Hello again y’all, it’s been a few days since the patch now, my big thread breaking down the less than desirable changes has been seeing some traffic, and i thought there was an incredibly slim chance that I could be productive by making a big list of patch notes I’d like to see to address the necromancers issues… and when I say “the necromancer’s issues” I don’t just mean with the 3 problem children spells, I mean every issue that they have as a class. i intend to give a brief rational behind each ticket item on this list, but there will be at least one case that will need further elaboration in a different post… Cough Abomination cough
So without further ado, let us begin:
Mastery Change: In addition to it’s current effects, Necromancer mastery will now grant the player character benefits equal to 30% of their own minion stats.
[r/l: Necromancers are too squishy, and itemization around minion builds are a mess due to having to give up so many personal power stats in favor of minion stats. the way the current system works does not allow for hybrid builds, so this idea is meant to address that.]
New Skill Deadwinds “Channel the cold winds of the afterlife to a targeted location, dealing cold damage and afflicting enemies with ‘Dread’ for 3 seconds. Enemies afflicted by dread take 25% increased cold damage from the necromancers minions.”
[r/l: At long last we have a competitor to dread shade, which is a necrotic buff, here we have a cold buff, this will pop up again later, let us continue.]
Abomination: (just to get it out of the way first, this is only a band-aid fix, as the actual issues with this skill are more systemic and philosophical, such that it would need to be rebuilt from the ground up to actually be balance-capable) “Age of undeath talent is removed, abomination health no longer decays by default. Skill nodes which increased the rate of decay now lower maximum health instead.”
[r/l: I will be making a separate post about this soon]
Sacrifice now deals more damage based on the remaining health of the sacrificed minion (the actual value, not the %, so a full hp golem would be a much bigger hit than a full hp skeleton)
[r/l: maybe it will be useful now?]
Wraith: “Twin spirits” and “Sequel of avarice” skill nodes have swapped locations, "Sequel of avarice now decreases the amount of wraiths you may summon by 1 per point (max 3), “Twin spirits” no longer reduce the number of wraiths you may summon. (you might need to change the name)
[r/l: i did the math, having 5 permanent wraiths with 75% increased damage and such will be slightly better than 8 wraiths (which should be the case for the cost of 3 skill points) but not as strong as 9, which i think is more than fair…]
Infernal Shade: “Subjugation” skill node now caps at 100% increased damage.
[r/l: that it’s guaranteed to kill your minions after only a few dozen seconds makes this another case of the devs overpunishing for minor power, with a cap it might become usable, but we’ll have to keep an eye on it.]
Summon Skeletal Mages: (there’s a few things here)
1: Archmages now scale differently, starting as a normal but larger mage that fires twice as many projectiles, and gains 70% increased health and damage for each mage you could have otherwise summoned (excluding itself)
[r/l: i’ve done the math, on single target the archmage would be slightly less powerful than 4 mages, while on “best case scenario” aoe situations, it would be about as strong as 19 mages, compared to 15 mages from 5 regular mages with splintered dominion, so it would have a niche to be useful in.]
2: Pyromancers now periodically cast “Infernal Shade”, gaining from any specialization points you have slotted if specialized into “infernal shade”
3: Death knights now periodically cast “Spirit Plague” following the same rules as above.
4: Cryomancers now periodically cast “Deadwinds” following the same rules as above.
5: Basic mages will benefit from your hungering souls skill nodes if specialized.
[r/l: more synergy means more reason to put other spells on your bar that aren’t minions.]
Golems: “Ivory twin” talent is removed, Spectral golems damage is converted from physical to cold.
r/l: ivory twin was just a way to nerf your special golems by maybe summoning a not special golem instead, the spectral change was for item synergy.
Enemies that take damage from Volatile Zombie explosions will take increasing damage from future volatile zombie explosions, up to a cap (I suggest 15%/boom up to 105%)
[r/l: I personally feel these to be underwhelming for their mana cost, and since they’re general purpose type minions, they just come off as a bad options, so I’d have them find a niche in longer fights.]
Bone curse is more visible when it deals damage.
[r/l: this is just QoL]
Wandering Spirits deal 50% less damage, but now benefit from minion stats.
[r/l: spirits are entities, i.e., they are minions.]
Summon Skeleton: “Soul catcher, Memory Catcher, and Mind Catcher” skill nodes are now baseline.
[r/l: I felt like nobody used these in the first place, so why not? add a little quality to the event that these permanent minions might die, it usually means we were having a bad time anyways…]
Dread Phalanx: (honestly the best solution is just to remove it, but here’s a bandaid fix) Now reduces the amount of skeletons which may be summoned by 3 (there’s a required skill node just before that raises the max to at least 4 for non necromancers, so this won’t cause issues), but increases the remaining skeleton(s) damage by 300%, this bonus is divided evenly between all summoned skeletons.
[r/l: mathematically this was the only easy way to make the node not a net loss, and it doesn’t require some sort of wacky rounding scenario that causes players to ensure they land on an odd number. technically it would be easier to tune as well, but it’s a start.]
Dread Shade no longer drains health by default, “Grim Fate” skill node now causes it to drain 2% of minions maximum hp per second per stack (max 4)
[r/l: There should never be a punishment aspect baked in to any base skill, ever. if it’s a player choice that gives power, then that’s fine, but an un-augmented skill needs to be fully functioning with no negatives out the gate.]
incidentally, I actually thought this list would be longer, but surprise surprise, here we are at the end. honestly the framework is all there, but i have felt since i started played back in May 2020 that the developers have taken a hard stance towards nerfing good things instead of boosting bad things, and that’s caused my necromancer experience to become closer and closer to is dark souls was an arpg, and that’s just not what i’m here to play. so on the off chance that i’m not just shouting into the void, as i am want to do, i do sincerely hope that the developers give this wishlist a look and maybe, just maybe, a little consideration for your players… we want this game to succeed, and in order for it to do so, it needs to be fun and not constant player punishment for the most basic QoL “fixes”…