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?