Why was necro "nerfed"?

[Elmacro]

Im sorry to have to ask this but... whay does everyone say that the necro in d2 was nerfed? I liked him very much and he was quite powerfull. Im basing this question on my impression that "nerfed" is something negative, what does it mean by the way?

[stillman]

Nerfing is when they lessen the power or effectiveness of something for balancing reasons. For example, the sorc's meteor was nerfed such that a casting delay was implemented because it was too overpowered and Blizzard wanted us to try other builds. Numerous zon skills were nerfed to prevent similar probelms of certain builds totally taking over.

I'm not sure about the exact history of the necro. I know at the beginning he was perhaps the weakest of the chrs because his skellies fell apart so easily. If anything, Blizzard immensly boosted his killing power such that now you can play in hell mode with skellies killing stuff for you.

Diablo 2 had many many problems with it's initial design which froced Blizzard to have to make changes like nerfing. Of course, this created more probelms. Perhpas they did not anticipate how many tens of thousands of players would be obsessing over the game and learning ways to exploit everything. Same case with d1. Surely, Blizzard has finally learned that many thousands of players are going to critically exampine every last feature of d3 so they must get it right on it's release.

[dizAndyVan]

Yea the original summoner was weak, so they reduced the amount of skeletons but increased their dmg, hp, etc.

About nerfing, there was a glitch that necros constantly used. The Marrowwalk gives lvl 33 Bone Prison charges, and when Necros used them, as long as they didn't put any points into Bone Prison, they had a level 33 Bone Prison which acted as a synergy, with 20 extra skill points, they could put it in other synergies, like Teeth, and they did a buttload of damage.

Guided Arrow Zons were the same. Old Guided Arrow + Pierce just shot through someone in pvp and turned right around and hit over and over and over again.

[Mad Mantis]

There have been a lot of patches that reduced the effectiveness of the Necro. Back when they removed scaling for CE for example. In patch 1.09 the BG + IM build was one of the few that was really viable. Necro's were considered curse *****es.

For some reason Blizz takes every opportunity to squash powerful skills of the Necro, yet leaves other classes unbalanced. Although they have been kind in patch 1.10.

I'm moving this to the Necro forum since it has little to do with the WD.

[sike]

- Lets say like all in all in the simplest language; Necro is 'nerfed' for 20% and 'strenghtened' for 80%. And all in all he is NOT nerfed but rather strenghtened, as you can see my very improvised formula :) Here we can take the preferances in count also....

- And as everybody can easyly notice some chars beeing obviously stronger than the others thus ower/under-powered in relations, the same could also notice that^ beeing made purpousely. From few reasons where one is that: from the thousands and thousand of different people, hundreds and hundreds different 'tastes' are coming; where one would need to have ''the strongest'' and ''the best'' character in the game in order to keep beeing interested and play the game, other one would very easyly get bored without any 'challenge' and sweat, and would like it much more and rather have fun with some 'weak' class and struggle his way throught the game...

- So you have the possibility to choose plenty of different variations from 'hard-go' to 'easy-pass' as you like and see fit. And i wouldn't say that hard-go nor easy-pass is better than the other; they are both better AND the best but only if you have fun really, as that is the main intension. ;)

[veteran player]

ya the ik set was sweet back in the day. then the maul was nerfed and the barbs hit points seem to be less efficent. 8(

try a windmaul with ww and then try the ik maul with ww. it has a really spongey bite and feel to it. also maiden and thorns were degraded.

i liked the thorn builds when they did function.

[Wormnet]

The term "nerf" comes from Nerf guns. You know, the toys that shoot foam projectiles?

A nerf gun is a weak gun... it was designed that way and it's less dangerous than a standard gun.

Put that into gaming concepts and you got a character class, weapon or ability that was purposely changed to be less effective, less dangerous.

"The necro was nerfed"; "The combination of IronMaiden and the Blood Golem is less effective than it used to be."

[Akse]

I liked the old necro more.. he didn't have much power in bone spells in PVM but they were good in PVP. His skellies were weak but blood golem and revives was a good option. Iron Maiden was the main curse to get you the first kills and after you changed to AMP or LR and used CE.

Poison stuff is improved also but I don't feel like a necro as a poison..

[FreshMeat]

Yeah poison stuff was improved but the poison dagger was brought to close to the damage of the other poison spells. Previously, my old poison dagger spell would do some weird spell with blackbogs. I would use all SHORT duration poison sc's and lots of sources, and I could outright kill anything in the game in a heinous way. Few jabs killed a boss. (I built his gear up over years though, his double poison sc's and rare jewels were rediculous)

Then poison changed to a more simple system and that kinda died. I needed the synergies and I didnt have them much at level 95.

I also had a max skellie build with enormous +summons. I had like 110 skeletons. Yes, they were weak, but darn, they actually hurt. 100+ lil tikes in hell could actually kill. upper hell levels, no, didnt have them concentrated enough. However, I would kill anyone in pvp. yes I would. I would use my friend's teleport item for that at least(not game play). they would do full damage vs players and I would use just amp for pure joy. The mages actually did more damage at times so I would cast LR if it called for it.

it also would LAG the universe to a halt. I had to upgrade my cpu and ram for the build.........

[jel]

Yeah poison stuff was improved but the poison dagger was brought to close to the damage of the other poison spells. Previously, my old poison dagger spell would do some weird spell with blackbogs. I would use all SHORT duration poison sc's and lots of sources, and I could outright kill anything in the game in a heinous way. Few jabs killed a boss. (I built his gear up over years though, his double poison sc's and rare jewels were rediculous)

Then poison changed to a more simple system and that kinda died. I needed the synergies and I didnt have them much at level 95.

I also had a max skellie build with enormous +summons. I had like 110 skeletons. Yes, they were weak, but darn, they actually hurt. 100+ lil tikes in hell could actually kill. upper hell levels, no, didnt have them concentrated enough. However, I would kill anyone in pvp. yes I would. I would use my friend's teleport item for that at least(not game play). they would do full damage vs players and I would use just amp for pure joy. The mages actually did more damage at times so I would cast LR if it called for it.

it also would LAG the universe to a halt. I had to upgrade my cpu and ram for the build.........

110? I thought you only got 1 pr. +skill, that'd then have required +90 all skills which is impossible, what level of RS was required for 110 skellies?

I've a hard time believing on the dueling part, even if you've 200 skellies doing full damage, I can't see them hitting very often against a good opponent, not to mention dealing enough damage to most others, not to mention many skills would easy seperate you from your minions and then you'd be an easy target.

- Lets say like all in all in the simplest language; Necro is 'nerfed' for 20% and 'strenghtened' for 80%. And all in all he is NOT nerfed but rather strenghtened, as you can see my very improvised formula :) Here we can take the preferances in count also....

I disagree, I'd rather have a higher range of CE than strong skellies.

[FreshMeat]

You get MAGES and you get REGULAR skellies.

I think my guy had 99. if a barb was in group, 101, if a shrine, 105.

+3 summon helm
+3 summon ammy
Leoric's arm
2 soj's
Trang armour
10 GC's
Blue head with +3 summons +1 warr +1 mage (or could have just hadlike +3 summons +2 mage. It technically could "possibly" roll with +3 summons +x mage +x warrior, but I think some game mechanics stop this. (like a +3 summons head cannot spawn +2 mage +3 skellies because those are too low of a secondary mod. HOwever, if possible, man that would be nuts!

I know I had 98-100 skellies total and a golem.
110 was an overestimation possibly, but i cleared 100's with a shrine and a barbarian.

[jel]

Ah okay, my mistake, still I doubt they'd be useful in pvp, but I think it'd be cool to see, together with 52 revives.

[FreshMeat]

well. I wish i could find a calculator that can do 1.09. if 50 mages shoot like 40 damage on a character who has near 0% res all..... kinda dead in one shot. ONE shot. they auto hit, cast all at once in a super prismatic blast. impossible to kill the necro before they do this, game ai takes first swing and bone armour knocks out all damage from first swing of a player. the mages shoot at the very nano second the player teleports. it's quite pleasant. Add a thorns merc to it and it would be a sad day. the lil swingers hit as well. unless the player is very high in hps, its insta death. minions used to do full damage listed to other players. add in iron golem for zealers or ww barbs.

[CombatShrine]

I personally think the Necro is just fine for PvM.

I played him since 1.04 D2.

Before, his only playable kill method really was blood golem + revives + iron maiden. The skeleton skills are all completely useless. Corpse explosion didn't scale, and the poison tree was a joke. No one used amplify damage, life tap, lower resist, or decrepify; only iron maiden.

The 1.10 patch really changed that; raise skeleton is easily one of his best skills, summoning tough, expendable, crack troops. CE now scales with difficulty level, and is boosted significantly by amplify damage. The ruggedness of the necro makes him an ideal MF character; before, only barbarians and amazons were the best MF'ers.

Most people on this board choose a sorceress for a "Square One" MF-build, but whenever I get back into the game after a long hiatus, I always use a fishymancer.

[FreshMeat]

Yeah, I use a bone spirit CE build with AI curses and a huge iron golem. Pump a bunch into Golem mastery, slap 4-5 base into iron golem. Keeps a nice balance. I dont even bother with a hireling as they make me die in hardcore worrying about them.

I find for HC, bone spirit is better by far, didnt know this till only recently when I came back to the game. You can run around bosses or make a corpse without focusing shots. Bone spear can go through a hoarde...... if it hits more than 1 dood. and if you dont miss the targeted dood which is really easy to do. I have more damage per minute using spirit untwinked than spear. shrugs.

It was sad they didnt make skellies a bit more powerful. Just a little, like 2.5x more damage. mages were fine in my book though. Revives, max mages, iron maiden/lr. it wasnt that bad. monsters now in hell are absolutlely rediculously high in hps. Thats why IM was so useful. Remember that once ago, poison worked regardless of monster healing! a lil mage could shoot a long poison goober and actually injure Diablo with it. It stopped healing and it brought it down tick tick tick.... remember 6 socketed poison ranged weapons? The total poison damage was through the roof and it would apply 100% after resistance, causing PMH.

I miss BG + IM. that's the worse nerf the game has had for any class possible. It wasnt ALL powerful, it just kept the necro alive a lot if it wasnt a spell area. Lots of hard spots were spell areas so it wasnt a free ride at all. (necros have the worst hps and mana anyways)

[jel]

well. I wish i could find a calculator that can do 1.09. if 50 mages shoot like 40 damage on a character who has near 0% res all..... kinda dead in one shot. ONE shot. they auto hit, cast all at once in a super prismatic blast. impossible to kill the necro before they do this, game ai takes first swing and bone armour knocks out all damage from first swing of a player. the mages shoot at the very nano second the player teleports. it's quite pleasant. Add a thorns merc to it and it would be a sad day. the lil swingers hit as well. unless the player is very high in hps, its insta death. minions used to do full damage listed to other players. add in iron golem for zealers or ww barbs.

2000 elemental damage in pvp isn't much, especially in 1.09 where everyone ran around with thise 50% absorb all vodoo rings, making your damage 0.

2000 physical damage (1000 after resist, or 3000 if you include amp) is better, but the skeletons had extremely poor attack rating, and would never hit a target for every hit, not even close.

Finally I'll do you the favor of comparing 1.09 builds with your teleport necromancer to show you why it wouldn't work so great:

Amazon: Freezing arrow would first make your minions useless (the attack speed of a amazon is faster than the cast rate of a necromancer, therefore you'll be hit before your tele bomb activates the skeletons), secondly Lfury will make quick work out of your entire stack, and finally you'll be an easy target for Guided arrows.

Assassin: Mind blast seperates your stack, which means lightning traps can hit you, not only that, but as you and your skeletons are stun locked by WoF+MB you can't teleport on top and the mages/warriors can't even come near or shoot before the lightning takes them out.

Barbarian: Leap on stop when you telestomp and you'll be knocked out of your stack immediatly, then 1-2 berzerk hits on you while your skelies are knocked back and the duel is over. Even if your warriors tries to connect, only 5% would actually hit after defense, 1/4rd of that after block. And damage return won't work against berzerk.

Druid: I've no idea what kind of druids ran around back then, but anyway if anyone used Tornadoes then this is an AoE skill, so your stack won't protect you.

Necromancer: An AI curse could probably make your stack rather useless, such as terror.

Paladin: This battle would be one of the easier to win, however the paladin did suck back in .09 so there's not much of an accomplishment in that if you ask me.

Sorceress: AoE/Splash damages will take you out, unless you also use one of those 50% absorb all items, and then the duel will be a happy draw because no one can hurt eachother, so you'll have to leave in peace and harmony :).


Corpse explosion didn't scale, and the poison tree was a joke.


CE now scales with difficulty level, and is boosted significantly by amplify damage.

Huh? In 1.00 CE and WW was the best skills of the game, I can't imagine there was some patches between 1.00 and 1.12 where CE suddenly didn't scale with difficulty. AFAIK CE has always only been nerfed, in 1.04 it was nerfed so the radius increase was lower IIRC, not anything about not scaling with difficulty level.



It was sad they didnt make skellies a bit more powerful.
Taken AI and durability into consideration they're even more powerfull than the best revives there is, and far stronger than mages, so in my opinion they're almost too powerfull, only fight that'll ever take down a fishys skellies if invested correct during pvm play (not including ubers) is normal diablo.


Remember that once ago, poison worked regardless of monster healing! a lil mage could shoot a long poison goober and actually injure Diablo with it.
Poison still stops healing, it works better than PMH because it works on everything that isn't poison immune, only open wounds works better, as it works on everything.



I miss BG + IM. that's the worse nerf the game has had for any class possible. It wasnt ALL powerful, it just kept the necro alive a lot if it wasnt a spell area.

I soloed cow level on hell with that combination with my level 18 necromancer.

[FreshMeat]

It only was insanely powerful on cow level. yes, there it killed all instantly. I had like 45 all curses, and blood golem.

I am pretty positive that poison is only a factor in healing rate. LIke if if am monster (now not prior) has +300 health per second regen rate, and you apply 290/second poison, it will heal 10 per second. There was a change that was talked about a couple of years ago that "nerfed" poison. PMH is still good. I hear that mercs cant transfer PMH only open wounds. PMH works by stopping healing if you shoot a bow or swing a weapon and contact it and remain in visible distance to the monster indefinitely. It is a great way to kill diablo or baal in hardcore. Shoot one bolt at it with PMH mod on you and it stops it to wittle away damage.

Open wounds does PMH but when it wears off, the thing heals rapidly. It has to be re-applied constantly sort of. I was always said, screw PMH, i have open wounds which also does a lot of damage, then I saw what pmh can do in a big fight and was impressed.

I would love to be wrong though, but I do believe this came with 1.10 patch.

[jel]

This reply seems to be pretty much equal to my last reply, I'd suggest you to test it in game, if you don't believe me.


I am pretty positive that poison is only a factor in healing rate. LIke if if am monster (now not prior) has +300 health per second regen rate, and you apply 290/second poison, it will heal 10 per second.

This is incorrect, again poison stops all regeneration, and afterwards applies its damage, if you don't believe me, test it against ubers (except lillith and mephisto, they're immune), and you'll see they won't regenerate, heck you can test it against normal monsters if you'd like to actually.


It is a great way to kill diablo or baal in hardcore. Shoot one bolt at it with PMH mod on you and it stops it to wittle away damage.
If you're talking about ubers, then PMH doesn't work on these, if it's act bosses then they don't heal at all, so PMH is not needed.


Open wounds does PMH but when it wears off, the thing heals rapidly. It has to be re-applied constantly sort of.
If I have access to extreme poison duration that's easy applied to a big group then I'd use that, but open wounds works great by itself, as you most often only need anti healing against any single target, which your merc can do pretty well.

[FreshMeat]

Even if you go to town, they do not regen? I am going to have to test the poison thing. best to use a poison mage, just pull out one, hit the monster in the head a few times and run around. I have to do this once I get to hell to see it clearly.

be great if it was the case, then poison mages should be kept around a bit!

I am unsure is open wounds works with multi-shot zon skill. or of PMH does either. I know the first 2 center bolts apply everything in full but the rest spread only certain things do