Forums » Pantheon Classes

Necromancer Worries

    • 2752 posts
    September 21, 2018 4:20 PM PDT

    MauvaisOeil said:

    I really don't know how they plan to make some "cross role variability". As we know for now, the druid has a little emphasis on damage throught wet status and Stormy areas, however how will it compete with DPS ? In essence, all roles are standing on the field of DPS class by a margin of some sort (Everyone can and will do damage, just not as much) and the monk seems to have a few tools to grab an unexpected add and offtank a bit. Even the enchanter, as a controler, seems to nuke the crap out of mobs at the same time. The Paladin also has some group heals that might be great, for now I don't know.

    How will other classes step on other's toes ? I'm not sure a stance would be necessary here in the sense a different spell setup would serve the same "goal". Looking at Direlord's stance, the choice is between More hate, More ressource or more damage, but nothing twists the gameplay or functionnality of skills and spells.

    I imagine the different classes filling in for different roles will work in bursts for the most part.

     

    For exampe a Dire Lord might have the highest DPS potential of all the tanks but even still they pale compared to DPS classes over the course of a fight. So they might have very high burst damage potential (satisfying those tanks who want to see big numbers/damage every now and again) but it won't be sustainable and over the course of a fight they will still end up doing half the damage of a DPS class.

    Same idea might be true with Paladin where they can definitely heal a little bit and burst heal to save lives in a pinch from time to time but overall they wouldn't be able to come close to the total healing of a healer over the course of a fight, certainly not enough to keep everyone alive. 

    Monk off-tanking could very well be something like a 10-20 second window where they can fill in with certain abilities/cooldowns but beyond that they get crushed. 

    Then just apply similar ideology to healers doing DPS etc: windows of high potential but overall lacking compared to mains of a role. 

    • 1479 posts
    September 21, 2018 4:42 PM PDT

    Iksar said:

    MauvaisOeil said:

    I really don't know how they plan to make some "cross role variability". As we know for now, the druid has a little emphasis on damage throught wet status and Stormy areas, however how will it compete with DPS ? In essence, all roles are standing on the field of DPS class by a margin of some sort (Everyone can and will do damage, just not as much) and the monk seems to have a few tools to grab an unexpected add and offtank a bit. Even the enchanter, as a controler, seems to nuke the crap out of mobs at the same time. The Paladin also has some group heals that might be great, for now I don't know.

    How will other classes step on other's toes ? I'm not sure a stance would be necessary here in the sense a different spell setup would serve the same "goal". Looking at Direlord's stance, the choice is between More hate, More ressource or more damage, but nothing twists the gameplay or functionnality of skills and spells.

    I imagine the different classes filling in for different roles will work in bursts for the most part.

     

    For exampe a Dire Lord might have the highest DPS potential of all the tanks but even still they pale compared to DPS classes over the course of a fight. So they might have very high burst damage potential (satisfying those tanks who want to see big numbers/damage every now and again) but it won't be sustainable and over the course of a fight they will still end up doing half the damage of a DPS class.

    Same idea might be true with Paladin where they can definitely heal a little bit and burst heal to save lives in a pinch from time to time but overall they wouldn't be able to come close to the total healing of a healer over the course of a fight, certainly not enough to keep everyone alive. 

    Monk off-tanking could very well be something like a 10-20 second window where they can fill in with certain abilities/cooldowns but beyond that they get crushed. 

    Then just apply similar ideology to healers doing DPS etc: windows of high potential but overall lacking compared to mains of a role. 

     

    That's what it looked like for the monk setup at least, and what it "was" in EQ post monk nerf in velious : You could handle mobs awesomely during Stonestance, like 12s every 12 min, but worth not much outside of that. I hope for a less restrictive durability (like 30s every few minutes), but the idea here I think is to make them possibles as a major cooldown.

     

    For thoses who played wow, during a certain era (MoP I think) druids had the heart of wild talent that allowed them to get strong in every other druid role for 30s every like, 5 or 10 min. It allowed a DPS to throw a burst healing session, or a powerfull storm in AOE every other time, and helped great for some content (challenge mode as an example).

    That also allowed non tank spec to handle tanking for that duration, nothing game breaking but a good and non durable emergency move.

    • 316 posts
    September 24, 2018 12:54 AM PDT
    And what of reanimations? What do you all think of raising corpses as weaker zombies/etc?
    Eventually drawing the souls from several corpses in an area to manifest otherworldly dark creatures like wraiths, spectres, etc.

    And I love the idea of giving the necro a very inconvenient resurrect!
    • 28 posts
    September 24, 2018 6:56 AM PDT

    Alexander said: And what of reanimations? What do you all think of raising corpses as weaker zombies/etc? Eventually drawing the souls from several corpses in an area to manifest otherworldly dark creatures like wraiths, spectres, etc. And I love the idea of giving the necro a very inconvenient resurrect!

    Thank you, Alexander. This was always the idea ;)

    Raising minions could be a very powerful tool indeed, but the more of a Shade, Shadow, or Demon these minions are probably the harder they are to control. Raising a downed NPC/enemy corpse for an "unstable" 24 minutes seems a good place to start. Every few seconds (tick?) the raised minion has a chance of falling again and leaving behind no essence to manipulate ... ie they become unraisable and their corpse can no longer be triggered with Corpse Explosion. This chance for the alive minion to fall could, for instance, be based on CHA like your classic charm. This makes sense thematically and it manages to give a necromancer his own identity without stealing charm of the living (as Necro can usually charm only the undead) from Enchanters and Bards.

    It also gives Necromancer a slight CC flavor without stealing Enchanter thunder: Necro can raise a temporary "tank" where enchanter can outright charm and thus manipulate a living (or undead) moving NPC. Necromancer get's the theme of Necromancy without stepping on toes, Enchanter gets the upper hand by having his charm tank. Enchanter kills two birds with one stone.... Necromancer uses one dead bird to kill another bird :D

    The added bonus comes in where one must consider the breaking (failing) of the spell. Enchanter will have to CC heavily to avoid having his charm break randomly and TWO or more mobs coming directly for him. The Necromancer can CC quite a bit too, but doesn't really need to because his raised undead corpse will fall down dead when his dark enchantment wears off.


    This post was edited by Jordan at September 24, 2018 6:59 AM PDT
    • 28 posts
    September 24, 2018 7:43 AM PDT

    Jordan said:

    Alexander said: And what of reanimations? What do you all think of raising corpses as weaker zombies/etc? Eventually drawing the souls from several corpses in an area to manifest otherworldly dark creatures like wraiths, spectres, etc. And I love the idea of giving the necro a very inconvenient resurrect!

    Thank you, Alexander. This was always the idea ;)

    Raising minions could be a very powerful tool indeed...

    I also don't see why not we could raise the power our more permanent companion by making Raising seem more like Raising and not Conjuring. If there is one thing I learned as a Necromancer (time and again) on Everquest and P99 it was this: Rely on your Alteration! Conjurations only complicate things. We could offset the power we give to this Necromancy by giving the pet a limited time to exist. After the timer is up the corpse held together by dark magic either bursts into flame and crumbles into dust or both. It literally Fizzles out all at once after his time is up.

     

    For Instance our raised minions do require a corpse. The corpse that we raised had a flavor in life, so it will have a flavor in death.

     

    Will it be a caster? Let's say... a ghost?

    Will it be a  tank? Let's say a horrible abomination of sewn together body parts?

    Will it be a rogue? Let's say a dripping bloody skeleton with a little flesh and sinew still hanging on to his body--strengthening his hands and feet?

     

    Will it be a priest? Let's say a Vampiric, sickly, zombie of the original healer? He now casts Necromancy spells and has a knack for white Necromancy (Healing his Master with spells that slowly drain his own HP or that cast quickly but cost both large amounts of Essence and HP). Finally, each "class" of healer brought back to the undead has its own flavor of buff. It will automatically (or you can command it to) keep this buff active on pet and Master. "Cleric" raised will provide a significant HP buff for entire group, "Druid" raised will provide a very saucy medium-duration regeneration for caster and pet, "Shaman" raised will rely on cursed poison DoTs that now simply siphon only essence/mana/energy slowly instead of doing damage... returning tiny amounts of both Life and Essence to the pet and Master.

     

    Testers would probably approve ;)


    This post was edited by Jordan at September 24, 2018 7:49 AM PDT
    • 6 posts
    November 4, 2018 4:07 AM PST

    From watching the streams for the past year, I can plainly see that this game will have massive dungeon crawls.  The death penalties in this game will be much more severe.  Just imagine, crawling though a dungeon for hours for a chance to kill a end boss.  One bad pull and splat the entire group is dead, hours of progression gone.. or is it?  The Necro in the group didn't die, they Feigned.  The Necro pops up and utilizes an expensive reageant to rez the groups healer.. Crisis averted.  Now, if you can't see how a Necro (with their slow damage) wouldn't be wanted in group play, then I guess you will either have to wait to experience a group wipe of that magnitude or go play some EQ 1 to experience it. 

    Necroes can cover almost all the utilities, but at a fraction of what the main classes can.  Their burst damage is non existant, but given enough time their single target becomes unmatched.  Skill cap on a Necro is unmatched, but when mastered the Necro becomes a huge asset.  Balancing is a non-issue.. not everyone will enjoy the learning curve or the non existant burst damage.


    This post was edited by novellerfane at November 4, 2018 4:08 AM PST
    • 612 posts
    November 4, 2018 12:10 PM PST

    novellerfane said: The Necro in the group didn't die, they Feigned.  The Necro pops up and utilizes an expensive reageant to rez the groups healer.. Crisis averted.  Now, if you can't see how a Necro (with their slow damage) wouldn't be wanted in group play, then I guess you will either have to wait to experience a group wipe of that magnitude or go play some EQ 1 to experience it.

    While I applaud your attempt to encourage players to 'want' a Necro in their group, I would like to point out that Pantheon is NOT Everquest, and while the classes may share similar names, they are not the same classes. Not everything that a Class can do in Everquest will be the same for that Class in Pantheon.

    There is NO guarantee that Necro's in Pantheon will have Feign Death. There is NO guarantee that Necro's in Pantheon will have the ability to Ressurect (even with an expensive reageant). So using these Everquest Necromancer skills to encourage a Pantheon player to group with a Pantheon Necromancer is not really going to help.

    I would also hope that a Pantheon Necromancer will not only be useful as a 'whipe recovery' class, and that their true value to a group will be apparent in all aspects of the game and not just when everyone else is dying.

    • 1247 posts
    November 27, 2018 1:09 PM PST

    Necromancer definitely needs to be in game, even if it‘s added. I suppose holds true for Bards as well. 

    • 49 posts
    December 6, 2018 8:53 PM PST

    GoofyWarriorGuy said:

    novellerfane said: The Necro in the group didn't die, they Feigned.  The Necro pops up and utilizes an expensive reageant to rez the groups healer.. Crisis averted.  Now, if you can't see how a Necro (with their slow damage) wouldn't be wanted in group play, then I guess you will either have to wait to experience a group wipe of that magnitude or go play some EQ 1 to experience it.

    While I applaud your attempt to encourage players to 'want' a Necro in their group, I would like to point out that Pantheon is NOT Everquest, and while the classes may share similar names, they are not the same classes. Not everything that a Class can do in Everquest will be the same for that Class in Pantheon.

    There is NO guarantee that Necro's in Pantheon will have Feign Death. There is NO guarantee that Necro's in Pantheon will have the ability to Ressurect (even with an expensive reageant). So using these Everquest Necromancer skills to encourage a Pantheon player to group with a Pantheon Necromancer is not really going to help.

    I would also hope that a Pantheon Necromancer will not only be useful as a 'whipe recovery' class, and that their true value to a group will be apparent in all aspects of the game and not just when everyone else is dying.

     

    Chris hinted another class would get a type of feign, but not to the lvl of the monk. I think he was referring to the necro. Every class that is known up to this point does not fit with a feign type ability. And while Pantheon is not EQ1, I have seen so many similarities that I feel quite confident the Necro will be in the game and it will have Feign and it will have a type of emergency rez.

    • 945 posts
    December 7, 2018 6:59 AM PST

    @evade: 

     "Chris hinted another class would get a type of feign, but not to the lvl of the monk. I think he was referring to the necro. Every class that is known up to this point does not fit with a feign type ability. And while Pantheon is not EQ1, I have seen so many similarities that I feel quite confident the Necro will be in the game and it will have Feign and it will have a type of emergency rez."

    I agree that Pantheon is very similar to EQ, so much that a lot of the mechanics can be assumed to be nearly identical.  But the one thing I have noticed is that the devs are making it a point to make the classes of PRotF have very differeent "flavors" or "playstyles" even though the mechanics are similar.  With that said, I also agree that it will be highly likely the necro will have some form of feign as well as life draining, but I'm uncertain about a rez (although it is possible obviously, I wouldn't be upset either way).

    I'm personally hoping for the necro to be the 3rd CC (assuming Bard is the 2nd CC class).

    • 334 posts
    December 7, 2018 10:12 AM PST

    Darch said:

    @evade: 

     "Chris hinted another class would get a type of feign, but not to the lvl of the monk. I think he was referring to the necro. Every class that is known up to this point does not fit with a feign type ability. And while Pantheon is not EQ1, I have seen so many similarities that I feel quite confident the Necro will be in the game and it will have Feign and it will have a type of emergency rez."

    I agree that Pantheon is very similar to EQ, so much that a lot of the mechanics can be assumed to be nearly identical.  But the one thing I have noticed is that the devs are making it a point to make the classes of PRotF have very differeent "flavors" or "playstyles" even though the mechanics are similar.  With that said, I also agree that it will be highly likely the necro will have some form of feign as well as life draining, but I'm uncertain about a rez (although it is possible obviously, I wouldn't be upset either way).

    I'm personally hoping for the necro to be the 3rd CC (assuming Bard is the 2nd CC class).

    I think it's good that the devs take it their own direction (like with the Dire Lord vs traditional SK). Classes like the Necro are traditionally difficult to balance, and I think it finding a more focused role in Pantheon wouldn't be a bad thing at all.