I'll never understand the necromancer obsession

Community General Discussion
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If you think about, only a few classes actually fulfill a popular fantasy demand.

Shaman? Pseudo-mages/battlemages instead of witch doctors.

Druids? Can’t be werebears or werecats. Also, moonkin? What?

Warlocks? Decent class fantasy until they drifted more into fel magic and less into shadow. Dark magic is commonly associated with necromancy.

Hunters? Survival = throwing bombs point blank, kind of ironic.

So, basically, WoW has never been about completely fulfilling popular fantasy: it tries to do its own thing.

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Colour me skeptical.

They didn’t do it without stealing Metamorphosis from Warlocks, and I’m still salty about that. What will Warlocks lose to Necromancers? What will my Unholy DK lose to Necromancers?

…let’s not forget that Warlocks (Cult of the Damned) would not be welcome on either Alliance or Horde because of the ravages of the Scourge.

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Hmmm after playing a main Necromancer in most MMO and fantasy games…

I’ve actually have slightly altered my Necromancer need in WoW for:

Hero Class LICH! (I never play a Lich in any Fantasy MMO) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I think Blizzard could make it work and Necromancer would just be a tiny part of its different specs…and with covenants new lore or powers accessible in SL… i think its possible. :sweat_smile:

Also who dosen’t want to use any race in their skeletal form all ghostly glowy and floaty like Kel’thuzad? :laughing:

At least that’s what I think should happen if DK are the only melee Necromancers WoW online will offer…for now, just adding Lich we be set. (IMO)

PS: I thought of Dark Rangers but “I think” they be Necroamancy/Drust Magic range melee for a Hero Classes.

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Dunno about others but for me I’ve always loved the idea of necromancers in Warcraft. Necros have been a central archetype in many games. They are different than DKs. I think back on games like Everquest which had both necros and shadow knights(basically DKs). They filled two very different play style niches.

They have been around well before WoW in the other Warcraft games and have been central to many major plots. Think about how many mages went bad and became necros. Scholomance, original plaguelands questings, duskwood etc etc. the necro theme has always been prevalent in the lore but never, again in my opinion, done good justice. Not even with DK addition. I enjoy DKs play style and lore too but it’s not the same to me. It’s like a mirror of the Paladin/Priest but with death magic. Very different play and lore but overlapping underlying power source.

Is there enough room in WoW for a necro? I dunno. I wish but realistically I doubt it. At this point in the games lifecycle I’d be happy with cosmetic options for Warlocks To fill the fantasy. For example, Cosmetic undead pet skins would go a long way for me.

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Try this out. Somebody’s idea on MMOChampion forums.

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Could easily be done with a “Glyph of the Scourge” or something. Turn demon pets into undead (imp = skeletal mage, voidwalker = abomination, succubus = banshee, etc). Then change the demonic themed spells to something more scourge-like. And finally whatever fel green spells affliction warlocks have, turn them into cold blue fire spells.

Boom, necromancer. :slight_smile:

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Oh hey you’re back.

p.s. When I seen you as the first response, I thought this thread was a necro. tee hee

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The aspects of WarCraft Necromancers that are not covered by Unholy DKs ARE covered by Warlocks though, so the supply is there. The aesthetics aren’t exactly what you might want, but Necromancers simply don’t offer anything different from what we already have. The most you could ever hope for would be something like a new Warlock spec or some Warlock glyphs that change the demon pets into undead.

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My Kingdom for cosmetic glyphs for so many things.

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50

It’s probably mainly because the necromancers in the diablo games have been cool as hell.

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I’ll second that and say originally overpowered as well.

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I’d much rather have a more thematically interesting class such as tinkerer. Necromancer themes are covered by DK and warlock already. I still don’t understand why people like them so much even after seeing all these arguments for it

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OP, as someone like you who has no interest in or desire to play a necromancy-based class, it is nevertheless a long-standing and very popular fantasy…well, it’s a genre.

Frankenstein’s Monster…necromancy.

The obsession with defeating death, with overcoming death to breathe a new life into something that has died. That’s a powerful literary and human “thing.” It boils down to the defiance of mortality, and when creative minds contemplate that idea from different angles, you get everything from immortal elves to zombies to angels to people raising the dead to use for their own nefarious purposes.

It’s all–all of it–borne out of the original idea: What if we could conquer death? What would that look like? What would the ramifications be?

The kid who said, “Cool! I can command a legion of zombies” probably never got that philosophical about it, but that’s where the whole thing comes from, and that’s why it has such an indefatigable appeal.

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While that could definitely be a natural initial conclusion there’s definitely alternate directions one could go without encroaching too much (or at all) on others classes’ playstyles or themes.

Some example rough concepts for some necromancer specs:

Animator: This would be the “pet” focused one, but in instead of summoning a hordes of minions like Unholy DK or Demonology Warlock, they would focus on creating a single, powerful minion to fight for them.

They’d begin with either a simple skeleton or even no pet at all. As the attack they’d build up a secondary resource (flesh pieces or something like that) which they could then use to create/further evolve their pet. There could be 3 or 4 different pet “evolution trees” that you would have to choose between based on the fight and current situation.

For example one could go Skeleton → abomination → Flesh Giant for melee single target
Skeleton → bone golem → bone wraith for aoe (BOOONNNNESTOOORRRRMMMM!)
Spiderling → Crypt Fiend → Cyrptlord could provide CC options

Each “evolution” would deteriorate overtime so you’d have to rebuild it and/or try and maintain it (with diminishing returns.

Cultist: Thematically this spec would focus on casting off the chains of life and ascending to undeath (or a greater level of undeath for any forsaken players). The goal is to become a Lich (or demilich if people need a reason that it’s only temporary). While in your Lich form is when you do your most damage so obviously maximum uptime is the goal.

You’d have two gauges. One would be the Phylactery the other would be your body. They share the same resource which is your soul energy. The phylactery’s soul gauge is constantly draining and your body’s soul gauge is constantly filling. While not in lich form your abilities spend your body’s soul energy and the soul you spend fills your phylactery. Once your phylactery is full enough you can enter your lich form.

I’ve had a few different thoughts for how lich form would work. I think it’d be cool if while in lich form your health bar became the “timer” and that when you hit zero, instead of dying, your soul would release from your phylactery and you’d come back to life. Your spells would do damage to yourself and you’d take increasing damage from all sources over time. Sadly I don’t think this could work with out a lot of extra restrictions as it’d be really powerful in pve and pvp especially if you had a really good healer. You could also cheese a lot of mechanics.

So for now i’m still thinking of a way for it to be cool and unique.

As I said these are both just rough ideas i’ve thought up in some of my spare time. Obviously a lot of stuff would have to be fleshed out for these to be made into playable specs but the point is that there are definitely other directions you could take that still keep to the traditional necromancer theme without stepping on the toes of other specs, thematically or gameplay wise.

Just because some classes/specs fill the role necromancers traditionally take in other games doesn’t mean there’s no way to introduce them successfully.

Also to be fair, there’s already a lot of classes or specs that share not only similar themes but similar play styles with some of the biggest differences being primarily visual.

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Why is there that is either Necromancer or tinker. I would preffer necromancer, to a thinker but we could have some Rune Master, some kind a Nature allign Caster (Moinkisdosent count they are more like lunar casters) , and moon warrior, or even a medium melee class that use mail and hunts monsters with potions and melee or an alchemyst.

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Affliction warlocks and unholy death knights are the closest things we have to necromancers. Warlocks drain souls and death knights raise ghouls.

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Because how many new classes coming out that is all melee?

Can we get a new caster ffs? and a Necromancer is pretty darn cool.

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I say Blood Mage but I think between Mage and Warlock he got nothings unless Blizz changes their lore in some way or mix it with other forgotten Hero classes like your Rune Master or Spell Breaker. :man_shrugging:

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