At Fan Faire, one of the suggestions was that we take a look at Undead Horde because corpses were disappearing too quickly making this spell less effective. I didn't ask to clarify at the time, so I wanted to get your feedback here. Is this a problem primarily in raids or not in raids? I've been looking at the corpse timers and corpses with no loot will disappear in about 10 seconds. Higher tier mobs will hang around for awhile even if they have no loot on them. Is this a widespread issue and if so, where are you having the most problems with it?
The problem really is that corpses will be looted asap on raids, if they exist at all, so as to get rid of the graphical lag. Several boss fights that generate adds (Tyrannus the Dark and Munzok the Corruptor for example), these adds do not leave corpses at all, iirc. I think what the Fan Faire person was asking for is for the spell to always generate the most amount of possible pets every time, regardless of the number of corpses around.
Just to add to what he said, Undead Horde dies way too easily as well, bloodpact doesn't cover undead horde (or any dumbfire pets for that matter) like it will our regular pets that I've noticed.....its definitely not like planeshift...
Carthington wrote: Yeah, dumbfire pets dying is a completely different issue that was brought up as well.
the problem with undead horde and corpses is the same for both raiding and non-raiding instances, or solo: corpses vanish in 10 seconds or less with no loot... raids: trash vanishes before hitting the ground unless they have loot, only named boss corpses stay, example of this would be dragon adds in tox, the trash adds for the first named in PCaL, all the trash there after, all the trash in PoRT 2nd raid problem is raids move... in previous tirs corpses did linger for ungodly amounts of time, and they were HUGE vision blocking corpses, prime example would be back in RoK: VP trash dragons if you left the corpses if was a hinderance to targeting, if you moved the raid away from the corpses well they dint count for the undead horse spell Instances: corpses vanish in seconds as there looted, leaveing corpses up casuses the same issues as above in raids, and introduces a issue with not getting key items needed to finish zones or get certain rewards ie: void shards/marks Solo: this one is the same as above as you loot your own kills, granted you have more control over this but the problem remains, you can eather charge up a horde or you can get loot...
Corpses could stay on the group for 20 mins and i still wouldnt use the spell. It actualy makes me do less dps when i use it since dumbfire pets die when someone sneezes. Its a waste of time i could be using to cast something usefull (like my ghost illusion). No disrespect but there are more pressing things at hand for this class. (serious lack of dps, needing the attention of two or three other classes to even try to dps). The amount of time corpses stay on the ground is "Dead" at the bottom of most necros list. To bad i couldnt make it to fan faire the questions that were asked and problems people mentions makes me think i missed out on some very good drugs. P.s Again not trying to sound snippy but geesh parse a necro for yourslef in a raid setting or even on a dummy.. then parse all other mage classes in the same settings. Then take a look at what each brings to a group/raid. Heck even bring one to bg's but fair warning you might want to pack some reading material watching rez countdown is not very intresting. I know everyone on the Dev team is busy fixing problems with quests, mechanics ect. (some quests from t5 are still broken beetle zaping quest in ss for example) but class balance should come first since without decent classes to play the game the rest of the content does not really matter. one more thing.. if you want to solve the trivial corpse problem rather than litter everyones screen with bodies (things to add lag) introduce a corpse count buff for the spell let it last 5 mins or so and count the number of mobs killed by the group or raid in that time then apply it to undead horde. But still....
The problem with Undead Hoarde (Ignoring the problem with all dumbfire pets , which is also part of the problem with undead hoarde) is both in group and raids , there are literally no corpses to use 99.9% of the time , all the corpses are looted leaving none for the counter on the spell to use for max dumbfire pets. IMO the recast on the spell is large enough that you could just make it give the maximum number and the increase in DPS would be minimal over all as the majority of them will still die to mobs AEing. Either decrease the timer by half or make it always cast the max number of dumbfires or even just make the spell another fast ticking HIGH DPS dot with the current timer.
Wullail@Splitpaw wrote: The way the game has changed over time should make people realize thats the only reasonable way to do it. Dumbfire pets are cast for three reasons in pve. Correct me if im wrong here. 1. Soloing some people cast them when solo idk why but they do. 2. Just to see the animations for old time sake. I mean they do look cool and make you feel more necro like. 3. Nothing else to cast. better off fding and waiting for stuff to refresh than throw a dumbfire pet imo. There are to many aoes to make dumbfire pets usefull The least you Devs could do is extend Blood pact to all our pets. I mean it does cost us 10% life. I think Conjys have an ability like it also a temp buff? if both abilities protected all our dumbfire pets i wouldnt see such a huge issue with them. (and it wouldnt mess up classes that need pets to die to proc effects like illy. while your at it Ooze pet? I mean seriously oooooze pet maybe you should take a poll and see how many people use it. Ive never seen anyone run this pet since Eof when it was introduced. Hey could make a dumbfire to dot aa and put it in the ooze pets place
Small changes could make this class a viable class to play. Making our pets either dots or aoe immune would not make us overpowered so I dont understand why it can't be done. I hate to point fingers at all but other classes are getting far better abilities and summoners defining ability (summoning stuff) is left broken. P.s want to see game breaking? check out a assassin range attacking with 15% flurry the ranger fix will make assassins king of the bow (off subject but I just had to put it out there)
On our raids we have a policy of looting all corpses, weather they have any loot or not, so the graphic of the corpse will go away. The reason for this, well the biggest reason anyway, is the graphics lag. We have a few people on our force that do not have a system capable of handling the added load of corpses on top of the 23 other players in the immediate vicinity. In a group setting its a little less critical, however its also rare to have a group set with leader only loot, and without fail someone is going to be looting the corpses as we go, so it adds a certain amount of randomness to it. Plus, with the introduction of the Key Mob in zones that have a Shard/Seal chest, corpses do not go unlooted for fear of accidentally missing the key in the mix. Much like everyone else above, I feel this is a secondary issue, and a very minor one at that. Dumbfire survivability would be much better received as a fix than weather or not we can max out our cast of Undead Horde.
Tox is probably the best example, the three 1st named all involve adds, but they disappear once they die. While it's best for the devs to determine how to fix this issue, the spell will still never be used in ANY named fight in ANY of the SF raid zones by this necro until the horde pets can survive for the DURATION of the spell. I say named raid mobs because even though most raid trash mobs don' t kill these horde mobs with AOE's the trash mobs fights last maybe 20-30 seconds so casting this spell on anything that's not a named fight is a waste. Also, I don't care if there are 50 extra corpses and all 50 spawn horde mobs, if they all die within 10 seconds of casting the spell, the spell isn't worth casting. Please first look fixing these mobs (along with the other dumbfire spells) to where they last the duration of the spell, then once that issue is solved, then worry about "extra corpses".
Aleste wrote: Imagine if that was a targetable buff, and not a pet? Would it be worth it if you could cast it on the MT (cross-group I mean for raids) in group OR raid settings? MAYBE then it'd be worth going down the line, but maybe not. And if it only "may" be worth it then, then how bad is it that you'd have to sacrifice a "real" pet to keep it up? Regardless, I agree with the sentiment of many here: having undead horde reach the maximum potential is such a minor-issue because of every other major issue with pet classes and necros specifically. My top two have been the same for literally years: shared stats, and dumbfires being useless twice-over (due to dying if the mob looks at them with a negative expression, and not scaling with gear).
OK, here's what I think would be a cool modification of this spell, addressing what I believe is both the the overall goal of the original question, and addressing the issues with corpses brought up by other players. It would still need something else like aoe immunity, becoming a dot, a serious dps increase, etc to make people actually USE the spell again, but I think it would return the spell back to something cool with it's own unique flavor again. Forget corpses themselves... but count kills. We are masters of the undead; draining life, drawing souls... think of it that direction. How about adding a spell component to Lich that, upon mob death, gives us a buff that would increase the number of minions in Horde for a certain amount of time... like an illusionist's perpetuity does with successful spell attacks and casting speed. I'm thinking adding it to Lich because we always have it up anyway, and i'd hate to add another spell with the debuff component that we have to throw out just for this. And like perpetuity, another mob dies within a certain timeframe the buff bumps up to two minions... then three... etc. You would have to have a decent amount of time on the buffs to make it usable, probably limit the buff to 4 levels or so and give the rest of the minions at the start, or maybe have each buff add 2 minions for each level instead of just 1. Of course, even with these changes it would still not be worth casting as others have said, because the lack of dps and the fact it never survives more than 2 seconds for anything but a solo mob. But I think these changes would restore the 'flavor' of the spell.
Rothgar wrote: Instead making Undead Horde rely on corpses to spawn number of dumbfires. Make Undead Horde spawn a significant number of dumbfires based on the diffcultly of mob and con in the encounter. Thanks at least addressing one of the many problems with necromancer.
No corpse requirement. Max number of minions cast 2-3 min recast (2 min if minions are not damage immune 3min if they are)
