I was quite surprised to see that Accelerated Decay costs massive amounts of health. I mean, didn't it cost like 82 AA's to acquire? To me, it's a joke. I didn't read it carefully enough the first time I took it. I just got all excited about what it read. When it, combined with Lich, put me into the red while standing still, I was quite miffed. I ditched it to recover those two AA's. Necro's dont have enough healing to counter that and I don't want to have to be worrying about it nonStop. And if I can't have it up all the time, then forget it. I see that necro dumbfires have been converted into nonVisual DoT's (except for the Tide). Over the YEARS that summoners have been asking for the dumbfires to be dmg immune or physically stronger, I don't remember asking SOE to have the graphics vanish. I like seeing the Horde. I like the evil motif. Why is it that having a graphic forces a dumbfire to be able to take dmg? Don't tell me lies. I was a Warden in the early days of DoF. At that time, the warden dog pack (forgot the name) was immune to dmg. It was changed during the expansion, but that's sufficient proof that it can be done in this game. Of course, anything can be done in the game... Oh, we can't have name changes (guild or character). We can't have high level betrayal. We can't have Flying mounts because of altitude graphics engine limitations. We can't have race switches. We can't have more neutral classes. We can't have more character slots. We can't have appearance slots or armor dyes. We can't have appearance weapons or then differing types of weapons for appearances. We can't have multi-core support. We can't have this, we can't have that. But sprinkle a little cold hard StationCash and time into the mix, and you can have whatever you want. You know what I want? I wan't some frakkin pet armor. I wonder how long that will take or how much money they'll accept for it's Station Cash purchase. EDIT: Oh wait, I know what to do. I'll suggest the pet armor idea to WoW devs. Tell him it'll add another million subs to their brood. And then about 6 weeks later, we'll mysteriously get it in a stealth update.
Suppler wrote: Name changes have been around since EQ1 days, and even then it cost money to do. The only difference between now and then is you don't need to contact Customer Support to do it now. You can do high level betrayal, you've been able to since before EoF launched. GU58 next week also improves the whole betrayal thing. Flying mounts are coming in with Velious. They changed 8 classes into neutral classes. We have appearance slots, and appearance slots for weapons. We have multi-core support, and have had it for some time.
Xalmat wrote: Xal you missed the point. He was listing all the stuff they said we couldn't have in the past but we now have in game. Thought that was pretty obvious.
It bothers me that developers need fanfaire at all to see any of the necro problems. If they ever played one they would know. The problems are evident and blatantly obvious and have always been the same for each ability since their introduction as they have never been fixed or in some cases useful. Why is it necros are the ONLY class in game that has to pay major health penalties for any of their good dps spells? Why are they the only class in game that has to rely on another class (healer) to fire off their big dps special skill? Why are they the only ones whose special dps skill will likely kill them especially in raid if an aoe goes off? With these nasty restrictions/set backs the dps reward should be twice what it is. Fixes needed: Undead Horde - remove the stupid bodies restriction noone else has a limiting factor like this and there are never any bodies. For there to bodies groups would have to give up the gold loot off the bodies this was not well thought out. It should always cast the max pets and be aoe immune or act like a dot. Without aoe immunity this spell is useless in raids as the pets are always killed within a few seconds. Lifeburn - Remove the dang life drain on the necro so we aren't killed by an aoe mid tap or dependent on a raid healer who may not be paying attention to fire it off. We shouldn't have our special be dependent on a 2nd class as conjies don't have that restriction. The other option would be to significantly increase the dps due to the death risks involved. Cast time on this needs to be similar to EB too as at the moment this takes too long to get off. Swarm pets - Make them aoe immune or spell dots. Without immunity they die almost immediately and are useless. What other class can have this happen to their damage spells where it just gets nullified by an aoe going off?. DOTS - Remove the tick caps and max dot size. Noone else has their damage capped. Allow spell da, tw and other such things to affect the dots. Straight nukers don't have these limitations and it is unfair to dot classes. Pet storage - If the pet persists through death now why in the world does pet storage not persist? This is irritating beyond all belief. It's stored for this very purpose for crimeny sakes. Main pet - Summoner pets need to be aoe immune if our dps is going to be so closely tied to them and used as an excuse to downgrade our castable damage spells compared to wizzies/warlocks. No other class can have their dps neutered by a single aoe then have to struggle through further aoe interruptions to get the pet back up to have decent dps again. Allow them to share their masters resists. When I possess my pet and see he only has 4k resists in a zone i need 20-25k to survive it ticks me off for lack of developer foresight. Fix tank pet aggro - Tank pets have not been viable for ages. They don't hold aggro at all even if using aa abilities to help. The tank pet should be able to taunt consistently and keep it off the summoner. Shared stats would help to fix this. Get rid of all the stupid little this dps buff is going to cost you this much health per tick crap. No other dps class has all these health restrictions to do damage the necro has and despite all the extra restrictions we don't get more dps than they do for it. The developers need to either get rid of the penalties or greatly increase the rewards for the risks. Most of this stuff summoners have been asking for between 4-6yrs depending on the ability. It is sad we have been neglected and unfixed for so long. It really makes SOE and the devs look bad. A developer that actually cares could go to test make a maxed out 90 Necro with great gear and take it on a raid one evening and try to use all the abilities above. They would see in one night in just a few hours the truth of the post. These things are so simple there is really no excuse from development for their lack of attention other than not caring or not playing their own game.
Being that I posted what hasn't been fixed I also wanted to take a moment to mention the good fixes the devs have done. Which I would note that funny enough while the changes are good I still see posts from necros whining about them because they don't understand when or how to use the abilities. Good fixes that have already occured: Vampirism - It is now aoe immune and stays up. Love this spell because it is a blue back aoe that is also a group lifetap that persists for a duration. Gotta love that. Unfortunately ACT does not pick up all the damage off this and properly add it to the necro but that is an ACT issue. It is also unfortunate most necros don't know how to properly use this spell. Elemental Toxicity - Awesome ability. Can't believe I read someone trying to say it was no good lol. A groupwide damage proc that hits the whole encounter and works for the whole group. Plus on top of that it generates hate for the tank and deaggros for the rest of the group. This ability is massive on group pulls. The raidwide potency/accuracy buff off the pet - This was a great addition. Read earlier someone downplaying it as a viable reason for a raid to want them. Well I have to say those are stupid raid leaders. Who doesn't want a raidwide 5% resistability reduction, 3% max power buff, 3% potency buff, and a 5% accuracy increase? Hit more, harder, more frequently, and more power to do so. your raid isn't very bright if they don't want this. Not even counting your own dps the simple existence of a summoner in raid will raise that raids parse at least 6-10% just off those buffs. Those three changes were good. Not everyone understands them or how to use them but they are great. That being said, for future updates dear developers I do not want to see new abilities. I would rather see them fix the years old problems I listed above with the things we already have.
Dallamar@Mistmoore wrote: Vampirism isn't aoe immune... (I wish) Sure, it's more useful now that it isn't dispelled if the spell target takes 1 dmg but it's still a waste of cast time on any fight with "real" aoes when a group lifetap would actualy do something. I kinda agree with your other points tho, but I think you overestimate our raid wide buff - it's fine imo, but not as powerful as you say, more like 2-3% (and +power is useless since T7, heck it's even a detriment for mobs that powerdrain a % of your mana)
Dallamar@Mistmoore wrote: Vampirism is semi-useful. Since it doesn't scale with gear, it is still usually worse damage than a single target spell unless on a huge pull. But it still almost always dies from AOE, even when fighting pretty weak mobs... It was, however, a good change compared to what it was before. I still think dumbfires should be turned into true dots, though I suppose the animations could be kept just to make them look cooler. ET is amazing, but it's not a necro spell, it is a summoner spell. The raidwide buff is nice, but since most people don't notice it for themselves alone, they don't really care. That is, something like UT or TC adds a very noticeable increase to one's dps, whereas a 3% increase to dps is so small that you don't really care.
Dallamar@Mistmoore wrote: Most of what you took the time to write has already been written over the past 4-6 years like you stated, and while most of it is very valid, I have to disagree with you on the Tank aggro issue. Of course if you're spec'ed for high damage then you'll be pulling aggro off your tank pet every fight, but I put together a solo spec, and I'm not having any trouble with my pets holding aggro. In fact just yesterday I soloed my way through the Lv 90 Deep Forge instance, and all the way to the final named in the Library (damn book adds are killing me). Here is my spec, it's actually a solo spec for both the tank and mage because I use my mage for trash, and tank for named.
