Necromancer Feedback

[Ceto]

Levelling a seasonal Necromancer has brought a few glaring problems to my attention, all of which are spell lines that are not performing up to par.

TL;DR: Please look into this poison DD line of spells because the resist adjust & subpar damage makes them redundant & ineffective compared with Lifetaps (maybe convert it to this poison rain line of spells?), look into the gap between Word of Souls (level 39) and Fury of the Swamp (65 murk spell locked to Seasonal Characters), and consider condensing this cool group leech DoT from 9 ticks down to 3 ticks so the damage & healing is actually noticeable, because the healing is stretched too thin to make the spell worth casting.

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Issue 1: ​

Necromancers get three point blank AoE damage spells while levelling to 65, the highest being Word of Souls at 39. They're okay when you get them. This spell line continues for Clerics (and Druids) into Earthquake and then Upheaval, but Necromancers don't get any new PBAoE spells until their murk spell, which is disabled for seasonal characters. This leaves a huge gap where Necromancers struggle in experience groups without any good AoE spells to cast.

Issue 2: ​

The necromancer direct damage poison line of spells has proven highly underwhelming, starting with the first spell in the line. Each spell falls short in damage efficiency to a similar-level lifetap, and some even fall short in terms of raw damage.

The last spell in the line, Tishkaal's Venom Blast, seems to almost redeem the spell line somewhat, only to yet again be out-damaged by Ancient: Lifebane (the efficiency is comparable, but see below notes on resist adjust). Cryotoxin is the "next spell" in the line, but this spell has its own slew of problems: it's still roughly even with Ancient: Lifebane in base damage and efficiency, has a longer cast time, a 12 second cooldown, and it doesn't benefit from Poison & Cold elemental DMG from items, so it falls off later in the game too.

Another factor making this problem even worse is that all Lifetaps have a very low (-200) resist adjust, whereas these poison DDs all have 0 resist adjust in comparison. Thus, lifetaps can even land on resistant & higher level mobs for close to, if not full damage, whereas the poison DDs always get partially resisted, even on trivial mobs. Even if the poison DD line of spells deals more damage than Lifetaps, the 0 resist adjust kills any chance of them actually working as efficiently as intended.

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Suggestion to fix Issues 1 & 2:
Change the DD spell line (this doesn't really work for Cryotoxin, see below) to follow the Shaman poison rain of spells. Buff the resist adjust to be near-comparable with Lifetaps, also making sure to make the total damage a noticeable amount higher than a comparable Lifetap (if you can cast a Lifetap instead and deal a similar amount of damage for a similar mana cost, why in the world would you ever cast anything else when the Lifetap heals you?).

As for Cryotoxin, removing the awful cooldown, letting it benefit from elemental damage, and lowering the cast time significantly would probably make it worth using.

This will remedy both Issue 1 & Issue 2 - it gives them a (albeit only a 2?-target rain) new AoE option for experience groups, and fixes the spell-line to be not redundant & ineffective.

Issue 3: ​

This random group leech DoT is an interesting concept, but the mana cost is so high for so little damage and healing per tick that the spell is pretty much never worth casting. A level 44 Druid HoT does almost double the healing per tick of this spell. The healing and damage is at least affected by Affliction Enhancement, but the healing per tick still barely breaks 200 at end-game. Worse still, the spell costs a whopping 524 platinum to purchase, implying it must be a really useful spell.

The reason the healing is so low isn't even really that the spell is underpowered - rather, it's because it's spread across a 54-second (9 tick) duration. Directly buffing the spell isn't the solution - it's actually a decently efficient spell, it's just stretched really thin across a long period of time.

Suggestion to fix Issue 3: don't change the total damage or healing (or you might wind up with another bootleg healer that beats out shamans). Just condense the lengthy 9 ticks of miniscule healing down to 3 ticks of noticeable healing.

 

[Manluas]

Going to answer this from a fellow Necromancer point of view.

DISCLAIMER: I have not played a seasonal Necromancer and my low- and mid-level times have long since passed. As far as I can judge not much has changed. So here goes:

First off: Necromancers are no burst damagedealers and never have been. The poison-DD line always felt a little odd to me and I rarely used it. I feel that expanding and buffing th DD-Line would throw Neros off-balance compared to Mages and Wizards.
We have a really good damage potential through our DOTS and quite a nice variety to use. I give you, that we fall a bit behind on short fights or fast paced groups but we have some utility to make up for it.

To pick up your issues 1&2:

Our PBAE spells are odd to me. And have always been. I levelled up long before Ikisith happened and when I was introduced to the Murkspell I really didn't get the reasoning behind it. It doesn't really fit our spell lines, nor can I wrap my head around how it's justified compared to 95% of everything else we do as a Necromancer. It does have a use and purpose in mass-slaying groups when you have fully done Strands of Life.
As stated above I feel, that adding to the potential of this spell line or expanding it and work with the resist mods would imbalance all the casters. What about another proposal:

Get rid of the poison-DD and PBAE Line for Necromancers. We got Lifetaps for DD with awesome resist mods. Implement some Group-Tap (or DoT) instead. Could as well be an PBAE option. Since buffslots are an issue the resource could maybe go to the song window. Please don't take me too serious on this, I am just throwing ideas around to give something currently more or less useless and obsolete some justification and a niche to function.
This could somewhat pick up your Issue 3 as well. I have used that spell a lot during my days (starting when I got it and well into 65 to ease healing pressure a bit) and it's always been a nice addition to take some pressure off fellow healers. Given the fact, that we receive a very good Lifeflow in Refuge (locked to Seasonal characters) this would make sense lorewise as well.

To sum it up from my POV: I'd rather not have our DD-potential boosted. Yes, the spell lines are more or less useless. But I'd rather have them changed to something that fits the feel of utility and support the Necromancer has in a group/raid situation. Because lets face it: We sacrifice some DPS potential for a nice variety of utility. We can support with Pulls (even a fair bit into raiding - DA and FD are a thing that prevents us from getting squished) and CC. And we still deal a nice amount of DPS. Back in the day when I was actively raiding I did not really fall too much behind DPS-wise compared to on-tier mages and wizards. Especially not on long fights. We just need a while to build it up. This also comes with the fact, that a mob gets weaker with the amount of DOTS ticking on it.

 

[Ceto]

I'd rather not have our DD-potential boosted.

Necromancers are no burst damagedealers and never have been.

I didn't say to buff the DD potential. My suggestion was to change the spell line to a poison rain (damage is spread over 3 waves), which seems to suit Necromancers just fine to me? Rains aren't burst damage.

Get rid of the poison-DD and PBAE Line for Necromancers.

Understandable perspective - you're right, neither line of spells makes sense currently. See below.

We sacrifice some DPS potential for a nice variety of utility. We can support with Pulls (even a fair bit into raiding - DA and FD are a thing that prevents us from getting squished) and CC. And we still deal a nice amount of DPS. Back in the day when I was actively raiding I did not really fall too much behind DPS-wise compared to on-tier mages and wizards. Especially not on long fights. We just need a while to build it up. This also comes with the fact, that a mob gets weaker with the amount of DOTS ticking on it.

Yes. I understand Necromancer's class identity. Thank you for pointing this out....
Our dps and utility on raids is not lacking at all, and I am not complaining about it or asking for buffs to it in any way shape or form. This post is about seasonal Necromancers in general, not our role in a raid setting. I just dislike entire spell lines being objectively useless, and understand that Necromancers without Strands of Life & Murk PBAoE struggle to contribute anything of value in exp groups. Therefore, why not just fix both problems by converting the DD to a rain (like I said in my post) and then getting rid of these useless spell lines?

I have used that spell a lot during my days (starting when I got it and well into 65 to ease healing pressure a bit) and it's always been a nice addition to take some pressure off fellow healers.

I have never casted it once except to test how bad it was. You could cast 2 DoTs in the time it takes you to to cast that spell, which is a pretty big chunk of damage. I would much rather deal extra damage than heal my group like a level 44 druid.

 

[Manluas]

I didn't say to buff the DD potential. My suggestion was to change the spell line to a poison rain (damage is spread over 3 waves), which seems to suit Necromancers just fine to me? Rains aren't burst damage.

Understandable perspective - you're right, neither line of spells makes sense currently. See below.

Yes. I understand Necromancer's class identity. Thank you for pointing this out....
Our dps and utility on raids is not lacking at all, and I am not complaining about it or asking for buffs to it in any way shape or form. This post is about seasonal Necromancers in general, not our role in a raid setting. I just dislike entire spell lines being objectively useless, and understand that Necromancers without Strands of Life & Murk PBAoE struggle to contribute anything of value in exp groups. Therefore, why not just fix both problems by converting the DD to a rain (like I said in my post) and then getting rid of these useless spell lines?

I have never casted it once except to test how bad it was. You could cast 2 DoTs in the time it takes you to to cast that spell, which is a pretty big chunk of damage. I would much rather deal extra damage than heal my group like a level 44 druid.

I think there was some misunderstanding, I didn't mean to sound like a smartass. Sorry if it sounded like that.

My core point is that I think we do not need yet another form of damage. I'd rather have something lackluster (grouptap) converted/changed so it actually becomes useful.

I have never casted it once except to test how bad it was. You could cast 2 DoTs in the time it takes you to to cast that spell, which is a pretty big chunk of damage. I would much rather deal extra damage than heal my group like a level 44 druid.

My pre-65 times date back to 2005 / early 2006. A lot of the game was different back then. In addition I'm from europe which always threw me off the regular playtimes compared to a good chunk of the server. This resulted in a lot of situations were we just had to go with what was available and the spell came in handy. I do agree that nowadays it's mostly garbage.
That doesn't change my opinion, that rather than give us a poison rain I'd like to see the idea of health/mana/strength siphoning expanded. Following your idea this could happen as rain or PBAE.

EDIT: I always have the other classes in mind with the entire discussion. And like outlined above I think giving us a poison rain starting lowish and well into level 60 / 65 would throw things off-balances compared to mages and wizards. With a lowish damage component and some sort of debuff / recourse offered to the group.

 

[Ceto]

I stand by my statement that necromancers suck in exp groups. They cannot contribute anything meaningful without the murk AoE or Strands of Life. I still think they need some form of AoE damage, and I think that a poison rain (it would only even hit 2 targets!) is the right move. A debuff with a recourse is not enough to make a necromancer desirable in an exp group.

That being said, if the utility route was the one taken...

Health siphoning for the group is, like I said in OP, an interesting concept - that's why I wanted to see the spell you get at 60 condensed to a 3 tick duration, so that it's a more noticeable spell.
Mana siphoning definitely is not needed, we already have enough of that (Mind Wrack recourse, Lich recourse, Strands of Life).
Strength siphoning becomes much less useful very quickly at 65, because everyone that needs the stat usually has it capped (and if not, SHM stats are a thing). It also eats a buff slot.
Something like ATK siphoning, or further exploration of spell-proc buffs (a weaker version of Aura of Thunder that procs lifetaps instead maybe?) might be worth casting though.

 

[Manluas]

Mana siphoning definitely is not needed, we already have enough of that (Mind Wrack recourse, Lich recourse, Strands of Life).

The only group-beneficial option we have is Mind Wrack at Level 58. That's it. Which is sort of weird. There is nothing else happening to siphon mana from enemies, then we get one spell and that's about it. Strands of Life is insanely useful but not on option until you've grinded out a decent amount f AA's.
Since this post is mostly about Seasonal experiences that shouldn't really be important IMO. But yeah. Something to siphon mana or endurance or flat out transfering a small amount of ATK from mobs to the group (no clue if that's technically possible) while doing a small amount of damage, thus counting as a DOT towards the overall weakening effect. That would make sense lorewise and - at least in my opinion - don't make necromancers too powerful.

 

[Dev-Cole]

necromancer direct damage poison line of spells

This is on the TODO list, but we recently updated lifetaps so it will probably be later so other classes can get fixes.