So after the absolute gutting of Rathma’s and the complete exclusion of pets from any necromancer set, and with the massive redundancies present in the current version of Trag’ouls (such that, it’s so useless that in no circumstances is it even a viable option), I felt there was an opportunity here to rework this set to become the new petromancer build, while simultaneously addressing a few of the issue with the pets themselves. so with that, let us begin!
(also a disclaimer, while it wasn’t necessarily my intention to shift the focus away from health cost skills, as i explained in a different post, having a set focus on such skills is problematic due to it’s competing with any other set that could buff those skills without relying on the one rune option)
2 Set bonus: Minion skill (command skeleton, command golem, skeletal mages, revive) minions now apply curses to enemies (base versions unless a rune is equipped) with their attacks, and gain 50% increased movement and attack speed.
4 set bonus: Skeletal mages are now permanent and their attacks pierce all enemies, but you are limited to 4. while active, Skeletal mages will orbit the necromancer, reducing damage taken by 20% per living mage. likewise, abilities which heal the necromancer will also heal your minions.
6 set bonus: Losing health through any means will send your pets into a blood frenzy, increasing their damage by 100% per 1% health lost for 20 seconds, stacking indefinitely, however adding new stacks will not refresh existing stacks.
Supporting Item Section
Moribund Gauntlets: Now increases the golems damage by 100% for every unused corpse in the vicinity.
Funerary pick: Siphon Blood also causes affected enemies to take increased damage from minions, but now costs health to cast.
Golemskin Breeches: Are now bracers and the damage reduction is boosted to 50%
New pants (which would use the golemskin breeches asset): Command skeletons summons 3-5 additional skeletons over time, but each skeleton has 50% less health. All minions now explode on death.
New Necklace: Command golem will consume any summoned skeletons in the area of it’s active effect, growing in size and power. Skeletons that are consumed in this way cannot be re-summoned until the golem has fallen. (in more technical terms, golem will now eat your skeletons, gaining 15% increased size, a likewise scaling aoe attack, and damage (which would have to be tuned, think of it like a combo of the short man’s finger and the tall man’s finger, but in reverse because one of your pets is eating the other))
Brigg’s Wrath Rework: Cursed enemies are taunted to attack your minions, and take increased damage from thorns, divided by the amount of active curses. (i.e., the less enemies that are cursed, the more damage they take from thorns to counter act the negative stacking nature of spear of jairo)
Skill Rework
Singularity (because we all know this rune has been problematic to the balancing act): Summon Skeletal Mage is now limited to a single mage, attempting to summon a new mage while the singularity is active will increase the power and duration of the singularity based on the essence spent, up to 100% of your maximum essence (at present it’s 3% damage per essence, but since we’re cutting down from 10 to 1, i’d say it’d be fair to boost that to 30% and .1 second per essence, up to your personal maximum, beyond which the duration can still be increased, but not the damage.)
but I’m not getting clear ideas at the moment.