Overhaul Necroscream

Estarra

Discuss the overhaul Necroscream skillset.

Moi

ab necroscream
You have gained the following abilities in Necroscream:
Composition         You may compose songs expressing your own creativity.
Sustain             The ability to maintain a song.
VileBlood           Let dark music surge through the blood of allies.
UndeadBlues         Undead flesh can withstand physical punishment.
DiscordantChord     This painful chord shall crush the disharmonic soul.
TortureSong         Bindings will cut into the flesh of your enemies.
DespairWeb          Entanglements will hold enemies longer.
Refrain             A musical structure that allows repetition of a stanza.
Reprise             A musical structure that allows reversal of a stanza.
IronChord           A powerful chord to slay your enemies.
NecroBallad         Who will flourish under the ballads of the dead?
CarillonKnell       The raging sound of Ashtorath harms plague victims.
SickeningPlague     Plague your enemies with dreaded diseaess of the skin.
CaptiveAudience     Both friends and enemies hear nothing but your songs.
SobbingDread        A dark despair so deep it is difficult to move.
EngineWords         A sound to inspire the citizens of Magnagora.
DemonSong           Demons who hear will increase their speed.
QueensLament        Let the Laments of Nifilhema touch another.
Dyscrasia           Draw out the worst of your plague.
WrathfulCanticle    The wrath of Ashtorath shall incite terrible violence.
Encore              Play a rousing encore performance.
TaintedLove         Love for you can be a twisted and cruel gift--or not.
DarkMaster          All must obey the Voice of the Dark Master!
BlackDeath          This terrible tone will cause plagues to persist.
Threnody            Accompany enemies to the grave with the song of death.
See AB NECROSCREAM <ability> for more information on an ability.

ab necroscream vileblood
NECROSCREAM - VILEBLOOD
 
Stanza:     Low (1-3)
Targetable: No
Buff:       Cure Random Afflictions (allies)
            Artistry Buff, Level 3/Max 3 (viscanti race only)
While the song plays, the dark strength of this music will flow through the blood of you and your allies, which can burn away ailments. Also, this song has a peculiar effect on the viscanti race, as vile blood coursing through their veins fleshes out their figures and gives them more confidence, affording viscanti an artistry buff (3/3).

ab necroscream undeadblues
NECROSCREAM - UNDEADBLUES
 
Stanza:     Low (1-3)
Targetable: No
Buff:       Undead (allies)
            Cold Resistance, Level 1/Max 3 (undead only)
            Cutting Resistance, Level 1/Max 3 (undead only)
            Blunt Resistance, Level 1/Max 3 (undead only)
This interesting sound turns you and your allies into the undead, for the duration of the song. All undead (including liches) will have a slight resistance to blunt, cutting and cold damage. Further, it allows influencing of undead.

ab necroscream torturesong
NECROSCREAM - TORTURESONG
 
Stanza:     Low (1-3)
Targetable: No
Affliction: Bleeding, Level 1/Max 3
Those enemies who are bound by most physical cords will find that their flesh is cut into ribbons.

ab necroscream despairweb
NECROSCREAM - DESPAIRWEB
 
Stanza:     Low (1-3)
Targetable: No
 
If an enemy is entangled while the song is played, it will take them
longer than normal to writhe free. If your target uses Lowmagic Summer
or Highmagic Tipheret, the mana cost will be doubled.

ab necroscream ironchord
NECROSCREAM - IRONCHORD
 
Syntax:      PLAY IRONCHORD <target>
Damage Type: 50% Excorable, 50% Cutting
These notes are similar to minor second, except it vibrates to the energies of the taint, which can be sent to afflict your enemies.

ab necroscream necroballad
NECROSCREAM - NECROBALLAD
 
Stanza:     Low (1-3)
Targetable: No
Buff:       Health Regen Level 1/Max 3 (undead only)
            Mana Regen, Level 1/Max 3 (undead only)
            Ego Regen, Level 1/Max 3 (undead only)
While the song plays, all undead (including those made undead by Undead Blues) will regenerate their health, mana and ego.

ab necroscream carillonknell
NECROSCREAM - CARILLONKNELL
 
Stanza:        Mid (4-6)
Targetable:    No
Damage Type:   100% Excorable
When the knell of the Carillon of Screaming Hatreds is heard, your enemies who suffer from skin disease will be drained of health, mana, and ego. The amount of damage depends on the level of skin afflictions your victim suffers.

ab necroscream sickeningplague
NECROSCREAM - SICKENINGPLAGUE
 
Stanza:     Mid (4-6)
Targetable: No
Affliction: Skin, Level 1/Max 4
While the song plays, your enemies who hear it will cry out from dreaded skin disease.

ab necroscream sobbingdread
NECROSCREAM - SOBBINGDREAD
 
Stanza:     Mid (4-6)
Targetable: No
The dreadful sounds of this music will make enemies sob and be filled with despair, causing them to stumble when moving.

ab necroscream enginewords
NECROSCREAM - ENGINEWORDS
 
Stanza:     Mid (4-6)
Targetable: No
Buff:       Universal Damage Buff, Level 2/Max 2 (Mangagoran citizens)
This rousing music will inspire the citizens of Magnagora to greater heights, causing the damage they do to be increased. This powerful sound was inspired by the lyrics of "Words of the Engine" by Aia, the first guildmistress and founder of the guild.

ab necroscream demonsong
NECROSCREAM - DEMONSONG
 
Stanza:     Mid (4-6)
Targetable: No
Any demon who hears this song will go into a frenzy, attacking at a faster rate
than normal.
 

ab necroscream queenslament
NECROSCREAM - QUEENSLAMENT
 
Stanza:     High (7-9)
Targetable: Yes
Power:      2 (Megalith of Doom)
Affliction: Entangled
            Blackout
This song mimics the voice of Queen Nifilhema, and must be directed at a target. The victim will be bound and subject to unspeakable tortures.

ab necroscream dyscrasia
NECROSCREAM - DYSCRASIA
 
Syntax:     PLAGUECALL DYSCRASIA
            PLAGUECALL EUCRASIA
Power:      2p (the Megalith of Doom) (dyscrasia)
Affliction: Skin, Level 2/Max 3
By modifying the timbre and pitch of your melodies for dyscrasia, you can draw out the pain and suffering caused by your sickening plague, changing its rate of affliction to 2/3. Eucrasia will revert sickening plague back to 1/4.

ab necroscream wrathfulcanticle
NECROSCREAM - WRATHFULCANTICLE
 
Stanza:     High (7-9)
Targetable: No
Affliction: Musculature, Level 1/Max 5
The Wrathful Canticles of Ashtorath inspire unending torment to your enemies, as their muscles away rot away through an angry disease.

ab necroscream taintedlove
NECROSCREAM - TAINTEDLOVE
 
Stanza:     High (7-9)
Targetable: No
Affliction: Equlibrium Malus, Level 2/Max 2 (tainted ground only)
Buff:       Equilibrium Bonus, Level 2/Max 2 (tainted ground only)
If you stand upon tainted ground, those who love you will be strongly affected. If an ally, their equilibrium and balance recovery will be faster in your presence. If an enemy, the love will become twisted and they will find themselves to be slower in your presence.

ab necroscream darkmaster
NECROSCREAM - DARKMASTER
 
Stanza:     High (7-9)
Targetable: No
When the sound of the Dark Master swells within you, you can use his voice to command others to do your bidding, i.e. COMMAND <target> <action>.

ab necroscream blackdeath
NECROSCREAM - BLACKDEATH
 
Stanza:     High (7-9)
Targetable: No
While this terrible tone plays, your enemies who are diseased by the ailments of the skin and musculature will find it hard to cure these ailments as there is a chance that they will come back but moments later.

ab necroscream threnody
NECROSCREAM - THRENODY
 
Stanza:     High (7-9)
Targetable: Yes
Power:      3 (Megalith of Doom)
Let the music of the threnody escort your enemies to the sweet oblivion of death. Once you start the killing note, you can do nothing that will disrupt the song.

Llandros

Very nice.

So the most significant change is that sickeningplague will now give 1 skin aff up to and including skin aff 4

Dyscrasia changes it to give 2 skin affs up to and including skin aff 3.

Hunger seems to be removed which is fine by me.

Also, wrathfulcanticle is changed to give a musculature aff up to and including 5. Which gives us a level 5 aff. This is nice change, previously WC did not stack with multiple caco bards very well because of the high chance they would all try to give the same aff. It will be interesting to see what other sources of musculature affs will be within mag.

*Tentative* feedback (pure speculation, no freak outs allowed!)

I might explore adjusting the power cost of dyscrasia since there is a potentially higher drawback.

If the eq/bal bonus/malus stacked in the past and will not do so in the future, I might explore having it extended to the bard singing it. In the past this was not the case but from the flavor of the skill I always assumed it was intentional.

I might explore the damage from carillonknell since it is now based off of 4 affs and not 5.

Good stuff all around though!

Ssaliss

In case it hasn't been typo'd already, the ab for Enginewords says "Mangagoran" instead of "Magnagoran".

Tridemon

Ssaliss said:

In case it hasn't been typo'd already, the ab for Enginewords says "Mangagoran" instead of "Magnagoran".

Mangagoran? .... Kawaii Desu Sempai?

Tacita

The DiscordantChord AB in Necroscream lists the power cost as Variable, when it seems to cost 3p regardless.

Silvanus

The best change in all of these is the little information providing exactly what the skill does and what levels it provide.

The change to WrathfulCanticle removes a large part of afflicting power from Necroscream. Before, WC would inflict with: contagion aff (at 0 plague levels), recklessness (at 1), confusion (at 2), stupidity (at 3), sensitivity (at 4) and vapors/blackout (at 5). The Cacophonist had two main ways* to give plague affs, one was with sickeningplague (which now gives 2/3 skin affs) the other was with breathing contagion (being a lich), in addition to blackdeath making it harder to cure the aff away, and carillonknell doing damage based on the plague affs, it seemed as if the progression of a Cacophonist actually made sense and seemed like a far better concept overall then that of a Nihilist/guardians (big burst of affs followed by a locking mechanism. If don't work, try again).

 It will be interesting to see how the three affs mentioned here (bleeding, skin and musculature) can work together in building up towards a kill scenario, since aeon for a Caco isn't terribly useful.

*Caco also have a way to give a plague aff by 'point spike' from the really unfair construct, Iron Machine.

Llandros

This does split our focus between advancing auditory, skin and musculature aff trees. Although all three use herb balance so that might help things some.

We've struggled with minor aff spam and it's a tricky line. Too much is OP and not enough is pointless.

Looking over the music skill set, the 3 spikes are being changed to reduce max h/m/e. This makes the m/e portion of carillon knell damage much less valuable so that might need adjusting.

So there were a few changes with how we handle bleeding. Not sure how helpful bleeding will be for us though since it is now cured by sanguine and it won't trigger mana spikes, which will not exist.

Ironchord used to cause bleeding.

Torture song's bleeding scaled with plague affs.

The ab files for these seem to indicate they no longer do this.

Estarra

Yeah, bleeding is one of the big changes.

Llandros

I'm not sure that twitches in muscular was doing anything. It's possible it just gave the same message as scabies but I didn't see any other balance loss lines.

Torturesong is just doing a straight up 1/3 bleeding and not tied to writhing right now. The AB might need to be updated.

Blackdeath also works a bit differently but that is fine. More cure blocking than relapse but it works with the new system.

My notes

Scratch task causes about a second of balance loss.

bruising task gives bruising or raises the level, not sure if there is a cap on it though

Damage from bleeding and bruises if very low, might need to be adjusted.

I know this is a massive project but it's off to a good start!

Estarra

Hmm, I just tested twitch and it seems to work.