User:Daaa/Great Sea expansion ideas Necrologist


 * Main page of ideas for a Great Sea expansion pack.
 * See ideas for other classes.

Races

 * Orcs : Orcs have a history with necromancy and know well the dangers that skeletal minions can provide in battle. As such, they feel that with necrology, they can cling on to old methods of undead summoning, even though their cause is not corrupt. Don’t like that explanation? Fine! Let’s just say that it’s because they have that nifty pet bonus, okay? So bossy you all are! Actually, Necrology is believed to be a precursor to necromancy. When dark magics corrupted the Horde decades ago, it is believed that Necrologists were warped by power, which necromancy indeed has. (Do you smell a potential DIFFERENT class as necromancer here ?)
 * Tauren : Tauren have the most lore supporting reason. Through druidic magic, Tauren have sought to cure the Forsaken of their undeath, but to no avail. Now, brave cows seek new methods, and through the Earth Mother approved Necrology, they work to help the Horde and grow closer to the Forsaken. The Forsaken despise this practice though. (More on this in a bit.)
 * Gnomes : Gnomes have had the most recent of losses, and many gnomes know that their brethren and relatives are not quite ready for their endless sleep. As such, taking up the necrologist way, they seek to fight to free their home land, and their skeletal relatives wish to fight alongside their families once again and gladly will protect in their cause. Actually, gnomish engineers were known to sometimes have necrology in their veins. Their dead friends helped them with their great inventions, being tireless and all, and most gnomes were grateful for the help. It also gives gnomes a healer class. If you want gnome healers, then vote yes on Necrologist.
 * Forsaken: Undead are the corrupted ones here. They see Necrology as an art to control the dead in a way different to Necromancy and use a taste of the Lich King's medicine against him without hearing his voice command them. Most envy their pets, fortunate to have truly embraced death, and yet they find it odd that these dead would be willing assistants. Most are confused, but most wish to learn.
 * Dwarves: Dwarves are new to the list. Dwarves are studious creatures always delving the past and their heritage. By delving to those ancient dead and befriending them, they feel they can learn a lot and use their help to study and dig deep. Archeology and Necrology go hand in hand here.
 * Draenei are the most out of place, obviously, but their reason is simple enough. The Draenei are lost, and though making friends with the dead may seem strange, by befriending the fallen of different races, they can learn lots about their new neighbors on Azeroth.
 * Blood Elves: They do not want to deal with the fears and pangs of the dead. Much like their Forsaken kin, they are disgusted, but in this case, because they fear the undead may take over their homeland again. Honestly a pending choice, but I scrapped it.
 * Night Elves: Those paranoid purples(TM)... always fearin’ somethin’. Ayup!
 * Trolls: Deep attunement with the Loa and the spirits has lead the trolls to believe that Necrology may not be as kinshipped as it is made out to be. These dead suggest they may not WANT to live.

Weapons

 * Daggers
 * 1h swords
 * 2h swords
 * 1h maces
 * 2h axes
 * Polearms (20)
 * Dual Wield (20)

Armor

 * Cloth
 * Leather (40)

Stats

 * Bars: Health/Mana
 * Important Stats: Intellect and Spirit are a healer’s friend as always. Stamina is good, but not important, and strangely enough, Strength is important as well. Strength boosts some of the Necrologist’s physical based spells that work with armor and attack rating.

Advantages

 * Can heal sufficiently all while having a pet that can support with other means.
 * Can buff Agility. Rogues, Hunters, and Warriors <3 you long time.
 * Decent magical abilities that use shadow, ice and nature, as well as physical based damage.
 * Versatility through pets can provide up to three different skeletons: Warmonger (warrior/tank), Wizard (mage-like, burst dps), and Marksman (hunter with consistent DPS). Of course, only one pet at a time, and pets get one trinket slot less than player characters.
 * Pets require no food, love, or reagents. Any ammo equipped on your pet is simply there to determine how strong their shot is, and in no way does this ammo get used up. Of course, you need a full stack of bullets or arrows for the bullet to be effective, so if you get your blue quality arrows or bullets from instances, you may need to make a second trip.
 * Pets are fear immune. Great to have, but watch out for shackle... and avoid paladins. They’ll fear your pet and *#*! it with Exorcism, then they’ll outlast your weak armor.
 * Pets have talent trees that allow you to specialize them in certain ways and improve certain aspects of themselves.
 * After running an instance many times, you’ll find repeats of many items. In such a case, you might want to gear up your pet. This is probably going to be the most preferred time to gear it up, rather than to gyp a player.
 * Resurrection spell, a strange one at that, but it brings back dead people. Not as effective as a Priest’s or the faction hybrid, but still, worthy of Soulstone possession if you have a warlock.
 * Dual Wielding to get two caster daggers can be helpful. Let’s say... Lorespinner and Gift of the Elven Magi? A nice combo of caster weapons that can be (lol) used for melee if you’re nuts enough.

Disadvantages

 * If pets die or take damage, they will need repairs just like a regular player. This can in the end be a bigger hassle than food or shards.
 * Heavily pet dependent. Unlike Warlocks and Hunters, you’ll want a pet out at all times. Most pets can fortunately fit in raid settings, mainly the Wizard and Marksman.
 * Pets, though their equipment does not take up slots, may sometimes have different armor sets for different battle settings. In this way, your pet needs lots of gear.
 * Your heal spells are less effective on your own pet.
 * Item priority of Need rolls is not designed for pets to get first dibs on items. Fortunately, seeing advantages, pets are good candidates for excess gear. Furthermore, keep an eye on your DKP. Your leader likely isn’t going to let your pets have their own DKP bars and the pet will likely run your DKP dry if you prioritize. In this way, pets will likely be a tier behind fellow players.
 * Heal spells that are very efficient have disadvantages attached to them, and a few seconds of debuff to make up for their benefits.
 * The Necrologist, gearwise... well, lets face it, it makes little sense! They are casters, healing casters, yet they get no staves, get fist weapons, PARRY, and DUAL WIELD. They also get two handed swords and axes, yet can’t get 1 handed axes, or 2h maces. It is a very strange combo, and though dual wielding two caster daggers/swords can be very effective as Shamans will soon display in the X-pac, you might find offhand items as a want. Still, Fist Weapons, Two handed swords, and polearms... this is of course intentional. After all, I’m telling you straight up that its quirky. It’s MEANT to be screwed up though. Axes are harvest weapons as are spears. Swords are just swords.
 * No ranged weapon slot filler. Yup, no wands. Instead, Necrologists get relics, and their relics are Skulls. Though some are good, they cant compare to wands. (Lets face it, after 2 class concepts in a row with wands, its time for a damn break from em )
 * Ice damage spells do not have frost slowing effects the way most frost spells do. Though a good thing for PvE, it is disastrous for PvP. The skeletal wizard pet however does have slow on its ice spells, but that’s different, and as of yet, don’t quote me on this because the pets are going to be a LONG painful process of talent builds and skill designs. Yes, pets have talent tress (small ones but still) because they are more than drones.
 * Management Nightmare. Let’s face it, you have a pet to control, and a party to heal. You have your work cut out for you if you still use click commands instead of hotkeys, and even with hotkeys, you might wanna use clicking just for the pet to have it a bit easier.
 * DKP? No, you’ll be out of Points by the end of your first ZG run, even sooner if you use points in UBRS. Your pets need gear. They’re strong with it, but really, it gets TEDIOUS!

Class Role
In a party, the necrologist will have an obvious role HEALING. In this regard, they are good at it, even with negative side effects on certain heals. For the most part, its not about what the Necro should do, but more about what his pet’s function shall be. In this case, the answer is VERY complicated.

What else CAN the Necro himself do besides summon pets to do his bidding? Well, he has some damage spells of his own, not too strong, but their magic school coverage is wide, including frost, nature, shadow and physical. Physical basically is a physical attack in a mana costed, ranged package. Magic immune enemies (such as skeletal aberrations in Scholo) can be hit by it, while magic immune enemies (such as the Scholomance Occultists in their shade form) will be immune to it. Other than that, and armor/strength factors, it functions like magical spells do, it can be resisted and such like any other magic, even if it has no stat which this type of magic is resisted by... no biggie, Holy has no real resistance either, right?

Skill Trees
Like all classes, the Necrologist has three trees of his own to utilize. In this case, they are Necromancy which focuses on pet power, Preservation which focuses on healing and survival, and Heresy is the strangely named tree that focuses on physical and magical nuke power.


 * Necromancy: This tree focuses upon skills that work with the undead, and summon your pets, buff and heal your pets, and have other abilities that just scream necromancy yet not scourge necromancy. Here are a few sample skills from this tree.
 * Preservation: This tree is the healer’s focus, where you can find skills relating to the role PvEers will want your pigeonhole to remain as. Still, it’s not quite as closed to healing as that, as ice based spells, which lack a chill effect, can be found in this tree.
 * Heresy: The tree of nuke power. You will find your physical casts, your nature damage and shadow damage here. The most common damage type found is physical amongst spells, and none of them require any kind of melee attack. Going down this talent route, you will find a DPS game instead of a healer’s or pet user’s game. You may think it weak, but that’s like saying Shadow Priests are weak.

Pets

 * Warmonger: You might want to give it a protective specialization, mostly to keep your inventory clear of excess items that warriors already face. You think druids suffer from full inentory? Hah! If you try to diversify your pets... you’ll have twice as much gear, nevermind your OWN gear. A nice two hander is always nice for a quick switch if needbe, but for the most part, use it to tank. By gear, they can use up to mail, and plate armor at 40 with training, in all eight slots, all types of melee weapons, whether main hand, offhand, or two hand, equip a cloak, one trinket, a necklace, two rings, and can use shields. They can also wear tabards... freaky! They can begin dual wielding at 16. They are quested for at level 1.
 * Armor Skills: Mail, Plate (40), Shields
 * Armor can be equiped in the following slots: head, shoulders, hands, feet, trinket (and I see no reason against tabards, so we'll give that to them too)
 * Weapon Skills: All melee weapons, dual wield (20)
 * Wizard: Probably the one you want for PvP. Their spells have stuns, slowing effects, and lots of damage and little control over threat generation. In some PvE settings, they are good, since as mages, they can transform things into creatures. By equipment, they can wear cloth in all 8 slots, a cloak, get one trinket slot, a wand, two rings, a necklace, and strangely enough, a tabard. They cannot wield melee weapons.
 * Armor Skills: Cloth
 * Armor can be equiped in the following slots: neck, chest, wrist, feet, finger (tabards too, since you insist)
 * Weapon Skills: Staves, Wands
 * Marksman: This is probably the PvE instance pet of choice most often. By being consistent on DPS, and having minimum aggro, this pet is like a free dot that you always cast so long as it lives and you can still heal to your heart’s content. By gear, it can wear up to leather in all eight slots, wield a bow or crossbow, and equip it with a quiver of arrows, wear one trinket, get two ring slots, a necklace, cloak, tabard and all melee weapons, dual wielding starting level 20. When equipped with a stack of arrows, the arrows will never run out. The arrows need to be a full stack however, so make sure you run LBRS enough times to get enough blue quality arrows. If a stack of arrows is not full, the arrow’s damage output will be greatly decreased, and go down fast per arrow missing. It would probably be best to gear them like ranged rogues.
 * Armor Skills: Leather
 * Armor can be equiped in the following slots: neck, hands, legs, feet, trinket (and of course, tabards)
 * Weapon Skills: 1 & 2 handed Swords, 1 & 2 handed Axes, polearms, bows, crossbows, dual wield (20)

Finally, I put a cap on the quality of items a skeleton can equip: Greens (uncommons) and below. Also consider a talent, deep in the 'Necromancy' tree (possibly a 31, or 41 point talent) that allows skeletons to wear blue (rare) quality items. Item quality restrictions apply to weapons for skeletons as well.

The purpose to limiting the armor in this way is basically threefold.
 * Giving each skeleton class different armor slots increases dramatically the visual differences of each skeleton. The Warmonger, with a helm, shoulders, and gloves, is a menacing sight, portraying the look of someone that prefers to wail on things with large weapons. The Wizard, clothed in a robe and bracers, portays the quintessential look of a caster, weak armor, and adept at spells. Marksman is the shirtless hunter running through the woods in gloves and pants, usually bow in hand. This in turn helps party members determine who is and isn't a pet. (a fully garbed skelly would be hard to determine from another party member) Also, party members will be able to tell which skeleton you're using simply by looking at it.
 * To put it plainly: Bag Space. even with full 18 or higher slot bags, the Necro will be hard pressed to carry armor for all his skeletons, and be able to pick up his fair share of loot, (vendor trash, auctionable cloth and other goods, etc)
 * Balance. This applies to the armor quality the skeletons can equip. Imagine if you will the Necro wearing their own full T3 gear, and commanding a skeleton, decked in world drop purples. I'm having a hard time seeing any class, except pallys, stand a chance against this, even in their own T3 set. Limiting the quality of items to Greens, (and blues with a deep talent), is the simplest way to balance the class.

Acuiring your pet
The quest to get each of your pets should require you kill some mobs, and then practice raising skeletons from the corpses. (similar to the hunter "taming" quest line) Once you've mastered "raising" a skeleton you should get the ability Raise Skeletal Warmonger The word "Summon" is unfortunately associated with the Warlock class. A class closed minded people are all to quick to mention when any "necro-" class is proposed. Dropping the word "Summon" from the necro's vocabulary is the best thing you can do for it. Also "Raising" your pet should require the corpse of a mob nearby. I do not support putting a time limit on the skeletons, however, if your skeleton does end up "dying". You will have to loot the armor of it's "corpse" and raise another skeleton, and re-equip the skelly.

Overall I really like the new class idea. It's very well thought out and puts a unique and creative twist on an otherwise cut-and-dry class proposal. Hopefully it gets some more feedback soon...

Also, in regards to "raising" the skeleton: Necrologists, being able to wear leather, will oftentimes choose the leatherworking and skinning professions. When a mob is skinned, it dissappears. So, to be fair, the necro should be able to raise a skelly, and the corpse still be there. That way, the corpse can be skinned afterwards. I know it doesn't make realistic sense: (Shouldn't all the bones tearing up through the animal render the 'skin' useless) However, not doing this would put to great a gimp on necro skinners.

Just wanted to add that in there.

The reason I chose these three is because these were the three types of skeletons in WC3 and basically, it would therefore give people that necromancer feel. As for ressurections... the problem is finding the bones. See, without a pet, a Necrologist is going to have a hard time soloing or dueling. He has very few 'oh %!#*' escape buttons and slowing effects unlike a mage, no fear like a warlock. Basically, I see PvP for a Necrologist as a bit of a 'protect yourself while your pet kills, and assist when you can' or 'If they aim for the pet, support its damage.'

I was thinking of giving Skeletal summons a benefit though. If a corpse is near, and you 'use' it to make your pet, then the spell will have less casting time and cost less mana. For PvP, this will make dead pets easy to return to battle. The thing about the Necrologist's pet though is that it is a friend, not a minion. It's probably a bond closer than that of a Hunter and his pet. Hence the word Necrologist, meaning Death studier, not Death manipulator that way you can define necromancer.

I know this all sounds very different and very odd, I assure you it isn't as odd as it may seem. Besides, where can a regular person find easy access to a frost wyrm anyway? I think I would find it better saved for a true necromancer, should I ever concept it. I likely won't, but still...

In any case, it is a very odd class. It is, as you could define half-hybrid. That would be new and unique in and of itself. Basically, you have the healer half, and the tank/burst Dps/controlled Dps half you can choose between. Without this other half though, the Necrologist is gimped more than any warlock or hunter is without their pet, make no mistake. More skills! It’s about time, no? No pet skills yet though. They will come at a later date. Just keep me in check to make sure nothing here compromises the role of another class, or that nothing is too overpowered. Some skills that are taught at odd numbered Tiers are included... but not all of them.