Here's an early look at the Necromancer Ascendancy in Path of Exile: Blight

"

Nephalim wrote:

Is this good? I really have never played a necro.

It depends on the last piece of the puzzle, the passive tree, but yea, i think it is insane in the current PoE.

Being able to raise lv 91(!) Spectres that scale off of your minion stuff, compared to lv 84 Spectres right now (which already tore apart many if not all content) coupled with "better" minion AI should be bonkers.
League isnt out yet and i dont know more than any of us here, but im no longer afraid that spectres will fall behind. On the contrary tbh...

Other than that you can play a corpse-using caster now and i think Necro has more defensive options than before.

LOL. Normally this would be a news post, but they had to put it here in General Discussion to try to counteract the alpha leak thread.

"

The_Scourge wrote:

LOL. Normally this would be a news post, but they had to put it here in General Discussion to try to counteract the alpha leak thread.

GGG have always done this in the General discussion

Glad to see Charan logic and spite on full force again.

Reminds me of bestiary league release.

Peace,

-Boem-

"

DarkJen wrote:

"

Boem wrote:

"

DarkJen wrote:

But how about -100% damage?

Baseline gem has 2 spectres instead of 1.

So thats 100% more right there, becomes less the more you invest in it but still overall +1 spectre in the mix.

So its just a change to +1 spectre but for price of -100% dmg to all your spectres instead?

Let me put this into better perspective.

My Legion summoner currently has 530% increased minion damage as I'm using a hubris jewel (which is not particularly hard to get, it's just two 80% nodes).

The spectre node adds 100% increased damage, which is about 18% more damage for me. This is the same as +3 levels. Not to mention the other acendancy node adds 10% more damage, which is the same as 53% increased spectre damage for me.

There's also subtle changes as well.

Offerings are getting unnerfed.

the 5% increased aura effect is actually very impactful for reaching purity's 8% max resist and saves a lot of travel nodes and/or gem slot.

You can drop commander of darkness and still use the same unique items without having to give one up for a rare item with resists.

And in terms of just plain raw damage output. +2 gem levels is about 25% more damage for most minion skills (except spectre, which is half at ~13%). that combines with the other 10% more damage to make all minions considerably stronger than they used to be. These are *MORE* multipliers people.

Aura builds are getting made stronger since you can pick up the notable at the bottom of the tree which was pretty much reserved for aurabots previously. That's not specifically related to Necromancer, but it's another buff to the build as will let some use an extra aura (if you have a gem slot free...)

"

DemigodParadox wrote:

"

GoldDragon32 wrote:

OMG, you're right, those Auras you reserve mana on do affect your minions - Which is totally different then how Auras affect minions as a Necromancer, thanks for asking me to think about that!

OK, sure, fine, the small passives of Guardian can give your auras 10% increased aura affect, I guess that's something. Not something I'd ever consider remotely competative with what Necromancer does for minions, but it's "something".

I just dont see how Guardian competes with Necromancer for any minion build other then Herald of Purity. It does so little for minions, while Necromancer still has a lot of pretty powerful minion stuff in it. With the possible exception of Specter builds, it seems stronger then the current necromancer to me. I'm especially excited to see Mistress getting it's self-offering penalty halved.

Guardian can get many more auras going than Necromancer can. Look up "Aura Bot".

Huh, that's wierd.... cuz when I look at Guardian, I see them getting some bonuses for running auras, but I don't see any reduced mana reservation in the ascendancy itself, or anything else that actually lets them run more auras then the Necromancer can. If I'm overlooking something, please do enlighten me, but while I'm well aware that Aurabots as a build concept are a thing, I don't see any reason why a Necromancer can't run just as many auras as a Guardian if it for some reason wanted to and invest equally into non-ascendancy sources of reduced reservation costs - while also having way more powerful enhancements to it's minions.

Guardian does get some bonuses as an aura bot that is very powerful to other players (things that mostly boost survivability - ie, the added ES/armour from reserving, or damage reduction per aura); but nothing that really makes them stand out to me as a competative minion build versus necromancers.

Guardian is more about making *you* tankier so you survive better rather than buffing you minions (it's nice for them too though).

Beyond a certain point there's no point piling on more damage, so better to pile on survivability at that point.

@GGG please clarify what "nearby" means for plaguebearer. How close is "nearby" and does it mean only the player needs to be near a corpse and things near the player gain the bonus, or does it mean your minions need ot be near a corpse and you dont have to be? nearbyception is now a thing.

Alright I firstly I am a lover of non minion necro and love these changes but I think this is ridiculous

Base cast speed +191% -> +650% cast speed is Approximately 150 corpses consumed recently (average 75 corpses consumed in the past 2 seconds) = 600% mana and es regenerated over 2 seconds or 300% mana and energy shield regenerated per second

If left unchanged I would love it since I love acceleration necros. Honestly don't even want to post this since maybe it would go under the radar... and I would so love to do this.

^^ um, can you explain whats going on in that vid, do they have 150 or 650% cast speed?

IIRC, Level 4 Empower is like, the equivalent of around +35% more minion damage and +35% more minion life. And higher base accuracy.

(Half that for Spectres of course since they only gain +1 monster level per gem level instead of +2)