Help Necromancy!

[blue4333]

Hello, I've been playing a Necro/Dark Mastermind for sometime now. I feel that Necromancy lacks the oomph of other sets.

I have some thoughts on how Necromancy can be changed to make it more engaging.

 

1) Pet Resistances

Given that the pets are already dead, they should have resistances across the board (keeping in line with the typical zombie archetypes).  I was thinking maybe having 20% baseline resistance to all but Psionic and 25% psionic resistance would give the pets more survivability as well as fitting the already-dead fantasy.

 

2) Tier 1: Zombies

What kind of self-respecting necromancer only has 3 rank-and-file zombies with them? Would it be too crazy to change the total number of pets summoned by the T1 to 5? Oh and also, give them the Rikti monkey death toxic fart cloud.

 

3) Tier 2: Grave Knights

It's weird to see them juggle ranged damage attacks and not run in with their stronger melee attacks. I would remove the ranged Dark Blast and Gloom, and reduce the recharges of the other melee attacks to compensate.

 

4) Tier 3: Lich

As the flavour text of the power suggests that the Lich was a necromancer, I was thinking we could move it along that line and give the Lich the Haunt power from Dark Control.

 

5) Soul Extraction

This power adds a lot of hassle as it can only be used on dead pets; which seems counter productive having to resummon and upgrade dead pets just to receive a slight damage increase. Giving the power reduced recharge and allowing it to target dead enemy mobs instead reduce the need to keep looking out for dead pets and enhance the set's necromancy feel. 

 

These are my thoughts on the set. Do let me know your opinions~!

[Greycat]

*Debates waiting a month for this to fall from attention before replying. Seems appropriate to do necro a thread, right?* 🙂

 

OK, that aside...

 

(1) Resist by theme - if you went with "typical zombie archetypes," you missed something. They'd generally be more vulnerable to fire... which is *already* a pain in the 18-26 area (when they're generally at the weakest) and you're hitting Demolitionists, Sky Raiders, and (always) Longbow (flamethrowers) / Arachnos (fire tarantulas.) Argument could be made for "they should be weak to lethal, then" for the "shoot them in the head" feel.

 

(2) Why should necro get 5 pets with other ATs only getting 3 - whether they need help or not? Also, given our minions go down 1 level for every additional minion on their tier (thus the "minions at -2" when you have all four,) are you willing to have them drop farther? Seems fairly self defeating. Wouldn't argue with the AOE-on-death, though - they *are* dead, re-killing them should smell like it. Speed, so they get into range, could be a thing, though - "fast zombies" aren't unheard of.

 

(3) Removing their ranged blast means they're utterly useless against fliers (and runners and other things they can't immediately reach.) While "preference" could be looked at and tweaked, which may help, removal would be more of a nerf.

 

(4) Lich - ehhhh, I'm usually iffy about giving pets the ability to summon more pets (I don't think they do well with it,) but I don't really have anything against it. Probably fit it in with the last upgrade, I'd think.

 

(5) I don't get the "counter prodctive" argument - the pet's dead anyway, you'd need to resummon and reupgrade, so this is simply one more click. It seems to last reasonably long on balance, depending on how you play and what you're fighting. That said, thematically I could see applying it to enemy mobs as well. As a warshade player as well though, I can tell you there are times that's decidedly *not* an advantage (invasions, for instance, where they have sped up the fade-defeated-enemies thing to reduce clutter, and of course certain classes of enemies that just vanish on defeat.) It wouldn't have the disadvantage (as much) that Warshades have with it, though, since you'd still have your *own* minions to use if they die.

[Monos King]

@blue4333 Tell me what you think of this thread:

 

[Burnt Umber]

10 hours ago, blue4333 said:

1) Pet Resistances

Given that the pets are already dead, they should have resistances across the board (keeping in line with the typical zombie archetypes).  I was thinking maybe having 20% baseline resistance to all but Psionic and 25% psionic resistance would give the pets more survivability as well as fitting the already-dead fantasy.

At level 50, the Zombies have  42.07% resistance to smashing damage; 42.07% resistance to cold damage; 42.07% resistance to negative energy damage; 42.07% resistance to psionic damage; and 42.07% resistance to toxic damage.  I think the values/types of resistances are fine here.

 

However, at level 50, the Grave Knights have the same values but lose the smashing resistance.  And the Lich has it even worse: with lower resistance (26.14%) to negative energy damage; marginally better resistance (44.44%) to cold and toxic damage; and no resistance to psionic damage.

 

While I don't exactly agree with your proposal because I think the zombie minions at least do fit the "zombie archetype."  But, I do think the Grave Knights ought to have both smashing and lethal resistance at the same 42.07% value as the zombies to capture the idea that they're wearing armor.  The Lich ought to have substantial resistances (~50-60%) to cold, negative energy, toxic, and psionic as well as minor resistances (~20-25%) to energy and fire damage to capture the idea that it was once a powerful necromancer but still a "squishy wizard."

 

10 hours ago, blue4333 said:

2) Tier 1: Zombies

What kind of self-respecting necromancer only has 3 rank-and-file zombies with them? Would it be too crazy to change the total number of pets summoned by the T1 to 5? Oh and also, give them the Rikti monkey death toxic fart cloud.

I really wouldn't want to have more minion level zombies at the cost to their effectiveness that balancing would require.  I would totally be down for them to have some sort of on-death power such as you suggest or similar to balance for their likely demise for being in melee range.

10 hours ago, blue4333 said:

3) Tier 2: Grave Knights

It's weird to see them juggle ranged damage attacks and not run in with their stronger melee attacks. I would remove the ranged Dark Blast and Gloom, and reduce the recharges of the other melee attacks to compensate.

I've seen this problem too on my Necromancer, but I wouldn't want the Grave Knights to lose both of their ranged attacks, which can be very necessary/useful.  If they lost one or the other, that'd be fine for me.  If that happened though, I'd want them to get Parry as a replacement - which would also help their survival in melee range.

10 hours ago, blue4333 said:

4) Tier 3: Lich

As the flavour text of the power suggests that the Lich was a necromancer, I was thinking we could move it along that line and give the Lich the Haunt power from Dark Control.

Honestly, I think the Lich needs a bit of an overhaul.  Although I appreciate the added AoE damage and control of its Torrent, it doesn't make up for the fact that it doesn't get its key control powers until the level 32 upgrade.  So, I'd drop Torrent; move Tenebrous Tentacles to its place; move Fearsome Stare to the place of Tentacles; and add Dark Pit to the 32 upgrade.  This would really add to its control abilities, and make the upgrades more progressive.  Also, if it wouldn't be totally unbalancing, I'd give it Twilight's Grasp somewhere to make him more of a Dark/Dark Defender-lite.

10 hours ago, blue4333 said:

5) Soul Extraction

This power adds a lot of hassle as it can only be used on dead pets; which seems counter productive having to resummon and upgrade dead pets just to receive a slight damage increase. Giving the power reduced recharge and allowing it to target dead enemy mobs instead reduce the need to keep looking out for dead pets and enhance the set's necromancy feel. 

To me, the real problem with soul extraction is that its summon scales with which pet it's used on so it's sort of wasted on the Zombies (having the least HP and damage) even though they're the most likely to be the fodder for the power.  Instead, I hold out on using it until one of the Knights or even the Lich drops.  As a result it becomes more of an emergency power than a regular use one.  While such powers may have their place, I would prefer if the summon were the same regardless of which pet it was used on, so I didn't feel penalized for using it on a Zombie or waiting for everything to go sideways to use it.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Vigilant Vergil

[oedipus_tex]

It's a shame Necromancy has no way to resurrect defeated enemies to replace their zombies.

 

Soul Extraction for sure seems like it should be castable on dead enemies in a similar vein.

Edited November 29, 2020 by oedipus_tex

[Sakura Tenshi]

My thoughts for necromancy -

 

Overall, zombies should be the 'utility' set, where they sacrifice direct defenses for debuffs, controls, and general weirdness. This would be done through the following:

1. Zombie Brawl now deals minor negative/smashing damage but recharges basically instantly. It's real strength comes from having a strong -damage, -accuracy, -recharge, -endurance, -recovery, and -movement debuff that lasts for 5 minutes and stacks. So you have three and eventually more zombies out, enemies won't be able to do anything under the weight of the horde.
2. Zombie's now only have one ranged power: a 40ft cone with a strong -res, -def, -regen, and -max HP and deals moderate toxic/negative damage. doesn't recharge as fast as the brawl (they can fire every 10 seconds), but like the zombie brawl debuff, it lasts ages and stacks forever, and the strength is just respectable enough to mean by the time the first stack is disappearing, even Reichsman's resistances would be in the negatives.
3. Every upgrade power, the basic Zombie Horde zombie gains a the ability to summon another zombie. (so you end up with 9 minions total by the second upgrade). Now you can't actually control these 'lesser zombies', but they follow the lead of the one they're slaved to, have all the same powers, and will be resummoned by the 'prime zombie' after about a minute if they die.
4. The drawback is, the zombie horde now has 0 resistances and defenses, the idea is that they exist to overwhelm with a wave of debuffs and shore up their HP through siphon life spam, and even if/when they do die, the zombie horde has left lasting debuffs on your enemy in stacks that will leave them suffering for a long time.
5. The Lich now gains Heart of Darkness, Haunt, and Fade, but would lose dark blast, increasing their utility and control at the expense of direct damage.

pure optional thing:

• Replace grave knights with 'Ghouls'
• Ghouls basically are Halloween event zombies that use Ghoul animations and savage melee/assault attacks that deal lethal/negative damage
• Ghouls would passively have ninja/beast run speed and jump bonus.
• Their attacks would be Savage swipe, maiming slash (base attacks), Shred, Savage lunge (equip powers), Vicious Slash, and dull pain (upgrade powers)

Yeah, none of this is done with much actual balance in mind. I realize having basically five additional pets from lich and the zombie horde summons a bit much. Nevermind 5 minute long debuffs.

[Clave Dark 5]

20 hours ago, blue4333 said:

2) Tier 1: Zombies

What kind of self-respecting necromancer only has 3 rank-and-file zombies with them? Would it be too crazy to change the total number of pets summoned by the T1 to 5? Oh and also, give them the Rikti monkey death toxic fart cloud.

I can't speak to all of this, but I do find a great idea in here: anyone summoning zombies should have a Gang War sort of power to summon a huge hoard of the fellows, because that's what makes zombies so scary, where there's lots of them and few or one of you.

 

How you'd go about putting that power into the set I've no idea though, I've never played a zombie MM past I think 20.

[Dragon Crush]

No idea how it could be implemented, but a combo of the "moar zombies" and damage on death could be that when a zombie dies 2-6 (depending on upgrades) underling class zombies spawn and swarm the enemy that killed it for 20 seconds. It'd have to have a cooldown timer so you can't just keep re-summoning pets to have them die and summon more pets, but if each of the 3 zombies had a 2 or 3 minute cooldown before they summon zombies on death I think it could work.

Not sure how to justify it however without the assumption that there isn't a horde of zombies nearby that just aren't attacking though.

[Nexros]

Having played Zombie/* MM as my main since forever, I feel I should speak up here.

 

I just want to make sure these points are thought about, having a lot of experience with the set. Please also keep in mind that the theme is Necromancy (dark magic, etc?), not Zombie apocolypse (though you could totally pull that). I would be very sad if the set moved away from a magic feel toward a mutation zombie apocolypse feel, if that makes sense.

 

(see bold points to skip the extra)

1. Pet Resistances / Survivability
Everyone that's played MMs know that between lvl 16 to about 24 ish is rough, depending on the set. This is simply because the game is scaling against you and your DPS is completely reliant on having all your pets and you simply don't at this stage. This problem is especially bad for Necromancy simply because there are no specialty pets. For example, Mercs get the medic, demons second lieutenant does HUGE AoE dps as soon as you get it, no arsonist, no healing/shielding bots, etc etc. However, all of these weaknesses are shored up at lvl 32 with the final upgrade because ALL of the zombies can independently heal themselves and gain strong -to hit. Zombies are very tanky after lvl 32, especially if you toss a heal enhance in there (depending on your secondary). The reason the minions die so much is simply because they're melee. Because of this, Zombies don't need a survivability buff in my opinion.

One last point on these dudes: they do more damage than you may realize with the cone DoT puke power. It's a slow DoT but does a lot of damage and doesn't keep the minion busy (like the merc's full auto, for example)

 

2. Grave Knights

Personally, I think they're perfect! Though the logic used to balance the ranged and melee attacks could always be improved. With the recent minion logic changes, these guys do a WHOLE lot better than they used to. They used to run up to someone, THEN throw their ranged attacks. Now they *pew pew* and follow up with melee within a reasonable distance. No more running half-way across the mission, aggroing everything in the process (because these dude can MOVE). No complaints with the improvements already done here!

 

3. Lich

Your Haunt idea sounds really fun! With how much damage the Grave Knights do, I know the Lich is normally thought of as a cc pet, but something like haunt would be cool!

 

4. Soul Extraction

This skill is KILLER when used regularly. But as most of pointed out, it can be hard to use regularly. We want our pets to survive, but we also want to be able to use it on the Lich for maximum effect... 

I think it would be super cool to be able to use it on both your minions and dead enemies! Then set the recharge speed based on what you used it on up to a Boss level enemy (or your own Lich). That would be awesome and feel very thematic.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Nexros

[Nexros]

 

On 11/29/2020 at 7:13 PM, Sakura Tenshi said:

My thoughts for necromancy -

 

Overall, zombies should be the 'utility' set, where they sacrifice direct defenses for debuffs, controls, and general weirdness. This would be done through the following:

1. Zombie Brawl now deals minor negative/smashing damage but recharges basically instantly. It's real strength comes from having a strong -damage, -accuracy, -recharge, -endurance, -recovery, and -movement debuff that lasts for 5 minutes and stacks. So you have three and eventually more zombies out, enemies won't be able to do anything under the weight of the horde.
2. Zombie's now only have one ranged power: a 40ft cone with a strong -res, -def, -regen, and -max HP and deals moderate toxic/negative damage. doesn't recharge as fast as the brawl (they can fire every 10 seconds), but like the zombie brawl debuff, it lasts ages and stacks forever, and the strength is just respectable enough to mean by the time the first stack is disappearing, even Reichsman's resistances would be in the negatives.
3. Every upgrade power, the basic Zombie Horde zombie gains a the ability to summon another zombie. (so you end up with 9 minions total by the second upgrade). Now you can't actually control these 'lesser zombies', but they follow the lead of the one they're slaved to, have all the same powers, and will be resummoned by the 'prime zombie' after about a minute if they die.
4. The drawback is, the zombie horde now has 0 resistances and defenses, the idea is that they exist to overwhelm with a wave of debuffs and shore up their HP through siphon life spam, and even if/when they do die, the zombie horde has left lasting debuffs on your enemy in stacks that will leave them suffering for a long time.
5. The Lich now gains Heart of Darkness, Haunt, and Fade, but would lose dark blast, increasing their utility and control at the expense of direct damage.

pure optional thing:

• Replace grave knights with 'Ghouls'
• Ghouls basically are Halloween event zombies that use Ghoul animations and savage melee/assault attacks that deal lethal/negative damage
• Ghouls would passively have ninja/beast run speed and jump bonus.
• Their attacks would be Savage swipe, maiming slash (base attacks), Shred, Savage lunge (equip powers), Vicious Slash, and dull pain (upgrade powers)

Yeah, none of this is done with much actual balance in mind. I realize having basically five additional pets from lich and the zombie horde summons a bit much. Nevermind 5 minute long debuffs.

haha SUPER over powered, but really great ideas. The Lich has never really been a DPS pet to begin with. Most of his abilities are -tohit like the fear stare, immobilize, hold, etc. I think the only damage they do is dark blast and gloom, really. They do have one AoE cone blast but it very low damage.

[Razor Cure]

On 11/29/2020 at 11:09 PM, Greycat said:

Why should necro get 5 pets with other ATs only getting 3 - whether they need help or not?

One of the things I read about Thunderspy was a change covering this. Sure, Necro shouldnt get more pets at base, than other sets, but then why do we have Gangwar (clearly the best 'special' MM power). Demons also get HoE, with the lil demon things. Admittedly, Necro gets SoulEx..which is pretty shit.

The Thunderspy server tweaked SoulEx so its like..a toggle, that auto extracts on any dead thing around, and summons a basic Zombie, every 30 (or whatever) seconds. Those zombies only last 20 secs, but can keep spawning up to X amount. This gives teh necromancer a horde (ish) of weak undead minions, providing you keep killing stuff (Gangwar would STILL be way better versus a hard target).

The idea seemed really cool.