Shattered Kingdoms

Vampiric touch does decent enough damage. If you use it against an elf it is almost on par with harm damage.

Clearly my opinion doesn't matter on necros despite being the only player to play a longstanding PKing necro in the last 2 years, but here goes.

The problem with necros now is that animate dead is a useless spell. The fact that animates can bounce off of sanc, have lower HP and can't use any combat skills makes it so that the only order that matters in combat now, o all kill, is almost counter-productive due to the order lag. In the time that it takes for a necro to recover from the order lag for an o all kill, their target has either run away, or if he had sanc, is only being targeted by half the ordered undead. Animate dead is a useless spell except for adding extra damage in PvE, and even then it's still boring as all get out because all you do is say "order all kill" and then when the lag wears off, you "order all kill" the next guy. Then you fall asleep at your keyboard.

If you want to give a boost to necros while keeping their thematic elements, then you should give them a skill that, on a successful check, allows them to give orders to their animates without invoking order lag. When mastered, necros should able to order their animates with a zero percent chance of invoking order lag. As things stand, if a necro goes the animate route, then he literally spends his entire fights doing nothing but ordering, and has very little time to do anything else like casting spells or not dying.

Also, animates need to -not- be targetable by the adjectives of the NPC they're created from. The sheer amount of potential ways to turn your group inside out by having 20 extra adjectives in the room is really stupid.

I agree. Its decent for training, but against PCs with sanc/protection/saves/shield and MP runes, its a waste of a cast in pk.

Your entire post is irrelevant. It's indicative of the problem on SK that the only way to land a PvP gank is through melee damage. That your caster wins through melee damage is simply mind boggling. Necromancers are a caster class and should not be worried about the finer points of wielding a greatsword versus a rapier.

The broader problem is that the game is too far skewed in favor of warriors (mercenary and barbarian), and other classes are not competitive. Why is warlock the least effective caster class? The answer is obvious in that sorcerer and necromancer are hybrid warriors by proxy. Charm person, control undead, and animate dead are far superior to conjure elemental for this reason alone; those things can wield weapons.

I'm not in favor of reverting animate dead or anything back to it's old style. If anything, casters need to become more caster centric, and damage on Shattered Kingdoms needs to be slowed down. Especially melee damage.

It would be really nice if the typical PvP fights could last twice or thrice as long as they do now. I suppose it might give more opportunities for people to run away from fights, but PvP is always a lot more fun to me when you actually have more time to fire off more commands and more skills & spells.

I'm not surprised that you don't possess the ability to accept anyone else's point of view, but thanks for reminding everyone else about that. I'm also not particularly clear on why its mind boggling to you that a master of the undead could possess the ability to win fights with his undead. Why does that seem counter-intuitive to you?

I will agree, however, that necromancers are in many ways a hybrid class. Necromancers provide aspects of three other classes primarily: The utility of sorcerers, the maledictions of shamans, and the melee damage of warrior classes. However, before the animate dead nerf, they provided less utility than sorcerers, given that they don't get enchant or gate, and less usefulness in maledicting than shamans, given that necros are by far the most vulnerable class in the entire game whereas shaman are arguably one of the sturdiest, especially in the second or third row. Their only other outlet to shine was in regard to melee damage with animates, and maybe controls in specific circumstances.

Despite this, the animate spell got weakened to at -most- 1/2 its original effectiveness, with no concession made in any other arena. That effectively means that now, necros are a class that does a crappy job at a bunch of things, with the added bonus of requiring more work to prep for PvP and being BoGable. If you want to have utility, roll a sorc/priest. If you want to maledict, roll a shaman or hellion. If you want to deal spell damage, roll a warlock. If you want to do melee damage, roll a barb/merc. If you want to be crappy at all these things and good at none of them, roll a necro.

Your contribution to this thread is to whine and moan about the state of the game and offer nothing useful. My suggested change actually allows necros to utilize an iconic part of their hybrid skillset without suffering for it. I think you're the irrelevant one here.

I agree. But to do that you would need to
1) make it so melee didn't kill people in 1-2 rounds (hello merc/barb).
2) more delay between rounds so people can react, more than just bashbashbash or quaff heal quaff heal quaff heal.

Has anyone taken a good look at the game recently?
Most pvp involves a 50-60% ratio of barb/mercs. Certain groups are upwards of 70-90% merc/barbs. As the imbalance continues the ratio is just getting worse.

People are mercs/barbs because being a decent merc/barb is exceptionally easy. In reality, sorcs and necros are much, much better than mercs/barbs. Top end charmed pets will beat any merc/barb 1v1 - just test your might against Lathron.

I think there aren't enough paladins/hellions/rogues/bards/swashes/warlock in the game right now, but I think of that group the only ones that need a buff are bard, swash, rogue, and there's an argument for warlock.

Sorcs and necros could still use more wimps, but that's well known. Scribe should be tremendously wimped. That's about it. MR barbs should be removed - failed experiment that is too strong.

You really think that necros should be wimped more? How many classes are more fearsome than necro for you, at the moment? I honestly haven't been scared of necros for years, and I haven't seen a single veteran player ever worried about encountering a necro.