NEKROS' REWORK ideas, better at debuffing enemies, less annoying with his terrify and less confusing with his shadows

[Liloon]

Disclaimer - I'm Pole, english is not my mother language XD

As a Nekros player I'm not very fond of his powers and synergies as they are currently, so I have some ideas to change his abilities.

Starting with his passive:

- PASSIVE:
Nekros regenerates small amount of health with every nearby enemy death (15m instead of 10).
5 points of health are regenerated with unaffected enemy, 10 with a terrified one.
Also, Nekros gains 1 "soul" with every kill to enhance his abilities (special counter has to be created)

 

- SOUL PUNCH:
Name changed to "SOUL RAIN":
Nekros releases a rain of souls that seek enemies within range, with a chance to cause so much stress that target's blood vessels may rupture. 

6/8/10/12 souls realeased per ability rank, number of souls affected with power strength.
150/250/350/450 dmg (affected by power strenght).
10/13/16/19 meters of range affected with range mods. 
10/16/22/28% chance to cause bleeding status effect (also affected by power strength).
50 energy cost and if charged - given amount of souls. Cost and soul drain affected by efficienty mods.

Effect would be similar to a new Pax Seeker arcane, souls would come from Nekros' body during cast animation and would be "distributed" among enemies equaly but one target cannot be hit by more than 3 souls per cast. Holding the cast button will cause Nekros to consume his gathered souls to increase damage, consuming up to 60 souls, with every 20 of which the damage would be multiplied by 1.5x and status chance increased by 10% (affected by power strength). "Full" charging shouldn't take more than 2 seconds. "Unused" souls would seek allies to heal them by 2/3/4/5% of nekros' current health value, affected by power strenght.

I'm not sure of the amount of damage given above. Whether they should be increased or decreased Nekros' purpose would not be to clear rooms of enemies with this ability (at least in high level missions) rather than debuffing them by reducing their health with slash procs.

AUGMENT:
Some souls will target downed allies and revive them with 4/8/12% health (per soul that hit an ally, affected by strength) within range. Downed ally cannot be a target for more than 5 souls at once.

 

- TERRIFY:
Casts fear into the hearts of nearby enemies, causing them to lose their focus and lower their defenses.

Enemies are no loger fleeing, but cannot think "straight" because of fear. Ability is now an AURA which effect "stays" with affected enemy with remaining ability duration, even if they leave ability range zone. Affected enemies has less accuracy and are more vulnerable to damage. You can recast this ability to refresh remaining duration.

9/11/14/17 meters of range, affected with range mods.
9/11/14/17% accuracy debuff, affected with strength.
9/11/14/17% damage bonus dealt to terrified enemies, affected by strength.
10/17/24/31 seconds of ability duration, affected by mods.
6/9/12/15 seconds of ability effect on enemies, if enemy has left ability range zone, affected with duration mods.
75 energy cost, affected with efficienty.

Also, terrified enemies are more vulnerable to Soul Rain and are prioritized as targets, souls deal 2x damage to them and make them panic for 2/3/4/5 seconds, affected with duration mods.

AUGMENT:
Moving speed of affected targets is reduced (No changes).

 

- DESECRATE:

No changes, also with it's augment.

 

- SHADOWS OF THE DEAD:
Nekros summons hellish shadows, that aid him in battle.

The biggest issue with this ability is that your shadows don't do much, really, and are often confusing to other players.

The change here would be that Nekros summons always THE SAME ghost-like creatures instead of fallen enemies shadows. That would prevent other players to confuse shadows with real enemies. Their form of attack would be a "soul spit", every Shadow would target a single enemy and spit one soul per second at them that deals impact damage with a chance to cause a viral status effect, consuming 3 souls from Nekros' counter if a viral status effect takes place but status' effect would last for a given duration instead of it's "natural" duration. Shadows would target a different enemy if a viral status effect is apllied to a previously targeted one. They would also distract enemies but couldn't be harmed by their fire (due to being ghosts basically) but their health would decay over time. This status effect cannot be applied to enemies if soul counter reaches 0.

They would also partially dissapear if the player is aiming at an enemy behind the Shadow (similar to how Mirage's dopplegangers dissapear).

4/5/6/7 summoned shadows (amount of Shadows is unaffected by mods).
250/350/450/550 impact damage per shot, affected with strength mods.
15/20/25/30% chance to deal an impact proc, affected with power strength.
5/10/15/20% chance to cause a viral status effect, affected with power strength.
15/20/25/30 seconds of duration for applied viral status effect, affected with power duration.
100 points of health for every Shadow, affected with power strength, with 4 points of decay per second, affected with power duration (but not efficienty).
100 energy cost, affected with efficienty.

Those changes would provide Nekros' players with more variety of builds and would give his powers some synergies. Casting Shadows would be a good way to debuff enemies (by giving them viral status effect) and provide synergy with Nekros' new first ability, making slash procs more effective, especially if targets are also affected with Terrify.

So, what do you think? I gave a lot of thought to those changes, so please take your time to visualize an image I've created haha

 

 

Edited December 2, 2018 by Liloon

[XenMaster]

First i would keep soul punch as it do good single target cc against heavies. But rework the soul punch stat into your ideas but keeping the CC intact.

 

Overall yes most of them are goof rework. The slash proc from Soul Punch rework synergize well with Desecrate and Nekros Shadow rework.

 

Since Terrify was just instant cast, having ranged aura after cast is a good one. Because of how expensive its energy cost is.

 

Although i would rather not giving your "Soul Rain" deal extra dmg on Terrify rework, it rather be take extra dmg from warframe abilities and weapons by multiplier you put on the Terrify.

 

Overall is great rework idea.

 

 

[Liloon]

@XenMaster The idea behind "area of effect" with soul rain is just to add another way to debuff enemies, cause Nekros is imho not very "specialized" in anything, so that would make him a great debuffer. Yeah, maybe extra damage on terrified enemies with this soul rain ability isn't the best idea in the world, but as you said, it can be also just changed another or different way of debuff on hit, when souls hit enemy affected with terrify instead of hitting them harder.

 

BUT also, Shadows having a chance to proc impact is also a way to CC heavy targets, with given chance to proc impact, fire rate and number of summoned Shadows it's not very unlikable to stagger heavy units. And besides - a thought of still being able to get hit by a bombard makes is for all the "upgrades" he would receive from this rework, keeping it quite balanced haha.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Liloon

[Liloon]

Guess there are not that much Nekros players :v

[-_Highlander_-]

7 minutes ago, Liloon said:

Guess there are not that much Nekros players :v

 Here's one

and my wish is that 4 will get an new form of caster .. this one takes way to long even with faster casting mods its horribly slow

[Leown_Kitrinos]

I like the ideas for a rework

Though his 4th is still idk. Like the shadows are spose to be what you kill still yeah? Just a more defined look to them so it's noticeable? Or like a complete different shadows of the dead look ?

Cause right now honestly I like how they are. I just wish you could actually SEE the difference better. And if it changes to a new type of what you spawn in I dont know about that either. I like stacking 3 nullifiers ancients and bombards and napalms and just run CC ignis and watch them kick up in damager high level wise.

 

But that's just me. Everything else looks pretty cool.

[Liloon]

20 hours ago, FIDOISHERE said:

I like the ideas for a rework

Though his 4th is still idk. Like the shadows are spose to be what you kill still yeah? Just a more defined look to them so it's noticeable? Or like a complete different shadows of the dead look ?

Cause right now honestly I like how they are. I just wish you could actually SEE the difference better. And if it changes to a new type of what you spawn in I dont know about that either. I like stacking 3 nullifiers ancients and bombards and napalms and just run CC ignis and watch them kick up in damager high level wise.

 

But that's just me. Everything else looks pretty cool.

Well it can also be just an idea of summoning what is dead haha For me it's not mandatory to raise your fallen foes

[Leown_Kitrinos]

I suppose not I really only summon them when the heat gets turned up and I need to be tankier/every needs a distraction

 

[Buttaface]

Frequent Nekros player here, 200+ mill affinity on the frame. Agree with OP and others, think the 1 and 2 could use a bit of rework, and especially the 4, but it's not likely to happen unfortunately.

Was experimenting with 4 killing power in the simulacrum yesterday. So it took 12-15 seconds for 7 lvl 160 corrupted heavy gunner shades to kill 8 lvl FIFTY corrupted butcher eximus mobs, a mob I use in the simulacrum at max level to approximate trash clear... but at level FIFTY for purposes of this experiment vs lvl 160 gunners. Ridiculous and a very poor ultimate ability that relegates Nekros to either farming frame or very expensively geared and modded goodish tank melee farming frame. Not much in between sadly.

So the 4 does nothing essentially other than soak up some aggro and confuse the team's aim causing a substantial team DPS hit. There are far better ways to soak up or deflect aggro in WF. I hate playing with "Army" Nekros and rarely ever cast it myself for those reasons. The "mind control/raised mob" mechanic just does not work in WF as it does in other games. Should be scrapped utterly on Nyx, Revenant and especially Nekros.

Army of the Dead is like so many powers in WF that violate a cardinal rule of game player power design, "Any power that has the potential when misused, or used correctly, to detract from the play experience of other players should be scrapped or reworked." This applies not only to graphically obtrusive skills like so many, but also nose-picker OP AOE map clear. WF will never reach its potential until the entire frame power landscape is reworked to conform with that seemingly basic rule that other better games have no problem following. Use Harrow's skills as an example of character powers that are very tough to interfere with, impede or bore other players and go for there. Wishful thinking, but one can dream.

Constructive ideas for change to Nekros Ult? Only thing I can think of is giving him the power to raise -1- golem like shade that is equipped with the same weapons doing the same or greater damage that Nekros is wielding, similar to a duality Equinox build. Sad that a problematic, generally OP frame like Equinox has via augment what Nekros should have had first.

So will just keep playing my slashy melee Nekros who rarely uses three of the four skills. Meh.

 

[Leown_Kitrinos]

As much as I want to agree with some parts of your post @Buttaface

Nyx and Revenant don't cause that much of an issue with their "minions" they can still be killed move on recast it's just a form of cc and support.

 

Nekros does the same thing. The only difference is its hard to tell the difference because his undead look the same and cant be killed. Which they need to change.. 

 

The damage of 7+ undead should be up just a smidge but not that high. You also have to look at it from this stand point. They aren't meant for damage fully. They are there for a distraction, damage mitigation, and support effects as well as extra undead being summoned.

 

The ability itself is great. It just could be Better with a damage buff and a visual effect. Usually people seeing tethers to them kinda notice but I find myself shooting at my own undead as well some times lol.

 

As for his 1 it does need some love but it's not terrible Instant knockdown and revive with augment. Great for cc and support.

His terrify could use a rework of sorts but meh.. idk.

His 4 definitely needs changes. As well as his passive.

 

Though I dunno how much is going to change. He's always been the CC/support frame with very lil damage and yes he's used as a farmer because of looting ability.. I'm about to my 10th forma into him and I'm not getting bored of him yet.. anything they do change or buff is going to be even better..

[Autongnosis]

I like your proposals tbh, one thing i don't wish to see tho is losing the ability of summoning enemy units. 

Imo that should be more about them getting a VFX pass more than anything else. Like, make them fade out when aiming through them like Mirage clones do for instance. Or modify more heavily the model. Summoning enemies is a big part of why the ability is so strong. 

[Don_T_Shoot]

On 2018-12-05 at 5:21 PM, FIDOISHERE said:

I suppose not I really only summon them when the heat gets turned up and I need to be tankier/every needs a distraction

 

I'm with you there.   I hate to summon the shadows unless absolutely necessary because I know how much they interfere with my teammates. 

I hope some rework would be considered at some point, maybe even similar to some of what the OP discussed.   Primarily, I would like Nekros to be more useful to the team other than the, very important, loot aspect.   It seems other than additional loot rolls, his only other team useful skill is 'not dying much, or ever'.  

Edited December 7, 2018 by Don_T_Shoot

[Buttaface]

8 hours ago, FIDOISHERE said:

The damage of 7+ undead should be up just a smidge but not that high.

7 160 corrupt heavy gunner shades should clear any group of lvl 50 mobs near instantly IMO, not in 15 seconds. Most players using Army of the Dead are raising shades less than half that level, with pitiful damage results including a significant annoyance and DPS reduction to teammates trying to aim weapons. I understand that the primary function of the skill is aggro management and not killing power, but compared to almost all other ultimate skills, Nekros' is objectively weak other than bandaid augmented to make him tanky. There are far better CC, DR and aggro management skills on a most other frames, and they aren't ults. So IMO, Nekros doesn't really have an ultimate ability to speak of. That should be fixed.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Buttaface

[Leown_Kitrinos]

1 hour ago, Buttaface said:

7 160 corrupt heavy gunner shades should clear any group of lvl 50 mobs near instantly IMO, not in 15 seconds. Most players using Army of the Dead are raising shades less than half that level, with pitiful damage results including a significant annoyance and DPS reduction to teammates trying to aim weapons. I understand that the primary function of the skill is aggro management and not killing power, but compared to almost all other ultimate skills, Nekros' is objectively weak other than bandaid augmented to make him tanky. There are far better CC, DR and aggro management skills on a most other frames, and they aren't ults. So IMO, Nekros doesn't really have an ultimate ability to speak of. That should be fixed.

Well yeah. Nekros isent dps. His ultimate is litrally spose to be like a Swiss army knife. They give cc, protection, some damage. You can even desecrate them on death. Giving them the killing power of some other frames 4 would be overly ridiculous. Just because he can self sustain well enough. I have no issues by myself going passed level 100 enemies NONE. I don't run out of ammo or energy I tear armor off they deal more damage.

 

And you don't even need shield of shadows just health conversion and an arcane guardian is enough till the heat turns up. Then you need them. Your Job is solely to offer crowd control, and ammo with extra health and energy with armor tear in the mix. His augment isent a band aid. It's to further augment his defenses or used as an optional defense option if you don't want to use the others.

 

I'm not disagreeing with you fully though when I said just a smidge I mean they need to scale better for them to give better dps because right now the only time I see them do some dps is when I got a corrosive ignis on. But they should not be killing things within under 5 seconds it should take them at least 10 seconds to kill the same level enemy or well depending on the unit you summon and what they are up against.

And the design of them needs to change like others have mention give them mirages effect and maybe give them a smoke effect. We're summon shadows not fully on bodys so.. that definitely should be changed.

 

Either that the whole idea for his 1 to be changed and a passive to give him soul gauge to further their overall damage even after they reworked to scale a bit better. Would make them more than enough worthy of a 4. Because then you'd have better damage from them and if your work for it there's a synergy with the soul gauge giving them more damage.

[Buttaface]

On ‎07‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 5:32 PM, FIDOISHERE said:

Well yeah. Nekros isent dps. His ultimate is litrally spose to be like a Swiss army knife. They give cc, protection, some damage. You can even desecrate them on death. Giving them the killing power of some other frames 4 would be overly ridiculous.

What I have posted and keep posting is that -whatever- amount of dmg shades are supposed to do, even middling, that 7 LvL 160 Corrupted Gunners, some of the most powerful spike damage mobs in the game, take 12-15 seconds to kill 8 mobs more than 100 levels lower is effectively NO damage in light of the fact that spawning 160 mobs as shades is unavailable in 99% of regular WF content, long ESO and long duration runs being the sole exceptions that very few players do. I did see shades able to kill infested in a mediocre way in an arbitration mission with 300% Nekros power strength... once. With any other class of mobs, even that outrageous 300% buff would be like shooting squirt guns at them. Not enough.

My extensive ingame experience with Nekros 4 is that it only provides some meatshields and no meaningful amount of damage whatsoever. Pair that with the annoyance to team members and reduced team aiming DPS, and the skill is usually a net detriment to the team. Augmented, it provides the frame some tankiness at the expense of mod slots given to strength which is otherwise mostly useless on the frame. This makes for one of the most lackluster ults in the game and should be changed.

Most frames have very powerful, useful ults, but there are about 5-7 or so that do not, need fixing, and Nekros is definitely on that list.

[Liloon]

Not being a ****, but I can't see any specific ideas to rework his 4 or any other of his abilities in your comments XD

Edited December 11, 2018 by Liloon

[Buttaface]

On ‎11‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 8:18 AM, Liloon said:

Not being a ****, but I can't see any specific ideas to rework his 4 or any other of his abilities in your comments XD

See end of Thursday 6:33 post.

[UseNet]

On 2018-12-03 at 6:44 AM, Liloon said:

- PASSIVE:
Nekros regenerates small amount of health with every nearby enemy death (15m instead of 10).
5 points of health are regenerated with unaffected enemy, 10 with a terrified one.

This would all but negate the downsides of using Despoil. Sounds like a bad idea to me.

[Abhilekh]

Frankly, all I think Nekros needs is removing creeping terrify as an augment and fusing it with the ability itself. He can largely ignore ability stats, keeping them all at 100% and run a tank build with umbral mods and desecrate as his abilities have good base stats. I don't think his ult needs dps on it. It draws aggro from enemies really well and can tank a lot of damage for Nekros with a shield of shadows build. However, I don't even run that build because you need to mod for power strength and duration with that build but I feel like modding Nekros with umbral mods, health conversion and adaptation makes him tankier. I also run life strike on my meele so I can face tank higher level enemies.