Negative Energy Burst needs a boost for epic content

[vystal]

There is one thing I would really like to see happen for the palemaster with the new level cap and that is the ability to summon another type of higher level undead minion beyond level 20. Below level 20 your undead minions are another strength of the palemaster along with the fact that his/her death aura can heal them. They help to keep a good percentage of the threat off you if nothing else. But at level 20, epics and beyond, your minions become essentially useless since a good strike from almost any epic enemy can dispose of them in one shot.

[Ape_Man]

There is one thing I would really like to see happen for the palemaster with the new level cap and that is the ability to summon another type of higher level undead minion beyond level 20. Below level 20 your undead minions are another strength of the palemaster along with the fact that his/her death aura can heal them. They help to keep a good percentage of the threat off you if nothing else. But at level 20, epics and beyond, your minions become essentially useless since a good strike from almost any epic enemy can dispose of them in one shot.

You've got to be kidding me.

[Vordax]

You've got to be kidding me.

I would agree here. I never found the minions to be worth the effort. Much rather spend the AP elsewhere. I still think raising the cap on negative energy burst from level 10 to level 20 would fix this issue. Still not going to heal a huge amount, but at least it will scale a bit better with level.

[Scraap]

You've got to be kidding me.

I'd generally say they're Ok cheap dps up till around a level or so before the next one kicks in, but that's when I'm the one with agro, not the other way around. Most times, yeah, not worth the AP.

Though if we're going to talk the PM package en-toto, it'd be nice to also see the stat-drain melee effects of forms applied to necro spells as an additional debuff option, or at least to the slas.

[danotmano1998]

You've got to be kidding me.

I third this sentiment..
The summons are, for the most part, so useless is this game as to be laughable.

[count_spicoli]

I got an idea. Roll up a wareforge AM and be done with it. I for one never cared for pm.

[vystal]

Ok, I'm gonna post once more on this and then put the undead to rest...

If I was to sum up the majority's thoughts contained in this entire thread it would go something like this...

The Palemaster is extremely lacking in offensive spell power.

The Palemaster's ability to self heal, although useful, does not add up to the ability to take incoming healing or reconstruction.

The Palemaster is astonishingly fragile, especially on EE.

Negative energy burst healing and death aura are both too weak to provide enough healing to counteract these things.

The Palemaster's necrotic ray and bursts are both also useless because they are too weak.

The Palemaster's undead minion's are useless...or, laughable even, regardless of your ability to heal them as well with your death aura and negative energy bursts, or you're ability to have more then one summoned at a time (in combination with summon undead spell).

With consideration of all of these things, it seems to be an amazing feet then that hundreds (or probably more like thousands ) of players have taken Palemasters to level cap, and even more astonishing, continue to play them...given the fact that they are so terribly lacking in almost every area they were designed for.

Or...just maybe...it goes all the way back to the beginning when you open up character creation and read the text next to the necromancer that says one word "challenging". Now if you were to actually choose that "path" it would be more the "challenging", it should say "disastrous". But a custom, well built Palemaster is sometimes exactly that "challenging", and at many times if you are familiar with the game, not that challenging at all.

After playing the game avidly for many years, I think challenging is exactly what a player is looking for (or at least I am). Running around hack and slashing everything, or one-shoting 75% of the enemies thrown at you becomes almost painful in it's redundancy. I personally don't create my character's so I can line them up next to the "elitists" of the game and count how many hitpoints and epic items we have, I create and play them to have a new, unique, exciting, and ultimately fun experience leveling them. I think (at least for me) playing a palemaster has all of those things. I just don't think it's broken in the way it's being made out to be in this thread.

Now I'm gonna get back to playing the game instead of talking about it so I can hurry up and reincarnate my TR back into a Palemaster again.

[cypan41]

vystal, I was with you up until

"With consideration of all of these things, it seems to be an amazing feet then that hundreds (or probably more like thousands ) of players have taken Palemasters to level cap, and even more astonishing, continue to play them...given the fact that they are so terribly lacking in almost every area they were designed for."

It's not amazing. It's actually obvious to many of us who are in, say, large guilds how many Pale Masters there are Not being played anymore. Or who have been reincarnated into something Other than PM's.

There was a time I remember seeing about 50% of our guilds mages as PM's. Now, there are maybe 5%. No joke.



Oh, and what the post was all about is the EE content and beyond to lvl 28 this summer, and the inability of PM's to keep up with healing. *just to focus* Really would love to hear a dev talk about this.

[squishwizzy]

I find this thread somewhat amusing.

I'm not sure where people get the whole concept of PM's having bad self-healing. Last time I checked, if you wanted a toon that could sit there and get wailed on by every mob imaginable, roll a pally tank. A pure caster is not suppoed to be a melee toon,l period. Yeah, you can do *some* tanking in *some* situations. However, if you are rolling a PM to basically run content where you take huge amounts of damage in quest, then you need to look at something else for your questing pleasure. That is not the focus of a caster.

And if you thing the WF is the end-all-be-all of casterdom, then you've given up on things like spell pen.

Necrotic touch / bolt / whatever is very nice for standing in the back, smacking down trash mobs, and DOT-ing a boss. Maybe it works on EE, maybe it doesn't. What it does do well is doing damage that costs you zero SP, especially when running with a couple of Death Auras going.

If you expect to self-heal, tank, and spam necro freebie SLAs and survive on EE, I don't know what yo tell you. That is insane. if that were the case, there would be no need to run any other type of toon as the PM would litarally do it all (well, OK, maybe the exception of trapping).

And sorry, a WF reconstruct is not as powerful as a Death Aura or NEB. It does no damage. It is a drain on the SP pool for damage output. It may be nice if you intend to zerg everything on EE (don't quite know how that would be possible), but as a team contributor, you'd end up a soulstone in time. And I have a really hard time believing that the people running a WF AM with a quickened Reconstruct are going to be as aggressive as some of the people running their PMs and complaining that they are "too fragile." Most likely they are standing at the back of a party, and avoiding damage.

And lets all remember: there are lots of levels before 20. Life doesn't begin at lvl 20.

My PM, while probably not as uber as some toons, is pretty powerful now. Then again, I get aggressive when I can afford it, and I sit my a** at the back of the party when the situation dictates. If you can't change your tactics for the situation, it isn't the game's fault that it's standing in the way of your ultimate glory: it's your own inability to adapt.

I can see increasing NEB a little for epic content given the damage scaling and so on. What I really don't like or care for is the need to constantly change things because you can't run EE content like you did Butcher's Path on hard.

And frankly speaking, if it gets to the point that the only way you can run anything is with an WF AM with Twisted Shadow Assassin Sharardi (or whatever the ED uber flavor of the month is on this forum), I'd probably drop DDO. It will have been dumbed-down to the point of being irrelevent.

[SealedInSong]

I think metamagics should apply to all SLA's for the sake of consistency. If an ability is overpowered because of the metamagics applied to it, then balance the base ability properly. It bothers me to no end the inconsistency applied to SLA's.

Very much agreed on this.

If the ability is too powerful with a meta, they should just scale it back the way they did with healing/repair spellpower.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I find this thread somewhat amusing.

I'm not sure where people get the whole concept of PM's having bad self-healing. Last time I checked, if you wanted a toon that could sit there and get wailed on by every mob imaginable, roll a pally tank. A pure caster is not suppoed to be a melee toon,l period. Yeah, you can do *some* tanking in *some* situations. However, if you are rolling a PM to basically run content where you take huge amounts of damage in quest, then you need to look at something else for your questing pleasure. That is not the focus of a caster.

Mostly because a Pale Master is significantly less survivable on EE than a WF that is not in Lich form. A Pale Master *can* take huge amounts of damage in a quest - they just can't take it all in one shot.

[InsanityIsYourFriend]

new epic destiny: Necromancer!

new undead summons
mass undead summon cap!



necromancy DC's through the roof!



necromancy spell power/level just became like a savant


new spells like Greater Death Aura, Blood Knife, and the capstone: Death


all this and more for PMs!


is that what you want?