Decay is such a cool idea and element that hasn’t been explored that much, but touched on a few times. We see more of it with the Brackenhide gnolls in Azure Span.
Would be cool to see a class based around this theme of rotting life, sicknesses, decay.
Or a Dark Shaman spec for Shaman based on enslaving the elements. Would also suit a Undead druid.
Literally Unholy DK and Affliction Warlock.
Beat me too it. Like Unholy is one part summoning armies of undead and another part inflicting an endless plague on the masses, slowly killing them in the most painful way imaginable.
You mean like Unholy DK?
So i would argue that Decay is not like Unholy or Affliction.
Unholy is necromancey and control of Undeath. Affliction is all shadow damage and fel damage. Affliction is more akin to curses and such.
I see Decay as more like negative Druids. Like the Drust. I could see a class based on the drust and even like the Gnolls in Brakenhide. A class based on the swampy Spore kind of magic.
IIRC, decay is the antithesis to spirit. Spirits makes things flourish and decay makes things wither and die.
I can somewhat see the argument for Aff Locks but UH DK absolutely fit the theme, yes part of it is necromancy but the other half of their abilities are disease related.
No i still dont agree. Like look at it this way, There is the Necromancer from D3. And there is the Witch Doctor. I would see the witch doctor more as decay, but the necro more as undeath. Now I see both Unholy Dks in the necro and i see affliction in the WD, but they are completely different classes. and opperate totally different.
That probably does not make much sense, but what I am getting at is you can have classes that are similar and are even in the same realm magic type and be 100% different. You can have an unholy DK be the master of undeath and disease, and you can have the Afflic lock be the master of affliction. But you can also have another class that is dot based that is more like a druid. and still make it 100% different mechanically.
That’s like people who say DK when someone brings up wanting a Necromancer. How is a plate wearing, melee warrior equal Necromancer? Just because they both summon undead? Aff and Spriest both use Shadow but are nothing alike theme-wise.
Decay magic is not like unholy or affliction.
Those two specs do NOT fulfil fantasy of being a Dark Shaman wielding decay. Not at all.
As someone else pointed out, they are like anti-druids.
Of course, people who aren’t interested in the idea will not understand. They’ll just point to false similarities.
UH has like one disease spell.
And in what way does a Death Knight fit with the theme of the Brackenhide gnolls or the Kor’kron Dark Shaman?
It is not Decay and feels NOTHING like decay beyond the word disease.
This could be slipped into some existing classes with some new spells or reworked old spells. Hunters used to have more than just serpent sting: scorpid sting, viper sting, wyvern sting; we also had black arrow.
Rot and decay are cool effects that have a “natural” feel being unnatural, not like an elemental magic, but as a sort of innateness that feels different than what we currently have. It feels more vile than magic, curses, and diseases of the undeath and blight variety.
The cosmic color wheel is Danuser’s baby.
It’s also bad.
It was bad when Gary Gygax used it for his multiverse.
It’s still bad now.
All Danuser did was add Light/Shadow to it.
Just because “decay” exists, doesn’t mean we need a fourth caster dot class.