Necromancer Skill: Stalking Blastbones VS Grave Lord's Sacrifice.

IncultaWolf

Stalking Blastbones

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/659152/grave-lords-sacrifice-does-not-function-properly-video-evidence

IncultaWolf

Stalking Blastbones

C_Inside

Stalking Blastbones

Sakiri wrote:

I like it on paper and feel if they fix the issues with it, it'll work just fine.

I didn't like constantly having to hit blastbones. The cd was super short, delaying it was awful and it reminded me of daedric prey, but with an even shorter window. Just annoyed me to use.

I'd kill for something that plays like old school affliction warlock from wow. Dots and drains.

Sounds to me like you just want to play a class with a more standard rotation. Just lay down your DOTs and spam your spammable. If that's the case why stick with necro and not just use DK or Sorc? Both of them do a lot more damage with a standard DOT+spammable rotation and offer more group utility.

C_Inside

Stalking Blastbones

I guess if you look on the bright side no one's gonna use GLSuck so it still being buggy as hell doesn't really matter.

Obligatory @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno tag.

logan68

Stalking Blastbones

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

You can literally line of sight your own buff in PvP. That's unacceptable, and quite frankly, astounding that ZOS didn't think of this. After all, in their own words, part of the reason they changed it was the weird behavior of Blastbones.

So they changed it to a buff, but... didn't change the behavior? So it's just as unreliable, except now you're losing damage with all your abilities instead of just blastbones?

it takes to long to do anything, the content is too easy overland and there are better choices for similar buff. When i came back I could not for the life of me think of one reason to do what they did.

totzummrdave_ESO

Stalking Blastbones

1x1 year's subscription
3x21,000 crown packs

This is what my boycott of ZOS' bad decision has cost them since destroying Stalking Blastbones.
While this by itself doesn't seem like a huge amount, if all 237 who voted for Stalking Blastbones would follow suit in a boycott this amount would start to add up.

Vote with your wallets, people. Let ZOS know their decisions have consequences.

Urzigurumash

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

It should be castable out of combat, though. Make it a nice 20s backbar buff. 👍👍

Along with Death Knell being given the Both Bar treatment, this would be a massive improvement.

Obviously the idea that this skill was made as a morph of something other than Stalking Bones is a difficult position to argue against.

But this skill does solve the old problem of not being able to control the target of Blastbones. Now these resources/GCD can be converted to damage in a more controllable manner.

More broadly, it's possible that Blastbones has irreparable computational problems. How many times a week is there a post on this forum about something Blastbones "should" proc that doesn't? And why doesn't it count for our damage totals in BGs?

To these points, using GLS I've achieved my highest average BG damage total since the nerf to Rapid Rot a while back.

Urzigurumash

Ah yes there's the console player response you were after @C_Inside . Really just a game proof I guess that I am in fact converting my resource/GCDs to a higher BG Damage Total.

Which is illusory because Blastbones doesn't count for this number and DoTs rack it up easily. And also my KD ratios are quite bad compared to past years and combat altogether remains extremely challenging on Cro compared to other classes. Warden feels like autopilot in comparison AND the damage totals crush Necro's.

Hence I didn't vote, I remain undecided. I'm interested by the skill.

Mostly interested in stacking as much damage into the 3rd skull as possible. As we all know this skill can be dodged by somebody just standing still. But with Ult level damage available every few seconds.. maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Sakiri wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

mariliaribas wrote: »

Not trying to call someone out or anything, but I would truly like to know what do the people that voted for Grave Lord Sacrifice like about the skill. I tried to use it in different scenarios, but ultimately the fact that it has to be casted in combat and that you can line of sight your own buff prevented me from using it seriously. But looking at the skill, even if those two major problems were solved, it would still be a clunky skill that would make an even more convoluted rotation of having to cast skull three times before even being able to cast boneyard and do actual damage with dots. It's such a weird way to begin a fight, you have to:

- summon skeleton
- use skull once to get into combat
- use grave lord Sacrifice for the buff
- use skull three times to generate a corpse
- finally use boneyard to apply the dot
- skull three times
- detonating syphon



That's like ten seconds into the fight before you can actually start to do damage. By the time you get to the end of applying all your dots, the first one is halfway through already. Nevermind bad damage in boss fights, necros are now completely useless in trash pulls and you can wipe the floor with them in pvp.

How did you guys that voted for GLS made such a skill work?

I too find it odd that no one that voted for GLS has opted to defend it or join the conversation. And as you point out, the skill has issues. A nerf among nerfs, Necro is left only with much worse options.

I like it on paper and feel if they fix the issues with it, it'll work just fine.

I didn't like constantly having to hit blastbones. The cd was super short, delaying it was awful and it reminded me of daedric prey, but with an even shorter window. Just annoyed me to use.

I'd kill for something that plays like old school affliction warlock from wow. Dots and drains.

That's part of the problem. Even IF the skill worked properly, GLS has taken the Necro several steps backwards. The Class' most effective damage skill replaced with a buff inferior to what other Classes have access to 'might' have looked good 'on paper', for some reason, but here and now on the other side of that, the Class is less effective than it was before and, for most players, much less fun to play.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

logan68 wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

You can literally line of sight your own buff in PvP. That's unacceptable, and quite frankly, astounding that ZOS didn't think of this. After all, in their own words, part of the reason they changed it was the weird behavior of Blastbones.

So they changed it to a buff, but... didn't change the behavior? So it's just as unreliable, except now you're losing damage with all your abilities instead of just blastbones?

it takes to long to do anything, the content is too easy overland and there are better choices for similar buff. When i came back I could not for the life of me think of one reason to do what they did.

With the skill not accomplishing stated goals and the lack of communication, it really is an open question as to why any of this came about. And why rush out GLS in a broken state? We all understand that bugs are a thing but many of the skill's problems were obvious in PTS. I've argued that even in a pristine condition, GLS causes more problems than it solves but why add insult to injury? Why not take the time to fix the skill before rolling it out?

LukosCreyden

Stalking Blastbones

IncultaWolf wrote: »

A rubbish AI picture of a skeleton seems somehow appropriate for the current state of Necro.

Wereswan

Stalking Blastbones

Aldoss wrote: »

I think the most insightful thing about this poll is that there's over 60 people who care enough about necro to vote.

During MYM, my wife pulled the "kill 20 necros" quest on the first night and she decided to keep it out of curiosity.

We logged on every night for 3 hours.

She barely finished the quest on the final day and we didn't feel good about it because we hardcore griefed a poor necro quester in IC who kept reviving and coming back 5 times.

Necro is nowhere to be found in Tamriel and apparently doesn't even exist in the minds of the devs because they won't even talk to us about why necro has received a direct or indirect nerf every patch, except for one, for the last two years.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno your voices are needed. Why is this happening? What is being done about it?

That would probably explain some of my experiences with stacking up quests to turn in for the next Whitestrake's Mayhem: "oh wow, an actual necromancer alt in the wild!"

Alaztor91

Stalking Blastbones

It's something. There is no way that Ghostly Embrace/Grave Grasp ends up worse than how it is now... right?

Also, if you are tweaking GLS, for the love of Akatosh give the % buff immediately upon cast without delay and leave the Skeleton jumping to you part for the initial Corpse(could also make the Skeleton immune to CC and help Blighted BB at the same time, it's not funny having your main damage skill be completely disabled for X seconds)

OtarTheMad

Stalking Blastbones

Alaztor91 wrote: »

It's something. There is no way that Ghostly Embrace/Grave Grasp ends up worse than how it is now... right?

Also, if you are tweaking GLS, for the love of Akatosh give the % buff immediately upon cast without delay and leave the Skeleton jumping to you part for the initial Corpse(could also make the Skeleton immune to CC and help Blighted BB at the same time, it's not funny having your main damage skill be completely disabled for X seconds)

It is something and I’m glad they are looking at Necro abilities. Hopefully “handful” means more than what they mentioned though. Offense is Necro’s biggest issue and even if the 3 they mentioned were tweaked, offense would still be a huge issue.

IncultaWolf

Stalking Blastbones

Alaztor91 wrote: »

It's something. There is no way that Ghostly Embrace/Grave Grasp ends up worse than how it is now... right?

Also, if you are tweaking GLS, for the love of Akatosh give the % buff immediately upon cast without delay and leave the Skeleton jumping to you part for the initial Corpse(could also make the Skeleton immune to CC and help Blighted BB at the same time, it's not funny having your main damage skill be completely disabled for X seconds)

Well currently grave grasp isn't even worth considering because it's so underwhelming. We'll see what they do. Being able to cast sacrificial bones outside of combat will be really nice, but it stills needs to buff class heals by 15% also.

I'll give it until the end of the year to see if they make necromancer competitive again, and if the necro companion is interesting. I'm already rarely logging into my necro outside of doing a few pve dailies, I mainly pvp on my nightblade or sorcerer now because they are actually good and fun to play, unlike necromancer, a class I paid for.

Deimus

Stalking Blastbones

GLS is a poorly implemented buff where the Necromancer empowers themselves which goes completely against what he says here, but at least concessions may be made for Necro to have Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery. Since it has so much other stuff going for it that other classes can't compete with

just hope the lack of Major in his comment doesn't lead to another unfortunate event for the class

link to AUA thread if anyone wants to read it

Yamenstein

Stalking Blastbones

You know what I love? When the tremorscale boss flicks my GLS buff away when it spawns. Fun fun fun ZoS - good design!

Yamenstein

Stalking Blastbones

Oh more fun my Blighted BlastBones can spawn when inside an NPC sorcerer bubble but then it just tries to jump to him while in there. Is that meant to be the case?

OtarTheMad

Stalking Blastbones

Deimus wrote: »

GLS is a poorly implemented buff where the Necromancer empowers themselves which goes completely against what he says here, but at least concessions may be made for Necro to have Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery. Since it has so much other stuff going for it that other classes can't compete with

just hope the lack of Major in his comment doesn't lead to another unfortunate event for the class

link to AUA thread if anyone wants to read it

I like that they finally came out and said they are working on some abilities. Issue for me is the offensive abilities are just so blah. To put Major Brut/Sorc/Prop/Sav on any of them won’t help. I’d rather use Scribing to get those buffs and even a sticky dot.

At least for me, I am a magicka necro. I feel stam is lucky because anything magicka necro is missing, those stam weapon lines have most of your answers. Mag has what? Guild and Destro? Now Scribing? Yay I guess?

Alaztor91

Stalking Blastbones

Yamenstein wrote: »

Oh more fun my Blighted BlastBones can spawn when inside an NPC sorcerer bubble but then it just tries to jump to him while in there. Is that meant to be the case?

It is especially awful in IA since Negate NPC are common there. It's just an annoying side effect of BB Skeleton being treated as an NPC by the game, that's why Negate completely shuts it down since the Skeleton obviously can't break free.

Afaik the same happens with Sorcerer and Warden pets, but I find the BB Skeleton case to be exceptionally bad because it's not a permanent pet and because when it gets Stunned/Pushed/Knocked Down/etc it completely screws with your timing and rotation. You can't even recast it because the game won't let you recast the skill while the Skeleton is still alive, it doesn't matter if it is stuck in a 10s CC.

Literally all of the above can be fixed if they make the Skeleton non-targetable/invincible like Skeletal Mage or Spirit Mender lol. How is it possible that after 5+ years this still hasn't been addressed?

Urzigurumash

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

GLS is a poorly implemented buff where the Necromancer empowers themselves which goes completely against what he says here, but at least concessions may be made for Necro to have Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery. Since it has so much other stuff going for it that other classes can't compete with

just hope the lack of Major in his comment doesn't lead to another unfortunate event for the class

link to AUA thread if anyone wants to read it

I like that they finally came out and said they are working on some abilities. Issue for me is the offensive abilities are just so blah. To put Major Brut/Sorc/Prop/Sav on any of them won’t help. I’d rather use Scribing to get those buffs and even a sticky dot.

At least for me, I am a magicka necro. I feel stam is lucky because anything magicka necro is missing, those stam weapon lines have most of your answers. Mag has what? Guild and Destro? Now Scribing? Yay I guess?

StamCro enjoys several different Stuns in weapon lines and Pierce Armor works for the D Swing Cro, but a pure Stam BowCro is stuck with Crushing Weapon for the 28m Breach Mag has with Ele Sus. In my opinion most patches a pure MagCro is a bit stronger than a pure StamCro.

Deimus

Stalking Blastbones

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

GLS is a poorly implemented buff where the Necromancer empowers themselves which goes completely against what he says here, but at least concessions may be made for Necro to have Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery. Since it has so much other stuff going for it that other classes can't compete with

just hope the lack of Major in his comment doesn't lead to another unfortunate event for the class

link to AUA thread if anyone wants to read it

I like that they finally came out and said they are working on some abilities. Issue for me is the offensive abilities are just so blah. To put Major Brut/Sorc/Prop/Sav on any of them won’t help. I’d rather use Scribing to get those buffs and even a sticky dot.

At least for me, I am a magicka necro. I feel stam is lucky because anything magicka necro is missing, those stam weapon lines have most of your answers. Mag has what? Guild and Destro? Now Scribing? Yay I guess?

Scribing is bringing more options which is good for any ES game, but for Necro you don't have a option. It's use weapon/guild lines or gimp yourself since you don't have the buffs or damage in your class kit. On other classes I can fully lean into the class lines to where 10 of my 12 skills can be class abilities, and still perform well. On Necro, mag or stam I usually only have 6 class skills on my bars mainly defensive ones.

So yes 100% the offensive skills are lacking and need more than the must have Major Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery buffs, but without the buffs they'd still sit unused. If they only fixed the obvious for example more damage on the Skeletal Minion, sticky DoT on Boneyard, increase speed or make Skull undodgable, and made tethers stick to you if they break we might slot only one of them since we still wouldn't have the bar economy. That space is already reserved for these mandatory buffs you need if you want to be competitive. So the skills need both tweaking and the buffs if they ever want to be slotted over Degen, Magelight, Rally, Hunter, or whatever scribing brings us.

OtarTheMad

Stalking Blastbones

Deimus wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Deimus wrote: »

GLS is a poorly implemented buff where the Necromancer empowers themselves which goes completely against what he says here, but at least concessions may be made for Necro to have Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery. Since it has so much other stuff going for it that other classes can't compete with

just hope the lack of Major in his comment doesn't lead to another unfortunate event for the class

link to AUA thread if anyone wants to read it

I like that they finally came out and said they are working on some abilities. Issue for me is the offensive abilities are just so blah. To put Major Brut/Sorc/Prop/Sav on any of them won’t help. I’d rather use Scribing to get those buffs and even a sticky dot.

At least for me, I am a magicka necro. I feel stam is lucky because anything magicka necro is missing, those stam weapon lines have most of your answers. Mag has what? Guild and Destro? Now Scribing? Yay I guess?

Scribing is bringing more options which is good for any ES game, but for Necro you don't have a option. It's use weapon/guild lines or gimp yourself since you don't have the buffs or damage in your class kit. On other classes I can fully lean into the class lines to where 10 of my 12 skills can be class abilities, and still perform well. On Necro, mag or stam I usually only have 6 class skills on my bars mainly defensive ones.

So yes 100% the offensive skills are lacking and need more than the must have Major Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery buffs, but without the buffs they'd still sit unused. If they only fixed the obvious for example more damage on the Skeletal Minion, sticky DoT on Boneyard, increase speed or make Skull undodgable, and made tethers stick to you if they break we might slot only one of them since we still wouldn't have the bar economy. That space is already reserved for these mandatory buffs you need if you want to be competitive. So the skills need both tweaking and the buffs if they ever want to be slotted over Degen, Magelight, Rally, Hunter, or whatever scribing brings us.

It’s so crazy, I’ll never get why Skeletal was nerfed with dots. I was messing around on a Build Editor and it had Scribing and I quickly realized that with Scribing I have less Class abilities on my bar. Pretty much had only one.

All those suggestions are great too because it’s exactly what Necro is lacking. Better spammable and a sticky dot or two. Putting sticky dots on Boneyard and Tether would make those slottable. We’ll see. I’m not holding my breath for Necro changes this year. I’ll mess with Scribing and see if it makes my Necro fun for a bit.

I guess I can just “RP” my necro main as a Elementalist since I won’t have class abilities on my bar.

tigerWhiskers

Stalking Blastbones

Deimus wrote: »

GLS is a poorly implemented buff where the Necromancer empowers themselves which goes completely against what he says here, but at least concessions may be made for Necro to have Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery. Since it has so much other stuff going for it that other classes can't compete with

just hope the lack of Major in his comment doesn't lead to another unfortunate event for the class

link to AUA thread if anyone wants to read it

I’d love to see them push into the class debuff comment made here. Give necro a unique debuff like it had at launch and attend to the many insightful suggestions we’ve seen in this thread. Things like sticky DOTs and at least major prophecy/savagery. Fix GLS!

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Deimus wrote: »

GLS is a poorly implemented buff where the Necromancer empowers themselves which goes completely against what he says here, but at least concessions may be made for Necro to have Brutality/Sorcery/Prophecy/Savagery. Since it has so much other stuff going for it that other classes can't compete with

just hope the lack of Major in his comment doesn't lead to another unfortunate event for the class

link to AUA thread if anyone wants to read it

Some acknowledgement of these issues after all this time is something. But yeah, we are in 'wait and see' mode. Tho it seems we are stuck with GLS for the time being and that is very disheartening. I stand by earlier statements; There is no excuse for releasing a skill in a broken state, especially in a manner so detrimental to the Class. How long is this payed feature, the Necromancer going to be hobbled? I do sincerely hope that constructive criticism is taken to heart and changes that everyone is happy with are implemented...But I'm old enough to remember when Bosmer players were promised much the same. Still waiting on that stealth update all these years later. PvP players know this better than most here. Fingers crossed.

Perashim

Stalking Blastbones

My guess is: They remove the "combat stipulation" for SacBones and GLS and do nothing else with it. Then they butcher the other skills they mentioned. Seems like something they'd do.

I really hope I'm wrong, and they completely change SacBones/GLS to be actually useable and they buff the skills they mentioned, but I've not seen any reason to why I would be.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Perashim wrote: »

My guess is: They remove the "combat stipulation" for SacBones and GLS and do nothing else with it. Then they butcher the other skills they mentioned. Seems like something they'd do.

I really hope I'm wrong, and they completely change SacBones/GLS to be actually useable and they buff the skills they mentioned, but I've not seen any reason to why I would be.

It's unfortunate that this is an optimistic scenario. Even with that, major problems remain. GLS should have never made it to live as is. In the alternate universe where those problems were addressed, The Necromancer still suffers in the damage department and GLS is lacking in comparison to other Class buffs. Months or longer in the real world to simply get to unbroken. Why?

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Didn't want this to be lost in the noise. It looks like our criticisms of the 'in-combat' requirement of GLS have been heard loud and clear! Of all the issues presented with GLS, the in-combat was the most concerning. This was something that, if left unchallenged, could have spread to other classes, altering the flow of the game's combat in a negative fashion. Long way to go for the Necro but this is a victory. At the very least, it looks like 'in-combat' won't be spreading to other parts of the game.

Yamenstein

Stalking Blastbones

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Didn't want this to be lost in the noise. It looks like our criticisms of the 'in-combat' requirement of GLS have been heard loud and clear! Of all the issues presented with GLS, the in-combat was the most concerning. This was something that, if left unchallenged, could have spread to other classes, altering the flow of the game's combat in a negative fashion. Long way to go for the Necro but this is a victory. At the very least, it looks like 'in-combat' won't be spreading to other parts of the game.

I think they already have some other skills that require you to be in combat to obtain. You can't generate crux for example when outside of combat.

Someone who uses GLS please correct me - but don't you need to target an enemy to make the ability clickable?

IncultaWolf

Stalking Blastbones

Yamenstein wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Didn't want this to be lost in the noise. It looks like our criticisms of the 'in-combat' requirement of GLS have been heard loud and clear! Of all the issues presented with GLS, the in-combat was the most concerning. This was something that, if left unchallenged, could have spread to other classes, altering the flow of the game's combat in a negative fashion. Long way to go for the Necro but this is a victory. At the very least, it looks like 'in-combat' won't be spreading to other parts of the game.

I think they already have some other skills that require you to be in combat to obtain. You can't generate crux for example when outside of combat.

Someone who uses GLS please correct me - but don't you need to target an enemy to make the ability clickable?

I've tried GLS, you don't need a target to click/use the ability, only have to be in combat