True Necromancer - Nekros Theme Revamp

[Valiant]

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

Which is ironic because when he first came out I remember seeing many people saying his skills left much to be desired. 

[Archwizard]

I suppose viral basically is the opposite of radiation, which would make Nekros more an opposite to Oberon.

 

Ironic that Radiation doesn't deal more damage to Infested just for complete contrast...

 

But that's for another thread.

[Noble_Cactus]

Which is ironic because when he first came out I remember seeing many people saying his skills left much to be desired. 

 

Well, they still do. But everyone dumped on Desecrate for being useless. Now look where it is. I doubt the WF team ever intended for it to be that useful for Survival, or if they did, expected him to ONLY be used for survival and farming. In other words, the Team Janitor. Sweeps the floors and does the job no one else wants to do.

 

Or maybe they did. They rush a lot of things.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Noble_Cactus

[Charismo]

Well, they still do. But everyone dumped on Desecrate for being useless. Now look where it is. I doubt the WF team ever intended for it to be that useful for Survival, or if they did, expected him to ONLY be used for survival and farming. In other words, the Team Janitor. Sweeps the floors and does the job no one else wants to do.

 

Or maybe they did. They rush a lot of things.

 

If memory serves me correct, Desecrate was originally described as being a single target ability.

 

Many people knew that a single target desecrate wasn't going to work out. Then there were people that didn't want an ability like Desecrate in the game in the first place.

 

So you had all these people complaining about the ability, with many just wanting it replaced outright or something. DE said "just wait and try it for yourself, then we'll see how it goes from there."

 

So Nekros was released, and Desecrate was as it is today. Many people quickly realized how useful it was when used for farming and in Survivals, so they warmed up to it. Many people still did not want to see it in the game. In the end, nothing has changed about the ability since it's inception.

 

Desecrate works. It can make surviving in Survival almost trivial, and I truthfully expect to see something done to it one day. DE has shown that when an ability flies too close to the sun, they have no problem clipping its' wing. I'm sure this would make a lot of people upset. No one denies that it's a powerful ability. The conflict comes into play when you suggest that it's too powerful an ability.

 

Terrify and SotD have great possibilities for utility. All they need is a few tweaks here and there, and they could easily replace Desecrate as the meat and bones of his skillset.

[Enguzrad]

Although I don't own Nekros frame, is anything wrong with this:

 

Anyway, I would love for Nekros to be a legitimate minion master.  Here are my personal preferences for his skills:

 

1. Dominate Soul - basically soul punch, but instead of spawning a second projectile after the initial target is hit, it knocks all enemies within ~5 meters of the target away from the target (still inflicts damage).  If the target dies within 30 seconds, it is summoned as a zombie minion (as others have stated).  Up to 3 minions can be alive at once. 

 

2. Ultimate Sacrifice - drains 30% of Nekros' maximum health, and gives it to his minions (with a multiplier of 2x at max rank).  Nekros' damage is reduced by 30% for 15 seconds, but his minions gain 30% increased damage and a 30% reduction to incoming damage.  This skill can be re-used while still in effect (to provide further healing), and enemies will not target Nekros as long as this skill is in effect and he is within 15 meters of one of his minions (they will target the minions instead).  If Nekros does not have any living minions when he casts the ability, the effects are given to his teammates instead (however, the bonuses are cut in half).  [This follows the Warframe design philosophy that all abilities must be able to stand alone.]

 

3. Corpse Explosion - similar to Desecrate, but all corpses in the area deal 200 viral (or possibly gas) damage to all enemies around them.  Furthermore, this skill is used at range by targeting a corpse (instead of radiating from Nekros himself), enemies are guaranteed to drop 2 health orbs apiece, and cannot drop any other loot (I would argue that the air canisters in survival are an exploit, and resource grinding is a shameful way to make a warframe useful).  [i would also like to propose this skill's unofficial name be Death Pinata.]

 

4. Twisted Chimera (alternate names: Midnight Hour, Soul Harvest) - for 25 seconds, every kill Nekros makes increases his damage and maximum health by 2%.  Nekros also regenerates 3% of his maximum health per second.  All living minions are absorbed by Nekros at the start of this ability, and each consumed minion adds to the base effects of this ability (for a maximum of +8% damage per kill, +8% max health, and 12% health regen per second). 

 

 

These would be (more or less) loyal to the necromancer archetype, give Nekros a solid end-game role as a support character, and provide a large amount of synergy between skills.  Nekros' main weakness would be energy generation, since he'll need to use at least 175 energy to get the most out of his ultimate.

Seems like a nice set of abbilities to me. I would just let that Corpse Explosion drop ammo too, a little more ammo won't hurt anything.

Edited February 17, 2014 by Enguzrad

[Noble_Cactus]

snip

 

True. And from what we've seen in the past, DE also does not care about upsetting entire subgroups of players on a whim. Though they seem to be changing more in that regard. A test server would help alleviate some of that disconnect. But I digress.

 

The problem is that DEsecrate gives him a niche that's just too useful, like you said. It's boring, repetitive, and non-combative, yet it's a necessary dirty job. It makes Nekros really boring to play. At the same time, I think even DE would be careful to acknowledge the slippery slope they've got Nekros on with this ability and would have to keep the loot component somehow. It's quite the pickle, though I think the Soul Drain or Corpse Explosion ability would help liven that up a bit.

[Charismo]

True. And from what we've seen in the past, DE also does not care about upsetting entire subgroups of players on a whim. Though they seem to be changing more in that regard. A test server would help alleviate some of that disconnect. But I digress.

 

The problem is that DEsecrate gives him a niche that's just too useful, like you said. It's boring, repetitive, and non-combative, yet it's a necessary dirty job. It makes Nekros really boring to play. At the same time, I think even DE would be careful to acknowledge the slippery slope they've got Nekros on with this ability and would have to keep the loot component somehow. It's quite the pickle, though I think the Soul Drain or Corpse Explosion ability would help liven that up a bit.

 

I've gotten passive aggressive private messages from people on the forums before, because of the way I think a frame like Nekros should be handled. These people don't want to see anything happen to their little farmer frame. These will be the people that will $#*(@ and moan, much in the same way we do now. There's no real winning move for DE with their fans.

 

I feel it's better in the end to take those big steps and see what sticks and what doesn't. My problem with DE is that when they do decide to throw something against the wall, and it doesn't stick, they are perfectly willing to just let it lay there for a few weeks and pretend it never happened.

 

This isn't always a bad thing. Plenty of players are short sighted. Once again, there's no way to win here.

Edited February 18, 2014 by Charismo

[Tegajinn]

I like the Nekros quite a bit but I don't really care for Shadows of the Dead since it's such a short duration and quite situational.  I would gladly trade it for the ability to raise a single enemy as a permanent (until dead) minion that follows me around and acts as a tank/cannon fodder/distraction/bullet sponge.

 

Other than that, I actually find Soul Punch to be his most useful and fun combat skill :)

[Archwizard]

I've gotten passive aggressive private messages from people on the forums before, because of the way I think a frame like Nekros should be handled. These people don't want to see anything happen to their little farmer frame. These will be the people that will $#*(@ and moan, much in the same way we do now. There's no real winning move for DE with their fans.

 

I feel it's better in the end to take those big steps and see what sticks and what doesn't. My problem with DE is that when they do decide to throw something against the wall, and it doesn't stick, they are perfectly willing to just let it lay there for a few weeks and pretend it never happened.

 

This isn't always a bad thing. Plenty of players are short sighted. Once again, there's no way to win here.

 

Honestly, I hope that they do the same thing to Nekros they did to Frost this patch. People seem to get stuck on the "they ruined Snow Globe" aspect without even blinking at the rather substantial (though imperfect) damage and CC buffs his other abilities received, and the fact that Scott has stated he's still open to alternative solutions to change Snow Globe without simply reverting it to being Frost's only (notable) trick.

 

One day we might even see it mentioned in the patch notes, "Desecrate no longer spawns O2 packs in Survivals."

If that time ever comes, how much support do they think their precious loot pinata skill will retain?

[Charismo]

If that time ever comes, how much support do they think their precious loot pinata skill will retain?

 

None whatsoever.

[Archwizard]

None whatsoever.

 

Which is why it's important to get ahead of the curve- to make it known that if such a change ever happens, there are other directions we absolutely want to go toward rather than just stagnating, like Banshee and her Silence.

 

Directions we should've gone toward in the first place, since nothing can justify Desecrate ending up in Nekros' hands above all alternatives.

[Archwizard]

Also worth nothing, this-

 

 

- and all we've gotten for him thus far is... Damage 2.0 wrecking Soul Punch, and a bug fix for Shadows of the Dead's dumbed-down Invasion AI.

 

Remind me again who it is that thinks we don't want him to change?

 

(Edit: For bonus context, the only Feedback thread with near as many replies is the Stealth thread that's been running since last January.)

Edited February 20, 2014 by Archwizard

[WrothBog]

soul punch i use because it's funny

 

terrify i rarely use because it screws up defense missions

 

desecrate i use almost constantly because i can and it's there

 

SoTD i use at extraction so i can get some codex scans while random team member #412 think's his childish pranks are funny.

 

since hitting rank 30 with nekros i still use him because of desecrate. if some of the rubbish "lore" ideas posted here came to be i'd be leaving him at the selection screen.

 

soul punch to make an ally? should we just rename him male nyx too?

making soul punch an AoE? it kind of implies singular but even with a rename an AoE knockdown of all enemies in front of you is a much more useful version of valkyr's scream move. why should nekros get that for 3 points when valkyr is spending 7 (or 9 whatever)

 

terrify should have a more limited range so enemies don't just wander off. thats it. it's a good skill and i like it's functionality apart from the enemies getting lost in the backwoods. another solution would be to apply a health drain to it so lost enemies eventually die of boredom/lack of health

 

desecrate is fine as is. even if it didn't drop o2, it still has a chance of turning a scorpion into a master thief mod so i'll keep using it.  making the corpses explode or anything else would make desecrate into some kind of i win button in some cases.

 

the argument about rng based abilities falls flat on it's face when everything else in the game is heavily RNG based.

 

having sentinels take over desecration of corpses would make sentinels even more useless than they are now. corpses are only viable for 5-15 seconds during which time the sentinel will have fallen asleep, hoovered up 17 items and refused to let you have them, decided not to attack anything because of butterflies someplace and finally taken pot shot at something dropping the oxium off the map. personally mine isn't allowed to shoot at stuff anymore.

 

finally SoTD i use this very infrequently because it's cast time is far too long during combat to make it usable as an o sh. button, it's effectiveness is based on what you've killed...which isn't terribly helpful at times. my "i need help" moments are generally after clearing a bunch of trash to expose a leader. so the only reliable use i have for them is codex scans. a decent method of getting a bunch of higher level scans.

 

what it doesn't need though is to make the new allies any different to they are now. it's a more defined version of chaos, you have no control, but they aren't confused enemies either. they wont turn on you. apparantly leader abilities glitch out and hurt you still. that needs fixing.

 

too many comments here are trying to make nekros a healer with over zealous crowd control. sure that would make nekros more popular. but at the expense of game balance. i already find vauban's and frost's too annoying to deal with in pugs.

[Charismo]

I'm a little confused by your comments on SotD. You say that you hardly use the ability because it isn't useful, but then turn around and say that it shouldn't be changed, other than a bug fix?

 

Your comment about RNG doesn't hold up either, as very few abilities rely on RNG. I actually can't think of any others, but I'm sure there may be one I'm overlooking aside from Desecrate. Still, not sure what that has to do with it.

Edited February 20, 2014 by Charismo

[Archwizard]

Your comment about RNG doesn't hold up either, as very few abilities rely on RNG. I actually can't think of any others, but I'm sure there may be one I'm overlooking aside from Desecrate. Still, not sure what that has to do with it.

 

The only ones that come to mind are Reckoning (which has the base effect of dealing damage before the RNG comes into play) and Turbulence (which- barring a bit of a buggy release- has a long durational effect so as not to waste energy). Maybe targeting mechanics on skills like Bladestorm and Terrify, but even those have an effect for the energy spent.

 

Whereas Desecrate has a chance not only to give you useless crap, but to do nothing at all- a rather substantial one, at that.

Edited February 20, 2014 by Archwizard

[Noble_Cactus]

I don't see a Corpse Explosion being overpowered in any way, definitely not more so than Shield Polarize on Corpus or anything. In fact it would be underpowered unless it had a proper scaling component (something this game lacks).

 

Also the rubbish lore suggestions are to make Nekros more interesting. Desecrate is his job and he does it well, but he is boring. Wouldn't it be cool to have more classes that are both fun to play and are more effective at doing different tasks?

[Archwizard]

soul punch i use because it's funny

 

SoTD i use at extraction so i can get some codex scans while random team member #412 think's his childish pranks are funny.

 

It's fine if you want to waste your energy on gimmicks, but most of us aren't so easily amused as you.

 

soul punch to make an ally? should we just rename him male nyx too?

 

Do you just call Zephyr "female Excalibur"? Rhino "armored Excalibur"? Ash "armored Loki"?

Saryn has a melee buff and a decoy. Does that just make her "female Loki"?

 

making soul punch an AoE? it kind of implies singular but even with a rename an AoE knockdown of all enemies in front of you is a much more useful version of valkyr's scream move. why should nekros get that for 3 points when valkyr is spending 7 (or 9 whatever)

 

You're talking about mod capacity? On a frame that doesn't start with an aura polarity?

Consider perhaps that Paralysis costs Valkyr 5 Energy to cast in an area around herself (which could be at least a half dozen people in any given mission), while Nekros costs five times that to hit one guy (two maybe, if they're both against a wall- and I'd still call it a miracle) with any degree of certainty.

On that train of logic, I'm surprised you aren't ranting and raving about Terrify and Desecrate being swapped.

 

terrify should have a more limited range so enemies don't just wander off. thats it. it's a good skill and i like it's functionality apart from the enemies getting lost in the backwoods. another solution would be to apply a health drain to it so lost enemies eventually die of boredom/lack of health

 

Can't tell if serious or trolling. Short response: Absolutely needs improvement.

 

desecrate is fine as is. even if it didn't drop o2, it still has a chance of turning a scorpion into a master thief mod so i'll keep using it.  making the corpses explode or anything else would make desecrate into some kind of i win button in some cases.

 

the argument about rng based abilities falls flat on it's face when everything else in the game is heavily RNG based.

 

having sentinels take over desecration of corpses would make sentinels even more useless than they are now. corpses are only viable for 5-15 seconds during which time the sentinel will have fallen asleep, hoovered up 17 items and refused to let you have them, decided not to attack anything because of butterflies someplace and finally taken pot shot at something dropping the oxium off the map. personally mine isn't allowed to shoot at stuff anymore.

 

Say what you will, if it weren't for the simultaneous release of Survivals, Nekros would have a much tinier audience. 

Yes, "everything else is RNG-based", but we're not talking about the damage variance of your attacks or the spawn rates of enemies or the mission structure or even loot rewards; we're talking about a chance to spend resources and do NOTHING. Desecrate's closest cousin is Reckoning, and even it deals damage for the cost.

 

I don't see how that could possibly make sentinels "more useless". What if the Precept put a passive aura on the player, with an X% chance per rank to drop additional loot per kill within range? Would that be any different from Desecrate now?

At any rate, even if you're right, I'd definitely prefer to leave the boring job to Carrier if it meant Nekros gained any other flavor of support skill. I'll grant that half the game's about farming, but I shouldn't be able to feel it.

 

what it doesn't need though is to make the new allies any different to they are now. it's a more defined version of chaos, you have no control, but they aren't confused enemies either. they wont turn on you. apparantly leader abilities glitch out and hurt you still. that needs fixing.

 

Like Charismo said, your arguments are self-defeating. You claim it's awful and worthless, but the only change you can offer is a bug fix. You claim that Soul Punch should be worse than Paralysis for its mod cost, but then compare Shadows to Chaos (with insignificant difference in terms of damage income).

Just because your own minions can't turn on you (unlike Chaos' low chance to), doesn't mean that the enemies still in the room will ignore you just because a Shadow lives.

 

The benefit of Shadows of the Dead should not solely be that 'it blocks bullets'- Electric Shields block bullets, Snow Globes block bullets, Decoy and Molt block bullets. It should not be used as a pocket Chaos, especially as each death resulting from Chaos benefits the team (whereas Shadows can die with no detriment to your foes).

A little note about warfare, nobody raises an army to avoid damage- you raise one to dish it out. Shadows is one of only three abilities in the game that actually scales its damage with your enemies', and it should bloody well act like it.

 

too many comments here are trying to make nekros a healer with over zealous crowd control. sure that would make nekros more popular. but at the expense of game balance. i already find vauban's and frost's too annoying to deal with in pugs.

 

"Overzealous crowd control"? What do you think Soul Punch, Terrify and Shadows are used for?

Hint: Not damage! Soul Punch's damage falls off to just leave a stun, Terrify's armor debuff is gawdawful, and Shadows' AI needs some serious work.

"At the expense of game balance"? Desecrate inflates Survivals as badly as Snow Globe inflated Defenses. Nekros' healing, in this hypothetical scenario, would be competing with Trinity (whose Blessing is unanimously called overpowered) and Oberon (whose Renewal, since Update 12's removal of the ranged revival "bug", is widely lamented as being underpowered).

 

Frosts annoy you? Blame the players, not game balance.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Archwizard

[(PSN)OniWarrior]

I do wish people would stop calling for Nekros to become another damage dealer. The game has enough of them already and his skills are clearly geared more towards cc.

These are my suggestions for improving what he has already got:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/168977-nekros-tweaks/

As for having the sentinels do the same job as Desecrate, there is a mod called Spare Parts that pretty much does that now just with a lower chance of loot spawning than Desecrate has.

[Charismo]

I do wish people would stop calling for Nekros to become another damage dealer. The game has enough of them already and his skills are clearly geared more towards cc.

These are my suggestions for improving what he has already got:

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/168977-nekros-tweaks/

As for having the sentinels do the same job as Desecrate, there is a mod called Spare Parts that pretty much does that now just with a lower chance of loot spawning than Desecrate has.

 

Spare Parts is a mod that gives you sentinel a chance to drop items when it dies, not other mobs.

 

As far as CC, Nekros might as well be Nyx lite. No one is wanting him to become a nuke frame like Nova, but we do want some variety; something to set him apart. For me, this would ideally be a mix of damaging skills and CC that would have some kind of synergy.

 

Many of your suggestions have already been suggested here, and are ones that I'd be in favor of.

[CY13ERPUNK]

yes plz thk u

+9999 OP

nyx has mind control, her effects are temporary but far reaching

give nekros PERMANENT MINIONS (until they die of course)

good stuff

[CY13ERPUNK]

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.

while i dig wat u r sayin

remember ingame lore: nekros is not raising the dead thru magic, he is basically creating nanotech clones of his recently slain foes, thus he can "raise" robots, since his shadows are really just a nanotech version of whatever he just destroyed

[Seanjuju]

Enough RNG-frame. Get serious or 2014 will crush warframe. 

[Noble_Cactus]

while i dig wat u r sayin

remember ingame lore: nekros is not raising the dead thru magic, he is basically creating nanotech clones of his recently slain foes, thus he can "raise" robots, since his shadows are really just a nanotech version of whatever he just destroyed

 

This reminds me: prior to the introduction of Leaders enemies, I thought it'd be cool if Nekros' minions had vocoded/synthesized voices to not only help distinguish them from their regular counterparts, but to also give them a bit of flavor. They're not perfect reconstructions of what you killed, so having them imitate their targets in a crude and grainy fashion adds to that grim feel a necromancer is supposed to give off.

[Scherhardt]

Good s***. +1

Really fits in.

TRUE NECROMANCER

[Archwizard]

I do wish people would stop calling for Nekros to become another damage dealer. The game has enough of them already and his skills are clearly geared more towards cc.

 

Barring the fact that the suggestions in the OP are about keeping him support oriented but giving his minions more emphasis on damage... as I've already stated, his ability to raise the dead creates a prime opportunity for scaling damage WHICH, as you might notice, is very much in short supply.