Necromancers! Zenimax's greatest flop so far?

brandonv516

I'm not bored with it yet.

Don't think I'll ever get bored of casting Colossus.

Nyladreas

Clunky, Sluggish, Wonky etc.

Everyone seems to be using these.

Do you people even know what these words mean?

Mojomonkeyman

The greatest flop in class design Ive experienced in all my 25 years of gaming. The number of bugs, sheer imbalance, wonky or downright unusable mechanics is absurd. I mainly PvP, playing this game since 5 years and have seen almost all content tho (dislike raiding in this game but have loved and done it in other games).

My Mag Necro is fully developed, all passives, AR 20.

Id give Necromancer a 2/10, Warden a 4/10 whereas the original classes easily reach 7-8/10.

Main reasons:

1) Lack of proper class concept and polish:
Original eso classes had fully functional, unique and complete toolsets for any content - it was truely "play how u want" even considering being restricted to magicka only. Necromancer is forced into very niche categories (being good at grinding & tanking, stam for dd and mag for heal - thats it), lacking tools to even attempt anything else with success. And the main reason why stam necro being a good dd is not even due to the necromancer toolkit per se, but the potency of stamina weapon lines and them delivering a powerful framework to fit some niche class skills in.

Side topic: Why can Mannimarco (you know, the guy that your necromancer has beaten up easily when leveling for soul assault) have so many more cool tools? He even has a necro themed side-ways Streak. It's already in the game, why can't PvP necros get such important skills, too?

2) Power distribution is off:
Ultimates and passives (too) strong, actives weak - that leads to a playstyle that people already disliked in the very beginning of the game - the negate sorc. Nobody really wanted to fill that role back in 2014-16, because its boring to stall for prolongued periodes of time until that gamechanging ult is up, on necro even more without the native mobility sorc has. Every player wants to feel impactful all the time, when he is doing stuff right - having your impact limited to a 5 sec window every 1-2 minutes is NOT FUN.

3) Lack of flavour and high performance niche:
A necromancer is not a medic, is not a medicine man and not a doctor. A necromancer is a dangerous (!) master at summoning evil minions and conjuring dark magic. Why can holy magic templars, THE benmchmark healer class, feel and play like uber-agressive damage machines with a gapclose, a stun and an execute, but my supposedly "dangerous" master of magic necromancer... well, its offense is so limited that it can't even compete with the natural healer class when it comes to fighting. Considering that, it's almost funny that common conclusion amongst players is to use magicka necromancer as a healer because its so weak offensively, while it still is an overall worse healer than templar or warden for PvP.

I'm not a roleplay enthusiast by any means, but I have played all Elder Scroll games back to "Daggerfall" and played Necromancer in Diablo II and mained Necromancer/Warlock in GW2/WOW - all of those implementations were unique in their own way while offering a functional and flavourful experience. I'm not feeling it in ESO. It's like a Frankenstein baby made by a Diablo Necromancer and an ESO Warden bruteforced into arbitrary streamlined ESO meta class concepts (1x Spammable, 1x Delayed Burst, etc. / 1x Tank Tree. 1x Heal Tree, 1x DPS / and so on). When I remember how AWESOME it felt to control minions, to spread debuffs, fears and diseases with other game's implementations of Necromancer/Warlock, then yeah... ESO Necromancer is a huge fail in my honest opinion.

Just giving honest feedback, and tried to at least explain my negative conclusion so people can discuss whether they feel similar.

The_Red_Viper

I don't know how to play and build my necromancer, so let me bash ZOS on the forums for some free internet points because I am too lazy to do a quick Google search.

Voluptificus

One example among so many:

https://alcasthq.com/eso-magicka-necromancer-build-pvp/

All those skills (class, weapons, guilds, world..) give an effect of horizon and a multitude of viable builds.

Try some first, you could be happily surprised.

Sarousse

Necro hybrid with pelinal is just totally OP and fun to play.

Olupajmibanan

I am happy with my necro.

Finally viable, good PvE Bow/Bow spec that does not have to stand 9999999 meters away. And the dps is comparable to non-necro melee stam DPSes.

Tommy_The_Gun

Zenimax's greatest flop so far?
Racial rebalance in Wrathstone or Class rebalance in Elsweyr. One of those.

I do think that racial rebalance was so far the biggest failure, as it did not delivered what it promised to do. It was just a meta - shift, with some races being forced to play specific role (often woithout being even bis or close to bis) and other races became totally useless in all type of eso content at pretty much all roles in eso.

Trancestor

Called it being just a even worse designed version of Warden when it comes to PVP.

Narvuntien

I think they are fine, in that they have a unique playstyle I think it is tricky because its not quite the fantasy playstyle of a necromancer class.

Mathius_Mordred

Sorry OP, completely I disagree. I'm loving my Magcro and in AA last night he was pulling 40K DPS on the last boss, mostly single target, and is nowhere near finished. The rotation is easy and smooth, there are some issues with siphoning corpses and targetting blastbones but we know they are being looked at. I have no special gear, just Mothers and Julianos with Maw of the Infernal MS. Survivability is incredible with the Sycthe and I didn't die once. It's a great class, needs slight polishing here and there but as usual it's a L2P case as it's rotations are not the same as many other classes in terms of timings, but get it right and it has great damage, great sustain and great survivability. Can't wait to see what it can do when polished and BiS gear is added.

daemonios

As much as I criticize this game for other reasons, I'm having a blast on my necro tank. Love the free chains coupled with increased resistance, the self heals, the ranged AoE for initial agro, the fear CC from totem.

I do have a stamina DPS but only just leveled her to 50 so can't really say much about her performance.

Anyway, *far* from the biggest flop. Most bugged launch, maybe, considering all the issues with necro skills (BB and BB patching, corpses despawning, etc.) and others induced with Elsweyr (e.g. the slow bug).

Coggage

Oh look! Someone who doesn't know how to play the class calls it a flop! That must be an mmorpg first.

Trancestor

It's quite obvious whats going on here, majority speaking here the pve'rs like necro and pvp'ers do not like necro. ZOS designed necro for pve while hardly giving pvp a thought.

daemonios

Trancestor wrote: »

It's quite obvious whats going on here, majority speaking here the pve'rs like necro and pvp'ers do not like necro. ZOS designed necro for pve while hardly giving pvp a thought.

I don't PvP but:

- Apparently Goliath bash is instant win in PvP;
- Chaining ranged attackers is one hell of a gap closer and you can still use other weapon-based gap closers;
- Scythe being an aoe damage+self heal, looks like a nice skill to have for 1vXing;
- Necro has an entire class skill tree dedicated to healing, much like Warden, pick and choose your self heal (in addition to Scythe);
- I've read that Necro sustain is pretty decent, which should be a plus in PvP.

So, is Necro really that bad for PvP? Or are you maybe exaggerating the otherwise very real issues with buggy skills?

mann9753b16_ESO

I really love the class, its one of the only classes where I play using only class abilities. (other than the One Hand-Shield Taunt).

Especially now that Blastbones are finaly fixed, my Magica Tank Necromancer never felt better.

mann9753b16_ESO

Trancestor wrote: »

It's quite obvious whats going on here, majority speaking here the pve'rs like necro and pvp'ers do not like necro. ZOS designed necro for pve while hardly giving pvp a thought.

Dude, healer Necros are extremly strong in PvP, there are always corpses around, which empower the Skills and give you additional Ultimate.

Bone Goliath is a panic button that makes you nearly immortal for 20 seconds and one of the best defensive Ultimates, while the Healer Ultimate instantly raises 3 allies and restores all your ressources while doing so. And you always have them ready, because each corpse near you, including the ones that you create, gives you 6 Ultimate from your leech skill.

Last time I was in Cyrodill we had 3 (that i noticed) Necro healers in the group, and our perma-ressing totaly tipped the battle in our favour. And with 3 necros, there were always corpses to leech from, I think my ress Ultimate had a Cooldown of like 30 or so seconds…

Kadoin

Fear not! If you keep complaining on the forums, I'm sure they will overbuff the class and make it broken OP to sell more DLC! Call every necromancer you know and have them repeat the same lines over and over. That'll work; it has to...!

Tessitura

oddbasket wrote: »

I disagree that the necromancer is a boring class. OP finds the stamina necro boring, but the stamina of every class is so dependent on weapon and assault skills and set in playstyle that it's hard to find this new class as being fresh. That's not to say ZOS couldn't have done more with stamina class skills, but that's not isolated to the necromancer alone.

I think ZOS actually gave the necromancer class a lot of thought and designed it to suit the current state of the game. Make no mistake the necromancer is a pay to win class, not that it's the meta for dps, healing or tanking, but it completely versatile beats the other classes by being above average in every aspect.

And that design has to do with how the majority plays this game pertaining to ~70% of the game which is solo or group pve. Let's look at magicka necro, which is bashed in a lot of the threads here saying how bad they are. They are not bad at all, they just can't compete in end game dps because their single target damage is lacking and they have no execute to make use of the 100% crit unlike stamina necro.

In fact, stamina and magicka necros sets a new standard in trivializing pve content, with it's passive synergies and large aoes with buffs, and being additionally tanky and with a healing skill line. Both feels extremely powerful in general pve to say the least.

Let's take a closer look at magicka necro, and how it perfectly fits into the current state of group content. It is designed with a lot of aoe dps, large aoe debuff with major breech and fracture, and large aoe buff with an ultimate increasing 30% damage. And on top of that, given damage reduction and major ward/resolve and a high burst heal that also increase resists. I have been playing magicka necro and love it, there's a lot of sentiments a full healer doesn't feel needed, and this class is designed around that. I use a full dps spec and gear, and queue vet dungeons as a healer. With that much going for it, I find myself competitive with dps on trash mobs as the other 2 dps roles while healing and buffing. I've actually queued into a team with 2 dps just above cp160 and kept them alive while beating their combine dps. Even when there's max cp full trial gear dps, you still buff their damage greatly.

Not everyone is talking about pve when they say it sucks. People are mad because magicka feels like it's being forced into a healing role with sucks a whole lot. And the idea that the game doesn't need a full healer is a flaw in design that comes in the form of power creep, a flaw ZoS is apparently trying to rectify. So lets pretend it is designed around the idea that full healers are not needed, then that means when or if they manage to address the healer issue, then they will effectivly kill their suppose design on necro.

I am not trying to poo poo your love, I am just saying that there is issues here, the design being core to that. It is a better designed and balanced class, but that makes it weak, because the old classes are built with easier rotations and faster damage output. They are easier to animation cancel with and easier to work with. Look at sorc, it's animations are quick, easy to weave with, and make the best use of delayed damage. Or look at NB, with it's strong buffs and again super easy to weave class abilities. If all the old classes were slowed down and made harder to weave like necro then there would be zero issues, but that wont happen, so necro needs to be looked at. Honestly, if they just improved the operation and damage on things like Skeletal Arcanist, or Ricochet Skull, then you would see a very nice improvement in performance.

It does have a good foundation, with neat ideas, but I do think it needs attention and is far from pay to win or setting a new standard on the performance front.

Ei8htba11

I use Blastbones on my bow bar currently. It's a decent ranged fire and forget bone bomb. Drops a corpse at the target and then you can pop a graveyard on top and get the extra boost. Might not be BiS but it's fun.

That said, Blastbones skelly doesn't cope well with rocks or inclines

Dinokstrun

Trancestor wrote: »

It's quite obvious whats going on here, majority speaking here the pve'rs like necro and pvp'ers do not like necro. ZOS designed necro for pve while hardly giving pvp a thought.

I guess I should've made the original post a bit more clearer.

Coggage wrote: »

Oh look! Someone who doesn't know how to play the class calls it a flop! That must be an mmorpg first.

Time to stop posting friend. When I see L2P comments I just laugh. I've had some success with stamina necro already but I'm not talking about the success i'm talking about how the class plays and feels in both PvE and PvP environments. People will disagree but that's how opinions work.

zaria

Recommending merging this tread with the other necro tread on top.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/479634/strongest-build-in-the-history-of-eso#latest

BalticBlues

Trancestor wrote: »

majority speaking here the pve'rs like necro and pvp'ers do not like necro.
ZOS designed necro for pve while hardly giving pvp a thought.

THIS. In PVE, both StamNecros and MagNecros work nicely.
In PVP however, MagNecros suck as MagWardens do for full two years now.
Didn't ZOS promise not to repeat the design failures of Wardens? Instead, it even got worse:

MagNecro has nothing of which is vital in PvP:

• MagNecro has NO class execute.
• MagNecro has NO class mobility.
• MacNecro has NO class shields.
• MacNecro has NO class invisibilty.

I wanted to play MagWarden, but had to switch to StamWarden for playing competitively.
And now I find the the same with Necros again. Why does Magicka always suck lately?
Suggestion: MagNecros need at least one Execute. Stamplayers have three!
Suggestion: ZOS could easily redesign DESTRO-IMPULSE as spammable Execute.

Tessitura

BalticBlues wrote: »

Trancestor wrote: »

majority speaking here the pve'rs like necro and pvp'ers do not like necro.
ZOS designed necro for pve while hardly giving pvp a thought.

THIS. In PVE, both StamNecros and MagNecros work nicely.
In PVP however, MagNecros suck as MagWardens do for full two years now.
Didn't ZOS promise not to repeat the design failures of Wardens? Instead, it even got worse:

MagNecro has nothing of which is vital in PvP:

• MagNecro has NO class execute.
• MagNecro has NO class mobility.
• MacNecro has NO class shields.
• MacNecro has NO class invisibilty.

I wanted to play MagWarden, but had to switch to StamWarden for playing competitively.
And now I find the the same with Necros again. Why does Magicka always suck lately?
Suggestion: MagNecros need at least one Execute. Stamplayers have three!
Suggestion: ZOS could easily redesign DESTRO-IMPULSE as spammable Execute.

I magicka version of dodge or break free would do wonders too.

Tyrobag

Its 10x better than Warden. I don't think you even know what a flop looks like, necromancer has been notably successful.

Its true that it needs a couple of fixes/tweeks like responsiveness on corpse using abilities, and making Blastbones work more consistently but nobody (reasonably) could have expected it to come out in a perfect state.

Imperial_Voice

ArchMikem wrote: »

People only care talking about "how bad" ZOS is and never the great stuff. Im so tired of seeing these threads.

Maybe ZoS should get their *** together then.

Jaraal

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

I do think that racial rebalance was so far the biggest failure, as it did not delivered what it promised to do. It was just a meta - shift, with some races being forced to play specific role (often woithout being even bis or close to bis) and other races became totally useless in all type of eso content at pretty much all roles in eso.

Agreed, although nerfing various sources of speed as a means to offset server lag (spun as "player targeting issues") in Cyrodiil is a close second.

Seraphayel

ArchMikem wrote: »

People only care talking about "how bad" ZOS is and never the great stuff. Im so tired of seeing these threads.

Yeah because blandness reigns in this game when it comes to ZOS adding stuff. The last really great feature they've added? I don't know, might be over a year ago. Just look at the 2/4 dungeon DLCs per year, that's the epitome of blandness.

Emma_Overload

I have no intention of bringing my Necromancer into a PvP zone until Blastbones can reliably kill a mudcrab.

Grianasteri

Dinokstrun wrote: »

I didn't think it could be possible to design such a boring and clunky class but Necromancer just feels painful to play. The ultimates however feel like you're activating some kind of cheatcode as they're all ridiculously strong but outside ultimates Necromancer just feels bland and sluggish to play and of course we have the wonky corpse mechanics and poor AI blastbones. At first it was fun but I've quickly been burnt out by this slow paced class.

Maybe I just need some inspiration on how to make Necromancer (specifically stamina necromancer) as I'm struggling to find alternative ways to find success with this class. Feel free to post some fun and interesting Suggestions for Stam necro.

THIS POST, Dinokstrun's greatest failure so far!

Joking aside...

Necromincer is proving to be incredible fun for me. It has great animations, interesting visuals, some very powerful skills and passives, with some excellent ultimates that can be game changing. Necromincer is clearly more complex in terms of build and rotation, due to the mechanics and skills, however for me its working great. I seem to have taken to the more complex rotations needed very well and am have wonderful fun with DPS, tanking and healing... others I feel are just jumping on a bash Necro bandwagon. Meh.

There are some buggy issues and kinks to be worked out, this is totally and utterly normal for new content and classes, most will hopefully be ironed out in time.

Its tedious seeing these threads pop up with inane, largely subjective complaints.