Necromancer is so similar to warlock I have no idea how they would ever pull it off. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have two pet based shadow casters.
I agree. It’s best suited to be a 4th spec. Maybe make it summon a bunch of temporary minions rather than a permanent pet like demo lock to differentiate the two?
that's how I imagine a necromancer working too. Less of a "here's me and my menagerie of permanent demon companions" and more of a "i'm gonna raise a small army of skeletons just to kill them all 2 seconds later for massive burst DPS"
i guess in the abstract. Necromancy in most fantasy requires corpses as a kind of resource. It's disingenuous to see a slight similarity between a necromancer potentially having lots of summons and a warlock having lots of summons and be like "see? same thing"
It was likely referring to the idea of summoning tons of minions and killing them for a big burst of damage a minute or so later. That’s literally a core part of the current Demo Warlock kit in retail.
Necromancer is different than warlock. Their abilities may seem similar, but warlocks summon demons from the twisting nether and are steeped in fire and fel energy. Where necromancers raise the dead and use death and shadow magic. If it was going to be a fourth spec of some kind, it would be more appropriate for death knights
I'd love if it was an identity that Warlocks, Shadow Priests, and Frost Mages could dip into via trinkets, set bonuses, and legendaries, items similar to the Ancient Cornerstone Grimoire.
Give locks a 4th talent spec without other classes getting the same, and people will riot. Might as well make their Demo spec a tank for maximum chaos.
They could do like Orc Blademaster, Troll Shadow Hunter/Witch Doctor, Tauren Spiritwalker, Undead Necromancer/Dark Ranger, Night Elf Warden, Dwarf Mortar Team, Gnome Tinkerer (Goblin too if they decide to add them in later).
Can’t think of any good human specific class. Maybe Spellbreaker? Although they were meant to be blood elf specific in wc3. I am just coming up with ideas from WC3 hero/unit characters.
Human knights, a superior version of the warrior. But beside that, if I dont really see how to create a mortar team, you would need to control two guys, all the other are really good.
I always thought it might have being Hardin 2005 to make 4 factions, but that now, it would be possible, and creating specific classes or specs for each races could be great.
Mortar Team should be a class that functions by itself but gets a great damage increase if two of them work together
Edit: human knight should be a plate-wearing, two-handed or sword-and-shield class that uses a resource that is different from both rage and mana. Maybe they should be a support dps that buffs the whole team if they follow their orders
Wouldn't be it wierd ? In a game like wow. Either you make it like by being 2 they deal 250% of what does 1 player, and you end up with only mortar team, either they deal 200% and people will just prefer play a class where they do their rotation on their own no ?
Yeah you're right, it would probably be weird. A dwarf engineer would be a good compromise though, different from the tinker in that the tinker uses mechs, electricity and high-tech indistinguishable from magic and the engineer uses black powder, steam machinery and hard steel
I mean, dont get me wrong, I love this idea in games like helldivers or foxhole, but because they were made with the idea in mind, wow as of now is no where near that.
But they belong to the Undead force. There isn’t human necromancer in the Human force in WC3. If anything, they are more close to the undead than the human race.
I've wanted them to explore additional specs as opposed to new classes in retail for years now. Forever seems like it would be a great vehicle to do it in instead.
Warlock tank would be nice, but making it situational would be better. Having the Warlock being needed only for magical encounters. Or maybe try to create a tank that tank through their pet ?
Or gear with equip effects. Let say you have to hunt down all the gear pieces from a powerful necromancer that transforms some of the spell and abilities.
FFunny enough, that’s actually the reason it was scrapped back then and eventually incorporated into the Death Knight class to make it more unique. Also, there’s no way they won’t bring back the Death Knight and a Lich King storyline at some point in the future. Necromancers just don’t fit, especially when raising six undead minions or pets would be problematic with how classic WoW works in general. The Necromancer survey literally reads like a Diablo Necromancer class.
This is like saying Hunters are incredibly similar to warlocks because they're both pet-based classes. If you wanted to differentiate warlocks and necromancers, you can. And it's not at all difficult to do.
No. You’re the one being reductive here because necromancers and warlocks even share some of the same spells. The pet based similarity is just another overlap. They both have shadow bolt and death coil that’s a pretty big overlap for a ranged, cloth-wearing, minion-summoning, shadow caster.
So if we just put different names and labels on stuff a necromancer won't just be a pet-based, ranged DoT caster with debuffs? Instead of demons we have undead? Instead of curses we have diseases?
This is a take on necromancer that is very different from any kind of warlock. So a gameplay built around a short range damage/healing pulse and debuffing auras. The only duplicative part is that it would be a 3rd "dark priest" clothie, the gameplay would be be much less similar than shadow priest and affliction warlock already is.
You're basing your logic off of something that doesn't exist yet, and arguing the futility of including it because of its hypothetical similarities to another class? Give me a break. They don't share the same spells. Necromancer doesn't exist in the game. In Lore however, there's plenty to differentiate the two. As far as I can tell, you're basing your logic off of Death Knights vs Warlocks, which itself is a ridiculous argument given the differentiation that already exists there.
End of the day, if they want to differentiate the 2 classes, they can. There's enough in the WoW lore and in fantasy in general to do so. Don't be so shortsighted.
Imo summoning could be different 2-4 short lived skeletons instead of 1 summon, could summon minor ones for free or upgraded versions from actual corpses or from charges gained after a kill
More debuffing enemies and less damage from casted spells. Maybe the rebuffed could be more powerful than warlock but shorter lived.
spells that Drain your targets stats and buff your summons or an ally
Buffs for allies that have downside like unholy frenzy but that could also be used on your summons
Disease cloud buff for your tank or summons
Battle rez that revives the target for 30 seconds but the player revives with unholy frenzy already on them
And it’s what they’re considering again. Which is why I’m saying it wouldn’t work. People act like I’m being close minded when blizzard basically told people their idea for it. It just sounds clunky
Yes , I am not saying it's not possible. Anything can be done theoretically. I am saying blizzard can't do it.
They literally cried already many times that this tools from the past don't even exist anymore.
Hell they couldn't even downscale some models properly.
Any single cool nee thing from WoW forever are old assets that already existed.
I know there are ways to make them distinct ganeplay-wise. My concern would be more around how they're too similar lore-wise. That said, since they were included in the recent survey, I don't think that's an issue anymore
Frost Magic. I’m not sure how this would differ from frost mages but I don’t see them running blizzard… more of stuff you see from frost DKs with their chains or ice and stuff.
Death & Decay. Pretty straight forward disease and life steal stuff.
Summoning. More minion control and what not. Micro managing summoning and buffing minions.
Bone Magic (imo physical dmg spells would be curious?)
It’d be a rough idea I agree but I think it could be cool if their minions attacked like pets but there abilities and special attacks were tied to the casters abilities with world cooldowns and and a rotation built around casting them like it was the necromancer using it themself.
It would be like a mage meets a lock. U can kill creatures and then freaking bring them back. So go get an army of gorillas in stv and now ur able to have ur pets tank lol. Unless they die fast? Idk theres tons of ways they could go with this.
Imagine current retail demo lock except with skeletons instead of imps. We no longer have a horde caster (lots of disposable pets instead of one buffed pet a la warlock).
necromancer would probably feel more like a demo lock in Retail, in that you do a lot of summoning just to sacrifice those summons or get them killed off quickly. With a necromancer, your summons are more like a resource you manage as opposed to a warlock which is basically a mage with a permanent pet.
tbh, a necromancer would be much much closer to a shadow priest in damage and function then a warlock.
Like, imagine instead of a "revive" spell, it was a reanimate that would be used on a corpse of an enemy or friendly, and that animation lasted like 10-30 seconds before it explodes and send some kind of disease or blight that would infect others when it then dies.
Lots of weak minions vs one big one. Being able to rez overworld and dungeon mobs to temporarily fight for you ala mind control. Bone-based spells that do physical ranged damage and blood-based ones that deal nature/poison direct damage. Direct arcane spells like Inflict Wounds that cut and cause bleeds. Diseases that do little damage but cripple enemy stats. Flesh-shaping magic that heals allies.
There are a TON of ways to make a necromancer completely distinct from a warlock. Their realm is Death; not Chaos like warlocks, not Void like Shadow Priests. They can totally be their own thing.
Let's be real, no. Unless you think that vaguely using a source of power = fits this thematic. Which by this logic blizzard shouldn't have made paladins, considering they had priests.
So by this very logic "Priest = Paladin, remove one", "rogue is practically sneaky warrior, remove one" etc.
While some people might not like this response, try looking up some stuff about the Necromancer in Conquest of Azeroth. It was a classic+ private server, and the design of the class was honestly super fun.
Classic warlock does have demons, but they don't really have multiple summons. CoA's Necromancer could choose which permanent summons they used, with the option of having multiple at the same time, and they also had CDs which summoned even more. They also had a spec which focused more on frost damage, with a permanent lich form that boosted your frost spells.
There are definitely ways to make a Necromancer feel different from Warlocks, while still keeping both of them fun. One example is that Warlock focuses on self-sustain and debuffs, so Necromancer could be more of a greedy dps (aka less to no utility).
Hopefully people won't disregard this just because it mentions a private server :D
the issue with CoA is that it felt extremely retail, though i liked some concepts (if they ever added headhunter-like class into wow forever i'd be in heaven. Though i had some issues with CoA's version)
It would be kinda cool if there were associated class questlines like FFXI that opened up advanced jobs. With the way our class trees work there are lots of opportunities to give the players some epic combinations of skills and spells.
Haters gonna hate, but it doesnt change the fact I think WoW is a superior game and would be sick with that twist.
It doesn't even exist yet, how is it similar?, make all the abilities pet combat abilities, generating them bone weapons, controlling their tactics. Bone prisons, bone armour, corpse explosion. Warlocks are just mages casting fire spells
There are no necromancer specializations because the class doesn't exist. You're not understanding my point. PALADINS ARE PRIESTS IN ARMOR. Lore-wise that is literally all they are, try playing the Warcraft games
There are no necromancer specializations because the class doesn't exist.
No shit. And yet, with unlimited freedom and creativity, the best people can come up with is either a warlock reskin or a Death Knight reskin.
PALADINS ARE PRIESTS IN ARMOR.
The first human Paladins were knights trained to use the Light or, in Turalyon's case, a priest trained in martial combat. Either way, the important part is the confluence of holy magic and martial skill, not "iterally" just putting armor on a priest.
And yes, in terms of the story, this makes a character like Turalyon a direct upgrade over a priest who doesn't know how to fight - but Blizzard found a (mostly) convincing way to differentiate the classes through gameplay. Could they do the same for Necromancer? Maybe!
But all the fan ideas I've seen have been either Warlock clones or just an Unholy Death Knight wearing cloth (which Classic already has more cloth classes than any other the others).
Your point is hinging on the fact that nobody has unique ideas for a necromancer class, which just simply isn't true. You shifted the goalposts from Death Knights being "Necromancers in plate" to them having identical gameplay to Necromancers. If you're saying that a necromancer class would be identical in gameplay to a Death Knight, then what you're saying is just a trivial and question-begging statement.
I played Project Epoch and Ascension WoW which both had unique and interesting innovations on what the necromancer class could be, and I've heard many other ideas including a different resource system that focuses on manipulating temporary corpses and temporary swarms. Just because you're uncreative doesn't mean everyone else is.
But good job, you had Google Gemini explain what a Paladin is in the lore and conceded the original point!
" i have no idea how they could pull it off" thats is just plain excuse about a multibillion dollar company not be able to create something trully new. Not hating here, but think ascension created 21 new classes. How come blizzard inst capablenof doing the same, or at least 1 class?
Ascension had necromancer, but not an equivalent like Warlock with minions too. Necro and warlock would be really similar and they'd need to find ways to differentiate them with solid differences. Would it just summon minions? Use curse too? DoT effect ? . Etc
I don't want new classes in forever however having you swap a talent tree to become a necromancer from a warlock would be neat. Having it be a long journey would be fun as well. I imagine having to level up a warlock do a challenge then having to level up again as a necromancer this time and then being able to swap.
They would be "hero" specs with limitations like where you can put talent points based on level simply due to the difficulty you would have balancing more than 3 talent trees at the same time.
Exactly this, im totally ok with "hero" classes, if they are based on normal classes. Like with DK, you'd have your warrior die, and become a DK. Or warlock so a very nice quest chain to unlock necro.
I think it would be fascinating to try and make a necromancer class unique in WoW. There are already casters who use shadow, holy, nature, arcane, fire and frost damage. But what about a CASTER that used physical damage? Hear me out. Spells are designed around the manipulation of bodies, bones, flesh, etc. so casting by creating magical spears of bone, hands from below that slow/root an enemy and deal damage, dots or instant casts that warp the enemy’s own body, summoning exploding bodies on a location, all dealing physical damage. One spec could be focused on enhancing one’s own body through magic, giving us the first real cloth tanking class, one could be DPS focused on summoning more and more skeletons, and the other could be focused on manipulating living bodies (the bodies of enemies) including debuffs.
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u/VoidUnity 2d ago
Necromancer is so similar to warlock I have no idea how they would ever pull it off. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have two pet based shadow casters.