At first glance the status effect “Pet Stasis” and the Necromancer class do not seem to hold much direct relation to each other.
After I explain a few thoughts or ideas I’ve forged, scavenged, and modified it will be clear what I mean.
(I know that we are supposed to avoid the idea of nerfing pets, but this is a constructive idea.)
Pets are the only thing a player retains after death, to cherish your pet is normal. You want it to be powerful, but it seems that they are TOO powerful for a free to play game. (Due to the currency spent on powering up pets.)
The pet’s abilities should NOT be nerfed directly, that would be an insult to all that have spent money on their pet. (It would also cause an outrage.)
To simply put it, Realm of the Mad God needs to utilize the debuff, Pet Stasis. It is already a feature of the game that can be used without changing much. Pet Stasis doesn’t harm new players in learning the ropes of the game, it just adds a larger obstacle for more experienced players.
New monsters and old monsters need to be able to inflict this status condition to limit the powerful pets.
Here is a list of some monsters that could benefit from obtaining the ability to cause Pet Stasis.
Flying Brain (Godlands)
Lizard God (Highlands)
Demon Mage of the Abyss (Abyss of Demons) - Plausible
Coffin (Manor of Immortals)
Apparition (Haunted Cemetery)
Hard Candy (Candy Land)
Spilled Icecream (Candy Land)
Lair Ghost Bat (Undead Lair)
Liquid Evil (Green environmental hazard in the Mad Lab’s confuse room) - Plausible
Native Magic Sprite (Sprite World)
These are only several monsters that could benefit from Pet Stasis, others could use it too, but harder dungeons such as the Shatters don’t really need Pet Stasising in them.
Also, as a bonus before I move on to the Necromancer I wanted to mention this as well.
The Native Ice Sprite shares the attributes of the other Native Sprites such as low health, high speed, and minimal damage output, but it inflicts the slow condition.
As a side suggestion I wanted to list off the other Native Sprites and what status effect they could wield.
Darkness Sprite: Darkness (I like this one particularly because it can introduce newer players to this debuff before they encounter the Shatters.) - Plausible (It could be Blind instead or just have a low debuff duration)
Nature Sprite: Daze - Plausible
Fire Sprite: None (The Fire Sprite is fine as it is because it is more damage oriented than the others.)
Now onto the Necromancer.
Necromancer is known for its usefulness in the early game, but in the end game scenarios such as O2 or Shatters it drastically loses it’s effectiveness. (Compared to all of the other classes.)
Pets made Necromancer a less viable choice as it did with all healing classes, but with this change Necromancer will find more use.
Even then, the Necromancer isn’t too useful in specifically the end game areas due to his ability. (Higher defense means less heals.) Others have suggested to increase his damage or allow him to inflict curse, but the thing is…
Necromancer isn’t meant to be a DPS class. He is supposed to be played as a healing class with a different playstyle.
As a Necromancer you want to conserve your mana for when you need it, not use it for inflicting damage, so that isn’t a good solution.
I saw this idea somewhere, but unfortunately lost the original post. (I’ll add a link to it if I do find it.)
Shields and Helms increase defense, cloaks increase speed, and quivers increase dexterity.
Skulls could increase the max HP of the player (Similar to Ogmur) by an increment of 10 per tier.
With 0 hp bonus from a T0 skull and 60 hp bonus from a T6 skull the Necromancer would be more balanced.
The skull piercing armor was mentioned, but that is a DPS oriented solution. (And a little too much anyway.)
Extra HP is something a Necromancer can really use due to the potential of his ability, and it helps in late game survivability. (This also increases the value of the T6 Skull as 2 vit & wis isn’t worth the extra cash, other classes need a better T6 too, but that is a completely different topic.)
This makes sense as the skull is the Necromancer’s source of life.
The UT skulls could increase HP as shown below.
Cracked Crystal Skull: +50
Skull of Endless Torment: +40
Skullish Remains of Esben: +40
I know this was more of a “Two in One” kind of post, but these two ideas share the same goal.
Balancing the game.
Any constructive criticism is appreciated if you feel it is needed somewhere in this post.