Necromancer is still not good in PvP

strepsels · July 2023

Once again, we find ourselves in another PTS with very little changes to Necromancer in PvP (surprise, surprise). Whilst the class did receive a few buffs to two particular skills, which I will touch on later, the core issues of the class still remain, and the feedback given that focuses on these issues has still been ignored. As usual I am only going to comment on Necromancer in a PvP setting and not PvE – this will also mostly relate to a Magicka-based Necromancer however a lot of what will be said will still relate to a Stamina-based spec.

The Buff to Colossus & Deaden Pain:

Colossus is a decent ult on live in a group setting however when it comes to solo, or duo play the ult lacks behind greatly. Reducing its cost was a good change as the Major Vulnerability aspect of this ultimate was largely negated in recent years by the abundance of sets which can guarantee the effect (e.g. Turning Tide). Pestilent Colossus guaranteeing disease is a somewhat weird change, but I guess it’s better than nothing, this morph is already far superior to Frozen Colossus, so I have no issues with this – my issue lies in the Glacial Colossus morph.

Glacial Colossus on live is a pathetically weak ult, it offers less damage than Pestilent, and the stun is extremely easy for anyone to avoid, extending the duration of Major Vulnerability does nothing to increase the power of this ultimate as people will still opt for Pestilent. My suggestion would be to reverse the stun mechanic and have the ultimate stun on the first hit of the ultimate rather than the last. This accomplishes a few things: Necro will finally have a somewhat reliable stun assuming you can aim, albeit on an ultimate but beggars can’t be choosers, and opens the flexibility to opt for this morph over Pestilent.

The Deaden Pain buff is a good idea and I intend on giving this skill another bash as a replacement for Mortal Coil – no issues with this change.

The Previous Buff to Skull:

I won’t reiterate what I said in my previous PTS thread on this so I will keep this short and simple. Give each stack of skull a small crit damage buff, somewhere in the region of 5% per stack (for a total of 15%). Skull is currently a very low budget Molten Whip and Necromancer still doesn’t have any buffs to Critical Damage despite having a Critical Chance passive (again, very similar to the current issue with Magicka Sorcerer).

An Execute:

The newly bred Arcanist has something that every Necromancer player has been hoping for – an execute (albeit one that scales up to 100% but it’s still an execute). It’s finally time for Scythe to gain a scaling execute, and on the Magicka morph as to not over bloat the utility that Stamina Scythe currently offers with AoE Off-Balance and Haemorrhage. Necro struggles greatly with securing kills in PvP and a lack of an execute contributes greatly to this. This would just be a much-needed offensive buff to boost the classes finishing power.

Major Sorcery & Brutality:

Again, I won’t go too into depth of what I have already said in my previous thread but it’s time for Necromancer to finally gain access to this incredibly essential buff. Tie it to the “Death Gleaning” to allow Necromancer to have some sort of buff to provide to group as well as not squish its already extremely tight bar space already.

My Version:

https://us.v-cdn.net/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,width=1200/https://us.v-cdn.net/5020507/uploads/editor/o9/etv13utuohr1.png

Major Prophecy/Savagery:

Not much to say here once again, another essential buff that Necro does not have access to. This should go on a skill, probably Mortal Coil again and could last for 12 seconds (the length of the skill) however the buff would retain if the tether was broken. This would work in a similar way to the newly buffed Shadowy Disguise except would require a cast.

Ghost/Mender:

This was perhaps one of the most over nerfed skills in recent history. Intensive Mender was too strong before the nerf, there is no denying that, but the current change to this skill was very over the top. I would never suggest reverting the skill to the value it used to heal for however a small buff to its healing output would be much appreciated. Also making Spirit Guardian unkillable again would be a massive help to Necro in open world, this "kill" mechanic completely ruins the flow of gameplay and has no place in this game. This skill is also fairly buggy as it can occasionally run off and refuse to heal you.

Conclusion:

To conclude, these are just a few of the changes I would love to see given to Necromancer. The class is bottom of the barrel in PvP currently and some minor buffs to Colossus and Deaden Pain aren’t going to solve that. As I have said in my previous thread, I have no desire to see Harmony return to the class (or the game for that matter) as there is no denying it was extremely overtuned, however Necromancer has been left in the dirt ever since it was removed and with only a few changes it can finally achieve PvP viability once again.

*edited for formatting and grammar corrections*

TalosOfDoom · July 2023

As a long time player enjoying the Necromancer class with the Stamina Variant being my main gameplay preference I must agree with you. This class got gutted too hard in terms of healing. It still has nice damage and good burst (assuming that the enemy doesn't predict the hit from your blastbones). But it requires to be adjusted in terms of healing and survivability once the necromancer was the tankiest class in the game and was overperforming in terms of the ghost healing but the nerf was too harsh on the ghost morphs 50% was too harsh. We can all adapt and play other classes but you want to play the class that you enjoy the most and I bet that there are a lot of stamcro or magcro players that would want the class to become more viable especially in solo or small-scale pvp.

Major_Soulless · July 2023

Im glad tbh. Necro bombers were irritating as hell. these new brawler bombers at least are more interesting than someone throwing down dark convergence and pressing their stupid ulti.

strepsels · July 2023

Major_Soulless wrote: »

Im glad tbh. Necro bombers were irritating as hell. these new brawler bombers at least are more interesting than someone throwing down dark convergence and pressing their stupid ulti.

Did you even read? I’ve stated that Harmony was overtuned and I have no desire to see it return. Necro is in dire need of help - and if you think the only setup it had was some convergence one-trick pony then you are deluding yourself.

Major_Soulless · July 2023

strepsels wrote: »

Major_Soulless wrote: »

Im glad tbh. Necro bombers were irritating as hell. these new brawler bombers at least are more interesting than someone throwing down dark convergence and pressing their stupid ulti.

Did you even read? I’ve stated that Harmony was overtuned and I have no desire to see it return. Necro is in dire need of help - and if you think the only setup it had was some convergence one-trick pony then you are deluding yourself.

i can only speak for PS EU server but regarding the bomber being the main game in town for necro i can honestly say 90% plus of necros were colossus bombers. now at least you see necro tanks on our server which is a interesting change

and my point was about the tediousness of the necro bomber i never commented on necro as a class. Biut actually i do think necro needs help but i dont think you will get it till 2024 as the arcanist is the new boy in town and they will want at least 6 months out of it before they nerf it

Melzo · July 2023

Major_Soulless wrote: »

Im glad tbh. Necro bombers were irritating as hell. these new brawler bombers at least are more interesting than someone throwing down dark convergence and pressing their stupid ulti.

And where did they disappear to? My necromancer still destroys packs of opponents. I am now using a two-handed weapon from the dragonstar arena. Total damage is slightly less but still allows you to kill crowds of enemies. Necromancers became less because it became not interesting for them to play. That's the whole difference between the previous bomb build and this one.

Major_Soulless · July 2023

Melzo wrote: »

Major_Soulless wrote: »

Im glad tbh. Necro bombers were irritating as hell. these new brawler bombers at least are more interesting than someone throwing down dark convergence and pressing their stupid ulti.

And where did they disappear to? My necromancer still destroys packs of opponents. I am now using a two-handed weapon from the dragonstar arena. Total damage is slightly less but still allows you to kill crowds of enemies. Necromancers became less because it became not interesting for them to play. That's the whole difference between the previous bomb build and this one.

they mostly became dks

Melzo · July 2023

strepsels wrote: »

Major_Soulless wrote: »

Im glad tbh. Necro bombers were irritating as hell. these new brawler bombers at least are more interesting than someone throwing down dark convergence and pressing their stupid ulti.

Did you even read? I’ve stated that Harmony was overtuned and I have no desire to see it return. Necro is in dire need of help - and if you think the only setup it had was some convergence one-trick pony then you are deluding yourself.

And how was she reconfigured? In fact, with the destruction of harmony, the number of builds for the necromancer has become 5 times less. Even with this mechanic, the necromancer was the worst class in the game. Even when the ghost was not nerfed, it was already considered ***. In this event, I calmly walked and killed crowds of opponents and earned 400k Telwar. At the same time, I did not play every day as I work.

If you went to the BG and played all day, then you would notice that only a few people play necromancers all day. Now it destroys the DC of crowds of opponents and makes it no worse than in those holy days for a necromancer. And nb never even got weaker and is number one in bomb builds until now.

The whole class was designed for the fact that the necromancer cannot adequately fight one against one, but can inflict huge damage on the crowd. That was the whole idea of the class. Even now, his skills point to it. But it just doesn't do enough damage.

The gameplay through harmony was one of the types of gameplay but grew into the main one because the developers destroyed all other mechanics. It was necessary to give a buff to the necromancer so that harmony would remain one of the types of gameplay, while you could choose something else. And not to destroy the only way to play that he had left.

Something I did not see that the necromancer would occupy the top lines in terms of murders on the battleground when there was synergy. For that, I clearly see that bomb builds still flourish even without harmony. So where was it reconfigured?

LukosCreyden · July 2023

We really should just have a separate forum category at this point, just for Necromancer. So many forum posts bring up so many valid issues that want for addressing.
Would be nice if someone like @ZOS_Kevin could step in and let us know the developer's visions for this ailing class.

Lazarus_Rising · July 2023

There are two crucial and one more or less important thing in pvp which necromancer does not really have.

1. On demand stun
2. Execute
3. Escape

When necromancer came out i would combine the former vampire drain stun with colossus and had great results in pvp. Now there is no stun anymore and the colossus lost all its former power. It could be still a good combo if we would get a proper instantaneous stun in combination with the new colossus changes. Otherwise every slightly experienced player will dodge or run out of the ultimate. I still do not get why the vampire stun was too much but skills like petrify are more than fine.

It seems like that ZOS intention is not to give necromancer an execute which is fine but then we need a stun so we have a time window where we can make use of the

Increases your Critical Strike Chance against enemies under 25% Health by 8% for each Grave Lord ability slotted.

In order to properly use the passive tho we need more grave lord abilites to matter in pvp. Right now you will probably have blast bones and colossus on front bar which is 16% crit chance for a short time duration. That is not enough to replace an execute.

Flame Skull, Skeleton Mage or Archer, Boneyard and Siphon are not really being used in pvp.(Maybe Boneyard for the remaining people like me who cling to Dark Convergence still...)

The escape is not a really a must but helps a lot to get some time window for recovery. There are reallly two usable skills for getting some distance between an enemy and yourself which is either the psijic skill accelerate or the vampire mist form. I can live with that.

What do you think?

strepsels · July 2023

Lazarus_Rising wrote: »

There are two crucial and one more or less important thing in pvp which necromancer does not really have.

1. On demand stun
2. Execute
3. Escape

When necromancer came out i would combine the former vampire drain stun with colossus and had great results in pvp. Now there is no stun anymore and the colossus lost all its former power. It could be still a good combo if we would get a proper instantaneous stun in combination with the new colossus changes. Otherwise every slightly experienced player will dodge or run out of the ultimate. I still do not get why the vampire stun was too much but skills like petrify are more than fine.

It seems like that ZOS intention is not to give necromancer an execute which is fine but then we need a stun so we have a time window where we can make use of the

Increases your Critical Strike Chance against enemies under 25% Health by 8% for each Grave Lord ability slotted.

In order to properly use the passive tho we need more grave lord abilites to matter in pvp. Right now you will probably have blast bones and colossus on front bar which is 16% crit chance for a short time duration. That is not enough to replace an execute.

Flame Skull, Skeleton Mage or Archer, Boneyard and Siphon are not really being used in pvp.(Maybe Boneyard for the remaining people like me who cling to Dark Convergence still...)

The escape is not a really a must but helps a lot to get some time window for recovery. There are reallly two usable skills for getting some distance between an enemy and yourself which is either the psijic skill accelerate or the vampire mist form. I can live with that.

What do you think?

I can agree to this. I'd either take a reliable stun or an execute - both would be incredibly value to the class.

JerBearESO · July 2023

They do technically have ruin scythe into HA.... But yeah an actually good stun would be nice

Remiem · July 2023

I'd take the reliable stun first, that alone would fix 2 massive issues: necro is a punching bag because it has no ccs worth a *** to disrupt opponents and it would make the ultimate selection less dire (right now it's dawnbreaker 99% of the time and the colossus buffs won't change that).
A decent rune cage like stun would finally let necro slot something other than DB, like meteor and even make colossus viable outside of dark convergence if timed properly. That's how pathetic the situation is, a skill magsorcs turn their noses up at would become the best stun for necro by a landslide.
So yeah, a stun (ghostly embrace has been completely useless since its inception, maybe it's time to finally do something about it?) and shoving major brutality/sorcery somewhere in the passives would go a long way.

katorga · July 2023

Major_Soulless wrote: »

Im glad tbh. Necro bombers were irritating as hell. these new brawler bombers at least are more interesting than someone throwing down dark convergence and pressing their stupid ulti.

What on earth is the difference?

Throw down dark convergence, throw down colossus, pop synergy, spam impulse/whirling/brawler let VD/PB do all the work.

Throw down dark convergence, pop corrosive, spam brawler and let VD/PB do all the work.

Throw down dark convergence, pop tether, spam power extraction/whirling/brawler and let VD/PB do all the work