Necromancer/Death Mage

[MoonFire]

I managed to level a death mage today. They seem underpowered. They need a more damaging spell than beam, and leech doesn't do that much different, it just helps you get some hp back. If anyone else has noticed this, please put in your two cents

[Kruell]

For the exp they require I agree, they underwhelm. I've leveled a couple different DMs to try out some things. I have done limited fighting since there are only one or two PKers who won't run when you fight back and they almost die. I would like to do more testing before making any definitive statements but I believe they will need some tweaks to make them competative with other classes. I've got a couple ideas though for flavor that can be implimented without much affect to ballance.
1) Add another spell at lvl 20 Demon that calls an Imp. The Imp is weaker than a Zombie but it's attacks are magic instead of physical. Remove it's taunt effect so it doesn't act as a damage soak for the necro.
2) Alternately the spell Undead can call a different undead at different levels. At level 15~19 use a Skeleton that has virtually no attack but good health. Level 20~24 the Zombie. Level 25 make it summon a stronger undead like a Vampire that attacks similar to the Leech power, healing itself as it damages an enemy. Also the spell could be seperated into three variants so as the necro progresses they can choose which one they want to use.

Now, what I'd like to see done to them will depend a lot on how they fare against a more diverse fighting field. Saurian Slayers shouldn't be the primary testing medium for them since they can search well and have poison/blind attacks. If they still suck against other casters, paladins, and especially Ninjas then there are things that can be done.
A) First I would suggest is giving them a bonus to spell pierce, making them unaffect a LOT less. A level 24 halfing Necromancer with 20 INT facing a level 24 monster with 17~18 Wis shouldn't unaffect very often yet it was a noticable issue. Since Beam is their primary attack and both it and Leech have virtually the same damage, they should be able to do respectable damage per round and if they unaffect 40% to 50% of the time they have to be considered outside the range of other classes when it comes to balance consideration.
B) Not my favorite idea but give them a greater boost per level to their spells or raise the maximum damage they can get with Beam.
C) Leech isn't meant for leveling so I will have to see better how it works in PVP but I would suggest raising the damage by 25% to 50%.
D) Actually give them bonus armor as they level. This makes sense from a lore perspective as well considering they are working with death energies. Those energies should be building within them and making them more resilient.

More feedback after I've fought more battles against different opponents.

[NiteHawk]

For the exp they require I agree, they underwhelm. I've leveled a couple different DMs to try out some things. I have done limited fighting since there are only one or two PKers who won't run when you fight back and they almost die. I would like to do more testing before making any definitive statements but I believe they will need some tweaks to make them competative with other classes. I've got a couple ideas though for flavor that can be implimented without much affect to ballance.
1) Add another spell at lvl 20 Demon that calls an Imp. The Imp is weaker than a Zombie but it's attacks are magic instead of physical. Remove it's taunt effect so it doesn't act as a damage soak for the necro.
2) Alternately the spell Undead can call a different undead at different levels. At level 15~19 use a Skeleton that has virtually no attack but good health. Level 20~24 the Zombie. Level 25 make it summon a stronger undead like a Vampire that attacks similar to the Leech power, healing itself as it damages an enemy. Also the spell could be seperated into three variants so as the necro progresses they can choose which one they want to use.

Now, what I'd like to see done to them will depend a lot on how they fare against a more diverse fighting field. Saurian Slayers shouldn't be the primary testing medium for them since they can search well and have poison/blind attacks. If they still suck against other casters, paladins, and especially Ninjas then there are things that can be done.
A) First I would suggest is giving them a bonus to spell pierce, making them unaffect a LOT less. A level 24 halfing Necromancer with 20 INT facing a level 24 monster with 17~18 Wis shouldn't unaffect very often yet it was a noticable issue. Since Beam is their primary attack and both it and Leech have virtually the same damage, they should be able to do respectable damage per round and if they unaffect 40% to 50% of the time they have to be considered outside the range of other classes when it comes to balance consideration.
B) Not my favorite idea but give them a greater boost per level to their spells or raise the maximum damage they can get with Beam.
C) Leech isn't meant for leveling so I will have to see better how it works in PVP but I would suggest raising the damage by 25% to 50%.
D) Actually give them bonus armor as they level. This makes sense from a lore perspective as well considering they are working with death energies. Those energies should be building within them and making them more resilient.

More feedback after I've fought more battles against different opponents.

If you give them 25-50% in power for leech it's going to be more powerful then a sorcs blast. Leech power wise is between Beam and Blast. If Beam was 50%, and Blast was 100%, Leech is at 75%, or at least should be. Leech however does unaffect more, but I can remove the penalty to it. Leech can be used for leveling here and there to gain your HP back I would think though. We can always adjust the MP requirements if it is too heavy because of it too.

DONE WITH 22INT, LEVEL 25 MAX DAMAGE, WITH DIV.

Necro/Sorc Beam Damge: 96-111
Sorc Blast Damage: 141 - 191
Necro Leech Damage: 125 - 159

It could be that the damage on Leech is weaker at lower levels then beam which I need to scale better but those are the values at the moment. I could see giving Leech a slight boost in damage though, but it shouldn't outclass blast or make it feel worthless. Leech is pretty good for PVP I think.

Armor might be a thing.

In terms of balance I don't want to boost spell damage to all, I'd rather create another spell so that beam is similar and actually makes understanding sense.


The Imp thing is a good idea. I think they should have different summons as well.

EXP wise I already had the idea of lowering them a bit, Never understood why they were that high.

[Kruell]

EXP wise I already had the idea of lowering them a bit, Never understood why they were that high.

When DM put them in (with Bards), the idea was they would be getting major power boosts later on. On one of the really old forums (2002ish) DM ruminated on a few options he was thinking they should have. Had he taken time, they would have been one of the best classes in game for most scenarios.


When I mentioned Leech and Beam being almost identical damage, I meant while leveling. Beam maxes out by the time you get Leech and Leech is slow to build. For leveling purposes, it's a waste to use Leech with the fizzle/unaffect rate being so high for maybe 10% more damage.

I always use neutral div when gauging damage. It gives a clearer picture of the damage itself and you don't have to consider the divinity bonus.

Lvl 25, 20 Int, with neutral div
Beam - 75~88 (average 82.5) maxes out around lvl 14
Leech - 83~125 (Average 104) (and heal)
Blast - 111~150 (average 130.5)

The numbers are where they should be on damage. If you have a penalty for Leech either with unaffect or fizzle then that needs to be removed. We don't want the situation happening in Ember that occurred in RoK with Ninjas and Slayers being the PVP kings and caster classes being nothing but fodder in PvP. I've been looking for some Ninjas to fight but lately having no luck. We really need to organize some kind of battle events or something so we can get testing done.

The main reason I am concerned about Necro/DM being augmented is I was literally rounded three times as a level 23/24 necro. While that is to be expected with surprise attacks from certain classes or groups, I was shocked when a Ninja without div killed my 900+ hp necro with 3 hits. In fact, the people who attacked my necro never missed (except for backstab). I thought it would change when I hit Death Mage but my 21 agi just seemed to not exist as even a half orc could hit me without fail.

I did create a ling DM though and suddenly lesser agi races couldn't hit me. While we are balancing the classes we may want to keep an eye on agi and hit rates as well as spell resistance. I have a feeling this may not be the last wipe. Until we get a larger player base and more ability to directly test race/class combination we are mainly working with theory.

[NiteHawk]

EXP wise I already had the idea of lowering them a bit, Never understood why they were that high.

When DM put them in (with Bards), the idea was they would be getting major power boosts later on. On one of the really old forums (2002ish) DM ruminated on a few options he was thinking they should have. Had he taken time, they would have been one of the best classes in game for most scenarios.


When I mentioned Leech and Beam being almost identical damage, I meant while leveling. Beam maxes out by the time you get Leech and Leech is slow to build. For leveling purposes, it's a waste to use Leech with the fizzle/unaffect rate being so high for maybe 10% more damage.

I always use neutral div when gauging damage. It gives a clearer picture of the damage itself and you don't have to consider the divinity bonus.

Lvl 25, 20 Int, with neutral div
Beam - 75~88 (average 82.5) maxes out around lvl 14
Leech - 83~125 (Average 104) (and heal)
Blast - 111~150 (average 130.5)

The numbers are where they should be on damage. If you have a penalty for Leech either with unaffect or fizzle then that needs to be removed. We don't want the situation happening in Ember that occurred in RoK with Ninjas and Slayers being the PVP kings and caster classes being nothing but fodder in PvP. I've been looking for some Ninjas to fight but lately having no luck. We really need to organize some kind of battle events or something so we can get testing done.

The main reason I am concerned about Necro/DM being augmented is I was literally rounded three times as a level 23/24 necro. While that is to be expected with surprise attacks from certain classes or groups, I was shocked when a Ninja without div killed my 900+ hp necro with 3 hits. In fact, the people who attacked my necro never missed (except for backstab). I thought it would change when I hit Death Mage but my 21 agi just seemed to not exist as even a half orc could hit me without fail.

I did create a ling DM though and suddenly lesser agi races couldn't hit me. While we are balancing the classes we may want to keep an eye on agi and hit rates as well as spell resistance. I have a feeling this may not be the last wipe. Until we get a larger player base and more ability to directly test race/class combination we are mainly working with theory.

I think damage for physical classes might be overall too high though as well with what you say. I'll be doing a test for that later though to see.

If you have same level and same AGI, its 50% dodge at the moment. Obviously you can have bad luck though but classes bar ninja and zerkers don't have changes.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Play around with the values there for general AGI. Ninjas are about +2 agi on top, and Barbarians are about -2 agi.

For armor I think it needs to be changed but I need to see how it works exactly, but I think its underpowered. The passive absorb is okay, but active absorb I think needs fixing.

[Kruell]

Just thought of something else that would, in effect, make them the casting version of the Slayer. Give them a spell that takes 2 stamina to cast at 20 mana. Make it a level 25 only spell so it doesn't come into play for leveling. If the spell has a multiplier of 1.5 to 3 of Leech damage but also has the effect of poisoning the target this would make it a dangerous yet risky spell to use in PvP.

Using the numbers I posted earlier with 20 int on neutral div, we are talking about 750 damage a round. Maximum with Leech per round is 500, Blast is 600. The reason this spell would be risky is you have the unaffect chance as well as the lower multiplier and doing only 375 damage per round. I'm sure those who play Slayers can say how much they hate landing two Backstabs only to see lower damage than if they had just swung away normally. Unlike Backstab, this spell will have no chance of one rounding an equal level player unless they have unusually low health. Still, it can change the outcome of a PvP battle in drastic and unpredictable ways.

[Folder]

I was planning on making an overall damage/balance thread soon as I've been doing a fair bit of testing with 25s, but I'll chime in rq on this one.

Yeah, DMs suck right now. I'm not so sure they need another spell as opposed to making leech do a bit more damage but heal a bit less. I do kinda like the idea of a spell that uses 2 attacks and does more damage, that's an interesting dynamic for sure. Still it does add another layer of complexity and frankly if it were implemented it's the only spell anyone would ever use in PvP. Burst damage is what matters, people would always take the chance on an unaffect for the chance to burst someone down quickly. For myself I'm more a fan of the 1 main attack spell for casters and just balancing that damage.

Buffing their pet is an idea but it only helps 1v1 (and may help leveling), unless the pet were to somehow act as a shield (in pvp) for the DM.

All that said physical damage is out of control. Ninjas with 5 attacks and enraged zerkers (over 400 damage neutral? lol?) are the biggest standouts right now, but like I said I was gonna make a thread about all this soon anyways.

[NiteHawk]

I'll see about that.

For the leech spell. I modified it slightly. The damage is a little higher, but the average should be better as well. Also adjusted the leech rate a bit.

But yeah the physical damage is too high in any case for all classes 8)

[Lateralus]

I was planning on making an overall damage/balance thread soon as I've been doing a fair bit of testing with 25s, but I'll chime in rq on this one.

Yeah, DMs suck right now. I'm not so sure they need another spell as opposed to making leech do a bit more damage but heal a bit less. I do kinda like the idea of a spell that uses 2 attacks and does more damage, that's an interesting dynamic for sure. Still it does add another layer of complexity and frankly if it were implemented it's the only spell anyone would ever use in PvP. Burst damage is what matters, people would always take the chance on an unaffect for the chance to burst someone down quickly. For myself I'm more a fan of the 1 main attack spell for casters and just balancing that damage.

Buffing their pet is an idea but it only helps 1v1 (and may help leveling), unless the pet were to somehow act as a shield (in pvp) for the DM.

All that said physical damage is out of control. Ninjas with 5 attacks and enraged zerkers (over 400 damage neutral? lol?) are the biggest standouts right now, but like I said I was gonna make a thread about all this soon anyways.

Wouldn't mind seeing a 2 Stam attack like suggested for dm and that rapid fire spell for mages that uses all Stam.

Pets should be a bit stronger for dm it would be nice if they had a pet that healed them like in Rok or something.

[daedroth]

Could even make it an "empowered spell". Apply it to attack spells. You can empower a spell when you are X levels above the spell required level. It could cost *# more mana, and do *# more damage and cost 2 stamina.
Actually something like this could be applied to a lot of stuff.
Power attack: costs 1 (or 2 with more damage) stamina does *# more damage, maybe -# to attack
Aimed attack: costs 1 (or 2 with more damage... shame there is no critical hits in game...) stamina, +# to attack, -# to damage (racial balancing may be icky though? also barbarian would not be able to use either when into flurry mode - too angry to think about such things) meh ok, I am going!