Leeching Servant is in need of some love.

[Faylahs]

First off i will state that i am well aware that right now 2.5 is likely priority one and i dont expect much notice of this topic for the time being.

Many of the Necros i have talked too have agreed that the leeching servant tome is not worth doing as it is a dps downgrade for the pet (reasons stated below)

first off let me state what the tome currantly does.
Leeching servant = whenever the necro casts a lifetap the pet has a (20/40/60/80)% chance to mimic that lifetap as well.

pros - helps prevent pet death from aoes or riposte rounds (relative to how much tapping the necro is doing.)

cons - the pet doesnt tap for nearly as much as the necro and it takes too much time to cast the spell so it actually loses dps due to time standing around doing nothing for a low damage tap.

Fixes? - Heres where i ask the fellow necros to chip in and see what would be the best idea for this tome. should the tome just be altered a bit or should it change altogether? i have a couple ideas below:

basic changes - make it so the pet instantly casts the tap upon the necro landing theirs or reduce the pet cast time to a second or so to balance the loss of melee versus the cast.

complete tome change to - Blessings of the Dead
allow the pet to change color (different forms of the ironbone skeleton) upon casting a spell of a certain resist (or hail it) to change the pets proc and as the tome line progresses add more damage to said proc (probably should be limited to normal, fire, disease, poison)
basically would give the necro more pet interaction and could potentially boost dps/utilty depending on the proc versus certain mobs ect. procs could be something like:

Normal = Scion drain - same as currant but with each rank of tome tap becomes stronger.

disease = blast of filth - disease based damage with a 10/15/25% short duration slow effect. emote = A chunk of bug infested bile assaults %t's limbs

Fire = Melting Breath - Fire based damage with a -25/50/75 ac short duration debuff. emote = A stream of magma melts away %t's defenses.

Poison = Caress of Weakness - Poison based damage with a short duration resist and or stat debuff. emote = a sickly hand grips at the veins of %t.

this is all off the top of my head and im sure most of this is bad but i just wanted to start a idea pool.

 

[enasc]

Considering this book independent of where necromancers are, and what other class books do, it could pretty easily do with an upgrade. Making the cast time faster or instant would be great.

That said, I think it's fine as is. In my opinion, Necros are better balanced than most classes throughout the tiers. We don't need this book to compensate for gaps in progression like some other class books do, looking at you, Mages.

We get one of the best class tomes in the game. The other two being basically spots for exp doesn't seem like much of a problem.

Just my opinion, of course. For the record, I put experience points in that set of books.

 

[Faylahs]

i agree with you there. i dont really think necromancers need much help as they are great. id just like to see leeching servant not be terrible and hopefully just gets tweaked so pet doesnt gimp itself using it.

 

[qazu2005]

I'm not an SOD expert and I very rarely make forum posts but sometimes I play a neck romancer and I have to wonder where you got the following information if you wouldn't mind sharing?

Many of the Necros i have talked too have agreed that the leeching servant tome is not worth doing as it is a dps downgrade for the pet (reasons stated below)

cons - the pet doesnt tap for nearly as much as the necro and it takes too much time to cast the spell so it actually loses dps due to time standing around doing nothing for a low damage tap.

Here is where I am coming from as a frame of reference:

[Mon Jun 29 18:58:00 2015] Your Mantle of Arcane Apoplexy shimmers briefly.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:00 2015] You begin casting Ancient: Lifebane.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:04 2015] Roger begins to cast a spell.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:04 2015] Jessyka delivers a critical blast! (4012)
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:04 2015] Jessyka hit a river alligator for 4012 points of non-melee damage.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:04 2015] You were healed for 4012 damage.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:10 2015] Roger hit a river alligator for 1966 points of non-melee damage.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:10 2015] Your Mantle of Arcane Apoplexy shimmers briefly.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:10 2015] You begin casting Ancient: Lifebane.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:29 2015] Your Mantle of Arcane Apoplexy shimmers briefly.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:29 2015] You begin casting Ancient: Lifebane.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:33 2015] Roger begins to cast a spell.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:33 2015] Jessyka hit a river alligator for 2006 points of non-melee damage.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:33 2015] You were healed for 2006 damage.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:39 2015] Roger hit a river alligator for 1966 points of non-melee damage.
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:39 2015] You steal the essence of the dead!
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:39 2015] a river alligator has been slain by Roger !
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:39 2015] +50% experience (New Area Bonus)
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:39 2015] +15% experience (Account Drive Wind Down)
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:39 2015] You gain 10432 experience!!
[Mon Jun 29 18:58:39 2015] You are no longer in combat.
[Mon Jun 29 18:59:05 2015] Aaeon says out of character, 'hey cant remember how to trade any tips? :]'

All the experience I have had with this tome shows that the pet does just a tiny bit less lifetap damage as you can see above (not sure why there is a difference at all really - worn magic damage maybe?). Basically for the 5.1 seconds that my pet was casting Ancient: Lifebane he did approx. 385 dps (1966/5.1) which is actually a decent dps boost over just his regular relic pet melee damage (with companion strength 8, ancient haste, Farhag bracer clicky, silks and good pet weapons he can top out at like 200something on a good day). I'm not saying this tome is super fantastic or anything and yeah it would be neat if the pet could have a shorter or instant cast time but it's a place to put xp and does give some slight benefit. I have not experienced or heard of anything that would lead me to believe it is a dps downgrade for the pet, so I was wondering where exactly you got your information from as it seems on first glance that your necro has not read this book yet.

I also agree with both of you that necros are well balanced and should be left alone (unless someone wants to make R1 less "meh").

 

[Faylahs]

i have no parse base or such for my assumption of loss of dps.
i just asked high end necros i knew about the tome and they said it was poopy or annoying due to cast time and the stop in melee for the relic pet
i have no clue if it interrupts the runic 1 pets currant spell cast or spends its mana to do so or anything when it triggers.

 

[Obscenitor]

Great thread. Thumbs up on coming to the table with data to back up your assumptions. A+ effort here, great job all around boys.

 

[Otcho]

I don't need to be a statistician to know you're being a bully bango.

 

[huey]

While I don't want to be mean, unfortunately he's right. You really should wait until you know what you're talking about from experience before making an s&r thread. I've never played one before, but I heard beastlords are terrible. Here is my suggestion to fix them. I mean...doesn't that sound a little ridiculous?