REFRESH NECROMANCER IN 2026 !

nightbringer1993

Introduction
This class has been extremely neglected over the last five years if not more. The recent PTS patch notes once again did not touch at the necromancer skills and these class masteries will not make the class playable pure class. This scam needs to end and the necromancer has to be refreshed this year. You insulted us when you anounced that necromancer would be refreshed last(excluding arcanist). We have been asking for a class refresh for years and you spit on us again by telling us that we will have to wait for end of 2027 for our class to be playable, and let's not forget that this class is a payable class that costs 12.99€. <removed>
The next refresh class should have been necromancer, not warden, warden right now is playable, and the best PvP class, especially with that charm that you still did not remove.

The blastbone nerf and grave lord sacrifice failure
A few years ago you decided to replace stalking blastbone by grave lord sacrifice, a completely stupid skill that nearly nobody uses, back then 90% of the players were against the change link found below. And the blastbone is still missing from the vengeance necromancer toolkit, grave lord sacrifice is not used in PvP. The removal of stalking blastbone was a huge hit on the necromancer damage, and made people discriminate the class even more, and necromancer players either left the game that day or were forced to change class like I did. Blighted blastbone simply does not deal enough damage, and when I see that deep fissure from warden does more damage than the blastbone, it makes me sick. If you wanted the rotation to be made easier, then you could have allowed us to have more than one blastbone active. Grave lord sacrifice is a failure and you need to accept it, what sort of logic is that for the skeleton minion to run and hit its own master, it is completely stupid.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/654213/necromancer-skill-stalking-blastbones-vs-grave-lord-039-s-sacrifice/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/651274/stalking-blastbones-is-necro-039-s-best-damage-ability-please-reconsider-the-change/p1

Major vulnerability
During the high isle chapter year you added sets like turning tide and archdruid which game the major vulnerability to other classes, that day people started kicking necromancers out of trial group simply because the tank could use such sets to apply the debuff, That year was grim for necromancers.

Healing
The healing of the class is also much lower that other classes, back then we had a ghost who could heal way more and would last longer, spirit guardian lasted longer too. Another nerf of the class. and why put minor defile on the caster of render flesh, what sort of stupid idea was that?

Weak summons
The pets of the tool kit is also extemely low compared to other classes, the skeleton mage and archer simply does not do enough damage, you might have added major sorcery and brutality on that skill, but still the mage guild one is still stronger than these summons, Blastbone was nerfed as mentioned above just like the spirit mender. And skills like animate blastbone are simply too expensive and since last year is unusable.

Lack of effective stuns or crowd control skills
In PvP, stunning enemies is vital, and skill like totem, grave grasp or frozen colossus are simply not reliable, people have time to dodge them where other classes can effectively stun other players, skills like fossilize or streak and the spear from templar or the fear from NB and the infamous charm from wardens.

tThe tethers and damage dealing
Those tether are also unreliable and useless in PvP, you might have added maj savagery and prophecy to the skill but it requires the skill to be active where other classes and guild skill line have those buff, while slotted, which means that a necromancer cannot start the fight with such buff active and as a corpse need to be created, things are delayed. Those tether also easily break, and in PvP they are useless. To be made useful in PvP, tethering other players would be an effective way, like the skill in vengeance. The bone yard also does not last long enough in my opinion. The skull is also an extremely slow skill, and people still favor other spamable because of it.

Tank
Soon with those class refresh order, I fear necro tanking might also die, because of the class refresh order you chose, the main problem with tanking is that the class simply does not buff other players in the group where other classes like warden or arcanist or DK will add buffs to the group. And because you gave Maj Vul to all classes, it makes necro tanks less attractive.

PvP
The class is simply completely unbalanced and considered the worst class in the game, there was a time where necro bombing was more effective, but the changes you made to the bone yard synergy and the harmony trait made the build way less effective, don't get me wrong but there are sill necro bombing builds that are ok, but once again other classes are stronger at this gameplay. And the removal of stalking blastbone was a huge hit on the class's burst damage. Because the blastbone that was left was unable to bring other players health bar bellow 50% I was forced to drop the class, my build was dead, once again. The class in PvP needs to constantly re buff itself. Avid necro made a good video on the necromancer, and I invite people to watch it. Link found bellow. The class also lacks an execute skill, which can be very important in PvP. There is the necro bash build, but with the recent changes, that build went ineffective too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BAgo_L_x1Q

The corpse limitation
Last year you added a corpse limitation that completely ruined the class. sets like corpeburster or corpse consuming skills, were heavily nerfed because of it and as corpses that keep on disappearing is a huge problem, and blastbone can sometimes fail to spawn if too many corpses or pets are present, one more reason not to use the skeleton mage to prevent this problem, A thread was open concerning this, link found below.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/678437/surprise-surprise-blastbones-and-animate-blastbones-ulti-are-unusable-in-pvp-now/p1

Class identity
The way the summons work and subclassing made the class identify completely stupid. Necromancer is supposed to be about summoning minions, but the minions are so weak that people end up not using it. It is just some sort of clown mage these days, with skills with necro skill styles.

Conclusion
That class is in a serious need of refresh, and is considered the worst class in the game. The class has to be refresh this year <removed> You released this class as a payable class, so your duty is to make it playable so that players can enjoy it. Charging money for a class that cannot be properly used in unacceptable. You insulted us when you told us the refresh order, and you also insult us when you say "play the way you want", that sentence you said is therefore a lie, and for years people have been asking for a refresh and nothing proper happened. If you were to give a small buff to the class, it would be followed by a huge nerf.
So now the bug question, are you finally going to answer us concerning that class and place the refresh this year to end it? or are you going to ignore this thread, like you did the others? things cannot continue like this, and that class needs a refresh now! Things cannot continue this way, and I want to be able to use my necro again, because I am tired to play on other classes! and necro players are losing patience because for years we have been asking for a refresh, and once again we are told to wait more years.
And I bet I have probably forgot some nerfs that were made on this class and I invite other players to remind the devs about it because things cannot continue like this.
Necromancer is the reason why I came into this game in 2019, ever since I have been buying you chapters and even crowns and eso+ and this is how I am being thanks, sometimes I wonder why I am still subscribed looking at the way I am being treated.

<edited title for Bashing and Slanderous Comments and removed others>

Anumaril

Hard agree. Thankfully, at least from the class refresh bullet point descriptions, the upcoming refresh will address the class fantasy in a big way.

From what it says, it looks like Necromancer will become what it always should've been: a class designed around summoning and maintaining a tiny swarm of temporary minions, with the focus being on THEM and on corpse generation/consumption, rather than on YOU being essentially just a blue-and-black themed wizard.

It's a shame that the refresh is only happening at the end of next year, but I can only assume that they're not working on each refresh one at a time. They're likely working on all of them simultaneously and the necro refresh is particularly all-encompassing, requiring more time.

Regardless, I really hope the refresh is worth it, because I'm just about at the end of my tether (heh) with necro's class fantasy in ESO. It just doesn't feel like a necromancer at all. I hoped that spellcrafting would fix it by letting us just make our own skeleton summon spell, but then spellcrafting was released in a weak, neutered form. Then I hoped subclassing would fix it by letting us mix and match any abilities we wanted to at least replicate a necromancer class fantasy, but then subclassing was released in a weak, neutered form where you can only use a certain number of other class's skill lines. This upcoming refresh is the last hope man...

nightbringer1993

We need to fight so that they put the refresh this year. I have been waiting for years and the scam needs to end. Right now that class is a complete scam.

OsUfi

Anumaril wrote: »

From what it says, it looks like Necromancer will become what it always should've been: a class designed around summoning and maintaining a small swarm of temporary minions,

Hard disagree. Necromancers in Elder Scrolls focuses more on souls and soul gems. It should have been more souk magic focused.

Leave minion spam tó Games that do it well and more into that lore wise, like Guild Wars 1 and Diablo.

NoireJin the Witchking

OsUfi wrote: »

Anumaril wrote: »

From what it says, it looks like Necromancer will become what it always should've been: a class designed around summoning and maintaining a small swarm of temporary minions,

Hard disagree. Necromancers in Elder Scrolls focuses more on souls and soul gems. It should have been more souk magic focused.

Leave minion spam tó Games that do it well and more into that lore wise, like Guild Wars 1 and Diablo.

I've said this before and people kept saying the lore shouldn't have an impact on how Necros are in game, the devs intended it to be a certain way and therefore is infallible. I found that utterly ridiculous. The soul aspect in the ES universe is what makes Necros cool and somewhat unique. The current version is quite lackluster.

KapiteinBoterham

I'm not reading all of this, but I like the way my current necromancer tank plays

FoolishOptimist

I’ve mentioned it on a previous thread but I’d really like the option of substituting Corpses with Soul Gems to close any gameplay gaps.

Say you place down a Boneyard in an area that lacks a consumable corpse, you could consume a Soul Gem in your inventory to gain the benefit of the corpse.

That way using corpses is still beneficial but there’s an in-game thematic consumable that will still ensure you’re gaining the benefit of your class abilities.

Perhaps some Necro Skills would benefit from creating soul gems or allow Soul Trap to count as a Necro Skill.

While I’m really looking forward to the Necro updates, I’m willing to allow ZoS the extra time needed to redesign the outdated class chassis from the base up.

I’d also like the magical damage typing to be more aligned with Ghostly Coldfire. Whether the Damage dealt is Frost that procs Burning instead of Chilled or Flame that procs Chilled. That way it differentiates from Wardens and DKs mechanically and thematically.

Silaf

Most people in Tamriel are trying ti end the necromancers but it's difficult to kill them and above all they tend to not stay dead!

randconfig

I have not read the full notes yet, so I will just speak from my experience as a veteran Necromancer main:

The class is micromanaging hell with little reward, yet I continue to play it because the Animate Blastbones ultimate is the most fun and satisfying ultimate in the game...

A 20 second major prophecy buff that requires a corpse which means you cannot cast outside of combat, and a 20 second major brutality summon is the primary problem.

Warden had the same issues when it was released, yet they were fixed within a couple of years. Necromancer was not just as bad as release Warden's low duration buffs, but they cannot even be cast before initiating combat and the Necromancer summon didn't originally even give the major buff!

A simple fix would be to allow an exception to corpse generation outside of combat for Bone Armor, thus we can then cast a single tether ability before going into combat, making the rotation headache so much better. Also, increase duration of Necromancer summons/buffs/tethers/etc to be more than 30 seconds, it's insane this needs to be said/complained about when it's standard for literally every other class.

.. seriously, name a class that has a major brutality/sorcery/prophecy buff that is shorter than 30 seconds, you can't because it's not a thing. So why leave Necromancer as a micromanaging hell for 2 years, while every other class is prioritized AGAIN. Compared to Arcanist which just lasers for 6 seconds at a time for insane DPS, we have to MOVE MOUNTAINS juggling 2 bars of DoTs, short duration buffs, etc, to achieve comparable DPS, and the better blastbones morph was removed making PvP less fun forever ago too.

randconfig

As a necromancer main since it's release and veteran player, I wholeheartedly agree with Avid Necro's video and I hope ZOS watches it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BAgo_L_x1Q

Also we've been asking for an Animate Blastbones buff for YEARS now, there's no reason it should cost 350-300 ultimate with how incredibly difficult it is to setup, and especially since they've since buffed the crap out of Frozen Colossus by granting it Major Vulnerability, status effects, hard CC, and leaving the cost at like 175 ultimate. Frozen Colossus is a boring and generic damage ultimate that's unfun to use. Give us back our Animate Blastbones and Stalking Blastbones please...

HarfnUA

randconfig wrote: »

A 20 second major prophecy buff that requires a corpse which means you cannot cast outside of combat, and a 20 second major brutality summon is the primary problem.

The duration of the necromancer's buffs is indeed short.
Standard set of buffs:
Summoner's Armor - 30 sec
Skeletal Archer - 20 sec (better to switch to Forward Momentum, Rally or Degeneration)
Mystic Siphon - 20 sec (better to switch to Ulfsild's Contingency with Savagery and Prophecy Script)
Spirit Guardian - 16 sec
Race Against Time - 20 sec (or Forward Momentum)

In combat, rebuff takes about 2 seconds (with animations skipped). But in battle, it very often takes 5-6 seconds (you need to block and use roll while applying buffs at the same time). Although there isn't much time left to deal damage, it is basically possible to apply pressure to the opponent. However, when I played with builds using Necrotic Potency and Mortal Coil, the time to deal damage to opponents decreased from 12-15 seconds to 8-12 seconds. This becomes a problem considering that Blighted Blastbones has a small animation (1 second (It's difficult to skip this animation)). But all these numbers are true as long as I am not under heavy pressure. If several opponents focus on me, i dont have time to make damage. Therefore, I completely abandoned the 'main' mechanic of the necromancer class because it causes more problems than it helps. Of course, there is the option to use skills from the guild or weapon skill lines, which actually looks much better. In fact, the necromancer's buffs are unplayable with skills related to the corpse mechanics.
It might have been playable when the necromancer used to deal more damage, but now it doesn't work anymore.

This is just one of the many problems related to the necromancer class and its mechanics.

Orbital78

randconfig wrote: »

Give us back our Animate Blastbones and Stalking Blastbones please...

Hopefully they do something more fun with the necro rework. I'd like the summons to feel more powerful and a central part of the class, necromancer. Channeled summons with escalating power/numbers, requiring some risk like limited movement or none at all. More disease damage, and with major vulnerability everywhere, maybe something new for those ultimates.

Vulkunne

Necromancer is prob my fav class in this game. I was really impressed with it after release.

Are you sure you really want them to 'fix' it?

randconfig

HarfnUA wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

A 20 second major prophecy buff that requires a corpse which means you cannot cast outside of combat, and a 20 second major brutality summon is the primary problem.

The duration of the necromancer's buffs is indeed short.
Standard set of buffs:
Summoner's Armor - 30 sec
Skeletal Archer - 20 sec (better to switch to Forward Momentum, Rally or Degeneration)
Mystic Siphon - 20 sec (better to switch to Ulfsild's Contingency with Savagery and Prophecy Script)
Spirit Guardian - 16 sec
Race Against Time - 20 sec (or Forward Momentum)

In combat, rebuff takes about 2 seconds (with animations skipped). But in battle, it very often takes 5-6 seconds (you need to block and use roll while applying buffs at the same time). Although there isn't much time left to deal damage, it is basically possible to apply pressure to the opponent. However, when I played with builds using Necrotic Potency and Mortal Coil, the time to deal damage to opponents decreased from 12-15 seconds to 8-12 seconds. This becomes a problem considering that Blighted Blastbones has a small animation (1 second (It's difficult to skip this animation)). But all these numbers are true as long as I am not under heavy pressure. If several opponents focus on me, i dont have time to make damage. Therefore, I completely abandoned the 'main' mechanic of the necromancer class because it causes more problems than it helps. Of course, there is the option to use skills from the guild or weapon skill lines, which actually looks much better. In fact, the necromancer's buffs are unplayable with skills related to the corpse mechanics.
It might have been playable when the necromancer used to deal more damage, but now it doesn't work anymore.

This is just one of the many problems related to the necromancer class and its mechanics.

Just a tip, you should always summon Blighted Blastbones even when being pressured, Blastbones blocks line of sight/intercepts projectiles for you. It's one of the last remaining strengths of a Blastbones playstyle.

Alaztor91

randconfig wrote: »

A simple fix would be to allow an exception to corpse generation outside of combat for Bone Armor, thus we can then cast a single tether ability before going into combat, making the rotation headache so much better. Also, increase duration of Necromancer summons/buffs/tethers/etc to be more than 30 seconds, it's insane this needs to be said/complained about when it's standard for literally every other class.

While I wouldn't disagree with an increase in buff durations, one issue that was pointed out by another forum user in one of the many ''buff/fix Necro'' threads is that increasing the duration of Necro Pet skills leads to less Corpse generation. Changing for example Skeletal Mage from 20s to 60s would mean having to wait 60s before it generates a Corpse on death, and the same logic also applies to the Corpse that you can generate by precasting the skill after it has been active for half of its duration.

I think a better alternative to reduce buff micromanagement would be to simply give skills the ''while slotted on either bar'' functionality for stuff like Major Prophecy/Savagery or Sorcery/Brutality. We know that ZOS doesn't want too many Pets/Corpses at once because it strains the servers so I doubt that they would implement some kind of mechanic for the relevant skills that would allow them to generate multiple Corpses over their duration or something.

HarfnUA

randconfig wrote: »

Just a tip, you should always summon Blighted Blastbones even when being pressured, Blastbones blocks line of sight/intercepts projectiles for you. It's one of the last remaining strengths of a Blastbones playstyle.

Absolutely right. This is the main benefit of this ability. Without this skill, no one would even use the necromancer as a subclass.

o_Primate_o

I loved playing the cro...several patches ago. I'd love to see it's revival. i think cro and blades could be the coolest classes if they were treated correctly.

@nightbringer1993
GL sacrifice is trash - oddly i got my GS running it as the dds slotted that skill line - for fun.
good idea for tether in pvp and
@FoolishOptimist
yeah - consume filled soul gems where no corpses lay. interesting...

i dont' see a pure-class outperforming subclassed tank. (maybe arc as it's dev's fave class)

Ordinator199

I think what it needs is a crux like system to be implemented to it

randconfig

Alaztor91 wrote: »

randconfig wrote: »

A simple fix would be to allow an exception to corpse generation outside of combat for Bone Armor, thus we can then cast a single tether ability before going into combat, making the rotation headache so much better. Also, increase duration of Necromancer summons/buffs/tethers/etc to be more than 30 seconds, it's insane this needs to be said/complained about when it's standard for literally every other class.

While I wouldn't disagree with an increase in buff durations, one issue that was pointed out by another forum user in one of the many ''buff/fix Necro'' threads is that increasing the duration of Necro Pet skills leads to less Corpse generation. Changing for example Skeletal Mage from 20s to 60s would mean having to wait 60s before it generates a Corpse on death, and the same logic also applies to the Corpse that you can generate by precasting the skill after it has been active for half of its duration.

I think a better alternative to reduce buff micromanagement would be to simply give skills the ''while slotted on either bar'' functionality for stuff like Major Prophecy/Savagery or Sorcery/Brutality. We know that ZOS doesn't want too many Pets/Corpses at once because it strains the servers so I doubt that they would implement some kind of mechanic for the relevant skills that would allow them to generate multiple Corpses over their duration or something.

Actually I like your idea better. Sure leave the skeletal mage and tether 20s in duration, but make the buffs always apply as long as the skill is slotted on either bar.

Then there's less pressure to maintain them as 100% uptime, which in PvP means casting them when they still have like 5-10 seconds remaining on the duration since either one dropping means both your healing and damage fall off a cliff.

On another note, I like the corpse mechanic, I just wish they'd move the corpse system to the client-side if it's such an issue for the servers, and I wish they'd add/adjust class passives so that necromancers could have a way to tether living targets without having to use an entire class mastery passive for it.

Elvenheart

I love my necromancer! He and Sharp are very close and share a love of fishing. My necromancer got most of the fishing achievements in the game when the rare fish were curated. Sometimes an enemy would try to sneak up on him and Sharp when he was fishing and Sharp always kept him safe while he summoned all his undead minions. Usually, by the time he had finished summoning everything, Sharp had already dispatched the enemies. 👻 💀

CatalinaWineMixer2

I never minded the necro. My first necro was a healer. I miss seeing them around too by the way. I turned it into a tank after Subclassing. Another tragic result of that broken system. Despite this, I would not want to see it go away.

The bottom line is, Necro is a mess. It needs probably the most amount of work of any class in the game. It makes me sad to see it this way and all of our Necro mains have quit over Subclassing. That class needed a lot of work even before Subclassing. The dps is strange to new players and complicated to use.

The rework will be the tell all concerning this class, but that is a long time away. If you look at the amount of people talking about changing back blast bones and other things, they should be considered. Those are people's main characters and they need to be in end game without getting chastisised or excluded simply for being a Necromancer.

DarkStrifeYT

You'd think for a class called necromancer it would be around summoning and commanding undead now wouldn't it?

CAB_Life

“Clown mage” is probably the best epithet I’ve heard for the class, an awesome for you lol. It’s true though, even garden variety necro NPCs standing about in Glenumbra manage to have minions hanging around them all day—it’s a PET and SUMMON class, ZOS—whereas the hero who defeated Molag Bal can summon glorified DoTs packaged as pets that have targeting issues and get stuck on geometry.

I know they were trying to be different with their necro, but they made a square wheel and its time to swallow their lumps and do a compete gut and rebuild.

Brakkish

When I roleplay my Necro, he's clearly overpowered; frankly I'm surprised this thread is asking for buffs, not a nerf.

Anumaril

OsUfi wrote: »

Hard disagree. Necromancers in Elder Scrolls focuses more on souls and soul gems. It should have been more souk magic focused.

Leave minion spam tó Games that do it well and more into that lore wise, like Guild Wars 1 and Diablo.

You don't need to sacrifice soul magic to have minion gameplay. We also cannot ignore that minions are absolutely 1000% a core part of necromancer fantasy in the Elder Scrolls lore. Pretty much every necromancer either in the lore or in the games have (permanent) pet minions, or raise one mid-combat and boost it with buffs/heals, etc. We shouldn't force ourselves into a class fantasy that doesn't fit just because we want to be "unique" since GW1 and Diablo also have minion-centred necromancers... That's kind of what necromancers are all about in fantasy genres.

But it's entirely possible to have this kind of gameplay centred around corpses and soul magic, which, I agree, is also a big component of TES necromancer fantasy.

On a separate note: In an ideal world the necromancer could have 2 DD skill lines, one focused purely on corpses and minions, and another on soul magic alone. But that would mean either removing tanking- or healing-exclusive skill lines from the class, which, honestly I'm all in favour of. It strikes me as so odd that a necromancer is doing tanking (unless its in some necromancer-y way like taking possession of a skeleton minion with lots of armour to be the "tank" while the player character channels the possession spell).

CameraBeardThePirate

Anumaril wrote: »

OsUfi wrote: »

Hard disagree. Necromancers in Elder Scrolls focuses more on souls and soul gems. It should have been more souk magic focused.

Leave minion spam tó Games that do it well and more into that lore wise, like Guild Wars 1 and Diablo.

We also cannot ignore that minions are absolutely 1000% a core part of necromancer fantasy in the Elder Scrolls lore. Pretty much every necromancer either in the lore or in the games have (permanent) pet minions,

While minions are definitely a part of Necromancy in TES, permanent minions are exceedingly rare in lore. Permanent minions are relegated to the Staff of Worms and master level ritual spells. 99% of Necromancers you see in TES games have temporary summons/reanimations.

nightbringer1993

\@ZOS_Kevin

Please when I made that thread it was to urge you to do something about this class, and that the PTS of this year still didn't do anything about the necromancer class. Ok I got in trouble for saying a word you did not like, but that was because am extremely angry at the way this class is being treated.

This DLC class is ranked the worst class in the game, and is in serious need of refresh, more than any others. The class is destroyed, and because of the current class refresh order, things will only get worst, and the class masteries that were introduced in the PTS will not make people play necromancer.

This class that sounds good on paper is being discriminated ingame, and people are ending up dropping it because of how weak it is. The class is unplayable in PVP because of how strong other classes are. The corpse/pet limitation destroyed the class along with the blastbone nerf and even in the vengeance campaign the class is lacking power compared to other classes.

This situation has been going on for years now, and cannot continue that way. There are people who paid and took at lot of time and effort in this class, that people ended up dropping when blastbone got nerfed, and things got worst last year when the limitation system was introduced.

The class identity is also dead, and once again, this is a DLC class.

So now I urge you to change your mind concerning the class refresh order and refresh that class this year so that it becomes playable again. I share links of people complaining about the bugs and problem of this class. Reminder that the necromancer class refresh is the one people have been asking the most over the past years, even before the class refreshes were announced las winter.

At least speak to us, so we know what will happen. I sent multiple tickets, mails and none of them were answered. So please change your mind for that class, I beg you.