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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
About Necromancer, or more importantly, Summoner.
Atrushan
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
So I've heard Summoners with the Cleric secondary become Necromancers, able to summon skeletons and undead, which is interesting, of course, but what I'm curious about is that if, say, a Summoner wanted to become more of a secondary healer, what option would they have for such? Necromancer sounds more offensive in nature than supportive, so, how would one go about becoming more of a "bright light healing" type Summoner? I do recall that Summoners can fill out one of all three roles of support, DPS, or tank with their summons, but I'm just not sure about how Necromancer would fit in with that whole heal fantasy, as in general, you'd suspect that going secondary Cleric would give you more healing type augments instead. People who haven't read up on this would then be confused when they chose Cleric secondary and became an undead summoner rather than summoning things like fairies, angels, or things like that(I understand you can change your secondary through difficult means, but preventing this pain point for the uninformed altogether would be nice, and there are other concerns following). I like the idea of Necromancer as an option, I really do, but it just seems like it removes the option for a more "holy" or "healing" based aspect from the archetype you'd expect it from the most.
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It's far to early to tell what kind of aesthetic that will encompass but it's an option.
We also don't know (but I'd like to see) if there will be ways to reskin your abilities to fit different class fantasies.
I guess that's true, Cleric-Summoner could be a thing to replace that fantasy, however that would remove the Summoner part quite a bit more most likely from the equation. I recall that Cleric gets the "life" and "death" augments, I personally would be fine with a different name for the class that is a bit less specific like "Medium" or "Spiritualist", and then giving either the life option with more light based aesthetic, or the death option with the whole necromancy aspect. I can't expect "Life" summons to be undead, which wouldn't make sense for a necromancer to NOT summon the undead. The name Necromancer imo just seems to connect SOLELY to the "Death" option.
Which again, is a cool idea, necromancers are always a cool idea, I just am not sure how I feel about a class generally MORE about life than death being swayed towards being almost death focused(at least in name) entirely.
The summoner uses many abilities that channel through their summon.
Source: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Necromancer
As far as the aesthetic of a bright light necromancer goes, a healing spirit does not seem unreasonable for a necromancer using life augments.
Summoners are said to be a "Jack of all trades but master of none" kind of class.
Steven gave info on Necromancers in July's AMA. I suggest you watch that. We will get more info as alpha approaches.
Questions...
I heard a bird ♫
If this logic applied to Paladin then I could be one edgy paladin. 😏
Yeah I saw him talk about them but he gave some basic answers on how the class would work, not really what I was talking about specifically. From looking up the definition a Cleric is a priest or religious leader. I suppose that could follow either or, as you said, but it's generally referred to as a more holy type of leader. As I said though, I don't mind the idea of a Necromancer, I just feel like if they give all the dark tones to the only "holy" based archetype in the game, it kind of removes an option for Summoners. Having both a Life and Death augment could have been more of a choice between a more holy or more dark focused ability, but I imagine with the way the class is titled as a NECROMANCER, everything will look very undead or dark magic based, and I would expect enough of that from some of the other DPS classes to where the more light toned abilities are much less. It's more of a concern for a lack of an identity choice than functional abilities.
Lol good point. That's what I was saying though, it's just kind of weird that they're applying a dark tone to a generally light based class.
Yeah, I'm just concerned because I feel it'll be unlikely if I say, wanted to be a more "holy" type summoner, I wouldn't get that option. A healing spirit MAY be possible, I'm just not sure the aesthetic would resemble something I would expect from same aesthetic of a Cleric. I feel like the abilities whether life or death focused will all have more of a darker aesthetic than any other Cleric sub-archetypes. I'm really interested in how a Summoner would be able to fill the tank role without being able to be a tank though. That's one thing I'm not sure how it'd work, considering they're said to be able to fill all 3 roles essentially depending on their summon, just not good enough to replace said roles. Then again I assume each summon that is tied to a specific role will be able to be leveled up through the skill leveling, so if one leveled up the tank summon, would that just be a futile effort?
I hope to create a healing summoner, I have no problem with her heals being only okayish. I'll take whichever secondary archetype and augments that are necessary to accomplish this task. I hope my character is able to help in the healing as well, and not just my summons doing all the work.
There are a few damage mitigation healer ideas I would like to try as well if I can find a combination of Archetypes and augments that allow it. I wish more was known about the classes so I could tell if my ideas are even possible.
Well then there is the Cultist, rogue/cleric. Sounds spOoky.
Supposedly we'll be able to customize our spell color, so maybe clerics can trade out their gold flare and particle effects for sinister palette? Dark vs light.
To use Wow tanks as an example, I would rather my tank/cleric (paladin) play more like a blood death knight than a protection paladin. But the decision to build one or the other is up to me.
So if I were to take a known skill, lacerate a bleed damage over time, and make up theoretical augments they could look a little like this:
Death augment: siphon the blood of your foe healing yourself for 30% of damage delt plus 5% of base health
Adds a shadowy pulse spell effect when the heal ticks.
Life augment: adds 10yards to the spell converting damage to holy and heals all friendly within 10 yards for 15% of damage dealt.
Instead of icky bleed now a holy cleansing fire.
According to the wiki summoners will be able to customize their pets in a creature editor. So maybe you can have skeletons with gold runes, or green wraiths instead?
Not to rain on your parade, but if you want to heal play a cleric primary.
The way it is now your primary archetype is your active ability skill set. At 25 you can pick a second archetype creating your class.
A shaman would be a cleric with a pet
A Necromancer is a summoner with multiple pets. Sure one of em might be able to provide healing, but not enough to replace a cleric.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Classes
Summoner can actually either focus on one pet that's really strong or multiple pets that split their strength, from what I read, so even Necromancer can have just one pet. Summoner is also supposed to be a class that can become either a tank, DPS, or support, from what I've read, but won't be exceptionally good at any iirc.
There's no real details on Shaman either, but they've talked about summoner augments in the past for things like the fighter class(can't remember the actual name, warrior?) where it gets like a floating sword that's not necessarily a pet but maybe does things as the class does things, so it's possible Cleric/Summoner won't have a pet exactly, as Shamans won't actually get summoner abilities, but just augments for their Cleric abilities.
Well from what I've read, the summoner doesn't have abilities that use the character, it's abilities are basically channeling through the summon, making the summon do attacks, support, tank, etc, so your character being able to heal as a Summoner/Cleric likely won't happen, though the summon itself may be able to assist in healing. I'm kind of curious about Summoner/Bard honestly also as it's a support class as well.