Give Necromancer back their passive critical execute Death Knell!

WalkInMist

Like the title said. As a necromancer, I have to suffer from being stuck in using Colossus ultimate entering PvE raid environment, on top of Blastbone and mystic siphon are god-forsaken awful skills to cast with high ping (200ms+) and having to use scalding rune as main spammable. Why does ZoS have to take the one good thing away from us? If you take this from us, at least fix the other issues as incentives. It is simply frustrating to play necromancer now. Despite my ultimate at full 200%, I have to wait for it to be called. So all those times, I am just stuck. On top of this, those NPC bounties every single time I go into town. Like stop. Yes I just reanimated a corpse, no it is not someone you know. Stop calling the guards on me.

TLDR: Give necromancer back Death Knell, or fix their broken skills.

Andre_Noir

No, ty. I would suggest to nerf that 15% dot buff also since it stronger then CP

the1andonlyskwex

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

alberichtano

WalkInMist wrote: »

Like the title said. As a necromancer, I have to suffer from being stuck in using Colossus ultimate entering PvE raid environment, on top of Blastbone and mystic siphon are god-forsaken awful skills to cast with high ping (200ms+) and having to use scalding rune as main spammable. Why does ZoS have to take the one good thing away from us? If you take this from us, at least fix the other issues as incentives. It is simply frustrating to play necromancer now. Despite my ultimate at full 200%, I have to wait for it to be called. So all those times, I am just stuck. On top of this, those NPC bounties every single time I go into town. Like stop. Yes I just reanimated a corpse, no it is not someone you know. Stop calling the guards on me.

TLDR: Give necromancer back Death Knell, or fix their broken skills.

Funny that, I was more in line with making ALL combat pets a crime. After all, it is a bit odd seeing people running around with daedric beasts when daedra worship is all but forbidden pretty much everywhere.

Also, from a performance and QoL-point, they are annoying. I know some people who just put their bears/twilights and whatnots in the way for crafting stations on purpose. And even if not on purpose, they still often enough get in the way.

SilverIce58

alberichtano wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

Like the title said. As a necromancer, I have to suffer from being stuck in using Colossus ultimate entering PvE raid environment, on top of Blastbone and mystic siphon are god-forsaken awful skills to cast with high ping (200ms+) and having to use scalding rune as main spammable. Why does ZoS have to take the one good thing away from us? If you take this from us, at least fix the other issues as incentives. It is simply frustrating to play necromancer now. Despite my ultimate at full 200%, I have to wait for it to be called. So all those times, I am just stuck. On top of this, those NPC bounties every single time I go into town. Like stop. Yes I just reanimated a corpse, no it is not someone you know. Stop calling the guards on me.

TLDR: Give necromancer back Death Knell, or fix their broken skills.

Funny that, I was more in line with making ALL combat pets a crime. After all, it is a bit odd seeing people running around with daedric beasts when daedra worship is all but forbidden pretty much everywhere.

Except its not forbidden as mages everywhere use daedra for things. The mage in skywatch has a scamp, people use banekin for small simple tasks, and there's even a merchant in summerset who has a flame atro horse. Maybe mages aren't summoning daedroth or clannfear, but it's certainly not forbidden...at least until after the Oblivion Crisis for the most part.

itscompton

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

Amottica

Why would OP have to wait to use their ultimate until it is called for?

I do not have a necromancer so my first guess is there is a group buff or something they are trying to coordinate to maximize the group's performance but that would not be something to complain about.

YandereGirlfriend

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

But nerfed by 60% isn't "toned down" it's annihilated.

The Critical Chance in the execute phase looks gaudy but remember that the average Critical Chance granted by the passive was only 2.5% and the class doesn't have an actual execute ability either. Now the passive gives you an average of 1% Critical Chance. Wow, such power.

Meanwhile... Nightblades sitting around looking smug with their 2% always-on Critical Chance passive AND their amazing execute ability, neither of which have been "toned down" by ZOS over the various Critical Chance nerf waves.

Hmmm....

WrathOfInnos

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

That is the meta. It’s better than Skull, and Necros never need to cast consecutive spammables so Rune works well. It is annoying to get Scalding to cast sometimes, just like Siphon or Blastbones.

the1andonlyskwex

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

That is the meta. It’s better than Skull, and Necros never need to cast consecutive spammables so Rune works well. It is annoying to get Scalding to cast sometimes, just like Siphon or Blastbones.

I don't think you can call a 12 second DoT with a 2 second delay a spammable. It may be a big part of your damage rotation, but it's not a spammable, sorry.

WrathOfInnos

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

That is the meta. It’s better than Skull, and Necros never need to cast consecutive spammables so Rune works well. It is annoying to get Scalding to cast sometimes, just like Siphon or Blastbones.

I don't think you can call a 12 second DoT with a 2 second delay a spammable. It may be a big part of your damage rotation, but it's not a spammable, sorry.

More of a gap filler when other DoTs are running, because the initial tick hits as hard as any spammable and provides a few seconds of empower.

Andre_Noir

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Meanwhile... Nightblades sitting around looking smug with their 2% always-on Critical Chance passive AND their amazing execute ability, neither of which have been "toned down" by ZOS over the various Critical Chance nerf waves.

Hmmm....

If it's so amazing why it never used in PVP ? Meanwhile necos have free prurge, unnamed 10% mitigation that triggers 200 recovery, 15% dot buff, AoE(!) major breach with a dot damage, AoE major vulnerability, blastbones with tooltip more like an ultimate, free dot/heal with a 3% passive buff for heal/dmg - not overloaded at all LOL Let's buff the poorest class !!!

YandereGirlfriend

Andre_Noir wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

Meanwhile... Nightblades sitting around looking smug with their 2% always-on Critical Chance passive AND their amazing execute ability, neither of which have been "toned down" by ZOS over the various Critical Chance nerf waves.

Hmmm....

If it's so amazing why it never used in PVP ? Meanwhile necos have free prurge, unnamed 10% mitigation that triggers 200 recovery, 15% dot buff, AoE(!) major breach with a dot damage, AoE major vulnerability, blastbones with tooltip more like an ultimate, free dot/heal with a 3% passive buff for heal/dmg - not overloaded at all LOL Let's buff the poorest class !!!

Don't try to drag PvP into this... Death Knell didn't get nerfed due to PvP performance. It was strictly a PvE decision in the ongoing Critical Chance nerf wave that ZOS has been implementing.

However, I'm long on the record as stating that I think that ZOS should have removed the 3% Damage Done from Siphon as well as reconsidered the free pet Penetration and the DoT buff before they ever touched Death Knell, which is the signature passive ability of the class.

Now that signature passive is gutted but the class is still bloated up with tons of other random free stats, which just feels gross and directionless from a class theme perspective.

Rebiludo

it is not necessary to compare the executes and the passive ones but the overall performance of each class. Go to liko.gg
Before Blackwood, necromancers equaled sorc and nightblade. They are well behind me, not to mention the stamden ... go back

Everest_Lionheart

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

That is the meta. It’s better than Skull, and Necros never need to cast consecutive spammables so Rune works well. It is annoying to get Scalding to cast sometimes, just like Siphon or Blastbones.

People actually use that DOT rotation in content? To me it’s parse cheese and nothing more and feels even more clunky and awkward than skull rotation in any fight where you can stand there and parse.

I’m with you on the ultimate thing for sure though. Our group runs a Necro healer with MA and Saxhleel with the pearls and rains down colossus like there is no tomorrow. I’m the other MA Cro in group and drop mine when full. Or destro backbar if our healer has already dropped. I run either skulls or force pulse depending on fight, everything is situational.

At the end of the day however none of the nerfs that were implemented to hold back any of the classes have worked. It may have to be overcome by stacking other buffs or wearing those ridiculous new pants but the doom and gloom about Necro suddenly being the weakest class is just not accurate at all. That honour still falls to MagDK who literally got nothing this patch unless you run Zen, in which case with the proper build you may actually hit close to traditional damage sets.

BXR_Lonestar

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

TBH, crit chance still needs additional nerfing in order to bring it in line with raw damage builds because you can still have a moderately high spell/weapon damage number with a high crit chance rating. If they want to bring crit builds down to be on par with raw damage builds, further nerfing is going to be necessary (along with a new jewelry glyph for crit chance).

MrMazurski

Totally, more buffs for a class that is still able to deal massive damage with 50k Hp. He is able to cleanse himself of all Debuff, Single Skill Dots, and much much more. And during Golita she is virtually untouchable and all you have to do is run away. Is this topic founded by someone who has a very poor understanding of the possibilities of a Necromancer?

Everest_Lionheart

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

TBH, crit chance still needs additional nerfing in order to bring it in line with raw damage builds because you can still have a moderately high spell/weapon damage number with a high crit chance rating. If they want to bring crit builds down to be on par with raw damage builds, further nerfing is going to be necessary (along with a new jewelry glyph for crit chance).

The thing is the nerfs aren’t really hurting endgame because we know how to build for it and maximize the use of all the new gear that has been added to the game. DV + Bahsei with the kilt hits harder than the older meta sets that had MS or Medusa as a staple. Basically you can replace a crit set with a mythic item and wear two damage sets now and hit harder than ever if you know how to use them.

Crit nerfs hit everyone in the mid tier way harder. The issue is that they tune this game for endgame users and those players always adjust. I find it ironic that despite now 2 patches of nerfs we have still managed to come out ahead.

I don’t think more nerfs are the answer. I think content needs to be tuned up to test players more instead.

El_Borracho

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

That is the meta. It’s better than Skull, and Necros never need to cast consecutive spammables so Rune works well. It is annoying to get Scalding to cast sometimes, just like Siphon or Blastbones.

It is? I've only used it in VMA. Not saying you're wrong, its just I haven't seen it used in over a year.

I'm with some of the others. The 2 second arming time seems to indicate its not a spammable. Wouldn't you be better off with one of the scythe morphs?

Oreyn_Bearclaw

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

That is the meta. It’s better than Skull, and Necros never need to cast consecutive spammables so Rune works well. It is annoying to get Scalding to cast sometimes, just like Siphon or Blastbones.

I don't think you can call a 12 second DoT with a 2 second delay a spammable. It may be a big part of your damage rotation, but it's not a spammable, sorry.

@the1andonlyskwex @El_Borracho

I think the correct term, or at least what I see being used is "Semi-Spammable", and that is exactly what it is in this context. Typically a "spam" skill in a dynamic rotation is what you cast when everything else is ticking. It is your lowest priority skill for the most part. Most traditional spam skills are pretty much instant damage and that's it.

While it's unusual, Scalding does become your spam for a necro. It has a lot of upfront damage, and it is the correct cast if all your DOTs/Buffs are ticking, even if you still have time left on Scalding's DOT component. If Max DPS is your goal, and why wouldn't it be, its better than other class options (Ricochet Skull).

We call it a semi-spamable because unlike traditional spammables, you cannot cast it on back to back GCDs, or the first one will simply be cancelled and do no damage. Because necro rarely needs to cast a traditional spammable on consecutive GCDs, Scalding becomes a better option than Ricochet Skull because it also has a DOT component that will keep running as you do the rest of your rotation. Unlike most DOTS, Scalding has enough upfront damage that recasting early, even significantly early, is often the correct play, as long as you don't do it back to back. Spam is the right term in this context.

itscompton

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

But nerfed by 60% isn't "toned down" it's annihilated.

The Critical Chance in the execute phase looks gaudy but remember that the average Critical Chance granted by the passive was only 2.5% and the class doesn't have an actual execute ability either. Now the passive gives you an average of 1% Critical Chance. Wow, such power.

Meanwhile... Nightblades sitting around looking smug with their 2% always-on Critical Chance passive AND their amazing execute ability, neither of which have been "toned down" by ZOS over the various Critical Chance nerf waves.

Hmmm....

By focusing on the average Crit chance you missed my point about the extra being applied during the "most crucial" stage of a fight. Execute phases on some Vet bosses ramp up the difficulty 10X and having 30% extra crit chance for the final 1 million health could significantly shorten how long you have to survive that craziness.

YandereGirlfriend

@itscompton I... don't really care as that scenario is not applicable to 99% of the player base, and, moreover, think that it's atrocious game design to gut core class passives because the top handful of PvE raid groups have a particular build composition. Real life shows us that those groups will always circumvent those changes and all that will remain will be the burned out husks of the classes/sets/abilities that were sacrificed along the way.

Never mind also that ZOS continues to compound this problem by stacking ever-higher the amount of Critical Damage in an optimized raid. If they had simply toned down the ceiling on Critical Damage then that would have also indirectly balanced classes with access to unique sources of Critical Chance.

There were other and better ways to balance Necromancers; ZOS just took the lowest-hanging fruit that it could find. And now the Sauron's Eye of the nerf bat can finally focus in on Nightblades, the one class that has escaped it so far. How valuable are they now in the execute phase with their gaudy 2% class passive and +300% damage class execute ability? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

TBH, crit chance still needs additional nerfing in order to bring it in line with raw damage builds because you can still have a moderately high spell/weapon damage number with a high crit chance rating. If they want to bring crit builds down to be on par with raw damage builds, further nerfing is going to be necessary (along with a new jewelry glyph for crit chance).

Critical Chance doesn't need additional nerfing.

Rather, it is Critical Damage that requires nerfing. That, in combination with buffs to the set bonuses of Weapon/Spell Damage would do wonders to make alternative builds viable.

itscompton

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@itscompton I... don't really care as that scenario is not applicable to 99% of the player base, and, moreover, think that it's atrocious game design to gut core class passives because the top handful of PvE raid groups have a particular build composition. Real life shows us that those groups will always circumvent those changes and all that will remain will be the burned out husks of the classes/sets/abilities that were sacrificed along the way.

Never mind also that ZOS continues to compound this problem by stacking ever-higher the amount of Critical Damage in an optimized raid. If they had simply toned down the ceiling on Critical Damage then that would have also indirectly balanced classes with access to unique sources of Critical Chance.

There were other and better ways to balance Necromancers; ZOS just took the lowest-hanging fruit that it could find. And now the Sauron's Eye of the nerf bat can finally focus in on Nightblades, the one class that has escaped it so far. How valuable are they now in the execute phase with their gaudy 2% class passive and +300% damage class execute ability? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

TBH, crit chance still needs additional nerfing in order to bring it in line with raw damage builds because you can still have a moderately high spell/weapon damage number with a high crit chance rating. If they want to bring crit builds down to be on par with raw damage builds, further nerfing is going to be necessary (along with a new jewelry glyph for crit chance).

Critical Chance doesn't need additional nerfing.

Rather, it is Critical Damage that requires nerfing. That, in combination with buffs to the set bonuses of Weapon/Spell Damage would do wonders to make alternative builds viable.

I would try to reply but there are so many misconceptions and it really doesn't matter because that amount of crit chance is gone like Templar's major mending, Sorc's stun from Crystal Frags, NB's being able to cleanse dots with cloak, and DK's having dynamic Ulti gain. You can argue until you keel over but they've done it and it won't get changed back. And some of us just think that's not a problem.

YandereGirlfriend

itscompton wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@itscompton I... don't really care as that scenario is not applicable to 99% of the player base, and, moreover, think that it's atrocious game design to gut core class passives because the top handful of PvE raid groups have a particular build composition. Real life shows us that those groups will always circumvent those changes and all that will remain will be the burned out husks of the classes/sets/abilities that were sacrificed along the way.

Never mind also that ZOS continues to compound this problem by stacking ever-higher the amount of Critical Damage in an optimized raid. If they had simply toned down the ceiling on Critical Damage then that would have also indirectly balanced classes with access to unique sources of Critical Chance.

There were other and better ways to balance Necromancers; ZOS just took the lowest-hanging fruit that it could find. And now the Sauron's Eye of the nerf bat can finally focus in on Nightblades, the one class that has escaped it so far. How valuable are they now in the execute phase with their gaudy 2% class passive and +300% damage class execute ability? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

TBH, crit chance still needs additional nerfing in order to bring it in line with raw damage builds because you can still have a moderately high spell/weapon damage number with a high crit chance rating. If they want to bring crit builds down to be on par with raw damage builds, further nerfing is going to be necessary (along with a new jewelry glyph for crit chance).

Critical Chance doesn't need additional nerfing.

Rather, it is Critical Damage that requires nerfing. That, in combination with buffs to the set bonuses of Weapon/Spell Damage would do wonders to make alternative builds viable.

I would try to reply but there are so many misconceptions and it really doesn't matter because that amount of crit chance is gone like Templar's major mending, Sorc's stun from Crystal Frags, NB's being able to cleanse dots with cloak, and DK's having dynamic Ulti gain. You can argue until you keel over but they've done it and it won't get changed back. And some of us just think that's not a problem.

You're free to believe what you want to believe but grinding up classes for the sake of some ephemeral notion of 'balance' will never be healthy for the game.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@itscompton I... don't really care as that scenario is not applicable to 99% of the player base, and, moreover, think that it's atrocious game design to gut core class passives because the top handful of PvE raid groups have a particular build composition. Real life shows us that those groups will always circumvent those changes and all that will remain will be the burned out husks of the classes/sets/abilities that were sacrificed along the way.

Never mind also that ZOS continues to compound this problem by stacking ever-higher the amount of Critical Damage in an optimized raid. If they had simply toned down the ceiling on Critical Damage then that would have also indirectly balanced classes with access to unique sources of Critical Chance.

There were other and better ways to balance Necromancers; ZOS just took the lowest-hanging fruit that it could find. And now the Sauron's Eye of the nerf bat can finally focus in on Nightblades, the one class that has escaped it so far. How valuable are they now in the execute phase with their gaudy 2% class passive and +300% damage class execute ability? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

TBH, crit chance still needs additional nerfing in order to bring it in line with raw damage builds because you can still have a moderately high spell/weapon damage number with a high crit chance rating. If they want to bring crit builds down to be on par with raw damage builds, further nerfing is going to be necessary (along with a new jewelry glyph for crit chance).

Critical Chance doesn't need additional nerfing.

Rather, it is Critical Damage that requires nerfing. That, in combination with buffs to the set bonuses of Weapon/Spell Damage would do wonders to make alternative builds viable.

So out of curiosity, who should we balance the game around in your opinion? If we balance around the top DPS, yes, it can create issues as some of the more powerful abilities/passives are pushed to their limits. Do we balance around PVP? That never seems to go well with PVEers, and presents similar problems. Do we balance around Casual questers? Any class can button Mash 2-3 skills at most to clear all quest overland content with ease. Do we balance around the 30K DPS working towards vet content? Their is so much variation in skill level and rotation in that range, making balance a near impossibility.

I get that it can rub people the wrong way, but IMO, if you are looking to balance damage, I believe you need to start at the top. When a class is pushed to the extreme, DPS and balance becomes a math game at that point. The alternative is that if you don't balance that way, one class emerges and all 8 DPS are the same spec. We have been there before. We arent super far from that at the moment to be perfectly candid, good raids do require too many Necros IMO, but that is more about ultimate than anything else.

Fennwitty

Death Knell reduction is part of the overall reduction in player crit chance ZoS is trying to implement.

Maybe a spreadsheet said "reduce crit chance by X% in 2021" and this was an easy-to-find crit buff right here.

I agree with the sentiment that classes need balancing, not simply whack-a-mole on a specific overpowered elements.

Even if the whack-a-mole has a genuine end goal, the 'target' frequently appears random from the playerbase's point of view.

Fine tuning on one small little thing in a whole quarter ... but leaving other things brokenly over- or underpowered in the same class.

YandereGirlfriend

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

@itscompton I... don't really care as that scenario is not applicable to 99% of the player base, and, moreover, think that it's atrocious game design to gut core class passives because the top handful of PvE raid groups have a particular build composition. Real life shows us that those groups will always circumvent those changes and all that will remain will be the burned out husks of the classes/sets/abilities that were sacrificed along the way.

Never mind also that ZOS continues to compound this problem by stacking ever-higher the amount of Critical Damage in an optimized raid. If they had simply toned down the ceiling on Critical Damage then that would have also indirectly balanced classes with access to unique sources of Critical Chance.

There were other and better ways to balance Necromancers; ZOS just took the lowest-hanging fruit that it could find. And now the Sauron's Eye of the nerf bat can finally focus in on Nightblades, the one class that has escaped it so far. How valuable are they now in the execute phase with their gaudy 2% class passive and +300% damage class execute ability? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

itscompton wrote: »

I was a bit bummed with the nerf as I had finally just leveled a Necro but c'mon man, my front bar had 3 skills that gave me an extra 30% crit chance (for a total of 67%!) when the target was at low health.
Crit chance has been nerfed almost everywhere with the intention of forcing players who desire a high crit rate to make trade offs and truly build for it and a passive that gave you so much free crit chance at the most crucial stage to have it in was justified in being toned down.

TBH, crit chance still needs additional nerfing in order to bring it in line with raw damage builds because you can still have a moderately high spell/weapon damage number with a high crit chance rating. If they want to bring crit builds down to be on par with raw damage builds, further nerfing is going to be necessary (along with a new jewelry glyph for crit chance).

Critical Chance doesn't need additional nerfing.

Rather, it is Critical Damage that requires nerfing. That, in combination with buffs to the set bonuses of Weapon/Spell Damage would do wonders to make alternative builds viable.

So out of curiosity, who should we balance the game around in your opinion? If we balance around the top DPS, yes, it can create issues as some of the more powerful abilities/passives are pushed to their limits. Do we balance around PVP? That never seems to go well with PVEers, and presents similar problems. Do we balance around Casual questers? Any class can button Mash 2-3 skills at most to clear all quest overland content with ease. Do we balance around the 30K DPS working towards vet content? Their is so much variation in skill level and rotation in that range, making balance a near impossibility.

I get that it can rub people the wrong way, but IMO, if you are looking to balance damage, I believe you need to start at the top. When a class is pushed to the extreme, DPS and balance becomes a math game at that point. The alternative is that if you don't balance that way, one class emerges and all 8 DPS are the same spec. We have been there before. We arent super far from that at the moment to be perfectly candid, good raids do require too many Necros IMO, but that is more about ultimate than anything else.

This is a good question and I would answer that a game should balance itself for the middle class of its players (e.g. DPS 30k-75k) - not for the newbies/struggle bus crowd and definitely not for the elite top 1%.

That way, balance decisions will please and, perhaps even more importantly, make tangible sense to the majority of your actual players and not rain down like thunderbolts from remote and some uncaring god because the top 100 players worldwide are constructing their raids in a certain way.

Seeing crushing and nonsensical nerfs slung about for several years now - each with the supposed goal of reducing the power of the top 1% - all end in disaster as well as in utter failure to achieve that stated goal, I've come around to the opinion that the top 1% should basically be left alone to do whatever it is that they're going to do while the rest of the game proceeds along without them.

And if someone is salty because their favorite class is omitted from the flavor-of-the-month raid profile, they should, respectfully, #DealWithIt and simply roll up that new class if they truly are committed to being a top 1% raider. You gotta do what you gotta do, after all.

ZOS will never succeed in balancing the game so that there is perfectly equal class/spec representation in min/maxed raid teams so to a large extent this entire endeavor is simply the ZOS equivalent of Don Qixote tilting at his windmills forever. I would grant that class representation is a good ideal to hold but that that ideal should be approached from a perspective of raising up unloved classes rather than smashing down the best.

However, that's sort of losing track of the point with the current annihilation of the Grave Lord passive. The more important point is that ZOS went about attempting to solve this perceived problem from entirely the wrong direction - instead, they should have targeted Critical Damage rather than the classes themselves because it is excessive amounts of Critical Damage that is the primary engine propelling PvE, and, increasingly, PvP damage. If they didn't want to directly nerf Critical Damage then they could have given PvE enemies Critical Resistance as an indirect means of achieving the same result.

Alternatively, and as I've said before, they could have taken aim at some of the many and random examples of free stats that are tacked onto the Necromancer class for wont of, I guess, better design ideas (e.g. 3% Mystic Siphon damage, DoT passive, Penetration). For enhancing class representation, they could have also explored farming out Major Vulnerability to some other classes/abilities/sets as well so that Necromancers were not so mandatory for maintaining its uptime. So many options on the table... and such an epic failure in choosing among them.

It's all indicative of a sort of a hand-to-mouth, reactionary approach to balancing the game that ZOS has taken. They need more far-sighted developers who can, yes, identify issues present in the game, but who can also solve them in more elegant and systemic ways than simply smashing down the single object that they happen to find closest at-hand.

AinSoph

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

WalkInMist wrote: »

and having to use scalding rune as main spammable.

What????

That is the meta. It’s better than Skull, and Necros never need to cast consecutive spammables so Rune works well. It is annoying to get Scalding to cast sometimes, just like Siphon or Blastbones.

I find it interesting that a lot of responses have been "wait, this is actually used?" which really hits home how much research
the people here actively try to do.

Tessitura

I have said it before I will say it again. It was already a poor answer to not giving the class a actual execute, but I doubt they are ever going to change that even though they should. However I do have some thoughts on it. I don't entirely hate the nerf. I get it, they don't want 100% chance to crit on every single dot you have stacked on a boss. I do have a idea on a alternate solution to the passive issue.

What if they dropped the crit chance all together and instead made it a straight damage bonus? Either a percent increase to all your damage one targets below 25% health? Or alternately it just hits the target for like 660-1000 extra damage each time you deal damage to the target while it is under 25% health. There would probably need to be a internal cooldown on the second effect but it would solves ZoS' issue with crit abilities and give necro something more effective in pvp and pve content.

This idea would need to be tested and number adjusted, but I am curious what others think about it. Could be the worst idea in the world but I think its more interesting then the crit one.