Guild Wars 2

Sorry if I’m wrong, I’ve never played GW2, but I totally do not agree on calling the profession Necromancer.
I came to game fascinated on playing the Necromancer as a huge fan of such a class which lacks on many other MMOs, but it just ain’t as cool as it was supposed to be.

Necromancers are not Demonologists!

If you played Diablo II back at the times where Diablo was fun, you have the idea of what is a great Necromancer. Reviving corpses and skeletons! That’s the good stuff!

Anyways, that’s just my point of view!

At this point they should just make them Demonologists. =p

Would warrant stronger burst dmg, and can give us Burn as a condition lol.

Necromancers in general have control over the aspect of death, not just raising corpses also not a single skill has anything to do with summoning or studying demons…

Necromancers, if you’re looking for the real meaning, its just the black magic of conjuring spirits of the dead. In RPG terms, for those who played D&D and stuff, Necromacers are wizards that are adepts of: raising, creating, or summoning undeads.

Anyways, demons have nothing to do with the “dead”, and their minions are clearly some kind of demon aberrations, not undead at all… That’s what I meant…
Although I know this won’t ever change, I’m just throwing a point here… Because that’s weird for me. It would be so musch more awesome with a undead army…

Necromancy in the original definition was a person who uses spirits to divine the future. It changed to summoning, controlling, and corrupting spirits when it was demonized by the church. It was then further changed to raising the dead thanks to popular culture.

I think ANet has done a good job of combining the old definition with the modern ideals. Spectral ties with the original definition, Corruption ties with the middle definition, and Minions tie into the raising mindless undead definitions.

In gw1 we needed a corpse to raise a minion or a few of them, in some cases when one large undead minion we raised died a smaller minion took its place. They also took constant maintenance to keep up with other skills since they all had natural health drain. I actually liked that from gw1 since at least i could use skills to keep there health going up at a good pace most times. You could run around with 7 of them if memory serves me right and they worked so many times better since we could at least tell them to be passive or attack when we needed them to. Heck you could have all bone minions if you wanted which if was the case i would love to run with 6 little bone minions that i would all cause to blow up with death nova going off, but in this nope, we cannot have little bombers of death and fun.

If our current minions actually attacked mobs we wanted, or we could tell them to attack it would go along way because right now most times they dont attack a single target we want to stand there and watch you die. They also have very little health which bothers me since in pvp they are very easy to kill even from a downed state then a player can get right back up. The horrors have given so many players a good chance to revive them self and get back in the fight.

Flesh golem and bone minions are our best minions right now to me since we cause the little ones explode for decent damage and flesh golem has health that regans, ok damage, and can atleast take a slight beating.

@Munster.3058 Your first definition was taken from wikipedia, just as I said… But then i went for RPG definition which is games in general’s purpose, aka D&D, which is all that bla bla bla I said.

ANet’s vision is cool for all the non-minion stuff, however the minions have absolutly no trace of mindless undead, bro… They are demons… Obviously demons…

@gamefreak.5673 Well, I was just going for their aesthetics considering the profession’s name, I am not going into their usefullness, but I agree with what you said! Although I preffered Diablo’s skeleton army

Necros = dead
Insert element+mancer = manipulator/caster

Chapter 1: Learn how to use a shovel.

If i remember right Necromancers are 4th to 7th stage wizards with control of health points, cold damage and roll penalty with auras under them and a special affinity for the Draconic language and Scythe weapons (usually human, more often than not female), only death oriented specialized Clerics actually have undead summoning abilites till Necros get to the Lich special, all undead minions till then are counted as pets and allies, not getting damage by purge summon skills. All of the minions the necromancer has (excluding the shade that is actually more of a minion of grenth/from the mists thing) fit the standard of a undead creature under the flesh familiar type, with jaggered horrors being more of undead critters since it is forbidden to raise fully sentient beings as minions in Tyria.

For short, no, despite not being able to raise a army (what in general is a lich stadium only feature since it extends the summoning limits to 24 and the rasie skills to ignore charisma rolls if the risen is chosen to be a pet), Necromancers are still by all definitions Necromancers.

O in the first one you had a little army, a limited army but if setup right it was alot of fun since every corpse could be made into a new minion, very small recast times, had good range minions, melee minions, had a elite skill that cause you to raise a minion for each body around you so you could instantly go from 0 to max number in a second and that also had a small recast i believe. In gw2 its not a army, heck it barely counts as meat shields, at least meat shields i could use to keep myself up with maybe.

The minions are undead, In this Fantasy realm, raising a corpse so that it still looks like a corpse is incredibly offensive.

So what do necromancers do? They reshape the flesh so that it forms different undead constructs to do different tasks.

They are not demons, the removal of the corpse mechanic was for practical game mechanic reasons and isn’t canon, They are reshaped, Mindless, Corpses.

Bard.7215:

The minions are undead, In this Fantasy realm, raising a corpse so that it still looks like a corpse is incredibly offensive.

So what do necromancers do? They reshape the flesh so that it forms different undead constructs to do different tasks.

They are not demons, the removal of the corpse mechanic was for practical game mechanic reasons and isn’t canon, They are reshaped, Mindless, Corpses.

I mean one of the villains in the game are stereotypical undead (the risen). Think of the disconnect that would be in the game if you could summon the same undead monsters you character is supposed to be fighting against.

I don’t play RIFT, but I was looking into it recently. To me, on the surface, it looks like Necromancer in GW2 is Rift’s Warlock.

I understand the casual approach GW2 takes in general, but man, looking at GW1 and Rift with their specialized professions and not overly simplified skills makes me very envyous of what is capable.

Bard.7215:

The minions are undead, In this Fantasy realm, raising a corpse so that it still looks like a corpse is incredibly offensive.

So what do necromancers do? They reshape the flesh so that it forms different undead constructs to do different tasks.

They are not demons, the removal of the corpse mechanic was for practical game mechanic reasons and isn’t canon, They are reshaped, Mindless, Corpses.

Pretty much according to guild wars lore the raising of actual undead (skeletons, etc) is forbidden.

Avatar Rage.4369:

Pretty much according to guild wars lore the raising of actual undead (skeletons, etc) is forbidden.

Not really (since Eve did it a lot), its just that people aint comfy with the idea that necro minions might still have a soul/still be sentient post return, remember, we never were actually good guys, just the snarky (chaotic good or lawful evil) nightmare fuel station attendants that go around with the good guys and make sure that they have meat shields on demand and a energy battery…

I normally don’t talk on the forums, but I thought I should in this case. The term Necromancer is used appropriately in this game. Just because a lot of video games use it as some kind of corpse animator doesn’t mean that is what a necromancer actually is. A necromancer can, as it does in GW2, use his own body as a conduit for other-dimensional spirits to manifest in our visible dimension. This could either be like the GW1 ritualist with the spirits everywhere, OR the spirit can take it’s form in a corpse OR materialize into some other form (such as the GW2 necromancer summons). Guild Wars 2, while being a game and not bound to accuracy, actually is right in calling the Necromancer a necromancer. The necromancer in game can be heard saying “Your power flows through me”, another reference to what a necromancer is. The true definition of necromancer is not show in video games today, so that is not a very reliable source to get your information from. Just remember that it is a game, and the developers can choose to portray it however they please; just in this case they portrayed it in an acceptable way.

GW2 Necromancer has a little to do with demons directly – all summons are flesh oriented which are constructs that serve him and other abilities, well, fit Necromancer very well. Somebody mentioned DII, well necromancer in DII had iron golems, fire golems and clay golems and many other summons that were not skeletons exactly or other walking human corpses. Necromancer is good as it is.

Surinen.9684:

GW2 Necromancer has a little to do with demons directly – all summons are flesh oriented which are constructs that serve him and other abilities, well, fit Necromancer very well. Somebody mentioned DII, well necromancer in DII had iron golems, fire golems and clay golems and many other summons that were not skeletons exactly or other walking human corpses. Necromancer is good as it is.

All summons are flesh oriented, but as I explained above they are demons who take a flesh like form. I am sure of this because the in game necromancer frequently says “Your power flows through me” meaning that the spell worked and the demon, through the necromancer, is now in the flesh form.

“In RPG terms, for those who played D&D and stuff, Necromacers are wizards that are adepts of: raising, creating, or summoning undeads.”

In D&D, necromancers are clerics that specialize in magic that’s probably best described as “taboo.” Death, reanimation, torture, disease, evil, that sort of thing. Reanimation is only one of their tools, and nothing there specifies “human-shaped.” That’s just the easiest way to interpret it.

I like that they take a different tack on “undead” for the necromancer, it gets so boring seeing skeletons in every game and I’m sick of zombies lately. Bone horrors are just as much animated flesh and bone as zombies and look ten times cooler, and it makes practical sense if you think about the fact that they can be shaped for different purposes. The shade is a little odd, but again, that’s an underworld creature and follows naturally from control over death.

“Your power flows through me” may simply means that he is absorbing his creation power/draining it etc. Also it might just be summoned spirit from the mists or just animated corpse that is doing his bidding. It may also mean that he is stealing power of his opponents.

Lol, this skeleton of an argument must be undead because it’s been ress’d so many times here. Perhaps you ARE the necromancer you seek.

Zombies are cool, but it’s not GW2’s thing. Necro’s are masters of death and all of their skill are traited in that. There is only demon summoning if you use the appropriate demon related sigil. The minions are not demons, they are all essentially reanimated flesh and bones smashed together into new horrible abominations. It’s cool.

Haette.2701 – Actually, clerics turn into acolytes if specialized into death and decay, only wizards (and specific sorcerers and druids) can turn into a necro (unless the rule got changed).

You guys can argue semantics on what a necromancer technically is forever, but at the end of the day, the summons in game are lame and not at all imposing outside of maybe the flesh golem. The balloon and the skull rats are definitely underwhelming to look at.

The minions in the game aren’t demons at all. My Necromancer uses phrases like:

“No rest for you yet sweet soul!”

“Another minion gone, I’ll have to make another.” (Approx. Can’t remember the exact phrasing but this is very close.)

This clearly indicates he is using the soul of a recently defeated enemy to animate the flesh and bone creations. The first quote is triggered by the Reanimator trait. The second triggers when a minion is defeated but not when they are sacrificed.

Also in all editions of DnD past 2E, Necromancers have been a specialist wizard that deals with the rather loose concept of death. This includes, but is not limited to, undead. In 3.5 there was also a separate class which had weapon proficiencies including an axe and focused exclusively on death related magic. That class was, iirc, incredibly similar to the version of the class we have now.

I will concede that I preferred the GW1 minions to the current ones. Not only did they have better models IMO, but they also were more fun. The level cap for players was 20. I was able to run around with 11 level 21 Bone Horrors and a level 34 (I think) Flesh Golem. All I needed was corpses, which did become a problem in some areas. I’m hoping they introduce new minion types and make some of our current ones more useful. I think Bone Minions and Flesh Wurms work perfectly or near perfectly in GW2 right now. Flesh Golem is a little buggy but otherwise works well. But that’s all a discussion for another thread.

When the Necromancer says “your power flows through me” they are actually talking to the god Grenth. Its his power that they use to summon minions, they arent demons at all.

Andele.1306:

Haette.2701 – Actually, clerics turn into acolytes if specialized into death and decay, only wizards (and specific sorcerers and druids) can turn into a necro (unless the rule got changed).

Er… what edition is this?

I apparently made a stupid and managed to forget wizards can get ahold of necromancy spells too. I’ve always seen them built out of clerics, so that’s where my memory went.

Haette.2701 One of the Draconic expansion rule sets before 3.0 became official and kinda made DMs actually have to balance stuff, would have to look around the attic for hours to find the actual name and yes, clerics with acolyte specialization were the typical dark casters because they could get Turn undead with Tome of Specialized Hunt to lose out on 2d8 but also get to change the enemy targeted to a selected type , Command undead and Speak with dead, essecially letting you ignore the no charm rules since command undead didnt have a level check.

(looked it up, seems clerics could go necro and even lich in 3.5, sadly couldnt find info about 3.0)

Fwiw, the things we summon are rather obviously “made” or “crafted” rather than summoned.

I mean, the Flesh Golems head is mostly made out of something’s rib cage if you look at it. The other minions are the same way.

I mean one of the villains in the game are stereotypical undead (the risen). Think of the disconnect that would be in the game if you could summon the same undead monsters you character is supposed to be fighting against

No disconnect at all since numerous games have done this… so like any D&D games or Diablo 2…

There’s not much very ‘necromancy’ about the GW2 necro, its more like Dr Frankenstein let loose in a pet store with a vegetable peeler, sharp knife, super-glue, armed with a collection of mostly ad-hoc melee/ranged weapons left over from other careers with rubbish skills & traits and wearing the worst armour available.

When I think of Necromancy, there’s a couple of things that come to mind.

The RPG ‘D&D’ necromancer that raises zombies, skeletons and ultimately aims to cheat or better understand the process of ‘death’ via undeath. Ok, so they ditched the cliche and that is fine…

The ‘Classical’ necromancer that summons the spirits of the dead in order to plumb the mysteries of the afterlife, life, the universe and next weeks lotto results. IMO this would have been the more interesting route to go with career design, yes, keep them as the scholar career with the goofy weapons and so on. But something more like the Ranger Spirits of the wild which give buffs and bonuses to various more material things like the body, mind and helping make stuff die instead of the elements.

Could of had a lot of fun with something like:
Spirit of War- various fightyness
Spirit of Pestilence- swarms of bugs biting people
Spirit of Disorder- confusions and dazes
Spirit of Blight- cripples and weakness

Instead your stuck with skinned bunnies, weird scorpions, flesh worm (lol), floaty amoebas and the pinnacle of being mostly useless- the violent kitten ape with a rhino horn who;
1: Does nothing
2: Picks a fight with anything you don’t want it to and are nowhere near
3: Can’t swim
4: Sometimes punches what you want it to

Oh well…

Thresher.3049:

… When I think of Necromancy, there’s a couple of things that come to mind …
The ‘Classical’ necromancer that summons the spirits of the dead in order to plumb the mysteries of the afterlife, life, the universe and next weeks lotto results. IMO this would have been the more interesting route to go with career design, yes, keep them as the scholar career with the goofy weapons and so on. But something more like the Ranger Spirits of the wild which give buffs and bonuses to various more material things like the body, mind and helping make stuff die instead of the elements.

Could of had a lot of fun with something like:
Spirit of War- various fightyness
Spirit of Pestilence- swarms of bugs biting people
Spirit of Disorder- confusions and dazes
Spirit of Blight- cripples and weakness
…
.

I’m not sure if you played GW Factions, but what you describe sounds similar to the Ritualist class in many ways.
Maybe if a GW2 expansion comes out that focuses on Cantha, we might see this vision of the ‘spirit focused’ class you describe come to pass.

I think Guild wars version of Necromancer is amazing, I prefer this one version of the Necro than any other in MMO’s. But that’s just my opinion, and perhaps it’s the way I play hence why I enjoy the Necromancer.

Each to their own

Technically a person who animates the dead shouldn’t be called a necromancer, either. As Necromancy is a form of divination. Communing with the dead to glean wisdom or information. (as is any magic ending in -mancy)

FiachSidhe.3654 – Divination and Necromancy are polar opposites… one is helping the dead to be actually dead and talking to them/helping them reach their gods, other is getting the dead back to life (in one form or another)and enslaving/chaining their spirits to a mortal form to control em (also you couldnt chose both unless you were true neutral and even then you were unable to use raise and command undead spells. Thats like saying that arcane manipulation has anything to do with elemental control except the fact that they both use the same power source.

Andele.1306:

FiachSidhe.3654 – Divination and Necromancy are polar opposites…

Nope.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-mancy
Games just use the word wrong and it stuck.

To OP:
If you look closely most of the Minions are a bunch of skinless corpses of some sort.
In GW1 they were raised from corpses but looked much the same.
Judging from that I guess that Necromancers in GW magically sew together a ton of flesh and bones and trap a soul in it.

I dunno what exactly Shadow Fiend is though.
A Spectre of some sort, maybe?

Necromancers in Guild Wars 2 combine Necromancy, Curses and Vampiric stuff.
That’s why you have Undead minions, nasty debuffs and life stealing.
There’s also some cultist style stuff, too.
“Real” Necromancers did some really nasty stuff like ate corpses and sacrificed animals.

If you wanna be picky the Diablo 2 Necromancers actually have Poison Dagger and Poison Nova.
They don’t really have anything to do with Necromancy.
Despite that the Poison Nova is one of my favorite D2 Necro skills.

LastDay.3524 – WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS~ (one of the aspects of the 11 pools of magic)mancy is use of magic/casting, (one of the aspects of the 11 pools of magic)ation is use of the powers with active actions , divination is a aspect of everything that lets you use the dead, but as a element of magic it is the whole annoying holy priest/talks to gods/helps the unresting spirits kitten, thus as said only being close to necromancy in the fact that it draws power from life force. Also games (D&D) did finally define necromancy to the current standard since its only in there… like you dont see people walking around with a army of the dead, do you?

Necromancy and Divination together are the base pillars of forbidden magic (chaotic and lawful side) because trough their basic traits you can tap into different plains of power that aint bound to the mortal relms (thus if you dont know the basics of both you cant progress into the “advanced” classes abjuration (changing the planes of existance, needed for advanced transmutation), Conjuration (energy to matter), enchantment (infusion of matter with stable forms of energy), evocation (essencially the basics of physics, needed for advanced conjuration), illusion (use of energy and distortion of matter to influence your surroundings, needs all other classes to get the maximum effect) and transmutation (conversion of matter via energy manipulation, needed for advanced enchantment).

The needs can be changed depending on skills and specific books but thats the general plan of forbidden (non elemental magic that uses life force / sentient or out of the current dimension energy as source).

Andele.1306:

LastDay.3524 – WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS~ (one of the aspects of the 11 pools of magic)mancy is use of magic/casting, (one of the aspects of the 11 pools of magic)ation is use of the powers with active actions , divination is a aspect of everything that lets you use the dead, but as a element of magic it is the whole annoying holy priest/talks to gods/helps the unresting spirits kitten, thus as said only being close to necromancy in the fact that it draws power from life force. Also games (D&D) did finally define necromancy to the current standard since its only in there… like you dont see people walking around with a army of the dead, do you?

Necromancy and Divination together are the base pillars of forbidden magic (chaotic and lawful side) because trough their basic traits you can tap into different plains of power that aint bound to the mortal relms (thus if you dont know the basics of both you cant progress into the “advanced” classes abjuration (changing the planes of existance, needed for advanced transmutation), Conjuration (energy to matter), enchantment (infusion of matter with stable forms of energy), evocation (essencially the basics of physics, needed for advanced conjuration), illusion (use of energy and distortion of matter to influence your surroundings, needs all other classes to get the maximum effect) and transmutation (conversion of matter via energy manipulation, needed for advanced enchantment).

The needs can be changed depending on skills and specific books but thats the general plan of forbidden (non elemental magic that uses life force / sentient or out of the current dimension energy as source).

You are talking about Dungeons & Dragons.
FiachSidhe was talking about what the word actually meant.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10735a.htm

LastDay.3524:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10735a.htm

Oh well that explains a lot, but for future note, if talking about religious hogwash, say so before i enter my lore rage mode~

I personally want my Necromancer to be the “undead general” role. I miss the good old days back in Prophecies when my MM could steamroll anything with 40+ minions. XD But right now, I’d be happy if minions automatically regenerated health while out of combat (seriously, it’s super annoying going into battle when my Bone Fiend has only 1/10 health left and I have no way to kill it), and if there was a Death Magic Trait that allowed us to summon twice the normal number of minions when a skill is used.

Imagine it… Two Blood Fiends, two Bone Fiends, four Bone Minions, two Flesh Wurms, two Flesh Golems… Now THAT’S (bordering on) a proper Minion army!

Quote is broken so I gotta do it this way.

OP:
“ANet’s vision is cool for all the non-minion stuff, however the minions have absolutly no trace of mindless undead, bro… They are demons… Obviously demons…”

This is called an opinion. This entire argument on this thread is off of an opinion that the OP deems fact…Just stop and let him be.
Just because the body becomes all mangled, distorted and bones stick out does not make something a demon. (Which, correct me if I’m wrong but are generally spirits) Because you as an individual find that mangled corpses with bones sticking out and missing flesh to be “demons” does not make it a fact. Maybe the more spectral minion is more about what you are referencing however it is more likely that it is simply a reanimated body of a spectral creature from the UW, which does not directly make it a “demon” in GW lore. The only thing that is a fact here is that in GW1 they required to be risen from bodies and that the developers classify them as “undead”. Those are the real facts here, not “They’re obviously demons”. End of story, sorry to rain on your parade.

“Necromancers are masters of the dark arts. They summon the DEAD to fight for them, channel blood energy and rend their enemies’ souls. Necromancers draw on life force and use it to strengthen or heal themselves and others. As a scholar profession, necromancers wear light armor.”

Anet got something wrong in the process, huh?

Necromancer in EverQuest 1 had some real roleplay elements. Like using your own health as damage.

Here life force is more of a “rage bar” or “initiative bar”.

Let me trade my health (or others) for positive effects and I’d call it necromancer.

NoxInfernus.2361:

I’m not sure if you played GW Factions, but what you describe sounds similar to the Ritualist class in many ways.
Maybe if a GW2 expansion comes out that focuses on Cantha, we might see this vision of the ‘spirit focused’ class you describe come to pass.

Never played the original Guild Wars, my line of thought was leaning towards the ‘4 horsemen of the apocalypse’ and their respective properties.

I do miss the GW1 necromancer MM builds and mechanics, but I suppose with shared, persistent explorable areas instead of individual instances they’d have had problems with not enough corpses to go around for all the necros that may be in zone at the same time (especially if they added/will add some of the old corpse-exploiting skills from the first game).

It would be nice to build a slightly larger minion army, or at least more than one of each type active at once. It’s nice that they’re still more-or-less modeled after living creatures. The worm is an undead worm, blood fiend is an undead breeze rider, bone minions are sewer rats, bone fiends are devourers, shadow fiends are shades (can you have an undead shade?). The only one that isn’t clearly modeled after a Tyrian animal is the flesh golem, which still looks like the bony abomination he was in GW1.

Now if he would just stop aggroing everything on the map…

Andele.1306:

FiachSidhe.3654 – Divination and Necromancy are polar opposites… one is helping the dead to be actually dead and talking to them/helping them reach their gods, other is getting the dead back to life (in one form or another)and enslaving/chaining their spirits to a mortal form to control em (also you couldnt chose both unless you were true neutral and even then you were unable to use raise and command undead spells. Thats like saying that arcane manipulation has anything to do with elemental control except the fact that they both use the same power source.

Anything ending in -mancy is a form of divination. Necromancy was the supposed act of communing with the spirits of the dead, to obtain usually hidden information/insight.

Divination as a word, has nothing to do with the dead. Divination is gleaning information from esoteric means. It could be anything from candles, to tea leaves, tarot cards, to crystals.

Divination is a blanket term.
Necromancy, is a specific form of divination, dealing with the dead.

Fantasy Necromancers, do things like animate the dead.

To me, Gw2 necromancers are more like some sort of bioengineer or like, rather than a more traditional ‘raise the dead’ as we see in many other games.

It’s an interesting take, although I do wish the minions were a bit bigger, if only for bigger races. Most of the minions look tiny on my charr necromancer.