The reason why Necromancer's damage is bad: It's not the skills, it's the passives

C_Inside · May 7

Before we begin I just want to point out that this is from a PvE perspective.

If you actually take a look at the damage numbers on Necro's damage skills you'll find that they're all pretty good, either being on par or in some cases even surpassing other classes. Venom Skull can be made to give you the 50% every single time you use it if you set up your rotation right. Boneyard is a good AOE DOT that can be boosted by 30% essentially for free and the boost can be gotten every single time (if the corpse doesn't bug out). Not to mention that it gives you AND your group members a synergy. Detonating Syphon is a super powerful DOT if you count the explosion as well AND it's a bar buffer that gives you not 1 but 2 buffs (3% extra damage and 10% extra execute crit chance). Really only the Skeleton Mage and the Collossus are sub par. So what gives? Why is necro damage so much lower than the rest?

Well, as I've discovered the reason my friends is that its passives either don't synergize well with its skills or they actively counter other desirable passives from other skill lines.

Let's look at what class passives actually increase your damage as a necro. You've got Death Knell, Dismember, Rapid Rot, and Corpse Consumption. So let's look at them:

Corpse Consumption - I'll start with this one as I actually don't have any issues with it. It's one of the best, if not the best ult generators in the game. 10 ult every 16 seconds (or more realistically 20 because of necro's ability timers) is pretty huge, especially when you consider that you can use it outside of combat.
Death Knell - The problem with this passive is is that it's impossible to get the full benefit from it. It scales off of how many Grave Lord abilities you've got slotted, so in order to get full benefit you need to fill BOTH your bars with only Grave Lord abilities. This is not reasonable because you not only don't have enough skills to fill all 12 slots with but even if you did skills like Barbed Trap, Quick Cloak, and Stampede/Unstable Wall/Endless Hail are staples of DDs and you would be massively nerfing yourself if you don't run those. So you're either gimping yourself by not using Death Knell to its fullest potential or you're gimping yourself by not using some of the best DD skills. This is furthered by the fact that as mentioned Collossus is not a very good ultimate, so you're not gonna be slotting that as your active ult. There goes another 10% execute crit chance. And finally, if you still decide to slot Colossus on your front bar to at least get some more crit there, well then you're not slotting in Dawnbreaker so you're not getting that extra 3% weapon/spell damage there. It's a lose/lose situation. You're loosing potential damage no matter what you slot in.
Dismember - This one is pretty simple. Penetration is useless if you're at the pen cap. In pug trials this isn't such an issue, especially if you run a stamcro, because stuff like Alkosh isn't super common. In an organized group and on the trial dummy, however, this becomes useless. 1 of your only 4 damage passives literally does nothing.
Rapid Rot - Ah Rapid Rot. You look at that juicy 10% and you think to yourself "Yes, this is so good". Until you realize that DOTs only account for a small part of necro's damage. In fact, of all necro's damage skills only Boneyard, Syphon, Ruinous Scythe and Ravenous Goliath benefit from this. Ravenous Goliath and Ruinous Scythe you never use because they're bad, so it's really only 2 skills. And even then, they don't even fully benefit as both Boneyard and Detonating Syphon have Direct Damage components to them. In fact, a ton of skills that you'd use in a necro rotation either have Direct Damage components to them ore are straight up not DOTs. Venom Skull? Direct Damage. Blastbones? Direct Damage. Quick Cloak? Direct Damage. Skeleton Mage? Direct Damage. Collossus? Direct Damage. Stampede, Unstable Wall, Barbed Trap, Mystic Orb, Scalding Rune, Meteor? DOTs with Direct Damage components. Literally the only skill that necro can use that fully benefits from Rapid Rot is Caltrops. That and the 3 DOT status effects. But you're not gonna be proccing them on cooldown are you? Especially not bleed. Unless you use Eviscerate as your spammable. But then you're not slotting Venom Skull so you're loosing another 10% execute crit chance. Gosh darn it we have another lose/lose situation!

This absence of synergy doesn't just extend to skills, however. If you look at some of the top DPS sets in the game you'll find that many don't even work with what little damage passives necro has.

Arms of Relequen - Can't crit, Death Knell is useless.
Zaan - Same deal.
Azureblight Reaper - Same deal.
Pillar of Nirn - Has a Direct Damage component that doesn't synergize with any passive.
Runecarver's Blaze - Same.
Storm Fist - Same.
Selene - Same.
Slimecraw + Mythic - None of the mythics synergize with Rapid Rot.

Really the only meta combo you've got is Whorl + Aegis Caller. And even then you're still short on a monster set. I guess you can run arena weapons on both bars. But the meta there is to run a monster set + mythic + 1 5-piece set. Darn it we're back at the Eviscerate vs Venom Skull argument now.

"C, I don't get it. What you're describing is the game making you take tactical choices when picking skills/sets. This isn't a bad thing. It just means you'll have to plan out your build with more strategy in mind." Except none of the top dps classes make you do stuff like this. Let's just look at Sorcerer as an example.

Sorc has a whopping 6 passives that all boost its damage. You've got Exploitation, Power Stone, Expert Summoner, Energized, Amplitude, and Expert Mage.

Exploitation - Boosts everything. May or may not be useless in group content.
Power Stone - More ult = more damage.
Expert Summoner - Boosts everything when you don't have pets.
Energized - Boosts *almost* everything. Really the only thing you'll have that isn't physical or shock damage is Barbed Trap and the 3 dot status effects.
Amplitude - Boosts everything.
Expert Mage - Boosts everything but you need sorc abillites slotted. Much easier to get near full benefit as it counts ALL sorc abilities and not just Storm Calling.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno TL:DR as I know y'all are too busy to deal with us mere mortals who want our payed class to be on par with the rest: Quit messing with the class skills and adjust the passives.

Rasande_Robin · May 7

Very good and informative post, though I'd suggest you jump the boat and start maining an Arcanist.

Since that is clearly the intention with the Necro-changes...

Seraphayel · May 7

The skills are also a problem, not just the passives. Tethers require a corpse and you never have a corpse at the start of a fight meaning you already lose damage. Same can be said about the buffed version of Graveyard. The Mage/Archer is weak overall. Skull is still clunky to use. Gravelord‘s Sacrifice (if used) also takes 3 seconds until it has a use. The list goes on and on. Let’s not act Necromacer skills are fine, they’re not. And how weird is it for a class that has a dedicated DoT passive to not have one sticky DoT? No Ultimate that adds a DoT?

C_Inside · May 7

Seraphayel wrote: »

The skills are also a problem, not just the passives. Tethers require a corpse and you never have a corpse at the start of a fight meaning you already lose damage. Same can be said about the buffed version of Graveyard. The Mage/Archer is weak overall. Skull is still clunky to use. Gravelord‘s Sacrifice (if used) also takes 3 seconds until it has a use. The list goes on and on. Let’s not act Necromacer skills are fine, they’re not. And how weird is it for a class that has a dedicated DoT passive to not have one sticky DoT? No Ultimate that adds a DoT?

The fact that Syphon and Graveyard need a corpse isn't an issue because of how necro rotations work. You do Blastbones->Skill x2->Blastbones. Don't have a corpse at the start of the fight? Just use 2 of your other DOTs. Blastbones->Stampede->Necro Orb->Blastbones->Syphon->Barbed Trap->Blastbones->Boneyard->Skull->Blastbones->etc, etc. You can use whatever DOTs you like but the idea is the same.

Skull really isn't as clunky in PvE as many people make it out. You press your ability key and it does damage (remember, most enemies can't dodge or block it). It doesn't have a cast or channel time either. It literally functions like any other spammable without a charge/cast time. Don't be fooled by the animation. That's just fluff. As soon as you hit the "cast skull" button you've already done its damage and used up its GCD, and it's time to move onto a different skill.

As for Boneyard's synergy, remember that it's an extra free synergy you get on top of whatever other synergies you get from your group. It's free extra damage (and a good chunk of it) AND free sustain due to the undaunted passives. OK, ok, it's not as effective if you've got other necros also giving you Graverobber as they all share the same cooldown, but who even plays necro nowadays?

I do agree with the rest of your points, though.

KlauthWarthog · May 7

C_Inside wrote: »

Skull really isn't as clunky in PvE as many people make it out.

Skull is clunky to weave.
Everything gets clunky to weave when the latency increases or fps drops, but skull gets clunkier than other instant cast skills, especially because of the asinine thing with it having three distinct cast animations.

ZoeliTintanie · May 7

Lemme play devils advocate for a second. Just to show the other side of these posts that ask for buffs to a class a player/community member enjoys. Because i've heard these things said to me numerous times as well when I requested Sorc visual upgrades and wardens ice stuff.

For a game that states "play how you want", it really doesn't let many players, do that at all due to class ability-designs.

And for the other poster to state "jump the boat and play arcanist", is silly.
The OP doesn't want to play an Arcanist, they want to play a Necromancer that has had as much attention given to it by "devs" as the Arcanist.

Warden players (some, who enjoy the nature and ice vibes) have been told the same in a few posts on these forums too.
As have Templar players ("play an arcanist, atleast even if they're nerfed, they're still better by design")

And the top thing i've heard when I came back to the game, ... "Play a DK, the devs play it and the class never gets nerfed"

So is it play how you want, or play what the devs like?

Classes should NOT be balanced due to developer favortism or playtime. This is not a private server we're on were we are playing a game our friend made with classes he/she likes.

We shouldn't have to play the "favorite" classes of the team, while we're told "Play how you want".

For some of the playerbase here, that phrase sounds "Play what we designed better than the rest, and how we want you to play, or go play an arcanist"

That's just absurd isn't it?

"Necro is designed to be less effective than the others, so you play the better classes in a rotation of what gets buffed and nerfed, that's why its good to have alts, for when they nerf what you want to play"

Why not improve the design on the classes to bring them up to Par with Arcanist Class Design rather than nerf them to make Arcanist the superior choise and bottleneck millions? of players into one class.

We seem to have more arcanists now after balance changes and scribing announcements than we do any other class simply due to the Arcanist kit being better designed (less gaps, oversights, placeholder abilities/affixes).

Thank you for visiting my ESO-TEDTalk. My name is "IfOnlyWardensHadLightning&WaterMagicTooandActualIceMagic"

/Applause /trillion likes
/Ascends into ESO Heaven

C_Inside · May 7

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

And for the other poster to state "jump the boat and play arcanist", is silly.
The OP doesn't want to play an Arcanist, they want to play a Necromancer that has had as much attention given to it by "devs" as the Arcanist.

This right here. I don't want to play Arcanist. I don't want to play Dragonknight. I don't want to play Sorcerer, Warden, Templar, or Nightblade. I want to play Necro and would ideally like it to receive the same polish as some of the other classes get. That's why I pointed out that the main issue with Necro is its passives. So that the community knows what the root problem is and hopefully the devs can address it.

On a side not I can't play Arcanist as I'd need to buy Necrom. Something I'm not willing to do when I see what the devs are doing to the actual class I want to use.

Yamenstein · May 7

Sadly all of this won’t be acknowledged by them - no matter how insightful it is. I would cancel my sub if it wasn’t for inventory issues. Definitely not pre purchasing the new chapter after seeing how this is all being handled though.

I would rather them spend time on updating classes than introducing a new system with this chapter.

ZoeliTintanie · May 7

Yamenstein wrote: »

Sadly all of this won’t be acknowledged by them - no matter how insightful it is.

Then what is the point of the forums, what is the point of communication, requests, asking for help/changes/improvements.
What is the point of playing the game on anything other than a DK/NB/Archonist?

There has to be some kind of two-way street between a game/development/business entity and its playerbase/food source/income source/financial stability provider.

Otherwise, we're just batteries and idea-generators for the people who design the classes that they like, not htat the playerbase likes.

"Oh that idea is great that they recommended on the Necro Forums, lets put it on the DK instead and give the necro some patronizing nerf/buff that they can't tell if its a nerf or a buff and then let's wordplay something to keep them confused and talking while we go play the ideas they suggested on private servers/pts and tweak the changes for our favorite classes instead"

Is what I would do if I was a crooked game entity. Zos/ESO does not seem crooked like some others. So there is still hope., Right?

BXR_Lonestar · May 7

I think the IA set Nobility in Decay tries to solve the corpse problem by allowing you to use yourself as a corpse, but at the end of the day, that is only a single corpse, and you will want many to get the most damage out of your Necro. Furthermore, the Nobility in Decay set doesn't have great offensive stats. In fact, I use it on a Necro Block Tank/Healer instead.

The corpse play is definitely a problem because the combat theory with the class is that he will get stronger as you start piling up the trash mobs - but to kill all those trashmobs quickly, you will need corpses on the ground. You can't generate corpses quick enough. And when you generate corpses, its time to move on to the next stage of the fight, meaning you leave them behind.

Perhaps this should be reworked so that the Necro passive works similar to Thrassian Stranglers without the downside so that as you create more corpses, your weapon/spell damage is increased for x duration.

C_Inside · May 7

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I think the IA set Nobility in Decay tries to solve the corpse problem by allowing you to use yourself as a corpse, but at the end of the day, that is only a single corpse, and you will want many to get the most damage out of your Necro. Furthermore, the Nobility in Decay set doesn't have great offensive stats. In fact, I use it on a Necro Block Tank/Healer instead.

The corpse play is definitely a problem because the combat theory with the class is that he will get stronger as you start piling up the trash mobs - but to kill all those trashmobs quickly, you will need corpses on the ground. You can't generate corpses quick enough. And when you generate corpses, its time to move on to the next stage of the fight, meaning you leave them behind.

Perhaps this should be reworked so that the Necro passive works similar to Thrassian Stranglers without the downside so that as you create more corpses, your weapon/spell damage is increased for x duration.

Corpse generation isn't a problem in actual content. You only need 2 corpses in a full rotation which Blight Blastbones provides no problem. Nobility in Decay is an absolute bottom of the barrel, trash tier set that aims to fix a problem that doesn't exist. Even if the problem did exist, however, it would still be a dumpster fire of a set because you're sacrificing a potentially super powerful 5 piece set for... 1 single corpse. "Yeah man, forget Pillar, Rele, Aegis Caller, or Runecarver. I want the only thing that my entire 5 piece set to do is give me 1, single corpse". Not to mention that it isn't even a dps set which makes it even worse. Like, do tanks even use corpes? And do they need more than the occasional one that Spirit Guardian gives?

As for the point of the devs not listening, I know full well that they don't. To be honest I don't expect any of what I wrote to be taken into account. I mostly did it because almost no one plays necro seriously. I've played necro almost exclusively since I started playing more than 2 years ago. I've clocked nearly 4K hours on necro alone and have come to several conclusions through my experience that I've not seen anyone mention. So I just wanted to share the information.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · May 7

It is the skills, they are extremely slow and clunky to use, in no way does Flame Skull compare to any other spammable.

Kalle_Demos · May 8

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

Yamenstein wrote: »

Sadly all of this won’t be acknowledged by them - no matter how insightful it is.

Then what is the point of the forums, what is the point of communication, requests, asking for help/changes/improvements.
What is the point of playing the game on anything other than a DK/NB/Archonist?

There has to be some kind of two-way street between a game/development/business entity and its playerbase/food source/income source/financial stability provider.

Otherwise, we're just batteries and idea-generators for the people who design the classes that they like, not htat the playerbase likes.

"Oh that idea is great that they recommended on the Necro Forums, lets put it on the DK instead and give the necro some patronizing nerf/buff that they can't tell if its a nerf or a buff and then let's wordplay something to keep them confused and talking while we go play the ideas they suggested on private servers/pts and tweak the changes for our favorite classes instead"

Is what I would do if I was a crooked game entity. Zos/ESO does not seem crooked like some others. So there is still hope., Right?

Unfortunately we are largely ignored here in the forums. The devs rarely post here and only seem to care when issues boil over to youtube or other platforms. However, they have backtracked on unpopular choices and changes before when the backlash was large enough, so I would say that there is hope if we ensure this tide of criticism doesn't ebb. And as I've said in other threads, there is their bottom line to consider.

The Necromancer Class, one of only three Classes available for purchase outside base-game, is a product that they're trying to sell in the context of a micro-transaction business model. Having a product that is mathematically inferior to others and constantly be-clowned by paying customers is not a situation any professional will be content with for long. The devs have not communicated with us at all on this and perhaps have not even deigned to read our feedback themselves but I'm sure they are aware.

OtarTheMad · May 8

It’s the skills and the passives. Overall the class needs a good amount of help.

Alaztor91 · May 8

They could certainly do some easy changes like for example make ''Dismember'' increase your Spell/Weapon Damage instead of Penetration so it's not useless in an organized PvE group. Or change ''Rapid Rot'' to something like: ''Increase your damage by X% for 10s after creating a Corpse''.

Wouldn't really help with making Tethers not break on LoS, or Blastbones getting Crowd Controlled, or Skeletal Mage being a subpar ''DoT'', or Grave Grasp being a completely useless skill, etc. I would rather have problematic skills being improved before touching the Passives.

Shadowbinder7 · July 10

C_Inside wrote: »

Before we begin I just want to point out that this is from a PvE perspective.

If you actually take a look at the damage numbers on Necro's damage skills you'll find that they're all pretty good, either being on par or in some cases even surpassing other classes. Venom Skull can be made to give you the 50% every single time you use it if you set up your rotation right. Boneyard is a good AOE DOT that can be boosted by 30% essentially for free and the boost can be gotten every single time (if the corpse doesn't bug out). Not to mention that it gives you AND your group members a synergy. Detonating Syphon is a super powerful DOT if you count the explosion as well AND it's a bar buffer that gives you not 1 but 2 buffs (3% extra damage and 10% extra execute crit chance). Really only the Skeleton Mage and the Collossus are sub par. So what gives? Why is necro damage so much lower than the rest?

Well, as I've discovered the reason my friends is that its passives either don't synergize well with its skills or they actively counter other desirable passives from other skill lines.

Let's look at what class passives actually increase your damage as a necro. You've got Death Knell, Dismember, Rapid Rot, and Corpse Consumption. So let's look at them:
Corpse Consumption - I'll start with this one as I actually don't have any issues with it. It's one of the best, if not the best ult generators in the game. 10 ult every 16 seconds (or more realistically 20 because of necro's ability timers) is pretty huge, especially when you consider that you can use it outside of combat.

Death Knell - The problem with this passive is is that it's impossible to get the full benefit from it. It scales off of how many Grave Lord abilities you've got slotted, so in order to get full benefit you need to fill BOTH your bars with only Grave Lord abilities. This is not reasonable because you not only don't have enough skills to fill all 12 slots with but even if you did skills like Barbed Trap, Quick Cloak, and Stampede/Unstable Wall/Endless Hail are staples of DDs and you would be massively nerfing yourself if you don't run those. So you're either gimping yourself by not using Death Knell to its fullest potential or you're gimping yourself by not using some of the best DD skills. This is furthered by the fact that as mentioned Collossus is not a very good ultimate, so you're not gonna be slotting that as your active ult. There goes another 10% execute crit chance. And finally, if you still decide to slot Colossus on your front bar to at least get some more crit there, well then you're not slotting in Dawnbreaker so you're not getting that extra 3% weapon/spell damage there. It's a lose/lose situation. You're loosing potential damage no matter what you slot in.

Dismember - This one is pretty simple. Penetration is useless if you're at the pen cap. In pug trials this isn't such an issue, especially if you run a stamcro, because stuff like Alkosh isn't super common. In an organized group and on the trial dummy, however, this becomes useless. 1 of your only 4 damage passives literally does nothing.

Rapid Rot - Ah Rapid Rot. You look at that juicy 10% and you think to yourself "Yes, this is so good". Until you realize that DOTs only account for a small part of necro's damage. In fact, of all necro's damage skills only Boneyard, Syphon, Ruinous Scythe and Ravenous Goliath benefit from this. Ravenous Goliath and Ruinous Scythe you never use because they're bad, so it's really only 2 skills. And even then, they don't even fully benefit as both Boneyard and Detonating Syphon have Direct Damage components to them. In fact, a ton of skills that you'd use in a necro rotation either have Direct Damage components to them ore are straight up not DOTs. Venom Skull? Direct Damage. Blastbones? Direct Damage. Quick Cloak? Direct Damage. Skeleton Mage? Direct Damage. Collossus? Direct Damage. Stampede, Unstable Wall, Barbed Trap, Mystic Orb, Scalding Rune, Meteor? DOTs with Direct Damage components. Literally the only skill that necro can use that fully benefits from Rapid Rot is Caltrops. That and the 3 DOT status effects. But you're not gonna be proccing them on cooldown are you? Especially not bleed. Unless you use Eviscerate as your spammable. But then you're not slotting Venom Skull so you're loosing another 10% execute crit chance. Gosh darn it we have another lose/lose situation!

This absence of synergy doesn't just extend to skills, however. If you look at some of the top DPS sets in the game you'll find that many don't even work with what little damage passives necro has.
Arms of Relequen - Can't crit, Death Knell is useless.

Zaan - Same deal.

Azureblight Reaper - Same deal.

Pillar of Nirn - Has a Direct Damage component that doesn't synergize with any passive.

Runecarver's Blaze - Same.

Storm Fist - Same.

Selene - Same.

Slimecraw + Mythic - None of the mythics synergize with Rapid Rot.

Really the only meta combo you've got is Whorl + Aegis Caller. And even then you're still short on a monster set. I guess you can run arena weapons on both bars. But the meta there is to run a monster set + mythic + 1 5-piece set. Darn it we're back at the Eviscerate vs Venom Skull argument now.

"C, I don't get it. What you're describing is the game making you take tactical choices when picking skills/sets. This isn't a bad thing. It just means you'll have to plan out your build with more strategy in mind." Except none of the top dps classes make you do stuff like this. Let's just look at Sorcerer as an example.

Sorc has a whopping 6 passives that all boost its damage. You've got Exploitation, Power Stone, Expert Summoner, Energized, Amplitude, and Expert Mage.
Exploitation - Boosts everything. May or may not be useless in group content.

Power Stone - More ult = more damage.

Expert Summoner - Boosts everything when you don't have pets.

Energized - Boosts *almost* everything. Really the only thing you'll have that isn't physical or shock damage is Barbed Trap and the 3 dot status effects.

Amplitude - Boosts everything.

Expert Mage - Boosts everything but you need sorc abillites slotted. Much easier to get near full benefit as it counts ALL sorc abilities and not just Storm Calling.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno TL:DR as I know y'all are too busy to deal with us mere mortals who want our payed class to be on par with the rest: Quit messing with the class skills and adjust the passives.

The main take from this post, ZOS devs, is that the Grave Lord passives for damage do not interact or mesh well together. Namely Death Knell and Rapid rot. Always felt unfair I can’t run lightning/inferno staff on Magro front, because of the loss of Deadly cloak due to the passive. But then I can’t slot enough of the grave lord abilities on frontbar anyway for death knell! Furthermore always feel like the dot boost favours stam over mag (on top of all the medium armour stuff don’t get me started), since stam has access to more dot sources which are stronger.

Either necromancer’s extra dot damage passive should be buffed, or some kind of additional bonus added to that gives a buff to blast bones, scythe, ricochet skull. Maybe a status effect damage boost similar to Arcanist? Or 5% extra disease damage done? There are options, all I know is while blastbones is powerful and you don’t want to make stamcro too op in pve with all the dots… right now stam and magcro (which btw is forced into melee hybrid setp to be viable in vtrials, when it could be a strong sometimes range build) are both only desired for catalyst and colossus, and even those two are becoming redundant with tank sets, arcanist and now scribing.

Key unfair thing for necro and warden as dds (which lets remember is the most commonly played role) is they dont have a single sourced minor buff for damage (minor toughness doesnt count) like the other 4 classes do. Arcanist doesnt need one because they are too OP now anyway with cleave and single target (though also, magarc should be pushed to not be made redundant by stam).

So really, for necro passives (and warden) they should have some kind of UNIQUE passive buff that the whole group benefits from. I don’t know… minor mangle? An increase to dot damage taken when attacked with class abilities? Something new? It’s so easy to add and will ensure more balance in trials than just support and 6 stamina arcanists (BORRRRRING 🥱)

Sorry for the deviation here but it’s ESSENTIAL that the developers ensure balance amongst the classes in the most common role (damage dealing) is achieved within endgame PVE (balance in pvp is more difficult by its nature I understand) in order to stop loads of veteran and even intermediate players from leaving, getting bored or dissuaded or not having fun, because they feel obliged to play only 2/3 of the 7 amazing classes with all their different fun play styles.

What I’m saying is if I’m attempting hardcore dlc trial or even dung HM some days I want to raise the dead at, some days I want to bombard them with crystals and daedric magic, other days I feel like sucking their life force and executing a lot. It feels so uncomfortable as a damage dealer (it’s different with tanks and healers) that I am forced to use a certain class, with stam or mag, in certain content over other alts I want to use, simply because by the nature of their passives (this applies to light/medium armour too) they are “subpar” for that content.

Maybe I’d rather use a stamina arcanist or Magdk in light armour in vDLC dungeon HM for a trifecta? And my magicka nightblade or magicka warden in mixed light/medium in a vTrial HM progression?

I can’t make this any clearer and I reckon a lot of fellow players from intermediate to the absolute amazing veterans will share my sentiment. Flexibility and freedom is more enjoyable where possible, and in the latter topic, it is DEFINITELY achievable if the devs simply focus more on this topic of balancing damage dealing amongst classes and fixing the light/medium armour passive disparity. I know a lot of work must go into development….

But this is frankly a little bit more important imho than… a housing update. Not to say it’s not great, just the focus should not be on these nifty new features when core combat in the game is skewed and biased to certain pigeonholed styles

Shadowbinder7 · July 10

C_Inside wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

The skills are also a problem, not just the passives. Tethers require a corpse and you never have a corpse at the start of a fight meaning you already lose damage. Same can be said about the buffed version of Graveyard. The Mage/Archer is weak overall. Skull is still clunky to use. Gravelord‘s Sacrifice (if used) also takes 3 seconds until it has a use. The list goes on and on. Let’s not act Necromacer skills are fine, they’re not. And how weird is it for a class that has a dedicated DoT passive to not have one sticky DoT? No Ultimate that adds a DoT?

The fact that Syphon and Graveyard need a corpse isn't an issue because of how necro rotations work. You do Blastbones->Skill x2->Blastbones. Don't have a corpse at the start of the fight? Just use 2 of your other DOTs. Blastbones->Stampede->Necro Orb->Blastbones->Syphon->Barbed Trap->Blastbones->Boneyard->Skull->Blastbones->etc, etc. You can use whatever DOTs you like but the idea is the same.

Skull really isn't as clunky in PvE as many people make it out. You press your ability key and it does damage (remember, most enemies can't dodge or block it). It doesn't have a cast or channel time either. It literally functions like any other spammable without a charge/cast time. Don't be fooled by the animation. That's just fluff. As soon as you hit the "cast skull" button you've already done its damage and used up its GCD, and it's time to move onto a different skill.

As for Boneyard's synergy, remember that it's an extra free synergy you get on top of whatever other synergies you get from your group. It's free extra damage (and a good chunk of it) AND free sustain due to the undaunted passives. OK, ok, it's not as effective if you've got other necros also giving you Graverobber as they all share the same cooldown, but who even plays necro nowadays?

I do agree with the rest of your points, though.

On this, I do think ricochet skull could do with a little bit more of a buff (add status effect or something) to make it more on bar with the stamina venom skull. It kinda only adds to Magcro falling behind stamcro sadly

Meanwhile, I know it’s not meta, but I LOVED using ruinous scythe as the stamcro spammable (kinda like jabs) instead of venom skull to be honest. This separation would be nice, like swallow soul and surprise attack (or rapid strikes on all the stam specs these days lol)

But yeah I do like to distinguish between my mag and stam playstyles. It’s why I find it fun to use stone giant as the stamdk spammable sometimes, over molten whip, to distinguish from magdk

Arcanist is the worst for this problem right now sadly, since due to the crux absorb/gen system, as well as its own average damage, Runeblades falls wayy behind spamming cephaliarchs flail, which makes my mag arc feel very unfairly treated compared to my stam.

On a positive note… while the visuals may be similar… Templar is perhaps the only class where at least I feel both mag and stamplar have a different approach, what with the two jabs morphs, and one being able to sustain beam better than other (mag)

Another long comment summarised… distinguish between mag and stam for each class as dds, ZOS devs! Hybrid or not they’re each supposed to be unique, I don’t want to have 7 redundant (or forced into tank/healer to be useful) alts out of my 14. I’m sure many other players know the gist of what I’m saying

Shadowbinder7 · July 10

C_Inside wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

And for the other poster to state "jump the boat and play arcanist", is silly.
The OP doesn't want to play an Arcanist, they want to play a Necromancer that has had as much attention given to it by "devs" as the Arcanist.

This right here. I don't want to play Arcanist. I don't want to play Dragonknight. I don't want to play Sorcerer, Warden, Templar, or Nightblade. I want to play Necro and would ideally like it to receive the same polish as some of the other classes get. That's why I pointed out that the main issue with Necro is its passives. So that the community knows what the root problem is and hopefully the devs can address it.

On a side not I can't play Arcanist as I'd need to buy Necrom. Something I'm not willing to do when I see what the devs are doing to the actual class I want to use.

Regarding this, not to sound accusatory to the ZOS teams… but if it happens that imbalancing one class over others for a year and a half (stamina arcanist) to boost sales of an expansion is a used tactic… not saying it is, just hypothetically… it would be REALLY ineffective 😐

Most people will buy Necrom cos they actually want the storyline and content to play. Not just for a class to try out, particularly when many players from casual to die hard, actually don’t have tonnes of time for more than say 2/3 alts let alone exceeding 7 (7 classes).

So iffff this was the case for stamina arcanist (yes I say stamina because magicka still needs love)… not saying it is… it would be an unnecessary imbalance. Make the other class combos as desirable as dds in all content as much as the stamina Arcanist, even if dps ceiling isn’t exactly equal amongst them all, main thing is that all should have styles and combat merit to bring to ALL group content

Shadowbinder7 · July 10

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

ZoeliTintanie wrote: »

Yamenstein wrote: »

Sadly all of this won’t be acknowledged by them - no matter how insightful it is.

Then what is the point of the forums, what is the point of communication, requests, asking for help/changes/improvements.
What is the point of playing the game on anything other than a DK/NB/Archonist?

There has to be some kind of two-way street between a game/development/business entity and its playerbase/food source/income source/financial stability provider.

Otherwise, we're just batteries and idea-generators for the people who design the classes that they like, not htat the playerbase likes.

"Oh that idea is great that they recommended on the Necro Forums, lets put it on the DK instead and give the necro some patronizing nerf/buff that they can't tell if its a nerf or a buff and then let's wordplay something to keep them confused and talking while we go play the ideas they suggested on private servers/pts and tweak the changes for our favorite classes instead"

Is what I would do if I was a crooked game entity. Zos/ESO does not seem crooked like some others. So there is still hope., Right?

Unfortunately we are largely ignored here in the forums. The devs rarely post here and only seem to care when issues boil over to youtube or other platforms. However, they have backtracked on unpopular choices and changes before when the backlash was large enough, so I would say that there is hope if we ensure this tide of criticism doesn't ebb. And as I've said in other threads, there is their bottom line to consider.

The Necromancer Class, one of only three Classes available for purchase outside base-game, is a product that they're trying to sell in the context of a micro-transaction business model. Having a product that is mathematically inferior to others and constantly be-clowned by paying customers is not a situation any professional will be content with for long. The devs have not communicated with us at all on this and perhaps have not even deigned to read our feedback themselves but I'm sure they are aware.

So we update inform criticise on all forums till they hear us!! Never stop

CameraBeardThePirate · July 10

It's definitely both. The only decent damage skills are Blastbones and maybe Skulls, but they both have tons of issues themselves. The rest of their damage abilities are either generic, extremely inconsistent, or just straight up bad.

Their passives on the damage side are also underwhelming. The pen buff is middling, the crit execute passive is only useful, well, in execute range, and while the DoT passive is pretty powerful, Necro lacks the abilities to properly utilize it.