Perspective on issues facing Necro, after playing the other 6 classes in high MMR BGs at level 50

taugrim

So the week before Update 41, I created a Necro and leveled him to 50. At level 50, it took about 8 BGs before I started seeing some familiar names, and then about 15 total before I was seeing high MMR names consistently. This gave me a great basis to compare my Necro, built as a Stamcro, against players I've faced many hundreds of times on other characters (most recently Stamplar, Stamarc, and Stamden).

There are several significant issues with Necro compared to all the other classes:

1. the sustain sucks, unless you want to use VERY clunky abilities (Mystic Siphon for DPS, Mortal Coil for healing). Both of those abilities are awkward because they use the same mechanic: cast on a corpse to affect targets between you and the corpse. In PVP, this is a major limitation, because the location of the corpses is fairly random and not meaningfully controllable by the player, and PVP fights tends to be very mobile. I'd much prefer to see sustain baked into either class passive or abilities that already serve a useful purpose (e.g. Netch for Warden, Rune Focus Templar). By tying sustain to unattractive abilities, it's essentially forcing the Necro to have poor sustain in order to select more worthwhile abilities

2. Necro has a preponderence of abilities with durations (buffs, DoTs, HoTs) that need to be managed. Some folks might enjoy it, and it can be argued that there's skill in juggling 6+ duration-based abilities, but it is simply unfun. At a minimum in PVP, a Necro has to maintain Bone Armor, Spirit Guardian, and the Assault ability Resolving Vigor. That's already 3 cooldowns to juggle. Then you throw in the myriad of class abilities that have durations (DoTs) and it becomes very tedious

3. there is no class access to Major Brutality / Major Sorcery. Every other class has some skill to access that (Netch for Warden, Drain Power for NB, Molten Weapons for DK, Surge for Sorc, Biting Jabs for Templar, Tome-Bearer's Inspiration for Arcanist). It can be argued that most of those other class abilities are very worth using.

4. hands down the new Grave Lord's Sacrifice morph is the most clunky buff I've used in any MMORPG: you need to be in combat, and there's a 2.5-second delay before the buff activates; no other buff I can think of in ESO has a delay before the effect. On top of all this, GLS is yet another duration-based ability that the Necro has to juggle. I would also argue, as a Stamcro, that ZoS chose the wrong morph to keep around. Stalking Blastbones was more useful in more contexts than Blighted Blastbones, because the damage scaled meaningfully, esp as distance and mobility are king in PVP

All of these things together create a context where Necro feels very clunky to play.

Players shouldn't have to sacrifice capability (gear, food, enchants, etc) to fix class issues, and the end result is a class that is simply weaker than other classes and / or is tedious to play.

Anyway, someone in my PVP guild asked me to share my detailed findings, so here we are.

UPDATE (2024/04/11)
So I've continued experimenting on Necro (Stamcro specifically), and there are 2 key things I've learned that I wanted to shared related to addressing Necro sustain:

1. put Bone Armor on your frontbar, if you don't have a Bone Tyrant ability slotted on the frontbar. Death Gleaning is a great passive for sustain

2. slot 1 ability that has no resource cost. I've already documented above how the corpse-targeting abilities are clunky to use due to the mobile nature of PVP fights, so I slot Elemental Susceptibility on the backbar with the Vateshran staff

StarOfElyon

The buff management can be a lot and using the tethers is a challenge. That challenge is fun to me. I force myself to use the Necromancer class skills because otherwise, why even play a Necromancer? It requires the ability to walk and chew bubble gum, and I like that challenge. But as I've said before on the forums, there's not enough payoff for using challenging skills and playing these sort of mini games with corpses. I play with stat based sets (no procs) using 90% class skills so I can clearly see the limitations of the class.

I force myself to use Hungry Scythe over a better spammable, like D-swing. It needs and execute or a snare. Hell BOTH! The devs understood that classes with limitations and challenges should have loaded skills, as shown with the Arcanist class. Necro has a damage over time passive but no sticky DoT in it's skills. It gets a crit bonus for having certain class skills on its bar but the skills are underwhelming.

ZOS, the issue is not that we can't make a decent Necromancer, the issue is that we can easily make a better character from another class. Playing Necro is playing with a handicap. Why has our suggestions not been taken?

Ideas:

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I'm making an updated version of my Necro ideas thread from 2023 (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/633137/suggestions-for-necromancer-changes). One thing that ZOS has been doing lately is making skills require less micromanagement and loading them with multiple functions:

Cephaliarch's Flail:
Infuse your arm with abyssal magic to form tentacles that lash out at your foes dealing 1939 Physical Damage, healing yourself for 969, and generating Crux. Enemies are immobilized for 3 seconds and marked with Abyssal Ink for 20 seconds. Deals up to 100% more damage to enemies with less than 50% Health. You deal 5% increased damage to enemies drenched in Abyssal Ink.

Tome-Bearer's Inspiration:
Etch a series of runes onto your weapon that pulse with power once every 5 seconds. Each pulse enhances your class abilities, and striking an enemy with one deals an additional 1161 Magic Damage and generates Crux if you have none. While slotted on either ability bar, gain Major Brutality and Major Sorcery, increasing your Weapon and Spell Damage by 20%.

The Necro needs this same treatment.

Blighted Blastbones: cost determined by the highest resource.
(I have mourned the loss of Stalking Blastbones and I have accepted that fact that I'm just going to have to change my Necro)

Death Scythe:
As I have seen suggested on the forums, both morphs of the Necro scythe should get execute scaling. I agree that this would be a great and very needed addition.
- Hungry Scythe: should also apply life steal to all enemies hit.


Skeletal Arcanist/Archer: grants major sorcery/brutality when slotted on either bar. Increase the damage that their attacks do.

Shocking Siphon: while slotted on either bar grants major prophecy/savagery and increases damage done by 3%. The AOE remains on the ground even if the tether breaks early.
- Mystic Siphon: the increased Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery persists even if the tether breaks early.
- Detonating Syphon: the damage AOE now sticks to you.

Flame Skull:
- Riccochet Skull/Venom Skull: applies burning/poisoned status effects. (Increase travel speed)

Spirit Mender: when active, applies minor cowardice to attackers.

Bone Totem: summons an effigy of bones up to 28 meters away. After 1 second, the totem begins fearing nearby enemies every 2 seconds, causing them to cower in place for 4 seconds. (Changed to allow both morphs to be targeted)
- Warding Totem: (Formerly Remote Totem) grants minor protection when standing in the area of effect.
- Agony Totem: afflicts enemies in the area of effect with minor vulnerability.

Restoring Tether: the effects persist on the player even if the tether breaks early.

Render Flesh:
- Blood Sacrifice: consumes a corpse to grant you Major Courage for 10 seconds.

Expunge: reduces the cost of all your abilities by 3% while slotted on either bar.

Bitter Harvest: when slotted on either bar, reduces your damage taken by 3%.


ULTIMATES:
Frozen Colossus: Unleash a decayed Flesh Colossus to pulverize enemies in the area. The Colossus smashes the ground three times over 3 seconds. Dealing damage applies Major Vulnerability to any enemy hit for 12 seconds.
- Glacial Colossus: does frost damage and stuns enemies on the second hit instead of the third.
- Pestilent Colossus: smashes the ground only once and does disease damage. Afflicts enemies with a pestilence that does damage over time.

Animate Blastbones: instead of resurrecting allies, this ultimate summons up to three blastbones to attack the nearest opponent. Summoned Blastbones are immune to being crowd controlled (other than by another ultimate). Reduce the cost of this ultimate to 200, down from 320, to make it more usable.

CameraBeardThePirate

Don't forget that corpses are still bugged, and have been for 6 months. Despite showing as consumable, if you didn't damage the enemy that died or create the corpse yourself, you won't be able to consume it.

They didn't even bother putting that into their "Known Issues" list, despite being reported many times and being mentioned in the PTS Bug Report post.

StarOfElyon

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Don't forget that corpses are still bugged, and have been for 6 months. Despite showing as consumable, if you didn't damage the enemy that died or create the corpse yourself, you won't be able to consume it.

They didn't even bother putting that into their "Known Issues" list, despite being reported many times and being mentioned in the PTS Bug Report post.

I've noticed that a corpse can show it's consumable but I won't be able to use Mystic Syphon on it but I can use Mortal Coil on it. Happened last night and I stood there in the middle of a battleground fight trying to troubleshoot it. 😅

Voldrikk

Facts. Necro needs love but oh well. You’ll still find me blight boning and ring of fire spamming in bg’s. Not sure why ZOS hates the class so much. See you soon :P

StarOfElyon

Voldrikk wrote: »

Facts. Necro needs love but oh well. You’ll still find me blight boning and ring of fire spamming in bg’s. Not sure why ZOS hates the class so much. See you soon :P

Kinda feels like the class was made by someone who the others disliked and once that person left they were like, "F that guy and F this class."

TechMaybeHic

I really keep wanting to run necro almost because few do, but it's beyond just underpowered. It's broken in that it does not function

taugrim

So I've continued experimenting on Necro (Stamcro specifically), and there are 2 key things I've learned that I wanted to shared related to addressing Necro sustain:

1. put Bone Armor on your frontbar, if you don't have a Bone Tyrant ability slotted on the frontbar. Death Gleaning is a great passive for sustain

2. slot 1 ability that has no resource cost. I've already documented above how the corpse-targeting abilities are clunky to use due to the mobile nature of PVP fights, so I slot Elemental Susceptibility on the backbar with the Vateshran staff

WaywardArgonian

To your first point, it may be worth noting that, with the scribing system, you will be able to 'generate' a corpse on your Necro if there's not another one around. I forgot the exact mechanic, but it may be something to look into next patch.

taugrim

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

To your first point, it may be worth noting that, with the scribing system, you will be able to 'generate' a corpse on your Necro if there's not another one around. I forgot the exact mechanic, but it may be something to look into next patch.

It's unclear whether or how that will work with corpse-targeting tether class abilities (e.g. Shocking Siphon, Restoring Tether), since those have an effect along the tether.

Any any rate, Elemental Susceptibility may continue to be a superior zero-resource ability than the damage and healing class options.

The crux system works so much better than the corpse system.

Solariken

My dude there are a thousand great ideas out there for making Necro fun and unique, but every time they touch it they just make it worse.

TechMaybeHic

I don't see scribing help with balance. Anything you do to make up for deficiency, the better class can do to improve.

HowlKimchi

Bring back harmony boneyard~

Most fun i've had in ESO was using the self synergy the moment blastbones hit + dawnbreaker. I don't care that it was janky or the class itself was janky. That was so much fun.

Metemsycosis

I love the idea of scythe being an execute

Priyasekarssk

Necro tanks are the most annoying things in pvp. I think devs confused how to buff necro dps without too much overpowered. Necro tanks are definitely overpowered in pvp. I have seen solo necro tanks ruining entire attack by burning sieges and tanking 3-4 sieges/ 10-20 people without a sweat on open grounds. I see even dks cannot do that in pvp. I know necro lacks the dps punch excluding bombers. But , in balancing ZOs shouldn’t make it worse. I see expunge is the key in immortal necro tanks in pvp. A tank should not able to solo tank in open ground with 3 sieges firing and 10-20 people attacking rententessly . It’s high overpowered skill in pvp. Tune down expunge and buff necro dps areas .

CameraBeardThePirate

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Necro tanks are the most annoying things in pvp. I think devs confused how to buff necro dps without too much overpowered. Necro tanks are definitely overpowered in pvp. I have seen solo necro tanks ruining entire attack by burning sieges and tanking 3-4 sieges/ 10-20 people without a sweat on open grounds. I see even dks cannot do that in pvp. I know necro lacks the dps punch excluding bombers. But , in balancing ZOs shouldn’t make it worse. I see expunge is the key in immortal necro tanks in pvp. A tank should not able to solo tank in open ground with 3 sieges firing and 10-20 people attacking rententessly . It’s high overpowered skill in pvp. Tune down expunge and buff necro dps areas .

While Necro tanks are certainly powerful, the crux of the issue is block mitigation, and perma tanking can be achieved on pretty much any class. Templar and Necro are the worst offenders, but the classes shouldn't be touched - block mitigation needs to be changed instead.

You should not be able to reach 90%+ block mitigation WHILE ALSO having a near 0 block cost - there needs to be a tradeoff. Block cost and block mitigation need to have an inverse relationship.

StarOfElyon

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Necro tanks are the most annoying things in pvp. I think devs confused how to buff necro dps without too much overpowered. Necro tanks are definitely overpowered in pvp. I have seen solo necro tanks ruining entire attack by burning sieges and tanking 3-4 sieges/ 10-20 people without a sweat on open grounds. I see even dks cannot do that in pvp. I know necro lacks the dps punch excluding bombers. But , in balancing ZOs shouldn’t make it worse. I see expunge is the key in immortal necro tanks in pvp. A tank should not able to solo tank in open ground with 3 sieges firing and 10-20 people attacking rententessly . It’s high overpowered skill in pvp. Tune down expunge and buff necro dps areas .

To my knowledge, that wasn't possible till Mara's Balm. Proc sets that heal when a negative effect is removed make such tanky set-ups work. That's where the blame goes.

CameraBeardThePirate

StarOfElyon wrote: »

Priyasekarssk wrote: »

Necro tanks are the most annoying things in pvp. I think devs confused how to buff necro dps without too much overpowered. Necro tanks are definitely overpowered in pvp. I have seen solo necro tanks ruining entire attack by burning sieges and tanking 3-4 sieges/ 10-20 people without a sweat on open grounds. I see even dks cannot do that in pvp. I know necro lacks the dps punch excluding bombers. But , in balancing ZOs shouldn’t make it worse. I see expunge is the key in immortal necro tanks in pvp. A tank should not able to solo tank in open ground with 3 sieges firing and 10-20 people attacking rententessly . It’s high overpowered skill in pvp. Tune down expunge and buff necro dps areas .

To my knowledge, that wasn't possible till Mara's Balm. Proc sets that heal when a negative effect is removed make such tanky set-ups work. That's where the blame goes.

It was definitely possible before Mara's Balm. The thing that makes it possible is how ridiculous block mitigation can get combined with Expunge and Modify for infinite block sustain.

Araneae6537

Thank you for the insights, @taugrim !
I have a stamcro I made waaay back in 2020 with PvP in mind but she’s been relegated to crafting in style for years now. It would be nice to play her again!

In your opinion, would a 2H front bat S&B back bar be viable or do you really need destro for sustain and elemental susceptibility?

I also have a vampire necro that I use just for overland DB etc. but have just about everything leveled as I was trying to find a build that would work in basically any harder content until gave up on the concept. Did you vamp your necro or is the additional hit to sustain at stage 3 too much?

taugrim

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Thank you for the insights, @taugrim !

You're welcome!

Araneae6537 wrote: »

In your opinion, would a 2H front bat S&B back bar be viable or do you really need destro for sustain and elemental susceptibility?

Both 2H and DW are viable choices for frontbar. If I'm not using a gap closer (Critical Rush), I tend to favor DW over 2H, for the higher tooltips, esp when I'm not using a stamina weapon skill as my spammable.

The Destro staff backbar is simply to have access to Elemental Susceptibility, and it pairs nicely with Vate staff. IMO with Necros poor sustain, you need to slot at least one zero-resource ability, and Elemental Susceptibility provides far better utility and usability than the clunky corpse-targeting abilities.

Araneae6537 wrote: »

Did you vamp your necro or is the additional hit to sustain at stage 3 too much?

I don't vamp. Yes, I know that puts me at a massive disadvantage. I just think Undeath is absurdly imbalancing, and I don't want to be reliant on something that may (should?) get nerfed. I would also imagine that the sustain on Necro in particular at Stage 3 probably isn't fun.