It’s very versatile class. It can be melee, ranged, and minion based also. The core fantasy of the necro is commanding an army of dead minions, and finaly D4 necro will can utilise it much better than D3 necro. So deal with the fact, that necro will have strong summoner builds, like it or not. Summon necro is back, thank the Gods above and under.
If they only have pet builds (Or if they are the only proper ones) then it would be stupid. Just like it is a bit stupid that we don’t really have a proper pet build other than rats and ones where your pets are there to do things instead of you doing the buffing etc while they damage.
D4 should stand alone in all aspects of it’s design, does not need to be Diablo 1, 2 or 3, it needs to engage players and provide challenges. Let’s wait and find out.
Summons in Summoner Necro D3 build don’t even deal damage just here to reduce cooldown. Also those awful builds requiring Land of the Dead uptime otherwise running around waiting. It took years to fix wizard from Archon (big cooldown of course) meta and clunkiness went to Necro in even worse state. I hope it works nothing like that in D4.