Necromancer: Spell resistance vs. High-End Mobs

[aabamzen]

There was a guy that did some analysis a while back and found that the focus works as Nerva described. I'll see if I can dig up the post.

Edit: Here

[ChaosSlayer]

I can kinda see where you're coming from, but think about this for a minute; not only is the dependency backwards just like you described, Necros are about the only class that suffers from this when it comes to DPS.

well thats why I said, that non-burst dps classes, should have lower innate resists. This should be specially true for necro's signature long duration dots.

And yes dependency is currently backwards

Of course, I have been away for a long time from THF, so details and long term goals of inner mechanics on spells and classes have changed many times over, and this matter better be discussed with GM who is currently handling this side of the server

[Nerva]

There was a guy that did some analysis a while back and found that the focus works as Nerva described. I'll see if I can dig up the post.

Edit: Here

I knew I wasn't crazy. I used to play a wiz, and I could always land spells more reliably with my Familiar than without it.

well thats why I said, that non-burst dps classes, should have lower innate resists. This should be specially true for necro's signature long duration dots.

Well, the strongest and longest of those signature long-duration DoTs that I have, the fire-DoT line, do have decent resist mods. Not as great as Chaotic Detonation, but close.

Thing is, it's only a single line. I have four other lines of DoT (magic, disease, poison, lifetap) that can run simultaneously on a mob, and indeed, at least four of those five lines have to do so for my DPS to come anywhere remotely close to that of a wizard. The resist mods of these other four lines are about half as potent as my fire-line, and my Scent of Midnight doesn't help magic or magic-based lifetap DoTs: all it helps is poison and disease, which of the two are my weakest DoT lines.

The others I just have to toss out and pray to Innoruuk they stick, and until you get the T8 magic DoT, I can pretty much guarantee that your magic line is a waste of mana.

Of course, I have been away for a long time from THF, so details and long term goals of inner mechanics on spells and classes have changed many times over, and this matter better be discussed with GM who is currently handling this side of the server

Well, that's what this thread is here for, to bring the problem into public light and open up some discussion on it, and also get the devs' attention that this is a problem and should be looked at.

Just to show what I'm using now, here's the four primary DoTs I'm using. Keep in mind, I'm not yet in T8, (need to get a kill for Cazic and then get flagged for T7-2) so I can't get the points-purchased spells yet.

Fire: Desolate Pyre Rk. I (Excellent resist mod, great damage, and a super-long duration, offset by a rather intense mana cost. Mostly saved for yellow/red con mobs because I can't afford to throw it out on everything - it's more than twice as expensive as Curse of Undeath.)

• Previous: Dread Pyre (Expensive for its super-short duration, but the damage is the best available outside of T8/LDoN spells. Resist mod is surprisingly terrible for a fire spell.).

Magic: Curse of Undeath Rk. I (The only magic-based DoT with a halfway-capable resist mod thus far, has an adequate duration, wonderful secondary proc and superb damage-to-mana efficiency for something so strong. My go-to DoT for trash, sadly it's easily resisted by bosses.)

• Previous: Ancient: Curse of Mori (Average duration, but a cheap mana cost for good damage make this seem like a decent DoT... until you notice the terrible resist mod. You are NOT landing this reliably on a white or better. Sadly, it's the best available until T8 spells.)

Disease/Lifetap: Death Stalker (A capable resist mod, and it's the only lifetap DoT so far that benefits from Scent of Midnight. It's disease-based AND a lifetap-over-time, but its damage leaves much to be desired and its efficiency is terrible - it's less than half as powerful as Curse of Undeath and yet it costs more.)

• Previous (Disease): Grip of Mori (Weak, with a pitiful resist mod. Only used because I literally had nothing better until Death Stalker.)
• Previous (Lifetap): Fang of Death (Strong and surprisingly hard to resist for its level. The only downside to it is that it's a personal lifetap-over-time instead of a group one. The group lifetap-over-time effect is MORE than sufficient to justify the slightly-reduced damage of Death Stalker.)

Poison: Chaos Venom (Almost pointlessly weak, with a short duration and terrible resist mod, made somewhat workable by Scent. I use it because I literally have nothing better that I can obtain for a Poison DoT. I often don't throw it unless I don't have the mana for anything better or in boss fights where I need every last bit of damage available to me.)

• Previous: Corath Venom (A DoT that gets weaker with time? Gimme a break. Chaos Venom is better than this in every single way, and it's still pitiful compared to my other DoT lines. It even costs less!)

[aabamzen]

You can stack multiple dots from each resist class. When I have my necro out to play my lineup is normally:

Desolate Pyre
Chaotic Funeral
Dread Pyre
Lure of Fiery Death
Curse of Undeath

I'm not sure what a comparably geared wiz puts out for dps but the necro is the top dps in my group on fights >2 min. Sadly I don't get to break him out much anymore since just about every fight (T6) has adds and is easier with the paladin.

[Grey]

Yea my spell bar on the necro is Lifetap, Scent, 6 dots in order of length they tick for.
Pretty much 3 or 4 fire and a couple magic. One them of is that pet heal recourse.
To lazy to log in the necro to figure out which are which.

[Nerva]

You can stack multiple dots from each resist class. When I have my necro out to play my lineup is normally:

Desolate Pyre
Chaotic Funeral
Dread Pyre
Lure of Fiery Death
Curse of Undeath

I actually just figured this out last night. Up until now, I was under the impression that DoTs worked like buffs and debuffs - only the strongest (or strongest-prioritied) spell in each line will stay on a target.

Still, doesn't this seem odd to you? From level 1, you are using curses, poison, and disease as your primary weapons, then fire DoTs show up and basically take over your entire DoT lineup. I feel it's kinda lame that I'm just another flavor of fire-based caster in the end. Enchanters get magic damage, magicians get ice damage, wizards and necros are primarily fire; just one deals it all at once and the other deals it gradually.

Still, there's advantages to this: Scent of Midnight doesn't debuff fire or magic resistance, so you can just use it solely for Call For Blood. Most fire DoTs have good enough resist mods that you usually don't need it (Dread Pyre is the exception, but it's only 3 ticks long; you can safely omit it if it gets resisted too much). Curse of Undeath and Grasp of the Reaper still get resisted against high-resistance yellows and reds, but there's nothing you can do about that anyway. You could even add Death Stalker to that layout to add a little lifetap-over-time action. 4 out of 6 DoTs is a heck of a lot better than 1 or 2 out of 4.

EDIT: You'd still need Scent of Midnight; Call For Blood's good proc is a 100% increase to DoT damage, but it has a resist mod of zero unless you make use of SoM.

[aabamzen]

I do agree it is a little odd. Fire resistant mobs would hurt a lot but I don't remember coming across any.

Sadly I'm not much help with the main topic of the thread, the resist issues. I have a shaman to malo and a bard running occlusion so I don't see a whole lot of resists.

[Grey]

Would post parses but gamparse has trouble detecting necromancer dps correctly.
While it may look purty i just pull a log file of a 10min fight and filter out all but a wizards visable crits to me.
It blows the necro away and Im only seeing the crits not the non crit hits.
Easily 3 to 1. However this thread is not about the dps its about the resists.

Tho the one thing I really want is either the heal portion of Necromancer donator weapon to be increased so Death Stalker does not overwrite it on pet OR just straight up removed.
Shame that getting a donator weapon on a class actually takes away from the class.

[Kron]

what problem does gameparse with necro damage

[Reid]

You have to use the log of the person you are parsing as spell damage DOES NOT show up on other's logs unless it is a crit. The spells tab should tell you how many resists you get during a fight (it picks up my procs on invuln mobs, which essentially fully resist everything not already applied.)