[Jayde]

As there are many threads and it seems that comments can easily be lost in the many threads.

AoE Damage Modifications
Parasitic Soul Swarm and Unholy Hands were dealing significantly more damage than similar spells and rebalanced to do the correct damage for AoE-based spells.

Similarly, the Archmagus pet was dealing roughly 25% higher base damage than intended and was lowered. This was a decrease of roughly 25% without feats, and 20% with feats. This is also in line with other AoE effects in the game.

Despoil the Soul
As was mentioned previously, the change made is an increase to the effectiveness of this spell compared to the previous mechanic. The decreases in damage mentioned above and from other sources are not due to this change, but due to other changes or issues. This mechanic will not change as it more accurately reflects the intended DPS increase of the feat when compared to DPS from each pet point.

However, we will be looking at the duration of Despoil the Soul in order to make it less of a burden to keep active.

Siphon Unlife Issues
We are aware of a code issue that is causing Siphon Unlife damage dealt to pets to scale with bonus magical damage. This is unintended and will be fixed soon.

Damage Coefficients
There was a data issue that has resulted in some spells, specifically Lifestrike and Flesh to Worms, not gaining the new damage bonus from +magical damage. This will be corrected in the next patch. (Lifestrike will gain 65% of your bonus magical damage instead of 11% as currently being used.) This will be a significant increase in DPS with Despoil the Soul active or high levels of +magical damage gear.

Other Adjustments Coming
We will continue to review the damage to make sure that Necromancers are doing the target DPS at given levels. It is intended for Necromancers to be a competitive damage class at the top levels of DPS. Spells will continue to be adjusted until this the class is performing at the correct levels.

Additionally, melee pets will deal splash damage very much like normal melee attacks. This change will come in the one of the next couple code updates.

Edit: Future Updates
In addition to the pet splash damage and above mentioned fixes coming soon, the next two data updates should have the following Necromancer changes. Many of these were intended to be in today's patch, but did not make it in.

Necromancer
Update #1:
-The bonus gained from +magical damage has been increased on all damage over time spells. Lifestrike coefficient increased by 600%, Flesh to Worms coefficient increased by 375%, Gelid Bones coefficient increased by 360%, Mark of the Devourer coefficient increased by 265%. Other small adjustments were made to all direct-damage spells.
-Despoil the Soul duration has been substantially increased
-Despoil the Soul is no longer removed on death
-Frost Blast's area of effect has been changed to be a 90 degree cone in front of the caster
-Shatter now additionally works on targets affected by Frost Blast and Ice Shackle
-Dark Knowledge and Vile Insight will no longer appear as Hostile spells. (They will still persist after death.)

Update #2:
-Casting Frost Blast will no longer cause the Necromancer to get stuck in a casting animation
-Flash Freeze now additionally decreases the casting time and increases the damage of Freeze
-Freeze will now clear the target of all Necromancer damage-over-time effects when cast, this will reduce the chance of it breaking accidentally on damage
-Ice Shackle no longer has a chance to break on damage
-The splash damage of the Deathless Acolyte: Magus has been increased from 10% to 30%, with 4 meter range and a maximum of 5 targets
-The Deathless Acolyte: Reaper and Deathless Acolyte: Arcanist now have 30% splash damage with 2 meter range on a single additional target
-The Deathless Acolyte: Arcanist's chance to trigger the Arcanist's Knowledge has been doubled

Mage General
-The bonus magical damage granted from Mystical Attunement has been doubled

The first half of the changes should be in on Thursday, while the second half of the Necromancer-specific updates will be in the patch after Thursday.

This thread will be updated with additional comments if needed. Thank you.

[shaftwindu]

In before the flame!

edit: damn too late lol

[Dakis]

Good game.

[FRZN]

Originally Posted by Nopvpmancer I'll sum up our feelings for ya Jayde. You screwed up.

qft.



10 char

[AdamKadmon]

Originally Posted by Jayde This mechanic will not change as it more accurately reflects the intended DPS increase of the feat when compared to DPS from each pet point.

What DPS?

Since the only two spells we had that were actually worth something are useless, are you going to make pets work now?

[Snider2k]

Wow... thats all I got....

[jekylll]

Originally Posted by Dakis Good game.

What the hell is a guardian doing here? Leave our premises now! Dont make me send my weak necro after you! lol

[geist]

I honestly couldn't care less about whatever happened to our AOE abilities to be honest with you.

I didn't want to be the class that specialized in grinding trash mobs all the way until 80 when we became useless because there was no point in grinding anymore and we didn't have any other specialty.

...HOWEVER, this patch just looks like a massive nerf all the way around.

I don't understand how it can be Funcom's design to make us a top tier dps class and then nerf our already botton tier dps abilities.

What's the reasoning here? I'll wait until I test everything out before I really start whining (By the way, even if I whine, I still think Funcom is awesome, I just wish they'd communicate their intentions more) but with a massive nerf to our spells AND a massive nerf to our pets, how does that INCREASE our dps?

Seriously tho...screw our AOE grinding. Who here really wanted to be "that class" that leveled really easily to find out they were ONLY good at leveling with AOE and not really anything else?

[Shinchan72]

Didn't Jayde post this patch would not reduce DPS - in fact if anything would up it ?


So lies or fuzzy math ?

[Infares]

The answer is in our pets. Not the Archmagus and Blood Arcanist, but the other pets. That's where we received our buff this time around. Hate to have to use this free respec to go zoologist but **** it.

Maybe Thursday I can spend over a gold and get my desired endgame spec back.