Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

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Imperatrix
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Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Imperatrix » Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:45 am

Hi friends, I’ve been playing a necromantic sorcerer lately and although the roleplay is pretty fun I have to say there are some things that make the experience a lot more frustrating than simply taking conjuration foci.

Chiefly the experience from 1-20, especially as an arcanist, is pretty awful - there is really no point in using necromancy summons before Mummy Dust. The main reason they are comparatively quite bad is that Conjuration gets an upgrade every spell level whereas necromancy summons are upgraded only three times before Mummy Dust. Additionally, arcanists are doubly shortchanged as they don’t receive the full array of undead spells. Receiving 2-3 undead at later levels rather than 1 isn’t much of a boon since the undead themselves are still very weak.

To resolve this I feel that the undead summons should be upgraded more often and arcanists could potentially receive Create Greater Undead as an ability at level 17 or 18 if they have Greater Necromancy focus.

Mummy Dust has its own flaws - I don’t believe the spell is actually superior in any way to using Summon Creature 9 with Greater Conjuration Focus, and the latter can be prepared several times unlike Mummy Dust, which is one use per rest. I think giving Mummy Dust a cooldown - even if it’s fairly significant such as 30 minutes - would not be particularly overpowered and would resolve this imbalance.

Lastly, controlling three creatures can be very frustrating, especially when they keep running into themselves or allies and standing still as a result. I wonder if it would be possible to alter the control tool slightly so that creatures given a move command attempt to carry it out even when their path is interrupted by another creature or player. Alternatively the creatures could be made not to have any collision, though this may have balance issues. Additionally to this I think familiars should not be included when you select all your creatures, as it stands currently it’s incredibly difficult to control your summons without also sending your familiar to its untimely death.

Thanks for reading!

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Hesitation marks » Tue Jan 02, 2018 4:41 am

This has been my experience as well.

Another thing to consider is that there is more to both Necromancy and Conjuration in that they have other spells. Conjuration's spell list has an almost universal edge.

Conjuration has really strong stuff like Evard's, Acid Fog, Storm of Vengeance, Grease + Web, and Flame Arrow -- strong spells with a wide range of uses in a wide range of situations.

Even Necromancy's best spells don't even compare to just those I listed in terms of use -- their strongest spells are countered by Death Ward, which is easy to acquire by a wand. Even barring UMD, most strong builds will have high Fortitude; there are no builds that lack Constitution, which is tied to Fortitude. Horrid Wilting is really only dangerous to, once again, people with low Constitution or bad Fortitude. Negative Energy Burst isn't a bad spell, but gets completely blocked by a frequent drop from most monsters: Potion of Warding. Stuff like Contagion, Fear, or Ghoul Touch are totally worthless for a myriad of reasons including, probably most notably, altogether flawed spell design.

The strength in Necromancy lies in, at least in theory, overwhelming enemies with "swarm" type summoning, death spells, and debuffing.

The problem is that it excels in NONE of these aspects and is unquestionably outclassed by every other school save Divination.

1. Conjuration summons are better at every point during character progression: they're stronger during levelling, and stronger at level cap. Swarms mean nothing when EDK completely overbears and outdamages it, in addition to being much much stronger defensively.

2. Death spells are useless because of how easy one can acquire immunity or enough Fortitude to ignore them, and none of them have any other additional effects that make a meaningful difference.

3. Their debuffs are either niche, suffering from the same problems as death spells (Negative Energy Burst) or laughably worthless (Contagion, Poison, Fear).

To solve this, I think a bit of buffs to the summons themselves are necessary, in addition to some pretty strenuous overhauls in the spell department.

What I definitely would want to see the devs avoid is making Conjuration weaker, and making mages even more aggravating to play without a group.

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Improv » Tue Jan 02, 2018 5:19 am

Conjuration has -yoink as an ESF ability in addition to all the other great buffs. Some high level RP tool equivalent for ESF necro would be nice. I think all you get now is a bit more summons buffing.

Replacing ray of enfeeblement, which is just OK, with vampiric touch as a GSF infinite spell would be very nice for necromancers. Powerful, sure, but necromancers ought to be powerful.

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Imperatrix
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Imperatrix » Tue Jan 02, 2018 9:12 am

Those are good points, Conjuration offers one of the best spell lists in the game beside having far superior summons. I also neglected to mention that undead summoning requires having buffs prepared for 3 creatures instead of 1, which does limit the spell casting potential of the summoner as well as making them even less useful in a party where buffs are required for players.

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Astral » Tue Jan 02, 2018 9:50 am

Improv wrote: Replacing ray of enfeeblement, which is just OK, with vampiric touch as a GSF infinite spell would be very nice for necromancers. Powerful, sure, but necromancers ought to be powerful.
Omg I'm not sure if overpowered or not but that would be so awesome.
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Xanos950
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Xanos950 » Tue Jan 02, 2018 2:23 pm

Improv wrote:but necromancers ought to be powerful.
You could justify any class buff with that statement.

Weaponmaster ought to be powerful. Generalist Wizard also ought to be powerful. Barbarian ought to be powerful.

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susitsu
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by susitsu » Tue Jan 02, 2018 3:08 pm

It's on a bigger to-do list atm, but the staff is aware of the poor state of pre-epic necromancy leveling. Peppermint already has plans as well.

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Wytchee » Tue Jan 02, 2018 4:41 pm

Necromancers should be powerful. It's not just a throw-away statement.

The risk is super high while the payoff (at least until vampires) is super low. No one is going to care if you have an elemental out, but running around with undead can be anxiety-inducing OOCly when you know you could run into a goodly at any transition.

Which is how it should be, but the payoff should be higher, including progression.
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One Two Three Five
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by One Two Three Five » Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:28 pm

Only dangerous on the surface, really, mind.
The devil does not need any more advocates
Clerics are just socially acceptable warlocks.

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Xuuldar » Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:41 pm

Lastly, controlling three creatures can be very frustrating, especially when they keep running into themselves or allies and standing still as a result. I wonder if it would be possible to alter the control tool slightly so that creatures given a move command attempt to carry it out even when their path is interrupted by another creature or player. Alternatively the creatures could be made not to have any collision, though this may have balance issues. Additionally to this I think familiars should not be included when you select all your creatures, as it stands currently it’s incredibly difficult to control your summons without also sending your familiar to its untimely death.
I agree with all your points but this one more than anything. Yes pre-mummy dust the undead pretty much blow and even with Vampires most of the time elementals are much better but on top of it, they are so frustrating to control they aren't worth it. The nerf to the fetch command sealed the deal for me, I have mostly stopped playing my characters that summon undead or when I do play them, I just use elementals. At least before I could step to the side and fetch them off corpses so I could loot, I could fetch them when one decides to go running off in some random direction for some unknown reason but now I can't even do that which made them all that much more annoying. To move them anywhere you need to click the tool and the spot at least 3 times. The first time they start to move and 2 bounce, then again and the 3rd one bounces, then the third time if you are lucky they all make it to the destination. If they decide to run off you click the tool and then near you to have then stay and usually one bounces and starts to run off again. It is face smashing on keyboard frustrating. They will do a little more damage than an elemental if you can actually get them all to attack which is incredibly rare but are far more squishy.

This topic has been brought up several times now and I know looking at undead is on the list so I am waiting patiently and remaining hopeful. :)

Improv
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Improv » Tue Jan 02, 2018 6:45 pm

Xanos950 wrote:
Improv wrote:but necromancers ought to be powerful.
You could justify any class buff with that statement.

Weaponmaster ought to be powerful. Generalist Wizard also ought to be powerful. Barbarian ought to be powerful.
So criticize the suggestion with reasons or a better idea? I don't even know if it's overpowered or not, it was a throw-away statement at the end of a comment and it shouldn't be the focus here.

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Baron Saturday
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Baron Saturday » Tue Jan 02, 2018 7:46 pm

I'd love to see necromancers able to summon stronger undead using player corpses.

I'd also love to see the ghost stream finished.
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Nitro
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Nitro » Tue Jan 02, 2018 7:58 pm

I find a single summon a lot more valuable in a party as well, where 3 vampires (or even worse, a swarm of 4 elementals (triple worse if they have a totem skin with a too-large hitbox)) tend to clog things up unecessarily on the frontlines, especially in tight dungeons. Sure, you can just unsummon 2 of the vampires to keep the strongest one in this case, but then you might as well be using one of the elementals anyway.

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susitsu
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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by susitsu » Wed Jan 03, 2018 12:03 pm

Same xp as an elemental with just the one as well.

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Sab1 » Wed Jan 03, 2018 4:18 pm

Could necromancy use a little tweek here or there yes. But to say summons have to be more powerful or necromancers in general have to be more powerful just falls into the trap of trying to make everything equal. Then they become too powerful and have to be tweeked again to reduce power, or people complain this needs to be buffed now because necros and undead got buffed.

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Hesitation marks » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:26 pm

Sab1 wrote:Could necromancy use a little tweek here or there yes. But to say summons have to be more powerful or necromancers in general have to be more powerful just falls into the trap of trying to make everything equal. Then they become too powerful and have to be tweeked again to reduce power, or people complain this needs to be buffed now because necros and undead got buffed.
Ideally, when one sets out to make things equal, they make something equal, not too powerful.

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Skeletor » Thu Jan 11, 2018 8:12 pm

My main problem with wizard necromancy is they get summon undead at circle 5, and create undead at circle 8. This is underwhelming for wizards since they only get two summons with their lvl 8 spell, and never get create greater undead.

Cleric leveling with undead is much more balanced. You get your first at circle 3, then two at circle 6, and three at circle 8 and it only costs piety.

Can wizards compensate for this with 1001 tricks that clerics do not have ? yes.

But it still bugs me.

I't'd be ok if arcanists had the option on the "undead stream" to use the circle 5 summon undead to summon 2 undead with a 1 spell component, and to use the circle 8 create undead spell to summon 3 undeads using an extra component (for a total of 3 components) .

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by Spaniardl » Thu Jan 11, 2018 9:39 pm

Wytchee wrote:Necromancers should be powerful. It's not just a throw-away statement.

The risk is super high while the payoff (at least until vampires) is super low. No one is going to care if you have an elemental out, but running around with undead can be anxiety-inducing OOCly when you know you could run into a goodly at any transition.

Which is how it should be, but the payoff should be higher, including progression.
On the contrary, i take offense when someone summons a hoity toity water elemental. Get off your high horse conjurers!

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Re: Necromancy Summons feedback/suggestions

Post by rookie » Thu Jan 11, 2018 10:28 pm

Honestly I'd like to see Pale Master redone a bit to support arcane necromancers as opposed to the current death knight style build. Perhaps make it like the PDK where you have different versions. So you'd have the vanilla version as it stands now then a more caster centric version.

The caster centric version might give up certain features such as crit immunity, extra HP etc to gain caster levels (or at least + versus dispel), changing their summon undead to cooldown based, maybe a few themed magic abilities on cooldown etc.

Perhaps allow them to summon necroelementals for their streams that have the same stats as elementals but are undead and are boosted by the Spell Focus: Necromancy feat.

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