Necromancer V3

[Addah]

Necromancer Summoner is decent now but is still no contest for the killing rate of literally any other class.

I'll make a suggestion for what should be changed, give my reasoning about why it's not perfect, and I'll explain what I think is the better option.




1) Amount of Summons and their power
- Currently 12 max Warriors/Archers is still below half of the end-game summoners usual amount
- This hurts end-game Summoners because 2x Damage does not have more value than 2.2x more amount of summons
- Summoner needed more DPS overall but the 2x Damage was negated by removing 1/2 the summons

Suggestion:
- Change Raise Skeleton to Raise Skeletal Warrior
- Increase Warrior/Archer limit to 18 each, perhaps after skill level 50
- Summoner might be perfect with the current 2x Damage but with 0.75 original amount of summons instead of the current 0.5


2) Revives
- Frostmourne is the strongest weapon in-game right now because 10 Revives from any custom content (Plague, Inferno, etc) can Tank any boss for their full duration without all dying
- 1 Revive can Tank Lichking LordManhammer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bu9a9me6JM
- Revive was buffed with the intention of having max of 1, so the same stats with max of 10 is overpowered

Suggestion:
- Reduce Revives health by 35%-50% of total amount
- Reduce Revive skill on Frostmourne to +1-5 instead of +5-10 to accommodate the new power of Revive mechanics

Note: It will still be the best summoned Tank option for Druid/Necro, even more Tanky than Clay Golem, also Druid summons recently got health buffed.


3a) Summoner Body Armor
- There is no Body Armor tailored to the specific needs of Druid/Necro Summoners
- Necro Summoner needs FCR, Teleport(so we don't lose summons), Skill points, Regenerate Mana, Cast on Striking and any kind of support Aura
- The starter Trang'Oul set is the BEST Summoner gear until you reach mostly full end-game items, largely due to all the Skeletal Power from the Set bonus

3b) Trang'Oul Set vs End-Game
- Warmonger Dodge is not needed with instant skeleton warrior revives. The 25 Concentration aura can be replaced with Mercenary Focus runeword for 10 Concentration since Summons have plenty of health/Life steal they don't need Bargain helm.
- 10 Revives is all the Tanks you need so Shrieking Lich is no longer as good as Corrupt Shako
- Trang'Oul Body Armor is tied with Elder of Tristram
- Trang'Oul gloves/belt match Scourgelord and Purifying Flame
- Trang'Oul gives 10 more Skeletal Power

Add all this up and it seems Trang'Oul Set is superior if not tied to end-game gear, and is 10% the cost to purchase/find.


Suggestion:
Make body armor that benefits summoned allies, sacrificing player damage/stats for more summoned damage/survival.

[Game]

Necromancer Summoner is decent now but is still no contest for the killing rate of literally any other class.

I'll make a suggestion for what should be changed, give my reasoning about why it's not perfect, and I'll explain what I think is the better option.




1) Amount of Summons and their power
- Currently 12 max Warriors/Archers is still below half of the end-game summoners usual amount
- This hurts end-game Summoners because 2x Damage does not have more value than 2.2x more amount of summons
- Summoner needed more DPS overall but the 2x Damage was negated by removing 1/2 the summons

Suggestion:
- Change Raise Skeleton to Raise Skeletal Warrior
- Increase Warrior/Archer limit to 18 each, perhaps after skill level 50
- Summoner might be perfect with the current 2x Damage but with 0.75 original amount of summons instead of the current 0.5


2) Revives
- Frostmourne is the strongest weapon in-game right now because 10 Revives from any custom content (Plague, Inferno, etc) can Tank any boss for their full duration without all dying.
- 1 Revive can Tank Lichking LordManhammer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bu9a9me6JM
- Revive was buffed with the intention of having max of 1, so the same stats with max of 10 is overpowered

Suggestion:
- Reduce Revives health by 35%-50% of total amount
- Reduce Revive skill on Frostmourne to +1-5 instead of +5-10 to accommodate the new power of Revive mechanics

Note: It will still be the best summoned Tank option for Druid/Necro, even more Tanky than Clay Golem, also Druid summons recently got health buffed.


3) Summoner Body Armor
- There is no Body Armor tailored to the specific needs of Druid/Necro Summoners
- Necro Summoner needs FCR, Teleport(so we don't lose summons), Skill points, Regenerate Mana, Cast on Striking and any kind of support Aura
- The starter Trang'Oul set is the BEST Summoner gear until you reach mostly full end-game items, largely due to all the Skeletal Power from the Set bonus


Suggestion:
Make body armor that benefits summoned allies, sacrificing player damage/stats for more summoned damage/survival.

I am balancing Revive mostly around the class that uses it, not around Frostmourne summons honestly. Sure, it makes Frostmourne strong, but it is the rarest weapon in-game and opens up a lot of builds. I do not plan on making Summoners have quite the same kill speed as other classes, as they have an infinite meat wall. I was able to kill Lich King in 12 seconds though with Tragos necro, so it isn't so bad. Try building a little more around Skeletal Burst with an extremely high weapon damage, you'll end up doing a lot of the damage yourself. I forgot to notate it but Skeleton damage was actually raised from just 2x, it is higher now. I really want to stay away from making too many summons available to kill some of the clutter summoners have to deal with. I do agree picking a body armor as a summoner seems to be a little random though, maybe we'll do something with next round of content.

[LordManhammer]

I really don't like the idea of nerfing another class in order to make the class that you enjoy seem more competative. That's pretty much all that you would accomplish by nerfing the Frostmourne and the life of revives. Revives have been just as tanky as they are now even before 4.1. I've always been able to tank the LK with one revive. The biggest difference with revives now is that they do more damage(which does jack shit vs. a boss). I just enjoyed using slow target and teleporting around. It actually shaved a few seconds off of my runs. When you do thousands of LK runs, every second counts:)

Any buffs to Necro summons will also enhance other classes in Annihilus. The more that you ask for, the more powerful the potential will be for Druids or Pallies or any other class that wants to use FM. This won't change unless revive is removed from Frostmourne. I doubt that will happen.

With all that being said, a fuklly synergized Poison Maelstrom Necro with one point in skellies, skelly mastery, summons mastery, and revive will still be stronger in terms of damage output vs. a boss:) IMHO.

[rrra]

3) Summoner Body Armor
- There is no Body Armor tailored to the specific needs of Druid/Necro Summoners
- Necro Summoner needs FCR, Teleport(so we don't lose summons), Skill points, Regenerate Mana, Cast on Striking and any kind of support Aura
- The starter Trang'Oul set is the BEST Summoner gear until you reach mostly full end-game items, largely due to all the Skeletal Power from the Set bonus




http://annihilus.net/wiki_index.php?title=Elder-of-Tristram

That has most of what you need right there.

[Addah]

I am balancing Revive mostly around the class that uses it, not around Frostmourne summons honestly. Sure, it makes Frostmourne strong, but it is the rarest weapon in-game and opens up a lot of builds.

Well if by "class that uses it" you mean Necromancer then it's still hugely overpowered, if you mean Druid then it's still hugely overpowered.



I was able to kill Lich King in 12 seconds though with Tragos necro, so it isn't so bad.

That just confirms the Trang'Oul set are the best items and easiest to obtain for Summoner right now and end-game gear is almost useless in comparison, like I said mostly due to all the bonus Skeletal Power.


Try building a little more around Skeletal Burst with an extremely high weapon damage, you'll end up doing a lot of the damage yourself.

Yeah I haven't bothered buying a new weapon to use Skeletal Burst yet, I suppose I will now.


I really want to stay away from making too many summons available to kill some of the clutter summoners have to deal with.

The clutter is already resolved by having 35 fewer Revives, even with 15 Warriors/Archers instead of 12 there will not be lag problems, and I would rather take a small reduction of damage to get my meat wall up to 15/15 of each which is the spirit of a Necromancer Summoner.



http://annihilus.net/wiki_index.php?title=Elder-of-Tristram

That has most of what you need right there.

I'm already using this and you're right it's currently the best but it lacks any actual benefits for Summons themselves.

[Game]

Well if by "class that uses it" you mean Necromancer then it's still hugely overpowered, if you mean Druid then it's still hugely overpowered.




That just confirms the Trang'Oul set are the best items and easiest to obtain for Summoner right now and end-game gear is almost useless in comparison, like I said mostly due to all the bonus Skeletal Power.



Yeah I haven't bothered buying a new weapon to use Skeletal Burst yet, I suppose I will now.



The clutter is already resolved by having 35 fewer Revives, even with 15 Warriors/Archers instead of 12 there will not be lag problems, and I would rather take a small reduction of damage to get my meat wall up to 15/15 of each which is the spirit of a Necromancer Summoner.




I'm already using this and you're right it's currently the best but it lacks any actual benefits for Summons themselves.

I think you misread, I said Tragos as in the moderator here, not trag set :) I am fairly content with how things are right now, I think 24 skeletons and 10-15 revives is plenty. You are plenty beefy, have an almost neverending meat wall (and you can constantly keep summoning skeleton warriors) and you can proc tons of chance to cast and do decent damage yourself with Skeletal Burst. I want to let the current changes play out for a while and see what builds people come up with. Burst is quite strong if built around (CB, prevent monster heal, etc). I hope some people give it a chance.

[LordManhammer]

Well if by "class that uses it" you mean Necromancer then it's still hugely overpowered, if you mean Druid then it's still hugely overpowered.




That just confirms the Trang'Oul set are the best items and easiest to obtain for Summoner right now and end-game gear is almost useless in comparison, like I said mostly due to all the bonus Skeletal Power.



Yeah I haven't bothered buying a new weapon to use Skeletal Burst yet, I suppose I will now.



The clutter is already resolved by having 35 fewer Revives, even with 15 Warriors/Archers instead of 12 there will not be lag problems, and I would rather take a small reduction of damage to get my meat wall up to 15/15 of each which is the spirit of a Necromancer Summoner.




I'm already using this and you're right it's currently the best but it lacks any actual benefits for Summons themselves.


He wasn't talking about Trag'oul. He was refering to this...

http://annihilus.net/showthread.php?t=9482

[Addah]

Edited 3a and 3b to explain why Trang'Oul set are the strongest and cheapest items to get.

[Game]

Edited 3a and 3b to explain why Trang'Oul set are the strongest and cheapest items to get.

Sorry, but it's just flat out wrong. 15% MORE crushing blow PER summon (we're talking a bare minimum of 34) is just MUCH bigger than you're making it out to be. Warmonger is second to none. You can also get more +skills to Necro using items that isn't trag set, and you get 1 Skeletal Power per Lich Form skill, it is easily to offset that. Also revives do more damage than skeletons at a certain Skeleton Mastery level, you cant look at it like "10 revives is enough for tanking". They aren't there to just tank as a summon Necromancer, they are a huge part of your damage. You're just looking at things the wrong way, you need to get out of the mindset that revives are just for tanking, as that is only the cases for classes without Skeleton Mastery. As I said in chatbox, trag set is definitely very viable, but to say it is the best or even "almost" the best is just completely inaccurate.

[Scorchz]

Can we juste stop about the revive things ? Isn't that perfect atm ? *sign*

[Brimstonejack]

An endgame summon necro is currently strong enough to clear a lot of endgame content. Could he be stronger? Sure. But he's currently one of the stronger classes, and doesn't really NEED any buffing. I could make suggestions to make him stronger all day, but that doesn't make him better. OP =/= better. One of the appeals of this server is you can't really make a single build that rapes all content. Forces you to make multiple characters, try other things. Balance is difficult when you start cranking out uber items and skills. I think where we're at is pretty good. If changes are made, they should me to make something fresh, not necessarily stronger.

[Game]

I am pretty content with how summoner necros are performing right now, and the benefits they offer. I likely won't be doing anymore major changes to them for the time being. Necromancer in general is just about a complete class now!

[Brimstonejack]

I know I've spent too much time on Facebook, because I just tried to "like" that post.