Design & Development - Necromancy & Nethermancy

[the-golem]

I'll have to agree that the cantrip Disrupt Undead is rather pathetic. If the target happens to NOT have necrotic resistance, it does exactly nothing.

Not that I'm a powers expert, but I would have at least added. "...if the target has no necrotic resistance, it gains vulnerable: necrotic 5 until the end of your next turn." This way, at least, I'd do five extra damage either way.

Although, I have to say, I like Rotting Doom much better. Vuln to All damage? Heck yah, focus fire everyone! I would have liked to see an example of an encounter power though, to flesh the article out.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Disrupt Undead is pathetic. It probably also chews up a cantrip slot.

If it doesn't it's handy.

Rotting Doom is also pretty underwhelming.

So I thought at first. But Vulnerable 5 (all)? That's scary striker level stuff once you focus fire. One ping on that puts you into warlock at will damage. Two into rogue or heroic twin strike.

 

[TerraDave]

...
Pyromancers, whose element is almost as widely resisted, get to ignore it - from level 1.

I strongly prefer the approach here to the pyromancer, as it doesn't simply eliminate monster damage resistance for the charecter.

Of course, after the thread I started on the pyromancer, I don't expect many to agree.

 

[TheWriterFantastic™]

Disrupt Undead really isn't that bad as a cantrip, on par with Ghost Sound, if not better in some ways. It's not a necromancy school feature, just a cantrip available to all wizards. The 1st level school feature will probably be more on par with the other schools. We haven't seen a preview of that yet, so there's no need to jump to conclusions.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Very interesting... my feeling was exactly the opposite:

i actually liked those powers. I liked this cantrip. Don´t really know why you think those powers suck.

A nice cantrip to be honest. Nice powers.

 

[bganon]

Yeah, I concur that Rotting Doom is actually quite good. It's like +5 to the entire party's next damage roll, except it even stacks with power bonuses. Rotting Doom + Blessing of Wrath on the party Thief = at least 8 extra damage almost guaranteed.

Yeah, it only works against undead, but the power might occasionally see use against non-undead (regen-happy monsters come to mind). And I'm happy to see a non-divine undead-fighting tactic, and one that works just fine even against undead without radiant vulnerability.

 

[hvg3akaek]

I was disappointed to see that after all the talk of supporting the original wizard, than necromancers have to be essential wizards...


I also would have preferred a different take on the "getting past resistance". Wizards especially should not just have "extra damage" features (which is in essence what they are). It would have been nicer to have "when you taregt a creature with natural necrotic resistance, it is weakened for one round", or something like that. Add a control aspect onto attacks that would otherwise not be as effective.

 

[IanB]

I was disappointed to see that after all the talk of supporting the original wizard, than necromancers have to be essential wizards...

Original wizards can still take the necromancer build powers. They just won't have any implement-specific bonuses on them.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Original wizards can still take the necromancer build powers. They just won't have any implement-specific bonuses on them.

The level 5 Daily summon power from the preview required you to have Necro or Nethermancy Expert from School Specialization. This was not a design direction I was hoping they would take.

I understand wanting to make the different builds play and feel different, but I hope they keep powers like that to an absolute minimum.

 

[IanB]

Yeah, the summon appears to be a bit of a special case since it functions as a permanent pet unlike other wizard summons.