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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Last edited: