New And Improved Nekros

[BlueAnchorite]

This is a general reworking of Nekros' mechanics for his abilites to introduce synergy and make him a viable damage dealing frame, not just a loot dispenser.

 

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Soul Punch - Now splits a targets soul into three pieces, which each track a target like Nyx's Psychic Bolts. These attacks still cause a small AoE ragdoll/stagger effect upon enemies. Soul Punch will synergise with Terrify and Shadows of the Dead in different ways, as follows.

 

Using Soul Punch upon an enemy that is Terrified will give a damage increase to the ability, along with a chance to proc Terrify on the hit enemies for the remaining duration.

 

Using Soul Punch on one of your shadows, seeing how they are a pure/whole soul, destroys the shadow, but transforms the soul into a projectile which has a larger AoE effect and will cause a ragdoll on all hit enemies.

 

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Terrify - Taking in mind the current state of Terrify after the recent patch, which can affect more enemies, but has a reduced range, keep the amount of enemies that can be Terrified at 20, however, all enemies now move outwards from Nekros when Terrified, and any enemy that comes in range of someone with the Terrify debuff has a chance (possibly based on power strength) to themselves be afflicted with the debuff for its remaining duration.

 

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Desecrate - Keep the functionality of this ability, but instead make it a toggle ability that drains energy per second, allowing it to make use of the augment mod to drain health instead of energy. This allows Nekros to still bring the additional utility while helping the team by not spamming desecrate every chance he gets.

 

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Shadows of the Dead - The latest patch allowed use to be able to walk through the shadows, this needs to be taken slightly further, allowing us to shoot through shadows, while they absorb enemy gunfire. On top of this, the way the soul cache for Nekros works needs to be slightly changed, where enemies in his cache are constantly being checked. If he gains a soul that is higher level or has higher priority over ones in his possession, take out the lowest soul and put the new one in. This insures that Nekros has the best souls of enemies he has killed at his disposal. 

 

The shadows should also have a slight AI change, where when summoned they are set to "protect" mode, following Nekros in a loose ring around him to protect him and nearby allies. However, anytime that the ability is active, holding 4/middle mouse button with Shadows selected, will allow you to hit the "Use" key, marking the spot for your Shadows to defend that area, rather than following you. At any time casting Shadows again while its still active and your Shadows are defending, they will return to your side (whether they return to you by running, or instead travelling as souls through walls and enemies is something to discuss). 

 

A thought I've toyed around with is the possibility of Nekros gaining souls from enemies bodies that he desecrates as well, again using the sorting system for his soul cache.

 

I think overall that these changes would bring Nekros into a fun playable frame that isn't just going to be used for the additional loot that he provides with desecrate, allowing for him to actually be used for CC and damage.

Edited February 3, 2015 by BlueAnchorite

[Mirriky]

I like this

[BlueAnchorite]

Come on guys, no other thoughts? seriously?

[BlueAnchorite]

I would really like to know if my idea's need to be changed or if people would prefer to see something like this, as I think these changes pose a good way to improve Nekros

Edited February 9, 2015 by BlueAnchorite

[theammostore]

I don't really agree with the 'commanding your shadows' thing as that seems to be a bit much in my opinion. Give them a much more aggressive AI with better pathfinding and no self preservation skills (other than support units like ospreys) and i think they'll be fixed right then and there. Right now they seem to enjoy taking cover more than actually fighting, and while that is commendable to a real soldier, they're dead, they don't need to try to survive.

[BlueAnchorite]

The idea of letting you control them is that they are mainly intended to draw fire from Nekros, so if they had this aggressive AI instead of following you, they would need some form of forcing the enemy to attack them rather than attacking Nekros.

[Smejky]

About Desecrate, well the proposed change to toggle is nice, but what about giving nekros a passive ability to double amount of drops from enemies (passive desecrate), and make the desecrate make something else? 

Edited February 15, 2015 by Smejky

[BlueAnchorite]

About Desecrate, well the proposed change to toggle is nice, but what about giving nekros a passive ability to double amount of drops from enemies (passive desecrate), and make the desecrate make something else? 

I'll be honest, that's way, way too powerful. Because being a passive effect means there wouldn't (presumably) be an energy cost like current Desecrate or my proposed changes do.

 

The reason I chose to make Desecrate a toggle, is that it still accomplishes what the current Desecrate does, except it now allows people to use his other abilities without worrying about missing Desecrate, along with not requiring the current augment for Desecrate to change at all.