Honest question, why does Necro still lack so many named buffs in their kit?

CameraBeardThePirate

Buffing NB once again and adding yet another named buff to their kit is pretty laughable. Necro lacks nearly every required named buff for a build. As a result, you run maybe 3 or 4 class skills on an optimized build.

I get this patch wasn't focused on balance changes, but Necro needed some named Major buffs, not a middling change to two skills that won't really add much to their overall power or help barspace.

Marto

As described in the dev commentary for the Necro changes this patch.

PTS Patch Notes v9.1.0 wrote:

Glacial Colossus: This morph now also extends the duration of Major Vulnerability to 17 seconds per hit, up from 12.
Developer Comment:
This Ultimate has been significantly reigned in after Major Vulnerability became less outright potent and more accessible from other actions in the game, causing the Ultimate to no longer instill the same fear it once did. In order to help rectify this and give some much-needed love to Necromancers' ability to bring death to their foes, we've made it easier to cast with a significant cost reduction and added a small damage bonus to boot. We've also tried to add some more distinction between these morphs; Pestilent now reinforces additional damage and makes it harder for your foes to bounce back with healing, while Glacial brings a slow and bitter end to those who try to weather the cold by extending the Major Vulnerability duration.

Necromancer was always designed with the idea that it lacked common buffs/debuffs, but it made up for it by having easy access to rare buffs/debuffs, like Major and Minor Vulnerability.

They also have really strong bonuses just from slotting abilities. On paper, a Necromancer tank with Bitter Harvest slotted will always be tankier than any equivalent build from another class.

Some Necromancer abilities are also stronger than standard. Even the basic Flame Skull is on paper one of the strongest instant-cast ranged spammables.

However, as power creep naturally made the average player a lot stronger, that kinda left Necromancer behind. Is losing major brutality and savagery in exchange for major vulnerability really that good of a trade, when tanks are running Turning Tide? Maybe not so much.

Personally I think adding a basic buff like Major Savagery or Brutality to Flame Skull or some other ubiquitous skill would be a good way to bring them up a fair bit. But this should be done carefully. After all, we don't want every class to be the same, and neither does ZOS.

Classes are supposed to have unique advantages and disadvantages. Sorcerer's Daedric Curse is better than Templar's Backlash. But Mage's Fury is a worse execute than Radiant Destruction. Perhaps a better alternative would be to buff the advantages that Necromancers have by buffing their "When slotted" bonuses to +4% or +5%, instead of +3%.

CameraBeardThePirate

Marto wrote: »

As described in the dev commentary for the Necro changes this patch.

PTS Patch Notes v9.1.0 wrote:

Glacial Colossus: This morph now also extends the duration of Major Vulnerability to 17 seconds per hit, up from 12.
Developer Comment:
This Ultimate has been significantly reigned in after Major Vulnerability became less outright potent and more accessible from other actions in the game, causing the Ultimate to no longer instill the same fear it once did. In order to help rectify this and give some much-needed love to Necromancers' ability to bring death to their foes, we've made it easier to cast with a significant cost reduction and added a small damage bonus to boot. We've also tried to add some more distinction between these morphs; Pestilent now reinforces additional damage and makes it harder for your foes to bounce back with healing, while Glacial brings a slow and bitter end to those who try to weather the cold by extending the Major Vulnerability duration.

Necromancer was always designed with the idea that it lacked common buffs/debuffs, but it made up for it by having easy access to rare buffs/debuffs, like Major and Minor Vulnerability.

They also have really strong bonuses just from slotting abilities. On paper, a Necromancer tank with Bitter Harvest slotted will always be tankier than any equivalent build from another class.

Some Necromancer abilities are also stronger than standard. Even the basic Flame Skull is on paper one of the strongest instant-cast ranged spammables.

However, as power creep naturally made the average player a lot stronger, that kinda left Necromancer behind. Is losing major brutality and savagery in exchange for major vulnerability really that good of a trade, when tanks are running Turning Tide? Maybe not so much.

Personally I think adding a basic buff like Major Savagery or Brutality to Flame Skull or some other ubiquitous skill would be a good way to bring them up a fair bit. But this should be done carefully. After all, we don't want every class to be the same, and neither does ZOS.

Classes are supposed to have unique advantages and disadvantages. Sorcerer's Daedric Curse is better than Templar's Backlash. But Mage's Fury is a worse execute than Radiant Destruction. Perhaps a better alternative would be to buff the advantages that Necromancers have by buffing their "When slotted" bonuses to +4% or +5%, instead of +3%.

Major Vuln is the only "rare" debuff they have access to. Minor Vuln can be found on anyone with lightning damage (including enchants), or literally anyone running Ele Sus (most people nowadays). They don't have any other "hard to find" debuff.

Additionally, half of their abilities do not function in the majority of PvP encounters due to them requiring a corpse to even cast.

Considering every other class has access to one of Major Sorcery/Brutality or Prophecy/Savagery, and considering Necro is also the only class to lack an on demand stun, I'd say their disadvantages far outway any advantages.

NordSwordnBoard

I'm loving Arcanist right now, and lamenting how awesome my Necro looks but is just a dud to play. Arcanist demonstrated an effective way to make use of a class specific mechanic. Crux is part of my decision making, corpses are not. 1 vamp 1 weapon skill rest is all class skills. Necro is almost the opposite.
Imagine if one nerco armor morph gave the named major and minor resistances, and the other gave Major Brutality just for being slotted. The pull morph gets tankier and the cost reduction gives the damage boost.
What if the Major Vulnerability 10% on Necro was renamed so it could stack with the other existing Vulnerabilities? Too OP? It used to be 30%... Make it 8%, 10% with a stupid corpse randomly there? Back to 1 trick pony or maybe it will help cut through the new anti-pull helm? idk. I haven't thought about necro since arcanist came out.

Tonturri

NordSwordnBoard wrote: »

I'm loving Arcanist right now, and lamenting how awesome my Necro looks but is just a dud to play. Arcanist demonstrated an effective way to make use of a class specific mechanic. Crux is part of my decision making, corpses are not. 1 vamp 1 weapon skill rest is all class skills. Necro is almost the opposite.
Imagine if one nerco armor morph gave the named major and minor resistances, and the other gave Major Brutality just for being slotted. The pull morph gets tankier and the cost reduction gives the damage boost.
What if the Major Vulnerability 10% on Necro was renamed so it could stack with the other existing Vulnerabilities? Too OP? It used to be 30%... Make it 8%, 10% with a stupid corpse randomly there? Back to 1 trick pony or maybe it will help cut through the new anti-pull helm? idk. I haven't thought about necro since arcanist came out.

I would love some sort of rework to make the corpse mechanic more meaningful, and add a trade off that in being more of a factor the necro has to play around, more of their debuffs and whatnot are both stronger and can stack with Major/Minor effects. That would be a cool class feature.

I'm also so, so tired of seeing every class get a generic armor buff, generic XYZ buff skill with some small additional flavor. I'd be happy to see necro start moving to tweaking that mold.

BasP

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Buffing NB once again and adding yet another named buff to their kit is pretty laughable. Necro lacks nearly every required named buff for a build. As a result, you run maybe 3 or 4 class skills on an optimized build.

I get this patch wasn't focused on balance changes, but Necro needed some named Major buffs, not a middling change to two skills that won't really add much to their overall power or help barspace.

I couldn't agree more. I find it quite baffling that on the PTS 4 out of the 7 ESO classes can access both Major Brutality/ Sorcery and Major Savagery/ Prophecy by using class skills*, two have Major Brutality/ Sorcery and the Necromancer class contains neither of those buffs.

ZOS, please just add Major Brutality/ Sorcery to a base skill (I'd prefer Skeletal Mage so it can be pre-buffed myself, but it could also be granted for 10 seconds after activating Blastbones or something).

Aside from that I'd personally also like it if Major Savagery/ Prophecy was added to Shocking Siphon, but giving both a Magcro and Stamcro access to Maj Brut/ Sorc from a class skill is the least that could be done.

* I get that not all builds can utilize them, like a Templar without Biting Jabs doesn't get Major Brutality and the NB's new buff to Shadowy Disguise isn't really useful in PvE, but still.

x99KungFuTacosx

Tonturri wrote: »

I'm also so, so tired of seeing every class get a generic armor buff, generic XYZ buff skill with some small additional flavor. I'd be happy to see necro start moving to tweaking that mold.

I understand what you're saying. It would be nice for classes to be unique. But that's not where this game has been heading lately. A major buff for necromancers is especially needed after the combat team decided to take away the unique aspects of the necromancer toolkit (synergy burst damage, major vulnerability). Now the only unique part about necromancers (corpse mechanics) is a downside, not a benefit

In the current state of the game, there are certain buffs that should be ubiquitous (namely major brutality/sorcery and major resolve). These two buffs are a MUST HAVE for any PvP build, and should be accessible to all classes without forcing them to use a specific potion, set, or weapon type.

x99KungFuTacosx

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Additionally, half of their abilities do not function in the majority of PvP encounters due to them requiring a corpse to even cast.

That's not even counting the abilities that don't function well (skull spammable is an "instant cast" but has an extremely slow arc to reach the target, blastbones has a shadow cast time and is absolutely unreliable in mobile fights).

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Considering every other class has access to one of Major Sorcery/Brutality or Prophecy/Savagery, and considering Necro is also the only class to lack an on demand stun, I'd say their disadvantages far outway any advantages.

Absolutely (although IIRC wardens just lost their on demand stun unfortunately). After the harmony/graveyard nerfs and the huge nerfs to spirit mender healing, we need class access to brutality and an instant stun to be a remotely viable class for PvP damage dealing. These should be pretty easy to implement too.

JerBearESO

Forget major buffs, add minor sorcery/brutality and minor prophecy/savagery to their base skeleton summon, then buff the morphs in unique ways such as doubling up the damage of the AoE one and having the single target one apply a stacking DoT. This would be in line with how overloaded many abilities are becoming, it would be in line with Necro forgoing common buffs for having less common ones instead, and would ultimately solve the classes lack of power in a way which makes skeleton summon a hero, which I would think every Necro enthusiast would celebrate.

Am I great or what

IncultaWolf

Please at the very least just attach major brutality/sorcery to the skeletal minion after casting, that alone would make me actually want to play my necro in pvp again. Necromancer s is missing so many named buffs and tools the other classes already get easy access to

Twig_Garlicshine

I used to love playing necro both stam and mag.
Very fun all around.
Then the bad times came...nerfnerfnerf.
From the looks of things it will remain - something I used to play until it got nerfed into uselessness.-
The dustbin of history is deep.

Lavennin

I just want to know if the Colossus buff will actually result in a Necromancer DD nerf. Does extending the duration mean you need fewer cros in a group?

Melzo

Lavennin wrote: »

I just want to know if the Colossus buff will actually result in a Necromancer DD nerf. Does extending the duration mean you need fewer cros in a group?

The whole point is that the necromancer is considered a class in order for him to press one button for a buff. He has no damage, no group utility, no interesting gameplay. Nerkomancer is only needed for the ultimate. Well, this is stupidity.

MerguezMan

Really, of all the changes you could ask ...

Major Brutality/Sorcery, a named buff that can be accessed from weapon skills, mages guild, Oakensoul ring, DreughKing set, potions, or for being grouped with a DK ?

Maybe, just maybe, Necro would be more desirable if it gave more non-standard group buffs ?
Let's say Berserk, Courage, Slayer ? So the class has more power and group utility in a single change ?

OtarTheMad

Maybe I’m crazy but I don’t think adding buffs like savagery or sorcery or whatever to necro are the answer. I don’t mind using entropy for sorcery, don’t mind using camo hunter or any other non class skill for buffs. What I don’t like at all is that in PvP I am at a significant disadvantage because my classes offensive abilities suck and the corpse system just doesn’t really work.

Skulls is too slow, hard to weave and feels clunky. Skeletal summons is a passive unless in a duel or 2v1 where you can better control who it hits, graveyard lost it’s uniqueness with nerfs and is just now a meh ground aoe dot that is really avoidable… only used to proc sets really. BB still gets confused and stands around and I think the magicka morph needs a secondary affect that is just more reliable. And the tether is the only ability I enjoy but even in PvP I can’t rely on it. It might be up and ticking for 3 seconds maybe before the player respawns… need something more reliable

You can put buffs on the class but if the skills are still not really worth slotting then all you have is buffed turds. You have a class with a dot passive and really no dots besides tether and graveyard. One you can’t keep going unless you whisper the player to stay dead for the duration and the other is situational.

My suggestion? Make the skeletal summons permanent like sorc and give it a special ability that will apply a dot to enemies. Speed up skulls, give BB a dot that get applied to enemies hit, give tether a totem to attach to and for each corpse you’ve obtained it adds to its duration. Graveyard, I’d add a dot onto the self synergy if hit by it.

EDIT- Make the abilities worth slotting first and then maybe add some unique buffs or debuffs. Because if you add sorcery/brutality to skeletal summons without tweaking it... I am still using Entropy over it... adding that doesn't make it magically worth slotting. I can control who gets the entropy dot and without any other added damage I can control better on the summons... it sits on the shelf.

NuarBlack

Corpses need a rework for sure. I would actually love to see some stuff completely inverted for mag. Turn the mag morph of BB into a Mage that casts or sacrifices itself for a projectile and completely forego the bad AI and pathing. Then make skele Mage a melee tank minion that you can then apply tether skills to. Maybe they drain the minions health or something if that is too powerful.

BasP

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Maybe I’m crazy but I don’t think adding buffs like savagery or sorcery or whatever to necro are the answer. don’t mind using entropy for sorcery, don’t mind using camo hunter or any other non class skill for buffs. What I don’t like at all is that in PvP I am at a significant disadvantage because my classes offensive abilities suck and the corpse system just doesn’t really work.

Yeah, I can see why you'd prefer an overhaul to the class skills first from a PvP point of view.

My comment was made from the perspective of a relatively casual PvE player. If the passive buff from Shocking Siphon for example was changed into "While slotted on either bar, your damage done is increased by 3% and you gain Major Savagery and Prophecy, increasing your Weapon and Spell Critical rating by 2629" I'd definitely drop Camo Hunter myself, gaining a skill slot in the process.

Sadly, I also don't really see the Necro's getting a large rework during this PTS cycle and it will be a good while before the Q4 PTS launches. Adding a Major buff to one or two skills seems like an easy enough change that could theoretically be done during this PTS cycle though, while bigger and more meaningful changes would hopefully come in a later patch.

CameraBeardThePirate

BasP wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Maybe I’m crazy but I don’t think adding buffs like savagery or sorcery or whatever to necro are the answer. don’t mind using entropy for sorcery, don’t mind using camo hunter or any other non class skill for buffs. What I don’t like at all is that in PvP I am at a significant disadvantage because my classes offensive abilities suck and the corpse system just doesn’t really work.

Yeah, I can see why you'd prefer an overhaul to the class skills first from a PvP point of view.

My comment was made from the perspective of a relatively casual PvE player. If the passive buff from Shocking Siphon for example was changed into "While slotted on either bar, your damage done is increased by 3% and you gain Major Savagery and Prophecy, increasing your Weapon and Spell Critical rating by 2629" I'd definitely drop Camo Hunter myself, gaining a skill slot in the process.

Sadly, I also don't really see the Necro's getting a large rework during this PTS cycle and it will be a good while before the Q4 PTS launches. Adding a Major buff to one or two skills seems like an easy enough change that could theoretically be done during this PTS cycle though, while bigger and more meaningful changes would hopefully come in a later patch.

Even in a PvP setting I would love as simple a change like that. Arguing against giving Cro any of the Major buffs they lack is pretty wack - it is literally only beneficial. I'd much rather slot a class ability and actually be able to use my class passives then slot Entropy and get what? 2% mag and a middling dot?

OtarTheMad

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

BasP wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Maybe I’m crazy but I don’t think adding buffs like savagery or sorcery or whatever to necro are the answer. don’t mind using entropy for sorcery, don’t mind using camo hunter or any other non class skill for buffs. What I don’t like at all is that in PvP I am at a significant disadvantage because my classes offensive abilities suck and the corpse system just doesn’t really work.

Yeah, I can see why you'd prefer an overhaul to the class skills first from a PvP point of view.

My comment was made from the perspective of a relatively casual PvE player. If the passive buff from Shocking Siphon for example was changed into "While slotted on either bar, your damage done is increased by 3% and you gain Major Savagery and Prophecy, increasing your Weapon and Spell Critical rating by 2629" I'd definitely drop Camo Hunter myself, gaining a skill slot in the process.

Sadly, I also don't really see the Necro's getting a large rework during this PTS cycle and it will be a good while before the Q4 PTS launches. Adding a Major buff to one or two skills seems like an easy enough change that could theoretically be done during this PTS cycle though, while bigger and more meaningful changes would hopefully come in a later patch.

Even in a PvP setting I would love as simple a change like that. Arguing against giving Cro any of the Major buffs they lack is pretty wack - it is literally only beneficial. I'd much rather slot a class ability and actually be able to use my class passives then slot Entropy and get what? 2% mag and a middling dot?

The problem with relying on tethers in PvP is unless it hits a NPC, that tether will be active for like 2 seconds or less so you’re not really benefiting from the ability at all unless you attach to a dead NPC or a player that waits for a rez or afk while dead.

My suggestions were not just from a PvP perspective but also PvE. I don’t do any HM or anything like that though. Dungeons normal and most on vet? Sure. Overland and all that entails? Yeah. Solo arenas? Yeah.

Also, maybe I’m “old school” but I use spell power potions for a lot of dungeons and solo arenas so putting sorcery on an ability doesn’t do much for me. I was trying to think of solutions that helped both PvE and PvP because just putting buffs on abilities no one slots in PvP isn’t helping Necromancer in the long run.

I want to be able to slot my class abilities and not feel like an overused meme out there, that’s all. You change abilities so they are worth slotting in PvP, well that’s only a bonus for PvE too. Weird to say but not every class needs a class way to get a buff. Classes should have strengths and weaknesses and be unique.