Necromancer Sienna career

Grail Knight is released and everyone is talking about what is in store for our remaining heroes. Sienna (whos careers are all streched from a single tabletop unit) is in dire need of a new wind of magic, a sentiment I belive is shared by the community. Since we would prefer to retain her old weaponry as to not throw away old content while putting out new, we would need our witch to wield several winds of magic, a feature not very common amongst humans. This could however be introduced in a lore friendly way by two means.

One way would be to make her new career a damsel of the lady, who are famous for wielding several winds even as humans. Two issues arise with this however, firstly that Sienna would be the second character to have a secret bretonnian ancenstry, and second that the grail damsels do not usually wield the lore of fire.

The other way of introducing a second wind is provided by the setting of our adventures, the end times. As it happens many mages spontaneously gained the powers of necromancy thanks to Nagash shenanigans early on in this period. This allows us to simply slap another wind of magic on top of Sienna and keep her old weaponry without contradictions in lore or character. Hence why I propose Necromancer Sienna as the most reasonable new career for our wizard.

From here on it will simply be me brainstorming what could be incorporated in the gameplay of a necromancer class, thanks for reading.

If a pet function would be introduced(raising skeletons/zombies to fight for you) it would be great to have the ability actually interact with the slain enemies rather than simply having a “summon skeleton” button. Necromancy is about the turning of the tides in a prolonged battle, where the fallen foes rise up to attack their former comrades in undeath.

Several spells from the lore of death could be used in the career, for example:
-The Purple Sun of Xereus could be interpreted to fit the games scale just like the burning head was, give the blight storm animation a recolloring, remove the displacement effect and make it deal damage to foes in the area of effect.
-Spirit leech could be a single target spell that also restored health.

Regarding melee alternatives I believe that a great scythe would be appropriate both for the fitting thematic and finally giving Sienna a heavy weapon alternative.

TL;DR
Siennas is one tabletop class stretched into three, a new school of magic is in order.

This must be done while still allowing Sienna to use her old equipment, since they tend to be fire based she will need to know two winds of magic.

In order to let her wield more than one wind and still be lore-friendly we are left with damsels of the lady, who are not fire wizards, and wizards-turned-necromancers, who conveniently started to sprout up all around the world in the end times, where Vermintide takes place.

I could go on and on, and I am curious what the community thinks of the concept and what ideas you all have.

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This sounds dope af.

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Love everything about this! The idea of dumping a purple sun on a horde while zombie vermin rise up to protect you sounds way too fun.

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One teensy tiny problem… Bardin and Kerillian might take a dim view to this, and Satzpyre and Kruber would go spare. Kruber becoming a Grail Knight might be a bit of a stretch lorewise, but the others working together with a Grail Knight is at least totally logical. Them working with a necromancer seems completely out of the question, however.

Also, summoning minions and letting them do the fighting for you doesn’t feel like a playstyle that fits the idea behind Vermintide at all.

Not to say your ideas aren’t cool, but I just feel like they don’t fit this particular game.

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lore of death and necromancy is not the same thing though (i don’t think necromancy even counts as wind of magic)
but i like the idea, it would be interesting if it could be mixed (fire skeletons for example)

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Minnions is an idea that is a bit out there for sure, but that’s what is so fresh about it! And personally I’m just a huge fan of necromancy overall, so having my favorite game have my favorite magic in it would be fantastic. I would like to say tho, regarding the point about the team not wanting to cooperate, that this would be something that was forced on sienna as the fabric of their world was changed by nagash. And the undead did fight alongside the good guys in the end times, unified against chaos.
Edit: Oh, and about it not fitting, i’m not sure i agree. You can play purely ranged classes, slaughtering the enemies without ever getting close and there is nothing wrong with that. I think this is just another step in that direction, just like people were getting worked up about the ranged classes before.

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Sure, it was forced on her. We know that. And we know that in the end of the End Times the Vampires and necros joined up with everybody else to fight Chaos (out of nescessity, and one of them borked everything up in the end as well). But the other Ü4 & Lohnesha don’t know any of that. To all of them, necromancers have always been at least as much of a danger as the forces of Chaos and the Skaven. For Saltz & Krub a big part of their personal history even is about a traumatic experience with necromantic forces! The Ü5 team might be uncharacteristically pragmatical for the Warhammer setting, but this is way too much if a stretch.

EDIT:
In reply to your own edit about the minion playstyle not being much different from ranged: If you play a shooty character you at least need to do the shooting yourself, pretty much all non-stop shooty stuff has been patched out, and getting caught in close combat as a ranged focussed character at some time is pretty much inevitable as well. First person combat, in whatever shape or form, is what Vermintide is all about, and shooting stuff fits that way better than summoning units to do the fighting for you.

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important thing to keep in mind here is that the odds of Fatshark adding a necromancer is 1 in a million for reasons that I think everyone else has already covered

It’s not about them knowing that they will team up, it is that the precedent is there. It isn’t at all unthinkable for people to team up with undead and necromancers, and if you think personal experience in the team is what should decide it then look at what they have been through together. Viktors hate for the skaven justifies any means, that is his character. And krubers journey in all of vermintide is all about getting past his trauma, he was committing suicide via a beer jug when salt found him. So him working with a necromancer would certainly work as another stepping stone for him.
And if you think pressing dodge 2 times and spamming light attack on a horde once per mission is what vermintide is all about i don’t know what to tell you. Because that is the extent of melee several classes does fine with. And that is awesome, as it is more ways to play the game.

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I don’t think it has to be a longshot, but the only ones who know are the devs, if even them at this point considering how early it is and if sienna turns out to be the last one to get a new class(top to bottom).

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But the precedent isn’t there, yet! Those things you speak of are in the future from the Ü5’s point of view. Hasn’t happened. Imperials, dwarves, and elves teaming up with necromancers has up to the point in time of the events of Vermintide never happened. But mages going rogue, and people turning to dark arts and slaughtering those who were too good of trust is a horribly common occurence. Trusting a necromancer is, in any and all occasions for as far as Saltz and Kruber can know and have experienced, exactly as stupid as trying to ally with Skaven. Trusting a necromancer would be a point of absolute lack of sense instead of personal growth for Kruber, and it would go against everything Saltzpyre - who’s order’s entire reason of existence is hunting practitioners of the dark arts - has ever stood for! It’d be like praying to Khorne for strenght to kill the Skaven - completely defeating the point for him.

There is simply no even remote possibility of the Ăś-Team having any reason to trust necromancy. I could accept some artistic liberty for gameplay reasons, but this is way too much.

EDIT:
Completely forgot to reply on your comment of “pressing dodge two times” being the extent of melee for some characters. I think if that happens for you, you are playing in a too low difficulty for your own capabilities, or you’re being carried by your teammates hard. It’s unlikely to go like that in even Legend with a capable team, and there’s no way that happens on Cata. And that still doesn’t adress my main point about Vermintide being a first person combat game, which fits shooting way better than it does fit summoning minions.

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Precedent is here meant for the writers, not the characters. It’s about what can be allowed to happen in the warhammer world, thus the timeline is not relevant. You think kruber overcoming a prejudice is not character growth? That is a wierd one to me. And viktors greatest cause is, to himself, his personal war with the skaven. I very much think it goes above his loyalty to the order, considering he even is represented as having shallow faith in the demons voicelines in drachenfelds, the only time we see inside his head instead of just hearing his words. So you might wanna relax on that high horse of yours.
Oh, and speaking of high horses. Just because you can’t perceive a way that the game is played does not, in fact, limit the game. That is just your limit. Let’s not assume things we don’t know and present them as facts shall we? I can breeze through legend with pretty much pure ranged on several careers, and it is fully functional, even quite strong to have a person on pure range on cata. And this is a good thing. A variety of ways to play the game is always good, and a lot of people have a blast with it. And you might wanna check out things like homing shots in the game, or conflag staff when you mind the holy melee combat to be disrupted. It’s a game, if someone finds a way to play it and has fun it is amazing. Do try and relax a bit yeah?

A stepping stone towards what? A larger tankard? :cry:

It was a Necromancer who was to be Kruber’s undoing. The Undead marched on a grand muster of Imperial might. Kruber’s regiment was on the east flank, forming an impenetrable barrier against the skeletal forces they opposed. For a while it looked as if the Ostlanders sensed victory and fought with extra ferocity to that end. But then the Sergeant caught sight of a wizened old man leading a horde of Zombies. In a freak moment their eyes locked, the Necromancer grinned, and went about casting his death-magic. Moments later, a colossal orb of purple-edged darkness swept through the Swordsmen, killing all it touched while sucking the souls from hapless bodies. One of the men pushed Kruber out of the way, his own soul selflessly sacrificed.

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Haha, could be! I’m just saying it is one way you can present it, and i think it’s silly to say that it’s impossible :sweat_smile:

The big mistake everyone makes with the new carreers is that they think up all kinds of new stuff that needs simply too much work from FS.
GK is already a template for what you can expect in the future.
Already existing mechanics, maybe 1-3 totally new things. Otherwise they try and probably will build new carrers from the existing blocks too keep production times down.
In case of Sienna, even if she gains a new Wind, it will be 1-2 staffs that have offensive spells in them and also 1-2 new melee weapons - but at this point there’s not much to choose from.

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Alright, let me start with apologizing if I came across as wanting to attack you, or as somebody who pretends to dictate what should or should not be in the game. But you opened a topic to ask for people’s opinions and for a discussion, and all I did was state my opinion, and why I feel that way. Nothing else. What did you expect to happen, then? Everybody replying with “Yeah, I agree with you!”? Where would the fun in that be? But I’m not going to reply to your comments like the ones about the high horse and relaxing a bit.

Instead, let’s go onto the specifics of your reply:

Precedent for the theoretical possibility of imperials / dwarves / elves and necromancers working together in the Warhammer world (under truly exceptional circumstances, I might add) still has nothing to do with why the Ü-Team specifically would ever trust a necromancer. My stance was that the Ü-Team has no reason to ever trust a necromancer based on their worldviews and experiences, and your reply to that was that it was possible because necromancers and others working together happened in the End Times. Now, that as an argument is a non-sequitur to start with. Unless you meant to imply that the Ü-Team took that “precedent” as an example for trusting necromancers, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed that was your point, and that’s why I replied to it by saying the timeline in that case would actually be relevant.

I never said that Kruber overcoming a predjudice wouldn’t be character growth, I said it is completely unbelievable for Markus Kruber to trust necromancy just like that. As far as Kruber knows, could know, and has experienced (@EnragedFountain quoted the backstory in the post above), necromancers are unrepentenantly evil. They are to him literally on the level of stuff like Chaos hordes, Orcs, Beastmen, and Skaven. Him suddenly trusting necromancy would not simply be him overcoming a predjudice against a poor misunderstood school of magic, but instead - “in universe” based on how Krub percieves the world - it would be just as insane as him saying “You know, maybe we could try to talk things out with the Pactsworn instead? Find a diplomatic solution about their whole invasion and destruction? Let’s have a talk with the ratmen. Why can’t we be friends?”.

The voice in the Drachenfels map is an outside force that tries to rattle the heroes by attacking them on their insecurities. Saltz never agrees with the voice. I think it’s more like this: For Saltz, he has his whole life been indoctrinated into the sigmarite religion to a point where he believes any lapse of faith is akin to heresy, which is the ultimate evil. His faith is his weapon and armor, and he feels that that is what kept him going throughout his hard life. Sigmar and his religion are the ultimate force to him. Even in the alternative realities where he leaves the order (Bounty Hunter or Zealot) his belief in the sigmarite religion staunchly remains. He therefore fears no outside enemies, but he only fears for his faith to waver, which would be the end. So if you’d want to rattle him, you need to make him think his fear of lapsing faith is true. You try to tell him his fears and doubts are real. And that is what the voice was trying: Telling Saltz his fear of being faithless is true. Nothing in those interactions points to Saltz being a phony and knowing it, as you imply is the case, however. And Saltz has a personal crusade against the Skaven, yes, but he has fought necromancy for his entire life as well, and just like it is with Kruber he views necromancy as just as big an evil as the Pactsworn. For him to join up with a necromancer is such horrible heresy that it’s not possible, even if it is to kill Skaven.

But anyways, this is a lore discussion, and neither you or me are writers for Vermintide or Games Workshop, so this is mainly going to devolve into a case of “I think - you think” if this discussion continues. And I feel I’ve said what and why my point of view is clearly enough, and since you’re starting to take this personal as well, I think I’m going to stop replying on this particular topic. Let’s see what other people think instead.

And about the part where we discuss mechanis and whether they fit the game in our personal opinions:

I can percieve just fine. But just because it’s concievable to have minions as a mechanic in the game, doesn’t mean I feel it fits Vermintide to have your killing being done by minions. That’s my opinion. You asked us for our opinions, right? Or did you just want us to echo yours in agreement?

That was never my main argument in the first place. My main argument was that I think minions don’t fit Vermintide because that’s not first person combat. Shooting is first person combat, while letting minions kill for you isn’t. I never said that I felt mainly shooting classes did not fit the game at all. Now, I did make a side comment about how even a shooting class can not avoid melee combat all the time, granted. I still think that that is the case based on my experience, but if you claim you can play like that regardless: more power to you.

That’s fair enough. I never disputed variety was bad, however, so stop strawmanning me. Some people would like a minion-playstyle and would have fun with that? Alright. But you asked for our opinions on your idea of a minion-based playstyle, and my opinion is that I feel it wouldn’t fit the game, for the reasons that I explained. Feel free to disagree, but don’t ask for my opinion and then imply I tried to invalidate your opinion when I disagree.

Now we’re getting on to something that at least vaguely engages my actual argument about first person combat. (Apart from the bit where you’re painting me as some sort of a melee purist, off course, which is a stance I never claimed in any of my replies.) Firstly, I want to point out that the Conflag Staff is not an example of something that isn’t first person combat, since you need to do the actual aiming, charging, and positioning yourself. I have nothing against it.

Secondly, the homing attacks: That’s actually a fair point. Those can’t really be considered first person combat as I explained it. But I guess I don’t see those as too unfitting for the game, since they are relatively rare things, being ults with a charging time and all. So, if we’re purely talking gameplay-mechanics, and you envision an ult that summons minions that temporarily do some fighting for you, I guess you could convince me that such a thing could fit into this game. I interpreted your description as a class that had minions as a core fighting style. If you meant all along that the minions were more of a sporadically occuring and temporary thing like the homing fireball ult, I apologise for misinterpreting you.

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You say you stated your opinion and nothing more, and then go on as if I have said that you can’t disagree with me without being rude. However, I never once said that you are not entitled to your own opinion, I personally feel that discussions are the most fun when you got someone disagreeing with you. But you do need to be able to have a discussion without being rude or ignorant. And stating what you think as facts, or setting what you can’t do as limits for the game are exactly that. So please don’t write as if I ever got worked up about you not agreeing with me.

Regarding precedent, it is by no means a non-sequitur. I simply pointed out that it wouldn’t be outrageous to have necromancers team up with the U5 because GW has done it before, or, in the timeline, will do it. The fact that there has, or will be, a cooperation is the very precedent I am talking about that makes it not the same as allying with say, a chaos horde. The rules of the world have been shown to allow that alliance, and as I mentioned before I do not see why it could not have a first appearance in the U5. And you not agreeing to that is fine, and as you said, the arguments for and against that will boil down to our own interpretations. I do however find it enjoyable to discuss these interpretations, as long as they are presented as such and not as facts without support, but to each their own.

I would love for you to clarify where I started to take things personally where you didn’t simply assume false things to support your own claims. And my comment about your perception of the game, or lack thereof, was regarding the ranged playstyle, not the minions. Because, as I mentioned, you saying that something can’t be done because you can’t do it is absurd, you must agree? That is not an attack on your opinion, but a comment on your misplaced assumptions.
And you saying something isn’t your main argument doesn’t mean that you didn’t say it, so again, do stop with the backpedaling and re-framing as if I don’t allow you your opinion, it is in quite poor taste.

Regarding variety I must have misunderstood you then, as I felt that you did hammer on the melee focus on the game, something that I feel isn’t helpful for the games growth. We can have great melee alongside great ranged/magic/minion mastery/whatever.

This is how I think about it, let us start with the facts. Wizards are turning into necromancers in big numbers, it is clear they are not ordinary necromancers since they are practicing more than one wind, this is huge news in this world. We also know that this is happening very early on in the end times, and may very well have several reported cases already. Lastly we know that Lohner has a vast information gathering network, so it is likely he has heard of wizards-turned-necromancers if they have started appearing.

Now to what I think rather than what we know, if anyone in this world should ever start trusting a mage suddenly grasping necromancy it seems our party is more likely than most concidering what they have been through together, as well as already defying the norms of their societies by teaming up with other races. I also think Lohner would keep a carefull eye on Sienna if he recieved reports of such events, since frankly they need all the help they can get.

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I think I can relate to Dr. Malcolm in that we probably should stop and think whether this should happen instead of focusing on whether it could. Many things are happening during the End Times, that still doesn’t mean all of them should be dragged into the limited scope of our particular little story and our heroes with well defined backgrounds.
If Sienna suddenly turns necromancer, Victor would drop down in a fit of epileptic holy rage while Markus would get his 'Nam flashbacks and would kill off everyone in sight and then drink himself to oblivion. If FS writes anything different in principal, they will shoot themselves in the foot by disowning all the effort they had previously put into making their characters alive, believable, relatable and nuanced.

P.S. Oh and yes, TrueFlight in the first game was an obnoxious crutch for people who cannot aim precisely because it took aiming out of the equation. Currently, VT2 does not have anything like that, and I think it is a good thing.
P.P.S. I think the “high horse” metaphor was completely uncalled for, so it is weird now that the OP blames TMan for the attack. Please stop, it doesn’t work.

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Necromancy would stretch it. Dark Elf Keri is already a stretch, but you have a witch-hunter (potentially) AND a guy who suffers from super-duper-PTSD because of a Necro. A different school of magic, I could totaly see (and it would only require to change the burning effect on all staffs), maybe Metal or - my personal favourite - CHAIN LIGHTNING SLINGING SIENNA (FS pls gib). But Necromancy? Ah hell naw.