Specters of the Rail: U2.1 - Nekros Changes

[lyravega]

Opinions on Desecrate: Being a toggle rather than a spam-ability is very good, but the wait timer defeats the purpose of the toggle change. Instead of keeping you in action, wait timer forces you to wait; no different than before when you had to stop once in a while to spam desecrate and keep moving.

• Instead of having 90% of additional loot, now we have 54% chance. Clear nerf over here.
• The wait timer on desecrate (2 seconds + 1 second) is absolutely garbage. It should scale with duration at least; higher duration = less time it takes to desecrate

Opinions on Shadows: Just garbage. Fix their AI first, then make changes. And I never heard anybody had performance problems with army active; it's a change probably primarily aimed at consoles, sugarcoated with PR sweeteners that tries to make it look like people had performance issues with the army. What's next, reducing the enemy numbers because lower end "PCs" cannot handle that many enemies on the screen? No way I'm buying into this reason.

 

Edited August 11, 2016 by lyravega

[(XBOX)Dr Desflurane]

4 hours ago, Dovahheim said:

It's more fun and interactive but against the corpus it's not half as good as it used to be. And against the other factions she performs under par compared to most other frames.

Maybe check out some YouTube videos or put some part time in to figure it out because she is a top tier damage frame.  You are doing it wrong.

Edited August 10, 2016 by (XB1)Dr Desflurane
Typo

[yakri]

2 minutes ago, Wolfnrun said:

Another thing worth noting

Whats the point of giving them extra health if there health is going to decay? It becomes more of a job to heal them then to let them fight/defend you

I'm expecting a hotfix soon to adress this, Woah 8 pages already 

Yeah, they're effectively squishier than they used to be, and if you don't want to be annoyed to death with the ult recasting you'll want to slot narrowminded and primed cont just for your ult so they don't wither away immediately. No health boost but no drain would be MUCH better.

[yakri]

3 minutes ago, (XB1)Dr Desflurane said:

Maybe check out done YouTube videos or put some part time in to figure it out because she is a top tier damage frame.  You are doing it wrong.

She does do great damage, but she isn't in a good place. She's still a 1 button frame with minimal interaction. Just make a bubble and shoot into it.


With added potential to majorly troll your team mates.

[Rulbiem]

I used to be the Nekros whem my group wants to farm loot, but the loot was no more. As soon as they realize that Nekros recieved this nerf, i'll loose my job! HELP DE! (And don't kill my dream to buy my first Prime Access).

Jokes apart, I agree 100% with the negative feedback after doing some missions. Personally I think all this nerfs are unnecessary, since all the changes will not make Nekros a god. For all the Nekros fans around the galaxy, make him great again.

[Wolfnrun]

POSSIBLE SYNERGYS

Soul punch + SotD = Fully heals the shadows and all shadows within a 5m radius of that shadow

Desecrate plus + SotD = Gurranted health orb on shadow corpses

Terrify + SotD = For every enemy affected by Terrify, nekros and shadows gain 25% more damage (Affected by power strength) 

Some Idea's I just came up with

 

[IceColdHawk]

5 hours ago, [DE]Danielle said:

Shadows now live until they die with Health decay over time that is affected by Duration instead of Strength.

You (not you danielle) said they will live forever and can only die by damage while also not needing duration anymore. It lasts just as long as before. Next time don't lie to us. Thank you.

Edited August 10, 2016 by IceColdHawk

[Funcooker]

This thread is like Homer buying the cursed yogurt.

 

"We made Desecrate into a toggle"

"Thats good"

"We nerfed the drop chance!"

"Thats bad"

"We removed duration from Shadows of the Dead"

"Thats good"

"We added health drain linked to duration!"

"Thats bad"
 

[Achromatic.]

Shield of Shadows needs a buff to compensate for the lower number of Shadows. At base strength we can't even get 50% damage mitigation.

Shadows of the Dead's health decay needs to go or at least be cut in half. Shadows die way too quickly at base duration. Instead of spamming 3 to loot, now I'm spamming 4 to keep Shadows alive. Duration needs to go away completely and the health decay needs to scale with power strength or efficiency. 

The cost of SotD recast should also scale with how much HP you're healing instead of being a full cast. 

Terrify wasn't touched but why do we still have a cap on the number of enemies that can be affected? Some of the strongest CC skills don't have a cap (Disarm, Chaos), I don't see why something mid-tier like Terrify has to have a cap. 

Edited August 10, 2016 by Biter.
typo

[Autongnosis]

4 hours ago, CRCGamer said:

All I'm seeing is a massive nerf to the Health Conversion based Tankros build.

I had no issue on that end so far tbh.

4 hours ago, Biter. said:

What happened to removing the need for duration on Shadows of the Dead? The drain should just be based on efficiency. 

No please. Efficiency already influences the casting cost - no double punishment for running min efficiency to work around mod slot constraints kkthx.

3 hours ago, notlamprey said:

So far, that's been my observation as well. It's really a shame, since that was what I found most attractive about Nekros as a Warframe. Being able to support a squad or help friends hunt for extra goodies was a nice option to have, and it doesn't seem to be there at present.

That's my worry tbh. Loot output looks a lot lower than normal.

[Achromatic.]

1 minute ago, Autongnosis said:

 

No please. Efficiency already influences the casting cost - no double punishment for running min efficiency to work around mod slot constraints kkthx.

 

Well, ideally, there would be no health decay at all but I doubt that will happen. What change would you propose then? I only chose efficiency since we have to spam it to fight the decay anyways. 

[Nazzami]

Feels alot like what happened in embers original rework maybe in 6 months time they will remove the decay on shadow like they did duration on wof.

[Autongnosis]

3 minutes ago, Biter. said:

Well, ideally, there would be no health decay at all but I doubt that will happen. What change would you propose then? I only chose efficiency since we have to spam it to fight the decay anyways. 

If the drain % has to stay the current system is the best one. Makes sense and works within modding constraints.

It's also consistent with other toggle/unlimited duration abilities in its scaling, in fact it uses the same formula:

• base cost * ( 1 - power efficiency modifier ) for casting cost
• base decay / ( 1 + power duration modifier ) for decay/sec

EDIT: i would at best reduce the current % decay/s to 2.5% or even 2%, and add an UI indicator with the lowest HP% of all the active shadows to help monitor their health.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Autongnosis

[R34LM]

What ever happened to SoD not having duration? Guess that was taken out by having their health drain over time, which makes them die potentially quicker unless I waste my energy spamming it.

 

Basically, it SoD has become an Ultimate that you need to keep using if you want to maintain it. You need to use it to gradually heal them, you need to use it if you get too far away, and you need to use it if they die (which, with the health drain, happens more than liked). Even with good efficiency the cost will add up. It should take less energy to do the maintenance acts, such as teleporting and healing.

 

Also, it was bad enough that the Desecrate before patch have RNG to actually work on a corpse. Now there is RNG where the corpse will disappear and leave nothing. Make them drop at least something useful, or else you really just made the ability much less useful, considering you already nerfed the health orb drops.

Edited August 11, 2016 by R34LM

[Arthas8657]

Hello,

well I only tested new nekros a few and was happy to see that despoil augment with max efficiency works pretty well, i doubted so on my first try with him with another build. The thing is that we don't need to stop the fight to desecrate now and that's an adavantage for thoses who like to aim and shoot at things i guess.

I just noticed a little detail that is a bit annoying in corpus mission. If you summon some sapping osprey the mines won't display the nekros power color, that can make the field a bit confusing. All saping osprey blues mines are the sames which makes them hard to recognize during a battle. I know that it's up to players to pay attention to the field but making a difference beetween blues mines from your summonned osprey and ennemies osprey could be a hard task if you haven't see which one has thrown thoses mines. It's then impossible for players to know where they can walk from where they shouldn't (unless they want to be downed). I don't know if we can change the colors of thoses summonned osprey mines to have at least a chance to recognize them.

I also had a bug in my second run during my corpus survival on pluto. I've summonned a dead army, they died and i've been downed and then, I don't know why after being revived by a teammate, i couldn't summon my dead army again. I was still killing stuff and there were no undead summoned left but it keep saying my power was in use. Fortunately after being downed a second time, i could recast my ult. Unfortunately i can't be more precise of what could make that "bug" possible. Maybe a server client delay or something like that. But if some people noticed something similar i guess it could be solved.

Edited August 10, 2016 by Arthas8657

[Achromatic.]

7 minutes ago, Autongnosis said:

If the drain % has to stay the current system is the best one. Makes sense and works within modding constraints.

It's also consistent with other toggle/unlimited duration abilities in its scaling, in fact it uses the same formula:

• base cost * ( 1 - power efficiency modifier ) for casting cost
• base decay / ( 1 + power duration modifier ) for decay/sec

EDIT: i would at best reduce the current % decay/s to 2.5% or even 2%, and add an UI indicator with the lowest HP% of all the active shadows to help monitor their health.

Well, I see your point but can't say I fully agree. But that might just be my lingering disappointment from them originally saying "No more duration" talking.

The UI indicator is definitely needed though. Sometimes it's just too chaotic to take the time to target your Shadow to see HP remaining. 

[Genji]

Didn't they claim this wouldn't need duration, duration effects this pretty hard now. 

 

The health decay percentage is extremely high if you don't account for duration.

[t0lkki]

Honestly I prefered the old Desecrate over this new one. It was really satisfying to first clear a room of enemies and then watch them be turned into loot at your command. That description basically applies to both the new and the old ability but what I'm rtying to say is that the old one had the better gamefeel while the new one just feels like a poorly done bandaid change.

 

The SotD changes seem more like change for the sake of change instead of looking at the problem (=having to build every stat + an augment to make it worthwhile) and trying to fix it. Plus the change to how the shadows are picked removed the "teambuilding" aspect of it, which I found fun and interesting. I suppose you could call it a buff of some sort but the memory queue seems to be too short to get good use out of.

 

Overall these changes could have done with some more thought and more time in the oven. Both of them are barely halfbaked.

 

Edit: Also Desecrate definitely needs an indicator on when it's active. Something like either adding some glow effects around your character or flashing the max range circle every few seconds.

Edited August 11, 2016 by t0lkki

[yakri]

34 minutes ago, IceColdHawk said:

You (not you danielle) said they will live forever and can only die by damage while also not needing duration anymore. It lasts just as long as before. Next time don't lie to us. Thank you.

this is perhaps the most key S#&$ty part of the update.

 

That and the bit where his ult WAS NOT buffed to compensate for reduced shadows.

[Achromatic.]

2 minutes ago, t0lkki said:

Honestly I prefered the old Desecrate over this new one. It was really satisfying to first clear a room of enemies and then watch them be turned into loot at your command. That description basically applies to both the new and the old ability but what I'm rtying to say is that the old one had the better gamefeel while the new one just feels like a poorly done bandaid change.

 

The SotD changes seem more like change for the sake of change instead of looking at the problem (=having to build every stat + an augment to make it worthwhile) and trying to fix it. Plus the change to how the shadows are picked removed the "teambuilding" aspect of it, which I found fun and interesting. I suppose you could call it a buff of some sort but the memory queue seems to be too short to get good use out of.

 

Overall these changes could have done with some more thought and more time in the oven. Both of them are barely halfbaked.

 

Edit: Also Desecrate definitely needs an indicator on when it's active. Something like either adding some glow effects around your character or flashing the max range circle every few seconds.

There is a glow. The problem is it's pretty similar to the Shield of Shadows glow. The Desecrate glow extends to your helm though. 

[Koed]

I think the biggest problem is the nerf to health orb drops and I wonder why it was neccesary. The health orb drops made nekros special and allowed special builds in your team with things like equilibrium, health conversion and naramon(self damage). It was niche, it took coordination, it was fun, it made nekros special and was not OP as mentioned in devstream 78 (seriously, wat).

Next up, shadows of the dead. So, this got super f*cking nerfed and I just dont get it. Before we had a timer of 30 seconds and up to 20 shadows that dealt 150% bonus dmg at base - affected by power stre. We got told duration is gone (wow thats awesome we all thought)  Now, we get a 3% health decay (33 seconds if they dont take dmg, less if they do) so its the same, erm, but worse? Wat... We also deal less dmg because that beforementioned 150% bonus dmg now only applies to 7 shadows - not 20. So why is that number not tweaked?...

You need to get in touch with your community. Take mogamus list of popular warframes as an example - I believe 17.000 people voted? And nekros was among the 5 least voted. You might think Nekros was OP with his constant heals of 25 hp(wooow) and his crazy dmg from shadows(...) but your community disagrees.

In a nutshell, there are good ideas here but they are executed bad. This can still be fixed quite easily:

- Revert health changes. Make them have a seperate drop roll like before and if you feel like 90% is too OP then lower it to 50%.

- Remove health decay on shadows, or make it tied to somethings else than duration. The thing with Nekros is that he benefits from all stats (Duration, stre, range and eff) Hes not like a Loki who only needs range to lock down entire rooms. Anyway, tieing the decay to duration might have been a good idea if duration benefitted Nekros' other abilities - but it doesnt. However, something like power stre and eff does so why not tie it to that if you wont remove it?

Sigh, I gotta say - when I was told duration would disappear I felt so hopeful for Nekros - kinda like the time I was told Mag's Polarize would strip of enemy armor. And now I feel the same as when I found out Polarize got nerfed to a set value and not a %. Cmon DE....

[R34LM]

4 minutes ago, Koed said:

Anyway, tieing the decay to duration might have been a good idea if duration benefitted Nekros' other abilities - but it doesnt.

Liked your assessment but...ahem...Creeping Terrify. Granted, it can be recast, but it saves g's if they stay slow longer.

Edited August 11, 2016 by R34LM

[Genji]

Ok yeah I'm pissed. The health drain on SotD needs to go. No question about it.

It destroys trying to compensate for the efficiency & strength. 

 

You barely get 5 seconds trying to make a decent build to work with. 

No duration should equal no duration, this is much worse than duration.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Genjinaro

[TunaMayo]

I was never a huge Nekros user before, but has Nekros' desecrate now become less efficient? 

It feels that way as I thought the old desecrate was energy per cast, whereas now it is energy per roll? Seems a lot more costly to me unless I have my facts wrong.

PS: The new duration sucks on shadows, at least the old shadows had full hp until the end of the duration.

[Vorazu]

So far in theory I love the changes. I am still pretty excited about the changes but had a few thoughts after testing them out.

Desecrate: I love the toggle change. It allows me to actually contribute to the the team while still providing that extra loot and I enjoy the popcorn effect. But when a large number of mobs die and desecrate decides to fondle all of them with rapid succession my energy/health takes a nose dive straight to almost downed within seconds even with max efficiency. Possibly a fixed rate of desecration might be nice instead of building up to it which might ease some of the tension over the decreased drop rate of health orbs which is still a healthy amount with efficiency.

Shadows of the Dead: As much as I enjoyed an army of shadows lasting for 60 seconds or more, the AI sometimes did nothing but roam around slowly and cluttered the area. However they did a much better job at taking aggro of off me and keeping me alive. Now the current 7 shadows that spawn don't particularly seem that much stronger in any way and I actually feel like their weaker. This may be due to that fact that their health deteriorates. In terms of survival I feel this trait is greatly inferior to the previous straight up duration. Being able to heal your shadows is appealing and could otherwise be almost never die without the natural deterioration they have. Having just 7 permanent shadows with a greatly increased base health pool or a reduced drain would be nicer to see on the shadows as well as possibly some aggro inducing aura about them. To the point my beef with the changes are how much weaker my shadows are and how the constant need to renew their health and the energy costs to do so. Otherwise I do like the idea of having just 7 permanent shadows that are much stronger than the previous ones.

Also while using the new SotD I've encountered a few issues where I would have a reduced spawn of shadows or none spawn at all as well as some shadows starting with half health and sometimes the ability not wanting to cast at all.

Thank you DE for revisiting our beloved Nekros and for the ever changing game you made.