Full Necro concept… Pg1, now in add-ons section.

[Delmuir]

I copied over the page 1 entry…

Latest and hopefully last changes:

Bone Giants no longer get Bone Shield from "Blighted Summoning" prodigy. They now get Ruin from the Reaver class.

Blood Golems now get Bone Shield at whatever the talent level is for the Blood Golem.

Create Minions can now, at lvl 5, include Rotting Mummies… or maybe Ancient Elven Mummies depending on balance.

Chance of Life can now trigger if you're below 0 life but only if said hit would kill you… however, it now will not trigger at all if you're currently silenced.

Cursed Summoner's sustain cost has been reduced to 150… for now.

Blood Curse has had its mana cost increase to 90.

[Red]

Could TL 6+ or 7+ Blood Golems be considered for the Bloodspring prodigy? It fits nicely with their natural vampirism.

[Delmuir]

Could TL 6+ or 7+ Blood Golems be considered for the Bloodspring prodigy? It fits nicely with their natural vampirism.

That's funny… I seriously considered it. I thought it would be too powerful but I was thinking that if you took that prodigy then the Blood Golem (being so connected to you) might get it was… I'm not sure.

Love the idea though...

[Red]

*Looks at Cursed Summoner*

Wink wink nudge nudge buff buff.

[malboro_urchin]

*Looks at Cursed Summoner*

Wink wink nudge nudge buff buff.

Doomed, sort of

[Delmuir]

*Looks at Cursed Summoner*

Wink wink nudge nudge buff buff.

I'm not entirely happy with it either… probably my least favorite skill in the entire build. Having said that, I'm not 100% sure how to buff it without messing with the balance and power.

Honestly, I'd be open to changing the skill entirely but I'm out of ideas… I just want to keep it in the Blight family.

For now, I'm just going to work on the math as 0player is going to start tackling this as an add-on… I'm sure he'd like some help if anyone is game, ha ha.

[Red]

I've got a replacement idea. Basically a Grasping Claws sustain, significantly weaker but able to be maintained forever. Excellent for keeping foes away, and due to a linger effect also able to benefit a mobile Newcromancer by leaving spots of helpful terrain all over the place.

Arise the Dead

Your mere presence awakens the dead into a frenzy. Everywhere you walk, their limbs graps up towards your foes, dragging them to join the throngs of the Stygian depths. As you stay in place, your presence brings the underworld nearer all around you, widening the area where the dead stir.

Use: Sustain
Range: Radius 1 to Necrotic Aura
Cost: I'm bad at numbers.
Use Speed: One turn
Cool Down: 3 (Don't know exact CD, but should be rather low since it's got a good effect on deactivation.)

A radius 1 (2 at TL4, 3 at TL6) aura of grasping dead surround you. Each turn an enemy starts within this aura and each step they take in it forces them to make a physical save against your spellpower. The first failed save Entangles them, reducing move speed by 50% for 3-5 turns. A second failed save while Entangled is active Pins them for the remaining duration of Entangled. Each further failed save inflicts physical damage and resets the duration of the pin.

Each turn you stay in one spot, the radius of the aura increases by 1, up to a maximum of your Necrotic Aura. Each turn you move reduces the radius by 5-1. Movement is counted based on distance, not steps taken, so a teleport of 3 squares will reduce the radius by 3 at TL5.

The aura stays present after you leave the area for 1-3 turns. In Blighted Soil, the aura lingers for three times as long.

Finally, if you deactivate the sustain manually, you can choose to pay a soul to empower the area with your own dark force. If deactivated in this way, the aura will instead linger for 20-60 turns

[Delmuir]

I think, Red, that your proposed skill is too complicated for my tastes… it has a lot of moving parts.

The skill I put in place kind of sucks because it isn't really needed… your proposed skill is a bit redundant with Rigor Mortis and Grasping Claws already granting movement penalties. Any more and you're way off into OP-city.

Thus, what this tree really needs is another independent nuking skill… but what? The class already has good one-shot damage with Animus Purge and a great de-buff/high damage skill in Impending Doom. It has good ranged beams, cone damage, and a massive area effect with Blood Curse…

Perhaps another neg-life ability?

What about this:

Active skill that only works at negative life at moderate mana cost and 1 soul. Unlike other skills, this doesn't become active at 1 or less so much as it's only available at 0 or less.

The damage of this skill is based on however much life you're missing, called "X." It deals between 100-200% of "X" as blight damage to 1 enemy in melee range and then equal amount to yourself 1+ turns later, depending on talent point investment.

Given that you have Harvest, Undeath Link, and Sacrifice, this skill has nice synergy.

Thoughts? It's only a concept...

[Red]

Why melee range? That just seems weird for a mage. Alternatively, channel it through a minion so it's melee range from anyone on your side.

In addition, that sounds very, very fun if it has a very, very low cooldown. The self-harm and damage based on how much damage you've taken could be synergized to do frankly ridiculous amounts of damage in short order. Start at -100 HP with a cap of -500. First hit deals 100, you take 100. Next hit deals 200, you take 200. Next hit deals 400... So on and so forth, limited only by how much you're willing to risk or actually dying.

[grayswandir]

Thus, what this tree really needs is another independent nuking skill… but what?

I haven't been following this thread too closely, but ...

I've always wanted the necromancer to have a mega-nuke that costs souls to use. Maybe work something in so that anything that gets killed raises a minion in its place? (minion type based on enemy rank) Not sure how well it'd balance with the rest of the class, but itd' be *fun*.

[Red]

That's currently the ability we're talking about replacing. Cursed Summoner.

[Delmuir]

I liked some of your ideas so this is what I came up with:

4. Fatal Spite:

Use: Active
Range: 1
Cost: 50 mana and 3 souls
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 30

Delivers to 1 target, in melee range of you or one of your minions, blight/darkness damage equal to the half of the cumulative amount of damage below the max for you and all of your minions. Then, you suffer between 50-100% of same damage 1 turn later (scales with talent point investment up to 3 with a cat point).

When at or below 0 life, the delay increases by 100%.

The trick would be mitigating that damage either through use of harvest, sacrifice, or if necessary, Undeath Link.

I figure if you have 11 minions and yourself with an average of 900 life and they're at 50% life then you have the ability to deal damage in excess of 5k.

Obviously, it's a potentially massive amount of damage in theory… more likely, you'll be dealing half of that amount, which is still a ton of damage. Thus, it demands a high price: 100 mana and at least 1 soul… also, only available at neg-life.

I like the idea that it would be limited but thanks to Red for the idea about extending it to the melee range of you or one of your minions.

[Red]

Um... I think you might have written it backwards. The only thing that scales with talent level is how much damage you take, and it (appears to) scale up with talent level. In addition, you gain a bonus for using it below 0 HP, but you also say it cannot be used with positive HP.

I mean, I get what you're saying with the ability. But one of the most annoying things you can run into in ToME is an ability that isn't very clear on what it does, and right now that is exactly what Fatal Spite is.

[Delmuir]

Yeah… poorly written but it wasn't a completed concept. I was kind of looking for feedback on it.

Still, your point is valid: poorly written skills are irritating. I'll try and fix it..

[Red]

Conceptually, it looks fine. Because it uses your minions' HP pool as well as yours, it'll deal great damage for non-blaster Necros. It's got a long CD, so it's a once-a-fight kind of ability, but nothing wrong with that. It's dangerous to use, and basically guaranteed death if you aren't sharing damage with your minions.

Really, I like how it encourages you to pay attention to your minions. If you use it whenever, it'll hurt your enmies, but if you look closely at your flesh/bonesacks and see when they're at their weakest, you can truly wreck an enemy.

I actually do think the modified -HP only gives extra delay is better. Since it uses your minions' HP pool too, you might have a dozen minions at 6 HP each while you're sitting pretty at +500, and the optimal moment to use it gets wasted. The only issue with that is being able to exploit damage immunity, so perhaps you only get any delay at -HP? Unless you want players to exploit that.