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TYPES OF SPELLS |
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Necromancers do most of their damage with damage over time spells (DoTs). They have 4 main lines of DoTs: Torment, Plague of Infestation, Devouring Shadows, and Grasp of the Grave. They also have some very nice direct damage spells with Dark Rebuke, Bonespike and Shadow Feast. Necromancers can also do area of effect damage with corpse explosion spells and the Poison Burst Spell.
The necromancer counterspell, Annul Magic, is obtainable at level 10. This counterspell completely nullifies an incoming enemy spell.
Necromancer’s get 3 Debuff’s: Shadow Feast, Crippling Blight and Soul Blight. Soul Bight is the main Necromancer debuff lowering their enemy’s spiritual resistance and turning them into undead (where they can also be affected by undead spells such as those of paladins and clerics). This spell greatly increases the damage done by many necromancer spells.
Necromancers are masters at stealing their enemy’s life and returning this life to themselves. They can life tap their enemies with Drain Life, Devouring Shadows, and Life Draught. Life Draught will heal the necromancer’s entire group from the life of his enemy.
Necromancers have a number of buffs that can increase armor class, cold resistance, constitution, intelligence, and the ability to breathe underwater.
Necromancers get a number of utility spells including Feign death, fear spells, an undead crowd control spell, an evacuation spell, resurrection ability, energy drain, and an ability that coverts their health to energy .
At level 20 a necromancer can obtain this spell by completing the Art of Death Quest quest. The quest is given by Master Vallerex in the Kalendra’s Coven dungeon. Feign death allows the necromancer to attempt to fool mobs into believing she is dead |
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Plagues & Curses |
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Necromancers are deeply embedded in High Fantasy, often as an evil and insidious character who raises the dead to do his bidding—often for dark purposes. While Vanguard might not be sticking entirely to standard high fantasy, the class does show many abilities that are core to the concept—and many other neat abilities on top of that.
The Necromancer was pretty popular this year at E3. It seemed to be a class that many people were excited to hear about and see in action. In fact, a good bit of the gameplay game-play demonstrations was with Necromancers.
So, why is it that this class was getting so much attention? Well, people just seem to love the idea of the Necromancer; the mage who raises the dead to do his bidding. It has an insidiousness about it that could appeal to many. However, let us take a closer look at this class with what was learned at E3 this year, thanks to a few developers at Sigil—largely David Forrest.
Necromancers are most notable for their loyal, undead servants, and they are usually implemented into games as a pet-based class. Vanguard is not straying far from that. However, Sigil is throwing in a few new ideas with their pets. That is, the player can loot parts of creatures and attach them to the necromancer to let it grow stronger and obtain new abilities. For example, you may obtain a rare ‘part’, such as an Ice Claw, which, when attached to your pet, enables it to use snares and roots. Like weapons and armor in the game, there will be rare drops for these parts as well.
The Necromancer also has numerous other abilities that can aid them in battles. They will have a Feign Death, four DOT lines, DD/Snares, DOT/snares, Curses, Auras, a ‘Wail’ line, which acts as an AoE fear spell that also deals damage, as well as a single-target fear. The Necromancer should have a powerful arsenal at their disposal as far as spells go.
Curses sound particularly interesting. They are related to the different DOT lines, which are named after various types of plagues, such as the Plague of Infestation, which causes scarabs to burst from the skin of the target. The curses are attacks that do not happen immediately, but instead take a bit of time to go off with fantastic effects, and do cost mana to cast. Once the curse is cast, it is activated once the DOT on the target has progressed far enough—or if multiple people are DOTing the mob.
To give an example of one of the curses, there is a DOT that drains the mana of the target (potentially a mana-tap), which the Curse of the Thought Worm—a level one curse—is related too. When the curse goes off, it deals extra damage, damages the mana of the target, and silences them for a duration when it goes off.
The Necromancer also has some crowd control abilities—although not as much as some of the other classes. One way in which the Necromancer can do this is with their Mummify ability, which essentially turns an enemy into a mummy that can not fight effectively. The Necromancer has several different Auras that they can use. One example of this would be a Chill Aura, which sends cold effects out from your position, snaring enemies as they get close to you, with a chance to root them for a short duration as the character rises in level.
This also gives the added benefit with AoE spells, such as Poison Blast and Corpse Explosion. With the enemies grouped around you, moving slow, you can gain hits on more targets.
Many people have fond memories of EverQuest and what Necromancer’s had to deal with concerning the faction system. That is, that they were not well liked by good races. It sounds as if Sigil is considered having this class (and possibly others) impact the faction system in Vanguard as well. Yet, it is not clear how this will work, or if it will end up being implemented at all. It was mentioned that High Elves would likely not consider Necromancers as evil, as they view the use of magic, not the magic itself, as good or evil.
Necromancers have quite a few abilities that they can put to use in Vanguard and they should be an exciting class to play for those interested in pet-based classes, or someone interested in a solid arcane-based class. One way or the other, considering the attention that it was given at E3, the Necromancer will likely be a popular class—and quite likely for good reason.
-Arrakiv's E3 Writeup On Necros |
