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What would be your ideal Necromancer?

While scrolling through the forums I can't help but notice the popularity of Necromancers and other "evil" or dark classes, the class mechanics can vary from an rpg to another such as being purely a summoner or a hybrid between a caster and a summoner, I was curious to what gameplay elements you would like to see implemented? Or aesthetics suggestions, spells and types of summons, overall what type of Necromancer you'd want Ashes of Creation to have or add on-top?

Comments

  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Having seen the wealth of info in the Ideal Class thread, I feel a lot of people will be disappointed by the classes/augments.
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  • Neurath wrote: »
    Having seen the wealth of info in the Ideal Class thread, I feel a lot of people will be disappointed by the classes/augments.

    In the sense they won't get their desired Necromancer? If it's the case I can see how it can disappoint a lot of players considering the plethora of ideas given in that thread, only a few things will be added I guess since it's a secondary, and not a full on primary class like it would be in GuildWars2 for example
  • KhronusKhronus Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I will be playing Tank but Necromancer seemed so cool. I would like to see gothic/dark looking gear/characters with lots of blood animations on abilities. Skeletons (but not an insane amount) that will charge your target when you engage. Simple stuff.
  • MowabyMowaby Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Neurath wrote: »
    Having seen the wealth of info in the Ideal Class thread, I feel a lot of people will be disappointed by the classes/augments.

    The class system is strange. Some people look at the classes and think they will get skills based on that class. They don't realize the real class is the primary archetype. So a necromancer will be a summoner. Adding cleric to that makes it a necromancer. They will get some added flavor and augments that changes the summoner to be slightly more like a cleric. The flavor parts will change the summons to be undead instead of whatever they normally would be.

    I think people get confused with the class system and will be disappointed when they don't get their ideal "add class here".
  • I'd want to throw around diseases and curses, and raise undead minions from nearby corpses.
    This link may help you: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
  • A dead one.
  • bloodprophetbloodprophet Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    GW1 Necromancer was fun to play.
    I never played the expansions so not sure how it went after the base game.
    Most people never listen. They are just waiting on you to quit making noise so they can.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited February 2021
    Summoner/cleric
  • GW1 Necromancer was fun to play.
    I never played the expansions so not sure how it went after the base game.

    Yeah, I liked the GW1 Necromancer.
    This link may help you: https://ashesofcreation.wiki/
  • I would prefer if the necromancer was a mass minion summoner rather than a singular pet summoner. They can make this work by reflavoring their damage spells to temporarily animate skeletons and other sorts of corpses. Just as a poor example, lets say summoner has an arcane damage over time ability that causes the target to take more damage from your primary pet. Instead of it being arcane sparkles, they could change it to look like a ton of skeletal bone spiders rushing forward and latching to the target for the duration. From there you change the damage type and make tweaks that make it more unique compared to the original DoT that the summoner starts with.

    I suspect this sort of reflavoring will be a major focus of how these things work, with only subtle changes to the actual mechanics of each ability to make it easier to balance out classes.
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    Commissioned at https://fiverr.com/ravenjuu
  • Sum12hateSum12hate Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Waiting to see how nagash responds.. but personally I enjoy the thought of necromancer being kind of like the antihealer more about debuffing enemies and using life steal to sustain allies
  • DreohDreoh Member
    edited February 2021
    Mowaby wrote: »
    Neurath wrote: »
    Having seen the wealth of info in the Ideal Class thread, I feel a lot of people will be disappointed by the classes/augments.

    The class system is strange. Some people look at the classes and think they will get skills based on that class. They don't realize the real class is the primary archetype. So a necromancer will be a summoner. Adding cleric to that makes it a necromancer. They will get some added flavor and augments that changes the summoner to be slightly more like a cleric. The flavor parts will change the summons to be undead instead of whatever they normally would be.

    I think people get confused with the class system and will be disappointed when they don't get their ideal "add class here".

    This is very true, and unfortunately unavoidable

    People see the "classes" in the class table and think all 64 of them are going to be hand-tailored based on the name, whereas the name is actually added after the fact.

    Unless Intrepid is actually going to put in a ridiculous amount of work, class variants aren't going to be as different from one another as some people are assuming.

    Necromancer is just going to be like all the other summoner primaries, except the summons will have "Death/Life" attributes. In practical terms, this means while a base summoner might summon something like a basic "spirit animal", the Summoner/Cleric (Necromancer)'s "Death augmented summon spirit wolf" will probably a spirit wolf with a "shadowy aura" around it or maybe even a skeletal wolf that does necrotic damage or something.

    Maybe I'm wrong and Intrepid is going to make every possible skill augmentation custom, but it's far more likely they'll streamline the augment system, because there's 64 classes. 8 primary archetypes, each with upwards of 20 skills. Combine that with each secondary archetype having (from what we know) 4 augment types, and then the racial/religion augments and whatever other random augments there are, and you can begin to see the exponentially increasing amount of work that has to be done.

    This is why my question for this month's livestream is asking about how they are going to handle the augment system.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited February 2021
    We dont need all these "class-names".
    But people freak out when you tell them 15 (up to 20 post release) real classes are better than 64 names.

    It wont be too many months before we get a picture of what IS has put together. We can test it and then give feedback.
  • We dont need all these "class-names".
    But people freak out when you tell them 15 (up to 20 post release) real classes are better than 64 names.

    I mean, yea sure your argument makes sense if this game was going with traditional spells and abilities, but it's using a spell customization system which means all these names are kind of necessary for easy consumption.

    Your argument essentially boils down to "Customizeable abilities is worse because it's complicated" which is a lame stance to take
  • maouwmaouw Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    @Nagash
    My Liege?
    The living request an audience.
    I wish I were deep and tragic
  • maouw wrote: »
    @Nagash
    My Liege?
    The living request an audience.

    I guess we need some offerings (*sacrifice*) and a summoning ritual ...
  • bloodprophetbloodprophet Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    He's been MIA lately. Hope he's ok.
    Most people never listen. They are just waiting on you to quit making noise so they can.
  • MaezrielMaezriel Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Mowaby wrote: »
    Neurath wrote: »
    Having seen the wealth of info in the Ideal Class thread, I feel a lot of people will be disappointed by the classes/augments.

    The class system is strange. Some people look at the classes and think they will get skills based on that class. They don't realize the real class is the primary archetype. So a necromancer will be a summoner. Adding cleric to that makes it a necromancer. They will get some added flavor and augments that changes the summoner to be slightly more like a cleric. The flavor parts will change the summons to be undead instead of whatever they normally would be.

    I think people get confused with the class system and will be disappointed when they don't get their ideal "add class here".

    Yea, I kindasorta blame Intrepid for their insistence on the word "Class" as their definition isn't intuitive and FAR to many people come to the game expecting 64 wholly unique classes or even that each one would be unique like WoW specs when we really haven't seen anything that shows that'd be the case

    I know Steven said augments would be impactful but we don't yet have a basis for how impactful. For example, changing a Charge to a Blink is technically impactful (the higher your skill the more impactful it might be) but I'd argue that for the vast majority of players it's largely cosmetic
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    If I said something that you disagree w/ feel free to say so here.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited February 2021
    Dreoh wrote: »
    We dont need all these "class-names".
    But people freak out when you tell them 15 (up to 20 post release) real classes are better than 64 names.

    I mean, yea sure your argument makes sense if this game was going with traditional spells and abilities, but it's using a spell customization system which means all these names are kind of necessary for easy consumption.

    Your argument essentially boils down to "Customizeable abilities is worse because it's complicated" which is a lame stance to take

    Ah thanks for choosing a lame arguement and naming it my position.
    I wonder what else is is my arguement according to you.
    Speaking of customization, go see AA, eso and AAU and come back to tell that "it's just complicated".
    It actually never works.

    It "boils down" to only few effective builds, and the rest is for RP.
  • DreohDreoh Member
    edited February 2021
    Ah thanks for choosing a lame arguement and naming it my position.

    Well, that is what you said

    "People freak out when you tell them 15 hard classes is better than 64 'soft classes'"

    Also, you further proved it by doubling down by saying "It actually never works". Just because some games didn't get it perfect doesn't mean not to try to make a perfect version. Don't argue against experimentation and progress because of past failure.
    I'd also argue ESO did it pretty well.
  • RhuricRhuric Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Dreoh wrote: »
    We dont need all these "class-names".
    But people freak out when you tell them 15 (up to 20 post release) real classes are better than 64 names.

    I mean, yea sure your argument makes sense if this game was going with traditional spells and abilities, but it's using a spell customization system which means all these names are kind of necessary for easy consumption.

    Your argument essentially boils down to "Customizeable abilities is worse because it's complicated" which is a lame stance to take

    Ah thanks for choosing a lame arguement and naming it my position.
    I wonder what else is is my arguement according to you.
    Speaking of customization, go see AA, eso and AAU and come back to tell that "it's just complicated".
    It actually never works.

    It "boils down" to only few effective builds, and the rest is for RP.

    I'd say ESO's skill lines worked pretty well. The biggest drawback is the limited skills you can use. What's the point of having access to so many abilities if you can only use a handful at a time.

    It doesn't really matter whether things are customizable, there will always be cookie cutter builds. What one person does successfully, many others will copy. There are often a lot of 'effective' builds, but a lot of players don't really experiment for themselves.
    "Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, GLORIOUSLY alive, today."
  • my ideal necromancer will summon tons of weak skeletons to overrun the opponent while I dispatch debuffs and curses from the backline..

    also the skeletons will be capped to a reasonable amount, but wont have limited lifespan, (I mean they will stay until they get killed)

    I think it can be done even with the augment system

    let's say the summoner has an ability called summon fire elemental, that summons a DPS minion

    but when you augmented that skill with death augments you can change it to a summon skeleton warrior and that can be recasted up to 10 times, you will still summon a DPS minion, but instead of a fire elemental that does fire damage, it will be a bunch of skeletons that deal physical/necrotic damage still counts as DPS minions

  • For a Necromancer, I’d like a few things...

    • Summons: Skeletons, golems, spirits and reanimated corpses. Certain specializations for each “type” would be interesting, such as having lots of skeletons, or having some skeleton archers in the mix... or creating a Lich that summons skeletons for you. Skeletons and golems could require material reagents to summon, where as a spirit might be bound to a certain item (as if you had captured its soul), and reanimated corpses would require “fresh” bodies of any type to command for a time.

    • Casting: From wards to healing spells, communing with the dead and peering into the spirit realm, a Necromancer’s familiarity with dark arts and walking closely with death helps them to thwart fatal injuries and conjure methods of repelling the dead. It would be neat (albeit niche) to have specific quests only for Necromancers in which they have to speak with the dead or follow a spirit that only they can see. Additionally, having some healing powers and protective wards that they could place would be “supportive” to both minions and allies.

    I am torn about the idea of direct damage attacks, but damage over time debuffs could be fun.
  • I think one issue is that the word "Necromancer" conjures up images of a character with a lot more power than the other classes at the same level. Although there is no intention to balance 1v1 I think a "Necromancer" will be (loosely) no better or worse than any other class at the same level.

    When you think about a "Necromancer" in those terms, it can't possibly live up to the expectations of popular fantasy fiction, but it will be a viable class.
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  • MaezrielMaezriel Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    McMackMuck wrote: »
    I think one issue is that the word "Necromancer" conjures up images of a character with a lot more power than the other classes at the same level. Although there is no intention to balance 1v1 I think a "Necromancer" will be (loosely) no better or worse than any other class at the same level.

    When you think about a "Necromancer" in those terms, it can't possibly live up to the expectations of popular fantasy fiction, but it will be a viable class.

    IDK once you start raising the dead to fight for you, you're a necromancer in my eyes. Lich on the other hand...
    ZeFuP1X.png
    If I said something that you disagree w/ feel free to say so here.
  • maouwmaouw Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    McMackMuck wrote: »
    I think one issue is that the word "Necromancer" conjures up images of a character with a lot more power than the other classes at the same level. Although there is no intention to balance 1v1 I think a "Necromancer" will be (loosely) no better or worse than any other class at the same level.

    When you think about a "Necromancer" in those terms, it can't possibly live up to the expectations of popular fantasy fiction, but it will be a viable class.

    Yeah, the idea of being a one-man-army is a bit defiant to the MM of MMORPG.
    I guess that's why summoner will be one of the last to be designed - coz it depends on so many factors.

    I do enjoy walking around with a zoo of creatures in my wake though hahaha
    I wish I were deep and tragic
  • bloodprophetbloodprophet Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    GW1 I think did it right. The necromancer summons had a decay rate that was ever increasing. There were a couple long term summons that could be kill or unsummoned. But the majority had a limited life span. They could be healed but eventually they decay rate would exceed what healing could be done.
    Minion Master was a fun build. I played mainly healer so I don't have a ton of experience with the build.
    Most people never listen. They are just waiting on you to quit making noise so they can.
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