One last step and Necro is complete

Urzigurumash · July 8

The "while slotted on either bar" treatment for the Death Knell passive.

Excellent changes today, thank you Devs for listening to our feedback. We've spent years thinking about this problem of balancing self-buffing with class thematicism while preserving fulfillment of Mage-Thief-Warrior archetypes, and I think the bothbar treatment on Death Knell is the final remaining step to perfect this class.

Do you agree?

CameraBeardThePirate · July 8

No

Meh, you don't really need that to be on both bars. If your target is in execute range, you should be spamming your execute or damage ability, and if you're doing that, you're likely on the bar with your max Death Knell stacks.

The bigger issues imo are the duration of corpses being too short (especially in PvP where corpses disappear once a player respawns) and the Blastbones pathing (which could be mitigated by giving it a portion of the old Stalking modifier)

Urzigurumash · July 8

Yes

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Meh, you don't really need that to be on both bars. If your target is in execute range, you should be spamming your execute or damage ability, and if you're doing that, you're likely on the bar with your max Death Knell stacks.

How so? Half of the skills are better frontbarred, the other half are better backbarred with Nirnhoned backbar and Sharpened / Precise frontbar. This would give you the best possible results with Gravelord skills.

Further, and more importantly, being able to backbar Archer, Bones, and Graveyard allows for more frontbar Spammables and Executes while maximizing the Death Knell passive.

This allows for better flexibility in ranged vs. melee, bow vs staff, dw vs 2h, etc.

Nobody wants both bars so powerful the 12 chosen skills are the same for every player. Freeing these Gravelord skills to be bothbarrable would go a long way to prevent this.

Urzigurumash · July 8

Yes

And also, Death Gleaning could use the same treatment, but since this only requires 1 slot to maximize, not as essential.

But, this change to Death Knell would open up access to a frontbar Death Gleaning.

StarOfElyon · July 9

No

I could have said yes but Necro still needs some work to get away from reliance on world and weapon skills.

This is definitely a buff for me who uses the siphon and skeletal mage in pvp, but I believe most players will still chose to get these buffs and debuffs from outside of the class because they're just plain better.

Leaving my ideas here out of obligation:

StarOfElyon wrote: »

This is an updated version of my Necro ideas thread from 2023 (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/633137/suggestions-for-necromancer-changes) with adjustments accounting for the Update 43 patch notes.

One thing that ZOS has been doing lately, especially with the Arcanist class, 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. 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%.

My first suggestion is to give Necromancers the same treatment. My suggestions for skills follow.

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: (both morphs)
Deals more damage based on the enemy's missing health. Cost determined by the highest resource.
- Hungry Scythe: should also apply life steal to all enemies hit, in addition to healing the caster over time.

Shocking Siphon: The AOE should remain on the ground even if the tether breaks early. (Increase the radius size too)
- Mystic Siphon: the increased Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery persists even if the tether breaks early.

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

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 cowardice.

Restoring Tether: the effects persist on the player character 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%.

Boneyard increase the radius to 8 meters.

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. Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 200, down from 320, to make it more usable.

Alaztor91 · July 9

No

Necro still needs a reliable CC. Idk what they are trying to do with Ghostly Embrace, the scenarios where you hit a target with more than one ''patch of claws'' are rare. Even if you manage to hit an enemy with 2 ''patches of claws'' you are only dealing the amount of damage that a regular AoE spammable would do(after patch).

Is it really so hard to steal the effects/animations from the ghostly hand that many Necro NPCs use and give it to the player as a single target CC? Or how about an instant fear PBAoE morph for the Totem, something similar to Mass Hysteria.

The class also still has issues like their summons not counting for BG scoreboard, summons not proccing stuff, Skeletal Mage can't be forced to attack a specific target like other pets, BB pathing, BB still being completely shutdown by stuff like Negates, etc.

GrimStyx · July 9

No

These changes are certainly good and will help bring the necro back into the game, but from my point of view the class was poorly designed from the beginning. For example, the class has a passive for DoT damage, but at the same time the necro does not have much of its own DoT damage and those that do have this area effect, it lacks targeted dots, for example, like the arcanist The Imperfect Ring, which would impose a targeted dot in the area application, or some kind of buff in the passive to increase the duration of negative statuses, in order to reduce the window when minor statuses that increase damage taken or cause damage over time might not work.

Necro also needs to be rethought as a full-fledged summoner, so that his pets really pose a threat, or at least are pets in fact and not visually, while when Zos made a nerf to DoT damage, for some reason skeletons were also taken into account as DoT damage, the same for me I don’t really like that collosus is not a pet, it’s just an animation, the same as, for example, the ultimate from the staff of destruction, why couldn’t they make a strong version of the pet, like the storm atronarch of the sorc, perhaps he could move slowly and attack the enemy causing damage area, and casting Major Vulnerability on affected targets, and would last 15 seconds, instead of 4 seconds... In the end, sorc and necro have a common school of magic - Conjuration, they should and at the same time should not be similar to each other, since their approach as well as methods of combat will be different.
And this is not a reason to abandon the necro summoner, just because this niche has been occupied by sorcs, again, the fighting methods may differ, but the Conjuration school is common to both

And by the way, about combat methods. I don’t know whether anyone will agree with me or not, maybe these are just my delusional and unreasonable ideas, and in this paragraph I will even agree with you, but I’ll just write anyway trying to make a necro a 3 into 1, that is, a damage dealer, a tank and a healer, was not a very good idea, it deprived the class of flexibility in the approach to dealing damage ; from my point of view, a necro should be a good damage dealer and tank, but a very mediocre healer, if instead of a healing branch they added a summoning branch where there would be spam skulls, bone armor, skeletons, a spirit healer, a colossus, also add another talent with a new pet, or a strong buff for all existing pets it would be clearly better both gameplay and conceptually, add a couple more other skills to the vacated trees of other skills, and also the Grave Lord branch could be redesigned to weaken the enemy and deal DoT damage, like Curse branch, more for supporting but with damage potential, without seriously trying to be a healer for example, it would be cool if we could transfer the negative effects that are on us to the enemy, thus combining Render Flash, and other skills in the curse branch that could curse us, and also return the statuses puted by the enemy back to him

In total, we would get a curse branch, a summoning branch, and a branch more suitable for a tank, and healing and self-healing skills could be scattered between these branches, like dk or other old classes that did not adhere to the 3 in 1 concept, which is why they turned out to be individual and interesting, with the possibility of different variations in builds, with its clearly visible strengths and weaknesses

StarOfElyon · July 9

No

Not being able to generate a corpse outside of combat is DUMB!!!

Necrotech_Master · July 9

No

i think necromancer still has a bit more left to do before i think it will be more complete

the current changes were definitely a massive step in the right direction and resolved many many many of the issues ive had with the class

Araneae6537 · July 9

No

I’ll be glad for some actual improvements this update, but to me, necro has always needed several changes to fit the lore and fantasy:

First, though, I’m glad that the summons are temporary — this to me fits what we see NPC necros do, and anyway, we don’t need another pet class. We just need the summoned minions to be more effective.

The gimmicky tombstones should be replaced by grasping skeletal hands or similar — like what the final boss in EH1 summons.

Bone colossus ult. Why do we have a weird collossus that comes partway out of the ground to slam a fist? It impairs view and a bone colossus would be much cooler.

Better minions, fix the grasping skeletal hand, boost scythe.

Since this is my wishlist, how about an alternative ability for necromancers to turn / banish undead (it would have to be a debuff of course, not purely negate enemies or abilities, but the idea of it) — I created my first necro inspired in part by Vastarie and expected there to be such options… I would be satisfied with the above but adding this last as an alternative would truly make me happy!

Urzigurumash · July 9

Yes

Alright alright I was trying to be succinct with this all.

Can I append something to the poll title?

"for this cycle, so we can see how strong this is?"

GrimStyx · July 10

No

Yes, I also agree that the necromancer’s summoned creatures should be temporary, but they also need to be perceived as pets, only summoned for a while, in the end, playing through the summoned undead is what makes the necromancer a necromancer, in any game, even in previous parts of the scrolls, the necromancer has its main damage thanks to its mini army, so the summoned creatures should be its strong point, and not for the sake of minor damage support, otherwise it’s just some kind of elemental magician who throws fireballs, freezes and electrocutes the ground. Even Warden has an ultimate through a pet, why class who should be a summoner in canon dosn't have it

Urzigurumash · July 10

Yes

I'm trying to finish the room by hanging up a picture, not build the Taj Mahal

Araneae6537 · July 10

No

Urzigurumash wrote: »

I'm trying to finish the room by hanging up a picture, not build the Taj Mahal

Lol, but there are cracks in the foundation!

Okay, I realize my post was carried away with everything I would ideally like to see in the class… I am optimistic about the changes but still think necro minions need improvement, maybe even just reverting to pre-U35. Then I could say that necro might be complete, especially if skill styles encompass more than just colors and scribed skills add useful options — maybe I could yet have my Taj Mahal.

The Elder Scrolls Online

One last step and Necro is complete

One last step and Necro is complete 25 votes