Magicka necromancer in pvp is totally broken

Eduard_Rodric

Magicka necromancer in pvp is totally broken needs a lot of love, the summons are totally broken and has no skills focused on single target damage for 1x1 for example. And the cures depend on bodies to do something does not work. Need a great buff the magicka necromancer class.

Mesoz

Just go stam, sadly magcro is only going to be useful for support/heals. Magcro in general just has way to many issues in both pve and pvp.

ecru

Yeah it's really bad. I did a few BGs and really just couldn't deal with anyone competent even though I did instagib a team with the colossus, but that's low MMR bgs for you. One of the biggest annoyances is the Intensive Mender, which has about a 2 second delay on any heal after you cast it. This includes recasting it when it's already up. It's not a bad heal, just inconsistent and unreliable because you never know when the damn thing is actually going to heal you. Just imagine Vigor taking 2 seconds to work and maybe not healing you because someone else is taking damage and that's what you're dealing with. The healing from it is actually pretty strong when it does work though.

The scythe isn't a great heal, the damage is weak, and the hot on it is a complete joke. I don't really understand what the point of the hot is at all since it heals for literally 100 health per tick. Your actual healing output can be really good with Render Flesh, but you're making yourself vulnerable by using it, and it's expensive. The healing tether needs a corpse, but heals for only a small amount more than rapid regen, so if you want a hot, you're probably better off just using rapid regen. Mystic Siphon is a good dot, but again cumbersome to use due to the fact that it needs a corpse, and isn't effective enough on it's own to justify trying to make good use of it.

Blastbones is surprisingly weak and even less reliable than I expected it would be. There are so many pathing issues in BGs that often it times out, which means you can't cast one for 8 seconds again, and the aoe is small enough that players have to pretty much be on top of each other for it to hit more than one person. Often the only offensive ability you have to use is Ricochet Skull, which doesn't do any more damage than something like ele weapon, so again it's hardly worth slotting.

I could probably type another few paragraphs on how bad the abilities are but I'm disappointed enough already, maybe someone else can cover the things I missed.

Mesoz

ecru wrote: »

Yeah it's really bad. I did a few BGs and really just couldn't deal with anyone competent even though I did instagib a team with the colossus, but that's low MMR bgs for you. One of the biggest annoyances is the Intensive Mender, which has about a 2 second delay on any heal after you cast it. This includes recasting it when it's already up. It's not a bad heal, just inconsistent and unreliable because you never know when the damn thing is actually going to heal you. Just imagine Vigor taking 2 seconds to work and maybe not healing you because someone else is taking damage and that's what you're dealing with. The healing from it is actually pretty strong when it does work though.

The scythe isn't a great heal, the damage is weak, and the hot on it is a complete joke. I don't really understand what the point of the hot is at all since it heals for literally 100 health per tick. Your actual healing output can be really good with Render Flesh, but you're making yourself vulnerable by using it, and it's expensive. The healing tether needs a corpse, but heals for only a small amount more than rapid regen, so if you want a hot, you're probably better off just using rapid regen. Mystic Siphon is a good dot, but again cumbersome to use due to the fact that it needs a corpse, and isn't effective enough on it's own to justify trying to make good use of it.

Blastbones is surprisingly weak and even less reliable than I expected it would be. There are so many pathing issues in BGs that often it times out, which means you can't cast one for 8 seconds again, and the aoe is small enough that players have to pretty much be on top of each other for it to hit more than one person. Often the only offensive ability you have to use is Ricochet Skull, which doesn't do any more damage than something like ele weapon, so again it's hardly worth slotting.

I could probably type another few paragraphs on how bad the abilities are but I'm disappointed enough already, maybe someone else can cover the things I missed.

Mag's blast bones morph seems to do appropriate dmg at rank 4 lol, seems to actually properly scale then. But before that it hits for nothing, and stams is just broken to. But at least stam feels complete and not as clunky to play and has access to a lot of things, and just better class morphs in general as well.

It's just sad how pathetic of a state mag is in, i wanted it to work and have been trying different things to make it work. But mag has just been a complete disappointment to me.

idk

Mesoz wrote: »

Just go stam, sadly magcro is only going to be useful for support/heals. Magcro in general just has way to many issues in both pve and pvp.

I am questioning how useful it will be for healing.

Mesoz

idk wrote: »

Mesoz wrote: »

Just go stam, sadly magcro is only going to be useful for support/heals. Magcro in general just has way to many issues in both pve and pvp.

I am questioning how useful it will be for healing.

I have been watching a couple streams running mag as heals, and it seems to do pretty well tbh, at least in pve. For pvp with the corpse mechanic and moving so much might not work so well outside of running with a zerg or something.

Neloth

idk wrote: »

Mesoz wrote: »

Just go stam, sadly magcro is only going to be useful for support/heals. Magcro in general just has way to many issues in both pve and pvp.

I am questioning how useful it will be for healing.

Magcro self heals seems strong in BGs... you combine mender with magcro BoL (I don’t remember the name, the burst heal), pirate skeleton (since you defile yourself anyway), and purge. All together it’s pretty strong.

But I really wish they buff buggedbones, yes. It need to be unkillable and has to jump to target on second activation maybe, idk, many good ideas have been proposed in other threads.

Lughlongarm

1)Ghost heal is probably the best self heal in the game, no corpes needed. You have purge as well which is huge. You also have the heal with the minor defile(no corpes needed), another excuse to run Pirate Skeleton monster set.

2) For single target damage you have a very magden like kit of a strong burst skill, strong aoe skill(much betterr than the warden skill), DOT skill, mehaa spammable that will be replaced with a destro staff skill, and a niche stun that will be replaced with the destro staff stun skill.

You can also theory craft a tanky dot necro with aoes and debuffs , using the pull effect from the defensive skill.

Necro ulti is tons of pressure, good timing and nothing can survive the combo(hard to pull of).

Kadoin

"Could not deal with anyone competent"

Really? I didn't know being a Necromancer entitled you to an automatic win.

Noctus

necromancers are not as weak as u think in fact they are pretty strong. they are also insanely tanky which is super annoying. if they would get any buff they need nerfing in their tanking ability. the ult is also a "IWIN" button.

DokThor90

Noctus wrote: »

necromancers are not as weak as u think in fact they are pretty strong. they are also insanely tanky which is super annoying. if they would get any buff they need nerfing in their tanking ability. the ult is also a "IWIN" button.

On what build?

Skander

How much was this class being worked on?

ecru

Kadoin wrote: »

"Could not deal with anyone competent"

Really? I didn't know being a Necromancer entitled you to an automatic win.

I didn't know it did either.

Neloth wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Mesoz wrote: »

Just go stam, sadly magcro is only going to be useful for support/heals. Magcro in general just has way to many issues in both pve and pvp.

I am questioning how useful it will be for healing.

Magcro self heals seems strong in BGs... you combine mender with magcro BoL (I don’t remember the name, the burst heal), pirate skeleton (since you defile yourself anyway), and purge. All together it’s pretty strong.

But I really wish they buff buggedbones, yes. It need to be unkillable and has to jump to target on second activation maybe, idk, many good ideas have been proposed in other threads.

Yeah, the heals are strong in general. That's the only good part about mag necro. The mender unfortunately will target other people when they're lower than you, so it's not particularly reliable as a self heal unless you're alone. Kept up permanently though, it's a pretty solid heal for a group.

Someone said mag blastbones does appropriate damage, and yeah it might if you can use one every third gcd, but due to pathing issues it's just too unreliable. You try to set up burst with it and instead of it actually exploding when it's standing next to your target it just keeps standing there. It might jump at that point, or might just despawn after a few more seconds, who knows.

OnlyOnThursday

Yep, I wasted a week making the perfect necro, all passives, all skill trees, and now it's retired. RIP

frostz417

Skander wrote: »

How much was this class being worked on?

Not enough because the incompetent developers spent the entire pts cycle trying to fix nightblades and appease to the crying zerglings who are too scared to adapt. To answer your question.

Waffennacht

Here's my issue with how mag necro played out:

There was no pathing issue, there was even a leap for the skele...

But because of PTS bugs the feedback was that of, "Omergggg too OP, P2W!!" Because people couldn't be bothered to read, all pets were auto critting and at higher than intended rate....

So they made the skele slower, made it not leap immediately at your opponent....

Then fixed the bugs, and Bam! PoS!

wheem_ESO

Waffennacht wrote: »

Here's my issue with how mag necro played out:

There was no pathing issue, there was even a leap for the skele...

But because of PTS bugs the feedback was that of, "Omergggg too OP, P2W!!" Because people couldn't be bothered to read, all pets were auto critting and at higher than intended rate....

So they made the skele slower, made it not leap immediately at your opponent....

Then fixed the bugs, and Bam! PoS!

It actually had pathing issues from day 1 of the PTS, and it was bad even before they nerfed the gap closer.

I posted this thread on the PTS forums within the first day or two, highlighting some concerns I had for Magicka Necromancer in Battlegrounds. The only meaningful changes Necromancer received since then, other than bug fixes and new bugs being introduced, were the nerfs to Blastbones' health and gap closer, the nerf to the +Health passive, and apparently nerfing the Skeletal Arcanist's already weak damage by somewhere around 50% between the last PTS patch and live (unless that's a bug).

Given how Magicka Warden has been handled over the past 2 years, I'm not holding my breath for Magicka Necromancer's offense to be made not-terrible. I really hope ZOS will prove me wrong.

ecru

wheem_ESO wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Here's my issue with how mag necro played out:

There was no pathing issue, there was even a leap for the skele...

But because of PTS bugs the feedback was that of, "Omergggg too OP, P2W!!" Because people couldn't be bothered to read, all pets were auto critting and at higher than intended rate....

So they made the skele slower, made it not leap immediately at your opponent....

Then fixed the bugs, and Bam! PoS!

It actually had pathing issues from day 1 of the PTS, and it was bad even before they nerfed the gap closer.

I posted this thread on the PTS forums within the first day or two, highlighting some concerns I had for Magicka Necromancer in Battlegrounds. The only meaningful changes Necromancer received since then, other than bug fixes and new bugs being introduced, were the nerfs to Blastbones' health and gap closer, the nerf to the +Health passive, and apparently nerfing the Skeletal Arcanist's already weak damage by somewhere around 50% between the last PTS patch and live (unless that's a bug).

Given how Magicka Warden has been handled over the past 2 years, I'm not holding my breath for Magicka Necromancer's offense to be made not-terrible. I really hope ZOS will prove me wrong.

The skeletal arcanist's damage was always really low, like less than 4% of all of my parses on PTS after they fixed the pet's crit rates. It's just a really weak ability in general.

Revokus

ecru wrote: »

Yeah it's really bad. I did a few BGs and really just couldn't deal with anyone competent even though I did instagib a team with the colossus, but that's low MMR bgs for you. One of the biggest annoyances is the Intensive Mender, which has about a 2 second delay on any heal after you cast it. This includes recasting it when it's already up. It's not a bad heal, just inconsistent and unreliable because you never know when the damn thing is actually going to heal you. Just imagine Vigor taking 2 seconds to work and maybe not healing you because someone else is taking damage and that's what you're dealing with. The healing from it is actually pretty strong when it does work though.

The scythe isn't a great heal, the damage is weak, and the hot on it is a complete joke. I don't really understand what the point of the hot is at all since it heals for literally 100 health per tick. Your actual healing output can be really good with Render Flesh, but you're making yourself vulnerable by using it, and it's expensive. The healing tether needs a corpse, but heals for only a small amount more than rapid regen, so if you want a hot, you're probably better off just using rapid regen. Mystic Siphon is a good dot, but again cumbersome to use due to the fact that it needs a corpse, and isn't effective enough on it's own to justify trying to make good use of it.

Blastbones is surprisingly weak and even less reliable than I expected it would be. There are so many pathing issues in BGs that often it times out, which means you can't cast one for 8 seconds again, and the aoe is small enough that players have to pretty much be on top of each other for it to hit more than one person. Often the only offensive ability you have to use is Ricochet Skull, which doesn't do any more damage than something like ele weapon, so again it's hardly worth slotting.

I could probably type another few paragraphs on how bad the abilities are but I'm disappointed enough already, maybe someone else can cover the things I missed.

I could swear you can dodge the heal too...the number of times it didn’t heal me in a duel when I’m low health. I have the impression the ghost is searching for you sometimes.. It needs to be fixed.

LordTareq

Eduard_Rodric wrote: »

Magicka necromancer in pvp is totally broken needs a lot of love, the summons are totally broken and has no skills focused on single target damage for 1x1 for example. And the cures depend on bodies to do something does not work. Need a great buff the magicka necromancer class.

And stamcro, specifically the tanky version, is probably OP considering how well they do already in battlegrounds.

pieratsos

The class is a complete reskin of warden and its design is even more of a failure than warden was.

Mesoz

LordTareq wrote: »

Eduard_Rodric wrote: »

Magicka necromancer in pvp is totally broken needs a lot of love, the summons are totally broken and has no skills focused on single target damage for 1x1 for example. And the cures depend on bodies to do something does not work. Need a great buff the magicka necromancer class.

And stamcro, specifically the tanky version, is probably OP considering how well they do already in battlegrounds.

Only thing really op about stamcro is goliath ulti with bash morph. Which really just requires the ulti being nerfed a bit. But yeah it is kind of nuts lol. Other then that stamcro is in a pretty good spot, especially once blast bones is fixed for them and does proper dmg.

Magcro just really pales in comparison to stam sadly. But i can't say I'm surprised with how warden turned out, but at least mag warden functions better then mag necro lmao.

Eldar_Ftw

Lol there's actually people who think Stamcro is better?, have fun getting owned by everyone cause Stamcros "burst" is not only the most avoidable, it takes the longest to even set up.

Then there's sustain, which is pretty much none existent

wheem_ESO

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

Lol there's actually people who think Stamcro is better?, have fun getting owned by everyone cause Stamcros "burst" is not only the most avoidable, it takes the longest to even set up.

Then there's sustain, which is pretty much none existent

Of course Stamina Necromancer is better than Magicka Necromancer...Do you really think your offense would be improved by losing access to literally every single non-class damaging ability that you're using (including proc'd bleeds)? The only offensive Necromancer ability that doesn't have a Stamina morph is Boneyard, and it's hot, liquid garbage most of the time in PvP.

The offense differences between Magicka Necromancer and Stamina Necromancer come down to specific morphs of the class abilities, and weapon lines. You wanna trade away Dual Wield + 2h + 1h/shield + Bows for Destruction and Resto Staves? And the only offensive class skill where Magicka gets an arguably better morph is Mystic Siphon vs Detonating Siphon, but that skill is so worthless in PvP that it doesn't matter.

I'm not exactly sure where I'd place Stamina Necromancer on the overall hierarchy of PvP prowess, but it's definitely above Magicka Necromancer for offensive roles.

LordTareq

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

Lol there's actually people who think Stamcro is better?, have fun getting owned by everyone cause Stamcros "burst" is not only the most avoidable, it takes the longest to even set up.

Then there's sustain, which is pretty much none existent

It's probably the best PvP tank you can wish for though.

Waffennacht

LordTareq wrote: »

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

Lol there's actually people who think Stamcro is better?, have fun getting owned by everyone cause Stamcros "burst" is not only the most avoidable, it takes the longest to even set up.

Then there's sustain, which is pretty much none existent

It's probably the best PvP tank you can wish for though.

It's almost exactly like the warden class, but better health scaling abilities.

pieratsos wrote: »

The class is a complete reskin of warden and its design is even more of a failure than warden was.

Eldar_Ftw

wheem_ESO wrote: »

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

Lol there's actually people who think Stamcro is better?, have fun getting owned by everyone cause Stamcros "burst" is not only the most avoidable, it takes the longest to even set up.

Then there's sustain, which is pretty much none existent

Of course Stamina Necromancer is better than Magicka Necromancer...Do you really think your offense would be improved by losing access to literally every single non-class damaging ability that you're using (including proc'd bleeds)? The only offensive Necromancer ability that doesn't have a Stamina morph is Boneyard, and it's hot, liquid garbage most of the time in PvP.

The offense differences between Magicka Necromancer and Stamina Necromancer come down to specific morphs of the class abilities, and weapon lines. You wanna trade away Dual Wield + 2h + 1h/shield + Bows for Destruction and Resto Staves? And the only offensive class skill where Magicka gets an arguably better morph is Mystic Siphon vs Detonating Siphon, but that skill is so worthless in PvP that it doesn't matter.

I'm not exactly sure where I'd place Stamina Necromancer on the overall hierarchy of PvP prowess, but it's definitely above Magicka Necromancer for offensive roles.

Not even close to being right, maybe you should look at both builds before even commenting next time. You do realize LA trait (4,884 spell pen) and the Necro trait that gives 1,500 phy/spell pen, that's 6,384 spell pen and if you run WoE that's another 5,280 spell pen for a total of 11,664 which would wreck face in non cp. If you do cp pvp it could go even higher with not only points but say you run a set of spinners that's another 3,329 spell pen which would net you 14,993 spell pen W/O ANY DAMN POINTS. Oh and I forgot the 5% from the destro talent also

You wouldn't even get half of that with a stam build, which to even get close to half of it you would need to run a 2h and s/b (with puncture) and nothing else (even adding the mace 20%). Meanwhile you can run destro/resto or destro s/b.

As a Magcro you'll have possible shields, heals, mag regen/sustain, insane amount of spell pen, negative effect removal

Meanwhile Stamcro has meh phys pen, no regen (outside of the 200 extra regen talent, which mag version will also have), has to ether use a 225 ult or DB which is a 125 ult (meanwhile mag can use same 225 ults, destro ult, resto ult, mage ult, vamp ult).

Coming from a stam play style lover/player, Necro has one of the worst stam kits in the game if not the worst. Even assuming they fix BB for both mag and stam, mag would still be better with the amount it has not only in its kit but possible playstyles compared to stam. Mag will be good in pvp and pve, while stam will be good in pve.

Mojomonkeyman

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

wheem_ESO wrote: »

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

Lol there's actually people who think Stamcro is better?, have fun getting owned by everyone cause Stamcros "burst" is not only the most avoidable, it takes the longest to even set up.

Then there's sustain, which is pretty much none existent

Of course Stamina Necromancer is better than Magicka Necromancer...Do you really think your offense would be improved by losing access to literally every single non-class damaging ability that you're using (including proc'd bleeds)? The only offensive Necromancer ability that doesn't have a Stamina morph is Boneyard, and it's hot, liquid garbage most of the time in PvP.

The offense differences between Magicka Necromancer and Stamina Necromancer come down to specific morphs of the class abilities, and weapon lines. You wanna trade away Dual Wield + 2h + 1h/shield + Bows for Destruction and Resto Staves? And the only offensive class skill where Magicka gets an arguably better morph is Mystic Siphon vs Detonating Siphon, but that skill is so worthless in PvP that it doesn't matter.

I'm not exactly sure where I'd place Stamina Necromancer on the overall hierarchy of PvP prowess, but it's definitely above Magicka Necromancer for offensive roles.

Not even close to being right, maybe you should look at both builds before even commenting next time. You do realize LA trait (4,884 spell pen) and the Necro trait that gives 1,500 phy/spell pen, that's 6,384 spell pen and if you run WoE that's another 5,280 spell pen for a total of 11,664 which would wreck face in non cp. If you do cp pvp it could go even higher with not only points but say you run a set of spinners that's another 3,329 spell pen which would net you 14,993 spell pen W/O ANY DAMN POINTS. Oh and I forgot the 5% from the destro talent also

You wouldn't even get half of that with a stam build, which to even get close to half of it you would need to run a 2h and s/b (with puncture) and nothing else (even adding the mace 20%). Meanwhile you can run destro/resto or destro s/b.

As a Magcro you'll have possible shields, heals, mag regen/sustain, insane amount of spell pen, negative effect removal

Meanwhile Stamcro has meh phys pen, no regen (outside of the 200 extra regen talent, which mag version will also have), has to ether use a 225 ult or DB which is a 125 ult (meanwhile mag can use same 225 ults, destro ult, resto ult, mage ult, vamp ult).

Coming from a stam play style lover/player, Necro has one of the worst stam kits in the game if not the worst. Even assuming they fix BB for both mag and stam, mag would still be better with the amount it has not only in its kit but possible playstyles compared to stam. Mag will be good in pvp and pve, while stam will be good in pve.

You are conveniently ignoring the fact that magnecro will always lack: gapcloser, instant stun, defile, escape and proper dots. Stam has native access to all of those.

wheem_ESO

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

wheem_ESO wrote: »

Eldar_Ftw wrote: »

Lol there's actually people who think Stamcro is better?, have fun getting owned by everyone cause Stamcros "burst" is not only the most avoidable, it takes the longest to even set up.

Then there's sustain, which is pretty much none existent

Of course Stamina Necromancer is better than Magicka Necromancer...Do you really think your offense would be improved by losing access to literally every single non-class damaging ability that you're using (including proc'd bleeds)? The only offensive Necromancer ability that doesn't have a Stamina morph is Boneyard, and it's hot, liquid garbage most of the time in PvP.

The offense differences between Magicka Necromancer and Stamina Necromancer come down to specific morphs of the class abilities, and weapon lines. You wanna trade away Dual Wield + 2h + 1h/shield + Bows for Destruction and Resto Staves? And the only offensive class skill where Magicka gets an arguably better morph is Mystic Siphon vs Detonating Siphon, but that skill is so worthless in PvP that it doesn't matter.

I'm not exactly sure where I'd place Stamina Necromancer on the overall hierarchy of PvP prowess, but it's definitely above Magicka Necromancer for offensive roles.

Not even close to being right, maybe you should look at both builds before even commenting next time. You do realize LA trait (4,884 spell pen) and the Necro trait that gives 1,500 phy/spell pen, that's 6,384 spell pen and if you run WoE that's another 5,280 spell pen for a total of 11,664 which would wreck face in non cp. If you do cp pvp it could go even higher with not only points but say you run a set of spinners that's another 3,329 spell pen which would net you 14,993 spell pen W/O ANY DAMN POINTS. Oh and I forgot the 5% from the destro talent also

You wouldn't even get half of that with a stam build, which to even get close to half of it you would need to run a 2h and s/b (with puncture) and nothing else (even adding the mace 20%). Meanwhile you can run destro/resto or destro s/b.

As a Magcro you'll have possible shields, heals, mag regen/sustain, insane amount of spell pen, negative effect removal

Meanwhile Stamcro has meh phys pen, no regen (outside of the 200 extra regen talent, which mag version will also have), has to ether use a 225 ult or DB which is a 125 ult (meanwhile mag can use same 225 ults, destro ult, resto ult, mage ult, vamp ult).

Coming from a stam play style lover/player, Necro has one of the worst stam kits in the game if not the worst. Even assuming they fix BB for both mag and stam, mag would still be better with the amount it has not only in its kit but possible playstyles compared to stam. Mag will be good in pvp and pve, while stam will be good in pve.

You do realize that all of that penetration on Magicka Necromancer is realistically only going to apply to light attacks, a spammable, and a Blastbones that will usually either not land at all or will get blocked, right? Who cares how good your penetration is when you don't have enough useful offense to apply it to. The only penetration advantage Necromancers get over other Magicka classes is 1500 from the class passive, and that will generally require use of either the Skeletal Mage or Mystic Siphon, both of which are absolute trash; which useful ability would other classes want to give up in order to gain 1500 penetration? (While Blastbones being active should trigger the passive, you'll inevitably lose it on some of your light attacks and spammable casts, so you could save the bar slot if you don't mind less reliable uptime).

Would you really want to trade away Rending Slashes, the new-and-improved Cleave, both proc'd DOTs, all 3 possible execute skills, both possible ways to gain Major Defile, and Stamina's greater mobility, just for the extra penetration that Magicka has on the two damaging skills that you'd have left? That seems like a raw deal to me. And as a side note, all 4 of those bleed options have 100% penetration, as well as +10% more damage from the class passive that only benefits Magicka in PvE.

And did you really try to use Ultimates to say that Magicka Necromancer is better than Stamina Necromancer? There's a Stam Necro build out there that can go Goliath form and AOE-Cone bash (every 0.5 seconds) for something like 7-9k damage each. Plus, Dawnbreaker is vastly superior to Destro Ult and Meteor, and Resto Ult is a shadow of its former self.

I'm not ready to say that Stamina Necromancer is better than X, Y, or Z other Stamina class, especially since it's pretty obvious that the Goliath bash is in need of a fix, but it is absolutely better than Magicka Necromancer in an offensive role. Having great self healing on an offensive build with such poor damage basically just makes you a mobile target dummy that might be able to get a kill with a Flesh Atronach + Blastbones + Stun combo, if you get the timing just right.

SpiderCultist

a patch is coming tomorrow, let's hope it addresses some of the issues mentioned above

also, take into account this is early access and PC players are and have always been like beta testers

Neloth

Unpopular opinion, but I really enjoyed playing magcro in low MMR BGs. Yes, some nerds for sure will come here and say "go fight me and my premade, and see that you magcro is trash". Maybe, we'll see, however the ability of the class to easily smash potatoes is very important, imho; that's one of the reasons why magsorcs and stamblades are so popular in open world, let's not forget about that.

First, I see 2 important problems of magcro.

1) Blastbones need a fix, I agree. Their pathfinding is bad, their AI is bad, they die too easily and frequently stand and never explode, and so on, already mentioned 100500 times here. I hope ZoS will do something about them, since this is an early-access, and ZoS seem to already have a better version of blastbones code from early PTS cycles. Let's hope they use git, eh? Personally I think that they shouldn't be killable, or their speed, HP and AI all have to be improved greatly.

2) Race against time is crucial for any magcro build. If it gets nerfed next patch - magcro will have a very hard time, and will be forced into vampire. However, in its current version RaT perfectly complements class toolkit both with snare removal and major expedition. I don't see ZoS adding any mobility into magcro toolkit, so guess let's just hope that RaT stays the same once and forever.

Now about magcro strengths:

1) I compensated a lack of good dot and pressure with Icy Conjuror set. It's easy to proc on necro (drain, maim), and it's slow travel time doesn't affect me a lot, since current version of blastbones already forces me to play in melee range.

2) magcro has a very good hard CC, and this CC is shock clench. Since 90% of magcro dmg is aoe based (except spammable, but even stupid skeleton mage(!)), you can safely use shock staff, which buffs all your dmg and gives you much better CC than usual flame reach. Try doing this on magsorc or magblade - and you will lose 8% dmg on all your main skills.

3) survivability and heals are both very good. Spirit mender is very very very good, necro burst heal (don't remember the name) paired with pirate skeleton is now my favourite among similar skills (sorc pet, BoL, coag blood). Purge is good, and the offset sustain it provides is very noticeable.

4) speaking about offstat sustain - it's really good. Purge returns a nice amount of stats, and passive regen with pet active helps a lot. This helps you to efficiently utilise sword and shield back bar, since you are not forced into resto back bar (sending hello to magblades), and since you can block a lot of pressure when needed.

5) ulti gen is very nice and unique (out of combat). Necro repentence is very fun to use, at least for now.

6) magcro ults are decent, compared to some other classes (sending hello to magplars), but overall not that good as some people picture them here. Collosus allows to easily smash a group of potatoes not thinking about your own survivability - just cast ult, mender, and go full offensive. Flesh atro is hard to aim against solo players, but in coordinated group play I see it very powerful. Res ult is situational, but thx for it's nerf, no compiling here.

Overall conclusion: class is very good for it's survavility, and if is paired with certain things (RaT for mobility, icy conjuror for dot pressure, shock staff for CC), it has a nice potential both in group play and solo play. However, blastbones fix is mandatory for the future of mag necro, since when people will figure out how to properly counter it, we will be in a very bad spot.