Necromancer re-work… final version!

[Delmuir]

With the help of many (Doctornull, Red, Housepet, 0player, et al), this is my final proposal for a Necromancer re-work.

The goal was to make it more interesting, more flexible, more thematic, and more balanced. This should be useful at lower and higher difficulty using different build options. This includes multiple pure summoning builds, pure casters, and multiple hybrid builds. It can justify Lichform or not and works with a wide-range of classes although Higher and Shalore and Ghoul will probably be the preferred ones.

This class has limited reliable healing and some mobility issues. However, it should still be extremely resilient… perhaps the most durable class in the game. In addition, it suffers from noteworthy mana problems and long cool-downs… still, it should be pretty stout.

I've also nerfed nightfall and grave a little by making them 50% cold and 50% darkness. I made up for it in other ways…

Harvest, Undeath Link, and Blood Golem are the critical new skills of this class.

I don't have the ability to code this but I did my best to fiddle with the math, etc., to make sure what's presented is probably balanced. If anyone wants to code this or steal any of the ideas for whatever purpose, feel free. If you want to chat with me about coding it or tweaking it, that's what this post or a PM is for. I'm game.

So, here it is:

Gave up on retaining the old Necromancer as much as possible and just tried for the best class I could… this has been added to the Addons section and hopefully someone will help code it. Good times.

Necrotic Minions:

1. Create Minions… Summons only skeletons, ghouls, ghasts, and Ghoulkings. Minion cap is 1 per active talent level. Removes EotD bonus.

In addition, this spell can crit and at least 1 of your minions will gain additional levels equal to (crit multiplier * 0.45) + (active talent lvl of spell).

Skeleton Mages and Barrow Wrights gain the Phase Door. Grave Wrights gain Phase Soul skill.

Grant Liches the Phase Soul skill instead of Phase Door. All of these are equal to your Create Minions talent level.

*** for "Blighted Summoning" Prodigy, skeleton mages gain Dark Portal instead of Bone Spear.

Cost is 5 mana and 1 soul per minion.

2. Aura Mastery… Dark Empathy effect is folded into this talent as part of the sustain. This sustain cannot be deactivated when you're at or below 0 life… it acts as a passive in that situation.

3. Surge of Undeath… same effect except that the accuracy bonus scales massively.

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 + active talent level.

In addition, this reduces minion-to-minion damage 15% per talent level while active, up to 100%.

Mana cost is increased to 40 and cool-down is increased to 24.


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


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 (2 + 1 per active talent level) and there is no save against this.

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

In addition, while you're at or below 0 life, this spell does an additional 1% of current life.

2. Impending Doom… gains 100% spellpower solely for the purpose of overcoming the enemy save when you're at or below 0 life.

3. Become Death… new passive skill:

Whenever you're at or below 0 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 spellpower each turn, and if they fail, they lose one beneficial effect or sustain of any type (including anti-magic and prodigies). All enemy talents (not including runes or inscriptions) have a 1-10% chance to fail. For the purpose of this spell, you gain a spellpower bonus equal to 5% of your real magic power per active talent level.

Non-undead can also be inflicted by the Necrosis effect:

The Necrosis effect is a magic effect and causes a resource and life drain of 25% of current over 8 turns. Doesn't affect odd resources like paradox, equilibrium, et al., but will still drain life. Affects: Stamina, Mana, Positive and Negative Energy, Vim, Hate, Psi, and souls.

If you increase your life above 0 life, the aura lingers for 3 additional turns.

4. Chance of Life

Use: Sustain
Range: 1-51
Cost: 200 mana
Use speed: instant
Cool-down: 40

As long as this sustain is active, if you're dropped to or below 0 life (if this triggers, it can save you from death), there is a maximum "28/34%" chance that you'll be "resurrected" and gain 36/51% life, mana, reduced cool-downs, and teleported randomly within range "x."

The max life, cool-down, and mana recovery scale with magic and active talent level. 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 28% for normal characters and 34% for undead or those classified temporarily as undead. This scales with talent point investment.

After investing 5 talent points, this sustain has a chance to trigger on every hit when you're at or below 0 life. Can only successfully trigger once per turn and cannot trigger if you're currently silenced. It will also check twice if you're in positive life, once at 0 and once at death.


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 a 10% chance (per active talent level) 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. This spell cannot crit.

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, etc.

In addition, all criticals of any type have 7% chance per active talent level of generating a soul when at or below 0 life.

This still retains the increased soul cap of up to 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 but does not actually cause damage.

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.

Adds a bonus to Undead Explosion: doubles damage and range.

Changes Assemble bonus such that it guarantees a Runed Bone Giant.

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

Remove bonus from Shadow Tunnel, Ice Shards, Undeath Link, and Create Minions.


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 by 1 at active talent levels 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. This will summon 1 minion per active talent level or up to cap, whichever is less.

You can only control 1 Lich at a time.

This spell can crit and at least 1 of your minions will gain additional levels equal to (crit multiplier * 0.45) + (active talent lvl of spell). The number of minions that the crit-bonus applies to is an even distribution between 1 and max.

More so, this spell is targeted in a radius rather than in a cone a la Create Minions.

2. Assemble… always consumes lowest-tiered minions for Bone Giant.

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.
lvl 6 and beyond grants additional +1 additional level.

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

This spell can crit… doing so produces a Bone Giant with additional levels of (crit multiplier * active talent lvl/2) + 1.

Changes EotD bonus.

3. Sacrifice… is now targetable. Mana cost is increased to 25.

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 (it guarantees 1 physical ward).

Cannot be used on a Blood Golem, Forgery of the Haze/Husk, or Shadow.

4. Blood Golem:

Use: Activated
Range: 3
Cost: 100 mana
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 26

This spell combines 1 basic and 1 advanced minion into a 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 and increases. Excess life from drain/heal is wasted 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 +1.2) * 65%).

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 approximately 100-45% of its max life as direct physical damage that can bypasses damage shields and wards but not Undeath Link or Sacrifice. The amount of life you suffer diminishes 8% per active talent level.

In addition, Dark Empathy effect is shared with the Blood Golem such that the Blood Golem also isn't damaged by other minions.

Gains EotD bonus that allows for a second Blood Golem. *** For "Blighted Summoning" prodigy, this gains Bone Shield at active talent level equal to talent point invested in this skill.


Shades:

1. Shadow Tunnel… transports your minions through the underworld to you from 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 1 wisp at the original location of each of your minions. Damage scales to active talent level.

Mana cost is increased to 30.

2. Dark Vision… new passive skill.

After any enemy or minion is killed, you gain a radius "1 + active talent level/2" vision in that spot for "1 turn per active talent level." 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: 36

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. It 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.

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 of 1 per turn, per talent point invested. With each additional active level, there is an added 3% 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.

Sustain is dropped when you raise your life about 0 although the shadow lingers for 1 turn per active talent level.

4. FrostDusk… no change.

Ice: … no change.

Mastery of Death: Level 10 locked category at 1.2.

1. Grasping Claws:

Use: Activated
Range: Necrotic Aura
Cost: 25 mana and 2 souls
Use Speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 14

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. It gains an additional turn at active talent level 1, 4, 7, etc.

2. Undead Explosion… Skeletons and Bone Giants cause physical damage with chance to cause bleeding. All other minions cause blight damage with chance to infect enemy with disease. Mana cost and cool down remain unchanged.

This ability can now be used on any regular undead enemy in addition to your own minions. However, the success rate is equal to how much life they've lost (excluding 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%.

Gains EotD bonus.

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. Fatal Spite:

Use: Active
Range: 1
Cost: 50 mana and 5 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 100% of the cumulative amount of life below the max for you and all of your minions. Then, you suffer 100%-50% (scales with talent point investment) of said damage on a 1-turn delay as arcane damage.

When at or below 0 life, the delay increases to 2 turns.


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 per active talent level. This teleport cannot be "targeted" on enemies, escorts, etc. Range scales with active talent level.

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: 5 mana and 99.99% of life.
Use speed: 1 turn
Cool-down: 36

This spell immediately reduces your life to 0 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. Duration increases to 2 at active talent lvl 7 (so with a category mastery).

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

This ability does not work if you're already at or below 0 HP.

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

[grayswandir]

Looks decent to me. I particularly like the Arcane Eye effect.

I propose you just call darkness/cold "crypt" damage or something similar.

[0player]

Looks extremely nice. When/if this comes out, I'm running 10 necromancers into their early grave, no less.
(also if you need help with coding, I'm available)

I propose you just call darkness/cold "crypt" damage or something similar.

Or "frostdusk".

[Red]

I vote against calling it Frostdusk. That and Starfury are names I just really don't like, if for different reasons.

Crypt sounds pretty cool though, and thematically appropiate.

[Delmuir]

I have no real opinion on changing the name of the damage type… nor do I have any ideas. I'm fine with crypt or frost dusk… whatever. Wait! Maybe we can just call it "Animus" damage?

0player, yeah… if you want to code, I can help with the mechanics and the math. That'd be immensely appreciated.

This design has been a long-time coming and I excited about the potential of it. Ultimately, it may suffer from problems and I imagine that the Undeath Link sharing feature will prove complicated although the Oozemancer should provide a guide, I hope. Still, I think I've done all I can with theory...

I'm honestly not sure what elements will be hardest to code plus there's no animation for the Blood Golem so we'd need help with that too.

All in all, I'm really happy with this…

Having said that, I did have an idea for another generic called "Undeath" that would focus on the neg-life functions. Things like shifting % of your regular life to Blurred Mortality, re-introducing the Will to Power skill, etc.

However, I'm going to leave that discussion for another day because I only think that category is desirable as a means of fixing any short-comings for the class. It's my backup plan if every else works but the class still suffers due to foreseeable problems like mobility, not enough neg-life, etc.

Save that discussion for another day.

[Red]

Be careful about too much negative life, especially transferring real life to negative. Let's say you can make it so your actual life is 100 and your negative is 500, and you're a Ghoul with maxed Ghoul skill. This means no single attack can ever do more than 50 damage, so you can guaranteed survive at least 12 attacks.

Admittedly, it's the largest issue since "one-shots" from enemies are often multi-hit attacks or getting a nasty slow/stun/etc. that slows you down enough for larger amounts of smaller hits to kill you, but still watch your numbers in combinations with skills like that.

[Delmuir]

Good call Red… that's why I left it off.

Honestly, I think the Sacrifice skill is the key for surviving with negative life.

However, just in case, I have some backup ideas...