The Necromancer class is NOT an Elder Scrolls Necromancer. (Discussion)

Noxavian

(Please read the entire post before commenting: "Well I like the class and absolutely nothing about it could be improved to fit the theme more" Also I want to clarify that ALL SUMMONS I TALK ABOUT are temporary ones, since a lot of people on here like to pull the "no more permanent pets" argument.)

Anyone else feel like the necromancer class just isn't.....well, a necromancer? Taken straight from the Elder Scrolls wiki: "Necromancy particularly deals with enslavement and utilization of involuntary souls and their bodies." ".....animation or control of a deceased's flesh or spirit" Now I don't know about you all, but the present necromancer class doesn't feel anything like this.

NOW don't get me wrong, I actually REALLY like how Necromancer plays. However, the thing is, it doesn't /feel/ like a necromancer. It feels like a standard mage class with necromancer ability affects, honestly. The saddest part about the class is the only 4 abilities that scream necromancer are Ghostly Mender, Skeletal mage, grave grasp and Bitter Harvest. And even then the only 2 "summons" the class has aren't real entities and can't even be targeted/have HP. At least to me and what I expect from an Elder Scrolls necromancer, I find it ABSOLUTELY silly that a necromancer class, in the elder scrolls universe, doesn't have any actual "temporary" pets or a skill line about summoning/buffing said pets. Also perhaps the most important thing: They can't summon a SINGLE zombie. The most novice of necromancy and some how you expect me to believe our guy can turn into a big bone dude, yet cant raise a simple corpse and is supposed to be called a necromancer?

Firstly, I honestly feel like the corpse mechanic is cool, but they tried so hard to shove it into anything that doesnt involve summoning when one of the most unique aspects of necromancers in ES was basically standing there in front of them all along. The mechanic should of been about raising temporary undead minions FROM corpses, let's be honest with ourselves here. Obviously with these abilities they'd be able to affect 1 corpse at a time and maybe 2 if a morph allowed multiple summons of the undead creature. Best part is all of you people that complain about pets cluttering the bank or work stations wouldn't have to worry because they can only be summoned via corpses and don't last too long. Also they'd still be against the law ofc.

Though, skill-wise, my only issue is with the living death skill line and /aspects/ of both the gravelord and bone tyrant line. Basically, does anyone else feel like living death would be much better if it were overhauled into a summoning skill line? Remove the healing from necromancer. Honestly, having an entire skill line about healing in a class that is supposed to be about the undead is.....very weird and off-putting and just OBVIOUSLY feels like they were trying to stretch the theme to fit dps, tank, heal. IMO the necromancer should mainly be dps/tank and has the chance to be an "off support"/healer with restoration staff skills/ a few necro ones. Don't get me wrong, they should still have healing abilities. Just less. Give them like, 1 healing spirit and the ability to use that necrotic energy beam thing most npc necromancers have to heal their summons/allies. A morph could even apply a buff.

As for what I'd change about gravelord and bone tyrant? Make the Skeletal mage an ACTUAL temporary pet, requiring a corpse to be summoned. Extend the duration to 30 seconds and obviously remove the fact that it drops a corpse. Remove the tether skill and replace it with something else. (Perhaps a melee skeleton summon) Make Blast Bones an exploding zombie. And remove the grave stones from boneyard, make it more like they're desecrating the ground with dark magic. Also give the gravelord a SUMMONING ultimate of some kind. Perhaps summon a mini colossus to fight for you for a certain amount of time? Could even taunt.

Bone tyrant? Keep ultimate, they kinda have to since the cinematic has it being used. Completely rework the scythe attack, IMO one of the things I loved about ES necromancers is that they were unique and didn't use scythes at all. I have literally never heard of such a thing from any necromancer in any ES game. If they wanna keep it an AoE short range "swipe" attack, go ahead, but please make it not a scythe. I feel like the animation for bone armor is kinda wack, I dont mind this skill, but the way it's animated just makes me hate it. It should like, "stack" onto your body over a second or something instead of just instantly popping up. (Like a skeleton slowly forming together, hopefully you guys can get what I mean) Could be cool. Keep bitter harvest, it's a cool skill. Rework bone totem into an undead summon that basically does a similar thing as the present skill. It could even be turned into a tanky armored skeleton that taunts and provides the aoe buff around it/the fear on enemies. Could be a slow moving temporary mob. Grave grasp is fine, maybe add a morph that causes 2 VERY WEAK melee skeletons to crawl out of the ground after 5 seconds.

Lastly, for the living death, once again I think it should just be full blown replaced with a skill line about either summoning/supporting undead. Give it 2-3 support corpse summons and whatever skills don't summon something from a corpse make it a support skill without direct blatant healing. You'll have your spirits for that. (Unless it's that necromancer beam the npcs have.) The ultimate could be a mixture of both support/summoning or perhaps it could summon powerful support undead to assist you for a limited time.


Over all, this is my mini-idea/how they could make the class more like an ES necromancer and over all what I was expecting when I thought "Man I can't wait to play a necromancer in ESO". What do you guys think?

(I already know some of you are going to say that having this many temporary summon abilities would be "broken", but I feel like if done well, the fact that corpses are REQUIRED to summon anything could make things interesting and not too busted. And they'd be very killable. It would basically make necromancer a "summoner" class, like it should be. It can deal damage on it's own, but it's heavy hitting stuff comes from what it raises from the dead.)

MartiniDaniels

Completely agree, ESO necromancer is Blizzard's necromancer, not a classic/high-fantasy necromancer.

Noxavian

ALSO let it be known that I know it's obviously prob too late to change the class. I'm just voicing my distaste for the current class and how I'm upset it drifts away from what we know as an ES necromancer.

Noxavian

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Completely agree, ESO necromancer is Blizzard's necromancer, not a classic/high-fantasy necromancer.

Yes, it's....honestly painstakingly obvious how much the devs looked at blizzard's games instead of their own. Death Knights in WoW literally have the same exact scythe swipe ability ESO necros have. And we all know they conveniently got bone armor/ the siphon skills from diablo 3. There's literally a corpse explosion ability.

TelvanniWizard

The only thing I don't like about necro is the graveyard skill. Summoning tombstones, really?

Noxavian

TelvanniWizard wrote: »

The only thing I don't like about necro is the graveyard skill. Summoning tombstones, really?

I can agree, I don't like that skill either. Would of been much cooler if it just desecrated the ground.

ryzen_gamer_gal

You are only scratching the surface of lore breaking that goes on in this game.

Truth be told, i'm still waiting for the release of Elder Scrolls Online.

Whatever it is we have now isn't without its merits, it just isnt elder scrolls.

MartiniDaniels

Noxavian wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Completely agree, ESO necromancer is Blizzard's necromancer, not a classic/high-fantasy necromancer.

Yes, it's....honestly painstakingly obvious how much the devs looked at blizzard's games instead of their own. Death Knights in WoW literally have the same exact scythe swipe ability ESO necros have. And we all know they conveniently got bone armor/ the siphon skills from diablo 3. There's literally a corpse explosion ability.

Well, also I think only sorcerer and nightblade are close to their TES colleagues, as well as weapon skill lines. But templar, DK, warden class abilities are completely made up from scratch. Tbh, I don't know why Bethesda simply didn't make Skyrim/Morrowind online... After playing DK for ~ 1000 hours, class abilities are like second skin too me, but when I only started ESO I disliked it all so much.

Noxavian

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Noxavian wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Completely agree, ESO necromancer is Blizzard's necromancer, not a classic/high-fantasy necromancer.

Yes, it's....honestly painstakingly obvious how much the devs looked at blizzard's games instead of their own. Death Knights in WoW literally have the same exact scythe swipe ability ESO necros have. And we all know they conveniently got bone armor/ the siphon skills from diablo 3. There's literally a corpse explosion ability.

Well, also I think only sorcerer and nightblade are close to their TES colleagues, as well as weapon skill lines. But templar, DK, warden class abilities are completely made up from scratch. Tbh, I don't know why Bethesda simply didn't make Skyrim/Morrowind online... After playing DK for ~ 1000 hours, class abilities are like second skin too me, but when I only started ESO I disliked it all so much.

See, I'm fine with how templar/dk/warden are made and all of that. At least they're unique and I could see them being in ES.

However, the present necromancer we have is a HUGE contrast to how necromancers were set up to be ever since....well, ever in ES. Heck even in ESO, the npc necromancers have more necromanc-y like stuff than we do. (Talking about the ones that werent added with the expansion that just randomly started using bone armor. Which I find kinda odd, instead of giving us existing necromancer abilities they try to sneakily tie the abilities they gave us into npcs....)

Ildun

So far I found necromancer in these games has the best necromancer feel and enjoyable gameplay

1) Path of Exile
2) Diablo 2
3) Grim Dawn

Or Skyrim with mod such as Undeath

As for ESO, I always think NB Siphoning skill line should belongs to necromancer class

Noxavian

Ildun wrote: »

So far I found necromancer in these games has the best necromancer feel and enjoyable gameplay

1) Path of Exile
2) Diablo 2
3) Grim Dawn

Or Skyrim with mod such as Undeath

As for ESO, I always think NB Siphoning skill line should belongs to necromancer class

I can certainly see where you're coming from on this, actually. However, I do believe the thing that makes ES's necromancers stand out from the rest of those games you've listed (aside from skyrim) is that necromancy in ES /purely/ deals with reanimating and manipulating souls/bodies. There's none of that extra stuff like you see in diablo 3, grim dawn, path of exile. It's just purely about raising the dead or using dark magic to buff/create stronger undead. The simplicity is what makes them stand out among other games.

Varaug_Gaming

if necromancer gets los pets like sorcerer i will uninstall

Noxavian

Varaug_Gaming wrote: »

if necromancer gets los pets like sorcerer i will uninstall

why would you uninstall for a necromancer class playing like a necromancer?

It wouldn't be like sorcerer, they wouldn't be permanent and they would require corpses in order to be summoned.

Pray tell how on earth that would cause you to uninstall the game.

Also, I think you meant "lots of pets like sorc", so to that I shall say: ....2 pets is a lot to you? God, I'd hate to see what "too little" is to you.

Varaug_Gaming

Noxavian wrote: »

Varaug_Gaming wrote: »

if necromancer gets los pets like sorcerer i will uninstall

why would you uninstall for a necromancer class playing like a necromancer?

It wouldn't be like sorcerer, they wouldn't be permanent and they would require corpses in order to be summoned.

Pray tell how on earth that would cause you to uninstall the game.

Also, I think you meant "lots of pets like sorc", so to that I shall say: ....2 pets is a lot to you? God, I'd hate to see what "too little" is to you.

in eso terms the abbreviation los refers to "line of sight"

and in PvP los pets are the most frustrating abomination to play against

we already have to deal with so many magsorcs rocking the so called "zoo build" clannfear + matriarch + storm atronarch + daedroth(monsterset)

if there would be an additional class with los pets with maybe even more pets than sorcerer pvp would turn into an experience which is only frustrating

Ildun

Noxavian wrote: »

Ildun wrote: »

So far I found necromancer in these games has the best necromancer feel and enjoyable gameplay

1) Path of Exile
2) Diablo 2
3) Grim Dawn

Or Skyrim with mod such as Undeath

As for ESO, I always think NB Siphoning skill line should belongs to necromancer class

I can certainly see where you're coming from on this, actually. However, I do believe the thing that makes ES's necromancers stand out from the rest of those games you've listed (aside from skyrim) is that necromancy in ES /purely/ deals with reanimating and manipulating souls/bodies. There's none of that extra stuff like you see in diablo 3, grim dawn, path of exile. It's just purely about raising the dead or using dark magic to buff/create stronger undead. The simplicity is what makes them stand out among other games.

First I must correct you, I'm talking about Diablo 2, not 3. Diablo 3 is Metasetmancer.

Secondly, in all these games, you can just play as necromancer who just reanimate, especially in Diablo 2 and POE(before nerf), you can reanimate the bodies as exact same undead creatures, not peel the flesh and just reanimate its skeleton.

I like POE because it has zombie, and Diablo 2 has blood golem( which supposedly a lump of flesh and guts ), these show how disgusting and evil necromancers are and their mindset of always want fast result.

Nemesis7884

i dont want to be that guy...but that horse has really been beaten to death over and over again - loon youre not gon a get the necro yore lookung for - they are not going to completly overhaul the class

ryzen_gamer_gal

Ildun wrote: »

So far I found necromancer in these games has the best necromancer feel and enjoyable gameplay

1) Path of Exile
2) Diablo 2
3) Grim Dawn

Or Skyrim with mod such as Undeath

As for ESO, I always think NB Siphoning skill line should belongs to necromancer class

Dungeons and Dragons has always had the best necromancers. Though their video games are quite dated by today's tech. Forgotten Realms had some great vidoe games back in the day for my Radio Shack Tandy 1000 computer with an 8088 processor.

VaranisArano

TES Necromancers are inconsistent in terms of what players have been able to do,

In Morrowind and Oblivion, they've got the summoning toolkit, able to summon temporary undead minions.

In Skyrim, they can't summon undead anymore but they can reanimate the dead.

So the TES player Necromancer is surprisingly flexible.

TheShadowScout

Noxavian wrote: »

Anyone else feel like the necromancer class just isn't.....well, a necromancer?

YES!!!
All of it, yes!

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Completely agree, ESO necromancer is Blizzard's necromancer, not a classic/high-fantasy necromancer.

Exactly!

And I think it would have been -way- better to have the Necromancy as a skill line like the Psijic, and maybe group it with two other skill lines if they -really- wanted a class (which is annoying anyhow, I would have found a skill line -way- much more fun).

But alas...

Noxavian wrote: »

ALSO let it be known that I know it's obviously prob too late to change the class. I'm just voicing my distaste for the current class and how I'm upset it drifts away from what we know as an ES necromancer.

...that.

They gave in to the pressure to make a new class, and then they borrowed -heavily- from Diablo to set up loads of new skills never before seen in the elder scrolls series to get three whole "necromance!" skill lines... and that is what we a re stuck with now, and it did lessen my enjoyment of ESO significantly.

Fang_of_Lorkhaj

Going to be honest, I saw "Please read" and I skipped it all to say nobody cares. This is the finished product, some nerfs here or there will be the only thing bright for that classes future. Be complacent, or dont. Doesnt change anything. Good day.

Vertilvius

Well since its literally a stam class I agree. To me a necromancer is a mage nope not in eso though.

Fur_like_snow

I know lots of folks were asking for horde mode undead army necro. Problem is the class needs to function properly within the game. The engine has many limitations and having a dozen necros each with ten or more pets would create to much lag and make the game unplayable.

emilyhyoyeon

I basically completely agree. imo if they had put even a little bit more emphasis (or any emphasis at all really) on zombies and soul manipulation, overall everything would be good enough.

CMDR_Un1k0rn

VaranisArano wrote: »

TES Necromancers are inconsistent in terms of what players have been able to do,

In Morrowind and Oblivion, they've got the summoning toolkit, able to summon temporary undead minions.

In Skyrim, they can't summon undead anymore but they can reanimate the dead.

So the TES player Necromancer is surprisingly flexible.

This. Necromancy in TES is wonky as heck LOL.

Pops_ND_Irish

I think it's a game, not real life !

CMDR_Un1k0rn

Pops_ND_Irish wrote: »

I think it's a game, not real life !

How dare you.

VaranisArano

Pops_ND_Irish wrote: »

I think it's a game, not real life !

>.>
Really? This means I should quit trying to raise the dead from the cemetery out back, doesn't it?
<.<

Wifeaggro13

Most of the necromancer was just rewritten abilities from the warden

VagabondAngel

ryzen_gamer_gal wrote: »

You are only scratching the surface of lore breaking that goes on in this game.

Truth be told, i'm still waiting for the release of Elder Scrolls Online.

Whatever it is we have now isn't without its merits, it just isnt elder scrolls.

100%

Its an Elder Scrolls theme park with a lot of artistic license.

Red_Feather

And to think it was said that Zenimax studios is planning on adding more classes. Why. Another new character needs to be made to use necromancy and of course more caltrops, volley and whirlwind. Whoop dee f'ing doo. This type of game design makes the game feel so stale.

Would have been more impactful as a skill line and not a class. Would have been more interesting if it stuck to necromancy magic instead of halloween themed stuff. Would have more depth if it had actual negatives to casting necromancy instead of just if you target an NPC and summon an archer to attack them it's a crime, because no **** that's a crime.

Noxavian

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

i dont want to be that guy...but that horse has really been beaten to death over and over again - loon youre not gon a get the necro yore lookung for - they are not going to completly overhaul the class

Almost like I already said that. That isn't what this post is about. I'm just seeing if anyone else thinks the same.