Sunday, February 6, 2011

In-depth look: Necromancer

The necromancer is a spell casting scholar profession who focuses on death magic: summoning the dead, wielding the power of lost souls, and literally sucking the lifeblood of the enemy. Their special ability is to use collected life force to enter into the Death Shroud which grants them a different set of unique skills.


Necromancer concept art.

Necromancers gain life force when enemies and allies die near them, and can use that life force to go into the Death Shroud. This drains the life force slowly but gives access to an alternate set of skills which can be used to heal or buff allies. Necromancers automatically go into Death Shroud when downed. Necromancers can also summon minions to serve as fighters or distractions. The necromancer really shines when absorbing damage and providing support to allies. They have very high health and the ability to extend that health through the use of the Death Shroud plus the ability to heal themselves through life-stealing skills, leading to a profession that is very hard to put down. For support, the necromancer is great at inflicting debilitating conditions on enemies as well as removing conditions from allies.


Special skill types

Wells — wells are persistent spells that allow a necromancer to control the area around him. Created at the necromancer's location, wells affect targets within the skill's range. Well of Blood, for example, applies a regeneration boon to all allies within it. A necromancer can only have one well skill active at any time.

Minions — the necromancer summons undead minions to attack foes and do his bidding. Every minion-summoning spell has an associated secondary spell that appears after the minion has been summoned. This secondary spell changes the abilities of a minion, or destroys it for the necromancer's benefit. For example, necromancers have a healing skill called Summon Blood Fiend that creates a minion that heals its master while it attacks. After the minion has been summoned, the Summon Blood Fiend skill is replaced by the skill Taste of Death, which allows a necromancer to destroy the minion to gain a larger amount of health.

Marks — necromancers can also place marks - ground-targeted spells with a variety of potent effects. For instance, Mark of Blood damages enemies while placing a regeneration boon on nearby allies. Marks will trigger after a set period of time, but a necromancer can always trigger their marks on command by hitting the skill again.

Fear — necromancers use a condition not available to any other profession: fear. A removable condition, fear makes an enemy flee directly away from a necromancer for a short period of time. For example, a necromancer can use Doom to instill fear in a single target.

Traits
Necromancers have two trait lines : Soul Reaping and Blood Rituals. They also have lines for each of the weapons they can wield.
See list of necromancer traits.

Attributes
Necromancers can put attribute points into Intelligence, Vitality, Perception, and Willpower, the other attributes being considered minor for this profession.

Another concept art.

Armor
The necromancer is a scholar profession and thus uses light armor.

Weapons
  • Two-handed
    • Staff - used to cast long range, slow spells.
  • Main-hand
    • Scepter - used to cast long range, DoT like spells.
    • Axe - used to cast powerful, close range spells.
    • Dagger - used to cast medium range spells.
  • Off-hand
    • Focus - used to cast powerful, close range spells.
    • Warhorn - used to cast powerful, close range spells.
    • Dagger - used to cast medium range spells.
The necromancer has a total of 10 possible weapon sets. They also can have 2 active weapon sets and can easily switch between them.

More Necro goodness:




64 comments:

  1. Thanks for all the info.
    The videos are awesome.

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  2. Really enjoyed the videos. I've heard a lot about necromancers, they're a bit like Death Knights and Warlocks combined on their WoW cross over, but as always, these just look totally more bad ass. Thank you for the information, keep it up!

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  3. Necromancers are cool. I would definitely try that out if I played this.

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  4. You know the main reason why I chose WoW over GW? It was the sole fact of WoW having more races other than elves, wolves and/or animals, and humans. That was a big problem with the game to me and most MMO's out there.

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  5. Hey, nice post, looking forward to the next ones. :)

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  6. lol the concept art looks like yoda

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  7. Such beautiful concept art. The class seems like a lot of fun to play. I've always been a ranged attacker when playing MMOs, so it would be a nice fit.

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  8. My friend played this game but I never really got into it because I play FFXI. O:

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  9. In depth post! Great!

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  10. Wow! Cool stuff those necromancers, although the character idea isn't really new this looks awesome.

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  11. Still very good, keep doing that bro ;)

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  12. i always roll a necro in any game that has the class(diablo2 ftw!)

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  13. those are some very awesome looking concept drawings, I wish I could make things like that.

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  14. I never played the first Guild Wars, but I always wanted to give it a try. Which class should I start with (to give a general experience of the game that won't be too difficult for a starter).

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  15. Necromancers are one of my favorite classes. I haven't played much guild wars butI always wanted to play lawful good necromancer in D and D just for laughs.

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  16. Damn necros... Sorry, I've always had trouble with them no matter what game I'm playing.

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  17. never played with a necromancer before, need to free some time and do this, thanks for the info

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  18. Game looks pretty cool. Is it still free to play?

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  19. necros are great. used to play one in diablo II

    great skill are shown in the first video

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  20. Sounds pretty badass, definently will check them out when playing. Probably not the first ill try but, always loved necros in other games.

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  21. love the art. Never played guild wars though.

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  22. Necromancers rule - great post, will be checking this out

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  23. I always liked the Necromancer concept, not only in videogames and such, It just sounds awesome.

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  24. cool stuff, never played necro, but sounds good.

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  25. Ok I think I just changed my mind. I'm going to be a necromancer :)

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  26. I was looking into getting this game, looks like I also know what I'll be! :)

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  27. And now I must go check out GW again, and wait for GW2 >.< Hope my laptop'll support it lol

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  28. Always been a big fan of Necromancers, GW is no exception

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  29. Really interesting info. I'm in the process of looking for a new MMO to play after quitting a two year WoW binge a few months ago. I used to play the original Guild Wars but dropped it for some reason I can't remember. This looks like it's worth checking out though.

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  30. I was always all about beastmasters lol.

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  31. As an Avid GW 1 player(playing WoW atm)
    i must say this is a pretty awesome article.
    altho i can say much has stayed the same in GW terms this was a pretty cool post t-up

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  32. Can't wait for GW2. Really looks like something new to the genre.

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  33. Necros rule!
    I am really thinking about playing GW2 - i do want a necro.. NOW :/

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  34. Damn, the concept art is enough to make ANYBODY want to play the darn game.......

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  35. reading the first bit thinking "necromancers are coming to WoW?! isnt that basically what a warlock is?" come to see its GW lol.

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  36. This is really interesting, all my friends talk about GW and they say that GW2 is going to be so much better than WoW. I'm actually having a hard time deciding whether to try out GW2 or DCUO.

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  37. these concept arts are super sick. love it.

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  38. Looks awesome. Looking forward to GW2.

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  39. Sounds really cool. Is it comparable to wows warlock class?

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  40. The videos are really cool! Following :D

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  41. I wonder if GW2 will be as good as the original.

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  42. harharhar..raise the dead and lead them into battle

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  43. damn that art is just too cool

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  44. Necro was one of my favorite classes :D

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  45. Any game they're in, necro's are always my favorite.

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  46. said it before and I'll say it again. Great concept art.

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