Nekros needs some changes.

[Boneless76]

So Nekros is supposedly a [support] frame, correct? Why is it that most of his abilities have no support beyond augments? Why is it that his damaging abilities become useless in mid-tier content?

Soul Punch doesn't do much for me beyond a push

Terrify is a bit of cool CC, but only really good with the augment

Desecrate is by far the best ability. Despoil makes it even better. This is great. 

Shadows of the Dead are entirely underwhelming, especially for a 4. They do basically no damage in high-tier content, and in endgame, they do literally nothing. They would only exist to soak up gunfire, and then you look at the augment, Shield of Shadows, and now they soak up gunfire better and in two ways. 

 

Nekros doesn't support the team in combat in any huge way, but in a few little ways that are easily overshadowed with more specialized frames. An Okay Crowd Controller, but a good one with the augment. A terrible healer compared to the likes of others. [If you're playing on an Infested or Corrupted tileset, Nekros just shoots up and is better at healing and damage reduction.] And less than okay with capturing attention of enemies.

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What do I think would be better? Keep the loot stuff, but generally give Nekros a bit more of a boost in certain ways. Being a bit good at everything shouldn't make him a master of none here. People need to more commonly bring Nekros for reasons other than Desecrate alone. 

 

Soul Punch: Works as normal, but damage scales with enemy level instead of just doing 500 Impact.

After the ability is used, a soul fragment exits the body. This fragment saps health from enemies and gives it to Shadows. If there are no Shadows, Nekros' allies heal slightly

Nearby enemies lose up to 10% of their health in slash damage. Shadows gain up to 100% of the health stolen. Nekros and Allied Warframes would heal 10 health per second. The affect lasts for 5 seconds. 

Soul Survivor: Revives allies to up to 90% health. [Especially with Operator mode and Vazarin being a thing, the augment has lost its utility. This would help out a bit, but I don't see  any grand changes here.] 

 

Terrify: Repeated casts increase the armor strip in an additive way . Base armor strip increases to 35%. 

Creeping Terrify: Same. 

 

Desecrate and Despoil: Health orbs created in this way heal the entire team when picked up.

Shadows are healed for double this amount, and the healing scales with level in addition to the doubling.

Energy Orbs increase the damage Shadows deal.

 

Shadows of the Dead

Shadow Count down from 7 to 4. (6 total summons)

All Summons (Shadows + The Special Summons below) deal heavily increased damage. The amount is tied to how great or few the shadows' numbers are. 

Power strength indicates the number of Shadows, but it cannot decrease beyond 3 (5 total summons) 

In the menus, there is now a customizable loadout for special summons that do not fill the Shadow count:

Shadow Specter: Customize a warframe specter (+13 levels above enemy level) that will be summoned along with your Shadows. This may use any weapon you own, and has customizable mods. The Shadow Specter will not die unless all other Shadows die. The Shadow Specter deals increased damage, that scales with enemy level.

Shadow Thrall: Select any fully scanned enemy. Select any eximus type in the game. The Shadow Thrall will not die unless all other Shadows die.                                                                            The Shadow Thrall deals bonus elemental damage according to the eximus type. All shadows have an increased chance to proc the status effect of the Shadow Thrall. All Shadows have a very slight elemental bonus. No Shadows of the exact same enemy type can be spawned with the Thrall unless there are no other enemies to cover the Shadow count. [Example: If the Shadow Thrall is an Arson Eximus Charger (Which of course does not normally spawn, but can be created this way). No Shadow Chargers can be summoned using Shadows of the Dead, unless there would otherwise be too little Shadows.

 

All Shadows slowly lose health over time, but gain some health back by attacking enemies.  They always attack the most recent target to be Soul Punched, then the weakest target in terms of remaining Health. Melee units will attack aggressively, but Ranged units will stay around Nekros unless there are more important targets to protect (They will protect Rescue targets, Encircle Defense Targets, etc) , or if they cannot attack any enemies from that range. 

[Andele3025]

Solid, tho let me add a few notes

2 minutes ago, Boneless76 said:

Nearby enemies lose up to 10% of their health in slash damage. Shadows gain up to 100% of the health stolen. Nekros and Allied Warframes would heal 10 health per second. The affect lasts for 5 seconds.

Instead of shadow heal split from ally frames it could make it a (strength capped) heal for nekros and then shared within desecrate or affinity range to all allies with the existing 500 damage as base minimum damage it can deal (so 10% or 500 as slash, whichever is higher).

2 minutes ago, Boneless76 said:

Creeping Terrify: Same. 

Id argue part of creeping terrify should be base, more so because now post slow nerf it brings no damage benefit to nekros himself and sacrificing a mod slot to not annoy allies is a weird cost to have in a game that tends to want one to do 4 person coop, then making creeping terrify in some form or another do the stacking/later scaling for one.

2 minutes ago, Boneless76 said:

Desecrate and Despoil: Health orbs created in this way heal the entire team when picked up.

Shadows are healed for double this amount, and the healing scales with level in addition to the doubling.

Energy Orbs increase the damage Shadows deal.

Not needed with the suggested soul punch change and orbs wouldnt do much since its to a big degree a lack of control of what AI type and what shadow priority one has which restricts shadows to aggro pulls (tho they do do a perfectly satisfying job at that).

2 minutes ago, Boneless76 said:

Shadows of the Dead

Shadow Count down from 7 to 4. (6 total summons)

All Summons (Shadows + The Special Summons below) deal heavily increased damage. The amount is tied to how great or few the shadows' numbers are. 

Power strength indicates the number of Shadows, but it cannot decrease beyond 3 (5 total summons) 

Rather than specter shadows while reducing the amount of bodies, just this part

2 minutes ago, Boneless76 said:

In the menus, there is now a customizable loadout

Only that it applies to letting players pick enemy "types" to prioritize for the shadow pool and what behaviour tree without adding non-killed-gathered-shadows. Part of the later scaling loop game loop of nekros is finding enemies you want to spawn.
Arena AI already likes to gang focus, drone ai supports the "shadows as buff dispensers", suicidal crawlers/butcher/the non-smart melee ai is the zerg rush option, etc.

If overwhelming damage instead of DPS and hp are the goal then just letting the shadows inherit base damage and elemental mods of ones melee or guns is more than enough.

[SteelOverseer666]

No Nekros does not "NEED" changes.

YOU want changes.

I think he works just fine thanks.

Leave my Nekros alone.

Edited December 14, 2019 by SteelOverseer666