Nekros Deserves A Better Fourth Ability Like Cerberus?

[(PSN)aiptekfanboy]

kinda tired of desecrate and i hope it gets moved to an ability 1 slot or replaced by a better ability?

 

i hope Nekros gets a better fourth ability more fitting of the Underworld Dead theme?

 

i.e. the watcher of the Underworld was Cerberus

 

Cerberus? yep a huge, three headed badass dog

 

so why not a huge three headed kubrow as Nekros 4th ability?

 

i.e. a twenty foot tall companion when summoned that lasts for 30 seconds

bites for 5000 per bite and Nekros has the ability to ride it like in Dragons Dogma

 

If Nekros rides Cerberus then the summon lasts for twice as long?

 

Just sounds like a way cooler ability then here farmboy, here farmboy ,here farmboy desecrate here and here yawwwn repeat.

[(PSN)FunyFlyBoy]

His name, Nekroz, also refers to Necromancer, Mages who summon the dead. His fourth ability is fine. What needs to be done is to fix the AI

[rechot]

His name, Nekroz, also refers to Necromancer, Mages who summon the dead. His fourth ability is fine. What needs to be done is to fix the AI

^^^ i have been using nekros a ton latly full dps he is a amazing frame his 4th with the augment mod is amazing.

 

also if DE touched his 3 there would be a uproar

[Lactamid]

While I like summons, this is not something I'd like. Cerberus being a Kubrow-thing sounds really unappealing to me as well. Any "riding" and mounts of any kind is also a minus in my book.

[Stratego89]

Desecrate is not his 4th... it's his 3rd. Misleading/clickbait title.

 

Also, it's fine how it is. People abusing it for farm is not the skill's fault, I use it properly instead of spamming it 24/7 for loot.

 

The only way I can see it not being abused yet remaining as a skill (which it should since many builds rely on despoil... including mine) is making it an Toggle-based area altering skill. Essentially a large area that looks as if souls are grabbing around from the ground, and desecrate any dead parts in the area over time (reliably) for you. Could also act as a slight slow to balance out terrify's speed up on enemies.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Stratego89

[HADES.JS]

due to what ill say now and your thread, I would like to say (HADES)=Underworld king or underworld ruler or god , and Nekros = THANATOS , in Greek nekros means dead and nekros is like a grim reaper of the game he kills and summon the dead enemy to his side.

 

about saying nekros should have Cerberus that aint going to work but if DE made a character that he's referring to Hades and he summon 3 headed dog wouldn't be bad idea but I guess but might affect the lore so yeah

 

(Nekros)=thanatos

 

[Gurpgork]

Desecrate needs to go. His other abilities really only need tweaks. Soul Punch should be an execution attack that grows stronger as its target grows weaker or Soul Survivor should become part of the regular ability, Terrify needs either a slow or to have its armor reduction increased substantially (or both), and Shadows needs to have better AI and a way to summon existing shadows close to you.

Shadows of the Dead should be his bread and butter skill, since it's one of the only skills that has both offensive and defensive utility where both scale perfectly. It's already a very unique and powerful ultimate that should be expanded upon, not scrapped.

[PsychoticMarik]

Desecrate needs to go. His other abilities really only need tweaks. Soul Punch should be an execution attack that grows stronger as its target grows weaker or Soul Survivor should become part of the regular ability, Terrify needs either a slow or to have its armor reduction increased substantially (or both), and Shadows needs to have better AI and a way to summon existing shadows close to you.

Shadows of the Dead should be his bread and butter skill, since it's one of the only skills that has both offensive and defensive utility where both scale perfectly. It's already a very unique and powerful ultimate that should be expanded upon, not scrapped.

This is the gist of it. He already has a great foundation for an ultimate. It just needs alot of tweaks and updates. It needs to become his signature ability. As no other frame has the power to summon an army of slain enemies. If one of his powers is deserving of a replacement its desecrate, but I wont get into that here.

 

What I'd expand upon as it pertains to his ultimate is as follows.

 

Shadows of the dead: 1)Remove Duration. 2)Holding 4 instantly teleports shadows to Nekros. Hands/energy free cast. 3)Using 4 in the normal manner summons more shadows if any have died. Cast time/energy adjusted depending on number being summoned. 4)Soul cache changed to remember more than 20 units. Something closer to 50. Soul cache also adjusted to prioritize summoning units based on whats strongest first, and remember units in the same manner. Bumping off weak units from the list in favor of powerful ones if the list is filled. Removing the burden of avoiding killing off weak units to make sure you summon the good ones. 5)Allied kills withing a certain range(30M maybe)also added to soul cache. 6)Nekros should be able to summon Eximus units  7)Command wheel added. Similiar to what we have for gear and emotes. Commands consist of "Stick with me", "Follow marked ally", "Defend this position", "Do your thing"(current AI behavior basically), and perhaps "self destruct". 8)Add number of living shadows to Nekros UI. 9)Create synergy for shadows with Nerkos other powers. 10) Shadow kills count toward the soul cache. 11) Nekros should have something on his UI telling him how many spaces are filled in his soul cache.

 

 

I'm probably overlooking a few things that could be added to this list as well, so feel free to suggest more.

 

Nekros is the closest frame in the game to having a minion master supportive playstyle, and he has perhaps the best theme suited to it. We should be trying to help DE understand that. As its a playstyle that is generally neglected within games, but is truly unique and fun when done correctly.

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

His name, Nekroz, also refers to Necromancer, Mages who summon the dead. His fourth ability is fine. What needs to be done is to fix the AI

Deleting the duration wouldn't hurt eather. Same issue that frost had: you don't need abilitys in the game that feauture both, health and duration.

Just show the number of active shadows and make it recastable at any point.

Edited November 7, 2015 by (PS4)CoolD2108

[Maicael]

Desecrate is not his 4th... it's his 3rd. Misleading/clickbait title.

 

Also, it's fine how it is. People abusing it for farm is not the skill's fault, I use it properly instead of spamming it 24/7 for loot.

 

The only way I can see it not being abused yet remaining as a skill (which it should since many builds rely on despoil... including mine) is making it an Toggle-based area altering skill. Essentially a large area that looks as if souls are grabbing around from the ground, and desecrate any dead parts in the area over time (reliably) for you. Could also act as a slight slow to balance out terrify's speed up on enemies.

This ^^^ is something that I could get behind for Desecrate. Giving Desecrate some cool visuals and a slowing effect for something besides looting would be great. This is how I'd see it appearing:

So adding hands like that would make sense to add a slow effect as well to enemies still alive within the area. I'm not sure about making it a toggle though. I think making it similar in duration and size(but circular) to Frost's Ice Wave w/ augment would work well.

 

If it's going to loot over time though something would have to be done about the loot chance. It would have to be applied with a reduced chance with several ticks throughout the duration to even out to the same chance or harshly reduce the chance on kills not made by Nekros. Maybe something like a %loot/second similar to how continuous weapons have their status chance.

[Gurpgork]

Shadows of the dead: 1)Remove Duration. 2)Holding 4 instantly teleports shadows to Nekros. Hands/energy free cast. 3)Using 4 in the normal manner summons more shadows if any have died. Cast time/energy adjusted depending on number being summoned. 4)Soul cache changed to remember more than 20 units. Something closer to 50. Soul cache also adjusted to prioritize summoning units based on whats strongest first, and remember units in the same manner. Bumping off weak units from the list in favor of powerful ones if the list is filled. Removing the burden of avoiding killing off weak units to make sure you summon the good ones. 5)Allied kills withing a certain range(30M maybe)also added to soul cache. 6)Nekros should be able to summon Eximus units 7)Command wheel added. Similiar to what we have for gear and emotes. Commands consist of "Stick with me", "Follow marked ally", "Defend this position", "Do your thing"(current AI behavior basically), and perhaps "self destruct". 8)Add number of living shadows to Nekros UI. 9)Create synergy for shadows with Nerkos other powers. 10) Shadow kills count toward the soul cache. 11) Nekros should have something on his UI telling him how many spaces are filled in his soul cache.

I do love your suggestions here, but if I may, I'd like to nitpick a little.

Firstly, your idea to hold 4 to summon existing shadows to your location. This would be a fantastic change. However, that's the function you'd be using far more, not the resummoning function, so it's not the one you'd want to be tied to a hold. Press 4 to summon existing shadows to your location, hold to make more. I feel like that would work much more smoothly, because then you wouldn't get stuck in the resummon animation unless you actually wanted to. Alternatively, they could periodically teleport to you automatically when they're following you, not unlike kubrows.

As much as I love your idea of a command wheel, and I would love to see it implemented, I think there also needs to be a more fluid and natural way to control your units, since Warframe is so fast paced and you might often have a hard time using a chat wheel with things shooting at you. Something subtle, like when you hold RMB to block or zoom in, your minions focus fire in that direction, would be a very welcome addition. This would again be a very smooth change and additionally would be friendlier to console players. Maybe this only happens if they're commanded to follow you, which would most likely be the default option. Additionally, the trait I mentioned earlier where they'd automatically teleport to your location would also only happen if they're commanded to follow you.

As for synergy, I do have a couple ideas. For instance, were Soul Punch made an execution attack like I suggested, it should instantly create a new shadow if it kills its target. This could be another option to replace lost minions. Maybe it could also be cast on shadows to destroy them and release a pulse of health and maybe even energy that could heal you, allies, or shadows. Another idea I have in mind is making enemies affected by Terrify count twice to your soul cache if they're killed.

An additional fun but unnecessary change would be to let Shade or Huras kubrows cloak your shadows. I could see that being really amusing, but, again, unnecessary.

Just a couple thoughts I considered worth beach balling.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Gurpgork

[Stratego89]

This ^^^ is something that I could get behind for Desecrate. Giving Desecrate some cool visuals and a slowing effect for something besides looting would be great. This is how I'd see it appearing:

 

So adding hands like that would make sense to add a slow effect as well to enemies still alive within the area. I'm not sure about making it a toggle though. I think making it similar in duration and size(but circular) to Frost's Ice Wave w/ augment would work well.

 

If it's going to loot over time though something would have to be done about the loot chance. It would have to be applied with a reduced chance with several ticks throughout the duration to even out to the same chance or harshly reduce the chance on kills not made by Nekros. Maybe something like a %loot/second similar to how continuous weapons have their status chance.

In regards to Duration vs Toggle. I was going to say duration at first but thought about it carefully for a bit. My build relies on despoil's self damage to be. I thought "duration would keep me from spamming it for hurt unless I run a low duration build and gimp ALL my skills- thats bad". Whereas a toggle could drain your health instead of energy with despoil on, and since it's constantly making health orbs from enemies, you shouldn't have any health issues, just like how it works now. Also- if it was a duration, once you put it down if you team needs to move, you're basically outta luck. If it's a toggle you can move it on demand. Overall I just think having it as a toggle would be better.

 

One thing I'd also like to stress here. I do NOT think it should follow nekros around the way equinox' pacify works. The reasoning for this is that any high detail, cool looking effect like that would cause disorientations for players that are "forced" to enter and exit it's range, or have fast moving high detail visuals (for those nekros that like to move around like me). Player discomfort is bad, I see a lot of people in the community that have issues with stuff like this.

 

I didn't mean loot over time per se. What I meant is that every piece has a 100% "chance" to desecrate- it's just done over a short period of time. Meaning you still have a chance to chop up bodies after you down an enemy, meaning no nerf to the looting capabilities of desecrate. Trust me- I do NOT want to nuke a viable source of "grind/farm" (though I don't think those actually exist...) relief available to players or change his skill's point entirely. I just want to offer the best option I see available should DE feel the need to change it somehow.

[PsychoticMarik]

Snip

You are correct about having the 4 be pressed acting as the teleport rather than the hold. I guess when I thought about it I figured having the player hold it for the teleport and tap for the extra summons just made sense for consistency. Since pressing it once with no hold would still summon them the first time as it does now, but your way would work better for ease of use, and just makes sense in general.

 

As for having the shadows auto teleport to you when you get far away enough like kubrows I personally have to disagree. I only want them to teleport to me when I tell them to do so. As they are right now I have the option to drop them at an interception point(or anywhere else relatively far away from me, or even very far away from me)and know that they will more or less remain there while I go to the other side of the map to grab another point. I want the option to summon an army and leave them somewhere, but I also want the option to call them back instantly if I need them. Just as another example: I dont want to summon an army in def and have them port to me as I run about collecting drops either. Part of the fun for me in having minions is sometimes leaving them somewhere to do things while I go off and do something else.

 

For the command wheel I agree that something better could be made, but honestly I havent any really good ideas as to what. I'm a controller user myself, but I can still make good use of the command wheel in combat. I'm just slower than someone who has a hotkey. I wouldnt mind little things like what you suggested, but I also have to wonder how that might affect the AI. If I keep aiming at things(as I will in fights)and the minions keep trying to assist with it rather than just fight on their own they may end up doing a whole lot of nothing. I think its a very iffy area to approach. Which is why a small command wheel with quick options to select(trying to limit it to up,down,left,right rather than diagonals since they can be tricky to select on a controller)that set the AI on that function until the player tells them otherwise seems like the best solution to me.

 

I like your synergy ideas. Particularly having a sacrificed shadow be a means of healing the others and allies. I think thats a better concept than just having a soul punch heal the selected shadow. As it allows the player to make a decision to either try healing all of them by other means, or offering one up as a burst heal for all of them. Keeps the Nekros player using energy and making choices in fights(or at the very least providing more choices), but also loops back around to the support role. I really like your synergy for terrify. Provides the player with incentive to use it beyond panic situations.

 

Kubrows cloaking the shadows is a nice idea if I have a means of influencing it somehow. I say this because to me the shadows most important role is pulling agro and not providing damage. So I'd rather they not become invisible when my team benefits more from them being visible, but I could see its use in stealth missions and other such things.

Edited November 7, 2015 by PsychoticMarik

[(PSN)IrresistiBill]

While I think his 4th just needs some tweaks to the ai and such...

How DARE you all suggest changes to LOOTCIFER'S power known as DESECRATE!!!

Charlatans... The lot of you... Lol

[(PSN)oracle-ryuu]

desecrate does need a change, but i definitely wouldn't remove it. i've always fancied the idea that in additiont to the loot reroll, is primes the bodies that resisted and turns them into viral or toxic mines with a high proc chance. that way you used the bodies of the dead and weapons, now THATS how you desecrate! ALSO Shadows of the dead, need to stay in close proximity to you, and be able to be seen/shot through. USE THEM AS DEADLY MEAT SHEILDS! and better Ai in general. i'm tired of summoning them and instantly have them running for cover.

[Archwizard]

Keep Shadows; it scales, unlike Rumblers, or your Cerberus suggestion. Just buff the AI. 

 

also if DE touched his 3 there would be a uproar

 

I think DE's officially past the "uproar" stage since Miasma's rework.

 

At this point, overloading the complainers would just be funny.

 

desecrate does need a change, but i definitely wouldn't remove it.

 

I would.

 

Half the problem they have with their missions and player burnout is that the loot system is already pretty screwed up, with no safety nets. They should rework that, rather than pushing out enough loot frames to ensure every cave group (which they're actively trying to quash with Starchart 2.0, I might add) has no excuse not to have one one.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Archwizard

[(PSN)CoolD2108]

*Free it from duration and the recast lock

*Delete taking cover from the AI

*make shadow kills count to the pool

*make the shadows benefit from health orbs

*Profit.

[Archwizard]

*make the shadows benefit from health orbs

 

Good luck with getting them to navigate to them on their own. With a hard command to seek orbs out below X% health you're going to see them running like chickens with their heads cut off every other bullet.

The orbs don't give much either. Sure a Tenno can get a fair percent from a handful, but we have a capped amount of HP; Shadows scale to absurd levels as a point.

[Maicael]

Good luck with getting them to navigate to them on their own. With a hard command to seek orbs out below X% health you're going to see them running like chickens with their heads cut off every other bullet.

The orbs don't give much either. Sure a Tenno can get a fair percent from a handful, but we have a capped amount of HP; Shadows scale to absurd levels as a point.

Probably meaning picked up by Nekros the same way Sentinels and Kubrows do...

But your point about HP for the Shadows makes sense. That could be handled by using a percentage heal instead of a fixed amount.

Edited November 12, 2015 by Maicael

[(XBOX)Master4733]

Bad idea and: How would a 20ft tall 3headed kubrow move through a map? We are space ninjas about moving around not camp in a room and kill stuff, hell this doesn't even fit in the sewer people like to camp with Nekros in void in