New solution for Stalking Blastbones.

Skullstachio

Updated this thread in accordance to feedback.

Blastbone Regimen (CRIMINAL ACT): Summon 3 flaming skeletons from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeletons run after the target and explodes when it gets close to them, dealing [X] Flame Damage* to all enemies nearby and applying minor fracture and minor breach to them for 5 seconds.
(*The Blastbones deal 67.5% less damage at base, but as it ranks up, the percentage falls, 65% at rank II, 62.5% at rank III and 60% at rank IV. I rounded off the damage numbers before putting in a proper damage modifier and found that anything less than 60% at rank IV would render the ability too overpowered since having 3 Blastbones with 60% less damage is more than strong enough, not to mention, any less than what it is currently, and it would have overshadowed Blighted Blastbones which would then create another problem in its place.)

MellowMagic

I think it would be too strong if the damage scaled with range, 50 percent dmg on the blast bones tooltip would be huge. The damage increase worked before the skelly got fixed cause he would take a long time to reach his target sometimes, warranting the extra damage. Now blastbones basically fires like a projectile, so you can stay at max range firing these off. The aoe fracture isnt a bad idea though, it definitely needs something added to it now.

YandereGirlfriend

I wouldn't mind seeing it do like +25% or +50% Critical Damage or something.

That way, it would be useful as a little bump for Magicka PvE DPS but see less utility in PvP unless you specifically built for it.

Or give it Minor Vulnerability (not that we need even more sources...) or an unnamed "Takes X% more damage" (maybe 5-6%) so that it would be worth bringing a magCro to a raid while also being slightly useful for PvP.

Tessitura

So it might not be the most popular idea, but I always thought it would be cool if the mag morph could summon a second blastbones using a nearby corpse that does 50% less damage then the original, that way you get that damage boost, and it's more thematically cool, and easier to mitigate for others since it could be cc'ed and such.

A more realistic approach would be to just add a new debuff like Minor Vuln, or a cc like a root or stun.

A friend of mine said adding a dot execute like Poison Injection to it would be good since it could benefit from its own two passives like stam does, with the extra crit and dot damage. I am not sure about that one though, could end up being too strong and get the abilities knee jerk nerfed. Though I would enjoy having a execution for once.

Skullstachio

Tessitura wrote: »

So it might not be the most popular idea, but I always thought it would be cool if the mag morph could summon a second blastbones using a nearby corpse that does 50% less damage then the original, that was you get that damage boost, and it's more thematically cool, and easier to mitigate for others since it could be cc'ed and such.

I think your on the right track.

ZarkingFrued

Skill should always crit like crit charge, and do some sort of debuffs to Target or buff to user. Something decently strong like all other classes get from their toolkit. Minor breach and ward would be fine really, and maybe consume corpse for one additional blastbones with 50% dmg

the1andonlyskwex

Please, please, please don't turn Stalking Blastbones into a corpse consumer. The primary reason I use it is to create corpses for other abilities to consume.

Lole

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Please, please, please don't turn Stalking Blastbones into a corpse consumer. The primary reason I use it is to create corpses for other abilities to consume.

^Exactly the problem, what ever bb does in the future pls don’t let it consume corpses...bb is currently one of the best and most reliable ways to get corpses don’t take this from magcro else we will run into other problems 😇

Vaoh

Would rather it summoned two Blastbones each dealing 70% of the current Damage. So an overall 40% Damage increase but with less instant burst and also generating two corpses.

Tessitura

Lole wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Please, please, please don't turn Stalking Blastbones into a corpse consumer. The primary reason I use it is to create corpses for other abilities to consume.

^Exactly the problem, what ever bb does in the future pls don’t let it consume corpses...bb is currently one of the best and most reliable ways to get corpses don’t take this from magcro else we will run into other problems 😇

It doesn't have to take the corpse consumption away, you just give it a bonus to raise a corpse so you have two of them. When they both explode they both leave corpses behind for a net total of extra corpse, it comes as much as it gives. So basically instead of having one corpse at the feet of your target you will have two and can fire of the abilities you need there.

Part of the problem I have with Necro is pretty much all the corpses you generate is at your feet and the damage and healing I want to do is usually not at my feet. Even in pvp I find this frustrating. So, if the magicka morph consumed one of those corpses at my feet to make two blastbones that then ran at my target I basically just moved that extra corpse to the target location. Not I have two corpses on the boss or sitting in that zerg of players. Do you see what I am getting a there?

the1andonlyskwex

You're still delaying the availability of those corpses, which is a problem. If it were up to me, I'd probably just have the Magicka morph summon the skeleton faster.

Tessitura

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

You're still delaying the availability of those corpses, which is a problem. If it were up to me, I'd probably just have the Magicka morph summon the skeleton faster.

I can honestly say I have never had a problem with the amount of corpses I have had available, or how fast I had them, it has always been their location. Being faster doesn't really solve the issue, and doesn't really improve the magicka morph much. I feel like being able to raise a extra bb to relocate a corpse would be more engaging, fun, and thematically cool.

@Vaoh probably has the best solution for it's simplicity, but I like my extra involvement the moving of corpses has.

Lole

Tessitura wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

You're still delaying the availability of those corpses, which is a problem. If it were up to me, I'd probably just have the Magicka morph summon the skeleton faster.

I can honestly say I have never had a problem with the amount of corpses I have had available, or how fast I had them, it has always been their location. Being faster doesn't really solve the issue, and doesn't really improve the magicka morph much. I feel like being able to raise a extra bb to relocate a corpse would be more engaging, fun, and thematically cool.

@Vaoh probably has the best solution for it's simplicity, but I like my extra involvement the moving of corpses has.

In pvp you also need corpses close to you not just at your target. Throwing the corpse that is close to you Basicly on your enemy can be a good thing especially if you plan on going into melee range on him for graverobber etc... but I don’t wanna be forced to get Into meleerange to use my corpses.

Currently it’s an okayish balance between having corpses arround you and corpses at your enemy I don’t think it should get changed atm, only if we are able to get easier corpse production arround us xD

the1andonlyskwex

Summoning the Blastbones faster would be a huge buff, because it affects so much about the skill.
1) The summoning time limits how often you can cast it. Reducing the delay would not only increase the number of corpses near your enemies, but also increase your damage because Blastbones is also a skill with relatively high damage per cast.
2) Reducing the summon time also helps you get corpses when you need them. You would no longer need to plan 3+ seconds ahead for when you expect to need a corpse.
3) In BGs, people are running around so much that Blastbones often has trouble hitting targets. A reduced summon time would improve that.

the1andonlyskwex

An additional downside to having Stalking Blastbones consume corpses is that you would have to take into account where you actually want corpses before casting it. As-is, you can pretty much cast it on cooldown, but with a corpse consumption mechanic you would need to decide whether the additional corpse and damage are worth also messing with your existing corpse situation (i.e. having two corpses near you disappear and then reappear several seconds later near your enemy might not always be desirable).

Tessitura

I think you are both wrong, just cause you move a corpse to the enemy does not mean you have to engage in melee, in fact it can mean the exact opposite for combat. And again, you are still generating a corpse and moving another, I am not sure how you play but I have never been desperate for a corpse, just for a corpse being in a location I need. I am having trouble seeing your point of view I guess, most necromancers I know have the same issue as me.

As far as reduced summon time goes, I am not saying it wouldn't be useful to people, I am saying it is boring, and less useful then having two of them. and would mess up a lot of burst combos. It's not as good of a buff as you think, in fact it might even be a nerf, the delay helps more then you know. Two would double your corpse generation, and keep the burst delay for setting up combos.

Lole

Tessitura wrote: »

I think you are both wrong, just cause you move a corpse to the enemy does not mean you have to engage in melee, in fact it can mean the exact opposite for combat. And again, you are still generating a corpse and moving another, I am not sure how you play but I have never been desperate for a corpse, just for a corpse being in a location I need. I am having trouble seeing your point of view I guess, most necromancers I know have the same issue as me.

As far as reduced summon time goes, I am not saying it wouldn't be useful to people, I am saying it is boring, and less useful then having two of them. and would mess up a lot of burst combos. It's not as good of a buff as you think, in fact it might even be a nerf, the delay helps more then you know. Two would double your corpse generation, and keep the burst delay for setting up combos.

It is a nerf in every Range fight where you can not close the gap to actually reach your corpses, don’t know how you can not see that... this Game is not all about sitting in meleerange

Tessitura

I want to add, that we clearly experience the class differently, which is why something akin to the suggestion Vaoh put out is probably best, as it give a free extra corpse for those that struggle with corpse generation, plus a little extra damage and doesn't mess up the delay that people like me use to set up combos when pvping.

Though I think one skeleton should do the current norm for damage and the second should do less just to add a little extra bump to hits.

Tessitura

Lole wrote: »

Tessitura wrote: »

I think you are both wrong, just cause you move a corpse to the enemy does not mean you have to engage in melee, in fact it can mean the exact opposite for combat. And again, you are still generating a corpse and moving another, I am not sure how you play but I have never been desperate for a corpse, just for a corpse being in a location I need. I am having trouble seeing your point of view I guess, most necromancers I know have the same issue as me.

As far as reduced summon time goes, I am not saying it wouldn't be useful to people, I am saying it is boring, and less useful then having two of them. and would mess up a lot of burst combos. It's not as good of a buff as you think, in fact it might even be a nerf, the delay helps more then you know. Two would double your corpse generation, and keep the burst delay for setting up combos.

It is a nerf in every Range fight where you can not close the gap to actually reach your corpses, don’t know how you can not see that... this Game is not all about sitting in meleerange

First of all, you keep talking about melee range and I am rarely in melee range, but my team usually is, and all my corpse using skills have pretty much the same range outside of necropotence, so I am not even sure what your issue is here now. Are you saying you can't reach your targets? Are you saying you need longer range on your corpse consumption? Or are you only wanting to use necropotence? If your issue is range, then you can't even make use of BB as a corpse generation ability anyway.

Lole

Difference is that bb creates more than enough corpses at the target allrdy, and I would like to keep corpses at my spot for skills like Daeden pain(12 Meter Range btw) or renewing undeath for aoe backline heal and purge...
When the corpse is right next to me I not only don’t need to go closer, I also can back off and still have a use of it.

The is not enough corpseproduction close by to throw them onto the enemy’s

Tessitura

Ah, I see what you mean now, that again was why I was suggesting Vaoh's version to be the better one. Since he summoned two for free, and didn't make it a corpse consumer.

the1andonlyskwex

With respect to setting up a burst, I don't think the reduction in summon time I'm proposing would really be a problem. I'm not proposing that the delay be reduced to zero. That would make Blastbones a spammable, which would be massively overpowered in PvE. Even with a 1-1.5s delay, you would get the benefits I expect, and I think you'd still have enough time to stack faster-acting damage on top of it.

All of that said, your point does bring up one of the fundamental weaknesses of Blastbones, which is that the summon has a fixed delay but the actual damage has a variable delay. The fact that the damage delay is variable makes it much harder to setup a huge burst, and I don't think any of the other delayed burst skills in the game have the same problem.

Tessitura

I get that you think that your reduction is good, but I am telling you as a guy that builds his combos around it that a reduction would do one of two things, make it too strong because it can be spammed, or make it too weak because you can't set up the burst, its current time is pretty good for setting up a nice burst line up of four big hits. You would not have the time you think and it ultimately would be a nerf to magicka dps builds.

You wanna beg for no corpse consumption, I beg that they don't bring the cast time down. I think it's a bad idea, I think it would mess up one of the few methods we have to land a kill since they refuse to give magicka builds executes, unless you are a sorc/nb.

As far as the delay for the damage ramp up goes, yes you are correct it is the only class that has that and unfortunately it only worked out when BB was bugged, so now we really need to explore other options, giving us a more reliable extra damage source would be good, a lot of people think we should have a extra debuff attached, I would just be happy with a baby BB to accompany the main one doing 50% of the damage. But this is mostly because it improves the combo potential, and gives others a chance to counter the extra damage. With how powerful the stam version is, magicka deserves something that can at least half-way compete, and half a second to a second lower cast time is not even close to competing, its a burst ability designed to set up burst, but its weak so it doesn't set it up as well as one that debuffs healing.

Skullstachio

Just fiddled around with the OP, some of you may like the results, some may not.

Joxer61

make it not require a target please, like shalks.