#Starting kills in current Necromancy meta (and what do we do about Invoke Lord of Bones?)

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scenic tide
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Hopefully now that the necromancy meta has finally settled down, I want to see what people's thoughts are about two things:

  • Helping bases have an easier time knowing when they can signal starting the p0 prebuild
  • Some thoughts about invoke lord of bones

Few posts in this suggestion thread, so apologies please bear with me.

For bases, there's nothing more frustrating than on top of making sure you make the hour enjoyable for everyone (aka no missed vulns, solo amalgamations cleanly, do good damage, lure the boss correctly no matter WHAT order your teammates give you [whilst still not giving them shadows btw], and rehammering zaros**), that you also make sure everyone is inside the instance before you signal and start the p0 prebuild.

Is it frustrating if people don't pile on one spot and you have to check multiple spots as a base before you signal the prebuild start? Hands up if you've signalled without 6 people inside the instance and then started without someone? I'm sure most of us have done this at some point.

image.png image.png
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Some teams will have people that communicate if they're slow with things like "late", but if you don't know how fast everyone banks (or if they haven't watched Marwood's banking guide vod yet and aren't fast bankers), it does make for a mildly frustrating experience if you can't get a good feel for your team.

I have noticed most of the bases that I invite either vuln at the start:

  • Underneath themselves (I'm one of these bases)
  • Where the glowing energy is before you disrupt it or
  • North side of nex (I know LOTS do here)

With this in mind, my proposed suggestion to help bases have an easier time solving "is there 6 people inside instance" would be to get the 6 non bases in the team to position themselves like this in the first picture:

  • My standing tile is the position everyone surges to on re-entering instance - the smoke clouder stands here
  • From this reference point, the team stand in the positions like in the second picture (crudely drawn from excel)
    Once the base signals to prebuild, everyone can then move and stand on the hammer spot whilst conjuring the prebuilding.

No, I do not want discussions about "well it's a skill issue for the base just count to 6 it's easy" - This is about making it easier for everyone, and a happy base makes for a happy team.

Thoughts?

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** So about lord of bones. Currently I would think most teams are not using this, but for those that are, we have tried and tested and the magical number appears to be 90 stacks to generate enough armour break that bases have been able to outright skip rehammering zaros.

Originally I posted some shower thoughts about using lord of bones in #theorycrafting which were as below:

Pros:

  • Base doesn't have to spend 31.5% adren in zaros and can maybe res instead of divert with the extra adren to get an extra heal.
  • Base could technically not have to bring hammer + eof potentially adding 2 more inventory spots for ... more food that doesn't get used?
  • Very useful if hammer makes a mistake and doesn't apply it at start, some teams can still ele skip without hammer, maybe more can with 3+ people using the incantation to help up the accuracy % during p1
  • with base no longer needing to hammer in their rot, on faster teams (1:21 or better) the window is very tight and generally ID is foregone in the rot - well now bases on those teams have time to ID last pillar making it even more reliable

Cons:

  • Which 3 people are going to use it? Which leads to...
  • Glhf enforcing this in teams, might be a community thing if the team agrees to it in advance or not, but given the rune cost for it vs the cost of eof charges i would think maybe just hammering is cheaper than 3 sets of incantation casts
  • if base resonances in zaros instead they're reducing their capacity to dh juice, or maybe they life transfer again in zaros since res will top up their hp?
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In the month since I posted the initial shower thoughts, it has become apparent invoke of lord of bones is actually quite helpful as listed on the pros. But it leads to more questions that are above my pay grade as I'm not the one with the power to enforce something server wide. However, on teams I form privately, bones is very much welcome and appreciated by every base who comes base for me (or when I base myself).

  • Every base starts kills differently; some faster, some slower. What happens if you designated only part of the team to invoke, but one of the invokers wasn't inside instance when it started because maybe the base didn't check there were 6 people inside first? Well, then you end up with the situation where potentially not enough stacks is generated, and then the base is required to rehammer zaros to get 100% accuracy back.
  • Whilst on the subject of bases starting faster/slower, this also then has lead to people in my teams trying to settle on the best times to invoke to ensure it's active for all 3 command skeles in p1-3. I think we've settled on casting it as re-enter instance, but again what happens if someone is late - well then everyone might lose too much time on the incantation and then not enough stacks then is generated in the process, which again leads to the problem raised above.
  • So to get around this, as a blanket rule, I just request everyone does it, because it's not fair if only part of the team is required to do it and incur additional rune cost, whilst the other part of the team doesn't have to (unless we want to talk about adding even more complications to tipping splits? Yeah let's not go there please...)

Again, this links to the suggestion about how to make it easier to bases to count if there's 6 people. Generally on teams where a gem is involved, the slowest banker and base invokes as they re-enter the instance so that the base spends minimal time waiting between kills to start the next one (gemmers know the feels.)

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Ultimately, bones is (imo) a useful addition to add to all teams, but like I said, it's above my pay grade to make that decision server wide, my job is just to present some general pointers and let everyone else figure it out.

Because there's ultimately issues with "enforcing" invoke bones:

  • It's prohibitive as hell to make an ironman grind vorkath for a chase drop that doesn't appear to have a great drop rate - on top of which, unlike mains, they have to make their own runes; contrary to popular belief, they do not have the ability to just buy runes at will.
  • If we do go down the path of doing so, do we then tell bases they can completely not have to hammer, only for people to potentially turn around and report them for not hammering during lure if zaros phase isn't 100% accuracy if the team beforehand agrees to all use bones?
  • Does this then mean we expect more damage from bases as removing re-hammering zaros does change their rotations by removing one of the additional expectations we have of them in trials?

There's probably more points that need to be discussed, but these are the main ones that come to mind.

queen tendon
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I think LOB will become a hard req at some point. RN its nice if the team uses it and over time more and more people will start doing it and then it will probably be a hard req.

while i fully agree with you that people should stop roaming around before the kill, i'm not happy with your suggestion for pre-positioning. giving role specific placed to stand is simply not gonna work realistically. the best solution i can think about is just telling people that move out of the player pile to move back until they stay where they belong. its not something you can enforce as a hard rule. if enough people play the blame game the social pressure should suffice that people stop moving around.

chrome mountain
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Way too much text (at least rn, might read fully later), so I'll just respond to the first bulletpoints:

  • Not the bases issue, call late if late
  • Req for TT on trials, nice otherwise
gusty beacon
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I fully agree with anything salty has to say. You have my support.

magic geyser
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Reminds me to make LOD a req for trial team - TY

fair crater
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easy solution to not being in the instance, bank faster

weary forge
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I have read it through it all. Thanks Salty for writing this up - I am always a big fan of this sort of thing. My comments are:

  1. Invoke Lord of Bones should stay as it is - encouraged, but not required unless TT. No change.
  2. People should be standing all on the same spot for Base to count on P0. Too complicated otherwise. Right now I think this works fine. No change.
  3. If for whatever reason 100+ stacks are not reached, Base should just use Hammer again. So Hammering as Base during lure is still the "requirement", they are just allowed to skip it if 100+ stacks are reached. No change.
  4. I don't think Base damage requirement needs to be upped; skipping Hammer is a really marginal advantage. If Bases are failing trials anyway it is almost never due to missing damage. No change.

TLDR: No change.

burnt minnow
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I can never count if everyone is in, I run out of fingers on my hand.

TLDR: skill issue public enemy #1

minor creek
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Time to retire trial team. No LOB 😦

gusty beacon
dry socket
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I usually ask ppls not to veng start, so I can veng and it tells me hm ppls

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If I right click all the names get mixed up in my head and I lose count

burnt minnow
gusty beacon
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If you really want to, you can just: Right click anything in your invent > use > right click the spot people surge to. Makes it so every name is just 1 line and you can easily count it like that. You can right click as much as you want to see how many more people have joined after. There are items that are left click use option.

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Venge thing is not a great way to count the amount of people tbh

weary forge
gusty beacon
gusty beacon
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@scenic tide I love you :3