I always assumed that the reason why the Necromancer Companion was skipped in favor of Azandar was because ZOS was planning on reworking some Necro skills and it would be more efficient to release the Companion after said skill reworking was done, instead of releasing it with ''old'' skills and adjusting at a later date. Now I'm not so sure anymore.
A Necro Companion still doesn't have access to the required 3 base skills per class tree. For the ''Grave Lord'' example you could easily allow the Companion to use a variant of Flame Skull and Boneyard, but you are still missing 1 skill in that tree because current Siphon would not work with a Companion (they most likely won't give Companions the Corpse mechanic due to performance reasons, also Azandar does not generate/spend Crux). Skeletal Mage also doesn't work because Companions are not allowed to have skills that summon other things.
The last potential skill for that tree, Blastbones, also doesn't work for the same reasons as Skeletal Mage, and neither does the new reworked Grave Lord Sacrifice that ZOS is pushing in this PTS since it also spawns an entity. This doesn't even take into account the whole ''Criminal Act'' from certain skills.
They could certainly design completely new skills for a Necro Companion, but that would imo be the worst scenario. Imagine dev time and resources being spent designing new skills for a Necro Companion while the Necromancer player character still has the same old, clunky and mediocre skills.
After another set of patch notes i am still wondering, what does zos have against this class? Even at a base level, access to major/minor buffs/debuffs. Some classes have more than others. Some classes have these buffs on better, or worse, skills than others. Things such as sub assault having major/minor breach. Thats absolutely huge, and on a skill most wardens would use. Or like major savagery/prophecy on cloak, on both bars, at all times, for slotting it. And so on.
Necro has a problem with both a complete lack of these buffs, and a lack of having them on good skills, or good skills in general. We dont even have the 1 minor buff that every class has, which is laughable imo. ( for example, warden has minor toughness, arcanist minor evasion, sorc prophecy, nb savagery, etc).
So out of curiosity i went through all the major/minor buffs/debuffs every class has access to, and this is what i found. Sorc has 14. DK has 17. Templar has 17. Arcanist has 18. Warden has 22. Nightblade has a whopping 25. And necro has an abysmal 9. Just 9. And one of those 9 is empower, useless in pvp. Does anyone see a problem here?
And out of those on a normal build i would use 2. Major resolve and major protection. The armor buff and deaden pain. Collosus gives major vuln, which i would use in a group. So maybe 3. The other 5 are on skills that are not good or viable to run.
So what does this tell me? Well at the very least necromancer is exceptionally lacking in these buffs/debuffs. Of course these numbers dont mean a class is better than another. But it certainly helps to have access to more. Some classes just feel more seamless than others, and synergize better with their skills and passives. DK, nightblade, sorc. they make sense for what they want to do, and are strong with mostly good skills and passives. Same with templar and warden, even though they have a couple issues. And arcanist just feels and looks busted.
Then you have necro.
Necro just feels like a pattern of neglect and bad balance. The class has tethers that break on LOS making them nearly useless in pvp. Its spammables are terrible, skull, scythe, and blast bones. the only half decent one will now be gone next update. Even the buffs/debuffs we have are not on viable skills. Major breach, for example, is on boneyard. Its not a terrible skill, but the breach does not last when people leave the AOE. Players do not usually just sit in AOES. It should be more like caltrops, where the breach sticks to the player for a little bit after they leave the boneyard.
Minor maim is on grave grasp, which only immobilizes and gives minor maim. Compared to something like dk talons, its terrible and complicated. People have to be hit by 3 areas of it to get a snare, CC, and stun. Talons you just CC them in place, deal damage, and get a synergy. On top of that, you can either get minor maim or more damage. Theres no comparison.
Even the armor buff skill is mid compared to wardens, sorcs, dks, arcanists, or templar. Nightblade just gets it passively for using a shadow skill so another win for nb i guess.
Most of the class skills are just decent or bad. Yes some are good. Deaden pain, colossus, and expunge are good. the tethers might not be bad if they didnt break on every twig you run past. It just seems like these things could be easily fixed.
It has decent passives but is lacking a class minor passive like every other class. That makes zero sense. But really the lack of buffs, and having some bad skills, are the bigger issues. We need some major/minor buffs/debuffs on good skills. A mender that gives brutality, a summon that gives savagery, something. We need some skills to be reworked to be more useful, and we really need tethers to stop breaking on LOS, because they could be decent skills.
TL;DR the class is exceptionally lacking in every way, and i dont understand why zos isnt doing more.
I've been under the assumption that Zenimax is just confused by their own class. It even shows in the little things, like the Necromancer outfit style from IA looking not so Necromancery.... it seriously gives me Nightingale armor from Skyrim vibes.I always assumed that the reason why the Necromancer Companion was skipped in favor of Azandar was because ZOS was planning on reworking some Necro skills and it would be more efficient to release the Companion after said skill reworking was done, instead of releasing it with ''old'' skills and adjusting at a later date. Now I'm not so sure anymore.
Many people magically acting like blastbones was never clunky or an issue in a rotation but I have to agree id rather have that clunk then nothing.
brandsnipe wrote: »After another set of patch notes i am still wondering, what does zos have against this class? Even at a base level, access to major/minor buffs/debuffs. Some classes have more than others. Some classes have these buffs on better, or worse, skills than others. Things such as sub assault having major/minor breach. Thats absolutely huge, and on a skill most wardens would use. Or like major savagery/prophecy on cloak, on both bars, at all times, for slotting it. And so on.
Necro has a problem with both a complete lack of these buffs, and a lack of having them on good skills, or good skills in general. We dont even have the 1 minor buff that every class has, which is laughable imo. ( for example, warden has minor toughness, arcanist minor evasion, sorc prophecy, nb savagery, etc).
So out of curiosity i went through all the major/minor buffs/debuffs every class has access to, and this is what i found. Sorc has 14. DK has 17. Templar has 17. Arcanist has 18. Warden has 22. Nightblade has a whopping 25. And necro has an abysmal 9. Just 9. And one of those 9 is empower, useless in pvp. Does anyone see a problem here?
And out of those on a normal build i would use 2. Major resolve and major protection. The armor buff and deaden pain. Collosus gives major vuln, which i would use in a group. So maybe 3. The other 5 are on skills that are not good or viable to run.
So what does this tell me? Well at the very least necromancer is exceptionally lacking in these buffs/debuffs. Of course these numbers dont mean a class is better than another. But it certainly helps to have access to more. Some classes just feel more seamless than others, and synergize better with their skills and passives. DK, nightblade, sorc. they make sense for what they want to do, and are strong with mostly good skills and passives. Same with templar and warden, even though they have a couple issues. And arcanist just feels and looks busted.
Then you have necro.
Necro just feels like a pattern of neglect and bad balance. The class has tethers that break on LOS making them nearly useless in pvp. Its spammables are terrible, skull, scythe, and blast bones. the only half decent one will now be gone next update. Even the buffs/debuffs we have are not on viable skills. Major breach, for example, is on boneyard. Its not a terrible skill, but the breach does not last when people leave the AOE. Players do not usually just sit in AOES. It should be more like caltrops, where the breach sticks to the player for a little bit after they leave the boneyard.
Minor maim is on grave grasp, which only immobilizes and gives minor maim. Compared to something like dk talons, its terrible and complicated. People have to be hit by 3 areas of it to get a snare, CC, and stun. Talons you just CC them in place, deal damage, and get a synergy. On top of that, you can either get minor maim or more damage. Theres no comparison.
Even the armor buff skill is mid compared to wardens, sorcs, dks, arcanists, or templar. Nightblade just gets it passively for using a shadow skill so another win for nb i guess.
Most of the class skills are just decent or bad. Yes some are good. Deaden pain, colossus, and expunge are good. the tethers might not be bad if they didnt break on every twig you run past. It just seems like these things could be easily fixed.
It has decent passives but is lacking a class minor passive like every other class. That makes zero sense. But really the lack of buffs, and having some bad skills, are the bigger issues. We need some major/minor buffs/debuffs on good skills. A mender that gives brutality, a summon that gives savagery, something. We need some skills to be reworked to be more useful, and we really need tethers to stop breaking on LOS, because they could be decent skills.
TL;DR the class is exceptionally lacking in every way, and i dont understand why zos isnt doing more.
@ZOS_Icy @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_Bill @ZOS_Adrikoth
Fix you're paid for class
Many people magically acting like blastbones was never clunky or an issue in a rotation but I have to agree id rather have that clunk then nothing.
I think we're all in agreement that blastbones has always been clunky and has numerous issues like failing to jump or jumping but doing no damage.
It just doesn't change the fact that stalking blastbones is the single most important skill in EVERY necro's build, regardless of pve or pvp and ZOS just up and yeeted it with no care or regard for the players attempting to keep this class relevant and not completely extinct.
Many people magically acting like blastbones was never clunky or an issue in a rotation but I have to agree id rather have that clunk then nothing.
I think we're all in agreement that blastbones has always been clunky and has numerous issues like failing to jump or jumping but doing no damage.
It just doesn't change the fact that stalking blastbones is the single most important skill in EVERY necro's build, regardless of pve or pvp and ZOS just up and yeeted it with no care or regard for the players attempting to keep this class relevant and not completely extinct.
I know what you are saying but most people on these reply threads been (rightfully) complaining about blastbones and necro rotation. Now that ZOS is doing somthing about it (albeit *** terribly) everyone acting like there was really nothing wrong with it all along.
CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »Many people magically acting like blastbones was never clunky or an issue in a rotation but I have to agree id rather have that clunk then nothing.
I think we're all in agreement that blastbones has always been clunky and has numerous issues like failing to jump or jumping but doing no damage.
It just doesn't change the fact that stalking blastbones is the single most important skill in EVERY necro's build, regardless of pve or pvp and ZOS just up and yeeted it with no care or regard for the players attempting to keep this class relevant and not completely extinct.
I know what you are saying but most people on these reply threads been (rightfully) complaining about blastbones and necro rotation. Now that ZOS is doing somthing about it (albeit *** terribly) everyone acting like there was really nothing wrong with it all along.
Because blastbones was more or less fixed when they changed it to leap at 28m.
Even in PvP, it rarely bugs out completely, and the scenarios where it does are scenarios in which any other ability would likely miss/bug (heavy lag, elevation changes, and LoS)
CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »Many people magically acting like blastbones was never clunky or an issue in a rotation but I have to agree id rather have that clunk then nothing.
I think we're all in agreement that blastbones has always been clunky and has numerous issues like failing to jump or jumping but doing no damage.
It just doesn't change the fact that stalking blastbones is the single most important skill in EVERY necro's build, regardless of pve or pvp and ZOS just up and yeeted it with no care or regard for the players attempting to keep this class relevant and not completely extinct.
I know what you are saying but most people on these reply threads been (rightfully) complaining about blastbones and necro rotation. Now that ZOS is doing somthing about it (albeit *** terribly) everyone acting like there was really nothing wrong with it all along.
Because blastbones was more or less fixed when they changed it to leap at 28m.
Even in PvP, it rarely bugs out completely, and the scenarios where it does are scenarios in which any other ability would likely miss/bug (heavy lag, elevation changes, and LoS)
This. I've been maining necro all this patch and the most frequent bb issue I can notice is when it jumps, explodes, and no numbers go off maybe 1 in 50 casts. I'll take that over the skill being gone entirely.
I think we should buff nightblade and dragonknight again. Another round of nerfs to Necromancer and Templar will help "bring the nightblade in line with other classes"
In all seriousness it's honestly disappointing to see that after so many years, Necromancer is just not worth playing. I've been sent testimonials and have received testimonials of players who just regret taking the time to invest in the class because look where it is. Maybe in another timeline Necromancers and to some degree templars as well (I'm a templar main, im gonna mention my child) will not be where they are now.
I cant even say "Well atleast you guys have blastbones" because look what they did to it. When this patch drops on the live server, it's going to be interesting to hear everyone else reactions.
There is seriously an issue with casting blast bones every 3s. However nuking it from orbit was not the way. Many people magically acting like blastbones was never clunky or an issue in a rotation but I have to agree id rather have that clunk then nothing.
[snip]
They haven't been able to make Blast bones function properly so their solution was to just remove it.
TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »
OtarTheMad wrote: »[snip]
They haven't been able to make Blast bones function properly so their solution was to just remove it.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been a skill in the first place. I remember when Warden was coming out ZOS had said that shalks was originally a Haj Mota that charged at the target but they couldn’t get the pathing right so they changed it.
So out of curiosity i went through all the major/minor buffs/debuffs every class has access to, and this is what i found. Sorc has 14. DK has 17. Templar has 17. Arcanist has 18. Warden has 22. Nightblade has a whopping 25. And necro has an abysmal 9. Just 9. And one of those 9 is empower, useless in pvp. Does anyone see a problem here?
Nethervoid wrote: »
So out of curiosity i went through all the major/minor buffs/debuffs every class has access to, and this is what i found. Sorc has 14. DK has 17. Templar has 17. Arcanist has 18. Warden has 22. Nightblade has a whopping 25. And necro has an abysmal 9. Just 9. And one of those 9 is empower, useless in pvp. Does anyone see a problem here?
Holy mother of god. I came here to protest against the necromancer updates and lack of major buffs but ... things are worse than I thought. How can a game designer not count these while balancing classes... wow.