What would a Necromancer class look like?

Community General Discussion
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I’m not sure that I agree that any class must have a distinct “purpose” other than fun. If something is fun to play, looks cool, and accomplishes the role of either DPS, Tank, or Healing, then what more do you need?

What is the purpose of warriors? To hit things with big weapons until they die. What about paladins? Hit things with big weapons but this time there is a golden glow.

But I’ll concede. These are cool unique things that a necromancer could bring to the table that would set it apart from other classes/specs.

  • Ranged
  • Healing Spec (The game definitely needs more healers)
  • Utility through curses and hexes (curse of frailty causes target to take x% more damage from all party members)
  • Potential ranged tank spec
  • Potential summoner spec (unholy isn’t a summoner class, it has a pet but that is all. I’m talking full blow skelly boy army with golems that you manage. Maybe summons are your resource?)
  • Potential true glass cannon. You are squishy as hell, but have a ton of survivability through bone spells and a slew of minions.

Most importantly though, the necromancer opens the door to explore a whole new part of Warcraft Lore. The Shadow/Spirit lands in wow are not void related, and we know next to nothing about it. Death is to druidic nature/life magic as void is to light, and there is next to no exploration of these themes in game except for maybe the Drust.

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63

More or less much a D2 necromancer is good with me. Just think of the fun specs!

Summoner - Basically an army of risen skeletons doing your bidding while you attack from range. Like a demonology lock but better.

Poison or Vile - Close in dagger DPS with massive poison damage and DoTs. Like a rogue but better.

Golem - Summon a hulking blood golem with shared HP to taunt and tank your foe while you curse it, melee range damage it, and drain its life to self heal. Like a hunter, kinda, if hunters were melee tanks.

I’d love to play a vile necromancer. Freakin’ Poison Nova, baby!

64

You aren’t a necromancer unless you can summon golems to me!! Especially blood golems…

65

Honestly, necromancer is the main reason I’d ever want a Diablo MMO. And since I’d hate to start a new MMO at this point, Blizz, just stick the D2 necro in WoW. Thanks.

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66

Agreed!! We want necromancers!!

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  1. DKs have multiple necromancer-based ranged abilities.
  2. Are there any examples of Necromancers healing others, or being healers? Lorewise Necromancers would be more inclined to heal themselves and enhance their own powers (like Blood DKs).
  3. Warlocks already do curses.
  4. Blizzard will never do a ranged tank.
  5. Demonology is already the summoner spec.
  6. You mean like Demonology Warlocks?
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How is survival hunters mid ranged crossbow different from outlaw rogues pistol shot? Same animation, same range, basically same effect. By your logic either hunters or rogues need to go.

First time for everything right? The class doesn’t have to have a healing spec, but I don’t see why not. The game needs more healers, and it could be cool to use soul/death magic to do some sort of debuff style healing. Maybe you’re constantly reanimating the dying flesh of the tank and postponing death.

  • Survival hunters and outlaw rogues use mid range ranged weapons
  • Warriors and rogues use weapon throw
  • Destro Locks and Fire mages both use big fire balls
  • Demon Hunters and Destro Locks both use green fel fire
  • Elemental Shamans, frost mages, unholy Dk’s, Hunters, all lock specs all use a pet in some form
  • Mages and Demon hunters use magic runes
  • priests and paladins use holy healing magic
  • Frost DK’s and Frost mages both use frost magic which causes slows/snares/freezes
  • Hunter harpoon = rogue grappling hook/shadowstep

… I can go on. Your point that since one class has one thing meaning that no one else can have it doesn’t hold up.

I can see that this would be really difficult to implement, but your claim is based on what source?

No other summoner specs allowed. This is an exclusive club apparently. Better go get those unholy DK’s to spec out of anything that summons a minion.

Yes, but with bones and blood.

I can see that your mind is made up, so this felt kind of pointless, so we’ll just have to disagree.

Personally, I’ve been wanting a necromancer since the start of the game, and I think the lore implications would be really cool.

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69

We already have a necro class…unholy DK+affliction warlocks(necros would use more disease dots)

70

It is? Serpent Sting fires twin arrows that hits the target and poisons it. Pistol Shot simply fires a shot. The two couldn’t be more different from one another.

Blizzard didn’t give Demon Hunters a healing spec because the lore didn’t support it. The fact that we have zero lore or examples to support a healing Necromancer spec doesn’t bode well for this class having a blood-based healing spec. In fact, the examples of blood magic in WoW have almost entirely been offensive-based.

As for the rest of your post, you’re clearly missing the point; You’re essentially asking for a pallette-swapped Warlock here. Warlocks already do Curses, Warlocks can already summon hordes of minions, Warlocks can be very tanky when they’re surrounded by minions, etc. Basically you want a Warlock that summons skeletons instead of demons. That isn’t the same as a Fire Mage sharing fiery spells with a Destruction Warlock, you want a copy and paste job masquerading as a new class.

If this wasn’t bad enough, we already have a class that summons hordes of undead minions, and the reason that class is a hybrid melee is more than likely because Blizzard didn’t want a Necromancer class essentially doing the exact same thing the Warlock class is supposed to be doing.

In the end, your desire for a (caster) Necromancer class can be satisfied with nothing more than a glyph.

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I wouldn’t mind seeing options here like the Shaman has. I’ve been mentioning the inclusion of a tank spec as well, I don’t know if that could work as ranged with the way things currently are. Going off the same thing you suggested as using minions as a resource to maintain your defense, I was thinking an exoskeleton of bone/sinew that’s maintained by consuming your minions that you’re summoning to do damage while you absorb/mitigate the damage. Throw in some additional abilities and spells and such, and that could be fun.

But yeah I agree with the UDK not being a summoning class, it’s way too clunky. Sure it summons on occasion, but it’s still primarily a knight beating against things. Not someone standing back creating an army that does his bidding.

The Diablo necro could be a good place to get ideas.

And then for people that keep suggesting to just make it a spec somewhere, you then missout on the variety that multiple specs can bring like a healer spec that uses blood/life/death. Or an interesting spell casting spec that doesn’t necessarily focus as much on minions, and then a spec that does focus on minions, or another tank spec that could add more variety.
With all the allied races being added, I’d love a bunch of new additional classes to play them as instead of the same ones I already have characters doing.

Works for me…even something like an abomination or marrowgar…constructs of flesh, bone, blood, any of those work.

that’d be interesting…once he drops you knit him back together or rez him, maybe even giving them an optional undead visual until they’re resurrected properly?

and that’s the same manner that the DK and Necro can be further distinguished from each other.

It makes a heck of a lot more sense for a class focusing on death and life magic to have a healing spec than a class based on stealing abilites from demons.

You’re the one saying this. Creative spells and abilities can differentiate them. Just because one class can summon a type of minion doesn’t mean that other classes can’t summon a different type of minion. Especially when it’s that classes main identity.

Then you miss out on further fleshing out the class with a variety of fun and more unique abilities.

just because something has existed in the past doesn’t mean it should restrict the addition of things in the future, and this is the approach Blizzard has used when adding new classes. Things change.

72

If they did that I would never play anything but DK again
It could work, they did it with hunter, making survival a melee spec. Look how well that turned out.

what could possibly go wrong :rofl:

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  1. There are a lot more differences between Rogues and Hunters other than Serpent Sting vs Pistol Shot. I’m still waiting for some substantial differences between Necromancers and DKs beyond some hack healing spec.

  2. It does, but Necromancers aren’t known to support allies or be healers either. They’re known to be corrupters out for their own personal gain. A Necromancer wouldn’t use their power to heal or support others. It simply isn’t in their character. Necromancers utilizing blood abilities in BFA are using them to damage other people. Where’s the examples of Necromancers supporting and restoring anything but themselves or their pets?

The only reason this is being floated around is because Necromancer fans are looking for some way to distinguish this from the DK class.

  1. You can stuff as many generic abilities as you like, the main selling point of the Necromancer would still be raising and manipulating the dead, which is exactly what the DK does right now.

  2. Like what?

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  1. Well a DK should have a long cooldown summon ability, like they’ve always had. A necromancer’s play would focus on constantly summoning minions throughout a fight or maintaining those minions to do the combat for them, while occasionally throwing a spell to assist them.
  2. Their minions are their allies, so supporting them makes sense. If their minions die, then they die. This same idea can be applied to party members. If they die, the necromancer dies, they’d likely even view them as minions :stuck_out_tongue: So yeah, using their abilities to heal and protect others in order to further their own goals and agenda makes perfect sense. Using blood or death spells to create a fun healing spec makes sense. It doesn’t literally have to have a precedent in-game. If it’s fun and adds something, that’s plenty of reason enough.

Then rework the DK class to be something different instead of stealing abilities from another possible class :stuck_out_tongue:

Then take it back to it’s roots. Make it something new and fun. The DK wasn’t always a clunky summon focused spec. It used to have a few minions that supported it’s main focus of bashing and diseasing their enemy.

75

Maybe read what others have suggested instead of being purely defensive. Maybe take part in giving examples of how a necromancer could be done, or how the death knight could be changed to be more in line with a DK.
Stop stomping on an idea just because you don’t welcome change.
Be open minded and brain storm how to add necromancers and make them fun.
People have wanted them for ages. Embrace that and be positive.

76

Perhaps you could have an AoE Heal spell, which just about every healing spec has, they just visually look different…

For the Necromancer it could raise a skeleton in that location which is then consumed in a black/blue or black/green fire effect spilling the lifeforce animating it out into an aura…people standing in this aura are then healed.

Or maybe if a healing spec was always summoning minions, he’d then be casting spells on those minions to AoE heal, or consume and redirect the lifeforce into an ally.

You just have to get creative.

You can easily take existing abilities from anywhere, change up the name and visuals and assemble them in a way that would be fun to play. Just look at the Demon Hunter.

77

Can I ask a question, how come in Diablo 2, like…all the spells were actually awesome and cool?

I mean amazon avatar, blood golem for Necromancer, poison Nova for necromancer…Redemption for Paladins, and the Blizzard from a sorceress actually looked cool, not like the weak garbage it is in wow? Even meteors in the fire spec actually looked like they did damage.

how come the spells actually looked great? I mean barbarian whirlwind also looked awesome. And druids all looked awesome too.

How come in wow, the spells are named the same, but they don’t actually look cool?

78

Pretty much. DoTs, Drains, Instants.

Also Iron Golems wouldn’t fit the image of a Necromancer. Blood Golem and Bone Golem would fit the image.

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79

Well in my view, you’re not a real necromancer unless you can summon a blood golem to leech life from your enemies.

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  1. The problem with this is that the DK already summons a considerable amount of minions in a standard rotation. You have your permanent pet that you can enhance via Dark Transformation. You can summon a second permanent minion via All Will Serve. You can summon a Gargoyle via the level 100 talent. You can control an undead via the Control Undead. Apocalypse allows you to summon multiple minions at once depending on the number of wounds you’ve placed on them. You can summon an undead army to fight for you every 8 minutes, and there’s even an Azerite trait that allows you to summon an undead mage that attacks your enemies with magic. You don’t think that’s enough summoning?

What you’re describing sounds exactly like Demonology Warlocks.

  1. That sounds like a contradiction to the very nature of the Necromancer. Wouldn’t a Necromancer just let their living allies die so that they can harvest their corpses to create more minions? Wouldn’t a Necromancer be considerably more powerful surrounded by corpses than a group of living people?

  2. Why would the DK need a rework? Many DK players claim it is their favorite spec. Maybe we should go for a new class that doesn’t take abilities and play styles from existing classes and force reworks?

81

People keep bringing up Unholy Death Knights, but there’s one thing you need to understand…

NOBODY plays Unholy Death Knights anymore! That spec SUCKS!!

Everyone goes frost!!!