Reanimating the Necromancer

KingLewie_III · February 2023

With the announcement of the Harmony rework essentially removing one of the few, if not only viable playstyle for Necromancer, I wanted to brainstorm some ideas about how i would rework this class to be more in line with the others in the game. Mainly from a PVP perspective, as that's what I mostly play.

Necromancer needs damage over time abilities in its tool kit allowing player to take advantage of it’s DoT passive. Additionally, this would add value to the Blighted Blastbones morph as defile would be desirable on a DoT spec and fits the theme of a Necromancer.

Suggestion: Remove Flame Skull as neither of it’s morphs are used in PVE or PVP. Replace with a new skill that deals upfront damage to its target, and “marks” them with a DoT. This DoT spreads to any enemy within 5 meters of the initial target. The animation could be from Soul Splitting trap, just a different color.

Suggestion: Increase the damage of Skeletal Mage and it’s morphs by 25%.

Necromancer is the only class that does not have access to Major Brutality/Sorcery, Major/Minor Expedition, Major/Minor Endurance/Intellect, Major/Minor Prophecy/Savagery. These are basic named buffs that should be included in every class tool kit.

Suggestion: The Summoner’s Armor morph’s second effect is redundant due to the Reusable Parts passive. Remove the cost reduction and give Minor Intellect/Endurance and Major Brutality/Sorcery while the ability is active.

Suggestion: Add Major Prophecy/Savagery to Restoring Tether and its morphs while the ability is active. This ability is already difficult to keep up due to the majority of fights being more mobile and the line-of-sight issues with this skill, primarily in PVP. This adds incentive to keeping this skill slotted and give’s Necromancer a version of Lotus Blossom from the Warden.

The current spammable options of Skulls (proposed change above) and Scythe are both outperformed in PVE and PVP by generic skills such as Silver Shards, Elemental Weapon, and Whirling Blades. The finishing power of the Necromancer also leaves something to be desired.

Suggestion: Increase the damage of Ruinous Scythe. This skill tool tips for 1799 at base, same as Whirling Blades but without the execute scaling so it can’t be used as an execute. Increase the base damage of Ruinous Scythe and Hungry Scythe to 2280, placing it between Whirling Blades at 1799 and Dizzying Swing at 2760. Keep the current secondary effects of Ruinous Scythe. Change Hungry Scythe to deal up to 125% more damage to enemies under 40% health and healing for the damage done if the target is killed, like Killer’s Blade from the Nightblade.

In PVP a class’s success is largely dependent on its ability to stun their opponent. Necromancer lacks a consistent form of CC due to its current skills Bone Totem and Grave Grasp, being clunky or just unusable in PVP.

Suggestion: Change Ghostly Embrace morph to require a target to cast and summon a skeletal hand to Instantly stun the target. Animation would be from Kjalnar’s Nightmare set. Empowering Grasp remains AOE based as it is, but the “empowering” effect towards your pets carries for 10 seconds, meaning you wouldn’t have to cast it on every Blastbones. Bone Totem is used by some in PVE, and in some large group PVP situations, so a change to this isn’t necessarily needed as it does serve a purpose.

Defensively the necromancer doesn’t need much help. The Intensive Mender morph was nerfed a bit too aggressively and has since lost any value to be used over the Spirit Guardian morph that provides 10% damage mitigation. Since both heals are negligible, there’s no benefit to Intensive Mender.

Suggestion: Increase the healing power of Intensive Mender by 33%. Also, have the movement speed of the ghost match that of the player’s, this would eliminate situations in which you’re outrunning the ghost’s healing range.

katorga · February 2023

Simple solution, bone totem should stun on cast, and 2s each tick. Right now it misses the first tick too often, so stun doesn't happen for 4s.

CameraBeardThePirate · February 2023

I'm not disagreeing with any of the points, but I'd like to reinforce some ideas for the devs, as these are the ideas I think most if not all Necro players can agree with. @ZOS_Kevin

The things Necro needs are, in the most general terms:

-More bar space devoted to class skills by giving it access to things all of the other classes have access to (i.e., Sorcery/Brutality, Prophecy/Savagery, and an on demand stun)

-A better, more coherent offensive kit by giving them some way to access a sticky class DoT and drastically buffing/reworking Skulls. Other tweaks and buffs (such as an actual execute outside of the crit passive) would also be nice, as the entirety of the offensive kit is either lackluster or inconsistent.

-Quality of life fixes or changes to both the corpse and pet gameplay. Corpses last too short for how long you have to wait to get one via abilities. Pets should be commandable with the command pet keybind, because as is, there is no way to tell the Arcanist/Archer nor the Blastbones summoned from the Animate Blastbones ultimate what to do. Both of these abilities have frequent wasted casts, and in the latter situation, having a 300+ ultimate wasted is frustrating. Archer/Arcanist had a 50% stealth nerf and now don't do enough damage to justify the bad targeting.

Necro is aimless and clunky to play. The only thing keeping Necro alive was Harmony/Graverobber, and with that gone, Necromancers have very few to no options in PvP.

propertyOfUndefined · February 2023

If I had my way, I would introduce better ways to use corpses to deal damage. If you think about it, corpses are used effectively for healing, mitigation and ult generation, but not much else.

Shocking Siphon is next to useless in pvp outside of the passive buff it grants. A corpse can be used to augment the damage of boneyard, but let's face it, the ability was never used in pvp for its DoT damage, but for the synergy

I feel like the devs should take a page out of the necromancer skill line in Divinity 2. Necromancers could use corpses to create explosive chain reactions. It took a lot of set up, but always felt so satisfying.

If we had better ways to use corpses for damage dealing in pvp, it would keep the class unique, which I think is one of the devs' prime considerations when hearing them talk about the Arcanist Crux system.

LukosCreyden · February 2023

Big disagree on the scythe changes. Hungry Scythe is a great solo skill as it is. Necromancer already has a spammable, I would rather THAT skill be made more viable, as opposed to trashing one of Necro's other skills.

I agree about skeletal mage though, it is probably one of the weakest skills in the game. Personally, I would tie Major Sorcery / Brutality to that, to give it more value if they are unwilling to buff the damage.

I more or less agree on everything else here, but I would like to see something done with blastbones to make it less of a pain to keep up.

KingLewie_III · February 2023

LukosCreyden wrote: »

Big disagree on the scythe changes. Hungry Scythe is a great solo skill as it is. Necromancer already has a spammable, I would rather THAT skill be made more viable, as opposed to trashing one of Necro's other skills.

I agree about skeletal mage though, it is probably one of the weakest skills in the game. Personally, I would tie Major Sorcery / Brutality to that, to give it more value if they are unwilling to buff the damage.

I more or less agree on everything else here, but I would like to see something done with blastbones to make it less of a pain to keep up.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't believe an MMO should cater towards a solo player. Thats counter intuitive for the entire genre. As it currently stands, Hungry Scythe deals very little damage, provides no status effects to its targets, but it gives a heal. Ruinous Scythe already gives a heal, just without the HoT attached to it. What I'm suggesting is to buff the damage, add execute scaling to it and just make the heal come via a kill on an enemy.

Necromancer already has enough healing in its tool kit for any environment, what it needs is offensive pressure/burst and finishing power.

ForumBully · February 2023

I'd like to see a cost reduction on Reanimation, at least the blastbones morph to make it more useful offensively. Even if it means that it doesn't Rez players anymore. Its a fun, thematic damage ultimate. It's a bit to expensive to use it that way because it brings back players, but if it didn't it would be more useful as a damage ultimate.

propertyOfUndefined · February 2023

ForumBully wrote: »

I'd like to see a cost reduction on Reanimation, at least the blastbones morph to make it more useful offensively. Even if it means that it doesn't Rez players anymore. Its a fun, thematic damage ultimate. It's a bit to expensive to use it that way because it brings back players, but if it didn't it would be more useful as a damage ultimate.

If I had my way, I would remove the res, reduce the cost to about 250, then make it so all corpses the effect touches explode instantaneously. Used this ult too many times and had 3 blastbones spawn, stand around, then just crumble. It's almost as if they bug out because you weren't targeting anybody when the ult was used.

This is the exact type of mechanic I had in mind in my previous post though. It would be a high skill cap ult that's unique to the class. In PVP, players would have to be wary about standing around too many corpses with a necromancer on an opposing team.

I love the idea of corpse gameplay. It just feels like it isn't well fleshed out from a damage dealing pvp perspective.

LukosCreyden · February 2023

KingLewie_III wrote: »

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't believe an MMO should cater towards a solo player.

In this regard, you are fundamentally misunderstanding one of the reasons why ESO is so popular in the first place.

The scythe is fine as is. It is useful and should not receive a nerf. The AoE is good for packs of mobs and the HoT is valuable in even single target scenarios. Without it, a necromancer would essentially have to rely on guardian's healing which is already very mediocre. Other classes have skills that passively heal you, most classes are actually far more efficient than Necro at this.

KingLewie_III · February 2023

LukosCreyden wrote: »

KingLewie_III wrote: »

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't believe an MMO should cater towards a solo player.

In this regard, you are fundamentally misunderstanding one of the reasons why ESO is so popular in the first place.

The scythe is fine as is. It is useful and should not receive a nerf. The AoE is good for packs of mobs and the HoT is valuable in even single target scenarios. Without it, a necromancer would essentially have to rely on guardian's healing which is already very mediocre. Other classes have skills that passively heal you, most classes are actually far more efficient than Necro at this.

Fair enough, but it isn’t needed. I’ve cleared most HM content and both veteran solo arenas with just resistant flesh to carry my healing. I’m just gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.

Toanis · February 2023

KingLewie_III wrote: »

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't believe an MMO should cater towards a solo player. Thats counter intuitive for the entire genre.

Everquest (1999) - Necromancer class description since release:
They have a combination of skills and abilities [...] that allows them to function as an effective solo class.

New World (2021) patch notes half a year after release:
New soloable quest options are available for the MSQ to allow players to progress without running [group content]

Well...

katorga · February 2023

Toanis wrote: »

KingLewie_III wrote: »

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't believe an MMO should cater towards a solo player. Thats counter intuitive for the entire genre.

Everquest (1999) - Necromancer class description since release:
They have a combination of skills and abilities [...] that allows them to function as an effective solo class.

New World (2021) patch notes half a year after release:
New soloable quest options are available for the MSQ to allow players to progress without running [group content]

Well...

I played a Necro in EQ (1999), take solo with a *huge* grain of salt. Grinding trash mobs for exp, even with a necro was time consuming because it took so long to regen your resources, and necro had a good mana regen skill. ESO regens resources so fast it counts as infinite sustain compared to EQ, lol.

Man that was a cool game. You could give your skeleton pets armor/weapons and they got full benefit from the stats on the items. Necros (and Monks) had the ability to feign death and drop all agro. You could actually die, and if you did, you lost everything until you looted your corpse (even exp, you could die and go backwards in level).

Toanis · February 2023

EQ was another age, as was UO, fun times, being ganked and robbed when leaving a dungeon packed with loot. But even back then, when players camping a world boss usually talked to each other, because there was no Tiktok, Youtube or Netflix, the devs realized, that players want to play solo, at least some of the time, and that the ability to solo is a good way to mask a dwindling player base. Heck Guild Wars went so far as to allow you to party up with your own alts.

There never really was a MMO that could afford to ignore solo play for long, even WoW eventually gave in..

KingLewie_III · February 2023

Toanis wrote: »

EQ was another age, as was UO, fun times, being ganked and robbed when leaving a dungeon packed with loot. But even back then, when players camping a world boss usually talked to each other, because there was no Tiktok, Youtube or Netflix, the devs realized, that players want to play solo, at least some of the time, and that the ability to solo is a good way to mask a dwindling player base. Heck Guild Wars went so far as to allow you to party up with your own alts.

There never really was a MMO that could afford to ignore solo play for long, even WoW eventually gave in..

Solo content in ESO is mind numbingly easy and requires very little effort or knowledge of the game to complete. Therefore, designing CLASS SKILLS in such a way that they're essentially only able to be used in situations you could just as easily light attack your way through is detrimental to the rest (majority) of the player base.

As the class stands currently, it brings no exclusive benefit to a group in end-game, or even mid-level PVE or PVP. But DK is getting Major Berserk on chains since "no one uses the skill".

Toanis · February 2023

KingLewie_III wrote: »

Solo content in ESO is mind numbingly easy and requires very little effort or knowledge of the game to complete. Therefore, designing CLASS SKILLS in such a way that they're essentially only able to be used in situations you could just as easily light attack your way through is detrimental to the rest (majority) of the player base.

When we talk about soloing we mean soloing group content, i.e. dungeons.

NordSwordnBoard · February 2023

PvP Necro, not a bomber - Front bar: 3 class skills, 2 non class / Back bar: 2 class skills, 3 non class. Class CC is bad, class spamable is bad, no class access to +20% damage, and no class mobility skill. Your own class DoT bonus also requires outsourcing. My burst is dependent on AI behavior and is mainly composed of non class skills and procs.

KingLewie_III · February 2023

Toanis wrote: »

KingLewie_III wrote: »

Solo content in ESO is mind numbingly easy and requires very little effort or knowledge of the game to complete. Therefore, designing CLASS SKILLS in such a way that they're essentially only able to be used in situations you could just as easily light attack your way through is detrimental to the rest (majority) of the player base.

When we talk about soloing we mean soloing group content, i.e. dungeons.

Same thing man. We're talking about a small percentage of the player base. I'd rather get a skill that useful in more than one aspect of the game, especially when that one aspect is something most people don't partake in. And unless you're talking about clearing Vet HM's by yourself, Hungry Scythe isn't giving you much of a benefit in its current form. If you're just talking normal dungeons, you can do that with a full DPS rotation and just nuke everything in the way. As I've done it over and over again farming for different things.

Stx · February 2023

So when I think of Necromancers, I mainly think of raising the dead to fight for them. I would love to be able to have more than one skeletal minion out at a time. Or at the very least buff the one we do have.

Also, I can’t believe necromancers don’t have a single target DOT, the dot class after all…. Imagine a single target dot that spread to nearby targets at a reduced duration!

KingLewie_III · February 2023

Stx wrote: »

So when I think of Necromancers, I mainly think of raising the dead to fight for them. I would love to be able to have more than one skeletal minion out at a time. Or at the very least buff the one we do have.

Also, I can’t believe necromancers don’t have a single target DOT, the dot class after all…. Imagine a single target dot that spread to nearby targets at a reduced duration!

I suggested they change Flame Skull to a single target DOT that spreads like a "plague", just as you described lol.

The_Titan_Tim · February 2023

What I don’t understand; is how can you have a Necromancer class with no melee pets? I would much rather Flame Skull turned into something akin to a 30 second duration pet with a health bar.

Then it could have a second ability tied to it that has you have your skeleton hit uppercuts every time you press the button for 2,200 Stamina or Magicka during those 30 second. The Skeleton could have only 20k health and a cast time as a means of balancing it out, while giving players in Melee, and Ranged builds a spammable that works for both.

More skeletons… keep the identity of a traditional Necromancer alive.

Vulkunne · February 2023

KingLewie_III wrote: »

With the announcement of the Harmony rework essentially removing one of the few, if not only viable playstyle for Necromancer, I wanted to brainstorm some ideas about how i would rework this class to be more in line with the others in the game. Mainly from a PVP perspective, as that's what I mostly play.

Necromancer needs damage over time abilities in its tool kit allowing player to take advantage of it’s DoT passive. Additionally, this would add value to the Blighted Blastbones morph as defile would be desirable on a DoT spec and fits the theme of a Necromancer.
Suggestion: Remove Flame Skull as neither of it’s morphs are used in PVE or PVP. Replace with a new skill that deals upfront damage to its target, and “marks” them with a DoT. This DoT spreads to any enemy within 5 meters of the initial target. The animation could be from Soul Splitting trap, just a different color.

Suggestion: Increase the damage of Skeletal Mage and it’s morphs by 25%.

Necromancer is the only class that does not have access to Major Brutality/Sorcery, Major/Minor Expedition, Major/Minor Endurance/Intellect, Major/Minor Prophecy/Savagery. These are basic named buffs that should be included in every class tool kit.
Suggestion: The Summoner’s Armor morph’s second effect is redundant due to the Reusable Parts passive. Remove the cost reduction and give Minor Intellect/Endurance and Major Brutality/Sorcery while the ability is active.

Suggestion: Add Major Prophecy/Savagery to Restoring Tether and its morphs while the ability is active. This ability is already difficult to keep up due to the majority of fights being more mobile and the line-of-sight issues with this skill, primarily in PVP. This adds incentive to keeping this skill slotted and give’s Necromancer a version of Lotus Blossom from the Warden.

The current spammable options of Skulls (proposed change above) and Scythe are both outperformed in PVE and PVP by generic skills such as Silver Shards, Elemental Weapon, and Whirling Blades. The finishing power of the Necromancer also leaves something to be desired.
Suggestion: Increase the damage of Ruinous Scythe. This skill tool tips for 1799 at base, same as Whirling Blades but without the execute scaling so it can’t be used as an execute. Increase the base damage of Ruinous Scythe and Hungry Scythe to 2280, placing it between Whirling Blades at 1799 and Dizzying Swing at 2760. Keep the current secondary effects of Ruinous Scythe. Change Hungry Scythe to deal up to 125% more damage to enemies under 40% health and healing for the damage done if the target is killed, like Killer’s Blade from the Nightblade.

In PVP a class’s success is largely dependent on its ability to stun their opponent. Necromancer lacks a consistent form of CC due to its current skills Bone Totem and Grave Grasp, being clunky or just unusable in PVP.
Suggestion: Change Ghostly Embrace morph to require a target to cast and summon a skeletal hand to Instantly stun the target. Animation would be from Kjalnar’s Nightmare set. Empowering Grasp remains AOE based as it is, but the “empowering” effect towards your pets carries for 10 seconds, meaning you wouldn’t have to cast it on every Blastbones. Bone Totem is used by some in PVE, and in some large group PVP situations, so a change to this isn’t necessarily needed as it does serve a purpose.

Defensively the necromancer doesn’t need much help. The Intensive Mender morph was nerfed a bit too aggressively and has since lost any value to be used over the Spirit Guardian morph that provides 10% damage mitigation. Since both heals are negligible, there’s no benefit to Intensive Mender.
Suggestion: Increase the healing power of Intensive Mender by 33%. Also, have the movement speed of the ghost match that of the player’s, this would eliminate situations in which you’re outrunning the ghost’s healing range.

You know, I hate to be this guy however on certain occasions when I play Necro, everytime I play that class, I never use Harmony. Not one time have I ever used it.

Sufficed to say, while I won't say how, my Necro has accomplished several amazing feats and even single handedly helped a certain faction win a particularly nasty campaign at like the last day or two of the scoring.

I just hope ZOS leaves Necro alone cause the way it is now is perhaps not perfect but flawless none the less and it shouldn't change because people have to learn new ways to use the class. I'm just saying.

GimpyPorcupine · February 2023

Hungry Scythe is a burst heal + HOT for tanks, sitting in their tanking skill line. No reason to mess with it.

KingLewie_III · February 2023

Vulkunne wrote: »

KingLewie_III wrote: »

With the announcement of the Harmony rework essentially removing one of the few, if not only viable playstyle for Necromancer, I wanted to brainstorm some ideas about how i would rework this class to be more in line with the others in the game. Mainly from a PVP perspective, as that's what I mostly play.

Necromancer needs damage over time abilities in its tool kit allowing player to take advantage of it’s DoT passive. Additionally, this would add value to the Blighted Blastbones morph as defile would be desirable on a DoT spec and fits the theme of a Necromancer.
Suggestion: Remove Flame Skull as neither of it’s morphs are used in PVE or PVP. Replace with a new skill that deals upfront damage to its target, and “marks” them with a DoT. This DoT spreads to any enemy within 5 meters of the initial target. The animation could be from Soul Splitting trap, just a different color.

Suggestion: Increase the damage of Skeletal Mage and it’s morphs by 25%.

Necromancer is the only class that does not have access to Major Brutality/Sorcery, Major/Minor Expedition, Major/Minor Endurance/Intellect, Major/Minor Prophecy/Savagery. These are basic named buffs that should be included in every class tool kit.
Suggestion: The Summoner’s Armor morph’s second effect is redundant due to the Reusable Parts passive. Remove the cost reduction and give Minor Intellect/Endurance and Major Brutality/Sorcery while the ability is active.

Suggestion: Add Major Prophecy/Savagery to Restoring Tether and its morphs while the ability is active. This ability is already difficult to keep up due to the majority of fights being more mobile and the line-of-sight issues with this skill, primarily in PVP. This adds incentive to keeping this skill slotted and give’s Necromancer a version of Lotus Blossom from the Warden.

The current spammable options of Skulls (proposed change above) and Scythe are both outperformed in PVE and PVP by generic skills such as Silver Shards, Elemental Weapon, and Whirling Blades. The finishing power of the Necromancer also leaves something to be desired.
Suggestion: Increase the damage of Ruinous Scythe. This skill tool tips for 1799 at base, same as Whirling Blades but without the execute scaling so it can’t be used as an execute. Increase the base damage of Ruinous Scythe and Hungry Scythe to 2280, placing it between Whirling Blades at 1799 and Dizzying Swing at 2760. Keep the current secondary effects of Ruinous Scythe. Change Hungry Scythe to deal up to 125% more damage to enemies under 40% health and healing for the damage done if the target is killed, like Killer’s Blade from the Nightblade.

In PVP a class’s success is largely dependent on its ability to stun their opponent. Necromancer lacks a consistent form of CC due to its current skills Bone Totem and Grave Grasp, being clunky or just unusable in PVP.
Suggestion: Change Ghostly Embrace morph to require a target to cast and summon a skeletal hand to Instantly stun the target. Animation would be from Kjalnar’s Nightmare set. Empowering Grasp remains AOE based as it is, but the “empowering” effect towards your pets carries for 10 seconds, meaning you wouldn’t have to cast it on every Blastbones. Bone Totem is used by some in PVE, and in some large group PVP situations, so a change to this isn’t necessarily needed as it does serve a purpose.

Defensively the necromancer doesn’t need much help. The Intensive Mender morph was nerfed a bit too aggressively and has since lost any value to be used over the Spirit Guardian morph that provides 10% damage mitigation. Since both heals are negligible, there’s no benefit to Intensive Mender.
Suggestion: Increase the healing power of Intensive Mender by 33%. Also, have the movement speed of the ghost match that of the player’s, this would eliminate situations in which you’re outrunning the ghost’s healing range.

You know, I hate to be this guy however on certain occasions when I play Necro, everytime I play that class, I never use Harmony. Not one time have I ever used it.

Sufficed to say, while I won't say how, my Necro has accomplished several amazing feats and even single handedly helped a certain faction win a particularly nasty campaign at like the last day or two of the scoring.

I just hope ZOS leaves Necro alone cause the way it is now is perhaps not perfect but flawless none the less and it shouldn't change because people have to learn new ways to use the class. I'm just saying.

I've played necromancer in every way you can think of over the past several years, and you're the only person I've ever seen claim its "flawless". If you're talking about large scale zerg vs zerg fights, then I'd say you can't get a solid idea of how a class performs when you've got 20 other people giving you heals, buffs, etc.

In solo PVP, whether outnumbered or just a 1v1, this class is lacking in several areas and is outshined by just about every other class in the game.

Mr_Stach · February 2023

Something can't be "Not Perfect" and "Flawless" at the same time. Just sayin.

Michaelkeir · February 2023

Stx wrote: »

So when I think of Necromancers, I mainly think of raising the dead to fight for them. I would love to be able to have more than one skeletal minion out at a time. Or at the very least buff the one we do have.

Also, I can’t believe necromancers don’t have a single target DOT, the dot class after all…. Imagine a single target dot that spread to nearby targets at a reduced duration!

I couldn’t agree more. When necromancer’s were first announced I was hyped. But once I read their skill descriptions I was like “Huh!?” Where are my summons, where are my dots? How come I can’t buff my summons like the NPC necromancers can. I seriously want a melee summon (skeleton warrior) and ranged summon (skeleton mage) and at the very least a tanky summon (flesh colossus) out at the same time or at LEAST a longer duration. In my opinion they really dropped the ball with that class trying to be unique.