Necromancer Rework Ideas

Exethious · July 25

Necromancer is a unique class and has incredible thematic potential. However, it suffers from long‑standing structural issues: inconsistent corpse mechanics, excessive bar‑space pressure, unreliable summons, lack of DoTs, too many ground‑casts, and no PvP “turn the tables skill”. This proposal aims to modernise Necromancer while strengthening its core fantasy.
I mainly play PvP these days and am currently unfamiliar with PvE requirements outside of DD corpsebuster spam (which is great). I have a general idea but would appreciate contribution from other players on this.
Class reworks need to be made with all roles and gameplay styles in mind. Necromancer requires 12–13 functional abilities to operate in PvP, but only has 10 skill bar slots; every core function is a separate skill, this needs to be addressed and skill utility needs to double up on their function.
I’m excluding passives and class masteries here just to keep this half readable. Hopefully this thread provides inspiration for ZOS to rework Necromancer in the future.

Grave Lord

Frozen Colossus
Glacial - Unchanged
Pestilent - Generate a corpse on final smash

Flame Skull (Animation refresh/ Cost scales from max resource)
Ricochet Skull - Converts into a Single target DoT, Synergising with rapid rot (Name -Blight Skull)
Venom Skull - Unchanged

Sacrificial Bones Need to be separate to accommodate for all roles
Blighted Blastbones - Unchanged
Grave Lords Sacrifice - Needs to be useful as Healer/Tank + Corpse generator/ utility tool

Boneyard increase radius 6m > 8m
Avid Boneyard - Consume Corpse for more dmg + Add slow + major breach after target leaves area
Unnerving Boneyard - Generate a corpse + Add HoT + Major protection to allies

Skeletal Mage (Major and Minor Brutality)
Skeletal Arcanist - Healing effect + 10% dmg reduction for group (Name-Skeletal Mender)
Skeletal Archer - Cast is targeted not closest enemy/ random

Shocking Siphon Major Savagery always active
Detonating Siphon - Slightly Increase dmg to make consuming corpses rewording (Amend corpsebuster later)
Mystic siphon - Sustain + Healing Morph

Bone Tyrant

Bone Goliath
Pummeling Goliath - Significantly increase damage
Ravenous Goliath - Add a group damage shield and defensive/healing utility

Death Scythe
Hungry Scythe - Unchanged
Ruinous Scythe - Single target +Drastically increase Damage (main DD spammable)

Bone Armour Add minor Resolve for group
Beckoning Armour - Add minor evasion
Summoner’s Armour - Add Minor expedition

Bitter Harvest Remove corpse requirement for cast - Add Major Expedition and CC immunity
Necrotic Potency - IF corpse present generate 5 ult. Taking dmg = gain Major Evasion
Daedan pain - IF corpse present generate 2 Ult for self and group members

Bone Totem increases radius to 8m from 6m.
Agony Totem - Instant Cast fear + Synergy
Remote Totem - Unchanged

Grave Grasp
Empowering Grasp - Taunt + Pull + Major Maim
Ghostly Embrace - Taunt + Gap closer + Minor Maim

Living Death

Reanimate
Renewing Animation - Unchanged
Animate Blastbones - Revive 1 ally + summon all Necromancer pets

Render Flesh
Blood Sacrifice - AoE Burst heal (similar to Templar Ritual of rebirth) + Cost health if ally is healed
Resistant Flesh - Remove defile + Add Major Vitality

Expunge
Expunge and Modify- Self Cast +Increased Recovery+ increase purge
Hexproof - AoE Purge + Maj mending for 4s in area

Life Amid Death Remove Burst heal + Increase Ground HoT + Add minor mending in area
Enduring Undeath - Consumes Corpse + HoT persist outside of area
Renewing Undeath - Generates corpse

Spirit Mender
Intensive Mender - Increase healing + add recovery to target healed
Spirit Guardian - Unchanged

Restoring Tether (IMO All tethers could be combined, if not - Maj Sorcery also here).
Braided Tether - Increase healing + 8m radius from 5m
Mortal Coil - unchanged

ketsparrowhawk · July 25

Some good ideas here! My wishlist:

Make Necro the "anti-Warden" class. Warden gives Minor Toughness to nearby allies? Necro should give Minor Mangle to nearby enemies. Warden refreshes Major Resolve for nearby allies? Necro should give Major Breach to nearby enemies (Boneyard is too small of an area and Caltrops is a better version of that skill anyway). Etc. Warden is all about buffing allies, Necro should be all about weaking enemies. I do believe this was the original concept, which was the reasoning for omitting so many essential buffs from their toolkit, but they just didn't deliver on it.

Make the Mender and Archer "optionally" permanent summeons. I.e. if they are slotted on both bars, they are permanent. If they are slotted on one bar they are on a timer as they are now. Maybe a coding challenge but would be a very nice option to have if possible.

Make summons interact with proc sets. Curerntly Blastbones, Spirit Mender, and the skele archer/mage cannot activate ANY proc sets whatsoever. Mender doesn't trigger Earthgore, BB doesn't trigger Tarnished Nightmare, etc, etc. Pretty sure not one single proc sets interacts with these abilities.

Make the skele archer/mage's damage count as damage-over-time so as to benefit from the Rapid Rot passive.

Make Intensive Mender last the full 16s duration (and increase cost to match the other morph). You're already giving up 10% damage mitigation when choosing that morph, imo that is enough.

Make Boneyard consume ALL corpses within its radius and summon a basic skele for each corpse consumed.

Add a "stacking" DoT mechanic to Flaming/Venom Skull.. that way it can still be used as a spammable while also benefitting from the Rapid Rot passive.

You know the final boss of Elden Root 1 (I think?) that summons the black circles on the ground with skele hands that pull you underground? Turn Grave Grasp into that skill please. Maybe make it immobilize instantly, and pull under after a 2-second delay?

Make the tether grant Major Prophecy "while slotted on either bar". Maintaining the tether is often challenging and it sucks that the crit buff requires that the tether remain active while NB's, Sorcs, and DK's never have to think about it (Templars too as it is built in to their offense).

I'll probably think of others and edit this comment later lol

Vondreas · July 25

As a necro main, I just want to eat my enemies.

Turtle_Bot · July 25

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Make the Mender and Archer "optionally" permanent summeons. I.e. if they are slotted on both bars, they are permanent. If they are slotted on one bar they are on a timer as they are now. Maybe a coding challenge but would be a very nice option to have if possible.

This here is actually a really elegant solution to the whole issue with pets in ESO (at least that I've seen posted).

Temporary pets feel more like DoTs when single barred (don't fit into a "summoner" theme), but the permanent pets take up too much bar space when double barred and feel very underwhelming for the cost of using them with how mediocre the abilities are compared to the downsides.

This would be a nice middle ground mix of permanent vs temporary pets. It would also allow flexibility in adding secondary effects to other pets (like Sorcs pets already have) if they are double barred to give them more utility and power to account for taking up 2 bar slots (and rework sorc pets to be more useful at the same time), while leaving them as more simple regular abilities if they are only on 1 bar.

E.G.
Matriarch would be a regular HtD style burst heal if slotted on 1 bar only, but double barred it becomes a group wide heal (like it currently is) with the passive DoT and maybe some other secondary effect added on.

Scamp would be a regular ST or AoE DoT if slotted on 1 bar, but it retains it's current form if double barred (maybe with some small boost as well).

Mender would be a regular HoT if single barred, but could be a mobile corpse if double barred, allowing for mobile a tether target)

Archer/arcanist would be Major Brut/Sorc + AoE DoT if single barred, but could also be another mobile corpse as well if double barred, allowing for a second mobile tether target)

Bear would be current if double barred but becomes the bear swipe (secondary ability that is an execute) if single barred.

I would agree though that I can see it being a nightmare to code such an interaction, but if possible to do, it would massively improve QoL and functionality of pets for both pet players and non-pet players alike and their classes that are forced to interact with pet mechanics. Although I do think ZOS is already half way to this with the vengeance versions of the pets since they are just regular DoTs/heals/etc. in vengeance, so it would just need the checks to see if the skill is double barred or not, so it might not be as difficult as we think.

Molagcat · July 25

Please excuse any awkward phrasing—I’m not good at English.

I hope Zenimax will make adjustments to increase the importance of consuming corpses.
For example While Mystic Siphon is active, Blighted Blastbones’ damage is increased by 20%.

Next, since Nothing Wasted is very difficult to maintain, I’d like to see it made easier to use as follows:
Upgrade rank 2 of Corpse Consumption to also grant a stack of Nothing Wasted for 15 seconds, which increases your Max Health by 4% and Weapon and Spell Damage by 4% per stack, up to 5 times. Stacks decay one at a time instead of all at once.

Zallion · July 25

Some things I’d like to see..

-I would really like to see additional summon(s) available on top of the ones we’ve got already. Some sort of thrall/zombie on top of blast bones, ghost, and skele. Necro should have undead minions in its kit galore as a viable offensive play style (one is mostly a damage buff and the other one is a healer). Or, multiple skeles/blastbones at once capped at something reasonable. Could be clunky and difficult to control or manage with targeting, but rewarding when it goes right, plus more corpse gen.

-Undead confederate value reworked but increases per active summon.

-Remove minor defile from Render Flesh and morphs. Stupid to have a healing debuff on a class’s burst heal. Dial in the mitigation value if anything, but remove the defile.

-Scrap grave grasp. I know it’s been reworked and buffed but it’s just so bad. Use the kjalnaar animation/grasping limbs animation from IA and make it function in a radius like dk talons.

-Others have said before but savagery active on both bars for slotting siphon, not needing to be active.

-Skele arch/mage - major sorcery/brutality slotted.

-Smoother class spammable options. Skulls can be viable damage but feel clunky when weaving. Scythe weaves smoothly but is too weak. A smoother animation for skulls or a better reason to use scythe without needing GLS to make it remotely strong enough.

-GLS… I know people have touted hating this for a while. I’ve actually grown to like it somewhat as it has the potential to offer a lot of variety and power at the expense of a hard hitting delayed burst. Though it’s a strongish buff, it needs just a little something imo. A little more power, or a little more time on the buff. I can’t say exactly. Maybe up to 20%, or extended to 30 seconds? Not both.

-Boneyard - Put breach on both morphs, increase the dot damage and debuff timers on unnerving. Damage modifier per corpse for avid.

-Life amid death - increased heal per corpse consumed.

IZZEFlameLash · July 27

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Some good ideas here! My wishlist:

Make Necro the "anti-Warden" class. Warden gives Minor Toughness to nearby allies? Necro should give Minor Mangle to nearby enemies. Warden refreshes Major Resolve for nearby allies? Necro should give Major Breach to nearby enemies (Boneyard is too small of an area and Caltrops is a better version of that skill anyway). Etc. Warden is all about buffing allies, Necro should be all about weaking enemies. I do believe this was the original concept, which was the reasoning for omitting so many essential buffs from their toolkit, but they just didn't deliver on it.

Make the Mender and Archer "optionally" permanent summeons. I.e. if they are slotted on both bars, they are permanent. If they are slotted on one bar they are on a timer as they are now. Maybe a coding challenge but would be a very nice option to have if possible.

Make summons interact with proc sets. Curerntly Blastbones, Spirit Mender, and the skele archer/mage cannot activate ANY proc sets whatsoever. Mender doesn't trigger Earthgore, BB doesn't trigger Tarnished Nightmare, etc, etc. Pretty sure not one single proc sets interacts with these abilities.

Make the skele archer/mage's damage count as damage-over-time so as to benefit from the Rapid Rot passive.

Make Intensive Mender last the full 16s duration (and increase cost to match the other morph). You're already giving up 10% damage mitigation when choosing that morph, imo that is enough.

Make Boneyard consume ALL corpses within its radius and summon a basic skele for each corpse consumed.

Add a "stacking" DoT mechanic to Flaming/Venom Skull.. that way it can still be used as a spammable while also benefitting from the Rapid Rot passive.

You know the final boss of Elden Root 1 (I think?) that summons the black circles on the ground with skele hands that pull you underground? Turn Grave Grasp into that skill please. Maybe make it immobilize instantly, and pull under after a 2-second delay?

Make the tether grant Major Prophecy "while slotted on either bar". Maintaining the tether is often challenging and it sucks that the crit buff requires that the tether remain active while NB's, Sorcs, and DK's never have to think about it (Templars too as it is built in to their offense).

I'll probably think of others and edit this comment later lol

Hmm, but I'd love it more if more buffs were 'slotted on either bar' to free up bar spaces. But, good stuffs nonetheless from both you and the OP.

Silvains_Demon · July 28

I like where some comments went here. I do think that if Warden is about Life and Buffs, then within reason, Necromancer should be about debuffs. The reason I say "within reason" is that Necromancer needs to have at least some form of buffs.

As for pets and everything? I think Necromancer should be completely reworked, corpse mechanic either relegated to a minor role or removed, and that Necromancer should be the class to remodel how Pets work. I made a post that showcased a model I call "Consumable Minions" or whatever. It also reworked the current corpse-based skills and made them more reliable.

Necromancer needs a rework, the corpse mechanic is holding it back, and it needs to break the mold of temp/perm/no-pets. If they want identity for classes, that is a great place to start.