Where’s our Lich? Where’s the Banshees? Where’s our Blood Prince?
Now that we’re moving away from wounds and putting more focus back into necromancy and diseases I really feel like we should get some more variety in our summons!
As it stands now we’re mainly just popping out a bunch of lesser ghouls that autoattack, and sometimes the occasional magus.
Furthermore, our other two capstones on alpha are currently very underwhelming, including the middle one which I initially hoped would let us summon a unique Lich but ended up becoming an alternate version of old doomed bidding but for putrefy…
In comparison, Demonology Warlock is much more well versed and varied in their summons and pet customization.
To conclude, I feel there’s a lot of open potential that could truly elevate the fantasy and feedback of the necromantic aspect of unholy
I agree, i like the path they are on but there needs to be some more work especially with the pet variety.
Also while i like the idea behind the glpyh, the menagerie for some reason also applies to the magus and instead of getting the cool new one, you often get old lich king era models
That one specifically seems like an impossible task. I might be rusty on my lore, but aren’t liches just powerful wizards that transcended death with some crazy ritual or magic? If im not mistaken most if not all liches in game are specifically names too, to give more uniqueness to them as a whole.
I dont see them being as summonable, as Timmy, or Patches.
I agree with most of this. The capstones for UH are very underwhelming. But I do really like Gary in combo with the apex talents. That being said, the capstones at the bottom feel too… I am not sure.
Festering Strike Capstone imo should not even be a capstone. It should be moved up 1 level and have the capstone itself to do something for Putrefy (Maybe let the new ST Dot be applied to up to 3 targets now and Putrify has a secondary effect maybe.)
The magus one is interesting, but for sure could be moved up in the tree. Imo, it would have been so cool if they added a new type of undead. Maybe have your main ghoul replaced by something. (like an undead zerker).
Yes, a Lich isn’t like a typical lesser undead that you just randomly summon out of the ground… however when you think about it we’re currently already “summoning” the freakin 4 Horsemen, talk about lore characters.
I think calling a single Lich through a capstone should be fine.
Lorewise you could explain it as you have a pact with him and call him for aid.
Also if I’m not mistaken, don’t we have a Lich ally that we gained as a follower through our Legion Orderhall Campaign?
His name is Amal’thazad
Thats 100% fair, and seems far more doable having it pointed out to me. I dont know why i hadnt considered our more “calling ally’s to battle” type of summoning lol.
And this is where Blizzard really whiffed in class design and foresight.
Because pre-Legion, Demo locks whole lore and focus was on summoning greater, superior demons. Their focus was literally on QUALITY not QUANTITY.
Hunters had a unique bond with their pets as best boi. Which is fine totally it’s own niche.
Which meant we had total room for a QUANTITY over QUALITY type summoner. Be that in DK or as a necromancer class. DKs had Army which made them the de facto quantity bois of the time. but yeah, Blizz totally scuffed themselves on the design space.
He was indeed the frost trainer in original Acherus but was also an ally and recruitable follower in the legion version.
If you don‘t remember feel free to play through Legion Remix to refresh your memory.
And as for your second point, I don‘t get what the issue is?
It‘s obvious that our ingame dks have 2 types of “summons“.
True summons for lesser undead, and call type “summons“ where you teleport more powerful undead entities to your aid.
IF you take the Riders path. Outside that Unholy doesn’t really summon any of the higher tier undead. Riders is a specific heroic talent exception that lets us call the 4 horseman, who we have a special connection to. I don’t think it really serves as a precedent for Unholy to summon any powerful undead.
Blizzard could do it. And, while it would be a change it wouldn’t be a huge one. However, personally I hope they don’t.
Adding more summons either means more CDs or putting a new look over existing summons. We don’t need more CDs. That is one of the things they are correcting in Midnight. And I don’t want Liches, Sanlayan, and the like just being a skin over our current minion summons. I think that would feel wrong and make them more jokes.
So, I am fully in agreement we need customization options. DKs should be able to pick different looks for our minions and pet. I think adding choices to a barber shop like interface in Ebon Hold where we pick the looks of our summons would be ideal. There are lots of models for Ghouls/Geist/Spirit/skelotons/etc that could serve the army and even primary pet. And there are a number of constructs that could easily fill the Abom roll. Even Gargoyles have other models. But, I think we should be limited to using those level of undead.
If/when we ever get an actual Necromancer class or class skin type overlays those larger summons could be used for that class or class skin.
So now we’re getting into the specifics…
No, I don’t want additional cds, nor do I want dozens of way more powerful undead to just randomly replace all the ghouls we summon.
They would be introduced sparingly and deliberately through a capstone or apex talent.
For example:
“Your first Putrefy cast inside Dark Transformation summons a Lich.
The Lich additionally casts 1 icy comet, shattering all enemies in an area and applying
frost fever, for every sudden doom proc you consume”
This way you’d only have 1 Lich out every 45 seconds, and he would of course possess more powerful attacks than the more frequent lesser undead.
And for Banshees:
Just make our 2-Point Apex Talent “Forbidden Knowledge” summon one or two Banshees instead of lesser ghouls.
The Banshees scream damages all enemies in a cone.
Do you think there just happens to be a random Gargoyle or Val’kyr / Dark Arbiter beneath our feet in every ingame location that we just so happen to freshly summon?
And Abominations are stitched together out of dozens of smaller undead so that one needs to be prepared too.
In the end, unholy is about summoning undead creatures to battle one way or another and the devs decide whatever they feel like adding.
