In the old posts, one person wanted to ask if there was a good necro pet build, and there was all this argument over it, bunch of numbers, etc. While I do not want to rehash the old argument, their end result was to point out that at 50% weapon damage, Control Skeletons was not as good as a shaman and that the rest of the pets were temporary ones they were not interested in. So to them, it was a waste of money because they were paying to get something that was a worse version of a pet controller.
I just want to point out one problem with that old post and the math behind it.
Uncontrolled Control Skeletons is 50% weapon damage. When controlled, they are 100%. So vs. the base shaman, it is better. Now, once the shaman gets all the things to add in more dogs, etc. they really are about the same. The main advantage of the necro ones is that they can be directed at a target.
Then there is getting more into it as a build. My version of the laziest build out there is this: Pick your favorite stuff. Then add Jesseth Skullscythem and Jesseth Skullshield. Why? Because they cause the Command Skeletons to auto re-target. The fly so fast from target to target that they might as well teleport. So all your pets are hitting on one target, racking up the dps, but don’t just wander off when done. No. They keep going at the higher dps mode until no more targets are in range.
There is a lot of other things to it, like if you go for the bone armor set and add more stacks to make it a harder to kill caster. That is one way to go, but there are others. Everything else would be up to the person and what they like. The main point was the person seemed to think it was hard to get an effective, always summoned pet class out of it.
Oh, and CS does not get dispelled when you go into GRifts. Not like the shaman’s stuff.
In summary, it is actually pretty similar to the shaman in DPS when you add in the command aspect vs. the shaman having ways to get more pets. I have found my necro to also be less fragile than the shaman, but that is likely just what items I have run into so far. There are lots of ways to make a build, even an easy one. Overall, it is more about if you like the other spells and options than it is the differences in the pets.
Sadly, the only way to know if that makes it worth the money is to try it. Personally, I think it is, even without the extra stash slots, but those are nice too.