[Necromancer] - List of known bugs/problems present in U26 patch

Xairvaiss

• Flame Skull and its morphs have big travel time to hit the target and can be easily dodged. Consider increasing the skull speed to decrease the travel time to the target.
• Blastbones and its morphs take more time to explode than they should in certain situations such as massive combat ones. There might be a problem with AI or targeting.
  As it has 2.5 secs respawn time, consider reworking a part of this ability to make skeleton explosion manually possible on its current position by hitting ability again without GCD.
• Stalking Blastbones still doesn't have extra damage depending on travel distance. Consider fixing it or changing to have some sort of a debuff on a target like in Blighted Blastbones stamina morph.
• Shocking Siphon and its morphs still have targeting issues. Now it is even worse because of the ability in GCD leading to the DPS loss when one tries to activate blinking ability and just hits LA instead of LA + siphon. Consider fixing it or removing GCD to make activation of the ability possible without losing the skill.
• Bitter Harvest and its morphs don’t consume all corpses in 12m radius after big trash fights. Consider adding description on how many corpses are consumed by the ability or make the ability consume all corpses in 12m radius as it is claimed in the current ability description.
• Agony Totem is useless in solo content. Consider removing the Pure Agony synergy and applying the Pure Agony after 2secs activation timer OR make the use of the own synergy of this ability possible.
• Render Flesh and its morphs don't make sense in having Minor Defile debuff with such big cost of skill. Consider removing the debuff or decreasing the ability cost to 3000-3500 magicka.
• Spirit Mender and its morphs don't heal at all or don't heal the caster as a priority in certain situations. It doesn’t make sense, as in some situations the spirit owner may have 20%HP, and an ally may have 15%HP, while the spirit will heal the ally and let the spirit owner die. Consider fixing the heal issue and making the spirit prioritize the owner, so for example when owner has less than 100% HP, it will always heal the owner and in rest of situations will heal an ally.

Necro is a great and versatile class, raids need it, but all these issues annoy players making them abandon the class and playing some other one.
Also the class costs 1500 crowns, which is not a big deal, but not with all these bugs and problems.
Makes me sad that such a good class that has already been released more than 1 year ago, has so many bugs and pitfalls.

WrathOfInnos

This looks a lot like the list of Necromancer bugs/problems for U22, U23, U24, U25, and U27. Almost identical really.

Revokus

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

This looks a lot like the list of Necromancer bugs/problems for U22, U23, U24, U25, and U27. Almost identical really.

This is because there is no communication from ZOS since they acknowledged problems with the class like 1 year ago.

They think the class is fine because RP and Delve monster killing people have no trouble doing quests with it. That's what I'm thinking.

The_Auror

Blighted blastbones still occasionally greys out, becoming unusable, and can only be fixed by bar swapping. This has happened since Elsweyr.

WrathOfInnos

Revokus wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

This looks a lot like the list of Necromancer bugs/problems for U22, U23, U24, U25, and U27. Almost identical really.

This is because there is no communication from ZOS since they acknowledged problems with the class like 1 year ago.

They think the class is fine because RP and Delve monster killing people have no trouble doing quests with it. That's what I'm thinking.

I’m sure the statistics show it’s fine in trials too, because Major Vuln is important enough that most groups force 3 unlucky players to suffer through the bugs. There also seems to be a pattern of Necromancer players quitting the game at a much higher rate than other classes, so it’s a constant chore to find new Necros that are optimistic enough to not hate it yet.

QueuesAsTanks

I agree with almost all of the original poster's points.

In limited PTS testing I've found the siphon ability targeting to be improved on the PTS. It still grabs the wrong corpse on occasion but is not nearly as poor as it is in the live environment. I miss the old non-cooldown version but I'm glad that at least the targeting is headed in the right direction.

Atherakhia

Another one I'm noticing and not limited to the PTS is that corpses aren't being generated on corpses that result in the special animations from cold/fire/lightning effects. This is quite aggravating when leveling up especially.

The Grave Grasp ability is actually getting a nerf as the only way to really use this skill currently is like Bombard for bow. Without immob on all circles, the skill is quite bad. Especially considering it doesn't do damage. Please rethink the approach to this skill.

Grave Grasp could:
Apply a Stacking HOT/DOT if a target gets hit by multiple circles
The morph could shuffle the order of debuffs so the first immobs, the second stun, and the third explodes or leaves a debuff on the ground.

There are tons of options, but grave grasp hardly gets any attention now. These change swill ensure no one uses it imo.

SeaUnicorn

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

There also seems to be a pattern of Necromancer players quitting the game at a much higher rate than other classes, so it’s a constant chore to find new Necros that are optimistic enough to not hate it yet.

the1andonlyskwex

Half of these aren't bugs/problems, they're just complaints about group-oriented skills not supporting your solo play style.

Specifically:

Agony Totem is fine. Only the morph effect is group-only. The minor protection and fear are still totally viable on their own. Also, you can only slot 10 abilities anyway.

The debuff on render flesh is there to trigger Curative Curse. Removing it would be a huge nerf for healers.

Similarly, having Spirit mender prioritize the owner would be a nerf for healers.


All of that said, the problems with blastbones and corpse targeting are legit. Blastbones, in particular, is incredibly unreliable. It has some sort of aiming problem that prevents it from even summoning half the time, and even when it does summon its timing is super unreliable because of weird pathing issues.

Xairvaiss

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

Half of these aren't bugs/problems, they're just complaints about group-oriented skills not supporting your solo play style.

Specifically:

Agony Totem is fine. Only the morph effect is group-only. The minor protection and fear are still totally viable on their own. Also, you can only slot 10 abilities anyway.

The debuff on render flesh is there to trigger Curative Curse. Removing it would be a huge nerf for healers.

Similarly, having Spirit mender prioritize the owner would be a nerf for healers.

I agree that some points is my vision on skill line based on my experience not only in solo content, but also in group of 4-12 ppl.
Totem if fine, but would be great if i can use it outside group gameplay. Also 5secs synergy of Minor Vulnerability is too small window to recast it every time when it ran out + somebody should activate synergy (not big deal).
About Render Flesh thank you for passive mention, totally forgot about it. It's true that healer have good benefit from it, but for dd when he healing himself it's hurt a lot. For example in vet Cloudrest when you picking up the orb and moving to spear on other side of arena, you using ability almost every second because of negative debuff on it and many times you closing portal with very low resources pool.
Spirit Mender again, you are correct here from healer perspective, but from dd/tank again it not so. Again, for example HM of vet SunSpire many times spirit will heal ally and not you in emergency situation.
I understood that it's my point of view and healers will be nerfed with it, but dds having some problems with it. And I'm not alone here, many friends and guilds mates having same troubles. Maybe the good solution will be redesign skill and bring different passives for healer/dd/tank perspective.

Villainelle

Great and comprehensive post. Agree with everything stated here, with one minor exception.

USSRTovarisch wrote: »

Blastbones and its morphs take more time to explode than they should in certain situations such as massive combat ones. There might be a problem with AI or targeting.
As it has 2.5 secs respawn time, consider reworking a part of this ability to make skeleton explosion manually possible on its current position by hitting ability again without GCD.

Manual detonation is a bad idea for many reasons.

First is that we tend to spam BB to even get it to fire in the first place, considering how often it has targeting issues. Accidentally detonating it before it even reaches its target would be awful. So if this were implemented, it would need to be a toggle on/off choice, and I don't see that happening.

Second is that it changes the nature of the skill from being a semi-unpredictable and semi-uncontrollable nuke to a precision nuke, which brings the skill closer to ground-targeted AOEs. At which point...why isn't it just a ground-targeted AOE, then? Why deal with the targeting issues and unreliability in the first place? As finnicky as those things are, they're also part of the flavor and character of the Necro class, and I don't want to see our staple skill lose its individuality.

Otherwise, totally endorse everything you've said. Necro is an absolute blast to play, but the jankiness and unreliability of its skills need major improvement. That the class is still so useful despite this speaks to how good it is.