Shattered Kingdoms

Honestly, before I ever saw this thread, I was thinking about ways to reduce the maximum potential of animate dead. So you can expect to see some experiments, starting... now.

There should be limits on the total type you can have.

Five wraiths, eight wights, six zombies, ten ghouls, twelve skeletons, etc..

If you mess with the animates you need to do something with the controls.


For instance, I'm in favor of limiting the total number of animates you can control to something like 25. That's not totally unreasonable given how anyone with a brain can completely dominate a necromancer, the fact that all of you are unable to only speaks to your personal abilities. 25 undead doesnt make a huge difference in pvp combat as opposed to say 80 undead, but it makes a large difference in CRS.

25 undead in crs isn't going to allow a necromancer to take a relic alone. Even with 25 wraiths, all buffed up with spells and armor and weapons, the necromancer will lose a lot of them to the outer guardian simply because they can't tank very well and the inner guardian will drop quite a few as well.


However, if you want to limit the undead to just what you can put in your group, then you should extend any enchantments that effect the necromancer to the undead. In other words, if the necromancer has 40 mp, and 20 reflex, all his undead should have this as well. Remove the ability of the undead to wear armor, but allow them to still wear weapons. This will keep them from being able to wear highly enchanted gear and stack with the necro's enchantments.

This will also give the necromancers some leeway into how their undead are enchanted, they can either wear a suit to protect themselves, or they can wear one that helps their undead in combat.

Allow controlled undead to still wear armor and their enchantments stack with the necromancers. This will encourage necromancers to use uber undead like lord varloch, the reason most don't now is they have to take the time to get them for one thing, and it's so easy to just cancel them. With enchantments protecting the undead from cancellation it makes them a viable option again.


So in short if you limit the undead to just what fits in the group and you allow shared enchantments, it cuts down on the overall offensive power of the necromancer, but it allows a very prepared necromancer to make an excellent small force.

Otherwise leave it be and learn how to play the game.

If you limit the number of undead, Dulrik, understand that for over a year when team-lighty dominated, this wasn't an issue.

So I'm just simply suggest that you make dispel magic NOT affect animated undead if you want to limit it.

Furthermore, you have crippled the necromancer class to unplayability imho. First they have time limits, and it takes a long while to build up a number of wraiths with having to summon the GM NPC, kill it, and then animate it. THEN you have to worry about 1 holy word destroying your entire army (and yes, two or three holy words will eradicate an army of 30+, I've seen it), and further all the undead are no longer perma-hasted or carry ANY bonuses, only negatives.

You've made necromancers completely unfeared, especially with that timer on e-drain. You have a game that you -hardcode- that most people hate necromancers and will try to kill them on sight (at level 10 in some cases, as we've seen), so why play a necro? Back in the old days I'd whip out the e-drain rod on someone and take a 1/2 level from them and they'd not try it again stupidly. Now there's nothing to fear from necromancers. They're just a crappy supporting caster. I'd rather have a sorcerer or a warlock than a necromancer. This would only continue if you limited the number of undead.

Don't do anything more, I am imploring you, simply for game balance. Don't give in to the whines.

Think to yourself: would YOU play a necromancer?

I don't think you would, honestly. Too much prep, too many enemies, and for what? You realize that bolt of glory change you made is ridiculous at the very base level, right? Not only does it 1 shot every undead it hits, but it also stops any necro/hellion/priest from fleeing and has to stand there and die to a group 1 v 20?

I'm asking, what is up Dulrik? This is favoritism to team lightie. Consider every single bonus they get compared to team darkie (including request, better levelling zones, the only alignment with a 24 cha bard, and the overpowered nature of paladins (ask peso, dulrik, they are not balanced)), and now you want to completely nerf the necromancer class?

Undead no longer are 'uber', nor are necros. If you want to put a limit on necromancers, the cap better be around 100 total. If not higher.

Consider this: what use do I have for a necromancer on a cabal raid if they don't carry a ton of undead that will die in the first gas breath? They don't cast at the golems, because the golems will save vs. their magic no matter what and kill them in the gas breaths.

I'm utterly shocked you fail to see the overpowered nature of holy word and bolt of glory against the undead. Look at pk now. All lighties do is run in and spam holy word.

Remember Exile? Before you made all these silly changes? Everyday 30 corpses stacked in the square. Why doesn't that happen anymore?

Because it can't. The NPCs spam holy word. No necro can even get NEAR exile due to it. They lose their undead in a heartbeat.

Edit: Another solution is to limit undead, but once again return them to being 2000+ hps with scripts and perma-hasted. Like we used to have 4 years ago!

Well said Grakus. Too late, but well said.

The mere fact that the power of undead forces the opposing force to take measures specifically against them hints towards how much weigh a single necromancer can add to the scales in a pk battle.

I do not agree that a necromancer, without undeads, is nothing but a crappy support class. They have an impressive spelllist and sure, cancellation can freak control-using necromancers up - but so can it to charm-using sorcs and dominate-using hellions.

I also strongly disagree with the notion that you would rather take a sorc with you against a guardian. A force of, say, six wraiths against a cabal guardian is still quite devastating.

Nonetheless, I still argue that weapon-usage should be restricted instead of the number of undead.

I think it is a grand shame that their spellset is so underused.

I'm with stupid (aka Grakus).

If this gets nerfed, something else needs to get beefed. As said earlier, I've seen paladins, priests, and swashies all nuke necromancers. All it takes is one lighty priest or a paladin (even in NPC form in some cases) to neutralize their threat.

What people also don't realize is that to get a 30+ army that lasts for any considerable amount of time, you either need to A) use embalming fluid and take up a half a day in prep. or B) have a group of people help you out. I've seen decent armies be done solo with certain abilities, but it still took a hell of a long time, and it still only took one priest to ruin that necro.s day.

Again, you operate under the assumption that the animates are the necros only true force - hopefully a nerf to them would prove that notion, wrong.

I fail to see how you think that necros are so much worse than a sorceror... There are, at least, just as fine controls as there are charms and both possess a wealthy spellset and a variety of devices.

I dont really care about 30 undead and I'm a lightie, there are but two things I do care about concerning this.
1. Paralyze
2. CRS

-I would sit and fight all the undead if they didn't get paralyze, paralyze with 30 undead IS overpowered.

-If a necro wants to attack a keep with all of those undead, make the keep spawn the same number of defenders that would spawn if 30 PCs attacked, this would halt them a bit.

My two cents, but I'm a newb so take that into consideration before flaming.

Trying to pk with more then 20 animates usually becomes a handicap. Since you don't know where the hell you are going and are spammed to death. Six wraiths and a Necro can deal with pretty much anything in the PvP arena. Sure, the necro won't be able to defeat an equal number party of PCs, or will have a difficult time doing so. But one player shouldn't easily outgun nine others. Limiting undead won't hurt necros, except decreasing their zerging powers. Which is an effective, yet lame tictac.

Now to CRS, that will hurt team darky a lot. Since they have almost always been depended upon the necromancer to put down the guardian.