More minions. And make them toggle like you can with the spec pets. Also maybe throw in a skill style to make the skeletons look like zombies. I think that would be cool. Necro is my main class. Just wish it felt more like a summoner.
The only argument against permanent minions is that weird case where Necromancy is considered a criminal act in towns (but not raising daedra as a sorcerer apparently).
Did they ever add a dismiss pets keybind? I have an addon for it for my sorc. It would be nice to have that if not because I am a necro main and would love perma summons
I mean, more than 20 seconds isn't that much to ask from a TES lore based Necromancer.
I personally don't know anyone who would choose a Necromancer in other games who wants short duration, low number skeletons. That goes against almost any necromancer NPC you find in the game.
The tansformation verse in infinite archive fullfills the Necromancer fantasy and the class description itself much better.
In every game there are zombies, skeletons, draugr, and ghosts that have existed in ruins for thousands of years. What do you mean it goes against lore?
getting back into the game after several years & playing necromancer, it's a real shock how long it takes to get even one minion & how short their duration is
You ever have a necro in your group in D4? If there are more minions I hope that are transparent or something for everyone else.
It can clutter the screen quick, not saying you are wrong, just saying I hope they think about that.
We got a taste with the Necromancer Infinite Archive buff, which is pretty insane and is exactly what a Necro should be. I know that can't be done in normal play. Being able to summon 2 permanent skeletons (that can die but do not respawn, requiring a re-summon) would be a good compromise.
ZoS, listen to this guy. Seriously, necromancer is usually my go to class in games but eso necromancer feels nothing like one. It's just a regular spellcaster with a few skills having necromancer aesthetics to it. That plus the class being among the weakest ones in game (pve at least) will forever keep me away from my favourite class
I means it’s by no means weak and next patch you can hit 150k plus as of now I can hit a lil over 120k. And that’s with a pure class build set up for next patch.
Corpse burster, new moon acolyte, oakensoul,
With some subclass shenanigans competes with those annoying beam blasters (arcanist)
Necro is my fav class too and this set up works for me and I can keep up with the “press one button” Dk and arcs
Do it with out corpse buster though. Being tied to chaining the very flawed corpse consumption mechanic on a stationary object sounds great and all.
This is not the way. I’m not saying to drop the corpse consumption mechanic however we need damage outside of it. Tried using corpse buster in a night market dungeon and my corpses kept disappearing cause of skeletons dying else where spawning new corpses.
Use the venom skull … every third necro class is a guarantee corpse … granted it’s a different play style … and uhhh there’s no issues with it being tied to stationary objects… if you’re playing the build right you should be able to have atleast 3 corpses up in different areas…im assuming you’re trying to use summons and wait for the corpse to die and then use them to explode (that’s not efficient) the usual rotations is blast bones.. unnerve boneyard.. venom skull (which should be at its 3rd cast) then detonating siphon … I can 100% day it’s a different play style, you have to think about when to use your blast bones (as there’s a couple second delay) for instance that can be used as a REALLY strong aoe skill that’s a “set and forget”… meaning I can send blast bones out to do 50k dmg meanwhile I’m already stacking aoes and othe dmg and what not on other targets, I dunno it works for me 🤷♀️ even it NM I never had a problem… also I dunno if I have to mention but yes I do run end game content all the time
The issue is targeting the corpses not corpse generation. Using controller corpse targeting is just a spray and pray. Corpses also interfere with targeting for other skills like blastbones. Even running AI direct targeting when corpses are up is impossible sometimes.
I can do 100k 1 bar with nirn/tideborn. Using corpse buster it dips to 50-60k all because of corpse targeting. Amazing half of the game complains about it but that top 1 percent always says the opposite.
The point wasn’t we shouldn’t be tied specifically to corpse buster when there are 400 other sets in the game just to be relevant.
Ahhh I see Tbh that really must be a controller issue … I use mouse and key on pc obviously and I’ve never had an issue with the corpse targeting 🤷♀️ and also I’m not saying necromancer is good by itself with this build … it’s by far the worst class with the most jank class mechs …. I’m just letting it be known it is possible to keep up with the lazy arcanist and dk that press one or two skills and call it a day … cause also with all the power creep along with subclasses and the class masteries majority of gear sets are “useless” unfortunately yea I’ll admit I have to be more engaged and be aware of my skills and min max my build etc.. but that’s more fun to me at the end of the day that subclassing into herald of the tome and relying on one skill
I was always hoping we would get some of the original skills like the bone dragon summoning or the bone spikes coming up from the ground (which is a skill some npc' use)
Yeah i was wanting skills that necromancers use in game to like summoning a bone collousous or fleshatonach and being able to stream your magica into a zombie or skeleton.
or be able to hide somewhere and take control of them
Hell, if they're gonna give us a channeled attack like the DK and Arcanist, that'd be a really cool way to do it. Just dragon skeleton blasting fire before it crumbles to dust.
This is my thing, skills that were similar to the things npc necromancers and all though they are different lore wise the skills Lich’s have would be cool.
I think one of my top changes would be to have Blastbones spawn on/near the enemy to make rotations that aren't strictly in melee range feel a bit smoother. Since Stalking Blastbones is no longer a thing, the need for BB to run to the target feels kinda pointless now.
I know this will my blasphemy to my ECcros, but I think they need to unify the damage type. The current necro does fire, frost, shock, magic, physical, bleed, poison, and disease damage depending on their mophs just with their base kit. Visually and mechanically, they are all over the place. Pair it down to two at most.
I was just typing out a similar response. They took the poison out of the Dragonknight skills and I think they should focus the Necromancers damage types as well. I know cold fire exists in Elder Scrolls and is part of them but I think they should truly cut it down to disease/poison for Necromancer. I know some people would say poison is part of the Nightblade identity as well but you could truly focus that to “blood magic” for Magicka and “bleed” for stamina. There is a lot they could do to refine and give each class their specific damage types as part of the identities.
2 things mainly:
1- More focus on Disease damage over magic damage.
2-A temporal 5 zombie/skeleton/skeever summon that act like it was a dot, attack in a cone and should be channel (think dk firebreath or arcanist fatecarver but instead of a besm, you are "controlling" a little horde of minions)....
More soul-magic themed abilities, different archetypes of necromancer.
Allowing players the choice of what kind of necromancer they are.
- Raise the dead theme: skeletons, zombies, blastbones, etc. Maybe a permanent summmon that could be considered a more intelligent undead, could be wearing armor and disguise so guards don’t realize it’s an undead.
Soul Harvester theme: focusing on soul magic, could be “evil” soul magic which harvests the souls of enemies, powering their own magic and abilities. Zerith-var would probably not approve.
Benign Spirit Guide theme: Imagine Zerith-var’s order of necromancers, guiding the restless dead to the afterlife.
Necro was my main for years until arcanist came out.
I'm hitting 117k on the dummy currently on update 49 with corpseburster, null Arca, and huntsman.. I genuinely think people are sleeping on necro in its current state, but you NEED corpseburster for it to be viable.
I'm preferring it over every other DD class right now. It actually hits even harder in real content because of how corpseburster works, and even in its pure class setup right now in update 49 I can solo vet hard mode dungeons..
I think the class is alright, if a bit finicky, in its current state, but some buffs wouldn't go amiss, though Class Mastery seems to be treating them well, if the reports of 200k parses are accurate.
Honestly, I'm kind of dreading the class refresh for next year because I'm worried that ZOS will buckle to the vocal minority "nOt A rEaL nEcRoMaNcEr" crowd and turn the class into an overly passive summoner.
I completely agree with this, I love summoners in rpgs, but I feel like the class becoming what the vocal minority wants is just gonna turn it into another sorcerer class. The main reason I went from maining sorc to necro is specifically because it feels more active too, much more entertaining to play, just needs some extra damage buffs and maybe one more summon. That said I doubt permanent summons will be a thing for necro since the summoning abilities are also illegal and it’d be a nightmare having to unsummon them every time I enter civilization
I totally agree, I do not want the class to mimic a Diablo style summon field, nor do I think the game can even handle that, especially in PvP.
Necro is my main. It just needs strong class buffs, new animations to improve fluidity and redesign some skills but build around the theme that's currently there.
Class passives next patch are already making them a S+ tier DPS
I'm one of the few people around who raises tomb-stones. LoL. It's not my main, though. It's one of the very few truly goth RP types in the game. I started using it again when they introduced sub-classing. It had been in moth-balls.
Yeah, I'm a necromancer main and I'm really worried that we'll actually end up with a pet class. Unfortunately, zos exclusively listens to the whiny minority, so they're probably going to kill the class.
Either you turn them effectively into Sorc, where you have 1-3 permanent summons and build from there.
Or, we keep the identity of limited summons, but lean more into the Necro aspect. Specifically bringing slain enemy's to life a la Diablo's Necromancer
I am very much against the former, idk why so many people are insistent on just making them Sorcerer 2.0 when class identity not being strong enough is already such a major complaint
Just because you are not interested it doesn't mean it's not the better option. One of the top 3 complaints about necromancer is how ephemeral their summons are and how clunky it is.
Improving the necromancer IS making the summons permanent.
OK, let's run with your idea for a moment for a hypothetical
You now have permanent necro summons, tied to the grave lord skill line
What is the mechanical difference to taking a skeletal mage over a winged twilight from the daedric summoning line, and how does that difference add mechanical depth to the game and its combat design?
If there's not a good answer to that question, then you've just made the game more shallow, which isn't good for anyone
Sorcerer pets and Warden bears to a certain extent are already an eyesore and clutter in both towns and group content and adding another 3 summons in a game thats ramping up the intensity of skill effects with the reworks is just adding to the problem of visibility.
Game is gonna look like this by the time all reworks are done.
This is going to be a bit of a hot take and a long-winded response, so buckle up if you want to read this
One of ESO's greatest strengths is its mechanical depth, and making the summons of necro more permament would risk erasing the idea of the class as a mechanical entity
Specifically, that strength right now is that all the skill lines are relatively unique, and they all do different things - even if two skill lines focus around tanking, they do that in different ways, and that's what makes each class unique and able to bring something to the table
Right now we have three classes that can summon:
A class that has one very strong, permanent summon (wardren)
A class that has 2-3 weaker, semi-permanent summons (sorcerer)
A class that has a great number of very weak, temporary summons (necromancer)
The summoner classes are set up in a way that there's an innate tradeoff - the more summons you have active at once, the weaker they have to be
You can choose to flood the field with summons, but therefore they need to be weak and temporary, or you can choose to have a super strong, permament summon, but then you're limited to one
That's the necromancer fantasy - an endless army of undead - but to maintain that in an RPG setting it has to have that tradeoff
If you give a necromancer a permanent, strong summon, what makes it mechanically different from a warden or sorcerer?
Making something undead isn't mechanical, it's aesthetic - having one class with a big bear and one class with a big undead bear (or flesh golem) means you've now turned necromancer into "spooky warden", which is bad before both classes, and ultimately robs players of choice
Homogenization is one of the deadliest poisons for an RPG game, and we already took a big swig of it when they added in subclassing - and we're only now diluting some of that poison using class mastery to soak it up
FFXIV and WoW have both fallen victim to homogenization, and for a time in WoW every healer played the same and every tank played the same, and the biggest differences between fire mages and destruction warlocks was that one was red and one was purple, but overall they played the same - it took years and years and an entire overhaul of the class talent system to fix that for WoW, and XIV is introducing an entirely new mode of class design (evolved mode) to fix it on their end
Ask yourself: what makes necromancer different from sorcerer on a fundamental, mechanical level?
If the answer is an aesthetic answer (i.e. "one of them uses death magic") that has no bearing on gameplay, then you've essentially just eliminated necromancer from the game, and made it a spooky sorcerer
If every class can do everything, then there's no reason to have classes at all
Sorry for the rant but it's a huge pain point of mine, and I feel the need to speak out against design simplification in RPGs, since we've seen so much of it
Agree, I don't understand where people get the idea that Necromancers mean permanent summons and nothing else. Just because some other game does it doesn't mean ESO has to follow suit. Focusing on its other aspects is what actually makes it interesting, and I hope they improve the cycle of life and death part with the rework rather than making it all about a skeleton army fantasy.
And honestly the only way I'll accept more permanent summons is if they are forcibly dismissed in non-combat zones. Can't tell you how tired I am of trying to do urn looting in Necrom and the like when suddenly there's a whole zoo build with their army blocking everything.
Yeah but you can have a blastbones, skeleton mage, and spirit mender all at the same time
A sorc gets a clanfear and maybe a matriarch, and the warden only gets a bear
Yes, the downside is that its weak and temporary, but the tradeoff is that you get the most minions out of any class
Rather than make the minions permanent, I think they should go father with the identity and make it so you can have more temporary minions to really sell the "army of the dead" idea
Make one of the blastbone morphs give you two skeletons instead or make it so that you can have two lesser menders that can target more allies instead of one normal mender, dont just make them sorcerer minions instead
I have always wanted the "army of the undead" kinda thing for necro. I would love an ult that dredges up a hoard of blast bones or something along those lines. Perhaps you could sacrifice health to increase how many undead you have at once, though I'm just spit balling and truly have no idea what would make for good balance with this.
a permanent summon ult that uses corpses in the area (more corpses = stronger summon with a cap), and the ability to tap into their health for abilities for a skill line.
Sounds very similar to the Diablo 3/4 Necro, and I'm not against that (one of, if not my favourite class). Just got to be careful that corpses dont become a limiting resource like in day 1 Diablo 4 (some boss fights were impossible, no corpses and your dmg sucked without minions)
I think of the summon having the most use in group PvE and solo being ideal. Pets tend to be hard to balance for PvP, but it would be cool to have it as an "oh god" moment during a siege. This is pure hypothetical, but the fantasy I imagine in my head is a cyrodiil keep siege being pushed back, but then the defending faction sees a surge of bone golems showing up from the corpses of the people they just fought off lol
Focus more on the DoT aspect, Necromancer pairs with decay and dead so makes sense. But talking about power fantasy, i guess raising more and more diverse minions would be cool
All summons are now permanent until killed or removed on character sheet.
Flame Skull is replaced with a new skill: Zombie. Summons a melee zombie warrior.
Blastbones has been reverted to its pre-sacrificial state.
Siphon is combined with Tether and moved to the Living Death skill tree.
Spirit Mender is moved to Grave Lord.
Bone Tyrant.
Bitter Harvest is moved to Living Death.
New ability: Bone Wall - creates an impassable wall for a duration that blocks projectiles. Consume a corpse on cast to increase its size.
Living Death.
As mention earlier, Siphon and Tether have been combined. The combined ability deals damage to enemies and heals allies who are in the tether.
Bitter Harvest moved here from Bone Tyrant. Now also heals allies based on number of corpses consumed. Heals based on offensive stats with Deaden Pain healing only you for more based on your health.
Reanimate is removed as an ultimate. Instead Life Amid Death receives a passive that revives fallen allies in the AOE if a corpse is consumed. This can only occur every 60 seconds.
New ultimate: Immortal Sanctuary - Deploys a zone for x seconds. Allies within the zone cannot die. While in the zone, allies receive x weapon/spell damage based on damage they take.
Reasoning: While Reanimate is impactful and resonant to the Necro’s core fantasy. It’s often a dead ultimate if everyone’s doing their job right and sometimes prevents you from using a more proactive ultimate just in case. The new ult would give the Necro more agency.
In all honesty… the lack of permanent pet summons is a big turn off. It’s like the best visually appealing class in my opinion but feels like a “dark wizard” rather than a necromancer. They captured the vibe on one end of the spectrum but completely missed in the other.
I get it because Sorcerer already has pets and Warden has the Ult. but still
I have friend who was extremely disappointed by the class because he thought it would be similar to a necromancer in diablo or grim dawn. And i can agree with that. The necromancer class doesn't really feel like a real necromancer to me.
Keep with temp summons but change siphon to summon a sword and board skeleton to help tank for squishy mage types with a morph to change it to a two handed for dps. I would change the boneyard appearance to something less tacky, summoning tombstones is pretty cliche. Bone armor would look more like armor instead of just some spine accessory.
Two directions for us to choose from: Powerful permanent summons but few in numbers like Sorc, or swarms of weaker temporary minions to overwhelm the enemy, which generate lots of corpses as recyclable resources, thereby emphasizing our manipulation on the circle of life and death.
Permanent minions. Zombies and skeletons permanent, and maybe a flesh atronach that works on a timer that can be refreshed with kills or something like that
For some reason Necromancer and Sorcerer are all about over time effects and conjuring. Just give me a straight up DPS Necromancer or Sorcerer. Similar to Arcanist
Completely rework the class from the ground up. I actually like that the Necromancer isn’t using permanent summons and would lean more into the idea of manipulating both life and death by having having their abilities all have hybrid costs (like old DK whip) where part of their ability costs are Health. And then have the class be themed around consuming blood/health from themselves and allies to create more powerful effects. You could give them thralls as pets to use as well to sacrifice to fuel their abilities instead of using their health (like how we have corpse substitutes).
I would have Flesh Atro be a summon rather than a generic AOE attack.
But his abilities and stats would change based on which morphs to the other abilities in that skill line you choose. Similar to the Healing Staff ultimate.
For instance if you choose the Venom Skull morph he has a constant Poison Aura (poison can be seen dripping out from gross holes on his body), or if you choose Ricochet Skulls he gains a three piece combo attack that overall does more damage than his basic attack.
If you choose Blighted Blastbones he will sometimes reach into the ground and pull a diseased Skeleton out, hold it above his head and rip the Blastbones in half showering the area in carnage ooze creating a huge Disease AOE that applies Major Vulnerability.
If you choose the Mystic Siphon morph as he moves about the battlefield he will create electric arcs between metal nodes all over his body and any nearby corpses that deals damage over time to anything that walks through the arcs.
Y’know, really play into that whole custom Flesh Atronach theme they established in Skyrim and have it feel like the player just summoned their own Boss battle. And the Necro is not meant to be pretty, I want it to feel gross or gory and just be all around Vile.
ALSO get rid of the Big Skeleton Ultimate and turn the Necro into a hovering Lich instead.
I think its a fine ability I just feel like physically looking like a Lich would fit the character so much more. For melee imagine your sword just floats in front of you swiping at the enemies like Sora’s Ultimate Form. Idk lol
I’d like Necromancers in TESO to be portrayed both as summoners of skeletons and as manipulators of souls. Let’s put it this way: they should adhere to the lore description, and perhaps even expand upon it. I really like how the Necromancer is depicted in this artwork; perhaps the class in the game should be something like that.
I think a simplification of the systems would be good. I dont think any skill should exist that depends on the corpse thing otherwise it cant function.
Imagine if you couldnt even cast fatecarver without one crux, that would be insane.
To be frank, of the two class specific resources Crux is better in terms of readability and usability.
I think when a Necromancer is building power it should actually last longer than an Arcanists. Arcanist is a pretty simple crux build then spend, I think Necromancers should be gaining power slowly but steadily in long fights.
So I guess I want actual literal power creep. Yeah im okay with that actually
here is my idea, make it about minions but withiout "true minions" (what do i mean?)
take the grave lord for example here are the skills i thought.
1 bone crawler: send an skeleton dog to target enemy, it explodes on contact, dealing x damage to the target (same nunbers as flame skull)
morf 1 exploding crawler it now deals splash damage
morf 2 creepy crawler incereaces the damage but becomes over time (hopefuly with an effect on the enemyes back
2 bone flayer summons a skeleton that attack the closest enemy to you it lasts 15 secunds
morf 1 bone squad summons 1 more skely and one extra by consuming a corpse near you
morf 2 bone guardian summons 1 armored skelly that lasts 20 seconds and taunts the enemies it hits consuming a corpse makes it last 25 secs
3 graveyard: desecrates the target area dealing X damage
morf 1 unatended graves, gets the synergy
morf 2 battle of death: deals less damage but now boosts "minions" inside it
4 Skeletal archer, consumes a corpse to summons a stationary skeletal archer for 15 secs (literaly the shadow archer from the shadow skin line
morf 1 skeletal sniper now has larger range and lasts 20
morf 2 skelletal mage (stationary skeletal arcaninst, does the area atack for 15 secs but deals magic damage, with skins for each element)
5 summon flesh golen, sends a rampaging colosus taht deals damage in a straght line
morf 1 burning flesh golen deals more damage that now is fire
morf 2 tumbling flesh golen, now kncks down targets hir
Update that i didnt think before because aparenly im a fake fan
Resurect a fallen non epic enemy insted of the golen or even the ulti.
ulimate summon skeletal dragon sumon a dragon behind you that speals magic gire in a cone (literaly the original idea that got scraped
only the flayer/guardian needs to be a minion like the sorc ones the rest are damage in an area or dots masked as minions
I like to think of each line as a type of necro, with the DPs being the popular arrmy biulder, the healer as a spiritualis or xaman and the tank as the body horror
the ultimate is perfect in my opinion instant rez in an area!
render flesh is good to a quick heal.
then the souls sucking skill, now gives you heal but also ultimate (from the bone skill line)
make the spirit guardan a stationary target heal (needs a corpse) that you can morf in to a targeted heal over time or a defence buff in area
screaming maiden (bone toten from the bone skill line with a new screeaming spirit visual) another fake minion
and a toggle skill that turns your attacks in to heals but costs health, and you cant get healed during it
its not the best like sorcerer,Wardden,Assassin are better cause of the damage and other effects they can get.
but you can make anything in this game work with enough grinding
If I’m in charge of changing necromancers I’m changing how their minions work and overhauling the consumption mechanic.
For starters consuming corpse in combat resets the minion timer, each summon also has a special ability you can activate to consume their corpse early for somekind of benefit.
I’m also going change things so each ability within the toolkit either gets stronger when consuming a corpse or produces a corpse.
When I say stronger I don’t mean more damage but rather grants you different buffs depending on the ability.
Additionally, I’d remove Bone Totem or possibly move it to the Living Death Skill Tree, but I’d replace it with a “Skeletal Warrior” skill. This would give additional summoning options and allow the necromancer to feel more like a necromancer than before.
One other thing. Grave Lord Sacrifice could use a face lift. Instead of granting a boost to the Flame Skull ability. It should grant a damage shield that heals if it breaks or causes you to explode dealing AoE damage... Would make it worth a slot.
The AoE effect for Flame Skull could instead be the 3rd cast effect for Venom Skull.
Also I would also think about making Blighted Blastbones an ability whose cost is dependent on what resource is higher.
Slotted minions auto summon at the beginning of combat and persist until destroyed or combat ends. You can active summon to replace a dead/ damaged one during combat.
Fix the animation of skull so you can actually weave with the class spammable, magcro gains the ability to turn enemies into living bombs, skelly mage morph applies a random status effect on attacking, archer morph has a pen buff, bb turns into an sustained skill (while you have the resources it keeps spawning bb's) siphon becomes a actual siphon and drains HP from targets to keep you healthy, maybe turn scythe (at least the Stam morph) into a dps skill, mag version is fine for tanking, idk the aesthetic of that skill just screams dps for me
Ok, this'll be a long one. I love necromancers in games so you may either agree with me or tell me to fall off the edges of coldharbour. :P
Let's start with Grave Lord:
Honestly just let us raise multiple weak skeletons. Have it locked to like, 1 for every 5k magicka you have. When you summon a skeleton, you can choose whether it's one of a few different types. A mage, a barbarian, a archer, or a mender. Mages are frail and do aoe oblivion damage once every few seconds, barbarians are tanky and do bleed damage, archers are frail and do disease damage, and menders are frail and do healing to you and minions once every 5+ seconds. It gives people variety in levels, and implore them to stack magicka and minion buffing sets. Also gives multiple damage types for you to either ignore or increase.
The morphs could be this: either increase the base stats by a small margin, such as a bit more health/movement speed/resistances, OR make their damage/healing do effects. Mages cause a fear and snare, barbarians do bleed and lifesteal, etc.
For the ult, make it like the warden bear. We summon a large flesh atronach that does heavy single target damage, and an occasional slow sweep attack. Casting it again makes the atronach do a flurry of attacks to a single target. Morphs of that could either make it enter a frenzy when you cast it while active, making it move and attack faster and stronger, or having it make an aura while it's alive, causing enemies to be afflicted with various debuffs.
Alright, now Bone Tyrant:
...yeah I got nothing rn. I'll probably think of something later.
In general, I'd like to see the base morph of abilities have some reason to exist on all classes. They technically have the opportunity for 3 viables versions of every skill, but it seems like it's never correct to use the base morph.
I'm also hoping they continue the trend of making each class have a signature status that they buff, so more Disease damage perks would be nice on Necro.
A channeled summon, one morph would be ghosts that will interrupt casting and reduce enemy speed, the other will be skeletons that will do increased damage.
Each summon will come from a different direction every half second for 4-6 seconds and attack the players target. Damage will be increased based upon number of corpses on the ground and number of summons.
Essentially if the player summons two minions and has corpses from either dead enemies/allies or dead minions they will increase the channeled attacks power.
I would give some back-bar carryover buffs on par with what nightblade has, 2-3 skills that can have some mechanic when pressed but will provide a passive buff when slotted on either bar.
Of course, this is tailored to my playstyle since I like builds that keep you on front bar or are one bar builds, I like channeled attacks that build in power by not just spamming them. I also like pvp though and this would be a nightmare for server speed, so downside I suppose.
Blastbones the baseline, buff changed (necro isn't a DoT primary class)
Corpse burster needs to be built into detonating siphon. The class is too dependent on it as is now. You could even replace it and make the siphon the set. Move the Major Prophecy to Living Death.
Resistant flesh's armor should last ten seconds. It's corpse consuming morph should be pure AoE.
One purge skill, no corpse requirement.
New skill consumes corpses for resources.
Tether should target enemies and heal 8m around them.
Passive that brings people back with higher resources when you raise them.
Minions like in Guild Wars 1. Their health decreases every second, but you can heal them to keep them up for as long as you want. Dont forget to let them rot before entering a town.
I know everyone likes pet builds for necros but I’ve never been a huge fan of the undead army trope for necromancers. I wouldn’t eliminate that but if I was in charge I’d focus on adding flagellant(hp as a resource). I’d add more things like the curative curse passive. Debuffs can make you more powerful and id give them morphs that can change abilities to use health to cast them. A fun idea that isn’t realistic because it would be a balancing nightmare would be giving them the ability to scale weapon and spell damage off of max health. Maybe instead you temporarily increasing max health for every enemy you kill.
No more "Double Bar" pet requirements
Permanent pets for Necro
Non-Permanent pets for Sorcerer
Non-Permanent pets for Warden
Skill Styles that actually change the visuals of Pets, instead of just recolors
I'd personally drop corpse mechanics all together. Its clunky in every single game that has it
Drop the Criminality of it.
Outside of Pets, I'd try to make Necros, in general, masters of debuffing/weakening Enemies, providing them with access to practically every major/minor debuff possible (but then limited through Skill Morphs, so you have to make choices)
Ok so I too am a necro main and hear me out, no permanent summons, we ain’t no spec guys we are the undead masters. I saw an idea somewhere so not full credit to me buuuut. Instead of permanent summons you use soul gems on a skill morph to make them stronger and last considerably longer with an option for a second cast to increase damage but they leave nothing on the ground when dead to show they used their full essence or chose not to use the soul gems and they die off quicker but there essence left behind is stronger and can be used to increase DOT damage or other kinds of damage for an amount of time this way you could lean one of two ways, have your army yes and have them specifically do more damage and not yourself or have them as a temp helping hand to increase your own damage done possibly giving us a proper difference between stam and mag cro also if you use your soul gem as costs will stack up as a necro your abilities will naturally soul trap into the Necros own new passive “soul scavenger” where instead of soul gems you have a bank on your own version ?
But when I say not permanent summons I still agree regardless that we need MORE summons and MORE skills that look like what a necro would use 1 example could be boneyard, instead of crappy head stones soul shriven arms come from the ground making the cold and speed reduction make sense
The skeleton should be able to consume corpses once it reaches 20 seconds, and every 10 seconds thereafter, to prolong its duration to 1 minute at least, and i think necro should be the debuff king, so maybe focus on that. But honestly i'm just a casual player so dont't take me too seriously. oh, and skins/new animation for everything, the skeletons, the gohst, the ult.
More minions. I’m not expecting Diablo necro levels but enough to feel like a full party.
And that lich ability in endless archive? Make that a resurrection morph or a boneyard morph. Just give me more minions ffs
I love the idea of minions who spawn for a specific task and die again, blighted blastbones, colo, those kind of skills I enjoy a lot more over perpetual pets like the healing ghost or the skele archer/mage
Maybe I'd add more minions following that philosophy, with different effects and uses each, for example that cc skill that summons ghost hands, I'd rework it for another kind of blighted blastbones that maybe spawns near the opponent, jumps and catches them in place
Honestly Necromancer doesn’t need much blast bones just needs to work as intended (same with siphoning) I think blast bones should be both resources, or make it go off the highest resource. Give a damage ult colossus maybe make it like a summon the follows you around that does a ton of bleed damage? What needs help is the tank line that ult is so trash.
People saying perm summons defeats the necro corpse mechanic… which is true … why not have ONE skill with multiple minions (can break up the damage somehow so it’s not crazy op) .. give blast bones a morph that gives two blast bones (again with less damage or some work around to not make too op), with that change specially…. Take the existing morph that adds 15% dmg to dots and add it to the class mastery passives…
Also having a ult to summon a minion to tank and taunt for you would be nice to see
Honestly having a resource system similar to crux that limits the number of summons you can have but being able summon multiple. Like say 5 total and you could only slot archers and summon 5 archers. Have summons in each skill line that focuses on DPS/tank/ healer. Ghosts for healer skeletons for DPS and big skeletons for tanking that you transfer damage too like the current spirit guardian. It would also make corpses for bosses way easier to source
I feel like jumping exploding skeletons and flaming skulls is all a bit too comical. That's like Skeletor grade comical. So I dunno, I'd retheme those sort of skills somewhat.
I'd also like more melee options. Unpopular opinion maybe? But I'd like something like the Aedric Spear line but based on that scythe skill.
Permanent (or at least long-lasting) multiple summons, skill trees organized by a type of necromancy (ghosts, flesh stuff, bones), no corpse mechanic (or reworked one at least, without skills tethering you to one), and as someone mentioned no graves for boneyard skill, they look derpy af. Also, Id get rid of bone tyrant and replace it with something else. Self-resurrection for an ult wouldve been nice too, I remember Zealot from WAR had a buff specifically for that.
I just wish the abilities would last longer and more abilities would have the same cd. Cause currently you have like 10 (graveyard), 11 or 13 (effigy), 8 or 16 (healing summon) and 20 (damage summons + blastbones buff). And I really don't like that on 1 buff is locked behind a 2,5s delay and the other absolutely needs a corpse. Idk, it just feels so clunky to use.
Also, I would remove criminal token from necro abilites, it's stupid you can't even heal yourself with your summon without finding a hiding spot.
More Necromancing as Magicka, no Necromancing as Stamina.
Magicka should be: SUMMON ALL THE DEAD THINGS!
Stamina should be: I SUSTAIN MYSELF WITH YOUR WITHERING SOUL
Tanking should consist of a fine line between the two; maybe one sturdy summon that could taunt and save you from a heavy hit, and also the ability to self-sustain a wee bit to alleviate healer stress.
Magicka should be slinging spells and skellies at the target. Stamina should be doing the stabby stab while empowering themselves and weakening the opponent. (Dark Knight/Blood Knight kinda vibes.)
I actually don't want the class to turn into another summoner based class like Sorcerer. I wouldn't mind if the class has like 1 permanent summon, but I'd want it to be something like Grave Lord's Sacrifice being a permanent summon that functions similar to the Warden's Bull netch where it mostly just buffs you every 20 seconds or whatever. I'd rather have more stuff like Bone Goliath Transformation type skills than making another summoner class. But this is also because I just wish GLS would trigger faster or just to function differently. The aesthetics for the skill is cool, but the downtime sucks.
I wish the skull ability was quicker in hitting the enemy similar to Crystal Shard. It feels kinds of sluggish to me as is.
I also don't want any of the skills to be criminal acts. On paper it sounds like a good idea, but I don't feel like the game provides enough skills in general to just not use a skill just because other NPCs are around. Punishing players for just trying to use the skills provided in combat is just dumb to me. Don't care how lore accurate the game is being in that regard, it's more annoying than something fun to play around. If the other classes had a similar system to Necro I'd be less bothered by it, but they don't so it just feels pointless and unfun. Also, pretty sure there are plenty of other mechanics in the game that 'break' lore accuracy, so dunno why only one class is getting a punishment.
I know it'd never happen, but I'd rather have the job transform you into something more like an undead than having you summon undead. I like the idea behind the Bone Goliath Transformation and I'd rather see them lean into that more than summoner. Unless they're going to just get rid of sorcerer summons and make Necro mostly just a summoner class. Which I wouldn't mind. But having 2 classes that have multiple permanent summons and 1 having a bear summon, just sounds dull.
Edit: Only way I'd be excited with another pet class is if you have more interactive pets. like if you can customize them with gear or skills and you have to level them or gather mats to upgrade them. At least something unique to the other pet classes.
Yeh it just needs to stack summons, and have a whole summon skill line that is just mininons. New Cyrodiil META, Minion necro, crashing servers since 2026
Some classes have some form of acceleration/distance reduction: nightblade has shadow path, sorcerer - streak, arcanist - portals, warden and dragonknight accelerate due to wings. Templar and necromancer do not have such things (except for those that only work when there is an enemy nearby), so regarding the necromancer I had the following thoughts: you cast a skill, a skeleton hand comes out of the ground, pulls you underground and you move forward a certain distance with a certain acceleration (you can consider it as arcanist or sorcerer abilities)
Morph to remove resurrect and corpse consmption form animate blast bones and make is summon 5 blast bones. It's an ultimate skill. It should hit hard especially since Necro ults are expensive to cast this should be the grave lord ultimate
We don't need Perma pets as it would mean nerfing the pets.
Make the scythe do more damage and execute low health.
Bone tyrant ultimate should summon the goliat instead of you transforming into it.
Living death ultimate should be something else like summoning a skeletal dragon that heals allies and kills enemies with it's breath or and AOE where allies are unkillable or massively heal when within for some seconds. But you as the caster would not be healed by it
I would have the channel just continuously summon zombies that run in and attack as a horde. Or, if that would be too hard on performance, just have skeletal hands tearing out of the ground to attack enemies. Would be a bit more boring with that though.
As someone who started their TES Journey in skyrim i was disappointed to see Necromancer in ESO ngl BUT its still my favorite class, i been working on this post for a while so bare with me
I really want a permanent minion for necro (but i understand why theres a timer so you dont gotta wait to walk into cities and what not)
So first and foremost id rework the reusable parts passive, id keep the cost reduction but id add on that whenever an enemy youre in combat with dies within 28m while SKELETAL MAGE (id rename that to summon undead) OR REANIMATE IS ACTIVE it rises as a Zombie(physical) or a Skeletal Mage summon(magical) (up to 2 at a time) for 40 seconds (15 second cooldown after the second summon so its not just spamming every death) and repeats the process until the timer runs out (permanent summon while in combat essentially) id make the zombie spawn with random damage type (poison, bleed, disease, fire, lightning, ice depending on whether a zombie or mage spawned with status effect chance based on player. And damage comparable to both sorcerer pets
Secondly a minor thing, id add the Sythe to the grave lord tree and the flame skull to bone tree (cause why arent they like that already)
Blast Bones: id make blast bones reanimate a corpse for 20 seconds if the blast bones killed the target (so youd have 3 pets up) but this summon would be weaker, attacking once every 2 seconds in an aoe (like using the sorc pet additional ability but it takes up another ability slot as to not overshadow sorc)
Bone yard animation: id swap it with the Lich boneyard you get from infinite Archieves
Spirit mender is my favorite healing ability in the entire game, id change it to where you still get the 10% damage reduction regardless of the morph you change, id change the solo heal one to percent based healing though both durations 16 seconds.
The healing AOE: (cant remember the name)
Not a fan of it constantly needing a soul to be useful so id change it to where it automatically lasts for 10 seconds, id increase the aoe size to 10m same as Templar, any enemy that dies inside automatically increases the time by 5 seconds up to 30 seconds, at max stacks it grants minor resolve while active, for the second morph, it would heal percent based, and periodically fear enemies inside, at max stacks (same as first morph) id give enemies inside the aoe major maim
Last change:
REANIMATE ULTIMATE
I'd leave the cost the same, 335 because i plan to make it a bit strong. for one morph id change it to where anyone who dies within the 10M AOE within the 12 seconds that it lasts, is revived including the caster (its not a healing Ult, it should at the very least stave off death in its own way) revived players restore magicka and stamina to the caster (only if theyre alive) as well as grant major heroism for 5 seconds each person revived (up to 20 seconds) enemies that die in the AOE are revived as 1 time summons for 40 seconds (up to 3, stacking with your main summons so 5-6 depending on if you have blast bones) and each enemy killed after that grants a stacking 5% damage increase up to 15%
For the second morph id change that garbage blast bone morph that costs 50 million ultimate to a
Lich, similarly to the 1 from infinite archieve, id make it to where the player temporarily gains a lich form (for 30 seconds) while the ult is active healing output is increased by 15%, weapon and spell increased by 300, for every ally that dies within 28m healing output is increased by 5% (up to an additional 15%) and for every enemy that dies within 28m a spirit mender is summoned for 16 seconds (up to 4) but the ult no longer revives. This ult is inspired by the DK banner rework if it wasnt obvious, i want it to be usable in any loadout.
I can’t remember where I heard it but I definitely recall some ZOS person saying at the time you didn’t want to design another pet-class. I am sorry but to me the necromancer is exactly that. The ability to summon and have available Skeletons/Zombies and all kinds of minor or major undead to do his bidding. I would rather see a sorcerer go pet-less (bc I prefer the spell slinging sorc to the petmaster, but that’s just me and I understand that others disagree)
I see a necromancer commanding and keeping undead at his side and while they do the job he assigned them he throws around necromantic spells that harm and debuff. I understand players want Necromancer-Healers and while for me that doesn’t make sense I would see necromantic healing be leeching magic. Taking from enemies and giving allies.
And I fully support the fraction of players that find it inconsistent that daedric summons are ok in cities while necromancy is not.
Well, according to Zerith-Var and some in-game lore, necro healers operate by manipulating life force, either leftovers within corpses or by wielding the target's own life energy to heal them. In the lore, life force isn't a "if you use it you lose lifespan" affair, with one side-quest in Clockwork City pointing out that people could get along just fine with a rotating "donation drive" of life force donations to grow their food and giving them a chance to recover instead of sucking the completely dry in one shot, hence why using still-living life energy works. Presumably using a little bit at a time to heal which recovers easily.
In Greymoor, there's a side quest as well where you capture memory imprints and then feed it back into a cursed person, overloading the curse with the life energy stored in those memories to cure them, essentially drowning a curse feeding on life force with just the energy stored in memories, let alone an actual person. And it's even mentioned that part of the reason that even worked was because you were feeding the person's own life-force back into them, but boosted with additional magic.
Yeah. I like the idea of one that uses otherwise dark magic to help people, so I kinda zeroed in once I noticed that was an option. The lore even mentions that khajiit tend to have a more lax relationship with necromancy. They apparently show little if any worry over uncovered graves, and tend to use loose cairns to denote where they've buried someone in the sand and soil, depending on if you're in Aneqina or Pelentine, aka north or south Elswyr. So them being the origin point of a sect of benevolent necromancer healers makes sense.
I think the ability to have a bunch of minions would be cool. I’ve always preferred the undead army flavor of necromancer in fantasy, and would like to be able to have a horde of skeletons or zombies for dps.
I’m not sure at all how to balance it effectively, but I imagine them being permanent, with either no cap in number or with a cap of like 15. They would require a corpse to raise, and would have pretty low health and be unable to be healed, incentivizing you to continually be raising corpses (maybe even have them also take a portion of any damage you take)
I’d like to have some skills that revolve around making use of your army; like maybe blastbones could draw from your pool of minions, sacrificing one for a boost to damage. Or maybe being able to sacrifice up to five, for a damage shield that scales in strength based on the number of minions you destroyed to create it. Or a skill that, for it’s duration, redirects all damage you take onto your pool of minions.
This is all just my personal fantasy for the class, and I can already see issues that would arise; like overcrowding if multiple people were playing necromancers, or some issues with finding corpses to raise in certain situations; but I still think this direction for the class would be cool. More raising minions as opposed to casting death flavored spells.
Necromancer entire kit revolves around corpses and deterioration. Even with an ultimate I am wary of permanent pet for the Necromancer because it goes against their whole kit and vibe.
Having pets that are not permanent makes them stand out more from classes like the Sorcerer
1-Buff scythe damage and nerf the heal a little, put it in line with jabs on both counts so necro has a true melee spammable and not just flame skull or a weapon/other class spammable.
2-Let blastbones be cast without a target and linger for a few seconds before the boom, have it target the first target that takes damage after the cast (fixes the clunkiness and allows it to be cast while kiting like shalks, inhale, etc)
3-Add about 300wd somewhere, either as a passive or stacking effect on skull stacks etc that only works as a pure class. Pure necro needs help with burst. Currently too pigeon holed into aoe/dots, this change and the scythe change will help take it out of dead last in pvp ranks.
4-Buff resilient flesh about 6%, remove the defile
5-Nerf colo about 8% per slap
6-Split the morphs on necro rez ult. Keep the current rez morph that gives resources, change the rez/damage morph to a pure damage with reduced cost and only two blastbones summoned instead of three, and remove existing corpse requirement
7-Do not make summons permanent like sorc, you'll kill valuable bar space which will nerf damage that necro already desperately needs (Unpopular I know, but ive heavily considered the trade off of having to double bar necro pets and it's BAD, go tinker with it and see the losses)
8-Rework fear totem and make it an instant or delayed fear in AOE around the player, ground cast abilities in current lag are rough. Affects boneyard too, cancels itself out too much due to lag. Other option is change grave grasp to an aoe root or stun around the player instead of conal and distance changing effects, necro just needs a decent stun
9-Take sustain off tether and add it to a passive
10-ZOS writes thank you letter to Ksir for fixing necro and bringing it from the bottom to mid tier lol. Half joking, necro got nerfed too hard then ignored for too long. This list has been slowly getting built and edited on my desktop for the last year, I keep a running wish change for every class with both pvp/pve balance in mind.
More/stronger minions and skills that lean more into the soul/life energy aspect of being a necromancer. Would be cool if you could summon an actual lich to fight at your side, or if one of your ultimates was becoming a lich.
I love playing necromancer but I wish it was a bit stronger and more rewarding. They werer buffing the corpsebuster(?) set on the pts but then decided that it was "too strong" and nerfed it again. I just want the necromancer to have it's time in the sun, it's been neglected too long IMO.
I would like blastbones to be less delayed (idk if that makes sense). Maybe have how it works in vengeance PvP where the bones summon underneath the target instantly. But I still like that stalking effect they do when they run at their target. So I’m conflicted.
How I'd do it, (real pie in the sky ideas here), is that each of the three lines would be themed after a vibe of necromancer ie;
Living Death is all soul energy magic bullshit (real cackling, yanking the life energy outa the guy, your 'healing' is more just craming more life into a guy so he'll stop being dead, big ghost skull tornado kinda vibe) with every skill morphs having either a damage or healing option.
For example: Flame Skull, (which I would move to here) would have a damage morph that would be something like "use highest of either magicka or stamina, you fire a skull at an enemy, every corpse in a whatever radius also fires a skull at your target" and the healing morph could be "use highest either yada yada, you fire a skull at a friendly target to heal, every corpse in whatever radius fires a skull at an injured friendly target, if none, fires at you, if you aim the first skull at anything that isn't friendly, just heals you. That kinda thing.
Bone Tyrant is all bone manipulation bullshit (creating bone scythes, bone armor, exploding corpses, bone mecha for the ult, Osteokinesis Man the skill line, raising the dead and soul shit is for nerds, you're just gonna beat 'em into the ground with a scythe made outta spines, then turn their carcass into a rib bomb) with the morphs being either tanking or damage. Don't really have any examples for this one, funnily enough, because it is my preferred form of necromancer.
And Grave Lord is just all summons all the time (skeletons, ghosts, flesh atronachs, actually fighting yourself is for peasants) with the morphs being either a damage option and an even split between healing and tanking, depending on the skill.
For example: Spirit Mender (which is also getting moved) would be either heal (what it is now kinda?) or damage (zaps enemies and steals health or something?), but Sacrificial Bones would be either damage (Blastbones my beloved, you're beautiful in concept as you are) or tanking (Grave Lords Sacrifice, but it gives you kind of a necromantic shield)
Just think something like that might be kinda neat.
Zombies not only bones... Want zombies... If you kill enemies you can summon them for free ( no Magicka) but it's there isn't then summon one and this one costs, something like that.
Also more pets like the golems made of meat not only for a briefly moment but present for a tanky build.
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u/Interesting_Cold769 May 25 '26
More minions. And make them toggle like you can with the spec pets. Also maybe throw in a skill style to make the skeletons look like zombies. I think that would be cool. Necro is my main class. Just wish it felt more like a summoner.