Comprehensive Necromancer Rework (addon complete!)

[Razakai]

Necromancer is one of my favourite classes in any game, and Tome's is no exception. However, I do feel the design could use some more work, and so for the past few weeks I've been coding an addon in my spare time. It's now about 80% complete, and I thought I'd get some feedback here while I'm still coding, to identify any potential design issues and to get some ideas on things like replacement talents for Shades. I've put it all into a design doc, which is a little rushed at the moment so I'll edit more detail in later:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Qd ... sp=sharing

Also, credit to Shibari, SageAcrin, Gray and Doctornull (and of course DG) for some help with coding and ideas, and Housepet for his existing and excellent Necromancy+ addon which I've used some code from.

[Citronvand]

First thing I read "- By default, minions no longer inflict friendly fire to the caster, or to eachother."

10/10 would read again.

[Zireael]

I love the rework, would play it so badly!

[malboro_urchin]

11/10 will eagerly look forward to release!

[Doctornull]

Wow, good stuff.

The one obvious thing I'm not sure about is Acid. Acid is already used by Alchemists, Defiler-metatypes and 2/3 of Wilders (Wyrmics and Oozemancers).

Maybe look into some limited Blight as the 3rd damage type, or Arcane, or Physical. Undead (particularly Ghouls) seem fairly Blight-centric so that could work. Physical is "bone shards" and such, imposing bleeding and crippling as side-effects. Arcane is already present in Impending Doom and your minion's Manathrusts,

[0player]

I may be mistaken, but Undead Explosion also uses Blight anyway, so it's not being listed in Darkstaff. Maybe Blight would be thematically better.
(One thing why I don't like Alchemists is because greater staff just don't have Acid in Mage! An outrage.)

[Razakai]

Thank you for the comments so far.

Doctornull - As you're the 3rd respected designer to say Acid doesn't fit, I've been convinced! Blight is a little too Corrupter-y for me, and Arcane is something I like but don't have a good design for currently, so Physical it is.


0player - As for Darkstaff and Blight, Undead Explosion will now only deal Blight damage for ghoul explosion, otherwise it will be physical, cold or dark + other effects based on the minion type. So I think Darkstaff will have Arcane as a 4th element, for the Impending Doom bonus and a potential tree I might release in a later version.

Update:

- As fun as playing my Acid build was, the consensus seems that the element doesn't fit Necromancer. I'll preserve the code somewhere in case I re-use it for another class, but for now the role of the tree will be filled by the brand new Vampirism tree, which can be found in the design notes. This also means I can give the abilities to Vampires to make them better minions.
- I've decided to make Shades a class tree again. This will now be an alternative summoning tree with a theme of illusions and trickery. Lots of ways to flood the map with fragile but distracting temporary summons that can disable your foes, letting you freely attack from safety.
-Potential idea: making Meta a generic locked tree and giving it to Necromancer as well. With the various passive sustains and support aspect it always felt like it would be a fit for generic, and the abilities in the tree would fit Necromancer very well with the protection from blowing yourself up with Chill of the Tomb and reducing the long cooldowns that Necromancer has.

These are pretty new ideas, so thoughts would be appreciated.

[Razakai]

Addon has been released here:

http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=41178