Upcoming Demonologist and Necromancer Improvements

Hello fellow Age of Conan players!

As was mentioned yesterday, I wanted to take the time to inform you all as to what we are currently working on in regard to the Demonologist and Necromancer classes specifically. While we are still actively looking at other class adjustments on a regular basis, these two classes are the ones with the largest number of planned improvements.

We are currently aware that both classes are having difficulties at various levels, so this first round of improvements is intended to ease the leveling process in addition to increasing the general fun-factor of normal gameplay.

Please note, all these adjustments will be reviewed after testing to determine if additional alterations are needed. So, with that in mind, this list is subject to change.

Demonologists

• The duration of Protection of Set will be substantially increased.
• The maximum damage absorbed before Protection of Set fails will be increased to be more in line with damage dealt in leveling scenarios. Additional survivability increases are also being evaluated.
• Players will gain a visible debuff to indicate when Protection of Set has run out of absorbable damage.
• The base splash damage dealt by Fires of Gehenna, Hellfire Stream, Shockstrike, and Shock will be substantially increased.
• The amount of damage dealt by most damage sources will be reevaluated.
• The cooldown of Inferno of Ahmner and Shockblast will be reduced to 2.5 seconds to match the casting time of Fires of Gehenna and Shockstrike.
• The Archmage feat will be moved to tier 2 instead of tier 3 in the Mage general tree to make it more easily accessible to varying builds.
• All crowd control will have a significantly reduced chance to break from damage dealt by pets.
• Fiery Torment (Rank 1) will be introduced at level 30 instead of level 45.
• The casting time of certain long-duration buffs will be reduced.
• The run speed of pets will be increased significantly.
• Various bugfixes and alterations to existing feats and abilities; for example, decreasing the casting time of Detonation.

Necromancers

• The duration of Runed Flesh will be substantially increased.
• The maximum damage absorbed before Runed Flesh fails will be increased to be more in line with damage dealt in leveling scenarios. Additional survivability increases are also being evaluated.
• Players will gain a visible debuff to indicate when Runed Flesh has run out of absorbable damage.
• The mana cost of all ranks of spells will be significantly reduced.
• The damage dealt by Necromancer nukes will be reviewed and the amount inflicted and duration may be increased on specific ranks and spells.
• The base splash damage on core Necromancer single-target spells will be added or increased.
• The amount of periodic damage affected by absorb shields in PvP will be reviewed.
• All crowd control will have a significantly reduced chance to break from damage dealt by pets.
• The Archmage feat will be moved to tier 2 instead of tier 3 in the Mage general tree to make it more easily accessible to varying builds.
• The casting time of certain long-duration buffs will be reduced.
• The run speed of pets will be increased significantly.
• Some issues in regard to melee pets having difficulties following moving NPCs will be improved.
• Various bugfixes and alterations to existing feats and abilities.

In addition to this list of changes, we are looking at the technical issues that currently limit pets from zoning with players. We are actively working on a solution to issue; however, it will be addressed in a future patch beyond the changes listed above. Additional changes in regard to the way periodic damage applies to breakable crowd control are also being evaluated.

Hopefully this gives you some insight into some of the many changes we have planned for the near future! We look forward to hearing your feedback on these changes and also the continued state of these and all other classes. As mentioned in my previous post, we regularly read the sticky feedback threads in all class forums and very much appreciate the reports of issues with the various classes.

Thanks for reading!

As a follow-up to these notes, I would like to also mention a significant change in the works as to how pets are introduced into the toolset and progression of the Necromancer class.

The balance and progression of the class is being altered to introduce 2 pet points every 5 levels after level 5, resulting in all 8 base pet points being available at level 20 instead of at level 70. Given the importance of pet damage in the overall design of the Necromancer class, we feel that this will introduce lower-level players to the nature of the class in a better way.

Due to this, all Necromancer damage spells will be completely rebalanced post-20 to consider the new percentage of damage intended to come from pets. We will also be making Despoil the Soul in the Nightfall tree available at a much earlier level for those who wish to shift focus somewhat from pet damage to direct damage.

Additionally, the Nightfall tree with receive significant structuring adjustments given this change to the introduction of more pet points at an earlier level.

These alterations will take place in a series of steps due to the large nature of the changes, with most due to be put in place gradually over the next week or two.