I have spent a few hours with the new necromancer set. First I think it is one of the best looking sets to date. The focus around simulacrum is a great idea with the maximum buff applying to the simulacrum instead of the player is a wonderful twist. Changing Haunted Visions to extend simulacrum indefinitely really helps top the set off.
However there are some issues.
Starting Haunted Visions, Grim Scythe is just not powerful enough and having this replace mage as a skill just makes the options far too limiting. If this was made as simply in addition, then would be a good choice and allow for some variety. I understand trying to encourage away from flooding with mages, but simple reason people do this is because the necromancer is to squishy and the mage has great damage output. The new set changes help improve the suitability issues and if changes are made in the right direction let players naturally move away from mages rather than force them away from it.
6 piece applying only to Bone Spear is rather limiting. If this buff was applied to other skills in addition then I think the options players have would be so much better and could see some very interesting builds.
The damage output overall is so low compared to other classes that it greatly limits diversity. We need all classes to be aligned on damage output and being able to push similar GRs.
5 Likes
Yeah Haunted Visions should definitely be Grim Scythe in addition to mages.
2 Likes
It does not replace Mages. It’s just worded funny. Try using it. 
It does exactly that.
Some think that’s a bug. The wording definitely sounds like its instead of mages.
Hello PTR participants!
I want to sharing my thoughts reguarding some of the changes made to the necromancer items.
First off, and this is really big for me, the internal cooldown of 2 seconds on the Reaper’s Wraps. The Rathma set is my favorite set from the necro and as I logged into the PTR and started testing out the new Haunted Visions I felt that my resource wasn’t generating the same way like before. The use of Skeletal Mage’s Singularity rune draining all my essence and then trying to generate it back to full was a hard task even with Land of the Dead and Devour. Even more so when Simulacrum - Reservoir is active, giving me twice as much essence that I have to work with. I started to get frustrated when I had to keep track of my resource more than keeping track on the health globes on the ground, since the playstyle is to collect globes to sustain your damage. I am deeply disapointed in the change to Reaper’s Wraps but with Haunted Visions’s effect lasting forever, I welcome that change.
Second is the confusion reguarding, why do we have 2 sets focused on Bone Spear. What was the Diablo 3 team thinking when they were making this set? From the beginning of the RoS expansion the Pestilence set is all over the place, empowering Bone Spear, Corpse Lance and Corpse Explosion. Suddenly, the team changed the Pestilence’s 6th piece Corpse Lance and Corpse Explosion damage to be twice as high.
To me this is a half-baked change. Reguarding the new necro set, I have yet to test it and I’ll share my experience with the new set when I can.
2 Likes
Personally I think the set overall when it comes to tankiness is great. Its a well needed change for the necro. I love the idea of Simulacrum being included in the set.
I’ve played quite a bit of Necro now and have tried different variations of the new set and it does have some issues.
The issues generally revolve around the 6 piece bonus. I think 10,000% weapon damage is not enough. While the set is incredibly tanky I feel its very lacking in damage. I would say 15,000% would be more than enough without completely breaking it.
Another thing to note some feedback I’ve seen from streamers such as (BigDaddyDen) recommended the inclusion of other skills like Bone Spirit which I 100% agree with this. Bone Spirit is an ability that has never been used and seeing it included in the set and maybe even having simulacrums cast them as well would be such a unique and interesting build and would give us another ability aside from Bone Spear. Issues with the build also include the fact that Bone spear is a ranged ability and a secondary ability making you want to use Scythe of the Cycle with Bone Armor yet you have to get in close to use Bone Armor to keep up your stacks and this feels kind of clunky at times, also running out of resource is crippling to the build yet not everyone wants to use abilities like bone spike or grim scythe. Bone Spirit is another skill we could slot it that would add to the sets uniqueness and also fit that “Bone” set. It would also give us another skill to better manage our resource and add some interesting flare and make an ability have some use that has never been used before.
it doesnt do anymore Mages
REAPERS WRAPS… how about it?
I can’t use it anymore.
after lvl 70 GR its a pain coes health globes come staked due to life from death passive. it means u are wasting valuable resources.
u can not avoid to take 2 superposed bottles due to area grab, accumulate them or make reserves to fire lance or make more than 1 death nova.
u cant use singularity to replenish faster the mages:
IMO its 2x nerf because Simulacrum doesn’t reproduce mages anymore.
this nerf destroys skeletal mages imo to promote other mages but without counterbalancing for damage.
I propose to return bk to original or add devouring aura.
Yes it does. You haven’t tried it yet have you? My Mage Necro is currently gr 93 using skeletal mages as Singularity because of the new shoulder buff, and still not having any issues. Simulacrum with reservoir rune lets me cast 4 at a time and they are pretty tanky because of Reilena’s Shadowhook. Maybe you are doing something wrong?
I imagine he’s using Haunted Visions.
So am I…
(20 characters)
Well that’s strange.
The updated Haunted Visions legendary power is described as:
Simulacrum now drains 5% 1% of your maximum life every second and lasts twice as long forever . They can now duplicate Grim Scythe instead of Skeletal Mage.
If you have Haunted Visions equipped your Simulacrums shouldn’t be casting Skeletal Mage.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, it’s just worded weird. It does actually cast mages and is supposed to. But if you are using grim scythe it will duplicate that instead of mages. It’s mentioned because grim scythe isn’t a secondary skill and simulacrums duplicate secondary skills.
The Key word in the description is CAN. And anyone who has tried it will instantly find out that it does.
That’s the thing though. If it’s not meant to affect the ability of Simulacrums to cast Skeletal Mages, then why even mention Skeletal Mage in the description?
The description should just be:
Simulacrum now drains 1% of your maximum life every second and lasts forever . They can now duplicate Grim Scythe.
Just adds unneeded confusion, but I’m happy to hear that using Haunted Visions won’t stop Simulacrums from using Skeletal Mage.
Because who ever worded it did a really bad job. Did you notice how confusing the description of SOJ and parts of the DH and Necro set are as well?
1 Like