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

[Delmuir]

So I hated to Animus Purge 2nd Husk idea and did away with it. Instead, your Husk is immune to all damage from you or your minions with EotD bonus.

That seems pretty unimpressive and it no doubt is but what I did instead was change Assemble:

consumes lowest-tiered minions for Bone Giant. Can crit… doing so produces a bone golem with additional level of (crit multiplier * talent lvl/2) + 2.

In addition, the limit for Bone Giant summons is changed such that:

lvl 1 - Bone Giant at your lvl - 4.
lvl 2 - Heavy Bone Giant at your level -2.
lvl 3 - can summon a 2nd Bone Giant at your level.
lvl 4 - Eternal bone Giant at your level +2.
lvl 5 - 20% Chance of Runed Bone Gint at your level +3. In addition, it eliminates the limit on # of Bone Giant minions except as per minion cap.

Bone Giants count as 3 minions against your cap. Thus, if you max both Create Minions and Summon Greater Undead, your minion cap will be 11, thus allowing you to summon 3 Bone Giants or 4 with a cat point in Necrotic Minions. However, you can only summon one Runed Bone Giant at a time.

[Red]

Dayum. That sounds like a freaking awesome end game minion build, and nicely removes the randomness of your minions by making them all big ol' tanks of bone and murder.

I cannot wait for this to get turned into an addon.

[Delmuir]

Dayum. That sounds like a freaking awesome end game minion build, and nicely removes the randomness of your minions by making them all big ol' tanks of bone and murder.

I cannot wait for this to get turned into an addon.

Ha ha, thank you. What I also did was limit the number of Liches that you can summon to 1. I wanted to discourage brute-force farming to get the best possible set-up.

Still, wandering into battle with 2 Bone Giants, a Runed Bone Giant, a Lich, and a ghoul king would be pretty badass.

In addition, I was running the math and I think the % chance to generate a soul from Animus Hoarder + spell crit should be pretty small… like 10%.

Combine that with the soul recycling and you have decent retention and recovery but no way to sit around and try to farm souls outside of battle seeing as how all of your spells that can crit either require an enemy target or a soul cost.

I'm actually pretty close to being done on concept… I think I've worked everything out. All of the synergies seem fine. There's still weakness in the build but only theoretically… I'd need to see how this plays but basing it off of the code I did look at and my experience playing (starting Necros over and over and over while working on this just to test one or two ideas) makes me think this is pretty solid.

It might require a nerf somewhere… but I think the lack of mobility and healing is going to work out just fine to balance this sob.

[Red]

You can farm souls off of non-Necro summons, like from the Crystal Staff.

In addition, Light spells can crit, so you could use those to generate all the souls you need if you get the category. You wouldn't even need to do it manually-set all your Light spells to autocast, and put one spell that drains mana faster than it regenerates on autocast. Because your mana never reaches full, you rest forever, permenantly autocasting spells until you manully stop it.

[Delmuir]

That sounds about right to me…

I wanted to make it inconvenient to do, ha ha.

I actually considered suggesting that the Celestial/Light category be unaccessible to the Necromancer as it's thematically inappropriate, ha ha. I didn't figure out how to replace it so… I didn't.

Still, my goal is to make that kinds of farming unnecessary. It shouldn't be necessary anyway… if you have to farm souls in a corner somewhere, that's just bad design.

I think the soul recycling feature should render that largely unnecessary. However, when it is necessary, players will have a means to do it… but it'd have to be a conscious choice on their part to build their character accordingly rather than a necessary part.

Anyway… I'm almost done with this but I'm still kicking around the idea of nerf-ing Forgery of the Haze a little (just a bit less damage). I'm also considering nerf-ing some damage in a few places but I haven't settled on the right spot yet… not sure yet.

[Red]

Agreed, but refer to the flowchart on this matter.

Perhaps make it so only offensive spell crits work? So Barrier, Healing Light, etc. can't grant a soul, but Chill of the Tomb can? And to avoid summon scumming, make it so only offensive spells cast on targets that have not been friendly with you work. That way you can't scum crits from summons, and if you make them not grant souls on death even if within your aura as well, it means you'll only get souls from enemies.

That being said, exceptions to this would have to be made. Slasul, for instance, is initially friendly, but you very well might fight him and it'd suck to lose because he doesn't grant souls. Same for the water dragon, and even townsfolk. I'm fine with my summoned crystal not granting me a soul, but if I want to murder an entire village just to slightly improve my combat effectiveness, then by god I will. I'm a Necromancer, for crying out loud.

[Delmuir]

I'm fine with my summoned crystal not granting me a soul, but if I want to murder an entire village just to slightly improve my combat effectiveness, then by god I will. I'm a Necromancer, for crying out loud.

Yep… but I'm not going to make any exceptions as I like clean, consistent rules.

I don't mind if a player wants to soul-farm. I just don't want it to be necessary. Still, there's that lingering fear that this is bordering on the Celestial resource problem… it might just be easier to dramatically increase the soul-cap.

I loathe having to spend all day on a combo that's designed to do nothing but regenerate souls… it's just irksome, hence the recycling ability. At this point though, there's no way to know how cheese it'll be without someone coding up and testing it.

I did tweak it as a solution… now, you have a 25% chance with crit to generate a soul with Animus Hoarder BUT only if you're also below 0 life. That largely solves that problem… sure, someone COULD injure themselves, etc. to farm souls but given the low chance, I'm too worried that it'll mess up game play.

Also, I think I'm going to increase the mana cost of Sacrifice as it's pretty abusable at the moment… of course, that's one of the things about this re-work. You'll be short mana a lot and you'll likely utilize neg-life a lot. It'll be hard to find gear that bumps crit rate, crit multiplier, mana, and neg-life. That's just highly improbable so players are going to have to make decisions on how they handle that problem. Thus, I'm not too worried about players abusing the margins of this...

Just look at the mana costs of the sustains versus what you'll likely have at any point in the game versus the cost of bloody skills. You can't spam anything… Assemble costs 90, Sacrifice is 50… the minion skills can cost 50-70 when maxed. Nightfall is pricey too. The only cheap thing is Ice. It's a costly class in terms of mana… but power comes at a price, ha ha.

[Delmuir]

This post is just here for me to work on some ideas…


Necrotic Minions:

1. Create Minions… Only summons skeletons, ghouls, ghasts, and Ghoulkings. Minions cost 5 mana and 1 soul per. Minion cap is 1 per active talent lvl so 6 with 5 talent points and 7 with a category point. Removes EotD bonus.

In addition, this spell can crit and at least 1 of your minions will gain additional levels equal to (crit multiplier * 0.80) + (active talent lvl of spell). The number of minions that the crit-bonus applies to is an even distribution between 1 and max.

2. Aura Mastery… Dark Empathy is folded into this talent. Thus, if the sustain is disabled, you lose the Dark Empathy effect as well.

3. Surge of Undeath… needs improved accuracy bonus. The accuracy bonus improvement is critical for higher difficulty levels.

4. Undeath Link… this is no longer a heal but a sharing effect such that all damage and healing affecting you or your minions, excluding Husk/Forgery of the Haze, is shared equally among all of you. Duration is 5-11 turns and scales with active talent level.

Mana cost is increased to 40 and cool-down remains 20.


Nightfall: Changes all damage to 50% darkness and 50% cold.

Invoke Darkness cool down is increased to 5 and mana cost to 20.


Necrosis:

1. Invocation of Decrepitude: new active skill...

Use: Activated
Range: Necrotic Aura
Cost: 35 mana
Use speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 25

This skill causes all non-undead creatures, including yourself, within your Necrotic Aura to lose 2% of their current life, per turn, for the duration of this spell, in the form of arcane damage. Duration increases with active talent level (1 + 1 per active talent level) and there is no save against this.

This spell has no effect on the Undead, potentially including yourself.

2. Impending Doom… somewhat higher success rate against the undead given your mastery of death.

3. Become Death… new passive skill:

Whenever you're at or below 1 life, your Necrotic Aura becomes enhanced such that it functions in a similar manner to a Cursed Gloom effect.

All enemies within your Necrotic Aura must save against you magic power each and if they fail, they lose one beneficial effect or sustain of any type. Non undead can also be inflicted by the Necrosis effect:

The Necrosis effect causes a resource and life drain of 20% of current over 8 turns. Doesn't affect odd resources like souls, paradox, equilibrium, et al., but will still drain life. Affects: Stamina, Mana, Positive and Negative Energy, Vim, Hate, and Psi.

If you increase your life above 1 life, the aura lingers for 3 additional turns.


4. Chance of Life

Use: Sustain
Range: 1-51
Cost: 250 mana
Use speed: instant
Cool-down: 40

As long as this sustain is active, if you're dropped to or below 1 life (if this triggers, it can save you from death), there is a maximum "24/30%" chance that you'll be "resurrected" and gain 36/51% life, mana, reduced cool-downs, and teleported randomly within "x" range.

The max life, cool-down, and mana recovery scale with magic and talent point investment. For living characters, the max is 36% but for undead classified characters, the max is 51%. The cool-down reduction only affects skills currently on cool-down.

The max chance to trigger a "resurrection" is 24% for normal characters and 30% for undead or those classified temporarily as undead. This scales with talent point investment.

If you're below 1 life, this spell can only trigger if said hit would kill you and only at level 5. Can only successfully trigger once per turn and cannot trigger if you're currently silenced.


Grave:

1. Chill of the Tomb… changes damage to 50% cold and 50% darkness.

2. Will o' the Wisp… changes damage to 50% cold and 50% darkness. In addition, whenever you're at max capacity of souls, there is % chance of creating a wisp from any souls generated from killing enemies, etc., at cost of 5.0 mana per wisp created.

3. Cold Flames… changes damage to 50% cold and 50% darkness.

4. Vampiric Gift… This only affects damage dealt within your necrotic aura.


Animus:

1. Consume Soul… changes EotD bonus.

2. Animus Hoarder… changes effect to soul recycling ability rather than chance to gain extra soul. This allows for a stable 50% chance to recover souls from any one of your minions that dies within your necrotic aura either from enemy damage, friendly fire like Undead Explosion, etc.

In addition, all criticals of any type have 5% chance per active talent level of generating a soul when below 1 life.

It still retains increased soul capacity of 19.

3. Animus Purge… Instead of a Husk, this is a Forgery of the Haze hybrid. You force out the soul of the enemy with "x" damage and if a small enough amount of life remains, it replaces it with a copy of your own creating a Forgery of the Haze. Can't be healed and has no duration limit.

In addition, the damage is counted as 50% cold and 50% darkness and can only be cast within your Necrotic Aura. This spell can also be used on your own minions in which case, it has a 100% success rate.

Gains EotD bonus.

4. Essence of the Dead… changes below:

Adds a bonus to Blood Golem: allows for a second Blood Golem to be summoned.

Adds a bonus to Animus Purge: Forgery/Husk hybrid is immune to damage from you and your minions.

Changes Assemble bonus such that it guarantees a Runed Bone Giant but you can only have 1 at a time.

Changes Consume Soul bonus such that it grants a 5-turn regeneration effect in addition to and equal to the life and mana restored.

Remove bonus from Shadow Tunnel, and Create Summons.


Advanced Necrotic Minions:

1. Minion Mastery… changed to "Create Greater Undead." This is an active skill that summons all of the more advanced minion types. Cost is 7 mana and 1 soul per minion, also it raises the minion cap at 1 per talent level to a max minion cap of 5 additional. This will summon 1 minion per active talent level.

You can never summon more than 1 Lich at a time.

This spell can crit and at least 1 of your minions will gain additionals level equal to (crit multiplier * 0.80) + (active talent lvl of spell). The number of minions that the crit-bonus applies to is an even distribution between 1 and max.

2. Assemble… always consumes lowest-tiered minions for Bone Giant. Can crit… doing so produces a bone golem with additional level of (crit multiplier * talent lvl/2) + 1.

In addition, the limit for Bone Giant summons is changed such that:

lvl 1 - Bone Giant at your lvl - 4.
lvl 2 - Heavy Bone Giant at your level at your level -2
lvl 3 - can create a 2nd Bone Giant at your level.
lvl 4 - Eternal bone Giant at your level +1.
lvl 5 - 20% Chance of Runed Bone Giant at your level +2. In addition, it eliminates the limit on # of Bone Giant minions except as per minion cap.

Bone Giants count as 3 minions against your cap. You can only have 1 Runed Bone Giant under your control at a time.

Changes EotD bonus.

3. Sacrifice… is now targetable. Mana cost is increased to 30.

If used on any Bone Giant, the effect is unchanged: maximum damage shield.

If used on a basic or greater minion then it provides 1 random ward per active talent level (although it guarantees 1 physical ward).

4. Blood Golem:

Use: Activated
Range: 3
Cost: 100 mana
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 36

This spell combines 1 basic and 1 advanced minion into a terrifying Blood Golem that is tied to your life. This creature absorbs all damage it delivers to enemies which is then converted into a heal, affected by your heal mod, which it shares. Excess life from drain/heal is lost unless Undeath Link is active.

It possesses moderate life and damage, but a significant regen rate, all of which scale to active talent level. The rate of damage to heal conversion is: (any damage it inflicts * your heal mod * 80%).

Only 1 can be summoned and counts as 2 minions against your cap. This minion has a standard set of talents but also gains 2 additional talents based on the particular combination of minions used.

This spell cannot crit. If this golem is killed, you immediately suffer 50-100% of its max life as direct damage that bypasses resistances but not Undeath Link or Sacrifice. The amount of life you suffer diminishes with each talent point invested.

Gains EotD bonus that allows for a second Blood Golem.

Shades:

1. Shadow Tunnel… transports your minions through the underworld to you anywhere on the map. Improves evasion bonus but loses EotD bonus.

At level 2, the act of opening a gateway through the underworld is violent and thus releases a radius 1 burst of 50% darkness and 50% cold damage at the original location of each of your minions. Damage scales to active talent level.

Mana cost is increased to 50.

2. Dark Vision… new passive skill.

After any enemy or minion is killed, you gain a radius "y" vision in that spot for "x" turns. This is due to your ability to communicate with the dead… it essentially acts as a limited Arcane Eye.

Radius and duration increase with active talent level.

3. Grim Shadow… new sustain skill.

Cost: 50 mana
Instant Cast
Cool-down: 30

This skill infuses a portion of your life into your shadow to grant it the appearance of life whenever your life is at or below 0 life. This shadow will spawn somewhere within your necrotic aura and has no skills, takes no damage, and lingers for up to 6 (1 per effective talent lvl) turns after you raise your life above 0 but otherwise can remain indefinitely. It simply exists as an added target which can be moved to a minimum and maximum pre-set range. It can move on its own and absorb attacks, although not beams, etc., as attacks just go right through it.

If you use Shadow Tunnel, enemies cannot tell the difference between you and the shadow and will target each of you equally. The shadow can be cancelled and while active produces a constant mana drain from 10-3 mana per turn, decreasing with each talent point invested. With each additional active level, there is an added 2% chance that enemies will target the shadow.

If the Shadow should stand in any magical darkness such as from a Doomed, it will cause the Shadow to be unseen and thus ignored by the enemy. Shadow is cancelled should it leave your Necrotic Aura, i.e. if you teleport away.

4. FrostDusk… no change.

Ice: This category may be eliminated and replaced by Mastery of Death but it might also just remain locked:

Mastery of Death: Level 10 locked category at 1.3.

1. Grasping Claws:

Use: Activated
Range: Necrotic Aura
Cost: 45 mana and 1 soul
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 24

Causes the dead to reach up from the ground and grab at enemies within your Necrotic Aura, inflicting a small amount of physical damage and pin. With added levels it gains a chance to cause bleeding, and disease.

Duration scales with active talent level, albeit slowly. Thus, at lvl 5 with a category point, this will attack for 2 turns.

2. Undead Explosion… Skeletons and Bone Giants cause physical damage. All other minions cause blight damage. Mana cost and cool down remain unchanged.

This ability can be used on any regular undead, not merely your own minions. However, the success rate is equal to how much life they've lost (including negative life). Thus, if an enemy has lost 90% of its life then this spell has a 90% chance of success. On your own minions, the success rate is 100%.

3. Blood Curse:

Use: Activated
Range: Necrotic Aura
Cost: 50 mana
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 18

Causes damage to any enemy affected by pin, disease, or bleeding from any source, as long as it is within your Necrotic Aura. Damage stacks, i.e. if an enemy has more than one of the below status-effects, it'll suffer damage for each status effect.

Any enemy pinned suffers added physical damage and chance of disarm.

Any enemy bleeding suffers bloody cysts to explode inflicting radius 1 blight damage.

Any enemy that is diseased suffers blight damage and chance to spread disease.

4. Cursed Summoner:

Use: Sustain
Range: Necrotic Aura
Cost: 200
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 36

Increases damage of Grasping Claws, Blood Curse, and Undead Explosion by up to 35%. In addition, any enemy killed by Blood Curse, Grasping Claws, or Undead Explosion within your Necrotic Aura has an up to 50% chance of returning as a basic minion or vampire. Damage bonus scales with active talent level and return % scales with talent point investment.

You do not gain a soul from any kill that successfully summons a minion as it would be used in the creation of the minion. This is limited by your minion cap, which is always at least 1.


Thus, you'd have Survival, Divination, and the new Necromancy as your generics.

Necromancy:

1. Blurred Mortality… no changes except with Lichform.

2. Phase Soul

Use: Activated
Range: 4-10 with active talent level.
Cost: 30/60 mana
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 8/1

This is a perfect, intermediate teleport, albeit an expensive one. It works outside of line of sight with 0% fail.

Range increases at lvl 2, 3, 4, and 5 as per active talent level. The range continues to scale past talent lvl 5 and with mastery will hit 11. This teleport cannot be "targeted" on enemies, escorts, etc.

In addition:

If you're at or below 0 life (either with equipment, Blurred Mortality, or Heroism infusion, etc.), then this teleport's cool-down is reduced to 1 although the mana cost doubles and the range is reduced by half.

3. Harvest:

Use: Activated
Range: N/A
Cost: 40/0 - reduced each talent point invested until it is 0 mana. Cost is 99.99% of life.
Use speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 30

This spell immediately reduces your life to 1 in exchange for granting the undead status for up to 15 (scales with active talent level) turns and gaining absolute immunity to all new status effects AND damage for 1 turn. A category point will increase the duration of immunity to 2 turns at lvl 5.

This will cure up to 7 status effects (1 per active talent level).

This ability does not work if you're already below 1 HP.

4. Lichform… gains passive bonus: Blurred Mortality now scales to constitution at 1.25% per point of constitution in addition to current amount.

[Doctornull]

I really like your proposed change to Necrotic Minions and the Advanced version.

The soul-themed teleport... maybe have it cost an actual soul? It's supposed to be expensive, right?

I still don't like Lichform as a talent, but as a Generic talent it's better than as a Class talent.

How long is the duration of Decrepitude? Honestly at a value so low as 2% I don't really feel much excitement, even though it's probably great against bosses.

I like folding Aura and Empathy together. It's still a bit of a tax, but at least it's a lower tax with a fun positive effect (bigger aura).

I like the idea of your aura becoming Gloomy when you're below 0 life. That's super cool. Maybe some active effect to try to inflict one madness on each enemy in your aura?

Some talent ideas:
- Drain life from the minions in your aura and reap the results as mana.
- Drain magical effects & sustains from enemies in your aura and reap the results as healing for your minions.
- Drain nature effects & sustains from enemies in your aura and animate the energy as Wisps.

[Delmuir]

I really like your proposed change to Necrotic Minions and the Advanced version.

The soul-themed teleport... maybe have it cost an actual soul? It's supposed to be expensive, right?

I still don't like Lichform as a talent, but as a Generic talent it's better than as a Class talent.

How long is the duration of Decrepitude? Honestly at a value so low as 2% I don't really feel much excitement, even though it's probably great against bosses.

I like folding Aura and Empathy together. It's still a bit of a tax, but at least it's a lower tax with a fun positive effect (bigger aura).

I like the idea of your aura becoming Gloomy when you're below 0 life. That's super cool. Maybe some active effect to try to inflict one madness on each enemy in your aura?

Some talent ideas:
- Drain life from the minions in your aura and reap the results as mana.
- Drain magical effects & sustains from enemies in your aura and reap the results as healing for your minions.
- Drain nature effects & sustains from enemies in your aura and animate the energy as Wisps.

Excellent feedback…

I don't mind the teleport costing a soul but, if by chance, your necrotic aura is shut-down then you wouldn't be able to use it which could be a huge problem given the lack of mobility options. Having said that, I'd leave that to play-testing but I like the suggestion.

Agree on Lichform… besides, it moves two big point-sinks into the Generic. While it's not an entire category, it is 10 solid points so I think it balances the generic/class distribution problem.

Decrepitude… yeah, that was kind of my goal: boss killer or minor crowd-control. I was thinking that it would last 1 per active talent level or whatever I wrote. No firm idea on that yet.

On Become Death… not sure where I could fit in an active but I was trying not to OP it too much and so I was shooting for a couple of 1-point wonder skills that required minimal upkeep. Still, I'll take a look at it.

I'm going to skip the Wisp idea as my version of Wisp can already generate added wisps… however, I never considered draining sustains and whatnot. I think that's a cool idea what I would probably use it for mana regen rather than minion regen as the mechanic for minion-heal is established with Undeath Link and Consume Soul and maybe + EotD. I think there are plenty of regen options but not really many mana options.

Hmmm… perhaps I can fit that in somewhere…

Cool, thanks.

[Red]

Hokay, returning to the Newcromancer.

Invocation of Decrepitude-yet another reason to become a Lich or start off Undead. Not bad. However, check it with rank scaling or something, because if you don't you'll end up with the Echoes From The Past issue-it's too good at taking out bosses. Because at level 5 (potentially 7 with mastery and cat) it's guaranteed to take out 10% (14%) of an enemy's life, that means anything will be killed in just 10 (8) casts. Admittedly, the long CD will go a good way towards stopping this, but most enemies including bosses can't heal for shit so cast, stick around for a half dozen turns, run like a baby. Repeat 10 times.

Best way to do this might be 2% or X amount based on talent level, whichever is lower. Otherwise you'll have an ability that could potentially deal 30,000 damage with no way to resist it at all. (Ata or similar on Madness.)

Become Death-good synergy with Harvest, and I like how you're setting up the Newcromancer as having a bunch of glass cannon/Demon Souls' hypermode options. Combine all the new abilities that only work or work better in negative life and you'll probably outperform the best of Archmages. You'll simply be very prone to becoming actually dead instead of merely undead.

Animus Hoarder-Soul scumming fixed, unless you're willing to repeatedly stab yourself in the face. (Or get any kind of summon item.) Approved.

Create Greater Meatshields-Fine as before, but good choice as a L10 T1 skill. Get those more powerful and just plain more fleshsacks right off the bat.

Blood Golem-The big new skill. Considering that this could easily become the cornerstone of your defenses and your doom, I'd like to see a little more done with it. As it is, it currently seems like a summon you'll just have to be really, really concerned with because of what it does, and while it'll certainly be powerful, I'm looking for fun. I like how you combine a vampire and a ghoul to make it, but that also means scumming for those two between fights if you happen to lose it.

That's why Isuggest a change-instead of combining a vampire and a ghoul, combine any two undead, with varying effects. (Perhaps exclude bone giants, perhaps not.) That way, no scumming will ever be required to make it unless you lose all of your souls and minions, and you get to pick how exactly it's gonna work. I'll work on another post about ideas for how each combination will work, but right now I'll just finish overviewing the changes to the whole class.

Dark Vision-My initial response was to retch (after an enemy is killed is just a horrible thing to have in a skill description) but then I saw it also works on minions, so you get it for every fight. Really, the only change I'd suggest is range 1-Y for X turns. Radius 1 isn't bad, but for five points you should get a little more.

Mastery of Death Category-needs a little more detail. Level 1 or level 10? Locked or not? 1.0 master, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, what?

Grasping Claws-Hell yes for fluff. For crunch, give it pin at level 1. Small physical damage is not worth 45 mana and a soul, so give it at least one debuff right off the bat.

Blood Curse-Awesome... Except for the pin. Extra damage? That's kinda dull. I'd say it give it various extra debuffs as well as damage, such as disarm or silence. I mean, they're pinned down by grave hands reaching from the earth, why can't a hand grab a weapon from them or chokehold a bitch?

Cursed Summoner-Either let it generate excess minions who decay regardless of your aura, or have them give some other bonus. Healing as well as a soul upon death? At the very least, guaranteed Will-O-Wisp spawn if you're full on minions.

Really, this skill just needs a buff. It's... Lackluster. You create a random minion on killing someone with a few certain abilities. That's not that interesting, and could even hurt, such as if you needed a soul for Consume Soul more than you needed a minion. Also, it's 200 freaking mana. That's almost Essence of Speed expensive, but while Essence of Speed is fantastic, this is... Meh.

Overall, yet more cool stuff. Just a few ideas that didn't pan out so well.

[Delmuir]

Again, good feedback Red. I already incorporated some of your snazzy suggestions!

I think with Invocation of Decrepitude, I settled on simply changing it to max life. I did the same with the Necrosis effect.

On the neg-life synergies… yeah, I'm hoping that Undeath Link and Sacrifice is the saving grace there but given the power of heroism infusions, I didn't want to discourage Lichform so I tweaked the bonus to Blurred Mortality such that in Lichform, it scales to constitution. Obviously, this doesn't help Ghouls or Skeletons but they have their own bonuses that are strong enough.

Blood Golem… changed it to 1 greater and 1 less minion. Also, tweaked some elements and added the notion that the skill-set can change based on the particular formulation. I'll eagerly await your input as to what that could be.

Dark Vision… scaled radius. I was really thinking of this as a 1-point wonder.

Grasping Claws… good call. I yanked this idea from Housepet (and not the only one… he's done good work and deserves credit) as I thought it was really cool.

Blood Curse… oh DISARM! That's a good idea! Done.

Cursed Summoner… added a damage bonus to the included skills. Ultimately though, this skill is mostly for casting necros and not summoners… just gives them a way of summoning minions without investing in the talent trees, especially if they want some meat shields or to use Assemble or Sacrifice.

It might still be a bit lackluster so maybe I'll reduce the mana cost or add another bonus… not sure.

I'm trying to keep mana costs pretty high as if these skills work correctly, this class should be pretty powerful especially with Harvest… if you had Shalore's Timeless, that skill, with a cat point, could last 4 turns of immunity. Also, imagine Undeath Link in combination with Cauterize prodigy!! That combo was the only reason that I didn't make Undeath Link a sustain. Still, Draconic Body would also be a killer prodigy as it would always trigger with Harvest so you'd get the immunity AND the heal plus a chance at chance of life.

I took Doctornull's suggestion and added it to "Become Death" such that each turn an enemy, even undead, doesn't save against your magic power, they lose 1 beneficial effect or sustain of ANY type… I also made a few other changes including to Blood Golem and Cursed Summoner.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Red]

Regular

Decrepit Skeleton-Slight decrease to everything. Why are you using this shitty old pile of bones for your masterpiece of the pervsion of death itself? That's just rude.

Skeleton Warrior-Default.

Skeleton Archer-Slight increase to move and attack speed, increase to defense, decrease to armor and HP, slight decrease to resistances. Gain a ranged attack.

Skeleton Mage-Decrease to armor, resistances, and HP. Increase spellpower and gain Blood Spray, Blood Grasp, and Blood Boil.

Ghoul-Decrease to global speed. Significant increase to Strength, Consitution, HP, armor, and healmod. Increase to resistances.

Ghast-As ghoul, but halve the speed penalty and only two thirds of the various bonuses.

Ghoulking-As the most powerful of your basic minions, I believe this guy should get something special that mostly the Greater minions get. With a ghoulking base Blood Golem, all your minion summons will be waited towards ghouls, ghasts, or ghoulkings. Ghouls and ghasts of all kind will flock to your Blood Ghoulem King. Hostile ghouls will have to make a save each turn while within a talent level radius of the BGK, and if they fail they are stunned for half talent level plus one turns. If a stunned ghoul fails its save again, it will then become your ally for half talent level turns, not counting against the minion cap. Each failed save will increase the duration by one (two with five points and a cat point). However, such ghouls will still try to resist, and cannot heal from any friendly abilities, do not count for sharing damage, and take 100% of the damage they do as reflected damage, so they will swiftly die hurting your foes.

Friendly ghouls will flock to the BGK, surrounding it from all angles except where its current target it is. If the BGK weakens too much, a ghoul will sacrifice itself, treating this as an attack from the BGK dealing damage equal to its current life with a +20-100% healmod based on talent level. (E.g., at TL 5, regular healmod of 150%, and a ghoul sacrificing itself with 500 HP, the BGK will deal a 500 damage attack at 250% healmod, gaining 1250 HP for itself.)

Finally, it has a slightly smaller speed penalty and slightly larger bonuses than an ordinary ghoul.



Greater

Vampire-Default.

Master Vampire-Your Blood Golem has learned a few necromantic tricks of its own from the master vampire. It gains Chill of the Tomb, Invoke Darkness, and Ice Shards at TL equal to Blood Golem's TL. In addition, it has a necrotic aura of its own, with a radius equal to Aura Mastery at Blood Golem TL. Your minons are treated as its own for the purposes of avoiding decay, and any minion within both auras receives significant bonuses to stats.

Grave Wight-Gain Flame, Manathrust, and Lightning at TL equal to Blood Golem's TL.

Barrow Wight-Gain Flame, Manathrust, Lightning, Glacial Vapour, Freeze, Tidal Wave, and Shivgoroth Form at TL equal to Blood Golem's TL. Note that it will never activate Shivgoroth form on its own and must instead be ordered to (does not take a turn). While in Shivgoroth Form, the Blood Golem will not have the usual Blood Golem passives, including the health drain on hit and damage you on death abilities.

Dread-Gain all Hexes and Curses at a TL equal to Blood Golem's TL. In addition, the Blood Golem is intangible, able to phase in and out of walls.

Lich-Folding a Lich into a Blood Golem is an immensely powerful tool, given time. But such a powerful and intelligent tool will not wish to remain a tool forever.

A Blood Lich will be treated, in addition to whatever other stats it may have, as a level 1 Necromancer. Each level up requires kills equal to its current level (so if you aquire this at level 20, it will be equal to your level after killing 210 enemies). A Blood Lich is treated as its own friendly allie (though still counts against your minion cap) and can summon its own minions without counting against your cap if it invests in those talents. However, every turn in combat the Blood Lich has ((current level/your level)100)% chance of becoming independent. An independent Blood Lich no longer counts as your minon and will be hostile to both you and all others on the current level.

The most powerful minion, capable of outright doubling your power with some effort, but in any fight you have a chance at simultaneously losing your most powerful minion and gaining a deadly enemy. Use at your own risk.

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A few of these ideas I think are really cool and really change the way Blood Golem works. Others... Not so much, but it's the best I've got for now. Hope this helps.

[Delmuir]

Boy, that's a lot of interesting combos…

I came up with "unstable summons" once a long time ago in the form of summons that were powerful but could break free of your control. No one like it, ha ha…

Having said that, the idea appeals to me but I don't think the necromancer is a good place for that idea, especially with the Blood Golem as it can be critical to some methods of defense.

Still, you offered up a lot more interesting ideas than I had thought of… excellent! I'll mull it over.

[Red]

Honestly, Lich summoning always felt weird to me. Ghasts, Wights, maybe, but Liches are most definitely intelligent, powerful sorcerers... And you can summong them from the corpse of a rat. Sense is not making much.