Core Combat values are no longer being followed (Necromancer deep dive)

MachineGod

Most of this analysis is from a PvP perspective and therefore I cannot lend to anything PvE related.

It is coming to the end of the year and we are now in the last major update being pushed as this year's long cycle concludes. It is also coming up to a year since the "Core Combat" values were shown and the classes and sets re-balanced as we moved into a hybridized era. I will touch on other classes but in general I will focus on Necromancer as the staple point here because as most people have seen, the disconnect between classes has widened now even further with recent changes being made in this cycle.

I'll start with one of the largest pain points. Necromancers access to class buffs (or lack thereof).

• It is missing Major Brutality and Sorcery (every other class has access to this via its own toolkit)
• It is missing Major Prophecy and Savagery (minus sorcerer every other class has access to this via its own toolkit)
• Every class apart from this and warden now have access to buff's or systems that can carry over between bars or have active effects (Flames, Cloak, Armaments, NB bow etc)
• Quickly looking and comparing all of the named buffs/debuffs nightblade has vs necromancer its 23 (NB) to 8 (Necro) (This is things like Courage, Mending, Resolve, Breach etc). Just slightly under 3 times the amount.

With the above in mind I wont tackle the entire toolkit as it would far exceed a few pages of anecdotes but I'll acknowledge that Necromancer, while missing a... few buffs and debuffs, does bring some unique aspects and effects via its passives and skills; these values are simply no match for what other classes bring ON TOP of their own unique takes on combat. Lets pull back to the Core combat shall we with this in mind. Link for ref: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/624269/eso-developer-deep-dive-core-combat-values#latest

Play The Way You Want

By the time most people who try to take a Necromancer into a PvP environment have found out, you will have dedicated most of the bar space to make up for the missing buffs. This does not hold up to the mantra being pushed by the combat team. It simply isn't feasible in the current state.

The most Necro can do for the values of "Protect their group" is the res-ult which isn't protection, it's a system after the fact the Necro failed in the first place and does. "Mend allies" while its own burst heal will de-buff itself and the tethers requiring a corpse (because a healer its definitely going to be able to keep the tethers on their own group /s) and finally "Devastate enemies" with what damage? The blastbones is too slow and clunky compared to other class burst damage and cannot be "timed" so well and one of Necro's redeeming features via its own graveyard synergy was completely destroyed by the combat team in response to a small amount of people using it as a bomber because god forbid if any other class is allowed to bomb apart from Nightblades.

What about Active combat

The combat Team in their own words: "believe combat is more engaging when you are on the move and continuously taking action. Battles should be exhilarating, with threats and opportunities coming fast and you feeling empowered to respond in kind. In any given moment you should have options for reacting to your opponents and shouldn't be held back by long waits between actions. This requires controls to be responsive and consistent so you feel connected to your character and in control of the outcomes of your battles."

Let's look at Necromancer in comparison to the above and for the first point cast our memories back to the old templar playstyle of "build the house". Necromancer is dangerously close to this style right now with the Tethers, Totem and even to some extent the undeath skills as all of them limit movement in some way and prevent the "on the move" playstyle that even templar was migrated away from. While in combat the Necromancer damage feels rather sluggish as most of the time you are left waiting for blast bones to do something or have a mistime on a skill combo because it's extremely hard to predict exactly when the damage is going to hit. In fact the whole play style is very passive very slow and ironically enough not a lot of things seems to "synergise" with it. (A call back to graveyard playstyle being completely gutted).

Necromancer is now the middle child of the "DLC" classes

It seems like every update it has been forgotten about. With the changes made to other classes to make them feel more fluid, powerful and having a good pace there has not been any such changes to this class. In fact if we go back and look at all the class changes the past year the most notable and more impactful one for Necromancer was a buff to the Colossus ultimate but while appreciated is a far reach in an attempt to bring this class in line to the others. It is seemingly stuck in a meta that is 2 years out of date and can no longer be competitive with its current package.

I'm not going to offer any solutions for the above. I am also not calling for a "nerf" to the classes used as an example. In fact these classes are the standard at which the rest should be operating at but unfortunately amonst others, Necromancer I feel falls the shortest.

Alaztor91

Tbh it feels like the entire class is being balanced around parse dummy scenarios. Skills like Blastbones, Tethers, Totem, Grave Grasp, even the Corpse system itself all work pretty much flawlessly against a stationary target that never moves, but as soon as that scenario changes you start to see how unreliable those skills become.

Major Vulnerability is no longer a 30% damage taken debuff and is available via other sources like Archdruid Devyric or Turning Tide and the Harmony Grave Robber self synergy has been gutted so they lost both their PvE and PvP crutches. I don't know why nothing substantial is being done with the class when you take into consideration the amount of feedback that has been given.

Turtle_Bot

Good luck trying to get through to them on this.

I brought up the exact same thing regarding the current design of sorcs last patch.
- lack of crit modifiers (chance and damage) to tie the kit together (including the class HoT)
- cast times and their interrupts and skill lockouts that directly conflict with the following

In any given moment you should have options for reacting to your opponents and shouldn't be held back by long waits between actions.

and many other things where the current design of sorc directly conflicts with their combat goals stated in the developer deep dive.

All it got was a complete deafening silence. It's not a NB or DK so they won't give 2 hoots about it.

Erickson9610

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

All it got was a complete deafening silence.

I made a similar post about how the current design of Werewolf doesn't adhere to the Core Combat Values, and I received a similar response. These combat balance changes aren't happening soon enough, if at all — how can we be sure that the combat team is aware of the current balance issues? We've waited months for things to change, and the important issues have no sign of being addressed or even acknowledged.

I agree, Necromancer and Sorcerer need to be re-evaluated. What is the point of making a statement about your core combat values if you're not going to adhere by them?