First I say, I am not going to touch Bone spells, because it will lead to massive PvP buffs.
I will just try to compare Druid summon to Necro summons.
Note this was all summoned with max + skill gear on both characters. I swapped Ravenlore when summoning Ravens, from a +6 Grizzly Pelt. And put Pelt back on when summoning Grizzly.
I used Arm of King Leoric on Necro which no endgame necro does, They use Beast.
Druid.
Ravens
Summary
With max + skills gear Druid’s ravens push out over 6k DPS each, cannot die, do not get in the way of other summons and do not require a corpse and just like all other druid summons are summonable on a whim. Ravens dont just peck out eyes-more like eat out brains.
https://i.imgur.com/fiPAscL.png
Ravens alone 5*6000=30k DPS.
Grizzly.
Summary
Then there the 8k DPS Grizzly Bear(8k not counting BearSmite which is a 120% dmg buff with a 2 second Stun).
Dire Wolves
Summary
And the 3x 3k DPS Dire Wolves.
I didnt bother counting the 5x Spirit Wolves that do cold damage or the poison creeper which caps out at like 6k psn DPS. Also dont forget that Wolves and Bears have Range of 2 which lets them attack a target from further away.
Now , the Necromancer.
Skeletons
https://i.imgur.com/7u4WoA3.png
Summary
The only “worthwhile units”. You get 19x of them with max skill gear-19k DPS. They require a corpse which is a hassle.
Range -hardcapped 1 even thought the sabers they hold are the size of those wolves.
Skeletal Mages
Summary
You have to go on Amazonbasin or use some Mage DPS Calculator but im not sure what works with the “updated” 2.4 dmg buff.
They’re just like pretty cheerleaders with pompoms. Undead cheerleaders(especially pretty with new crispy graphics) with glowy pompoms.
Due to minion collision instead of being help, they simply get in the way of Merc/skeletons blocking them from attacking.
Golems
Unlike druid which after 20 years finally got his zoo out, you only get to play with 1.
Not like it matters, though when clay is the only useful one 99% of the time.
Clay Golem
Summary
Unlike a Bone Necro who even with 1 hardpoint clay golem comfortably sits on a 50%+ slow golem, you cannot actually take advantage of Clay Golems overpowered slow ability that activates when monsters hit it or it hits something due to because there are so many minions in the way that golem never gets hit in the first place.
Blood Golem
Summary
Blood Golem is worthless. It should increase maximum life of the summoner by 1% per level like BO or Oak Sage but so it can never be on par. And on death that buff disappears of course. There’s just no other way to make that golem useful.
Iron Golem
Summary
The only other useful of the 4, I am not going to talk about the bug where he gets slaughtered by your own minions or the fact that item dissapears if he or you die (seriously it either needs to be “rehirable” like a merc or pop out the actual item if it dies, impossible to use an expensive runeword).
Im going to talk about how Iron Golem contradicts itself.
First it has self only use Thorns that applies to itself and is always overridden by actual Paladin’s Thorns Aura, even if the Iron Golem skill level is higher or Iron Golem thorns returns more damage. When Thorns is no longer applied, Iron Golem loses its own thorns until new game is created). Even a lvl 1 Thorns Aura would override lvl 50 Golem.
But it never gets hit anyway since you have so many minions- the Thorns aura is moot.
Second, with every skill point spent in Iron Golem, it increases Golem’s defense. Dont you want less defense so it actually gets hit for its Thorns ability?
Third, even if you made your Iron Golem out of a Warpike or Poleaxe which have big range, Golem Range is also capped at 1 like a dagger. Or a skeleton. And that damage synergy that the Fire Golem provides to the Iron Golem doesnt even transfer to a 2h, only 1h.
Fire Golem
Summary
Fire Golem is still also completely worthless as a lvl 30 skill. Its shiny though, and at max level its unsynergized 44 damage Holy Fire Aura can kill Carvers in normal Stony Field in 1 hit on players 8 I suppose…
No other character reiles on merc so much as a summon necromancer.
I DO NOT want to be a Mercomancer or corpse explosionmancer. Any class and character can hire a mercenary.
I want to use my actual skills, and be a summon necromancer, I want to see skeletons tearing things to shreds instead of being useless meatshields.
Other necro skills that need to be mentioned.
Corpse Explosion
Summary
should NOT be a 1 point wonder for summon necros who max it just for range, Instead make it start at 10% corpse life and 5% more with each point. So it takes at least +22 skill points to get it to 120% corpse’s life. Maybe make it scale with players like prior to Patch 1.03, where the damage scaled with the increased monster health in games with other players.
Poison Dagger
Summary
either needs “Poison Enchant” where you can enchant a limited amount of your summons or something like “Poison Weapon” or “Venom 2.0.” Here is my idea.
Curses.
Imho necro curses should be slightly reworked instead of being 1 point god tier skills. Maybe Curse Gcs will finally have a use as well. Every curse should increase in power with a skill point imho…
Example: brainstorming off the top of my head
Life Tap: Starts at 5% leech and gives 5% leech per level then decreases to 2.5% once reaches 50% leech.
Amplify Damage-starts at 50% and gains 10% per level untl reaches 100% then 5% and 2.5% per level
and so forth
Maybe even necro should be able to use 2 curses at once if sufficient hard skill points are invested? (kind of like how Attract and another curse work but Attract is worthless). So you have skills beyond investing the standard of 20 Skeleton 20 Mastery 20 Corpse Explosion 1 Amplify/Decrep/Bone Armor/Golem/Mages.
