Nekros Buff?

[ikitclaw]

I remember in one of the dev-streams they talked about Buffing warframes, they've already buffed Oberon but did they ever talk about reworking or buffing Nekros, or specificaly shadows of the dead and terrify?

[Yazeth]

DE is already working on warframe buffs, and has already done so. Nekros was mentioned, but DE never really releases the progress of these buffs, like specific changes or stats.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Yazeth

[Slick_Coalition]

Nekros needs a buff? Just about every warframe will be buffed before Nekros gets one.

[R34LM]

What Nekros needs is a reason to use his other abilities rather than use him as a farmer; a farmer just does not fit his design. When I think of a Necromancer, I don't think of a guy who taps a body for more loot.

[(PSN)IIIDevoidIII]

Moved to a more appropriate section.

[CaptainJohnson]

I dunno, Nekros is already a fairly solid 'frame as he is. A farming 'frame, sure, but that's not exactly a bad thing, even if it does seem a little strange for a necromancer. If he does get any buffs, I'd be fine if they left Desecrate alone and gave him a few stat buffs (health or armor would be great) and maybe some extra 'oomph' on his Shadows of the Dead.

[Etsoree]

What Nekros needs is a reason to use his other abilities rather than use him as a farmer; a farmer just does not fit his design. When I think of a Necromancer, I don't think of a guy who taps a body for more loot.

 

Soul Punch can get rid of that annoying Eximus killing your team.

 

Terrify is a CC/debuff for high levels.

 

SotD is a CC.

[Darzk]

Terrify needs either the removal of the target cap (ditch the armor reduction to make it more fair), or at the very least preferential targeting based on range.

SotD is pretty... okay, the way it is now. Shades need to not block friendly fire, tho. And the casting speed should be halved, so NT is an option rather than mandatory.

Desecrate should just be 100%, rather than having to be spammed multiple times to get that 100%. Pointless Desecrate spamming is why no one actually likes playing Nekros, no matter how much they need him :S.

SP is fine. :D

[Noble_Cactus]

To answer the OP, I think Nekros was mentioned as a target for reworking in one of the livestreams and that he was planned to be next after Oberon. Don't quote me on that, though.

 

I can see their apprehension when it comes to reworking him. Nekros is on a bit of a slippery slope when it comes to Desecrate. Nekros players don't like doing it because they don't get to do much during a game. Other players like it for the still-tiny chance to get a rare item. It's what we have come to expect of him as players, so taking the skill away is likely to cause a lot of rage on the dear ol' forums. DE's task, then, is to find a way to bring Nekros more into an active role while preserving what we expect of him as players.

 

-

 

What's interesting is that at one point during development, Desecrate was a Life Drain. I'm interested in seeing how this actually worked, since the OP was edited at some point. Maybe it could be turned into an aura that disintegrates corpses and auto-desecrates them while dropping the usual health orbs and stuff? Or maybe it could return a little health to Nekros/nearby teammates with each body desecrated at the cost of some energy. This would allow Nekros to actually do some action besides just spamming 3 for 30-60 minutes. I do like the energy orb drops, though.

 

Terrify should still cause enemies to turn on their heels, but it should also debuff them with a slow effect. That way, you and your team can actually pick off the babies. Keep the armor debuff, or maybe turn it into an overall vulnerability debuff? Oh, yeah, and no target limit. Not sure why it even has this in the first place.

 

Shadows is okay, but it needs better AI. A Shield Lancer/Scorpion/Heavy knocking down a group of enemies is pretty nifty, I will admit. Players should also be able to shoot through the minions.

 

-

 

My drastic changes would be to change Soul Punch so that hitting an enemy with it wouldn't cause the unreliable bowling pin effect. Instead, it could cause a small AoE stagger or stun and proc a curse debuff that causes afflicted targets to immediately turn into Shadows on death (or if they are killed by the Soul Punch). Shadows, meanwhile, would be a swirling cloud of spirits that follows Nekros around, seeking out nearby enemies and "possessing" them. This could cause a confuse status effect, or stun them, or do something else entirely. These changes would remove the need for Nekros to kill snipe while retaining the minion/zookeeper aspects of the current Nekros' design.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Noble_Cactus

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

SotD needs to remove the kill requirement since it is the only ultimate ability in the game that requires one, especially given how mediocre the AI is and the fact that there is a 20 kill cap.  If anything the number of shadows should be based on the level of the skill and power strength should make them stronger, not provide more of them (as this conflicts with the kill cap).  In many ways having 7+ shadows per cast is actually a bad thing since it reduces the number of times you can cast the ultimate ability (something that no other warframe suffers from).  The fact that the shadows rarely follow you, block friendly fire, and deal an insignificant amount of damage make them more of a problem at higher levels than a true benefit.

 

Terrify needs to have an expanding wave effect like Nova's Molecular Prime.  Sure, it can move slightly faster but it really should target enemies based on something other than random chance.

 

Soul Punch is mostly fine but could use some better auto-aim similar to Volt's Shock, especially for console players.  I agree that it could use other minor buffs/tweaks as well though.

 

Desecrate is effective but tedious.  I'm with Darzk in that it should have a 100% chance to desecrate even if the drop rate is reduced to compensate.

[R34LM]

Soul Punch can get rid of that annoying Eximus killing your team.

 

Terrify is a CC/debuff for high levels.

 

SotD is a CC.

I can see where you are getting at, but here is my argument to that.

 

Soul punch, I might as well shoot the guy in the face with my gun.

 

Terrify, long cast and a cap on how many you get. Plus, if I actually wanted to build for desecrate with more range, it doesn't compliment well since power strength affects the affected count.

 

Sotd is too slow and brings about the same stupid ai as insult to injury. Sure, I can make my own army, but for solo play I have to choose everyone. I might as well use nyx.

 

Plus, Nekros is just way too squishy and hardly viable for solo play.

[CaptainJohnson]

-snip-

 

Plus, Nekros is just way too squishy and hardly viable for solo play.

 

Not all 'frames will be viable for solo play. Some just require teamwork regardless, and Nekros is one of them. I admit that he could use a few changes/buffs here and there, but he doesn't need to be solo material. If you're farming with him (which is what I would expect) then you'll need others to cover for you while you Desecrate the living heck out of the map. Maybe he'll get an armor/health buff, which would be nice-- shields should definitely stay where they are though.

[(PSN)Hiero_Glyph]

@CaptainJohnson

 

Let's be honest, in just about every MMO/RPG in the history of games the summoner/pet class is always one of if not the best solo players.  Nekros is very poorly designed as he can summon 7+ minions to fight for him and they do almost nothing.  That fact that you immediately relegate him to farming speaks to the balance changes that he so desperately needs.  Also, being squishy doesn't matter as long as he has summons to draw fire and fight for him.  Loki is squishy as well but it doesn't matter when he never gets hit.  Nekros should be able to accomplish something similar by using summons to distract and deal damage to offset his squishiness, Terrify enemies that get too close, CC bigger threats with Soul Punch, and then heal/resupply after the fight with Desecrate.  On paper he is the ideal solo frame, which is why he needs a rebalance since he fails to deliver with three of four abilities.

Edited September 10, 2014 by (PS4)Hiero_Glyph

[Noble_Cactus]

Not all 'frames will be viable for solo play. Some just require teamwork regardless, and Nekros is one of them. I admit that he could use a few changes/buffs here and there, but he doesn't need to be solo material. If you're farming with him (which is what I would expect) then you'll need others to cover for you while you Desecrate the living heck out of the map. Maybe he'll get an armor/health buff, which would be nice-- shields should definitely stay where they are though.

 

A health/armor buff would be an insult to the people who've wanted Nekros to be more engaging and fun to play since Day 1. That sounds a bit dramatic, but if DE were to change those values an nothing else, I'd be really disappointed. Especially after what they just did for Oberon (who still has issues that need to be ironed out).

[Agullimux]

Making desecrate global would give more possibilites / room for other builds.

also 100% on maxed mod or gained with power str.

shadows of dead, summoned creatures take agression from enemies
terrify, slows enemies also, who wants to debuff enemies when they run so fast away?

Edited September 11, 2014 by Agullimux

[Darzk]

What's interesting is that at one point during development, Desecrate was a Life Drain. I'm interested in seeing how this actually worked, since the OP was edited at some point. Maybe it could be turned into an aura that disintegrates corpses and auto-desecrates them while dropping the usual health orbs and stuff? Or maybe it could return a little health to Nekros/nearby teammates with each body desecrated at the cost of some energy. This would allow Nekros to actually do some action besides just spamming 3 for 30-60 minutes. I do like the energy orb drops, though.

IIRC you could gain health from being near dead bodies while the ability was active. 

 

I rather like the concept of auto desecrate, but it might be too powerful.

 

I think at the bare minimum some very simple changes could easily revitalize this class:

1) Double Desecrate's chance to activate (to 100%) and double the energy cost

2) Cut SotD natural cast time in half

3) Remove Terrify target cap

 

To expand 3, if they want to keep the cap, make it use MPrime esque activation (although with significantly faster speed).

 

Another simple Terrify change that would make it much better is to replace the 20% armor loss with a 25-50% movement snare.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Darzk

[CaptainJohnson]

-snip-

 

That's probably fair, but I don't think it's wise to directly compare Warframe to other games and classes. They're not exactly looking to mimic every aspect of the genre, so Nekros really shouldn't have to fit the solo niche. Regardless, I feel like I do well with SotD, but I admit that the AI isn't always the best. I think that maybe the enemies you spawn should have increased priority for enemies to fight so that they don't all run after you, but I feel like DE regularly helps to improve the SotD AI and I've noticed that the ability has gotten more and more helpful as time goes on. Terrify, however, I agree with. It really needs some love to make him at least a little more survivable.

 

I don't think he needs to be great for solo, I just think he needs to be able to be independent for more than five seconds without struggling to survive. I consider myself a good Nekros player, but even I have difficulty on my own.

 

A health/armor buff would be an insult to the people who've wanted Nekros to be more engaging and fun to play since Day 1. That sounds a bit dramatic, but if DE were to change those values an nothing else, I'd be really disappointed. Especially after what they just did for Oberon (who still has issues that need to be ironed out).

 

I didn't say that a health/armor buff was all that Nekros needs or wants, just that those would be nice additions. I hope that if they retool him, they'll do it right. But I also enjoy Nekros already and find him to be engaging to play if you use his ability set as a whole; Desecrate spam alone is pretty boring, but his other abilities bring more to the table. Oberon's buffs moved him into one of my new favorite 'frames so I'd also like to see them put the kind of love for Oberon put into Nekros.

 

I mostly agree with Darzk on what changes should be made. I'd like it if I didn't have to use Desecrate that often, but I'd be okay with increasing the energy cost. I end up Desecrating 3-4 times on larger crowds anyways, so in the end it'd be worth it.