The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom review — It ain’t easy being green

The Elder Scrolls Online released their seventh Chapter, Necrom, on June 5th, and with it comes a brand new class called the Arcanist. It’s been a long time since we had a new class, the last one being the Necromancer with Elsweyr back in 2019, so I was very excited to jump in and try things out. Along with the new class are two new zones, Telvanni Peninsula and Apocrypha, as well as two new companions, Azandar and Sharp-As-Night. For us ESO veterans there is also a new 12 player trial called Sanity’s Edge.

The main story sees players become an agent of the Daedric Prince Hermaeus Mora to uncover a mysterious threat that threatens both Nirn and Oblivion.

I created a brand new Arcanist to hop in and check out the new class. I cleverly named her Green Trianglez as every spell the Arcanist casts is green and certain ones create green triangular runes that appear around your character. Like all other classes, they have a DPS Magicka skill line, a tank skill line, and a healing skill line. I tend to gravitate more towards DPS magicka and healing in ESO and took her into some dungeons to get a feel for things.

The Arcanist uses a resource mechanic called the Crux System, which allows players to generate Crux with certain spells in order to spend it in various ways with other spells. The Arcanist’s whole kit has gorgeous soothing green spell effects, and some of the most satisfying sound effects in any game.

My dungeon runs felt solid on both healing and DPS. I enjoyed healing the most, and it’s giving my Templar a run for her money in terms of who I want to heal on. I started chain running dungeons, queuing as a healer because it was just so fun and addicting.

The healing skill line, Curative Runeforms, focuses on shielding your allies and has an AoE heal as well as a direct heal. The AoE heal, Cascading Fortune, is very powerful and has such a great visual, described in game as “channeling the abyssal sea to coalesce a beam to heal your allies”. The shielding spell, Chakram of Destiny, launches green orbs that land on your allies to create a shield on them. It is mesmerizing to watch them float away from you and seek out their targets.

The DPS skill line, Herald of the Tome has a fantastic AoE spell called Pragmatic Fatecarver, or as I like to call it, the green beam of death. It’s one of the stronger AoE damage spells I have seen in ESO, and the sound effect that goes with it makes it feel even stronger. Runeblades is a single target spell that generates Cruz and places those cool green triangular runes around you. It all just feels so good and fluid to play.

While these spells are indeed very powerful, I think the team nailed the visuals on the kit to the point I just want to run dungeons over and over to see the spell effects because they are just so satisfying.

With two new zones to play in, there was a lot of content to go through. I am a completionist player and like to do every side quest, get every striking locale, and listen to every single NPC while receiving quests. So it takes me a little longer to go through things, and I find that in ESO the side quests are sometimes more enjoyable than main story quest lines, and it was no different with this new content. I especially love how ruthless and savage the Telvanni are. As one NPC says when confronted with creating a potion that will kill someone he dislikes, “ I’m Telvanni, what else are we supposed to do?!”

The Apocrypha zone is truly astounding, with huge wondrous building structures made out of books and tomes. You really have to see it to believe it. Everything here has a green haze to it as well, which can be quite depressing if not for the really cool landscape and buildings. Telvanni Peninsula has towering mushrooms and looks quite similar to Vvardenfell. I certainly enjoyed my time in Apocrypha, especially the delves and interior buildings for quests.

I did go through the quest to obtain one of the two new companions that were released with Necrom. For those who are out of the loop, companions were introduced in Blackwood back in 2021. They are NPC’s that you can summon to fight by your side. They have full skill lines, armor, and rapport levels that grant you quests to further their personal stories once you hit certain levels. I went with Sharp-As-Night because I really love the Argonian race. He is a Warden by default, so a nice variety of AoE and healing. His story line is both engaging and heartbreaking at the same time, and I look forward to unlocking rapport with him to further it.

If you don’t want story spoilers, I suggest you stop reading now. I definitely did not see the main story plot twist coming. It turns out that Hermaeus Mora, the Prince of Secrets, was holding back a pretty big secret: he erased the Daedric Prince Ithelia from everyone’s memory…even other Princes! The main story ended with a pretty big cliffhanger, so I am anxious to see how this all wraps up in future updates. I even got my name put down in the Chronicle of Apocrypha for all the amazing deeds I performed. Me, Green Trianglez, Fate’s Chosen!

I went through the main story to finish it up for the sake of the review, but I still have a lot of things to complete on my new Arcanist within Apocrypha and Telvanni Peninsula. Toss in getting distracted with Scrying and Tales of Tribute, and things tend to take a while for me. It doesn’t help when I have a dungeon popping up every few minutes because I just LOVE to heal on the Arcanist. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my adventuring in the Necrom Chapter.

In general I have drifted away from the more hardcore MMO scene in the last year or two, but I always make time for ESO. While there is certainly hardcore content for raiding and dungeons, ESO feels so much more like a single player game at times that I can sit down and just engross myself in the lore or activities that make it such an enjoyable experience for me. I have been playing since beta, and there is still so much I have not done in the game. The team does a great job of making content to satisfy all types of players. No pressure, just fun.

I thoroughly enjoyed Necrom, the Arcanist class, the two new zones, the quests within them, and the new companion, Sharp-As-Night. There are no complaints from me, only excitement to see what comes next. If you like ESO, this new Necrom Chapter is a no-brainer, and one of the most enjoyable classes in any game out there.

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