Why is there no necromancer type class? Is it not in the "lore" of the game?

Rebel230

Also, are they going to add any new classes? I would think the game is doing well financially with the ports to consoles etc.

BabeestorGor

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

TheShadowScout

-pops up from behind the scenery-
Did someone say something about new classes?

Then I'll post again what I always post at this point, no matter how many people might be tired of reading it by now...

Personally I would think the best way to add more "classes" is to give each class, say, three different "class morphs", each with its own new skill/passives line. Perhaps becoming available after completing cadwells silver/gold... to reward people who do play through that – which incidentally would also give people the whole of cadwells gold to focus on making this new skill line… (a "reward" for finishing cadwells gold might be some alliance change quest, but that is another topic, to be discussed elsewhere…)
Some possibilities:

Dragonknight
• Gladiator (offensive self buffs & warcries; color: red/orange)
• Pyromancer (flame resist and even more fire; color: yellow/blue - gas flame!)
• Warlord (defensive group buffs, AoE standards, color: purple/gold)

Nightblade
• Illusionist (illusion summoning, mind magic; color: red/black - NPC illusionist)
• Monk (melee support & assorted “martial arts” magic; color: blue/purple)
• Ranger (animal summoning and nature magic; color: brown/green)

Sorceror
• Cryomancer (ice magic, color: white/clear - NPC cryomancer)
• Necromancer (death magic and undead summoning; color: cyan - NPC coldfire)
• Spellsword (melee support & buff magic; color: yellow/orange – golden lightning!)

Templar
• Shaman (nature magic, totems, summons; color: green/brown)
• Crusader (melee support and aura-style buff magic; color: white/gold – holy light)
• Witch-hunter (counterspells, spell resistance/shields, silencing; color: purple/red)


Another possible idea was to not only have an added skill line with its own flavor of visual effects, but maybe even morph the existing effects to match.
So for example if a sorceror goes necromancer, their spells might be color-shifted to necromancer "coldfire" cyan, and if they turn cryomancer, their dark magic crystals will turn ice-ish in effects, spells will get color-shifted to white-blue or white-purple, or a nightblade going ranger would have their reddish effects recolored to something nature-ish green & brown... that sort of stuff. For more visual goodieness and varietee between classes.
Perhaps even morph the spell effects to some degree... like, for summoned armor might look daedric on normal sorc, worm cult / lich on necromancer, and ice armor on cryomancer, etc.
That idea might perhaps take a bit too much coding to be viable though... I'd be happy with pure color shifts.

...of course, all those quick ideas are just very rough concepts, without much consideration but character fluff. I merely tried to give some options, and went for three instead of just two "magica-specialization / stamina specialization" - It's supposed to be more for added character diversity then anything else after all.

Thus for example with nightblades, there might be one magica-caster based with "illusionist", one stamina melee based with "monk" (Yes, a nod at the old D&D class of the name, the first “martial arts” powered class I remember in fantasy gaming) and one pet based as "ranger" since nightblades mesh very well with bow, and giving them woodland creatures for the "hunter" playstyle would seem applicable.

Similar thoughts for the sorceror - spellsword for stamina sorcerors, cryomancer since ice staves have no matching skill line yet (while fire and lightning staves sort of have), and necromancer because all too many people really, really want that...

Templar... the druid/shaman is a very natural idea, between breton wyressess, argonian treeminders and bosmer spinners, nature magic meshes very well with Templar healing and sunlight-powered spells; crusader is for stamina templars as the class name has been appearing in TES games before, despite tamrielic religions having less a focus on "cross" then where the name originated, and my "witch-hunter" idea is kinda inspired by the spanish inquisition (Yes, I know noone expected that ), its "warhammer" imperial counterpart and also "Dragon Age", I admit it... seems logical to set up the aedric-flavored templars as natural enemies of the more deadric-flavored sorcerors...

Dragonknight I had the fewest ideas, since I kinda dislike that class. More fire magic for dragonknight magica-casters with pyromancer is a natural first thought... so then I went with "leader-style group play support" and "berserker-style single combatant" flavors, though there may be better ideas then those...

The skills itself are also just rough concepts - some I am quite happy with, others I feel might benefit from more thought and ideas… but it's a start I suppose, a proof of concept kind of notion, something like that… with ample room for refinement and reworking.
(also note that many of those I "borrowed" from existing mobs without knowing the actual in-game name of the abilities, just by remembering what I could from the time some mob used them unsuccessfully against one of my characters, so please, don't get too hung up on the names I used here, all right? )

In any case, since more diversity is always something I would love to see... much more fun having more choices in realizing your "perfect" character, especially since the limited number of skills one can actually use at any one time (5+U) makes people having to think and choose anyhow, so adding more active skills only increases a characters choices, not exactly their power...

And yes, spellcrafting might be able to cover some of those... but spellcrafting won't give you passives, which these skill lines should.

And also add, I believe if they just -added- classes, the people who already have eight characters in the veteran ranks might be feeling rather vexed, since then they would have to reroll one of their characters to try out the new classes (or once that becomes available, buy more character slots, which wouldn't help with the "Oh, this new class would have been sooo much better for that character idea" annoyance).
Thuse the "class morph" idea, so everyone can "refit" their existing characters with a new direction, by adding one new skill line. No player gets left behind with that one.

Now... for necromancer...
...generally that one is a bit of a can of worms (lore-wise and kinda literally), since in this time period, becromancy is for one still frowned upon, for another mostly practiced by followers of Molag Bal, and it would be a bit of a lore discord to fight him as one...
...how-ever...
...turning an enemies weapons against him is a classic, former followers turning against their lord and master and joining the "good guys" side against him too (especially considering that the vestige backstory has every player character getting murdered by Mannimarco as sacrifice - yeah, we kinda are all playing sort of soulless revenants throughout the main story...), and also, necromancers are something many people would love to play just for the heck of it... so I would say if any sort of class expansions were made, necromancy definitely might be part of it.

Gidorick

LOL @TheShadowScout. I was totally busy looking up one of your previous posts to say:

@TheShadowScout has an awesome concept on end-game (this is what I needed to make sure of) class morphs. By doing this we can decide if the path we have lead continues down a "hero adventurer" path or if we will succumb to the temptations of power and take up the mantle of the Worm King.... or perhaps even another path!

I'm fine (or, I've come to terms rather) that the main narrative requires us to be the good guy, but in end-game ZOS could let us be who we wish to be and could let us truly make the character we want.

Of course, to support this, future DLC really should include multiple ways to complete quests and should allow you to finish the DLC as an enemy, not a friend.

CaptainObvious

So here's the thing. The fixed story line is used to provide a reasonable cohesive outcome so that players are in the same base areas. Certain outcomes are assumed to have been achieved. This way common health of town, populace, etc. can be achieved.

To have a dark and a light version could only be achieved by having 2 or 3 versions of the same area with different progression paths (x3 the work) for light, grey, and dark.

If they do proceed down this path then on the dark side you should reap your rewards and friendly areas are now hostile. No vendors will trade with you. PvP is open world and if you log out in the area then your character does not vanish. They are left in place and assume a sleeping position. Nice and vulnerable. No option to redo. You make the area a dump, you live in that dump. Crafting stations become destroyable (repaired by siege engine repair kits).

Granted that is 2 or 3x the work, but it would be an opt in gateway to open area PvP by choice. This would go a good distance in binning players with other like players. I suspect though that this would have the same end result as Axe of Belharza.

ThePonzzz

Isn't the plan that necromancy will be part of spellcrafting? I mean, who knows when we'll see that, but I always thought that was the plan.

Danikat

Necromancers do exist in TES lore and I think it has sometimes been available to players in past games. Although I never tried to play as one so I'm not completely sure.

So they might add it at some point in future, but I don't think there are any plans currently.

shugg

Also i see necromancer being more linked to nb syphon tree, necromancer is part summoner and part drain , just my personal view. If they ever do this class it will be my main tank miss my deathknight tank

BabeestorGor

Danikat wrote: »

Necromancers do exist in TES lore and I think it has sometimes been available to players in past games. Although I never tried to play as one so I'm not completely sure.

So they might add it at some point in future, but I don't think there are any plans currently.

Summon or Animate Dead spells were available in past games but the Necromancer faction was an enemy of the Mages Guild in Oblivion. More a case of dabbling than being a fully-fledged necromancer.

I wouldn't mind seeing it as a skill tree or even a class (but I don't think more classes are likely) but I think necromancy (and conjuration) should make you the object of suspicion and fear from the general population.

SemiD4rkness

Templars are the closest to a necromancer. We are dead but somehow we are still around.

Acrolas

You know how when you kill an undead mob, sometimes there will be that large red Circle of Doom with damage and slowed movement?

Imagine PVP with like 100 of those things. We don't need a Lagcromancer class when NB is doing perfectly fine trying to break the game on its own.

Faulgor

We don't need more classes, we need spellcrafting.

Conjure Skeleton for everyone!

Lenikus

Lore peepz (myself included) already demanded for moar variety of spells and classes a while ago.

Wait for SpellCrafting, it'll come, soon

SevenKingdoms

BabeestorGor wrote: »

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

This doesn't sound like a good practice for the "hero" of Nirn.

Enodoc

Necromancers in Elder Scrolls are always the "bad guys", and your player is always the "hero", so that's probably why there is no available necromancer class. The Worm Cult, officially the "Order of the Black Worm" or the "Fellowship of Anchorites" during its brief Charter, is the primary necromancer faction in Tamriel.

Also, nice to see those Class Morph ideas again, @TheShadowScout!

Gidorick

@SevenKingdoms and @Enodoc why couldn't your character have been "corrupted" by the power of the Daedric princes while going through the main story line. Sure... they're the hero of Nirn... but...

Whey they were charged with the divine power to defeat Molag Bal they became corrupted/addicted to the power and now seeks more... no matter the cost.

ZOS could very easily make an end game that allows players to be evil...

TX12001rwb17_ESO

Soul trapping enemies and resurrecting dead players is Necromancy you know, its been in this game the whole time.

There are even several quests where you do necromantic rituals.

Enodoc

Gidorick wrote: »

@SevenKingdoms and @Enodoc why couldn't your character have been "corrupted" by the power of the Daedric princes while going through the main story line. Sure... they're the hero of Nirn... but...

Whey they were charged with the divine power to defeat Molag Bal they became corrupted/addicted to the power and now seeks more... no matter the cost.

ZOS could very easily make an end game that allows players to be evil...

Oh yeah sure, it would work fine as a World skill line, and one of the early development ideas for the Mages Guild line was to have it based on necromancy; I was just saying why it would be unlikely to be seen as a class.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

SevenKingdoms wrote: »

BabeestorGor wrote: »

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

This doesn't sound like a good practice for the "hero" of Nirn.

and neither does being a vampire yet you can still become one, a vampire can try to be good and hold onto their humanity but the thing is "evil" is in their nature whether they like it or not, I don't see being a necromancer as bad as being a vampire seeing as well necromancy isn't technically illegal and a vampire is an unholy walking corpse.

nordsavage

A few things about this. One the summoning belongs to the sorcerers. Two the essence draining and fear effects belongs to nightblades. Three the game needs a stamina based class that revolves around physical damage more than another caster class. A necromancer class would not fit the high speed profile of this game since resurrecting fallen enemies is time consuming.

kendellking_chaosb14_ESO

BabeestorGor wrote: »

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

Being an Assassin takes time and hiden training yet We Nightblade can turn Invisible, Teleport though shadows, create a Sword of Shadows, and then Shadow dagger to finish you off all on day one no dark cave or secret training needed.

Faulgor wrote: »

We don't need more classes, we need spellcrafting.

Conjure Skeleton for everyone!

Anything worth having with Spell Crafting will be lock behind a DLC pay gate and RNG.

SevenKingdoms wrote: »

BabeestorGor wrote: »

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

This doesn't sound like a good practice for the "hero" of Nirn.

I'm an Assassin how is that good Hero practice plus who said I was a good guy?

Enodoc wrote: »

Necromancers in Elder Scrolls are always the "bad guys", and your player is always the "hero", so that's probably why there is no available necromancer class. The Worm Cult, officially the "Order of the Black Worm" or the "Fellowship of Anchorites" during its brief Charter, is the primary necromancer faction in Tamriel.

Also, nice to see those Class Morph ideas again, @TheShadowScout!

So we can play any class any race any way UNLESS you want to be the villain then too bad.

Lenikus

... To be fairly honest there's a mage teacher woman in the mage's guild in Vulkhel guard that explains why necromancy is not a thing.
Mostly it's the smell, i think.
* I think it's the vulkhel guard one at least.

Lightninvash

SevenKingdoms wrote: »

BabeestorGor wrote: »

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

This doesn't sound like a good practice for the "hero" of Nirn.

all I have to say to add to this conversation is when the game starts you are in jail... no one knows for what truly could be you are a bad guy or were a bad guy/necromancer imprisoned for being bad. then be broken out of jail and switch sides but have all the former darker side knowledge and skills... Plot twist o.o

Abeille

It could be added as a skill line.

Like ESO vampires cut ties with Molag Bal, we could become disciples of Vastarie, who cut ties with Mannimarco, and then learn her brand of necromancy.

But a few spells added with Spellcrafting does sound like a good way too.

Artjuh90

well you already have the deadric summoning treeline on sorc.
main reason you probably don't have a nercomancer class is balance.
because it needs a summon to fight for itself, the character itself needs to be a tad weaker or he will be to OP.
seeing how little the summons of the sorc are already used in PvP and group PvE i don't think this class has a way to co-exist. Add the inability of ZoS at balancing things out on decent level not just completly make a skill useless which was great before or nerf a class on 4 skills before you nerf the skill which made the class OP (DK).
But there are some minor conjuration spells in game: the 2 summons + summon ult on sorc, bound armor, relentless focus (aka summon bow after 4-7 hits depents on morph), shades these are already skills fitting a necromancer. only problem is they are scattered over 2 classes

MrGigglypants

BabeestorGor wrote: »

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

Have you met this community? It's filled to the brim with under 20 narcissists and sociopaths. Necromancy would fit right in.

Enodoc

Lightninvash wrote: »

SevenKingdoms wrote: »

BabeestorGor wrote: »

Necromancers certainly exist but they tend to be social pariahs, even moreso atm.
Also necromancy requires a steady supply of corpses and somewhere to prepare them, activities not easy to fit with a footloose adventurer's lifestyle.

This doesn't sound like a good practice for the "hero" of Nirn.

all I have to say to add to this conversation is when the game starts you are in jail... no one knows for what truly could be you are a bad guy or were a bad guy/necromancer imprisoned for being bad. then be broken out of jail and switch sides but have all the former darker side knowledge and skills... Plot twist o.o

That's the start of Oblivion; at the start of ESO, you're trapped in Coldharbour, because Mannimarco killed you and stole your soul. ESO is actually the only TES game where the circumstances leading up to the game's start are known.

UrQuan

A necromancer class would make a lot of sense lore-wise. Officially they're outlawed most places, but as we all know they're still quite common in Tamriel. They even get used by the militaries of the different alliances (although I have a theory that this is mostly due to agents of Molag Bal and the Worm Cult taking charge of missions in enemy territories and using all sorts of banned, horrific tactics just to increase the chaos and war of the age, without anyone at home knowing).

Having said that, I can see why they're not a playable class in the game from a game balance point of view. Mostly that adding a new class would mean more of a headache for balancing across all of the classes, and that functionally a lot of their skills would be very similar to sorcerer skills (even if they appear different).

With that in mind, even though it would make somewhat less sense from an in-universe perspective, I'd rather see necromancy as a skill line along the lines of the guild skill lines.

SevenKingdoms

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Soul trapping enemies and resurrecting dead players is Necromancy you know, its been in this game the whole time.

There are even several quests where you do necromantic rituals.

That's a fairly big jump from soul trapping enemies and resurrecting fallen allies to all out, Mannimarco-style necromancy. When you resurrect an ally, you're not bending them to your will, or preventing their soul from Sovngarde or the like.

You can attempt to rationalize all you want, but necromancy is a dark art. History books won't read "... and Nirn was saved by the Necromancer ___." (Well, ESO seems to disregard lore, especially if there's money to make, so I'll change that to "history books shouldn't...")

Waffennacht

I love the ideas, I seriously doubt such things would be implemented into the game.

More than likely be a skill tree much like werewolf and vamp. Lore friendly (as im sure they would require some sort of move on the bar) so you "choose" to be one, it will be class balanced, and could have quest content.

Most moves would more than likely be something reminiscent of necromancy, but not directly resurrecting bodies. More like passives that involve death or boosts, re starting ticks etc, i could see an ult that makes a "copy" of a dead player, or summons a flesh atronach or a bone colossas (sp? Name?) That actually moves. (Would have synergy with sorcs too, maybe a bit more than other classes except NB but that's lore friendly plus pets are poor atm)

It could easily be done, plenty of room with lore and class balance. Most mmo necromancers have abilities that don't bring the dead directly back to life.

Thevampirenight

Now they can do this, huminiod enemy's and certain anmials can be raised for a short time either by what they did in skyrim or turned into zombies, now this would be interesting and me wants this to be an option, now you can raise weaker ones but not bosses or foes like that and only once, and then a ult like what the person said above Flesh Atronach!