New 1-20 Necromancer Progression

[Xalmat]

Took me awhile to compile, but I now have some detailed info on the new spell progression for the 1-20 game. Check it out:<a target="_blank" href="http://www.eqsummoners.com/eq2/new-spells/">http://www.eqsummoners.com/eq2/new-spells/</a>I warn you though, it's extremely image heavy.(Edit: fixed link)<p>Message Edited by Xalmat on <span class="date_text">01-16-2006</span><span class="time_text">01:08 PM</span></p>

[Deson]

Thanks! good info and makes me want to restart to try it out. Just one question, did I just miss it or are there no pre- 20 lifetaps? If not those first 20 levels are going to be really rough and the health costing spells are going to be really desparate uses if at all.<div></div>

[Kasandria]

<div></div><p>Excellant work.</p><p>I am not exactly happy with the changes.  Seems like everything will be slower to do and that has an affect right up till level 34 or more.  And I agree, I can't see me trying to heal the pet if we are both in danger.</p>

[Eriol]

<blockquote><hr>Deson wrote:Thanks! good info and makes me want to restart to try it out. Just one question, did I just miss it or are there no pre- 20 lifetaps? If not those first 20 levels are going to be really rough and the health costing spells are going to be really desparate uses if at all.<hr></blockquote>/agreeAlso, we apparently lose Seism, so no AE stun/interrupt for necros anymore.And looking at the comparison, our low-lvl stun (as are ALL stuns) is a lot worse than the conjurer one, and our AEs (the in-encounter one) don't have snares, while the conjurer ones do.

[Xalmat]

I only see three health-consuming spells, the two pet heals and the heart. Do note that the level 2 pet heal will probably kill you unless you have max health at level 2 <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Siphon Cloud (aka Seism) can act as a lifetap at level 16 until you get your first real one at 20. But I don't think it'll really be <i>that</i> big an issue, at least not much worse than it is now.

[Deson]

<div></div>The tap issue is two fold, first on balance with conjurer's - Conj's have no spells that consume health thus have no worries when it comes to healing the pet(well none different than now). Necro's on the other hand will be forced to play rather recklessly in order to do enough damage fast enough to kill the creature before the pet gets too low and if there is an add forget it. Second and more importantly,  it makes those pet heal spells useless so that the lower level necro doesnt learn how to use it effectively early on. The affore mentioned recklessness will carry throughout his carrer likely and become quite an annoyance to anyone that may group with him. I really dont want to see bad play encouraged by an imbalanced progression. I started before LU 13's changes and still find myself subconsciously doing things that no longer apply to the post LU13 game and really dont want the same to happen to any new players that want to try a necro.Edit: Actually just looked again and its worse than I thought. Lifetap is our only DD so there wont beany hard choices at all. If we cant beat something we simply cant beat it. That compounds the no heal issue immensely. I'll test it out with an alt when the changes go live but just from looking at it have to say it doesnt bode well forthe pre 20 Necro and even though it's at 16 that AoE lifetap will be a poor sub since it is a true AoE.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Deson on <span class="date_text">01-16-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:48 AM</span></p>

[TheFat]

<div></div><p>One thing we need to remember is that the pre-20 levels have always been "off" if you compare them with the post 30 levels of play. Those early levels are always limited and you don't have tons of options in how you attack a situation.</p><p>Take for instance a summoner at level 18 under the current system. The only real attack spells you have are one DD, one DoT, an AoE, and a PBAoE. The pet heal at that level is still fairly worthless and generally it's better to just try to kill the mob faster by throwing another spell than chain-healing your crawler. So for most summoners at that level their attack sequence is something like this, send in the pet, run in and seism, dot, and then dd. Not exactly complex. You really don't get a lot of strategy until much later so I don't really see the redo of the pre 20 necro spells encouraging "bad" play styles.</p><p>Even now, the 50+ necro is kind of a berserker mage anyway. With lich on, pet healing, transfering life, etc. If you're not doing damage then you're dying. You have to throw out as many spells as you can you're constantly getting in range of melee if you're wanting to throw your big PBAoE. At least now players will get to learn the balancing act of health, power, damage, and aggro much earlier. I do agree however that they might want to look at that level 2 pet heal. They're basically just giving you a skill you can't use for a few more levels.</p>

[Dalin]

<div></div>Good post, nice Info, thanks.

[Deson]

Under the current system yes, for freeport classes things are mostly out of sync with the end careers, that's one of the drivers of this change. If they are making the change howeve rthen they should be striving to maintain constancy and balance at those levels now.<div></div>

[Catodon]

I started a new necro on test yesterday, level 5 so far.  A few interesting things I've noticed:The level 1 pet has all of the abilities of the higher level necro tank pets (Graven Strike, Scream, etc.)  These do disease damage and appear to have their stifle/root components intact.  It is very good at holding aggro and can tank quite well.  The adept 3 model is the flaming type bat like the fire shrillers in Nektulos. (Ghost bat from splitpaw for the Master version?)The level 1 fast dot "Rot" does 1 dmg/tic at apprentice 1, at adept 3 it still does 1dmg/tic.The pet heal can't even be cast at lvl 2, the total cost was higher than my max health (with a ratonga, perhaps an ogre or troll would be able to get one off.)All in all i'm fairly pleased... the pet by itself is very effective, and since it scales with level it keeps up quite a bit better than the other mage classes do between 4 and 7 when you get the next nuke line.Spells that cost health appear to totally unbalanced for all classes that have them... look up the defiler's level 1 heal for a good laugh.  I'm thinking they should make the cost a % of max health rather than an absolute number so as to scale better with the drastic change in max health during the first few levels.<div></div>

[Tsuhanm]

<div></div><p>The changes to Seism and Rock Blast will be major changes to the way I play at my current level of 26...</p><p>I understand the desire to make the spells more "necro-like', but taking away the knockdown ability of Seism without replacing it with some other similar ability is wrong.</p><p>My history with these sorts of changes is not good either.  I was a loyal follower of Star Wars Galaxies, even during the rough spots, until they nerfed the creature handlers out of existance.</p>

[Xalmat]

You do realize that your level 30 AE, Breath of the Unearthed, is the direct upgrade to Seism right? All they're doing with Siphon Cloud (the new Necro version of Seism) is make it follow the model that Breath of the Unearthed follows, which is also followed by Breath of the Unearthed's upgrades: Accursed Cloud (level 44) and Infernal Cloud (level 5<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.Lets not get into the debacle that SWG is.<p>Message Edited by Xalmat on <span class="date_text">01-17-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:47 AM</span></p>

[Tsuhanm]

<div></div>i did not realize there would be a Seism upgrade at Level 30, I'm still a few levels away from that...I know Necros aren't the AOE guys, but that knockdown can be a lifesaver

[Eirgo]

<div></div><p>While I can see why some people hate to lose seism for the stun - but I really think the changes will be for the better over all. </p><p>The main change I see is for the evil classes and half the neutral classes.  For the first 20 levels, these classes currently get skills from the opposing class lines - along with that damage type and debuff type.  Then once they hit 20+  all thier damage is of a different type then what they can debuff for and untill that person is 34 things are very mismatched.</p><p>For example, my dirge alt is level 27 and half his skills debuff/hit for magic damage and the other half debuff/hit for disease damage.  My master snare spell debuffs 736 disease and I can REALLY tell the difference when I have the mob debuffed before I use my disease DD - but it doesnt help my 13 -19 melee skills at all.</p>

[Kasandria]

<div></div>A big problem I have with this is that I spent a lot of coin on adept III's of spells because I thought they would not be overwriten at higher levels and now they will be on a ladder and overwritten.  Not only am I out a huge chunk of money but it diminishes my flexibility.  I thought this was to improve the fun of the game but now I see that it's just another nerf.

[Deila]

<div></div><p>I'm working with a new version of my Lucan Necromancer on Test as well now. Level 8 so far, and stuck on the island until they get tradeskills in there (I intend to keep playing her on Test - not just sightseeing this round of changes, so dare not leave until I can get started up with crafting).</p><p>Thusfar, in my opinion, Necromancers are doing great at low levels.</p><p>As stated earlier, the level 1 bat pet performs very well, even at app I. I could occasionally peel aggro from it if I group DoTted early, but it pulled aggro right back thereafter. Against single targets, I couldn't pull mobs off the pet.</p><p>The pet heal is indeed very dangerous to use at low levels. On the upside though, even without healing my pet never died. Had a few close calls after several rounds of adds joined the fun, prolonging the fight, but even down in the red the pet had sufficient defense to hold out.</p><p>Our lowbie damage spells are all DoTs, but starting with Coil at 3, they perform well in practice. Didn't do much in the way of HOs (probably just too used to operating at higher levels, where I just don't bother and stack more DoTs instead) - I'll play with those some more next time I log onto Test.</p><p>Overall, I was able to solo all of the content on the newbie isle with relative ease, while many other classes were struggling even in duos. I was very pleased with the soloability of the changes.</p><p>Hopefully the tradeskill portion is added to the island soon, and I'll have a look at more of the 8-20 leveling experience, but up to this point I'm pretty pleased on the whole.</p><p> </p>