S7 (Season of Rathma) Rework Necro

Necromancer
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After talking with people in the forums for a bit, I think a lot of us want a Necromancer rework, but ideas are shot down, because we play the class differently. I think there are some ways to make the class better and I’d love if this thread were for everyone’s ideas. Please no toxicity. Like the comments with ideas you like and leave your own ideas. We all just want a class that we enjoy playing. This is going to be long.

For starters, Book of the Dead as is makes our class mechanic useless outside of pure minion builds. The sacrifices are too strong and the options on the minions aren’t strong enough or cool enough to take over the sacrifices in builds that aren’t pure minion.

I think the minions in Book of the Dead need to have more synergy with the tags in our skill tree.

Skirmishers could have a blood tag and they can also gain fortify and one option could be that they overpower every 5th attack, another could be that they absorb nearby blood orbs for you.

Reapers could have a shadow tag and deal shadow damage, with one option to create corpses and another option to leave desecrated ground where they walk.

Defenders could have more naturally inherited thorns, and one option could be that they do thorns damage around them every 5th attack and another option to taunt every 5 seconds.

Shadow mages could have a shadow tag and do shadow damage over time and one option could be that their attacks explode for AOE shadow damage over time every 5th attack.

Bone mages could have a bone tag and one option could be that every mage you have gives you more max essence and they generate essence on attack.

Cold mages should be changed to blood mages and could have the blood tag and also gain fortify and one option could be every time you pick up a blood orb the mages get a stacking buff that makes their next overpower do more damage.

Bone golem could have bone tag and it’s active skill could be bone spikes that pull enemies in and creates corpses and one option could be your max essence is increased for every enemy hit with bone spikes and another option could be the enemies hit by bone spikes take more critical hit damage for 5 seconds.

Blood golem could have blood tag and can gain fortify and it’s active ability is already a good base and one option could be it absorbs blood orbs for you on active use and does more damage for each blood orb absorbed and another option could be every time it overpowers, your next skill overpowers.

Iron golem could have more naturally inherited thorns and its active ability deals thorns damage around it and one option could be it’s auto attacks become AOE attacks and make enemies vulnerable and another option could be it has an aura that gives thorns to others equal to it’s own.

A shadow golem could be added with a shadow tag and gives shademist aura to you and other minions and it’s active ability could be a shadow drain that adds shadow damage over time to enemies within the shademist auras and one option could be the active ability causes all shadow damage over time on enemies to erupt and do double the shadow damage over time currently on them at once.

Skeletal priest active ability should be changed to either have a CD or have an effect that we can spam on corpses like corpse explosion, like exploding minions that scale with minion damage.

For the skill tree, we need more synergy between skills and passives, such as making passives require a damage type instead of skill type or giving us more ways to add tags to skills to benefit from said passives.

Shadow damage should all be made damage over time or synergize with damage over time somehow.

Iron maiden should be changed to synergize with thorns like making enemies take more thorns damage or making nearby enemies take thorns damage as well when they hit you or minions.

The key passives should be changed to add flavor to builds of their type, such as changing Shadowblight to be plague-like, causing damage over time effects to spread to other nearby enemies, causing it to ramp up even higher and give it a pseudo AOE effect and if it can’t spread, such as boss, give it a chance to double up on a single target. Maybe make the tick speed scale with attack speed.

Minion attack speed for a key passive is very boring and eventually not needed with good gear. It should be more fun and change how minions work or how they scale or both. Something like using the Frenzied Dead effect and on max stacks, causes your minions to go into a frenzy, causing their attacks to deal more damage and have a lucky hit chance. This would make attack speed and lucky hit chance valuable on minion builds and give minions more synergy with our skill tree.

Some of our aspects could be changed or baked into our skill tree.

Occult Dominion could be baked into the minion passives and allow us to scale the number of minions through +skills to those passives.

Unyielding Commander and it’s current passives could be baked into Army of the Dead and new passives could be made to add some survivability to it, like a way to generate barrier.

Great Feast is very punishing for minion builds while not as punishing to non minion builds for the same amount of power. It should just have a flat essence drain or give more power for more minions.

Aspects that give more damage should be removed from the utility category and added to the offensive category, as they will almost always be chosen over actual build changing utility aspects that are more fun.

7 Likes
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It should give a % increased damage to minions per point of essence. So like let’s say 0,5% increased damage, so if you have 100 essense that’s a 50% increased damage.

4 Likes
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I disagree this points.

I think all warriors should be generate corpses, regardless of type choice. This should make all warriors valuables for every build. Without this, only Reapers dominate again because corpses generation’s a main necro’s resource.

Bone Golem works very well with thorns (although it needs a lot of improvements in relation to taunt). Iron Golem should have synergy with shadow, spawning corpses on critical hit or activate BCE on 3th attack.

For the other topics, I agree with all the ideas you suggest.

3 Likes
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I can agree with a baseline corpse creation passive for all warriors. It is pretty needed across all minion builds and hybrid builds.

I like the idea of bone golem being more synergistic with bone builds. If they were to go the route of making iron synergize with shadow, I’d like to see more synergy between bone skills and passives with thorns.

3 Likes
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A suggestion

Give a target to minions using basic attack: We know how frustrating the AI of skeletons/golems is and, even more so, how bad their control is based on the curse area. It would be much more interesting to have the minions prioritize the targets that the player is attacking with their basic ability. For example: When hitting a target with a basic attack, the minions will prioritize this target for 2s, making the player leave their comfort zone and choose their targets carefully. This would apply to basic attacks that hit 1 or more targets.

3 Likes
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Let the raise skeleton button become a target button - it causes them to attack the closest target near the click.

Skeleton priest can then become a passive where consuming any corpse activates the damage and healing bonus. This makes corpse explosion a synergistic active button for minions.

Raising skeletons can become a passive that is enabled when any skeletons are not sacrificed. It still consumes corpses. Let it summon one skeleton per second.

That pretty much solves the skeleton target issue.

Kalans edict should become a 5% increase to atk speed and an additional 5%x damage per active minion.

Now that’s a very valuable passive as well and nearly solves minion damage issues while encouraging their use. It even gives mortacrux a potential home since it can spawn up to 5 additional minions, scaling kalans damage by up to another 25%.

I also agree that all warrior skeletons should natively generate corpses in the same way reapers do. That definitely helps give considerations for the other types.

3 Likes
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We for sure need a way to focus priority enemies. I personally think skeletal priest should be redesigned to do so or we need a new skill for it.

It could be a basic skill that marks a target and gives 1 essence every time a minion hits the target. Could also be a way for minions to have lucky hit.

If they do add a skill that can focus an enemy, skeletal priest still needs to have a better design.

It needs to last longer and be stronger with a cooldown, like giving it a minion death counter that causes any minions that die while it’s active to instantly be raised again.

Instead, it could have something added to make it a good corpse spamming skill, such as raising an actual skeletal priest and if you use the skill again, a new priest is summoned and the last one explodes, damage scaling with minion damage.

I’m personally not a fan of passive skeleton summoning, but if you like that, there is a unique for it, which I believe needs to be made stronger to compete with legendary aspects.

The key passive idea is certainly better than the current option, but I think key passives should be build defining/changing and add a way to scale your build, not just add flat power, see my original post for key passive ideas. I would take your idea over what we have for sure though.

Mortacrux is just a weird unique that doesn’t feel like it actually belongs anywhere. It could be a cool corpse explosion unique if they made it a focus and let people use it alongside Black River.

1 Like
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Excellent ideas and feedback here.

My add is shadow/darkness DoT should do damage hard and fast - even if from minions.
DoT should last only 2-3 seconds, not 6 seconds.

And make all darkess DoT area effects and ground effects stack with itself and others: Blight, Blighted Corpse Explosion, desecrated ground, shademist aspect, and anything I missed.

And make ground DoTs (blight, BCE, des ground) work like poison/burning/bleed/shademist: monsters that enter the pool area gain a DoT stack per pool and damage continues if monster leaves the area of the pool.

Most monsters wont stand in a DoT pool for more than 1-2 seconds. We only ever did full DoT against Malphas, because it was stationary.

Either increase DoT damage to compensate that it cant crit or OP, or allow DoT to crit and OP.

No, Wither paragon node does not make up for it. All non-DoT builds get crit and OP starting at level 1, but we need a legendary paragon node at level 60+ and tons of Int stacked to bridge the gap - and there’s a cap on Wither scaling at low int.

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Yes, and I think the simulacrums do little or no damage if you fast cast CE using fast attack speed (Howl from Below).

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Double the max number of corpses that can be on screen before corpses start being deleted.

For mouse/keyboard, when using corpse explosion or corpse tendrils, consume the closest corpse to the mouse pointer.

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I would like if they give us some kind of skeletal Archers.

The active effect of the Skeleton skill should send them to target an enemy like it does in d3

Give us the Ability to change minions in ways that we have more ways to skill into and play different minion bulds, not just one

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My ideas for reworking the Necro with focus on the Classic Necromancer aka Minions. :smiley:

In General:
Player Attack Speed & Minion Attack Speed Cap => 200%!
Minions benefit from Lucky Hit!

Skilltree

Add a
Shadow Movement Skill next to Blood Mist etc. with 3s unstoppable + Shadow damage the path were you and you’re minions walk at Rank 1 - Enhance it with + 15% movement speed & unhindered for you and you’re minions - then chose xx % dmg reduction or xx essence gain per second.

Add a
** Cold Curse Skill - “Frozen Death”**
A good combination with Cold Mages, Bloodless Scream and Coldbringer’s Aspect.

Add a
** Poison Corpse Skill - "Plague of the decayed**
A good combination with Andariel’s Visage.

Skeletal Warrior Mastery Passive
Increase the damage and Life of you’re Skeletal Warriors by x [45%] (was 15%).

Iron Maiden
Enemies afflicted by Iron Maiden take [60%] damage every 2s…(was 30%)

Skeletal Mage Mastery
Increase the damage and Life of you’re Skeletal Mages by x [40%] (was 20%).

Golem Mastery
Increase the damage and Life of you’re Golem by x [35%] (was 25%).

Hellbent Commander
While you control at least 7 Minions, you’re Minions deal x [15%] damage (was x [10%] more damage)

Army of the Dead
Cooldown [60] seconds (was [70] seconds)
Lucky Hit: 64%
Call forth the burried dead. Volatile Skeletons emerge over the next 9 seconds that explode when around enemies dealing [65%] damage (was 7 seconds and 45% damage).

Supreme Army of the Dead
Army of the Dead also raises you’re Skeletal Warriors and Skeletal Mages adding [1] Skeletal Warrior & [1] Skeletal Mage every second.

Kalan’s Addict
You’re Minions gain 5% Attack Speed for every active Minion (was 3%).
Your maximum number of Skeletal Mages and Skeletal Warriors is increased by [3].
(keep Aspect of Occult Dominion for those who like a big Army)

Corpse Key Passive
Something interesting to boost skills like Corpse Explosion or Corpse Tendrils.

Book of the Dead [while Minions are active]
Add 10 Ranks for Warriors, Mages and Golem similar to Barbarian Weapon Mastery and give like x [10-20%] damage for reaching Rang 10. Each Minion kill does give progress XP. The idea is to give something equal to the sacrifice bonuses.

Bone Mages
Bone Mages use their own body as projectiles, dealing heavy damage at the cost of their own life. With every kill from you or you’re minions, they heal for 10%. (should be enough when putting at least 1 point in Bonded in Essence (the Skeletal Priest Heal) additionally)

Maybe they could add another class for each - Warriors, Mages and Golem and on top another sacrificial option.

Warriors could have Archers (option with Fire or Poison Arrows) or wield an 2H Axe.
For Mages, I would like to see some Blood Mages for Example.
For Golems - well, Bone Golems could have some Bone Spikes emerging from the ground or themselfs, Iron Golems make a powerful shockwave with a big radius. For the fourth option - maybe a tanky thorns Golem.

Aspects

Coldbringer’s Aspect
Every 8 seconds, your Cold Skeletal Mages cast a blizzard that deals [270-360] Cold damage and continuously Chills enemies for 12% over 6 seconds with a 10% chance to freeze.

(Was - Every 8 seconds, your Cold Skeletal Mages cast a blizzard that deals [135-180] Cold damage and continuously Chills enemies for 8% over 6 seconds.)

Unyielding Commander’s Aspect
While Army of the Dead is active, your Minions gain [100 - 150]% [ x ] increased damage and take 90% reduced damage.

(was While Army of the Dead is active, your Minions gain [70 - 100]%[+] increased damage and take 90% reduced damage.)

Blighted Aspect
You deal [55-95%] increased damage for 6 seconds after the [Shadowblight] Key Passive damages enemies 10 times.

(was You deal [35-50%] increased damage for 6 seconds after the [Shadowblight] Key Passive damages enemies 10 times.)

Uniques

Ring of Mendeln

  • +[XX] % [Critcal Strike Chance] OR +[XX] % [Lucky Hit Chance - when Minions finally benefit from it]

  • +[ XX] % [Critical Strike Damage]

  • [XX] % Minion [Attack Speed]

  • +3-4 to [Skeletal Warrior Mastery], [Skeletal Mage Mastery], and [Golem Mastery]

Every 4th attack from each Minion is empowered, exploding for [1560 - 2700] [Physical damage]

(was

  • +[ X ]% Minion [Attack Speed]

  • +1 to [Skeletal Warrior Mastery], [Skeletal Mage Mastery], and [Golem Mastery]

  • +[ X ]% [Damage]

  • +[ X ] [Intelligence]

Every 6th attack from each Minion is empowered, exploding for [780 - 1,350] [Physical damage].)

It would also be nice to have maybe two more Minion related items -
one Amulet and 2H Mythic Unique Scythe for example that for example let’s you’re Minions overpower or something like that or give you a maybe a another group of special Minions like Ghosts with a special attack or so. For the Stats some big numbers please and on top for example 150-300% Summon Damage inherit. Maybe works in combination with AotD.

For the Amulet maybe let us use it similar to Revive in DII - > Allows the Necromancer to revive almost any fallen enemy, excluding bosses, superuniques and some others. The monsters revived however will use the skills they possess normally, and will gain a hp boost as well. Maybe we could have for like 30-60s each up to 5 additional Minions on top. I would love to see something crazy like 20+ Minions. :grin:

Paragon Boards
Well, for the Paragon Boards I would like to have up to 6 active Glyphs while the number of the boards used is not limited → more viable options.

Cult Leader
You’re Minions deal x 30% increased damage for every 20% increased Attack Speed bonus they have, up to 200% Attack Speed.

(was You’re Minions deal x 30% increased damage for every 20% increased Attack Speed bonus they have, up to 100% Attack Speed.)

When it comes to Minions, they should remove bonuses like from the Glyphs and Nodes like Minion Armor, Health and Resistances and give some meaningful damage juice.
Maybe they could also increase some node buffs here.

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Nice to see how creative the community and class fans can be.

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just to let you know, this has always been multiplicative, this is just a tooltip error. So unfortunately your suggestion would be a 50% nerf to the only aspect that makes AotD worth while :smiley:

But in general I don’t think the solution is taking the current numbers relating to minion damage and doubling them. The outcome would be absurd.

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Blood builds and Minions are dead by a new direction form this dev team. They don’t want any tanky builds. In s6 PTR you can see that even in Endgame with GA equipment + lv.100 glyphs + 239 paragon points, No classes can max Armor and all resistances. They want players to be fragile for more challenging.

That’s why Minions are permanently nerf. Because Necro is safe when stay behind our army. So they buff Sacrifice to encourage players to NOT USE minions. Also program elites to ignore minions and run to attack players directly.

Blood Build have all what they don’t want. It regains HP even stand inside a dangerous mobs. So they nerf Blood Surge lucky hit from 20 to 12 because many uniques can increase lucky hit 100% which makes Blood Surge be able to proc corpses by Hewed Flesh passive, make Barrier by Necrotic Fortitude passive.

I posted a thread about this nerf in PC forum and got deleted in few hours without any explanations. They just said it was a trolling.

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Ah, did not know that - ok, then we need at least 150% for a 1H instead. Thanks. Fixed that. :smile:

@ Adventurer: That is really sad to see - given the class description alone done by Blizzard…they better change it to powerful Warlock…

Yes, for example at the moment I can do Pit 91 relative comfortably with my Minion Necro (suboptimal gear and MW only to 8/12) while my DD WW Barb with maxed out Gear struggles a lot after bleed has been nerfed to the ground - you just can have some distance to the Pit/Shadow Bosses - moving for the most of the time.

For Hordes it is the other way, but the Barb only can do T5 with ease…T6 is very slow…the Necro struggles way more because of the low single damage of each Minion and the masses of enemies all around…in Pits it is more concentrated, so that most of the Army can focus on defending one small Mob per time.

I think, I will rebuild my Shadow Sacri Necro for the Blood Wave Bone Spirit in October and the Rouge for Spin2Win. For S6 I will only create a Jag Spiritborn.

E: A small, but nice idea for the Book of the Dead would be that you would be able to equip 1-2 aspects onto you’re Minions. For example 200% AotD damage @ Reapers Scythes and maybe another mobility, utility or defensive aspect additionaly. So you could wield Grandpapa yourself and benifit from a big multiplicative weapon’s aspect like Commander.

Something like DIII Mercenaries lite.

Too bad that none of us is in charge for some Necro Balancing. ^^

I am curious if maybe in 2026 they bring back for example belts and/or shoulder plates. That would help especially Minion Necros a lot.

Just another Idea:

Mythic Unique Amulet - The Risen Army

  • +30% Resistance to All Elements
  • +2% Damage Reduction per active Minion
  • +33% Minion Attack Speed
  • +25% [ x ] Bonus to All Minion Specific Paragon Nodes & Glyphs (*)
  • +6 Ranks to Golem Mastery, Skeletal Warrior Mastery & Skeletal Mage Mastery
  • Your maximum number of Skeletal Mages and Skeletal Warriors is increased by 4

You can revive up to 4 slain Non Elite Enemies to join you’re Minions.
They keep their specific abilities. Can only be done once each.

When you have at least 11 active Minions, the direct usage of Raise Skeleton empowers you’re Skeletal Priest to further increase you’re Minion Damage by another 30% [ x ] damage and healing them for additional 10% of their Maximum Life for 8 seconds.

Legends suggests this Amulet was crafted by Rathma himself in the Necropolis of the Firstborn.

(*) Examples with 25%:

Legendary Node:
Cult Leader
You’re Minions deal x30% (=> x37,5%) increased damage per 20% Attack Speed Bonus they have, up to a maximum of 100% (=> 125%) Attack Speed Bonus.

Glyph: Golem (LVL100)
For every 5 Willpower purchased within Range, Golem gain + 82,4% (=> 103%) increased damage.

Additional bonus:

  • Golems deal x25% (=> x31,25%) increased damage

Legendary bonus:

  • Increase Minion damage by x 20.80% (=> x 26%)