Necromancer v1.7B4 Feedback

[mar3usmc]

First, love the changes to Master of Bones, i.e. getting rid of the wall and putting in shattered remains. That was very needed and I would put skeletons on par with ghouls now, perhaps a bit better even.

That said, to put them on par would to make a passive for Master of Flesh. i.e. make discarded refuse a passive, and have it scale with points invested.... I can't see how putting more than one point in it does anything. Also, there is a misspelling on the last sentence regarding when it can be used the first combat word is missspelled "comabt". Also, I just feel it is underwhelming. I would rather see it do the following.

Discarded Refuse (Passive)

Whenever you would be affected by a detrimental physical effect you instead transfer it instantly to one of your ghouls. The transfer causes the ghoul to explode doing ### (Effective Talent Level) Frostdusk damage in a radius # (Effective Talent Level) spreading the transferred detrimental effect to all targets in the explosion radius.
While under 1 life it also affects magical and mental effects
Cross-tier effects are never affected

There you go. No need for sustaining it off and on, it has scaling, and interesting fun effects.

Also, we need an QoL improvement for commanding our minions. An active free ability that would take 0 turns that would focus all your minion on a target. Manually doing this for a dozen minions is .... not fun.

Some other things to note,

Nightfall

Night Sphere: Needs a radius description, and it would be nice to see the radius scale up a bit too with higher level investment rather than it just being a one point wonder.

Dreadmaster

In General, good minion, but also a bad minion in that the AI can cause you problems by pulling enemies you would rather not fight yet. It requires quite a bit of baby sitting and it is very expensive to produce. (4 souls is excessive IMO and really forces you to baby sit it too much, slowing gameplay, and that is not fun)

Dread: as the dread level has little to no effect at higher levels on the dreads abilities there is little reason to put more than one point in this. It would be nice to see abilities scale with this or give it some reason to be leveled.

Souleater: It would be nice to see this work for other enemies as well, as I am guess they have souls too. If you focus on skeletons you will see little use of this ability, but it works very well with ghouls, making ghouls seem better in some cases. Then again, your necromancer is also collected enemies souls. So perhaps this should only work with enemies when your souls are full. I like the idea of the ability, but would like to see more flexibility to give players other options, such as only going dread and no ghouls or skeletons. (I know, very silly, but still)"

Neverending Peril: I still hate this ability, not because it isn't good, but because it requires babysitting. You have to watch the dreads life, slowing down gameplay, and that isn't fun, at least not for me. It would work better if you could set it to be used automatically when the dread has less that 50% HP. It doesn't help that the dread runs off picking fights, which can force you to use it when you would rather not.

Dreadmaster: Fine as it is

Grave

Chill of the Tomb: I would like to see the radius of the blast be based on effective talent level, and not points invested. Larger blasts are fun. Block Damage would be better if it scaled.

Corpselight: As I have posted before, I still don't like it, and don't see much use for it. It only does damage, and with the upgrade a pull to center. If it had some other effects perhaps it would be more useful, but I can't think of anything besides effects you would normal see from cold damage.

Glacial Waste

Hiemal Shield: I still would like to see some sort of regeneration for this that is more continuous besides the percent increase from desolate wastes, which will not keep up with most damage at higher difficulties. Perhaps would multiple damage reduction stacking it may, but I haven't seen it work out that way yet. Always being minus one soul from your max at the start of every fight, not to mention the sustain cost, is annoying. I still think it blocks too much damage above 0 HP. I would make it 50% or maybe even 33%.

Desolate Waste: In line with creating a more continuous shield regeneration, the 4 limit per activation should be done away with. Actually, remove it regardless of activation. If you can manage to keep that shield up permanently from damage reduction and regeneration from retribution you deserve as many desolate wastes as you like.

The other two passives are OK, but the crumbling earth damage splitting can be a problem. More on that later.

Animus

Soul Leech: Should be a free point (The necromancer really could use the extra point), and not be unlearnable. I also still say that soul capacity should be tied to this passive and not to Reaping. Increase the rate of soul leeching when under 0 health. Additionally, I feel the the max soul capacity increase should be 10, not 9, at max investment. That is just weird. If I really had it my way I would increase it to 15 haha. I know in long fights, early game, I can burn through souls VERY quickly.

Consume Soul: No change

Torture Souls: I am not sure how many souls I should be getting based on the description. Does it mean up to 1 soul at level one regardless of how many enemies you hit, or one soul per enemy? I haven't really taken the time to test how this works to determine this for myself, but I can't tell by just reading the description. Damage is decent, but I wouldn't level it beyond 3, only did 2 in my last win, because it has a high cooldown of 18. Thus, overall DPS is very very low. It is basically something you use after spending many souls at once for a quick replenishment, and a bit of damage.

Reaping: Pretty strong sustain (correction), but the soul capacity, IMO, should be on the passive Soul Leech.

Death

My option of this category tree hasn't changed from my other posts.

Rigor Mortis: I do appreciate clarification of how much damage Rigor Mortis will do per status effect. However, is the damage listed a bonus to the base damage listed, or damage after the bonus is added? Either way, great finisher ability.

Drawn to Death: Can we do something more with this? I just feel it would be nice if you had some corpse explosion at the teleport location if you did want to use this. Consider the cooldown is rather high for an ability with no other effects besides teleporting. Ghost walk is only a ten turn cooldown with much better effects. Perhaps have the explosion do less damage the older the corpse is? Also, I would rather be able to ALWAYS see that visual effect of the places to teleport, instead of only when I activate the ability to use. It is a nice reminder that you have an option to move elsewhere.

Grim Shadow: I haven't gotten there yet to be able to use this to test, but I hope it is changed such that the blast works regardless if you are at max souls or not.

Utterly Destroyed: Perhaps this is a good one if you don't got Lichform, but I still don't see the point of this ability. It is a one point wonder, that works well with Adept for the bonus move speed with one point investment. It should be a passive, instead of a sustain, as it only protects your more valuable sustains as it is. It is not strong enough to be a sustain.

Age of Dusk

Overall I love the category. It is very strong by itself, and can keep your souls coming in during big group fights. Better yet, it has great synergy with the Nightfall Category, and it only has one damage type, darkness.

Eradication

Boneyard: Decent ability if you focus on minions, but the heavy investment of 4 points to resurrect minions at only 9% chance is not really worth it. I would say that is just an added bonus, as the former bonuses are decent. I would still like this to last 10 turns, instead of 8, or have the duration and radius of effect scale with effective talent level.

To the Grave: Now that it is working, not bad... not bad at all.

Impending Doom: Well, what can I say about it. Everyone loves Impending Doom.

Eternal Night: If you plan on doing damage yourself, this is mandatory. The damage bonus is meh, but the penetration is WOW. The heal is also AMAZING! That said, this is the problem with the sustain, it is too cheap. I agree with others posts, this should also cost at least one soul to sustain, maybe two. It is that good.

All that said, I have a BIG problem with the Eradication category. Boneyard and To the Grave have NOTHING to do with "Eradication". It feels like they should be under the Master Necromancer Category as they support minions, and minion based play styles. Impending Doom and Eternal Night fit into the category, the former two do not. Please let me know what you think about that, but Boneyard and To the Grave just feel very out of place.

Master Necromancer

In general, if you focused on skeletons, this category is mandatory. Without it, mid game your minions will begin to die VERY quickly against enemy AoEs and other abilities.

Aura of Undeath: Without your spell power percentage applied to offensive and defensive capabilities, your minions will become useless very quickly on insane difficulties and higher.

Surge of Undeath: The heal is also needed such that you can keep your skeletons going longer, and the global speed boost can be equated to a 25% damage boost.

Recall Minions: I can see how recall minions can be useful as a method to create a meat shield between you and enemies. However, from my experience, the things that will most likely kill you are blasters, and most of those abilities will penetrate through your minions. I have never had problems with melee enemies in the late game.

Suffer for Me: I don't understand this abilities description. I hope it is just not written correctly. It states that minions OUTSIDE your Aura of Undeath will take the damage. Therefore, if you have a very large, radius 9 or more, Aura of Undeath, this ability won't work if you are in visual range of your minions. I would think it should read opposite; that it only works for minions INSIDE your Aura of Undeath. That would make more sense.

Rime Wraith

I wish I could say more about this category, but I haven't tried it out yet. In a roguelike game, you tend to try to mitigate the chaos in what is already a very chaotic as much as you can so you can statistically predict outcomes multiple turns ahead. There is no guarantee in outcomes, but if you played out the same set of turns over and over you could have an average outcome you could predict. What I see with this category is making the chaos worse. More randomness is rarely desired. If you are focusing skeletons and cold, this category may be OK, but on its own, from the descriptions, I feel like something is lacking.

Next up, damage splitting

[mar3usmc]

Damage Splitting

The Necromancer, as far as I can tell, has many many abilities that have various damage, albeit they are primarily cold and darkness.

First, let's talk about damage splitting, and the problem I see with it in this game.

The biggest problem with damage splitting is flat damage blocking. As far as I can tell, flat damage blocking, e.g. from giant bone golems, will block damage from the individual parts of the damage. So if you do 100 frostdusk damage, which would be split as 50 cold and 50 darkness damage, against an opponent with 50 flat damage block, you will end up doing zero damage instead of 50, which expect the latter, not the former, seems more fair.

The next problem with damage splitting is resistances and penetration. In general, many classes only do two damage types primarily. e.g. Reavers do Physical and Blight, Doomed do Mind and Darkness, Anorithils do Darkness and Light, Doombringers do Physical and Fire, etc.... Therefore, while playing those classes you would generally try to max your penetration for both of those damage types, but may focus on one or the other. e.g. For doomed you could grab the mental tyranny prodigy and just focus on mind damage. You would also tend to try to max your damage bonus for one type rather than both relative to the highest penetration you could obtain for the two. Sometimes you get lucky with items and can max the penetration for both, and get good boosts to both damage types, but more often that not one damage type will outperform, due to items or abilities, than the other.

With that said, the Necromancer v1.7B4 is a mess when it comes to damage types inflicted. In addition to the cold and darkness damage, the necromancer, with the help of minions, also does Physical (Including Bleeding), Arcane, Blight, and Fire. This may seem advantageous, until you take into account penetration, and damage bonuses, which would normally be focused on cold and darkness for the necromancer. Your minions also get your damage bonuses, but NOT your penetration. Therefore, you will never get as much "bang for your buck" by increasing the damage they do versus the damage you do because they don't get any penetration bonuses, and opponents in the late game and on higher difficulties generally have high resistance to all.

Some of this can be mitigated by changing some of the damages they do, but physical will always be a problem unless some form of penetration is added for them, not to mention armor penetration. Blight is a bit easier to raise alongside cold and darkness with certain staves, and that supports ghoul builds, but skeletons long term prospects are mitigated by the lack of penetration, armor penetration, and the fact that you would have to take away your damage bonuses to cold and darkness to support physical bonus damage.

I am not sure what all can be done in general, but I know that skeletons, and damage splitting like frostdusk, are definitely being penalized at the higher levels.

[darkgod]

Thank for all the feedback I'll adjust some stuff

For the damage splits of necros I've pondered giving them penetration but eventually ruled it out because they seemed powerful enough as it is; if time tells a different story I'm not against revisiting that

[mar3usmc]

Understood. It is a duel edge as well. Necro opponents would also have these advantages. I am just pointing out the scaling differences and the results when encountering higher level enemies on the higher difficulties.

[Delmuir]

I'd like to add my two cents... (also, you've given a lot of solid feedback)

1. Discarded Refuse...

I also think a passive or just a sustain that never needs to be turned off is fine. So what bonus can be granted from further investment in the talent? My suggestion is a % chance to reduce cooldown of own of the other talents in the category every time it's triggered, say up to 50% and maybe 5 turns around active talent level 6.

2. Potential added effects for Corpselight?

How about? When it explodes, it grants the same "ice armor" bonus that Chill of the Tomb does BUT it and Chill of the Tome both grant that to you (if you're undead).

3. Hiemal Shield

How about grant this a synergy with Rimewraith? Every time the wraith is on you or passes through you, it restores (instead of damaging) the shield...

4. I am baffled by Mar's criticism of Torture Souls. It hits every enemy that you've previously targeted (which can be dozens at a time in a packed room), recovers souls, and does decent damage. I use it constantly and consider it a mandatory skill.

5. Drawn to Death... I really like this skill with Corpselight as it's instant. If I were to change anything, I'd decrease the cooldown with further investment.

6. Utterly Destroyed...

I have an idea for this, thematically speaking. When this sustain is active (should be instant), you no longer recover souls but instead "utterly destroy" them. Doing this recovers mana, grants movement speed, AND... every time you destroy a soul, all enemies that can see the enemy die (see that location) lose 25-50% of a turn out of fear (can save against).

7. Rimewraith...

This thing is way, way more powerful than I'd initially realized. It lets you attack at weird angles and at excellent range, for a long time. It seems awkward but really, it's just plug and play. Just throw it out there and then go about your business. It doesn't really need micromanaging or any managing at all. It's like throwing a superball as hard as you can in a small room.

8. Rigor Mortis... I'm not entirely sure what counts as a debuff... does soul leech count? There were some other things that I wasn't sure about either but I've forgotten.

[mar3usmc]

Oh no criticism against tortured souls, I also use it. It is the description that confuses me. I need to test it, and perhaps can suggest a better description.

Thinking it over, my suggestion for discarded refuse is pretty strong, and should also be a sustain. However, as it is now, I would make it a passive, or a no cost sustain that can be turned off and on as you see fit in case you want to keep your ghoul(s) alive.

For Corpselight, perhaps when you are inside the AoE you gain some effects, such as flat damage reduction, bonus to cold damage, etc... Something for your minions too.

I don't think Hiemal Shield really needs any more synergy with anything else. It just needs to be made more continuous with regards to the sustain cost and replenishing it, IMO. It is actually very strong if you level it up quite a bit. I think that 20+ damage reduction at the last part of the tree can not be penetrated. Sorta like when you specifically lower an enemies damage output with spikes when in negative health. This however is always on regardless of HP, and even better in negative HP. This is where it really shines. I found some master items that give a bonus (0.3) to the category at early levels and I can see from the advanced few that it can give you a massive damage reduction in the 30s. That said, it feels like if you go all in on this tree that you want to get your resists very very high, get adept, max out everything, and then rely on the regeneration from desolate wastes, which should be near 10% with it maxed + Adept + mastery items.

All that said, if it gets burst down with a few very big hits, you will have sorta wasted many points invested, albeit it may have saved your life. The other question you should ask yourself is why are you being targeted. If you have at least one set of minions, it should be your prerogative to keep them the target of challenging opponents. I also still think it blocks too much damage at positive health. You really want to get into negative health to have fun with the bonuses there, but not be at a very high risk of death. Yes, I still have many mixed feelings on this tree. I think it is good, but just not in synergy with the Necromancer class. It almost feels like it should be a part of a Cryomancer class that doesn't want to be in negative health.

Utterly Destroyed, and interesting suggestion. I think people would forget to turn it on though. I do feel it needs something more though. The Necromancer, try as I did to find an avenue, is just not a melee class. The move speed bonus doesn't really make sense for non-melee types, and you already have good mobility options, in addition to items or runes you may have.

Rimewraith, I agree, it could be very strong, but I stand by the chaotic observation, which I am sure it is. I know it is very long lasting, and you can basically keep it up all the time if you have the souls to spend. That said, I wouldn't depend on it in any predictions I need to make.

Rigor Mortis, I agree, I am not sure what exactly counts as a debuff. I would like more input on this.

[darkgod]

For rigor mortis: any detrimental effect that is not crosstier

[mar3usmc]

A few more things to note,

Master of Bones

First, I just want to point out another, rather major, advantage skeletons have over ghouls. Currently, I can use my skeletons to initiate fights in combination with track. As long as they have a path to the target, I can send them in first, either one at a time or all at once. You can do the same with Ghouls, but they have only around 10 turns before they despawn, and you would have to use the active, which is expensive. I have been doing this a great deal in Insane difficulty with a Yeek Necromancer with really great results. Just something to keep in mind when deciding if you want to ONLY go one or the other. I feel as though you may end up the target more often when you go ghouls only, which, btw, is fine on nightmare and normal difficulties. However, if you can get nukers to target your skeletons, and let them waste their nukes and disables on them, that is a major advantage at the start of a fight.

Call of the Crypt: You can get up to five and six skeletons currently at levels four and five, respectively. However, your capacity at those levels should be one lower. This is due to being able to call two skeletons at a time. Therefore, if you are one under your limit, you will end up one over your limit. Additionally, I find it too random when calling up skeletons for the bonus mage/archer. Sometimes they appear, sometimes they don't. I suggest to add a check in the code as follows,"

WHEN Call of the Crypt activated, IF mage = 0 and archer = 0, AND skeletons (armored) >= 2 BUT < 4 SPAWN a mage or archer, IF skeletons >= 4 SPAWN mage and archer.

i.e. If you start with no skeletons, when you spawn two more armored skeletons you should get an extra mage or archer. When spawning more again, such that you have four or more armored skeletons you should have both a mage and an archer if you don't already have one, or be able to cast yet again to get the extra mage or archer if you think it should take more turns/steps to replace them. Currently, it just feels very inconsistent and I often end up with 5 armored skeletons and a mage or archer instead of four armored skeletons and both a mage and archer.

With regards to keeping spawns, and this includes the Dread Master, I really really suggest requiring maintaining points in those categories if you want to keep them. Just add a check after players move points around in their level up screen. If they don't have the capacity or qualifications after removing points from a category tree they should lose the units they no longer have the capacity or qualifications for.

Currently I am able to have 6 skeletons, an eternal bone giant, and a dread master with only one point permanently invested in Call of the Crypt, and no points permanently invested in the Dreadmaster category. That is a total of 13 points, or approximately 11 levels worth of points, that I can use for free. Yes, it is a little tedious at times when replacing them between some fights, but it is sooooo good that it is worth it. I highly suggest rectifying it as I pointed out. It is just too exploitative, and does feel like cheating a bit at the moment. I am not sure I would be doing so well on Insane difficulty without doing this.

I need some clarification on two things regarding resistances,

Bleak Guard: How is the damage calculated with regards to resistance.

e.g If you are in positive health and take non-physical damage will the calculation be as follows,

Variables

Base Damage Received (BDR)
Character Damage Resistance (CDR)
Shield Damage Resistance (SDR)

Calculation: Total Shield Damage Done = (BDR*0.66)*(1-CDR(Max 0.7))*(1-SDR)
OT is it Total Shield Damage Done = (BDR*0.66)*(1-(CDR+SDR)(Max 0.7))
OR is it Total Shield Damage Done = (BDR*0.66)*(1-(CDR+SDR)(Max 1.0))

If it is the former, I think that is great and I hope it stays that way. If it is the middle one, I don't think that makes taking the passive upgrade worth it as many of your resistances will already be 0.7 near the end anyhow. If it is the last one, that is too strong, and basically makes you invulnerable. Anyhow, I would just like to know if I am in the ballpark on how the damage calculation for the shield works, and if not if you could copy and paste the code I am sure I could read it and understand how it works.

Blurred Mortality: I haven't checked yet during a fight, too focused on other things most of the time, but does this all resistance bonus just add to your current all resistance, and, therefore, still cap out at 70%?

And a suggestion,

Could Path to Beyond trigger the spirits at your teleport location rather than only spawning them after you return? Another option, spawn them after the Ghost Walk Return timer runs out. I don't find myself making much use of them because I rarely use the return option, probably because it is only 3 turns. Perhaps I will in the future, but for now I haven't. The only combo I see at the moment is to Ghost Walk in, use Bone Yard, then use a high level To the Grave (at least 3 points of investment), and then use Return to spawn the spirits. It would be nice to have another turn in there to also use Call of the Mausoleum. You see, three turns just doesn't feel like it is enough to do anything interesting.

Here is a combo for if you had 5 turns to use Ghost Walk Return, Ghost Walk, Corpselight (HEY, I found a use for it!), Boneyard, To the Grave, Call of the Mausoleum, GW Return.