My Necro analyzing.....

[LordDemeter]

Hey Kato...

Here's the results of my skill and general testing for my Necromancer Kato. Test these against your own results and see where we stand. I am pretty vague and open about most of these. Only a couple that I was really specific on.


Suggestion: Increase Skeletal Magi damage.
Reason: Can't even hurt a monster in Hell when 20 are pounding on one, even at players 1.

Suggestion: Redo CE's radius increase.
Reason: Think you were already going to do this anyway.

Suggestion: Change CE's damage to 80%-100%.
Reason: The closer gap would be much more effective, plus the 100% max would keep it below caps better.

Suggestion: Increase the cap on the resistance lowering for Lower Resist, reduce the radius.
Reason: If possible, reduce the radius for Amp Damage a bit too. Both of them cause complete Sprite drop at around level 160 due to their four screen range. ^_^.

Suggestion: Reduce golem life increase per difficulty level.
Reason: People say rollover, I say the life is nuts. I summoned a Fire Golem, took him through Hell, he survived all the way from A1 to A5. There is a such thing as too much of a good thing.

Suggestion: Increase Golem damage.
Reason: I think they should be more than just immortal punching bags. They can't hurt anything past nm Andariel, even with LOTS of points.

Suggestion: Increase the cap on Summon Resist.
Reason: They still go down too fast to anything sporting elemental damage. That 120 resists doesn't make up for the -400 in Hell.

Suggestion: More life per stat point spent in vitality.
Reason: Contrary to popular belief, there is little need for energy on a necro. Their wands and heads give more than enough. Vit is always lacking. Makes an arty build quite impossible. My 258 sp necro has almost all points in vit, wearing a Requiem, and still has under 16k life. This would also help the meleemancer build a bit. These othe two builds will be needed, because army Necros are not a good options for anyone with anything short of a 100Mbit box connection, and a Super computer.

Suggestion: Give Revives some form of Teleport ability.
Reason: It's a pain in the ass having to either wait two minutes for their stupid asses, go back for them, or lose half of your army.

Suggestion: Give Teeth more damage.
Reason: It's meant to be a low level skill, yes, but it's useless even at level 20, even while you're on the Cold Plains in norm.

Suggestion: Give Iron Maiden a 0.1 yard radius per point increase.
Reason: With the increased monster density, this skill is worthless in wider areas as it stands now.

I hope my observations and suggestion will be helpful to your balancing the Necromance Kato. If not, well sorry, I'll try again next time.

[Dezdrehel]

Hello Lord,

Just a small remark,
you said:

Suggestion: Give Revives some form of Teleport ability.
Reason: It's a pain in the ass having to either wait two minutes for their stupid asses, go back for them, or lose half of your army

If YOU teleport, you'll bring with you all your army. It could solve the problem.

(And that's the main reason i was begging for making it usable for the weredruid)

[Kato]

I'm going to print this topic and take it home over the weekend to implement. Some of the changes may not be possible with the limited parameters available in skills.txt, but I'll do what I can. Don't want to delve into hex-editing - that would require everyone reloading the DLL's.

[LordDemeter]

Thanks Kato. I have heard so many people complain about how weak the Necro is, but really offered no real suggestions on how to fix it. I spent two solid nights analyzing this, and it's what I came up with. Anything you don't feel like doing, isn't crucial. These were just some of my random ideas for improvement brought on by playing FatherlessChild from A1 nm to A5 Hell. I knew you ran up a Necro from low level, and this was just everything from a high level perspective....if you want to call level 258 high level in this mod. ^_^

Dez, yes, the teleporting does work, but you end up ungaurded, as it takes your minions a while to work their way out from the initial teleport spot.

[Dezdrehel]

oops, yes
Another good idea that in fact lead to

When the new necro will be released, i'll update the first post of skill balance.
There will be only the pally to finish, and all char will be viable.
That's cool.

Thanks Kato .

[Kato]

Does anybody have a high level Pally? I already have some suggestions about what to do with them. I'll probably start one from scratch to get the "low-down", but I need some opinions from a high-level (prefer > clvl 150) if possible.

Any Pally's out there? Pally, pally, oxen free!!!

[LordDemeter]

Me to the rescue again. LoL. I have a level 108 Paladin that I started in single player not long before deciding to head to the server. I don't know if that is high enough level for what you are looking for, but he can own nm cows, and a lot of Hell like no one else his level.

[Kato]

@LD: If you don't mind doing the same for him as you did for the Necro, that would be GREAT!!! 8)

I probably won't get around to making my own Pally for a couple weeks. This weekend will be spent adding the new Token items - hundreds of them!!

[LordDemeter]

Well, I will be spending the weekend away with my girlfriend, but I can do most of my analyzing from memory while I am gone. The rest, I can do when I get back here. Might even see it up before I get home. Ya' just never know.

[Horacer77]

Where Black-Heart at when you need him? If he see this and gives me permission to send his paly. He still has a living level 300+ paly on the realm. If he sees this and says it is ok I can send it to kato for testing.

[Iceman777]

I have a Pally over level 150 if you don't hear from Black-Heart, but he doesn't have uber gear and is not near the caps, so Black-Heart would be a better resource. My character is single player.

[Kato]

My main concern is that the Pally's skills are not outdated in NM and Hell. For that, I need a Pally who's been there and back. Does he survive well against Cows? Or is he constantly block-locked? Are the auras effective at the higher levels?

How is the Pally in SP vs MP? I've heard it said that no one wants the Pally to activate his Might aura in a party of high-level chars because it puts everyone over the damage caps.

[Iceman777]

@Kato:

I user Zeal and Fanatacism. I can solo NM cows in a single player game with out any minions, but can only handle about players 4 by myself. Working through hell pretty easily right now, but have only tried Act one as I've spent some time crafting and leveling in NM. I have Zeal, Fanatacism, and Holy Shield at level 100 or higher. I have not played the character with any other people.

I've pushed him another ten levels or more so he is about level 166. I think he would do fine through more of Hell, but I haven't placed jewels in all the sockets for my charms yet. I wanted to create a good combination while staying away from cap trouble myself.

[LordDemeter]

Iceman, you may run into some difficulty later in Hell, because of the phys immunes, and the global resistance. My only advice for getting around this is using Vengeance when needed instead of Zeal. With enough ias you could smack almost as fast with Ven.....would just have to click more. As for block lock......oh yeah. But that's a factor anywhere that monsters have a decent attack rate, and large numbers.

[Number One Playa]

My imput on a necro( this is coming from a lvl 75 neccy so its not the best reference) besides what has been said already, is boost meleemancer. Makea few new knife rune words, and boost poisen dagger and bone armor. I was looking at the rune word list and there are basicaly about 2 possible low lvl rune words adn about 3 mid lvl ones. This is if im correct about max soc on a knife is 3( i think it is not sure). Even with out rune words you can makea kick knife with crafting but the skills are not very good. Bone armor needs a major look at and poison dagger could usea boost too. But other then that I think everything has been said.

[Iceman777]

@LordDemeter:

I don't want to use your necro analyzing post to talk about the Paladin so this is my last post hear in reference to it. I already have Vengeance near 100, just didn't mention it. As for block lock the only time I have trouble is when there are 30 or more archers on the screen. If you use the unique jewels that have fastest hit recovery and you have enough into faster block this will reduce the problem and I have multiple jewels that do this, I just haven't decided what to socket them in. All of your concerns are well noted and have already been in planning for a while, just not implemented fully yet. Thanks for the concern though, I always appreciate advice.