Necromancer, a heavily neglected class

Ankael07

When was the last time developers responded to pvp Necro feedbacks? Not even they know what the class is supposed to be in pvp

GrimStyx

Ankael07 wrote: »

When was the last time developers responded to pvp Necro feedbacks? Not even they know what the class is supposed to be in pvp

It seems to me that they specifically scored on necro, and they sort of solve "more important tasks", even despite the fact that a stillborn class is just hanging out in the game, although it would seem that with such a generation of ideas from the community, it would be possible to carry out a global rework a long time ago, I bet that if there is a rework, then not until next year, if there is still, all this is sad

GrimStyx

at the start, yes, he was strong, but not because all his abilities were really useful and well combined with each other, like a new arcanist, just some passives and active abilities were overbuffed, and skeletons with a spirit that prevented you from targeting necro ( although I don’t see a problem in the latter, because any summoner should have a “live” shield, and moreover, this would allow you to quickly accumulate corpses for abilities and passives, which is now very difficult to do), then the dark convergence + boneyard combo was nerfed , and as it turned out that after removing all the overbuffs and broken gameplay, the necromancer himself has nothing more to offer, which suggests that he was originally very poorly designed

tenryuta

other than not having perma summons of a tanky kind(why cant we have knight summon instead of scion:/, vamp covered this ult), necro's my main, and has been since my return when elsweyr hit, shes doesnt the greatest skill set, but atleast i have mender and... blast bones?*shrug

MindOfTheSwarm

LukosCreyden wrote: »

Necromancer requires a rework to get it to a functional state. It just has so much wrong with it.
I hated abandoning my necro, as it was my main and I was one of the people begging for a necromancer class. I just cannot justify playing a class that barely functions and is lacking in so many areas. Outside of pretty colours for the visuals (and they ARE genuinely beautiful colours), what does necromancer have? Clunkiness and semi-functional skills. How long has it been since it released?
How is it still in such a poor state?

To be honest I 100% agree. I have tried many times to play with Necro and I cannot justify it. It has been clunky since its inception. I know many people will defend Blastbones, but to be honest I would just prefer a temporary skeleton soldier minion that attacks until I reactivate the skill again to detonate it. I think this would be much better than what we have now. As it would give us more control and not have to recast a mobile bomb that has poor AI every 2.5 seconds. Also, this skill is so strong (in terms of damage) that you really cannot build a Necro without it, lest you lose a huge chunk of DPS.

In a nutshell I would at the very least make the following changes:

1. Make Blastbones a proper melee minion that attacks for about 20 seconds before dying or being detonated by the player on recast. The longer it is alive before being detonated, the greater the damage. I would actually make the stamina morph a Zombie instead of a skeleton too. Call it Putrid Corpse or something.

2. Change one of the Graveyard skills into a Disease morph. I know this is a bit controversial, but Disease options are lacking and it would allow at least one class to make a full on Disease build. And with the above Zombie suggestion it would be really thematic. Call it Noxious Graveyard or something.

3. Like others have suggested, improve the targeting of the tether skill or have it auto target (this could cause problems with multiple corpses though, so it would need smart AI to work).

4. The skull spammable is slow but in a weave it technically is the same as any other spammable in a parse due to skill delays that exist universally. But its speed does need a look at due to PvP. Also, I would make the Stamina Morph Disease. Yes, I know Necro are supposed to be masters of various elements, but I would have that on the Magicka side of things. Just go full Disease for Stamcro.

5. I would change the skeletal archer to a minion that deals Disease Damage at range, maybe a mini flesh atro that spits blobs of puss or throws its own flesh at targets instead of shooting arrows. Or simply keep the archer but have it fire necrotic arrows that deal Disease Damage.

6. I would get rid of Intensive Mender and buff Spirit Guardian’s heal to compensate, then I would have the other morph drain health from target enemies that then transfers a percentage of the damage done as healing to you or an ally. Effectively turning it into an aggressive option.

7. Give Agony Totem a self synergy. Buff Remote Totem by having it buff your active summons while active and dealing Disease Damage each pulse. Rename it to Necrotic Totem or something.

8. Remove Empowering Grasp due to above totem suggestion and come up with something else. It is clunky as hell to use right now and half the time it misses your minions.

This would make Necro gameplay more smooth and feel more like a necromancer without changing too much from the dev theme and design. Blastbones would retain its bomb mechanic while everything else simply doubles down on what already exists but in a much more cohesive way.

I know this would make people panic in PVP due to “oh no more pets”, but pet targeting is a separate issue and can be addressed separately as a result. Personally, I think pets should take more damage from AOE effects thus giving players a passive counter. Another option is to simply nerf their health, they are a bit too tanky in today’s meta, but no much that they become useless. Pet builds should be viable but not obnoxious.

GrimStyx

GrimStyx wrote: »

about Shocking Siphon, there is one good idea, instead of a 20 second duration, make a 3 second duration, which with each tick would deal about approximately and relative to the average damage of the player 3-4 thousand damage, in 0.5 seconds, towards the end, the beam would become brighter, accumulating energy, and would discharge with damage of 6 thousand , this would allow for complex burst combinations along with blastbones, siphon and spam, and also, would improve the mechanics of interaction with corpses, and would allow at least somehow to implement a normal class passive on the dot

The shocking siphon suggestion is still relevant, I don't understand at all why he needs a 20 second duration when you can just reduce it to 3 seconds while maintaining the damage, or cutting it down a little, this will add additional explosive damage over time for the necro, will allow him to implement well his passive on damage over time, as well as make sense to constantly interact with corpses and accumulate them, creating his own "minefield" which the developers may have originally tended to, also it will complicate the gameplay a little for the better, making the necro more original, with additional burst damage, but less reliable than the target one, but as for auto-casting, etc., this will not play a strong role, because the skill itself will still practically not deal damage, because you won't be able to keep anyone in it for that long, so it will remain just as useless

StarOfElyon

OtarTheMad wrote: »

It’s almost like ZOS is trying to be funny with the class by letting it die so they can “necro” it later and write a funny comment in patch notes about it.

I see you ZOS

The time of the Necro Redguards is coming.

techprince

Blastbones can no longer chase targets effectively as their movement speed is low and pathing is terrible.

YandereGirlfriend

StarOfElyon wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

It’s almost like ZOS is trying to be funny with the class by letting it die so they can “necro” it later and write a funny comment in patch notes about it.

I see you ZOS

The time of the Necro Redguards is coming.

LU'AH AL SKAVEN GANG RISE UP!

StarOfElyon

techprince wrote: »

Blastbones can no longer chase targets effectively as their movement speed is low and pathing is terrible.

True, blastbones does get outran a lot.

Ghaleb

Not only that. I find myself more and more often, to outrun my blastbones.
Casting, closing in to the enemy while throwing caltrops and e.g. rune and then, when blastbones should be ready again (and I am not too far away to then cast three spells in between for the first rotation), I can't cast blastbones.

And when I then check, I see them - finally - passing me and jumping at the boss.

Dunno what they are doing inbetween. Painting their nails? Rock, paper, scissors with an imaginary friend?
My Necro main meanwhile only comes into play in every 4th or 5th trial run. Stuff is to clunky to reliably use.

Mesite

In pve on quests sometimes I've killed all the enemies by the time blastbones decides to target them. The other day I'm sure my blastbones just stood looking confused until it was too late.

Thanks for the suggestion though. I'll take him to PVP where the battles last longer.

Ankael07

Blastbones used to jump from like 8 meters (could be wrong) back when Necro first came out. Now it jumps from 28 meters but when the initial target of Blastbones is somehow out of reach it goes back to 8 meter version for some reason

techprince

So arcanist gets Minor Heroism, Minor Courage, Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance, A Teleport, Major Expedition, a unique 200 WD/SD buff, Passive Major Sorcery/Brutality, Minor Breach, Minor Protection, Minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle.

And necromancers get..... Empower, Major Vulnerability, Minor Protection, Minor Maim, Minor Vulnerability and that's it.

Balance is thrown out of the window.

YandereGirlfriend

techprince wrote: »

So arcanist get Minor Heroism, Minor Courage, Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance, A Teleport, Major Expedition, a unique 200 WD/SD buff, Passive Major Sorcery/Brutality, Minor Breach, Minor Protection, Minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle.

And necromancers get..... Empower, Major Vulnerability, Minor Protection, Minor Maim, Minor Vulnerability and that's it.

Balance is thrown out of the window.

Indeed, and now that Major Vulnerability has been snatched by sets there is literally nothing unique that the Necromancer brings any longer.

It is certainly resembling what the devs quipped about Sorcerers from a little while back: "They're unique in that they have nothing that is unique."

FeelsBadMan

Melzo

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

techprince wrote: »

So arcanist get Minor Heroism, Minor Courage, Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance, A Teleport, Major Expedition, a unique 200 WD/SD buff, Passive Major Sorcery/Brutality, Minor Breach, Minor Protection, Minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle.

And necromancers get..... Empower, Major Vulnerability, Minor Protection, Minor Maim, Minor Vulnerability and that's it.

Balance is thrown out of the window.

Indeed, and now that Major Vulnerability has been snatched by sets there is literally nothing unique that the Necromancer brings any longer.

It is certainly resembling what the devs quipped about Sorcerers from a little while back: "They're unique in that they have nothing that is unique."

FeelsBadMan

I never understood why people drool over all these buffs. The essence of any class is in the gameplay, not in buffs. Sorcerer has a unique gameplay. And each class has a unique gameplay. But the necromancer has one offensive skill and nothing else. Blast Bones, Direct Heal, Ghost and Bones for 6 armor boost. All other 11 skills and three ults can be discarded. What they are, what they are not. The gameplay does not change, survivability does not increase, damage does not increase. Empty class.

I didn't care about all those pathetic buffs. The coffins of the necromancer worked through one dark bad place, but they worked, and thanks to synergy, many interesting and different builds could be built. But now, even if a necromancer gets a little more than a dozen buffs, he will still remain a *** class without any special features. Class features are not buffs, this is gameplay.

CameraBeardThePirate

Melzo wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

techprince wrote: »

So arcanist get Minor Heroism, Minor Courage, Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance, A Teleport, Major Expedition, a unique 200 WD/SD buff, Passive Major Sorcery/Brutality, Minor Breach, Minor Protection, Minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle.

And necromancers get..... Empower, Major Vulnerability, Minor Protection, Minor Maim, Minor Vulnerability and that's it.

Balance is thrown out of the window.

Indeed, and now that Major Vulnerability has been snatched by sets there is literally nothing unique that the Necromancer brings any longer.

It is certainly resembling what the devs quipped about Sorcerers from a little while back: "They're unique in that they have nothing that is unique."

FeelsBadMan

I never understood why people drool over all these buffs. The essence of any class is in the gameplay, not in buffs. Sorcerer has a unique gameplay. And each class has a unique gameplay. But the necromancer has one offensive skill and nothing else. Blast Bones, Direct Heal, Ghost and Bones for 6 armor boost. All other 11 skills and three ults can be discarded. What they are, what they are not. The gameplay does not change, survivability does not increase, damage does not increase. Empty class.

I didn't care about all those pathetic buffs. The coffins of the necromancer worked through one dark bad place, but they worked, and thanks to synergy, many interesting and different builds could be built. But now, even if a necromancer gets a little more than a dozen buffs, he will still remain a *** class without any special features. Class features are not buffs, this is gameplay.

Ok but if they were to make Necros kit better without adding any of the necessary buffs you still wouldn't be able to use any of your class abilities because you'd still have to outsource your buffs.

Necro needs the basic buffs in its class kit. They also need their abilities to be reworked. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

YandereGirlfriend

Melzo wrote: »

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

techprince wrote: »

So arcanist get Minor Heroism, Minor Courage, Minor Fortitude, Minor Intellect, Minor Endurance, A Teleport, Major Expedition, a unique 200 WD/SD buff, Passive Major Sorcery/Brutality, Minor Breach, Minor Protection, Minor Vulnerability and Minor Brittle.

And necromancers get..... Empower, Major Vulnerability, Minor Protection, Minor Maim, Minor Vulnerability and that's it.

Balance is thrown out of the window.

Indeed, and now that Major Vulnerability has been snatched by sets there is literally nothing unique that the Necromancer brings any longer.

It is certainly resembling what the devs quipped about Sorcerers from a little while back: "They're unique in that they have nothing that is unique."

FeelsBadMan

I never understood why people drool over all these buffs. The essence of any class is in the gameplay, not in buffs. Sorcerer has a unique gameplay. And each class has a unique gameplay. But the necromancer has one offensive skill and nothing else. Blast Bones, Direct Heal, Ghost and Bones for 6 armor boost. All other 11 skills and three ults can be discarded. What they are, what they are not. The gameplay does not change, survivability does not increase, damage does not increase. Empty class.

I didn't care about all those pathetic buffs. The coffins of the necromancer worked through one dark bad place, but they worked, and thanks to synergy, many interesting and different builds could be built. But now, even if a necromancer gets a little more than a dozen buffs, he will still remain a *** class without any special features. Class features are not buffs, this is gameplay.

I partially agree with you but I think that you're missing the bigger picture here.

All classes can DPS/Heal/Tank at roughly the same rate - what sets them apart are what they - and they alone - can bring to the table in a team setting.

Necromancers used to have Major Vulnerability but now you can have that for free with a set, which means that they don't contribute anything that you couldn't get with a different class. And that is lame.

The other bad news is that ZOS is never going to redesign the class. So what we have now in terms of abilities, well, that's what we're always going to have. The best that we can hope for is getting new properties stapled onto them. Or to get damage or healing values tuned up or down. So don't let the perfect (a class redesign) become the enemy of the good (getting needed class buffs).

techprince

What happened to class representatives?

Melzo

techprince wrote: »

What happened to class representatives?

What other representatives?

Ghaleb

techprince wrote: »

What happened to class representatives?

They were disbanded sometime early last year, prior to the great U35, if I recall correctly.

Melzo

Ghaleb wrote: »

techprince wrote: »

What happened to class representatives?

They were disbanded sometime early last year, prior to the great U35, if I recall correctly.

And what did they do anyway?

StarOfElyon

Melzo wrote: »

Ghaleb wrote: »

techprince wrote: »

What happened to class representatives?

They were disbanded sometime early last year, prior to the great U35, if I recall correctly.

And what did they do anyway?

Provide feedback to the devs, theoretically. For a while they said their feedback wasn't being listened to and then the program was eventually sunsetted.

Luckylancer

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

The other bad news is that ZOS is never going to redesign the class. So what we have now in terms of abilities, well, that's what we're always going to have. The best that we can hope for is getting new properties stapled onto them. Or to get damage or healing values tuned up or down. So don't let the perfect (a class redesign) become the enemy of the good (getting needed class buffs).

This is the case. I hope ZoS will fix clunky stuff first then buff here there later on. Also players should get used to class rotations between "meta" and "gutted". This is the way of devs. They just overbuff and overnerf but they dont listen to player feedback.

OtarTheMad

Necromancer could be such a fan class and might just need some minor tweaks. Maybe that’s just me. Just what I would do, these could suck idk:

1. I’d make skulls spammable faster
2. I’d also change the secondary effect of the magicka morph of blastbones to apply a dot to those hit.
3. Skeletal summons has a proc element to it where you’ll have a chance to do more damage. Basically the summons will have a chance to throw a piece of themselves at the target doing more damage. Proc will create a corpse as well. In order for this to work well I would change this ability to be a permanent pet or “thrall” in necro talk. So you don’t lose a corpse the skeleton thrall will “drop a piece of itself” every 20 secs until killed. Death still drops a corpse too.
4. Bone totem will fear upon cast and pulsate every 2 secs afterwards for its duration, also creates a corpse.
5. Sets that summon something now also drop corpses as well

That’s just a few ideas I had. Idk.

CameraBeardThePirate

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Necromancer could be such a fan class and might just need some minor tweaks. Maybe that’s just me. Just what I would do, these could suck idk:

1. I’d make skulls spammable faster
2. I’d also change the secondary effect of the magicka morph of blastbones to apply a dot to those hit.
3. Skeletal summons has a proc element to it where you’ll have a chance to do more damage. Basically the summons will have a chance to throw a piece of themselves at the target doing more damage. Proc will create a corpse as well. In order for this to work well I would change this ability to be a permanent pet or “thrall” in necro talk. So you don’t lose a corpse the skeleton thrall will “drop a piece of itself” every 20 secs until killed. Death still drops a corpse too.
4. Bone totem will fear upon cast and pulsate every 2 secs afterwards for its duration, also creates a corpse.
5. Sets that summon something now also drop corpses as well

That’s just a few ideas I had. Idk.

Hard disagree on the second point.

Say it with me people: the secondary effect of stalking blastbones is the only thing keeping the class remotely usable in PvP.

Stalking Blastbones gets, at MINIMUM, a 10% damage buff over the other morph, and often far exceeds that. It isn't uncommon at all in PvP to receive the full 50% buff. It's what allows Stalking to hit as hard as it does. Remove that effect, and Necro would have 0 damage whatsoever.

Editing to add: on your fifth point, sets that summon pets like Mad Tinkerer or Scavenging Demise do create corpses when the pet expires; the problem is that the corpses last approximately 1 second so you don't have a whole lot of time to consume it.

MindOfTheSwarm

Necromancer needs a lot of stuff looking at.

OtarTheMad

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Necromancer could be such a fan class and might just need some minor tweaks. Maybe that’s just me. Just what I would do, these could suck idk:

1. I’d make skulls spammable faster
2. I’d also change the secondary effect of the magicka morph of blastbones to apply a dot to those hit.
3. Skeletal summons has a proc element to it where you’ll have a chance to do more damage. Basically the summons will have a chance to throw a piece of themselves at the target doing more damage. Proc will create a corpse as well. In order for this to work well I would change this ability to be a permanent pet or “thrall” in necro talk. So you don’t lose a corpse the skeleton thrall will “drop a piece of itself” every 20 secs until killed. Death still drops a corpse too.
4. Bone totem will fear upon cast and pulsate every 2 secs afterwards for its duration, also creates a corpse.
5. Sets that summon something now also drop corpses as well

That’s just a few ideas I had. Idk.

Hard disagree on the second point.

Say it with me people: the secondary effect of stalking blastbones is the only thing keeping the class remotely usable in PvP.

Stalking Blastbones gets, at MINIMUM, a 10% damage buff over the other morph, and often far exceeds that. It isn't uncommon at all in PvP to receive the full 50% buff. It's what allows Stalking to hit as hard as it does. Remove that effect, and Necro would have 0 damage whatsoever.

Editing to add: on your fifth point, sets that summon pets like Mad Tinkerer or Scavenging Demise do create corpses when the pet expires; the problem is that the corpses last approximately 1 second so you don't have a whole lot of time to consume it.

The secondary effect of magicka morph BB has never worked for me since they “fixed” the animation years ago. Doesn’t matter if I cast it close or far away, damage is the same. It’s the reason I switched to the stamina morph, that and Defile.

Ankael07

I try to kill people with Reanimate Blastbones ulti and I just wasted my last 3 uses of it.

1st time blastbones jumped at the target but didnt register any damage, 2nd time blastbones decided to jump on a random npc and final time they just watched the enemy player before exploding by themselves.

Wasted nearly 1500 ulti points trying to kill 1 player. I dont even know why I bother anymore

LukosCreyden

Whilst some other classes need some work, Necromancer is barely functional. It needs a buff and some reworking of skills. It also feels really clunky to play.