Necromancer Passives?

The_Titan_Tim · December 2022

While this class has quite a few things that could be improved right now *cough*

Skeletal Archer

*cough*, one thing that has been on my mind of late is that two of the passives of the class are strange…

Rapid Rot II:
Increase your damage done with damage over time effects by 10%

Death Gleaning II: (Bone Tyrant Ability slotted)
Whenever an enemy you are in combat with dies within 28 meters of you, restore 200 Magicka and Stamina

Rapid Rot works similar to other class passives as their % based damage buff, (Shock for Sorc, Fire for DK) yet the class itself is made primarily up of Direct Damage, not Damage-Over-Time.

Then when you look at Death Gleaning, the condition to the passive is much to steep, and the payoff is too heavy handed. It relies on the death of enemies, forcing the player into burst damage to be able to get those kills, contradicting the build design of the prior passive.

Finally, after looking through all of the other classes, I noticed that Necromancer was the only class that has not received a Minor Buff to grant to the group… Sorcerer grants Prophecy, Nightblade has Savagery, Templar gets Sorcery, Dragonknight gives Brutality, and finally Warden provides Toughness… leaving Necromancer with nothing.

In summary, I find that the Necromancer passives tend to contradict each other, and that the class needs a Minor Buff to provide as it currently is the only class without one.

I would love to hear any ideas that could potentially help remedy this Passive nightmare that has had a death grip on Necromancer.

Turtle_Bot · December 2022

It could definitely use some streamlining.

As for the minor passive buff, I think cro is the only class that brings a reliable source of AoE Major Vulnerability (colossus) which somewhat makes up for the lack a minor buff.
The other question is, what minor buff should it bring? the damage buffs are covered by the other classes or support abilities and max health by wardens.
- Max stats? then it would have to grant both stam and mag but then it gives 2 minor buffs instead of only 1
- Recoveries? (same as max stats, also covered by potions)
- Health recovery? this could be an option, although pretty niche
- Penetration? for most of PvE the pen cap is already reached from a single tank debuffing the enemy so it becomes much less useful than the other damage buffs
- Vulnerability? lightning damage already provides this (usually from a healers back bar wall of elements)
- Crit damage, then warden loses out on so much that got buffed this last patch via passives and chill (brittle) debuffs due to being over the crit cap
- Heroism, this can lead to a lot of balance issues, especially for pvp (see old per-nerf oaken for this) and is also covered by potions

Not trying to detract, I'm genuinely curious what the minor buff would be as so many are already covered as it is.

For the death gleaming passive, maybe have it provide +200 to mag and stam recovery for 6 seconds when you deal direct damage to an enemy with a 10 second cooldown?

For the rapid rot passive, while not directly class abilities, maybe a 2h/destro + DW set up with maelstrom stampede + carve (or vate staff ele sus) back bar, rending slashes front bar with tether? There's a lot of weapon based DoT abilities that get buffed by rapid rot including bow ult and poison injection. Maybe have the archer count as both a DoT and a pet so it gets buffed by rapid rot and pet sets (this helps to buff the ability as well)

The_Titan_Tim · December 2022

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

It could definitely use some streamlining.

As for the minor passive buff, I think cro is the only class that brings a reliable source of AoE Major Vulnerability (colossus) which somewhat makes up for the lack a minor buff.
The other question is, what minor buff should it bring? the damage buffs are covered by the other classes or support abilities and max health by wardens.
- Max stats? then it would have to grant both stam and mag but then it gives 2 minor buffs instead of only 1
- Recoveries? (same as max stats, also covered by potions)
- Health recovery? this could be an option, although pretty niche
- Penetration? for most of PvE the pen cap is already reached from a single tank debuffing the enemy so it becomes much less useful than the other damage buffs
- Vulnerability? lightning damage already provides this (usually from a healers back bar wall of elements)
- Crit damage, then warden loses out on so much that got buffed this last patch via passives and chill (brittle) debuffs due to being over the crit cap
- Heroism, this can lead to a lot of balance issues, especially for pvp (see old per-nerf oaken for this) and is also covered by potions

Not trying to detract, I'm genuinely curious what the minor buff would be as so many are already covered as it is.

For the death gleaming passive, maybe have it provide +200 to mag and stam recovery for 6 seconds when you deal direct damage to an enemy with a 10 second cooldown?

For the rapid rot passive, while not directly class abilities, maybe a 2h/destro + DW set up with maelstrom stampede + carve (or vate staff ele sus) back bar, rending slashes front bar with tether? There's a lot of weapon based DoT abilities that get buffed by rapid rot including bow ult and poison injection. Maybe have the archer count as both a DoT and a pet so it gets buffed by rapid rot and pet sets (this helps to buff the ability as well)

I love the ideas you have, although I’m a firm believer in that your passives should align with what your class does, like, imagine if Sorcerer got a buff to single target damage instead of Lightning, or a Dragonknight getting a buff to AoE damage instead of Flame, that’s kind of where my minds at for Rapid Rot on Necromancer, it only buffs Boneyard and Tether on the class toolkit.

An idea for a minor could be Minor Vitality instead of the current Curative Curse that Living Death grants, as both values increase your healing by 8%, as you’d be giving your group members the healing taken aswell. Or maybe Minor Protection??

Zodiarkslayer · December 2022

Yeah, Necro is in a weird spot. You can definitely see how it is the most recent class and had to endure some uncoordinated buffs and nerfs. And then renerfs and rebuffs to counter.

Anyway,...

In my opinion neither rapid rot, nor death gleaning are a problem. The pets are. The ultimates are. And even with all the passives and abilities sustain is still an issue. Especially on the MagCro.
On top of that, playing a Necro Healer is pretty complicated and generally unwanted, by comparison. And that is with a dedicated healing skill tree.

The_Titan_Tim · December 2022

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Yeah, Necro is in a weird spot. You can definitely see how it is the most recent class and had to endure some uncoordinated buffs and nerfs. And then renerfs and rebuffs to counter.

Anyway,...

In my opinion neither rapid rot, nor death gleaning are a problem. The pets are. The ultimates are. And even with all the passives and abilities sustain is still an issue. Especially on the MagCro.
On top of that, playing a Necro Healer is pretty complicated and generally unwanted, by comparison. And that is with a dedicated healing skill tree.

Necromancers rely too heavily on passives for resource management, and the most effective one is kill-gated, in effect completely removing the passive from dueling, small scale PvP, and boss fights that don’t have adds running around everywhere. (pretty much all of them.)

I agree that the Skeletal Mage needs a massive damage overhaul as it hits like a wet noodle, and that the ultimates need to be revisited too. They don’t have a low cost ultimate, which is horrible.

A change for an ultimate, that I would be in favor of, would be a scaling Reanimate ultimate…

What I mean by a scaling Reanimate, is that the higher the amount of ultimate spent, the more people are revived, lowering the cost to 100 for a single revive and going up by 100 per player, so if you cast the ultimate with 200, you revive up to 2 players to a maximum of 5.

MurkyWetWolf198 · December 2022

What about a minor recovery buff, something unique that gives tri-stat recovery to group? Helps it's own sustain out and provides a new class buff

Turtle_Bot · December 2022

The_Titan_Tim wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

It could definitely use some streamlining.

As for the minor passive buff, I think cro is the only class that brings a reliable source of AoE Major Vulnerability (colossus) which somewhat makes up for the lack a minor buff.
The other question is, what minor buff should it bring? the damage buffs are covered by the other classes or support abilities and max health by wardens.
- Max stats? then it would have to grant both stam and mag but then it gives 2 minor buffs instead of only 1
- Recoveries? (same as max stats, also covered by potions)
- Health recovery? this could be an option, although pretty niche
- Penetration? for most of PvE the pen cap is already reached from a single tank debuffing the enemy so it becomes much less useful than the other damage buffs
- Vulnerability? lightning damage already provides this (usually from a healers back bar wall of elements)
- Crit damage, then warden loses out on so much that got buffed this last patch via passives and chill (brittle) debuffs due to being over the crit cap
- Heroism, this can lead to a lot of balance issues, especially for pvp (see old per-nerf oaken for this) and is also covered by potions

Not trying to detract, I'm genuinely curious what the minor buff would be as so many are already covered as it is.

For the death gleaming passive, maybe have it provide +200 to mag and stam recovery for 6 seconds when you deal direct damage to an enemy with a 10 second cooldown?

For the rapid rot passive, while not directly class abilities, maybe a 2h/destro + DW set up with maelstrom stampede + carve (or vate staff ele sus) back bar, rending slashes front bar with tether? There's a lot of weapon based DoT abilities that get buffed by rapid rot including bow ult and poison injection. Maybe have the archer count as both a DoT and a pet so it gets buffed by rapid rot and pet sets (this helps to buff the ability as well)

I love the ideas you have, although I’m a firm believer in that your passives should align with what your class does, like, imagine if Sorcerer got a buff to single target damage instead of Lightning, or a Dragonknight getting a buff to AoE damage instead of Flame, that’s kind of where my minds at for Rapid Rot on Necromancer, it only buffs Boneyard and Tether on the class toolkit.

An idea for a minor could be Minor Vitality instead of the current Curative Curse that Living Death grants, as both values increase your healing by 8%, as you’d be giving your group members the healing taken aswell. Or maybe Minor Protection??

vitality could be an interesting option. I think protection comes from 1 morph of warden armor buff (correct me if I'm wrong here).
I get what you mean by passives synergising with the class actives. I think just making the archer/mage count as both a DoT and a pet would be enough (maybe a small damage buff on top as well), it would give the class 4 in class DoTs (archer/mage + boneyard + tether + stamscythe, which is bleed/hemorrhage status) that would all get buffed by rapid rot and be really strong (almost on par with dk imo). There's also dawnbreaker, bow ultimate, DW ultimate and plenty of non class abilities that could be added and provide specific benefits while also benefitting from rapid rot.

The change to archer/mage to count as both a DoT and a pet alongside an ability (maybe skull) that grants major sorcery/prophecy is all cro really needs imo. These 2 changes give it another decent in class DoT for rapid rot and eliminates the need for spell power pots (allowing for heroism pots to be used which helps with the higher ulti costs).

Xarc · December 2022

I noticed 3 things:
- Most of people playing necro think it's fun but go back to another class after some weeks.
- Necro players in pvp are very good (rare) or weak, but rarely average
- and people from other classes often say "necro doesnt need buff !he is too strong !!" etc.

It seems there's a problem but nobody looks able to find what exatly and suggest many different things.

I think the reality is : necro is a difficult class looking easy but it's not, like sorcerer and nb.
Now it's not easy to sort through suggestions from average/weak players and decent ones; The average/weak players will ask to buff everything, so we have to be careful.

Dont we have a necromancer class representative, btw ?

Zodiarkslayer · December 2022

Minor heroism would be best, but it should be the alternative to Major Vulnerability on the Colossus Ulti, if at all.

And as I said, all the pets need rework. In my opinion it cannot be that there are clearly dominant morph choices for all pets, Blastbones and Mender included.
Same for the Colossus and Geave Grasp.

I am sure that there will be work put into the class in the future. Questions are when and how much are they willing to change. Because, as I wrote in another recent thread, all pets in game need a rework.

Zodiarkslayer · December 2022

Xarc wrote: »

I noticed 3 things:
- Most of people playing necro think it's fun but go back to another class after some weeks.
- Necro players in pvp are very good (rare) or weak, but rarely average
- and people from other classes often say "necro doesnt need buff !he is too strong !!" etc.

It seems there's a problem but nobody looks able to find what exatly and suggest many different things.

I think the reality is : necro is a difficult class looking easy but it's not, like sorcerer and nb.
Now it's not easy to sort suggestions from average/weak players and decent ones; The average/weak players will ask to buff everything, so we have to be careful.

Dont we have a necromancer class representative, btw ?

Too true.

And wasn't the class representatives programme cancelled?

CaptainVenom · December 2022

I'd create a new buff:

Minor Loyalty - increases combat pet damage and healing by 10%

This can benefit Necromancers, Sorcerers, Nightblades and Wardens. It doesn't need to benefit all classes and builds, as Sorcerer's Minor Prophecy only benefits magicka builds and so on. This would be good for both magicka/stamina pet builds.

Xarc · December 2022

CaptainVenom wrote: »

I'd create a new buff:

Minor Loyalty - increases combat pet damage and healing by 10%

This can benefit Necromancers, Sorcerers, Nightblades and Wardens. It doesn't need to benefit all classes and builds, as Sorcerer's Minor Prophecy only benefits magicka builds and so on. This would be good for both magicka/stamina pet builds.

Interesting but as berserk, i'd say minor=5%, major=10%
and we could see this one in couple of new sets

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

And wasn't the class representatives programme cancelled?

Ha, Idk, maybe

CaptainVenom · December 2022

Xarc wrote: »

CaptainVenom wrote: »

I'd create a new buff:

Minor Loyalty - increases combat pet damage and healing by 10%

This can benefit Necromancers, Sorcerers, Nightblades and Wardens. It doesn't need to benefit all classes and builds, as Sorcerer's Minor Prophecy only benefits magicka builds and so on. This would be good for both magicka/stamina pet builds.

Interesting but as berserk, i'd say minor=5%, major=10%
and we could see this one in couple of new sets

Nah. Pets hit too weak. It needs to me more than 5/10%. 10/20% seems good.

The_Titan_Tim · December 2022

CaptainVenom wrote: »

I'd create a new buff:

Minor Loyalty - increases combat pet damage and healing by 10%

This can benefit Necromancers, Sorcerers, Nightblades and Wardens. It doesn't need to benefit all classes and builds, as Sorcerer's Minor Prophecy only benefits magicka builds and so on. This would be good for both magicka/stamina pet builds.

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

In my opinion neither rapid rot, nor death gleaning are a problem. The pets are. The ultimates are. And even with all the passives and abilities sustain is still an issue. Especially on the MagCro.

Yeah, I 100% agree that pets in general need a rework, I made a post last week going over some changes I would like to see, feel free to check it out and offer an opinion.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/624025/conjured-pet-reworks#latest

The_Titan_Tim · December 2022

Xarc wrote: »

I noticed 3 things:
- Most of people playing necro think it's fun but go back to another class after some weeks.
- Necro players in pvp are very good (rare) or weak, but rarely average
- and people from other classes often say "necro doesnt need buff !he is too strong !!" etc.

It seems there's a problem but nobody looks able to find what exatly and suggest many different things.

I think the reality is : necro is a difficult class looking easy but it's not, like sorcerer and nb.
Now it's not easy to sort through suggestions from average/weak players and decent ones; The average/weak players will ask to buff everything, so we have to be careful.

Dont we have a necromancer class representative, btw ?

Necromancers are relegated to bombers right now, if you’re running anything other than a Harmony Cro, you’re not going to have any damage at all against a decent player.

On one of the Stamina Necromancer builds I’m running at the moment he’s fully built into damage, NMA/CA, Balorgh & P. BRP Swords, and the burst combo is way too inconsistent, even fully built into it, because he’s not wearing Harmony.

It’s a big problem, and hopefully one that can be addressed by adding more towards a DoT playstyle or fixing some of the outdated Passives to reflect what Necromancers actually do.