Basically what it says on the title. The falloff of summons in Diablo titles always rankled so I’m hoping the more purposeful gameplay of Wicked lends itself to a design centered around an specialized summon (lich, dreadknight, vampire, reaper, etc.) and spells tailored for buffing them and tenderizing enemies. The clip posted on necromancers a ways back didn’t really give much flavor as to specifics so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
The necromancer isn’t coming with 1.0, so we’ll have to wait to see how it will turn out like, if it even ends up being released.
I know the class is very much still on the lathe. That’s why I’m winkingly hopeful a dev will see the comments. A guy can dream, right?
Bump for visibility.
Expanding on my earlier posts I gave some thought beyond the Diablo reference I made before. I had to go way back to find examples which really fit the point I was trying to make about persistent, impactful summons and how they feel from a gameplay and feel perspective.
Back in the EQ days, the first time you summoned a Spectre or busted out the staff of elemental mastery you felt like a BOSS. A slayerdroid in Anarchy online, infernals and dreadlords in WoW. Powerful summons were a tangible manifestation of your characters potency. Many (most?) games since have seen summons relegated to a quantity over quality early-mid game consideration with severe late game falloff, or a burst damage skill not unlike any other DPS a caster class may use, either way not an integral part of the classes identity. I’m winkingly hopeful the final design of the Wicked necro class will bring the Summoner archetype back to life.
So the wicked inside has done nothing except for give me an overwhelming urge to begin shoveling money at moon until they tell me to stop. That said…
To continue my stream of consciousness, the necromancer concept vid posted by Thomas felt thematically accurate but not sustainable. Resurrecting an enemy as a minion is an accepted trope, but falls apart in gameplay as soon as a boss enters the equation. So, unless the idea is to have trash mobs as corpse fodder in every boss encounter (because EVERYONE LOVES trash mobs in boss fights), the scenario by default robs the summoner character of a key facet of it’s identity. Persistent, potent, summons are the correct choice. A halfway measure results in frustration with a character persistently battling with a significant handicap.
With the latest Inside, I think the situation creates an even stronger incentive for the Necromancer to lean all the way into a Summoner archetype. And let me clarify this is to mean a persistent summon able to be targeted by enemies same as any player. The trope of a summon being nothing more than a turret on a timer can be discarded.
The synergistic build opportunities play well and create the option for the player to select the degree to which they want to leverage the ability. Are they a sword and board who wants to summon a lich familiar which provides ancillary compliments (debuffs/dots/etc) to the player’s core style? Or is the dreadknight summon their primary offensive tool, with the surrounding skills built around supporting them? Or perhaps a back rank DPS who just needs a bone golem off tank to draw aggro or a Wraith capable of shrouding them and breaking contact? The necromancer class could play to all these scenarios depending on the scope of the various summons they have available.