...I don't really feel like I'm playing a "Necromancer", or even an "evil" character for that matter.  I don't know if this changes as you level, but as it stands right now; I feel like I'm playing a slightly dark pet class, with no real defining stylistic features.

I really wish as far as animations and graphics go that they would have been more daring with them.  It seems like they've gone to lengths to purposely make it generic and PC to avoid any sort of religious conflict.  Don't get me wrong---I'm not asking for my guy to be drawing pentagrams and summoning "true" demons, but something really feels missing.  The least there really could have been were some runes or made up demonic-style language and such for this class.

GW did the Necromancer right stylistically.  It was evil, and it looked demonic, but it didn't use "real" symbols and demons.  What irritates me is that none of the spells look remotely like what you'd expect when you actually cast them.  They're usually just generic "dark" effects, that don't really correspond to what the spell actually does.  I wouldn't really have a problem with this, but most of the other classes don't have this issue.  A Wizard's fire and ice spells look like, well, fire and ice, for example.

It seems to me that they didn't hesitate to put blatant "good" type stylistic directions into classes like the Paladin, Templar, or Monk; and that those classes even get (in some cases) rather blatant references to real world religion, while the "dark side" of those classes get ignored, possibly for the risk of offending someone.

It all just seems so lame to me.  I'll keep playing the class, because I enjoy it, but I really dislike the generic feeling of it.  And it may change as I advance in the game, I don't know for certain, but at least early on, there's a distinct lack of stylistic purpose for the Necro compared to the "good" equivalents.

This is just my opinion, but I think that EQ and GW both got the necro wrong. The best necro was Diablo 2. Bones, curses, poison, undead minions... The real necromancer. Guild Wars was close, EQ2, as you said, is pretty far from the typical necro.

To be honest, I think the EQ2 warlock is a lot like a necro.

Originally posted by Netzoko

This is just my opinion, but I think that EQ and GW both got the necro wrong. The best necro was Diablo 2. Bones, curses, poison, undead minions... The real necromancer. Guild Wars was close, EQ2, as you said, is pretty far from the typical necro.

 

To be honest, I think the EQ2 warlock is a lot like a necro.

To be honest I don't think that either of you would relish what you call a typical necro ( if indeed there is such a thing ) which conjurs up images of a pretty twisted guy sneaking into graveyards at night to dig up fettid corpses for subjecting to his own brand of jiggery pokery.  The typical necro has nothing at all to do with religion really although religion would no doubt claim it as demonic or whatever.  Speaking of which if you want demons and devlish things would that not be a demonologist rather than a necro, just a thought.

Totally agree onthe animations thou - pretty generic

Originally posted by zOMGREI

...I don't really feel like I'm playing a "Necromancer", or even an "evil" character for that matter.

There are no "evil" characters. Just ones that are misunderstood by the rest of society.

It pretty much is as you say. They are the disease / undead version of a summoner. Which is why the original class was summoner before moving on to necromancer. Not sure how good your computer is, but the spells / animations on EQ2 are very detailed. As a necromancer when you cast your AoE disease damage spell the mobs will be covered in blisters and start choking. Most of the spell effects revolve around bones, purple undeath and green disease.

I personally dont like the spell effects for necromancer as much as other classes, but the pets do look cool at higher levels. It does a bit of  a change, conjurer pets look better at low levels but they are outdone by necros at higher levels. The pets your necromancer summon speak undead and druzaic languages. Necromancers dont really have anything to do with religion, EQ just makes them all about summoning undead and spreading death and disease.

The defining spells you get higher on for necromancers include summoning an undead tide which increases in number based on the number of corpses, sacrificing your own life to do massive damage, life taps and stealing souls of mobs to get temporary abilities such as summons, heals, dps boosts (about 6 different spells). Necromancers also can feign death and ressurect party members.

To me this seems like what I would expect from a master of undeath, dont really see where runes or contempary religion should come into it. The only way to get a real evil feel in EQ2 is to play on PvP servers where you cant sit around and chat, or party with, with the opposing faction.

Originally posted by eric1000

Originally posted by Netzoko

This is just my opinion, but I think that EQ and GW both got the necro wrong. The best necro was Diablo 2. Bones, curses, poison, undead minions... The real necromancer. Guild Wars was close, EQ2, as you said, is pretty far from the typical necro.

 

To be honest, I think the EQ2 warlock is a lot like a necro.

To be honest I don't think that either of you would relish what you call a typical necro ( if indeed there is such a thing ) which conjurs up images of a pretty twisted guy sneaking into graveyards at night to dig up fettid corpses for subjecting to his own brand of jiggery pokery.  The typical necro has nothing at all to do with religion really although religion would no doubt claim it as demonic or whatever.  Speaking of which if you want demons and devlish things would that not be a demonologist rather than a necro, just a thought.

I was speaking in more of a "fantasy" context than a real world one.  I'm well aware of what Necromancy really was. 

If I was complaining about a Necromancer not being "realistic", I would have to claim the same about Wizards, and for that matter, all magicians in this game; since real "magic" isn't anywhere near what any fantasy setting would have you believe.

Demonology and Necromancy are pretty much the same thing in most fantasy settings, which is what I'm basing this off of.  Even if they're not the "same" per se, a Necromancer will practice some Demonology and a Demonologist will practice some Necromancy.

I'm approaching this from a more "let's make it interesting, not realistic" standpoint.

Moving on---

I do appreciate the spell effects that the enemy goes through (boils, projectile vomiting, etc), but the spell animations that you go through are lacking.  They're all relatively the same (black clouds around your feet, skeletal remains floating out of the ground), and the projectiles themselves often don't look "dark" (the purple blob with the trail behind it for the rot spells, for example).

By "evil", i didn't really mean that I had to be going around killing "good guys" or ganking lowbies; I meant just from a more "twisted" perspective.  As in, my character doing things that aren't overtly against the 'good guys', but would elicit a reaction of disgust.

My issue with the "spreading death and disease" as well as the whole summoning thing is that there's no real reason behind you doing it.  You don't have any idea as to where the power is being tapped from.  It's not like in GW, for example, where you were essentially worshipping Grenth to give you dark powers.  Here, you're just making people sick for no apparent reason.  I guess part of my point is that Necromancers really needed a little lore behind them.  The spells just seem to be lacking to me because there really isn't any symbolism behind them (real world or not; I would honestly prefer that they were made up), and therefore you just end up feeling like a dirty Summoner of some type, rather than someone that's calling upon the powers of the dead to do their bidding.  I think all of the magic classes (that don't already have animations using them) should make more use of runes and symbols in their spell effects, since it really does add that touch of mysticism to a caster ---  as it should be.

Wouldnt spreading death and disease for no apparent reason be evil enough? Hahaha love it.

The whole Grenth thing in GW is just a back story, EQ has it too in that most Necromancers worship Bertoxxulos the Plague Bringer (Who will be returning as a worshipable deity in the next Live Update). In GW theres no reference to Grenth in the main story if you play as a Necro, just as the story doesnt change if you are an Elementalist or a Monk. Some people react to you differently, but the same can be said of EQ2.

My reference to PvP is that its hard to keep up your evil appearance while you are helping your Templar and Paladin guild mates to wipe out undead monsters. Just like any game you need to make your character evil through your own actions, by picking which quests you do and where you hunt. There are many evil quests in the game with evil storylines behind them, most originate from your evil home town however. The lore is there for EQ, you just need to read up on it and play along with it if thats your kind of thing.

Every class in EQ2 has a 'casting circle' which is the same for every spell while other effects take place. The necro one just happens to be black clouds with skulls, makes sense really.

I get what you mean and it would be great to have more realism in how people react to your class / race (aside from the few useless NPCs who just base their reactions on race / alignment). But none of the other games you mentioned had much of what you were after, certainly not GW or Diablo. Its just different spell effects, EQ chose not to go with runes (actually summoners DID have runes as their casting circle before they diverted to Necro / Conj in the old system but that isnt in the game anymore).

I remember in EQ1 playing a Necro, the first time I got my Spec pet..I thought that was absolutely the coolest thing in the world.    Especially going into Oasis and watching my pet solo Sand Giants with ease. 

I play a necro in EQ2, currently level 31.  I'm not sure if they have Spec pets but if not that would be an awesome addition to help add some originality to the class.

On the flipside, before PoK and the succeeding expansions came out for EQ1, the Necro was strictly designed for Solo play.  Yeah, in the early levels you could get a group because in the early levels, as long as you had a tank, healer, and mezzer it really didn't matter what else you had.  But as you grew higher in level, almost NO ONE wanted a necro...except maybe to summon a corpse.

So I think they made EQ2's necros, and all summoners really..a little more *generic* so that they weren't complete solo machines and thus having more group friendly abilities.  Yeah you can solo in EQ2, pretty much every class can...but not like you could in EQ1.  And I think they didn't want to go back to that era of gameplay.  I'm not agreeing or disagreeing...just an observation.

Originally posted by evilastro

Wouldnt spreading death and disease for no apparent reason be evil enough? Hahaha love it.

The whole Grenth thing in GW is just a back story, EQ has it too in that most Necromancers worship Bertoxxulos the Plague Bringer (Who will be returning as a worshipable deity in the next Live Update). In GW theres no reference to Grenth in the main story if you play as a Necro, just as the story doesnt change if you are an Elementalist or a Monk. Some people react to you differently, but the same can be said of EQ2.

My reference to PvP is that its hard to keep up your evil appearance while you are helping your Templar and Paladin guild mates to wipe out undead monsters. Just like any game you need to make your character evil through your own actions, by picking which quests you do and where you hunt. There are many evil quests in the game with evil storylines behind them, most originate from your evil home town however. The lore is there for EQ, you just need to read up on it and play along with it if thats your kind of thing.

Every class in EQ2 has a 'casting circle' which is the same for every spell while other effects take place. The necro one just happens to be black clouds with skulls, makes sense really.

I get what you mean and it would be great to have more realism in how people react to your class / race (aside from the few useless NPCs who just base their reactions on race / alignment). But none of the other games you mentioned had much of what you were after, certainly not GW or Diablo. Its just different spell effects, EQ chose not to go with runes (actually summoners DID have runes as their casting circle before they diverted to Necro / Conj in the old system but that isnt in the game anymore).

I think my point is being taken a little off the path here.  My point wasn't so much that I really wanted other characters and NPCs to react to me based on my behaviour, I was rather using an example instead.  i.e. doing things that would elicit disgust from others; didn't mean I want NPCs and players to react that way, rather, I wanted spell animations and spells that would make it reasonable for one to act like that.

I don't really have a problem with the casting circle, and in fact, I think it would look really cool; if the animations otherwise weren't lacking so much.  When I think of a Necromancer, I think of the occult.  I don't think it's really stretching too much to be expecting occult symbols (imaginary or not) to be used in the animations to spice things up a bit and to add a little credibility to the fact that you're, well, a Necromancer, and just not a sick summoner.  On that subject, I think a lot of the classes could use more detail in the animations used along with the casting circles.

It's just that the whole "waving hands in the air in a figure-eight pattern" and the minimalistic projectile effects (at least so far) really leave something to be desired.

I guess I'm just expecting too much from this game, considering the sheer amount of other classes.

Necromancers are not evil.. they're just misunderstood.. i mean.... sucking out people's lives with disease and poison and making buddy buddy with not really dead people aren't evil at all

Originally posted by SeriphinX

I remember in EQ1 playing a Necro, the first time I got my Spec pet..I thought that was absolutely the coolest thing in the world.    Especially going into Oasis and watching my pet solo Sand Giants with ease. 

I play a necro in EQ2, currently level 31.  I'm not sure if they have Spec pets but if not that would be an awesome addition to help add some originality to the class.

Yes, necros get "specter" pets, and demons ( I mean real, horned, spiked tailed, looks exactly like Legend (if you've seen the movie)) devil type pets, and they're big, REALLY big. They can turn into liches themselves, and even summon the souls of the dead right out of the ground. The necro has some of the most impressive and evil spell effects of any other class. The dead corpses of fallen foes actually come to his aid and I've seen a necro running around with 20 undead pets before just like in Diablo.

Some pics of pets:

Yeah, wish I had a vampire pet...

Best nerco ever . . . . Duris , its a mud , you can't beat it.

EQ1 got necromancers right!!!!

I agree its also a bit in how you play.

It doesnt even have to be rollplay.

In EQ1, my main was an ogre warrior, to raise dark elf faction, I spent days killing halflings outside Neriak. There where a few quest I could have done, but it was more fun to kill npc that barely cleared my knees. :)

Originally posted by Flungmuk

I agree its also a bit in how you play.

It doesnt even have to be rollplay.

In EQ1, my main was an ogre warrior, to raise dark elf faction, I spent days killing halflings outside Neriak. There where a few quest I could have done, but it was more fun to kill npc that barely cleared my knees. :)

 

I hated faction grinds. In fact WoW was doing great until they introduced crazy amounts of faction grinds and call it "content". I'm glad EQ2 did away with the faction grinding idea. I used to play as a magician in EQ1 and would hang around rivervale killing the guards at the "wall". It was good XP from lvl 25 - 30ish and coupled with the fine steal weapons its a prime camping spot until SOE nerfed the FS weapons sell price.

LOL,

I remember in EQ1 when I coveted, and worked my butt off for a fine steel weapon that cost 9g (omg, a fortune at that time) off the salesman in Oasis. Then found out I couldn't even kill a wisp with it because you had to have a magical weapon. Ahhh, the good ole days...

lol..I did the exact same thing!!...I remember the first time someone made me a set of banded armor, I thought..."well thats it..I've pretty much beat this game now with this stuff on!!"

p.s. to the one who posted those pet pics, VERY NICE!!! I'm excited about continueing my Necro class.