The Identity Crisis of Rathma & Firebirds

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1

Is the Rathma Set supposed to be a Minion Set (aka the minions deal most of the damage) or a Caster Set (aka you deal most of the damage with your non-summoning skills)?

I know the change was doen with the intent to nerf or even kill Rat Runs, but in doing so it also did a 180 on the what the set was intended to be at first: a Minion set.

So I was wondering if there is a way to change the Rathma set in a way that it kills / nerfs Rat Runs, while it also keeps its identity as being mostly a pet set and this is what I came up with.

All of these mechanics can be tweaked upon, but my main intent was to turn it into a Hybrid Set, aka mix of a Caster and Minion Set, where both the use of your Spells and your minions empower each other.

6 Piece Bonus

  • Each active minion increases the damage of your Bone Spikes, Bone Spear, Corpse Explosion, Army of the Dead, Bone Spirit by xxx%, up to xxxx%.
  • Everytime you use Bone Spikes, Bone Spear, Corpse Explosion, Army of the Dead or Bone Spirit, increase the damage of your minions by xxx% for 10 seconds. Stacks up to xx times.

—Skeletal Mages are Minions in this context, not a spell, therefore you have to continuously cast spells to keep their damage up.—

I chose bone-themed skills because the set is called Bones of Rathma, but it can also revolve around other spells.

However, I would definitely suggest that the set should not just revolve around Army of the Dead and Bone Spirit.

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For the Firebird Set I just have one question:

What does a Firebird have to do with Teleport?

It feels like the devs are trying again to put some skills into a build that does not necessarily belong there, just to make the skill useful. We have seen the same with the skill Blizzard on the Hydra set (via Winter Flurry).

Instead I would prefer to improve Teleport as a skill itself in one way or another (even if it is just in the most simply way by reducing its Cooldown from 11 to 6 or 7 seconds), rather then “fixing” it by lumping it into the Firebird set. That way, all builds benefit from an improved Teleport, not just the Firebird set.

I have made some suggestions in this thread here on how to improve Teleport.

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Thoughts, additional ideas, other/new concepts?

Or does anyone of your have other ideas to improve the Rathma Set in a way that both kills or nerfs Rat Runs (which seemed to have been the intent behind the rework of the set), while also keeping its identity as a Minion Set? I guess Hybrid of Caster ad Minion set is also okay.

Thanks all!

3 Likes
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Rathma’s is a dead horse now, any chance they had of players building on it with the AotD is done as it sits. The minions in the set were utility to reduce the cooldown of AotD so they weren’t relied on to do damage. Now that the Rathma’s passive has been nerfed to 60s and the cooldown reduction was cut by 75% there’s not point in playing it at all.

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If AotD continues to give you invulnerability (even if it is just 50% of the time), then the design philosophy of having minions mostly/primarily for utility (and most of the damage primarily coming from AotD and Bone Spirit) can not continue and the set needs to be redesigned / to have its current iteration changed.

That is why I suggested to turn the set into a Hybrid Set, where a large part of damage comes from the Minions, and another large part comes from your Spells and both of them empowering each other.

But these spells can not just be AotD and Bone Spirit, especially since both of them are not really spamable (and neither should they be able to be spammed), so other spells are required to work with this set as well.

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:shushing_face: We aren’t supposed to know that. I did put together a suggestion along those lines, though.

1 Like
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Sure, I was reading between the lines though.

That sure is an improvement (assuming it includes that Rathma’s Shield now has an internal cooldown), but the issue I have with that is that you only use Army of the Dead all few seconds and do not much else.

I’d rather have AotD on something like a 20-30 second downtime and spam e.g Bone Spear in the meanwhile which also would empower my minions.

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You have (potentially)

  • Army of the Dead AOE clear for speeds, mob grouping, and buff
  • Command Skeleton for burst, buff, potentially CC
  • Command Golem for targeted cc and damage bursts for the almighty necro CD
  • Revive as your most boring skill but hey I’m not doing skill redesigns, just sets.
  • Two free skill slots

Not every build for necro has to be a CD-dependent piano concerto. AotD spam was fun and thematic and should not be removed.

4 Likes
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You don’t have to make a Rathma build that way (talking about my suggestion), because AotD would be optional. You still can use it, but is not required as a main damage dealer, nor essential for buffing your minions. It would rather be burst damage that you can use to help you with elites.

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In otherwords boring CD-dependent play, otherwise it’s just not necessary at all and instead you use bone spirit or one of the other skills already being used by other builds which is just the same house in different-colored paint.

If you’d rather play those builds then go play those builds, you don’t need to ruin a minion set to throw bone spears.

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From what I have seen on Twitch or youtube 4-man groups will make firebirds get nerfed again too. Lets hope they dont overdo it and make it weak for solo again…

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Yeah I’ve seen some pretty banger dual-wiz comps now, idk why people are saying that’s not going to work when people are speeding 130s to test.

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It is optional, so no.

You can use them in combination with each other, even when AotD has a +20 second Cooldown. So even then it is not “boring”, because you can do other stuff like spamming Bone Spear or whatever while AotD is on CD.

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Why do we need another set that plays like the other sets but has minion decorations though?

1 Like
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Trashing the only Necro pet set just to try and kill rat-runs (which is already stupid since LoD Singularity is better for rat-runs…), was a bad trade-off.

Screw nerfing rat-runs. Nerf that and it’ll just be replaced with another build.

They could have just removed Mages from the set and balance it around damage done by the skeletons, revives and golem. Hitting mobs with Army of the Dead would trigger the pet damage. Bone spirit was an unnecessary (and bad) addition to the set. The only two skills that do damage are on a cooldown? Not everyone likes to play by gathering big groups of mobs to burn down.

1 Like
14

But they want to do it with minions so it’s different.

15

It only does so if you want to.
If you don’t, choose other skills.
As I said, the skill that are buffed by the minions can be adjusted.

Maybe it would be a better idea (or an additional fix) to replace Singularity Mages with something else and/or change the Reservoir rune on Simulacrum.

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That’s the same for any build. You’re specifically choosing things that already exist in other necro builds and trying to make them play the same way they do in those builds, though. That’s the baffling part.

The only explanation I really see is you want to play those builds but replace the stat and skill requirements with a minion count.

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As I said, I chose it as examples because of the bone-theme and also said that the list can be expanded.

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It doesn’t need to be expanded, it needs to be deleted.

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Does anyone have a clue why they decreased the cooldown reduction of army of the dead from minions? My Necro suddenly became useless… Seriously…

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They aren’t useless, they still buff…Bone…

Hm.