It’s a net buff, a significant one. Yes I get that it’s more points to get the skeleton unlocks. But I don’t think people realize how huge the baseline minion changes are.
Yes, damage wise, it’s 60% more damage at 100 instead of 45% more, which means that from a damage standpoint you got a 10% increase in damage for free, and thus 10 skeletons deal the damage of 11 already.
But the true impact is EHP wise. They’re now taking 40% damage base instead of 55%, and they’re taking 40% damage from dangerous abilities instead of 50%. That means total damage from dangerous abilities is (.4*.4 = .16) 16%, instead of previously being (.55*.5 = .275) 27.5% damage. Previously their EHP was ( 1/.275 = 3.63) 3.6x the amount you would otherwise calculate. Now it’s (1/.16 = 6.25) 6.2x the amount. It’s a 70% INCREASE IN HEALTH.
And, of course, 70% MORE health for all your minions (not increased, more) means you have way higher uptime and thus they’re dealing their damage more consistently, which leads to far greater DPS increases than the relatively meager 10% it might first appear to be.
Now, is the tree itself a net buff? Maybe. It’s a mixed bag. Yes it’s more “mandatory” points for full zoo. But it’s not like you’re getting nothing out of it. You’ve got minion stun immunity in the tree, you’ve got a huge buff to Skeleton Rogues, Effigies is absolutely nutters now, Cling to Life is another giant survivability boost.
I get the feeling of ‘I want every single minion’, but your power and survivability and that of your minions is way up with this patch. Rest assured, it’s a buff, a massive one, overall.
I think in summary, necro minion zoo builds will overall be better. They will get +33% MORE damage, minions will take around 50% LESS damage, and the player will but MUCH more tanky. So all of that is great news!
However, the valid points are that skeletons will now take a extra passive points which would probably be better spent elsewhere. Also, even 50% less damage is still not sufficient for them to handle high corruption.
I guess that minion zoo builds would be better to not take the extra few skeletons from the passive tree. And just have to be content to only be able to handle about 600 corruption?
For me personally, I will say that minion zoo is going to be my starter build. Once I get to the point where corruption level is too much, then switch to Abomination. This is what I did last season (except that I went Wraithlord), but I expect this season will be better. Both the zoo build and the Abomination
It’s not 60/45, you’re missing the 100% baseline. It’s 160/145, or 1.103x the previous amount, which can be fairly rounded to 10% more. The boost in damage is 33% larger than it was previously, yes, but the damage being dealt is 10% more than the previous amount as a result.
I don’t like petbuilds and i haven’t played one since .9 iirc. But with the removal of snappshotting that allowed pets to be in a good place and the lack of potential to make up for this aren’t necros boned no matter how you look at it?
On top of it the new tree isn’t looking impressive or like someone tested it in and out.
Almost no minion build goes full 5 minions, its 4 minions and shade as if you dont then its a massive dps loss. Personally i go 1 golem then 2 non decay wraiths then skele archers and skele mages, generally all fire as then the majority of your minions are ranged instead of horrible melee.
Again I am not seeing how this is a buff as you are spending a lot more in the tree for similar damage and having to toss in a ton of extra points to even keep the same amount of minions. Also remember they are removing snapshotting and as that was the only viable way to get most minions to a decent corruption level that is an absolutely massive nerf.
I am trying to check your math for the damage and comparing it with points spent vs with old points spent I’m not seeing a damage increase as you are having to waste so many points on nonsense now. 3 seconds on skele res is stupid long, most people see they lost a skele and cast it immediately instead of trusting them to hopefully revive, generally for me its at most 1 second for recasting any minion for me or less once it dies (recasting should also kill the lowest hp of it not the oldest one horrible design.)
I am also not seeing any changes to the skills themselves and only the passive tree, and that is also a bad thing as the skills are honestly horrible with a lot of bad traps because the feels… Looking at you dread phalanx (yes i know it can benefit undead rogue but that is it with anything more than 4 or 5 minions and it was a massive dps loss)
Necro has a LOT of the devs holding back on them and trying to trade some type of power for less of another type of power on them as I have stated in the past they don’t like minion builds
I think your right… Personally my first step would be to include a hollow finger and save 9 passive points. Can get my skellys up to 100% crit now, but they have no inherent crit multiy in thier tree… so.
The other good news is that a hollow is cheap so I can get a _+35% crit multi in a 2lp hollow for cheap to go with the improved minion crit chance the passive tree gives.
I didn’t do any math for the damage, that wasn’t me. But they did get a damage buff. And they get a primordial dedicated to zoo builds.
Looking at the nodes, I’d say you’re better off just taking the second +1 skelly (since it has better bonuses), stay at 8 skellys and use the node to make them bigger and summon half. This way you only spend 3 points for the extra skelly but you get penetration as well. Though I’m not sure if penetration gets converted. Probably not, in which case it would be useless and at least the first one would have its uses.
After all, going from 7 to 9 archers is just a small increase in your damage, considering archers are just a percentage of your DPS to start with.
Those nodes were never really important for zoo builds outside of golemancer to push for the last golem. They were just in the way and easy to pick up.
That would be a waste. A Phantom Grip is vastly superior and it will give you +4% base crit to your minions. And it’s pretty easy to get a 2LP as well.
Also, how do you figure 9 passive points? You will almost certainly take the previous nodes because they’re very good, so you’d only be wasting 3 per max skeleton.
"That would be a waste. A Phantom Grip is vastly superior and it will give you +4% base crit to your minions. And it’s pretty easy to get a 2LP as well.
Also, how do you figure 9 passive points? You will almost certainly take the previous nodes because they’re very good, so you’d only be wasting 3 per max skeleton."
I can get my skellys, mages, and wraiths to 100% crit without phantoms with the new tree.
I would not, there are better nodes. Grave thorns for instance, I have 20 vitality so they give 80% more minon life, x2 minion armor and VIT and reflect and flat minion armor all for only 3 pts… This leaves me 6, 5 of which need to go to the new effiges node. Then i need pts for Sharp bones.
Sure, but the rings also give you +4 skills. And for a zoo build that should be at least +12 skills or +16 across all of them. That seems too much value to pass on just to save a few passive points.
For the EHP… especially for skellies 70% is actually laughable, they’re paper, much like crows. Heck… even the bone golems are surprisingly squishy for being massive hulks supposed to take the support-tank role.
EHP only matters when it’s higher then the effective damage from a hit, otherwise it makes no difference if you got 1 or 2 billion EHP… the outcome is still death
For skellies that’s sadly the case in many many situations, same as crows.
It won’t affect uptime when it would matter. Julra will still demolish any minion no matter which one, as one of the most tanky minions existing was the wraithlord, which primarily survived though a decent EHP pool combined with the ridiculous leech in combination. Still… despite active attacks and hence leech during T4 Julra’s lasers immediately wreck it, often letting only 1-2 attacks happen before it just crumbles away.
Skeletons have a substantially lower Health-pool already, so they’ve fared even worse… so this ‘dangerous attack’ is still causing the exact same outcome. Skellie runs forward, meets beam, bone dust successfully created without dealing damage once most of the time even! Might actually get a hit in from time to time maybe now?
I mean, the overall changes with the raised damage and the raised DR is a good thing, that’s been something that was needed for any minion through the bank anyway… but the ‘dangerous ability’ DR for minions should be significantly higher even. I would argue at 20% of the former value of total incoming damage we might see a proper effect. I’ve hence already stated that this DR should rather be at 90% since the player is supposed to avoid it with a 100% success rate, those are one-shot like mechanics or absolutely devastating DoTs… primarily the second. And a minion takes the full DoT and not a short moment of it.
Alternatively DoT reduction specifically in a significant amount might work better as it’s not affecting everything else disproportionally.
Another alternative is giving players the option to recall minions to your position, hence pulling them out of danger.
Well after testing it looks like i was right. skele, skele mages, golems, perm wraiths are absolute trash. The “necro” update just forced you to spend more points into the tree to get even close to what you had last season with those minions. The abomination did get better but not everyone wants to use it. The fixes to minions and new items, you know the stuff that was supposed to help the Necromancer class just ended up buffing beastmaster and ended up making cocaine bear. The devs got lazy and didn’t actually fix necromancers. At this point it is clear to all that the devs dont like the class. They took time and fixed VK and pali last season, they fixed lich this season, they made falconer amazing for the past few seasons but necro except abom they are basically trash tier.
Yes but why would you play necro and use abom sacrificing you precious skill slots when you can go beastmaster bear for less investment and a better outcome and keep all your skills?
LE Dev’s dropped the ball pretty hard on this “rework.” Not all things done with good intentions turn out positive when those making the changes are incapable. This games been out for a good while now but outside of a couple single-pet broken builds it would make more sense to call the specialization “Turret.”
I have +10 minion skills with my apogee, dino skull and book. I literally can’t productively spend 38pts on any of my minons. Now compare that to +70% minion crit multiy and +40ish for both minion damage and health. Across the hollow finger and a turquoise ring.
“So abom are still valiable minion for endgame” yes and with the nerfs in Dread Shade making wraith lord much worse. it is the obviously best way to play necro.
It’s not a new unique, actually, I was just confusing it with something else. I thought I saw somewhere a unique that gave 60% chance to resummon, but I was mistaken.
There’s Sinathia’s shield, but a perfectly rolled one will only bring you to 86% chance with the nodes.
