Specters of the Rail: U2.1 - Nekros Changes

[Genji]

Health Decay

 

Honestly I rather have it gone as I hate this worse than you removing duration.

It is an even worse form of duration & in turn, build diversity is hit too hard.

Also the sheer cost of healing makes this more costly due to the added upkeep maintaining fewer shadows. If your are adamant about keeping it, greatly reduce the cost of the recast heal.  

 

Shadow Count

7 is an odd number, no pun intended. Personally I'd love 10 but hell even one more would fix my SotD build to what it was pre rework.

 

 

 

Overall he shouldn't be any worse off than he was, you over balanced the ability. One that wasn't all that op to begin with.

Give him the love you gave Frost's rework... His rework was A+, you aren't tossed into an overbalanced box building Frost.

Thanks.

[Gurpgork]

42 minutes ago, (PS4)ChiefsFury1984 said:

I really don't see the fuss with the nekros changes pc users have a very bad tendency to make stuff sound worse then they really are..

...What?

Seriously, go read this thread. There are 25 pages of reasons why there is a serious problem with the Nekros changes. 

44 minutes ago, (PS4)ChiefsFury1984 said:

Sometimes I wonder if people complain just to complain & complain because they refuse to adapt & get good by learning how to build a frame I got nekros shadows under 1.8 health decay a sec that's actually pretty good.. not great but pretty good 

Complaints about health decay are valid because it is objectively worse than duration. Complaints about the number of Shadows are valid because it is objectively worse to have fewer Shadows, especially when they have the same health and damage multipliers. People are complaining because these changes make Nekros overall worse than he was before when he wasn't even a top tier frame to begin with. These complaints are based on the math and the facts of the Warframe. People are not complaining for the sake of complaining, they're complaining because they have been given something that is entirely worthy of complaints and criticism, and have been outright ignored. 

Also, if Nekros's playstyle got turned on its head like it did with Mag and Saryn, I'd agree with the "adapt and learn to build" sentiment. But all we got was a massive SotD nerf between the Shadow cap and health decay. Meanwhile Desecrate was made simultaneously more convenient and less useful. This rework was poorly thought out and lazy, and no amount of adapting and changing builds is ever going to change that. 

[Anatolius]

Honestly I think it should just hace a feature added to it: it adds the afflicted target to your shadow roster even if it didn't die. I personally wish that punched enemies got a debuff either slowed or pseudo viral proc.

If you have shadows out already, it instead buffs your shadows by a small percentage if you kill an enemy that had his soul punched out. So you punch, shoot, then get buffed up to like x% (would make a good augment).

[EvrydayDekay]

My buddy I play with uses Nekros a lot and seeing him play with the reworked skills has made me want to get him again (I deleted my Nekros because I didn't enjoy his original functions.) Sounds like it's more a matter of preference between the two versions of him, he seems perfectly fine with a range and duration build o-o

[Gunstray]

Well that a was a bunch of lies then considering what they said in the last few devstreams where they said they would remove duration. Also trailers were a lie as well. You can't have more than 7 sotd, yet this guy has a freaking battalion on him

[Lijka]

While we're at the SotD, please allow Nekros to raise Eximi. Not like it would be a game-breaking, OP ability.

[(PSN)LegionOfZoom1410]

46 minutes ago, Gurpgork said:

...What?

Seriously, go read this thread. There are 25 pages of reasons why there is a serious problem with the Nekros changes. 

Complaints about health decay are valid because it is objectively worse than duration. Complaints about the number of Shadows are valid because it is objectively worse to have fewer Shadows, especially when they have the same health and damage multipliers. People are complaining because these changes make Nekros overall worse than he was before when he wasn't even a top tier frame to begin with. These complaints are based on the math and the facts of the Warframe. People are not complaining for the sake of complaining, they're complaining because they have been given something that is entirely worthy of complaints and criticism, and have been outright ignored. 

Also, if Nekros's playstyle got turned on its head like it did with Mag and Saryn, I'd agree with the "adapt and learn to build" sentiment. But all we got was a massive SotD nerf between the Shadow cap and health decay. Meanwhile Desecrate was made simultaneously more convenient and less useful. This rework was poorly thought out and lazy, and no amount of adapting and changing builds is ever going to change that. 

What your saying might be effecting pc worse then us console users because while some of the issues exist 

 

I can verify it's not as bad as you guys make it out to be on Consoles & nekros is one of my most used frames & I can typically tell if a warframe is bad 

 

Another reason I can verify this is I remember reading about the Crédit bug you guys had with Sector's of the rails that wasn't fixed until Sector of the rails update 1 that included the heliocore which we don't have.

 

Add that we don't have the credit bug you guys had & the fact Consoles have a separate development team .

 

It's very possible we might have gotten a less buggy or less noticeable version that hasn't been fixed for you guys yet..

 

I mean I read & heard all the stuff you talked about I'm not disputing it doesn't happen I'm saying it less noticeable & it's quite possibly because our build has a different development team & they did some more behind the scene's work I mean I would not rule it out maybe this is why I'm saying it not as bad as pc users say..I can say 

 

I stopped using Valkery since the nerfs since one I can tell how bad she is & have noticed a difference with her & other reworked frames Volt isn't as bad either 

 

Because a lot of console users have been using him a lot more lately..

 

Maybe Somehow we got lucky on Consoles & the nekros changes are not as exstream on here like you guys on pc. 

 

Yes we do have issues & I've seen em but they don't seem to be as bad Consoles & any weaker if we got it its there but very minimal. So not sure why u guys maybe got it worse but I'm an experienced nekros user & I understand what you guys are saying 

 

But I'm saying I notice some of the issues u guys have but they seems to be less exstream on Consoles vs you guys 

 

So not sure what going on but all I'm doing is going by what I see with my eyes & by well  I do with him & for some reason he seems better on ps4 vs pc 

 

Could it be maybe pc nekros is bugged who knows 

 

Sorry if I kept getting miss understood I get what you guys are saying but like I said yes we got the same changes as pc but 4 some reason there less noticeable & appear to be better then what you guys currently have..

 

So not sure what's going on since I don't play on pc but I'm hoping that your guys nekros is bugged & if so it gets fixed because like I said the changes u guys claim are there yes but there less noticeable & not as extensive on Consoles as you guys say.

 

So who knows but hope whatever it is gets fixed soon have a great day

Edited August 25, 2016 by (PS4)ChiefsFury1984

[Noble_Cactus]

17 hours ago, RealPandemonium said:

It's not game design experience that they lack.  They lack actual gameplay experience.  This leads to frequent content additions/edits that make no sense to actual savvy players.  

You are indeed correct. Since their production work on Unreal Tournament 2k4, they've developed or have helped develop at least seven different games (including Warframe). The issue is that most of these games are marred by the same problems as WF: they have a lot of neat ideas packed into them, but they also tend to exhibit a disconnect between "cool idea we came up with in the office" and "we've extensively playtested this idea to make sure it's actually fun to play."

Certain people at DE also seem very stubborn when it comes to implementing said ideas, and they seem very reluctant to change their vision when their players tell them that their plans for the game aren't going to work. But this is all assumption, so I won't name names and I'll just stop there.

It's really obvious when you see things like the elemental system in Dark Sector, which is a neat idea in practice, but is very clunky in its implementation when you're fighting a boss. More relevant is the Desecrate rework. Make Desecrate a toggle so that you don't have to mash 3 anymore? Awesome! Remove its ability to guarantee health orbs, the one reason why the build is sustainable with Equilibrium? Not awesome. We're able to re-summon our Shadow army to our current location? Great change that Nekros players have been asking for for years. Health decay on Shadows that makes them last shorter than they did before the rework? Not cool. It happens again, and again, and again, with nearly every update and rework.

~

Back to the topic at hand.

At the very least, I'd like to see the following changes made to Nekros to make him feel more fully reworked (or at least some variation of these changes):

– Higher energy pool

– Reduced cast time on Shadows of the Dead, and maybe a lower energy cost, considering how spammy it's intended to be now. This is especially important now that you can re-summon and teleport them to your location.

– Drastically lessen or outright remove the decay on Shadows.

– More shadows spawned upon casting Shadows. Even just 10 max would be sufficient, I think.

– Let Desecrate drop guaranteed health orbs again, or increase the rate at which it drops them

– Do something about Soul Punch. Right now, it doesn't synergize with the rest of his kit at all. It should tie in with his summoning/zookeeper/necromancy theme somehow. Make it debuff enemies somehow, remove the intense ragdoll effect so that your teammates don't curse your existence, make enemies killed within x seconds of being hit by Soul Punch resurrect as shadows or zombies... something that elevates it from basically being a guaranteed Blast proc.

I'd be fine with ust the first three, really.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Noble_Cactus

[Melos-mevim]

alright now that I have played around with nekros prime and started toying around with builds I have to say I'm really torn on shadows of the dead leaning towards upset though.

 

The health decay is just way too much to comfortably mod for in any shape or form with shadows of the dead without harshly hurting the usefulness of his other powers, and even with that said its still over all not as effective as it was before, the decay makes them last shorter than the fixed duration, the cap of 7 makes it so that they are not drawing as much fire away from you and your squad as well as each other, the incredibly long casting time makes you have to put on natural talent or else you are a sitting duck who is easy to pick off.

On the flip side I do like that I can teleport them to me with a recast or keep my shadows topped off with recasts however I am severely puzzled as to why there is now cost reduction for being smart and recasting to keep them alive or to teleport them, it costs the same to summon one shadow as it does to summon 7?!

 

The health drain makes it so you have to cast far more frequently than you ever had to before but since the castign cost is always the same no matter the conditions you run otu of energy really bloody fast unless you throw on Fleeting expertise, However this now makes the Shadows die even faster than before, so now you have to compensate by throwing on narrow minded but now you have effectively killed the usefulness of terrify and desecrate.

 

If the health drain was removed or reduced, or if there was a system in place that makes it cost less to teleport shadows as well as heal and summon up smaller ones I think shadows of the dead would be in  perfect spot, I'd still miss the more shadows but the cap issue is not nearly as bad as how much modding it takes just to make one ability the ability that is the only one in his kit that screams necromancer to actually work because of that health drain.

 

As for desecrate I can't complain too much about it because I always hated desecrate and how it made DE and people feel fine with where nekros was before since he filled the roll of loot frame. I hated the fact that we had a frame that could of been an amazing necromancer but instead he was Old Farmer Mac'Donald, so I am over all happy with Desecrate like it is now because I can turn it on and forget treating it as a means to stay alive thanks to so many health orbs 

 

TL;DR

 

the health drain kills shadows of the dead and its ultimate usability, and you still need to fix its casting time, desecrate is fine

[Noble_Cactus]

56 minutes ago, Melos-mevim said:

As for desecrate I can't complain too much about it because I always hated desecrate and how it made DE and people feel fine with where nekros was before since he filled the roll of loot frame. I hated the fact that we had a frame that could of been an amazing necromancer but instead he was Old Farmer Mac'Donald, so I am over all happy with Desecrate like it is now because I can turn it on and forget treating it as a means to stay alive thanks to so many health orbs 

 

TL;DR

 

the health drain kills shadows of the dead and its ultimate usability, and you still need to fix its casting time, desecrate is fine

Well, to be fair, Desecration and Terrify are classic Necromancer skills from Dungeons and Dragons (Desecrate typically does stuff like empower undead minions, while real-life necromancers analyzed the bodies of the dead to divine prophecies, among many other things). Necromancers not only deal with resurrecting the dead, but manipulating fear of the unknown and the very forces of the Beyond itself.

But yes, I totally agree that the addition of the Shadow health decay is either unnecessary, or just implemented very poorly.

[Melos-mevim]

6 minutes ago, Noble_Cactus said:

Well, to be fair, Desecration and Terrify are classic Necromancer skills from Dungeons and Dragons (Desecrate typically does stuff like empower undead minions, while real-life necromancers analyzed the bodies of the dead to divine prophecies, among many other things). Necromancers not only deal with resurrecting the dead, but manipulating fear of the unknown and the very forces of the Beyond itself.

But yes, I totally agree that the addition of the Shadow health decay is either unnecessary, or just implemented very poorly.

oh I don't disagree on desecration as being a thing for necromancers in general however as you mentioned in those other sources they tend to do things like empower undead minions meanwhile in this game it for the longest time was purely a case of "here let me go farm fer som good ol' plastids ye ha"

Edited August 25, 2016 by Melos-mevim

[RealPandemonium]

IMO the Nekros rework should be revised as such:

-Desecrate keeps the hands-free toggle aspect, but returns to how it functioned before.  This means guaranteed health orbs upon success (and subsequent loot roll after corpse consumption,) and no consumption of corpses on failure.

-SOTD shadows get a base multiplier of 6.0 for damage.

-SOTD shadows increased to 10

-SOTD shadow HP drain reduced to 1.5%/sec at base, down from 3% (or removed, but I'm bargaining here.)

-SOTD shadows can be killed by Nekros with Soul Punch (for an added bonus, perhaps make them explode with damage/CC instance when he kills them.)

12 hours ago, Noble_Cactus said:

– Do something about Soul Punch. Right now, it doesn't synergize with the rest of his kit at all. It should tie in with his summoning/zookeeper/necromancy theme somehow. Make it debuff enemies somehow, remove the intense ragdoll effect so that your teammates don't curse your existence, make enemies killed within x seconds of being hit by Soul Punch resurrect as shadows or zombies... something that elevates it from basically being a guaranteed Blast proc.

I'd be fine with ust the first three, really.

Soul Punch is one of the most useful 1 powers right now.  The ability to blast enemies away or knock down a group of them, on-demand, is quite useful.  Adding that interaction with SotD is all that's necessary in terms of kit synergy, but increasing its damage/debuff contribution would also help Nekros kill priority targets for SotD.

Things I would like for Soul Punch but not essential at this time:

-Soul Punch projectile and AOE damage increased to 600/400 respectively, and can be boosted by power strength.

-Soul Punch inflicts Viral proc on main target, chance for Viral/Magnetic proc on AOE, and Slash proc on enemies hit by the projectile.  Projectile does Finisher damage.  

Terrify is pretty solid as-is.  With these changes, Nekros will feel complete IMO.  

Edited August 26, 2016 by RealPandemonium
typos

[Celas_]

My problem is not SotD(i just wish eximus shadows back, you have no chance to get shadows in sorties when only eximus spawns), my problem is desecration because why i should use Nekros to farm? let us say the new Aura mods, why i should farm the Mods with Nekros when Hydroid or Ivara make a better job with 100% loot chance?. Why i should use Nekros in survival anymore when i can use Atlas(CC with 100% loot chance and Golems). Its not fair that desecrate get nerfed to 50% chance to roll the drop table again. And say "Hey Desecrate is now a toggle ability, so we need to nerf it" is not an option and it is not necessary. You killed the loot king, sry but why other frame's loot chances scale with power strength and nekros not? Change the loot chance back.

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

So your telling me the seven shadows limit was for nothing?

[Noble_Cactus]

15 minutes ago, RealPandemonium said:

IMO the Nekros rework should be revised as such:

-Desecrate keeps the hands-free toggle aspect, but returns to how it functioned before.  This means guaranteed health orbs upon success (and subsequent loot roll after corpse consumption,) and no consumption of corpses on failure.

-SOTD shadows get a base multiplier of 6.0 for damage.

-SOTD shadows increased to 10

-SOTD shadow HP drain reduced to 1.5%/sec at base, down from 3% (or removed, but I'm bargaining here.)

-SOTD shadows can be killed by Nekros with Soul Punch (for an added bonus, perhaps make them explode with damage/CC instance when he kills them.)

Soul Punch is one of the most useful 1 powers right now.  The ability to blast enemies away or knock down a group of them, on-demand, is quite useful.  Adding that synergy wth SotD is all that's necessary in terms of kit synergy, but increasing its damage/debuff contribution would also help Nekros kill priority targets for SotD.

Things I would like for Soul Punch but not essential at this time:

-Soul Punch projectile and AOE damage increased to 600/400 respectively, and can be boosted by power strength.

-Soul Punch inflicts Viral proc on main target, chance for Viral/Magnetic proc on AOE, and Slash proc on enemies hit by the projectile.  Projectile does Finisher damage.  

Terrify is pretty solid as-is.  With these changes, Nekros will feel complete IMO.  

Oh, yeah, I was thinking that the CC effect on Soul Punch could just cause a crumple ala the Grineer courier in the Nekros Prime trailer. It'd be a bit more dramatic/menacing that way, and it'd give your teammates an easier time to pick off the target. Maybe it'd just crumple the initial target, and send any enemies behind it flying backward as they get hit by the 'soul?'

I like the rest of your changes, too. Especially the Viral proc. That last SotD note brings back good memories of Diablo II Corpse Explosion.

[(PSN)WINDMILEYNO]

Bumped for awesomeness.

[Ikusias]

As often happens with DE nerfs: Yes!

[Wolfnrun]

Look at the megathread's from late may, nothing happened there, same for the Nekros one. Frames are  getting weaker and weaker and weaker. Nekros has no FPS problems and we know that, we need to try something...anything that can change things, maybe these changes are preparations for WW? I have no clue but we don't like we're any of these changes are going 

[Irritable_Sloth]

Regarding Nekros' recent ability rework, I can't help but complain about it.  Nekros is quite possibly my favorite and most used Warframe and with my extensive use and experience with him I have always thought his abilities (particularly Shadows of the Dead) needed a well deserved boost.  The Shadows rework seems and feels like a big downgrade, although I do approve of limiting the number of Shadow minions because of the preformance issue.  But the Health Decay is just aweful and I would love to see something about it change.

And of course I have some suggestions:

• Have health decay per second (%) affected by power strength instead of duration
• Increase Shadows base/modified health and decrease (just a little bit) base/modified health decay per second
• Remove health decay and bring back the origional timer based on duration
• Increase Shadows damage multiplier (make Nekros' ultimate ability more like an ultimate ability)

I'm not requesting all of those but just one or two of those would be highly appriciated.

And about Desecrate's new "toggle" ability, I would love to see some kind of HUD indicator to tell me if it's on or off rather than me having to watch my energy/health meter decrease.

[Irritable_Sloth]

I hate to whine about these things, but regarding Nekros' recent ability rework, I can't help but complain about it.  Nekros is quite possibly my favorite and most used Warframe and with my extensive use and experience with him I have always thought his abilities (particularly Shadows of the Dead) needed a well deserved boost.  The Shadows rework seems and feels like a big downgrade, although I do approve of limiting the number of Shadow minions because of the preformance issue.  But the Health Decay is just aweful and I would love to see something about it change.

And of course I have some suggestions:

• Have health decay per second (%) affected by power strength instead of duration
• Increase Shadows base/modified health and decrease (just a little bit) base/modified health decay per second
• Remove health decay and bring back the origional timer based on duration
• Increase Shadows damage multiplier (make Nekros' ultimate ability more like an ultimate ability)

I'm not requesting all of those but just one or two of those would be highly appriciated.

And about Desecrate's new "toggle" ability, I would love to see some kind of HUD indicator to tell me if it's on or off rather than me having to watch my energy/health meters decrease.

Thank you for your consideration.

[Nhemin]

8 hours ago, Crashen said:

Now, I love Nekros dearly, but he is in need of a few QoL changes and synergy.

First, I would make Soul Punch refund energy greater than it's cost if it scores a killing blow. Its a slight thing, and not super critical, but it would be a nice thing.

More over however, I would add synergy between soul punch and terrify, possibly renaming it to Soul Wrench.

Soul Wrench, when casted on a terrified target would not ragdoll the enemy and shoot the soul out their back. No, it would wrench their soul from the body and force it to fight for Nekros, attacking it's former body until one or the other was dead.

The soul could taunt it's former body, or not if that would deem it OP. The power of this ability would be offset by the amount of set up and accuracy needed, since hitting a fleeing target can be a pain. The energy cobsumption would also be a limiting factor.

The soul would not attack any other enemy, but can be attacked by others. It may get an increasing damage bonus against it's Host to ensure it can do some damage. 

In ths way, both Terrify and Soul Punch get some interesting synergy while enhancing Nekros' theme.

It should also go without saying that bosses would be immune to having their souls torn from them.

Basically Nekros needs something to balance out his energy issues.  They desperately need a better passive tree in general for the game like other MMO's and RPG's because a lot of frames need easier ways to get health and energy back.  Its a fast paced shooter game and there's no health/energy on kill.... like... wtf?

Instead we have these terrible pads that you have to stand around and wait for to heal or get energy back.  The team ones are expensive as well.  

Either way, Nekros has a small energy pool for how expensive his abilities are and how often he needs to cast them to survive.  Terrify needs its syndicate augment included as a baseline for the ability, nuff said.  Having enemies RUN AWAY FROM YOU is counter productive to way the flow of combat works.  

[Nhemin]

I would love for once for Nekros to have an "ultimate".  It seems like every other frame has always had a huge one-up on him because every single other frame can spam their ult or has an ultimate that does a lot (cc, damage, utility, etc).  Meanwhile poor Nekros gets a handful of bad shadows that don't do much unless you heavily spec into Power Strength which means you have to give up cast speed, duration, efficiency (ALL of which he struggles with already).  

Just a subpar frame since day one and they just continue to hate on him.  Meanwhile Ash is still running around AFK with his ultimate. 

#balance

[Urlan]

What if Nekros's Shadows exploded on their final death based on their summoned life totals?

[Drufo]

I think the thing he most needs is some tweak on Soul Punch to make it a good damaging ability and with some synergy with other abilities

[Dumpins]

Yep. The numbers needs to be tweaked. I dont understand the process to decrease more than half the number of shadow becouse performance, and let the damage/health untouched then add health decay. The decay should be affected with str. And if the UI showed me the shadow with the lowest health would be good.