If Death Knights Are the Death Class, Can They Be Made More Effective Necromancers?

In some interview (I can't remember which,) Blizzard developers said they did not want to make the Necromancer into a new class because Death Knights already occupy that conceptual space.

I'd argue that Necromancers could be the Warlocks to the Death Knights' Demon Hunters, but agree to disagree.

I can't imagine a better time to add Necromancers as a class, and given that we're not getting them, I wonder how we could potentially give Death Knights a better chance to fill that role.

Now, before we start that, I'd also add that you could argue that Warlocks would be the better choice to act as Necromancers. One way would be by adding new "class skins." You could very easily change Demonology to be a spec that summons various undead monsters to assault your enemies, and Affliction could be all about infecting your target with plagues. Destruction might be about throwing bolts of death magic.

But seeing as there's no announcement of "class skins," we can expect the current classes to stick to their general aesthetics and themes.

Death Knights obviously call upon Necromantic magic - it's the base of their class. While Frost (especially in the last two expansions) has basically nothing to do with undeath other than the fact that the Death Knight is, in fact, dead, both Blood and Unholy call upon plainly necromantic powers.

Blood uses a sort of vampirism to tank, constantly healing itself. But Unholy, I think, really embodies what a lot of us would assume a Necromancer would look like - fighting alongside a ghoul, summoning an army of the dead.

The only real difference I can see is the fact that they're a plate-wearing melee class. If you replaced their melee strikes with ranged spells, you'd basically have a Necromancer that just so happens to wear some very heavy armor.

Which got me thinking: could we just do that?

If you look at Survival Hunters as of Legion (I haven't played mine since then,) basically all their abilities are ranged, except for one or two. They have a cooldown called Aspect of the Eagle (or did at least) in which their melee strike become ranged - it's not going to give you maximum damage, but it allows for a bit more uptime on the target when you have to run.

In earlier expansions, there were glyphs and talents that could radically change the way a spec plays. Demonology Warlocks had one that allowed them to sort-of tank in Mists of Pandaria, and in Warlords, Protection Warriors got a talent called Gladiator Stance that allowed them to DPS with a sword-and-board.

I could imagine a really interesting transformational talent for Unholy Death Knights. You would have to make it so you could use Festering Strike, Scourge Strike, and Apocalypse from range, and maybe buff these slightly in order to compensate for the lack of auto-attack. But once you've got that, you're basically done. Death Coil is already a ranged runic power spender, and your ghoul and army of the dead can all swarm into melee while you stand at the back, commanding your undead minions and throwing bolts of death energy at the target.

You could even add a new Runeforging rune that would support this playstyle (Runeforging feels like a really cool class feature they haven't really done much with since Death Knights were first introduced. I guess I shouldn't complain about not having to get a weapon enchant.)

If they ever do make Necromancers a class, you could just get rid of this talent (though again, if they're not doing it in Shadowlands, I really doubt they ever will,) but in the meantime, if you want to play a Necromancer caster, this could be your option.

It'd give us our first plate ranged dps option, and it would also just add another ranged option to the game, which they literally have never done after vanilla.

Meanwhile, if you like Unholy the way it is, you can just opt out of that talent and keep slashing away in melee.