Necromancer - Diablo III & Grim Dawn

Grim Dawn General Discussion
1

Just curious what you guys think about it

D3 Necro (See what i did there? :rolleyes:) -

Grim Dawn’s Neophyte -

Skills previewed (Subject to change)-

1. WPS Necrotic Edge-

Vitality Decay support
And Cold support
Insta-favorite

2x Nex Reaper build (or was it Ortus that was the cold sword?)

2. Drain Essence-

Love this skill, unique in it’s own right
Aether/Vitality synergies feel awesome

Endless Thirst modifier seems kinda interesting

3. Ravenous Earth-

Description makes it sound like a corrupted fissure. Poison/Vitality skill screams Cabalist

Nice to see a new Poison source (looks weak though)

4. Ill Omen-

Unless the “Reduce enemy damage” is more than 1 second it won’t be worth investing

5. Spectral Binding-

Looks awesome

6. Master of Death-

Pretty sure this aura is under construction (more so than the others) due to lacking player benefits (besides %OA and Resist)

7. Reap Spirit/Wraith-

My video quality was shit but it appears to be using a new model

8. Bone Harvest-

Animation is awesome

Skill itself feels like the love child of Tremor and Lethal Assault.
Cold/Vitality seems nice though

Please keep the discussion civil. I know it’s hard to do this in a Diablo III thread.

Q.1 What do you guys think of the previews of both masteries?
If you liked any skill in particular despite not liking that version of the class itself feel free to point it out

Q.2 Blizzard were pretty adamant that they’d “re-invent the wheel” by not adapting anything from the previous game but additions of crusader and necromancer (which they tried to replace with the Witch Doctor) clearly make it seem that they’re loosing their fanbase.
Is the mastery enough to make you go back? (it’s paid ofc)

Q.3 Grim Dawn seems to be getting a new feature- mastery related dialogue (which seems to be related to the new class). I noticed a portion of the fanbase isn’t happy to see a necromancer.
It’s the most modded class in most games since not many games actually have it.
Why do you guys hate it & what else did you want?

Q.4 What do you expect/want from the new mastery (GD)?

Q.5 Diablo III has been called not very dark by most fans, and frankly the reaper of souls didn’t change this by much for me.
Do you feel the addition of the new mastery and the previews have brought back the gothic feel to the game?

These are my questions to you guys, this is a discussion thread so contribute to it with more questions/answers

Preview for Inquisitor for those interested

Inquisitor-

[spoiler]1. Flames of Ignafar

Impressive skills, it seems much better than AAR/Obliteration and seems to counter the problem of most ray builds
Love the modifier adds flat Lightning damage
Reduces energy cost
Adds Fumble

2. Storm Box of Elgoloth

Aether Lightning support through transmuter, unique skill mechanic. Awesome

3. Word of Pain

Not sure i understand the skill, I love it but i don’t know if you intend it as a debuff skill or damage skill
Impaired Aim is nice btw

4. Aura of Censure

Remove the RR please, a very important end-game tackling mechanic being part of an exclusive skill limits build diversity. Had the skill not been exclusive it’d have been worth it imo
Besides that, i love the concept of Auramancer playstyle

5.Aura of Conviction

Love this one, Pierce damage feels odd there but love it. %DA - count me in

6. Inquisitor Seal modifier Null Field-

Love the idea, avoid projectiles means a way to tackle the Queen

7. Word of Renewal

Pretty darn nice, considering it ensures that one of the main factions can’t damage you a lot

8. Rune of Kalastor-

Always been a big fan of Canister Bomb, love it

9. Rune of Hagarrad-

Love it, just fucking love it. Fuck everything release the expansion! :smiley:

10. Chilling Rounds-

Nice, ranged Cold WPS[/spoiler]

Love the theme and the unique skill mechanics of Inqusitor

2

To the first question!
I’m liking GD’s Necro a bit more then D3’s

To the second question!
Blizzard seems to dig themselves in a hole when they discuss anything Diablo related, to be honest Diablo hasn’t been the same since the addition of three, and this is coming from a guy who enjoyed three for what it was. I have my doubts it will make me come back to D3 anytime soon, and seeing that the Necro is more a Bloodmage then anything? It’ll kinda sway me from it more.

Third question!
As a new player to the game I cannot complain about additional content because so far i’m in LOVE with GD. However if there was a class I would have wanted over a Necro? Something where I can punch things with my fists as I said in a Livestream. I love the idea’s of Monks or Fist Fighters in general.

Fourth question!
Anything that a Necro can really do, I am hoping for Cold based damage and maybe some minion summoning. But i’m sure i’ll get some surprises from the GD development team.

Fifth and final question!
No. Diablo lost it’s “edge” and it doesn’t feel the same anymore. Adding a single class that casts destroys bodies and makes flesh golems isn’t going to change that, good hard driven story will.

3

-Assassin (DII) did it way before Monk :wink:

But i hear ya, i love me some good fist fighting

I punched Diablo (DII) to death with Bash
My weapon broke early on in the fight and Diablo had killed my companion so I decided i’ma punch him to death for doing that :rolleyes:

-In it for Cold damage more than anything else tbh. I am big fan of the damage type

4

I honestly never was more immersed in Druid when it came out. (werewolves are cool, okay.) Assassin wasn’t my style when I was younger, still really isn’t BUT NOW THAT I DO KNOW. Never hurts to do a replay and try it out.

5

Tbh I never played the assassin a lot either

Stopped at Nightmare

Not that it wasn’t interesting but it’s just i don’t know why i stopped midway :eek:

6

D3’s skills are interesting to start, but very ‘cartoony (blood nova looks like paint)’ and won’t get my purchase in the end because I have nothing to challenge it against except infinite scaling. If it wasn’t for the constant meta creep, I’d be interested.
Grim Dawn’s is just so much more serious. Looks menacing, cool skills (except raise skeleton, never been a fan), fills gaps in damage types, cool gear. Lore will also be good I imagine fitting into the story.

Basically I see it like this:
D3 - use Necro to try skills, spend a day or two getting decked out and do GR80 or something (I haven’t played since GR50 stopped being the ‘cap’), quit.

GD - spend ages contemplating the build possibilities and playing with GrimCalc (or the new build calculator), probably end up with 10-20 chars with Necro+ or Inquisitor+…

One is an action game with cheap hooks, the other is a deep and complex ARPG.

Q.2 Blizzard were pretty adamant that they’d “re-invent the wheel” by not adapting anything from the previous game but additions of crusader and necromancer (which they tried to replace with the Witch Doctor) clearly make it seem that they’re loosing their fanbase.
Is the mastery enough to make you go back? (it’s paid ofc)

No. The way they handled the 20th anniversary, the ‘DLC content pack,’ the ‘no meaningful content to use it in’ all ruin what might be a good thing.

Q.3 Grim Dawn seems to be getting a new feature- mastery related dialogue (which seems to be related to the new class). I noticed a portion of the fanbase isn’t happy to see a necromancer.
It’s the most modded class in most games since not many games actually have it.
Why do you guys hate it & what else did you want?

I just plain don’t like raise skeletons and generally don’t like the pet style of play. Also the problem with needing corpses to exist before killing things… Otherwise the skills look really cool. The GD Necro looks bad-ass.

Q.4 What do you expect/want from the new mastery (GD)?

Cold, vitality, aether - all the damage types I want to spend more time with, especially with (hopefully) more melee options. Lots of sunk hours ahead :slight_smile:

Q.5 Diablo III has been called not very dark by most fans, and frankly the reaper of souls didn’t change this by much for me.
Do you feel the addition of the new mastery and the previews have brought back the gothic feel to the game?

No, the opposite. Just further cements the ‘not-serious’ style further. The more the competition steps it up the worse D3 looks in comparison. It’s their graphical style and that can’t be changed with ‘darker’ content.

Add Salt :wink:

These are my questions to you guys, this is a discussion thread so contribute to it with more questions/answers

Oh yeah love a Monk class. Staves and fists, bring that awesomeness on. Was my favourite class in D3.

7

-Interesting opinions

-GD Skeletons don’t need corpses

-20th anniversary was a mess, they literally spat on the face of the fan-base (or what’s left of it atleast)
Their predecessor’s expansion had 2 new classes. Their expansion had 1 and the new 1 is paid. Neither of the classes are new
To make matters worse Darkening of Tristram is an event
I am sure the fan-base would’ve loved a remaster of the old games
But they know remastered old games would make D3 servers a ghost town

Blizzard : What do you guys want?

Fans : A remaster pack!!!

Blizzard : Here’s a necromancer class that we tried so hard not add. Going so far as to create the cheap looking Witch Doctor.
And to the old fans you guys can play Diablo 1 made by us on MS Paint on D3 servers!! Yay!!

Fans : But that’s not what we…

Blizzard (to the media) : Fans have never been happier

8

have seen too little skill wise of the GD Necromancer to really have an opinion yet

As to D3, I could not care less about the game at this point

Q.2 Blizzard were pretty adamant that they’d “re-invent the wheel” by not adapting anything from the previous game but additions of crusader and necromancer (which they tried to replace with the Witch Doctor) clearly make it seem that they’re loosing their fanbase.
Is the mastery enough to make you go back? (it’s paid ofc)

no, nothing is

Q.3 Grim Dawn seems to be getting a new feature- mastery related dialogue (which seems to be related to the new class). I noticed a portion of the fanbase isn’t happy to see a necromancer.
It’s the most modded class in most games since not many games actually have it.
Why do you guys hate it & what else did you want?

I generally am no big fan of pet builds and a Necromancer often falls into that place.

In all the builds I have played in GD, none have used a pet yet, and that includes my Conjurer

I will definitely play the Necro, just not yet sure how :wink:

Q.4 What do you expect/want from the new mastery (GD)?

to fill gaps (like DW guns did for the Inquisitor, but could also be for underused damage types, to even things out), have good synergy with existing masteries

Q.5 Diablo III has been called not very dark by most fans, and frankly the reaper of souls didn’t change this by much for me.
Do you feel the addition of the new mastery and the previews have brought back the gothic feel to the game?

no, what stands in the way for me is the awful blurry and washed out graphics. No matter what you add to that, it will never amount to anything dark or even interesting.

Adding over the top blood effects does not help either, it’s like a 6 year olds idea of what gothic and dark should look like

Just look at the difference between the two reveal pictures… the D3 one looks like angry teens cosplaying…

9

me too, i hope the devs would make a brawler type class and i hope after the new expansion is released they can focus on improving the skill animation and quality

10

In regards to the questions asked:

1- I liked both, although I prefer the Inquisor waaaaaaaaaaay more than the Necromancer, as I was expecting something else (even thought I was 90% sure that a Necromancer was coming), while still filling the Necromancer archetype (Aethermancer? Ritualist masteyr that subdues lesser Aetherial beings, as opposite to Arcanist manipulating Aether energy itself?)

2- Odd question, or I’m failing to understand it properly… Are you asking me if the Necromancer mastery will make me go back to D3? Mot sure if that is what you’re asking, but if so, the answer is no.I’ll never play D3 again, since Blizzard isn’t willing to improve it’s core features to make it interesting.

3- I don’t hate it… it’s just not my favorite class for my main playstyle… I always enjoy playing with “Paladin” characters on all RPG games that allows me to play as a similar role, and the Necromancer (as in case of the Occultist) goes totally against this idea. When I first started playing Grim Dawn during Early Access, I was against a Necromancer mastery, because we already had the Occultist (and later, the Shaman) as the summoning archetypes, and I was hoping that the expansion mastery would add a “holy” themed mastery, so that I can finally play as a more convetional Paladin character, which is why I longed for an Inquisitor-like mastery prior to anything else… When Crate confirmed that we’d get two masteries with the expansion, and that one of them was an actual Inquisitor, I became even more excited and hyped with the expansion, and I really didn’t cared much about what the 8th mastery would be, although I did hoped it wasn’t a literal Necromancer, but something based on the Necromancer archetype, due to obvious lore conflits, but then Zantai said that picking your masteries (at least when it comes down to the Necromancer) will affect how the world reacts to your character, which is pretty amazing, and it made fully accept the Necromancer as it is now. :slight_smile:

4- To bring more awesome combinations and build diversity. I really hope that most of the skills of both Inquisitor and Necromancer masteries can be used with all playstyles… like, in the Inquisitor’s case, I hope that there won’t be skills will force you to wield a gun or a Caster Off-hand in order to use it, and that you can use them with a shield or a melee weapon as well…

5- I mean, just look at the D3 Necromancer artwork with Grim Dawn’s… The D3 one looks like it is a character of a cartoon show or rock’n roll band… The Necromancer artwork from Grim Dawn actually gives you the idea that the Necromancer is a powerful character… it also gives an air of mistery to him, because we can’t see the Necromancer’s face, since it’s hidden behind a mask… and the way he is depicted raising his right hand upwards, looking at the sky, with the dead looking him from below and raising their hands, as if praising the Necromancer makes him look like some kind of “God of Death”… i really dig this artwork more than the Inquisitor, even thought I prefer the Inquisitor over the Necromancer. :smiley:

11

I personnaly can’t compare D3 to GD Necromancer since what I’m interested the most in is gameplay mechanics over damage type/theme. And to be fair we have more to see about the necro from D3, and no matter what I will probably never play D3 ever again. That being said, at first I was a bit disapointed because I’m more a player playing melee oriented characters. Let’s just say that my curent top 2 characters are a Physical Cadence Blademaster and a Fire based Commando (its not a BWC build).

I started to realise that almost accross all masteries there are options to do melee characters, no matter if you like or not the options they exist. And some of them will suddently be more interesting based on a higher lvl cap, more devotion and the new Mythical weapons.

As of now, I prefer to wait and see skills in action and knowing passives and buff to both new masteries.

12

Dafuq

You two sucked out whatever good was left in D3 Necromancer artwork :D:D

13

Lol. Very true. D2 Necromancer had an aura of mystery…unless an angry teen/kid cosplayed it, maybe this is where Blizard drew inspiration from for D3 Necro:

14

Where the fuck did you find that :rolleyes:

That totally matches the D3 necro

The similarity is uncanny

15

D3’s Necro is about as impressive as anything else in D3 - not very. It seems as though modern Necromancer implementations in ARPGs focus too heavily on some vampiric aspect of the class - which barely existed in D2’s Necromancer, only via Life Tap - rather than actual Necromancy, which seems as though to be an afterthought.

GD’s Necromancer at the very least seems to have a more obvious focus on summoning multiple units…but GD’s pet system is severely lacking in the first place. Plus the deeper and deeper we go into non-PlayerScaling pets the worse and worse the situation becomes for hybridization and itemization. Plus, of course, GD’s Necro is also advertising the typical leech-life-from-your-foes-because-lifeforce-is-relevant shit.

It’s kind of a shame no ARPG in existence has really been especially supportive of summons. When I want to play a Necromancer, I want to play an RTS, commanding control groups to different positions and having different units have advantages and disadvantages in different scenarios. Further, I’d also like to be able to control the abilities used by summons. Not necessarily needing to control them manually; optimally using a summon’s ability should randomly pick a summon from the pool of those having that ability off cooldown and then have it cast the ability at whatever target I decide upon. If I do nothing, let the summons use their skills as they wish.

As it stands both in GD and in D3, we will at best create mindless drones which we can command to attack one unit in particular before being cut off from further input.

Not a chance.

See Q1.

In contrast from my answer to Q.1, I want the new mastery NOT to focus on summoning, because Grim Dawn does not have the technological support to do it well and because pet-scaling pets greatly isolate large swaths of itemization from being used by more characters, cutting down on potential diversity. I’d prefer a greater focus on the Weapon Pool Skill(s) and on general caster-ish stuff as advertised.

No. If anything, it’s lightened it up further by comically playing around with a master of Death.

16

spot on, like KISS with less makeup

2751f7b705cf040e3b61c45e9adde144.jpg684×960

17

D2 necro approves!:rolleyes:

d2_necro.jpg705×940

18

I haven’t played pet classes so can’t comment

As for this part I totally agree, there definitely is a vampirish feeling to D3 necro, with the red vest and the pale skin

And yes, DII’s necromancer wasn’t like this at all. On a completely unrelated note, I loved the DII Necromancer’s sense of humor at times (“What a pity, i was beginning to enjoy the darkness”)

After all these years i still am salty about the starting appearance of both Necromancer and Paladin

Lol

19

When he lit the blue thingy in his hand it looked ok

off topic…Druid was also lame in main menu, but in game he was probably my favorite.

20

Don’t care for D3 Necromancer and to me GD Necromancer is a complete waste of space that could have been filled with something far more interesting. Extremely dissapointed to say the least.

I honestly wanted a mastery that focused on hand-to-hand (which would mean new weapon types). But everything but a mastery that is basically just another pet mastery would have been much better for me.

I’m really looking forward to Inquisitor though. Makes me wish you could buy masteries separately so that i could just buy Inquisitor and not give a rat’s ass about Necromancer.