Necro/Mage rebalancing going in the next patch (hopefully 11/6)

R

Rymy

Developer
Staff member
Recently, I've been trying to understand the situations surrounding why at higher tiers, (T10+) wizards seemed to be far desired compared to the other conventional int casters (Necros and Mages). (Chanters, are a separate issue that I'm not touching atm). The dominance of the wizard seems to only intensify (no pun intended) as we go higher in the tiers. My primary re-balances revolve around making the Mage/Necro more desirable in a raid setting instead of the current situation which in 95% of situations, always favors the Wizard. Here's my analysis so far in ranking Wizards/Necros/Mages:

key said:
Text in red means an issue that hopefully will be addressed.
Text in green means the issue seems correct.
Click to expand...

Burst DPS: Wizard > Necro/Mage.
Analysis: This is at it should be.

Sustained DPS over long fights: Wizards > Necro/Mage.
This should be the Necro's domain, pure and simple. In a situation where casters can just stand still and DPS over a period of time longer than a burn, the Necro should shine. It currently doesn't.

Killing adds: Wizards > Necro/Mage.
While wizards can RRR/R2 (1.0 second cast time) Mages get stuck casting long cast nukes and necros inherently do poorly at this. This should be the wizard's specialty, but the gap is too big, especially for how many fights require the killing of low hitpoint adds.

DPS in movement fights: Wizards > Necro/Mage.
Wizards slaughter this category too. I don't think the gap should be this large. While a wizard should be better at this with their faster casting spells, the gap is far too great. This problem is exacerbated the higher tier you get, the more movement is required in general.

Killing multiple targets at once: Mage > Wizard/Necro.
While this is supposed to be the Mage's bread and butter, there are few and far in between fights for this to matter.

Utility: ~Roughly the same.
The utility of the 3 classes is debatable, but they all offer some form of unique utility that's hard to compare.

DPS with mezzed adds nearby: Wizard/Necro > Mage.
This is another limitation of the Mage.

DPS mobs with high resists: Wizard/Necro > Mage.
This is another limitation of the Mage which is a harder change to address, but maybe slightly improved with the changes in this patch.

So with this analysis (and I'm sure you can pick holes with my analysis so no need to get nitty gritty on, just focus on the general ideas depicted) look for the following changes next patch. Just generic things posted for now, exact changes will be noted in the patch notes.

MAGE (mainly focusing on the mage's inability to contribute much for movement fights and difficulty to contribute in killing adds)
  • Relic: Bladewind: Cast time reduced.
  • Elemental Barrage: Improved greatly over its current state.
  • Pet heals: Base healing scales better starting at level 52 and up.
  • Pet heals: 20 second Recast changed to 12 seconds.

NECRO (mainly focused on the necro's ability to outperform a wizard for long sustained fights as well as reduced cast time on several to allow the necro to be able to perform better to cast in between movements)
  • A variety of their higher level dots have had their cast time reduced and/or mana cost lowered and/or damage increased.

P.S. Don't worry knights I didn't forget about you, but your changes are a bit more complicated.
 
Last edited:
I'd like to make a plea on behalf of many necromancers in the past regarding their class:

Would it be possible to get hierophants breath returned to their spell roster. I honestly can't comment on the other runic 1 but I can say when this change occurred every necromancer subsequently found their class significantly less enjoyable to play. After x amount of years/tiers of having no real form of aoe they finally achieved it and had it taken away. Its been a long time but I thought the reasoning around this was due to its interaction with strands of life in exp groups. I don't know if this interaction could be changed specifically but damn it would be nice to see the return of this spell even if it was tapered down a bit to fall in line of nut crushing mage or wizzurd toes.

I can't comment on the viability of desirability of this spell in higher tiers of raiding but damn if it wasn't nice in exp groups. I don't know if modern necros would want to trade off their runic pet or not but having some return of aoe given the nature of exp groups in the past generally involving mass pulling first ruins and other zones this would be lovely to see come back in some form.
 
hierophants breath was gutted due to its interaction with a now non-existent tome, i forget its name but it spread your dots to other mobs passively. Basically heirophants had a sizeable DD component to it as well as being a sizeable dot, but the DD portion would do damage on every spread and basically blow shit up every tic as all the mobs constantly spread it back and forth amongst each other.

With that interaction being gone, I see no reason for the spell not to make a comeback, although it'd be much less potent than people remember.
 
Wasn't that their old runic 1? I'm not sure how 2 runic 1's would work out. Maybe put it back in as a spell reward for a later spell line?
 
Runic 1 pet does alright damage but runs out of mana way too fast. Pretty sure most necros would be okay with having breath back over the pet.
 
I thought hierophants breath was only good (really good!) because of the tome necro's had to go with it, where disease dots, would spread from one target to an other, and this AE dot just set off a swarm of nukes as it jumped around, reapplying it self ect...

6 targets?, 500 dd, 310 dot tick, 10 ticks, cast time 5.6, 905 mana...

Can't really tell how good or bad it is with out tome, pretty sure if there is a pull of 6+ mobs, that will live for a good 30-40 seconds, it's sweet.

(Oops, I see Tevinter allready pointed this out)
 
Last edited:
Love the proposal Rymy. it sounds great.

if the "everything summons" threat bears fruit, and this, necro may not be a giant turd to play mid to high level :)

ps, can we get runic pet f ixed? :)

Otcho said:
I honestly can't comment on the other runic 1 but I can say when this change occurred every necromancer subsequently found their class significantly less enjoyable to play.
Click to expand...
I have another post i can link that extensively bitches about the inherent problems with the runic pet. if they were sorted out i think it would be good. as it stands now it's gimmicky and some times okay.

here's the link: https://shardsofdalaya.com/forum/threads/necromancer-runic-caster-pet-suggestion.30543/

I think the runic with JUST the mana regen made constant and removing meditation mechanic would make it viable.


((and to be clear i like the runic pet. i'd rather have the pet AND an aoe :) )
 
The proposed changes are live and can be viewed from the patch notes:

MAGE:
  • Wind barrage is now a magic resist check, not poison. (bug)
  • Elemental Barrage:
    • Cast time: 5.5 -> 3.5.
    • Recast: 7 -> 0.
    • Mana: 510 -> 425.
    • An extra barrage (water/fire/wind/earth) is casted on your target depending depending on what elemental form you have.
  • Relic Bladewind:
    • Cast time 5.5 to 3 seconds.
  • All mage pet heals
    • Recast: 20 -> 12 seconds.
  • Til's Elemental Recomposition
    • Heal: 1215 -> 3000
  • Transon's Elemental Renewal
    • Heal: 900 -> 2000
  • Transon's Elemental Infusion
    • Heal: 580 -> 1300

NECRO:
  • Archaic: Claws of the Chill
    • 3.75 seconds -> 3.2 seconds
    • Added 200 direct damage on impact.
    • Damage/tick: 765 -> 795.
  • Runic: Grip of Kaezul
    • Cast time: 5.5 -> 5 seconds.
    • Mana: 1020 -> 920.
  • Relic: Spirit of Kaezul, Relic: Hand of Kaezul
    • Cast time: 5.5 -> 5 seconds.
    • Damage/tick 380 -> 420.
    • Mana: 520 -> 470.
  • Spell: Scitterpox
    • 6.5 seconds -> 4.5 seconds
    • Damage/tick 350 -> 385
    • Mana cost reduced 525 -> 325
  • Spell: Relic: Marlow's Cremation
    • 5.5 seconds -> 4 seconds
    • Damage/tick 460 -> 520
  • Spell: Funeral Pyre of Malath
    • 5 5 seconds -> 5 seconds
 
Tevinter said:
hierophants breath was gutted due to its interaction with a now non-existent tome, i forget its name but it spread your dots to other mobs passively. Basically heirophants had a sizeable DD component to it as well as being a sizeable dot, but the DD portion would do damage on every spread and basically blow shit up every tic as all the mobs constantly spread it back and forth amongst each other.

With that interaction being gone, I see no reason for the spell not to make a comeback, although it'd be much less potent than people remember.
Click to expand...

wow I don't even know how that dot spreading tome got memory holed so bad. yeah I guess that was it. whoopsies. I still think its worth having for experience groups.
 
There's misery of the swamp which is just an AoE DD and not awful. Kind of a mana sink and not something you can just spam but breath would be better. Also wouldn't want to step on other classes toes too much AoE wise I guess with potentially two, that's kind of the wizard/mage thing?
 
I'm very comfy being awful at AOE's if the efficiency / slow-burn-DPS crown is passed necro's way.
 
defixio said:
I'm very comfy being awful at AOE's if the efficiency / slow-burn-DPS crown is passed necro's way.
Click to expand...
I'd be inclined to agree with you, but I think at this point in SoD's life every class should have some kind of decent AoE potential. If a class has no/poor sustained AE potential, then that class is at a HUGE disadvantage in 90% of efficient exp groups.
 
Tevinter said:
I'd be inclined to agree with you, but I think at this point in SoD's life every class should have some kind of decent AoE potential. If a class has no/poor sustained AE potential, then that class is at a HUGE disadvantage in 90% of efficient exp groups.
Click to expand...
I whole heartedly agree that not being able to aoe is awful for farming all kinds of stuff, But in the past it was a hand full of poop for endurance dps, another for aoe, and i guess a third for overall utility. at least having one hand empty of turds would be fabulous at this point :)

(Note that i despise the whole ringer-tank-farm meta either way)
 
Otcho said:
I'd like to make a plea on behalf of many necromancers in the past regarding their class:

Would it be possible to get hierophants breath returned to their spell roster. I honestly can't comment on the other runic 1 but I can say when this change occurred every necromancer subsequently found their class significantly less enjoyable to play. After x amount of years/tiers of having no real form of aoe they finally achieved it and had it taken away. Its been a long time but I thought the reasoning around this was due to its interaction with strands of life in exp groups. I don't know if this interaction could be changed specifically but damn it would be nice to see the return of this spell even if it was tapered down a bit to fall in line of nut crushing mage or wizzurd toes.

I can't comment on the viability of desirability of this spell in higher tiers of raiding but damn if it wasn't nice in exp groups. I don't know if modern necros would want to trade off their runic pet or not but having some return of aoe given the nature of exp groups in the past generally involving mass pulling first ruins and other zones this would be lovely to see come back in some form.
Click to expand...

I wouldn’t mind it at all if Necros got hierophants breath back over our spell pet (or just keep both), or get a plaguewind like AoE DoT line if not plaguewind itself.

Also runic pet could use some love here too as mentioned before it runs out of mana way too fast. I hardly ever use it anymore for 99% of the things I do for this reason. I mainly just stick to relic pet and throw it some thurg weapons because it makes a semi-passable tank now with the corrupt spell and have a considerable amount of time to keep it alive over runic pet.
 
Oh yeah, dot spreading was a thing. How about bring that back except as a spell/AA with a reasonable CD that will spread all the dots on a target to all nearby targets. That would shape up the AoE lacking real quick.
 
<quote>Killing multiple targets at once: Mage > Wizard/Necro.
While this is supposed to be the Mage's bread and butter, there are few and far in between fights for this to matter.</quote>

Is this really true? Wizards seem to beat mages by quite a bit, due to rains being limited to two targets. Absolution is 2000 base dmg to all closeby targets whereas Magician Archaic rain is 985 per tick for 3 ticks to two targets. Rains also has the disadvantage of hurting the caster which pbae's and absolution lacks.
Best magician spell is the lvl 61 pbae flamecall at 1025 base.

With the improvement of elemental barrage and bladewind (which were good!) there no longer seem to be any big point dps wise in doing rains at raids whatsoever?

A suggested solution would be to change rains to hit all targets in the struck area for a base value and then to spread the rest of the dmg equally across all targets. This would make more sense for a rain and make rains more useable (Which they risk not being now).
 
Glamrin said:
<quote>Killing multiple targets at once: Mage > Wizard/Necro.
While this is supposed to be the Mage's bread and butter, there are few and far in between fights for this to matter.</quote>

Is this really true? Wizards seem to beat mages by quite a bit, due to rains being limited to two targets. Absolution is 2000 base dmg to all closeby targets whereas Magician Archaic rain is 985 per tick for 3 ticks to two targets. Rains also has the disadvantage of hurting the caster which pbae's and absolution lacks.
Best magician spell is the lvl 61 pbae flamecall at 1025 base.

With the improvement of elemental barrage and bladewind (which were good!) there no longer seem to be any big point dps wise in doing rains at raids whatsoever?

A suggested solution would be to change rains to hit all targets in the struck area for a base value and then to spread the rest of the dmg equally across all targets. This would make more sense for a rain and make rains more useable (Which they risk not being now).
Click to expand...
uhh, what. Absolution is a single target spell that does 2k base, but also cost 2000 (two thousand) mana AND only works in prison of admyrzza. It's also useable by mages and necros. I don't even see how that spell is relevant in this discussion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom