Necromancer: Discussion of the dead

[AceofRains]

There was a good chunk of spells that was removed like one of the best ones, Shadowsear.

THM also had a lot of other spells that wasn't implemented like the one for Lv32.
Mass Fear. "Instill pure terror in an enemy, causing the target to flee."

Now that sounds like a Necromancer spell to me lol.

Yeah dude I saw some of those unimplemented ones on ZAM! it gave me tons of ideas for other jobs.
For instance while playing league of legends there was a stat called lifesteal, what if we made a job centered around that? I ended up making a Dark Knight design that was a strong life stealer, and capitalized on Lancer's lifesurge. The ability to steal life puts it almost in a tank catagory. Now putting that back in perspective something like mass fear, you can have this dark knight who tanks by life surging, and if things get too rough, he can actually fear monsters in an area of effect to give him self time to get healed. Aw dude it was just one of my favorite Idea for a job.

Actually in the job speculation thing I wrote, I tried to find as many of these unimplemented abilities to recycle as possible because they actually would have been so cool to have in game.

[Andrien]

Necromancer is just not a FF-ish 'heroic job'. Running around with corpses and skeletons as minions is what villains in a FF game do -- and we aren't villains.

Even the (non-western/non-traditional) form of Necromancer Job in FFV:Advanced serves as the exception that proves the rule.

The dev team had looked at necromancer-style play for FFXI, and that is where they came up with the more FF-thematic 'Puppetmaster'. You have a much better chance of seeing that job surface at some point in FFXIV, than you would with Necromancer.

And then there's the Chinese undead censorship issue.

Here's how I see it:

• Do you want to summon otherworldly beings? Get ready for Summoner
• Do you want to have a mindless minion that follows your every whim? Ask for Puppetmaster Job
  
• Do you want to command powerful monsters attack your foes? Lobby for Beastmaster Job
  
• Do you specifically want to play an ~~Eeeeevillll~ western-style Necromancer with hordes of grotesque undead minions? Look elsewhere, 'Final Fantasy' might not be your thing...

You can't say that because it is a job in a Final Fantasy V advance. The only Final Fantasy titles that had necromancers as enemies was in FFV, FFVI, and FFXI.

Yet in China they play Diablo III. They replace all the undead monsters with something else. so what? Necromancer or not, SE will have to change all the undead monsters anyways.

[NintenPyjak64]

Doesn't final fantasy dimesnions (mobile game) have a system with Light and Dark jobs? (Waiting for the Nvidea shield to get it cause I'm annoyed playing FF3 on my mobile)
also: Blue Mage in FF11, during the unlock quest I had the impression "Blue magic seems to be a forrbidden art and to use it you must sacrafice who you are to master the power"
(Plus necromancer is one of my favorite jobs in GW2 but that's not what this discussion is about correct?)

Maybe with these spells that drain your H/MP to restore another party membber's H/MP, why not make several "summons" have a minor inate skill that takes from the foe to give to you?

[AceofRains]

Maybe with these spells that drain your H/MP to restore another party membber's H/MP, why not make several "summons" have a minor inate skill that takes from the foe to give to you?

I really like this idea! I considered it befoe, but wasn't sure.

[NintenPyjak64]

I really like this idea! I considered it befoe, but wasn't sure.

I kinda got the idea from GW2's Blood Fiend, BUT that's not where I originally saw it. I remember playing a F2P gamethat had a necro job. That was amazingly fun to play, but only had 2 out of 4 useful minions (a Mage one and an overpowered melee one that only lasted 1 minute), and one of your primary "pet" skills was to take HP from your pet to heal yourself

[Yrusama]

This begs the question whether or not you understand or even read through the THM storyline...

Necromancy is blasphemous to worshippers of Thal, if you ask me. The Thaumaturges at the Ossuary are taught to guide the dead into the realm of Thal (death). Bringing them back would only serve to complicate everything, and defy the natural order.

It might be neat to play as a Necromancer, but I'd be afraid to set foot in Ul'dah wearing my AF. Let's not forget Necromancer isn't really a common job in FF. In fact it was only used in the remake of FFV. Yoshi-P seems more interested in FF fanservice than tossing together a class that's only really there for mild spookiness.

[AceofRains]

Necromancy is blasphemous to worshippers of Thal, if you ask me. The Thaumaturges at the Ossuary are taught to guide the dead into the realm of Thal (death). Bringing them back would only serve to complicate everything, and defy the natural order.

It might be neat to play as a Necromancer, but I'd be afraid to set foot in Ul'dah wearing my AF. Let's not forget Necromancer isn't really a common job in FF. In fact it was only used in the remake of FFV. Yoshi-P seems more interested in FF fanservice than tossing together a class that's only really there for mild spookiness.

Even if the Thaumaturges are taught to guide the dead to the realm of thal, don't get it twisted because a Necromancer doesn't have the same story and mission as a thaumaturge and neither does a black mage.

To be honest, if they added Necromancer, they would be doing this fan a great service. Let's not forget, FF1 didnt' even have chocobos.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

[AceofRains]

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.

Ah I like the input dude. I don't think this type of Necromancer is one that focuses on Resurrecting enemies. though, rather allies for support purposes and a simple call for ashkin. So as for rezzing mini boss thats somewhat out of the question.

I completely agree that people may be put off by necromancer simply because of the feel [admittedly even I was for the longest time], so what I did was more analyze FFV necromancer. I thought it might might be lacking a little difference in black mage or something though and the healer elements seemed to be a good idea. League of Legends made me a little more open minded to charcter types because just because its a dark job doesn't mean it doesn't deal with health.

As for doing well on their own, I think necromancers would have as much trouble as any other job, making sure to inhibit their healing by making cure actually deal damage to themselves would actually give them more trouble then its actually worth trying to solo. but then again there will always be those jobs that can solo some things better than others, that's pretty much the package deal that comes with specialization.

Either way, I think this can be very fun as well.

[Alhanelem]

Even if the Thaumaturges are taught to guide the dead to the realm of thal, don't get it twisted because a Necromancer doesn't have the same story and mission as a thaumaturge and neither does a black mage.

To be honest, if they added Necromancer, they would be doing this fan a great service. Let's not forget, FF1 didnt' even have chocobos.

This or that game having or not having something isn't really much of an argument (But if you want to play that way, as the previous poster said, there isn't much precedent when a job only exists in not even a regular main series game, but rather a remake of one). To be blunt I think they'd be doing a lot more than one FF fan a great service by using another more famous job like blue mage, time mage, or dark knight.

The thing is Necromancers are generally evil in fantasy worlds, with the most notable exception being Diablo II, but even in that game world, most necromancers certainly are evil, only the one you happen to be able to play isn't (wholly) evil. This makes them not fit in very well in a game where you aren't really playing the bad guy.