Guild Wars 2

The class as it stands is more like a Demonologist, as it summons all these nether beings.

Spectral should be like Death Shroud and exclusive of Death Shroud; so one or the other. You would have the spectral skills move to the weapon side and make up new utilities that will treat dead bodies as a commodity.

Necros should be summoning the creatures of Orr or creating them out of the bodies on the field.

Have an abomination as your pet for a while, now that would be cool or an orrian wizard.

food for thought

I agree let’s change everything about a class because some people don’t agree on what a necromancer actually is in tyria.

1. No, we don’t summon “demons”, we form golems of dead flesh or summon Spectral beings from the Underworld. This is also a relatively small part of the class compared to controlling life energies, dealing with disease and infliction, and the Underworld.

2. Corpses and on-death mechanics really don’t work for GW2. It was okay in many spots for GW1, but it would make any corpse-reliant mechanic completely useless for sPvP, which is what we already see.

3. We don’t summon undead, nor would we from a lore point of view considering basically everybody (including ourselves) has lost friends and loved ones to them. It is similar to why we don’t do a number of things that are technically within our power.

the problem with more dead is more dead.

Wouldn’t mind if they added minion packs into the gem store. Like the skeleton minions pack, orrian creatures minion pack etc. With different looks and animations but everything else would remain the same.

that kind of pack would either:

a) be only visible to you: possible but lame

b) be visible to everyone: confusing and very bad in terms of pvp, why should other players have to learn how cash shop minions look like in order to fight against them?

I understand what you say and actually do agree, it was just a thought about having more options on customizing our necromancers.

However from a cynical point of view I don’t think there would be too much confusion with the minions in pvp considering that they tend to die to aoe in 2 seconds anyways.

We can just use the bodies of all the former necromancer mains if we have a problem finding bodies.

I just think it’s sad that 2 of the 4 things that make necros necros are really underpowered (condition manipulation, fears, siphons, minions). Siphons should be necros thing, that should be the foundation of many builds, but they are useless. Minions are also severely underpowered largely do to their uselessness when aoe is around.

adozu.6398:

b) be visible to everyone: confusing and very bad in terms of pvp, why should other players have to learn how cash shop minions look like in order to fight against them?

This is already solveable with their system of making all players look the same in PvP, just add in that minions look normal in PvP for people who have that option enabled.

We don’t summon demons lol, where did you get that idea. If you want some class reference, I suggest reading about D&D Demonologist and Necromancer. Matter of fact I’ll post a link.

Demonologist: http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Demonologist_%283.5e_Prestige_Class%29

Necromancer: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Necromancer_%283.5e_Class%29

It’s safe to say that Developers at ANET draw inspiration from the classes from Dungeons and Dragons. Specifically the Guardian being an inspiration from the Cleric class from DnD one developer had mentioned. Now while the GW2 variant of Necromancer is different from what a true Necromancer is via the description from D&D, it is Tyria after all, and Necromancers in Tyria operate differently. Does that make them less than a true Necro from historical D&D? No not at all, jus different mechanics and lore. It’s ANETs world after all.

Chinese Necromancers are golemancers. All of the death stuff like skull icons have been removed. If anything, I believe we will see less death stuff in the future as our client becomes more like china’s.

I think we should replace flesh golem with a summon able Zhaitan and call it good. Zhaitan increases power and toughness of all nearby allies and has a rush skill that doesn’t just knock the people down, but also puts out AoE 5 second immobilize as it rushes. It is an AOE skill, so you can ground target with it. If you move your cursor over a target, it does it based on target location rather than AoE direction. If you target zhaitan, zhaitan picks you up and flies you 1500 range away from nearby foes. The whole flight is an evade frame, and you land putting out AOE knockback. For an AA, it shoots a ranged orb of undead energy that chains to nearby enemies, doing the same damage as flesh golem’s attack, but applies chill and torment instead of cripple.
I think this single skill would balance our class

nekretaal.6485:

Chinese Necromancers are golemancers. All of the death stuff like skull icons have been removed. If anything, I believe we will see less death stuff in the future as our client becomes more like china’s.

To be fair, the Chinese client just removes overt skull symbols because they are much more taboo there. It isn’t that they are actually changing the lore, but removing certain game symbols that wouldn’t fly. At most the Chinese client means we won’t see skills that involve skulls very much.

Imo minions should be a lot more available and less powerful. This whole idea of having pets around that go on huge cooldowns when they die is a complete failure.

I always felt that WoW demonology warlocks felt really good as a pet class. The pets they had were impactful and useful. In pve the pets were pretty much indestructible meaning that you were never left without a good deal of your damage and utility. And in case you actually did lose your pet, be it in pve or pvp or anywhere you actually had an emergency cooldown you could use to instantly bring a new pet out. Mind you that had a cd so you couldn’t go spamming it but it was there. And finally even with or without your pet you still had metamorphosis that made you a force to be reconed with and honestly in terms of pure visuals and usefulness puts our death shroud to shame.

This is all written from a lvl 90 MoP warlock view, haven’t played a lock in WoD so don’t neuter me for anything that is not in the game anymore.

I used to play a game where warlocks can use corpses to let them explode for additional effects. They could also consume them for HP and MP. It would indeed totally fit the necro.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Imo minions should be a lot more available and less powerful. This whole idea of having pets around that go on huge cooldowns when they die is a complete failure.

Or perhaps – if the OP wants Neccies to ‘be more with the dead’, go back to the GW1 minion raising model, whereby you actually require a corpse to generate a minion.

Bhawb.7408:

1. we summon Spectral beings from the Underworld

3. We don’t summon undead, nor would we from a lore point of view

1) technically, Shade is a Nightmare
3) Actually if you’re talking about the lore, Killeen in the first novel, Ghosts of Ascalon, animated dead warriors of Ebonhawke iirc, and for sure she animated a skeleton under Divinity’s Reach – an animation (undead), not a creation like our flesh golems. I highly suspect our bone fiend, minions and fiend are undeads too, undead devourer, wind rider and ummm undead pikachus? XD

Sublimatio.6981:

1) technically, Shade is a Nightmare

Potato Potato.

Sublimatio.6981:

3) Actually if you’re talking about the lore, Killeen in the first novel, Ghosts of Ascalon, animated dead warriors of Ebonhawke iirc, and for sure she animated a skeleton under Divinity’s Reach – an animation (undead), not a creation like our flesh golems.

Note that I didn’t say we can’t raise undead, but that we don’t raise them. It is generally considered a taboo afaik, and I believe it also has some differences such as we can’t use them forever like minions. I don’t see it being something that would be looked at very well when you consider it is the exact same thing Zhaitan just did to ravage very large portions of the world, and Palawa Joko is also using.

So could we? Yes. There is more to it than if we have the ability to though.

Sublimatio.6981:

I highly suspect our bone fiend, minions and fiend are undeads too, undead devourer, wind rider and ummm undead pikachus? XD

They aren’t undeads, they are golems made of flesh and bone. They take those forms most likely because it is really easy to copy biology (which is already shown to do things right) rather than take the time to try to perfect a new musculoskeletal system. Why fix something that nature already does best?

Nakatsu Hime.3520:

Or perhaps – if the OP wants Neccies to ‘be more with the dead’, go back to the GW1 minion raising model, whereby you actually require a corpse to generate a minion.

that might be fine for pve and hilarious in wvw, but it wouldnt work in pvp which the game seems to be balanced around.

I understand the OP’s point of view. Really, our minions should have gleaming bolts stuck out of their necks and suture scars all over them so our Shadow Fiend looks like a patchwork balloon with electrodes we can grab onto as hand holds to float over Orr.

With that, let’s subvert this thread to ask, again, for skins on our minions.

I will always support any request to get skins, I think it is the most genius idea to easy money ANet could ever get.

I just want to reanimate stuff that’s all :/

Oslaf Beinir.5842:

I just want to reanimate stuff that’s all :/

So that’s where Orr gets their undead poultry and livestock.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Nakatsu Hime.3520:

Or perhaps – if the OP wants Neccies to ‘be more with the dead’, go back to the GW1 minion raising model, whereby you actually require a corpse to generate a minion.

that might be fine for pve and hilarious in wvw, but it wouldnt work in pvp which the game seems to be balanced around.

This is indeed true. Although, the Neccie concerned could just bring a bag of body bits with her.
But no, fair point.

My only problem with the lore aspect is that Signet of Undeath is a sucky skill. If there is ANY class in GW2 that should be good at reviving allies from the dead, it’s the class that literally controls life and death: The Necromancer… but nope- warrior, engineer, ranger, and arguably ele does it better.

It even says in the profession description,
“Necromancers feed on life force, which they can use to bring allies back from the brink or cheat death itself.”

It would be interesting if Signet of Undeath, for it’s long cast time and maybe even longer cooldown would be more unique and not only bring up people from downstate like all others, but possibly even from defeat. That would make it stand out – longest cast time, maybe close range, huge cooldown and less people affected – but ability to literally bring back from dead.