"We're aware that the ability likely still hasn't hit its perfect mark just yet"

CameraBeardThePirate

Exact quote from the dev notes about GLS from last PTS cycle, before the ability even hit live.

If you were aware that GLS isn't where it needs to be last PTS, then why did you not even bother adjusting it? Do you intend for the ability to sit in its abysmal state for months? Because if so, that's a slap in the face to Necromancers, and straight up disrespectful to Magcros.

By your own words, the ability isn't up to snuff, and instead of doing something about it, you're allowing the ability to sit in a terrible state for months.

Do something about it.

Panderbander

Just need to let it bake for another year or two. You can't rush perfection after all!

the1andonlyskwex

In general, ZOS makes balance changes way too infrequently. Balancing is an iterative process, and it's hard to converge on a solution when you only iterate a couple times per year.

There should probably be monthly balance patches in between major updates. That would allow us to get real balance, instead of long periods where obvious balance issues go unaddressed for months or years, followed by large changes that overcorrect and produce new balance issues that also go unaddressed for months or years. More frequent updates would allow ZOS to make smaller individual changes and achieve balance based on real data instead of relying on inaccurate spreadsheet balancing.

Faulgor

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

In general, ZOS makes balance changes way too infrequently. Balancing is an iterative process, and it's hard to converge on a solution when you only iterate a couple times per year.

There should probably be monthly balance patches in between major updates. That would allow us to get real balance, instead of long periods where obvious balance issues go unaddressed for months or years, followed by large changes that overcorrect and produce new balance issues that also go unaddressed for months or years. More frequent updates would allow ZOS to make smaller individual changes and achieve balance based on real data instead of relying on inaccurate spreadsheet balancing.

Unfortunately people were crying about too many changes, so now we are stuck with suck for years.
And it's not like they made changes as frequently as they should have before.

the1andonlyskwex

Faulgor wrote: »

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

In general, ZOS makes balance changes way too infrequently. Balancing is an iterative process, and it's hard to converge on a solution when you only iterate a couple times per year.

There should probably be monthly balance patches in between major updates. That would allow us to get real balance, instead of long periods where obvious balance issues go unaddressed for months or years, followed by large changes that overcorrect and produce new balance issues that also go unaddressed for months or years. More frequent updates would allow ZOS to make smaller individual changes and achieve balance based on real data instead of relying on inaccurate spreadsheet balancing.

Unfortunately people were crying about too many changes, so now we are stuck with suck for years.
And it's not like they made changes as frequently as they should have before.

I think most people were complaining about too many excessively large (undesirable) changes, and ZOS misinterpreted it as too many changes more generally. If anything, most of the problems from that time could have been resolved by more frequent smaller changes and timely course corrections when changes went wrong, instead of the even less frequent updates that we have now.

It's easy to complain about "too many changes" when every change you get is a massive adjustment that forces everyone to completely rework their build while also creating new problems that then go unaddressed for years.

Lalothen

It should be pretty straightforward to fix:

1) Get rid of the silly skeleton casting animation before the buff even applies (solving the problem of LOSing your own buff, lol), and also allow it to be precast outside of combat.

OR

2) Make the skeleton deal damage again with reduced damage, and have the buff simply apply for 20s as soon as you make the cast.

The skill sucks as-is, no "baking" necessary to understand that. Your customers hate it, so sort it out.

Game companies really take the cake with this stuff, in ways other companies certainly wouldn't be able to get away with. Imagine a car company releasing a blatantly inferior model and responding to all of the criticism with "yeah we're going to let the model bake for a couple of years to see if folk learn to like it".

Soundinfinite

Yes, buff it 5% to make it an even 20% buff to dots. Dots base values are very low and % buffs use the base value of the skill. Thus a spammable doing 10k will get 1000 from 10% or 2000 from 20% a large difference. However Dots which do 1000 to 2000 a second or 3000 to 4000 every 2 seconds only see 100 to 200 or 300 to 400 dps gain from 1 second at the same 10% buff. Though the total value of the skill might increase a large number seeming to make it even with its burst damage counterparts, when divided out for its delivery system it becomes quite a small buff. And damage is rated by DPS or damage per second....not damage per 20 seconds, thus why you can stack dots with huge buffs and see little dps gain.

After buffing the bonus, simply make it castable without a target. There is no need to get rid of the animation. If you can cast it before a battle it puts the buff there, and then your recasting 3 seconds before the buff ends making sure the buff is always active. It puts a tiny bit of skill into using it and lining it up right in your rotation. But not enough of a challenge to make it suffering for new, casual, or lower dps players. This will also elminate the bulk of the clunkiness the skill carries....you could up the buff to 24 seconds (like mage guild and DK skills) as to make it work very pretty in a 20 second dot rotation with recast time.

The only other way I see making it viable is to make it a static skelly that rises at a target location and then explodes...as to make it viable for ranged builds while the stamina morph moves with the player instead and chases target, which is better for stam or high movement encounters. And of course move it back to its burst damage.

necro_the_crafter

GLS - needs rework.
Grave grasp - rework.
Bone totem - rework.
Bone goliath - rework.

Syphon\mortal coil - combined to make a room for another damage grave lord skill.
Colosssus - secondary effects adjustments, major vuln on item sets has much better uptime.
Summoners armor - useless summon skill cost (hi reusable parts) reduction to something useful (grave-grasp pet bufff?).
Skulls - projectile speed\travel time adjustments. Cast three times is okay but could much more interactive (summon armaments but instead of knifes you get skulls every time you cast class ability?)

Wierd 3% bonuses for slotting skills - removed from active skills on while slotted condition and added to class actual passives.

And if all of the above changes would've been implemented, and hit their mark, I'm still not sure if anything can save this class from being hot garbage tier at every aspect of the game. Except for style i guess. Necromancer dark fantasy theme is the only thing that make me play it, and all other necros at PC EU say this when asked why they even bother playing this poor exuse of a class.