Help us Necromancers out here

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Shadowreaver, May 12, 2019.

  1. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    Monks still use ours, and none of the 2.0s died at 70, a few died at 75, but most were still viable through the 80s.

    The Necro 1.5/2.0 should NEVER have been allowed to go live without a cap on the Focus. I further think that the Dev's should have simply chosen one of their solutions and done it back when they were actively working on resolving the issue and then dealt with the issues that came in the fallout of the change. That would have resulted in a lot of the issues Necro's complain about today having been resolved already.
  2. ~Mills~ Augur

    I just don't get why most people seem to have this stance about the necromancer epic effect including the devs. When everyone takes the exact opposite stance when it comes to the Cleave focus effect which does the exact same thing but for even more critical rate these days.

    What does it matter if the name is empowerment of shadows instead of Cleave? If the end result is exactly the same, more critical rate from a worn focus effect. If worn critical rates of a certain percent are to powerful to not be carried along for one, even if stagnated, why is it ok for others that at this point provide an even bigger amount?

    I just ran more parses on my monk who has the lowest base critical rate of any class with only 160% increase from AA, every other melee or tank is equal or higher than this baseline. Yet he still saw a 20.5% increase to critical rate with Cleave IX, a focus which has been available and carried forward since around SoD till now. 30 minute parses with no buffs on, no don progression and 1862 heroic dex showed a 34.5% critical rate with Cleave IX and 14% without.

    Based on your forum name I am going to assume you play a monk. You have one of the lowest base critical rates in the game and yet you also gain something in the ballpark of 20% to your critical rate from Cleave with 360% mod. A focus effect with no cap, that is added to every single set of gear each year even if stagnated and that provides more of a critical rate increase than the necromancer epic does. Why is that ok but here you are claiming the necromancer epic should have been capped and taken away?

    Necromancer epic provides 4% to dot critical rate with 1.5, 8% with 2.0 and 18% with 2.5. This never scales any higher as I continue to get more hdex or if they add more to my baseline critical rate like it does for any melee. Its always flat. People including the devs say this is broken, can never just be carried forward by adding its effect either by AA or adding it to an augment for necromancers and that its a massive headache for game design.


    These parses show that all melee, rogues, berserkers, monks, beastlords, rangers, and even tanks gain 20-30% melee critical rate from the worn focus effect Cleave IX and yet they never threaten to take that effect away, that it will be capped and left for dead, nor is it to hard to tune around. Even as it continually scales for more due to how melee critical rates work unlike caster critical rates and despite the fact that some melee now can hit 100% critical rates at times. Huge double standard.
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  3. Cadira Augur

    Something Def needs to happen with necro epic. Something Def needs to happen to necro dots (the revamp). But comparing melee critical rate with caster is completely apples to oranges
    kizant likes this.
  4. ~Mills~ Augur

    How so?

    The formulas and how they interact at places differ but I compared the end results, where critical rate is critical rate. To see a 18% gain to dot critical rate you simply added a 18% critical rate boost. To see that for melee it might have to be a mod like 300% depending on where their base % lies with AA but if the end result is the same 18% boost to their melee critical rate seen in game or in this case higher then as I claim critical rate is critical rate. If you are talking about the end all be all downstream impact than again that varies by class by a whole host of factors. But even for a necromancer at times 20 or 30% of my dps comes from things other than dots so dot critical rate increases don't help there and water down its total impact. IE alliances, nukes, procs, aura's, pets, etc. I did not test melee special critical rates which vary by each class and are drastically impacted by discs, AA, buffs, debuffs, etc that added way to much confusion but also comes into play because except for archery Cleave works on them. So for all intents and purposes the necromancer focus effects is the exact same as Cleave IX its just a different name yet Cleave IX is added every year to every gear set, is never threatened to be capped and isn't held against any melee as something that has to go. Even when they to hit 100% critical rates. Melee is every bit as tied to it as necromancers to their epic its just that melee are not forced to wear SoD raid arms for its benefit, which they would be if the devs hadn't taken the opposite stance for Cleave focus effect and refused to carry it forward even stagnated at SoD levels.

    [20516] Cleave IX
    Target: Self
    Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
    Focusable: Yes
    Casting: 0s
    Duration: 60m+ (600 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
    1: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with 1H Blunt by 360%
    2: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with 1H Slash by 360%
    3: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with 2H Blunt by 360%
    4: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with 2H Slash by 360%
    5: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with Backstab by 360%
    6: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with Bash by 360%
    7: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with Flying Kick by 360%
    8: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with Hand to Hand by 360%
    9: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with Kick by 360%
    10: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with 1H Pierce by 360%
    11: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with Frenzy by 360%
    12: Increase Chance to Critical Hit with 2H Pierce by 360%
  5. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    All you necro's all you do is whine you should be happy they have left the nec epic alone for so long. It should been nerfed to work on dot 70 and lower and nothing else. And about the person saying they have left rangers dots alone my 110 only has one dot memmed period. I actually hope they do look at the epic and nerf it already. When I got my 2.0 on this wizard the clicky was so sucky even back then I rarely used it.

    Andarriel
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  6. seber Augur

    1st off I play one old Neco on BB that still play why all cry Epic ever class in EQ used 300hp item give more dps get over it move up neco alt and neco box .....
  7. Beergoggles Elder

    The problem is that many focus effects from epics have been added to newer items to make up for the loss. Hate increases, healing increase, dmg increases, reduction to disc reuse times etc have been added to newer items but a similar focus effect on necro epic has not been added to newer gear. And as Mills has mentioned a couple times, melee receives higher crit rates from cleave IX than necro receives from their epic. Remove the focus and necro will be significantly behind other classes' crit rates and dps.
  8. ~Mills~ Augur

    Here is the same hostility and anger over our epic for some reason. As Beergoggles points out continuing on an epics focus effect or click has been done many times, just not for all. And many clicks still hold their value from inventory no one else is tied to a focus effect that has not been carried on in some form elsewhere. Even though similar focus effects exist and have been stagnated they are just continually added to each new set of gear for others.

    Warrior: the hate effect and hp were both carried on with new items or AA.
    Shadow Knight: the leech effect was carried on and improved with Mortal Coil and the epic still remains viable from inventory. The focus effect is found on current gear.
    Paladins: click remains viable from inventory and was copied on and improved via Armor of the Inquisitor and Group Armor of the Inquisitor. Focus boost to healing was moved to both AA and other gear.
    Rogues: click remains viable and focus to reduce disc timers was moved to both AA and other gear.
    Monks: click remains viable and focus to reduce disc timers was moved to both AA and other gear.
    Berserker: click remains viable and focus to reduce disc timers was moved to both AA and other gear.
    Ranger: click remains viable and was improved on with Auspice of the Hunter improvements and focus effect found elsewhere.
    Beastlord: click still works but every aspect doesn't scale well I think it has basically been replaced by better buffs and spells for pet. Focus found elsewhere.
    Bard: click remains viable from inventory.
    Wizard: focus effect was essentially moved to AA both activated and passive. Click appears to remain what it was from inventory just always was a poor effect.
    Mage: focus effect was essentially moved to AA both activated and passive. Click appears to remain what it was from inventory but did not scale any further. There are just better spells now to be used instead.
    Enchanter: focus effect was essentially moved to AA both activated and passive. Click works from inventory but has not scaled any further. I believe newer spells and AA have replaced its use.
    Druids: focus effect was essentially moved to AA both activated and passive. Click was capped and made worthless.
    Shaman: focus effect was essentially moved to AA both activated and passive. Click remains viable from inventory.
    Cleric: focus effect was essentially moved to AA both activated and passive. Click remains viable from inventory and some aspects of click carried forward via new spells and AA.
    Necromancer: focus effect only found here for necros and never continued elsewhere. Similar focus effects for melee carried on stagnated for years now. Click works from inventory but summoned pet does not scale any further.
    Foliax likes this.
  9. Spellfire Augur

    Where are those necro mains whining posts? I did see posts complaining about slow nerf, fade nerf, scent nerf, mysterious dot revamp that never happened for sk/nec etc etc but I did not see necro mains complaining about their epic.

    Threads about necro epic are generally created by clueless people who have a necro as their alt #15, have no idea how to play it and think that 4k hp/mana in primary will for some reason be more beneficial to them then old epic weapon.
  10. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Help necromancers? I guess I could throw ya a bone.
  11. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    They don't do the same thing though. Crits for spell casters have a fairly consistent damage amount just as the spells themselves do, for melee on the other hand the normal damage as well as the damage from melee crits varies greatly. The reason why people have the stance is because Casters damage is front loaded with minimal upgrade via drops, melee damage is back loaded with minimal upgrades at the front. The increases to things like cleave were part of what kept melee close to casters, without it there would be an even more sizeable divide.

    What they are effecting works completely differently, that is why. As mentioned before melee damage is inconsistent and the crit damage just as much. I would also point out that t

    First, a 30 minute parse is meaningless when it comes to measuring something like crit-rate. I could pull up a 30 minute parse with almost 0% crits if I wanted. Also, of course the class with the LOWEST base crit-rate is going to see the biggest increase from a flat increase. Additionally, a critical for a melee is not the same thing as a critical for a spell caster. We do not have static amounts of damage that we get from a crit or an attack. It can vary greatly, to where one crit can be laughable, while the next awe inspiring; meanwhile casters have predictable crits.
    You keep claiming that the Cleave mod provides more of an increase yet you have not provided any such evidence. You gave iffy numbers from a 30 minute parse for the monk, but you provide absolutely no numbers for the necro side. Additionally, you keep railing specifically about the critical rate, while completely ignoring the change of DPS in regards to it.

    The Mods are NOT the same. The 8% and 18% DoT mods on the Necro 2.0 do not function in the same way that the 360% mod for the melee Cleave crit rate. Additionally, the Cleave increased crit rates are all calculated into the dps increases for the melee classes year over year because the Devs know that all of the melee have at least the 280% mod which Cleave VII gives, but last I checked they do not assume that all Necros have the 2.0 when they determine the DPS increases for Necros.

    You're misrepresenting the Devs as well as those who take issue with the Necro 2.0 as they have spoken about the Necro 2.0 focus, as well as simply lying about the number of criticals not increasing by having your 2.0 equipped when there is a baseline increase. The Devs have been willing to give Necros exactly what you're outlining, however they were not going to give it at its full power and were going to retroactively place the standard Focus Effect cap on it. Then if you're doing ultra short 30 minute parses to try and measure the minimal baseline increases that explains why you don't see the increases as you don't have a large enough testing size to see them, let alone minimize the standard deviation. Spell casting crits and melee crits behave and work differently; they only fulfill the same job providing sporadic increases in damage output. The work comes from the fact that any change they make will result in the 2.0 being capped and the resulting AAs or what have you will be require them to rebalance all spells to maintain the dps as it currently is.

    The Melee Crit rate increase has been capped and left for dead for 10 years. It is not going to be increased, the only changes to cleave might be some more flat damage added to it. It has been left in the game because without it melee would be left in the dust even further by casters with regard to dps. Cleave does not "scale for more," you simply do not have nearly long enough parses to accurately measure any changes. As for "some melee can hit 100% crit rates" ummm… no they cannot.
  12. menown Augur

    What proof do you have that the necro class is not balanced around having an epic focus? Increases come in more forms than just spells. And the fact that the TDS beta showed an increase at all in spell damage, beyond the usual increase, in compensation for a loss of an epic focus gives merit that that the class is balanced around having it.

    Look Xianzu, I don't have an issue with you. I just don't see why the necro epic matters so much to you, a monk. It has little relevance with the bigger issue of DoT stacking, ramp time, and debuff limits which are a plague to the class. Spell damage can be changed for balance reasons, but the class issues must be addressed.
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  13. smash Augur

    There were no special increase in spell damage, there were the usual when level increase.

    Cleave/fero is there just like item focuses.

    The thing that lower the necro is the epic. I will bet that necro would have got bigger increases if no epic.

    And Millis is comparing oranges with apples.

    When level increases they should up the new dots, but make so epic do not work on them, and dots cannot be put on mob if same line. So level 110 do not work if it has 115 dot in same line. Then epic would soon be the past.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  14. kizant Augur

    Can you pull up a 30 minute parse with almost 0% crit rate? I'd really like to see it.
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  15. ~Mills~ Augur

    I am not going to waste my time going back and forth with you on this because its clear you are pretty entrenched on the matter and are just gonna start muddying the waters or poking random holes in something outside the main point instead of realizing it is a very fair and accurate comparison to make. That Cleave and Empowerment of Shadows are exactly the same but ones carried forward stagnated and the other is treated like nuclear material.

    Hmm interesting that they don't do the same thing. I was under the impression that a critical hit takes whatever damage you were gonna do and then amplifies it for more based on the critical modifiers you have. Oh wait it does that for melee and spells so they are the same thing. Now I get what you are saying as far as DI roles verse a spell hitting for full or partial in a nukes case but spells hit once in X amount of recast time. Melee while not hitting the mob for set amounts due to the DI rolls also hit mobs a billion times more which tends to offset this point. Getting hit by one grenade or shot 35 times tend to have the same end result. So while a critical spell will hit for once in say 6 seconds for a set amount a melee class might have 30 regular hits and 15 specials in the same 6 second period which tend to average out the critical impact seen end result wise.

    This isn't exactly the case any more, at least for necromancers, and more to the point straying off the topic at hand. A big chunk of our dps increases come from focus effects gained over time each expansion and we currently need poison, disease, fire, magic, corruption, pet and now luck any time they upgrade. Which can take more time than acquiring weapons. Its not buy your rank 2 spells and your 95% done with the expansion like it was in the past. Cleave was not a bone tossed for balance it was another focus for melee to chase and progress.


    See above. They work the same and while yes your hits vary in the final they hit for you also have other factors that come into play that even the field more. Like double attack, triple attack, flurry, additional hits on flurries, additional hits to those additional hits on flurries, additional hits to the additional hits of the additional hits on a flurry. Never mind HHE procs or buffs impact. Repeat all that for special attacks and you get the point of hitting the mob 40-50 times in 6 seconds. So while yes the damage is completely different in nature the comparison of critical rate from focus mods is a fair one to make.



    I will wait for your 4 hour plus parses that show my data as bad. I premised what I said saying it had a larger margin for error due to duration but those duration's are not short enough to invalidate them, its just not pinpoint. And lets see that 30 minute parse of 0% critical rate with a standard 110 monk even in group focus. And this comment to me isn't even the largest hyperbole one you made.

    This comment needed its own response. You are completely wrong and saying the opposite of what the reality is for melee. Based on testing cleave modifies your critical rate by multiplication not addition like casters. So a monk gains the least return from it being that they have the lowest base rate. If it was additive all melee would see the same flat increase. Where as a berserker sees the biggest return from cleave since they have a higher base rate. I realize its not this simple or exactly how the formula runs in game but to generally illustrate (1.5 (base) x 3.6 (cleave)) = 5.4 critical rate factor verses say (2.55 (base) x 3.6 (cleave)) = 9.18 critical rate factor from the same exact focus effect. So no monks do not see the biggest increase to critical rate as shown from them getting roughly a 20% gain from cleave to the zerkers almost 30% from the exact same mod.


    Empowerment of Shadows provides a flat 18%, 2.0 provides 8%, 1.5 provides 4% increase to dot critical rate. If a necromancer gets more dot critical AA, more heroic intelligence or anything else those mods always remain flat. A few posts have demonstrated that cleave is adding at least 20% to melee critical rates. And any addition to base critical rates via AA or the more hdex you can stack amplifies the return provided which is why we now see some melee already able to hit extremely high critical rates some even 100% for large chunks of time. IE the 2 focus effects for all intents and purposes are the same in everything but name. I did not compare end all be all dps impact because that varies to drastically based on class, adps and the situation. Its a fair point to bring up but only serves to muddy the waters and the point. Knowing necromancers even with the 18% mod its only a 14-15% impact to my dot dps passively, less when its impact is negated by other critical mods like auspice, coa robe, 7th, or other combinations. And dots while the majority of my dps only account for 75-85% of my dps which waters down that 14-15% impact even further, with the rest coming from alliance, pets, nukes, nuke procs, aura's, etc. I don't care to try and pull out the data for what the end all be all result a 20%+ boost to critical rate for each other melee classes dps is based on live game settings of disc rotations, buffs, adps, clicks, etc. But a general statement of its maybe a 12% gain for necros and its at least more than 8% gain for melee seems a pretty reasonable guesstimate. Once again putting them close enough to say that the focuses are all but in name the same. With both being treated entirely differently despite what they both do.


    You keep repeating the same incorrect point. The mods are exactly the same impact wise, you are correct but saying it wrong that the mods do NOT formulate the same. But the end impact shown is what matters not the details how how they get there. So while 18% and 360% are completely different numbers when you see their impact in game they are the same ie 18% increase to one class and a roughly 20-30% impact to melee, which is what the parses show. You are grasping at straws and making stuff up that melee are tuned around cleave but the devs don't tune around our epic.


    Just a repeating nonsense again.


    Finally the exact point I and others have been making. Your left for dead mod, which also has no cap, continually gets carried forward on every gear set. Not leaving you in decades old gear in slots because the dps mod trumps the gains from stats as a dps class, despite the mod being the same (a 20% increase to your critical rate passively thats impact is also then amplified by discs, adps, mods, etc to varying degrees in game). While ours is treated completely different like its this massive bomb about to explode despite also just being a roughly 20% increase to critical rate thats amplified at times by clicks, adps, mods, etc to varying degrees. Melee would be tied to SoD raid pants and arms for the uncapped focus effect forever if they treated the effects the same way unless at some magical point of say 5000 hdex all melee were at 100% critical rates at all times negating the need for the mod any longer.
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  16. ~Mills~ Augur


    And just in case I am wrong about it being multiplicative for melee, despite what my data showed, and you or a dev comments its in fact additive. Which would still make it an equal flat gain for all. Every parse I have run shows Cleave IX nets a melee or even tank at least 18% gain to critical rate which is the point that mattered for the comparison of Empowerment of Shadows impact and treatment vs Cleave IX impact and treatment.

    All parses were 20-30% gains but there is that margin for error so I'll go with at least 18%.
  17. Ibudin Augur

    Great job Mills for coming at this from another angle. I still wish they would create a hits box, so when at any given time when the mob is being attacked melee, if it reaches the hits limit, they all do nothing until a slot or two opens back up in that box. Then melee commenting on this, would understand what it means. I gave up caring many moons ago about the lost stat gains from a new weapon for epic, still running 280k ish unbuffed so not a concern as much as the debuff limit on mobs are.
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  18. kizant Augur

    I only recently started playing a melee where I'd even care about this stuff but figured I'd do a quick parse for comparison. It took about 25 minutes to get to 5000 punches on my beast. Adding cleave VII (280%) while keeping hdex the same I got a 14% increase. Then based on that sample size you can estimate that the real value is between 10.7% and 16.6% with a 99% CI. That's if you look at the best and worse case. The first parse had a range of 13.2 to 15.8 and the second had a range of 26.5 to 29.8 just FYI. Anyway, then assuming Cleave scales linearly that would put a 360% Cleave in the range of 13.75% to 21.34%. So, 18% is definitely in the range of what is reasonable. However, anything over 22% would be rather suspect.
  19. ~Mills~ Augur

    So your data also appears to align with what I was getting. Beasts like monks start off at the bottom base of 160% critical rate from combat fury. The diffence in % changed between us is some combination of RNG, hdex levels(you didn't state you bsts hdex level the monk tested was 1862), cleave vii vs cleave IX and if those are flat mods vs multiplicative to the starting base rate and hdex impact. The greater than 20% change parses came from rogues and berserkers which have a base of like 230% and 255% from combat fury iirc which is why I believe cleave is multiplicative to the base critical rate a class has.
  20. kizant Augur

    I think that makes sense but I'm going to try some more parses on test without AAs and minimal hdex. My parse above I had like 1750 hdex I think.