In depth, *realstic playtest and rant

[Ignatz]

The issue, holistically, as I see it is that the Amazon has an overflowing handful of skills that mete out damage by the ten-thousands a second, while the Necro has, at best, one, and it's not nearly as consistant or well-rounded. Multishot, Strafe, FA, Lightning Fury all dish out huge great chunks of damage. Each of those can, with a strong weapon, smear guts across the landscape in a big hurry. A BIG hurry. Mainly because they're designed to do that. Either they work that way or they don't and that's that.

The necro, on the other hand, has no ways of doing this whatsoever, save CE. CE assumes a dead corpse, is much less consistant, is overly battlefield dependant, and can't be brought to abusive damage levels with gear. Thus, it's always reigned in by it's relatively straightforward skill design.

The bottom line is that an Amazon will always have several very good choices when it comes to dishing out huge amounts of damage. Where the Necro, given correct balance, could do it with minions, bone skills, etc, he instead has CE as his only option. And whereas the Zon can run around spamming her Huge Damage skill of choice expending only arrows, the Necro can't run around spamming CE and get anywhere unless he has a fast-as-multishot way of consistantly getting down well-placed, chainable corpses.

The leech concern is a total non-issue. It's not in the least bit hampering. It doesn't hamper her damage, it doesn't cost resources, and it doesn't prevent her from killing at breakneck speed. Worse come to worst, she'll need double or quadruple the leech if she isn't bothering with energy (heaven forbid she put a point into energy). I'd hardly call that a limitor or a hinderance.

I don't see how there can be any two ways about it. The Amazon by design has all kinds of guns for toys, whereas the Necro has all these toys that still aren't a gun.