disclaimer im bad and play on nightmare/adventure mostly
thoughts: in general necro has a big problem with too many melee units just tripping over eachother, and a lack of gapclosers on the melee minions. this is exacerbated by a lot of tome4 dungeons being stuffed with linear corridors and chokepoints - a horde of melee minions just doesn't work at all a lot of the time.
a totem of healing is too important to the class as it stands. give necros a native heal on par with it (maybe give soul leech an active ability?), and disable the ability for totems to work with necro minions.
way too many talents are backloaded (having effects that only happen at level 5/6).
Master of Bones: fewer skeleton warriors, give them a charge. skeleton mages should stop running into melee (give them a ranged auto?). skeleton archers shouldn't run into melee. make it deterministically summon xyz mages, xyz warriors, xyz archers. (maybe just 1 warrior because of ghouls, bone giant already giving you way too many melee minions) should probably move summoning mages and archers either from the start or to level 3.
bone wall is way too clunky in its current implementation, you should be able to target the location of the bone wall.
Assemble: Eternal Bone Giant (talent level 6) shouldn't lose Throw Bones. This is the only thing the bone giant gets to do a lot of the time anyway. Maybe give the big boney boy a leap too, it suffers from necro minion clown car *hard*.
Lord of Skulls should give the bonus talent/prodigy at level 1, it's kinda...really bad before then?? also warrior should get a native gap closer and give them something else (maybe Windblade or Irresistible Sun or something iunno) also why does this cost 3 souls it should just cost 1?
Ghouls: need a leap. maybe some sort of ranged attack too, because again, clown car. summoning ghouls at your foe shouldn't be tied to level 3.
Necrosis: this entire tree doesn't really work with necro atm, hiemal shield needs to be changed to only absorb damage when you would take damage that sends you below -1 life so it doesn't directly conflict with the playstyle. maybe also make it so life regen applies to the shield instead while in combat?
Blurred Morality should scale with bonus life on gear too. Maybe make it so bonus life on gear increases your "can only die" threshold instead of max life? It should also show on your health gauge what your "die at" threshold is as a QoL tweak.
Across the Veil is just kind of a really bad talent that doesn't make much sense. The rest of the tree encourages you to be below 1 life constantly, and only having access to runes really minimizes any health ping-pong play. Maybe make the blast every few turns while below 1 life, like with Spikes?
Spectre: Can't comment on it a ton because it's not working right now, but Intangibility should be a reduction instead of a chance to just not take damage, inconsistency in defensive tools is problematic.
1.7b Necromancer Rework Feedback
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Re: 1.7b Necromancer Rework Feedback
The backloaded talents is definitely an issue and am in full agreement. Many of the soul costs are high, again I agree. Lord of Skulls definitely needs some help... nice comments.
The Across the Veil criticism I must disagree with because of Eternal Night, which grants some healing. If you use Hiemal Shield only upon entering negative life then you have a chance to recover life, rinse and repeat. I have already found some success with that, though it does require some management.
I like the Blurred Mortality idea in regards to equipment but maybe a 50/50 split is best.
Regarding the "clown car" problem. I have found this more manageable than the previous incarnation of the Necro because the minions are primarily defensive and not offensive in nature. The ghouls are dispensed with almost as quickly as they can be summoned as all three skills in that category dispose of them. The skeletons can be more of an issue but if they're considered primarily defensive then it's not really an issue, and I think they are primarily defensive. The Necro works best being "in the mix" and near the enemy, layering damage, and so having minions nearby helps absorb damage. Even in a tight corridor, they act like a roadblock to the enemy, giving you time to layer on the damage.
Regarding the inconsistency in defensive tools... I must disagree. It's highly situational, thematic, and is essentially just "evade." It's a bonus, not something to rely on.
The Across the Veil criticism I must disagree with because of Eternal Night, which grants some healing. If you use Hiemal Shield only upon entering negative life then you have a chance to recover life, rinse and repeat. I have already found some success with that, though it does require some management.
I like the Blurred Mortality idea in regards to equipment but maybe a 50/50 split is best.
Regarding the "clown car" problem. I have found this more manageable than the previous incarnation of the Necro because the minions are primarily defensive and not offensive in nature. The ghouls are dispensed with almost as quickly as they can be summoned as all three skills in that category dispose of them. The skeletons can be more of an issue but if they're considered primarily defensive then it's not really an issue, and I think they are primarily defensive. The Necro works best being "in the mix" and near the enemy, layering damage, and so having minions nearby helps absorb damage. Even in a tight corridor, they act like a roadblock to the enemy, giving you time to layer on the damage.
Regarding the inconsistency in defensive tools... I must disagree. It's highly situational, thematic, and is essentially just "evade." It's a bonus, not something to rely on.
Re: 1.7b Necromancer Rework Feedback
Hiemal Shield as-is just kind of obnoxious to use. Making it only kick in when you're already "one foot in the grave" as it were would help with that playstyle significantly.
Also the clown car problem is mostly a big deal on a summon focused necro, which demands a lot of talent points into summons. I'm not really sure a summoner focus can actually ever reasonably afford to invest in much, if any personal damage.
Further notes after messing around:
Blurred Morality has really, really bad scaling. By level 30, with absolutely no gear on at all, assuming all mag and life I'm already at 373 max life and -403 max life. Some random bonus life on gear is enough to bring my max life up to the mid 600s. It's definitely nice to have a safety cushion but it doesn't seem very reliable to try to dip and stay below 1 life as things currently stand.
Skeleton Warriors should always just have Rune: Blink which would fix their lack of a gapcloser. Giving them a random rune on summon is. Not good.
Ghouls should just have ghoulish leap from the start?
Ghouls have rather terrible damage in general. They do like, a fifth of the damage of skeletons. The cooldown on getting new ghouls also feels considerably too long.
Putrescent Liquefaction should only ever eat one ghoul and instead have its base duration increase based on talent level, or the damage of the cloud should scale based on number of ghouls eaten. Currently has too high of a cost and does a fairly lackluster amount of damage.
Corpse Explosion feels like it should just be a Sustain. Damage also seems fairly unimpressive for the cost.
Dread should probably get its additional hexes based on talent level, giving it hexes based on its actual level and just increasing that level via talent level is - weird? Dread's silence also really shouldn't scale with mindpower nor cost psi (or at the very least give it crazy psi regen to counteract that).
Dread should probably get something other than Blood Fury from Blighted Summoning, it doesn't have any sources of Blight or Acid damage.
Dread soul cost seems excessively high. Should probably just be 2 souls?
Neverending Peril seems...Kind of worthless? The dread doesn't really get targeted. Maybe if this had a taunt on it too?
Also the clown car problem is mostly a big deal on a summon focused necro, which demands a lot of talent points into summons. I'm not really sure a summoner focus can actually ever reasonably afford to invest in much, if any personal damage.
Further notes after messing around:
Blurred Morality has really, really bad scaling. By level 30, with absolutely no gear on at all, assuming all mag and life I'm already at 373 max life and -403 max life. Some random bonus life on gear is enough to bring my max life up to the mid 600s. It's definitely nice to have a safety cushion but it doesn't seem very reliable to try to dip and stay below 1 life as things currently stand.
Skeleton Warriors should always just have Rune: Blink which would fix their lack of a gapcloser. Giving them a random rune on summon is. Not good.
Ghouls should just have ghoulish leap from the start?
Ghouls have rather terrible damage in general. They do like, a fifth of the damage of skeletons. The cooldown on getting new ghouls also feels considerably too long.
Putrescent Liquefaction should only ever eat one ghoul and instead have its base duration increase based on talent level, or the damage of the cloud should scale based on number of ghouls eaten. Currently has too high of a cost and does a fairly lackluster amount of damage.
Corpse Explosion feels like it should just be a Sustain. Damage also seems fairly unimpressive for the cost.
Dread should probably get its additional hexes based on talent level, giving it hexes based on its actual level and just increasing that level via talent level is - weird? Dread's silence also really shouldn't scale with mindpower nor cost psi (or at the very least give it crazy psi regen to counteract that).
Dread should probably get something other than Blood Fury from Blighted Summoning, it doesn't have any sources of Blight or Acid damage.
Dread soul cost seems excessively high. Should probably just be 2 souls?
Neverending Peril seems...Kind of worthless? The dread doesn't really get targeted. Maybe if this had a taunt on it too?
Re: 1.7b Necromancer Rework Feedback
Yeah, you make some solid points, especially about the skeletons.
The Hiemal Shield... it underwhelms a little and I think can use some help but I should point out that Golden Age, at level 5, grants 2 turns of total immunity when you "cross the veil," so to speak and so you really have some excellent defensive tools. I'm just not entirely sure where Hiemal Shield fits in as a pure damage shield. It's other effects are nice but honestly, I don't even see the need for the damage shield itself as it stands. My suggestion is this:
1. Hiemal Shield... has all of the glacial waste effects but doesn't absorb damage like a normal shield. Instead, it has a hard cap at 105% of your max positive life. What I mean is that any single hit that does more than 105% of your max positive life is absorbed completely, no matter how large BUT once you're in negative life, it just does flat damage reduction on all hits with no hard cap.
2. Discarded Refuse... a nice theoretical sustain but the problem with it is that it shuts down when you don't have any ghouls and you can't walk around with ghouls because they have a short duration but it still takes a full turn to use. Thus, you have to waste a turn in combat. As it is, it's just not useful. I don't really see why it needs to be shut off when you run out of ghouls but even if it does, it needs to be instant so that you can at least turn it on when an enemy appears.
I'd also like to simply do away with Bone Wall entirely and replace it with:
1. Shattered Remains... this is a passive skill such that whenever a skeleton is killed, it's shattered bones are picked up by any remaining skeletons or Bone Giants and worn like armor or used like weapons, thus granting bleeding damage, damage when hit by an enemy in melee, and additional armor until those skeletons themselves are killed and it stacks.
Thus, as long as a skeleton remains alive, it can stack those bonuses considerably.
The Hiemal Shield... it underwhelms a little and I think can use some help but I should point out that Golden Age, at level 5, grants 2 turns of total immunity when you "cross the veil," so to speak and so you really have some excellent defensive tools. I'm just not entirely sure where Hiemal Shield fits in as a pure damage shield. It's other effects are nice but honestly, I don't even see the need for the damage shield itself as it stands. My suggestion is this:
1. Hiemal Shield... has all of the glacial waste effects but doesn't absorb damage like a normal shield. Instead, it has a hard cap at 105% of your max positive life. What I mean is that any single hit that does more than 105% of your max positive life is absorbed completely, no matter how large BUT once you're in negative life, it just does flat damage reduction on all hits with no hard cap.
2. Discarded Refuse... a nice theoretical sustain but the problem with it is that it shuts down when you don't have any ghouls and you can't walk around with ghouls because they have a short duration but it still takes a full turn to use. Thus, you have to waste a turn in combat. As it is, it's just not useful. I don't really see why it needs to be shut off when you run out of ghouls but even if it does, it needs to be instant so that you can at least turn it on when an enemy appears.
I'd also like to simply do away with Bone Wall entirely and replace it with:
1. Shattered Remains... this is a passive skill such that whenever a skeleton is killed, it's shattered bones are picked up by any remaining skeletons or Bone Giants and worn like armor or used like weapons, thus granting bleeding damage, damage when hit by an enemy in melee, and additional armor until those skeletons themselves are killed and it stacks.
Thus, as long as a skeleton remains alive, it can stack those bonuses considerably.
Last edited by Delmuir on Fri Jul 10, 2020 2:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: 1.7b Necromancer Rework Feedback
So I just kind of figured out Across the Veil...
It doesn't have a cooldown so the optimal approach seems to be this:
1. Enter battle and take enough damage to get into negative life, thus triggering Across the Veil which does damage, applies Soul Leech (along with Spikes of Decrepitude), while you're casting a couple of opening spells.
2. Then throw up a damage shield and use Consume Soul... which triggers Across the Veil again.
3. Use Torture Souls to recoup used souls
4. Take advantage of the massive cooldown reduction from Across the Veil to finish off the enemies.
5. All of this is made possible by Blurred Mortality shifting your positive/negative life ratio.
It's pretty great. I'm using this category at 5/5/5/5 and it's a beast.
It doesn't have a cooldown so the optimal approach seems to be this:
1. Enter battle and take enough damage to get into negative life, thus triggering Across the Veil which does damage, applies Soul Leech (along with Spikes of Decrepitude), while you're casting a couple of opening spells.
2. Then throw up a damage shield and use Consume Soul... which triggers Across the Veil again.
3. Use Torture Souls to recoup used souls
4. Take advantage of the massive cooldown reduction from Across the Veil to finish off the enemies.
5. All of this is made possible by Blurred Mortality shifting your positive/negative life ratio.
It's pretty great. I'm using this category at 5/5/5/5 and it's a beast.
Re: 1.7b Necromancer Rework Feedback
Across the Veil, done correctly, is very powerful.
Side Note: The description is slightly wrong at the moment. It only has a range of 4, which is sad. I really think it should have a range of 5 or more. Using this skill requires know how and some risk, and that should be rewarded. I think its range should scale with level and spell power up to at least a range of 8.
First, you need to have decent health regen, and understand that you will need to go into the Age of Dusk tree and get Golden Age of Necromancy to level 5, and Eternal Night to at least level 3 for around a 6% damage dealt health regen. The more health regen you can get, the better. You also want to have some levels in Hiemal Shield, as it is a decent shield, and scales well. You need at least one level in consume soul as well.
For equipment, anything that increases your max negative health, your healing mod, and your base health regen is highly recommended. For runes, you want at least one shield rune. A healing torque or shield is good to have too.
Combat runs as follows,
You cast spells blah blah blah, and you get into the thick of things, within range of 4 of a unique or whatever is causing you issues. Eventually, if the fight is challenging you will go into negative health. Now you have 2 turns of invincibility, do as you please, and if you have good health regen, and are doing good damage, you should be able to go into positive health in 2 turns. If not, raise a shield, OR consume a soul. Now you have ANOTHER 2 turns of invincibility. That is 4 turns of "Naw naw you can't hurt me". Also, a massive damage AoE, that can also heal you if you have Eternal Night sustained. Additionally, for each creature hit by that blast, one of your cooldowns is reduced by 8. That is how you get to spam your ghouls, you can have as many as you like. This can also reduce the cooldown for consume soul.... so you can use it over and over.
This can be repeated ad nauseam. I have used it on bosses and uniques quite a few times now, and it is rather satisfying. I still feel like the range is a bit crap. I almost feel like I need heavy armor as many of the lich's, I am a lich, best abilities are close to mid range. e.g. corpse light has 7 range, but you need to be in it to make use of its stacking trait, and at zero stacks that is 3 range, and then everything gets pulled into that. Bone yard has a similar feature when combined with To the Grave, which unfortunately isn't working yet either, but by description would pull things to the center, where you may be. Necromancer also has abilities that can increase armor. It just feels like this mage is more of a melee range mage than a ranged mage overall.
Side Note: The description is slightly wrong at the moment. It only has a range of 4, which is sad. I really think it should have a range of 5 or more. Using this skill requires know how and some risk, and that should be rewarded. I think its range should scale with level and spell power up to at least a range of 8.
First, you need to have decent health regen, and understand that you will need to go into the Age of Dusk tree and get Golden Age of Necromancy to level 5, and Eternal Night to at least level 3 for around a 6% damage dealt health regen. The more health regen you can get, the better. You also want to have some levels in Hiemal Shield, as it is a decent shield, and scales well. You need at least one level in consume soul as well.
For equipment, anything that increases your max negative health, your healing mod, and your base health regen is highly recommended. For runes, you want at least one shield rune. A healing torque or shield is good to have too.
Combat runs as follows,
You cast spells blah blah blah, and you get into the thick of things, within range of 4 of a unique or whatever is causing you issues. Eventually, if the fight is challenging you will go into negative health. Now you have 2 turns of invincibility, do as you please, and if you have good health regen, and are doing good damage, you should be able to go into positive health in 2 turns. If not, raise a shield, OR consume a soul. Now you have ANOTHER 2 turns of invincibility. That is 4 turns of "Naw naw you can't hurt me". Also, a massive damage AoE, that can also heal you if you have Eternal Night sustained. Additionally, for each creature hit by that blast, one of your cooldowns is reduced by 8. That is how you get to spam your ghouls, you can have as many as you like. This can also reduce the cooldown for consume soul.... so you can use it over and over.
This can be repeated ad nauseam. I have used it on bosses and uniques quite a few times now, and it is rather satisfying. I still feel like the range is a bit crap. I almost feel like I need heavy armor as many of the lich's, I am a lich, best abilities are close to mid range. e.g. corpse light has 7 range, but you need to be in it to make use of its stacking trait, and at zero stacks that is 3 range, and then everything gets pulled into that. Bone yard has a similar feature when combined with To the Grave, which unfortunately isn't working yet either, but by description would pull things to the center, where you may be. Necromancer also has abilities that can increase armor. It just feels like this mage is more of a melee range mage than a ranged mage overall.
Re: 1.7b Necromancer Rework Feedback
I would like to also point out that Hiemal Shield (HS) really isn't necessary. I have played a few races now with Necro to see how it feels between them, Human Cornac, Ghoul, and Doomelf. For the Doomelf, I have only put one point into it, and VERY rarely have used it now up to level 25. If you are building for actually taking damage to make use of Across the Veil (AtV), it just doesn't really fit into the build until AFTER you go below 0 HP.
As a sustain, I just don't feel as if the tree itself fits into a build around AtV. More bluntly, I think it is just a bad tree overall. It requires you to be in fairly close range to make use of the AoE effect, as does AtV. Of the two, AtV is vastly better imo. It does far more damage, is a passive, and done correctly it can do massive amounts of damage in very fast succession. With AtV going off, Spikes of Decrepitude (SoD), and whatever active I choose for that turn, I have had it go off from going negative, which healed me back into the positive, and so it went off again. Then I go back negative again and this repeats because I keep healing from the damage it does, plus other damage I do that turn AND the blast reduces the cooldown of one ability for EACH creature I hit. So summoners, other necromancers, Doomed, etc... (anything with minions) are very very screwed by this passive.
Being able to spam some of the many high cooldown abilities necromancers have (Call of the Mausoleum/Crypt, Night Sphere, Rigor Mortis, Impending Doom, etc..) is very very powerful.
HS could be great, but I don't think it is done correctly to be incorperated into this class, much like bone shield didn't work with the Corruption/Rot tree, but has now been rectified. Something like that needs to be done for this tree, or I just don't see how it can be invested into beyond more than a few points as an extra shield to be used only when needed.
EDIT: I should have noted I am playing on nightmare difficulty.
As a sustain, I just don't feel as if the tree itself fits into a build around AtV. More bluntly, I think it is just a bad tree overall. It requires you to be in fairly close range to make use of the AoE effect, as does AtV. Of the two, AtV is vastly better imo. It does far more damage, is a passive, and done correctly it can do massive amounts of damage in very fast succession. With AtV going off, Spikes of Decrepitude (SoD), and whatever active I choose for that turn, I have had it go off from going negative, which healed me back into the positive, and so it went off again. Then I go back negative again and this repeats because I keep healing from the damage it does, plus other damage I do that turn AND the blast reduces the cooldown of one ability for EACH creature I hit. So summoners, other necromancers, Doomed, etc... (anything with minions) are very very screwed by this passive.
Being able to spam some of the many high cooldown abilities necromancers have (Call of the Mausoleum/Crypt, Night Sphere, Rigor Mortis, Impending Doom, etc..) is very very powerful.
HS could be great, but I don't think it is done correctly to be incorperated into this class, much like bone shield didn't work with the Corruption/Rot tree, but has now been rectified. Something like that needs to be done for this tree, or I just don't see how it can be invested into beyond more than a few points as an extra shield to be used only when needed.
EDIT: I should have noted I am playing on nightmare difficulty.