Question for PC players: stam necro archer viable?

Aurielle

Console pleb here. Elsweyr drops Very Very Soon (tm) for us, and I can’t really decide if I’m going to go stam or mag with my Necro. I read the early PTS patch notes for the class, but didn’t keep up with the changes throughout the PTS cycle.

Are ranged stam necros viable in CP/no CP with the venom skull spammable? Or is melee necro the only viable option?

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO

Yes. Viable. Not optimal. Will get you through all content just fine though.

Aurielle

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Yes. Viable. Not optimal. Will get you through all content just fine though.

Would you say a ranged stam necro performs better than a mag necro in open world / BGs?

Neloth

Aurielle wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Yes. Viable. Not optimal. Will get you through all content just fine though.

Would you say a ranged stam necro performs better than a mag necro in open world / BGs?

Ranged necro is something similar to a ranged DK right now. Possible, but why bother? This is true for both stam & mag, imho.

Skull spammable is fine, but it's not a core skill to build around. The core skill is supposed to be blastbones, but, well.

Unfortunately, blastbones are too silly/slow/have-low-HP to reliably follow the target when you cast it from range. Moreover, if you *** up with targeting (and when you play ranged vs group it happens very frequently), and cast blastbones on a wrong guy, it will follow him for the next 2.5 + 8 seconds, and you won't be able to recast them, lul.

Now imagine a situation, when you cast blastbones on a pet sorc, but they start chasing the stupid bird instead of the sorc, just to do pathetic dmg (since pet aoe protection) or even worse - just explode somewhere on half a way, because they stopped for a few seconds to think about life.

This just forces both necro specs (mag and stam) into melee, imho. Sad, but true.

Aurielle

Neloth wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Yes. Viable. Not optimal. Will get you through all content just fine though.

Would you say a ranged stam necro performs better than a mag necro in open world / BGs?

Ranged necro is something similar to a ranged DK right now. Possible, but why bother? This is true for both stam & mag, imho.

Skull spammable is fine, but it's not a core skill to build around. The core skill is supposed to be blastbones, but, well.

Unfortunately, blastbones are too silly/slow/have-low-HP to reliably follow the target when you cast it from range. Moreover, if you *** up with targeting (and when you play ranged vs group it happens very frequently), and cast blastbones on a wrong guy, it will follow him for the next 2.5 + 8 seconds, and you won't be able to recast them, lul.

Now imagine a situation, when you cast blastbones on a pet sorc, but they start chasing the stupid bird instead of the sorc, just to do pathetic dmg (since pet aoe protection) or even worse - just explode somewhere on half a way, because they stopped for a few seconds to think about life.

This just forces both necro specs (mag and stam) into melee, imho. Sad, but true.

Thanks for the insight. Pretty disappointing. I was hoping that we’d finally have a viable ranged stam class BESIDES stamNB. I’m so tired of 2H/1HS and DW/2H stam combos. I may try to make archer necro work, but I fear it’ll be another failed experiment like my archer Warden. Guess I’ll go Dunmer so that I can switch to mag if it doesn’t work out.

Fur_like_snow

If you haven’t seen the videos of the Goliath ultimate two shot players with bash id recommend checking that out before you settle on weapons.

wheem_ESO

Aurielle wrote: »

Neloth wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Yes. Viable. Not optimal. Will get you through all content just fine though.

Would you say a ranged stam necro performs better than a mag necro in open world / BGs?

Ranged necro is something similar to a ranged DK right now. Possible, but why bother? This is true for both stam & mag, imho.

Skull spammable is fine, but it's not a core skill to build around. The core skill is supposed to be blastbones, but, well.

Unfortunately, blastbones are too silly/slow/have-low-HP to reliably follow the target when you cast it from range. Moreover, if you *** up with targeting (and when you play ranged vs group it happens very frequently), and cast blastbones on a wrong guy, it will follow him for the next 2.5 + 8 seconds, and you won't be able to recast them, lul.

Now imagine a situation, when you cast blastbones on a pet sorc, but they start chasing the stupid bird instead of the sorc, just to do pathetic dmg (since pet aoe protection) or even worse - just explode somewhere on half a way, because they stopped for a few seconds to think about life.

This just forces both necro specs (mag and stam) into melee, imho. Sad, but true.

Thanks for the insight. Pretty disappointing. I was hoping that we’d finally have a viable ranged stam class BESIDES stamNB. I’m so tired of 2H/1HS and DW/2H stam combos. I may try to make archer necro work, but I fear it’ll be another failed experiment like my archer Warden. Guess I’ll go Dunmer so that I can switch to mag if it doesn’t work out.

Be prepared to make that Dunmer Necromancer a healer if you do end up switching to Magicka. The offensive capability of Magicka Necromancer is an absolute joke - I'd personally consider it the worst in the game, and probably by a decent margin. I think the healing has some real potential, but Magicka Necromancer offense is beyond awful even against weaker players (other than the Flesh Atronach, which oftentimes doesn't get countered in low'ish MMR BGs).

And this isn't just a case of people not yet being used to the class, either - Magicka Necromancer just doesn't have the tools necessary to not be garbage at killing things. Melee Stamina Necromancer seems solid (and vastly superior to Magicka Necromancer in an offensive capacity), but I'm not 100% sure how it compares to the other Stamina classes just yet. A ranged Stamina Necromancer would suffer the same issues with Blastbones that Magicka Necromancer does, but at least you'd have better mobility + an execute.

Fur_like_snow wrote: »

If you haven’t seen the videos of the Goliath ultimate two shot players with bash id recommend checking that out before you settle on weapons.

That's a super obvious design flaw (which got mentioned at least once on PTS), and will almost certainly be changed; building a character around that would be a bad idea over the long term.

bmannb16_ESO

Macro is awful in PVP right now, fine in PVE

Aurielle wrote: »

Lightspeedflashb14_ESO wrote: »

Yes. Viable. Not optimal. Will get you through all content just fine though.

Would you say a ranged stam necro performs better than a mag necro in open world / BGs?

Aurielle

Ugh, maybe I won’t even bother with going Dunmer and go Orc instead. Sounds like magicka necro is dead on arrival. What a shame.

wheem_ESO

Aurielle wrote: »

Ugh, maybe I won’t even bother with going Dunmer and go Orc instead. Sounds like magicka necro is dead on arrival. What a shame.

Yea...Magicka Necromancer is kind of like playing Magicka Sorcerer without Streak or Crystal Frag, and a Curse that's fairly random. IE, it may not fire at all (and won't be able to be recast for 8 seconds if that's the case), or it'll trigger once between 2.5 and 8 seconds after being cast, but this particular timer isn't really predictable by the player. Would anyone want to play Magicka Sorcerer as an offensive class under those circumstances?

The Necromancer's Colossus ultimate has some solid damage and an incredibly powerful debuff (perhaps too powerful when it comes to coordinated groups), but that's not enough to really save the Magicka Necromancer's offense. Neither is its ability to be pretty durable, as that just makes me feel like a mobile target dummy against anyone that's halfway decent.

I really hope there are some big (positive) changes coming for Magicka Necromancers, but I'm not holding my breath.

RedTalon

Depends really, need the right armor set and you will be needing a certian morph for bone armor to keep costs down if I recall right, combine it with marksmen and batleflied acrobat and you can spam range bow skills all night from a good distant if your into spamming skills for bow

Sorry for typos

But want bow not skull

Iskiab

I leveled a stamnecro as 2hander and S&B. It’s meh, but I’m terrible at stam classes in general.

If I could do it again I’d try DW plus Bow, 2h plus Bow or S&B plus Bow (but lack of an execute would be an issue).

I’m finding it difficult to put a spec together (it may be lack of experience) but I’m finding it lacklustre right now. If you try to make a spec keep this in mind:
- no class major weapon damage buff. So it will need to come from forward momentum, DW dagger thing, or pots
- no class execute so it will need to come from 2h, DW or settle with just poison injection
- mag recovery’s good for a stam toon, even better with mortal coil.
- since mag are using RAT now I’m being kited a lot. You’ll need a snare and maybe major expedition, RAT should be easy as a stamnecro because of stamina sustain
- class tankiness is good
- no class anti-cc abilities. Forward momentum, RAT or S&B reflections are the only tools. Self purge is reactive so not great against being cc’d

Still haven’t figured out how to make a decent 50 spec.

Flame_of_Hades

Check him out, has a nice necro bow build

Dark_Shady

Just uploaded my Necro bow PVP montage on my youtube channel if you want to check it out! can't link the direct video because of the music! @Aurielle

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNUtvsOmrscabn244rNW1YA?

Aurielle

Dark_Shady wrote: »

Just uploaded my Necro bow PVP montage on my youtube channel if you want to check it out! can't link the direct video because of the music! @Aurielle

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNUtvsOmrscabn244rNW1YA?

Thanks for that, Shady. Nicely done. Without giving too much of the build away, would you be willing to tell us if you’re running medium or heavy?

Feeling better now about my decision to give ranged Stam Necro a try. It’s fun so far, and also really different to the standard gankNB bow builds, which is what I’m looking for right now — something other than the same old, same old. Grinding up another boring 2H/1HS character would have made me cry for reals.

Now, if only I could buy Undaunted levels on the Crown store...

Iskiab

He plays CP doesn’t he? I’d guess medium for sure.