Necros have zero utility on raids past OoW, and especially past TBS. Their mana dumping is now irrelevant--which is fine for most necros as they tend to hate being mana batteries. You never need their rez, because you cant just have a cleric banner back. Same with summoning corpses, since anyone can do that in the GL. DMF, everyone can buy an illusion click for 400 DBC that gives you six hour lev, so that's completely irrelevant. They are handy to have around during the first three or four expansions though, but that's not the point where they are broken. We are talking about everything past Luclin.
Sure, have fun with that. It should be extra easy now since almost every good player has main changed away from a necro due to them being total trash. All that is left are players like you, who are lifelong necros stubbornly holding on, and players so bad that they don't even realize how terrible necros are, or care.
The only time rogues suck is during classic. Kunark -> PoP they are fine. ^^ What that guy said, if you're having trouble, try a different class. I play a rogue right now. Rogues are good damage.
It was (3 expansion old at the time) anguish gear, not group/bazaar gear. But, yeah, you got the gist of it. Depending on where you draw the line, we have something like 1/4 of the remaining raiding necro population in our guild (and #1, #2 and #3 according to magelo). We all compete aggressively against each-other, so the theory that we're all independently bad isn't very credible
I remember the introduction of Swift DoTs. I also personally know the person who led the charge to get them nerfed because he didn't like necros showing up on a parse with a shorter duration fight. Swift DoTs were only good on raid encounters in HoT that were short, which happened to be a lot of events in HoT. Necros did not top every burst parse though. If you actually looked at the spell data, they were less dmg/cast than all of our other DoTs in our lineup. However, the Swift DoTs boosted our burst DPS to areas that infringed on other classes niche, AT THE TIME. This is an evolving game. Every DPS class has become burstained on Live servers. And in that same time, as the game has become more bursty over original EQ, necros have become more sustain-y. Evidence of this can be seen with fight durations in group and raid content becoming shorter, while the addition of the Lingering Death (DoT extension AA) increased DoT duration by 6 ticks, before last years change to only 3 ticks. And lets not forget potions that extend all DoT ticks even further. Some of the best Live necro DoTs take 3 minutes to reach full damage. Back in TBM, I would have to weave 27 DoTs to reach maximum potential. Looking at those numbers, you can see how a soloing necro can never reach maximum potential, much less a grouping necro back in TBM. It is my belief that the Necro class has become too complex, and not friendly to a newbie necro. But you are saying you want that to continue because you feel smug about it. I do not see how removing the complexity of the class can take away the potential of the class. It only lowers the bar for first time necro players, helping them to succeed and catch up with the best.
It seems clear they're unwilling to do a shaman/druid style revamp to necros. Shortening DoT duration and compressing the damage still seems to me like a much easier dial to turn that might not magically fix everything, but it sure as hell could help. Another possibility is to make demand for blood an instant cast with a 3 second recast instead of a 3 second cast with no recast. At least then when its resisted we didn't throw away a ton of dps chasing the faint hope of slightly better dps.
Addressing the utility and usefulness of poisons would go a long way help TLP rogues stink less than they currently do. Just put a “kill shot” type component in the ticks of one of those long duration Necro dots and you’ll help them with burst damage... something like 3x/5x/10x total dot damage that clears the dot on a successful trigger. That’ll do the trick to help with burst damage.
I'm not completely convinced that necros need burst damage to rectify the situation. Necros have always been about sustained damage, damage on multiple mobs, etc. They just need to be in a place that when they are doing that, they are close to the top of the parse. It's fine that there are some fights they won't do well on, there just should also be some fights where they can shine, and currently there aren't.
Agreed 100% with this statement. As a necromancer, I am fine not topping the parse every single fight- what I want is a niche where I can shine. If classes were truly balanced, this statement would apply to all classes- each class would have their specific strength, be it burst, mid term sustained, long term sustained. Wizards should have fights they can shine, Berserkers, Monks, Rogues, Mages, whomever. Smart class design, and then smart encounter design, would make the game far more compelling. No matter who you are, it feels pretty bad if you know playing your class at the absolute top level will only end up with medicore results compared to someone playing the FOTM class at 65% capacity.
Especially when you are playing what is probably the single most difficult class to play at that absolute top level. Optimizing raid dps as a necro is probably one of the most complex, difficult challenges in the entire game. No other class has to put as much theory crafting into optimal spell rotation, strategy, etc. And then actually tracking dot duration for a dozen dots during fights, refreshing them on the right mobs in the right order... While on the other hand rogues, zerkers or monks have basically only to choose which mob to hit, and the right order to hit their three discs on burns (I exaggerate a little, but only a little), and currently blow the necromancers out on every parse in every situation for almost every expansion covered by the current TLP's. It just doesn't make sense.
Yes they are good damage but they have little to no solo/viability and they offer no utility in raid/groups and their playstyle is over simplistic and one-dimensional. Rogues are just kinda boring.
In some situations they shouldn't. .. but if in some expansion necros cant beat tanks then they should offset that with some utility. But theres always going to be a tradeoff with necros... they get fd. Thats probably always worth a lot.
FD and self healing through lifetaps are two absolutely huge advantages. The only thing Necromancers need is a fix to the debuff limit on mobs.
FD, lifetaps, guess what class also gets those? Shadowknights. Along with, currently, more dps than necros in most situations. Again, I am talking about the expansions from PoP through TBS, maybe well past TBS too--we aren't there yet and don't know when Necros will improve, at this point. I'm not talking about Velious era, nor the current live situation. Roughly the middle 50% of progression. (Where most progression servers will spend the vast majority of their lifetime, if history is any indicator.) Also, you have to consider that being able to tank mobs is a pretty big bonus in itself, a lot more valuable than whatever supposed utility the necros get. Wars and Paladins don't get FD or lifetaps, but they can tank, and outdps necros almost all the time. (Wars at least, Paladins for sure on undead mobs.) I know I would not trade my war's tanking ability for feign death. So, how are necros ok? As a raid leader and officer, if every last one of our necros wanted to main change to literally any other class, I'd be hard pressed to find any reason to object. I'd never push for someone to do it, but I wouldn't discourage anyone either, even if it were the very last necro in the guild.
Well i just dont know how they last past pop, but before then they have such incredible utility it would be unreal if they also were a top 3 dps class on average boss encounters.
