Announcing the Necromancer

[Butcher_Pete]

Necromancer


A necromancer is a practitioner of the dark arts who summons the dead, wields the power of lost souls, and literally sucks the lifeblood of the enemy. A necromancer feeds on life force, which he can use to cheat death or bring allies back from the brink.

A necromancer feeds on death and decay. Life force is the energy that a necromancer uses to extend his own life. Using specific skills, a necromancer builds up life force by attacking and killing enemies. Rather than going into a downed state when he runs out of health, a necromancer automatically activates the Death Shroud ability. A necromancer can continue fighting in the ghostly Death Shroud form until he either runs out of life force or he gets a kill, rallying back into his own corpse.

Necromancers have a unique set of special skills:

Wells—Wells are persistent spells that allow a necromancer to control the area around him. Created at the necromancer's location, wells affect targets within the skill's range. Well of Blood, for example, applies a regeneration boon to all allies within it. A necromancer can only have one well skill active at any time.

Minions—The necromancer summons undead minions to attack foes and do his bidding. Every minion-summoning spell has an associated secondary spell that appears after the minion has been summoned. This secondary spell destroys the minion while providing a powerful effect to the necromancer. For example, necromancers have a healing skill called Summon Blood Fiend that creates a minion that heals its master while it attacks. After the minion has been summoned, the Summon Blood Fiend skill is replaced by the skill Taste of Death, which allows a necromancer to destroy the minion to gain a larger amount of health.

Marks—Necromancers can also place marks--ground-targeted spells with a variety of potent effects. For instance, Mark of Blood damages enemies while placing a regeneration boon on nearby allies. Marks will trigger after a set period of time, but a necromancer can always trigger their marks on command by hitting the skill again.

Fear—Necromancers use a condition not available to any other profession: fear. A removable condition, fear makes an enemy flee directly away from a necromancer for a short period of time. For example, a necromancer can use Doom to instill fear in a single target.

Screenshots






Mechanics

Weapons
When outfitting himself for combat, the necromancer can choose from the following weapons. The necromancer weapons are:

Main Hand: Axe, Dagger, Scepter
Off Hand: Dagger, Focus, Warhorn
Two-Handed: Staff
Life Force
Life force is a special type of energy used by a necromancer. Once he reaches a certain life force threshold, a necromancer can activate Death Shroud (see below), entering a spirit form and leaving his body behind. Each of his weapon sets have skills that give a necromancer life force, and he gains an even larger amount of life force for kills that happen nearby. Finally, there are utility skills that build up life force, like Ghost Armor, a skill that improves a necromancer's armor and adds life force every time he takes damage.

Death Shroud
Death Shroud is a special ability--usable by a necromancer at any time--that utilizes his life force as a secondary health bar. Instead of entering a downed state when his health is reduced to zero, a necromancer automatically activates the Death Shroud ability and assumes a spectral form. In Death Shroud, a necromancer has a number of special skills. For example, a necromancer can summon a shadow fiend, a special minion unique to this form. With the ability to tap into Death Shroud, necromancers are certainly one of the most durable professions in Guild Wars 2.

[Taiyounoryu]

Omg, I think I just came.

[Butcher_Pete]

Just from reading up on this I'm seriously considering playing this class, this is by far the coolest class I have seen so far.

[Taiyounoryu]

Dido, I like it as well. Cant wait to see what else they release.

[Hellbinn]

yea my email is bobtheNECRO so hmm imma be a necro...

[Taiyounoryu]

Hey now buddy, back of the line. Haha.

[Mistereo]

A few more Necromancer ability's released with the unveil.

Death Shroud: "A necromancer feeds on death and decay," says the class description. Keep that in mind and it's easy to see that a downed necro is maybe not someone whom you want angry with you. Other classes will remain prone on the ground when they hit zero health, utilizing their downed skills to try to finish off a nearby enemy and rally. Meanwhile, the necromancer goes straight into Death Shroud and becomes a spectral shade with a series of abilities that are almost as dangerous to enemies as the regular skills. Shadow Fiend, for example, is a spectral minion that a necro can summon while in Death Shroud.

Death Shroud isn't limited to a downed state for the necromancer -- it can be activated at any time if you've got enough life force built up, but there's a hitch. While clearly awesome, Death Shroud is unfortunately temporary. Once you either make a kill or run out of life force, the vengeful-ghost act comes to an end, and you'll return to your regular skill set.

Locust Swarm: Makes use of the warhorn, one of the offhands available to the necromancer. We've seen the ranger's use of the warhorn, but rather than bringing a flock of birds to attack your enemies, the warhorn spews a swarm of locusts. The locusts surround you, turning you into a buzzing cloud of ouch for anyone who gets too close. (Hint: run after them.)

Grasping Dead: Another new skill that may well take the prize for coolest animation. Hordes of skeletal arms exploding from the ground to drag your enemies into death -- a round of applause goes to whoever designed that one.

Doom is the final new skill that we were introduced to with this reveal, and while the animation looks a little familiar, it seems to be a pretty formidable spell. Sneaky too -- that asuran necro in the skill video looked pretty vulnerable until he unleashed a wall of death.

Videos for the new skills can be found on this site

[Mistereo]

I like allot of the abilities but the only thing that might be difficult is controlling the aoe since I believe there is friendly fire with aoes similar to gw1?

[Butcher_Pete]

actually standing within the aoe's is a good thing for his teammates, some of his aoes damages enemies and leeches or just heals them for 5 percent of their health every 10 seconds. The necromancer will definitely be a support class in this game not so much a dps utility but a good utility none the less.

[Butcher_Pete]

Also would just like to add, having the necro stack with warrior profession would make an extremely deadly combo.