Shattered Kingdoms

Seriously, this is some of the worst complaining about a class I've ever seen.

Animate Dead wasn't always what you remember, infact for a long damned time animate dead was nothing but n00b skeletons to put yourself in 2nd row.

Animate Dead was completely and utterly broken as it was, and wasn't really that much fun to play with or against. If you really felt like it, there wasn't a single target you couldn't kill, even without outfitting the undead.

Necromancers were alot more fun when they were more focused on control, and the fact they are now again more control based makes me happy. It's not the animate dead change that made them significantly weaker, it's the lack of a "don't screw with me" button. It used to be that people wouldn't just go looking for necros, why? You could pretty much bet that you would catch an e-drain for it. With e-drain no longer being a legitimate threat, it takes alot of the fear of necro away.

You got other smaller issues, such as the general haste change and things like that where the game has just changed. BoG being buffed is another example of this. However, I'd be more afraid of arrows than BoG, at least you can blind the paladin since they have to be in the same room as you.

The fact cancellation doesn't insta-screw you anymore is absolutely fantastic.

If I had to give two small suggestions about ways to boost the necro without breaking it it'd be these two.

One: Rework E-Drain

There is a timer on it, the xp loss on just about everything has been lowered, I don't see the harm in reboosting this to 2-3 ticks again since it does have the timer on it. Either making the XP loss a meaningful amount, or make it a better spell by making it take other things than XP. If it dealt damage, plus significant PE/ME damage it might be worth casting over FoD. Do whatever, just make it relevant again.

Two: Shade

With control undead having the concentration lowered, I'd love to see a new spell for necros, we'll call it Shade for now. Simply put, make it a multi-use spell, maybe moderate conc. Put it at level that a delf could use two controls, shroud, and shade, with control at its new conc level. Then have it work on either the necromancer, or an undead. Have it increase the power of said undead it is cast on in various ways, same goes for the necro. I'm thinking it'd increase the resistance to light/holy attacks on the necro by a decent amount. Nothing game-breaking, but enough that if stacked with resists would make the damage alot more manageable, also have it give a decent miss chance to ranged weaponry, however while shaded you'd be treated as undead as far as heal for damage goes. Have it give some similar benefits to a chosen undead, increased resist to light/holy/remove compulsion for the shaded undead, basically no insta-dusting/freeing a shaded sess. However, instead of the ranged resistance, give it a all-around combat boost, maybe +100 HP and 2 attacks, or +100hp and increased damage, whatever, just something meaningful. It has to be enough of a boost to that if you're a control necro it's better for you to put it on your big bad, than you.

Basically, the way I'm thinking of it, it'd give animate necros the ability to be the "leader" of a lesser horde. Yeah, holy word would still destroy your horde, but your horde is basically a bunch of nothings. What do you care? You'd likely survive said HW intact, not it'd stop the whole BoG the necro screw the horde tactic. Yeah, three heals and you're probably dead, but if they are casting heal they are alot more squishy than a paladin.

Control necros get the ability to turn one NPC into their champion, something approaching the power of some of the good undead NPCs pre-haste nerf/NPC nerf.

So, there is a few ideas. The first is more doable, the second would be more fun. Feel free to flame away, or come up with new ideas, just keep in mind one thing.

Try to make your ideas a boost to your class, not a complete nerf bat to others.

I played a DE Necro as my...eh..probably fourth character maybe third. None of my characters were long lived because I had trouble on the PK field, still do, but i'm still learning tricks in the game and such. From my view, necros have some great advantages. The problem with casting though is the fact is that people can walk and concentrate at the same time. I'm not sure if it's been changed, but this gives say a paladin or priest, or both, whichever, a chance to literally holyword you in an instant.

Start cast, follow someone into room kaboom. moment they enter it fires down. Or does it require a target now? I can't remember, but that's a problem I've seen on a few logs i've read. Although necros do have skills that could instantly kill..Ie wand, scroll, FoD, staff..etc. There's no point if a spell comes off the exact moment someone enters the room. Pair that with the fact that generally a necro will be hunted by groups as a horde is expected, that's possibly up to 1-3 holywords simultaneously. Bye bye undead.

My thing would be to make it to where you can't walk and concentrate at the same time on spells. That is if it hasn't been changed already. That alone would help them a lot.

Given the nature that necromancers are loners and hunted by 90% of the mud, I think they should get at least enchant armor.

The concentration requirement of control undead may have been lowered, but it's still prohibitively expensive in terms of ME cost.

I think it would be interesting to give necros a spell like displacement. Kinda like a displacer beast has. So that some attacks would just miss. That would solve the ranged issue, though I've not really seen one.

I'd like to continue with I'd like to see MORE undead types. And the ability to CHOOSE what you're making. New undead types that I can think of so far include mummy, vampire, shade. I had more in mind but they evade me at the moment. Mummies could have a special attack known as Mummies rot or just Rot. It would be a simple sickness like plague but it would affect charisma and constiution. Vampires would obviously have vampiric touch and possibly cause light. Shades would have permanent displacement upon. Mummies would have a pound attack, vampires a claw attack, shades a wrath attack. As far as class construction, mummies=shaman, vampires=bards, shades=scouts.


I don't think that raised undead should keep the class of the corpse. And as for scout undead why should they not be able to fletch? That is a base skill for a scout to operate. I could understand losing herbalism and tame.

Lich's Blessing could be the name of Sklz spell. I also agree that edrain needs a little reworking. It is a little to slow to be used in pvp. Most necromancer spells are. Vamp touch is slow compared to spells that just wreck others (BoG, Hellfire, Color Spray, Harm, flame strike) so giving them a slightly faster casting time would be on the fence of good and bad. I'd have to see it tested and evaluated though.

Another spell worth thinking over would be one that is like mass heal but for undead, so mass harm? Also why do necromancers not receive harm as a spell, it clearly has the negative energy connotations. And heals undead.

I think enchant armor would be nice, but don't think it's needed. A necromancer doesn't need clothes to be dangerous. And if you think otherwise I for one can say you're doing it wrong.


MORE undead and the CHOICE of which to raise.

I agree with this too. Controlling one undead usually equates to about 10 minutes out of inn time. Two undead is about 3 minutes. I'm not sure what my ME pool is but with all the mana mods I've worn in the past I can hold one undead at 93%, two at 84%. And if I walk outside of an inn or stop resting, I will lose nearly 8-15% a tic with one, and I'm going to for sure 15%+ a tic with two. It's not really economical to hold two.

No, they need clothes to be alive.



Vampiric touch casting time is fine. The spell itself is just gimpy. Against elves it's moderately effective at low-levels, and it's okay for leveling, but if you're using it as anything but a last-ditch-save-my-ass-after-getting-caught-up-my-a-random-aggro-mob-while-fresh-from-the-river you're going to be sorely disappointed in its efficacy.

Holding two controls outside of an inn is almost guaranteed to cost you ME even while resting.

It really could give you more HP in return for it's casting, though the mana required isn't overtly bad. And thinking about it PvP you're probably right it's not going to win a PK spell award, or even a footnote mention.

What race was this? I bet with a gnome (25 wis) you could do it and possibly gain ME.