Necromancer Update : Minions on the table

Necromancer
1

Hello everyone, this is the Necromancer table discuss for our dear Minions.

In the first case we will discuss about how Necromancer Minions is actually and feeled by the community.

The second case will discuss about how improve them and idea of some abilities and uniques.

  1. Target of the Minions

  • The Minions actually have problem to target correctly a monster. This is difficult at
    high
    lvl because our Minions spread everywhere and didn’t care about our main target.
    Loosing some important part of our dps everywhere.

  • The possibilities to include with “Raise Skeleton” a target cursor will be a good
    improvement for the Minions.

  1. Minions Aspects

    • Actually, the aspects don’t feeling to be so powerfull than that, even if many effort
      was put on in. The lack of power inside a Minions build will at the end be a brake, how
      dependant of our stats the Minions are actually.

    • Some Aspects should be rework, merged or should be put in a Unique.

    • The Blizzard aspect of the Magus is incredibly weak, even with high Glyph, the only
      thing interesting inside this aspect is probably the crownd control… But even without
      we have better.

  2. Minions Uniques

    • Actually, only the Ring of Mendeln is a decent choice for our Minions, the others are
      completly useless and don’t match with a Minions Build, despite the bonus.

    • The Ring of Mendeln was well reworked, except the Unique Bonus, he need to be
      rework, the damage should be more significant.

    • The lack of Unique for Minions and the high dependant of aspect if really a bad point.

Now let’s talk about how we can improve the Minions of the Necromancer.

The Necromancer is designed about 3 school of damage : Blood, Bones, Shadow.

The Summoning damage is the hidding school because only concern our Minions.

Now, let’s rework one per one our Minion’s Book of the Dead.

                            Skeletal Warrior

Bones (Skeleton Warrior do Bones damage) :

  • Skeletal Warrior explode every 5 hit with a Bone Splinter in the front of them.
  • Skeletal Warrior Critical Strike Damage are increased of 100%.
  • Sacrifice your SW to increase of 10% your Critical Strike chance and +50% your Critical Strike Damage

Blood (Skeletal Warrior do Blood damage) :

  • Skeletal Warrior stun every 4 hit the target for 2 seconds and drain the life (Blood damage scale) for himself.
  • Skeletal Warrior increase your Blood damage of 50% every 5 hits for 2 seconds.
  • Sacrifice your SW increase your Blood Damage of 50% and your Life on hit of 5%.

Shadow (Skeletal Warrior do Shadow damage) :

  • Skeletal Warrior blade inflict the Shadow’s Bane to their target. Exploding (Shadow Damage scale) every 4 hit and let a Blight Pool under the target.

  • Skeletal Warrior have 20% chance to carve the body of your target, forming a corpse.

  • Sacrifice your SW to increase your Shadow Damage of 50% and your Damage over Time of 20%

                             Skeletal Mage

Bones (Skeletal Mage do Bones Damage) :

  • Skeletal Mage now launch your Bone Spear every 4th hit with 40% less power.
  • Skeletal Mage storming your target with a rain of Bones every 6 seconds alive.
  • Sacrifice your SM to increase your Armor of 40%

Blood (Skeletal Mage do Blood Damage) :

  • Skeletal Mage spread the blood of your enemy, a blood orb appear every 6 hit.
  • Skeletal Mage throw every 5 hit your Blood Spear with 40% less power.
  • Sacrifice your SM to increase your Maximum Life of 20%

Shadow (Skeletal Mage do Shadow Damage) :

  • Skeletal Mage increase all your shadow damage of 3% per Minions your have.

  • Skeletal Mage inflict the Shadow Curse on your target, increasing all shadow damage they received of 1%, can stack to 10%

  • Sacrifice your SM to increase all your resistances of 40%

                                  Golem

Bones Golem (Do Bones Damage)

  • Bones Golem rush your target and exploding in a storm of your Bones Splinter around him, increasing your Bones damages of 50% to them.
  • Bones Golem force all target to attack him, you deal 30% increased Critical Strike Damage for 4 seconds to all taunted enemy.
  • Sacrifice your Bones Golem to increase your Attack Speed of 15% and your Essence regeneration of 20%.

Blood Golem (do Blood Damage)

  • Blood Golem now launch Blood Surge every 7 hits with 40% less efficiency and healing you for 5% of your maximum life.
  • Blood Golem throw a Blood Wave every 10 seconds, making all your target Vulnerable for 4 seconds and increasing Overpower Damage to them to 50%.
  • Sacrifice your Blood Golem to increase your Overpower Damage of 50% and your Damage Reduction of 10%

Shadow Golem (do Shadow Damage)

  • Shadow Golem spread terror around him every 6 hits, slowing and fearing your target and increasing all your shadow damage of 60% for 4 seconds on them.
  • Shadow Golem use your Blight every 5 hit with 40% less efficiency.
  • Sacrifice your Shadow Golem to increase your Shadow Damage of 80% and your
    Damage over time effect of 50%

Let’s talk about the Unique.

We need unique who can match with our Minions better than actually.

Each combinaison of Unique can play with both styles of our Minions.

Minions Unique for example can do guaranteed OP damage every 10 seconds.

A Unique can upgrade our golem bonus.

For Example : Unique Chest

Cage of the Unbreakable Abomination (Chest)
Item lvl : 800

Damage Reduction +5% - +15 %
Ranks to Golem Mastery
Golem Damage +200% - +500%
Attack Speed +8% - +20%

Unique bonus : Your Abomination is now empowered by the magic of Death, increasing the benefice of all his Book of the Dead bonus of (20% - 50%) and reduce his cooldown of (2 - 5) seconds.

Another one can be like this :

Rathma’s Promise (Gloves)

Item lvl : 800

+90 - +140 Intelligence
Critical Strike Damage +50% - +90%
Ranks to Hellbent Commander
Ranks to Inspiring Leader

Unique Bonus : Your Skeletals Warriors and your Skeletals Mages are now empowered by the magic of Death, increasing all of their Book of the Dead bonus of (30 - 70%) and gain (+1 - +3) additionals Minions

Ring of Trag’oul Bloodshed => Match with the Deathspeaker’s Pendant or Banished Lord Talisman.

Item lvl : 800

+51 - +65 to All Stats
+70% - + 110% Overpower Damage
Ranks to Tides of Blood
Ranks to Skeletal Warrior Mastery and Skeletal Mage Mastery

Unique Bonus : Every (5 - 10 hit) your Minions attack will Overpower.
Your Minions are now infused by Blood magic, dealing (+50% - + 80%) Overpower damage and increasing your Maximum Life of 10%

Scroll of the Endless Darkness (Offhand) => Match with the Black River Unique

Item lvl : 800

+51 - +65 to All Stats
+90% - +160% to Shadow Damage
Ranks to Terror
Ranks to Gloom

Unique Bonus : Your Minions are now infused by Shadow magic, increasing all their Shadow Damage and Shadow Damage over Time to (+70% - +120%). All your Minions benefits now of the Shadow’s Curse and the Shadow’s Bane Book of the Dead abilities.

Ring of Mendeln (Rework)

Stats (UNCHANGED)

Unique bonus : Every 5 - 8 hit, your Minions increase their Critical Strike Chance to (20 -40 %) and their Critical Strike Damage to (80 % - 120 %) and using your Bone Spear and Bone Splinters abilities to the maximum effectiveness.

Deathspeaker’s Pendant (Rework)

+100% - +150% Blood Damage
+70% -140% Overpower Damage
Ranks to Coalesced Blood
Ranks to All Blood Skill

Unique Bonus : Blood Surge is now used by your Minions, dealing (10% - 40%) less effectiveness. Your Minions grants you (+5% - +15%) Maximum Life when you are healthy.

Blood Moon Breeches (Rework)

Stats (Unchanged)

Unique Bonus : Your Minions attack have (5% - 10%) to randomly inflict the Iron Maiden Curse or the Decrepify Curse. You and your Minions deal (100% - 150%) increased Overpower Damage to enemies affected by your curses.

An example of Skill Tree rework to include Minions. Ofc just an idea. This is to put some skills idea inside the Necromancer Tree to match up with our Minions

Core Skill

Command Minions
All your skeletons attack the target, increased all damages they deals to him by 50%.

Enhanced Command Minions
Your Skeletons increase their attack speed of 20% against the target.

Tree Node

Supernatural Command Minions
Your Minions make the target Vulnerable for 3 seconds after the first attack.

Paranormal Command Minions
Your Skeletons gain +120% of your bonus Stats for 3 seconds against the target of Command Minions.

Macabre Skill First Node

Defensive Stance
Your Skeleton Warrior protect you for 5 seconds, making you Unstoppable and increasing your Damage Reduction by 50%

Enhanced Defensive Stance
Defensive Stance now give you a Barrier for 30% of your Life

Tree Node

Ghastly Defensive Stance
At the end of the Defensive Stance, you still benefit of the Damage Reduction bonus of Defensive Stance for 3 more seconds.

Dreadful Defensive Stance
Your gain +10% to Critical Strike chance and +10% Attack Speed during the Defensive Stance.

Macabre Skill Second Node

Dreadful Command
When used, your Skeletal Mage surrounding the area with a storm of Bones / Shadow / Blood, dealing [X] Damages to their targets.

Enhanced Dreadful Command
The size of your Dreadful Command is increased by 30%

Tree Node

Plagued Dreadful Command
Your Dreadful Command increase all damage taked by targets to 4%, up to 40%

Blighted Dreadful Command
Your Dreadful Command slow the target by 50% for 2 seconds. You deal 20% more damage to enemy slowed by Dreadful Command.

I let the community join the discuss for some idea.

1 Like
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Minion targeting issue was fixed in D3 with a cool necro ability. It was the corner stone of one of the sets too.

Blizzard knows what the fix is. They just don’t want to appear unoriginal and use something that worked a decade ago.

1 Like
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Yeah this is sad because Diablo 3 make a good improvement about the Minions attack command.

But maybe Blizzard want the Necromancer to play with or without Minions, there is really huge possibilities today to up the Necromancer Minions QoL.

There is really a poor match up between everything with the Minions, like the actual Deathspeaker’s Pendant or the Blood Moon Breeches…

I hope Blizzard devs read my post and others players post who trying to put some idea and see something interesting for the future despite the complete void of answers.

4

Nice post but they will never give minions the due they deserve. There is an attack command for your minions but it is tied to the golem. You make the golem attack a target, all others will come too but not fast enough. Its a shame as i love the minions but its clear that unless someone goes and actually works for them that cares enough to fix this issue, blizz is just not going to address it. Its been clear from the start and with all updates and chats, they have 0 clue what they are doing.

2 Likes
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Yeah, i have absolutly no hope Blizzard can one day read this type of post or the others who trying to give some idea to improves Necro Minions.

Sadly i’m not a very well know streamer or an Elon Musk who can ask this to Rod Fergusson.

I’m not even sure they read this part of the forums… But i tried anyway

1 Like
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Just some crazy idea that came to my mind - but I guess, the devs would not allow a Minion Mancer’s Kepeleke to happen. :sweat_smile:

Harvester of Souls - Mythic Unique 1H Scythe

  • Army of the Dead duration +3s
  • Minions inherit Lucky Hit Chance
  • 35% Minion Attack Speed
  • 40% Lucky Hit Chance
  • 4 to Hellbent Commander
  • 4 to Skeletal Warrior, Skeletal Mage & Golem Mastery

While Army of the Dead is active, a mighty Skeletal General appears, who raises one additional Golem in total and
+ 2 Skeletal Warriors & + 2 Skeletal Mages every second out of ground rifts nearby him.

When you do have 40 active Minions, the Skeletal General also empowers each of you’re regular Minions with a harvested Soul from his Jar that gives them + 30% Minion Attack Speed per Second while raising the Maximum Minion Attack Speed & Cult Leader Attack Speed Bonus to 200%.

So for example within 9s there would be a total of 51 Minions when you do play with 1 + 7 + 6 Minions [52 Minions with +1 Skirmisher from BotD] and for the last three seconds you’re basic 14 Minions would be empowered with another 40-120% damage. :laughing:

Also not forget about Kalan’s Edict to scale to 100% Minion Attack Speed and 3% Damage for every Minion - so that alone would be 153-156% [ x ] damage after 9s with bespoken configurations.

So, I thought about a way to empower AotD by a huge gain and make the Minions stronger the longer it ticks and give another massive boost for the last three seconds.

Skull of Underworldly Powers (iL 800) - Unique Focus

  • 3 Essence on Kill
  • 120-150 All Stats
  • 10-15% Cooldown Reduction
  • 15-20 Maximum Essence
  • 35-45% Chance you’re Minions to Hit Twice

For every Point Essence you have, the Damage of you’re Skeletal Warriors is increased by [5.0-7.5%] [ x ] and the Damage of you’re Skeletal Mages is increased by [1.67-2.5%] [ x ] on every 4th Hit.

While above 120 Essence for [10-5s], you’re Golem has a [17.5-35%] Chance to Overpower for 125% [ x ] Damage on every 6th Hit.

An approach to buff Minions by a lot, especially Warriors.

Reason I wanted to make the Scythe a 1H is to be combined with that Focus for even more juice. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
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Oh god, Blizz Servers is going to blow away on World boss :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

1 Like
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Maybe if they upgrade the infrastructure, they can also add some stash space as well. :rofl:

9

They need the awesome Bobby Kotick for this, he’s gone now :rofl:

But to be honest the unique bonus of your offhand is really nice. Good match with your Scythe.

That will give Army of the Dead some decent Minion’s synergy even 40 actives Minions is impossible.

I don’t know it’s better but when Army of the Dead is active, your Minions and Golem is empowered and deal (+300% - +600%) more damages.

With your General, we can create a Ancestral or Unique, or even Mythic unique with this! He can match up really well with some build.

1 Like
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Too bad we are no big streamers - so our word would have some real impact.
Maybe we have to PM them - haha.

Yes, I thought of a good match and some synergy with all together. Probably that would boost Minion Necro easy by 10-20 Pit Tiers.

You had also some very nice ideas, I have to say. :ok_hand:

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Even streamers didn’t came to forums in general.

And Blizzard don’t listen to them many times…

Thanks for your return, that mean alot for me with the efforts of my braindead to give some lore accurated and gameplay style for the community xD

The total miss of answer from others players can sometimes be discouraging. Even when the typical answer is “No one force you to do this” or “Who give a **** about what you say, we don’t care” or the legendary “i don’t care this is not endgame” :rofl:

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I also thought some boost for Book of the Dead and think, the Barbarian Approach would be not too bad. 10 upgrade levels for each Minion Type for example to raise base damage.

For example

  • 30% for Skeletal Warriors
  • 20% for Skeletal Mages
  • 10% for Golem

What would also make a difference for us - if they changed the Glyph bonuses in the Golem direction. Straight more damage, so you can use Warrior and Mage while don’t waste damage.

But it is not that easy for Skeletons, especially Warriors, to be viable, so either way they need to be buffed massively through items or aspects or the Masteries itself. For example Skeletal Warrior Mastery - 45% bonus with 3/3 is just not enough. I would be happy, if they made at least 1/3 of the Mages damage in total, not just for example 1/10. ^^

What I also like to see, is a strong reworked Bloodless Scream when combined with Frost Mages, Frostburn and a buffed Coldbringer’s Aspect.

Or for example in future a good 3rd curse that you can use with buffed Bloodmoon Breaches.

There are a lot of possible creative approaches. For example a poison related Corpse / Corruption related Skill, so you can combine a nice build with Andariel’s. Maybe a new unique ring / amulet or gloves that let you’re Minions deal poison damage.

And in DII there were also Fire Mages for Example. ^^

13

The Boost for the Book of the Dead will require some “rework” of this feature.

The Book of the dead problem actually is : 90% of all the choice are useless.

Frost Mage => Useless
Bone Mage => pretty weak despite the bone spear and bone splinter but need to add them into our action bar.

Shield Skeleton => Useless, and really useless because Minions are incredibly tanky now.
Reaper Skeleton => Only for Corps abilities… meanwhile even without this you can generate corpses by passive.

Bones Golem => Taunt can be used, but the lack of overall damage is sad
Iron Golem => Well… nope

We everytime use the same Minions abilities of the Book of the dead, this became really problematic because if you want to build a Minions Build => same choice everytime.

There is no diversity. Minions don’t benefit of the Overpower like the Necromancer himself, i really feel they’re good, but will never be higher because how the lack of possibilities is low.

If the golem is not able to smashing the entire screen, they’re will be everytime a majority of non-minion build be better than any Minions build…

1 Like
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I find the Frost Mages not that bad, if all you’re enemies are vulnerable all the time when combining it with Exploit and damage against vulnerable for example. Maybe they could also be buffed a bit. Make enemies vulnerable and add some % damage then on top - like 1-2% per Mage.

Well, I would be happy if they buffed Bone Spear next year, so we can have some good Bone Spear Echo Mages with Deathless Visage. Probably that is the most easy thing to be buffed. :grin:

Yeah, Defenders maybe could be used for nice Thorns build in they inherit some.
I thought also to change Razorplate for this. 2 Armor Affixes and 2 Thorns Affixes. :wink:

15

Problem of the frost mage, in my own perspective, is the lack of utility and don’t match with Shadow, Blood or Physical Damage (Bones).

This is only Summoning damage and even with this, is not enough compare to the bonus of a shadow mage. :confused:

1 Like
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Yes, that is true. We need extra Frost Skills or some synergy uniques like → all you’re & you’re Minions Shadow/Blood/Bone/Corpse Skills/Abilities are now also also do Cold Damage. Something like that.

Or have a unique that boosts Frost Mages a lot and let do you’re other Minions also do cold damage. Could be really strong when combined with Frostburn and a reworked Bloodless Scream, hehe.

Right now, only two good 2H weapons shine for Minion Builds. A 2H with for example Fel Glutony and Golem Chance to hit Twice or The Grandfather to boost Mendeln procs. Some like also to play with Unyielding Commander, but maybe Fel is stronger - that I did not compare right now, yet.

For Blood - yes, would be very cool if for example with Deathspeaker’s, Minions could also make Blood Damage and OP. For Example by adding some Blood Warriors or Mages into the Book of the Dead that build some synergy with our Blood Golem.

What would also be very cool - a strong Corpse Explosion Minion build with Howl from Below, Black River and Sacrilegious Ring. The Combination is just so chilling - haha.

And in general there is also the absence of Lucky Hit Chance unlike Druid’s companions.

So Necromancer Minions is still in a state of a construction work where dozens of holes have to be closed, but there is a lack of cement to do it - lol.

Hopefully at least, they can improve Minion AI next year further to focus at least this way:

  1. Bosses
  2. Elites
  3. Trash Mobs
  4. Walls ^^

Or maybe they make the Skeletons do attack the target, you have chosen for you’re active Golem attack. I would be also fine with that.

And when it comes to the Aspect of Occult Dominion, I have to repeat myself. I would not remove it for variety options, but give + 1 Minion for each of the 3/3 Skeletal Mages and then on top every 3rd Rank +1 → small compensation if they don’t want to release a crazy unique like the Scythe I wrote above, haha.

17

Yeah even i will not be against a Minions command skills that will improve a little our dear skeletons ^^

This is why i stated a Book of the Dead rework who can synergise with every aspects of the Necromancer and type of damages he can deal (Shadow, Blood and Bones). This is ofc a idea, Blizzard Devs will probably never rework the Book of the Dead.

And i know there is some players who really want Minions Build to stay in his state to not interfere with Blood, Shadow and Bones builds.

1 Like
18

Yes, I also doubt, that they would further rework Book of the Dead after the “small” S4 buffs.

But I hope, that we can have at least a lot more Skellies in future when they continue to lack damage like right now. Yes, with crazy triple crit MW gear and ranks, you can have Mages hitting for hundred of millions or when the Golem is sacrificed even for Billions, but that is not enough to let’s say be able to beat Pit T120.

In DIIR you can have for example 16 Warriors and 22 Resurrected (normal enemies) or 15 Warriors, 15 Mages and 10-15 Resurrected if I remember correctly. Having around 30 Minions with better AI would be cool in DIV. If they are still “that weak” - than you better have larger numbers. :smiley:

Well - who knows - maybe one day they re-introduce sets again with one for our Summoner Necro.

19

There is still possibilities to sets coming back. Maybe next expansion, or the 3rd…

Even i think it should not be in a priority compare to the gameplay and all the scratch who need to be fix atm.

What we need is streamers and many players bombing Blizzard of idea, until they understand. If only one do the job, for Blizzard it’s like “Lmao you’re alone, get out”

1 Like
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True, first they need to enhance the basic gameplay and features / solve some urgent problems -
sets can be brought back in EXP 2 or 3, no need to rush.