Necro Spell changes and Suggestions

Discussion in 'Necromancer' started by ARCHIVED-Sabutai, Jul 2, 2008.

  1. ARCHIVED-Sabutai Guest

    Well since the spell forum has been completely destroyed, we need to post some changes that need to be done regarding necro spells.

    Undead Horde. While initially was an awesome spell, its implementation is garbage. The spells long recast timer is totally dependant on corpses being left behind. Well its a nice thought, in practice this is horrible. My suggestion would be to either reduce the recast timer on this spell drastically, or remove the corpse requirement to give us full cast every time.

    Lifeburn. When this first came out it was a fun spell, however over time it is nothing more than an annoyance and necros rely heavily upon it just to keep up dps wise. I find it deplorable that gear will not effect its recast timer and would like some changes done to this ability/spell. First, make it like manaburn. Bam, 1 shot all the damage, 1 hp left. It will leave in the danger factor of using it while removing the dependancy we require to make it effective. Allow gear to effect its recast timer, its obviously a spell but gear that effects hostile spell recast doesn't change it.

    Vampirism. OMG change this horrible spell NOW!! Either return its damage output to what it was in beta, or remove every restriction on it ASAP! this is by far THE worst level 80 spell in RoK.

    Rending. Add some caster benefits to this offensive pet stance.

    Pets. add a t8 ability to all our pets, there is currently no spell progression from t7 as was in previous tiers.

    Lifetaps. Remove the dual component restriction on both our lifetaps. Don't know about SKs but necros are currently severely limited in +spell gear gain on these 2 spells because they contain a heal element. 100% of the worn +spell should go to damage not split between the 2.

    That's it for right now.
  2. ARCHIVED-WasFycksir Guest

    When this first came out it was a fun spell, however over time it is nothing more than an annoyance and necros rely heavily upon it just to keep up dps wise. I find it deplorable that gear will not effect its recast timer and would like some changes done to this ability/spell. First, make it like manaburn. Bam, 1 shot all the damage, 1 hp left. Sorry the "quote" function failed so I just copied... That would make LB totally unusable in PVP. I get the danger aspect in PVE though.
  3. ARCHIVED-Sabutai Guest

    WasFycksir wrote:
    no offense to those on PvP but to hell with them. We need some serious balancing on PvE at the moment. And how would a 1 shot kill be bad in pvp? get your opponent to 60% bam, dead.
  4. ARCHIVED-cyric22 Guest

    I agree with most of the stuff you posted Sabutai. I love playing my necro but can never get a group/ raid with him over my templar or troub. And the guild i'm raiding in I don't think i'd support another summoner addition to our raid group (we run do a congy who parses pretty well)
    You forgot about the dumbfire pets which are totally useless for the most part. Make them true dots or make them aoe immune and increase the damage they do.
    A group damage proc type buff (even if temporary) would be nice... someoen mentioned making gluttony a group proc to give us some Utility.
    Vampiric Orb is terrible i agree. I enjoyed the Splurt spell in eq1. I realize this is an mythical proc but was kind of expecting it as our level 80 special when ROK was released.
    On heroic content lifeburn is a dps loser. I've run RE2 now a couple times with good guild healers so I have had max lifeburn tics and pretty much every time with full duration I'm still getting beat consistenly by the brigand that runs with us. (granted he has raid gear from T2-3 but I have best heroic gear except the new RE stuff) In PUG lifeburn results almost universally in a choker related death :( I would imagine in raids lifeburn would be even more pathetic. Perhaps it was a bit "overpowered" in T7 and a bit of an EZ mode button but it kinda sucks now.
    Necro's almost totally useless for dps'ing in heroic instances. Mobs die too quick due to spike damage classes (every dps class but summoner?) and totally rely on 2-3 spells to do relatively pitiful dps. Perhaps an AA ability to make dots into nukes (all damage applied up front with no dot component) for a short period to make some spike damage. Dunno how that would work. maybe it would be a stupid idea.
    If necro's are going to be so dependant on others (lifeburn) or on a certain situation (lots of dead corpses for UT) ... those spells should do sick dps.
    I didn't realize that's how spell damage is applied to lifetaps... that makes me sad.
  5. ARCHIVED-Sabutai Guest

    Yea, I had forgotten about the dumbfires. Making them true dots again has been a vocal complaint from the summoner community for years now. Also changing splurt on our mythical to a base percent increase would help since most don't let dots run their course due to the +spell component.

    I don't know if I like the idea of making spells into nukes, yes we do suffer some in the heroic group arena but we can't really expect to excel at everything, and dots are more of a class defining spell type than anything else. Just some mechanic changes need to be made in the form of end game raid content and reflect shields.
  6. ARCHIVED-Inggy Guest

    I do find these post enjoyable but to date it has fallen on deaf ears -- meaning the Devs'. I feel that the main issue is; if they fix Summoners T8 DPS issue by fixing the pet and/or increase the summoner's spell Damage output it will make them over powered in some eyes and thus upset the "true T1" /wink classes.
    As it stands now the Summoner class is not needed by any Mythical capable guild . This will not change till the mechanics are changed by then I'm afraid there will be even more players leaving this game for another. Some day SoE might figure it out when it's subscription rate drops enough.
    Heroic instances our DPS doesn't come on till 12-18 seconds into the fight, too bad most mobs are dead in 9. One reason I laugh when I see a Necro LB'n in an instance zone.
    Loosing 20-30% of spell mods, whether crit and/or spell damage because our pets' spells do not benifit from gear and no AA to provide that mod.
    Swarm pets should be a DoT with a graphic flavor.
    Tide/Horde needs recast shorted or massive increase in DPS from them.
    Vamprism is a joke till they remove the dispell and/or increase the DPS output from it. Please fix this spell or remove it.
    Yes Rending should help the Caster pet, with spell haste, crits, or both :)..... This might actually be the simplest fix for SoE implement to resolve the DPS issue.
    I am very tired of having to rely on 2+ healers and an attentive Troub to effectively use my AA "special". Maybe if a Wiz had to have someone mana feed him/her while they Manaburned someone might get a clue.
  7. ARCHIVED-Sabutai Guest

    well maybe if we can get this up around 30 pages of replies from necros in the community we'll get a response. But since they closed the most visible way for devs to look at spell changes this is about all we have. Poor customer service though does result in people being dissatisfied with a product.
  8. ARCHIVED-Davngr1 Guest

    Oyce@Kithicor wrote:
    the dps tiers are long gone. no one can use them to justify the current over all sux of summoners. summoner have always and will always lag behind in short encounters, but shine in the long fights( after all summoners can count on our selfs and pets to slowly wear a mob down). untill RoK when the careless equipement bonus left behind summoners and hybred classes. i admit there was a time in KoS when summoners where over powerd but with EoF classes found balance, parses where up for grabs and raiding was much funner that way. now if your not a scout or sorc you dont stand a chance( gear/skill/buffs equal).
    fix= lifetaps - allow 100% of +spell dmg
    fix = limited pets - make them dots or let them at least benefit from AoE avoid AA lines.
    fix = vampirisim - remove the stupid double fail proc, how can you take advantage of a heal spell when you can't take dmg, so it can heal? really stupid guys.. really
    fix = our AA lines - all the mages are casting faster than summoners. add some kind of casting haste AA line.
    fix = UH - there are no 15 min timers in game any more. give us some recast love in the grave calling AA line.
    fix = our pets - give them the T8 ability and beef up the DMG. T8 pet only nukes for 5% more than T7
    fix = lich - it's necro's class defining ability it needs to do more dmg and change the regen to master T8 lich to 1.8% why even up grade T7 lich? lil bit a dmg? come on. necro's should never run out of power.
    fix = hearts/shards - i hated this spell thru all of T6 and T7 because of peoples constant pestering mid-encoutner, but even so i would like to see this spell changed to something that is a worth a c.r.a.p. make the entire mana/life conversion happen in one solid shot. then it could maybe keep up with sorc/enchanter direct mana feeds.
    '
  9. ARCHIVED-Compas Guest

    Lets not forget to get rid of ole useless.. aka the voidbeast and possibly replace it with a pet buff or possibly something useful.
    From the summoner line Implode is true utter garbage, and really who even considers the agi line.. do we even have scout pets? since our epics , parses, overall pet usefulness seems to point us to not really.
    Also possibly look over the debuffline isnce its not possible to actualy debuff mobs currently so it has a effect; maybe... turn the mark into a damage multiplyer so fo 10 sec it adds 25% more damage from disease/poison effects or something that would make multiple classes happy.
    Compas
    80 Necro
    Unrest
  10. ARCHIVED-Sabutai Guest

    Compas wrote:
    wow, I really like the idea of turning the voidbeast into a pet buff. Maybe tone down what it debuffs and allow it to be applied by any of our pets. Would solve the problem of its usefulness, and the problem of it being resisted as much. Really great suggestion.
  11. ARCHIVED-Inggy Guest

    Davngr1 wrote:
    I think you missed my /wink in there. My point was, is there are other classes/players with a motive to prevent any fix to summoner DPS.
    Correct Summoners do squat for DPS on short fights, one the my main issues with RoK encounters vs melee DPS. An example of how broken Heroic instances are, my Troub in semi-crap gear parses 70-80% of what my Necro does in the same instance zone. That is seriously wrong considering DPS was supposed to be based on the amount of utiliity you bring to the group. What it really states is, melee/CA (ie. burst) DPS over very short fights will be superior to DoTs.
    When it comes to group buffs and DPS classes the only ones that come to mind with LESS than a Necro is a Ranger/Assassin but saying that it doesn't mean our DPS should be 20-30% less because we bring 1-2 buffs to the group. This DPS disparity becomes even larger once Mythicals are brought into the raid.
    Even a Wizzy brings more buffs than a Necro. Hearts/Shards are no longer needed for mana regen unless your raid is seriously lacking support classes. Rez's are normally handled by 1-2 Dirges with the Necro as backup.
    Summoner classe DPS can be fixed quite easily but at the cost of placing us back up on the DPS chart, which is our intention. No one can deny that there is a motive for not fixing the Summoner class, until that motive is removed I'm afraid we're not going to be fixed. Necro's have been posting for months now what spells are broken, why + gear caused alot of our DPS issues. Someone at SoE forgot that 30% of our DPS is supposed to come from our pets when designing these nice items. So with even 80%+ crits the best we'll see is 50%. Any of the + items for pets is /meh at best and normally sacrafices the Summoner's DPS to allow the pet "some" small increase in DPS. A good example of an attempt to fix one issue and causing another.
    But all this is a bit off topic.
    So far all the spell suggestions are solid and will result in an increase in Necro DPS, which we need badly this expansion. Now to just get someone at SoE to do something about it.
  12. ARCHIVED-Davngr1 Guest

    Oyce@Kithicor wrote:
    the really sad part is that i think your right. it seems like someone actually devoted some time to *how to break necros*, i hate to sound paranoid but when you look at our lvl 80 spell (vapirisim) having a double fail proc and our pet missing T8 abilitys not to mention only nuking 5% harder then the previous tier, you cant help but wonder.
    frankly it's not how a game should be ran, just because the previous (necro) dev left the game does not mean that the class he played should be destroyed, after all we are still here and we still like to play eq2. i mean, when the (assasin) dev decideds to move on.. will my assasin become like a troub with no group buffs? it's really sad if that is the way things are going to continue work.
  13. ARCHIVED-Mewse Guest

    I have to agree on everything above.
    I love the idea of turning the Ooze Crawler into a pet proc or AOE debuff. Sure, if it had to be watered down a little, that's cool. I would still use it.
    I experimented with Vampirism but its useless. Mobs AOE too much and that kills it. I have yet to see it last even half its full duration. Its dmg and heal rate are useless.
    Pets need more punch - and I don't mean by adding more gear to necros (gear to pets maybe? Vanguard does it. EQ1 did it.)
    I don't play my necro as much anymore because of a lack of usefulness on raids and its hard to get groups. We have 3 active necro's and 2 active conj's in our guild. 5 summoners on a raid? Hmmm. Add to the fact that several RoK raid mobs do not respond well to DOT's and you got a lot of wasted raid slots with all those summoners. I semi-retired my Inquisitor for similar reasons. I am now leveling up a troubador.
    I admit a certain amount of frustration to being bumped from tier 1 to tier 2 dps.
  14. ARCHIVED-Sabutai Guest

    guess would be nice to have a dev post in this forum like has been done recently in the wizard warlock forums. Heaven forbid a class worse off for changes get some love too.
  15. ARCHIVED-sandeky Guest

    I agree with all of the above posts. I was using Vampirisms wile soloing the other day and I do like how it works, AE damage for what looks like around 500ish damage at ad3 and heals all near by allies for what looks like 300ish damage per mob hit. The damage isn’t bad but the dispel when target takes any damage is crap.

    I think the mythical should be changed from a mage pet to a perma pet buff (for both Necro and Conj) that way it will have use in both raids, groups and soloing. Say (off the top of my head, can probably be worked on).

    When cast on pet it increases pets offensive spells/CAs ((Base damage)) by 100% so if it hits for 1k it would hit for 2k (also applies to life taps and taunts). Increase pets Health and Power by 50% of the casters, increase pets offensive skills (all casting skills, crit, spell damage, spell hast and spell reuse) by 50% of the casters, all defensive skills (all resists, mit, and avoidance skills) 40% of the casters.

    Meby give the Fabled epic a buff with only 1/3 the effects of the mythical? That would help our DPS a lot by giving pet a link to its casters stats. Also UH should be made into a smaller spell with meby 7 or 8 pets at the master level W/O needing body’s and give it a 7 min recast. Life burn is still a good skill, when I raid I never die as long as I remember to use my precast macro and I’ve seen it increase a necros DPS by a bit when properly healed. But in heroic instances it takes timing to get it off right.

    Fether 80 Necro, Guild Rapture, Blackburrow server.
  16. ARCHIVED-Naughtesnec Guest

    Sabutai wrote:
    Change the name of the thread to "The New Necro Bug/Issue Thread" - that seemed to worked for them.../shrug
  17. ARCHIVED-Jasuo Guest

    The rending line of buffs should be changed to be castable on another player IMO, this would give some actual usefull and wanted utility IMO. Or at least change it to also benefit the mage pet some like procing a temp casting haste/reuse buff.
    And our vampirism spell needs to be altered into something like group wide temp proc buff similar to ice lash only doing disease damage.
    Then remove disease only spell requirement for the lich line.
    And either replace splurt all together or remove the tick limit and have it affect lifeburn and any procs we have.
  18. ARCHIVED-Odium Guest

    I agree with the majority of what I have read. Ever since I created my Necro I've loved the class and still do. But I will admit that I was disappointed in the T8 decisions made for the Necro class and to be honest it has sucked some of the fun out. I'm not stating anything that has not already been listed, but in the hopes of having a Dev take a look if enough Necros respond: Main issues for me are:
    + Spell Damage: We should not have to share our spell damage with heals - Our life taps should get full spell damage. It IS + spell damage after all and other caster classes do not have this same limitation (as far as I know). If we want more healing, we should pick up + heal items.
    Pets: Our pets should get full T8 abilities and ensure their spells scale appropriately - which they do not seem to now.
    Vampirism : Its essentially useless. The fact that any damage to the person you cast it on will dismiss the orb coupled with the fact that its trying to heal you when you cant take damage in the first place, make this spell pointless. This spell needs to be fixed so that it's worth using - especially since it's a new T8 spell. I don't even care that the damage be increased because what would it matter - it would still be useless. Damage can stay the same as far as I'm concerned, but fix it so the orb is not affected by characters receiving damage.
    Dumbfire pets : Dumbfires should be treated like a normal DOT. I love the graphics, that's about the only reason I use them, so if we can keep the nice graphics then cool - but Dumbfires should be a regular DOT or immune to several effects, primarily, AOE. As they are now, dumbfires are hardly worth the cast timer - I used to love swarming the mob in pets, but in these higher lvl zones, they die too quick too often, sometimes immediately. I don't even think I use Pack of Imps at all.
    On a side note: Will we ever get an upgrade to that spell..what is it..Dooming Darkness? The one that slows the mob and snares....I still use mine but it sure would be nice if scaled up to my lvl.
  19. ARCHIVED-ScrapperX Guest

    I'll try to be concise since long posts get boring.
    I've been playing since Feb '05 and have been playing a necro as my main for about half that time.
    I would agree that we were very powerful at 70 (under the right circumstance), but we were not the most powerful, and we certainly havent been greatly overpowered like the times of the proc'ing rangers, insane dps assassins, T .5 conjurors, 100% crit shadowknights, reflecting illusionists and the more recent general coercer dps.
    As a necro, I do feel directly dependent on others to achieve a level of dps that I would consider to be necessary to "pull my weight" on a raid. This would be in the form of LB of course, which itself has been nerfed.
    To the issue of our pets not getting the benefit of our equipment and buffs. I have heard a rumor that the devs feel that the pet itself is not a true extension of the caster, that its spells are not our spells. Its spells are more seen as the eventual side effects that the casting of our spell (the pet) puts into motion. If the caster has 9 dmg spells and the pet has 6, we think we have 15 dmg spells, but apparently that's not how its viewed on Olympus. That's how we view it, because the pet is intended to be part of our dps, more so than a dumbfire would be. In the strictest sense, with how SOE limits the transfer of buffs and effects, it's conceivable that they feel that it's appropriate for a large percentage of the summoner playerbase to simply not use a pet at all, or perhaps only temporarily like a dumbfire. Of course, we will never know what Olympus thinks because they never comment on this long standing issue. Not hearing a denial from them tells me that they see logic in our argument, but are afraid to step forth for fear of overpowering us. But we are not powerful, not today. It would be an appropriate balancing imho.
    To the issue of the delicate dumbfires, this does annoy me, but not that much. With 45 second durations, we are unlikely to see the full extent of their benefit anyway, so timing becomes important again anyway. I will make an exception for our T7 (now T ancient teaching, the Horde. Because there are so many limitations attached to it, I think it's inappropriate for it to have a 15 minute recast. I won't sit here and say that 1 minute is appropriate, because properly used it rocks, but 5 minutes is reasonable, just like LB.
    To the issue of the pet's DPS increasing only 5% over T7. This is a serious issue, one that I think the Devs feel we should resolve by obtaining the Mythical Master4 version. That is a highly flawed idea if that's what they think. Not only would necesitate the common Joe to enter into a raiding scenario he didn't previously have to do when upgrading pets, but what will happen when the tier goes up again? Is this the new standard? We have to work anywhere from 4-8 months at the raiding game (after an expac hits) to get our appropriate upgrade? And even then only a select few of us would actually get it. And where is our additional T8 pet ability? I really get the feeling the devs are deathly afraid of what we might be capable of if we were treated fairly. Are we pet classes or aren't we? Do pet classes even exist in this game? Where they ever intended to?
    I became a summoner primarily because I have a solo-ist's nature. I won't try to speak for everyone, but that's why I would think most folks pick summoner, because they can handle the tanking, healing and DPS, albeit on a less than grand scale. My tank pet needs help, and I'm tired of spending half my AAs trying to get him the help he needs, especially when the Devs see the pet as an optional ability or a glorified dumbfire. I mean, who spends 50 to 70 AAs enhancing an optional spell? I just dont feel the love. I must admit, if SOE allowed us to fit treasured gear on our pets, like I've been asking for all along, I would STHU.
    The pet following snafu annoys me, but that's really all it is, just an annoyance.
    I dont know what to do about our L80 "upgrades". Not having recieved anything nice, it's hard to be aggravated when I don't know what I'm missing. I wouldnt want to rip of the conjie's communion, but I would like to be excited about something.
    As a side note, I would like to make a comment on TH. It is not the wonder ability that it once was. When I was soloing the Nest in T7, I had to WORK my booty off to keep my tank pet up with TH because he was so fragile. There were long stretches of time when all I was doing was healing him (on X'haviz). I had to, over the course of time, wear the named down. That takes skill, patience and determination. The named, heck even the trash, these days hit so hard that TH doesn't counter them counter anymore (^^^'s Im referring to). In short, I don't feel that TH is overpowered anymore, not at all. Ask yourselves, how much time have you spent in Kunark, as compared with EoF, solo'ing via TH? I'll bet as you look back upon it, you'll realize that it's a greatly reduced amount. That TH ability that gave you so much pride, is incompatible with the world dynamic of today. The devs boosted it from 13 to 18%, but that's not even close to enough with the meager mit of the tank pet.
    Well dangit, there I go again with the long speech. Sorry.
  20. ARCHIVED-Inggy Guest

    Mewse wrote:
    I have found one fight where Vamprism is useful and usually dosen't get dispelled but only one.....Lumilla in PR. Just don't cast it till a few seconds after pull.
    I leveled my Troub as a Raid Alt and since hitting 76 I've been raiding RoK 50/50 with the Troub or my Necro all depending on what the raid needs that evening. Pretty sad really, having to switch classes to find a useful spot in a raid again.
    I've seen 5 Summoners on an off-night raid, it isnt pretty or useful.

    I still feel that just adding to the Rending line a Mage pet crit/SD buff might be the simplest fix atm for Necros.
    To add some raid utility make the Rending spell castable on another raid member or as a temporary/permanent crit/sd/melee/haste buff for the group, if temp buff have a reasonable recast timer.
    Shorted UT/UH recast to 7 minutes or less. Places like PR, CoD, Thuuga, PB, you cast this spell ONCE! On a typical raid, give me a break.
    Increase the Mage pets' damage output.
    Remove the 50/50 split on SD to Lifetaps.
    Fix Vamprism to not dispell on target taking damage. If it stays up the duration the damge output is ok--not great.
    Make Swarm pets DoT's. As many mobs in RoK that AE every 20-40 seconds these spells are worthless to cast...might as well cast another DoT.