So, getting back into Grim Dawn - starting fresh with a necro and here is my first bit of feedback on the skills.
First off Raise Skeleton - thematically awsome and the power level feels good (or potentially UP/OP, we’re talking first 15 levels here and power level can be hard to gauge if something is broken in later difficulties) Some issues I notice - it seems the skeletons are set to either passive or normal by default rather than aggressive? The ranged ones in particular like to stand around until a potential target wanders into point blank range. I find myself resummoning to get as many as possible of either the weaker initial skeletons or the big bruisers and minimize the archers/mages. Seems odd that the weak initial skeleton would feel far more useful than the archer/mage. Also the archers and mages seem to have trouble landing hits like the raven used to, it seems whatever AI tweak was made in 1.0.5 Hotfix 2:
“Improved monster ability to recognize barriers when firing ranged attacks. Monsters are now likely to reposition themselves if a ranged attack strikes an obstacle rather than the intended target.
Pets such as the Raven familiar and the Blighted Rift Scourge will now attempt to reposition themselves whenever they shoot at obstacles rather than the intended target.”
It seems this isn’t being applied to the ranged skeleton summons. Note there may also be a bug with raise skeletons as even with 0% minion damage all versions of the skeleton hit at least 2X as hard as the tooltip says they should. I get that for the 3 ‘advanced’ versions but for the basic skeleton to hit like that too seems off.
On Essence Drain… originally I tried to level with essence drain with summon skeletons to support it. And I really did try - but even with essence drain at 6/2/0 and raise skeletons at 2/0/0 it felt like I was just burning mana while waiting for my skeletons to kill stuff. Looking at Grim Tools and comparing it to a similar-ish channeling spell, AAR, and comparing only the flat damages I see it does a total of 134 at 12/12/12 vs 413.5 at 16/12. Now it makes sense it would do far less than AAR given it has some splash built into those totals and also life steal but to deal only 32% as much damage as AAR seems excessively harsh? Anyone else have some higher level play time with Essence Drain care to chime in? I love the spell thematically and graphically but it didn’t seem a viable option to pursue from trying it in the early levels.
I am currently L16 on Veteran difficulty on my Necro. Killing critters like there is no tomorrow. Easily killed 2 boss +6 levels.
Just entered the Laboratory to have a nice friendly talk with the Warden.
I have the same build as you, not sure where the problem is. Some suggestions. Use Pet Attack button. You can either have your pets move into the middle of the enemy pack or have them attack a target. Generally, your archers range is the same range as your Drain Essence, about half of the screen in distance. I.e., if you can hit it with drain essence, so can they.
Put points into all monster abilities, more into base than secondary. Also, the Blight Fiend is a very good tank.
Here is what I use:
Drain essence - Hungering Reach - Decomposition
Siphon Souls
Skeletons - Undead Legion - Will of the Crypt
Blight Fiend - Rotting Fumes
Spectral Bindins - Spectral Wrath (only have 2 points into each, not sure how effective it is due to point blank range).
To be clear I’m not having problems killing anything. Just I couldn’t actually tell the difference between using pet attack + drain essence or just pet attack. Drain essence seems somewhere between worthless or actively detrimental (makes you stand still/kills your mana and not much else)
And while pet attack is an okay work around for now ranged pets shouldn’t need to get into melee range to activate on their own, that is just annoying.
Little off topic but is it possible we could get Essence Drain bind-able to left click? Feels odd after all these other classes to not be able to use the “constant attack” on left click.
I think essence drain is a spell to use when you are low on health and need some, not really a main attack. Hence I will probably use the eye of Dreeg as my left-click attack
my necro is level 50 and loving it. maxed skellies + maxed blight golem + maxed hellhound seem to do extremely well. i would bind ATTACK to a hotkey in case they are being goofy or you need them on a boss, but i never use the attack command for general mobs because i like how they swarm.
my favorite thing about skellies is collision- sometimes they will body block mobs from reaching you. the revenants are awesome and i usually summon till i have at least 2.
going pure pet cabalist hoping it remains viable in elite/ultimate.
Got my Ritualist (necro/shaman) at level 49 currently. Started with essence drain and added the twin fangs constellation proc to it asap. Good stuff. Honestly though, maxed out spectral wrath has been doing most of the work to this point, absolute beast of a skill.
Been able to face tank pretty much everything while using devouring swarm, wendigo totem and then just drain away whats left.
Yes, love spectral wrath. Actually remade this character to focus entirely on essence drain (love the graphic, and tend to be stubborn when a skill rebuffs me that I graphically like…so I will make it worth damnit!)
Even without pets though essence drain starts to get outclassed by spectral wrath in AoE settings. Although it is an AoE skill so I suppose that isn’t such a surprise.
Yeah, essence drain on it’s own doesn’t do much damage. Even though it is my main attack, it probably does the least amount of my damage overall. It just goes very well when combined to rest of the skills and procs with my build, while looking and feeling great as well. I do like that it has a pretty decent range too.
It might be premature, but I think Necro early game is a bit too OP. That was the fastest Lvl 1 > Krieg run, I’ve ever done. The early game damage output and and survivability of Raise Skeleton tree + 1 pt Call of the Grave eliminates any need to deal with early game woes that is: potion chugging, kiting, hit and running, that is common with any melee/ranged/mage starting character.
I look forward to seeing this scale appropriately to Elite. If anything else, I’ll try running SoT before I hit 35. Looks like this class + Shaman can easily do it. + the Jailor and Jailwarden constellations are literally screaming Necro OP… at me atm.
Raise Skeletons maxed base skill + summon count buff without any buffs seem to lose their steam mid act 3.
Was able to clear SoT 1-5 w/ no + Skills, no decent gear at lvl 32, only relying on Mogdrogen’s Pact + HoW (lvl 1’s) w/ Lion and Sheperd’s Crook buffs. Probably my earliest attempt of SoT on any HC character.
In terms of Moba gaming, skele builds are early game monsters.
Skeletons are definitely solid, especially with a blight fiend drawing aggro. though any bosses with aoe or enemies thay lay down DoT fields can do a number on them unles you use pet attack to move them around. By the end of normal/beginning of elite you’ll have to resummon a few on occasion
Yup… it’d be great if we could hold the summon hotkey to summon more that 3 for an added cost. especially when a boss wipes most of them out with an aoe attack