It's time to buff necro

Navaac223 · April 12

With subclassing coming, I thought surely necro would get much better but, after thinking more about it, this gives us even less reasons to pick it in pvp. We've all been thinking about the op combinations we were about to do. How many of you have thought about using a necromancer skill line ? I'd guess not many, except those who want to make all pet builds, but we're talking about the stuff that will kill you in cyrodiil here, not troll builds.

There's a grand total of 2 skills that optimised players might be interested in : blastbones and spirit guardian. Ok maybe in duels I could see a few players making op bash buids with the goliath ult but, again, we're talking about the builds that you'll actually see in open world pvp. The thing is that blastbones is literally useless if your target is running away or if a mage guard decides to use a negate, so it's easily outmatched by pretty much every other burst skill. For example, if you picked animal companions instead of grave lord, you would have one of the best brutality/sorcery skills, a great mobility tool, major and minor breach with shalks, as well as passives that are, get this, actually good. Spirit guardian is a nice little defense boost but, come on, 16 sec duration ? Why would anyone pick this when you could take streak and take no damage because of the mobility ?

Every other necro skill is literally just a worse version of other classes' skills. Summoner's armor ? That's hurricane without the minor expedition and the dot, but with a redundant minor resolve (since vigor is almost mandatory at this point). Resistant flesh ? Coag but with less healing and a debuff for good measure, oh yeah, and a buff that lasts about as much time as the buff to ghostly embrace lasted and of course, say it with me everyone, necro passives are almost useless, whereas the draconic power passives (even though they're the weakest out of the 3 dk lines) give you 12% healing taken for free and other defensive perks. Ruinous scythe ? only used to stun with off-balanced. Nb literally has that on its spammable...

My point being : there is no reason at all to slot a necro skill line when you factor in completely busted skill lines like assassination, daedric summoning (ward + passives) and earthern heart (mostly passives : minor brutality and battle roar). Sure, necro will benefit a lot from subclassing, since they'll have access to good skills for once. Meanwhile the other classes will get so OP that necro might actually be even worse than it is right now..

The solution ?
1)Stop power creep : sometimes nerfs are warranted. Hardened ward, for example, needs to be nerfed into the ground
2)Give something cool to necro ! Every class except necro has something other classes want. Templar has JBeam, nb cloak, sorc has streak, warden has the potential to be really tanky with next to no investments in tankyness, while having awesome damage skills like northern storm, and great hots, dk has battle roar as well as many really solid skills. Arcanist.. well, I haven't played arc at all in pvp tbh, so I wouldn't know. However, their kit looks as suited to pvp as necro's.. not very. Anyways, there are a lot of skills that could be deleted on necro with absolutely no one missing them. just delete expunge and bone totem and replace them with fully thought-out skills that other classes would want in their kit

Urzigurumash · April 12

I think Necro's trees will be among the most popular. In PvE I expect every role to take the respective Necro tree, and in PvP Blastbones will be very popular, and Colo will probably earn more AP than any other Ult.

Earthern Heart? Nah no way, for what Fossilize? I'm a 5 star DK, I just don't see it.

sans-culottes · April 12

Urzigurumash wrote: »

I think Necro's trees will be among the most popular. In PvE I expect every role to take the respective Necro tree, and in PvP Blastbones will be very popular, and Colo will probably earn more AP than any other Ult.

Earthern Heart? Nah no way, for what Fossilize? I'm a 5 star DK, I just don't see it.

It’s certainly possible that some Necro skills—Blastbones, Colo, Spirit Guardian—will still see use, especially in niche PvP builds. But I think the broader concern is that subclassing increasingly feels like a workaround for classes that haven’t been meaningfully updated or balanced in years. Necro in particular has suffered from clunky mechanics, poor passives, and several abilities that are just flat-out worse versions of what other classes have.

So while subclassing may open up new combinations, it also seems like a quiet admission that some class kits simply won’t be fixed. Instead of revisiting or reworking underperforming abilities, it’s easier to say, “just slot something else.” That’s a strange direction for a game that still insists on giving classes distinct identities.

In the Elder Scrolls setting, where rigid class identities have never really mattered much, this hybrid approach makes a certain amount of sense. But then, why maintain the illusion that the original class kits should still matter at all?

Urzigurumash · April 12

sans-culottes wrote: »

But then, why maintain the illusion that the original class kits should still matter at all?

Idk ask OP

Xarc · April 12

We've been asking for a buff for years, it's not with subclassing that the devs are going to bother reworking the necro

I'm not sure I can expect much

Navaac223 · April 12

Urzigurumash wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

But then, why maintain the illusion that the original class kits should still matter at all?

Idk ask OP

Don't ask me to explain zenimax's random decisions xD

Urzigurumash · April 12

I guess I just dont see any DD/Solo picking any of the DLC Support Lines in PvP. Scribing and Guild might be enough that you dont want to miss out on all the busted attack combos.

So are Blastbones, Colo, and Rapid Rot enough to make Gravelord a competitive choice?

Navaac223 · April 12

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Earthern Heart? Nah no way, for what Fossilize? I'm a 5 star DK, I just don't see it.

As I said, Earthern Heart's power comes mostly from its passives, and battle roar in particular. Being able to get all your ressources back on using an ult is one of the most important parts of dk's kit. The access to minor brutality is also insane for solo pvp. Corrosive and fossilize are also good perks though

Of course, there are better skill lines than Earthern Heart, I'm just using it as an example to show that necro's skill lines doesn't match them (look at Bone Tyrant then look at Earthern Heart)

Urzigurumash · April 12

Bone Tyrant is like the best line in the game for pure HP Tanking tho.

Yeah back during the Great DK Debates of 2020 and 2021 I often asserted Battle Roar was our "core" passive in PvP.

But maintaining Mountains Blessing on 6s cooldown is crap post Hybridization and Scribing, theres hardly the bar space to make it work like most sDK did with Frag Shield in olden times.

I guess when it comes to Base Game lines I'm looking for Utility + Big Damage for best efficiency? So for DK I'm eyeing Draconic Power I think, Leap plus solid Utility.

And if I'm going for Ardent Flame I'm looking at Dawns Wrath, big time, so I'm taking Minor Sorcery instead of Minor Brutality.

Urzigurumash · April 12

Gravelord, Animal Companions, Assassination, Dawns Wrath, Ardent Flame, Daedric Summoning.

Those are all the lines with all the most busted PvP attacks.

The odd man out is Arc, not Cro, imo.

So yeah not arguing against buffs just saying keep em where theyll be relevant - Gravelord passives - put Rapid Rot back to 15% namely.

(bowcro is my 2nd most played spec.)

Joy_Division · April 12

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Gravelord, Animal Companions, Assassination, Dawns Wrath, Ardent Flame, Daedric Summoning.

Those are all the lines with all the most busted PvP attacks.

The odd man out is Arc, not Cro, imo.

So yeah not arguing against buffs just saying keep em where theyll be relevant - Gravelord passives - put Rapid Rot back to 15% namely.

(bowcro is my 2nd most played spec.)

Correct. Arc is stuck with their Crux mechanic. So it's going to be the new bottom tier next update.

Navaac223 · April 12

Urzigurumash wrote: »

So are Blastbones, Colo, and Rapid Rot enough to make Gravelord a competitive choice?

On their own, they look good. When you look at what other classes have.. no. For example, look at assassination :

-Merciless resolve, though it isn't a delayed skill that can help you for a burst combo, does way more damage than blastbones while giving you weapon damage and most importantly being reliable. That's the main disadvantage of bb : if your fight has any significant movement, bb will get lost and not work.

-For a time, I gave colossus a fair shot but it is worse than dawnbreaker. Only the first hit will land, and that's on a good day. The only ones who will take more than 1 hit are probably so inexperienced that you don't even need to ult anyways. Now look at incap : it deals more damage than colossus (provided it only hits once), costs way less ult and increases your damage done to your target by 20% instead of only 10%..

-Rapid rot is almost useless, I don't see how this is a reason for saying gravelord is competitive. Again, assassination has way better passives.

So yes, gravelord is decent. Maybe even the best part about necromancer's kit. Still no reason to keep it instead of assassination though

Urzigurumash · April 12

Sounds like maybe it's just not the class for you. Necro's one and only UNIQUE shortcoming is having only 1 good attack skill for PvP.

To me, the likelihood of DLC Healing and Tanking trees being chosen in PvP is low when you get those things PLUS some attacks in a Base Game tree.

I could be wrong there but my point is at this stage we're looking at what offensive components of a class are something that no other class offers and that combine well with other class offensive skills/passives.

Renato90085 · April 12

In Pve pov I feel necro will got nerf
but PvP pov is buff...

Deimus · April 13

Subclassing has made me realize that GLS wasn't made for Necromancer players it was made for Arcs, Templars, and DK. Grave Lord will probably be one of the most subclassed skill lines for PvE just for GLS and Rapid Rot.

For PvP I don't see people dipping into the class I've thought of a couple of combos I think will be crazy for a few classes and none of them involved the Necro lines.

The class still needs a few things, but where it's at now might be the best we can hope for. If we get anything comparable to Streak, Cloak, Ward, or JBeam we'll prob end up back in the crosshairs of a nerf nuke again within 3 months shattering all the progress we gained. Ghostly Embrace got 3 whole months of its existence being a good skill before getting hit back into wasted bar space again.

I'd say convince ZOS to get the passives somewhat on par with the other classes, and let it be. In the hands of a skilled player Necromancer can wreak havoc and nobody can insinuate you're exploiting/crutching on something OP or broken.

Also you're sleeping on dropping Vigor for Mortal Coil or Deaden Pain. Both are zero cost and can give strong healing + Major Prot or much needed recovery as Death Gleaning sucks in PvP.

katorga · April 13

Urzigurumash wrote: »

Gravelord, Animal Companions, Assassination, Dawns Wrath, Ardent Flame, Daedric Summoning.

Those are all the lines with all the most busted PvP attacks.

The odd man out is Arc, not Cro, imo.

So yeah not arguing against buffs just saying keep em where theyll be relevant - Gravelord passives - put Rapid Rot back to 15% namely.

(bowcro is my 2nd most played spec.)

You really think ZOS is going to leave those class skill lines as is with subclassing?

No way, expect massive nerfs to the best skill lines to "balance" subclassing. I bet Sorc loses hardened ward, gone, for example.

necro_the_crafter · April 13

Im afraid we will be locked into balancing madness akin to u1.6 proc sets addition for the nex few years, if they would allow as to borrow skilllines as is.

What I would like to see is getting a whole different skillline as 'subclass', that would have 3 skills, 3 passives and 1 ulti, one for each skilltree of chosen subclass that is balanced specificly for original class that you are playing.

For example, If im a necro, and I choose sorc as my subclass, I would have:

1. Dark Magic skill, lets say its Dark Deal -> Grave Lord Sacrifice, but with "necrotic" twist, instead of trading resourses you would sacrifice one of your active summons to heal for x and restore x mag/stam, or sacrifice one of your summons to gain a damage shield, but you cant ressumon sacrifised undead for 3 secs.

2. Daedric summoning. Daedric Prey -> Rally Undeath, same skill pretty much, but with less bonus damage %, since blastbones with 65%
buff would be hilariuos, or your summons attacks deals bonus flat damage to affected target with each hit.

3. Storm Calling. Mages Wrath -> Necrotic Wrath, explode a corpse to deal burst shock damage in 7m area, with execute scaling.

As for passives:

Dark magic -10% cost reduction from Unholy Knowledge Necrotic Knowledge

Daedric summoning - 100 w/spd per active suumon from Daedric Prodection Undead Aggression

Storm Calling - 10% more status damage for concossion and befouled from Energized Sepsis Shock

And for ulti:
Negate magic Field of Misery, cast a field that cleanses ground of any harmful effects, applies 3000 heal absorpsion every 1 sec, and heal allies for same amount.

Its just what I got off the top off my head, but I belive that would be much more easier to balance then simply giving everyone acsses to every skill line, as well as this approch would help to keep class indentity as opposed to giving everyone acsses to everything.

UPD:

Oh, now I see why the added skill-styles... Be ready to spend a buck to have a single color sheme for your arc/dk/necro char.

They better also make that so UI icons on your skill bar also change to chosen skill style.

necro_the_crafter · April 13

On the topic, i guess its based on devs would approach the balancing og this new system.

If skilltrees would be transported between classes "as is", we might see a nerf, imagine necro with dawn wrath skill line, Purifing light into blightbones into radiant oppression, with passives like death knell, rapid rot and illuminate. Also bubble + ghost. Or Archer + blightbones + matriarch + familiar + storm atro, all buffed by empowering grasp and daedric prey. There is potentionaly so much broken combos you might come up with, IF subclass skilllines would be transported betwwen classes as is. In that regard i guess ZoS would nerf baseline abilities for original class therefore nerfing it for subclassing as well.

Or, if subclass skilltrees would be changed based on class you play, then devs can target tweak subskills for a specific class without destroying original class that those skills belongs to. And not getting another nerf for necro is a buff already.

katorga · April 14

necro_the_crafter wrote: »

On the topic, i guess its based on devs would approach the balancing og this new system.

If skilltrees would be transported between classes "as is", we might see a nerf, imagine necro with dawn wrath skill line, Purifing light into blightbones into radiant oppression, with passives like death knell, rapid rot and illuminate. Also bubble + ghost. Or Archer + blightbones + matriarch + familiar + storm atro, all buffed by empowering grasp and daedric prey. There is potentionaly so much broken combos you might come up with, IF subclass skilllines would be transported betwwen classes as is. In that regard i guess ZoS would nerf baseline abilities for original class therefore nerfing it for subclassing as well.

Or, if subclass skilltrees would be changed based on class you play, then devs can target tweak subskills for a specific class without destroying original class that those skills belongs to. And not getting another nerf for necro is a buff already.

Something as simple as haunting curse, mages wrath, merciless resolve.

IncultaWolf · April 14

I predict detonating siphon is getting a nerf, because corpseburster is too strong in pve.

Renato90085 · April 14

IncultaWolf wrote: »

I predict detonating siphon is getting a nerf, because corpseburster is too strong in pve.

or corpseburster/class scribe will got nerf...

MrZeDark · April 14

As a person who only plays cro, I don’t see any buffs needed?

I parse 130k
I take top in dps runs most often
I have no issues in group or solo content
I flex as a support dps and STILL out dmg arcanists

What do we need exactly?

Mostly I feel people should improve their ability to play a class. Because I love my cro and have pride in crushing easy mode dps with my toon.

Love necro, if anything nerf arcanists and shift this meta away from support-less meta toons who use three skills

CameraBeardThePirate · April 14

Bone Tyrant is really the only truly bad skill line.

Lots of classes will be tempted to pick up Grave Lord just for Rapid Rot + GLS boosted dots (on a class that actually has DoTs GLS might be useful). Blastbones is still incredible despite its faults due to its massive tooltip, and Colo is an excellent ultimate in all content.

I think you're underselling Living Death as well. Res Flesh isn't nearly as bad as people say it is. The Crit Heal passive means that when you need it most, you're gonna have a 4k+ armor buff up when you're pounding heals. Spirit Guardian is strong, and Intensive Mender is back to being one of the best HoTs in the game (seriously, Intensive heals around a million healing in a balanced 8v8 BG, its just invisible on the scoreboard so no one realizes how good it is). Hexproof is the best self purge in the game bar none. Heal Tether may not be incredible, but it's free, which makes it very valuable. Finally, Enduring/Renewing Undeath is one of the most cost effective heals in the game - relatively cheap compared to heals like Combat Prayer, its AoE, burst heal AND a HoT, and potentially a purge depending on the content you're running.

OtarTheMad · April 14

Skulls still needs to improve on speed
Skeletal Summons needs some damage boost since it was nerfed with dots without being a dot
The class needs a sticky dot as Boneyard and Tether can be very easily avoided, even by NPCs

Tanking and healing skill lines are okay in my opinion. I wouldn't mind gaining some of the NPC's version of Necro skills like that giant hand grasp they use or some of those in the concept art that were decided against like the Bone spike or the Dragon ult. These could be solved with scribing though with class related ones.

OtarTheMad · April 14

MrZeDark wrote: »

As a person who only plays cro, I don’t see any buffs needed?

I parse 130k
I take top in dps runs most often
I have no issues in group or solo content
I flex as a support dps and STILL out dmg arcanists

What do we need exactly?

Mostly I feel people should improve their ability to play a class. Because I love my cro and have pride in crushing easy mode dps with my toon.

Love necro, if anything nerf arcanists and shift this meta away from support-less meta toons who use three skills

Not everyone can just "play better" and pull elite dps out of their bum. I, for one, cannot. I may be able to do it one rotation perfectly but due to personal stuff I can't keep a tight enough rotation and often miss skills or LA or whatever. So, I need something like Oakensoul or an easier rotation like Arcanist to get higher dps.

Now, I pull about 25k dps (on a robust dummy, similar to vet dungeon boss) which is fine for me and any content I need to do but if I want to venture into the other stuff like HM and trials then I need to really break out my Arcanist which can do about 35k, sometimes 40k.

And, before you say "sure you can"... no... lol... I believe me I cannot and it's okay. I have broken many headphones and mouses trying over 10 years. It's good to push yourself, be competitive and all that but also know your limitations.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 14

MrZeDark wrote: »

As a person who only plays cro, I don’t see any buffs needed?

I parse 130k
I take top in dps runs most often
I have no issues in group or solo content
I flex as a support dps and STILL out dmg arcanists

What do we need exactly?

Mostly I feel people should improve their ability to play a class. Because I love my cro and have pride in crushing easy mode dps with my toon.

Love necro, if anything nerf arcanists and shift this meta away from support-less meta toons who use three skills

I mean they absolutely need a buff for PvP. And not just a numbers type buff, they need morphs of their skills that actually function in PvP.

80% of Necro skills are utterly worthless in PvP because of how mobile and dynamic the environment is. Tethers are pretty worthless there, the Totem is essentially gifting your enemy free CC immunity, the Skeletal Minions deal pitiful damage since they don't actually count as DoTs and can't be told whom to target, Graveyard lost its primary use when they nerfed Graverobber (despite also nerfing Harmony already), and Grave Grasp is back to being useless there (after only being useful when it was erroneously dealing Oblivion Damage).

They need to look at the functionality of some of the Necro skills from Vengeance, and apply that functionality to specific morphs for PvP. Leave the abilities' usefulness for PvE while making a morph that actually functions in PvP. Skeletal Minion was a strong Sticky DoT, for example. The tethers were direct AoE skills that targeted a corpse rather than being an AoE HoT/DoT, etc.

IncultaWolf · April 14

MrZeDark wrote: »

As a person who only plays cro, I don’t see any buffs needed?

I parse 130k
I take top in dps runs most often
I have no issues in group or solo content
I flex as a support dps and STILL out dmg arcanists

What do we need exactly?

Mostly I feel people should improve their ability to play a class. Because I love my cro and have pride in crushing easy mode dps with my toon.

Love necro, if anything nerf arcanists and shift this meta away from support-less meta toons who use three skills

Most of what people want are pvp related, no gap closer, no on demand stun, bugged pets that don't proc sets like vicious death or count towards battleground scoreboards. Sprit mender just stops working sometimes, and isn't invisible when player goes into stealth, revealing where you are, stamina morph of blastbones able to be negated, etc.

OtarTheMad · April 14

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

MrZeDark wrote: »

As a person who only plays cro, I don’t see any buffs needed?

I parse 130k
I take top in dps runs most often
I have no issues in group or solo content
I flex as a support dps and STILL out dmg arcanists

What do we need exactly?

Mostly I feel people should improve their ability to play a class. Because I love my cro and have pride in crushing easy mode dps with my toon.

Love necro, if anything nerf arcanists and shift this meta away from support-less meta toons who use three skills

I mean they absolutely need a buff for PvP. And not just a numbers type buff, they need morphs of their skills that actually function in PvP.

80% of Necro skills are utterly worthless in PvP because of how mobile and dynamic the environment is. Tethers are pretty worthless there, the Totem is essentially gifting your enemy free CC immunity, the Skeletal Minions deal pitiful damage since they don't actually count as DoTs and can't be told whom to target, Graveyard lost its primary use when they nerfed Graverobber (despite also nerfing Harmony already), and Grave Grasp is back to being useless there (after only being useful when it was erroneously dealing Oblivion Damage).

They need to look at the functionality of some of the Necro skills from Vengeance, and apply that functionality to specific morphs for PvP. Leave the abilities' usefulness for PvE while making a morph that actually functions in PvP. Skeletal Minion was a strong Sticky DoT, for example. The tethers were direct AoE skills that targeted a corpse rather than being an AoE HoT/DoT, etc.

Okay, I was a little worried that people were drinking skooma too much and being like "Yeah this is fine." Meanwhile, they are on their 8th bottle of the morning.

Agreed about PvP, and Vengeance Necro showed that it could work.

But even in PvE, some things are okay but tethers in PvE I feel like are a positional nightmare, having to constantly position yourself so that either the corpse your attached to is on the boss or the beam is and constantly recasting it and graveyard to get dots unless you heavily rely on other skill lines (like I do) for those. Idk. Having played other games for the past 6 months or so I just see how bad Necro is, at least for me and my playstyle.

CameraBeardThePirate · April 14

OtarTheMad wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

MrZeDark wrote: »

As a person who only plays cro, I don’t see any buffs needed?

I parse 130k
I take top in dps runs most often
I have no issues in group or solo content
I flex as a support dps and STILL out dmg arcanists

What do we need exactly?

Mostly I feel people should improve their ability to play a class. Because I love my cro and have pride in crushing easy mode dps with my toon.

Love necro, if anything nerf arcanists and shift this meta away from support-less meta toons who use three skills

I mean they absolutely need a buff for PvP. And not just a numbers type buff, they need morphs of their skills that actually function in PvP.

80% of Necro skills are utterly worthless in PvP because of how mobile and dynamic the environment is. Tethers are pretty worthless there, the Totem is essentially gifting your enemy free CC immunity, the Skeletal Minions deal pitiful damage since they don't actually count as DoTs and can't be told whom to target, Graveyard lost its primary use when they nerfed Graverobber (despite also nerfing Harmony already), and Grave Grasp is back to being useless there (after only being useful when it was erroneously dealing Oblivion Damage).

They need to look at the functionality of some of the Necro skills from Vengeance, and apply that functionality to specific morphs for PvP. Leave the abilities' usefulness for PvE while making a morph that actually functions in PvP. Skeletal Minion was a strong Sticky DoT, for example. The tethers were direct AoE skills that targeted a corpse rather than being an AoE HoT/DoT, etc.

Okay, I was a little worried that people were drinking skooma too much and being like "Yeah this is fine." Meanwhile, they are on their 8th bottle of the morning.

Agreed about PvP, and Vengeance Necro showed that it could work.

But even in PvE, some things are okay but tethers in PvE I feel like are a positional nightmare, having to constantly position yourself so that either the corpse your attached to is on the boss or the beam is and constantly recasting it and graveyard to get dots unless you heavily rely on other skill lines (like I do) for those. Idk. Having played other games for the past 6 months or so I just see how bad Necro is, at least for me and my playstyle.

Worth noting too that both Blastbones and GLS are extremely lag dependent even in PvE. That is an issue, even if you can get high parses on Cro.

OtarTheMad · April 14

I was gonna edit my comment but it's been a while. I just feel like it's similar to when you have a crappy job (not that I know anything about that lol /s) and you tell your friends and significant other "It's fine, I pay my bills and get groceries..." but you don't see that it could be even better. Idk. I'm nuts I think.

Xarc · April 14

MrZeDark wrote: »

As a person who only plays cro, I don’t see any buffs needed?

I parse 130k
I take top in dps runs most often
I have no issues in group or solo content
I flex as a support dps and STILL out dmg arcanists

What do we need exactly?

Mostly I feel people should improve their ability to play a class. Because I love my cro and have pride in crushing easy mode dps with my toon.

Love necro, if anything nerf arcanists and shift this meta away from support-less meta toons who use three skills

pve perspective, necro is op

pvp perspective, necro is the worst class