This will just be a quick post where I complain a bit about the general direction taken with Lich in terms of its damage types and conversions, this is nothing too serious.
When I look at the Lich in Last Epoch, my first thought, and likely many others first thought is that they are meant to draw parallels to “Death”, you transform into a grim reaper wielding giant scythes. Alongside this, one of the seven core damage types in LE is Necrotic, which is a focus on dark, soul magic.
These two, Necrotic and Lich go hand in hand, they are a match made in heaven. Despite this, with the reworks to Lich, the new skill and such, there has been a massive boost to the Liches elemental damage, primarily Cold.
I dont personally see a problem with that on its own, but when exploring all of the new reworked Lich features, it feels like Cold damage is being prioritised over Necrotic for Lich, which is just baffling to me.
For the most part, this can be chalked up to Cold damage simply being the superior spec over Necrotic in terms of pure meta gameplay. But something I cant get past, is why on earth Aura of Decay has conversion to Cold damage, but completely lacks any Necrotic damage support??
Is it a balancing issue? Making AoD inflict Damned could be slightly OP if not balanced well, but you can just give it the same remedy used to keep the Physical spec of AoD balanced, make your chance to inflict damned apply at an even lesser effectiveness than AoDs traditional Poison conversion rate.
Or maybe is it just that devs felt there was an overwhelming amount of Necrotic skills/conversions and it needed toning down a bit (I can understand if so). But if thats the case, tone it down for the other two masteries who do not take on the Mantle of Death Itself and reap souls, the aesthetic core of Necrotic damage.
Sorry for harping on about this, but one more thing. In my mind, Vitality connects both Poison and Necrotic, those two damage types/resistances are intertwined with one another, aesthetically and mechanically. Surely it wouldnt hurt to retain the cohesion between the two types, and give the big poison aura the ability to switch to its bestest friend, a big necrotic aura!
This post is half serious and half me just wanting to be a really edgy Necrotic reaper without some fart cloud following me around. If you have any further thoughts on this topic, please feel free to talk about them in the replies. cya <3