Is there a reason why necromancer got nerfed so badly?

Erikx

Our healing got gutted , harmony got gutted, pet damage got reduced by almost half. I don't understand. What was the reasoning behind this? They reduced the ult cost of collosus which is still a usless ult now since there are so many sources of major vuln. Then they buffed the third cast of skulls which did what exactly to benefit the class? Literally nothing. We are also the only class that does not have a passive source of major sorcery/brutality. Did anyone also notice they straight up skipped making a necromancer companion and went straight to arcanist? I just dont get it. Yet nbs and dks are getting constant buffs. The cherry on top is this new class set. It is probably the most useless set imaginable for a necro. How will that benefit the class in any way?

boi_anachronism_

Ok 1) idk what you play bc in pve necro colossus is a must in any organized team. There is always a necro support. Always. For dps - yes it needs help badly but colossus is fantastic.

2) nb is good in pvp and arenas. Its dirt in 12 man as a dps and has been for a loooong time. The devs know this. Its an impossibly inconsistent class when it comes to damage output in content with bosses but it is also arguably the most difficult class to balance with pvp because of the play style. Anyone who doesnt know this doesnt understand the class and/or their only experience with it amounts to getting ganked by one in pvp.

3) i dont play dks and i dont like them but they just got corrosive nerfed. Thats not a little thing.

LunaFlora

there are three sets that give major vulnerability.
turning tide, arch druid, and kynmarcher's cruelty with the latter not even having guaranteed major vulnerability as it can give other effects too.

the colossus isn't useless because of this.

arcanist companion happened because it's the new class.
next year will likely have a necromancer companion.

Udrath

Kinda sad. Class had like 3 meta playstyles when it was released for pvp. Bashcro, harmony bomber and omega reflect tank. Now it’s just a body blocker lol… doesn’t even perform well with a standard dizzy build compared to other classes. The class has some of the worse passives in the game. There is no passive to build with. Dragon knight can go low resource recovery, Templar can stack spell power, warden can stack animal companion abilities, etc… necro has nothing.

Oblivion_Protocol

For everyone talking about what Necro can do in PvE, go back and look at where this thread was posted.

Now to address OP’s point. As mentioned, it lacks intrinsic access to Major Brutality/Sorcery, which literally every other class has. Spirit Guardian is great for healing and protection, but you have to constantly recast it.

Resistant Flesh is a decent burst heal…that inflicts you with Minor Defile (8% reduction in healing received). So, the one class burst heal makes you worse at being healed with every cast.

And the lack of any real damage on Necro abilities is appalling. Across the board, every person I’ve seen who could successfully score multiple kills on a Necro were using maybe three Necro skills. Everything else was a Weapon or Guild skill. That’s the true sin. You have to sacrifice your class identity just to be effective.

Erikx

Its just so frustrating. I think more than anything is the fact that zos takes literal months to make any kind of balance changes. Its so frustrating. I do PVE and PVP pretty regularly. This is also the first time I've even been posting on the forums. I've been a player since beta but I am so beyond frustrated at this point at the lack of care for class balance. The class imbalance has been just absolute garbage since the infamous update 35 and just continues to get worse. I'm not sure what happened but before update 35 this game had way more players and the game felt as close to balanced as its ever been. Then everything just got ruined. They started making all these stupid nerfs for no reason at all and playing favorites with certain classes. I'm genuinely curious if it is actually very difficult to make class balance changes regularly since they just don't do them but 3 times a year.

i11ionward

The next update will be released on the PTS on Monday, I think Necro will receive some buff...



...but this may not be true.

xFocused

It's good for healing/necro rez in PvP and that's about it. Used to be good for bombing until harmony was nerfed, it works in ball groups with the smash ulti as a DPS but other than those two things it's pretty useless. I used to love my necro but now it just sits and collects dust

El_Borracho

Its the life cycle of ESO. It was just the necro's turn. One day that unbeatable DK will go back to the depths of obscurity and tanking where it spent years before rising to its current glory.

SandandStars

I can tell you the reason, but only indirectly so as to be in compliance with protocols here: Necros got nerfed for the same reason NBs keep getting buffed.

LukosCreyden

Necromancer could receive every buff under the sun, but this still would not fix the core issue; the class feels awful and buggy to play.
It DEFINITELY needs buffs (sorcery/brutality lmao) but I feel that the class needs a rework. A PROPER rework. Making some numbers bigger won't work because, at the end of the day, the class feels bad to play so barely anyone actually wants to play it. Only crazy people like myself, who enjoy the theme and aesthetic of the class.

It doesn't matter. Unless the class gets and overhaul in 2024, I am abandoning it as a dead class.

CameraBeardThePirate

LukosCreyden wrote: »

It doesn't matter. Unless the class gets and overhaul in 2024, I am abandoning it as a dead class.

Making a big assumption there.

I am all but certain ZOS will never rework the class. What we have is what we're stuck with. They've had countless patches where they tried to fix certain things about the class (unsuccessfully) and at no point did they ever just completely redesign an ability like they should have.

I mean jeez just look at all the tweaks they made to the tethers, just to slap on a "fix" that didn't really fix anything - the abilities still have major issues.

Or look at all the work they put into Blastbones just to never actually fix the core issue - the targeting.

ZOS doesn't have the manpower to fix necro. It's a pipe dream to think they will.

katorga

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

LukosCreyden wrote: »

It doesn't matter. Unless the class gets and overhaul in 2024, I am abandoning it as a dead class.

Making a big assumption there.

I am all but certain ZOS will never rework the class. What we have is what we're stuck with. They've had countless patches where they tried to fix certain things about the class (unsuccessfully) and at no point did they ever just completely redesign an ability like they should have.

I mean jeez just look at all the tweaks they made to the tethers, just to slap on a "fix" that didn't really fix anything - the abilities still have major issues.

Or look at all the work they put into Blastbones just to never actually fix the core issue - the targeting.

ZOS doesn't have the manpower to fix necro. It's a pipe dream to think they will.

I assume ESO is in maintenance mode now, minimal development work, minimal resources, and maximum extraction of cash from players. That seems to be the cycle for MMO's when then get close to the 10 year mark. It is what it is.

I've dumped my Necro, which is hard, because Necro is my preferred class in any MMO that had one, going back to Everquest days. The mechanics of the class never really worked well, and did not fit in with the way the game plays and the class was always 1-2 nerfs away from being ruined. Too many class mechanics just did not function in pvp.

Araneae6537

Both necro and warden feel clunky to play (IMHO) but had strong stamina builds for PvP until they were nerfed to only really be useful as PvE support classes, and necro barely even has that left with everyone now having access to vulnerability.

The only ult that really fits the theme of necro is the rez ult. Summoning a bone goliath would have been another good one. Necro really needs better minions and I’d like to see skills that could buff your minions in one morph and in the other, weaken or even gain control over other undead.

OtarTheMad

What has gone on with Necro since it launched in 2019 is nothing short of head scratching. It wasn’t a class that was OP, major vulnerability was, harmony trait was, Bashcro was really an unintended bug.

Things have always been the same for Necro… clunky slow spammable, targeting and consistency issues with pets, tethers and corpse system is weird. I made the mistake of thinking that Necro would be worked on, I loved the Necro style… usually do. That and Ice Mages are kind of my go to in games like these. Say what we want about devs and classes… they’ve worked on all of them… buffing, nerfing, changing… whatever they needed. Even Warden got some very needed changes around 2020 or so like off balance on birds, birds were sped up a bit, flies got that debuff etc.

Necros just been nerfed really without adjusting its giant issues which is just so off brand for ZOS. I don’t think the class will ever be changed… I’ve lost hope for it. I’m enjoying my Sorc and my Arcanist but truthfully I’d play this game more if necro was more fun.

Brakkish

I agree that Necro is bottom tier for sure, in its current state.

That being said I'll still play it in my daily roster rotation as I cycle through BG dailies. There is some fun still to be had because I mainly use it to troll and stand on flags. DM it's useless - terrible heals, terrible dps comparatively speaking.

The giggle factor?
I usually run some HP based sets like crimson and leeching for the entertainment value - watching squishies scatter like roaches after hitting Goliath and my hp hits 95k. Combined with Nord and Necro's Ult gen abilities, time between Goliath is minimal.

Necrotech_Master

the most significant nerf i would say was the reduction in dmg from the skeletal archer/mage, their dmg was already bad and they got gutted with all the other dots in u35

necromancer on the other hand i would say a more lacking stuff to keep up, or have clunky skills

• no class source of major sorcery/brutality for dmg buff
• passives tend to focus on dots, and the class only has 2 real dots (graveyard and tether)
• skull spammable is slow and clunky
• tethers are clunky and dont provide any value without a corpse, and when you do have a corpse the area they affect is very small, not to mention you can only have 1 of each active at a time
• blastbones is strong, but itself also buggy at times and can be unreliable unless standing on top of the target
• lots of necromancer dmg comes from pets, which cannot trigger procs (blastbones, and to lesser extent skeletal archer/mage)
• no way to choose targets for skeletal archer/mage

not to mention for like me, they are just not at all what i expected a necromancer to be

the group boss in the labyrinthian is closer to what i would expect a necromancer to be, it even has the bone dragon frost breath attack that ive seen some threads show was prototyped for the class but never actually utilized

CameraBeardThePirate

It's pretty straightforward: Necro has always been gimmicky at best in PvP, and crutched on Major Vuln and Harmony. Major Vuln was (rightfully) nerfed, and Harmony was nerfed (probably justifiable). The issue is they also gutted Graverobber for some reason, and didn't give them anything in return.

Now their damage is pitiful outside of Blastbones or DoT Procs, and in a tanky meta, that just doesn't cut it. Their abilities are and have always been buggy at best and non-functional at worst, they struggle with barspace because they lack Major W/S Power, Major Crit, and an on-demand stun. Their class spammable hits really hard but rarely lands because of the abysmal projectile speed. Those issues were OK to deal with when you could load up on damage with Colossus and Graverobber, but nowadays the issues with the class just hold it back too much.

xFocused

It doesn't make sense to me honestly. They nerfed harmony because it was OP but haven't even bothered to look at the meta sets currently steamrolling Cyro, lol. Tether bombs on NB's are still godly OP but no change to that either? Necro was a good class but now it just hits like a wet noodle...sucks honestly

Alchimiste1

Harmony trait was over performing, but I see no reason why the necro bone yard's self-synergy should have been nerfed as well. That was a double whammy. I also think the necro hots were a bit over nerfed. I would like to see them buff boneyard's synergy to reasonable levels as that is a unique skill to the necro and adds flavor.