Nekros and his Merry Band of Undead that could use a little Quality of Un-Life

[Xendias]

Have you ever had that time when you we're being a Tanky Little Reaper using your Shield of Friendship but for some odd reason when you call your Rotting Friends to take a bullet for you a few of them are little bit... unreasonable. Even when you're physically in a another room and unfortunately they're just like 5-15 meters apart from you so they won't rush to your side to take some Aggro, since you know it's better not to get hit by a barrage of Bombards and Heavy Gunners even with 90% Damage Reduction from Shield of Friendship. So I propose a highly appealing idea, which only the Tenno who use this build would understand a little, to leash all Rotting Friends to your side regardless of distance. This would really help a lot in Shielding you and probably anything within the the area that those friends of yours would aggro away, so it's not just our Skeletal Farmer but maybe also your friends who forgot that they're made of paper to level 100 Bombards and more preferably that device that sucks Space Juice from a Roaming Fortress to use in those sweet Riven mods that most likely will finally give you a chance to reach that dream of shooting or hacking something so hard that they get to sent to the Void and back. If any Tenno or Devs read this and considered it's a nice idea or even had a nice laugh, thanks I really appreciate it and it would really help to make those Rotting Friends of your local Corpse Robber have a little bit of attention since sometimes they're just a little left out rotting in a Infested Asteroid Base with Phorid. 

P.S. A little icing on the cake would be that you'd allow any Desecrated corpse be added to the Shadows of Friends spawns but I just think it might be a little bit too much to ask since I haven't really thought what would happen in that case (must be a pain to code really that's what I'm actually thinking). It's a good idea when you're running with a Nuclear Powered Warframe like Saryn in the Squad and helps a bunch in helping the squishy DPS Frames to get some heat off without hopelessly trying to find 7 unfortunate living beings to send to the Void (There's none actually since they've been wiped already by Saryn's Space Flu). Thanks again for reading!

Till my next idea, Space Ninja! *tips Space Fedora*

[taiiat]

i'm going to read this as adjusting the AI of Shadows so that they always prioritize following Nekros, and will attack when opportunities are given but will focus on following Nekros first and foremost.

i would support that.

Edited April 28, 2019 by taiiat

[Xendias]

10 hours ago, taiiat said:

i'm going to read this as adjusting the AI of Shadows so that they always prioritize following Nekros, and will attack when opportunities are given but will focus on following Nekros first and foremost.

i would support that.

That's actually a good fix as well for our little smelly meat shields, er I mean friends. Thanks for adding that in. If I would have an example that similarly works, it would be Venari's AI (somewhat) much like when she's ordered to heal a specific target.

P.S. Best Kitty in the game. Kat/10 would give headpats and scratches all day.

[EinheriarJudith]

12 hours ago, taiiat said:

i'm going to read this as adjusting the AI of Shadows so that they always prioritize following Nekros, and will attack when opportunities are given but will focus on following Nekros first and foremost.

i would support that.

same. i remember saying it in a thread sometime ago that shadows should maintain 10m  around nekros.

Edited April 28, 2019 by EinheriarJudith

[Mediloric]

Nyx's Mind Control minion seem to make a genuine effort in keeping up with you, They move and shoot for the most part. Man I wish Nekros had that. ha. 

[Andele3025]

Shadows really do need to stay close (but not too close so that enemies missing them dont hit nekros), tho personally id instead love to see a full shadow control console out of mission/mandachord+simulacrum console style where you can manually select the shadow priority, what behavior type all the shadows adapt (tank/draw aggro, attack/suicide rush for max dps, follow/be buff drones or average mix of the 3+arena evasion movement).

Tho if going all out, Nekros could use a lot of small touch ups: his passive turned to small amount of lifesteal (that he then shares to all allied units in desecrate range, thus also sustaining shadows passively and given team support in cases without many mook enemies), his 1s initial impact dealing 500 or 10% enemy hp as true or at least slashing damage (thus scaling+cutting apart corpses), augments for 2 and 4 baked in default (terrify slowing for even a smaller amount/some 35% would make it less of a annoyance for allies in normal gameplay while SoS being default with a augment reversing it/giving damage reduction or a fake HP pool based when not having shadows out but on which shadows you have stored would allow for a mission/playstyle choice).

[AKTKWNG]

While we're on the topic of changing nekros 4, as an Oberon player can I also suggest that nekros minions don't get affected by renewal? I just did the kuva survival nightwave last week with a SoS nekros and the moment he walked his merry band through the heal aoe my energy dropped straight to zero.

[DiabolusUrsus]

Also, please remove allied attack collision from Shadows - especially Nullifier/Arctic shields.

[EinheriarJudith]

23 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

Also, please remove allied attack collision from Shadows - especially Nullifier/Arctic shields.

i would even take this and the removal of that unit from being a shadow.

[DiabolusUrsus]

1 hour ago, EinheriarJudith said:

i would even take this and the removal of that unit from being a shadow.

If we're gonna go that far, it's be nice to have unique shadow types spawned based on the type of enemy killed, to fully differentiate them from enemies.

e.g., specialized ranged, melee, flying type undead based on whether you killed a crewman or Ancient, etc.

[EinheriarJudith]

1 minute ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

If we're gonna go that far, it's be nice to have unique shadow types spawned based on the type of enemy killed, to fully differentiate them from enemies.

e.g., specialized ranged, melee, flying type undead based on whether you killed a crewman or Ancient, etc.

i did not know i needed this until you said it lol.

[(PSN)SlyFox5679]

a friend and myself talked about why we can't team oberon's renewal and nekros army together because no matter what the energy loss on renewal is impossible to manage with army out so we give each other a heads up when using either ability. what DE could do is just remove nekros army from oberon's renewal healing so the healer doesn't go dry running renewal from the army.

[Andele3025]

11 hours ago, EinheriarJudith said:

i did not know i needed this until you said it lol.

No, its a terrible butchering, removing all potential enemy abilities that would be introduced from the list (its already bad enough that i cant make shadow copies of some enemies and those "not trully killed" like hacked bursas/captured enemies dont count). Especially if compared to instead giving us full control over shadow priority and selecting what of the AI type, something already in the game in form of simulacrum and mission type ai mods.

[Xendias]

On 2019-04-29 at 5:33 PM, AKTKWNG said:

While we're on the topic of changing nekros 4, as an Oberon player can I also suggest that nekros minions don't get affected by renewal? I just did the kuva survival nightwave last week with a SoS nekros and the moment he walked his merry band through the heal aoe my energy dropped straight to zero.

On 2019-05-04 at 12:28 AM, DiabolusUrsus said:

If we're gonna go that far, it's be nice to have unique shadow types spawned based on the type of enemy killed, to fully differentiate them from enemies.

e.g., specialized ranged, melee, flying type undead based on whether you killed a crewman or Ancient, etc.

 

Kinda vanished from this thread for almost 20 days, but anyways... To address some of your opinions with my own dumb opinions, first off the part where Bone-Dad's Merry Crew sucks the living void out of Oberon's Energy Pool. It's not really a simple fix because the main thing that Oberon heals with renewal is ALL allies and making a specific "if statement" that Mr.Ally is a Obviously Rotting Corpse from Nekros could lead to very VERY complicated stuff and most likely the simplest solution is removing Oberon's Ability outright to heal all allies and make it only specific to Tenno themselves (though this is just a assumption of mine of how DE coded Oberon's Renewal). Lastly, the part of outright removing respawned enemies and making them a unique undead friend. It's what I call win-lose situation, because first of all it won't be simple to make unique Shadows for Bone-Daddy here and apart from that as we all know DE clearly sucks at making Summoning Frames or even AI based friendly units (DE please don't smite me) so either way if we made it a Unique Shadow more or less they'll amount to the same use as it was before, with no particular buff or fix, which is a Rotting Meat-Shield. So rather than give up the sweet buffs from the normal annoying mob like Tentacle Face Healer or Big Shield-y Boi and even Ospreys (not to mention when you basically murder a Eximus those buffs can stack on top of each other) I'd say just stick to the normal Rotting Meat-Shield Version of the Spooky Boys. Though if DE can actually do it right then I'd say it would be a win situation but making it into a win situation is MUCH HARDER than I would say you could imagine that I'd say it would really take about 5 of Pablo to make it work correctly.

Edited May 23, 2019 by Xendias
I forgot the Quotes, sorry

[Buttaface]

Wouldn't disagree with the suggestions so far but it should be a toggle follow not auto follow. You can already recast the 4 to bring the shadows to you, not sure how much more than that is needed. Shield of Shadows is completely unnecessary on Nekros until mobs are over lvl 100, and its primary use even then is meatshielding a point in space, not shielding the Nekros.

As a Nekros main who rarely uses the 4, my -fervent- suggestion is to reduce the size of the shades by 60%+ so that they don't function as a significant ranged weapon DPS debuff and eye strain to the rest of the team. Maybe make them more transparent to boot regardless of what fool energy color some noob puts on. Some bad energy color selections make me just stop killing things and go/wait til extract, it's that obtrusive.

Grit my teeth every time I go in a low star chart mission such as Hydron or Akkad and some Nekros casts 4 right off the bat where it is completely unneeded and unnecessary. I have done long kuva survival, long arbitrations, long void survival, long toroid farms, solo arbitrations to higher waves, and defense without ever going down and never casting 4. Not needing flow, power strength or duration, just a stretch mod and handspring. Nekros is a frame who can take full advantage of augments, despoil, sole survivor and creeping terrify, all of which are SO much better than shield of shadows, and still put adaptation, health conversion and equilibrium on. It is one of the only frames that can and actually needs to perma channel so can do immense melee damage with a well-built zaw and channeling exodia all the while perma life striking and running around at volt speed with dispatch overdrive. Sucking up all the health orbs throws out significant AOE healing with Arcane Pulse.

Nekros is in a great place atm with some of the best augmentation and tanky builds available in the game, just please, please reduce the obtrusiveness of its 4.

Edited May 23, 2019 by Buttaface

[DiabolusUrsus]

3 hours ago, Xendias said:

Possible coding issues with SOTD/Renewal

I mean, if that's the case it'd be nice to just get some clarification by DE. All we currently have is radio silence on the issue, so of course people are gonna ask for solutions.

Quote

Unique Shadows might be less useful.

I have to disagree with this. Just give each unique Shadow an appropriate buff aura/skill, like an AOE shield on a defensive-type Shadow.

This would make the bonuses more reliable rather than conditional (Healers/Nullies/Arctics don't always spawn, after all) and it's not like the existing bonuses make or break Nekros anyway. Half the time I resent getting a bunch of bubble Shadows because they obstruct my weapons too much.

Most importantly, though, rather than making Shadows STRONGER the whole point of unique Shadows is giving them silhouettes that don't look like other enemies.

1 hour ago, Buttaface said:

Wouldn't disagree with the suggestions so far but it should be a toggle follow not auto follow. You can already recast the 4 to bring the shadows to you, not sure how much more than that is needed.

The issue with this is that

a) it costs energy and 

b) it can fail.

So if the player is running reduced efficiency (going hand-in-hand with Blind Rage for SOS builds) it can totally screw them over through no fault of their own. Shadows just sometimes... Refuse to teleport until they die and get replaced.

IMO Nekros should only need to spend energy to restore the Shadows' health. Follow toggle should be fine, though.

1 hour ago, Buttaface said:

Shield of Shadows is completely unnecessary on Nekros until mobs are over lvl 100, and its primary use even then is meatshielding a point in space, not shielding the Nekros.

I disagree. The biggest SOS benefit to Nekros is its almost perfect CC and status immunity, not the DR - it's Handspring and Rapid Resilience+ in one mod, which is pretty handy.

SOTD also gives Nekros tons of distractions for enemies, which is fantastic when any Defense objective pops up (while solo, anyhow).

1 hour ago, Buttaface said:

Nekros is in a great place atm with some of the best augmentation and tanky builds available in the game, just please, please reduce the obtrusiveness of its 4.

Agreed that SOTD is far too obtrusive, especially with super-bright energy colors.

Shadows should have no collision for allied gunfire, and could due with their FX toned down a notch. Or 20.

[Buttaface]

54 minutes ago, DiabolusUrsus said:

 Blind Rage for SOS builds

Was taking you half seriously until that. Any Nekros build with Blind Rage on it is a bad build, SOS or whatever.

Edited May 23, 2019 by Buttaface

[DiabolusUrsus]

Just now, Buttaface said:

Was taking you half seriously until that. The only Nekros build with Blind Rage on it is a bad build.

But why, though?

With Equilibrium/Despoil and Power Drift it gets you to 90% DR really easy and CC/Status immunity to go along with it. The only time it runs into serious problems is when an objective takes you out of Shadow range and they decide they don't want to bother teleporting.

Obviously there are BETTER builds, but for anyone who doesn't have Adaptation/Health Conversion/Arcane Guardian it's perfectly viable EXCEPT for when the game steals your meat shields due to a (presumed) bug. The extra armor shred from high-strength Terrify is pretty handy, too.

(Note that I typically don't run in squad settings, so the dynamics may be a bit different for that.)

[Mediloric]

8 minutes ago, Buttaface said:

Was taking you half seriously until that. Any Nekros build with Blind Rage on it is a bad build, SOS or whatever.

How?

[Buttaface]

OK, don't want to be as argumentative as usual because I have a lot of respect for fellow Nekros players who actually play it instead of using it solely as a loot farmer in a game full of AOE cheese powers, so take my prior claim as just one opinion and with a grain of salt if you like. I would use Energy Conversion instead of Blind Rage if for some unknown reason I wanted to run a high power strength Nekros.

I am also primarily a melee player, so use energy perma channeling a fast hybrid CO/BR sepfahn staff with range, crit damage, status chance riven, exodia triumph. In higher level stuff over level 100 the staff will have Life Strike or Healing Return on it in place of Drifting Contact, and always Dispatch Overdrive. I run Naramon focus for the combo counter buff, Magus Repair on the Operator. I have found no upper limit to survivability or killing power, but admittedly do not do the super long 2 hour+ runs. 50 waves of arbitration, hour of kuva survival, 50-60 waves of t4 defense, solo toroid farming til the mobs hit 120 or so is about all I or anyone I'm likely to play with has patience for. Those game sessions do not tax the build's survivability.

The build is as follows for any Nekros players interested: Vitality, Adaptation, Health Conversion, Equilibrium, Soul Survivor, Desecrate, Creeping Terrify, Stretch, Handspring, CP/Steel Charge/Sprint Boost, Arcane Pulse, Arcane Strike. Rush or Rolling Guard when solo instead of Soul Survivor. Two synth mods on a carrier with a corr/blast cryotra, or helios prime with gladiator mods stacked on the deconstructor prime. I find the DR from Creeping Terrify has far more team utility and far less obstruction than SOS builds.

Edited May 23, 2019 by Buttaface

[DiabolusUrsus]

@Buttaface

Okay, it makes total sense that you wouldn't like a Blind Rage-based Nekros given your playstyle. Hooray for fellow Nekros players! 😄 

I never factored in Energy Conversion, mostly because I haven't gotten off my butt to buy it from Simaris yet and I don't particularly like the thought of relying on a conditional buff to get the bonus strength when the condition for that buff is an Energy Orb. The biggest weakness of any SOS build is that it has little in the way of DR before getting all 7 Shadows active, so needing to wait until I also pop Energy out of Desecrate sounds kinda hit-or-miss. That said, your comment reminded me that the Shadows will keep the strength boost as long as they don't expire which would make it less of an issue once I've got a high-strength set fielded so I'll have to try it out.

A little bit about me:

• I am also a primarily melee player, but I haven't ranked up Little Duck enough to get Magus Repair so I'm running double Elevates for on-demand health. I also don't particularly like Channeling or Life Strike, so while I also run Naramon for the combo buff (and that OP Executing Dash) I stick to a standard crit/CO hybrid build. I also hate the Zaw aesthetic, so I stick to my trusty Dragon Nikana (a +crit +status Riven makes it much more solidly reliable).
• Obviously, standard Despoil/Equilibrium combo, and I like Health Conversion builds because they strike me as more interesting given their synergy with Desecrate.
• I've got about 1.5 Arcane Guardians on (working my way to R3 for the second) which combines with Health Conversion to give me ~87% DR from armor once I'm stacked up, and SOS at standard strength/duration just for the CC/Status immunity.

However, the biggest difference is probably that I primarily play solo or with perhaps 1 other person in a squad:

• Terrify is a little too expensive and a little too short-ranged for it to be as reliable as I want it to be when all the enemy aggro is on me. I've made successful high-range Creeping Terrify builds, but that was before I picked up Adaptation so I had to sacrifice a little too much tanking potential to be happy with them.
• 90% of Shadows' obtrusiveness is a non-issue while solo.
  • They are always my energy color.
  • There are no teammates for them to annoy.
  • Splitting enemy aggro makes a huge difference without teammates to do that by default.
• Running alone, there is no way for me to take full advantage of stacking Corrosive Projection... so the extra armor shredding from high-strength Terrify can get me a lot closer to a squad-based level of armor mitigation. Very useful to me; probably not particularly useful to multiplayer lobbies.

While Blind Rage builds aren't really my favorite to run, they would be 100% viable and reasonably strong except for the bug that can anchor a Nekros in place or penalize them with wasted energy when Shadows refuse to teleport on recast. If the recast teleport worked as it was supposed to, there wouldn't really be any problems.

PS: Here's hoping that your Life Strike stays at least reasonably intact once M 3.0 hits.

Edited May 24, 2019 by DiabolusUrsus

[Xendias]

As dumb as I am, yes I actually admit that multiple times already, kinda forgot that Auto Follow would be better for Spooky Boys instead since well in practice you'd really use Shadows unless you're actually using the augment with it so either way even a Bombard fired about 20 barrages on your face and even when you're Meatshields are basically 3 - 7 meters away from you'd still survive, unless we're talking about those 1 shot mobs that doesn't give a single damn about your Damage Reduction. I've met them, they're nice to talk (shoot at) to until they've obliterated your existence from reality. I guess DE could basically just slap and tweak the Pet AI on the Spooky Boys and we're basically in business, since any suggestion that would keep those idiots from running off to void knows where and leave me to die to a level 250 Heavy Gunner even after smashing the button is a good suggestion to me to be honest.

Also about what you guys are talking about (though let's try not to get too sidetracked), the Energy Conversion vs Blind Rage. It depends on what kind of crazy levels you're getting into, since for me I usually do something like a minimum 1 - 2 hours in survivals, as a reference for all endless content, unless I'm tired already. So I'd suppose if you don't wanna die in 1 shot levels of mobs go with Blind Rage, if you're just needing a tiny bit of tankiness even though you'd clearly not need it (60 - 85 range) just go for Energy Conversion since it's not likely you'd get obliterated by a horde of trash mobs even in those levels.

[Makemap]

The new corpus units seems to be stronger than nekro shadow. All nekro's shadow of dead are dying way too fast without power strength mod. If anything DE should buff their strength by default too.

Why not just set it to press E for the whole mob to follow just like Hostages and Specters? You can't even control your own shadows then whats the point of summoning the dead.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Makemap

[Doomclaaw]

A bandage fix for now is to just run negative power range. It makes it so when you cast to heal/teleport them it forces them to stick right by your side. Gets tedious recasting every 10 seconds though...