(1.5.5) Necromancer - Quality of (un)Life

[Snow]

So, for a large part I think Necromancer is in a good spot right now. I do not believe it needs a complete rework.

... ... OK now that we've got that out of the way, there's something that REALLY pisses me off about the actual mechanics. Necromancers are about powerful magic, and raising the dead. What do we get? Thematic evil spellcasters that can get powerful magic or raise the dead. Talent spreads are really unforgiving if you try for both, but that's OK. Just pick the blast trees you like best (Ice? .. Anyone?) and experiment (replay the first continent 80 times) till you get a good balance. That really is actually fine, and about par for the course with spellcasters. The issue is Necromancer flourishes only when he or she has access to trash mobs. At least three per high level create minion, and quite probably more to account for heals, boosts, and all the other things. There's a talent specifically about hording and extracting an extra soul too, I know but... it isn't enough.

It isn't enough because in cases where you don't have a surplus of trash mobs around, or a randboss or two with good AoEs that can chunk your summons you're back down to basic spellcasting. Which is dangerous because necromancers are squishy, have very limited options for damage, and if they run out of souls in the wrong place, it can become impossible to get more. I emphasize impossible because if you've cleared out all the zones you can survive, you either have to start clearing towns (if you can) to get souls back, or if you already did that and run out somehow (bad luck with bosses?) then there is no way to generate them, and no way to power some of your most potent (and iconic) class features.

So now that I'm done setting the scene, I'd like to propose as a quality of (un)life change, the ability to convert mana into souls.

"How does that make any sense?" you might ask? Well, what Necromancer worth their shit can't reach into the aether between life and death and tear a screaming tormented spirit out ofi ts rest, and shove it in a corpse? Can't collect a soul easily? Summon some.

Even better, make a sustainable toggle that can switch between using mana (either less efficient or cost prohibitive normally) or souls as the primary mechanic.

A necromancer should not be gimped because the game turns into a depopulated wasteland after a few hours of play.

[Tyren]

There is an easy solution. Don't kill all trees that summon critters for you. Find an item that summons living creatures to kill.

[Snow]

There is an easy solution. Don't kill all trees that summon critters for you. Find an item that summons living creatures to kill.

I shouldn't bloody have to!

[Razakai]

A good compromise would be a passive where souls regenerate to a minimum of X while resting. So you're never completely out of power.

[Sheila]

Curse of the Meek has a high chance to return souls when the summoned critters die, that's in a locked tree, so it's not impossible at all
This is also a good reason to pick Higher as your race for Highborn's Bloom or Hidden Resources as one of your prodigies, there's also having Celia's Heart as an usable item.
I don't think making resources not matter at all should be a design goal, that's basically what being able to turn mana into souls would mean, at that point removing souls entirely would be better!
For what it's worth, I also recently (1.5) made a change to Necrotic Aura where it has a chance to return souls for minions that die inside it, and made animus hoarder passive, so they should be in a much better spot as far as resources go.

[tabs]

I think perhaps converting your HP to soul(s) at a ludicrous rate (e.g. costing 50%+ of HP) would also be a viable alternative. That way it'd be possible (but hard) to do a mid-fight soul top-off.

Another idea I had was for an active skill which tries to "strip" a still living enemy of their soul. Higher ranked enemies could yield more souls for lore reasons.

[Snow]

Curse of the Meek has a high chance to return souls when the summoned critters die, that's in a locked tree, so it's not impossible at all
This is also a good reason to pick Higher as your race for Highborn's Bloom or Hidden Resources as one of your prodigies, there's also having Celia's Heart as an usable item.
I don't think making resources not matter at all should be a design goal, that's basically what being able to turn mana into souls would mean, at that point removing souls entirely would be better!
For what it's worth, I also recently (1.5) made a change to Necrotic Aura where it has a chance to return souls for minions that die inside it, and made animus hoarder passive, so they should be in a much better spot as far as resources go.

A low chance that can't be raised, and still leaves the necromancer hoping to hell he or she has enough souls to survive the rediculous string of randbosses.

And Ceila's heart? Well yeah... if you can bloody well survive getting it since that quest is one powerful randboss after another. I had to leave 4 or 5 times to go to dreadfell to farm enough souls to continue because otherwise I was gonna get nuked. They even chewed through the eternal bone giant rather quickly, and believe you me I did not get anywhere near enough souls refunded to keep that up. Besides, even after your change to hopefully make it much better, Necromancer still has very few wins. Last time I checked there were TWO in the past five versions that have won anything above normal, and it isn't that people aren't playing the class.


Necro is great in crowds, necro is great in places where there's weak mobs to keep the soul counter up and to feed the engine of their ownage. Pity that there's so often things with powerful AoEs and things that can take two to four waves of minion summons along with blasting to kill. Yeah they technically have impending doom, except it's a huge cooldown, can be resisted, and the points to power it have to come from somewhere else the Necromancer desperately needs them. If I recall, both of the only winners at the moment (6/18/2017) only put one point into it because they were point-starved elsewhere and it was better as a heal-debuff instead of a damage dealer. Circumstantial evidence shows they are not where they need to be.