Nekros And His Augment Shield Of Shadows

[Chub_N_Tuck]

I initially really didn't like nekros because of desecrate, which forced me to stop for a bit during gameplay and just spam 3. It was one of the things I disliked. But Shield of Shadows augment actually made me and a lot of people build for the shadows of dead ability now and even love playing nekros. I love the way it works and it works wonders even in high levels. This is one of the best augment yet, but there are still few complaints about how shadows of the dead ability works.

 

First off, there's still no gauge that tells me how many shadows I can charge max, or current charges. I just have to guess that I have max charges after killing some enemies. I really don't like that part.

 

Secondly, the shadows summoned act just like the enemies. I would love to see at least one toggle button that applies to all shadows and makes mobs follow/not follow. The shadows need to be near nekros for the augment to work, and I really couldn't use it in missions outside survival and defense. I hope the shadows can get either a better AI or some mechanics that make them follow nekros.

[(PSN)Snowbluff]

Yeah, further control would be nice.

 

Personally, after formaing necros, I think the biggest issue is the casting time. I take a lot of damage if I am trying to cast it and something runs around the corner. D:

[Chub_N_Tuck]

Yeah, further control would be nice.

 

Personally, after formaing necros, I think the biggest issue is the casting time. I take a lot of damage if I am trying to cast it and something runs around the corner. D:

 

Could always use 2nd ability to get nearby enemies away from you though. The casting time isn't a problem, it's something that players have to play around. There should be a trade off on abilities like that. You know what I mean? You can't just expect to have everything convenient for the players or it would be totally silly.

[GinKenshin]

well, I think we all agree that the augment is one of the best yet, but it doesn't address the issue with the ability itself

the major problem is the AI, they basically have no brains at all, they hide behind cover at the first chance, this needs to be addressed, the 2nd problem is that a duration build will hurt you, since you want to cast it at every room you go into, what I suggest it that you can kill your shadows by re-pressing the 4th ability

other than those 2 problems, it's a very great ult, and has a lot of potential 

[Chub_N_Tuck]

well, I think we all agree that the augment is one of the best yet, but it doesn't address the issue with the ability itself

the major problem is the AI, they basically have no brains at all, they hide behind cover at the first chance, this needs to be addressed, the 2nd problem is that a duration build will hurt you, since you want to cast it at every room you go into, what I suggest it that you can kill your shadows by re-pressing the 4th ability

other than those 2 problems, it's a very great ult, and has a lot of potential 

 

Exactly my point. The augment is awesome but the AI/mechanics could be better implemented.

[Tesseract7777]

Yeah I love shield of shadows. It's an incredibly cool augment, and actually makes for a viable Tankros build in higher level play. That said, you hit exactly on the two major problems with Shadows of the Dead, and someone else hit on the third problem. 

 

As you said, we should have a charge counter to see how many enemies we have in our cache, when shadows isn't active, displayed instead of the usual duration countdown timer. 

 

Then, yes, better AI would be what it sorely needs. I'd like an option to stay in one area and defend, or to follow me, and either way they should be much more aggressive than they are currently. They seem to spend a lot of time standing around, or not properly attacking targets and wasting time. With shield of shadows I could walk 50 meters away and still get the effect. Imagine being able to tell the shadows to hold perimeter at the pod, then run to revive a teammate, while they stick around defending, and still mitigate nearly all damage from you. 

 

As for what someone else mentioned, Shadows needs a faster casting time. I use natty talent and it still takes like a full two seconds. Then oftentimes it's a second or two after that, before the shadows actually fully catch up to what's going on around them and actually do something. At the very least, with how long the casting animation is -- even if they don't want to decrease the animation time -- I think it's unfair with such a slow animation that the timer starts before the animation is finished, and well before the shadows have finished being $&*&*#(%& and started doing something. If nothing else, they should make the duration timer only begin once the shadows are fully out of the ground and ready to be useful. Right now, even with natty talent, it's around 5 totally wasted seconds. And that's a lot of time in a fast paced game. 

[Noble_Cactus]

Could always use 2nd ability to get nearby enemies away from you though. The casting time isn't a problem, it's something that players have to play around. There should be a trade off on abilities like that. You know what I mean? You can't just expect to have everything convenient for the players or it would be totally silly.

 

Eh. For how 'powerful' Shadows and Desecrate are (read: not really), there's no reason for them to roughly have the cast time of Rhino Stomp. Now, if Shadows were able to sustain themselves over very long periods of time somehow (by having killed enemies create new shadows and add to a fraction of the duration, for example), then I could see the long cast time being justified.

 

As it is, you absolutely must find cover while casting Shadows or you'll get torn to shreds. Even with NatTal, casting it anywhere near an enemy is risky business. Shadows take a second or two to spawn in an acquire targets, as well, and the Shield of Shadows effect doesn't kick in until the cast animation is finished.

 

But concerning the OP, Rebecca posted something a couple weeks ago about Spectre commands. I hope these are applied to Nyx MC minions and Nekros shadows as well. What good is an RPG necromancer if he can't corral and control the flow of battle with his minions?

Edited May 10, 2015 by Noble_Cactus