Pure necromancer is unplayable in PvE

Plusscher

Hey there! A little bit of a vent incoming.

For disclaimer, I have not touched PvP since the new patch, and I do not plan on doing so, so I can only talk about the PvE experience.

I'm one of the remaining give or take ten existing necro mains out there, who still plays pure necromancer and ever since the new patch hit, with the "new" pet limit, the class has been unplayable. Many of times even without hitting the "cap" the popup message appears, preventing skeletal archer and/or blastbones to cast. I do know there always was a pet limit, and I do know that necromancer has been a really buggy and neglected class from the get-go, but this is just a whole new level. This bug causes not only immense frustration, but also a huge dps loss. Why do corpses count as pets in the first place??? I'm not only at an immense disadvantage, because I "play what I like" (people LOVE to throw that one around along with "just subclass this and that skill line, and your issues will be fixed!!!") now that subclassing produced beyond broken combos and pure classes been nerfed, but even more so, because the class is just non functional.

Before the patch, blastbones already had issues, from my experience I would say one out of let's say 10-15 refused to cast. Now it is about one out of 3 failing. Constantly. On dummy, in trial, in dungeon, in overworld duel, in zones, IA, etc. It makes the whole kit fall apart. Corpsebuster is now utterly useless, because of the inability to generate corpses, and the whole thing just feels hopeless and frustrating. I do know they did a hotfix to up the limit of pets from 5 to 10 in PvP, but the issue still stands. Do not forget that necromancer is a paid class, that is currently is not functioning. This issue has been known since April on PTS, why did it make it to live?

I wrote it in other discussions, but I can recreate this bug on dummy very reliably, and MANY times it's one active corpse on ground, one skeletal archer, and blastbones refuse to cast, telling me I hit pet limit. Are used corpses also pets??? Or how does 1+1+attempted 1=11? And very often the animation plays, and no blastbones appear. Back to back to back to back to back. Without popup message of hitting cap. I would LOVE to play the game proper again, and before anyone says "just play another class, that will fix your issue": I just want to play necro really. I love the class, I've been playing it since I joined, and I want to continue playing it......without these kind of game and class breaking bugs. I've seen the bottom of the barrel state of necro, the decent state of necro and everything in-between, but this is an all time low from everything I've experienced. And it really doesn't matter what activity I turn to, it's all the same: questing, killing overland content, trials, dungeons, whatever I do that has to do with combat, frustration follows.

When/Is there going to be a fix for this issue?

Thank you for reading, I really needed to get this off my chest.

PS: The only reason I'm still playing and still doing veteran trials and dungeons is because I have a wonderful guild with wonderful people being patient, otherwise I do not think I would be playing at this point.

Pictures for reference (ALL of these (except the dummy one) in the past few days, and didn't even screenshot all, because it just fueled my frustration more and more):

CameraBeardThePirate

Its high time to change the pet/corpse system completely.

If it's causing a performance issue, why are you not just reworking the system? Yes, it'll take development hours - but so does trying to play whack a mole with bugs and issues that keep popping up because of the system.

IncultaWolf

Yeah I played a little bit of Infinite Archive this patch on my necromancer, and after using the lich avatar, I was constantly getting spammed with the "pet cap limit" message and my blighted blastbones refused to cast 💀

Alaztor91

Hoping that ZOS can apply the ''Mad Tinkerer treatment'' to more pets so that this issue becomes a thing of the past. Afaik they already did it with some stuff in the Vengeance Campaign.

Plusscher

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Its high time to change the pet/corpse system completely.

If it's causing a performance issue, why are you not just reworking the system? Yes, it'll take development hours - but so does trying to play whack a mole with bugs and issues that keep popping up because of the system.

Agreed. I like the system right now, but it is quite obvious it cannot function properly. Or better yet I would like the system if it actually worked. I really just want to play the game without being utterly frustrated after just 5-10 minutes of playing, and if it means they have to rework, so be it.

Plusscher

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Yeah I played a little bit of Infinite Archive this patch on my necromancer, and after using the lich avatar, I was constantly getting spammed with the "pet cap limit" message and my blighted blastbones refused to cast 💀

Oh yeah....that

I was helping a new player in my guild who chose necro as well and had to repeatedly warn her not to take any pet/summon verses or visions, because it would be just her chopping the tree under herself.

Plusscher

Alaztor91 wrote: »

Hoping that ZOS can apply the ''Mad Tinkerer treatment'' to more pets so that this issue becomes a thing of the past. Afaik they already did it with some stuff in the Vengeance Campaign.

There is hoping, but there is also a feeling this is not going to happen anytime soon, best we can hope for realistically is u47, and even then who knows if it will function or maybe it will just be another game/class breaking bug, again.

Frayton

There's a pet limit? What is it?

Plusscher

Frayton wrote: »

There's a pet limit? What is it?

A system that prevents necro from working Jokes aside 10 "summons" max new summons SHOULD override old ones, but they don't so you just stand there unable to use the skill that your whole kit revolves around. Oh and corpses for necros count as pets for some reason. Every single corpse.

Wereswan

Frayton wrote: »

There's a pet limit? What is it?

10 for PvE, and 5 for PvP; since Necro is built around summoning and consuming temporary "pets," it's hit the hardest.

CameraBeardThePirate

Wereswan wrote: »

Frayton wrote: »

There's a pet limit? What is it?

10 for PvE, and 5 for PvP; since Necro is built around summoning and consuming temporary "pets," it's hit the hardest.

It's 10 for both PvE and PvP. They hotfixed the limit back to 10 in PvP very soon after the patch because they realized it made Necro unusable in open world PvP.

How they let it get to live like that despite reports about it during PTS, the world may never know.

Soarora

Someone I know who has a pure necromancer dps also is running into problems with the pet cap being too low! ZOS, why?

Pixiepumpkin

Customers predicted this with their theorycrafting.
Customers tested this on the PTS.
Customers have tested these issues on the live u46 update.
@sans-culottes called out in great detail the issues with necromancer and was extremely vocal about the issues.

I mean, what does it actually take to get the developers to lisen to their customer base about issues with the game.

Plusscher

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Customers predicted this with their theorycrafting.
Customers tested this on the PTS.
Customers have tested these issues on the live u46 update.
@sans-culottes called out in great detail the issues with necromancer and was extremely vocal about the issues.

I mean, what does it actually take to get the developers to lisen to their customer base about issues with the game.

I'm asking the same, there are bugs that are "okay, whatever, it's a bug", but bugs of this caliber? How do they make it to live and not be fixed immediately? It's been noticed 2 months ago, slowly 3......just how??

I'm at a point where I am just considering dropping the game until they fix it (and with it have to leave the friend group behind who I genuinely enjoy playing with), which might be never if we look at how seriously they are taking it, and it's just so disappointing and sad. It just feels so hopeless. I hope to be proven wrong, I really do.

WalkingBomb

I can confirm this, I've tried working around it by detonating more corpses but even that doesn't work because the corpses the skull generates directly under my targets aren't able to be targeted half the time; of course even in that situation it would still brick completely if a lot of enemies died nearby, so it would be a lackluster bandaid. As I've written on my bug section post but it didn't get a lot of traction

"My necromancer setup is virtually unusable due to Blighted Blastbones not spawning at all half the time because of the new pet limit, the presence of corpses should not prevent me from casting a core class identity skill. I even tried to play along and purge all the existing corpses with detonating siphon and corpsebuster before reapplying more, but detonating siphon would stop working in spite of a bunch of corpses stacked on the floor too. Something has to be done to fix Blighted Blastbones..."

Plusscher

WalkingBomb wrote: »

I can confirm this, I've tried working around it by detonating more corpses but even that doesn't work because the corpses the skull generates directly under my targets aren't able to be targeted half the time; of course even in that situation it would still brick completely if a lot of enemies died nearby, so it would be a lackluster bandaid. As I've written on my bug section post but it didn't get a lot of traction

"My necromancer setup is virtually unusable due to Blighted Blastbones not spawning at all half the time because of the new pet limit, the presence of corpses should not prevent me from casting a core class identity skill. I even tried to play along and purge all the existing corpses with detonating siphon and corpsebuster before reapplying more, but detonating siphon would stop working in spite of a bunch of corpses stacked on the floor too. Something has to be done to fix Blighted Blastbones..."

Same, tried to come up with ANY sort of solution so I can keep on going, I went back to good old DoTCro, but it fails to keep up even more than CBCro. And funnily enough DoTCro somewhat functions (having issues casting ground abilities, as per usual, because why would they cast properly) , but it's just so sad. Of course BB has issues even on DoTCro, but not nearly as horrible.....so there is that, but still, I just wish I could use my necro freely with whatever set I want and it would function.

Plusscher

Soarora wrote: »

Someone I know who has a pure necromancer dps also is running into problems with the pet cap being too low! ZOS, why?

I ask that question every.single.day. Just....why?

EvilGoatKing

Plusscher wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Someone I know who has a pure necromancer dps also is running into problems with the pet cap being too low! ZOS, why?

I ask that question every.single.day. Just....why?

Im fairly sure they answered that in the PVP/BG update stream with the lead combat dev.

Id link it but ZOS took the VOD down.

Plusscher

EvilGoatKing wrote: »

Plusscher wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

Someone I know who has a pure necromancer dps also is running into problems with the pet cap being too low! ZOS, why?

I ask that question every.single.day. Just....why?

Im fairly sure they answered that in the PVP/BG update stream with the lead combat dev.

Id link it but ZOS took the VOD down.

Don't worry, I believe I have seen it.

WalkingBomb

Judging from this ZOS seems to be aware of the problem, but I'm not sure if they're aware how severely broken it is right now; probably would warrant a bit more urgency considering my necromancer might as well be missing their limbs right now...

Plusscher

WalkingBomb wrote: »

Judging from this ZOS seems to be aware of the problem, but I'm not sure if they're aware how severely broken it is right now; probably would warrant a bit more urgency considering my necromancer might as well be missing their limbs right now...

Yeah, I saw also, but it means nothing that they are aware if they won't fix it and do nothing about it. We can go probably weeks if not months without being able to play necromancer. I mentioned in one of the comments previously, but realistically best we can hope for is u47, which is very disheartening. Barely logged on nowadays to maybe do writs and event quest, but not doing much else, because there is no reason to play until they fix it.

Argodynamics

Plusscher wrote: »

I wrote it in other discussions, but I can recreate this bug on dummy very reliably, and MANY times it's one active corpse on ground, one skeletal archer, and blastbones refuse to cast, telling me I hit pet limit. Are used corpses also pets??? Or how does 1+1+attempted 1=11? And very often the animation plays, and no blastbones appear. Back to back to back to back to back. Without popup message of hitting cap. I would LOVE to play the game proper again, and before anyone says "just play another class, that will fix your issue": I just want to play necro really. I love the class, I've been playing it since I joined, and I want to continue playing it......without these kind of game and class breaking bugs. I've seen the bottom of the barrel state of necro, the decent state of necro and everything in-between, but this is an all time low from everything I've experienced. And it really doesn't matter what activity I turn to, it's all the same: questing, killing overland content, trials, dungeons, whatever I do that has to do with combat, frustration follows.

So I went to try my necro again and see if he still broke since I didn't see that much talk about it lately, but ffs, blastbones bug still really annoying. I was confused why blastbones won't summon even when I don't have any corpse around, I'm just parsing, it's a controlled environment, and even though that still failing to cast. Turned out that corpses being considered a pet is not the only problem, but this cap thing and the way they coded pets around that is making blastbones failing to cast over older blastbones that still laying around for several seconds after exploding, even when the "pet corpse" they provide was already used. Really funny that now I found your post saying the same, so I recorded it to demonstrate and show blastbones dead pet laying bellow dummy until it stop to cast properly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HvWaX6VyWs

Necro has one of the most satisfying rotations imo, and Corpseburster really added some taste to it, but now, I can't use the most important ability on my kit. It's not only the most damage done on my rotation, but also is main source of corpses, and if I do it perfectly, every third cast, there will be a point I just can't use it anymore even during a fight without any other enemy but the boss. So blastbones is now a problem by itself and not only because corpses being a pet, but more adds dying only aggravate this. Really frustrating, and I had to vent too.

Plusscher

Argodynamics wrote: »

Plusscher wrote: »

I wrote it in other discussions, but I can recreate this bug on dummy very reliably, and MANY times it's one active corpse on ground, one skeletal archer, and blastbones refuse to cast, telling me I hit pet limit. Are used corpses also pets??? Or how does 1+1+attempted 1=11? And very often the animation plays, and no blastbones appear. Back to back to back to back to back. Without popup message of hitting cap. I would LOVE to play the game proper again, and before anyone says "just play another class, that will fix your issue": I just want to play necro really. I love the class, I've been playing it since I joined, and I want to continue playing it......without these kind of game and class breaking bugs. I've seen the bottom of the barrel state of necro, the decent state of necro and everything in-between, but this is an all time low from everything I've experienced. And it really doesn't matter what activity I turn to, it's all the same: questing, killing overland content, trials, dungeons, whatever I do that has to do with combat, frustration follows.

So I went to try my necro again and see if he still broke since I didn't see that much talk about it lately, but ffs, blastbones bug still really annoying. I was confused why blastbones won't summon even when I don't have any corpse around, I'm just parsing, it's a controlled environment, and even though that still failing to cast. Turned out that corpses being considered a pet is not the only problem, but this cap thing and the way they coded pets around that is making blastbones failing to cast over older blastbones that still laying around for several seconds after exploding, even when the "pet corpse" they provide was already used. Really funny that now I found your post saying the same, so I recorded it to demonstrate and show blastbones dead pet laying bellow dummy until it stop to cast properly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HvWaX6VyWs

Necro has one of the most satisfying rotations imo, and Corpseburster really added some taste to it, but now, I can't use the most important ability on my kit. It's not only the most damage done on my rotation, but also is main source of corpses, and if I do it perfectly, every third cast, there will be a point I just can't use it anymore even during a fight without any other enemy but the boss. So blastbones is now a problem by itself and not only because corpses being a pet, but more adds dying only aggravate this. Really frustrating, and I had to vent too.

Oh how utterly familiar the video at 0:20 is. No scratch that, the whole post feels utterly familiar. It's like every time I do combat!!

Jokes aside, agreed thru and thru, I play necro (and only necro, one single character) as well for how nice the whole class feels, how well rounded the whole class is, the different setup rotations feel, etc, but at this point even if I "have to" join a trial (the only reason I still log on to raid with guild other than doing writs, because I would miss hanging out with them) I can't be asked to play dd until they fix it, at least on supports I can still somewhat function. If all supports spots are taken? Tough luck. 2 hours of screaming into the void of why oh why does a paid class not work as it should. It has became a meme in guild that if my mic is muted they all know what's going on. Lots and lots of kind words pointed at the game.

Also completely understand the vent, it is SUPER frustrating. I applaud anyone and everyone who is still sticking to necro even in times like this.

Alaztor91

From U47 PTS notes, it seems that Flame Skull was the culprit. Unless someone can replicate this issue without using that skill/morphs.

Plusscher

Alaztor91 wrote: »

From U47 PTS notes, it seems that Flame Skull was the culprit. Unless someone can replicate this issue without using that skill/morphs.

Well, I have have my doubts to be honest. I used shattering knife instead of skull as spammable recently since deathknell has been gutted anyways and knife gives more than skull does for CB, and it always was/is the same. I read the patchnotes as well, and the bit about the pet limit and how it won't drain resources and such made me worry even more. I yet to test it, but from my understanding (I might just be utterly stupid here, and if I'm wrong I'll be the first to admit to it) it now just simply won't cast if you hit pet limit instead of replacing old summons with new. Yay for not wasting GCD and resources, but not so yay for if it still will be the same, but with the popup being constant now.

Also as a sidenote from trying and coping that I can still make my necro playable I shuffled bunch of stuff around and imo the culprit is either CB or banner with class mastery or both (other than the obvious culprit being zos zossed so hard they accidentally yeeted necro into the bin with the hard cap). As soon as I swap to DoTcro (trial set/runecarver w/o banner) I barely have any issues. And I did try it with skull and with knife, both the same. But in return for having minimal casting issues, it requires 10 times the work and does significantly less dps than CB....and personally I find CB playstyle more enjoyable anyhow.

I myself cannot test PTS since I am suffering from lack of disk space, but I asked a friend who already has it installed to test it for me hopefully soon. I'm still sniffing that copium and hopium that necro will be finally fixed and playable again.

Plusscher

Alaztor91 wrote: »

From U47 PTS notes, it seems that Flame Skull was the culprit. Unless someone can replicate this issue without using that skill/morphs.

Tried to help a friend make a necro/nb (Gravelord/Living Death/Assassination) setup (tried it out so I know how it should go, what to cast when, etc) today, and only having class mastery on banner, blastbones and skeletal archer, I still got these popups. I do not think it's flame skull.

ThetaSigma

Game so broke its sad