My D4 Necromancer

We have the Barbarian, the Druid and the Sorceress, we now need an Amazon (bow/crossbow and throwing spear/pike) and a Necromancer.
Why no Assassin or Demon Hunter you ask? Well thats because the Necromancer can fill their character slots easily and with vigor!

My Necromancer is basically Zayl from “The Kingdom of Shadow”.
He casts curses, he summons, he lays traps, shoots magic bolts and is one hell of a knife fighter!

*Curses
Curses are cool, but more so in theory and lore than in practice. They are a very inactive or supportive way to play.
This can be changed however if the curses always cause in game effects beyond mere number switching. If a curse slows, confuses, cripples, blinds, attracts to target or makes enemies flee from target, for example, the curses are all of a sudden fun and interactive.

*Summons
We all know there are problems with summoning hords of pets. But a golem or a few skellies are not the worst thing, as long as you can give them orders, if you can command your bow or sorc skeletons move to a certain position or use a certain abillity they can be a fun and interactive play style and the player wont need more of them.
And here’s a thought; you could make it so that if you play with another necro in your party, one necro could assign the control of their summons to the other necro.
This could make it so that if you build your neco into a close quarters fighter and put only the smallest numbers of skill points into summoning skills, your weak summons would still benefit the party because you could allow another necro to use them with their own interactive pet abilities, while you get to focus your attention on not dying on the front lines.

*Close quarter combat
If the Necromancer get to become a master of daggers and perhaps other fast close combat weapons with throwing potential (the Onzil for example), I would be a very happy HammerBear!

Imagine an assassin/monk/ninja type character that use misdirection and agility to dart into and amongst the dangerous enemy hords to deal as much damage and cause as much chaos as possible, then quickly dart to safety before meeting his inevitable death, or perhaps to watch the dominoes fall.
A dagger wielding Necromancer like this would of course use every tool at his disposal to stay alive and deal damage, be it blood or bone magic, curses, poisons, potions, bombs or traps.

*Traps
Traps have a tendancy to lack interctivity, much like the traditional curses or summons. If you combine these however traps can become wonderfully mischevious!

A trap in this sense is not one thing, but a combination of them. Much like the Sorceress enchantment slot for her skills, a Necromancer could equip a skill to a trap slot. This would however be an active skill slot and not a passive one.
Imagine for example the skill bone prison, if equiped into a trap skill slot it would, when cast, effectively be a dormant bone prison waiting to be triggered by a monster (or player) walking upon it.
Other skills could give you a monster triggered corpse explotion, poison nova, confuse curse, blood golem etc. If these traps are always cast on the ground, or if some have to be cast on corpses I leave up to the devs. Anyhow the possibilities are endless!

*Conclusion
We need this, right? Nay, this we are worthy of!

What are your thoughts and what combination of skills and traps would you use?

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i hope to god these are not the d4 classes they are going with. lmao.

I would like to see something totally new not just a rehash of the same old classes.

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Well we got 3 out of 5 of them already, so it may very well be possible for the last two unannounced classes to be returnees as well.

I’m honestly fine with new or old classes (although I’m expecting the last two unannounced classes to be newcomers to the series). My request however, would be for a master of the spear type of class.

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Almost like a hybrid Necromancer and Witchunter? Van Helsing vibes!

I would love a darker strength class. Witcher or AntiPaladin.

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If they reveal the two remaining classes that would be great news. It would indicate that they are moving along at a steady pace hopefully covid has not hindered the development.

  • We’ve read speculation about what it could be and want to ensure you that it is something chunky indeed. Without spoiling the surprise, Iet’s just say it involves a new version of the campfire scene we showed you last BlizzCon.
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I just hope that no matter what it’s a new class, i.e. that the creativity really kicked in well and things are expected to be even more different down the line :slight_smile:

As for Curses & Summons, would prefer those things be a shared feature (in the form of scrolls or consumables of some sort) to enrich the experience with all classes (as opposed to being a thing for a specific class)

P.S., where did this crazy idea that they’d release 2 classes at once come from ? :thinking:, is there any relevant source of that… ?

If a new class is revealed I would hope that it would come along with more game play footage.

  • Along with a description of all of the skills, talents, and the special ability.
  • Also reveal the remaining skills for the other three, as well as the necroamcers special ability.

and if i wanted to play those 3 classes i’d just load up D2/
IF nothing is new, then why even buy it?
Example: D2 didn’t have a witch doctor or monk.

Well just because old classes return, doesn’t mean they’ll play the same as they did in the previous game. Diablo 2 and 3 versions of Necromancer serve as an example of this.

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I think exactly the opposite: better take (and evolve) systems, mechanics, itemization, etc, rather than telling the story or using the same roster.

in D3 Necromancer, he is wielding scythe and attack enemy with scythe. If you ask me, necromancer with scythe feel like a “DEATH” and badass than the necromancer with a small dagger.

so glad you mentioned this. the fact that D2 Necromancer was 100x better than D3 Necromancer says it all about REHASHING A CHARACTER. . . .

No. D3 necromancer would have no problem running through D2 Maggot Lair.

So have your badass necro fighter use a scythe, I dont see why that wouldnt also work with my ideas of a necro. If you search for the weapon Onzil, that I mentioned in my original post you see an example of what a novel necro weapon could look like.

As for new vs old classes, nobody truly expects the d4 classes to play the same as the older games do they? Apart from that the general archetypes will remain for the most part.

As a bonus Id like to promote the idea of using actual items as crafting resources instead of the usual unpersonal “crafting material”, so if you find it compelling, and havent already. Would you take a peek and maybe add to that conversation as well?

You don’t understand what i mean when i said “better”, at all…

Needs to have the Amazon, that’s what people wanted not the Demon Hunter.
Needs to have a Paladin, that’s what people wanted not the Crusader.

D4 has a chance to fix that issue at the beginning. Keep core characters core and add the others later in DLCs. The only reason Druid is in the core class of D4 is because they didn’t give us the class in D3.

Other classes can be added via DLCs (1 class) and mini (2 class) or full expansion packs 3 class). Yes, eventually, I would like to see the return of the Necromancer, Witch Doctor, Monk, Assassin, Demon Hunter, Crusader and some new additions like a Templar, Shaman, Psionicist, Cleric, etc.

So basically you’d like a Diablo:Quadrology (as opposed to D4 :P)

Looks to me like Blizz is keeping the classes super specialized to maximize the “flavour” aspect of them, as well as enhancing group play and replayability, adding loads of fluff classes will be in complete violation to that.
I bet you they plan on making money on cosmetics, bonus quests, pets and mounts more than on new classes.

If necro isn’t allowed to have like 30+ minions at all times killing stuff without you clicking anything (if you want to) but move button, I won’t even bother asking for the introduction of necro. D3 necro was a mistake.