It's the sixth and final day in our character profiles for the upcoming online role-playing game Guild Wars. Guild Wars won't be a persistent world, massively multiplayer game like EverQuest or Dark Age of Camelot. Instead it will focus heavily on head-to-head competition. You'll play as a character who chooses two of the game's six starting professions: monk, mesmer, ranger, warrior, elementalist, or necromancer. Then you'll try to carve out a set of skills that's right for the job. This won't be easy, especially considering that 450 skills are planned for the game...and your character will only be able to choose eight of them at any given moment.
The necromancer's powers aren't pretty, but they're certainly grim. Actually, maybe that makes them pretty grim.
We'll cap off our profiles of the characters in the game with the necromancer. Be sure to check GameSpot's preview section of Guild Wars for more character profiles, and be sure to watch an exclusive developer interview and exclusive new footage from the game, which is linked below. These profile stories should help you decide what kind of character you'll play in the "world preview event" that begins today, Friday, October 29, in which ArenaNet will open up a test version of the game for you to try out. If you don't make it in to that weekend event--and you're a GameSpot member--don't worry. You'll also be able to try out the game the following weekend in an enhanced event that will feature even more unlocked content.
Live, and be killed by the necromancer's minions. Die, and become the necromancer's minions. Live, and be killed...
Primary Attribute:
Soul Reaping
The necromancer's primary attribute, which is accessible only to characters who have chosen the necromancer as a primary class, is the grisly practice known as soul reaping. Every time any creature dies near a necromancer, that character automatically regains a store of bonus energy. Some necromancers are at their best when fighting off waves of enemies...then resurrecting them as zombie thralls, then profiting from the deaths of their own minions, then raising a new army...
Additional Abilities:
Undead Minions / Wells
Guild Wars' necromancers exploit corpses of fallen beings for their own uses. They're the only characters in Guild Wars with the ability to summon undead minions from the bodies of the slain.
Necromancers are also the only characters in the game able to use "wells," which are stationary magical effects that may be beneficial to necromancers and their allies--but are powered by nearby corpses.
Icon | Skill and Description |
Animate Bone Fiend | |
Animate Bone Horror Exploit target corpse to animate a level 15 Bone Horror. | |
Animate Bone Minions | |
Awaken the Blood | |
Barbed Signet | |
Barbs | |
Blood of the Master Sacrifice 40 Health. All adjacent undead allies are healed for 58. | |
Blood Renewal | |
Blood Ritual | |
Chilblains | |
Consume Corpse | |
Dark Aura | |
Dark Bond | |
Dark Fury | |
Dark Pact Sacrifice up to 22 Health, and deal that amount of damage to target foe. | |
Death Nova | |
Deathly Chill | |
Deathly Swarm Deathly Swarm flies out slowly and strikes for 40 cold damage (before armor) on up to three targets. | |
Defile Flesh | |
Demonic Flesh | |
Desecration | |
Enfeeble Target suffers from Weakness. | |
Enfeebling Blood | |
Faintheartedness | |
Infuse Condition | |
Insidious Parasite | |
Life Siphon For 24 seconds, target suffers health degeneration of 3, and you gain health regeneration of 3. | |
Malaise | |
Malign Intervention | |
Mark of Pain | |
Mark of Subversion | |
Necrotic Traversal | |
Order of Pain | |
Parasitic Bond For 20 seconds, target enemy suffers Health degeneration of 1. You are healed for 56 when Parasitic Bond ends. | |
Plague Sending | |
Plague Touch | |
Price of Failure | |
Putrid Explosion | |
Rend Enchantments | |
Rigor Mortis | |
Rotting Flesh | |
Shadow of Fear Target foe and all adjacent foes attack slower than normal for the next 44 seconds. | |
Shadow Strike | |
Signet of Agony | |
Soul Barbs | |
Soul Feast Exploit target corpse to steal 140 Health. | |
Spinal Shivers | |
Strip Enchantment Target foe loses one enchantment, and you gain 40 Health. | |
Suffering | |
Taste of Death | |
Touch of Agony | |
Unholy Feast | |
Vampiric Gaze | |
Vampiric Touch Touch target foe to steal up to 37 Health. | |
Verata's Aura | |
Verata's Gaze | |
Verata's Sacrifice | |
Vile Touch Touch target foe to deal 37 damage. | |
Weaken Armor For 30 seconds, target foe has -26 armor against physical damage. | |
Well of Blood | |
Well of Suffering | |
Well of the Profane |