ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So currently even with a maxed aura Necromancer minions dissolve into dust when the player autoexplores at a normal movespeed (some even get left behind on a ghoul necro with the -20% move speed penalty). This makes them feel like just another attack spell that summons undead for the duration of the battle, unless the player avoids auto-exploring and hangs around to make sure they can keep up.

It's been suggested that they could simply inherit a movement speed bonus from their master and be able to shove eachother (this thread). Anyway, here's my suggestion:

A new necromancer passive: Dance of the Dead (or maybe Dance of Death)
The idea is pretty much that whenever no living enemies are in sight to glare at their gruesome forms, groups of >3 undead will dance and revel in the new life they've been given, granting them a +50% movement speed bonus, probably a bit extra based on the player's movespeed, if he has over 150%. Maybe a defense bonus for flavour. Enemy undead within the Necromancer's line of sight and/or within melee range of any of his minions will also join in the dance. If more than one Necromancer is present, the undead will join the most powerful dance

This could be integrated into a pre-existing necro skill, be skill of its own or maybe be separated into a category or just a passive that all undead have. Here are some effects that additional points might possibly have:
-Increase the movement speed bonus
-add some resource regeneration?
-maybe instead the necromancer feeds on the energy of the dance and it gives him a little mana or HP regen?
-the necromancer gains the ability to see through his minions' eyes if he dances with them for a fair amount of turns?
-Maybe he gains more ability to control them to a limited extent? (loses control if the minion moves out of range of the dance?) (actually this one might be too overpowered)

I prefer a different approach :p I think necromancers should be able to with time create a real pet instead of 15 fake ones. So I want to see them have a more golem like pet (though let them choose the base type). Then let it be directly controllable and work in most ways exactly like a golem.

You can still keep the random accumulation of trash mobs as a special long term cooldown. This is how they get used anyway, as just a speed bump or extra dps versus really hard uniques, rares, or bosses.

This would also go a long way to explaining where all these dang unique undead are coming from :p Thee are just way to many necromancers out there and sometimes the pet goes for a stroll.

@skein: I'm not thrilled with the idea of making another alchemist class.

As for the OP's problem with minions, one way to sort this more easily is to just give necros an ability to recycle the minions back into energy...That's if DG wants it to work that way. Necro minions are throwaway by design, I think.

What about adding a pull-in effect to the aura, that only applies with no enemies in sight? If it applied every subjective turn, it could let necromancers explore freely, even at high movement speeds.

supermini wrote: As for the OP's problem with minions, one way to sort this more easily is to just give necros an ability to recycle the minions back into energy...That's if DG wants it to work that way. Necro minions are throwaway by design, I think.

lukep wrote:What about adding a pull-in effect to the aura, that only applies with no enemies in sight? If it applied every subjective turn, it could let necromancers explore freely, even at high movement speeds.

Both of these are good ideas and easier to work with than mine. Same for the thread I linked in the OP. I think any of them would make Necro better.

[edit: wow I really messed up the formatting on those quote somehow. fixed]

Good ideas in this thread !

Half your minions being destroyed during your autoexplore instead of actual battles despite you maxed the aura talent is definitively not adding any kind of fun to the game.

And when it turns out that those lost to auto-explore minions are the (rare to get) high end necrotic ones instead of those lowly skeletons, it's only frustrating.