Shattered Kingdoms

I don't think necros need a buff personally, but I most certainly do not think they are overpowered, or even powerful. If I was looking to roll a class that could kill just about anyone, I would not roll a necro, because staying alive against a necro is relatively easy for almost anyone, and lighties can usually win fights against necros handily now as long as at least 1 paladin or priest is on your team, counting tribunal NPCs.

This is the problem. I know you all say 'but you can run away easy!!' but that's not the problem. The problem is that anyone with holy word (as you put it, just 2 classes, when its obvious you are intentionally masking that one of those classes is arguably super-common, even with NPCs) can instantly shut down the average necromancer with no counter.

I'll liken this to the problem with rogues vs barbarians. A barb's counterstrike completely shuts down a backstab, however, it does not prevent the rogue from hamstringing or circlestabbing or using scrolls with a pet or guard in front of him. Sure, his effects are diminished, but he is not completely sent running home.

If holy word is not such a problem against an undead's animates, as you put it Tragonis, why did your necromancer be a do-nothing who got rocked by a gnome hammer mercenary?

I'm not trying to trash talk, I'm being dead serious and observant. It's hard to debate things as players because we lack numbers and hard data, relying mostly on hearsay and observation, but the fact that a single holy word from a level 41 NPC can completely and utterly shut down a necromancer is insane.

The counter-argument to this "But holy word can fail!!!" or "lul u just need 2 enchant armor 4 them". Well, that's great, FoD can fail too, so can o all bash, etc. Invalid argument to red herring the issue. Secondly, the armor thing...who precisely is going to be holding the armor when the undead are offline or not yet raised?

Is your proposal that every 45 minutes a necromancer must run and get more undead while having a priest/sorc enchant up 8 full suits of 11 slots between every two day reboot (on reboot, undead drop all, necromancer can't hold all the gear with crappy strength etc). So what you're really saying is that necromancers need to be ultimate horders who only fight when there's almost no opposition and when there's not a single priest of gray/light aura on line.

While I will agree warlocks and swashbucklers need a looking at, this is mostly due to the fact that melee is broken on this game when compared to spell damage and compared to bonus effects (fury, rally, 2-handers, etc). These classes need a ton more work of balancing then a simple "make dispel not affect animates" fix.

I'd hope that a 30 second coding fix would be easy to do and test it for a short while, it's not a massive change really. I find that necromancers are better off than some classes, but they should be better than -most- classes at PvP/PvE. After all, what's all this extra prep time and vulnerabilities if you don't have the benefits to go along with it to balance the class?

I have no problem with the average necromancer getting shut down by two holy words. One holy word is typically enough to [REDACTED] off the undead and get you killed, two holy words will kill them, on an average necro: And an average priest is almost completely spent after casting two holy words.

However, a necro with enough prep and the -right- prep will have undead that survive multiple holy words and still kill the priest that rode in with them. Even moreso, a priest that is above average can fire off 3 or 4 holy words in a single battle, but that's through the use of magical devices and a good character build.

Lacking holy word or BoG, every class will have trouble with a necro. A good necro will, through prep and combat tactics, find countermeasures for even though. Ranged damage will still murder them though, which is why I think necros are not a great choice personally.

Yawn. If you are playing a necromancer and are having trouble rolling the mud, you're doing something wrong. Getting your wraiths armor is moronic and a massive waste of time. If you actually seek help, I'm gader_sk on ym.

Then please, for the sake of clarity, explain how a necromancer can get the right prep. I hear about the 'right' prep all the time, but I don't particularly see any specifics. A lot of talk, and a lot of logs of necros getting steam rolled.

I want the discussion to be frank and open. So what is this 'right prep' Edoras. How would you stop HW from wrecking your little undead troupe.

Let's assume the set up is Tarconus with paladin guard + Vinoria (or some other elf priest with decent enchants) vs. a single necromancer with 8 wraiths, 1 control, and a guard to give it some concreteness.

In this scenario, it is 10 vs 3. In any other circumstance this would be absolute murder for the 3, but here its not, that right away should tell you something is amiss, but I digress. What would your tactic, being the necromancer to engage and fight these individuals with a decent chance of at least routing them, if not outright killing them.

Edit: I have no issues with ranged damage, it's the same thing with barbs or rogues, etc. A necromancer can employ a lot of counters to it, unlike my argument against HW. I may be stupid (and I learnt recently that HW doesn't always win every fight, but that wasn't against undead so I'm not arguing HW is OP, just against wraiths it seems to be) and just missing the point, but c 'holy' seems to easily win when I use it.

I'm not going to argue balance issues. I'll leave that to the people who want to do it. But in your latest example, the way I see it, the combat is 1 vs 2, not 10 vs 3. Yes, you counted the characters right but not the players. Add another player to the necro's side of the combat if you want to postulate an example that should theoretically be fair.

So wait, you are genuinely stating that we should only look at necros as a 1 v1 situation.

So, necros are required to have 8 wraiths to kill anyone and tons of prep time? Huh? I'm not following. I thought the whole reason they had a buncha undead is because they generally don't have a lot of friends and tons of enemies making it likely they'll always be number disadvantaged.

If the sprite had come with no undead (besides Deamuce), there's no reason they shouldn't have won that 2v2. Unfortunately, necromancers aren't smart enough to do anything but raise undead armies, even against opponents whom undead armies are unsuited to fight. Necromancers are a great class and you apparently missed out on the fact that they have more than animate dead in their skillset. Raising an undead army and then attacking Exile is just completely idiotic, and you can't wrap your head around the fact that one tactic doesn't work in 100% of situations against 100% of opponents in 100% of settings.

Explain. I'm seriously wanting folks to talk about it. Don't just say something, explain step by step. Show me what I'm missing out on, I'd love to try playing a necro, I really would, but as of right now, they just seem too easily routed at all times.

But, since you want to bring it up, tell me what Deamuce + sprite vs. Tarconus + priest would look like with no undead and using other spells/skills the necromancer has to win this fight.

And I consider 'win' causing the other side to flee from the fight or die, doesn't always have to result in a death.

The priest was using harlie spell, meaning she did not have mirror image. She was an elf who had recently been looted and was not well enchanted. A single FoD would have dropped the priest. A scribed double powerful FoD would have definitely taken her out of the equation.

Casting fear or zapping fear would likely have taken the NPC out of the equation and could have forced the priest to flee as well. Reciting petrification would have worked against the NPC, but I think the sprite recites -weak- petrification at the priest, which is just a waste of time.

Necromancers get wands/staves/scrolls, which is more than enough to be completely effective in pvp. On top of this, though, they get the most badass casted spell in the game, fear. They also get all kinds of sick maledictions, and FoD which is extremely powerful against certain opponents.

There's no excuse for a solo necromancer not to ravage me in a 1v1 even if I have a holy wording NPC with me, but they should not be able to win a 1v2 against a skilled barb+priest.