[Feedback Megathread]: Undead Stream Expansion

[Scylon]

AB: I've been able to push the Beast to 45AB and abomination to 49AB just with empowered bull's strength and NE burst on a CL27 ESF:necro. Then again we're comparing 5 APR here vs 9 APR at 42AB from PC, so maybe it's not that OP.

We tested this is a straight up PC vs beast. PC won, but barely. Also, if the beast targets the white one 1st it won. I wager though if we used full buffs on both it might have had different results.

[Subtext]

I am not sure how I feel about having summons out there that can put player characters to shame in regards to things like AB...

[In Sorrow We Trust]

I am not sure how I feel about having summons out there that can put player characters to shame in regards to things like AB...

Reality is that player numbers are more often than not required to hit things at endgame, and likewise not to be hit as often.

[Xerah]

Level 17 using palemaster greater undead summon gives Summoned Banshee + Summoned Spectral Lyrist.

EXP went from 15 on Malar hunters to 2

[kinginyellow]

So, this is kind of unrelated to this thread, since it's not about PC use of the undead stream, but rather NPC use.

Some writs have had their difficulty spike significantly since they have NPCs in them that use animate dead. Two I can think of are the Slaver's Tower in the Underdark and Cordor Crypts.

Cordor Crypts for example will have cultist necromancers (who self buff with haste and shield, so if you can't kill them fast enough at low level you're going to struggle to afterwards) who will then summon a zombie rothead with 21 AB that can crit for 40 damage.

Dunno if anyone's brought it up yet, but some of the npcs that summon undead might need a looking at. I was doing crypts with a PC that even had Improved Turning and turn undead didn't help.

[Twohand]

So, this is kind of unrelated to this thread, since it's not about PC use of the undead stream, but rather NPC use.

Some writs have had their difficulty spike significantly since they have NPCs in them that use animate dead. Two I can think of are the Slaver's Tower in the Underdark and Cordor Crypts.

Cordor Crypts for example will have cultist necromancers (who self buff with haste and shield, so if you can't kill them fast enough at low level you're going to struggle to afterwards) who will then summon a zombie rothead with 21 AB that can crit for 40 damage.

Dunno if anyone's brought it up yet, but some of the npcs that summon undead might need a looking at. I was doing crypts with a PC that even had Improved Turning and turn undead didn't help.

You will find necromancer NPCs summoning undead of appropriate level since the last reset one hour ago. If that's not the case, let me know.

[Rei_Jin]

Been gathering the streams and poking around. So far I have ten streams, but cannot find skeleton, and no-one I've spoken to has found it either.

Just checking if there's been something happen that that stream is not currently discoverable through loot-table prisms?

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Been gathering the streams and poking around. So far I have ten streams, but cannot find skeleton, and no-one I've spoken to has found it either.

Just checking if there's been something happen that that stream is not currently discoverable through loot-table prisms?

It's certainly in the game. I've seen people use it.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

So going over where the Undead is floating (because I just love this update ) I wanted to give a basic thought on each one:

Abomination - Tank and spank, High damage and HP/reduction
- This guy I feel is spot on? Does the job good, doesn't feel OP due to the fact it is slow and can be killed quickely.

Beast - Tank and spank, Highest damage and defences
- This one still needs to be toned down. It is the new PC and will beat anything in a fight. Needs less conceal overall. Like half.

Drowned - Mid damage/defence
- This one is in the middle for offence and defence. Works well for what it is.

Ghost - Mid to high damage/debuff/casting and high defence
Feedback - This one is rather strong and needs to be tweked. I think maybe this should be a casting/ranged stream with debuffs?

Ghoul - High DPS/Low defence
Feedback - I think this should have even lower defence and a bit more AB. a fire and forget stream that can can be killed quick.

Mummies - Low DPS/High defence
Feedback - This one is kind of spot on. its basicly where it was before + a better spell on the t7.

Skeleton - Low Damage/Low Defence
Feedback - This one just sucked. They are weak and do very little damage. I think they need more AB and more damage, especially on the archer. Thinking like a longer sustain ghoul without the speed or big hits.

Vampires - Medium damage/defence and ok sustain
Feedback - This one is "ok"ish but I feel it isn't a good choice because it needs knockdown or something.

Wights - High damage/medium defences and debuffer
Feedback - This one probably also could stand for a defence nerf. its damage is really good, with knockdown and 2 on hit debuffs. maybe transfer its knockdown to the vampire. The T7 even has an AoE damage aura.

Wraith - Low damage/medium defence.
Feedback - I think these guys could stand to have more sneak attack to find their neish. Other then that, I have found them to be ok at the job the do, but they do feel like a sneak attack critter.

Zombies - Med damage/defence
Feedback - These guys are spot on. they have decent offence and defence. Not as good as mummy, but pump more damage.

Adjustments have been made based on some of this feedback. Feel free to keep in touch about how the Summons feel now.

[Scylon]

Howdy,

I have noted these are not on the test server yet? EG vampire doesn't have KD.

(sorry, been a bit busy this weekend)

[Xerah]

I’ve been testing out the zombie ones and they seem great. Shaman, so stone bones, prot from from spells, AoV, mass haste + arcane sequencer makes them pretty great (though not immortal). Did the starter shadow writs and the entire formain writs (including the queen; which was a mess).

I haven’t tried the others since these fit the RP and have worked great but I will test out the beast one soon.

[Scylon]

Evening,

Sorry, i had a busy weekend and didn't get a chance to sit and play. Also, test server was awaiting these updates.

I have taken the changes for a bit of a flogging and asked around. Still a little more testing to go, but initial results are:

Beast - Maybe a little more toning down? Not 100% on that. But losing base conceal is good as it was a monster before. This is based a lot on it vs PC which I'd say should be bright in line with this and abom somehow.

Drowned - No changes, still good.

Ghost - Good. Spell seems to fire ok.

Ghoul - Good and squishy. As the lord intended. Maybe needs a bit more squishy? These are fast hunt em down pets.

Mummies - No change, still good for what it is.

Skeleton - Fantastic. One of the best now. I was originally thinking maybe cleave on the melees? But the archers make me say no.

Vampires - A solid sustain stream. Hits good and backs up the caster well. 2 Blood knights is probably my preferred stream.

Wights - Good as before. nerf to KD was needed as the IKD was over kill on these guys.

Wraith - These are also fantastic. They are able to "stack" upping their kill power and make good use of the sneak attack. Hard call between them and skellys.

Zombies - Still good at what they do.

It feels like each stream fills a particular role. Beasts and Aboms are your heavy hitters, or quad summons for quantity over quality, with the 2 and 3 filling little differences between each other.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Evening,

Sorry, i had a busy weekend and didn't get a chance to sit and play. Also, test server was awaiting these updates.

I have taken the changes for a bit of a flogging and asked around. Still a little more testing to go, but initial results are:

Beast - Maybe a little more toning down? Not 100% on that. But losing base conceal is good as it was a monster before. This is based a lot on it vs PC which I'd say should be bright in line with this and abom somehow.

Drowned - No changes, still good.

Ghost - Good. Spell seems to fire ok.

Ghoul - Good and squishy. As the lord intended. Maybe needs a bit more squishy? These are fast hunt em down pets.

Mummies - No change, still good for what it is.

Skeleton - Fantastic. One of the best now. I was originally thinking maybe cleave on the melees? But the archers make me say no.

Vampires - A solid sustain stream. Hits good and backs up the caster well. 2 Blood knights is probably my preferred stream.

Wights - Good as before. nerf to KD was needed as the IKD was over kill on these guys.

Wraith - These are also fantastic. They are able to "stack" upping their kill power and make good use of the sneak attack. Hard call between them and skellys.

Zombies - Still good at what they do.

It feels like each stream fills a particular role. Beasts and Aboms are your heavy hitters, or quad summons for quantity over quality, with the 2 and 3 filling little differences between each other.

Thanks, gonna see how things feel for a while before I make any further adjustments. Very helpful though.

[God_In_Action]

So, this is kind of unrelated to this thread, since it's not about PC use of the undead stream, but rather NPC use.

Some writs have had their difficulty spike significantly since they have NPCs in them that use animate dead. Two I can think of are the Slaver's Tower in the Underdark and Cordor Crypts.

Cordor Crypts for example will have cultist necromancers (who self buff with haste and shield, so if you can't kill them fast enough at low level you're going to struggle to afterwards) who will then summon a zombie rothead with 21 AB that can crit for 40 damage.

Dunno if anyone's brought it up yet, but some of the npcs that summon undead might need a looking at. I was doing crypts with a PC that even had Improved Turning and turn undead didn't help.

You will find necromancer NPCs summoning undead of appropriate level since the last reset one hour ago. If that's not the case, let me know.

I think it's considered level appropriate, but the Cloakers in the Cloaker Spiral are summoning Orb Wraiths. Is that intended?

[Twohand]

I think it's considered level appropriate, but the Cloakers in the Cloaker Spiral are summoning Orb Wraiths. Is that intended?

There's several Cloaker types, do you know which of them summoned the Orb Wraiths?

[God_In_Action]

I think it's considered level appropriate, but the Cloakers in the Cloaker Spiral are summoning Orb Wraiths. Is that intended?

There's several Cloaker types, do you know which of them summoned the Orb Wraiths?

It was actually the large shadow gargoyle creatures, the Shadow Hunters, or Shadowhaunt somethings? Sorry, I'll have to get the exact name tomorrow when I'm back playing.

[xf1313]

Will the t6/7 undeads receive epic caster bonus in future? Just comes to my mind when I discuss undead builds with people.

[Twohand]

It was actually the large shadow gargoyle creatures, the Shadow Hunters, or Shadowhaunt somethings? Sorry, I'll have to get the exact name tomorrow when I'm back playing.

I've nerfed the undead summon tier of the Nighthaunt, it'll go online soon.

[-XXX-]

Skeleton stream:

Is there any way of making the numbers of ranged and melee skeletal champions that you get fixed?
Right now you get a random mix of skeletal champions and skeletal archer champions, which is a little awkward.

The "After two Melee spawns, 50% chance of being Archer" doesn't seem to work; I had MD and Summon Greater Undead castings where I got 3 archers repeatedly.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

Skeleton stream:

Is there any way of making the numbers of ranged and melee skeletal champions that you get fixed?
Right now you get a random mix of skeletal champions and skeletal archer champions, which is a little awkward.

The "After two Melee spawns, 50% chance of being Archer" doesn't seem to work; I had MD and Summon Greater Undead castings where I got 3 archers repeatedly.

That is extremely rare. I'll have to tweak the chances.

[God_In_Action]

It was actually the large shadow gargoyle creatures, the Shadow Hunters, or Shadowhaunt somethings? Sorry, I'll have to get the exact name tomorrow when I'm back playing.

I've nerfed the undead summon tier of the Nighthaunt, it'll go online soon.

Not sure what 'soon' means (probably Soon™ which is fair enough) but as of the reset today they're still summoning Orb Wraiths FYI.

[Arienette]

I am not sure how I feel about having summons out there that can put player characters to shame in regards to things like AB...

Reality is that player numbers are more often than not required to hit things at endgame, and likewise not to be hit as often.

This is totally true.

But if you had asked me to make a prediction a couple months ago, I would have though that top tier summons were going to be tuned down so that they are useful as a leveling tool and as a method of support in endgame PvE, instead of as a replacement for melee PCs in a party.

[Twohand]

Not sure what 'soon' means (probably Soon™ which is fair enough) but as of the reset today they're still summoning Orb Wraiths FYI.

The 'when' is beyond my pay grade, but the tweak is ready and in the pipeline.

[God_In_Action]

Adjustments have been made based on some of this feedback. Feel free to keep in touch about how the Summons feel now.

I've put some graphs together to help provide more detailed feedback and hopefully show whether the various streams each have their own niche that they're good for.

Method
Think Top Trumps with Undead Streams.

I've taken the stats for each stream from wiki and compared each stream. Unfortunately any errors in the wiki are in the graphs here, because I don't have the time to double-check their in-game stats. I've taken a casting of Mummy Dust summoning T6 as the comparison, i.e. no undead specialist to summon T7, as that creates a level playing field on which to compare the streams without accounting how an Undead spcialist might sometimes summon better than the standard summons.

I've then picked stats to compare each stream using spider graphs. They are made comparable by measuring them against the best stat which any stream has. For example. a T6 Abomination has 756 HP which is the most out of all streams, there it is the 100% baseline when comparing HP. A T6 Beast Revenant has 644, or 85% of best HP (i.e. the Abomination's). Similarly, the Beast Revnant has the best AB of 32, which makes the Abomination's 31 sit at 97%. (All comparisons percentages are round to whole numers). This means I take it that the Beast Revenant's HP is 85% as good as the Abomination's. By doing this for all the stats and characteristics that we can put onto a spider graph for each stream, we can begin to see how each stream may have more strengths compared to the others, or how some streams may need a buff across the board. The idea is that if a stream has too few low percentages across the various compared stats and nothing to compensate, it's probably too weak.

To compare fairly since the streams summon different numbers of undead, we need either to compare like-for-like of numbers of undead summoned (i.e. Wraiths vs Skeletons), or to multiply the numbers of the weaker but more numerous streams (i.e. Skeleton Average Dmg x4 to make it comparable to a single Abomination). However, there are some streams which have different numbers but which I think still fill similar niches, specifically Wraiths vs Ghouls which summon 4 and 3 undead, but are both high damage, fast, squishy fire-and-forget streams.

The stats compare are below. The highest stat for each stream is treated as the baseline for comparison of 100% score for that stat. I'll explain the method for each one:

Number - The number of undead summoned.

HP - The amount of HP per summon.

AC - The AC.

APR - The APR per summon.

AB - The AB

Enhancement - The Enhancement modifier of it's attacks

Avg Dmg - A simple average damage of it's attacks. Where a Stream has sneak damage, I've include this except for one of the summoned creatures, because I assume that all the summons will target down one enemy and that one of the summons will be drawing aggro and therefore not be flanking to get the bonus. For example, Wraiths get 1d6 sneak damage each and there are four of them, so I've included 3d6 sneak in their average. On the other hand, the Beast Revenant doesn't include 1d6 sneak because there is only one of it, and is assumed to be drawing aggro. (But it is included elsewhere in the comparison, see 'Qualitative' below)

Movement - The best movement speed of 120% for the fast streams is taken as a basline. Therefore normal (100% of PC speed) counts as 83% for comparison purposes).

Phys Dmg Immunity - This is more complicated since there are different damage type. The best possible immunity is 25% immunity to all 3 physical damage types and that is therefore the 100% baseline and best possible score. That 100% is then shared equally between each damage type, such that 25% immunity to piercing would contribute a score of 33%. Antyhing less than 25% immunity is therefore a proportion of the 1/3rd towards the total maximum. (100% = 25% immunity to each dmg type, i.e. 100% is divided into 3 portions of 33% each, one for each damage type, with 25% immunity being the maximum for each portion. Thus 10% bludgeoning immunity = 40% of the 1/3 portion (33%) of the maximum 100% score of 25% immunity to all types).

Dmg reduction - Sadly this one had to be even more complicated since it uses both reduction amount and enhancement immunity. The best reduction amount is 15/, and the best enhancement immunity is /+5. The 100% baseline and best possible score is therefore 15/+5. That 100% is subdivided into 20% portions, for each level of enhancement immunity. If you don't have the top level of enhancement immunity, you won't score that 20%, i.e. 15/+4 DR = a score of 80%, or in other words it's 80% as good as 15/+5. Since there are 3 amounts of DR (5/, 10/ and 15/) It is further divided into 3 for each 5/ of damage reduction. Therefore 10/+4 is 66.7% of 80% of the maximum potential 100% baseline. I hope that makes sense because this is the most complicated of the stats, and is the best I could come up with to make it possible to compare how good 2 variables (e.g. simultaneously compare 10/+4 vs 15/+5).

Concealment - How much concealment it has.


Regen - How much Regeneration per round it has (Vampiric Regen is not included here since it depends on things I can't model, like how many attacks hit. It is included in Qualitative, see below).


Qualitative - This category includes everything which isn't a simple numerical value. I have taken every feat, ability, elemental immunity, on-hit effect, etc. (literally anything that the stream has, including Vampiric Regen, and 1d6 Sneak attack for the Beast Revenant), which I perceive to offer any sort of combat utility and included it here. Things like Keen Senses or Dodge are not included. This category includes anything which is hard to quantify, or only situationally relevant. For everything single trait which it has, it gets 1 point, with the Ghouls having the most of 8 traits (Elemental Damage mitigations, Improved Knockdown, Cleave, Improved Critical, Blind Fight, Evasion, OnHit: Ghoul Rot, OnHit: Wounding) and therefore forming the 100% baseline score of 8 useful traits. Elemental damage vulnerabilities count as a negative, and reduce the points by 1 (e.g. Mummies, which have Knockdown, Blind Fight, Aura of Fright and OnHit: Mummy Rot but also have Elemental Damage vulnerabilites so earn 3 points, or 38% of the baseline 8 points for ghouls). Aura of Tyrantfog is included in Qualitative, not damage, because the HD of each stream isn't listed on the wiki, but those with it do have better damage than shown.

The Qualitative traits are as follows:

Qualitative
1. Abomination - 7 88%- Large Creature, Aura of Tyrantfog, OnHit: Burrow Maggots, Great Cleave, Improved Knockdown, Blind Fight, Elemental Damage mitigations
2. Beast Revenant - 6 75% - Elemental Damage mitigations, +10 VampRegen, Aura of Fright, OnHit: Level Drain, Knockdown, Sneak attack 1d6 (included here as only 1 summon)
3. Drowned - 5 63% - Elemental Damage mitigations, Elemental Damage vulnerabilites, Aura of Undertow, OnHit: Dread Blisters, Knockdown
4. Ghost - 4 50% - Evasion, Elemental Damage mitigations, Aura of Menace, OnHit: Level Drain
5. Ghoul - 8 100% - Elemental Damage mitigations, Improved Knockdown, Cleave, Improved Critical, Blind Fight, Evasion, OnHit: Ghoul Rot, OnHit: Wounding
6. Mummies - 3 38% - Knockdown, Blind Fight, Elemental Damage vulnerabilites, Aura of Fright, OnHit: Mummy Rot
7. Skeleton - 1 13% - Blind Fight
8. Vampires - 4 50% - Elemental Damage vulnerabilites, Evasion, VampRegen, Elemental Damage mitigations, Domination Gaze, OnHit: Constitution Drain
9. Wights - 5 63% - Improved Knockdown, Elemental Damage mitigations, Blind Fight, Elemental Damage vulnerabilites, VampRegen, OnHit: Level Drain, OnHit: Freeze
10. Wraith - 3 38% - Elemental Damage mitigations, Blind Fight, OnHit: Level Drain
11. Zombies - 3 38% - Knockdown, Blind Fight, Aura of Tyrantfog, OnHit: Zombie Creep


The Data

1x summon streams





2x summon streams







3x summon streams









4x summon streams





Analysis

1) The 1x summon streams seem in a good place. They are user friendly because they soak attacks and it's easy to command a single creature, the Abomination tanks, but the Revenant is harder to hit in the first place. Their damage seems fine to me because although high, the other streams' damage from multiple summoned creatures is higher.

2) Skeletons are very obviously the losers here. There are no stats in which they outshine the others. The Wraiths outpeform them for both DPS and survivability, and the skeletons don't even have any cool qualitative tricks up their sleeve.

3) The Wraiths seem to outperform the Ghouls. Both are squishy, but that damage of the Wraiths is even better since there are 4 of them, and they even have the excellent Concealment which the ghouls lacks. The Ghouls have some neet qualitative tricks, but ultimately On Hit effects don't matter if the enemy is dead from pure DPS anyway. I don't see a scenario in which ghouls are preferable to wraiths, which is a shame because their crawl movement is creepy and thematically beautiful.

4) The rest of the 2x and 3x summon streams all seem to be in a very good place against each other to me.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

I love these graphs. I don't think the Wiki has been updated with new changes, but it's still really cool to see.