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

LunaFlora

Grave Lord's Sacrifice

Alaztor91 wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Just to add why i like Grave Lord's Sacrifice:

first i believe Blighted should have been changed instead of Stalking.
As it is clear Stalking was the better version of the two morphs.

second the tooltip:


While in combat, summon a skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton leaps to you, sacrificing the fallen soul within and mastering your necromantic energies for 20 seconds, increasing your damage done with class abilities and damage over time effects by 15%. While active, your third cast of Flame Skull deals its damage in an area and creates a corpse near the enemy. Creates a corpse on death.

third:
i love that it gives a 20 second buff to damage over time and class damage.
i do not usually use Flame Skull, but the area damage is useful as well.

my main necro has a damage over time and area of effect build so it helps me.
and blastbones was way too frustrating to use especially because it doesn't damage enemies until 2.5 seconds.

So Gravelord's Sacrifice has made me love playing with my necromancer more.

Other than casting GLS every 20s instead of casting Blighted/Stalking BB every 3s, is there any other reason why you now enjoy Necro more?

I understand the argument of old BB being frustrating to use because of the ''every 3s'' cast requirement and the constant barswap associated with it, but I don't think that many people have an issue with GLS being a 20s buff. It is mostly the other problems that were ''inherited'' from BB that people have an issue with, stuff like the Skeleton being vulnerable to CC/LoS or the 2.5s effect delay due to it basically using the same summon animation but with a different target or the in-combat requirement.

Then we have the problem with Corpse generation that ZOS tried to address with basically forcing you to use Flame Skull as a spammable. Pretty much anyone that plays Necro knows that you need more than 1 Corpse every 20s to have an efficient use of your Corpse consuming skills, and the only way to generate those from range is with Blighted BB or the GLS Flame Skull proc. The difference is that Blighted BB allows you to use any spammable you want and if you are actually using GLS and spamming Flame Skull to generate more Corpses then that makes the rotation even more convoluted than the old ''cast BB every 3s''.

i said why i love it more already, that's it really.

it's nice that it gives a buff to damage over time and class damage.
as i like using Boneyard and lightning staff.

And corpses are all around you when in combat so it's fine that i only generate one myself every 20 seconds, if i only use gls.

i don't use flame skull.
i use Scythe as my "spammable" i guess.

You can also generate corpses from the healer wraith and ranged skeleton summons.
which i summon irregularly during combat.
But i don't always need to use summons to gain corpses as i often have too many around me.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

LunaFlora wrote: »

Just to add why i like Grave Lord's Sacrifice:

first i believe Blighted should have been changed instead of Stalking.
As it is clear Stalking was the better version of the two morphs.

second the tooltip:


While in combat, summon a skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton leaps to you, sacrificing the fallen soul within and mastering your necromantic energies for 20 seconds, increasing your damage done with class abilities and damage over time effects by 15%. While active, your third cast of Flame Skull deals its damage in an area and creates a corpse near the enemy. Creates a corpse on death.

third:
i love that it gives a 20 second buff to damage over time and class damage.
i do not usually use Flame Skull, but the area damage is useful as well.

my main necro has a damage over time and area of effect build so it helps me.
and blastbones was way too frustrating to use especially because it doesn't damage enemies until 2.5 seconds.

So Gravelord's Sacrifice has made me love playing with my necromancer more.

I agree that Blighted should've been changed instead of Stalking. That would remedy much of the issue. The problem with GLS goes beyond the general buggy/jankyness/broken state, as others have illustrated in this thread, but the larger context of Necro's problems that GLS has only exacerbated. I'm glad that the skill is working for you but the Necro is in an overall worse spot than it was before. Not just based on opinions but math and objective perspectives from various modes of gameplay.

It didn't have to be this way. GLS implements, in the worst possible way, a Major Brutality/Sorcery like buff, something that the Necro has lacked compared to other classes that players have been requesting. But not only is GLS inferior to the Major Brutality/Sorcery buffs other classes have, it's weighed further down by all the other aforementioned issues AND at the expense of the Necro's best damage skill while, for many play styles, forcing the use of skulls, a skill with it's own problems.

GLS caused more problems while solving none, putting the Necromancer even further behind the other classes when the devs could've simply added Major Brutality/Sorcery or GLS' affects to one of the minions and called it a day.

Urvoth

Stalking Blastbones

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Just to add why i like Grave Lord's Sacrifice:

first i believe Blighted should have been changed instead of Stalking.
As it is clear Stalking was the better version of the two morphs.

second the tooltip:


While in combat, summon a skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton leaps to you, sacrificing the fallen soul within and mastering your necromantic energies for 20 seconds, increasing your damage done with class abilities and damage over time effects by 15%. While active, your third cast of Flame Skull deals its damage in an area and creates a corpse near the enemy. Creates a corpse on death.

third:
i love that it gives a 20 second buff to damage over time and class damage.
i do not usually use Flame Skull, but the area damage is useful as well.

my main necro has a damage over time and area of effect build so it helps me.
and blastbones was way too frustrating to use especially because it doesn't damage enemies until 2.5 seconds.

So Gravelord's Sacrifice has made me love playing with my necromancer more.

I agree that Blighted should've been changed instead of Stalking. That would remedy much of the issue. The problem with GLS goes beyond the general buggy/jankyness/broken state, as others have illustrated in this thread, but the larger context of Necro's problems that GLS has only exacerbated. I'm glad that the skill is working for you but the Necro is in an overall worse spot than it was before. Not just based on opinions but math and objective perspectives from various modes of gameplay.

It didn't have to be this way. GLS implements, in the worst possible way, a Major Brutality/Sorcery like buff, something that the Necro has lacked compared to other classes that players have been requesting. But not only is GLS inferior to the Major Brutality/Sorcery buffs other classes have, it's weighed further down by all the other aforementioned issues AND at the expense of the Necro's best damage skill while, for many play styles, forcing the use of skulls, a skill with it's own problems.

GLS caused more problems while solving none, putting the Necromancer even further behind the other classes when the devs could've simply added Major Brutality/Sorcery or GLS' affects to one of the minions and called it a day.

That’s the craziest part, they could’ve just added the buff on top of a different skill and it would’ve been an amazing change, but for some deluded reason they thought deleting the ONLY universally useful necro damage skill was the way to go.

Nerouyn

Stalking Blastbones

Urvoth wrote: »

That’s the craziest part, they could’ve just added the buff on top of a different skill and it would’ve been an amazing change, but for some deluded reason they thought deleting the ONLY universally useful necro damage skill was the way to go.

Though I hate this change, I'm not sure I'd call it crazy and what you said might highlight their intent.

The old Blastbones - may it rise again - plus Boneyard could be relied upon to clean up just about anything. Many other skills like the tethers I would only bother using against bosses and some like Flame Skull, never ever. I don't want to be button spamming any ability every second and compared to everything else in the necro arsenal, it is (or was when last I played necro seriously) a magicka hog.

Thankfully for me I like arcanist so I can put my necros aside.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Nerouyn wrote: »

Urvoth wrote: »

That’s the craziest part, they could’ve just added the buff on top of a different skill and it would’ve been an amazing change, but for some deluded reason they thought deleting the ONLY universally useful necro damage skill was the way to go.

Though I hate this change, I'm not sure I'd call it crazy and what you said might highlight their intent.

The old Blastbones - may it rise again - plus Boneyard could be relied upon to clean up just about anything. Many other skills like the tethers I would only bother using against bosses and some like Flame Skull, never ever. I don't want to be button spamming any ability every second and compared to everything else in the necro arsenal, it is (or was when last I played necro seriously) a magicka hog.

Thankfully for me I like arcanist so I can put my necros aside.

I see your point. If the goal was to equalize damage across various skills to diversify Necro gameplay then most people would've been fine with that as many Necro skills are lacking. But as I've stated, they went about this in the worst possible way and the class is worse for it. While I didn't personally have an issue with the frequency that Blast Bones needed to be cast, I can understand why others did. There were just far better solutions and I think it clear that GLS didn't have a lot of time or effort behind it.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Urvoth wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Just to add why i like Grave Lord's Sacrifice:

first i believe Blighted should have been changed instead of Stalking.
As it is clear Stalking was the better version of the two morphs.

second the tooltip:


While in combat, summon a skeleton from the ground after 2.5 seconds. The skeleton leaps to you, sacrificing the fallen soul within and mastering your necromantic energies for 20 seconds, increasing your damage done with class abilities and damage over time effects by 15%. While active, your third cast of Flame Skull deals its damage in an area and creates a corpse near the enemy. Creates a corpse on death.

third:
i love that it gives a 20 second buff to damage over time and class damage.
i do not usually use Flame Skull, but the area damage is useful as well.

my main necro has a damage over time and area of effect build so it helps me.
and blastbones was way too frustrating to use especially because it doesn't damage enemies until 2.5 seconds.

So Gravelord's Sacrifice has made me love playing with my necromancer more.

I agree that Blighted should've been changed instead of Stalking. That would remedy much of the issue. The problem with GLS goes beyond the general buggy/jankyness/broken state, as others have illustrated in this thread, but the larger context of Necro's problems that GLS has only exacerbated. I'm glad that the skill is working for you but the Necro is in an overall worse spot than it was before. Not just based on opinions but math and objective perspectives from various modes of gameplay.

It didn't have to be this way. GLS implements, in the worst possible way, a Major Brutality/Sorcery like buff, something that the Necro has lacked compared to other classes that players have been requesting. But not only is GLS inferior to the Major Brutality/Sorcery buffs other classes have, it's weighed further down by all the other aforementioned issues AND at the expense of the Necro's best damage skill while, for many play styles, forcing the use of skulls, a skill with it's own problems.

GLS caused more problems while solving none, putting the Necromancer even further behind the other classes when the devs could've simply added Major Brutality/Sorcery or GLS' affects to one of the minions and called it a day.

That’s the craziest part, they could’ve just added the buff on top of a different skill and it would’ve been an amazing change, but for some deluded reason they thought deleting the ONLY universally useful necro damage skill was the way to go.

Some have speculated that there were ulterior motives behind the change. Considering that GLS in no way reflects stated intent, we can't really discount this theory. Especially when the devs continue to leave us in the dark. Are they fine with GLS accomplishing nothing other than weaker Necros? No idea.

Alaztor91

Stalking Blastbones

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Some have speculated that there were ulterior motives behind the change. Considering that GLS in no way reflects stated intent, we can't really discount this theory. Especially when the devs continue to leave us in the dark. Are they fine with GLS accomplishing nothing other than weaker Necros? No idea.

When you think about it ZOS can't release the Necromancer companion with the way current Grave Lord tree works. Since they need 3 ''Necromancer skills'' for the damage tree, the only options available right now are a variant of Flame Skull and a variant of Boneyard.

-Companions can't ''summon'' other entities, so that leaves a Skeletal Mage variant out. It also leaves a Blastbones variant out because both the ''old'' BB and Sacrificial Bones summon an entity.
-Companions can't use Class specific mechanics like Corpses or Crux, so that leaves a Shocking Siphon variant out.

You end up in a situation where you only have 2 ''Necromancer skills'' for the Companion damage tree. You also need a damage Ultimate and even though Frozen Colossus isn't technically a summon ZOS might want to use something else due to the ''Criminal Act'' component, also if you check the other Companion Ultimates all of them are not really a variant of their respective playable Class Ults counterparts, they are mostly completely new skills and some even take inspiration from Weapon Ultimates.

Maybe ZOS is designing new Necro Companion skills and wants to see if they can adjust them for the playable class? Maybe they will just take some from the many Necromancer NPCs in the game? Maybe they are afraid of creating a new Necro Companion skill that ends up being less clunky and thus more desirable than the player ones? I guess we will know in Q4.

StarOfElyon

Stalking Blastbones

I heard ZOS responded to scribing complaints so I came to the forums to see if perhaps they also addressed our Necromancer complaints.

crowsperch

Stalking Blastbones

I loved my explosive skelly boi, thankfully still have blighted blastbones for that. I personally liked the idea of a buff that gives boost to class abilities and DoT's. However I agree with others comments that has already been said in this poll. It seems like a weird choice to implement this change on the single most damaging skill of Necromancer. I forced myself to like it, believe me I did. No need to talk about the clunkiness and other issues such as priming time, skelly being able to get stunned or slayed and even the issue of being not able to buff yourself out of combat. It takes a looong time until I get the buff, which means a solid damage loss. Also (thematically) it feels weird that a skeleton *JUMPS* on me to sacrifice itself to give me the said buff.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I heard ZOS responded to scribing complaints so I came to the forums to see if perhaps they also addressed our Necromancer complaints.

Thus far they have not. They really did just gut the best damage skill and left the class to languish with no explanation aside from their original goals which have not been met in any way.

Nerouyn

Stalking Blastbones

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

But as I've stated, they went about this in the worst possible way and the class is worse for it.

I've always agreed with that point.

Returning after a long absence, I dusted off my necros last just to get some companion quests done for them.

The change is as bad as I thought.

You're either stuck with a garbage ability or a stam morph - which I've always despised - and one ability off in the colour scheme department. Plus weaker for scaling off the wrong stat for you.

Back to my arcanists....

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Nerouyn wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

But as I've stated, they went about this in the worst possible way and the class is worse for it.

I've always agreed with that point.

Returning after a long absence, I dusted off my necros last just to get some companion quests done for them.

The change is as bad as I thought.

You're either stuck with a garbage ability or a stam morph - which I've always despised - and one ability off in the colour scheme department. Plus weaker for scaling off the wrong stat for you.

Back to my arcanists....

Pretty much a huge mess everywhere you look with the Necromancer. A deliberate one. Choices were made, signed off on and jumped to Live. At least they aren't making the same mistakes with the Arcanist. When the Necro was released it was much the same...plenty of valid suggestion drowned out by the screams of contrarians trying to tear down the new popular thing. And it worked. The Necro wasn't actually leaps and bounds ahead of the other classes but the devs overreacted anyway and well...here we are. While the Necro is STILL going in the wrong direction...The lesson seems to have been learned with the Arcanist with careful adjustments instead of an unwarranted sledgehammer. Someone seems to care about the class. Someone knows that it won't do to have two mathematically inferior classes available for purchase and beclowned by the entire community of potential customers.

Yamenstein

Stalking Blastbones

Once again no class updates in pts. I reckon the only chance we have of necro being fixed will only be sometime next year.

Nerouyn

Stalking Blastbones

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

When the Necro was released it was much the same...plenty of valid suggestion drowned out by the screams of contrarians trying to tear down the new popular thing. And it worked. The Necro wasn't actually leaps and bounds ahead of the other classes but the devs overreacted anyway and well...here we are.

I only tried necros a bit (maybe a month or two?) after launch so I don't know if I knew their release state but they seemed quite solid to me as a class. Trying them out on the PTS I was very surprised and swiftly bought the Elsweyr expansion.

Not having any perma pets isn't perfectly to my tastes and certainly unexpected for what many would regard as a core feature of necromancy in most other games, but I understand the unusual place that necromancy has in Elder Scrolls canon, i.e. generally prohibited.

Was this the only or best solution? No and I don't know.

For me coming back to the game to find arcanists several years later, it feels partly similar mechanically except that their "corpses" float around them as little green triangles, i.e. they have a greater degree of freedom in their movements. And since this is a completely fresh class drawing inspiration from only a small handful of Skyrim weapons with be-tentacled magic effects, they don't have to worry about defying or failing to meet player expectations about eg. perma pets. Plus everyone (who bought Blackwood) got perma pets in the interim.

And to give the developers due credit, thematically the class is truly unique. Much of what is still loved about Morrowind (single player, by different devs) is that it was such a huge departure from fantasy norms, on top of being great. This is another.

Kiyakotari

Aldoss wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_RichLambert

Waiting until update 42 PTS to get communication is not the appropriate response here.

I provided feedback, along with dozens of other necro mains, in the PTS forum. The skill is awful. It is the most absurd skill in ESO's history and you unveiled it at the start of the 10 year celebration year.

[snip]

The skill is such a broken and bad design it warrants a complete recall of the skill, mid patch. Take it out and put Stalking back in. Go fill those new Combat Team positions with people who are willing to consider all the classes in ESO and not just 3 and have them cook up a new vision for necro that fits the new state of the game.

Necro's vision was never good, but it's combat prowess was propped up by the combat mechanics of 2019-2020. That combat system is now gone and with it, so is necro. It's been indirectly nerfed in almost every patch with the changing of combat systems.

In fact, the defile change this patch is another indirect nerf to necro! I posted my full thoughts here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/654280/defile-should-not-have-been-touched/p1?new=1

Necro deserves more than this.

This is honestly a terrible change, as commented above more eloquently than I (as a primarily-support, barely-adequate-DPS player could put it. The only reason I'm not more upset is that I accepted long ago that ZOS screws players, either via racial or class or weapons changes, every update, and my way of handling that wasn't paying for race changes (which I know a lot of players started doing) but of just shelling out once-off for a bunch of accounts, and then leveling them as desired, and if something changes I have alts to deal with all the issues.

[edited to remove quote]

Kiyakotari

Also, to be fair, aside from the housing stuff ESO's 10th anniversary has been not just not impressive, but adjectively horrifying, as fat as players are concerned.

StarOfElyon

Stalking Blastbones

Yeah the anniversary thing could have been fine for me but this whole mess with Necromancer has killed the hype.

Rex-Umbra

Stalking Blastbones

Thought I'd come back and catch up before this year's DLC. Really hate the new Magicka Morph of blast bones and I don't like using the stamina one because the green doesn't match my other abilities color theme. Please allow a magicka and stamina version of the previous blast bones. I don't see why they couldn't have just added a third version for those that wanted it. Really sad now because I only like to play a certain way with the visuals all matchings

NoticeMeArkay

Stalking Blastbones

A lot of points in regards of utility have already been mentioned, so I'd like to add one more thing to the roster: Visual design.

Our necromancers raise skeletons, not to attack our enemies, but to hug us instead.
From a visual perspective this looks incredibly stupid and doesn't leave the impression of any person with the goal of creating something aesthetically or thematically pleasing befitting the change of the skill sitting down and actually trying.

This doesn't sound nice, yes. - But it's the exact impression it gives of and the only honest feedback I'm able to share at this point. Utility is zero. Visualization is an example of "do it quick, we gotta patch next week."
And I'm honestly really damn tired of seeing the lowest of effort being put into changes like this.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

NoticeMeArkay wrote: »

A lot of points in regards of utility have already been mentioned, so I'd like to add one more thing to the roster: Visual design.

Our necromancers raise skeletons, not to attack our enemies, but to hug us instead.
From a visual perspective this looks incredibly stupid and doesn't leave the impression of any person with the goal of creating something aesthetically or thematically pleasing befitting the change of the skill sitting down and actually trying.

This doesn't sound nice, yes. - But it's the exact impression it gives of and the only honest feedback I'm able to share at this point. Utility is zero. Visualization is an example of "do it quick, we gotta patch next week."
And I'm honestly really damn tired of seeing the lowest of effort being put into changes like this.

Have to agree. GLS is not on par with what we've seen elsewhere in the game. Looks clunky, feels clunky, is clunky. A repeat of the much maligned changes to Jabs and Flurry but with fundamentally negative consequences for the class. And I must keep hitting on this point; did NOT accomplish stated goals. What was the reason?

Perashim

Stalking Blastbones

I just wanted them to fix/tune the stalking blastbones additional effect a little bit. Something to take into account that it just jumps at the target instead of chasing them. Or give us a melee skeleton/zombie.

Instead we just have a skeleton that gives us a hug and limits our corpse generation.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Perashim wrote: »

I just wanted them to fix/tune the stalking blastbones additional effect a little bit. Something to take into account that it just jumps at the target instead of chasing them. Or give us a melee skeleton/zombie.

Instead we just have a skeleton that gives us a hug and limits our corpse generation.

The crux of the issue. Making the Necro situation better could have been simple. Instead, our bones have literally backfired and the class is a huge mess.

Nerouyn

Stalking Blastbones

Kiyakotari wrote: »

Our necromancers raise skeletons, not to attack our enemies, but to hug us instead.

I don't like this morph or disagree with your point but weirdly this one has real world correlates.

If I remember correctly the traditional method for making a ritual dagger in Tibet is to raise a corpse, hug and dance with it, and bite its tongue out. The tongue is used as the blade.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Nerouyn wrote: »

Kiyakotari wrote: »

Our necromancers raise skeletons, not to attack our enemies, but to hug us instead.

I don't like this morph or disagree with your point but weirdly this one has real world correlates.

If I remember correctly the traditional method for making a ritual dagger in Tibet is to raise a corpse, hug and dance with it, and bite its tongue out. The tongue is used as the blade.

That's interesting. I see the thematic appeal. If GLS were reworked into a different skill, say the lil ghostie it could be neat. As it is, there are too many drawbacks compared to other class buffs.

Perashim

Stalking Blastbones

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Perashim wrote: »

I just wanted them to fix/tune the stalking blastbones additional effect a little bit. Something to take into account that it just jumps at the target instead of chasing them. Or give us a melee skeleton/zombie.

Instead we just have a skeleton that gives us a hug and limits our corpse generation.

The crux of the issue. Making the Necro situation better could have been simple. Instead, our bones have literally backfired and the class is a huge mess.

They could give "Summoner's Armor" the class skill damage buff instead of the hugging skeleton (And change sac bones to something actually worthwhile). Maybe then it'd make the armor actually worth using.

C_Inside

Stalking Blastbones

Bumping this because @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno still haven't addressed our concerns regarding GLSuck after more than a month and more than 200 votes in the poll.

I'd also like to remind everyone here that a little while ago @ZOS_Kevin in particular replied to a thread asking about crown sales within minutes of said thread being created yet we've been completely ignored.

Kalle_Demos

Stalking Blastbones

Perashim wrote: »

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

Perashim wrote: »

I just wanted them to fix/tune the stalking blastbones additional effect a little bit. Something to take into account that it just jumps at the target instead of chasing them. Or give us a melee skeleton/zombie.

Instead we just have a skeleton that gives us a hug and limits our corpse generation.

The crux of the issue. Making the Necro situation better could have been simple. Instead, our bones have literally backfired and the class is a huge mess.

They could give "Summoner's Armor" the class skill damage buff instead of the hugging skeleton (And change sac bones to something actually worthwhile). Maybe then it'd make the armor actually worth using.

Yes, another problem this debacle highlights is the underwhelming nature of the rest of the Necromancer's kit. And why drastically altering a single skill did so much damage to the class.

Perashim

Stalking Blastbones

You'd think they would listen when one of the classes you have to actually pay money for is active garbage.

Nerouyn

Stalking Blastbones

Perashim wrote: »

You'd think they would listen when one of the classes you have to actually pay money for is active garbage.

Many of us have felt that way about warden for years.

If you don't PvP then many of their abilities are of little to no use.

Improvements have been made and they've indicated that they intend more.

Perashim

Stalking Blastbones

Nerouyn wrote: »

Perashim wrote: »

You'd think they would listen when one of the classes you have to actually pay money for is active garbage.

Many of us have felt that way about warden for years.

If you don't PvP then many of their abilities are of little to no use.

Improvements have been made and they've indicated that they intend more.

Except Sac Bones and Grave Lord's Sacrifice aren't improvements. They're active detriments. And that's just one part of the many problems necromancers have.