Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

in Necromancer

Posted by: Kraag Deadsoul.2789

Kraag Deadsoul.2789

The following suggestion was made by chiefdiablo in this thread; I do not take credit for it. I do, however, tack some ideas of my own on at the end:

[snip]
Would be cool if you had a secondary fearture a la spectral walk, hit it again and leave the locust swarm where it is crippling the enemy but breaking you out of combat to use the quickness. That would be clever and useful in my opinion.

I think this is a very interesting idea. I fully understand and accept the devs rationales for why necros have limited mobility and escape tools. I’m not asking for any of them; and after 10+ months of playing only necro, I don’t really feel I need them.

However, necro is – to paraphrase the devs’ vision for the profession – the anti-mobility class. We don’t move fast; we chill, cripple, or immobilize our enemies. We don’t escape; we prevent others from escaping. With the recent improvements to Dark Path (33% range increase, reliably teleporting its full distance), Spectral Grasp (now pulls the full distance), and the addition of Tainted Shackles, we’re getting closer to realizing that vision.

In keeping with this effort to bring the reality of the class more in line with the vision, I think chiefdiablo’s suggestion has merit. Personally, I’d approach it a bit differently, though; his suggestion speaks more to using Locust Swarm as an escape, while I would like to improve upon its snaring capabilities.

With that in mind, here’s my variation:

After casting Locust Swarm, it switches to a new skill named “Plague of Locusts”. Activating this new skill will send the necro’s Locust Swarm flying at a targeted foe.

If it hits, it will continue to persist as a Locust Swarm on that opponent, inflicting 1 sec of crippled to that target and any enemy within the radius of the Locust Swarm every second for the remainder of its duration. The crippled it inflicts can be removed just like any other condition, but the Locust Swarm effect, itself, can not be removed until its duration expires.

The duration is not reset when the “Plague of Locusts” is cast; it inherits the duration of Locust Swarm. That is to say, if a necro uses Locust Swarm but doesn’t activate “Plague of Locusts” until 3 seconds later, then “Plague of Locusts” will only persist for 7 more seconds.

Plague of Locusts

Damage: 60
Crippled: 1 s
Range: 900
Radius: 210 (the same as Locust Swarm)

Some aspects open to debate are:

1) Will the “Plague of Locusts” continue to generate life force for the necro in the same manner as Locust Swarm?

2) Should “Plague of Locusts” have the same radius as Locust Swarm and potentially cripple additional enemies near to the target affected by the “Plague of Locusts”?

3) What happens to the swiftness the necro gained from casting Locust Swarm; should it be removed once “Plague of Locusts” is activated and the locusts transferred to an enemy?

4) Should “Plague of Locusts” have a cast time or be instant cast? If it is to have a cast time, it should be short; 1/4 second would be my suggestion.

5) Should “Plague of Locusts” be unblockable?

(continued in next post)

So many souls, so little time. ~ Kraag Deadsoul

(edited by Kraag Deadsoul.2789)

Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

in Necromancer

Posted by: Kraag Deadsoul.2789

Kraag Deadsoul.2789

(continued)

In the interest of balance and trade-offs, I’d be willing to concede on some of the points above. For example, I could accept the necro losing the swiftness boon and the life force generation if they choose to transfer their Locust Swarm to an opponent. The argument could be made that those two boons were the result of being surrounded by the swarm; lose the swarm, lose the benefits.

By the same token, if it’s the swarm that is causing the crippling, then “Plague of Locusts” should continue to cripple with the same frequency and within the same radius as Locust Swarm. Additional enemies near the target should be crippled in the same manner as if they were near a necro enveloped by Locust Swarm.

This has an indirect benefit by sowing antipathy among a necros enemies. Allies of a target inflicted with “Plague of Locusts” will want to keep their distance so as not to be crippled themselves. This is very much in keeping with one theme of the profession as a reaper who singles out a target from the herd, now shunned by their allies, and marked for death.

With regard to point #4, this is a discussion about improving the snaring capabilities of the necro. For snares to be effective, they need to be instant cast or have very short cast times (not including pre-placed snares such as traps). The skill is already highly telegraphed by the requirement that the necro must first cast Locust Swarm before casting “Plague of Locusts”; it’s hard to miss that swirling green cloud of insects surrounding the necro. Thus there’s already plenty of advance warning for the necro’s enemies. If they miss that clue, then they have no defense in arguing against an instant cast or very short cast time for “Plague of Locusts”.

With regard to point #5, I believe “Plague of Locusts” should be unblockable. Blocking, in my mind, is using a physical shield or a magical equivalent to absorb the damage of a large, narrowly focused strike. In the case of “Plague of Locusts”, there is no singular weapon; it’s a cloud of insects. The analogy would be like trying to use a shield to fend off a swarm of bees; not very effective.

Furthermore, this is an effort to bring the necro more in line with the vision of being the anti-mobility class. In the war of rock-paper-scissors, the necro’s “Plague of Locusts” should be on the short list of skills that trumps other players’ attempts at blocking and escaping. That said, “Plague of Locusts” would be still be dodgeable.

I welcome your critiques. In doing so, though, I ask that you evaluate the suggestion in the context of the vision for this profession in the long-term rather than from the short-term perspective of “We just got some buffs, it’s unfair/unbalanced/OP to ask for more.

Necro is in a state of flux right now. In some ways I think we’re getting closer to realizing the vision the devs have for the profession. That’s where I’m coming from with this suggestion; asking the question, “What’s the necromancer supposed to BE?” while attempting to modify this particular skill to better fit the answer (assuming the answer is – at least in part – to be the anti-mobility class).

So many souls, so little time. ~ Kraag Deadsoul

(edited by Kraag Deadsoul.2789)

Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

in Necromancer

Posted by: Overkillengine.6084

Overkillengine.6084

Hell put this on the Plague elite, a 4th button that attaches whatever mode you were last in on to an enemy as a debilitating aura for the remaining form duration and of course takes the caster out of Plague form.

Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

in Necromancer

Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

It looks like a cool skill, and perfectly fits within catching people. It also finally makes warhorn offhand an actual option in non-dagger/non-tanky builds.

But of Corpse – Watch us on YouTube
My PvP Minion Build

Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

in Necromancer

Posted by: flow.6043

flow.6043

On a side note

With the recent improvements to Dark Path (doubled the range)

Dark Path wasn’t doubled in range.

07/09:
Dark Path: This skill will now cause the necromancer to shadowstep the full 1200-unit distance when hitting at max range.

07/23:
Dark Path: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to strike enemies further than 1200 distance away.

Before that the Dark Path hand would fly like ~2k range but only teleport you up to 1200.
With the 07/09 patch our teleport range was actually buffed to teleport us even further than 1200 (apparently anet wasn’t aware that the teleport range was fine up until then).
So now it was nerfed back to 1200, both for the hand and the shadowstep.

Wikipedia notes for Dark Path still include the pre-july info:
“The projectile can hit from a longer range than indicated. However, if cast from longer range, it will not track and you will not fully teleport to the target.”

Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

in Necromancer

Posted by: Kraag Deadsoul.2789

Kraag Deadsoul.2789

On a side note

With the recent improvements to Dark Path (doubled the range)

Dark Path wasn’t doubled in range.

07/09:
Dark Path: This skill will now cause the necromancer to shadowstep the full 1200-unit distance when hitting at max range.

07/23:
Dark Path: Fixed an issue that caused this skill to strike enemies further than 1200 distance away.

Before that the Dark Path hand would fly like ~2k range but only teleport you up to 1200.
With the 07/09 patch our teleport range was actually buffed to teleport us even further than 1200 (apparently anet wasn’t aware that the teleport range was fine up until then).
So now it was nerfed back to 1200, both for the hand and the shadowstep.

Wikipedia notes for Dark Path still include the pre-july info:
“The projectile can hit from a longer range than indicated. However, if cast from longer range, it will not track and you will not fully teleport to the target.”

Need to look further back when Dark Path had a range of only 900 and did not reliably teleport the necro the full 900 range. Though I may have overstated the case from a strictly mathematical perspective, we were at one time limited to a 900 range teleport that rarely succeeded in teleporting that full distance.

With the recent increase to 1200 range combined with the improved reliability of the teleport to it’s full range, qualitatively it feels like a much greater teleport distance. On paper it may be only a 33% increase. In practice, it’s significantly better than 33%; maybe not 100% (a doubling, as I originally stated) but certainly more than 33%.

In the interest of mathematical accuracy, though, I have edited my original post to state a 33% increase to the range.

So many souls, so little time. ~ Kraag Deadsoul

(edited by Kraag Deadsoul.2789)

Locust Swarm, Snaring, and the "Vision"

in Necromancer

Posted by: War Mourner.5168

War Mourner.5168

The change to dark path is quite telling when chasing people. Although the projectile speed buff is nice, before this patch you could dark path someone in range, and it would keep homing, and travel further then 1200, as long as you stayed in range to the target. Now the projectile just vanishes after going 1200 inches. Oh well.