What do YOU think of the blastbone changes?

brandsnipe

I like the idea but i dont like the morph update from yesterday.
-why are flame skull changes allocated to another skill?
-why not buff blighted to keep the current playstyle?

CameraBeardThePirate

It's objectively a clunkier rotation now than it was pre-changes. Having to keep track of your skull counts before using either of your class DoTs is a nightmare.

KlauthWarthog

They have achieved the direct opposite of their stated goal.
Again.

brandsnipe

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

It's objectively a clunkier rotation now than it was pre-changes. Having to keep track of your skull counts before using either of your class DoTs is a nightmare.

I agree. I dont get why they just didn't allocate the flame skull changes to the skill itself. Why is GLS a morph for another skill? Make necro abilities count towards the 3rd cast on both morphs and make it apply a burning or poison DoT.

KainedED

Legitimately did to Necro what they did to Templar with update 35.

Somehow managed to miss the mark tremendously.

Objectively managed to somehow nuke an already insanely underpowered class for the third time ( how? Like it's impressive at this point ).

Why take the most beloved variant of blastbones and change it and force the people who love the blastbones gameplay style to use a significantly weaker version.

You should have reworked the least used version ( Blighted Blastbones ). And make it better.

Lalothen

I like the idea of Necros getting some sort of viable alternative playstyle to casting BB every 3rd skill. However, the devs started their consequent slough of errors by picking the wrong skill to change, making a hash of their initial proposition by removing the skeleton damage, adding in this weird delayed-buff mechanic, and obliterating ranged corpse gen. They then added to the list of errors by failing to appropriately buff Blighted BB to compensate for the loss of Stalking, and have now compounded things with this skull nonsense.

They need to apply the KISS method to all of their proposed changes: Keep It Simple, Stupid!

This tangled mess of a change represents the polar opposite of that principle.

Jammy420

Needs to be scrap, completely. Casting a skelly every 3 seconds was not clunky what so ever. Just takes like 5 minutes of practice [snip]

[edited for profanity bypass]

C_Inside

Countless threads have been made as to why SacBones is a complete failure of a skill. Dozens upon dozens of people have voiced their displeasure with the way ZOS' implementation. Yet they still go through with it for some reason that clearly us mere mortals do not have the capacity to understand.

On the bright side, it does warm my heart to see the community so unified in their opinion on a topic. Last time I remember was U35, which coincidentally was another misguided attempt to simplify the game even more than it already was at that point.

ItsNotLiving

Am I reading it right? All the new SacroBones does is buff skulls? So if I wanted the class and dot buff I’d have to leave it unmorphed? Surely I’m not reading it right.

Jammy420

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Am I reading it right? All the new SacroBones does is buff skulls? So if I wanted the class and dot buff I’d have to leave it unmorphed? Surely I’m not reading it right.

Could I convince you its april fools?

brandsnipe

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Am I reading it right? All the new SacroBones does is buff skulls? So if I wanted the class and dot buff I’d have to leave it unmorphed? Surely I’m not reading it right.

Yup, the morph has nothing to do with the base skill.

CameraBeardThePirate

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Am I reading it right? All the new SacroBones does is buff skulls? So if I wanted the class and dot buff I’d have to leave it unmorphed? Surely I’m not reading it right.

It still buffs DoTs, but only at 15%. It's supposed to buff all Necromancer skills, but ZOS also failed to even accomplish that. It still doesn't buff Graverobber or the Animate Blastbones ultimate.

Good job ZOS, you failed your initial goal of making the rotation less clunky, and couldn't even successfully code the skill to do what the description says.

ItsNotLiving

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

Am I reading it right? All the new SacroBones does is buff skulls? So if I wanted the class and dot buff I’d have to leave it unmorphed? Surely I’m not reading it right.

It still buffs DoTs, but only at 15%. It's supposed to buff all Necromancer skills, but ZOS also failed to even accomplish that. It still doesn't buff Graverobber or the Animate Blastbones ultimate.

Good job ZOS, you failed your initial goal of making the rotation less clunky, and couldn't even successfully code the skill to do what the description says.

It doesn’t even buff Grave Robber? So now ALL of the delayed burst is gone besides 3rd Skull. Yeah I was on board with SacroBones until now. Yuck.

Twohothardware

This was a really pointless rework that didn't address a single issue.

Necro was not a difficult class rotation because of the timer on Blastbones, it was a difficult class to play because you need to perfectly keep up 10 different dots just to deal close to the same DPS as other classes like Arcanist can do with 2 skills.

Ever since Zenimax did their DoT pass nerf classes like Necro have suffered and this 20% buff through Sacrificial Blastbones doesn't change that. You're just taking about a big chunk of burst damage to gain a small amount of DoT damage.

The best thing they could do right now is completely revert this Blastbones change and just buff all of Necro's skills by 10-15% damage.

Kalle_Demos

Scrap it entirely. It would be a great relief if the Necro went untouched. Because if these are the bright ideas to solve the Class' problems...

StarOfElyon

I still don't know who asked for this besides literally one person who was happy with the change (who also admitted that they didn't play necro).

Tinkerhorn

Scrap the changes and keep Stalking. I'd rather be able to continue playing my favourite and familiar playstyle whereas at current it looks like that's dead and the trade off is not worth even bothering with.
I appreciate what ZoS wanted to attempt here, but in my opinion and seemingly 90% of other peoples opinion the change started off on the wrong foot with removing Stalking and since then has just been making continual misteps.

merpins

I don't play Necro, never felt good to play to me. But this feels like a change that's similar to the U35 Jabs change, but for necro. An unnecessary nerf and change to a core skill because the devs feel like it.

brandsnipe

Dekrypted wrote: »

The idea of this isn't bad, but terribly in the wrong direction. Through real communication with the actual players, this could've been a slam dunk.

I know the class rep program has been dead for a whole, but maybe consider bringing it back. Even if they're ignored, anything is better than where we are now.

Agree. I would be tempted to run the GLS morph, even over a buffed blighted, if they adjusted some of necros skills to accommodate these changes. I'd increase boneyard's radius, but at least have it apply a sticky DoT and sticky major breach on the unnerving morph. Have mystic siphon apply a DoT to enemies that take damage or even touch the tether. Flame skull should apply a DoT effect. These paired with masters flame staff, draugrkins, rapid rot, and GLS 20% (should be added back on) could be a nice pressure build for PvP.

brandsnipe

merpins wrote: »

I don't play Necro, never felt good to play to me. But this feels like a change that's similar to the U35 Jabs change, but for necro. An unnecessary nerf and change to a core skill because the devs feel like it.

At least templar is not a clunky mess, i can still run around jesus beaming people.

Cast_El

"reverse commit"

ItsNotLiving

brandsnipe wrote: »

merpins wrote: »

I don't play Necro, never felt good to play to me. But this feels like a change that's similar to the U35 Jabs change, but for necro. An unnecessary nerf and change to a core skill because the devs feel like it.

At least templar is not a clunky mess, i can still run around jesus beaming people.

Necro getting their own beam with scribing confirmed lol.

Pepegrillos

I think the changes highlight a significant lack of care and imagination.

chessalavakia_ESO

Visually, I think it's a bit flashier than I'd like and it does feel a bit weird to summon a corpse and have it ram into you to buff yourself.

Functionally, it seems like it doesn't necessarily provide a great return in short engagements but over the long term it doesn't feel that bad without parsing. Buffing the skull toss bit is a little odd and at times the ability can be annoying as you'd like to use the buff before a fight but can't since it requires being in combat.

I think I might use the new ability for the Anniversary Event for farming drops because using it + Pestilent Colossus might make it easier to get in the top 12 damage wise.

I think it's going to be interesting to see people's reaction if this hits live when they are using it themselves rather than hearing people talk about it.

VanLo83

Dekrypted wrote: »

The idea of this isn't bad, but terribly in the wrong direction. Through real communication with the actual players, this could've been a slam dunk.

I know the class rep program has been dead for a whole, but maybe consider bringing it back. Even if they're ignored, anything is better than where we are now.

Completely agree, it's become painfully obvious that ZOS devs don't play their own game at all. It's best to appoint some class "advocates" that can give proper feedback based on the class those players play a lot. At least the changes would make a lot more sense.

KlauthWarthog

VanLo83 wrote: »

It's best to appoint some class "advocates" that can give proper feedback based on the class those players play a lot. At least the changes would make a lot more sense.

This was a thing that existed for some time, the "class representatives". It got sunset some time ago.

autocookies

deleted

thegreeneso

I like the idea of removing blast ones and replacing it with something better, but what we have right now is somewhat meh.

moo_2021

thegreeneso wrote: »

I like the idea of removing blast ones and replacing it with something better, but what we have right now is somewhat meh.

=> Blastbone hitting the caster, pull everyone within 10 meters, fear them and 15% increase on all damage done.

Lalothen

I'm mainly waiting for all of the very loud screaming that's going to start happening when this patch goes live....

ZOS during PTS: "Hey guys, we're going to completely change the way this perfectly fine bread'n'butter Necro skill works! It's going to be a really weird downgrade that also impacts your sustain and the complexity of your rotation with regard to corpse generation, but we think you're going to LOVE it!"

Players on the forums & testing on the PTS: "Good idea in theory but this is completely the wrong skill to change and the execution is so bad you're basically nerfing Necro."

ZOS: "Sorry did you say something? Is it that you LOVE this change and you want it to go live? Yes it must be that! "

Players - who don't keep up-to-date with upcoming patch changes - logging in after patch day: "[snip] is going ON?! Why is Stalking BB leaping at ME, is it DRUNK?! Wait why is it now called Sacrificial Bones?! WHAT is this BUFF??? WHAT HAPPENED to my MAIN source of DPS?!"

ZOS mid [snip] a week or two later: "We realise that a lot of players are very passionate about the Necromancer class and the core functionality of launching flaming skeletons at foes, doing appreciable AoE-based damage and regularly creating corpses that synergise with other Necromancer abilities. You can still do this with the Blighted Blastbones morph (which is a nerf; [snip]), and we are going to let this change cook (for 4-6 years), after which we will review the data and determine if tweaks are necessary [snip]"

[edited for bashing & profanity bypass]

Araneae6537

I don’t like it, I don’t think it makes sense thematically or combat-wise. Something already on the player (like the bone armor) would seem to make more sense. I feel that the strength of the necro class should be minions and DoTs and this change is removing one of the few useful minons. I would rather see minions improved, the class given more DoTs, and I wouldn’t mind at all if those silly skulls were removed entirely.