Quote Originally Posted by AceofRains View Post
I think some of ya'll are looking waaaayyy too much into the is Necromancy a good or bad thing.

First of all, I wan't to point of that when SE decide to expand the job pool, what on earth is even a viable thing to build for thaumaturge? I think all signs definatly point to something such as Necromancer.

Second, It matters not if necromancer is good or bad, because the intentions can be good or bad, such as how they wanted to resurrect Ascilia's father. I mean as an adventurer your somewhat neutral to opinions in the first place. This is to play a party role, not a battlefield ethic.

And third, for goodness sake, this wasn't supposed to be a discussion about yes or no Necromancer, this is a discussion about the function of Necromancer and how it could best serve a party.
Necromancer definitely was among the further masteries Thaumaturge pointed to. There are certainly other viable options, but I like the potential Necromancer has. I don't see any use for elemental spells, nor Sacrifice, Banish, Dia, or the like. (Well, maybe Banish and Dia, in a broad enough view of the mastery...)

As for party role, having some more accumalative dungeon-running elements (in this case, using slain enemies as undead thrall) is fun, but usually don't work well unless the game accommodates it. It can lead to issues like the party being unwilling to start a boss without their two Necros having resurrected the mini-bosses just before it to fight him.

I love the mechanics of flipping over the ideas of life and death, damage and healing, and honestly that doesn't seem like something that's been played on much in other takes on the Necromancer. I also think it's those other takes that might put people off to Necromancer as a FF job, simply due to the name--for which reason it might be worth your time to just throw out a few more for thought. However, that mechanic/concept is hard to make truly interesting, as the WoW warlock class has shown, along with a couple Warhammer:AoR classes I've forgotten the names of.

Now, considering role...
Classes that use their own resources to aid others (siphoning or using their own health and mana to do so) can usually do pretty well on their own; after all, they have to replenish their bars somehow. That means that either they're producing these resources themselves or they're stealing it from someone or something else before transferring it further. The latter can be done through tanking or party-nuking (given the ability to 'positively' attack allies) during undead form, but that could get OP easily. Basic health and mana steals would also work, but again--can be dull. Being able to use these resources for damage allows one to play in a niche of pushing his or her health reserves to the bare minimum to maximize damage, or swapping between health and mana priorities within rotations. That... certainly sounds potentially very fun.