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.

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