[Specters of the Rail: U2.1 - Nekros Changes]

So I was a very passive Nekros player because I actually disliked being shoehorned in the desecrate build (and could only find information on desecrate builds over Shadows or Terrify. But the Terrify build is recent so I can excuse that). Sort of felt as though I'd just be sitting in the middle of a survival or defense and constantly press 3. Went for Ivara for loot farming since she was a lot more interactive.

I like the quality of life changes, I actually feel as though I could do a different build and have desecrate be focused on energy over health with proper modding.
Though I'm a bit confused on the scalings of Shadows of the Dead. Well one, I don't know what goes into the algorithm when it picks specters. In an infested survival I ran, sometimes I was stuck with an assortment of ancients. The next, I'd have a well rounded mix. I much preferred a well rounded mix over all one singular type of enemy, though to each their own.
Though, maybe it's because I don't understand how to mod for them, it seemed that at a certain point, all the specters would just die. I could be recasting 4 to help regain the health, and I may as well have left them die and not cast Shadows again because of the health drain (which surprised me, never seen it mentioned). Reading here, it seems that there is a health drain that is aided with power strength (?, either that or duration, I'm having difficulties reading with how people are saying it. Shows how well I know the technical lingo). I would like to ask, why that was included? I feel it actively discourages people from building Shadows. Why would they? They become useless after a certain level, even if you manage to have 200% power strength (assuming this works like other 'diminishing returns'/'feast or famine' builds, and considering the specters still work similarly to the old ability, about level 65 (ish) is where I see Shadows of the Damned having issues remaining up if you had the high power strength build if I'm calculating it right according to what I know and what people are saying. I think my build ran at 145 power strength and I ran into issues at level 30).

I understand the specter limit at 7. It's also bugged. A couple times I've gotten 8~10 specters, no reasons given. But I also feel as though the ability is... lackluster? With that limit, I sort of feel as though I'm limited on the benefits that you gotten from the old ability. Maybe it's because I hadn't had the chance to mod for the newer Shadows properly, but I don't think I'll be using a Shadows build anytime soon. From what I have seen, I am better off pursuing a Terrify build if I don't want a desecrate one. I enjoy going into survivals for a long period of time, and I don't think I would be able to stay the hour+ time I like staying with a Shadow's build.

I don't know. I like the changes, I don't like the current ratios. I do wish I had more specters, but I know it'll probably remain at 7 because I watched the dev stream (or prime time, I forget which) associated with it and I understand the reasoning for it (maybe it'll go up 8~9, maybe. I can hope).

I know a lot of work went into this and while this isn't what I expected, I am glad there were changes to desecrate. Feels a lot better now and I do feel like playing more of Nekros.