Non-Raiding Necromancers

na just using the example that has been used in these threads. you can replace wiz merc with a mage/rog/zerker/monk/what every other non necro dps class you want. The main point is with the change to DB a necro can keep up the same dps as before the change just not as long. So why chose a class that can only go 20-30 mins at max dps(3 swifts and 2 swarm pets) doing 15-20k dps then have to stop or can do less damage(maybe 1 swift and 2 swarm pets/2 swifts and 1 swarm/etc) and maybe do 10-15k dps. for 30-40 mins. Or use a merc or another dps class that can go 40+ mins doing 15-30k+ dps.

Depending on if you believe the wizard merc dps "nerf" was an accident or intentional, the devs might have been aware of this and made an attempt to compensate by reducing wizard merc dps so that they were not outclassing any player characters considered a DPS class. Thing is, more people probably use wizard mercs than play a necro in the group game and had the ability to raise their BS flag on a higher pole and got the adjustment reversed.

There is also the fact that a merc is just a dumbed down version of the real thing. It pains me to say this but in group content, a real player character wizard still outclasses a necro DPS wise in a "traditional group" where you have tank, healer, CC and DPS pulling like mad while burning it down. Plug a necro in with a mage and a beastlord in a pet group with some healer mercs or a druid healer and then you get a whole different situation all together. What you get is something powerful that works.

It also suggests that necros just are not plug and play in the typical sense with the "normal" group built around a player character tanking class and never have been when compared to other dps options that are more burst oriented. If people just want to fast kill low hit point trash, than you don't have the necro as an A-list for that. Thankfully necros can do the job of that whole group by themselves if they so chose but it doesn't suggest that necros always want to be solo. Hopefully the devs see that as a handicap already built in to the necro class at the group level in that they can't just write their own ticket like a wizard does, and thus didn't need any additional disadvantages.

I

It seems like most people are concerned with getting into this "normal" group.

They feel that to get in, you're either the tank, healer or you must be able to out-dps a wiz merc.

So the devs would have to drop the wiz merc's dps to the point where ANY class can out-dps them. Because it's not just necro's who compete for the slot it's also the lfg beastlord, the extra sk, extra pally, extra warrior...

there's a post on the boards https://forums.station.sony.com/eq/index.php?threads/thank-you-for-fixing-wizard-mercs.204297/ with a beastlord doing 11k dps or so sustained. Why take them?

They did. People cried about it. Apparently too many.

That post has only the word beastlord with some numbers behind it. It has no other description of the player such as gear, AA level. It doesn't even say what level he is, you only have the context that he is "probably" 100, but that's only an assumption based on it being new content. He could be 95, or the box. Or both.

I wanted to bump this because I didn't get a response. I chalked it up to you likely being off for the weekend after a rough couple weeks or months. I am reposting my reply to yours.


Thank you for responding, Piestro.

Elidroth posted: The intent of this change is the make mana a resource again. For a very long time now, Necromancers have operated in raid environments with effectively unlimited mana. This is the reason for the change. Death Bloom is still a useful ability, but we just don't want it being used continually.

Is this the clear statement you are referring to, sir? If so, then I can agree that it is, in fact, a very clear statement.

It does not, however, reconcile with the change that SOE has chosen to put into place to address the stated issue. It does not ring true. It is false. That is what the majority of posters in 22 pages have tried to express to SOE. Your statement that SOE is trying to "make mana more of a resource again" is only part of the stated intent. The other part of the reason stated, that you did not include, refered specificly to necromancers operating in raids. ("Necromancers have operated in raid environments".)

Giving a false statement, even a clear one, is not sitting well with this community.

This is a thread about Non-Raiding Necromancers. According to the statement made by Elidroth, we are, supposedly, the unintended target. Colateral damage. Yet, our questions are not addressed. Did Elidroth mispeak and mean to say SOE intended to make mana a resource for all necromancers?

Yes, you have addressed some things in this thread and have garnered some respect from some, myself included. But you are still dancing around the main subject point of this thread. SOE is not addressing / responding, in a satisfactory manor, the grievance brought to you by the community.

There is a lot of frustration and anger felt on the community side. I expect that there is likely some of the same felt on the SOE side. The whole thing could be better dealt with, on both sides, if some meaningful, true communication were taking place. For 22 pages the ball has been idle in the court of SOE. Anytime you guys want to actually discuss it, some of us are still here waiting. Alot of us have simply quit. As in, stopped funding your company.
Aeasya, Thursday at 6:06 PM Report
#442 Reply

Fair point.

The observation still stands though - if necro's doing more damage than wiz mercs is what's needed to join a group, then EVERY class is going to say that. So what's the lowest dps parsing class?

In response to Battleaxe:

Do some people just say stuff on forums without regaurd to following up? Battleaxe? Piestro? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Please, Sirs, we wait on baited breath?

After some looking back over some posts in the beta forums, I found 3 responses, in 2 different threads, over an entire month, from Elidroth regarding the changes made to Death Bloom. 3. Three-e-e-e-e-e-e-e smidgeons of posts.

Piestro has faired somewhat better. I counted 10 posts in this thread of 649 over 10 days. We're still waiting to have a conversation about what has happened. That is, since it seemed Piestro was trying to convey that SOE was intent on doing so when he replied that they had given a reason.

Necros are still very potent. look at the changes with a holistic view.. you are still king of sustained.

They could have relinked dots so that only previous 2 expansion dots are available to stack, or that fire dots stick or something.

As I said before, I have very little left to say in this thread. I can't assess whether a particular change had its desired effect, I don't have the tools or the time. The dev team has both of those, that's their job.They also have a greater scope of vision into the behavior of the player base as a whole, something we as individuals don't necessarily have.

It's very similar to another thread where I recently posted where people were talking about enchanter utility. Someone in that thread was posting that enchanters were less useful because the poster can tank 4 mobs at once. This may have been true from them, but that doesn't make the statement overall true for the entire populace. We all perceive the game from our individual standpoints, but the game is balanced for the populace as a whole.

This change has been decided on and made, feedback from before the change was made and after have been considered. I'll continue to forward feedback on until this thread completely runs its course. At that point I'll probably lock it as it's likely to go weird places (like discussing CoH).

Respectfully,

Piestro, you all say this is about "mana management becoming a factor" in raids.

Can you, or ANYONE for that matter name a raid event where any class was truly in danger of running out of mana or endurance? That is if everyone is knowledgeable of their class and focused on the event's mechanics (IE not tabbed out or watching TV while audio triggers get missed etc)? The only time I ever see anyone getting low on mana/endo is if the event is already stuffed up and there is some valiant effort on the part of a few survivors to save it or some key step has been missed and the smart thing would be to just start over.
Necros can't even dump mana on raids if they tried due to stacking and yet they get singled out. Honestly, you all might go farther in the over all happiness if you made a raid where people might actually run low on mana. You all ever think of that? Since this is about raids or being touted as such. You all put the tools in the game to build up player characters to perform like Indie cars but all you give them is a go-cart track. So really, if you are going to resort to nerfs because you can't build a raid worthy of the player characters you all have designed, than this won't end well. You knock necros down and some other peg will be standing the tallest after. You going to knock that class down too until everyone is dumbed down to go-cart performance?

Berserkers run of endurance all the time, and even with endurance with sustain but a fraction of even hybrid classes.. not trying to derail. we dont mind that we got endurance problems.. the problem is the Wowization of EQ. where all classes need some endurance / mana candy tool to keep going forever.

I like the respite for berserkers because we cant fade as often as others being in combat actually means we have to but economical with endurance, few other classes can be balanced with in and out of combat endurance / mana, because all classes got faster fades without exception.

Piestro you keep throwing around the word balance, but there hasn't been any balance in a long time. I know the devs keep claiming it, but that mystical "balance" has never appeared.

I think people's biggest problem here is that the nerf change from the healing debuff (completely unexplained for most of beta) to the timer change happened at the very end of beta and there is one single post about it from Elidroth stating he was trying to hit raid necromancer's mana capabilities. He missed that mark so the community is looking for some kind of further explanation from him.

If he intended to nerf all necros then come out and say that but that's not what his one statement on this was regarding. Battleaxe can rant and rave all he wants about the "making mana a resource" line in Elidroth's reply but that doesn't line up with why it was specifically and exclusively necros who were targeted when they don't even have the best mana return abilities.

Didn't they nerf you guys too, Big? Makes no doggone sense.Oh wait , you use the yellow stuff, not the blue stuff.
Back when I was raiding as cleric, I was only OOM if I was dead. That is assuming I was up to date on focii and other gear in addition to paying mind to what was going on. Even then I was never the top geared so I always considered myself a good baseline of "average". Everyone massively going out of mana, as stated before, only happens if you are doing it wrong these days. At least as far as recent memory goes. In the past, I can recall plenty of events where mana WAS scraping the bottom of the barrel for everyone but that is going back a few years and before an event was considered "on farm" typically. Those raids taught everyone mana management and amazingly many of us retained that. If you make events where that is not as important an issue (mana management) than THAT is what needs to be looked at. The way I see this is that they can't afford to build a raid that will actually require people to focus and manage their character. They CAN afford to take things away, however, from the classes, to compensate for that.
So if that is the logic, than bad got pushed to worse in the execution. Elidroth, you painted yourself into a corner, sir.

Yes and he was rabid in his posting over it.

Its the skill set that is a problem. the only way to reintroduce mana management for some classes will be to change skillset or make a fight go for an hour. I dont think any of us want to hit on a mob for an hour.. and in that case berserkers would be out of endurance times 10 so its impossible to balance.

I actually pointed out that augmented frenzy needed a tuning.. so this is not correct, feel free to make up stuff because you dont like the perfectly sensible things I say with regards to your class..

Keep telling yourself that. I think you should look back farther.