Remove or nerf Nergalle's DDoor

[lessens]

This spell has most of the same problems as old damage reflection from monster death knights: it doesn't really introduce any tactical depth and just creates a lot of hassle for the player as they walk away until its (extremely long) duration expires. Some weaker characters (particularly mages) may be under genuine threat when unable to kill Nergalle but this is counterbalanced by the many characters that she can only harry with draining and overall annoy. Worse yet she can reactivate it almost instantly, starting the cycle all over again. I'd personally like to see this spell removed but it could also be improved along the lines of the fix for death knight damage reflection, i.e. sharply reducing its duration and adding a cooldown.

[jejorda2]

I can usually find a way to stop her from casting it. Needles of frenzy, paralysis, confusion, or sleeping along with a potion of agility/scroll of blinking. Or a hex wand, antimagic weapon, or scroll of silence. Or if my AC is high enough, I can just wait for it to wear off and kill her quickly. Poison still stacks up while the spell is active.

Adding an eye monster that puts another enemy in death's door would be a nice way to expand the spell and make the tactics learned to deal with Nergalle more relevant.

[XuaXua]

A longer cooldown period between casts would be simplest.

[duvessa]

but it's such great gameplay to cast cause fear to set her health to 10 and then wait out of los for 15 turns!

[lessens]

A longer cooldown period between casts would be simplest.

The duration is a problem too because the biggest annoyance is 20 or so turns of Benny Hill where you pillar dance waiting out the DDoor, the fact that she can instantly repeat this just adds insult to injury. Of course, if she can only DDoor for 5 turns or whatever that raises the question of why she'd even do it at all, because the situations where those 5 turns would make the difference between life or death are vanishingly small. That's why I think the best option is just to remove it entirely. If she needs another Necronomicon spell for thematic reasons give her Borg's, and put that on a cooldown as well.

[tasonir]

Borg's would be interesting, especially if she lost a significant % of her max health, say 20%, then even without a cooldown, if she cast it three times, she's starting to get into the range of being 1-2 shot before she could recast it. If she doesn't get it, I'd like to see some other monster do this, it would be novel.

[Berder]

I like Nergalle the way she is. It does add tactical variety. That's what blowguns are for - poison her enough and she'll die after ddoor expires. Plus there's fear like duvessa mentioned, or you could just stab her while she sleeps, or net-stab her. It's a good thing that you can't just tab straight through her.

[XuaXua]

A longer cooldown period between casts would be simplest.

Of course, if she can only DDoor for 5 turns

Cooldown period. She casts for however long she casts, but can't re-cast until after X aut.

[lessens]

I like Nergalle the way she is. It does add tactical variety. That's what blowguns are for - poison her enough and she'll die after ddoor expires. Plus there's fear like duvessa mentioned, or you could just stab her while she sleeps, or net-stab her. It's a good thing that you can't just tab straight through her.

Okay it's cool when uniques aren't just speedbumps but that only applies when they're genuinely threatening - e.g Sigmund, Erolcha, Nessos and Mennas for their respective depths. Nergalle's DDoor just makes her a pain in the ass to actually kill rather than a threat, (she has one of the lowest !killratios in the game), and the tactics you're describing are more to avoid that pain in the ass than anything else because most of the time you can kill her perfectly easily just by walking away for 20-40 turns.

Dude read the rest of the post, the part you're quoting is in reference to a previous sentence

[Berder]

Okay it's cool when uniques aren't just speedbumps but that only applies when they're genuinely threatening - e.g Sigmund, Erolcha, Nessos and Mennas for their respective depths. Nergalle's DDoor just makes her a pain in the ass to actually kill rather than a threat, (she has one of the lowest !killratios in the game)

I'm all for making Nergalle more deadly. Have her summon more orcs or deadlier orcs. Give her more HD, more AC/EV.

most of the time you can kill her perfectly easily just by walking away for 20-40 turns.

That really only works if you are a strong melee character. Otherwise she and her orcs will red drain you or kill you. Plus she heals in the meantime and can drain you even more when you come back. It may be an annoying tactic - but that's beside the point that it's just a bad tactic, when a blowgun or a netstab is much more effective.

[phobetor]

What if you remove deaths door and instead give her something along the lines of guardian golem. This summon would make Nergalle 100% invulnerable until destroyed. You could take this one of two way. Either have the summon be really frail but Nergalle can resummon it fairly frequently, or make the summon strong but be a one time deal.

[bcadren]

I've been killed by Nergalle before. She spawned early lair and I got too surrounded to get away. FE without a bolt spell yet; couldn't hit her directly or knock the summons off that fast; with all the Spectrals having rSticky and they being too close for me to FBall I couldn't even damage the Spectral Orc Warriors and was a fragile mage. Dead, quickly. So excuse me if I don't think she's weak or trivial. She certainly can be (if she spawns relatively late); but Lair or Orc level she's pretty intimidating. That said; I've never seen her cast DDoor; either I can't really damage her (like that FE) or I kill her too fast for her to get a chance (TrMo; MiFi; etc.) Maybe she needs to be weighted to spawn a little earlier that she does now on average; because I've seen her as weak more commonly than I have as deadly. As for the DDoor; I'm not really sure? As mentioned there are interesting ways around it; but I'm not sure that an unspoiled player would even know how it works or what to expect. Enemy DD is kidn of hard to understand.

[jejorda2]

I wonder if maybe there could be a visual indicator (outside of xv) that death's door is active- maybe the glyph could change colors like some chaotic things do?

Or a message when you attack someone who is using DDoor. Just like when armour keeps you from being accurate enough to hit, state, "You beat Nergalle soundly about the ears!! Nergalle will not die while she stands in death's door."

[grisamentum]

I wonder if maybe there could be a visual indicator (outside of xv) that death's door is active- maybe the glyph could change colors like some chaotic things do?

There isn't one in console? I'm pretty sure there is in tiles.

[Shard1697]

There definitely is in tiles, a purple mark appears on the top right of her.

[PleasingFungus]

Or a message when you attack someone who is using DDoor. Just like when armour keeps you from being accurate enough to hit, state, "You beat Nergalle soundly about the ears!! Nergalle will not die while she stands in death's door."

the exact message needs work but something like this could be a good idea

[PAnacea]

She's also incredibly annoying if you manage to get her as a Beogh worshipper. If she's at low health, she'll constantly keep recasting it even when there's no threat around, which means that you'll always have to keep an eye on her until something happens to get her above the threshold. (Equally great that she supplies you with spectral orcs, she should probably just try to heal when she's safe.)

[PleasingFungus]

She's also incredibly annoying if you manage to get her as a Beogh worshipper. If she's at low health, she'll constantly keep recasting it even when there's no threat around, which means that you'll always have to keep an eye on her until something happens to get her above the threshold. (Equally great that she supplies you with spectral orcs, she should probably just try to heal when she's safe.)

Ah, I've noticed this. Fixed.

[PleasingFungus]

Also, increased the existing 1-3 turn death's door cooldown to 10-29 turns. (Should be 10-27 turns? uncertain.)

if that's an excessively brutal nerf, other knobs can be tweaked.

[dowan]

Hey! Nargalle may be a stupid orc, but it's not nice to tweak her knobs without permission!

Thanks for the change though. It's quite annoying when Nargalle decides to be invincible forever.

EDIT: here, 'tweak her knobs' was intended as a double entendre(or double dendrite, as the spell checker suggests). Clearly you uncultured louts didn't get my high-minded joke, as this post should be swimming in thanks. Now that I've clarified matters, you can all correct your earlier mistake.

[Rast]

Also, increased the existing 1-3 turn death's door cooldown to 10-29 turns. (Should be 10-27 turns? uncertain.)

if that's an excessively brutal nerf, other knobs can be tweaked.

Is that for players casting DD too?

[reaver]

Also, increased the existing 1-3 turn death's door cooldown to 10-29 turns. (Should be 10-27 turns? uncertain.)

if that's an excessively brutal nerf, other knobs can be tweaked.

Is that for players casting DD too?

No