I've talked about the warrior, Medeleth lectured everyone on the engineer, and Solagar managed to fit in some Guardian details in between all the complaining about becoming a Tauren. That still leaves four more Tyrian professions (well, five but we'll deal with that when there's more than hearsay) for us to cover. This time we've got Mordigg ready to talk to us about the new job he's looking into. Let's see what it is...
Little more intimidating than all those squishy casters in Naxxramas and Stratholme
Necromancer, huh? Gotta say I wasn't expecting to see you go with a cloth class.
Well, truth be told, it wasn't exactly planned. Like the rest of you, I was planning on finding something comparable to my current specialization to minimize downtime. However, such a thing does not exist in Tyria to my knowledge.
Yeah, the whole lack of a Lich King probably makes finding more death knights unlikely, huh?
Correct. As such I have found myself perusing the other offerings for a reasonable facsimile. My research currently shows the necromancer as being the best option available, though there will be numerous adjustments I will have to make to become accustomed to how they operate.
Bear in mind we're all going to have to make adjustments when we go to Tyria, so it won't be just you. I've probably got the easiest transition of the lot and I'll have my work cut out for me once we get there.
This may be true, but the core of their warrior still generally meshes with the class you're familiar with. For myself there are a few elements that are similar, but the bulk of it will require a change of thinking on my part.
Okay, let's start with the similarities then. Tell me what drew you to the necromancer.
The obvious answer here would be the beginning of the profession's name. A necromancer is someone who specializes in dealing with the dead. As a death knight that's one of my areas of expertise, though my own knowledge and abilities have primarily served to supplement my martial prowess. I can raise the dead, create spots of death and decay on the ground, and cause a variety of debilitating conditions in my foes, but I would never consider myself a specialist in these abilities. My ghouls are the best example of this: the one barely holds together more than a few minutes unless I feel like doing damage instead of tanking and my army of the dead serves as little more than cannon fodder.
I suppose the best way I can phrase this is to say that the necromancer is somewhat like a death knight who's forsaken his plate armor and warrior-style weaponry in order to further develop his other powers. Yes, I will have to make sacrifices to walk the path of the necromancer, but in exchange I will gain my own identity. No longer will I be considered a warrior that happens to use DoTs or summon a ghoul that barely qualifies as a pet. I will be a master of death, bending it to my will to defend my allies and drive my enemies from the land.
Makes sense to me. How about we discuss weapons now? We've already established that weapons dictate your available skills in Tyria, so what kinds of weapons does the necromancer have to work with? I assume you won't be swinging any two-handed swords or axes this time.
Correct, you will not see a cloth-wearing caster swinging a two-handed sword in our future. As one might expect from professions of the sorcerous type, the only two-handed weapon I might be wielding is a staff. Wielding a staff will provide me mostly with a variety of abilities, many being area-of-effects, that cause different debilitating effects on my foes. Reaper's Touch allows me to weaken a foe while at the same time providing one of my allies with a boost to their swiftness. Chilblains, unlike the old passive slowing talent I'm familiar with, is now an AoE ability that poisons and chills my enemies. Necrotic Grasp is just a basic attack, but the last two bear a little more mention. These two are Mark abilities.
A Mark is similar to a normal AoE ability like Death and Decay in that you choose where to cast it, but they have an important distinction. Marks are somewhat like timebombs: you place the Mark and then after enough time has elapsed, the Mark will trigger and cause its effect to those who were standing on it. Reaper's Mark causes vulnerability and bleeding on foes while Putrid Mark will actually take negative conditions you or your allies suffer from and transfer them to your enemies. There's also Mark of Blood which will not only harm your opponents, but also provide healing to your party members inside the Mark.
Sounds useful, but the timer could be problematic. What if your enemies start to split up before the mark's ready to go off?
This is not a problem. In addition to the normal timer, Marks can be manually triggered at any time the necromancer wishes. The timer is merely to allow for "set and forget" usage. For close quarters combat, a necromancer could drop his Mark on top of the group as it's fighting and immediately resume casting his other abilities. If there was more room to work, a necromancer could drop a Mark in front of him and then pull a group of monsters. He could continue casting until they all ran far enough to get within the Mark, then trigger it to hit them all with its effect before they reach him.
Nice, controllable AoE is always welcomed and it sounds like you'll have a little more variety this time besides "hit them with high-threat unholy damage". Back to weapons then?
Yes, there's still plenty to cover there. Some of the one-handed options for a caster are fairly similar to the ones available back in Azeroth: dagger and off-hand focus for all cloth wearers and the scepter is like the maces used by priests. The others are a little different though. Necromancers get access to warhorns and axes. I'm not entirely sure of the reasoning behind axes, but I suppose for someone who works with the dead, an axe that can cut through bone makes sense.
As for the abilities associated with these weapons, it's similar to what you and Solagar discussed. Your main-hand weapon determines your first three skills and your off-hand determines your last two. The scepter provides mostly long-range attacks (e.g. Curse and Feast of Corruption) while close range abilities are the purview of daggers (e.g. Necrotic Bite and Dark Pact) and axes (e.g. Rending Claws and Ghastly Claws). The distinction between those two being that axes are primarily powerful tearing attacks, while dagger attacks tend to drain your foe's life force and make it your own. Off-hands provide some additional customization: warhorns can daze your foes as well as summon locusts to attack them, daggers can weaken your foes and allow you to use Mark of Blood to heal your allies while damaging the enemy, and finally the focus lets you chill your foes to make them vulnerable right before blasting them with any life force you've accumulated.
Little more intimidating than when a boomkin does it, huh?
From the sounds of it, life force is a new resource for you like adrenaline is for me.
Yes, this is correct. Various skills provided by my weapons allow me to accumulate life force from my foes. In addition my life force pool increases whenever an opponent is felled within my vicinity.
So what exactly does life force do for you? Does it boost your regular spells like adrenaline does for me or is it something different?
Something different - it allows me to enter a Death Shroud. Being in this form provides me with new abilities and I can no longer be knocked down, but it drains life force the entire time. As such I must refill my life force by attacking my opponents if I wish to stay in my Death Shroud.
Okay, what about Death Shroud makes it so useful? Are the new abilities it provides worth the effort of stacking all that life force?
Not in all circumstances, but the abilities available in the shroud are quite potent. Deathly Swarm sounds similar to my Locust Swarm attack, but when it lands it not only deals damage, but it also clears three negative conditions I may have on me. Dark Path is similar to Blink in that it will teleport me to a new location, but it will also blind any foes that happen to be standing in the vicinity. Doom is a fairly basic Fear like what Medeleth used to use. Finally there's Life Transfer provides me with a way to directly drain the health of nearby enemies to fuel my life force.
Alright, that takes care of weapons and what I assume is the unique resource necromancers have available. Anything else that helps them stand out from the other casters?
Well, as I talked about earlier, one of the aspects of the necromancer that drew me to the profession was the association with the dead. Like death knights, necromancers also possess the ability to control the dead, though their abilities are far beyond what I may have been taught at Acherus. Ranged or melee, the necromancer has the ability to summon minions to fill either role. These new allies can be summoned merely to add extra damage to the fight or more bodies to take damage or they can be used tactically. Bone fiends can bombard the foe from range, but the necromancer can direct them to become stationary so they can immobilize their targets. Bone minions seem like fairly basic melee pets, but for a competent necromancer, they also serve as a way to blow up the enemy's front line for extra AoE damage.
Good thing those rat corpse things are meant to blow up, because they are creepy as hell.
Lastly there's Wells. Similar to Marks, they are meant to serve as a method of controlling the battlefield. However while Marks are targeted effects, Wells are localized - the area of effect is centered upon the caster. Currently there are three known Wells: Well of Blood which heals you and your allies, Well of Corruption which will take a foe's beneficial conditions (boons) and replace them with negative ones, and Well of Suffering which simply does damage to any opponents who would dare stand inside the Well. Only one of these may be in effect at any given time, but all have their uses. Well of Blood would be great for any dungeon crawling involving tight quarters, while Well of Corruption would be useful against any opponents that make use of a lot of buffing abilities.
Sounds good. Anything else of note?
Yes, but those fall under either abilities that have been covered previously (Signets) or various items that require further discussion like healing and downed abilities.
Yeah, let's leave those for later. Thanks for all the info, Mordigg. Looking forward to becoming a caster?
I will acknowledge that the idea is somewhat strange to me, but I suppose it's not unheard of for a Tauren to wear cloth. There are priests wandering around Thunder Bluff now, so I won't be the only one.
Well, except for the facts that we're not going to be anywhere near Thunder Bluff and you're not going to look like a Tauren.
Excuse me?
Oh, did I neglect to mention that before?
Yes, somehow you managed to leave out a somewhat important detail like "you're changing races".
Oops. Well, we'll add that to the stack of stuff I need to cover later. In the meantime, that's it for us this time. See you guys when we've got another post ready.
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