shield for bone necro

Necrarch wrote: 2 years ago

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to reach the (very required) 125 fcr breakpoint with perf

Boneshade.
[..]

Always loved the homu-block necro approach but I would disagree on the "very required" for the 125.

Since necro BPs aren't quite as solid as sorcs, you are "only" talking about an 11.11% increase in performance by moving from 75 to 125 (as you drop from 10 frames to 9). What is beyond glorious for Bone necros however is their skill-scaling. As you look at top-end performance, that 11.11% increase is equivalent to typically between 3 and 4 skill points. Or just over 4 for BS specifically. So if you - after hitting your "true priorities" - would be giving up 4 or more skill points to still hit 125 FCR, you'd typically actually be lowering your actual performance/DPS. Though at that point, you do still have the travel time bonus making up for it. At the same time, countering the travel bonus a bit again, there is something to be said for "harder first hit > faster 2nd hit" (depending mostly on your player count as it may shave off an entire needed cast).

Essentially, I would say if you can hit 125 while sacrificing up to 2 skill points:
Easy call, clear win, go for it.

If you'd

Sacrifice 3-4 skill points to make it happen (which would be the most common trade-off):
Performance ends up so close to the same either way that it is essentially just a matter of preference.

If you'd

Sacrifice more than 4 skill points:
Dropping performance for the sake of increasing mana consumption? Just no...

The mere fact that you don't HAVE TO max BPs but can actually gear to your own preference is part of what makes necros so enjoyable imo. You actually have options.
Going full block and such will of course drop your raw DPS a fair bit - albeit still perfectly viable - but even if you look at raw top-end DPS performance, going for 125 with the highest possible +skill to add vs. going for 75 with max +skill actually ends up with raw DPS within <1% of one another on most/core skills. So really about as equal as it gets. And with that, depending purely on preference, you then get to pick faster tele vs. harder initial hits and such. Just for reference, going hard (HARD) on defense instead, you're still "only" dropping about 15-20% in raw dps performance which is obviously a fair chunk but a much lower trade-off than most other classes/builds, considering how tanky a full def necro ends up being. Even more so because those 15-20% are averaged out and may be (FAR) less, depending on situation/actual skill usage.