Necromancer Deep Dive Discussion

Bloodlust

overall not hating the deep dive, i only have 2 concerns for now until I test it in a group.

1) Are we going to be worst off in fast TTK groups now that our DD line is gone? I know that was only for undead but alot of camps have undead so was useful over using our taps.

2) as somoene mentioned above, at least our pets scale with level so they will be tankier but if their skill levels also do not scale with level, its not as good.

Refried

Allinon-Nurgle
I like no DD line, not enough spell slots for it. Your pet hopefully and shoot undead nukes to some degree at some point.

saephellar

Drixen what's the issue? Necro basically kept everything and you're still asking for more? This is probably the best rework any class got tbh. It's so versatile and not boring and incomplete like what they did with elementalist. Necromancer and shadow knight always felt the most complete out of all the classes and thst hadn't changed here either. this rework totally slapped the elementalist's face and I predict so many ele mains in the beta are gonna go necromancer now including myself. The burning bones quest reward is gonna give a pet that does the basically the same as the fire ele now which even makes the necro even more appealing now and the ele so unappealing. I think we know which is the better pet class objectively when summing everything together of pros and cons. It's such an easy pick.

saephellar

Name it's better to have something and not need it than to need something and not have it. It'll require just some more frequent slot changing with skills which is a little cumbersome but overall this class is shaping up to look even better than it was before the rework unlike the elementalist rework which was poo. You get to enjoy getting new skills and upgrades until 60 which makes you look forward to getting stronger in the journey unlike ele once again. Also undead are all over the game so it's gonna be fun messing with charm and mezing now, I couldn't even use my skills like that on my ele.

Unchainedfury

Thanks to Jahaar, Xilith, Ali, Runaf, and the rest of the crew for putting in a lot of work on all of the reworks, not just this one. I promise I'll buy a T-shirt, or maybe even a gnome pillow, at least! 🙂

All of this will require testing before providing in-depth feedback.

At a glance..

Things I like:

Your minion scales with your level between spell ranks
collectable pet types found through world exploration
Life Drain...cleaned up into a smoother climb across ranks.
Leech Lifeforce...heals you for what it takes.
Summon Lifestones - unchanged.
Pact of Vampirism
Lich line - clean up
Lich Spirit - retained
Unliving Shield - combined effects, but not Soul Tether (explan. below)
Unholy Bulwark / FD - unchanged
Fury of Death - first rank now arrives a little earlier
Summon Companion, Reclaim Essence
Aspect of Vampirism - Thank you for keeping this, I'm positive it was on the fence of the discussion
Eye of the Underworld (formerly See Invisibility, now also senses magical effects)

Possibles:

Pact of Eldritch Quickening - TBD
Splinter/Fracture debuff line - Reordered to affect our DoT's?
Mana Surge - CD duration?

Things I dislike:

Your minion is still the heart of the class, holding the front line while you work from range.
Lull the Dead - can only affect one target at a time
Lack of additional DoT's where dot stacking was removed
Leech Line - No longer stackable across different tiers
Removing our most efficient DD for Undead mobs
Grasp of the Dead - Unchanged in function (root)

Requires Clarification:

1) Restrain the Dead - incapacitate a single undead target. Now four ranks instead of one, so it stays useful as you level
2) Terrify the Dead - make an undead target flee. Formerly Fear the Dead.
3) Shadows (Corruption over time with a snare)

1) Was this spell separated into x4 for different levels of mobs? The original remained useful from 12-60.
2) Did this receive an adjustment to differentiate from regular Fear?
3) Assuming this will not land on Named mobs for the dmg portion only, in its current iteration?

Leaning more into the pet-focused theme slows down the gameplay of the class and doesn't make sense, thematically, as the Elementalist is the pure pet-focused class that needs to be incorporated more into the solo/group play. Ele's should have received this in their rework, not the necro. Ele's have no CC nor capability to split camps for pulls and their solo/group rotation is rather bland, to say the least.

Pact of Deathly Enduring - only valuable when our pets are tanking, (AE Raids, too) which will never be the case in a group setting. Nor will it be the case when kiting, fear-kiting, charming, root/rotting. Sounds great for Farming lower level mobs and Named sub-50, but it doesn't improve DPS of the pet, only durability and at a (significant?) health cost. It's extremely situational.

Removing our DD vs. Undead mobs also trades our usefulness in high DPS / fast TTK groups. Previously, depending on the mob coming to camp, one would choose which was the most efficient method to go - Lethal Deluge > Utility or Assail the Undead x2 > Utility. On Named Undead mobs, I could stack DoT's (pre-nerf), then Nuke while averaging 300-400 dps on the backend of a mobs health pool at lvl 60. (Take that, Charmed Pet pre-nerf) This felt rewarding for reaching max level and bringing all of my abilities to bear, while maintaining eyes on party health / mana pool to add utility as necessary. Now, that choice has been removed and I don't understand the rationale behind the decision to force the necro class to slow the game-play further. It already played slower than the Classic EQ necro due to the Spell Memorization/GCD/Cast times. Now, it's amplified with less DoT's, no DD vs. Undead, and a slower pull role.

Lull durations were already nerfed, significantly (50% ish), and with charisma factored into the equation. Bringing this down to 1 mob limit slows down the pulling role pace, which was quite rewarding for a change of gameplay. Who wants to change into their best Halloween Costumes (charisma) to perform the pull role? It reduces our capabilites for pulling and clashes with the role. Why carry all that extra gear to swap out for a 1 mob limit?

Lacking additional DoT's, with variety, and removing our self DoT stacking seems like a missed opportunity. Casting the same x3-4 dots over and over to 60 and beyond isn't going to be rewarding. Lifetap is not an efficient use of our mana and should be reserved for when necessary.

All combined, we've become more sluggish with less options.

Soul Tether - Highly situational. We have enough mitigations as it is and I'd rather have something more diverse than for Farming or my pet staying alive a little longer during AE's at Raids. If we must keep it, I concur with Klok regarding "removing Agency" and we should have the choice, not limit it to automatic.

Redlining - I would have loved to see those staying under 40% health for extended periods of time receiving a (cumulative?) benefit for playing it tight on the risk/reward factor, perhaps with additional benefits to the necro if incorporating group based Utility spells.

Cheers, keep up the good work!

lich

Lifestones are dumb, they should not be a necro thing, if anything this is a druid/ranger "cureberry" ....

temporary rez on allies is dumb

temp rezing monsters seems gross, If we are meant to rez monsters that means we need corpses... so we are supposed to just have more corpse spam on screen?

I need my Sacrifice > High cost Rez on necro....

overall seems like a good rework

ailurus

I would absolutely LOVE a pet sacrifice ability if that ever comes across the minds of the devs. Have no pet to make my dots hit harder. Love dots, hate pets. This is the only DOT class

Also, in groups I'm confused what our role is supposed to be. The game is clearly a group focused, primarily ST game where everyone hits the same mob. Things will die too fast for our dots to get much value, and we don't really provide a group buff(other than pet attacks have a chance to heal, for my pact). From my understanding, in group play, our job is to have our pet attack, cc undead mobs, and give mana to more useful players?

Unchainedfury

To be clear:

The rework was a Nerf to gameplay, overall.

We have less choices, less efficiency, less capabilities, and slower game-play.

Allinon-Nurgle

Unchainedfury No it improved Necro was not a nerf.

Unchainedfury

Allinon-Nurgle How so?

I've explained how it's a Nerf and I'm curious how you think the rework improves the class.

Tsunamisan

Looks like a pretty stable rework. Nobody had a right to complain till you look at how they neutered the Elementalist. necro became more health centric with pacts. gained many interesting abilities with them too.

I didn't see anything about dots not stacking with other necros. Just you couldn't just use several ranks of the same spell to apply massive damage and that was across the board not just necros.

It's fine I don't see any real downsides ON Paper. Gotta just see how that translates to in game.

Unchainedfury

Tsunamisan Gotta just see how that translates to in game.

I've explained how it translate to in-game.

Respectfully, I'll disagree 🙂

Namus

Raybane Yes this is what i wanted to say. Thank you for helping explain 🙂

Fisher

Unchainedfury I really dont understand your fixation on wanting to maintain 7+ dots on a target and this weird attachment you have with constantly sitting and bookswapping spells out.

Of any behavior the devs engage in the last thing I want is a bloated list of dots i need to throw out and maintain, and feeling like i need to be spam-slamming my book to change spells just to do my best dps rotation. Thats awful gameplay and I hope they dont listen to you.

I can agree with your assessment that placing DD on the initial cast of dots as bonus damage against undead is a massive nerf to our ability to blast undead effectively. Honestly this should have been incorporated into our life drain spells instead. The one caveat to this is that this will make dot kiting undead more efficient and a bit quicker without having to use the less mana-efficient spells. So if this damage is high enough maybe our complaint on this is not even warranted.

Rabican

Raybane

Thats the issue though, Burning doesnt have a rank outside of 1 right now, which would mean he falls off after rank 2 of regular skeleton gets purchased, if its a "more to come" thats great, but as of what is being said you can get rank 1 and then its done which means it becomes novelty till they add more, which if its quest based, that sounds amazing, but if its " you can get this pet that does nothing at your current level " - why bother

Unchainedfury

Fisher The simple answer is that it's quite rewarding - the more input you have the more output (results) you achieve, and it's completely up to the player to adjust their play style on a sliding scale to fit their current mood or scenarios they encounter.

It's not a requirement to throw 7+ DoT's, but having the option is always better than not having the option. The game is still being flushed out and we have no idea what future encounters we may come across where we wish we had the options.

My problem with removing the undead DD is it removes that playstyle from the game, which reduces our options and restricts game-play, effectively "dumbing" it down to the least common denominator. It was also a quite effective DPS line while performing the puller role.

Fisher the one caveat to this is that this will make dot kiting undead more efficient

Possibly, time will tell. Even so, it removes the ability from the player's arsenal to use the majority of their mana pool to burn down a mob, if they so chose to do so. Sometimes you don't want to be the most efficient if the necessity dictates otherwise.

Fisher and a bit quicker without having to use the less mana-efficient spells.

The undead DD line was our most efficient DPS line in fast TTK groups, and piling on DPS for undead Named mobs. Removing it and incorporating a partial compensation into our initial DoT dmg doesn't take any of these varying playstyles into account.

The dmg portion isn't my main concern, the removal of rewarding playstyle is.

Unchainedfury

If i want a laid back, pet-focused experience, I'll play an Elementalist.

Turning the Necromancer class into an Elementalist isn't my idea of rewarding game-play.

Unchainedfury

Rabican I believe the "Rank 1" indicates we'll have future ranks applied, which is a good thing imo.

ailurus

Unchainedfury yes. please don't make the only DOT class be a boring pet class

Chewbacon

Having a method for the pet being able to take a couple hits without being at half health feels additive as playstyle. I like that instead of buffing the pet straight away it’s an option. If that feels like too much of a pet class you can instead add healing to the group or boost your dot dps instead.

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