Forgotten class from early WoW

[Berniee]

I got this one thing that has been buggering me the past few days. I just had a flashback of a class that existed early in the game (and I mean realyl early) which I played but was then removed.. Am I just having a wild fantasy or was there an additional class in the early stage of WoW? Iirc it was necromancer or demon hunter or something like that! Would be awesome with as much info as possible about why they removed it etc if I happen to be right, come on mmo-champs! Let the nostalgia flow through you and discuss this till the end of dawn!

[Adjutant]

I personally dont know, but it would have been during alpha/beta.

[Huntaer]

Considering you're not a troll, i think you thought of warlock in leather gear.

[MushroomBomb]

There was mentions of a possible Hero Class being Necromancer at some Blizzcon (I'm imagining the 2007 one). Perhaps this is what you're thinking of?

[RodneyStanger]

Atleast I heard rumors of a necromancer before the relase, I believe this was only name changed to Warlock though.

[Trillivm]

there was Necromancer in WoW Alpha as I know. it was either replaced or merged with Warlock, IDK correctly.

It can be speculated that it was very similar and to Diablo II Necro and his talent trees were later used as a base for Warlock trees (Warlock talent tree arts are called "Curses", "Summoning" and "Destruction" and 2 of them have plague/poison theme, more suitable for Necro than lock).
Possibly it could wear leather and use shields (some shields retain +shadow spell power modifier. dunno if that was fixed)

Necromancer was a candidate for WotLK hero class, but was merged into Death Knight.


hope that helps =)

[Deleted]

there was Necromancer in WoW Alpha as I know. it was either replaced or merged with Warlock, IDK correctly.

It can be speculated that it was very similar and to Diablo II Necro and his talent trees were later used as a base for Warlock trees (Warlock talent tree arts are called "Curses", "Summoning" and "Destruction" and 2 of them have plague/poison theme, more suitable for Necro than lock).
Possibly it could wear leather and use shields (some shields retain +shadow spell power modifier. dunno if that was fixed)

Necromancer was a candidate for WotLK hero class, but was merged into Death Knight.


hope that helps =)

My main is a lock and you hurted me like nothing else.
Affliction, Demonology and Destruction. And no, no poisons nor diseases, only magic and curses.

[Berniee]

there was Necromancer in WoW Alpha as I know. it was either replaced or merged with Warlock, IDK correctly.

It can be speculated that it was very similar and to Diablo II Necro and his talent trees were later used as a base for Warlock trees (Warlock talent tree arts are called "Curses", "Summoning" and "Destruction" and 2 of them have plague/poison theme, more suitable for Necro than lock).
Possibly it could wear leather and use shields (some shields retain +shadow spell power modifier. dunno if that was fixed)

Necromancer was a candidate for WotLK hero class, but was merged into Death Knight.


hope that helps =)

Thanks man, you are probably right about that, that might be the reason I played Warlock for 4.5 years .

I still want to see some screenshots of the old spells/looks/talents and what not! More info please, I'm dying to hear what you all remember of this!

[Trillivm]

My main is a lock and you hurted me like nothing else.
Affliction, Demonology and Destruction. And no, no poisons nor diseases, only magic and curses.

I said "Art" - those backgrounds on talents pane.

[pharix]

necromancer would've been awesome but a lot of their D2 abilities got ninja'd by other classes D:

[Noire]

I'm spanish, so I apologize for incoming crappy english. And if you do not accept them, que te jodan.

Lol

[Mongoose19]

Time for monk!

[Devonitar]

Necromancer was indeed an idea in early WoW, later they decided that Warlock would be cooler.
In WotLK idea of Necromancer returned, and along with Runemaster were considering to be a new (first) hero class (Blizz mentioned it once IIRC). They seem to be fused into Death Knight with necromantic super skillz0rs and runes.

[Gungtah]

This is interesting.

I heard of Necromancer for WotLK, but never of this.

Thumbs up for sure.

[Quinny]

There was supposed to be a 2 headed ogre, with one player controlling each head.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...ded-ogre.shtml

I know it's a race, but w/e :P This is the first April Fools I can remember

[Trillivm]

Thanks man, you are probably right about that, that might be the reason I played Warlock for 4.5 years .

I still want to see some screenshots of the old spells/looks/talents and what not! More info please, I'm dying to hear what you all remember of this!

I doubt screenies that old remained somewhere :/

but we can alwys speculate, that original icon names indicate how spells were called.

- Call of Bone - perhaps a summonig spell
- Chilling Touch - a damage skill?
- Creeping Plague - most likely a DoT, perhaps a spreading one
- Death Scream - most possibly an early name for Howl of Terror
- Evil Eye - most likely some sort of scouting spell, later merged with Eye of Kilrogg
- Fumble - likely some sort of slowing spell or such
- Life Drain - self-explanatory
- Pain Spike - perhaps a damaging spell
- Burning Spirit - perhaps a DoT
- Haunting - likely a Shadow DoT
- Black Plague - possibly a Shadow DoT
- Shadow Ward - Warlock has similar ability, but this one has an icon of skull, so it may've been Necromancer's spell
- Contagion - same icon also exists by the name of Carrion Swarm, so it is unclear which spell/talent it belonged too.
- Chilling Blast - seeing as Mages had Frostbolt all along (FB was introduced in WCIII), it is likely that this spell was Necromancer's single-target DPS spell
- Glacier - originally an icon of Lich's Forst Nova in WCIII, it may've been Necromancer's spell (in analogy to Icecrown Glacier)
- Cold-Hearted - may have been a necromancer's talent and a very early reference to a frozne heart, later used as part of Arthas' storyline.
- Suffocate - likely a silence/DoT

these probably were Warlock spells from the beginning:
- Cirse of Archimonde - likely hampered casting abilities, judging from icon
- Curse of Mannoroth - most probably weakened target's attack, like Curse of Weakness with same icon does now
- Curse of Sargeras - likely weakened target's defenses, judging from icon

Also, some icons retain their names from Warcraft III (and Warcraft III Alpha/Beta), but some of them may have been a part of Necromancer class, who knows:
- Corpse Explosion - was Necromancer's spell in Warcraft III Alpha
- Blood Boil - originally was a Necromancer's spell too, in WCIII Alpha
- Anti-Magic Shell - banshee's spell in Wacrcaft III. Possibly Necro had a banshee pet.
- Abomination Explosion - perhaps Necro had an abomination pet?
- Gather Shadows - Dreadlord's spell from WCIII Alpha
- Animate Dead
- Requiem - early version of Death Knight's Animate Dead from WCIII Alpha
- Raise Dead
- Unholy Strength - orogonally an upgrade in WCIII, likely a buff/talent in WoW
- Finger of Death - early version of Death Knight's Death Coil from WCIII Alpha
- Death Coil - really makes more sense as a necromancer spell, than warlock one
- Death Pact
- Shadow Ritual
- Dark Summoning
- Curse - banshee's spell in WCIII. perhaps Necro had a banshee pet.
- Aura of Despair
- Unholy Frenzy
- Carrion Swarm - Dreadlord's spell in WCIII. Necro in GW has a similar spell. so it possibly was necro's spell too.
- Cripple - Necromancer's spell in WCIII
- Vampiric Aura - Dreadlord's spell in WCIII
- Plague Cloud - originally a passive skill of Abomination in WCIII. Could've been an ability of Abomination pet or Necromancer's own AoE
- Death and Decay - originallt a spell of Death Knight in WCII (read - necromancer) and Lich in WCIII, it may very well have been a spell of Necromancer
- Frost Armor - now in possession of the Mage, this spell was origianally Lich's spell in WCIII and used this very icon. Seeing that Mage uses this spell for only a few levels (after which it gets replaced with Ice Armor) it may have been Necromancer's spell
- Lament - unclear what it was, but it definitely looks Necromant-ish =))
- Ghoul Frenzy - an upgrade for Ghouls in WCIII, a spell of Death Knights in WoW. DK version may have been taken directly from Necromancer.


other icons:
- icon set Creature_Cursed - may have been Necromancer's curses. Notice one icon being recolored Death Coil and another one recolored Lament. Perhaps these were talents that improved respective spells.

- icon set Creature_Disease - may have been Necromancer's diseases. Notice one icon being recolored and rotated Dark Ritual icon - perhaps it was a talent that improved that spell. Also, notice one icon being a recolored wolf icon - Blighthound pet perhaps? (later given to Nathanos Bligthcaller)

- icon set Creature_Poison - possibly were Necromancer's DoT's or diseases. Notice one icon being recolored Blood Boil - perhaps it was a talent that added disease to BB? also, notice two icons to show teeth and claw - Blighthound pet?


some more specualtions:
- Howling Blast, Hungering Cold and Will of the Necropolis, using original WoW icons may have been Necromancer's spells/talents before and were later incorporated into Death Knight

- this icon is called RemoveDisease in WoW, but in WCIII it was called Orb of Corruption. It shares color scheme with Shadow Bolt and SB has same skull as missile, so Shadow Bolt may originally have been a Necromancer spell.

Some Warlock talents and spells still bear resemblance to Necromancer - Corruption, Shadowbolt, Contagion, Pandemic, Suppresion, Bane



ALL OF THESE ARE PURE SPECULATIONS BASED ON ICON NAMES!!!


also, you can imagine what the class was like, if you have a look at original Necromancer's spells from Guild Wars, since GW was made by Blizz developers who left Blizz while WoW was in progress and many classes from GW have striking similarities to classes in WoW

for example, in this speculations we can see a cold/blood/disease theme, used in GW Necromancer and current Death Knight.

EDIT: added more icons with speculations

[SPC7R0]

Possibly a very early Death Knight???

they have been in the game since old naxxramas, its possible that they might wanted to add them

[Trillivm]

quote from WoWWiki: (Necromancer article)

"As a class

Planned as one of the original classes along with Death Knight, this did not make release.
Later, the necromancer class was one of three front runners to becoming the first heroic class released with Wrath of the Lich King, however, the ideas surrounding them were incorporated into the death knight. (The two other front runners were rune masters and monks.)"

seems Death Knight was planned too, hence the shield with shadow spell power and similarities between my speculated spell list and current DK's abilties.

EDIT: proofvid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCKvxGFhd9A

[tankytanktank123]

what does a demon hunter do? i'm pretty sure it was in WCIII, but i'm a noob and never played it. I made myself play it years ago due to its epic as shit story, but i just suck too much at RTS's....so i quit in the beginning of the undead campaign

[Trillivm]

what does a demon hunter do? i'm pretty sure it was in WCIII, but i'm a noob and never played it. I made myself play it years ago due to its epic as shit story, but i just suck too much at RTS's....so i quit in the beginning of the undead campaign

demon hunter was generally a warrior/rogue with Immolation (like lock's meta has), Mana Burn and Metamorphosis.

wielded warglaives (like illidan's), weared only leggings and a blindfold.

I doubt it would have a niche if to implement it in the game.
we have enough DPS classes, both ranged and melee...