Choose My Adventure: The highly engaging start of a Necromancer’s journey in RuneScape

    
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I did not expect that this old dog of an MMORPG would be capable of learning such new tricks. As requested by the Choose My Adventure-reading public, this month saw me start life in RuneScape and pick up the combat profession of Necromancy, and I have got to say that Jagex appears to have knocked this one out of the part at the interim.

It’s obviously still very early days yet, and it’s entirely possible that I’m going to run into some sort of wall as I make my slow climb to the allowed cap of level 20, but at first blush, Necromancy has a lot of style, a great aesthetic, a surprising amount of humor, and mechanics that feel well balanced.

Before I got my hands on my spooky mage robes, I of course elected to start from the very beginning. It’s been long enough since I was last here so it was prudent to start a new character, go through the usual tutorial island bits, and get plonked into Burthorpe in order to come to grips with how all of RuneScape’s professions interplay with one another.

Unsurprisingly, my time playing Brighter Shores did a great deal of preparing me for what this game is all about in that regard. The carefully stitched weave of gathering, crafting, and combat classes is so incredibly well done that it didn’t take too long for me to acclimate. Still, I made sure that I went through all three of the paths quest lines just to make sure I had the gist of things. I anticipated mining and smithing would feed Warrior combat, for example, but it was still good to get my fingers into all of those professions.

Once I had come to grips with it all, I elected to focus primarily on the Ranger combat profession for the time being, which ended up working out because my husband decided to stick to tanking when he got to Burthorpe and we joined up together. Again, unsurprisingly this all made mechanical sense, letting me hang back and fling arrows at enemies while my husband rand into the face of foes.

There are a few things that I definitely don’t remember from the last time I played RuneScape, chief among them being the revolution combat system that let me effectively assign the order of what abilities to burn in auto-combat. I guess there’s some strategy to be had here, but I didn’t feel it at the lower levels. Still, it was pretty neat to have those choices. Ideally that will open up as we progress.

After some time doing a quest or three in Burthorpe, we decided that it was time to head to Draynor in order to begin the Necromancy unlock quest. It was here that I was immediately treated to the dichotomy of old RS questing versus new, at least in terms of set dressing; the old paths quests are a very guided series of steps without too much fanfare, while the Necromancy introduction had full cutscenes, unique artwork, and a wider narrative that tied it all together. It very much reminded me of the job quest lines in Final Fantasy XIV, actually.

Even more surprising was the fact that Necromancy’s whole vibe is… well, funny. The city of Um and the basic abilities of Necromancer aren’t really rocking the boat here; you’re in a big spooky underworld city, you cast purple-tinted spells dramatically, and you summon undead minions as the primary form of offense and defense. However, the narrative had my character actually asking the spirits nicely if they want to lend me their power, which was a fantastic foil to the trope-filled vibe that the profession was otherwise dressed in. I would do almost anything for Lupe and Ted.

While combat mechanics for Necromancer didn’t blow me away, the associated management of earning spirit power was another fun surprise. I don’t really want to get too granular here, but the way you improve as a Necromancer isn’t just by pure combat; it’s by performing rituals that add souls to a well, thereby granting additional necessary materials and unlocking talents that give new abilities and summons. It’s a lot like its own crafting profession only with bones, candles, and glyphs instead of ores and wood and cloth. The related minigame when performing rituals also keeps things amusing and light-hearted; I had to pause my overdramatic posing at the ritual altar in order to shoo away a ghost that had wandered onto my altar.

As I mentioned, we didn’t get too far into it, but I am absolutely astonished at how good Necromancy feels as a combat profession. It has the right style, it has an endearing quest line associated with, it has mechanics that both feel involved but not overbearing, and it plays well with our current duo party makeup. Right now I have two big sword swingers at my effective beck and call while I stay in the back and make spooky hand gestures.

I’m also happy to report that all of this has re-engaged my husband as well. He used to play this MMORPG a lot as a teen growing up, so all of this has tripped plenty of nostalgia for him, and he’s already eager to come along with me in the next leg of our shared adventure together. In fact, I believe he’s focusing on mining and smithing as I type this so he can get ready for the next tier of armor and weapon crafting. I should similarly do something for cloth armor myself, actually.

But that’s not what we’re asking your help with. What we need to both figure out next is where to spend our questing time together. We’ve gotten a handle on some of the game’s creaky basics, and I’m curious to further explore this Necromacy profession. But we need guidance on where to go.

Which area of Gielinor should we run quests in?

  • Burthorpe. Stick to the rivers and lakes that you're used to. (3%, 1 Votes)
  • Varrock. Do what little questing you can here. (10%, 3 Votes)
  • Draynor. Stay near the underworld portal. (10%, 3 Votes)
  • The City of Um. Do more Necromancer things. (76%, 22 Votes)

Total Voters: 29

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Polls will wrap up at their usual time of 1:00 p.m. EST on Friday, January 17th. Until then, I think I’m going to get prepared for whatever future levels of this profession take me by shearing sheep. Or maybe I’ll skill up on cows some more. I need them bones after all.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.
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