough corpses are present to go around.

I am aware that Blighted still offers the same playstyle as before, but it has its own glaring issues. As others have mentioned ad nauseum, it is a damage nerf from Stalking. That aside, it presents a massive sustain issue for Magicka Necromancers as they stand because it is cast every three seconds, even with its cost reduction. If one wants to play a Magcro, you either have to choose between having sustain issues with Blighted or having corpse issues, and thus less damage, with Sacrifice. This feels like a lose-lose scenario for Magcros and a slight, plain damage nerf for Magcros and Stamcros. I'm not saying to abandon the morph, options and diverse morphs are great. However, this latest change goes against the spirit of the change to Stalking Blastbones in the first place.

OtarTheMad · February 20

Necro already had sustain problems and now we have to go into an even more complex rotation after being told that BB was changed because they wanted things to be simpler.

So which is it ZOS? Your decisions just seem to be done to confuse us. Arcanist is too easy, complex them up, BB makes Necro too complex needs to be simple, change to BB makes it hard on corpse management let’s do something really complex. Huh?!

katorga · February 20

Why bother?

ZOS has dedicated all their resources to elegantly buffing and simplifying NB. Changes to other classes are clunky after thoughts.

THIS is how you simplify:

Siphoning Strikes: Reworked this ability and its morphs to be simpler to use, while making their resource recovery more engaging.

When activated, the ability will instantly drain 4000 Health to restore 2000 Magicka and Stamina.
When the ability is slotted on either bar, any damage you deal will heal you for 1250 Health, up to once every second.

Leeching Strikes (morph): This morph now increases the passive healing done to 1800 Health. Whenever the heal activates, it reduces the cost of your next Leeching Strikes cast by 10%, stacking up to 10 times. The cost reduction lasts until consumed, your character dies, or you rezone.

Siphoning Attacks (morph): This morph now increases the resources restored to 2600 Magicka and Stamina. Whenever the heal activates, it also restores 200 Magicka and Stamina.

i11ionward · February 20

As we say among friends: "ZOS is just a small indie team, don't expect much from them." I think I need to read less the PTS forum, I find only disappointment here.

CameraBeardThePirate · February 20

I really liked the direction and idea of the latest change to the ability - having it alter a skill is cool, and Skulls is something I've actually been using effectively lately (getting 10k+ Skull hits in PvP) despite its shortcomings.

However, I tried using the latest version of this skill on PTS, and it's 10x more clunky than Blastbones.

You cast an ability that does no damage, and doesn't buff you for a full 2 seconds. You cannot cast your Skull until the Blastbones leaps you and gives you the buff, or its a wasted cast, so Venom Skull's special effect is somewhat negated at the beginning of a fight. In order to create a corpse effectively, you now have to cast Skulls/other necro abilities 3 times before using either of your class DoTs. The rotation becomes a nightmare of keeping track of buffs, knowing when your Skulls have max stacks, and remembering to cast your DoTs after a max stack.

It feels like ZOS is flailing around at this point throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Suprise surprise, nothing sticks.

brandsnipe · February 20

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

I really liked the direction and idea of the latest change to the ability - having it alter a skill is cool, and Skulls is something I've actually been using effectively lately (getting 10k+ Skull hits in PvP) despite its shortcomings.

However, I tried using the latest version of this skill on PTS, and it's 10x more clunky than Blastbones.

You cast an ability that does no damage, and doesn't buff you for a full 2 seconds. You cannot cast your Skull until the Blastbones leaps you and gives you the buff, or its a wasted cast, so Venom Skull's special effect is somewhat negated at the beginning of a fight. In order to create a corpse effectively, you now have to cast Skulls/other necro abilities 3 times before using either of your class DoTs. The rotation becomes a nightmare of keeping track of buffs, knowing when your Skulls have max stacks, and remembering to cast your DoTs after a max stack.

It feels like ZOS is flailing around at this point throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Suprise surprise, nothing sticks.

I wish they'd take a peak through the forums, there are tons and tons of great ideas for necro.

Alaztor91 · February 20

Old Blastbones and Flame Skull have the same resource cost, but old BB (and Skeletal Mage/Spirit Mender) gets a 50% cost reduction when the Reusable Parts passive activates. Since old BB is basically a ''semi spammable'' in your rotation, you pretty much have a 100% uptime on that passive.

This doesn't happen with Flame Skull, and since ZOS apparently wants us to buff with Grave Lord's Sacrifice and spam Flame Skull, it's pretty obvious that there is going to be sustain issues.

Old BB is such an integral part in damage/sustain/corpse generation that you quickly realize the side effects that a rushed ''rework'' can cause. GLS damage buff was put in place to cover the loss of your highest parsing skill, but then we saw the effects of the lack of ranged/consistent corpse generation, and now we see the effects of the sustain issues due to Flame Skull not benefiting from Reusable Parts.

DarkSoul6789 · February 20

katorga wrote: »

Why bother?

ZOS has dedicated all their resources to elegantly buffing and simplifying NB. Changes to other classes are clunky after thoughts.

THIS is how you simplify:

Siphoning Strikes: Reworked this ability and its morphs to be simpler to use, while making their resource recovery more engaging.

When activated, the ability will instantly drain 4000 Health to restore 2000 Magicka and Stamina.
When the ability is slotted on either bar, any damage you deal will heal you for 1250 Health, up to once every second.

Leeching Strikes (morph): This morph now increases the passive healing done to 1800 Health. Whenever the heal activates, it reduces the cost of your next Leeching Strikes cast by 10%, stacking up to 10 times. The cost reduction lasts until consumed, your character dies, or you rezone.

Siphoning Attacks (morph): This morph now increases the resources restored to 2600 Magicka and Stamina. Whenever the heal activates, it also restores 200 Magicka and Stamina.

New here but does this rotation make the NB much easier? I thought the difficulty from NB was merciless resolve

ItsNotLiving · February 22

Just play Nightblade it’s what ZoS wants you to do.

katorga · February 22

DarkSoul6789 wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

Why bother?

ZOS has dedicated all their resources to elegantly buffing and simplifying NB. Changes to other classes are clunky after thoughts.

THIS is how you simplify:

Siphoning Strikes: Reworked this ability and its morphs to be simpler to use, while making their resource recovery more engaging.

When activated, the ability will instantly drain 4000 Health to restore 2000 Magicka and Stamina.
When the ability is slotted on either bar, any damage you deal will heal you for 1250 Health, up to once every second.

Leeching Strikes (morph): This morph now increases the passive healing done to 1800 Health. Whenever the heal activates, it reduces the cost of your next Leeching Strikes cast by 10%, stacking up to 10 times. The cost reduction lasts until consumed, your character dies, or you rezone.

Siphoning Attacks (morph): This morph now increases the resources restored to 2600 Magicka and Stamina. Whenever the heal activates, it also restores 200 Magicka and Stamina.

New here but does this rotation make the NB much easier? I thought the difficulty from NB was merciless resolve

The best part of the skill, 1250 health, 200 mag/stam every second is applied passively when doing damage by having the skill slotted on either bar. The other morph works the same way, but with more healing and making the skill free. You can't get any easier than that.

Merciless was changed in a previous patch to work automatically with light attacks, you cast it when it lights up. You used to cast the skill, 5 light attacks, cast again. Much less micromanaging.

Meanwhile, Necro's glaring omission having Major Brutality/Sorcery attached to a skill "while slotted on either bar" is no where to be found.

With this change ZOS basically removed the Necro's best delayed burst ability, replaced it with a garbage buff, and just to make fun of Necros has them casting Blastbones at themselves. Using yourself as a corpse ruins Mystic siphon because the skill has such a short aoe radius. It is pretty bad for the healing tether as well because of the same issue.