Necromancer – Frostling Let’s Play Video at Gamespot!

Sweet! Question though; the embalmers guild only works for units produced and isn’t something attainable by existing units, correct? It’s be nice if you could have a building or spell that embalms your undead units after they’ve been made.

Ferrin wrote:

Sweet! Question though; the embalmers guild only works for units produced and isn’t something attainable by existing units, correct? It’s be nice if you could have a building or spell that embalms your undead units after they’ve been made.

Only ghouls can be embalmed (that is, normal racial units), you can’t embalm other undead such as necromancersreanimators and death bringers. And yeah, it only affects units produced at the city once the Embalmer’s Guild is produced.

The necromancer has a few ways of getting Ghouls, the Death Bringer is extremely effective at collecting them, which is why the ghouls are so weak. The embalmer’s guild lets the ghouls you make be strong enough to be useful, while leaving the ones you get by other means weak enough to not let you steam roll everything in your path.

Yes!!!!!!

Wow, looks really cool.

Chilled stacks? I didn’t know any debuffs stacked O.o . What other debuffs stack?

Simply amazing.

It’s really even better than I thought it would be. All the little details!

Great video so enticing!!! Tom is a fantastic fantasy narrator! 🙂

Ferrin wrote:

The embalmers guild buffing the units that are produced and not doing anything to those that are raised goes against the philosophy of a necromancer. Right now it feels like you’re punished for raising the dead because they do not get the sweet buff from the embalmers guild. Can the necromancer not be balanced without an embalmers guild? Because it goes against the idea of raising your army from the dead, and I think the game would be better off without it.

Not really, the ability to raise your opponents units from the dead under your control is extremely powerful, much more so than things like Convert or even Dominate. If ghouls weren’t weaker, we’d have to nerf the ability of the necromancer to raise the units from the dead instead, which I don’t think you’d like either.

It’s kind of a moot point though, I’m afraid. We can consider big changes to the balance of the necromancer in the patch after release, but I think it would be a better idea to let people play around with it first before rushing to judge the current system!

Tombles wrote:

That’s right, Inflict Chilling checks against frost resistance, and reduces frost weakness and defense. The more chill stacks you have, the easier it is to put more on you. Inflict Despair works the same way with Spirit Weakness and Morale.

That is terrifying.

Tombles wrote:

Not really, the ability to raise your opponents units from the dead under your control is extremely powerful, much more so than things like Convert or even Dominate. If ghouls weren’t weaker, we’d have to nerf the ability of the necromancer to raise the units from the dead instead, which I don’t think you’d like either.

It’s kind of a moot point though, I’m afraid. We can consider big changes to the balance of the necromancer in the patch after release, but I think it would be a better idea to let people play around with it first before rushing to judge the current system!

My point is that what you used to balance their powerful raising ability (Weaker raised units, stronger produced units) is counter to the philosophy of a class built around raising units. You could have made a variety of other things in the necromancers’ arsenal weaker to compensate instead, yet the option that was chosen is counter to what a necromancer is.

Of course it’s to late now and best to wait until play data comes in before you change anything, especially drastic changes. But it’s extremely important to consider a class’ identity before making balance changes that are counter to that and I hope you will all consider the core design of a class at every step.

Tombles wrote:

You also need to take into account that even unembalmed ghouls (-1 defense and 20% more spirit weakness on top of the undead stuff) are still good units, they still get complete blight immunity, immunity to back stab and around 80% of all the other debuffs in the game, as well as 40% frost protection.

The problem is the difference between embalmed undead and un-embalmed undead.

The ghoul type being made weaker is to make raising weaker, correct? The Embalmers Guild is there to make your produced ghoul units as strong again as non-ghoul units then. (although somewhat different)

The necromancer gets to use “normal” produced units, while all the other ghouls are weaker. This limits options for other classes using ghouls and ghouled cities more than necessary as the ghouls were made weaker because of raising units, correct?

The ripple effects of this solution affect non-necromancer players using ghouled cities and the very idea of the necromancer itself. Wouldn’t a better solution have been something that affects the necromancers’ economy for having an easier way to obtain units? It doesn’t go against the idea of a necromancer, it doesn’t punish you for raising your army, and it does not punish non-necro players beyond the already obvious downsides of using an undead army as a non-necromancer.

Just something I’d like to be considered.

OH BOY! 😀

*jumps into URL*

I find it ironic that Necromancers get an ability that Theocracts would love. Its ironic that Priests, devout units that have turn undead, combo well with Banshees. Same with many Theocract Units.

Gyor wrote:

Units built in cities are raised as well, but you have time to prep the corpse.

In flavor it works like that, but the mechanics are different enough to get a completely different feel for either action.

Amazing! Damn, Im so excited for this! 😀

@tombles You said that killing the source of a global spell causes it to end early… will this mean that the AI will disjunct less often, and focus on killing the caster some of the time, instead? As it currently stands, its a little annoying the way the AI so predictably disjuncts anything it can before attempting to cast its own spells… it often feels as though only the last person with remaining CP gets to use magic. If the AI focuses more on killing targets, even if only half of the time, than this could greatly increase the fun of using these spells 😀

Motasa wrote:

Did I see a new ability for the Shaman at 3:18 into the video (skill number 6). The icon resembles the contour of a bear. Are shamans able to shape-shift like the Tigran Mystic (Support unit)?

What you saw is an ability that buffs animals.