Non-Raiding Necromancers

There it is.

They (the Dev's... whoever they are), are just biding their time fully expecting this all to fade into memory. As with all the previous nerfs in EQ history, this one will eventually be no different whether they lose a few accounts or not.
All that aside, it is just sad that they said one thing, did another, and apparently do not care about their paying customers, especially for their game that started it all.

True, but that's HORRIBLE since post launch is when we need the devs the most to fix bugs

The devs must be inspired by events in Washington DC these days.

Make a mess of things and then go on vacation.

As a rogue I do get to out of endurance quickly, usually far faster than any of the casters I group with infact. However as Explicit mentions the Rest mechanic *generally* means infinite endurance. I say general as there are occasions where it comes at a price, especially given we now have a 3 min duration disc with 5 min reuse, so it's not just "escape, rest, continue". We need to plan when and where to use it otherwise we have to cancel discs in order to use rest. The point still stands though, endurance isn't usually a big problem if you're half awake.

Regarding making necros in groups - it's a bit far fetched to say things like worthless and useless, yet I see such rhetoric here. True in fast killing groups a dot class isn't so hot dps. Shrug, nothing new there and besides should necros be expected to be great in all scenarios? Let me do you a deal - you can have rog level dps in groups if we can have your level dps solo and your ability to solo kill nameds in current group content. It'll never happen.

There are lots of nuances to this game - solo, small groups, kite groups, tank & spank groups, fast plouging groups, raid burning, raid sustained, etc. No one class should expect to excel in all spheres. You're GREAT at some and weak at others. So what? That's what balancing truely means - taking the good with the bad.

However you may therefore think I agree with the nerf. I don't. I think it was applied poorly and at the wrong time. Originally when the ability arrived it was very strong and I know some necros even were expecting it to be nerfed soon. It didn't happen then - so why nerf now? Would have been better to solve it by stagnation and letting other classes catch up - which they slowly were. All that's happened if a large sector of the paying customers are now peeved. Seriously if anything was too strong on necros it was at the 2 min burn dps, not the 10min level.

Berserkers run out of endurance all the time, litterally. Is there any reason to have a blue bar if it lasts forever?

Let's see - the dislike of the death bloom changes isn't an actual bug. And there are EQ devs working (just not 100% of them as vacation/time off is staggered for coverage). Bugs like HoF1 raid were fixed and on a holiday no less.

There isn't, but Necromancers and Shamans have been tradtionally classes that rarely run out of blue stuff. In today's EQ however there are several other classes that will rarely run out of blue stuff or atleast have means to recover it faster than Necromancers can.

Classes that traditionally ran out of mana quickly when things got hairy are Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Enchanters and Mages (ignoring hybrids).

Now however:
- Clerics are usually 90+ mana at the end of a succesful raid (unless they died).. or 90+ mana during XP grouping (as only so much healing is needed and they have little options to "dump" mana like a Wizard). Mana is often of such little concern that QM is given to other classes more often than not.
- Wizards are probably the best mana dumpers there are, but with Harvest and various ways of resetting Harvest, they can now sustain high damage all the time by using appropriate nuke lines.
- Mages also have many mana recovery tools -- they lag slightly behind Wizards in this regard in both mana recovery and making use of that mana -- this is expected as they are traditionally more a sustained DPS class due to their pet.

The classes that were not so lucky:
- Druids are still much like they used to be, and can burn through mana quick.
- Enchanters could burn through mana fast when a lot of mezzing was needed. The relative cost of these spells has declined much over the years, but with decent new nuke/dot lines they can make good use of their mana pool. Their mana recovery options are lacking though (surprisingly for enchanters) and choices must be made to DPS more or save some mana for when things go wrong.
- Necromancers. They already are lagging behind in grouping DPS as mobs die too fast (many classes will out DPS a necro if a mob dies within 30 seconds -- if it dies within 20 seconds, even classes like enchanters will out DPS the necro). After the nerf, this will only get worse.

So my friend, who's been having trouble with this necro who always wants to group with her, reached her breaking point. She hinted that he should go and group with other tanks, besides her, and he told her he's new to the server and hasn't had the chance to make friends with any other tanks yet.

It was very hard for her to tell him she doesn't have the patience for bad necro dps after learning he doesn't have a close-knit group of friends.

I feel for him. Players like him are hurt the most by the Death Bloom and dot dps fix.

But it doesn't 'fade into memory', does it? Because every time a suggestion forum opens up, or a new nerf is proposed, everyone hit by the past nerfs can immediately bring up a history of how their class has been shafted in the past. Which again brings up the question: Why are the devs putting time and effort into fixing non-existent problems that end up losing customers? Even if the loss is minimal, it's still a loss, and compounded by the fact that developer time and money went into that loss.

From a business perspective, it makes no sense. Which is why I stick to the view that it's simply a case of developers twiddling their thumbs, thinking up solutions to problems that don't exist, and pretending really really hard that those problems do exist so they can look like they're doing something when they apply their favorite pet nerfs.

Here is the thing, if a DPS merc can out DPS a necro over a half an hour or more group session, why invite the necro, unless you like him/her, or you perversely like to handicap your kill rate. So as a DPS class, I want to have enough of a significant advantage over the merc that it is an easy decision to take the necro (or any DPS class) over the merc.

Today it stands that for several mobs Necros out DPS the mercs enough to be worthy... but after those several mobs are dead and the pulls are still coming, when necro is OOM, the merc is still going strong and pulls ahead easily. Or the necro is "casting fewer spells, or waiting a few seconds to engage" and is being beat by the merc.

So in short I don't want rogue dps, or wizard dps, or any other class dps. But as a DPS class, I want to outclass a DPS merc enough that it is always an upgrade to a groups DPS profile to drop a dps merc and add a necro.

That's how it was for group berserker and rogues for years. Did I ever see necros coming to support of rogues in our requests for more sustained dps? No, quite the opposite infact.

I agree that it's wrong to be outdpsed by a merc, however you're still comparing apples to oranges. You have a wizard merc designed around short bursty dps (ie group pulling scenarios) being compared against a necro that is designed around sustained dps or more solo game play. It's not that necros are weak in general, but that this is their weakest scenario being compared against the mercs best scenario. Anyway IMO the correct thing here is for the merc to be weaker. We're only talking about the wiz merc too notice - the rog merc is substantially poorer, to the extent that no one seems to use it. Why would one merc be so much more powerful? That in itself points to where the problem lies.

I'll take the Necro any day of the week.

DPS mercs can't FD pull, can't FD and survive a wipe getting the group back in action, can't penetrate a remote/dangerous location, coffin and res enough group members to set up a campfire, and can't solo if need be group named mobs should the operator die.

Not every class is great in swarm groups nor are swarm groups the only kind of group you find in EQ - I was in one last expansion and expect to be in zero this expansion. Fast DoTs, even with mana being a resource that must be managed rather than in unlimited supply, took a sustained DPS class and made it a lot more group friendly.

FIVE YEARS AGO We finally got the devs to recognise that our performance in groups was an issue. The class received swift dots, swarm pets and death bloom to ADDRESS A PROBLEM. Death Bloom WAS perceived to be slightly overpowered at the time, and Elidroth wrote on the SOE boards....(10-01-2010)

"The change I'm looking at right now is to change the reuse time to 5 minutes, and reduce the mana regeneration per tick by 200, from 2400, down to 2200. The HP payment will remain at 4000hp unshielded.

This reduces the total mana regenerated to from 16,800 to 15,400 per use, or 93.33 mana/sec down to 51 mana/sec. (Mana/Re-use). This change keeps you 2nd only to Shaman for mana regen rate (where you are now already)."

This was THREE YEARS AGO. Since then the relative mana returned from Death Bloom has dropped substantially since mana pools and costs have increased. What Eldiroth wrote then was based on a BALANCED assessment of the situation. That change NEVER WENT LIVE because it was realised the ability *would* stagnate. The 10 minute timer nerf is based on being overworked and making hasty and ad hoc changes.

It makes NO SENSE, there is NO LOGIC and there is NO RATIONAL JUSTIFICATION for the change. Hence why many of us are riled.

I'm Still getting Tells about this Daily asking why was this changed and many of my non-raiding necro friends are really not happy with this.. One switched over to a mage so he can start beaming.

This change effected a lot and its sad to see so many people effected and unhappy by a poor decision.

1) Citation needed. Please, show us these mythical necros that came in and defended nerfs to other classes.

2) Even if it's true, who cares? Are you really going to go down the road of "Though it doesn't have any direct effect on me, I will support hampering a class for all players of that class because I don't like the actions of a few players of that class"? Excellent. Why don't we just skip over all the bickering and backstabbing and just nerf every class into obsolescence? Then everyone can be satisfied that every class that isn't them got the 'punishment' it deserves for bad behavior?

So what is you suggestion for making necros useful in groups? Because right now you've joined the crowd of people going "lol necros don't belong in groups", and stating that at least 1/3 of the game (grouping vs. soloing or raiding) is off-limits is not an acceptable answer. Every class needs to have appeal in all three areas. Necros are a DPS class, they are not healers, buffers, tanks, or CC. Either increase their sustained DPS to be viable in groups, or give them something that allows them to fulfill another role in groups.

Hey Brogett, Bighitz, and Battleaxe, how do you feel about inviting necros to your fast-paced groups?

This is not about increasing our group dps, its simply asking for the ability to continue doing what we were already able to do. Swift dots are already lacking the ability to twincast and such. They are effectively capped on what they can do, and the recast on them compensates for their burst. So, we only get max benefit if they last very close to their max, but not over or under. I just want to be able to use them as they are without bleeding out mana faster than anyone else. I won't beat them on dps, and that's fine, but it shouldn't cost me more to do less.

form the new thread that battleaxe made on this.

Who ever said anything bout swarm groups. everyone is saying fast kill groups. IE the groups that when the mob being killed is at like 10% or so the puller is already bring in the next mob to kill. We are not talking bout groups that want to grab every mob in the area and kill them all at once. We are talking bout the group that wants to keep a fast steady pace with little or no down time. These groups expect to keep the pace that they are killing at going and it don't matter what non dps things a class can do, if that class can't keep up with their pace then the group is not going want them.

COTF and ha's have made this even worse as if a group wants to farm them for marks for gear/spells/augs/merc gear then they are going want to do each ha as fast as then can. Why take a necro who for 20-30 mins can do 15-25k dps, before he/she has to slow down cause of mana. When they can take a wizzy merc that can do 10-20k dps that can go for 40+ mins.

Seems like the question you're asking here is when a group has a tank and healer, why would they take ANY class that can't dps like a Wiz merc?