Necro cleanup/re-reshuffle

[Delmuir]

I wouldn't mind the cold/dark dual damage, but I don't think adding small debuff chances is the way to go. Why not just raise the damage slightly?

Not a fan of your proposed new tree. First off it's Eidolism, not Eidolicism. Secondly: Considering that your stated problem was a shortage of points, adding a tree seems a strange way of solving that. Not sure what those skills are doing (never used Necromancy+), so I won't comment on that. I will note that "Dark Styx" is a worse name than Shadow Tunnel in that it references real world mythology which does not exist in tome. I'd be okay with the adjective "stygian" since it more or less stands on it's own.

Moving Dark Empathy into a locked tree is IMHO not a good idea - currently it's very important to help with unfriendly fire from skellymages, and hybrids need it just as bad as pet builds. You're making it harder to skip Advanced Minions, which is pretty much the opposite of your stated goal to make the class less messy.

Same thing with Skeleton Mastery - another proposed new skill? Why?

I should note that some of this was incorporated into the Necro+ add-on but I've been too busy to check it out thoroughly. As of now, I don't think this is going anywhere. On to your points…

1. Eidolism? Good call and right you are.

2. Increase damage? I didn't want to raise the damage because I wanted to add some strategic options in gameplay, rathe than narrowing them. I'm not defending that as the best idea though and I'm certainly not wedded to it.

3. Names… I don't consider this much of an obstacle. One can take any skill and simply change the description to fit it into any thematic category. If mine sucks, so what? It ought to be easy enough for someone to fix if they think that it works, organizationally.

4. I don't think I added a new category in total… eliminated/renamed so it ought to be the same although I haven't looked at it in a while.

5. Dark Empathy… this really only has value very late in the game (or maybe in the middle) and virtually any necro build with minions should have enough cat points to get it comfortably.

6. Advanced Minion Master… I disagree. I don't see that tree as an imperative for all builds.

[Razakai]

I'm currently in the middle of writing my own Necromancer addon, which is a pretty significant rework and does a few things discussed here. Pretty much all the talents are in place and working to some degree, it's just a few final ones to go and then the polishing and balancing phase. Here's what I did to make Cold a more attractive element for necro, I wouldn't mind getting some feedback on it while I'm still developing as this thread has had a lot of good discussion:

Grave - Wisp has been removed and moved to Necrotic Minions (which has been shuffled around slightly). Thought a pet talent should go with the pet tree. Vampiric Gift has been moved to Necrosis, as it's a good general utility. Instead we have 2 new talents:
Black Ice - Sustain. Your cold damage chills targets to the bone, lowering their movement speed and inflicting cold damage over 3 turns based on their missing health.
This was to synergise with Cold Flames, as it turns it into a lethal slowing+constantly reapplying DoT field. Lets nuker necromancers have a way to keep away from melee targets, and finishes off low health targets damaged by your CotT.
Hungering Cold - Purges all heat in a [5-9] range cone, dealing cold damage and freezing targets solid. Targets that are already frozen will instead take greatly increased cold damage.
I like talents that have a dual purpose, and thought cold necros could do with another strong nuke, so I made this. Against targets you really need to control right away you can fire it off for decent damage + freeze, or you can wait for your flames to freeze them for a massive burst. This plays out quite well in practice. Throw a chill+flames into a room, duck round the corner, wait a few turns and fire off a HC at the now low-health or frozen targets, then let Black Ice pick off what remains.
What do people think of the concept of these? It's quite hard to tell just how fun and effective talents are in testing mode, and until I finish the rest I won't have time to do a full playthrough with it.

[Delmuir]

Razakai,

My immediate thought is that it might be overpowered… obviously, it's hard to say without seeing it but I would just keep an eye on that if I were you. Of course, I like the slowing effect, a lot.

I'm a fan of cold and think it's weaker than it should be. I'd like to see more done with it so I'm in favor of experimenting. My primary concern though is that making cold valuable as a standalone category reduces the value of the Lichform, which is thematically the goal of being a necro.

I'd also suggest taking a look at the Necro + add-on as it has some good ideas (Undead Explosion!!!).

I was pretty fond of my final proposal (a page or two back if I recall) and thought it was pretty close to being a good re-work but it does not appear that it'll be going anywhere… so, if you're doing an add-on, I'd love to see some of those elements implemented to see if it works, especially the animus damage shield, truncated skeleton mastery, and Undead Explosion.

Good luck.

[Razakai]

Originally it was a hefty global slow, but that was absurdly overpowered. Now it'll cap out at 30% or so, which is potent for a passive, but shouldn't be too strong for a movement speed decrease. Combined with Hungering Cold it improves the damage of a cold blaster necro a lot though.

Lichform will be changed too. Not sure if it'll go in in the initial release, but rather than Star Fury there'll be a Lich specific ability set that does similar things but with a more necrotic twist. e.g. Devour Soul, a conal AoE that deals Cold/Dark damage, Stuns (to compensate for lack of Starfall) and has a chance to restore a soul per hit. So regardless of your damage focus, Lich is good. Plus it'll now be rewarded entirely via quest, no points needed. Powerful, but Lich is such an iconic spell I think all necros should have it.

I initially used Necro+ as a base to figure out how addons worked, and there's plenty of good ideas there. I'll definitely have the soul recovery from Soulwinds in some form, and yes Undead Explosion will be changed. Now restores health, no friendly fire, and each pet has a unique explosion (ghouls will do blight+disease, skeletons bleed, etc).

There's quite a lot already in place, some of which relates to your ideas. Minions in general will be improved greatly, with scaling from the necro's spell power and new abilities for the advanced minions. A quick rundown:
Necrotic Minions: Now has Wisps. I'll probably change minion spells so they don't friendly fire by default, and Dark Empathy will let them inherit your crit and improve the spellpower scaling.
Necrosis: Generic, now has Vampiric Gift and Aura Mastery.
Animus: Essence of the Dead is now instant.
Grave: Now has Black Ice and Hungering Cold, viable as a pure tree
Ice: Removed! I'll explain why further down.
Advanced Minions: Undead Explosion merged, now has Shadow Tunnel. This can be targeted on yourself for the old effect, or you can target an enemy to teleport your minions on top of them and grant them a free darkness damage attack.
Shades: Now generic. Has lost Shadow Tunnel and Frostdusk, I'm still working on replacement abilities but this'll be a general utility/defensive/trickery sort of tree.
There's now 3 new trees.
Acid - Unlocked. Direct damage/DoT tree, gives some off-element damage for resistant targets and a shortish cooldown nuke for pre-Lichform. Primary nuke is Vitriolic Sphere, a bolt that deals Acid damage over time to adjacent targets while reducing accuracy, armor and defence. The small aoe has no friendly fire, so it's also good for minion necros to make your minions hit harder.
Reaping - Locked. The big high level nuking tree, revolves around Cold/Dark damage and using Souls offensively. Has Frostdusk which now grants Cold penetration (so Ice was removed so it can't stack with Uttercold), and the big spell is River of Souls, a sustain that converts a soul each turn into high damage, autotargeting cold/dark bolts.
Corpse - Locked. Debuffs and utility. Final spell is Corpsewall, which raises a line of incredibly tough, line of sight blocking necrotic wall. The wall (when at maxed talent level) can drag targets towards it, inflicts random diseases and bleeds and can reanimate on death.

Also, I'll make a new staff type: Darkstaff, which gives Dark/Cold/Physical/Acid damage, so Necromancer has all their damage types covered rather than having to choose between Cold and Dark.

Once the addon is closer to release I'll probably put up a new thread with an indepth description, but that could be a little while. 50% or more of the abilities are done and except for a couple of spells all the design is in place, but it's a matter of finding time to code.

[cttw]

I just want to remark that these possible changes will not only change your necromancer characters, they will also change the necromancers you face, paricularly The Master (a small taste of what is to come), the high level Orc Pride necroes and High Peak stair boss necroes. Also NPC pet necromancers are hindered by the limited AI of themselves, and the smartness of the player in not getting into the worse positions with the skellies. A nuke necro suffers no such handicap, and any such improvement will make NPC necroes stronger beyond the skill maths.

[Razakai]

I'm hoping that NPC necromancers shouldn't become that much stronger with the changes. A number of improves are related to new abilities, and so NPCs like The Master and Orc Necromancers will still be using the same spells which should only have minor changes, so you won't have them blasting you with Reaper's Mark or Acid Rain and the like. NPC summons might be a little stronger, but like you said they're pretty dumb to begin with.
Although rare/bosses with the new trees might be dangerous. A High Peak stair boss with the new advanced minions and talents in Reaping/Corpse would be pretty scary. I suppose it'll only really show from playtesting though.