Only just started using him, only up to deadlink atm, but if I had to guess without using them first, I'd say Mass Raise and all the AOE abilities. I might suggest making Bone Armour one use only as well.

Having a heavily armoured high mobility tank that doesn't take up a slot is almost OP in itself really. I'm currently considering upping my Commander game to Legendary (it's not just necro though, I'm using the Spectrum mod too).

@ Cunny Funt: Thanks for the report. I'll consider doing this after hearing from a few other people.
@Ganches: Please tell me exactly what is OP about Eldritch storm and what do you think would make it better? I appreciate the gameplay QA report :)

There are certainly some differences between lw2 and vanilla version, but at this point it really doesn't matter which one we discuss as the class is super overpowered regardless.
You have a psi-based class that only uses psi for one spell(domination) everything else is a guaranteed hit. You have spells like fireball and lightning that are based on weapon damage, which means you can just equip a shotgun and watch the necro hilariously 1 shot a pod.
As is now, there's barely a single skill that isn't way over the top for this class.
You're asking me what's op about eldritch storm? Let's see...
It has so much range that you can fire it way past vision range(phantom tactic),
the radius is so insane that it willl always hit everything even if they are activated or not.
The burning effect disables almost every unit completely and the amount of damage
they all end up receiving from this kills almost every single unit before they can even act
even if you do nothing else to them.
The necromancer concept is fantastic and I love it, but the balance is about as far off as it can get.

What should you do to tone the skills down? Well first I believe you should try and apply the psionic mechanic to more spells to not make them guaranteed hits no matter what.
Most spells require a complete tonedown in various ways and should not be based on weapon damage.
Eldritch storm in specific? That depends on what you prefer to keep. If you want the spell to apply all of these debuffs it will definitely require a range and radius reduction at the very least.
Also whats up with giving the codex teleport? It's like a mega ultra god version of run and gun that completely removes the need to ever move the character again. It needs a cooldown or something.
Oh and before I forget... The zombie is a bit of a problem too. True a zombie or two on its own is a not a big deal, but if you apply links and bone armors the zombie becomes almost completely indestructible and can solo pods.

If I go line by line I'd have to say there are serious imbalances. I'd never take poison over combustion, for example, because combustion guarantees knocking out an enemy for the duration of the burn, whereas poison just limits their aim and movement. Similarly, undead link is much more powerful than drain life. Drain life is situational and the necro isn't a front-line class and has major range so they shouldn't be ever getting hit unless things go really wrong, whereas you're probably always raising a zombie on a mission so undead link when combustion is on cooldown is the way to go, creating (especially in the early game) a huge tank. Lightning is stronger than bone armor due to it scaling with the weapon and being guaranteed to hit, but bone armor is also very strong because it lasts the whole mission and can be stacked on a linked zombie, making it even tankier.

Fireball clearly outperforms hallucinations here. Like poison/combustion, there's no reason to take hallucination over an extremely strong pod-killing fireball. And despite the tooltip, hallucination rarely causes enemies to attack other enemies (I play LW2 so that might be an issue), and back in vanilla, they'd mostly miss anyways so it's just a temporary panic. I don't have as much of a problem with mass-raise and eldritch storm, other than that they could be pushed back further in the tree, possibly swapping the colonel and major ranks of skills. Soul spear and death touch seem relatively balanced in my view. Soul spear of course is a psiops skill and was never that incredible anyway, and death touch has the ammo and range balance that keeps it from getting OP. Zero problems with dominate and leaving it at brigadier is perfect. Psiops in vanilla were gods, and dominate made all other classes irrelevant. In LW2, psiops is currently unusable due to various reasons (domination not being guaranteed being one of them), so I like that the necro can sub in for that.

Teleport is the weird addition I have to say. It doesn't really fit in with the theme of the class first of all, and makes even less sense in the "necromancer" path specifically. That it has no cooldown and doesnt end the turn implies heavy abuse. I don't use it and never have due to domination competing with it, so I can't speak to actual balance in a mission, but I imagine it just transforms the necromancer from a necromancer into an instant, permanent run-and-gun shotgunner with flanks.

There are some skills that are very strong for various reasons, either their cooldowns, range, damage, simple mechanics etc... But some skills are weak and/or need to be buffed to compete with their sister skills. For example, I like poison and I think it's quite balanced, but it is too weak compared to combustion so either poison needs a buff or combustion needs a nerf. Most of the strong skills can be simply nerfed via implementing psi or hack scaling for damage or reducing range. I would caution against increasing cooldowns because while that is a valid way to nerf, it also invites long periods of uselessness into the class because the necro's only use is through his spells. I really wish you'd reconsider the third perk tree because I think that would allow you much more flexibility in balance and effect distribution. For instance all this concern about eldritch storm could be majorly resolved if it was moved to brigadier. However, you can't do that by moving domination down because domination is so powerful, as is teleport. Another way it helps in balancing is to create buffs of skills with bigger versions down the line. You can't do that right now because you don't have the room, but hallucination into a form of mass hallucination, or poison into poison nova could be weaker versions of currently strong skills that make more sense as balance, while still keeping the class theme consistent (which I think is very important, more important than even balance to a degree).

Suggestions (Hey, I'm bored. Might as well. Might not be too balanced though, but you might be able to get some ideas here)

Tier 1
Combustion: Targets an enemy, and deals damage based on Psi Attack. (Between 3-10, depending on Psi Atk), and burns the target for 2 turns.

Poison: Upon choosing this, you get 2 abilities. Insta Poison and Venom. Insta Poison allows you to target an enemy with squadsight, and poison it. Insta Poison costs no actions to use. Venom allows you to target an enemy, and deal damage based on 50% of your shot's damage, and +30 aim. If Venom hits, the enemy is poisoned based on 50% of the damage you dealt. Venom costs one action, but does not end your turn. Both Venom and Insta Poison lasts 3 turns, and has a 1 turn cooldown.

(This allows Poison far more utility than Combustion, as squadsight range allows for ridiculous range poison, while still giving you a slightly inferior version of combustion to use, without even ending your turn)

Tier 2
Drain Life - Targets an enemy, and deals damage based on Psi Attack (Between 3-10 as well). Gives ablative health to the caster based on damage dealt, up to the amount of damage dealt. (If user has 3 ablative health, and deals 5 damage with drain life, user gains 2 more ablative health, bringing it to 5). Has a cooldown of 4 turns, usable 3 times a battle. Deals Guaranteed Damage.

Enhance Zombies - Costs 2 actions. Has a cooldown of 10 turns. Necromancers should only be able to enhance their own zombies (currently you can focus multiple enhancements on one zombie to create a pseudo Sectopod). Armor gain is reduced by 1, but zombie is always fully healed when enhanced. If that fix is not possible, then the only change would be that it requires 2 actions and can be used multiple times over a very long battle.

(Drain life is now a guaranteed hit ability, and provides quite a bit of protection for your necromancer. Of course, I am aware that necromancers get ALOT of health from level ups, which should be fixed imo. Enhance zombies, in the other hand, boosts your zombies slightly, and gives you the ability to heal your zombies.)

Tier 3
Lightning Bolt - Target a single enemy. Shoot the enemy. If the shot hits, deal damage based on the shot damage, and bonus damage based on Psi-attack (3-20). If shot misses, disorients target. Has a cooldown of 5 turns. (This is a single target ability. Also, if Lightning hits, the target is not disoriented nor stunned. It only deals damage.)

Bone Armor - Adds 1 armor to all zombies. Also gives the ability Bone Shield. Target a single ally in sight, and create a shield with health based on Psi Attack (2-5). Has 4 charges, with no cooldown. Costs 1 action and does not end turn.

(Making Lightning a single target ability makes it less OP. It still requires 2 actions though, and its cooldown is now higher, and to compensate that, I personally suggest increasing its damage and giving it the seconday ability to disorient. Bone Armor is now a more 'usable' utility, compared with its one charge version. It is slightly weaker, but all your zombies will have 1 extra armor permanently)

Tier 4
Spell Mastery (Replaces fireball)- Adds Psi Attack based on rank. Gives 10 Psi Attack per rank.

Necromastery (Replaces Hallucination) - Reduce cooldown of Raise Dead by 2. Gives all zombies +1 damage.

(Just a little bit of utility before going on. This could and should be swapped with Tier 2, since that tier is quite OP for a low tier)

Tier 5
Soul Spear (Moved from Tier 6) - I have never used this, but I assume it is similar to Psi Lance. The only change should be that the damage scales according to Psi Attack. Honestly though, I'm not sure how, exactly, the skill works.

Mass Raise - Shares cooldown with Raise Dead. Radius is increased by 1, but range is reduced drastically.
If cooldown sharing is possible, Mass Raise has a cooldown of 6 turns. (Using Raise Dead gives this ability a 6 turn cooldown and Raise Dead a 5 turn cooldown. Using Mass Raise gives Raise dead a 5 turn cooldown and this a 6 turn one. Note that necromastery does not affect Mass Raise)
If cooldown sharing is not possible, Mass Raise has a cooldown of 9 turns.

(A core skill for each side. Nothing much to say here)

Tier 6
Arcanist - Increase damage of all spells by 3. Reduces cooldown of all spells by 1. Gives 2 extra charges of Drain Life. After using any Necromancer Ability, grants a free movement action.

Horde Tactics - Increases health of zombies by 4. For each zombie in the map, increase each zombies' mobility by 1. If there are more than 5 zombies on the map, all zombies gain 1 extra action. Multiple Horde Tactics do not stack.

(Second Passive here. Each of these complements their own side of skills well, but... maybe this is too specialized? I dont know, but I like these abilities though)

Tier 7
Eldritch Storm - Deal 1 damage to every enemy you can see. Burn, Poison, Acid and Disorientation is applied to all enemies. Only one Eldritch Storm can be used per battle (Even if you have more than 1 necromancer with this ability).
If that is not possible, Eldritch Storm has 50% chance to apply each of the statuses (Each status is rolled and applied individually)

Death's Touch - Target an organic enemy in squad sight range. Kill it. Revive it as a zombie under your control, even if its an alien. The zombie gains 5 health, 30 aim, 3 armor (Up to 5), 3 mobility, and 3 damage, and can use any ability or item it has. The zombie also regenerates 3 health per turn. Gatekeepers and Avatars take 20 damage instead, and cannot be revived by Death's Touch. Only one Death Touch can be used per battle.
If limiting one per battle is not possible, this ability should not have squad sight range.
If item/ability usage is not possible, just ignore that. It's probably too OP anyways.
If reviving aliens is not possible, I suggest that this ability creates a random humanoid zombie with the stats of the alien killed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds OP? I hate that many of LW2's GSGT abilities are either underwhelming, or just plain suck (Combat Fitness. Tier 7. Really? That's both suckish and underwhelming) so I purposely thought of abilities that would stand out. Then I realized that they might be OP and added the 'one per battle condition'. Heh. Well. Maybe you can get some inspiration from this. I know there are various problems here and probably shouldnt be in this thread, but I dont expect all of this to be used. Just take the ones you guys think are suitable, or none, if none of them are.

My 2 Cents:

First off, I love the mod. Great concept, really interesting things you can do with it.

As Ganches said, - A lot of the problem (to me) is that many of the abilities are just guaranteed. So much of the gameplay in XCOM is about balancing risks: get next to the enemy with a sword or shotgun for a high chance at massive damage - BUT, if you miss, or the target survives, you're now exposed. Risk vs reward.

The Poison skill is a good example: from high cover, with almost no risk to himself, my necromancer can impair two organic targets every turn, guaranteed. Why, in this situation, would I ever bother using a gun (which might miss) at all? The same goes for Combustion, lightning & other abilites: guaranteed damage (or effects) that ignore cover or defenses are really, really powerful in this game.


So, general suggestion: Make at least some of the offensive abilities work like psi-powers that have a chance-to-hit based on the caster's will or psi stat.


But more specifically:


Zombie health: My squaddie-rank necromancer's zombies has 8 health. Twice what a sectoid's zombie has, and it takes the combined fire of an entire pod (it's early game) to take it down. This gives the rest of the squad a turn's grace to either run away, or change position, or whatever else. I would halve the health, with a couple of addendums:
a) A necromancer ability further down the ranks that gives them more health (see below).
b) At certain ranks (say, Sergeant, Captain, Major and Brigadier) you gain a stacking +1 health on all raised zombies as well as whatever other ability you pick.


Pick one or the Other
Not necessarily a balance issue, but it would be good to directly contrast the two skill trees. The character is either a necromancer OR a sorcerer - here's how I'd do that, similar to DuskNite:

Lieutenant abilities

EITHER
Sorcerer path: Elemental Mastery: Character gain 15 psi/will permanently for the purposes of casting abilities.
OR
Necromancer path: Necromantic Mastery: All of your raised zombies gain +3 heath and a point of armor, and you can have two raised zombies at once.

Without investment, your zombie(s) will go down in one shot BUT your spells are more effective. Or your spells are weaker, and your zombies can take some punishment.

Eldritch Storm
Haven't got it yet, but it really does sound OP. Disable targets in the area of effect and cause damage, with no chance of missing? That's how you destroy entire pods without giving them a single chance to fight back.
I'd replace the effects with Psi Bomb, the codex ability that forces targets in the area to move or take damage next turn and empties their weapon magazines, because it has a cool animation and using an already-existing ingame ability sounds easy to code ;). Keep Eldritch Storm as a name though, it's cool.

Poison
The issue is that it ignores cover and other defenses. And it's too cheap to cast.
Me, I'd steal the viper's Spit ability, with a four-turn cooldown. Call it Poison Cloud and make it a turn-ending ability, like firing a weapon. Should be relatively easy.

Bone Armor
Lasts all mission? And stacks? Those are the problem.
I would make it vanish after, say, three turns. And give it a three-turn cooldown, so you can (if you want) keep it going all mission. I know LW2 features 'plating' utility items that grant ablative health that doesn't incur wound time when lost, so it is possible.
However, I'd replace it with the ability to heal your zombies at range (4 hp healing on any zombie the character can see, 2-turn cooldown). Put that on the same tier as as good sorcerer ability, to make it a tough choice.


I have other ideas, but this is already a big old wall 'o text, so I'll spare you. Hope that helps, take or leave suggestions as you want.

Hi all. Sorry for my disappearance. I'm back now. And wow, so much info! :D Love it! Thank you all for putting in the effort to write all that.
*scrolls up and starts reading*

Something that many are not taking into acount for balance purposes on this class is that many of these moves destroy loot. That can make both firball and lightning risky to use on weak groups, because you are destroying the drops, and in LW2, you are also destroying the coprse so you have fewer corpses to work with. That alone is a huge tradeoff to consider when deciding how to use your abilities. Teleport is awesome, and works well with a shotgun, but still requires careful planning to use effectively. It is a top tier talent that is competing with Domination, so it should be powerful. If the damage on these moves is going to get reworked, the loot destruction aspect of fireball and lightning should be taken into account at the same time as the accuracy and damage of those abilities.

Hi,

I think the problem with Bone-Armor is the infinite duration making it abusable on untimed missions if you want to. Other than that it is not overpowered because of the way XCOM2 values attack over defense.
I would suggest that you limit the use to around 3 times per mission and not being stackable, with a very short cooldown. This would allow you a really nice buff but still leave a lot of your troops unprotected.
If you want Eldrich-Storm to be more balanced limit the range to between fireball and lightning-levels. It currently definitly is the strongest ability in the whole game.
Restoration on the other hand is really underpowered. One health per turn for three turns just sucks completly when a basic medkit heals 4hp at once. One time strong heals are just way more useful in XCOm:2 because of the way you take damage. I would say 3hp per turn for 3 rounds would not even be overpowered because there is either no way to know if you are going to get the hp or if you are already injured no time to wait the three rounds.

Short addition:

The reason Eldrich Storm is op is that being burned does not allow enemy troops to shoot. If you take out the bourning effect it would not nearly be as strong and even be balanced without changing range or anything else. (even with added dps to compensate for the burn stuff).