Give Necromancer 1 of either THESE 2 NEW buffs in the game

AvidNecro · April 26

@ZOS_Kevin Neither of these buffs/ debuffs currently exist in the game, why not give them to the weakest class

Major Life Steal: Either make this a class mastery passive or incorporate this into one of its skills. Imagine if major vulnerability, was replaced with major life steal, or even a colossus that follows you around like the warden bear, and every 2 sec it applies major life steal to all nearby enemies within 5 meters.

Major Timidity This could be a stretch, but imagine a necromancer having this power in PvP. It already feels like a buff simulator, so why not tap into this vein. Take away the laughable Avid Boneyard synergy tool tip and replace it with Major Timidity, and make the boneyard the same radius as the templars cleansing ritual.

MashmalloMan · April 27

Not sure this is the right place considering it has nothing to do with implemented changes on the PTS and is more about the Necro refresh which won't happen till late 2027.

That said, I agree somewhat. Personally I'm hoping for the following:

Abandon the Elementalist and DOT fantasy.
Reinforce the Debuff and Summoner fantasy.

The Elementalist aspect they implemented by trying to stack 1~2 of each element on their class skills in addition to the overly generic Rapid Rot passive is just lacking from top to bottom. It doesn't even really fit on a Necromancer in any RPG and I'd hate to see them force it in with the upcomming refresh.

Of all the classes, it's clear that Arcanist is the closest to an Elementalist with recent developements. They have a unique passive and class set that improves all status effects which easily combines well with the new Signet mythic. To me, they're being positioned as what I see as the game's "Chaos Mage", it's unruly, wild, and random due to deriving from Hermaeus Mora and the tomes. Arcanists don't need all the elements built in to be an Elementalist, they could be 100% Magic damage with a passive that allows Magic damage and the Overcharged status effect to have a chance to deal 1 of the other 7 elements.

So with the Elementalist shifting to Arcanist, Necromancer is freed up to highly specialize in the parts it already does well like debuffing, rotting, and summoning. All their abilities can be changed to Disease damage, but since debuffing and effects like Defile aren't useful in PvE, Necro could have unique ways to improve and build off of them further similar to how Warden's make Frost damage competitive.

For example; Rapid Rot could be changed to no longer improve DOTs by +10% (DK does this so well already). Instead, it improves the Diseased status effect by +25% damage. Additionally, Diseased applies a 4s dot which increases in damage done by +10% based on the number of debuffs applied. Think the Maarselok monster set basically. With this type of implementation, debuffs could be something you build for in all content instead of being hit or miss. Mangle, Timdity, Lifesteal, Overcharged, all useful now regardless of content.

For the Summoner aspect, abilities like Skeletal Mage could be adjusted to be more engaging. For example, they apply a debuff and can be stacked up to 3 times, but the 2nd and 3rd summon require a corpse. Blighted Blastbones could remain the same, but now applies a corpse to your target allowing a targetted tether that is only broken by distance or line of sight. A Boneyard morph could summon floating skulls every few seconds that extend beyond the radius and pew/pew or tackle enemies.

Also, I've seen people suggest Bleed/Poison for Necro and I'd have to disagree. I'm of the notion that classes become more interesting when they're hyperfocussed on a given area to allow for sets and passives to truely shine.

If I had to pick only 1 home for each of the 8 elements it would look something like this:

DK = Flame
Warden = Frost + Poison
Sorc = Shock
Templar = Phys + Mag
NB = Bleed
Necro = Disease
Arcanist = Mag where Overcharged procs every status effect randomly OR all abilities randomly pick from 1/8 elements for every damage tick.

Poison was removed from DK, it's coming back in a better way. Warden has animals and nature which easily makes sense for Poison and helps promote a Summer/Spring fantasy that Flame would be too extreme for. Frost isn't going anywhere, so I think this is a fair balance.

NB is an Assassin class, they have a Blood Magic line that should deal Bleed damage, they could really use any justification for the 4 martial elements, but this makes things fit neatly and cleanly.

Disease, Defile, Defoul, all feel very "Necro" coded. Enough said. Again, they could use Bleed and Poison, but those fit better on NB and Warden.

Sorc enough said. Templar, there is no holy magic in the game, Mag/Phys already shares this generic, fits all approach which matches Templar's purposes very well. I'd be happy if Phys stayed on Sorc too, but I think it's obviously more tuned for Shock, so go all in then. Gives more identity for Templar.

Arcanist I covered in depth. Chaos mage.

Silaf · April 27

Necromancers must suffer and complain constantly is in the class description.
If you are a necromancer you must curse the world and actively feel the world is constantly rajecting you.
It's part of class identity by design.

Kleoxcv · April 27

@Silaf 😂😂 this is so true as it’s what we always have to do.

@MashmalloMan i don’t really like the disease status effect for the necro but it kinda makes sense. But ZOS could do something totally different with the necromancer.

Say Blastbones is 9000 damage let 3000 damage be fire another 3000 lightning and the last 3000 ice damage and call it chaos magic or dark magic. And implement this split damage across all the necromancers class damage abilities.

Basically Elemental Susceptibility effect but as a damage source for the necromancer. It would still feed into the elementalist

necro_the_crafter · April 27

my headcanon:
ZoS doing necros last because they dont know what to do with it.

Heres my obligatory necro rant:

They methodicaly deconstructed everything that was good about this class, starting with harmony rework (inderect nerf), then major/minor effects nerf (inderect nerf), added sets with major vuln(good thing overall, but still inderect nerf to necro), ghost nerfs, bash goliath nerfs, rip blastbones, GLS nerfed three times (removed self corpse effect, corpse from skulls added to base skulls, dot damage and class skill nerf to not be abused by subclassing). Class had 0 viable cc's until scribing. At first gravegrasp rework was fun, but then it got nerfed (cc effects removed from damage morph).

Now buffs:
Major brutality/sorcecry on summan arcanist/archer, duh.
Its kinda comarable to other classes in power, but still dks have same amount of damage on their molten armaments, but more uptime on both morphs. Arcs scolarship/treatise have more damage, and buff component is passive, sorcs have more utility in form of proc heal, nbs have minor courage on top, netch dispels/boosts damage done and offers great sustain also cost free, templars one built in jabs which is may be worse if you dont want to run jabs build. So ovearall its still looses to other classes in power as a damage buff, and also, if I run 2h builds, I would slot rally 9/10 times over class summon just because rally heal is so much more value, and its also has higher uptime.

Major savagery/prophecy on deton/mystic syphon, duh x2.
This one is actualy really good with corpsebuster, outside of it not so much. Spec bow is better, summoned armaments is better, inferno - better, vamp bane and lotus flower is kinda worse so at least here necro is ahead of someone, arcs have none savagery/prophecy.

Minor resolve and self corpse on summoners/beckoning armor. Self corpse is cool, but is clunky to use with nobility in decay as it doesnt spawn 2 corpses on you, minor resolve is redundant for most pvp builds as they tend to run resolving vigor.

Corpsebuster is a goat, a single decent thing left out there, but still takes up 5 slots of gear for something that should have been a base component of a class or at least CLASS MASTERY. Kinda like they did with pyrebrand, now it interacts with dks mastery, could've done the same with corpsebuster imo.

If thats the case I would prefer them to take all the time they need.