Specters of the Rail: U2.1 - Nekros Changes

[(XBOX)Twinna25]

Give them all an AI which instructs them not to walk into nullifier bubbles, to fix it?

[GinKenshin]

if DE wants to annoy us with nullifiers, they should at least makes abilities disappear if WE enter the bubble, not if the bubble touches out abilities. at least we get to control when we'll get screwed >.> 

[1tsyB1tsyN1nj4]

1 hour ago, NightBlitz said:

its not the abilities that are bad, its the scaling, try looking at it that way

It's not the scaling either, it's just Nullifiers. We seriously don't need them anymore, DE just doesn't want to listen and thinks Nullifiers are the hot S#&$ or something

[IceColdHawk]

9 minutes ago, Klarbauter said:

Thats why you have secondary weapons you could use to kill nullies and switch back to your main weapon, lazy people nowadays.

Yeah, mindless high RoF spamming seems like a good balance decision for an enemy that was supposed to stop mindless spamming, right?

[Klarbauter]

5 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

Yeah, mindless high RoF spamming seems like a good balance decision for an enemy that was supposed to stop mindless spamming, right?

Its a target you have to priorities, without pressing just one button, exactly.

[IceColdHawk]

Just now, Klarbauter said:

Its a target you have to priorities, without pressing just one button, exactly.

No. It's a target that makes low RoF weapons useless and encourages boltor prime-like spamming so you can continue pressing just one button. Talking about pressing buttons, with boltor prime i just need to press and hold one button to kill them.

Question remains tho, is it fun or balanced? Hell no.

[ArcusVeles]

I like the changes to Desecrate, and I appreciate the attention Nekros has gotten.  I want to request a few buffs and tweaks for him still, though.

* I'd like Desecrate to have its initial delay affected inversely by power duration -or- decreased based on the proximity + amount of corpses to the Nekros.  Often times Desecrate can take too long to get "revved up", and it forces me to backtrack to pick up the loot from the corpses when I'm on the move, or it misses corpses because it takes too long to get started on the group of enemies I've hacked up and some of the bodies end up expiring rather than being properly defiled.  Some way to help that stat-wise or positioning-wise would be a big help.

* Remove the health decay on Shadows of the Dead (make them last indefinitely), but compensate for that by changing how the health and shields on shadows scales, from power strength to power duration.  This will make duration more relevant to a Shadows build without the bad feels the %HP decay causes.

* This one's as much for vanity as for buffing, but I would really appreciate increasing his base shields to approximately 128, so Nekros Prime to get 666 shields (rounded up) with Primed Vigor rather than a Redirection.  This easter egg is lovely, but I would like to be able to shove more health in to my build while keeping it intact in my build.  You could also just increase his health instead and I'd be just as happy, but one way or the other he could use some more tankiness without having to sacrifice that fun 666 shields.

All in all I am happy that I have reason to make a more balanced build now, and hope he continues to get some fine tuning before he's set aside for the next rework.

Edited August 13, 2016 by ArcusVeles

[stormsasuke180]

15 minutes ago, Klarbauter said:

Its a target you have to priorities, without pressing just one button, exactly.

So you have an Inaros with scarab armor charged up. You have melee equipped because you use it to regain health. Then a nullifier pops up. You can take out a gun which takes a while and there can be multiple bubbles or you are forced to go in the bubble and lose your scarab armor. I don't think that is fair at all.

[.corvon.]

 o boy another salty nully thread

[Prof_Blocks_007]

I've played using Shield of Shadows builds before and after the changes, and have some observations and suggestions:

 

Desecrate

With the reworked Desecrate, corpses are removed, even if they give no extra drops (54% chance of additional loot, according to the Arsenal). Before the changes, Desecrate could be cast repeatedly until the corpse was consumed, always providing extra drops.

I'd suggest making Desecrated corpses have a 100% chance of dropping either an ammo pickup (one of Pistol/Rifle/Shotgun/Sniper, chances split normally) or an orb (75% chance of health, 25% chance of energy). There would also be a 15% chance of a resource drop (changeable if desired) in addition to the ammo or orb. Keep the synergy between Desecrate and split corpses from Slash damage for now, with the possibility of changing it later based on the effectiveness of the combo after the above changes.

If the synergy between split corpses and desecrate were to be reduced, I'd suggest making it a 67% chance of ammo/orb drop, and a 10% chance of resource drop for each split part. The synergy would still be there, but it wouldn't be a "Go Slash or go home" situation.

To clarify the above drop chance suggestions, the average drops from 100 Desecrated corpses (not split with Slash damage) would look like this:

• 50 ammo pickups
• 37.5 health obs
• 12.5 energy orbs
• 15 resource drops (This will probably want changing - I don't know what the resource drop chances are on kills)

 

Shadows of The Dead

The prioritization of heavy units makes it less likely that you 'overwrite' Heavy Gunners and Napalms with Butchers, or Bursa and Tech with Prod Crewman (Not to be confused with John Prodman - Not that you'd ever kill John Prodman to re-summon him anyway), which is a great change, in my opinion. I also find that the reduced number of Shadows (15 were needed to reach the 90% damage reduction cap on the Shield of Shadows Augment Mod) make it easier to see what's going on, especially in smaller rooms and corridors - used to be a tight squeeze in Uranus Sea Labs, for sure.

In regards to suggestions, reduce the health decay from 3% per second to 2% per second, so that Shadows don't die so rapidly. I also have some suggestions for energy cost changes, based on the health and number of Shadows:

• Each Shadow would cost 15 energy (100/7 = 14.285, rounded up)
• The cost for a full cast of 7 Shadows would remain at 100 energy
• The percentage health each unit has would modify its cost (more to heal = higher cost)
• Summoning more shadows would cost 15 energy per Shadow(when below the cap of 7, but at least one Shadow is active)
• These costs would be modified by energy efficiency mods

Some example scenarios:

All 7 Shadows are at 50% health, so the cost for each would be 15*0.5 = 7.5. Total energy cost would be 7.5*7 = 52.5.

All 7 Shadows are at 10% health, so the cost for each would be 15*0.9 = 13.5. Total energy cost would be 13.5*7 = 94.5.

4 Shadows are at 80% health, 2 are at 40% health. (15*0.2)*4 = 12. (15*0.6)*2 = 18. An additional Shadow is summoned for 15 energy. Total energy cost would be 12+18+15 = 45.

 

Shadows could do with using Nekros's energy colour for projectiles (this is currently done with Nullifier bubbles). This particularly applies to things that stay around for a while, such as Napalm fires, Sapping Osprey mines and Drover Bursa mines.

 

I've also found a couple of bugs:

• Units aren't teleported off of Ramparts when out of range
• Eximus units aren't re-summonable, even as non-Eximus units
• All Comba/Scrambus auras instantly kill summoned units within the Aura's range (not just Shadows of The Dead), which I also reported here:

My build, for reference/if anyone is interested:

Spoiler

 

[achromos]

Nullifiers should just 'phase' them out, kinda like banish while they are inside the bubble.  Not remove them.  :c

[(PSN)B_Psycho2]

Health Decay is still unnecessary for the Shadows.

[(PSN)B_Psycho2]

All summons should be immune to nullies.

[jjpdn]

Easy fix: make the summons react to the bubble as if its a solid surface. No more disappearing avada kadabra. 

Nullifier bubbles were made to counter map wipes and OP abilities. The day SotD becomes map clear is the day I eat my shoe. 

[Guest]

On 13/08/2016 at 5:31 AM, Burnthesteak87 said:

Also it has a good impact on the player, it gives him/her a choice to do with Energy: sustain Shadows or use it for Terrify and LifeStrike. Finally some Risk vs Reward in this gameplay.

It doesn't give us a choice about what to do with our energy, but it forced us to use energy to sustain our shadows in order to maintain the damage reduction, which is vital for Nekros. I don't care about the duration on my Nekros anymore. Just change the stupid health decay to a timer, let us kill shadows with Soul Punch, and be done with it. I'm sick of this already. 

Edited August 16, 2016 by Guest
removed rude remark in quoted comment

[Sentinels_Gaurdian]

Thank you DE you have now made Nekros even better than he is for me at least thank you now you can take as long as you want for the War Within

[TaylorsContraction]

While I don't have problems with the Shadow's health decay personally.

IF you wanted to remove the health decay then simply further make it that recasting SotD would summon a fresh batch of 7 shadows from your most recent pool of best killed enemies. That way if you summon 7 shadows, they don't have duration or health decay. If you then recast SotD, it doesn't heal your shadows but summons 7 new ones. Of course the problem with this approach is the slow casting animation, whereas now we can summon our shadows to us, we'd then have to go through the full animation to summon the fresh batch.

[AsahiOka]

After thorough testing of Nekros after the rework, I can say that overall, the changes appeal to me. However, I do feel the need to add several ideas that would likely better the experience and an increase the playing efficiency.
The current state of abilities would benefit from the following changes:

Desecrate:
• Desecrate is no longer deactivated inside a nullifier buble, instead, it doesn't work until we get out of there.
• Desecrate doesn't get deactivated if we run out of energy/health. It's a bit annoying to see the corpses not being desecrated just to find you that you had the ability deactivated because you ran out of energy/health at some point.
• Corpses no longer disappear if desecrate “fails” in getting more loot. Alternatively, buff the % of charge for a successful desecrate (to maybe 75%). 

Shadows of the Dead:
• It was stated that the the draining of the shadows will not be duration based, but it is, indirectly. An Indicator showing the remaining health of every shadow and/or the shadow that is closer to death would not be a bad idea. Many players forget to press 4 to heal them and even when done, sometimes they die regardless.
• If we don't have enough kills “cached” to reach 7 shadows, Nekros will spawn random units that can spawn during the mission (ex. For two corrupted bombards being resurrected, five random units follow, such as corrupted heavy gunners and corrupted nullifiers), the spawn chance percentage of every unit would be different to balance it, where heavy units would have a lower chance of spawning.
• In my opinion, 215% power strength is a bit too much for reaching the maximum damage reduction for the SotD augment. A buff of 7% or even 6.5% instead of 6% should be enough.
• With the draining deleted, we will need a way to “refresh” the shadows, I have two ideas:
First idea: make the ability Soul Punch "kill" one of our shadows, so we can have more control over the shadows we're summoning.
Second idea: SotD could have 4 modes like Ivara’s quiver.
1- Heal the existing shadows and spawn more if we don't have 7.
(50 of power cost if we are only healing existing shadows, or make it so the higher % healed of any shadows is the power cost (ex. A shadow is healed by 55% and another one by 98% the power cost will be 98, modified by power efficiency of course), and 100 of power cost if it spawns more shadows).
2- Refresh our shadows, make the actual ones disappear and spawn new shadows, prioritizing heavier units, again, if we don't have enough kills “cached”, random units will spawn.
(100 of power cost)
3- Same as 2, but prioritizing lighter units like butchers.
(100 of power cost)
4- Refresh our shadows but with random units (our "cache" doesn't affects this mode).
(100 of power cost)
I'm not 100% sure if the second idea sounds really good, but i'll leave it there, it would be nice to have more 'options' for Shadows of the Dead.

 

"Abilities are not deactivated upon entering nullifier bubbles, but instead ability activation gets disabled until the bubble is evicted."
This change could also be applied to most, if not all, existing abilities.

Edited August 25, 2016 by DJNeonNight
Edited some things and added a SotD suggestion

[Wakeoflove]

I can't believe how many people are actually complaining about THE NUMBER of minions... as if having a swarm added anything to your experience, lol. I found that a swarm just got in the way. I much prefer fewer, stronger minions. The only problem I have with the new system is that, yes, we were misinformed as to how they work, because they do not "live till they die" without duration attached, they die over time and how quickly that happens is directly tied to duration.

Because of this, their effective duration is lower than their actual duration because their health is degrading the whole time, reducing the number of hits they can take. And if you're going to build for duration to try to lower the health drain to keep them around longer, you're probably going to take a hit to power strength which will lower their health modifier, which basically defeats the purpose as this will also compromise their durability. Perhaps doubly so in that they will take more damage by having a lower damage modifier (more damage=faster kills=less damage taken from dead enemies)

So yeah, the health drain definitely needs to come off of this. Either they need to work as we were told and live until they die without duration attached, or their duration (WHICH STILL EXISTS, it's just hidden now) needs to be on the power icon as before so we can actually monitor it and recast as necessary.

[Thebel]

4 minutes ago, Wakeoflove said:

I can't believe how many people are actually complaining about THE NUMBER of minions... as if having a swarm added anything to your experience, lol. I found that a swarm just got in the way. I much prefer fewer, stronger minions. The only problem I have with the new system is that, yes, we were misinformed as to how they work, because they do not "live till they die" without duration attached, they die over time and how quickly that happens is directly tied to duration.

Because of this, their effective duration is lower than their actual duration because their health is degrading the whole time, reducing the number of hits they can take. And if you're going to build for duration to try to lower the health drain to keep them around longer, you're probably going to take a hit to power strength which will lower their health modifier, which basically defeats the purpose as this will also compromise their durability. Perhaps doubly so in that they will take more damage by having a lower damage modifier (more damage=faster kills=less damage taken from dead enemies)

So yeah, the health drain definitely needs to come off of this. Either they need to work as we were told and live until they die without duration attached, or their duration (WHICH STILL EXISTS, it's just hidden now) needs to be on the power icon as before so we can actually monitor it and recast as necessary.

It makes sense to complain about the numbers when the shadows weren't even buffed as compensation. Now we have the same Shadows with the same strength dying faster because of health decay. Not to mention the fact that 7 bombards are gonna be much less effective than 7 butchers when you consider the ai. The power was nerfed so hard. If they at least buffed the multipliers to compensate it would be less an issue with numbers but they did not. 

[(PSN)salovel1991]

2 hours ago, Thebel said:

It makes sense to complain about the numbers when the shadows weren't even buffed as compensation. Now we have the same Shadows with the same strength dying faster because of health decay. Not to mention the fact that 7 bombards are gonna be much less effective than 7 butchers when you consider the ai. The power was nerfed so hard. If they at least buffed the multipliers to compensate it would be less an issue with numbers but they did not. 

Only recompense we have now is that they're less likely to charge a nullifier bubble if you still do void missions. 

[(PSN)salovel1991]

2 hours ago, Wakeoflove said:

I can't believe how many people are actually complaining about THE NUMBER of minions... as if having a swarm added anything to your experience, lol. I found that a swarm just got in the way. I much prefer fewer, stronger minions. The only problem I have with the new system is that, yes, we were misinformed as to how they work, because they do not "live till they die" without duration attached, they die over time and how quickly that happens is directly tied to duration.

Because of this, their effective duration is lower than their actual duration because their health is degrading the whole time, reducing the number of hits they can take. And if you're going to build for duration to try to lower the health drain to keep them around longer, you're probably going to take a hit to power strength which will lower their health modifier, which basically defeats the purpose as this will also compromise their durability. Perhaps doubly so in that they will take more damage by having a lower damage modifier (more damage=faster kills=less damage taken from dead enemies)

So yeah, the health drain definitely needs to come off of this. Either they need to work as we were told and live until they die without duration attached, or their duration (WHICH STILL EXISTS, it's just hidden now) needs to be on the power icon as before so we can actually monitor it and recast as necessary.

Also building for power strength may give them more health but makes it where each shadow will take more damage using shield of shadows. With 215% power strength each shadow takes 12% damage instead of the original 6%. Which is where the real problem of having less numbers kicks in. 

[Vance.Stubbs]

All I can say is RIP Nekros. Shadows of the dead was killed during the update, especially adding minion priority nobody asked for. I have nothing else to add.

[Koed]

46 minutes ago, Vance.Stubbs said:

All I can say is RIP Nekros. Shadows of the dead was killed during the update, especially adding minion priority nobody asked for. I have nothing else to add.

Not fond of the minion priority either. My strat with Nekros was always just to kill enemies as any other frame and when it was about time to summon/re-summon I would simply just kill the enemies I wanted to summon like ancient healer, nullfire or shield ospreys which in return gave me a nice mix of summon types while ensuring I had that one or two I particularly wanted.

Edited August 14, 2016 by Koed

[Vance.Stubbs]

1 hour ago, Koed said:

Not fond of the minion priority either. My strat with Nekros was always just to kill enemies as any other frame and when it was about time to summon/re-summon I would simply just kill the enemies I wanted to summon like ancient healer, nullfire or shield ospreys which in return gave me a nice mix of summon types while ensuring I had that one or two I particularly wanted.

I also prefered to kill melee enemies (butchers, scorpions, ancients, etc) for my SotD Nekros build due to them having better AI as well having better distraction.