Nekros feels like a weak support, not Necromancer

[Bristoling]

TL:DR

Nekros is a bit under powered and only good for extra life support like some kind of additional Smeeta kavat, his tanking capabilities are restrictive/weak (you don't see them in Index for example). Also, has trouble killing in long endless missions which he needs to do to cast his 4th, which in turn makes him squishy once his (not his teams) kills per minute go down.

 

Let me start this by saying that the overall theme and look of Nekros is great, and I like the frame a lot. However, I think there is a lot of wasted potential and some of the design choices prevent Nekros from being a great frame. Anytime I play as Nekros, it feels like I'm only there to provide others with some extra life support in Kuva Survivals or a tiny bit extra loot/healing in the Void so they can gather more Argon crystals. While everyone else is buffing the team offensively with damage or attack speed, providing extra defense like healing, crowd control and extra armour, or just straight up killing everything in sight, Nekros is just there to... bring more loot and life support. Playing Nekros feels like playing a weak support frame rather then master of life and death. 

There's a couple of problems with the Frame that are apparent to me:

1. Mod space hungry: He requires a Syndicate mod (Despoil) in order to function, a Simaris mod to be able to have any survivability at all (Health Conversion), another Syndicate mod to be able to survive in higher levels (Shield of Shadows) and Equilibrium to have enough energy to feed his 4th ability. This is 4 mods for the frame to just be able to keep up in survivability with the rest of the squad. Since you want a good amount of power strength for your 4th ability to be actually useful, this means you need to use either Blind Rage/Transient Fortitude + Power Drift, which locks another main and exilus slot. Add in Vitality, and the only 3 mods left for customisation are an aura slot and 2 main slots. You might want to use either Continuity or Range reducing your choices even more.

2. Costly: The current cost of these required mods on the market is: 12+p for Despoil, 15+p for SoS, 60p for Health Conversion and 20p for Equilibrium. Add 30p for one of the corrupted mods and you need to spend minimum of 130p to have a decent working build.

3. Not as great of a tank as other frames: You could say that Nekros is a tank and his job is to provide loot and life support, which kind of is true. But, the cost of getting Nekros to be able to tank is very high while other frames can just press a button to get free 90-95% damage reduction or thousands of extra hit points, no augments needed. Not to mention, his defences aren't as reliable and he can be easily taken out by just bad luck. You could:

- get ragdolled a few times in a row and your Health Conversion armuor will go puff if there are no health orbs nearby

- have a leech eximus behind a wall, draining your energy so you can't cast your 4 when its about to expire

- you can't be mobile since being outside of range of your Shield of Shadows means you're going to die very quickly in higher levels

4. For 20 minute survival missions, which is a "standard" for majority, you don't need Nekros. For missions longer then 20 minutes (1 hour or more), Nekros needs to be able to survive in the first place. But since Nekros doesn't have any ways of scaling damage, and he requires actual kills (your teammates don't count) to cast his Shield of Shadows, it's easy for him to hit a wall when suddenly his tankiness can no longer be sustained. 

5. The visual clutter is very problematic especially for Prime variant. Not only you got your Shadows blocking your view and soaking up your bullets/projectiles, you also have to deal with your wings flapping around the camera as you move around. Your 4th ability which you need to use to have any decent survivability is a nuisance for your confused teammates, but also for yourself if your weapon doesn't have any punch through.

6. People enjoy extra loot and life support but hate your 4th ability with passion so more often then not you feel pressured into not using it, leaving you vulnerable. 

7. You're only useful for Survival missions, anywhere else you are being carried by others or only there for that extra Argon crystal, Endo (arena) or Orokin Cell drop chance.

 

Those might not be the best solutions, but here are my ideas to improve his abilities to work a bit better together:

1. Soul Punch. The damage is Impact based, meaning it's one of the worse damage types, its single target, and damage itself doesn't scale well. It has an ok CC, but in a horde game such as Warframe you want something more reliable then a single target ragdoll skill. In my humble opinion, Soul Punch should be slightly reworked to synergise better with the rest of Nekros abilities. The damage itself could be completely scrapped since nobody is using it for damage, what could be done however, is stunning the target for base of 2-5 seconds (no ragdolling), and target's soul instead of being shot out could be just hanging behind the target. The soul could have -80% of the target's original armour value or simply take increased damage, and damaging it would deal proportional amount of damage to the target itself. Target who's soul has been destroyed are added to Shield of Shadow's pool of available summons, so that even if your teammates destroy it, you can summon them later. Souls would also be prioritised by your summoned Shadows, and with reduced armour this would work like marking an enemy for your Shadows to attack.

The augment is kind of weak considering it is highly situational and consumes all of the energy - it should also provide 1 second of invulnerability to the target per mod rank.

2. Terrify: The CC potential is great however, the high energy cost of 75 is really preventing this ability from being useful, since most Nekros players run around with 50-80% efficiency. Also, Nekros is geared towards being good in survival missions, so you don't want the targets to run away, you want to kill enemies in order to get more life support. The augment helps prevent that, however, it's yet another mod slot on an already stuffed build. To add insult to the injury, the armour stripping is only temporary, while armour removal abilities of other frames don't suffer from this. Having the armour stripping component be permanent or the cast time/cost be lowered instead would help making this ability much more useful in general. Creeping Terrify augment could also open up the enemies to finishers if attacked by Nekros, along with its movement speed reduction. This would help Nekros be able to still kill high level enemies so he can keep casting Shield of Shadows.

3. Desecrate: Pretty much the only ability of Nekros that prevents him from being a meme frame, and the only ability I wouldn't change, but if the frame cannot be buffed in other places because of how good Desecrate is, maybe reducing the extra loot chance from 22.5-54% to 20-40% would be appropriate.

4. Shadows of the Dead: Nekros's tank ability, requiring a big investment of power strength. While good, it has numerous downsides:

- Shadows can get in the way of bullets for both you and you teammates.

- Your team (and yourself) wastes their ammo trying to attack your summons, even while using bright energy colors (which again, doesn't help much when Ancient Disruptors are around). 

- Their damage is pitiful in higher levels.

- The amount of power strength required to get 90% damage reduction is very high (+114%) compared to other abilities. Compare that to Parasitic Link (80%), Splinter Storm (29%), Shatter Shield (19%), and abilities like Iron Skin, Turbulance or Warding Halo that work well with no power strength invested, 

- You need to actively kill in order to cast it, which gets harder and harder in long endless missions.

- Requires an augment to do its thing.

- While other frames have "press 4 to win", Nekros feels like its "press 4 to hang on".

Since they are technically Shadows, maybe player bullets and projectiles should go through them. Augment's bonus should be innate to the skill itself, and the augment should have some new modifier. For example, if previous skill changes gone through, then Augment further amplifying damage of your minions would enable new gameplay where you strip armour of your enemies with your Terrify and open them for finishers with he Creeping Terrify augment, mark a single enemy for your buffed minions to focus fire with Soul Punch, and actually play like a Necromancer who's dispatching enemies with his minions, not with his weapons only and help of other players.

 

Edited October 13, 2018 by Bristoling

[Wyrmius_Prime]

Nekros is a survival loot frame. That's about it.

[(XBOX)GearsMatrix301]

1 hour ago, Wyrmius_Prime said:

Nekros is a survival loot frame. That's about it.

Yeah, but he could kinda stand to be more. Minions in general need a buff and soul punch could use some sort of addition like smites % Damage or something like that.

[Wyrmius_Prime]

3 hours ago, (XB1)GearsMatrix301 said:

Yeah, but he could kinda stand to be more. Minions in general need a buff and soul punch could use some sort of addition like smites % Damage or something like that.

Soul Punch could be changed to literally punch out the soul of an enemy, creating an ally ghost similar to how Ballistica Prime's charged shots work. Minions indeed need a buff, because enemy damage is piss poor relative to their own health. Terrify base cost should be lowered to 50 and what OP suggested for the augment sounds really great.

[Sasuda]

I don't fully agree with little things but I'll nitpick later.

Another huge problem I find Nekros's cast times are obscene. Only Soul Punch is quick. Add Natural Talent to the long list of mods Nekros starves for.
As well as Nekros takes a lot of build-up to have any solid foothold, building Health Conversion charges and Shadows takes a while. If you happen to make a mistake or get caught in an unlucky situation, returning after reviving is pretty much impossible. If you lose one life you lose all 4 pretty easily.

 

Nekros is extreme for being augment hungry, probably his biggest obvious issue really lies in that IMO.
Despoil could be baked in. It's also a bit of a troubled ability since it operates pretty much as a passive to begin with. Generally if you have Nekros his 3rd is turned on always. It's kind of pointless as an active ability when it's not... active.
I definitely wouldn't nerf it. The loss of being able to active cast it was nerf enough. I think this ability needs some of it's active casting passed back to it, maybe tap to actively cause drops and hold to activate? Although that unfortunately goes back to the next issue

Desecrate alongside Shadows also really bogs down Nekros's mobility, better/also-worse than before. On one hand he's not needing to sit and spam cast to be useful, on the other he's sitting and waiting for loot to appear at all making him really junky to play in fast paced missions,.
I almost want Desecrate/Despoil to just be his passive if it doen't have active casting of it, but it can't be nerfed. It'd be nice to open up the slot for a more engaging ability. But like I said this ability can't be nerfed or Nekros simply will lose his place from being super valuable for reducing grind to being a potentially pretty average frame. I feel it's kind of unlikely to happen, although it would be my personal ideal, so having active casting may be the target goal here. Or it'll need some sort of valuable side effect.

Terrify causing enemies to run is part of his damage problems along with only reducing armor not doing much to plenty of other higher threat enemies of other factions. So the Augment is again almost required here too. I could see this one being baked in too. It also currently makes enemies look just like shadows which only adds to the visual problems there.

The fact Shadows don't appear like Ballistica Prime ghosts and we still can't shoot through them boggles me. It definitely needs it.
Augment isn't quite as required I think but definitely close to being required. I think it feels required because of how desecrate pushes Nekros to long term less mobile missions where it is required. I think It can stay as an augment but NEEDS cast speed boosts and perhaps an effect for when no shadows are available or something.Changes to Desecrate could naturally reduce the feeling of needing the augment probably.
 

Would be great if Soul Punch could open more potential for damage for Nekros I think. Could use spam cast multipliers/cost reduction potentially. Perhaps  some sort of hold cast option. ex. holding grabs and quickly drains a single target of health % based, but Nekros loses mobility while holding. Guarantees kills but puts Nekros at risk to do so. Of there was a way to build ability synergy it could work too, although Terrify is the only decent option for that since Desecrate and Shadows are both kinda too passively oriented operating too much in the background to assist. Still Soul Punching a terrified enemy to deal significant damage %wise or even kill a single target could do a lot for Nekros's kill preoblems


 

[Bristoling]

Thanks for responses guys.

Wyrmius, I agree that Nekros is "survival loot frame", but let's be honest, if you do long survivals you don't bring Nekros for extra Orokin Cell or other rare drops 😄 only for life support. So he essentially just extends the time before you need to start using capsules while not really doing anything else much, and like Sasuda brought up, more often then not you are just sitting there waiting for Desecrate to do its work. Rescue, Exterminate, Sabotage, Spy, Assassination, Capture, Interception, basically anywhere where you don't sit in one place like Defense and Survival, your Desecrate will be just leaving loot behind you as you bullet jump to the objective - and you will be constantly out of range of Shadows. And even for Defense, Nekros doesn't contribute in offensive or defensive manner, and is even a hindrance once your team starts shooting your Shadows. So there's 1-2 mission types where he can be actually useful (Survival and Excavation for extra power cell drop).

I agree with you Sasuda that Nekros is too passive. Get your 3 to work in the background, and press your 4 every 30-60s, never use 1 since it doesn't do anything above level 40, and only cast 2 as a panic button since you need that energy to refresh your 4. So yeah, you end up using pretty much only 2 abilities where one is a toggle and second one is only used once a minute or so.

One thing I don't agree with you is putting Despoil's mechanic into Desecrate, and that's because when your frame isn't level 30, the chance for extra drop is rather low, and you won't be able to sustain your health pool while leveling Nekros. 

Edited October 14, 2018 by Bristoling

[Sasuda]

16 hours ago, Bristoling said:

One thing I don't agree with you is putting Despoil's mechanic into Desecrate, and that's because when your frame isn't level 30, the chance for extra drop is rather low, and you won't be able to sustain your health pool while leveling Nekros.

Yeah, I agree and did actually realize this but getting into the meat of it gets a bit ugly because of the various potentials. This is why it's as troubled as it is, because it's not straightforward to change. But this is also part of why ideally it would be Nekros's passive in my mind, leveling it wouldn't be an issue and it would basically operate the same. Again I don't think this is super likely to happen.

So there are other options which also work, the most straightforward being simply altering it's progression to rank 30. The one that strikes me as the most obvious solution is to instead of ranks increasing % chance, ranks increase frequency at which bodies are looted. It's already build into the system of the ability.
Currently 54% drop table chance at max would be made constant instead of being 22.5% / 32% / 42.5% / 54%
And then change subsequent corpses taking 1 second of delay between consumptions to 4s / 3s/ 2s / 1s of delay between consumptions

Effectively it's basically the same and again on top of that the option to forcibly recast it would be added to allow getting drops as needed but at the cost of draining health and being restricted to a cast animation.
 

There are solutions that keep it as an augment but I still think Nekros's Augment demand is his biggest issue, And then when it comes to opening up mod slots it gets a bit trickier.
Although given Terrify could have it's augment baked in (I think this is the one augment it's easiest for me to say should definitely be built in personally) and then Shield of Shadows could be baked in, which would alleviate a bit of augment stress. But I feel like that's worse for a number of reasons.  Shield of Shadows is something that alters Nekros is a way that feels makes sense to be an augment and I don't use it on every Nekros build. But I do use Despoil on every Nekros build. Making Nekros super resistant to damage feels like it's good as an option for him. I'd prefer if his other Augments lent to giving him other options for his builds, so that I don't feel I need multiple augments and accompanying mods.

Then there's the possibilities of changing Nekros's armor & health values which I don't think really opens up his mod situation or potential for more active play, unfortunately it'd just buff him. Which would feel like kind of the laziest fix for me.

And all of this said the leveling process... kinda... isn't that... important... really... It's a pretty limited portion of how much time is spent in a frame. Worst case you'd turn it on and off when you were leveling until it self sustained well enough. Or use an efficiency mod, equilibrium, rejuvenation, Life steal, or kill things fast enough to heal with Soul Siphon.

[voltocitygel]

This is true. Hopefully they continue to go down the list of frames that need to be reworked, which nekros is soon to be at the top of. 

[Gurpgork]

I'm totally with you on this. Especially after the Nezha rework, it's seriously glaring how badly Nekros is in need of changes, because Nekros's strongest gimmick, which was health orb generation, is done much better by Nezha. And the kicker there is that Nezha's health orb generation comes from an abiliity that actually, like, does something. 

And this is glossing over how health orbs are just totally out of place in Nekros's kit to begin with. 

His cast times are bad, Soul Punch is useless, and SotD confines him to one spot under pain of spending 100 energy to move them. 

I've thought up a loooooooooooooooong list of things that I would change about Nekros over the years, but I'd honestly take anything at this point. Anything that makes him feel more fluid, less passive, and more useful. 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Gurpgork

[Bristoling]

Quote

And all of this said the leveling process... kinda... isn't that... important... really... It's a pretty limited portion of how much time is spent in a frame.

I absolutely agree with you on this point, but most game developers don't want new players to pick up a frame and start losing life because they are using cracked mods and their freshly market bought Braton 😄 I mean it all depends how it is actually handled. Anyway your idea is quite interesting, and anything that reduces the number of "must have" mods would be a great help to the frame.

 

Quote

I've thought up a loooooooooooooooong list of things that I would change about Nekros over the years, but I'd honestly take anything at this point. Anything that makes him feel more fluid, less passive, and more useful. 

So much this. I don't know, maybe even give Shadows of the Dead some kind of "exalted weapon" treatment, where you could put companion/weapon mods to enhance damage or their status chance or something. Probably a nightmare to code and implement, but just throwing and idea out 😆 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Bristoling

[DiabolusUrsus]

As a Nekros main, I disagree that he feels like a weak support. He's more of a tank than anything else, provided he's built thoughtfully.

Despoil + Equilibrium + Health Conversion gives him effectively infinite energy and ~82% damage reduction.

I add Shield of Shadows for status proc and knockdown immunity, with the minor damage reduction as an extra bonus.

DON'T build for excessive duration, because SOTD is buggy as hell when it comes to teleporting on recast. You can easily find yourself out of range for Shield of Shadows with a long time to wait for them to die.

The recent buff to Health Conversion (stacks don't dispel due to shield damage) makes it a lot more reliable, so I was able to trade some power strength for Natural Talent.

That said, Nekros certainly has his problems.

Creeping Terrify should not be an augment. It should be part of the baseline ability, because otherwise the ability isn't worth casting except as a panic button. It is also RIDICULOUSLY expensive for what it is. It would be sub-par as a standard 50-energy 2, let alone costing 75 energy. The fact that SOTD doesn't get a recast-discount only makes this problem worse.

Soul Punch is also pretty pointless. It's sometimes funny to insta-kill a heavy Grineer by ragdolling it onto a railing - the AI bugs out, can't seem to get up, and the game eventually just gives up and kills it - but that's it. The augment is sorta okay-ish, but I'd prefer for the power to be reworked.

I'd propose these changes as a baseline helping hand:

• Soul Punch renamed to Harvester.
• Harvester disembodies target soul for X seconds, causing the victim to wander aimlessly.
• Destroying the soul (same stats as the body) kills the victim and buffs SotD. Dunno what buff yet, but it should add Synergy.
• Casting Harvester on a Shadow destroys it (maybe explodes?)
• Terrify now costs 50 energy.
• Terrify now includes Creeping Terrify by default, and gets a new augment (ideas?).
• Desecrate corpse speed is now boosted by power strength.
• Desecrate once again guarantees health orbs.
• SotD now teleports within range automatically, instead of on recast.
• Shadows now have no collision for allied attacks.
• Shadows now have an overhead marker icon, visible through walls.

A pipe dream would be a full SotD rework to use unique summoned undead instead of copies of enemies (this would help with the identification problems). Shadow stats could still be influenced by the stats of the slain enemies used as fuel.

Edited October 16, 2018 by DiabolusUrsus

[Teridax68]

I don't fully agree that Nekros feels all that weak, from the times on occasion where I've played him, but I do agree that he could stand to be improved in many ways. My general criticism of him:

• His kit lack internal synergy: Nekros gained a lot of functionality with his rework, and ties in pretty okay with a very specific combination of mods, but still has a bunch of abilities that are completely disjointed from each other, and all go in different directions: Soul Punch is a single-target ragdoll, Terrify is another CC effect that disperses enemies, Desecrate is a toggled loot ability, and Shadows of the Dead is a minion summon. Besides the largely indirect nature of Nekros's power, there is no real interaction between these effects.
• He's way too dependent on augments: Nekros I think is a prime case of a frame whose augments are band-aids to otherwise deficient abilities: Soul Survivor is essentially the only thing that makes Soul Punch worth using in most cases, Creeping Terrify is necessary to make Terrify not actively detrimental to the player and their team in most cases, Despoil breaks Desecrate's energy economy, and so is essentially mandatory, and Shield of Shadows is what makes Nekros survivable, alongside Health Conversion. More than any other, Nekros is a frame that needs a lot of high-end mods in order to start being functional, and that's not good.
• His niche is wrong and should probably not exist: As mentioned by many others, Nekros is usually picked for one thing, and one thing only, namely his ability to increase drops. This is completely different from the fantasy he's presented with, which is one of a terrifying necromancer who manipulates the remains of his enemies to do his bidding. In general, the idea of increasing loot drops is attractive purely because of how it optimizes certain modes of farming, rather than because it adds to gameplay (it doesn't), and so I feel it might be better to simply remove loot-increasing effects altogether, in exchange for other benefits, and otherwise rebalance certain drop rates if they're too low without those effects.

With this in mind, what I think any sort of Nekros changes should aim for:

• Make Nekros's kit internally cohesive and self-sufficient without requiring mods: This I think should be the most important part. Nekros should not have to rely on band-aids in order for his whole kit to work, and work with itself. He could still have very useful augments, but these augments should not be necessary to make his abilities functional or worth using.
• Satisfy Nekros's theme and power fantasy as a necromancer: Nekros deserves to do a lot more stuff with death and dead enemies, and that stuff should be cool in and of itself. He should fit a gameplay niche, but that niche should depend on his ability to apply control through his powers, not just act as a walking loot drop booster.
• Improve Nekros's quality of life: As mentioned in the OP, some aspects of Nekros are inconvenient when they shouldn't be. Shadows of the Dead, in particular, takes up a huge amount of visual space at all times, to a degree that is often inconvenient to both Nekros and his teammates. This needs to change.

Off the top of my head, here's what I'd suggest to improve him:

• Effects highlighted in red are affected by Power Strength, effects highlighted in blue are affected by Power Efficiency, effects highlighted in green are affected by Power Duration, and effects highlighted in orange are affected by Power Range.
• Passive - Necromancer: 
  • Nekros steals the souls of enemies who die within 10 meters of him or his minions, up to a maximum of 3, as well as enemies he or his minions kill directly. Additionally, certain of Nekros's abilities spawn Shadows of slain enemies, up to 3 at a time, which fight permanently by Nekros's side. Stronger souls replace weaker souls in storage, and Shadows return to Nekros's store of souls when they fall.
  • Shadows are extremely aggressive and seek out enemies to kill, dealing 5% of the target's maximum health on-hit, modified inversely by their base attack speed. Additionally, each Shadow grants Nekros bonus health, shields and armor equal to 1% of their maximum health, shields and armor respectively.
  • Every time a soul is stolen or a Shadow dissipates, Nekros and his Shadows have their health and shields restored by 1% of the soul's maximum health and shields, respectively.
  • Shadows become increasingly transparent to the viewer the closer they are to the player's reticle, and are untargetable to allies, causing all allied attacks to pass through them without interruption.
• 1 - Soul Rip: Nekros rips out the target enemy's very soul, dealing 20 / 25 / 30 / 35% of the target's missing health and shields as Slash damage. The target's soul is thrown out of their body and ragdolled, applying the same flat damage to every other enemy it passes through. The untargetable soul will then attempt to walk back towards its body and rejoin it, during which time the enemy is stunned. If the enemy is killed by Soul Rip or while under its effects, the stolen soul is immediately summoned as a Shadow if it is strong enough, dissipating a weaker Shadow if the cap is reached. Costs 25 Energy.
  • Augment - Soul Survivor: Soul Rip can be used on a downed ally, including Nekros himself, to revive the target instantly and make them immune to damage and status for 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 seconds, consuming the health and shields of his Shadows, as well as all of his Energy, to restore the same flat amount to the fallen target, with 5 / 10 / 15 / 20% efficiency. If no Shadows are available, Nekros cannot revive himself, and draws upon his own health and shields to heal an ally with ten times the base efficiency. If Nekros is alone and has this mod equipped, taking fatal damage with Shadows active puts him in a bleedout state, as if he were with allies.
• 2 - Terrify: Nekros strikes fear into all enemies within 9 / 11 / 13 / 15 meters in front of him. For the next 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 seconds, these enemies flee towards non-feared units of the same faction, including corpses and Shadows, cowering at their feet. If none are nearby, these enemies instead flee towards the nearest piece of cover and cower for the duration. Costs 50 Energy.
  • Augment renamed to Terrifying Aura: affected enemies project an aura 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 meters around them, causing all enemies within the radius to be visible and targetable through terrain, while having their armor and shields reduced by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35%.
• 3 - Desecrate: Nekros charges to permanently mark all enemies and Shadows in the target radius, whether they are alive or dead, with a minimum range of 1 meter and a maximum range of 5 meters. Marked enemies explode on death, or immediately if they're a corpse, dealing 125 / 150 / 175 / 200 + 15% of their maximum health and shields as Viral damage to all enemies within 5 meters. Dismembered body parts each count as separate corpses, and Shadows explode and dissipate instantly when marked. If no enemies are affected, Desecrate costs no Energy when dissipating Shadows. Costs 15 Energy, increasing as the ability charges, up to a maximum of 75 Energy.
  • Augment renamed to Mass Desecrate: Enemies hit by Desecrate's corpse explosion receive a guaranteed Viral status effect for 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 seconds, starting prior to receiving the damage, and become marked by Desecrate for the duration, repeating indefinitely.
• 4 - Shadows of the Dead: Passively, Nekros can store additional souls and spawn additional Shadows, up to a maximum of 4 / 5 / 6 / 7. When pressed, Nekros summons his strongest stored souls by his side as Shadows, until the maximum number is reached, his store of souls is expended, or he no longer has enough Energy to continue summoning. Stronger souls in store replace weaker Shadows, dissipating them instantly. When held, Nekros directs all Shadows to focus the target area or enemy, instantly teleporting Shadows there that are out of his line of sight. Costs 15 Energy to summon a Shadow.
  • Augment renamed to Hunger of the Dead: Summoning or redirecting a Shadow frenzies all Shadows for 4 / 6 / 8 / 10 seconds, causing them to revert to melee range for the duration, but also gain 40 / 60 / 80 / 100% increased movement and attack speed.

The general idea here is to make Nekros an intense, minion-mancing caster frame, focused around controlling shifting areas of the battlefield with a combination of crowd control and minions. He'd start out fairly weak, as he'd need to build up a stock of minions first, but as a mission would progress he'd become increasingly powerful, and would scale better at higher levels. His abilities would largely remain the same, with the notable exception of his 3, but would mostly instead gain functionality and some internal synergy (Terrify would cause enemies to clump up around enemies affected by his 1, corpses he could blow up with his 3, or minions spawned with 1 or 4, for example).

Edited October 16, 2018 by Teridax68

[DiabolusUrsus]

@Teridax68

Love some of your ideas here!

[MirageKnight]

Can we also NOT have Oberon's Renewal affect Shadows? Because that's still a very irritating, wasteful, and needless mechanic that only serves to punish players with "healer" Oberon builds. Having Renewal heal minions that are INTENDED to decay ANYWAY makes absolutely no sense.

Love your ideas Diab and Teridax: I really hope DE reads this!

45 minutes ago, Teridax68 said:

As mentioned by many others, Nekros is usually picked for one thing, and one thing only, namely his ability to increase drops. This is completely different from the fantasy he's presented with, which is one of a terrifying necromancer who manipulates the remains of his enemies to do his bidding.

So true.

[Bristoling]

There's some serious effort and good ideas there, hopefully DE will take a look at Nekros at some point.

 

Quote

Can we also NOT have Oberon's Renewal affect Shadows? Because that's still a very irritating, wasteful, and needless mechanic that only serves to punish players with "healer" Oberon builds. Having Renewal heal minions that are INTENDED to decay ANYWAY makes absolutely no sense.

Well, I think it is fine as it is. As it is now, minions dps difference between level 30 and 100 is pretty much non-existent once your enemies are level 100 with higher armor, they might as well not attack at all. But them being healed constantly lets you forget about recasting them, which on one hand makes it slightly easier, but on another hand... well, you might as well remove his abilities and put them in his passive since there isn't anything left for Nekros to do apart from recasting Shadows and occasional Terrify while you revive someone.

Edited October 20, 2018 by Bristoling

[(PSN)Quite_the_Cactus]

1 hour ago, Bristoling said:

Well, I think it is fine as it is. As it is now, minions dps difference between level 30 and 100 is pretty much non-existent once your enemies are level 100 with higher armor, they might as well not attack at all. But them being healed constantly lets you forget about recasting them, which on one hand makes it slightly easier, but on another hand... well, you might as well remove his abilities and put them in his passive since there isn't anything left for Nekros to do apart from recasting Shadows and occasional Terrify while you revive someone.

It is not fine when you're Oberon and you're losing 10.5 energy per second while healing 7 Shadows whose health is constantly decaying. And that is before adding in the cost for having Renewal on yourself and teammates.

The number above is based on a 1.5 energy/second build, which is in the more efficient range of the spectrum when it comes to Renewal's energy cost. With my build at 95% efficiency, it costs about 31 energy/second for 7 Shadows. (more or less, I can't recall the exact cost)

As @MirageKnight pointed out, the Shadows are meant to decay. Renewal shouldn't affect them.

[Bristoling]

2 hours ago, (PS4)Maverael said:

It is not fine when you're Oberon and you're losing 10.5 energy per second while healing 7 Shadows whose health is constantly decaying. And that is before adding in the cost for having Renewal on yourself and teammates.

The number above is based on a 1.5 energy/second build, which is in the more efficient range of the spectrum when it comes to Renewal's energy cost. With my build at 95% efficiency, it costs about 31 energy/second for 7 Shadows. (more or less, I can't recall the exact cost)

As @MirageKnight pointed out, the Shadows are meant to decay. Renewal shouldn't affect them.

My bad, I totally forgot Oberon uses extra energy per ally healed. That definitely should be fixed.