Hate to be the one to re awaken a semi old post, but would like to add some input. I love the necromancer and agree he could use some buffs, probably more specifically to the summon tree in comparison to others.
IMO i like the idea of summon resist not needing any pre reqs and is similar to how salvation, or any of the resist auras, works in the paladin tree.
As for skeletal mages, i like the idea of them maybe becoming archers that do elemental damage. However, id certainly miss them being mages. Id personally prefer them to stay as mages, but their damage just needs to be increased signifcantly and perhaps include either faster cast rate or piercing to their bolts in skeleton mastery (or their skill itself). Perhaps include both of these for them.
However, i think the easiest thing to do would keep them as is, but just improve their damage. Like crank that knob up man lol. I dont think that’s too much to ask for.
Id definitely advocate to separate revives from needing golem pre reqs.
Then i also like the idea of revives gaining additional duration per point invested, perhaps even soft points as well. IMO the idea of 10 seconds per hard/soft point isnt half too bad. For someone just getting them as a “one point wonder” might have them around level 15 with gg gear. So thats basically an additional 150 seconds… Then of course if one invests points into them then they’re potentially adding another additional 200+ seconds.
I also like the idea of golem mastery providing the necromancer to be able to summom multiple (different) golems. So perhaps, and I believe this was already suggested, every 10 hard points gets you another golem. At level 20 you can have 3 golems out. It’d also be nice to see all the golem synergies to become a part of golem mastery as suggested by others.
As others have mentioned, all golems need a fairly signicant increase in the flat/base damage they do via. their skill.
I like how the golems kind of have their own identity and IMO should maintain that. However, i do have some suggestions to further improve them allwhile maintaining their identities;
I’d personally like to see the clay golem maintain his slow effect, but also receive 1% crushing blow per skill point. That way if its a “one point wonder” then can potentially have between 15% to 25% with gg gear. Then by one actually investing into the skill will just have almost double that. IMO this can help any necro build with killing bosses at higher difficulties.
As for the blood golem, he should maintain his current tooltip mechanic wherein the life he steals is also applied to the necro, just ensure all of the necro summons are also included. THEN one addition to the blood golem should be open wounds per skill point, similar to the crushing blow proposed for clay golem. So 1% open wounds per skill point. So if the blood golem is a “one point wonder” well then one could still get like 15% to 25% open wounds from blood golem. Then of course investing points in the skill just improves that. This will give an opportunity for the necro to prevent high life replenish from bosses via. things like ubers.
IMO the iron golem is fine as is considering you can make him out of runewords that provide auras, etc. All he needs is increased damage via. initial paragraph stating all golems need a (signifcant) increase to their damage done.
Then IMO for fire golem he should explode on death, similar to how the sorceress meteor functions. So if the necromancer either recasts fire golem, or the fire golem just dies, then he’d explode dealing x amount of fire damage and leave behind a patch of burning flame for 4 seconds that deals x amount of fire damage per second. To help prevent a necromancer from spamming this the fire golem would keep a high mana cost. Then of course the fire golem maintains his holy fire aura
For the poison and bone spells i feel like there is a lot of good ideas here. IMO poison dagger should instead be able to apply to any weapon of choice, as another has mentioned. This would help create a kind of melee necro/necro that actually uses a weapon or bow/crossbow if wanted. My only addition to this is perhaps have this new poison strike instead act as an enchantment, similar to the sorceress enchant? So basically the necro can provide a poison enchantment to his allies AND summons. This would help create a little bit of a synergy for a poison/summon hybrid.
I agree that poison explosion needs a re work… there is some good ideas in here for it. Ive also seen some other good ideas as well. Overall, it needs a rework, because no one is going to use poison explosion over corpse explode for sure lol. I personally like how it creates the poison cloud, but i just dont like that it is a corpse ability, albeit it makes sense. Perhaps just remove it being a corpse ability and allow its poison damage to operate separately from other poisons, similar to how rabies works? Overall, i do like the poisonous cloud effects it does. Perhaps make the poisonius cloud apply a debuff of sorts, ie. additional -enemy poison resists?
IMO poison nova is fine as is, but the whole bug issue where the poison damage gets canceled by your minions or any physical damage needs to be fixed. If this bug gets fixed then i think poison nova would be fine, especially if some of these other poison buffs are applied, via. poison enchant/strike, and a re work to poison explosion.
Overall, for a kind of buff to poison damage perhaps each kind of poison operates separately? So you have poison damage from weapons/attacks (this includes the idea of poison dagger becoming an enchant/strike), poison damage from druid poison creeper, poison from rabies, poison from the new poison explosion if it continues to do any kind of poison damage, poison damage from poison nova, poison from venom, etc. IMO all of these could act separately.
I like the idea of separating the bone wall/cage from bone spear/spirit/teeth as a synergy and just let those synergize with bone armor… BUT by removing the bone wall/cage synergies DO NOT reduce bone spear/spirit/teeth damage. The damage should remain as is, but just reduce the synergies needed to get there.
This would provide options for a bone necro to hybridize for more damage OR if he wanted to have more survivability then he can still invest into the bone wall/cage/armor. IMO separating these synergies just provides potential for more options/decisions/choices. But yes, please dont improve bone spell damage… IMO just reduce synergies to then give him options for more damage from other sources, ie. getting raise skeleton and skeleton mastery maxed, or perhaps he goes the golem mastery route with multiple golems, assuming that became a thing, etc.
Lastly the curses, yes please remove lower resists insane diminishing returns lol as it is atm its not worth putting more than 1 point into when you have gg/high +skill equipment.
Then as others have mentioned perhaps include some kind of “warp” or something for the necromancers minions. I like the idea to add this to attract. So the attract curse still works as it does, but add some kind of delayed “warp” to necro summons. The more points invested into attract would just reduce the delay to a point that its non existent.
I just wanted to mention to add curse synergies to other necro skills. For example amplified damage could synergize with raise skeleton, increasing their damage by 5% per level, for example. Perhaps lower resist synergizes with skeletal magi to improve damage. Perhaps allow decrepify synergize with clay golem to improve his damage and perhaps make his slow effect last longer? Maybe allow iron maiden to synergize with iron golem, improving the attacker takes damage done. If they make the fire golem explode then perhaps corpse explode synergizes with it.
Idk IMO necro could have more synergies to help promote improving his damage as well, probably more so for summoning skills.
Do i expect any of this to happen? No, unfortunately not, but it is fun theorizing, to include i guess hoping they do another “balance” patch like 2.4, wherein perhaps some of these things are included.
Anyway, nice ideas in here everyone and was nice to read through them!