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Date:    2020 Apr 25 06:46
From:    almaric
Subject: necro minion viability
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*repost of post 697, but for everyone to see* 
Hi coders,
to start this off: What I'm saying or proposing comes from someone who
played necro in low-, mid,- and highlevels. Of course, what I'm saying is
biased in a way how a necro would want it to be.  All playstyles tend to
scream at some point that in this or that manner they're disadvantaged in
comparison to another playing style. Normally, we just pick out one thing
and lose the view for all other things: I've no idea if we Germans invented
the term 'cherrypicking', if so, it's a great term describing what I just
said. I'm trying to not do any cherrypicking here :)
This point came up probably 100 times in the past:  Necros wanting to untie
their minions power from the 'current castlevel they're wearing' but too
'the castlevel they had as they raised it' .
It does totally make sense for the animation spellgroup (claymen, woads,
usw), to tie it to the current cast level: There is a constant mana flow
(although very little) required to keep the minion alive.  I understand
castlevel as 'increasing the energy conversion efficiency' from a mana
point: The more castlevel, the more you can make out of one mana. If
viewing clev as this, and mana as some form of energy, tying the animation
spellgroup minions to the current necromancer castlevel makes absolutely
sense. Druidic earth walls and shambling mounts (and I think water weirds
as well), work the same way.
Then, we have the demon familiar. As far as I can tell, it's bonuses
granted and it's stats, hp, etc., are measured in a combination out of
soulstone level, skill knowledge, and castlevel at the time of summoning.
As they don't drain mana, this would make sense.  It works the same with
druidic animals: If you are strong enough to call a powerful animal, why
should it become weaker only because you'd be able to send out less
powerful calls? The same applies to cleric minions, as far as I can tell.
Raised undead require soulstones. The higher your skill knowledge and, more
importantly, your castlevel in the process of raising them is, the more
soulstones you can bind to them. The more soulstones bound, the more
powerful your raised undead afterwards. (Technically soul stone level
matters.)  As far as I know, raised undeads don't need any constant mana
flow to maintain them. This could be probably compared to the mechanics
behind demon familiar.
However, they scale with the currently worn cast level, but not entirely:
The castlevel I wore when creating them does in a way determine their
maximum power (as this limits the souls I can bind to them before raising
it) . When I reduce my worn castlevel after raising, they get  weaker. Why
though? This behavior seems quite inconsistent compared to how druidic
animals or cleric incarnates (even mage elementals, that needs to be
discussed later though) work.
This behavior makes sense from a historic perspective: Necro was the first
class introduced being able to make any relevant minions themselves. The
power of minions made in full necrocast remaining although the caster could
switch into a totally different set seemed scary, unimaginable, and
overpowered.
This is long ago, though. As we can see in druids, clerics, and partly
mages. Warrior clerics can be played quite well with their divine minions,
as can warrior druids or even mage druids for those not wanting to stick to
mage elementals. Warrmages with an ice elemental tanking for them can be
seen quite frequently, too. All of them create their minions in their
castlevel sets, then change into another sets, e.g.  their hit set, as
minions won't lose power. I have no idea if all this is considered to be
balanced, but if not, we've a lot to fix  ) - 
Because of the points mentioned I suggest to remove necro undead minions
scaling with the currently worn cast level and instead make it somewhat how
demon familiar, druidic animals, etc work. I'd be pleased to hear anything
from you, no matter if agreement or rejection.
I've purposely not covered the skeletal minions of necros and mage
elementals: Skeletal minions scale with the worn necroclev only  clev of
creation doesn't matter. I've no idea what ideas are behind dental magics. 
One could argue that, as they don't heal and therefore don't change, they
should also rather only scale with castlevel at the point of creation, but
then I havn't looked into this yet and therefore havn't thought this out.
Mage elementals are weird in a sense as they don't take mana to be
maintained (making them like druidic animals or demon familiars), but then
in fact require mana to regen. I have not checked wether their amount of
regen scales with worn magecast. If not, it should. Probably, their max  hp
scaling with castlevel at the moment of creation could be stringent as you
'temporarily'  open a gate to the plane of whatever element. I've not
covered the skyfall minion of druid as well because I lack any experience
with it. Shadow fiends scale with necro level as far as I remember and have
been left out because of this.
Stay healthy,
alma


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