WoW Necromancer Hero Class

[kenn9530]

Then why did Blizzard plan on a Necromancer class for Wrath of the Lich King.

Easy question.

Wouldnt of mattered if they did have a potential plan, fact is the class didnt make the cut and back in wrath the player was not as important as they currently, if the player was just an average adventurer then there would of been a slight chance for it, but since the player is basically the saviour of the world and pretty much does everything a necromancer is never going to be suited for that.

[Ielenia]

Wouldnt of mattered if they did have a potential plan, fact is the class didnt make the cut

The reason why it didn't make the cut is paramount, though. And we don't know the reason. Blizzard just said they decided to go with the death knight.

The actual fact of the matter, though, is that just for being considered a possibility, that shows the class is viable, and all your arguments so far against it (about how "necromancy is evil") are debunked by that.

and back in wrath the player was not as important as they currently, if the player was just an average adventurer then there would of been a slight chance for it, but since the player is basically the saviour of the world and pretty much does everything a necromancer is never going to be suited for that.

Death knights shoot your argument down the drain, as they do what you consider "so egregious", i.e. desecrating corpses, and are still saviors.

[Triceron]

Wouldnt of mattered if they did have a potential plan, fact is the class didnt make the cut and back in wrath the player was not as important as they currently, if the player was just an average adventurer then there would of been a slight chance for it, but since the player is basically the saviour of the world and pretty much does everything a necromancer is never going to be suited for that.

Being a saviour of the world doesn't imply you can't save it while being evil. Look at Demon Hunters and Death Knights. Necromancers and Warlocks and Shadow Priests are in the same boat - they use Dark Magic and would equally be considered 'Champions' amongst every other class in the game.

Look at any Forsaken character. The road towards saving the world is paved in half-eaten corpses. Again, your convictions do not reflect reality, you're publicly making excuses for yourself.

Blizzard considered making Necromancers playable, and to be very frank, they've opened up use of Necromancy to anyone who chooses Necrolords covenant now. You're excusing anyone for using Necromancy except the Necromancer itself, which is a complete double standard.

[Molvonos]

The reason why it didn't make the cut is paramount, though. And we don't know the reason. Blizzard just said they decided to go with the death knight.

The actual fact of the matter, though, is that just for being considered a possibility, that shows the class is viable, and all your arguments so far against it (about how "necromancy is evil") are debunked by that.


Death knights shoot your argument down the drain, as they do what you consider "so egregious", i.e. desecrating corpses, and are still saviors.

I mean, no it doesn't. You just stated that the importance is that the cut is paramount. We don't know why it was cut, perhaps it was cut because it *wasnt* viable, with the creation of the Death Knight class. Could have been that Blizzard just didn't want to put necromancers in player hands.

But if Blizz felt the class wasn't viable because of Death Knights (lets not compare priests to paladins. Priests are separated into three distinct spheres of magic while Paladins are only holy, etc etc etc). And the people arguing 'runic power isn't necromancy' are grasping at straws. Runes are a means to an end, in this case, said Death Knight runes, channel necromantic power.

[jellmoo]

Actaully deathknights dont have a choice its because the players themselves are choosing to use those abilities, the only deathknights in horde or alliance are the player deathknight, the rest are part of a seperate faction.

Both Koltira and Thessarian join their respective factions.

[Ielenia]

I mean, no it doesn't. You just stated that the importance is that the cut is paramount. We don't know why it was cut, perhaps it was cut because it *wasnt* viable, with the creation of the Death Knight class. Could have been that Blizzard just didn't want to put necromancers in player hands.

We're talking about his reasons for why the necromancer class isn't viable. If the class was considered, then it stands to reason it is viable, otherwise I don't think it would be even be considered as a candidate. On top of that, the reasons the poster claims why the necromancer class was rejected and why it cannot happen as a class now also apply 1:1 to the death knight class. And yet we have the DK class.

But if Blizz felt the class wasn't viable because of Death Knights (lets not compare priests to paladins. Priests are separated into three distinct spheres of magic while Paladins are only holy, etc etc etc).

Yes, let's make the comparison, because it's an apt one. If the reason why priests are 'okay' while we have paladins is because the priest class has access to two types of magic (not three like you claimed) then the solution is simple: give a type of magic to the necromancer that the death knight does not have access to.

And the people arguing 'runic power isn't necromancy' are grasping at straws. Runes are a means to an end, in this case, said Death Knight runes, channel necromantic power.

And that is a strawman, since nobody is doing that. The argument is that 'runic power' is a different form of channeling the magic and one thing that would differ from the necromancer class, both in theme and gameplay, as it's highly unlikely it would use "runic weapons" like the death knight.

[Triceron]

I mean, no it doesn't. You just stated that the importance is that the cut is paramount. We don't know why it was cut, perhaps it was cut because it *wasnt* viable, with the creation of the Death Knight class. Could have been that Blizzard just didn't want to put necromancers in player hands.

We actually know the reason. They've been pretty blatant about it.

It's always been about the rule of cool and what fits the setting and story they want to tell. This is the exact reason why Warlocks were put in the game instead of Runemasters. They develop a bunch of concepts to a certain level, then internalize and debate which should be kept and which should be cut until they get a more solid list of contenders. They developed 16-25 different classes in Vanilla, and cut that down to 9.

With Wrath, they shortlisted it down to 3 potential Hero classes; Necromancer, Runemaster and Death Knight. They picked the one that best fit the expansion, and they've been blatant about this being the case. This carries over to what they've said about Shadowlands today, and how they simply didn't see a class that jumped out at them the way Demon Hunters did for Legion. What fit better for Shadowlands? The Covenant system, which covers all the themes that exist here and doubles down on the character customization that they've provided in this expansion. There is no indication that any class concept was being held back for the sake of preventing them being playable; it was simply a matter of losing out to the stronger concept; much like how Mongrel Horde lost to the alternate-timeline/dimension Warlords of Draenor. If this was an issue, they can outright say they had problems trying to implement the system and it doesn't work out; they've been absolutely blatant about Naga not being playable due to no legs for ages now.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/w...ere-considered

In the seventh of Blizzard's occasional podcasts, Kaplan described the Necromancer and Rune Master designs that were being kicked around.

"The class choice was super hard and eventually we had it down to three front runners," he said.

"We were talking for a while about a Necromancer. He would kind of be a range caster, do a lot of corpse explode, that sort of thing. Things we ended up incorporating into the Death Knight.

"We also had a cool idea for a Rune Master. That was going to be more of a melee type - think rogue or monk type character. But Death Knight ultimately fit."


If they didn't want to put Necromancers put into players hands, they wouldn't have given their gameplay concepts to the Death Knight, and surely wouldn't have made the Death Knight playable either since they're even harder to give lore reasons to why they would be playable. Necromancers are simply mortal spellcasters, like a Warlock. They can choose their affiliations freely. Death Knights however were lore-bound to the will of the Lich King, and they needed to introduce a significant lore event to be able to substantiate them leaving the Scourge.

[Teriz]

Thats where you are just wrong on every single level available, necromancer is not a class suited to be in a leading role in WoW, the very magic it uses goes against all the values of any race that even has a remote understanding of moral values.

Which also explains why there is no necromancer hero character in WoW.

[Burneracc]

It has to be ranged hero class, that is for sure. Necromancer is the most popular option, undoubtedly. Tinker is way too childish, other options I don't even want to look at - nothing can beat the edginess and coolfactor of necro. And if WoW history is any indication, players love edginess more than anything else. The problem is - Ion could just as well pull another shadowlands and say there won't be new class in the next expansion.

[Ielenia]

Which also explains why there is no necromancer hero character in WoW.

Your argument is tanked by the fact we had Gul'Dan since Warcraft III, and warlocks were units in the game.

"But they're not HERO units!!" you might say. Well, neither did the rogue class have "hero units".

[Shadowferal]

The lore is fluid. New stories and factions can be introduced that could pave the way for a player Necromancer class, if Blizzard wanted to. That's really the only question at this point is if Blizzards wants to introduce it or not, not whether it's possible, because if Blizzard decided to....anything is possible.

Dude the incoherent lore isn't a positive. And retcons only add to the inconsistency.

[Teriz]

Your argument is tanked by the fact we had Gul'Dan since Warcraft III, and warlocks were units in the game.

"But they're not HERO units!!" you might say. Well, neither did the rogue class have "hero units".

What does a Warlock hero have to do with Necromancers?

[Simple Rick]

Dont bother - this has been explained to him over and over again. If they deal a lot of damage, Blizzard and the player-base would not like it - no one wants some passive dps totem sitting in the middle of an arena / flag room pumping out high damage while the summoner hides in a corner somewhere.

On the flip side, no one wants to spend time summing and re summoning a totem throughout a fight if it deals bugger all damage.

This is something Teriz refuses to acknowledge or address in any way.

I can get the enthusiasm ... but wow has 36 specs already. There isn't a lot of molds left to cast that don't outright break the game balance wise. Just look at the nightmare DHs are/were. They are either the king of dps or peasants due to how powerful their kite is,

[Dwimmerlaik]

This is cool, but I would caution against pet classes EVER in this game. Pet AI is such abhorrent trash.

[Ielenia]

What does a Warlock hero have to do with Necromancers?

Warlocks, just like necromancers, never had a hero character in Warcraft.

[Daws001]

Okay, so this is insane. Very nice work. Now I'm sad that we don't have this

[TheRevenantHero]

Dude the incoherent lore isn't a positive. And retcons only add to the inconsistency.

Don't even bother. Most people on these forums would rather butcher the story so they can have insane ideas made real like the necromancer. They don't care how much the current lore makes the class playable impossible.

[Teriz]

Warlocks, just like necromancers, never had a hero character in Warcraft.

Guldan is a hero character. Heroes don’t need to be “good”. Look at the Lich King and Death Knights.

[Katchii]

Dude the incoherent lore isn't a positive. And retcons only add to the inconsistency.

Never said it was a positive, Just pointing out that because of it you can't really discount the possibility of any class ever becoming a thing, including Necromancer.

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Don't even bother. Most people on these forums would rather butcher the story so they can have insane ideas made real like the necromancer. They don't care how much the current lore makes the class playable impossible.

Nobody has ever laid out a coherent, reasonable reason for why it can't be playable...why ANY class literally CANNOT be playable.

There's certain points that people can use to state why one class might be more likely than another, but nobody except Blizzard can state for a fact that any class cannot or will not ever become a thing.

[Ielenia]

Guldan is a hero character.

He was never a hero character. He showed up in Warcraft 3 in cinematic only. You never played AS Gul'dan.