So the post by Eudessa about the time commitment per login for a necromancer got me thinking. The mechanics of animate dead are rather difficult to balance across both the mid ranks and hero ranks because you can end up with a similar strength army at level 30 as you can at level 47.

Currently the limiting factor is time/challenge to build up a full army. Availability of high level corpses is sort of a limiting factor but there are enough ways to cheese high level corpses either by exploiting area/mob mechanics, using a full army to harvest high level corpses to embalm, or by getting hero help that it isn't that limiting.

Because the big challenge is the level 30 necro with level 60 zombies why don't we make zombie level as well as army count a factor in determining the re-use timer of animate dead.

For instance if the corpse is Character level + 8 or lower (ie mobs a char could reasonably get solo or in a ranking group) maybe the re-use timer is cut in half. So a level 30 necro can use level 30 corpses to get a full army quick or they can use hero corpses and get it slow.

A secondary factor could include number of zombies in army, so if you are level 40 (you can have 4 zombies) the first one you raise will give you 25% of standard timer, the second 50%, the third and fourth 100%.

From my own experience you really <NEED> 2 zombies to start running around productively so it should be reasonable to do a 40 minute login and have 2 zombies 15 minutes into it, giving you 25 minutes to be more active in the PvP arena.

I realize this got rambly but if you implement these changes I think it will incentivize people to actually use mid level mobs for zombies because you could get an army of 5 in 25 minutes instead of 2 hours and the strength of the army would be relative to how long it took to build it.

With something like this in place you could even throw on a deny enemy summoning affect on zombies that are either made from PC corpses or are lower level than the necro to add further utility. This would give necromancers more options when a lot of goody summoners are active and bored but would still keep them from being way overpowered compared to people they can engage in PvP.

If they want the super army the option is still there it is just more of time sink to get there and the more casual player can get more milage from the class.

I don't think this needs changing.

Cf is a social game.
Number of active players is on the decline
Most people play .5-2 hours a login
Full army takes over an hour to make
2 zombie army (smallest needed to do stuff) takes about 20-30 minutes unless you do stuff like stock corpses in sacks.

Having a class where you are going to spend 20% or more of EVERY login sitting in a remote place just to fully participate reduces their level of interaction with other players.

The changes I proposed would leave the current method of army raising mostly the same but gives the option to the more casual player to just keep building the army as they go and get out interacting for a higher % of their time.

Everyone wins.

I would argue this is different then skill spamming because eventually you finish skills but animating goes on forever

I don't have a problem with time constraint on raising zombies, it's something you know is coming even before you start a necro.

Heck I would be happy if there was a way to order all.zombie rescue {Necro Douche} or make it so you don't have to wait so long after trying to make a single zombie rescue. I find that when you order a single zombie to rescue and it fails you end up spamming it for a one or two rounds of combat before it even attempts again (and it can fail more than once). It would be easier then having to order all and taking the chance that is your golem or greater undead that gets in there and not a zombie, they tend to get tore up pretty quick against --->SOME<--- but not all classes or weapon types.

It's when this fails and you have to run off then your whole army gets destroyed and you have to start up again from scratch that the time sink of raising dead starts to grate on your nerves a bit.

Either way I find that playing a necromancer is a good switch for me and I find myself enjoying myself more and more than my past few characters. It's definitely a class to figure out the ins and outs of to succeed. There very well may be ways around these problems, I just don't know of them if there are. Is there already such a command type? I've tried out a few different syntaxes that I could think off but didn't come up with anything that succeeded. I generally order a single zombie or order the whole fleet to engage operation "stinky meatshield."

People think you're weak without them so they aren't afraid to fight.

Sadly this only lasts 1-2 pks.

No zombies: you fail sleep. If their lag attempt works you die, if not you flee with around 1% health.

Zombies: you fail sleep. If their lag attempt fails, you get to be rescued, then fail blindness and die 2-3 rounds later than otherwise.

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To have the zombies start the attacks. I'm guessing that is possible. Never tried another necro again to confirm the possibility.

There is, you can order your zombies to 'hit' things, but I am not sure if it works in PK I've not tried, I was speaking more of order all.zombie in the sense of getting rescue when your not the one to initiate the combat.

It can be difficult to get off a rescue/blind or flee/sleep. That's the way nercos are though I think. Sleep without someone to rescue you or help you (especially once you have scourge) is pretty much an I win unless you totally are not paying attention or that one %1 chance they get to run & quaff teleport which thankfully is now still a win for necros.