True Necromancer - Nekros Theme Revamp

[Archwizard]

I'm probably not alone here in saying that, while Nekros is really good looking and even incredibly useful in Survivals, he's also nothing like what we imagined a necromancer to be- and not in the good way. His abilities might qualify as necromancer skills by the barest definition, but they don't "mesh"- they just create a rotation of distractions while he loots enemies his allies have worn down. Desecrate was created to fulfill a niche unfit for his archetype- one that would have been better done in the hands of a Sentinel. (Seriously, if a mod card were just made to make Sentinels retrieve loot, Vacuum could have pulled extra loot out of people/corpses, Desecrate could be changed to something more interesting. Everyone wins!)

 

So today, I present to you a new list of ideas for the ideal necromancer Warframe, in the hopes that someday he will receive a much-needed revamp. (Maybe not- probably not- even to this, but a revamp.)

 

Soul Punch: Removed, replaced with Necrosis.

Necrosis: Injects the target with a zombifying virus, periodically dealing low Viral damage. If the (non-Boss) target dies by any means while the debuff is active, they are instantly revived as a zombified minion. Minions created in the manner have no set time limit, but instead periodically lose a percentage of their health; the intervals between ticks are increased by Power Duration. Ability is on cooldown while a living target is affected by the virus, but comes off cooldown once they are converted into a minion; there is no limit to the number of zombies one Nekros controls at a time. Only one application of Necrosis' virus may be on an enemy at a time (stacking Nekros' will not summon 5 minions from one kill - only one from Necrosis, and one from Shadows).

--> Each tick of the initial DoT has a high status chance

 

Terrify: "Power In Use" error and armor debuff removed. Slows targets by up to 50%, based on mod rank, unaffected by Power Strength. Otherwise unchanged.

 

Desecrate: Removed, replaced with Drain Vitality. (Cast animation moved to one of his idles, since both just use Shadows of the Dead's cast anyway.)

Drain Vitality: Nekros hunches forward and inhales the life force of his enemies, dealing medium Viral damage in a cone in front of himself. A radial pulse is then released from Nekros akin to an Ancient Healer, healing nearby allies and minions based on the total damage dealt (against all affected targets- hitting 5 targets for 100 will restore 500 health to allies). Cone and pulse affected by Power Range, damage affected by Power Strength.

--> Alternate name: "Soul Feast"

--> Has a low to medium status chance

 

Shadows of the Dead: While inactive, Nekros gains a visual indicator (orbiting wisps a la Null Star) based on the number of "souls" he's collected; effect otherwise unchanged.

 

Minion AI: Minions placed under Nekros' control by means of Necrosis or Shadows of the Dead will focus on enemies the summoner zooms in on, run to Nekros' side if he exits the room, and ignore the urge to find cover. Unless prompted by the summoner with the aforementioned focus command, they will focus on enemies most damaging to their master, followed by the nearest, until those enemies are killed.

 

In theory, this combination will give Nekros a new niche, that of an actual necromancer: Not one to inflate Survivals, but a horde-master whose minions will provide scaling damage into end-game, while his personal role will remain the survival of allies and debilitation of enemies.

The list of allies will just happen to include his minions as well.

 

Please feel free to post your own revamps here, or critique mine.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Archwizard

[JohnProdman]

Nekros is one of the few frames in which every ability is useful. Leave it the hell alone.

[Vahlak]

Sounds like a Guild Wars (1) necromancer. Which was fun in that game, would probably not do so well in this one.

 

Also, as has been said, all of his abilities are useful, they might need a tweak and a buff though.  But this, this is a whole new warframe....

[Archwizard]

Nekros is one of the few frames in which every ability is useful.

 

I wouldn't quite say that. Soul Punch is basically just a single-target stun, which can be outclassed by several other abilities. Terrify's useful as a pinch "OSH-" button, but it's by far the weakest CC of its cost. Desecrate is great for survivals, but also boring, RNG-infested, niche, and as I said in the OP, unfit for a necromancer.

[Vahlak]

 

I wouldn't quite say that. Soul Punch is basically just a single-target stun, which can be outclassed by several other abilities. Terrify's useful as a pinch "OSH-" button, but it's by far the weakest CC of its cost. Desecrate is great for survivals, but also boring, RNG-infested, niche, and as I said in the OP, unfit for a necromancer.

Except your not asking for a necromancer, you're asking for a minion master.

[Archwizard]

Also, as has been said, all of his abilities are useful, they might need a tweak and a buff though.  But this, this is a whole new warframe....

 

I'm okay with that, honestly. He's useful, sure, but he relies on gimmicks to be befitting of his name.

 

Except your not asking for a necromancer, you're asking for a minion master.

 

The difference being...

 

Because to me, a necromancer is someone who raises the dead, supports his minions and cripples his enemies. Nekros... doesn't.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Archwizard

[Vahlak]

A necromancer summons the soul, or raises the body of a being, in order to foretell the future or acquire knowledge they did not have before. They do not summon a zombie army to tear apart their foes, they would rely on other black magic, such as curses, to do anything else.

 

 Raising the dead to fight for you is in a different realm entirely.

 

Of course you will simply disagree with me, so whatever.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Vahlak

[Archwizard]

A necromancer summons the soul, or raises the body of a being, in order to foretell the future or acquire knowledge they did not have before. They do not summon a zombie army to tear apart their foes, they would rely on other black magic, such as curses, to do anything else.

 

 Raising the dead to fight for you is in a different realm entirely.

 

True, that's the classical pre-Tolkienien interpretation of a necromancer. In terms of games though, the necromancer archetype has come to be synonymous with the multi-pet master.

 

At any rate, Nekros doesn't quite befit the pre-Tolkienien definition either.

 

Of course you will simply disagree with me, so whatever.

 

That's not passive-aggressive or anything. I suppose I should be referring only to strict dictionary definitions for everything in gaming?

Edited February 21, 2014 by Archwizard

[Vahlak]

True, that's the classical pre-Tolkienien interpretation of a necromancer. In terms of games though, the necromancer archetype has come to be synonymous with the multi-pet master.

 

At any rate, Nekros doesn't quite befit the pre-Tolkienien definition either.

So basically you want a wizard specializing in necromancy spells.

[Thaumatos]

Here's how I think they should alter Nekros:

 

Soul Punch - When the target dies, it's instantly a minion

Terrify - Enemies flee in terror from Nekros; if Nekros isn't near while Terrify is active, enemies simply cower

Desecrate - Pretty much a necrotic corpse heal with extra loot.  This ability is unique and different enough

Shadows of the Dead - AoE corpse re-animation.  Doesn't get more necromancer-ish than that

 

Here's the biggest change I would do to Nekros, and this would be big for the Art team:  Make his minions look like UNDEAD versions of themselves.  Yes that means developing new textures, maybe new models with limbs missing, and maybe even new NPC types.  Things like bloodied Grineer/Corpus, severed re-animated torsos which still shoot guns but act as crawlers, oh yeah and NO ROBOTS.  Robots were never living in the first place.  You can't raise them from the dead if you didn't kill them.

[CubedOobleck]

Nekros is one of the few frames in which every ability is useful. Leave it the hell alone.

How can you say that?

 

Soul Punch has far too little AoE and like nearly all the single target skills in this game you do better just shooting with your gun.

Terrify is counter productive most of the time because enemies that run away are just harder to kill and if there are too many enemies (which is when you'd usually need an CC power) it fails to help because of the limited number of targets.

Desecrate is 100% OP imo since grinding and looting is a huge chunk of the game, this skill is really the only reason to use nekros and at the same time it ruins Nekros making him extremely boring.

Shadows of the Dead is an very weak Chaos, sure you can pick which enemies to will revive, but at the end of they day turning the room in a free-for-all is way better than having 15 new allies, especially with that terribly long casting animation.

Edited February 10, 2014 by CubedOobleck

[Vahlak]

How can you say that?

 

Soul Punch is a single target skill with far too little AoE

.....

[Archwizard]

So basically you want a wizard specializing in necromancy spells.

 

Correct. More befitting of the name "Nekros" than a scavenger frame.

[CubedOobleck]

.....

Seriously, it's like this for most single target powers, unless you are holding a shotgun and the enemy is far away then it's better to just shoot with your gun.

And I know Soul Punch is supposed to cause some kind of explosion from the target, but in my experience it is utterly unreliable.

[Archwizard]

Sounds like a Guild Wars (1) necromancer. Which was fun in that game, would probably not do so well in this one.

 

Personally I don't see why it wouldn't work here. It'd basically be like an Invasion mission, only you're the one in control- as well you should be, since Mind Control and Shadows of the Dead don't quite make the minions feel like your puppets quite so much as NPCs who happen to share similar interests.

[Archwizard]

Desecrate - Pretty much a necrotic corpse heal with extra loot.  This ability is unique and different enough

 

The only part of this I disagree with, is that minions can't pick up health orbs. Nekros can summon his own allies, but he can't help them at all once they're up.

[shut]

Desecrate: Removed

 

This is my favourite part. Desecrate is awful, both in concept and in execution. Promptly after releasing Nekros, the devs even stated that they were going to rework or replace it, because a Frame should never have to rely on RNG in order to get his own ability working.

Unfortunately, the community quickly realized that it was helpful in Survival, and got so excited from it that they seem to have forgotten that it's useless, and unreliable at absolute best, anywhere else. Which, unfortunately, led to the devs not doing diddly squat about it, despite Nekros appearing in many Community Hot Topics since then.

 

I personally think that Nekros' 1, 2, and 4 just need a couple of tweaks (e.g. your "2" suggestion, which I loved); a rework, while it could be interesting, isn't entirely necessary. Desecrate, however, needs to go.

Edited February 10, 2014 by SortaRandom

[Kynian]

Not a big fan of the way you implemented Drain Vitality, but liked the idea of it.

I do like Soul Punch a lot, as it's useful and, let's be frank, bloody awsome. I think that if it could deal it's damage and apply a debuff on the target, that, if the target dies while debuffed, makes the target turn into a zombie.

[Archwizard]

 

Not a big fan of the way you implemented Drain Vitality, but liked the idea of it.

 

How so?

 

I do like Soul Punch a lot, as it's useful and, let's be frank, bloody awsome. I think that if it could deal it's damage and apply a debuff on the target, that, if the target dies while debuffed, makes the target turn into a zombie.

 

I think that could work too. Personally, I just find Soul Punch a weird concept, at least in Nekros' hands; generally for most frames, the first skill is a summary of the theme, or the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the theme aloud.

Elemental frames have their elemental debuffs, Mag pulls a la magnets, Excalibur's focuses both on swordplay and mobility, Trinity has vampiric healing, etc. It doesn't apply in all cases (like Loki and Vauban, since you generally can't pull out any one skill in their arsenal as befitting the whole theme), but most.

And then you get to Nekros (and Nova and Valkyr, but that's for another thread). If I said "necromancer", your first thought would be "summons the (un)dead", not "Hadouken". Just by word association, it feels right that he should- somewhere in his arsenal- have a zombie virus, though it's not mandatory in the slightest so long as he summons the undead.

Edited February 10, 2014 by Archwizard

[Noble_Cactus]

Except your not asking for a necromancer, you're asking for a minion master.

 

 

 

You were saying?

[Thaumatos]

The only part of this I disagree with, is that minions can't pick up health orbs. Nekros can summon his own allies, but he can't help them at all once they're up.

That might be a good addition.  No reason not to do this anyway.

[Archwizard]

That might be a good addition.  No reason not to do this anyway.

 

Yeah... but you can't force them to walk over them when they need health, either.

[lautalocos]

A necromancer summons the soul, or raises the body of a being, in order to foretell the future or acquire knowledge they did not have before. They do not summon a zombie army to tear apart their foes, they would rely on other black magic, such as curses, to do anything else.

 

 Raising the dead to fight for you is in a different realm entirely.

 

Of course you will simply disagree with me, so whatever.

we are talking of a videogame necromancer.

also, i dont see how the current nekos skillset fit your description of a necromancer

[Archwizard]

we are talking of a videogame necromancer.

also, i dont see how the current nekos skillset fit your description of a necromancer

 

Precisely this.

 

The videogame necromancer archetype consists of three principles:

1) Debuffing enemies and sapping their willingness to fight back

2) Reviving fallen enemies as temporary, disposable servants to overwhelm the foes that remain

3) Support skills to amplify his minions' survival and maximize their output (feeding back into 1)

 

Nekros consists of:

1) Hadouken, frequently used more for the stun than its damage- which while strong in single-target, is obsoleted by every skill barring Freeze in terms of AoE.

2) Subpar AoE CC with laughable damage boost and a long CD.

3) Loot which cannot benefit his minions.

4) His actual minion-summoning skill, which is used more often as a form of CC and defense than a form of damage output (due to AI), in spite of its scaling damage.

 

He is a necromancer in name only.

 

To those who say "If you want a swarm-master, ask them to make a new frame"? There is literally no better archetype for a swarm-master than a necromancer, unless you want to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

You think of an ice character, you think CC. Frost has it.

You think of a fire character, you think damage. Ember has it.

You think of a ninja character, you think stealth. Ash has it.

You think of a necromancer... you don't think anything about Nekros.

[Thaumatos]

I was thinking of something else today that I'd do to Terrify.

 

Make Terrify an aura about Nekros that he has to re-cast every so often.  When enemies get near Nekros, they run in fear for 2 seconds not mod-able and cower for 5, mod-able.  That gets rid of the 'power in use' factor and makes him more of a caster frame with the ability to refrain from melee combat if needed.