Idea more necro stuff (rework) ft. Jake Paul

Very in-depth! I like it.



I have a few questions. These are mostly for clarification, just because there seem to be a few gaps that I'd like to clean up for the sake of my own understanding.

Does this mean every 4th attack (i.e. attack #1, 4, 7, etc.)? Does this only apply to a single target or to whichever target happens to take said 4th attack (i.e. can you hit someone to get the buff then hit someone else?). Also, and I know this has to do with the soul siphon ability you mentioned later, but does the bonus damage increase every 4th attack (as mentioned above), or does it only increase when used within the context of soul siphon?

I'm just going to assume this means that the soul sand has some sort of set travel time or input delay, because otherwise there would be no possible way to "escape beforehand," because you'd just end up trapped immediately. I'd really like to see it go forward like a projectile—so that it proceeds like a wave and makes it so that the necro's stun is easier to hit at close range (while also being riskier due to the close-combat nature of nearly every other class).

Does it deal knockback? This is very relevant to the balance of the ability. Every other class with a longer range knockback ability uses it to vastly improve its chances in PvP: archer's bow, chemist's damage pots, ninja's eggs, etc.

I'm assuming this means the cap starts at 2 and can be increased up to 4, yes? If so, very nice synergy with the passive and soul siphon.



I have some concerns, too, if you don't mind.

If we simplify this to remove variables such as whether an enemy decides to kill the Necrosoldiers, this is 60% uptime on a single Necrosoldier. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but considering that the ability synergizes so well with almost all of the other tools available to the Necro, it seems incredibly dangerous. If you put this in different terms, it seems very very powerful: I see this as a passive that isn't active for 2 seconds every 5 seconds. In those terms, it's like a damage reduction that exists 60% of the time, in addition to increasing the potency of Necro's already existing passive, and if the mob deals knockback as well, it even helps with PvP.
This brings up a conceptual conflict, as well. Considering the support for an additional Necrosoldier, as well as 2 extras with the help of soul siphon's synergy, it seems odd that it would disappear before the ability comes off cooldown at all.
A simple solution is to make the Necrosoldiers less powerful overall, but allow for higher uptime by giving it "charges" that regenerate (as opposed to a cooldown), similar to medic webs. This means that there's more room to decide how to use them, and also allows for potentially powerful plays at the cost of not having a Necrosoldier off cooldown when you might need it. If, for example, you change the damage reduction to 20% per Necrosoldier, you can have 3 at once and only take 40% damage. On the other hand, you won't have them available later for more reactive plays, and as such it allows for a lot more depth.

One general concern I have is that Necro right now seems very powerful in terms of its role flexibility.

By this I mean that Necro in this iteration has a lot of synergy with its passive in addition to having other independent abilities that require no mixed synergy.
For example, the combination of the narrow corridor ability and realm of death ability seems powerful. They also don't make use of the passive or the other two abilities. In turn, the passive, soul siphon, and necrosoldier abilities don't synergize with the aforementioned two abilities.
That isn't to say some classes can't be generic or flexible, but the result is two overwhelming complex (and powerful!) ideas that seem to give necro an identity crisis.
If the idea is to allow necro to make use of crowd control, like you said, that's fine, and the two abilities I mentioned earlier seem to do that well. If necro's purpose for you is to stack benefits on kills, then by all means, try your hardest to balance a snowballing mechanic. But a class with two separate focuses will always be extremely difficult to balance, understand, and play effectively.
It's important to note that any class with an extreme level of flexibility is a must-have except in extreme cases. (Buffed heavy on any map that isn't heavily soldier biased. Medic literally everywhere because it works literally everywhere, not to mention being the only major support. You get the point.) So to effectively balance this rework in terms of flexibility, I'd personally focus on a single aspect to explore further, then make that more powerful overall and also refine it so that it has room for misplays and smart plays.



Sorry this reply was so long; I spent an hour and a half making sure I got my ideas out. If anything, it just means your rework is so in-depth and detailed and thought-out that I had to write all this just to address a few points, and that's definitely not a bad thing!
If I got anything wrong, or if you disagree with point I made, please feel free to let me know.

 

Seems like a very interesting CC idea.
I don't know how you'll go about it, but it's interesting to note that if you only do swords, the power level of mage stays the same, while archer is still slightly able to defend itself.

Sorry for the long response last time, I kept it brief this time, just for you. <3