Magicka necromancer class abilities need adjustments

pleximus · April 2021

I've been playing with my magicka necromancer character for the past few days and it's the most uncomfortable and clunky playstyle I've ever seen. Weaving with Flame Skull and its morphs + Death Scythe and its morphs is nigh impossible. Many of the offensive class skills will sometimes not even fire off. The aiming is extremely uncomfortable and clunky. The morph for Flame Skull - Ricochet Skull - is beyond atrocious to fire off! Throw one skull and wait one second, throw second skull and wait one second, throw third skull and forget about weaving. The throws need to be seamless and instantaneous in order for it to be remotely effective. Activating the synergy of the Avid Boneyard morph works half of the damn time.

Magicka necromancers are anything but intuitive. The Ricochet Skulls are driving me insane with their 1 second delay! If you're going to fix anything then PLEASE FIX THIS!! It's unplayable garbage as it is!

Rant over. For now.

Seraphayel · April 2021

Yeah, totally agree. While powerful, Necromancer has so many clunky and hard to use skills. I hate Tethers and how they work and weaving with Skull is almost impossible - those are the two biggest offenders.

khyrkat · April 2021

Weird. Haven't noticed anything like that on my magicka necro, weaving with Skulls is actually great, similar to Cliff Racer on my warden which is also seamless. Maybe it's your ping?
Tethers require you to plant your corpse at the right place and position correctly to get maximum effectiveness. Both for healing tether and damaging one. This is actually one of greatest things about necro - you plan where you have corpse (Blastbones is great for this) and then just use it. Absolute blast. I wouldn't like ZOS to change it.

pleximus · April 2021

khyrkat wrote: »

Weird. Haven't noticed anything like that on my magicka necro, weaving with Skulls is actually great, similar to Cliff Racer on my warden which is also seamless. Maybe it's your ping?
Tethers require you to plant your corpse at the right place and position correctly to get maximum effectiveness. Both for healing tether and damaging one. This is actually one of greatest things about necro - you plan where you have corpse (Blastbones is great for this) and then just use it. Absolute blast. I wouldn't like ZOS to change it.

I have perfect ping and fps on the PC EU-server so it's not an issue on my part. The magicka necromancer playstyle is just horrid. I have no idea how anyone can view it as tolerable. Skills aren't going off half of the time! Aiming is even worse! 1 second delay between each skull is unacceptable! And weaving is impossible with skulls. I have no idea what game you're playing.

Seraphayel · April 2021

People who like this playstyle just don’t seem to understand how clunky it in reality is. Tethers are clunky to use but mechanically they are working, but weaving with Flame Skull? Try to weave with other skills and then Flame Skull, it‘s slow motion. Either it feels like forever to execute Skull + LA or it just doesn’t work overall - that’s my experience with it and the reason why I don’t use Skull at all.

madarame_77 · April 2021

Yes. Many prefer to use force pulse for better weaving. Also because it's instant and skulls take a few second to reach the target. But the main problem is that blastbones magicka morph not working since long time ago.

LettuceBrain · April 2021

Seraphayel wrote: »

People who like this playstyle just don’t seem to understand how clunky it in reality is. Tethers are clunky to use but mechanically they are working, but weaving with Flame Skull? Try to weave with other skills and then Flame Skull, it‘s slow motion. Either it feels like forever to execute Skull + LA or it just doesn’t work overall - that’s my experience with it and the reason why I don’t use Skull at all.

Or people who don't like it don't seem to understand how someone could like it? Why can't some one like it?

Seraphayel · April 2021

LettuceBrain wrote: »

Seraphayel wrote: »

People who like this playstyle just don’t seem to understand how clunky it in reality is. Tethers are clunky to use but mechanically they are working, but weaving with Flame Skull? Try to weave with other skills and then Flame Skull, it‘s slow motion. Either it feels like forever to execute Skull + LA or it just doesn’t work overall - that’s my experience with it and the reason why I don’t use Skull at all.

Or people who don't like it don't seem to understand how someone could like it? Why can't some one like it?

I never said you cannot like it. Indeed you can. What I said is that it’s undeniably more clunky than a lot of other options in game. So yes, if you like this (clunky) gameplay, I am sure you will thoroughly enjoy Necromancer. There’s nothing wrong with that. I‘m just pointing out how clunky several skills are in comparison and Skull is just one of them.

Everest_Lionheart · April 2021

Necro is an acquired taste for sure but comes with great power when you can get past the clunky feeling. Despite the clunky feeling it still hits hard even when you mess up a little. Other classes are so forgiving. The key lies more in getting the timing and range of blastbones than anything. It also has a travel time. The farther back you like to play the clunkier it feels, the closer you get to the action the smoother it gets. That’s the risk/reward of the class. Find a pace of play that matches your comfort zone of where you prefer to fight from. You may have to change your spamable (which isn’t really a spamable by the time you manage all of your dots.)

What could be better however is the targeting for certain skills. Other classes don’t have such a small margin for error on their bread and butter skills when it comes to aiming them. That’s the one tweak Necro needs for sure.

khyrkat · April 2021

I like it so I don't understand it? Great assumption. I just don't feel it is clunky. Necro has a bit slower pace than other classes that indeed for those that think firing spells every 0,00000001 sec is "skill" may feel slow. It's like that with every class DoT based where positioning is important. Any class requiring only pressing buttons in correct order will feel faster.
I regret to express my opinion but it is as I said - yes, I like how magicka necro is done.

Septimus_Magna · April 2021

I also recently started playing magcro by respeccing my Orc necromancer. When doing some research for the rotation I found a setup that doenst use Skulls, see link here.

Atm I am weaking the rotation because I like to use Medusa on the front bar which makes Trap less necessary. I think I am going back to a rotation with a spammable so I can drop Trap and swap Scaling Rune for Harness/Necrotic Potency. Skulls feels slow to weave with, maybe the addon Light Attack Helper can improve timing from weaving a bit. Otherwise I'll probably slot Crushing Shock/Force Pulse which weaves great.

Septimus_Magna · April 2021

To add to your question, I think the idea of Tether is great but the mechanic doesnt work due to targetting reasons. It would really help if it would work in a cone in front of the player where it grabs the farthest corpse within X meters.

If the delay of skulls was gone it would be a perfect skill to weave with, this shouldnt be difficult to implement.

Luede · April 2021

I don't get the point, if you don't like the playstyle, don't play the class. It's a different story, if skills aren't working properly then this needs to be fixed, but the general playstyle is what it is.

Sangwyne · April 2021

"With great power, comes great responsibility clunkiness." Doesn't really have the same ring to it, but you get the general idea. If Necromancer was buffed and the rotation smoothed out to make it easier to play, it would be even more completely busted. As it stands right now, the clunkiness is the only thing holding it back, and experienced players can already learn to bypass that and deal more damage than anyone else in trials, while also dominating PvP and leaderboards. Can't have it all.

Xour · April 2021

pleximus wrote: »

Weaving with Flame Skull and its morphs + Death Scythe and its morphs is nigh impossible. Many of the offensive class skills will sometimes not even fire off. The aiming is extremely uncomfortable and clunky. The morph for Flame Skull - Ricochet Skull - is beyond atrocious to fire off!

I must agree. All I've been playing so far is my Magicka Necro. I made a Stamina Warden and Stamina Templar, just to try out those classes, and it is night and day.

I thought it was my latency that made it impossible to Light Attack weave, but I can do it just fine with the two other characters. With my Necro is clunky as heck.

Just as you mentioned, sometimes abilities don't fire, sometimes I can't Light Attack after casting Ricochet Skull, it is... weird.