New skill proposal instead of soulrift

Dear d4 team, please get rid of soulrift, its not a great idea. Instead go for something like this:
Skill: Poltergeist
Category: Curse, Summoning
Cost: X essence
The target is haunted by a poltergeist for X seconds, which gradually spreads desecraed ground underneath and around it, dealing % shadow damage over X seconds.
Augment #1: enhanced poltergeist: re-applying poltergeist to an already haunted target will reset the duration and increase the damage by %, up to %.
Augment #2a: beckoning poltergeist: Your skeletal mages and bone spirit will target the enemy most recently hauted by a poltergeist first. Poltegreist is now also a Macabre skill.
Augment #2b: virulent poltergeist - when a hauted enemy is hit, poltergeist has a % chance to spread to a nearby enemy, +% chance to slowed, chilled or cursed enemies (does not stack). Poltergeist is now also a Darkness skill.

Unique item: Tancred’s hobnails, unique boots
Affixes:

  • % movement speed
  • % attack speed
  • X ranks to poltergeist
  • % DR from cursed enemies

Unique aspect: Poltergeist does %x more damage for every time your minion has damaged the haunted target within the last X seconds.
Your minions are unstoppable on desecrated ground.

Offensive aspect: Aspect of the hungering apparition: poltergeist will automatically comsume blood orbs near the haunted target. It additionally has a % chance to spawn X blood orbs if there are no other enemies nearby.

Utility aspect: Aspect of the lingering presence - when a haunted enemy dies, it’s corpse will still be haunted for X seconds. Virulent poltergeist can now spread to corpses, with a % chance of spreading further when the corpse is consumed.

Utility apsect: Aspect of the thrice-cursed - poltergeist also applies any other equipped curses for % of it’s duration.

Defensive aspect: Aspect of the eerie familiar - you have a % chance to inflict poltergeist on a nearby enemy whenever you are hit.

2 Likes

The release of the expansion is in 5 weeks. Developers cannot make any substantial changes now. They can change some numbers here and there, but nothing significant.

They can always do it in the next pass. Whatever, just change this redundant nonsense to something genuinely interesting.

Oh yeah, absolutely. That is why I believe they need to change the class designer.
So there is enough time to actually cook something. Not just one or two new skills.

1 Like

I’d be happier if they removed desecrated ground from the game and kept soul rift. The Unmaker is literally the only thing that excites me about S6 necro.

Sometimes I wish Blizzard would jump over their shadow and just straight up copy creative ideas from the community. This is such a case. Extremely nice idea.

1 Like

I actually enjoy Soulrift. It’s much better than Bone Storm in my opinion. I do like your Poltergeist idea, and it would make the desecrated glyph more useful but if asked, I enjoy Soulrift. Its only redundant in that it offers a shield to necromancers. But it also adds a lot to resource management. I think improving upon Soulrift to make it more viable would be to make the corruption radius actual desecrated ground, that way you are always standing on desecrated ground for its duration. I currently run a sever/soulrift/affliction build that dominates.

That was exactly my build before I stopped playing (mainly because I didn’t get play that much, rather stand around and watch spiritborn players dominate). I do see your point, but necro already has plenty of dedicated resource management options, grim harvest, enhanced iron maiden, aspect of potent blood, ghastly bone prison, and aspect of the long shadow to name a few. I actually ended up using starless in my build as well, so soulrift didn’t really solve all my resource problems. Also, would you really choose crown of the unmaker over shako? I don’t think so, 20% more DR is basiacally live or die in the end game.
On another note, the last thing that necro needed was another ultimate skill. I think the team should rather focus on balancing the existing ultimates, because blood wave is useless execpt some very specific PvP only builds, and army of the dead is useless, period.