Kinda wish we’d stick to Necromancer’s current problem of a talent tree full of talents with zilch to do with being a Necromancer…
Sadly, I think we’re not likely to get any changes. I do wish she had more of a summoner role. Having a Battle Wizard / Pyromancer with 6 skeletons is still kinda neat.
Yeah that’s the realistic outcome
But I rather have made some noise than not try. I mean, that’s literally the whole entire point of the forums
A summoner career is simply ill-suited for the Vermintide structure. Therefore, it is very unlikely that you will ever see more “synergy”.
And the reason for this is simply balance. Consider it like this. What do you think is the average power boost career skill and talents give in contrast to a “blank” level 35 characters. Is it 30 %, 50 %, 100 %? Assuming it is roughly 100 % what would be the consequence for a summoner with six skeletons? Each skeleton would have roughly one sixth of the power of the actual summoner. And now you have to give the summons changes (by picking talents) which do not increase the power boost beyond unreasonable measures while still being noticeable. This is a math game, you can’t win. So which options does this leave open:
- Removing power from the actual summoner which is contradicting the Vermintide formular. It would also make the summons necessary and reduce the summoner to defensive play because he can’t do much damage himself. Depending on how the summons are managed, it would make the gameplay either a walking simulator or an overly complex ordeal to manage them all the time.
- Giving the skeletons more power but making the control so complex that you need actual skill and management to get actual use out of them,. Which would be poorly received because people are not used to putting effort for easy killing power. And even then, it would be hard to balance at the upper limit.
- Making the summons more limited in either appearance time or numbers. Which would not feel much like a summoner and more like a familiar.
- Centering the summons around utility with them providing more support than actual damage. Which is what we have more or less here, with the fire skeletons serving as a damage buff and the attack skeletons as a stagger unit. But the ways of utility are also limited in a game like Vermintide which has so much overpowered stuff that you can just dps your way through Cataclysm.
I don’t think anyone’s saying we should invest all her power in her skeletons, nor is that necessary to increase her utility as a necromancer/summoner.
The skeleton’s primary role is and should remain cannon fodder and crowd control.
She still will have Cold Flames, Lifetaker, and Malediction of Nagash ensuring she is the damage dealer, so surely we can spare at least three of the DPS focused talents for increasing the utility and value of the skeletons.
Separate from the level 30 talents just do this:
Make an offensive talent for the skeletons.
Make something with a chance to summon a bonus skeleton (even if it’s temporary).
Make something to heal skeletons.
If you just tweak like three of her talents to do the above in addition to making Army of the Dead better by reducing the ability cooldown. These would be great buffs in addition to whatever level 30 talent is picked.
That’s a mindset that only exists before a successful implementation exists. People have been saying Warhammer Fantasy has been ill-suited for gaming before TW and Vermintide proved it was possible (with all races implemented no less), what with the only notable games before it being SotH and Dark Omen. Or a more recent example, a ranged weapon that doubles as a melee was debated not long after throwing axes came out. Hell people scoffed at taking the story to the Chaos Wastes and that was done…even if controversially.
And…?
When’s that ever been a problem in gaming in general? This is just a generalization for the sake of adding in a point.
More to the point the thread is about how her talent tree have zilch to do with her being a Necromancer. Nobody is asking for a head to to rework to turn her into a stand user.
Exactly!
Skeleton summons shouldn’t be and won’t be a passive DPS army if implemented well, but for some reason, some are scared of shifting even a few of Necromancer’s talents from being a DPS pyromancer to having more skeletons and getting more use out of them.
That is just making a point without giving substance. There exists and actual implementation of the Necromancer. And apparently to some it did miss the summoner playstyle. In addition, FS has tested several iterations with different concepts and apparently none of them felt better. I also can’t remember anyone ever saying that a ranged weapon with melee attacks is not possible O.o
But it is a point. Reception of content is somehow important and seeing how FS is getting smashed for anything they add regularly, they don’t have the leisure to add an overly complex DLC career. Heck, look at Engineer and well balanced and extremely strong career and how people still insist on calling him weak.
Again, the Skeletons can not be upgraded in a way the players actually feels it. Give them an offensive talent? Just asking for more dps because they already have a support buff or a stagger talent. Healing skeletons? Pointless unless their health is high enough that healing is actually worth, making them unkillable on anything below Cataclysm. Shorter cooldown and even more ways to get Skeletons? Having the skeletons being unlimited means that they are already present most of the fight and also at the beginning.
So far I have not seen in the whole thread actual talent suggestions which would create the asked for synergy with the skeletons without either ripping balance or actually being noticeable. Though, you can say that balance is bad for the game in general and should just be ignored. That is a valid opinion.
I think having the DPS buff go to the skeletons rather than Sienna herself can be implemented in many synergistic ways. There are many actions players can take that will be tied to temporary buffs from talents.
Skeletons currently have a buff when told to attack, rather than throwing Necromancer herself more DPS on the level 10 talents, by casting spells, getting a crit, or having 4 skeletons summon, we could replace one of these which proportionally increases skeletons damage to the point it makes a similar difference.
Here’s a few ideas for level 10 talents:
Death Ascendent
What if instead of a ranged power buff stacking 5x from casting spells, when Sienna hits 5 stacks the skeletons become visibly enraged with a neat effect and sounds they get increased movement speed and deal extra damage to nearby enemies? How cool would that be?
Reaping
What if instead of getting unlimited Cleave on Crit and +25% crit power, all nearby skeletons get a ton of extra stagger on their next attack hitting multiple enemies with a little shockwave effect?
Vanhel’s Danse Macabre
What if instead of buffing Sienna’s attack speed by 12% when 4 or more skeletons are summoned, each summoned skeleton boosts the others’ damage and/or speed?
There are many ways around this problem and skeletons actually do have a decent health pool scaling with difficulty but durability can be lacking. Having talents to help them stick around longer would be nice for facing plague monks and chaos warriors which tear them up very fast. It’d also be nice to have skeleton health bars for this.
Level 25 talent ideas
Curse of the Undeath
On level 25, make it so that instead of giving Sienna 80% damage reduction for the next 3 hits, make it 40% for Sienna and also apply the damage reduction to the skeletons too. When Sienna loses a stack, so do the skeletons.
Spirit Leech
Instead of having an enemy kill restore cooldown, have it restore a percentage of all skeleton’s health.
Lost Souls
Instead of making venting overcharge give Sienna 2 THP from an enemy, have it restore health to skeletons.
Again with this hyperbole. If I understand correctly what you mean unlimited duration/number of skeletons would be bad.
Level 30 talent ideas:
Withering Touch
Instead of releasing a skeleton for enemy ignites, we could make a temporary 30-second extra skeleton summon when Sienna kills an Elite or Special up to a maximum of maybe 10 bonus skeletons at one time so it wouldn’t get out of control.
Cursed Blood
The Cursed Blood exploding enemies is cool, but you could also make it so that it has 5% chance to spawn a 30-second bonus skeleton from the dead enemy.
Soul Harvest
Maybe instead of giving 1 gaurenteed crit after harvesting 8 souls, the malediction of Nagash could offer a bonus skeleton after harvesting a certain number of souls, say 20?
With reasonable limitations, adding more skeletons is fun and satisfying. That’s the appeal of the Army of the Dead talent, which currently doesn’t have them stick around long enough to be worth it, and you can’t use it often enough to get an “Army”, which would be fun for a fleeting exciting event.
You can mix and match the effects and conditions to come up with ways to improve the skeletons either in numbers, durability or efficacy with feedback so the player can see and feel that their summons are doing something while also having them trigger under the same conditions as her talents already have.
I wholeheartedly reject the idea you can’t make it fun and exciting to have more focus on the summons. Much of the excitement and anticipation for the career was built around it.
Sure that is an option, as I have written in my first post. For more power to the skeletons the summoner will have less power. But that runs the risk that without your skeletons, you are being helpless. While this fits with the summoner narrative and I would be okay with this, it brings the issue of people perceiving necromancer as underpowered because she is overly reliant on the summons. And then you still have to make the decision if you make the summons control-heavy or self-deciding. This can give an interesting synergy but a difficult one. I would take a bit from below where you suggested that killing 10 enemies gives you a skeleton. With less power on the Necromancer, this would be difficulty as she has no longer enough power to reach the threshold. On the other hand if you make the kills of your summons counts as well then you have a self-multiplying army of dead which does no player input. This can be interesting. But it is tricky to balance. There are other tricky balance questions. Will come to them later.
I’m all ears for ideas to replace Reaping considering my issues with everything crit-based. Though I think, we already have a talent which adds a ton of extra stagger to the skeletons. Granted, I have to play her more to be sure. But I think Dread Senechal on Attack command does exactly this.
Nice idea. Though again it has an issue that it is powerful while they are all alive but crumbles as soon as one or two die. Which would make you dependent on defense talents for the skeletons.
I “think” Skeletons already have a damage reduction during their defense command. And quite a hefty at that. Yup, found it: https://youtu.be/gxbw9vibpIc?feature=shared&t=532
80 % while defending. At 40 % more on that and they are indestructible. Make it 20 % and it is pointless.
Again tricky to balance as it depends on an useable health pool. But I’ll leave it at that.
Unlimited duration we already have, not counting destruction. Unlimited numbers would indeed be bad. You could circumvent this by having your six skeletons unlimited in time and other additional skeletons limited though the value has to be chosen well. Though, this does not consider the issue with visual clutter AND confusing elements of one part skeletons being limited while the others are not.
You don’t consider 10 bonus skeletons out of control? Anyway, now we have an interesting situation. Because you have two scaling factors: one is the individual skeletons power, the other is the sheer number. Naturally, this sounds interesting for a summoner. But it runs risk of limiting build variety. Why? Because either you consider the synergy so that you need to chose both talents anyway to reach intended power levels. Or you ignore the synergy, resulting in hyper-synergy which means that both talents combined create a power-gamer option which naturally most players would take.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not against more talents affecting Skeletons. I am just thinking that balance might become … tricky … very fast. As these synergies are either considered necessary or will result overly effective.
I don’t quite think that would happen, because talents aside, Necromancer’s innate abilites make her quite powerful in the DPS department, and visual/audio feedback on skeletons getting some damage buff would feel satisfying enough to counter any feelings that Sienna herself has become inadequate. And I’m not necessarily suggesting all her talents be replaced with ones for summoning, just enough so that there’s one clear path on the talent tree that says “summoner”, that way there’s still other options for those who do not prefer it that way.
You are correct, the exception could be that it doesn’t add stagger to the Dread Senechal bone boys while they are under the influence of an attack command, this way it offers a skeleton stagger option that isn’t consistent enough to replace them, but a bit for those who do not have Dread Senechal or do not constantly have them under the influence of an attack command.
That depends on how the damage reduction is added. If they get 80% while defending, then make it multiplicative which is 84% if I’m correct; not game-breaking.
Yes, but I think that’s kinda why it works, it has limitations and depending on the bonus, it wouldn’t be OP or useless just because they start dying. I think we would agree a perma-buff would be worse.
Well, there’s not much that’s too confusing about some skeletons having a limited duration while others aren’t, not that I can tell. I’ve played with Army of the Dead with cooldown buffs in the Chaos Wastes and the ones that aren’t. Speaking of visual clutter too, I have one friend who blames my skeleons if one is nearby in visiual and he gets hit because A: it wasn’t keeping an enemy from hitting him or B: he got hit becuase it blocked his vision, but personally, I’ve never had issues playing with this around Necromancers, even with tons of them.
Maybe, but almost everything with synergy is tricky; that’s why the Chaos Wastes feels like mess sometimes, albeit that’s the point I suppose. My suggestions weren’t meant to be perfect, just to illustrate that they could take the same conditions for her talents to trigger could instead be used in relation to her undead minions.
So you would have two talents providing stagger? Could feel redundant and people could complain that they rather have a different talent than two providing something similar. While you could argue that we have careers with multiple AS talents take note that people will never complain about AS AND that stagger is very specific. Not against it though.
88 % if I calculate correctly: (1.00-0.80)*(1.00-0.40) = 0.12 rest damage. It is certainly not game-breaking. But I would argue the difference between 80 and 88 % is not interesting enough to make the talent a viable choice for many people.
At least easier to balance because less circumstance dependent. Less interesting too but that is the trade you have to make.
I did not consider them as perfect example. I just wanted to show how much more difficult it is to balance a summoner in contrast to careers with centralised power (like every other career). Because your bonuses are multiplied by each summon. Meaning they can’t be to high but still have to be noticeable.
But the defense bonus to damage reduction isn’t applied without the defend command. Skeletons do often crumble pretty quickly and it’s not always possible to instantly switch them to defending, especially if you’re using them to attack something. It’s a bonus that would have a lot of utility outside of the moments when they’re set to a defensive stance.
I guess, but it gets fairly complicated whenever anyone discusses making any kind of change to this game.
Anyway, it does feel like Necromancer is just a powerful Pyromancer/Wizard hybrid with 6 skeletons, and it’s hard to find people who disagree. Some people like that, but it’s not 100% satisfying and I think there’s room in the talent tree for change.
How is that remotely even a problem for a Necromancer? Literally the entire idea behind their summon is that they are greatly neutered without their puppets being there to support them.
As for them being perceived as difficult, again I fail the see why this is a bad thing, especially as there’s 20 careers and quite frankly, nothing will ever be as difficult as Outcast Engineer on QP. And even in that case most people agree that it’s okay for different careers to have different skill requirements (even if it could use some qol).
If, and this is an enormous IF as I disagree with you quite a bit here, you consider the disempowerment of the caster over the skeletons a huge problem, they could feasibly tack on power distribution adjustments alongside relevant traits. As there’s 3 traits per level, each could feasibly swing power distribution one way or leave as is. But again that’s even if making the caster too weak on favour of skeletons is that big a problem…this is contingent on the fact that my complaint when first making this thread is the fact that her Talent tree has absolutely nothing to do with her being a Necromancer or the skeletons that sets her apart from the other 19 careers.
Yeah and how’s that changed literally anything about the content they release? And saying smashed is hyperbolizing a few feedback people are giving about the Outcast Engineer. For the most part people are happy that he exists and have a unique crank gun career skill. It just have a lot of room for improvement and people are giving their feedback weighing in their own thoughts on how it can be improved.
That’s not a claim that is substantiated in any way, how would you even know for certain that it can not be upgraded in a way people feel it? Most of your examples are hyperbolic and goes off into an assumption people want a pure summoner where the caster does nothing while the skeletons do all the work.
Something that FS has repeatedly done with other careers to be made more interactive than a simple DPS boost. Brian’s Malice, Lingering Blackvenom, Head Full of Steam, Unchained, etc. all offer a very controlled boost that requires a notable player input more than what you’re implying.
That’s already the case. And if you want to fix it just adjust it by difficulty like a damage taken modifier to adjust for difficulty.
That’s a huge hyperbole going from being available more often to unlimited.
Calling arguments hyperbole just because you don’t agree with them hyperbole doesn’t make them hyperbole. They are not hyperbole. And I would welcome it very much if you stop doing so because it is getting on my nerves.
Again, this is very simple math. The possibility to remove power from the necromancer and add them to the skeletons is something I mentioned in my first or second post. However, it will not feel impactful. Let us assume that all power from the necromancer goes to the skeletons. So the base power is 100 %. As discussed before talents add roughly another 100 % to the mix. So that is the frame the skeletons have. From 100 to 200 % power level under the assumption that we reduce Sienna’s own power to that of dry bread.
Currently and that is fact, we can summon six skeletons. This means each skeleton has 16 % base power of a hero without talents and and an upper limit of 33 % of a hero without talents. And what I say is that these 17 % percent additional power will not be felt by the player. They will be stronger and the end stat numbers will increase. But the gameplay will feel the same. And that is before we consider that this power increase will be separated over different factors like damage, attack speed, utility and survivability. Each increment will be so small that it will hardly be felt. The issue is that the usual power increase for heroes had to be spread across six summons. And if you add more summons, the increments would be even smaller. You could circumvent this by reducing the skeletons or decreasing their summon time which at the moment is unlimited unless destroyed or resummoned. But I have doubts that less summons would fit with your idea of a necromancer play style.
And this is under the assumption if - and that is a very large if - without exception all power from Sienna goes to the skeletons. Which means you would walk alongside them but not do damage yourself. Which is possible but boring. Such a gameplay is possible in top down games or even third person games where it doesn’t make a difference if you send a fireball or summoned birds as DPS. But a lot of actions in these games like dodge are automated or simplified. In a game like Vermintide where you control each specific action up to the type of melee attack and dodge timing and what, this is not an option.
So the best we can expect for Vermintide based on the surrounding constraints is a focus on utility. Which is what we have by the defense command, the stagger attack and the damage buff. You can make this more interactive for the same benefit we have right now by making the skeletons summoning condition different. But the upper limit will be the same just more complicated to keep up. Though it would feel more necromancer like. So if this is what you want it can be arranged.
Again, this is a number game. And it can not be won.
Or to simplify it. Would you consider an army of six bots with a third of the power of bots without talents impactful?
Writing on smartphone display is painful -_-
Tldr: more synergy in the talent tree is possible but would not be felt during gameplay outside of utility like stagger which is already present even under the best of assumptions.
What would or wouldn’t be “felt” depends more on feedback and cues than you might think. If we get new effects, buff icons, sounds, and other cues to let us know when a buff has been applied to a skeleton, or when it is doing more damage, being healed, etc. I think that’s all that would be needed.
What I don’t like is when games go overboard with visual cues covering things in visual effects and buff icons, so subtle is better and would be enough.
At the very least, some talent to temporarily get a few extra skeletons would be nice besides Army of the Dead, which needs a buff to be useful.
Of course there is a heavy subjective element to it. But let’s try it with a simpler example. For math reasons let us assume that a hero does 60 dps. Spread this across six skeletons, each skeleton would do 10 dps. Now, let us look at a typical, popular talents from other heroes something like +20 % Power or + 20 % Attack Speed. For our hero this would mean an increase from 60 dps to 72 dps. In addition, as you witness this from first person, you see and feel that your weapon moves faster that you can control the horde more easily due to faster applied hits or stronger stagger caused by power. Now spread this across the skeletons. As we have already decreased the base, they receive the same buff, 20 % more power or attack speed. So you singular skeletons now does 12 dps instead of 10. However, a part of this happens outside of your direct view. In addition, third person animations in Vermintide are not as good as the first person animations. Sure, stuff dies a bit faster but would the gameplay feel different to you?
You can obviously add some visual effects to these skeleton buffs. However, then we are not talking about better synergy then but better visualization/presentation. Different topic.
If you want to feel the impact of the summons, there is nearly no way around the utility road. Stagger (which “can” be a side effect of more power), Health/Damage Resistance/being healed (working as shield while the player is actually doing the damage), application of damage buffs. These are working and are notable. But most of them are already there with the Necromancer as it is. And they are mostly occupying the enemies while the summoner is doing the actual noteworthy damage. You can double down on them for sure if that is what people want.
On the other hand, simple dps buffs like Attack Speed or Power, maybe even cleave do not really work on the skeletons in terms of changing gameplay. Even movement speed which would be considered utility does not work as they are already moving quite a bit faster than the heroes.
Again, I’m not asking to invest 100% or even 30% of the hero’s power into summons and you don’t need to do that to make it feel significant. The main reason, I don’t think that much of her power comes from those three unique talent rows; most of it comes from her innate abilities.
She has, Lifetaker (Killing an enemy grants 2% crit for 4 second), and Cold Flames (Sienna’s damage over time effects last 100% longer), and Malediction of Nagash (Sienna’s flames now cause enemies to take 20% additional damage from Sienna and her skeletons). That’s where a lot of the damage will come from with or without more talents related to skeletons.
The summons’ primary role is still to support and having more support from your skeletons with visual feedback and cues is satisfying and can be more satisfying than an attack speed buff, a few damage stacks, etc; that’s why the most fun talents to change for me are the level 30 talents and those are the most unique talents, despite most of my damage coming from Sienna herself.
This numbers game is meaningless in the context of what I’m asking for. What you’re suggesting would imply a major rework and that Sienna herself takes a backseat to the skeletons, which simply won’t happen by changing a few of her talents where her innate traits offer so much damage especially if it’s only three talents. The power numbers themselves don’t always correspond to what’s most fun and feels most impactful.
What I’m asking for is a tradeoff of losing some extra buffs to Sienna herself to keep the skeletons alive longer, getting a few extras to keep more enemies busy, and maybe giving them a temporary burst of damage enabling them to kill some elites or specials. Either way, most of her talents are a smaller portion of her total power and smaller buffs. Add some nice visual and audio feedback to that, and it I know I’d enjoy it. That’s more exciting than killing something a bit faster or tanking an extra few hits.
You are not asking for more snyergies then. You are asking for a more flashy presentation. That is okay but was not the topic of the thread. If that is all you want, I see very little reason to argument against it.
I am not suggesting anything. I made a best case analysis to determine issues with a more classic summoner feeling as in other games.
A summoner in Vermintide wouldn’t be able to function as in other games, but I’m not asking for flashy presentation earlier.
When I mention you using hyperbole, it’s because you exaggerate my position to make it seem like what I’m asking for is something that is more extreme. There’s a bit more nuance that’s getting lost in every reply. My position is not to make the Necromancer “look flashy” or to invest all her power in summons.
I’d like you to take a closer look at what I said regarding Necromancer’s innate traits. She has more power vested in those than in the talents on her three unique talent rows before level 30.
At least one talent on each of those rows could be changed to something to enhance her playstle as a Necromancer in a meaningful way by keeping the conditions for use of those talents similar while changing the effect of those talents from being buffs to Sienna directly to being something that augments and increases the utility of her skeletons.
Audio/visual feedback and cues to accompany the added practical gameplay bonuses applied to her skeletons can make them both feel and perform in an exciting and meaningful way.
I also reject the idea that a large amount of her power has to be vested in her summons to make them both feel and perform in a way that players can appreciate. Visual and audio feedback paired with practical gameplay effects is more fun than one extreme or the other. Even having a talent that offers an opportunity to occasional bonus skeletons on kill would be a rewarding feeling.