Physical Immune vs Summoner Necro

[nedamettin]

I have tested summoner necromancer for a while now and I can say they are much better than how they used to be. They still have a few issues though.

As everyone knows most classes can pierce through immunities of an enemy by stacked resistance pierce affixes on gear, with horadric jewels or gear itself. Summoner necromancers are lacking on this department.

I know that each skental power grants physical pierce to archers but it is never enough even with Ssha's primordial fang which also gives physical pierce. With level 60+ summons and lich with +18 skental power Diablo's rebirth amulet and amplify damage, I am literally staring at most of the physical immune mobs.

There are ways to play around immunes like using an end-game weapon's ctc procs to kill a mob but in some cases if there are multiple immunities on a mob, you are doomed. I got stuck on level 12 Crucible each time because neither my summons nor procs from El'Druin/Frostmourne/Thunderfury/Plaguebringer couldn't kill the mobs there within the time limit. I am not even considering the effort and odds to obtain these end-game weapons. A new player would have to quit the game if he/she runs into a physical immune pack. Of course Crucible is an example since there are many places with mobs which has multiple immunities for elements.

My solution to this was quite simple: Lowering quantity of skeleton archers to 3. Skeleton archers now cast one of these: Freezing Arrows, Exploding Arrows and Multiple Arrows. Each archer summoned will have elemental pierce relative to their skills. This would solve the problem altogether. Since a necromancer can't use any other offensive spells than Summoning/Curse tree and corpse explosion, it'd be fair.

Another issue is that there aren't enough good low-cost armors and weapons to synergize with new summoning skills. Skental Burst skill is all about ctc procs of a weapon and only good ctc procs that can kill mobs are on very rare swords. There would be more ctc proc affix weapons with lower costs for not only summoners but for all melee characters aswell. Armor-wise I am still using Tyrael's Might. Even though I can't corpse explosion, it is too good to give up. Necromancers can use an armor with Fanaticism Aura on equip and STR+ with low STR req on armor to sack all points into vita. Also there aren't any good gloves for summoners. I am using Purifying Flames to get a few more points by obtaining Lower Resist directly from gloves. A Might Aura on equip gloves maybe with procs would be great.

Also in end-game areas skeletons/revives still die randomly. For this problem there would be an easy solution aswell. A teleport without teleportation, just to gather the minions to a location would be great. Skill can be obtained with Lich Form like Skental Burst called "Unholy Summoning" which gathers all troops to the target area. That would make glitchy summon deaths gone.

In case if someone thinks these changes would make summon necromancers "broken", I am able to run new Diablo boss in 45-50 seconds with my smiter. You need three times more just to get your summons and revives with necromancer and they can't even kill him. Summoner is BETTER but not as GOOD as other builds you can easily play.

Thanks for reading.

A Side Note: "Prevent Monster Heal" affix doesn't work with Skental Burst which is also a huge problem.

[LordManhammer]

Much skental. So much wow!

[Game]

I have tested summoner necromancer for a while now and I can say they are much better than how they used to be. They still have a few issues though.

As everyone knows most classes can pierce through immunities of an enemy by stacked resistance pierce affixes on gear, with horadric jewels or gear itself. Summoner necromancers are lacking on this department.

I know that each skental power grants physical pierce to archers but it is never enough even with Ssha's primordial fang which also gives physical pierce. With level 60+ summons and lich with +18 skental power Diablo's rebirth amulet and amplify damage, I am literally staring at most of the physical immune mobs.

There are ways to play around immunes like using an end-game weapon's ctc procs to kill a mob but in some cases if there are multiple immunities on a mob, you are doomed. I got stuck on level 12 Crucible each time because neither my summons nor procs from El'Druin/Frostmourne/Thunderfury/Plaguebringer couldn't kill the mobs there within the time limit. I am not even considering the effort and odds to obtain these end-game weapons. A new player would have to quit the game if he/she runs into a physical immune pack. Of course Crucible is an example since there are many places with mobs which has multiple immunities for elements.

My solution to this was quite simple: Lowering quantity of skeleton archers to 3. Skeleton archers now cast one of these: Freezing Arrows, Exploding Arrows and Multiple Arrows. Each archer summoned will have elemental pierce relative to their skills. This would solve the problem altogether. Since a necromancer can't use any other offensive spells than Summoning/Curse tree and corpse explosion, it'd be fair.

Another issue is that there aren't enough good low-cost armors and weapons to synergize with new summoning skills. Skental Burst skill is all about ctc procs of a weapon and only good ctc procs that can kill mobs are on very rare swords. There would be more ctc proc affix weapons with lower costs for not only summoners but for all melee characters aswell. Armor-wise I am still using Tyrael's Might. Even though I can't corpse explosion, it is too good to give up. Necromancers can use an armor with Fanaticism Aura on equip and STR+ with low STR req on armor to sack all points into vita. Also there aren't any good gloves for summoners. I am using Purifying Flames to get a few more points by obtaining Lower Resist directly from gloves. A Might Aura on equip gloves maybe with procs would be great.

Also in end-game areas skeletons/revives still die randomly. For this problem there would be an easy solution aswell. A teleport without teleportation, just to gather the minions to a location would be great. Skill can be obtained with Lich Form like Skental Burst called "Unholy Summoning" which gathers all troops to the target area. That would make glitchy summon deaths gone.

In case if someone thinks these changes would make summon necromancers "broken", I am able to run new Diablo boss in 45-50 seconds with my smiter. You need three times more just to get your summons and revives with necromancer and they can't even kill him. Summoner is BETTER but not as GOOD as other builds you can easily play.

Thanks for reading.

A Side Note: "Prevent Monster Heal" affix doesn't work with Skental Burst which is also a huge problem.

Necromancers are in a good spot, and aren't likely to receive anymore big changes anytime soon. I do not want them killing everything as fast as other classes, because they have infinite meatshields. You cannot expect everything to be on the same kill timers in this type of game, that isn't how it is designed. Some classes excel in certain areas, while others lack in it. I think it is safe to say no other class is nearly as safe as a summon Necromancer. I've said it a million times but I will say it again, Crucible was not designed to be something to do solo. I am very aware a couple of classes can solo it, but this is a flaw in the Crucible itself and will likely be visited later.

Physical immunes are supposed to be hard to kill for physical type classes, that is no surprise. I have talked to acyroma about this already and MAY consider giving skeletons a percentage of the Necromancer's physical pierce, but nothing has been decided, and that would likely be the only big change I would still consider making. I cannot make archers use different elements, and I wouldn't want them to anyways as that is why I ditched the skeletal mages, I want it to be a pure physical tree to make certain decisions easier to make, such as what curse to use.

There is plenty of gear to get started as a summoner and do plenty of endgame content, so many people seem to believe they should be able to do all content within a week of playing. By most normal cases, this is not how I have designed Annihilus. Trag set isn't too hard to get and it is plenty strong to start working towards the endgame gear. The fun part about endgame gear is how good it feels when you get it, if you get it all so quickly and feel like it is chore to play a while to get it, then an RPG isn't what that person should be playing. I do agree there can be a couple of item slots that have no real good choices for summoners, and this is also something acyroma and I have discussed that will likely be changed in the next major patch.

P.S. Prevent Monster Heal does work on Skeletal Burst, but PMH in general is completely buggy. It always has been, even on live vanilla D2. Sometimes it just won't work for anybody at all, and usually a new game is required to fix it. Anyone who has done a ton of ubers on vanilla has definitely seen this issue.

[nedamettin]

Necromancers are in a good spot, and aren't likely to receive anymore big changes anytime soon. I do not want them killing everything as fast as other classes, because they have infinite meatshields. You cannot expect everything to be on the same kill timers in this type of game, that isn't how it is designed. Some classes excel in certain areas, while others lack in it. I think it is safe to say no other class is nearly as safe as a summon Necromancer. I've said it a million times but I will say it again, Crucible was not designed to be something to do solo. I am very aware a couple of classes can solo it, but this is a flaw in the Crucible itself and will likely be visited later.

Physical immunes are supposed to be hard to kill for physical type classes, that is no surprise. I have talked to acyroma about this already and MAY consider giving skeletons a percentage of the Necromancer's physical pierce, but nothing has been decided, and that would likely be the only big change I would still consider making. I cannot make archers use different elements, and I wouldn't want them to anyways as that is why I ditched the skeletal mages, I want it to be a pure physical tree to make certain decisions easier to make, such as what curse to use.

There is plenty of gear to get started as a summoner and do plenty of endgame content, so many people seem to believe they should be able to do all content within a week of playing. By most normal cases, this is not how I have designed Annihilus. Trag set isn't too hard to get and it is plenty strong to start working towards the endgame gear. The fun part about endgame gear is how good it feels when you get it, if you get it all so quickly and feel like it is chore to play a while to get it, then an RPG isn't what that person should be playing. I do agree there can be a couple of item slots that have no real good choices for summoners, and this is also something acyroma and I have discussed that will likely be changed in the next major patch.

P.S. Prevent Monster Heal does work on Skeletal Burst, but PMH in general is completely buggy. It always has been, even on live vanilla D2. Sometimes it just won't work for anybody at all, and usually a new game is required to fix it. Anyone who has done a ton of ubers on vanilla has definitely seen this issue.

If a full physical build barb can pierce immunities, so should a necro I think. Damage won't be anywhere close to a WW in anyway. Glad to hear that things are being worked on.

As a small suggestion would you add a very low poison damage to skental burst with high duration? it'd make up for "prevent monster heal" bug. That is a huge problem at the moment.

[Game]

If a full physical build barb can pierce immunities, so should a necro I think. Damage won't be anywhere close to a WW in anyway. Glad to hear that things are being worked on.

As a small suggestion would you add a very low poison damage to skental burst with high duration? it'd make up for "prevent monster heal" bug. That is a huge problem at the moment.

So a full physical barb with no defensive abilities at all (infact they cannot even potion during WW) should not have any physical damage advantages over a class with 34+ meatshields? You seemed to skip the first part of my post.

Prevent Monster Heal works a lot of the times, just not everytime. Make a new game if it isn't working for you in that specific game, it should work in the next.

[tragos]

Sorry for not replying with quote I use my telephone and it's complicated.
The thing to control the army is a big issue, we could replace attract skill from curses since no one uses it or Nedamettin's idea doesn't sound bad at all.
The meat wall is at good point right now but still neither can reduce 30% of diablo's max life or survive more than 10-20 seconds with BO auras etc,
While we were still at 4.1 I remember a friend invited me in his game to help him by killing diablo and give him some advices of what to do so he can kill him as well, he used a smiler and I entered in time rift with 20 skeletons 20 archers 1 fire conviction aura golem and a3 merchant with endless auras, my friend kept dying while I was hidden behind a wall and watched progressively diablo fail, I needed more than half minute to kill him but that was not a bad thing for my friend who desperately wanted to kill him too, so he made a necro and followed my build "hoping" to success. Since 4.1.1 r2 he quited playing with necro as he never had the chance. For a build that requires much time to prepare I feel like is unfair to just lose from diablo while trying to SOLO.
Also the chances to find a BK set sword every time to create an iron golem for Fanatism aura are not high, I am not asking to increase the chances for a BK to drop but "fix"/ "buff" iron golem it's useless by itself with the tempo it dies is worthless giving one more useless skill in summoning tree, my solution would be to increase the DR and give it the Fanatism aura.

[nedamettin]

That's my point. You can take away the meatshield factor and actually allow summoners to kill stuff. What would meatshields do for me if you can't kill most of the bosses.

[Game]

That's my point. You can take away the meatshield factor and actually allow summoners to kill stuff. What would meatshields do for me if you can't kill most of the bosses.

It was very overwhelming obvious most people prefer quantity when it comes to their summoner necro.

[nedamettin]

It was very overwhelming obvious most people prefer quantity when it comes to their summoner necro.

People wanted quantity because 4.1.1 version of 5 skeleton warriors werent as good as 40 old skeletons. And most of the people who complain about revive changes were druids who lost their free rigged revives to solo crucible faster than other 2-3 ppl groups.

Less minions will tank things just fine if you bring a "replacement" mechanic like teleport to the end-game content. With that mechanic you wouldn't need 40 random revives around you most of them doing nothing but tanking missiles from Nithalaks. If you think people shouldn't solo Crucible why give more power to Revive skill over synergies to make druids even more OP? That was a weird call imo. Also all druids who complain about that change would just switch to cthulhu caster set and be immortal. People DID solo cruc with bear spam only before. Of course it takes a little more skills than having 25 revives with infinite hp and almost zero damage.

[Equalibrium]

i dont care about time it takes to kill bosses i would happily sit there for 5 mins to kill a boss but what needs sorting is the ability to be one shotted, it is literaly killing HC. i understand its mainly a SC server but thought id add my point anyway. double the hp for all i care just lower the dmg. its not ment as a critasism. but god damn its frustrating lol. not being able to farm like you can in SC.you have no choice on HC to solo most of the time because people will not risk it for a simple one shot death. necros them selves are in a great place imo i get the slow kill spead for the reason you have stated summon nec is a tank pure and simple. but that means nothin when mobs tele on your head and one shot you . or cast a skill that you cant escape fast enough from efectivly one shotting you. i understand this is purely a HC biased opinion but hope it helps a little.