Thoughts on Necromancer class changes in U43?

xDeusEJRx

Wanted to start a discussion thread about it and see what people think

xDeusEJRx

Personally, as someone who enjoys all classes, I couldn't be any more happier with the changes. A lot of suggestions taken from players ended up happening and while it's not super massive, I am glad to see ZOS extending a hand to Necromancer.

Have to hand it to them, I didn't think they'd do it, but I sure am excited they did. I'm looking forward to playing necro next update

CaptainVenom

It's very nice and needed. I didn't expect to see necro buffs anytime soon because we asked for it for so long I began to lose hope.

I'd only change Ghostly Embrace damage to a DoT debuff. Necro has a DoT passive skill and little to no class DoTs. Other than that, those buffs look great.

CameraBeardThePirate

The change to Siphon makes Nobility in Decay REALLY appealing, which is great. Minor Resolve on Armor is also a great change, as it means we don't need to slot Resolving Vigor anymore. Both changes help quite a bit with bar space.

Sorcery on Archer/Arcanist is so-so. It's nice to have a source in the class kit, and the ability is still mediocre, but I'll take it because the only other universal source is Entropy which is also a bit mediocre. I'll take the extra corpse gen and better Dismember uptime over a tad more DoT damage any day with how strong Deaden Pain is at the moment.

The Grave Grasp change is cool, although I would've preferred they rework the Empowering Grasp morph, as that buff is hot garbage. It literally never hits your pets, and isn't all that impactful when it does. It'll be fun to try out the damage morph nonetheless.

The Intensive Mender buff is something we knew was coming, although it's still a bit wild to me as it was already the stronger morph. The cross heals will be incredibly strong on it now, and the self healing will be more reliable, as even when the ghost targets a teammate, you'll still get the heal if you're close to them.

Totem change is cool for PvE tanks, tho likely not that useful for PvP.

Graveyard is a nice buff, and depending on how well Corpseburster scales, Avid bombing could make a return.

All in all, good changes. Biggest problem I have with the notes is that GLS is still hot garbage, tho being able to cast it outside of combat is nice.

Grim_Overlord

All of these changes were amazing, and I look forward to seeing Necromancer embrace a debuff-centric playstyle in PvE as both supports and DPS. I'm looking forward to seeing how the new Grave Grasp morph plays, given its been a largely useless ability since its inception, which was a shame given it has a great aesthetic.

I think that some of the morphs still need another pass, such as making Mystic Siphon compete with Detonating in some way or feel like a more worthwhile trade-off than needing Shock damage for Elemental Catalyst, and Blighted Blastbones's cost(and color please) still wanting to be determined by highest max resource, but these are overall great changes and a step in the right direction for the class.

This is the first patch notes in a few years I was excited reading regarding Necromancer and getting into testing the changes, so nice work and thank you!

Yamenstein

Glad to see them making the right steps ! Will test out and see how it goes.

Though the biggest issue with necro still lives on - blastbones pathing. It would be great to see them tweak it a bit either to reduce the chance of it fizzling out because it’s kited or increase the damage as a pay off. Or even just provide another buff if it doesn’t hit its target as intended.

Also, will be curious how ZoS balances throughout the PTS.

CameraBeardThePirate

Grim_Overlord wrote: »

I think that some of the morphs still need another pass, such as making Mystic Siphon compete with Detonating in some way or feel like a more worthwhile trade-off than needing Shock damage for Elemental Catalyst, and Blighted Blastbones's cost(and color please) still wanting to be determined by highest max resource, but these are overall great changes and a step in the right direction for the class.

To be fair, Mystic is the go-to morph for PvP (if you do decide to slot one of them there) since the detonation isn't all that great in PvP and the unnamed source of recovery (that scales with modifiers) is invaluable.

React

The right buffs in the wrong places. Would have been nice to see the savagery or brutality slotted into something that is actually commonly used in a PVP setting.

VixxVexx

Sorcery/Brutality and Prophecy/Savagery on dead skills isn't the direction I would've picked but I'll take it.
Now return their burst damage. Example: give Det Siphon some of the power of old Graveyard synergy.

Alaztor91

Good changes overall. Personally, I would have preferred the '''while slotted on either bar'' treatment for Shocking Siphon/Skeletal Mage and I was hoping that the Ghostly Embrace change would be in the form of an actual reliable single target cc though.

GLS is castable out of combat which is ok(I mean, this is just standard behavior for pretty much any other buff skill in the game), but still has the issues of the Skeleton being subject to CC/LoS and the actual buff effect being delayed because the Skeleton has to jump to you.

Yamenstein

React wrote: »

The right buffs in the wrong places. Would have been nice to see the savagery or brutality slotted into something that is actually commonly used in a PVP setting.

Guess they are trying to you choose.
Not sure I will use my archer or mystic siphon in PvP. But will have to see what works.

I would rather have had these buffs worked into the passives - even if their durations are lower to make it more universally accessed by the class.

Also, I still don’t see how the class is a debuff class. Maybe that was the original intention and they have moved away from it.

Tinkerhorn

Interesting with some very good bits. Have been playing my Necro again recently. Won't lie, I was really hoping for the Stalking modifier put on to Blighted but I suppose we'll never get that back. That said with Ulfsilds and now the nerf to undeath might be am back to the sam/similar effectiveness with my burstcro as before the Stalking deletion.

Sustain will be a lot easier, especially as I can drop vigor for mender and get the +200 recovery.
Very pleased with the extension to 30 seconds for bone armour and the + minor relsove (see above).
Think I'll stick with alliance pots to source my sorcery and prophecy though.
That said just pleased with "stuff" as after U41 I sidelined all my necros up until last week.

Urzigurumash

Great changes. Almost perfect.

Make Death Knell bothbarrable and the critics will see the power and versatility of the Gravelord tree.

Urzigurumash

React wrote: »

The right buffs in the wrong places. Would have been nice to see the savagery or brutality slotted into something that is actually commonly used in a PVP setting.

Try this - do the secondary effects of these skills exceed the secondary effects of the skills currently used in PvP for these buffs? If not, what change within the Necro kit could push the math so they do exceed, with the least amount of change otherwise?

If you reach an answer please vote in my poll I just posted.

Twohothardware

I think they should un-nerf some of the passives on Necro to give them back some more damage. In PvP even with these changes they'll still be pretty meh because of losing Stalking Blastbones and the old synergy damage from Boneyard.

CameraBeardThePirate

React wrote: »

The right buffs in the wrong places. Would have been nice to see the savagery or brutality slotted into something that is actually commonly used in a PVP setting.

Honestly I have less issue with Prophecy on Siphon than I have with Sorcery on Mage/Archer.

The alternative to Siphon would be Camo Hunter, so let's compare.

You either get an occasional Minor Berserk (5%) along with a slight Weapon damage increase, a reveal to pull nightblades out of stealth, and have the crit buff but ONLY on your front bar.

OR

You get a flat 3% (that can potentially stack with Minor Berserk) on your frontbar, 10% crit chance during execute, slightly better uptime on Dismember (so more pen), a strong but very inconsistent DoT, and a ton of recovery (150 of each that can be buffed by modifiers) but only while the tether persists. The crit buff lasts 20 seconds (doesn't matter if the Siphon is broken) and persists to your backbar for heals.

They're pretty comparable imo. Using Nobility will negate the inconsistency of Siphon, and at that point, Siphon would be a straight upgrade over Camo Hunter, but you'd have to run that set. Otherwise, Camo is much more reliable, but Siphon has higher potential.

propertyOfUndefined

I'm very pleased. The only other thing I would have loved to see would have been the "slot in any bar" arcanist treatment on some of the unique buffs.

Urzigurumash

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

React wrote: »

The right buffs in the wrong places. Would have been nice to see the savagery or brutality slotted into something that is actually commonly used in a PVP setting.

Honestly I have less issue with Prophecy on Siphon than I have with Sorcery on Mage/Archer.

The alternative to Siphon would be Camo Hunter, so let's compare.

You either get an occasional Minor Berserk (5%) along with a slight Weapon damage increase, a reveal to pull nightblades out of stealth, and have the crit buff but ONLY on your front bar.

OR

You get a flat 3% (that can potentially stack with Minor Berserk) on your frontbar, 10% crit chance during execute, slightly better uptime on Dismember (so more pen), a strong but very inconsistent DoT, and a ton of recovery (150 of each that can be buffed by modifiers) but only while the tether persists. The crit buff lasts 20 seconds (doesn't matter if the Siphon is broken) and persists to your backbar for heals.

They're pretty comparable imo. Using Nobility will negate the inconsistency of Siphon, and at that point, Siphon would be a straight upgrade over Camo Hunter, but you'd have to run that set. Otherwise, Camo is much more reliable, but Siphon has higher potential.

Yes exactly. It has more potential even than just slapping Savagery on Blastbones.

I could go on and on with the technical examples on different builds, but you're all experienced enough to imagine them yourself.

More potential.

But the idea really needs Death Knell on both bars.

Urzigurumash

This vision of Necro makes it:

1. Difficult to play with the power to justify it
2. Versatile as to weapons and weapons skills

Deimus

I'm pleasantly surprised at these patch notes. I was expecting just the casting out of combat change for GLS, but a lot of feedback was taken into consideration.

Boneyard is going to be great in PvE giving Necro DD an always up valuable debuff to bring to the table.

Shocking Siphon change is good I can finally take Magelight off my bar for PvE, and for PvP I sometimes slotted Mystic Siphon or Mortal Coil (usually this one out of the two) for extra recovery, but with Major Prophecy/Savagery I think Mystic Siphon is a skill worth slotting in PvP now.

Skeletal Mage I think this skill still needs a damage boost, but I hate slotting Degeneration on my bars after years of having no other options other than Rally if I was doing a 2h build so I will be happily slotting Skeletal Archer/Arcanist if this makes it to live.

Bone Armor and Summoner's Armor no notes I just think both of those changes are pretty great.

Agony Totem I will have to wait and see the tooltip, but does this morph just deal damage from the synergy now? If so making it a self synergy like Avid Boneyard would be nice.

Grave Grasp is probably the most meh skill with the coolest animation in the game so it will definitely need a lot of work or big changes to make it viable. Again I'll need to check the tooltip before fully judging the damage, but the main issue to me was it isn't a reliable stun.

Intensive Mender looks very useful for both group PvE and PvP, and I could see where it could be used over Spirit Guardian.

If this makes it to live this will be the first time ESO has opened my wallet since Blackwood.

Rasande_Robin

Not what I was expecting but I'm very happy with it, many great changes.

Still though the change to GLS will not make me use it.
It's a "front-bar skill tree" skill made into a "back-bar skill"

With the new class set I will even less likely use that skill...

Akinos

React wrote: »

The right buffs in the wrong places. Would have been nice to see the savagery or brutality slotted into something that is actually commonly used in a PVP setting.

Yeah thats how I feel also, buffs we should of had from the start placed on skills that see very little use, I can't even call the major crit/damage added to those skills "buffs". For me, scribing took care of all the needs of necro. Gave me more regen, more damage and more mitigation. The only real buffs in my mind are the minor vul on boneyard and the breach morph now sticks to targets, and the armor buff now being 30 seconds. The biggest buff is that they actually gave necro anything at all and not just more nerfs.

Firstmep

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The change to Siphon makes Nobility in Decay REALLY appealing, which is great. Minor Resolve on Armor is also a great change, as it means we don't need to slot Resolving Vigor anymore. Both changes help quite a bit with bar space.

Sorcery on Archer/Arcanist is so-so. It's nice to have a source in the class kit, and the ability is still mediocre, but I'll take it because the only other universal source is Entropy which is also a bit mediocre. I'll take the extra corpse gen and better Dismember uptime over a tad more DoT damage any day with how strong Deaden Pain is at the moment.

The Grave Grasp change is cool, although I would've preferred they rework the Empowering Grasp morph, as that buff is hot garbage. It literally never hits your pets, and isn't all that impactful when it does. It'll be fun to try out the damage morph nonetheless.

The Intensive Mender buff is something we knew was coming, although it's still a bit wild to me as it was already the stronger morph. The cross heals will be incredibly strong on it now, and the self healing will be more reliable, as even when the ghost targets a teammate, you'll still get the heal if you're close to them.

Totem change is cool for PvE tanks, tho likely not that useful for PvP.

Graveyard is a nice buff, and depending on how well Corpseburster scales, Avid bombing could make a return.

All in all, good changes. Biggest problem I have with the notes is that GLS is still hot garbage, tho being able to cast it outside of combat is nice.

If tether skills had 7m range instead of 5, they would be used more, especially siphon.

Urvoth

They're cool but honestly adding a couple buffs to a useless kit doesn't help all that much. It's a good set of changes but there's a significant amount of redesign needed to give necro a viable/decent offensive kit in PvP. Ironically even with all these buffs, necro will still have a WORSE offensive kit than when we still had Stalking Blastbones.

xDeusEJRx

Urvoth wrote: »

They're cool but honestly adding a couple buffs to a useless kit doesn't help all that much. It's a good set of changes but there's a significant amount of redesign needed to give necro a viable/decent offensive kit in PvP. Ironically even with all these buffs, necro will still have a WORSE offensive kit than when we still had Stalking Blastbones.

While I do agree with most of the statement that it's not a massive change, but I don't necessarily agree that your kit will be worse than with Stalking blastbones considering the nerf to undeath. People will be over 20% less tanky than they were when stalking blastbones existed with undeath changes.

Now obviously this isn't a unique experience to Necro(as all classes reap benefits from the undeath nerf), it's definitely gonna feel significantly different than it does now because people won't be just as tanky as on live

Lags

Good changes. Same changes many of us have been begging for, for years. Im glad they gave boneyard the caltrops treatment. Very disappointed they havent fixed tethers breaking on line of sight though. Such an easy fix for such a massive issue.

taugrim

Boneyard: This ability and its morphs now also apply Minor Vulnerability to enemies inside the area. The chill of death embraces those in its wake.
Unnerving Boneyard (morph): This ability's Minor Vulnerability and Major Breach now persist on enemies for 4.1 seconds each tick, rather than only while in the area.

Meh for PVP, since fights tend to be very mobile.

Good change for PVE.

Sacrificial Bones:
This ability and the Grave Lord’s Sacrifice morph no longer require you to be in combat in order to cast them.
Fixed an issue where the damage increase from this ability and its morphs did not properly update many ability tooltips.

Good quality of life change. I'd never seen in any MMORPG a self-buff that required a target and didn't apply for 2 seconds.

Shocking Siphon: This ability and its morphs now also grant you Major Prophecy and Savagery for 20 seconds after casting. Such lack of respect for the dead spurs the spreading of more of it.

Meh for PVP.

Good for PVE.

Camo Hunter or Magelight provides better utility.

Skeletal Mage: This ability and its morphs now also grant you Major Brutality and Sorcery for their active duration. Such audacious manipulation of death fuels your desire for more of it.

Added a required buff on a mediocre ability is "digging in the wrong place" as Indiana Jones said.

Mage might be OK in PVE, but for PVP the lack of meaningful control over targeting makes this ability lackluster.

Bone Tyrant
Bone Armor: This ability and its morphs now also grant Minor Resolve for their duration. The bones must've belonged to milk drinkers.
Summoner's Armor (morph): This morph now also lasts 30 seconds, up from 20.

Awesome change for PVP and PVE.

Bone Totem: This ability and its morphs now also apply Major Cowardice to enemies inside it. Such horrific sights instill hopelessness to even the mightiest of foes.
Agony Totem: The synergy granted from this morph, Pure Agony, no longer applies Minor Vulnerability, as Boneyard now applies it.

Nice buff for PVE.

A small-diameter ground AOE in PVP is fairly useless.

Ghostly Embrace (morph): This morph now also deals damage equal to half of a normal area effect spammable attack to enemies in each patch. The ability now ranks up in 1.1% damage per rank, rather than adding .333ms to each negative effect per rank.

Meh overall. It's a CC ability that has the zones backwards.

Intensive Mender (morph): This morph now also heals 2 additional allies within 8 meters of the original target, since the morph did not add direct power to the base ability.

Huge buff.

I run Spirit Guardian for the mitigation and uptime on sustain passive. But wow, this is a huge change.

StarOfElyon

As I commented on a youtube video: These skills that were buffed still have problems (that we have brought up on the forums again and again). PvP players aren't going to stand in our tether's AOE. Not only that, but we aren't going to stay in range of our own AOE. We're going to have to stay mobile, so these immobile skills are still a problem. The class still doesn't have a sticky DOT. And I want the blastbones skill cost being determined by the highest resource. But what we got is better than nothing.

And in another thread, I said:

StarOfElyon wrote: »

I could have said yes but Necro still needs some work to get away from reliance on world and weapon skills.

This is definitely a buff for me who uses the siphon and skeletal mage in pvp, but I believe most players will still chose to get these buffs and debuffs from outside of the class because they're just plain better.

Leaving my ideas here out of obligation:

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. *Increase the radius size.
- 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:
- Resistant Flesh: (remains unchanged)
- Blood Sacrifice: consumes a corpse to grant you Major Courage (or Major Berserk) 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.

(3-15-2024: a video discussing these ideas)

https://youtu.be/s03c5jlZhaQ?si=wZUIjM1YkDQSMqnC

FuryOfTyphon

Absolutely love that Necro has gotten some attention... But please reconsider which skills were changed.

The class has needed Major Sorcery/Brutality since it was released, and I am happy it has finally got it.
But it would make much more sense to tie these Major buffs to the the core damage ability of the class, Blastbones.

Blastbones is a key skill in both PvP and PvE.
And Skeletal Mage is a purely PvE skill.

Putting Major Sorcery/Brutality on Skeletal Mage is forcing PvPers to use a bar slot for this key buff basically what we are already doing with entropy or run potions which we are also already doing.

Having it on Blastbones would make both PvPers and and PvErs happy.

C_Inside

Pretty happy with most of the changes. As a pve player most everything here is good.

Having Major Prophecy and Savagery on Syphon makes Necro 1 of only 2 classes that has these buffs on a key skill that every single dps configuration uses (the other is DK with Flames of Oblivion). This is great because it allows Necros to freely use Heroism potions with 0 drawbacks and 0 adjustments to your rotation needed, so long as there is a DK in the group giving Igneous Weapon or you use Skeleton Archer (another key skill in many setups). Being able to use Heroism potions with no drawbacks on the class with arguably the best ult generation in the game is a nice little indirect damage buff and can potentially make ult spam builds a thing.

Minor Vulnerability on Boneyard is also super nice. Minor Vuln is a pretty common debuff but it requires supports to slot in specific skills like Elemental Sus or you have to force your Warden to use a subpar DOT. Boneyard on the other hand is another key skill that every single necro dps uses. So if there is a necro dps in the group then Minor Vuln is guaranteed. The fact that it's in AOE is just the cherry on top.

Minor Resolve on Bone Armor is OK. Not super relevant in group content as the healer gives that to everyone with Combat Prayer but it's pretty nice to have it when soloing. Summoner's Armor being 30 seconds is also nice. Definitely needed as just having the cost reduction was pretty much completely irrelevant.

Changing SuckBones to no longer have an in combat requirement is a big win imo. I think this right here is one of the few times where literally everyone both on here, on reddit, as well as content creators on youtube were in agreement on something. I don't recall a single person ever saying that they liked how it could only be cast in combat. So good job ZOS, I can now confidently stop calling it SuckBones and promote it to MehBones.

Major Cowardice on Bone Totem is very nice. It's a pretty powerful but very rare debuff. Previously you either needed to be a Nightblade tank or use 1 of a small handful of subpar sets to get it. Having a source of it on a meta tanking class through a pretty commonly used skill is a very good change.

Intense Mender healing in an AOE is super strong. Intense Mender's heal over times alone was very strong so having it be able to heal 2 more people can make it super strong in situations where you need to focus burst heals on specific people. Pre-buff it before you start healing ice tombs in Sunspire or Sanity's Edge and you're golden.

Grave Grasp being able to do damage is a nothing change. No one used it in the past and no one will use it in the future because the damage is too low for a dps to use, the crowd control is too unreliable to a tank to use, and it doesn't offer any group utility for a healer to use. The only saving grace here is what they said about being able to hit the same enemy with multiple patches with careful aiming, but why do this when I can use Venom Skull? A skill that doesn't need precise aiming and that does more damage. Am I supposed to use it for trash? Not really because it has a stun attached to it. If you're a dps you don't want to be using skills that stun. That's the tank's job. Maybe it can be useful in Sunspire where the big hitbox of the dragons means you can hit with all 3 patches? I'm pretty sure Venom Skull will still be stronger even in a situation like this but some testing will be required.

Pretty much the only change I don't like here is the nerf to ult generation outside of combat. Necro is still a bit behind most of the other classes, even with these changes, so any nerf no matter how small is still unwarranted. Nerf stuff like this when the class starts overperforming, not while it's still not quite there yet.

Ashevajak

As a PvEr with my necromancer, I'm broadly happy with these changes. As others have already said, giving it the Arcanist working on either bar/persisting while slotted treatment would be ideal for some of these buffs, but otherwise no major complaints. Building in some buffs to the class really shores up otherwise noticeable weaknesses and gives more flexibility in slotting other skills as well, which is never a bad thing. Finally I can drop Entropy from my bar...

That said, I do hope ZOS is taking into account the PvP feedback also, especially with regards to Major Sorcery/Brutality on the Skeletal summon, as that does seem to be a bit of a problem. Switching the bonus to Blastbones may not be the worst call.