On Wed, 15 Mar 2000, David Blank wrote:
>
> One thing to keep in mind is grouping vs solo. It is
> my belief that verant doesn't really care about
> solo'ing and they're just fine with necros being
> ridiculously overpowered for solo. In a group a necro
> has some very good utility with their recent spell
> additions but prior to that their dot's caused many a
> problem, dot bugs, stacking, etc. I do think necros
> are a good but not overpowered group memeber.
That's not exactly what I said. I wasn't commenting
specifically on their solo capability.
>> Despite all the cries of nerf from necros, necros are
>> still so overpowered compared to the other classes
>> that a single necro can do things that require several
>> L50s of other classes. It hasn't been fixed yet, so
One necro is better than a group of 2-3 L50s (maybe more,
depending on class makeup). You'd have to be a fool not to
want one in your group. Yes their DoTs don't get to last
their full duration if you kill stuff quickly, but the DoT(s)
they do manage to put on do about as much damage as 1-3 tanks.
Their pet does about that much too. I could see passing up
necros for if someone else (especially a buffer or healer)
were available, but if there's an empty slot and a necro comes
a-looking, they're in.
If you look at the formulas I whipped up for the seven-string
lute comparison, you'll see that the two primary factors in a
fight are damage rate, and survival time (rate of damage
taken). Any class who can solo well will have a very good
ratio of these two. When you group, you add your damage rate
to the group's, while your survival time is usurped by those
with the best values (tanks, pets). Neither of these
dramatically make the necro any weaker in groups. Their
primary grouped handicap is that they take a while for their
damage rate to "ramp up" and the group often ends up killing
stuff before they hit their max. Still, it can't take *that*
long to ramp up or else they'd need to have a large survival
time in order to solo, in which case they would be able to
supplant the role of tank.
In other words, "great solo, poor grouped" is a contradiction.
The worst you can get is "great solo, ok grouped."
--
John H. Kim
kim@...