Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Proper Necromancy

It is definitely true that the early turns are important and not being able to cast most spells would make it difficult. My main hope isn't to have all the necromancer spells or summons use corpses, but to at least have a few. Having a summon get a buff from getting summoned from a corpse is a pretty good method. However, there could also be a spell or two that require corpses and have powerful effects.

My main issue is still that current necromancy skills almost all use blood rather than death magic. And honestly, I would argue that blood is more a force of life than death, which is why all damaging spells with it right now work by removing or corruption blood.

I am going to say that it is hilarious how much Fantasy is beholden to tropes and stereotypes that even when it goes slightly off the overbeaten track people are up in arms.

This isn't even "Sparkling Vampires" territory.

Necromancy was about divining, not controlling if we want to step into the grounds of "proper necromancy"
-Oddly enough in spite this being the most interesting aspect of Necromancers... This is almost never what they actually do. Shame really.

You know maybe a splash of color could do Necromancy a load of good instead of "Summon zombie, wear zombie, throw zombie, Be Zombie, catch zombie virus" spells :P

First of all, I very much doubt this is up in arms territory here. This is a pretty calm discussion over all, and I am completely okay with the "splash of color" you mentioned. However, magic using death and spirits is still completely different from magic using blood. Both are pretty cool and I am fine with using either, but either way, it currently doesn't really have anything to do death, except from blood loss. Renaming the current class to some form of blood or black magic would fit a bit better.

After all, even in Twilight the vampires still had the strength, immortality and etc. (At least, I'm assuming since I never made it through the first one)
In D:OS2 it's called necromancy even though it has a smaller link to death than from when it was just witchcraft.

The moral of my story is: Changing something, even significantly, is fine. But change it too far and it makes more sense to rename it to remove confusion. (Also this is the suggestions area and I personally would love to see some of these ideas make it to the game in some form or other)

EDIT: It isn't just fantasy that has a huge amount of stereotypes it typically conforms to, everything does. If you bought a phone that never got reception or internet access, you would likely be annoyed if they responded by saying that they were trying to make the phone more unique and asked you to calm down.

I like the Necromancer kit. It's really interesting, but it does bother me that as a Necromancer I can't manipulate corpses or summon undead. If it isn't much work I really think they should change the name to Witchcraft. The only prefix I know related to blood is Haemo or Haima from the Greek and I'm not sure if Haemomancer or Hameosophist rolls off the tongue.

To admit... Corpses don't have blood and people don't die when they run out of blood.

Nor is blood necessarily linked to vitality in anyway shape or form... and thus does feeding or depriving someone of it in anyway linked to death.

No, what is directly linked to corpses is copying all the Diablo 2 powers!

I dunno how exactly 3 abilities that are necromatic but not Diablo 2 powers makes them not necromancy... Actually I know why! Because Dragon Age made their blood magic very directly blood magic.

So we have Diablo 2 basically being what is defining the Necromancy powers... and Dragon Age limiting it.

So keep your pants on, the current skill load out is fine (well... in terms of theme)... And we are going to get more skills in the pipeline. Besides TWO of the 5 are directly linked to Copy-And-Paste Necromancy as it is (Touch of Decay, and Disease) and another is a common necromancy skill (feeding off blood). Leaving only making it rain blood (usually a ill omen or vile portent signifying great disaster or death) and the blood mosquito which is the only odd one in the bunch...

I'll be entirely honest here, I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never played Diablo 2 or any Dragon Age games. I also mentioned that people do die of blood loss in my last post. My definition of different magic types come from a lot of fantasy games and books from classic DnD, to Terry Pratchett novels and a whole lot of other sources.
As such, while I do think that blood based magic can fit into necromancy, it simply is more confusing for people who don't know the class. I'm pretty sure most people primarily think of raising the dead and draining life force when they think of necromancy, and the current class just doesn't have that.
It's much easier for people to understand a class if it uses the kind of thing they initially expect from the name.
Geomancer is obviously about earth based magic.
Aerotheurge is clearly air based magic and etc.
If the class was still called witchcraft or blood magic, I would be able to have an idea of what to expect from it.

Again, I would love to see some undead and black magic based spells, but the main issue is just that the class doesn't really meet expectations. As such, even though the spells are cool, I was not as excited about them as I could have been. If the class was still called witchcraft, or was renamed to some form of blood magic, I would have been ecstatic. As it is, the class just felt a bit lackluster. In addition, changing the name of the class wouldn't effect gameplay in the slightest, but would help new users know what the class was about. The only problem would be if changing the name was really difficult (which seems unlikely) or if they were planning more traditional necromancy spells, in which my complaint is invalid anyway.

EDIT: Just saw your edited post. First off, my pants are very firmly on right now.
Again, you seem to think that I dislike the spells, and that is completely wrong. I made a list of what I thought were more traditional necromancy spells that I would like to see. I also mentioned that the class currently doesn't match what a lot of people hope for when they hear necromancy. The old name of witchcraft really does fit it a lot better right now. I also mentioned that if they're adding this kind of skill anyway, my complaint is invalid.
Finally, I really don't get why you keep thinking I'm mad. This is the Suggestions and Feedback section of the forums and so I'm doing just that. I'm giving my feedback (that the class doesn't seem as necroy as it does bloody) and suggestions. In the end, it is not my game nor do I have any say in what they do, I just mentioned what I want to see and what I think of what there is so far.

Skills: Fossil Strike which is bones with oil, Increasing your armor rating, Poison Arrow, Cloud of Spores, and a ground rupture.

I kinda already attribute oil to the ground anyway (also it's supposed to be a giant rock). I figured the armor rating increase was from rock/steel fortification and the ground rupture is obviously from the ground. Poison seems a bit out of place at first. But, since I saw the giant rock and fortification first, I kinda just attributed the poison to the earth from then on. Same with the lightning from air, and ice from water. However, I think undead when I hear necromancy, as with many others, and it currently has none of that. You also start off with all blood related spells, which made it seem a bit weird.

Really, I meant it guys, don't sweat it. There's going to be more necromantic themed skills. Like, exactly the kind of stuff you're talking about. That's all I'm going to say about that :P

In that case, I'm really looking forward to it. The game is already amazing. Can't wait to see any new content

How you know which skills they are still keeping back?

Not old skills, new ones. And that's proprietary information!

Just a thought for Necromancy skills and if the summon undead *would* require bodies:

They could add in a second skill that would be able to target those ash piles/heavily damaged corpses, and instead of summoning a zombie/skellington, summon some form of spirit/ghost.

When I think of Necromancy, I think of undead, blood magic, hexes and curses, and bone-based spells, like Necromancers are typically attributed to. I honestly was hoping for more undead summons in D:OS, but thankfully that's not why I bought the game, and I really enjoy it. The change of name from Witchcraft to Necromancy originally confused me a bit, as I had gotten used to the name, but here's hoping they changed the name for a long-run goal, and are going to be adding in the more 'traditional' Necromantic skills, summons, and spells.

Still waiting and hoping for the day that I can finally raise an undead army in a game, force them to build me a castle, and then live out my days in a palace of bones and blood. Such is the dream.

I don't know if they need to make a separate skill. Just make it so a raise zombie skill will raise an ash zombie/spirit if targeting an ash pile, or an ice zombie if targeting ice remains, etc. So it would still kind of have that elemental flavor that summoning has, but through the use of dead enemies, which would largely depend on the nature of your party. If you have a pyro, you'll get a lot more ash zombies, for example.

Each zombie can have different stats and abilities. Ash zombies would be extremely vulnerable to air probably (just blow them away), and maybe they could have a skill that would let them spray themselves at a group of enemies, destroying the summon but blinding the enemies. Stuff like that.

[quote=Baardvark] I don't know if they need to make a separate skill. Just make it so a raise zombie skill will raise an ash zombie/spirit if targeting an ash pile, or an ice zombie if targeting ice remains, etc. So it would still kind of have that elemental flavor that summoning has, but through the use of dead enemies, which would largely depend on the nature of your party. If you have a pyro, you'll get a lot more ash zombies, for example.

Each zombie can have different stats and abilities. Ash zombies would be extremely vulnerable to air probably (just blow them away), and maybe they could have a skill that would let them spray themselves at a group of enemies, destroying the summon but blinding the enemies. Stuff like that. [/quote]

And while that's all well and good, and would definitely work if they wanted to do less skills, with more versatility from those skills, I would honestly prefer to be able to have multiple summoned undead on the battlefield. 'Summon Zombie' as the only summon skill a Necromancer could get feels rather, lackluster in my opinion.

Maybe it's just my preference for an undead army, wanting to have skellingtons, zombies, wights, ghouls and ghosts, but if so much as one of those makes it in, and is useful throughout the game/doesn't get decimated by other class summons in every area, I might be fine with that.

I do, however, know there is a problem with only having one summon, and a relatively long cooldown on it. (Along with only being able to have one summon active, like D:OS had.) One of my characters in D:OS was my 'dark mage' kind of class, in that I was playing her almost like a Necromancer/blood mage, though there was only one summon I had at the time, and the other summon WC got was far better in all but AP cost, so I had also gave her some healing to try and keep everyone alive as much as possible. Aaaaand then I started to run into the problem of 'Welp, the thing I *just* summoned died before it could even get one turn in, and the rest of my summons are still on cooldown/don't exist yet. Back to slapping stuff with a wand and being a pocket healer for her.'

Wasn't that fun of an experience, so I just want these summons to be good, and for there to either be enough of them, or for them to not get insta-gibbed all the time.

(Like a raise dead ability, that targets an area, bringing back to life x amount of corpses to fight for you. If there aren't enough corpses in range, or any, then it creates an appropriate amount of skellingtons instead. Corpses that are too damaged come back as Revenants, and they are all scaled appropriately in power to the number that is summoned, the summoner's level, and the summoner's level in Necromancy.)

Also, sorry, I tend to ramble too much and type way too long of a post/reply.

Edit: Apparently I'm just as bad at forum posting/quoting as I am at making my point within a reasonable amount of time.

My thoughts exactly, I would like an extra step on 1 and 2 to allow you to choose a friendly target (10 ydsish?) to receive the mark or healing. Number 3 being touch I'm mixed about because it's extremely strong when it is applied already.