Necro cleanup/re-reshuffle

[The Revanchist]

Hybrid is the way to go.

As I'd expect. The best of nuking and having other creatures kill your enemies. And these seem like they'd make it, if nothing else, much more viable.

[Delmuir]

I'm inclined to agree. A minion-necro is a clumsy summoner, and a nuke-necro is a Cold and Darkness only Archmage. And I don't know how effective a hybrid-necro tends to be...

As far as flavour goes, it seems like a Necromancer going for early-lichform should be point-starved. Power at a price, and all that. And even if they aren't, Delmuir's proposition isn't going to eliminate point-shortages.

You don't think my proposal will address the point shortage? Hmmmm… maybe I'm missing something. I thought it would save enough skill points and still leave room for another tree for people who didn't want to do a hybrid build.

I wholeheartedly agree that the hybrid is the way to go but I don't think it works right now. The Advanced minions tree is so… so terrible to me.

I'm going to re-work my suggestions, keeping in mind everyone's criticisms (except those that think the build is fine as is because I just think they're wrong) and see what everyone thinks.

[Delmuir]

1. Grave tree: I'd suggest Frost dusk in the 4th slot and moving Vampiric Gifts. This would streamline the non-summoning build and make Lichform viable by leaving a few skill points for the Celestial/Star Fury tree.

2. Necrosis tree: move Undeath Link and replace it with Vampiric Gifts.

3. Necrotic Minions tree: integrate Dark Empathy and Aura Mastery into one skill. At this point, it's just a skill point sink and this class doesn't need that. Put Undeath Link in the 4th slot and buff it by giving it the same effect, at level 5, that it would get with Essence of the Dead.

I'd also eliminate Surge of Undeath… to be replaced by a thematically appropriate replacement for Curse of the Meek.

4. Advanced Necrotic Minions tree: Eliminate Sacrifice and add re-envisioned Forgery of the Haze. Make it a "Clone Golem" or something like that. Essentially make it work the same way that Sacrifice works except you're adding your "thoughts and memories and skill" into the body of a minor golem. Make it cost a turn, a soul, and then basically work like Forgery of the Haze except your copy would be undead.

5. Shades tree: I've left this tree with only two skills: I'd move Curse of the Meek to the Necrotic minions tree and rename it something like "Summon Poltergeists" but it'd work the same. That'd just leave Shadow Tunnel… for now.

6. Nightfall tree: Seeing as how I've removed Surge of Undeath, I'd buff Rigor Mortis such that it helps your minions more than it does.

7. Animus tree: Essence of the Dead. I'd make this instant and last a bit longer akin to other buffing abilities. As I removed the buff from Undeath Link, I'd replace it with a buff to Vampiric Gift which is so, so expensive. Should you cast Essence of Undeath while Vampiric Gifts is active, it would make the vampiric gift effect work for your minions as well.

Consume Soul… this should have an incrementally higher soul cost… maybe one soul per level but the effect should be greater and at lvl 5, it should create a 3 turn damage shield equal to fifty-percent of the heal. It should also have a longer cool-down, maybe four more turns.

To me, the only question is whether or not to get rid of the Shades tree entirely or add something to it. I think Shades is suggestive of ghosts or poltergeists, etc. and that could be built on. Something that has quasi-summons of ghosts and maybe damage so that it has appeal to casters and summoners and hybrid builds thus leaving you something to invest in should you not choose Lichdom. Shadow Tunnel could suggest that you move your minions through the underworld and instead of an evasion bonus, they could bring along some extra "poltergeists" with them that would act as additional targets. Maybe have curse of hate on them as well...

Thoughts? Criticisms?

EDIT: I'm going to make it clear that I'm keeping Shadow Tunnel.

[Mewtarthio]

Minion necromancers are way more fun than summoners. The trouble is that the Advanced Minions tree is pretty lackluster, but, again, I'd rather see it fixed than cut.

And as for why you'd use Sacrifice instead of Displacement Shield, the two are completely different. Sacrifice caps all incoming damage. If a massive damage spike comes your way, Sacrifice will guarantee that it doesn't do more than X damage. If you get hit with a damage spike while under Displacement Shield, then it might just ignore the shield entirely, and it might be powerful enough to punch through the shield and cause a lot of harm. It's basically a poor man's Bone Shield: Great against spikes, not so good against multiple hits.

And it's pretty decent: If you max it out, you can get like 20 turns of protection where all damage is capped to 16% of your max health. The only real problem, as you pointed out, is that it's fiddly to put together, especially if you're not abusing the heck out of zero resource cost abilities. If the Bone Giant itself was worth the trouble, it'd be a great talent.

As for what I'd do to fix the tree: For starters, give the Bone Giant some target redirection: Maybe the Taunt talent (so what if the "wild" ones don't get it? They're not built as bodyguards) or an automatic "Everyone targets the Bone Giant when you use Assemble" ability (I'd certainly pay attention to a gigantic, mobile mountain of corpses that suddenly burst into existence). Then, seriously fix the actual "advanced" minions, because right now they're actually a downgrade. Skeletons are, far and away, the best minions you can have (except liches, but those are too rare to count unless you do some tedious, exploitative zero-resource-cost minion-farming). It's a bit hard to see what the Minion Mastery talent is supposed to be going for. Is it supposed to give you spellcaster minions? If so, then they need way better spells than what they get*. Are they supposed to straight-up hit harder than regular minions? Because they really don't, not with skeletons getting weapons and the Combat Training to use them.

*Of course, the other option is to nerf the skeletons until the advanced minions look better in comparison, but I hope we can all agree that would be the exact opposite of fun.

EDIT: Ah, new post. I'm honestly not seeing what you've changed there. You're still cutting Shadow Tunnel entirely, which I think is a bad idea. I am in favor of merging Dark Empathy and Aura Mastery (or merging them into other talents, at least; I'm not really sure if they fit together that well). And how, exactly, do you envision Empowered Spellcasting in your new system?

[Delmuir]

I like your suggestions about adding "taunt" to the Bone Golem.

I also completely, 100% agree with the assessment that the Minion Mastery is terrible. My only suggestion would be to buff it such that what you summon is better.

Also, Nooooo… I'm keeping Shadow Tunnel now but I didn't flesh out what to add to that tree. I just figure it should be a combo of things that helps summoner necros and casters.

I'm not sure what you mean by "empower spell casting" but if it means what I think it does, see above. Put some help in that now seemingly empty tree. Give it a couple of abilities that integrate with summoners or casters. That way, as an optional tree, it would provide a benefit to both all three styles of play, especially if you didn't go Lich.

As for Sacrifice… no, you're right. It has a purpose but I just don't think it's a good one and I think if you add a shield (as I suggested) to consume soul at lvl 5 then you don't really need it especially if you add the "taunt" to the Bone Golem then you're getting targeted less often.

I'd also like to buff Undead Explosion but that's just because I loved that spell from Diablo 2 when it was called Corpse Explosion. Maybe my favorite ability in any game, ever.

[HousePet]

Combining Aura Mastery and Dark Empathy just makes a super summoning buff talent that is a must have. How is that an improvement?

[cttw]

Cttw,
I agree that it is very important not to overpower the Necromancer (and I think my solutions would not overpower) but I'm not sure what you mean by "one of the easiest to win with."

Is it easier than an Archmage? Summoner? Corruptor? Anorithil? Maurader? Oozemancer? Solipsist? That's 7/18 that I'd pick as easier than a Necromancer to win with, largely because I've never been able to win with one. I've taken three to the high peak but couldn't finish either.

It's like an archmage with 6 backup plans. Oozemancer is not balanced, and Solipsist maybe. Seriously, if you came to my house and told me that if I pulled a win on first try you'd give me a million, I'd pick necromancer.

What it boils down to is this: when you are, for example, in dreadfell, and you get surrounded by the master's skeletons with no reach to the master, you teleport away. We all do. But the NPCs don't. And that ends necromancer's troubles.

[Theyleon]

Combining Aura Mastery and Dark Empathy just makes a super summoning buff talent that is a must have. How is that an improvement?

Because it's currently 2 summoning buff talents that are must haves.

[HousePet]

Aura Mastery is a rather different effect to Dark Empathy.
It is useful to an Anima necromancer that doesn't use minions.

[AlexanderR]

Combining Aura Mastery and Dark Empathy just makes a super summoning buff talent that is a must have. How is that an improvement?

You make it sound as if must have talents are bad Who would possibly refuse to have ways of preventing resource shortage and friendly fire (especially, if source of that friendly fire is supposed to deal notable damage)? The best course of action is to just remove both talents and make their effects innate to class and scaling with character level. Also make Surge of Undeath grant you affinity to damage of minions and combine it in one with Shadow Tunnel.

[Delmuir]

House Pet,
If you combine Dark Empathy and Aura Mastery, what difference does it make? You still get both effects at half of the cost. More so, how are they that "different?" Why can't an ability do both? We could rename it and change the description if that helps.

Cttw,
I honestly don't buy that argument. The logic doesn't hold… if you had one shot to beat the game and could only pick one class, for a million dollars, you'd pick the Necromancer? With a million on the line, one should logically take the class that is best suited to win the game in one shot and I don't see how anyone can pick any other class than Oozemancer, and I don't like that class because I hate minestars. Still, it's very powerful.

Finally, your point about the master… yeah, his summons are a pain but your summons aren't quite as pimped out. You're largely weaker relative to the enemies and later in the game I find minions easily getting wiped out in one or two turns which is something that few classes (archmage in particular) can do to the Master at that stage of the game.

[cttw]

Cttw,
I honestly don't buy that argument. The logic doesn't hold… if you had one shot to beat the game and could only pick one class, for a million dollars, you'd pick the Necromancer? With a million on the line, one should logically take the class that is best suited to win the game in one shot and I don't see how anyone can pick any other class than Oozemancer, and I don't like that class because I hate minestars. Still, it's very powerful.

Finally, your point about the master… yeah, his summons are a pain but your summons aren't quite as pimped out. You're largely weaker relative to the enemies and later in the game I find minions easily getting wiped out in one or two turns which is something that few classes (archmage in particular) can do to the Master at that stage of the game.

Honestly I haven't played Oozemancer, because I have read many comments that it wasn't balanced. My choice stands.

As for the skellies, ours aren't as pimped out but that doesn't matter because we get away from the master's skellies. The minions don't get wiped so easily if you max dark empathy and resistances (lich can go up to 85%), and what wipes them will also wipe the curse of the meek creatures, allowing a new wave of skelletons. The skelletons do some damage, and even after dying they can be useful as wisps, and then you can make more. While your skellies are taking this massive nuking that is taking wave after wave of them, the necromancer is avoiding the worst of it and doing its own significant nuking in between skeleton management turns.

Killing the master's skellies is pointless, as I have never seen the master run out of souls.

[HousePet]

As I mentioned, Aura Mastery has uses outside of Minions.
Isn't one of the main ideas here to rearrange talents into groups that make sense?
That should include moving Aura Mastery out of the Minions category.
eg. Move Aura Mastery to Necrosis while moving Undeath Link to Minions.

[Delmuir]

As I mentioned, Aura Mastery has uses outside of Minions.
Isn't one of the main ideas here to rearrange talents into groups that make sense?
That should include moving Aura Mastery out of the Minions category.
eg. Move Aura Mastery to Necrosis while moving Undeath Link to Minions.

It's true that it does have value outside of minions… I'm not sure that Necrosis is ideal. To me, it makes a bit more sense in the Animus tree but I didn't have a place to put it so I left it alone. I really think Vampiric Gift is a better fit in Necrosis.

Truth be told, I don't like Essence of the Dead and I think its benefits should be rolled into other skills when they reach level five… or some other benefit when it doesn't make sense. However, I didn't think anyone would go for that and I was trying to avoid rebuilding the character.

Regardless of solution, I don't disagree that it has greater utility. However, seeing as how it's an innate ability, what if it didn't require skill points at all and just scaled with your magic stat or some other organic means of growth? That alone wouldn't change much about the necro but would free up five skill points and would allow for another addition to the minions tree. Just a thought...

[HousePet]

No, organic growth is completely wrong for a necromancer.