Specters of the Rail: U2.1 - Nekros Changes

[felixsylvaris]

Most of changes are ok.

But for Nekros it would be better if SotD has normal refreshable duration 30sec. So relatively easy we can set it for 45sec or death from damage (whichever comes first).

Now we have sum of damage from time and enemies, which makes shadows die too fast.

[ashrah]

based on new nekro changes this is my build now.. vitality.health conversion.primed continuity.primed flow.despoil.. shield of shadows.strecth.corrosive projection .handsprings..works very well... i still need to test.. maybe i replace p continuity with max blind rage... also i use arcane pulse+arcane grace

Edited August 11, 2016 by ashrah

[Shade-Nightclaw]

no matter what either way they need to take a serious look at the rework and think hard on it to fix him

[Tizodd]

1 hour ago, slamdanked said:

They said in the devstream that they changed it because large numbers of minions would cause framerate issues. And more than 7 and you wouldn't be able to keep track of their health.

The 7 minion reduction because of frame rate issues is understandable because there's a reason for it...frame rate issues.  But the health decay is pointless.  Especially with a lower minion cap.

I don't know why they felt it necessary to double nerf a frame that was already pretty balanced.

[RoninJed]

I see no real improvement with his 4th ability and desecrate seems to have been nerfed. I like the idea of being able to toggle desecrate but it seems to drain my energy faster and I get less loot/health orbs. The health conversion mod doesn't seem to work as good for him now either. I hope he gets some more tweaks before the Prime version shows up.

[bl4ckhunter]

wait so they removed duration from sotd to add duration to stod? I don't even.

well at least now desacrate doesn't require me to break a finger.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, SpeedOfLightPuncher said:

just because you need to be a little more active doesn't mean that it is a nerf 

Actually the duration thing doesn't make too much of a difference. You still have nearly the exact same duration if you aren't doing rapid casts. It does nothing to make Nekros players more "active" besides the Desecrate toggle, which should've been drain per second rather than drain per corpse.

[Tizodd]

1 hour ago, SpeedOfLightPuncher said:

got the right build and then talk 

just because you need to be a little more active doesn't mean that it is a nerf 

Yes, there are things that can be done to make it a bit better however, that's not my issue.  My issue is the fact that this nerf was done in the first place.  The 7 minion cap for framerate issues is understandable.  But there was no reason to nerf Nekros any further.

Your argument is like a terrorist group randomly cutting off a person's leg, only to have someone tell the victim "well you can use crutches, you know?".  Of course they can use crutches, but the real issue is the fact that their leg was cut off for no reason.

There was no reason to double nerf Nekros.

[ENGINEEEEER]

Love the changes overall. Much more enjoyable nekros playing. 

Desecrate is much better. I have no problems maintaining health or energy (granted I run zenurik and rejuvenation). My only issue is the loot reroll chance. According to power description this is 54%.

Now before it was a 60% chance to desecrate and a 90% chance to reroll. But missing the 60% desecrate chance didn't consume the body so you just kept desecrating till it did. 

Now it's 54% chance to desecrate and reroll. Once desecrated the body is destroyed. This amounts to a loss of 36% chance to reroll. I'm fine with the chance but don't make it consume the body. 

I have two potential solutions. 1. keep refilling with reduced energy cost (maybe half) on subsequent rolls. 2. Just up the roll chance to about 75%. A 15% reroll loss is acceptable. 

On shadows of the dead the aggro is fantastic. The damage is kind of pitiful. The health drain should be duration and efficiency based or be slightly reduced. At base your shadows are only up for 33 seconds if they never take damage (3% health per second). As they are damage sponges this is a pain. Maybe scale health and armor based on player health and armor?

[Shade-Nightclaw]

The changes need to be looked at weather people hate it or dont mind it keither way, i think we can all agree something needs to be done right?

Edited August 11, 2016 by Shade-Nightclaw

[Wolfnrun]

6 minutes ago, Shade-Nightclaw said:

The changes need to be looked at weather people hate it or dont mind it either way, i think we can all agree something needs to be done right?

Yup! that health drain is a shadow killer! (No pun intended) We need to have 10 shadows and have SoS cap at 90% like before, fortunatly nekros is one of the few frames that can fit augments easily (That's my experince) 

[KenthNisshoku]

Soul Punch - should create shadows (max 3)

Terrify - should have a chance to disarm

Desecrate - should target 3 corpses at once

Shadows of the Dead  - please remove the decay because it is no different from having a duration build on Nekros

[SpeedOfLightPuncher]

1 hour ago, ----Fenrir---- said:

I don't see what being active has to do with shadows now having less effective duration than before. Less duration is less duration. And less means it's a nerf. It's as simple as that.

active means you can heal them

[KirukaChan]

I must say that I don't like how the health decay mechanic on Shadows of the Dead wasn't mentioned until the changes were being rolled out. I was excited for the ability to no longer be bound by duration, but it still is. And not only that, but they last for less time than the old Shadows if they're actively being attacked. This feels like a nerf, and I can't help but think that that bit of information was purposely left out in order to generate more hype, especially with Nekros Prime right around the corner.

[CF_HoneyBadger]

I am loving the QoL changes for Nekros so far. Is it perfect? No. But is it SOOO much better than it used to be? HELL YES.

I like Nekros as a frame but hated playing him because the only thing you did in the match was press "3" over and over and over and... it was no fun at all.  

So, bug thumbs-up from me.

[BrazilianJoe]

Soul Punch - still too underwhelming. Make it restore HP and refund energy on kill. HP regain would jive well with survivability and Despoil. 

Terrify - remove enemy limit.

Desecrate - reduce cost to 8.

Shadows of the Dead - Replace enemy shadows with Nekros Shadows, using Tenno Spectre AI. 

Have them use a Soul Punch-like ability targetable on non-spectre, non-shadow allies only to give part of their health to any Tenno, not just the caster.

Have them use Soul Punch on a downed Tenno to sacrifice themselves and double the time until bleed-out (affected by strength).

Increase the Augment's % effectiveness, since you reduced the number of Shadows. 

Edited August 11, 2016 by -TP-BrazilianJoe

[LieweLulu]

Great, I dont use the despoil mod but I use Nekros to farm for my clan and members. So if I get this right Nekros has now become another frame that i used a lot and will now end up on the shelf. I have been playing this game for a year and half can someone tell me why? I must be crazy.

[HockeyHero7]

I was really looking forward to this Update and did some playtesting, here's my opinion on the Rework:

 

Desecrate:

The idea of desecrate as a toggable aura is great... no brain afk 3-spamming anymore, now desecrate Nekros is a

way more active playstyle. I just used my old despoil desecrate build (175 efficiency, 250 range), swapped out the not

longer needed Natural Talent for a Redirection and it worked great. Some minor improvements could be done here,

the speed at which the skill starts to work on the first body could be increased a bit and also the additional loot drop

chance seems a bit low, maybe something around 60% might be better.(Edit: @worked great: the system itself worked

great, but the rolls are just terrible... i mean only 54% and then health orbs are in the drop table... this basically cripples

Nekros' ability to effectively increase loot)

 

Shadows of the Dead:

The big disappointment I had with this Rework is this skill... the Shadows now spawned seem not a bit stronger than

before the Update and there's only 7 of them instead of 20. I mean 7 is OK but they need to be stronger. I don't know

the exact values before/after but I think at 250% power strength 2 of my Heavy Gunner shadows shouldn't take 15 secs

or more to take down one Corrupted Heavy Gunner. And the big point i really don't like about it is the health decay...

We were told the 4 isn't dependent on duration anymore, but that simply is not true. Even with my max Duration build

and without any enemies attacking, the Shadows only last about 82 secs what is only a bit more than before the update.

And this will decrease further when enemies start attacking them. Also the augment for this skill needs to be updated.

 

The big hope I had about this update/rework was the possibility of a Hybrid-Build(Desecrate/SotD). If the 4 wasn't

dependant on duration, this would work... max efficiency, some strength and range mods... the duration decrease

from Transient Fortitude wouldnt matter and also narrow minded would not be needed for the 4; I'd have to leave

out Overextended because I want much strength, but 160% / about 40m are totally enough for desecrate. But now the

4 is still depending on duration. 4 needs strength and duration, 3 needs range and efficiency. But we can't have all 4

stats. I mean if I have high strength, my duration and efficiency decreases, then I take fleeting expertise in so desecrate

isn't too expensive. But that decreases duration further, and even primed continuity can't help there. So we need

narrow minded for duration but that cripples my descration range. Do you see the big problem here? As long the

4 needs duration, such a Hybrid-Build is not possible / not really effectively playable. So please remove the

duration scaling from the 4 or decrease the scaling so much that a Nekros with around 70% duration (the maximum

I could achieve without crippling range, efficiency or strength and without constitution because I had no slots left)

can effectively use his 4.

 

Edit:

I found a build that is OK for me... still got the duration problem so I need to recast the 4 every 15-20 secs but 

Equilibrium gives quite some energy and apart from that it works out quite well... if Nekros Prime wasn't coming

soon i'd throw in another forma and exilus and add in cunning drift to increase range of 3 from 36 to 40m.

But the main problems remain: even if i get enough energy, the recast is quite annoying, the Shadow strength

feels to low and the 3 really feels like it got a big nerf.

I'd find it great if the duration was removed from the 4 and the 3 was buffed a bit so people can start to play Nekros properly.

 

As it won't allow me to post a screenshot directly here's a link to my build http://imgur.com/xDgBaI7

Mods used: Vitality, Blind Rage, Transient Fortitude, Stretch, Primed Continuity, Equilibrium, Fleeting Expertise, Despoil

Stats: 68% Duration | 105% Efficiency | 145% Range | 254% Strength

 

 

Edited August 11, 2016 by HockeyHero7

[IceColdHawk]

Problem is not only that but that they've said they will last forever and WON'T need duration anymore. And what did we get? The same, just a health decay instead of a timer which is WORSE since you won't be able to see when your shadows will die exactly, unlike with a timer. And it needs duration...

I hope DE will go back to their promise of not needing duration anymore and take the health decay back.

[DeMonkey]

So instead of pressing 3 a lot to desecrate spam, we now press 4 a lot to ''heal shadows'' spam?

I guess that's one way of solving the Nekros desecrate problem.

[ENGINEEEEER]

8 minutes ago, LieweLulu said:

Great, I dont use the despoil mod but I use Nekros to farm for my clan and members. So if I get this right Nekros has now become another frame that i used a lot and will now end up on the shelf. I have been playing this game for a year and half can someone tell me why? I must be crazy.

You should try it before you make a blanket judgement. He's more fun to play now but the abilities should be tweaked some. He may not be super late game viable as is but you don't need too much endgame play as it is currently. 

Also if you don't enjoy the game, move on. It's not worthwhile to make yourself unhappy. 

[(XBOX)YoAlaskaDude]

19 hours ago, armedpoop said:

Can we get rid of health decay? You guys removed the duration on the ability, but added it right back in another form and it even scales off of duration, why? The shadow's health drops based on a percentage as well, so its still basically a duration. Why not just leave duration as a number, and NOT have the shadows just die over time? Or why not just actually remove duration all together? 

I agree with this. Being limited to 7 shadows is a nerf to shadow builds but now you got to change the duration to health drain percentage? Terrible rework in my opinion.

[MotherofHermes]

Okay. Im feeling mislead here.

You said you were taking away duration from shadows of the Dead and then there is a healthdrain....based on duration. If it was based on ANY OTHER STAT it would be fine, but that was some seriously misleading rhetoric. Make it based on pwr str or efficiency please. 

Also the A.I. on Shadows of the Dead is still terrible, when they arn't standing around it takes something like 15 seconds to kill an enemy. I can think of at least 3 other frames where their 4th ability clears an entire room in less than 5 seconds. meanwhile my new and improved 4th ability gives me 7 DECOYS THAT DIE SLOWLY. 

Desecrate seems to work well, but without the augment the rate at which energy drains seems really hard to cope with. Maybe work despoil into the ability. 

[felixsylvaris]

7 minutes ago, milesthefox said:

Okay. Im feeling mislead here.

You said you were taking away duration from shadows of the Dead and then there is a healthdrain....based on duration. If it was based on ANY OTHER STAT it would be fine, but that was some seriously misleading rhetoric. Make it based on pwr str or efficiency please. 

Also the A.I. on Shadows of the Dead is still terrible, when they arn't standing around it takes something like 15 seconds to kill an enemy. I can think of at least 3 other frames where their 4th ability clears an entire room in less than 5 seconds. meanwhile my new and improved 4th ability gives me 7 DECOYS THAT DIE SLOWLY. 

Desecrate seems to work well, but without the augment the rate at which energy drains seems really hard to cope with. Maybe work despoil into the ability. 

Similar impressions.

I appreciete efforts to change Nekros desacrate.

But in present shape i see no reason to play him other than farming.

[evilfluffy]

I wouldn't mind keeping health decay if it wasn't based on duration I do like the choice of hmm I think I will let them die now so I can get health orbs off of them and summon another batch I have waiting to summon.  That or remove health decay and allow us to use soul punch to kill single shadows we no longer want.