Legendary Belt - Requires Level 11
Skeletal Mage cannot attack. At full Essence, attacks can create a unique Skeletal Mage. Skeletal Warriors gain 25% of its damage, generate 4 points of Essence per hit, stack faster, cannot deal Thorns.
(Necromancer Only) [0-50]% “Imbued by blood casters, undead shall be stronger” - Szass Tam
Explainer
Skeletal Mage cannot attack
• Skeletal Mage attacks are deactivated
At full Essence, attacks can create a unique Skeletal Mage
• A unique Skeletal Mage is created, if equipped with this skill
• Also, synergizes with Poison Scythe build (Leger’s Disdain)
Skeletal Warriors gain [0-50]% of its damage
Skeletal Mage is now a buff skill for Skeletal Warriors
Up to 50% x 70% = 35% of 10 Skeletal Mages damage
8 times stronger than 10 Skeletal Mages VS single target after few seconds using Bone Ringer and Bloodsong Mail
Slow attack & movement speed / RGK / Push build
generate 4 points of Essence per hit
7 Skeletal Warriors x 4 Essence x 1.3 APS = 36 Essence
Tasker and Theo helps to refill Essence before Skeletal Mage buff duration expires, especially when there is no corpse nor health globe available, against a Rift Guardian
Also, synergizes with Death Nova and Bone Spear builds
stack faster
Bone Ringer is stacked 20x faster (3 seconds)
cannot deal Thorns damage
With great power comes great responsibility
Build examples
Grace of Inarius, Trag’Oul’s Avatar, Legacy of Dreams
It would be more fun, I think, to make Commander of the Undead something like:
Skeletal Mages exist as long as you have Essence. Every second, you lose 25 Essence. Effects that restore Essence are reduced to 10% and cannot be increased.
What I was thinking was the old Necro from D2.
If I recall correctly, you summoned your skeletons and as you did, some would be archers, some would be mages depending on your points in the skill.
The higher you had the skill, the more likely to get more powerful minions.
I guess my thought was that I’d like to see something similar for D3. But mostly just the part where they don’t have to be constantly summoned every 10 seconds.
In D2, there is Raise Skeleton (and another Raise Skeletal Mage) which creates the skeleton and Skeleton Mastery which makes them stronger including changing their appearance (some get shields, for example.) Pretty much an active (two different ones) and a single “passive” to effect both. This is very close to D3 in that there exists the Extended Servitude passive to keep them around longer.
The “warriors” (Command Skeletons) remain forever unless you use Kill Command to sacrifice them. Revive minions can be kept forever as well, using the Rathma set.
Only Skeleton Mages do not persist but there are ways to keep them around a little more, but I think 10 seconds is about it. Probably because something like the Singularity rune is too powerful.
I’m still playing. It is way cooler, not just in your head. But yes, skely mages got so buffed in D3, they have their own build and it dominates the necro scene.
My goal was to find a way to make Skeletal Warriors viable with the minimum number of items (1 item). This is why I indexed Command Skeletons damage on Skeletal Mage.
By the way the gameplay initiated by the proposal is different from Skeletal Mages. Skeletal Mages are designed for Speed, whereas the proposal sketches an Elite hunter / a Rift Guardian Killer.
This is due to the fact that you need Bone Ringer to get correct Skeletal Warrior damage, plus Command Skeletons active power maintained on a single target to get the Bone Ringer damage bonus.
The intrinsic mechanism of Bone Ringer is single-target and slow, even if the proposal accelerates it by a reasonable amount.
What you propose is entirely different, you want 100% uptime on Skeletal Mages which are multi-target. Moreover, your proposal cannot work because you state that
But the very characteristic of Skeletal Mages build is they are based on the Singularity rune provided by Razeth’s Volition (shoulders).
Which means with your proposal Skeletal Mages would expire instantly.
Thanks, you’re welcome
I recently (3 days ago) played a Summoner Necromancer in Diablo 2 Resurrected, and here is what I can say
Skeletal minions have no lifetime (no expiration)
You need corpses to summon Skeletal minions
Skeletal minions die when hit too hard (life points) and you need corpses to re-summon them
You have separate skills for Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages (Skeletal Mage comes after Skeletal Warrior in the skill tree)
There is no Skeletal Archers skill, but there is a Revive skill so you can Revive enemy Skeletal Archers
See it in action: https://youtu.be/fHasOQCHWcE?t=36
While it is different from what you remembered, I agree on the permanent side of Skeletal Army (Passive build, only driven by itemization), but I dislike the corpse management of Diablo 2 Resurrected and its Skills switch mechanic F1-F12 then click, which is slow, error-prone, and requires player memory to remember what skill is binded on what key.
The proposal embraces the permanent side of Skeletal Warriors, increase their damage based on a portion of the Skeletal Mages, and Skeletal Warrior itemization finishes the job to get good numbers, but only against single targets and after few seconds.
Yes, these limitations are necessary for balance, because having a 100% guaranted uptime on Skeletal Mages with their current level of power (top notch build) would be overpowered.
I also made several other proposals multiplying the number of Skeletal Warriors (which was also a cool aspect of Diablo 2 Resurrected), but most people prefered to stick with 7 Skeletal Warriors and simply increase their power.
This proposal tries to mix the best of both worlds:
Keep the current Skeletal Mages build with complex itemization
Build on top of this strong base a new item making Skeletal Warriors suitable for RGK (But deactivates Skeletal Mages for balance)
Life support (10 seconds) + Extended Servitude (25%) = 10 x 1.25 = 12,5 seconds.
In addition, Simulacrum / Blood and Bone + Haunted Visions (Permanent Simulacrum) + Circle of Nailuj’s Evolution (2 Skeletal Mages casted) is able to cast 6 Skeletal Mages at a time.
That said, most people use Simulacrum / Reservoir (Damage increase base on max Essence) + Haunted Visions (Permanent Simulacrum) + Circle of Nailuj’s Evolution (2 Skeletal Mages casted) to cast 4 Skeletal Mages at a time.
You cast Singularity.
You have 4 Skeletal Mages.
You now have zero Essence.
A check is planned in 12 seconds.
You need to have 1+ Essence in 6 or 10 or 12 Seconds (given rune + passive).
So you need either to :
A) refill Essence at maximum before 6 or 10 or 12 Seconds (given rune + passive), recast Singularity to increase your number of Skeletal Mages (up to 10) and get 1+ Essence in X Seconds.
B) wait the next tick to do A)
Repeat two times to get 10 Skeletal Mages
Then every 6 or 10 or 12 Seconds (given rune + passive), need to get 1+ Essence.
If you walk, you don’t use Primary Skills thus do not generate Essence. Some maps have longs corridors without any enemy.
It is not easy for one’s mind to manage those timers expressed in seconds.
This kind of gameplay is similar to the Poison Scythe build, which felt a little bit clunky at usage.
I don’t consider skeletal mages in D3 as ‘pets’. They’re more of a beefed up DoT spell that last 6 seconds or longer if supplemented by item and/or passive skills.
Necromancer’s itemization is horrible in D3. LoD completely dominates 3/5 sets, rathma became viable in terms of power but having a single damage source that is heavy cooldown dependant is just meh. They also completely gutted bone spirit. If anything, bone spirit received a nerf with the change. So many other legendaries that aren’t even consider being used. Hoping for some changes in the future.
Ring of Dominion – When your minions kill an enemy, there is a 35% [X-Y%] an additional minion of the same type rises and joins you for 5 seconds. This minion is affected by all pet effects.
Legendary Belt
35% chance on kill to cast Revive at location. Revive gains the effect of the Personal Army rune and Revived minions no longer expire.
(Necromancer Only) [10-60%]
Advantages
Revive autocast
Can be casted manually if Revive skill is equipped
