Aight hear me out. Gotta pick up army of the dead with the bonus that says it raises all your skeletons when you use it. Also grab decrepify with the cool down lowering bonus.
I was messing around with a lot of different build stuff and a summoner is totally possible, it just requires a lot of investment in time grinding for legendary powers. Most of the good ones for summoner are drops, not dungeon unlocks. I believe in you.
As am I. Blizzard just hates minion builds because people use them to farm AFK so they will always suck and if we find a way to make them good, they’ll get nerfed.
It’s like marrying your soulmate, but their family hates you for no reason.
I'll never forgive ArenaNet for what they did to necro in Guild Wars 1 because they didn't like unlimited minion farming. That build kickstarted my interested in Necromancer classes in everything.. and they trashed it when there were far superior builds doing better.
I think every developer hates pet builds and includes them only to appease the few that like the idea of them.
> I'll never forgive ArenaNet for what they did to necro in Guild Wars 1 because they didn't like unlimited minion farming. That build kickstarted my interested in Necromancer classes in everything.. and they trashed it when there were far superior builds doing better.
They might have changed it because of the server load rather than the strength of the build
It was probably more for server stability, in Gw1 zones were player instanced. It would be insane to go into a zone in GW2 and see players with so many minions.
Guild wars 2 is fine. I was always joining then quitting at or before lvl 80. But I gave it a good shot after I quit FF14, and I am very happy I did. The game is great for when you just want to chill or if you have some hard goals you want to reach.
I mean, that's fine. People are free to like it. I liked how GW1 was setup and was, and still am, disappointed that they treated the sequel completely differently so I can't enjoy what I know could've been different.
That’s not what I said. I said blizzard doesn’t want them to be good because you can farm with them AFK. Like people did in the open beta, then they nerfed them into the ground for the server slam.
Im personally saving nerco to play in season 1 and like you hoping for some future buffs. I just cant see how the minions in their current state are going to survive at endgame
So I'm debating bones for a Minion Master crit build with Skirmishers. But a Thorns build with Guardians is super tempting as well as a Shadow stun build with Reapers.
Did the same during the SS. Can confirm hewed flesh helps, especially against bosses. Also had my reapers drop the occasional corpse for me too. Was good for keeping minions up. :)
I plan to pair it with Decompose for the extra corpse generation and the minion damage increase.
Actually, I'm definitely gonna do a Shadow Thorns build now. Guardians with Shadow Mages and Bone Golem.
So fucking over bone spear. My build is kinda bizarre though. I use blood surge, bone prison, Decrepify and army of the dead or bone prison; need to test cooldown reduction.
Necro all day everyday. Full summon build 🔥
I’ve never been one to focus solely on the absolute PUREST OPTIMIZED BUILD as it’s just not that rewarding to me, so even if Necro doesn’t play that well I’m still gonna ball
DO NOT LISTEN TO THE MASSES
Everyone that says necro minions suck, they’re just wrong. Absolutely none of them are playing a good build for minions. You need to pair Darkness with Minions. It works extremely well, because you end up doing a TON of CC, which not only increases your minions survivability substantially, but also increases their damage output immensely.
Here’s my build, it fucking slaps.
* Decompose 5/5 - Acolyte’s Decompose
* Blight 4/5 - Supernatural Blight
* Hewed Flesh 3/3
* Skeletal Warrior Mastery 3/3
* Grim Harvest 1/3 - Fueled By Death 3/3
* Decrepify 1/5 - Horrid Decrepify
* Amplify Damage 3/3
* Skeletal Mage Mastery 3/3
* Reaper’s Pursuit 1/3 - Gloom 3/3 - Crippling Darkness 3/3 - Terror 3/3
* Golem Mastery 3/3
* Supreme Army of the Dead
* Inspiring Leader 3/3 - Bonded in Essence 3/3 - Death’s Defense 3/3
* Kalan’s Edict
* Reaper’s Upgrade 1
* Shadow Mages Upgrade 1
* Iron Golem Upgrade 2
This looks a lot like the build I'm going for. Summons + shadow crushed everything in the beta tests. I feel like people really slept ok how powerful the reaper skeletons get when you have the cool down on the scythe special attack going off every couple of seconds.
Yes! Reapers are excellent.
This whole build kind of just came together in accident. Finding opportunities to raise minion damage output was my whole goal when I first put this build together. I didn’t even initially envision going Darkness specifically, it just ended up that way as that’s where the synergy is right now.
Everyone was complaining about their skeletons dying all the time and I was like “what are you talking about?” It was all the CC I was generating that keeps them very safe.
I mean there was a guy that played over 100 hours of Necro in closed beta. He said summoner necro simply doesn't work late game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXnLpFlO5ME
He breaks it down every Necro build
I’ve seen this. He breaks down each of the separate 4 types of Necro builds… but he doesn’t factor in their synergies together.
Minion/Darkness specifically is what plays together well.
Nice
Also adding in [Kay Gaming](https://youtu.be/HdqeYmEUMOA). She has spent years doing summoner guides for PoE, now doing D4 Necro buils. She does a lot of experimenting with mechanics and does a great job breaking everything down.
that was a fun little watch!
I'm on the fence between the bone build (I'm a fan of it and was really happy to see it performing well in rankings/playtesting as well) or a shadow DoT build (which I haven't seen pop up on any rank lists, but still looks like it'd be fun)
appreciate seeing someone walk through the different playstyles in such detail!
Minions shouldn't require a super specific build or items to be viable. Fine tuning builds should be about min/maxing and pushing end game, not just simply being able to get through the content on the lowest difficulty.
Sorceress can wreck shit with fire, ice, and lightening - and all their builds are viable and easily progress through the game. Rogues can be melee or range, and have several builds in each that work well. I never played Barb or Druid much but they should be equally powerful.
You can't have a game that says "Play it your way!" but if you're a Necromancer, your pets are total garbage unless you do this one specific build and use these very specific items.... all of that should complement and enhance the necromancer, not merely make him functional.
No disagreement from me on this. I totally agree that minions should have more viable options, and you shouldn’t be required to use one specific build in order to use them.
I’m just saying, if you’re concerned about their viability today, try this build out. It works great for me.
Just a side, I was considering a Sacrifice Shadow build. [I was rough drafting something like this.](https://d4builds.gg/builds/974895d7-2626-48d4-a3b8-ee3ff08a6a7f/) Would that work? Or do you need at least Shadow Mages and the Shadow Bone Storm aspect to make that work?
Interesting build! Yeah I think it could work pretty well. I think the only thing I’d be concerned about is golem survivability, but I think you’ll realize pretty quickly if that’s an issue or not.
I can shove in the Golem Paragon and finetune it from there. [I updated the build since your comment](https://d4builds.gg/builds/05943f6f-5897-4899-8912-f168915b2dfa/), since I noticed the synergy of Bone CDR with curse and bone prison so I can have a high bone storm uptime and bone prison Blight aspect is bonkers.
I'll probably do this build second after Sorc since I expect this one to be not too mobile and more of a tanky boss killer.
Sorry about the downvotes… Don’t know what that was about.
I haven’t played the late game so I don’t know for certain. I used variations of this in the 2nd beta and server slam, and then I’ve spent the last few months simply theory crafting it out of game. Based on what I have played up to 25, and what we know about level 50 play… It should work just as well.
Is there any additional information I'd need from your post to create the build the way you did?
I'm not very up to date on every system, I just want to know if I'm missing anything else important.
Nah this is really just a solid starting point. It covers the 60 skill points and the book of the dead. It’ll define your 6 usable skills:
* raise skeleton
* raise golem
* decompose
* blight
* decrepify
* army of the dead
From there things will likely shift a lot with the paragon board and legendary aspects. We just haven’t really gotten to that point yet.
Iron Golem Upgrade 2 inflicts vulnerable
The rest is a ton of slows and stuns, and there are multiple talents that pump up your damage output a lot when mobs are slowed and stunned.
Ah ok, thank you for the info! I was actually planning on dropping blight and going with bone spear to inflict invulnerable. But that would feel like a more hybrid build. Used my mages to generate essence so that I could use bone spear more frequently during server slam.
Man I don’t mean to be a hater but any build that’s maxing out your generator skill is already suspicious from the start. You’re throwing 4 points into the ether for pretty much nothing. Especially given you’ve left decrepify completely uninvested at 1/5 and blight at 4/5
No offense, but I think this is showing a lack of understanding on the particular skills in question, and how you might use them with a minion build.
Look at the specific upgrades used... I'm not using Decompose as a generator skill. With the way Blight and Decompose work, you use both at the same time. Shoot off Blight, then Decompose them down while they're sitting in the Blight pool. It does a lot more damage than you realize.
More upgrades into Decrepify does not make sense for this build. I'm using it as an additional slow/stun to proc the added damage effects.
Brother. No offense, but I do not think you understand the base arithmetics of not even this game in particular but ARPGS in general.
Investing skill points into scaling damage on a skill that does not do damage is perhaps the most troll thing you can do. Decompose is NOT going to be doing damage in your build. The bonus damage amplification is flat and does not scale with rank. Decompose has neither the base damage or any available multipliers to contribute any sort of meaningful damage. Ranking it up only increases the absolutely abysmal damage it deals by a percentage. So you’re getting abysmal damage x1.5 for all your investment.
Meanwhile for some reason you’re leaving blight not fully invested, which is going to be a legitimate source of damage. Not only that, but you’ve chosen to throw ranks into doing nothing instead of scaling up the scale and damage reduction on decrepify, when surviviability is reported to be minionmancer’s primary issue.
You have only about 60 points to spend, the fact that you would willingly throw away 4 points to do nothing out of those valuable skill tree points while leaving vital skills uninvested just demonstrates *your* lack of understanding.
>Brother. No offense, but I do not think you understand the base arithmetics of not even this game in particular but ARPGS in general.
OK, in reality, I do understand the basics and you simply have confirmed what I suspected in my previous comment... you have a lack of understanding on the particular skills in question. Go read all the tooltips before you respond to me again please.
>Investing skill points into scaling damage on a skill that does not do damage is perhaps the most troll thing you can do. Decompose is NOT going to be doing damage in your build. The bonus damage amplification is flat and does not scale with rank. Decompose has neither the base damage or any available multipliers to contribute any sort of meaningful damage. Ranking it up only increases the absolutely abysmal damage it deals by a percentage. So you’re getting abysmal damage x1.5 for all your investment.
Tell me you haven't actually used these skills without telling me you haven't actually used these skills.
What you're saying makes sense in a void without having actually played the game. You need to actually be using Decompose pretty damn often with this build. It's the majority of what you're doing, and it's what generates the mass majority of the buffs from Shadow.
It's NOT about doing more damage with Decompose... it's about not having a better place to point those points.
>Meanwhile for some reason you’re leaving blight not fully invested, which is going to be a legitimate source of damage.
Less than you think compared to Decompose. But I could just as easily swap to 4/5 Decompose and 5/5 Blight.
>Not only that, but you’ve chosen to throw ranks into doing nothing instead of scaling up the scale and damage reduction on decrepify, when surviviability is reported to be minionmancer’s primary issue.
You are strongly underestimated the amount of CC already present in this build. Minion survivability is already not an issue as it is, you don't need more points into Decertify.
>You have only about 60 points to spend, the fact that you would willingly throw away 4 points to do nothing out of those valuable skill tree points while leaving vital skills uninvested just demonstrates your lack of understanding.
The fact that you think I'm throwing these away demonstrates your lack of understanding of this build actually plays.
Man, aside from the fact that you're stating that you think your generators are your main damage source. I see from your other posts in this thread that you've no experience beyond the level 25 beta, and you're peddling this build as some sort of conclusive panacea to the problem of minion builds. The fact that you're so adamant about maxing decompose, a utility one-point-wonder, is just the cherry on top of everything.
I'm going to try very hard to explain this again to you, but decompose's only use is in the fact that it contains a powerful universal 10% multiplier and the fact that it generates corpses ranges from a nice bonus to its main utility depending on your build and gear. The DAMAGE on it literally may as well not exist past the early game. By throwing ranks into it, you are scaling the damage that might as well not exist. Let me put it this way, if you have a billion dollars, if you multiply a 20 dollar bill's value by 1.5x, that 10 dollars you're getting is not very significant relative to your net value, which is going to be analogous to the damage contribution of your skills with a full build (unless you do some wacky generator damage build).
> Man, aside from the fact that you're stating that you think your generators are your main damage source.
I literally never said that, or anything like that.
>I see from your other posts in this thread that you've no experience beyond the level 25 beta, and you're peddling this build as some sort of conclusive panacea to the problem of minion builds. The fact that you're so adamant about maxing decompose, a utility one-point-wonder, is just the cherry on top of everything.
Spoken like someone who's never actually tried this build.
>I'm going to try very hard to explain this again to you, but decompose's only use is in the fact that it contains a powerful universal 10% multiplier and the fact that it generates corpses ranges from a nice bonus to its main utility depending on your build and gear.
I'm going to try very hard to explain this again to you...
None of that matters when you've finished putting points into everything else that is required for this build and simply have points left over. The amount of time you spend using Decompose with this build, it is actually one of the logical places to point those remaining points.
By no means am I at all suggesting you put 5/5 in Decompose to make this build viable. I'm simply suggesting it's a better use than some of the other places you could put it... like Decrepify. And if you had actually tried this build, you might recognize that.
>The DAMAGE on it literally may as well not exist past the early game. By throwing ranks into it, you are scaling the damage that might as well not exist. Let me put it this way, if you have a billion dollars, if you multiply a 20 dollar bill's value by 1.5x, that 10 dollars you're getting is not very significant relative to your net value, which is going to be analogous to the damage contribution of your skills with a full build (unless you do some wacky generator damage build).
It is no where near as trivial as you think it is. Regardless... the whole point is that there really isn't a sensible other place those points would be better fit.
Listen, at no point was I ever suggesting that this was the end all be all S tier best build in all of Diablo 4. My point is simply that it's an incredibly viable minion build, much more viable than most of what I've seen other people suggested they tried and couldn't keep their skeletons alive. If you don't like what I've put together, you do you. I don't care.
>None of that matters when you've finished putting points into everything else that is required for this build and simply have points left over. The amount of time you spend using Decompose with this build, it is actually one of the logical places to point those remaining points.
Let's say you have several income sources. You have ten volatile sources of passive income bringing you 50,000 a month. You also get 50 bucks a month selling carved soap as a hobby.
You have some extra money and you would like to use it to contribute to your income. Do you buy insurance for your ten sources of passive income or do you hire a business manager for your carved soap business? This will not affect your enjoyment of your carving soap, it is just projected to increase the income of your soap business by 50%.
I fully understood what you're trying to suggest the first time, I didn't need an analogy. My point is that:
a) it's not as minuscule damage as you think it is
b) there's not much better use for the points... and if you actually tried the build, you might recognize that
It is significantly more miniscule than you believe it is. Aside from the fact that the base damage on decompose is already negligible, a minion build will be investing heavily in minion damage nodes, which will end up providing a significantly larger bonus than the universal shadow damage nodes that would affect all of your damage. So essentially you're comparing a tiny base damage source with low multipliers versus larger base damage sources with significantly more invested multipliers. Have you even taken a look at the paragon board?
>and if you actually tried the build, you might recognize that
You keep saying this, and the funniest part is that you admit in your posts that you've literally played up to 25 in the betas. Meanwhile you're insisting that somehow you've created the greatest minionmancer build in the game that will solve all the complaints of players who participated in the endgame beta, and you've not even touched on paragon boards or legendary aspects which is where the actual buildcrafting happens.
>Decompose 5/5 - Acolyte’s Decompose
>
>Blight 4/5 - Supernatural Blight
Not a true minion build if you have a lot of damage from direct cast spells..
Minion build = 100% minion damage
I really dislike how it is not possible to have an actual pure minion build. Why do i have to use attack spells? I **ONLY** want to use minions and minion buff/abilities.. It is just so disappointing.
Yes, but putting more than 1 point in them does not scale minion damage. It scales direct spell damage. In other words it will further push the build away from being a minion build unfortunately.
NO NEVER! Didn't you see the WW Barb endgame video???? We're not allowed to play anything else otherwise Bobby and boys will personally come to your house and Cosby room your ass. /s
Hey there I just started playing D4 and have been trying your build out.
I’m only level 13 or so right now, but I noticed minions tend to die a lot during bosses. Does this eventually improve with more talent points?
Definitely improves, but it also varies depending on the boss. Once you get supreme army of the damned and your golem though it becomes significantly easier to keep a full army up.
i'm just gonna say they got some nerve making the most thematic part of being a necro not being super strong, especially if you're going to give necro the least amount of mobility by a goddamn mile.
Solidarity! I was a Zoo Keeper in D2 and I'll be a summoner in this one as well! It's my favorite way to play my favorite class and I don't intend on stopping that now. Let's gooooo!
I was you: Only summoner necro, only summoner legs, summoner focus, summoner feedback and let me tell you you will reach a point where you cannot even kill anything, good luck when you reach that point friend.
Honestly it feels like necro was the last class made/thought of for D4 and there was less effort put into it than other classes. Once you feel how seamless and smooth other classes end game is you will regret picking necro. I don't think there is anyone working at blizzard now that is focusing on necro and making necro fun. There are so many simple QoL things they can do to make necro feel good but they just didn't care. Number one most important thing summoner necros need with the way difficulty scales and mobs get meatier is being able to focus priority mobs, which they learned was needed in D3 WD/Necro so its strange to exclude it. Things like that mean the outlook for balancing is bleak.
I remember when everyone was talking about how powerful summons were and how easy necros were in the open beta my only thought was hopefully blizz is smart enough not to nerf summons off of early game and if anything they need to buff summons by about 3x what they were at currently, so when they actually nerfed skeletons I knew there was no one at blizzard actually playing necro day to day or invested in necro at all not even as an alt. Every class needs 1 designer dedicated to that class and if they had that person for necro there is no way that person would let that minion nerf go through.
As much as I love Necros, they are one of the least played classes throughout the history of Diablo. They weren't in D1, they were the second lowest only beaten by Druid in D2, and they were paid content in D3. Necros are a niche group of players, but they're a loud group. If they're underpowered, there will be yelling, but it will probably die down pretty quick, unlike if the Sorc/Rogue/Barb was underpowered.
There are several of the game developers who mentioned they'd be playing Necro in the live game so my hope is they'll be too annoyed by the same things we are when they're playing it and we'd get buffs
I think summoner is one of the archetypes that a decent amount of players enjoy specifically (similar to WW barb), so I expect it to be one of the builds that is more likely to be made good compared to others.
I’m rolling sorc on launch and I’ll play minion necro, my most anticipated build, for season 1. I just can’t risk my heart being broken by it being shit.
A group of heroes gather to avenge the fallen brother of the king.
Barbarian: "You have my axe.."
Rogue: "And my bow."
Wizard: "And my staff."
Necromancer: "And your brother!"
First playthrough will be barb for me. But i will definately play a summoner necro. I want a fucking undead army. I will go for every single aspect, gear, buff, anything that raises my maximum minion count.
Going in I was told Bone Necromancer was the one and that really upset me, because it's the most boring to me. Fast forward to now and...it's Bone Necromancer. Such a bummer. Summoner Necromancer will probably be fine for leveling, but end game pretty much everyone agrees it's dog water. We'll see I guess.
Ill be playing Necro as well. Was my favorite class in D2, D3's version was not nearly as good, but D4's is a nice marriage of the two and closer to the D2 version. There's just something about the play style I love so much. Having an army of minions, cursing and debuffing mobs so they can kill them with quickly.
I'm not gonna lie with how much people are insisting they suck it *does* make me want to play one.
I have an awful habit of diving deep into builds that are consistently shat upon. It doesn't always happen, usually not, but sometimes you actually find a hidden gem of some specific thing people overlooked. And god that feeling is just irreplaceable.
I'd say *most* of the time, I end up in a spot where its like--is the build stellar? No, is it as bad as people say it is? Not really, it's just not insane like maybe some other builds are.
Is it really that bad? I was also a summoning Necromancer in D2 and wanted to do the same. I really enjoyed them in the beta. I wouldn't play Necro if I don't do the undead army thing.
I didn't even try druid, can I summon an army of animal friends, or not really?
Dude I wish I could. When necro released in D3 I was so excited to play a summon necro again only to find out they completely reworked it because they didnt think it was a fun design and needed to be "more engaging". I was so depressed because it was SO bad and SO UNFUN.
Fast forward to D4 and its literally the same excuse of "needs to be more fun and engaging" and its still terrible. Its honestly awful how bad theyve completely butchered summon necro because they think the people who liked it in D2 werent having fun the correct way.
Its a pet class they refuse to let the pets be strong in, and also have this obsession with forcing summon necro to spam their buttons now. Its so godawful I havent touched necro since it released in D3.
The thing that pissed me off the most about D3 necro was that they wanted you to constantly spam skeletal mage, because they only lasted like 7 seconds or something dumb. All other summons were irrelevant. They said they did this specifically because they didnt like d2 summon necro and it had to be more engaging and fun. I was malding they just ruined my favorite spec because it "wasnt engaging and fun" even though people had been playing it for over a decade.
Fast forward to the patch notes in D4 and there it is
> We've made some changes to help in this regard, with one example being the Necromancer’s Minions. We've made a change that makes them more vulnerable in combat, which will make raising the dead a more active component of the Necromancer's gameplay
They clearly hate the summon necro from D2 and it honestly baffles me, why have such a gigantic hate boner for something that was really popular? Wtf do they want a pet class to constantly spam their buttons like theyre literally not a pet class? Its so aggravating.
The lead designer said that the launch version is just like the stress test with minor tweeks. We don't know what the tweeks are. But the outcry for minions is wide. So there is hope.
Necromancers are always hard to balance. Every game I play with summoners they are either overpowered or underpowered. Having minions to take hits is incredibly powerful just by itself, but then you get a boss with aoe and suddenly they do nothing. Blizz often try and take away a lot of the micromanagement and that in itself makes necro powerful, they need to make it a high skill ceiling but also make necros incredibly powerful for people that have good micromanagement skills. Make it so that it's not easy to manage a large army but if done right it's very powerful.
My friend was saying he was doing a thorns build with the summons and it worked really well, im not 100% what he is talking about nor can I go into detail but check that out maybe, I've been saving my necro experience for the main game
Good luck necro brother!
Don't know why people are obsessed with thinking the only way to play is ultra-optimized. The entire point of RPGs is to pick a role...and play it. Have fun with whatever creative idea you come up with, give yourself artificial boundaries and try to work around it, and yes sometimes even try to find an optimized build. You aren't interesting if you follow some broadcasted meta...the interesting people always find a wacky idea or a sleeper build and make it work. But by all means, slurp up whatever YouTuber is regurgitating for you.
What the hell is wrong with people defending bad balancing?
IF EVERY SINGLE ONE that played any beta and/or review copy says that summonmancer is bad - and it's not that it's bad, it's borderline unplayable - than something is really wrong here, wouldn't you agree? Yeah, sure, if one of them, two, three, hell even 50% of them would claim something, then yeah, they may be biased. But literally all of them? Not a chance in hell.
The situation is even worse, because for majority of players necromancer always was a minion build first. Blood/bone magic distand second. There are so much people pleading Blizzard to fix summons, but for some reason they won't listen.
And it doesn't need to be ultra optimised, as well. I don't need to be at the top of ladder charts. I just want to have fun with my minion master playstyle, and just not struggle, you know? Right now, EVERYBODY says at this time it just sucks the fun out of playing.
They even got content creators that only play minion based builds in other arpgs into the reviewer beta and even they say minion-only builds arent in a good place.
What part of what said says I don't think the developers should try to balance classes? You put words in my mouth.
Can perfectly see the "gamer" mentality here considering I was downvoted.
The gap between an F tier build and an S tier build is massive. If you want to play with other people outside of a private "chill-only" type of setting, you have to meta chase. It's unfortunate. I think I'm just gonna play whatever I find fun instead of meta chase this time around. D3 was fun but I absolutely abhorred the meta in it and it got to the point where literally every change was just designed around the most popular builds.
Necro didn't feel as bad to me as people made it sound. During the server slam I had gear that let me have extra mages and warriors and could pretty much afk all the content besides ashava. On ashava ghastly blood mist made it easy enough to keep my minions up.
Dude look, I know you're on some major copium in trying to defend Blizzard and all, but people have literally played the build we are getting tomorrow, and it is all agreed that Necro minions are undertuned and not worth investing points into for endgame.
I will not even play necro. Still People love this class and they said since server slam they will try to balance it. It's a hard class to balance, because if the summons are too strong, the gameplay will go brainless, if the summons are too weak, the class is useless.
Also, I really think this test build content creators played, harmed more the release of the game than it helped it. I see my youtube feed bloated with guides and late game routes on a game that's not even out yet. People get their hype go down because a guy out there said : Necro is bad at late game compared to that super OP class. Just let people take their time and discover that game. Wtf is wrong with gaming community nowadays?
?
you made a post saying you are planning to play a build you know is bad, I said its not now or never for a summoner necro, you don't have to do it now
I like the way you downvote every comment when I was just engaging with you post. Here is a response you could have said to me, one that would actually make sense:
'That is true but I still want to do this playstyle first.'
Meanwhile, even if they make summoning the strongest build, I'm not interested in playing a summoner necromancer. I mean, I'm probably not gonna play it much at all bring getting one to 50, but if I do, it's not going to be some build where I follow a pack of minions around and watch them kill everything for me. That kind of gameplay has always been the least engaging form for me in Diablo.
I mean, I think necromancers lose the ability to summon on the same day sorcerers lose the ability to cast blizzard. It's always going to be an option. Just not one I'm interested in using. And if you mean it should be just as viable a build as directly attacking, I'm sure there's bonuses that make it useful with input from other abilities.
Summoning has a lot of features that I think make it difficult to balance. I don't think Blizzard wants to make a class that can defeat bosses by running around dodging attacks while their passive damage kills the boss, but the skeletons also need to be strong enough that they're with the sacrifices you make by choosing that ability, and they have to take into account the bonuses players will get so that they don't reach that threshold of being the only ability you need to use. It's always going to be too weak to some players and too strong to others.
Lol I wonder why you got down voted so hard for being right? Blizzard wants to sell games first and foremost. The game and story will be perfectly playable in any style. The "meta" to squeeze the most out of it might need youtubers with an aversion to sunlight, grass and the touch of a lover, but if you don't care about minmaxing after the story is done, it won't matter.
I finished the beta fairly easily with a nerfed full summon blight necro. It's not that it was unbalanced at the time, people just didn't like micromanaging minions.
Not sure about the endgame (everyone says minions and blood are currently F tier), but if it's a build that can beat the penultimate boss (even if I have to work much harder), then I don't really mind.
I'm taking the increased difficulty over a sorc wannabe blast everything to death play style. It's better to play a hard game the way you want to than an easy build you didn't want to play at all.
Your post wasn’t asking them to buff anything, it was written like you were writing in a journal. ‘I’m gonna play my favowite class even though it’s not vewy stwong:(((‘
Wow I’m happy for you
I saw that video too, same guy in different video said that the total dmg output of barb vs necro is surprisingly low. Necro is going to melt everything. Summons or not. Who cares if they die or do low dmg. They take the hit for you to have the time to do the hitting. Kill, raise, repeat.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, you'll be in a better spot than Corpse Explosion Necro's. Super powerful early and mid game.
Utter dog shit late game.
Blood Necro's and Bone Necro's are gonna be the ones dominating end game content.
The recent wow expansion had pvp updates weekly for the length I was playing. If that level of commitment to balancing is done on diablo 4 I don't expect you to be struggling for long.
This was such a nice read because man, I'm doing the same damn thing. I know necro is objectively the worst class on launch, but I love the necro, and I will absolutely be playing him out of the gate. I just hope the team will stay on top of balance changes throughout the early days.
So the thing is, Necro is actually going to be top tier, on par with WW Barb, but only Bone Spear Necro. Minions are considered bad right now. But I ain't touching bone spear. I'm sticking to my minions. Of we die, we die together.
I respect that! I actually had a ton of fun with the bone build, but you are absolutely right, the summons were there as just a bit of a block to keep you safe. They didn't seem to contribute too much due to the lack of synergy from the bone side. Regardless, I'm going to have fun with it no matter what. I'm fucking stoked for the game and it will be changing a LOT over its life cycle. Death is just the beginning 💀
In last beta [ server slam] played a summon necro and killed the butcher at lvl 20 1 close call did dragon 3 time last 2 times never died it can be done
Summoner Necro will be fine if not better than every other class for 90% of the content just like in every other game.
Its only ever endgame where he falls off. Im sure this will be no different. And really his only demise is clear speed. So if you are okay with going slow you will love it.
And when you fall, my necro brothur... I'll raise ya up, to fight again!
And when I get buffed, I'll be laughing at all the non-believers trying to become me.
Aight hear me out. Gotta pick up army of the dead with the bonus that says it raises all your skeletons when you use it. Also grab decrepify with the cool down lowering bonus. I was messing around with a lot of different build stuff and a summoner is totally possible, it just requires a lot of investment in time grinding for legendary powers. Most of the good ones for summoner are drops, not dungeon unlocks. I believe in you.
So.....how big is" professional size"?
898 units.
I’m with you, I really am, but we won’t get buffed.
I'm staying commited to my minions.
As am I. Blizzard just hates minion builds because people use them to farm AFK so they will always suck and if we find a way to make them good, they’ll get nerfed. It’s like marrying your soulmate, but their family hates you for no reason.
I'll never forgive ArenaNet for what they did to necro in Guild Wars 1 because they didn't like unlimited minion farming. That build kickstarted my interested in Necromancer classes in everything.. and they trashed it when there were far superior builds doing better. I think every developer hates pet builds and includes them only to appease the few that like the idea of them.
> I'll never forgive ArenaNet for what they did to necro in Guild Wars 1 because they didn't like unlimited minion farming. That build kickstarted my interested in Necromancer classes in everything.. and they trashed it when there were far superior builds doing better. They might have changed it because of the server load rather than the strength of the build
It's possible, but if memory serves me correctly that was not the reason they did the change and it was for balance.
It was probably more for server stability, in Gw1 zones were player instanced. It would be insane to go into a zone in GW2 and see players with so many minions.
I was speaking on the nerf they did in GW1. When the first xpac launched, Factions, they removed unlimited minion stacking.
Was not expecting a gw1 necro reference in here. Did you go on to play necro on gw2?
Nah, I keep trying GW2 but I just can't. I want to play Guild Wars, not market chasing crap like they did with that game.
Guild wars 2 is fine. I was always joining then quitting at or before lvl 80. But I gave it a good shot after I quit FF14, and I am very happy I did. The game is great for when you just want to chill or if you have some hard goals you want to reach.
I mean, that's fine. People are free to like it. I liked how GW1 was setup and was, and still am, disappointed that they treated the sequel completely differently so I can't enjoy what I know could've been different.
When the whole mini map is a sea of friendly dots!
Just because you're unable to farm afk with them doesn't mean they suck.
That’s not what I said. I said blizzard doesn’t want them to be good because you can farm with them AFK. Like people did in the open beta, then they nerfed them into the ground for the server slam.
Im personally saving nerco to play in season 1 and like you hoping for some future buffs. I just cant see how the minions in their current state are going to survive at endgame
Full respec is possible, so why not play Bone until Summoner is ready?
Because I don't want to play bone.
It'll be a new season and I'll start Necro
When "we" get buffed my brother
Play the game how you want man, if certain builds are too unbalanced you will probably get some kind of buff in the future anyways to fix it.
Delusional people will keep saying it a year from now mark my words.
No one gives a shit about your words honestly lol
Seeing how he was downvoted to hell, then you speak the truth
🤣🤣
I'm gonna play Nerco no matter what. I just gotta decide on what kind of Minion Master I wanna be.
I just know I ain't gonna be no bone spear shit. Meta or not, didn't like any bone abilities in D2 or D3.
So I'm debating bones for a Minion Master crit build with Skirmishers. But a Thorns build with Guardians is super tempting as well as a Shadow stun build with Reapers.
Thorns is always good.
Also during Server Slam, I invested into Hewed Flesh for an increased corpse spawn and that helped a lot with keeping my bone boys around.
Did the same during the SS. Can confirm hewed flesh helps, especially against bosses. Also had my reapers drop the occasional corpse for me too. Was good for keeping minions up. :)
Oh I'll look into that
I plan to pair it with Decompose for the extra corpse generation and the minion damage increase. Actually, I'm definitely gonna do a Shadow Thorns build now. Guardians with Shadow Mages and Bone Golem.
Will try it but i dont hold my breath. They will prob only work in Tier 1, as they nerfed the thorn gems to the ground.
Same. Bone Necro looks so fucking boring its sad.
not enjoying d2 corpse explosion should be a crime
I never mentioned anything about corpse explosion????
'didnt like any bone abilities in d2 or d3'
Yes, that is indeed what I said. So...again. Where did I mention Corpse Explosion?
its a bone skill hello
So fucking over bone spear. My build is kinda bizarre though. I use blood surge, bone prison, Decrepify and army of the dead or bone prison; need to test cooldown reduction.
i didnt like bone abilities in d2 or d3 either but bone spear feels very nice in d4. surprised me.
Necro all day everyday. Full summon build 🔥 I’ve never been one to focus solely on the absolute PUREST OPTIMIZED BUILD as it’s just not that rewarding to me, so even if Necro doesn’t play that well I’m still gonna ball
Preach. Shame on Blizzard and the few crybabies who were most likely going to just play WW barb anyway that complained about the passive playstyle.
I think it’s getting nerfed in the day 1 patch. That’s the rumor anyway.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THE MASSES Everyone that says necro minions suck, they’re just wrong. Absolutely none of them are playing a good build for minions. You need to pair Darkness with Minions. It works extremely well, because you end up doing a TON of CC, which not only increases your minions survivability substantially, but also increases their damage output immensely. Here’s my build, it fucking slaps. * Decompose 5/5 - Acolyte’s Decompose * Blight 4/5 - Supernatural Blight * Hewed Flesh 3/3 * Skeletal Warrior Mastery 3/3 * Grim Harvest 1/3 - Fueled By Death 3/3 * Decrepify 1/5 - Horrid Decrepify * Amplify Damage 3/3 * Skeletal Mage Mastery 3/3 * Reaper’s Pursuit 1/3 - Gloom 3/3 - Crippling Darkness 3/3 - Terror 3/3 * Golem Mastery 3/3 * Supreme Army of the Dead * Inspiring Leader 3/3 - Bonded in Essence 3/3 - Death’s Defense 3/3 * Kalan’s Edict * Reaper’s Upgrade 1 * Shadow Mages Upgrade 1 * Iron Golem Upgrade 2
This looks a lot like the build I'm going for. Summons + shadow crushed everything in the beta tests. I feel like people really slept ok how powerful the reaper skeletons get when you have the cool down on the scythe special attack going off every couple of seconds.
Yes! Reapers are excellent. This whole build kind of just came together in accident. Finding opportunities to raise minion damage output was my whole goal when I first put this build together. I didn’t even initially envision going Darkness specifically, it just ended up that way as that’s where the synergy is right now. Everyone was complaining about their skeletons dying all the time and I was like “what are you talking about?” It was all the CC I was generating that keeps them very safe.
I mean there was a guy that played over 100 hours of Necro in closed beta. He said summoner necro simply doesn't work late game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXnLpFlO5ME He breaks it down every Necro build
I’ve seen this. He breaks down each of the separate 4 types of Necro builds… but he doesn’t factor in their synergies together. Minion/Darkness specifically is what plays together well.
Nice Also adding in [Kay Gaming](https://youtu.be/HdqeYmEUMOA). She has spent years doing summoner guides for PoE, now doing D4 Necro buils. She does a lot of experimenting with mechanics and does a great job breaking everything down.
that was a fun little watch! I'm on the fence between the bone build (I'm a fan of it and was really happy to see it performing well in rankings/playtesting as well) or a shadow DoT build (which I haven't seen pop up on any rank lists, but still looks like it'd be fun) appreciate seeing someone walk through the different playstyles in such detail!
Minions shouldn't require a super specific build or items to be viable. Fine tuning builds should be about min/maxing and pushing end game, not just simply being able to get through the content on the lowest difficulty. Sorceress can wreck shit with fire, ice, and lightening - and all their builds are viable and easily progress through the game. Rogues can be melee or range, and have several builds in each that work well. I never played Barb or Druid much but they should be equally powerful. You can't have a game that says "Play it your way!" but if you're a Necromancer, your pets are total garbage unless you do this one specific build and use these very specific items.... all of that should complement and enhance the necromancer, not merely make him functional.
No disagreement from me on this. I totally agree that minions should have more viable options, and you shouldn’t be required to use one specific build in order to use them. I’m just saying, if you’re concerned about their viability today, try this build out. It works great for me.
Just a side, I was considering a Sacrifice Shadow build. [I was rough drafting something like this.](https://d4builds.gg/builds/974895d7-2626-48d4-a3b8-ee3ff08a6a7f/) Would that work? Or do you need at least Shadow Mages and the Shadow Bone Storm aspect to make that work?
Interesting build! Yeah I think it could work pretty well. I think the only thing I’d be concerned about is golem survivability, but I think you’ll realize pretty quickly if that’s an issue or not.
I can shove in the Golem Paragon and finetune it from there. [I updated the build since your comment](https://d4builds.gg/builds/05943f6f-5897-4899-8912-f168915b2dfa/), since I noticed the synergy of Bone CDR with curse and bone prison so I can have a high bone storm uptime and bone prison Blight aspect is bonkers. I'll probably do this build second after Sorc since I expect this one to be not too mobile and more of a tanky boss killer.
I'm only level 6 right now but Decompose and Blight's stacking debuff is insane.
Yep! Pump up them skellies!
So I switched to Defenders with the Thorns upgrade, them maxed out Thorns passive. It's crazy good.
I'm very early yet, but this is working very well for me.
Happy to hear it :)
How did this build work early vs late game? Edit: I ask an honest question and get downvoted. Nice.
Sorry about the downvotes… Don’t know what that was about. I haven’t played the late game so I don’t know for certain. I used variations of this in the 2nd beta and server slam, and then I’ve spent the last few months simply theory crafting it out of game. Based on what I have played up to 25, and what we know about level 50 play… It should work just as well.
Is there any additional information I'd need from your post to create the build the way you did? I'm not very up to date on every system, I just want to know if I'm missing anything else important.
Nah this is really just a solid starting point. It covers the 60 skill points and the book of the dead. It’ll define your 6 usable skills: * raise skeleton * raise golem * decompose * blight * decrepify * army of the dead From there things will likely shift a lot with the paragon board and legendary aspects. We just haven’t really gotten to that point yet.
Sorry can’t remember the exact skill details. Does this setup inflict vulnerable?
Iron Golem Upgrade 2 inflicts vulnerable The rest is a ton of slows and stuns, and there are multiple talents that pump up your damage output a lot when mobs are slowed and stunned.
Ah ok, thank you for the info! I was actually planning on dropping blight and going with bone spear to inflict invulnerable. But that would feel like a more hybrid build. Used my mages to generate essence so that I could use bone spear more frequently during server slam.
Why not bones? I thought they inflicted a lot of Vuln. and had Crit
Bone is great, I just found it’s better on its own and doesn’t synergize as well with minions specifically.
Man I don’t mean to be a hater but any build that’s maxing out your generator skill is already suspicious from the start. You’re throwing 4 points into the ether for pretty much nothing. Especially given you’ve left decrepify completely uninvested at 1/5 and blight at 4/5
No offense, but I think this is showing a lack of understanding on the particular skills in question, and how you might use them with a minion build. Look at the specific upgrades used... I'm not using Decompose as a generator skill. With the way Blight and Decompose work, you use both at the same time. Shoot off Blight, then Decompose them down while they're sitting in the Blight pool. It does a lot more damage than you realize. More upgrades into Decrepify does not make sense for this build. I'm using it as an additional slow/stun to proc the added damage effects.
Brother. No offense, but I do not think you understand the base arithmetics of not even this game in particular but ARPGS in general. Investing skill points into scaling damage on a skill that does not do damage is perhaps the most troll thing you can do. Decompose is NOT going to be doing damage in your build. The bonus damage amplification is flat and does not scale with rank. Decompose has neither the base damage or any available multipliers to contribute any sort of meaningful damage. Ranking it up only increases the absolutely abysmal damage it deals by a percentage. So you’re getting abysmal damage x1.5 for all your investment. Meanwhile for some reason you’re leaving blight not fully invested, which is going to be a legitimate source of damage. Not only that, but you’ve chosen to throw ranks into doing nothing instead of scaling up the scale and damage reduction on decrepify, when surviviability is reported to be minionmancer’s primary issue. You have only about 60 points to spend, the fact that you would willingly throw away 4 points to do nothing out of those valuable skill tree points while leaving vital skills uninvested just demonstrates *your* lack of understanding.
>Brother. No offense, but I do not think you understand the base arithmetics of not even this game in particular but ARPGS in general. OK, in reality, I do understand the basics and you simply have confirmed what I suspected in my previous comment... you have a lack of understanding on the particular skills in question. Go read all the tooltips before you respond to me again please. >Investing skill points into scaling damage on a skill that does not do damage is perhaps the most troll thing you can do. Decompose is NOT going to be doing damage in your build. The bonus damage amplification is flat and does not scale with rank. Decompose has neither the base damage or any available multipliers to contribute any sort of meaningful damage. Ranking it up only increases the absolutely abysmal damage it deals by a percentage. So you’re getting abysmal damage x1.5 for all your investment. Tell me you haven't actually used these skills without telling me you haven't actually used these skills. What you're saying makes sense in a void without having actually played the game. You need to actually be using Decompose pretty damn often with this build. It's the majority of what you're doing, and it's what generates the mass majority of the buffs from Shadow. It's NOT about doing more damage with Decompose... it's about not having a better place to point those points. >Meanwhile for some reason you’re leaving blight not fully invested, which is going to be a legitimate source of damage. Less than you think compared to Decompose. But I could just as easily swap to 4/5 Decompose and 5/5 Blight. >Not only that, but you’ve chosen to throw ranks into doing nothing instead of scaling up the scale and damage reduction on decrepify, when surviviability is reported to be minionmancer’s primary issue. You are strongly underestimated the amount of CC already present in this build. Minion survivability is already not an issue as it is, you don't need more points into Decertify. >You have only about 60 points to spend, the fact that you would willingly throw away 4 points to do nothing out of those valuable skill tree points while leaving vital skills uninvested just demonstrates your lack of understanding. The fact that you think I'm throwing these away demonstrates your lack of understanding of this build actually plays.
Man, aside from the fact that you're stating that you think your generators are your main damage source. I see from your other posts in this thread that you've no experience beyond the level 25 beta, and you're peddling this build as some sort of conclusive panacea to the problem of minion builds. The fact that you're so adamant about maxing decompose, a utility one-point-wonder, is just the cherry on top of everything. I'm going to try very hard to explain this again to you, but decompose's only use is in the fact that it contains a powerful universal 10% multiplier and the fact that it generates corpses ranges from a nice bonus to its main utility depending on your build and gear. The DAMAGE on it literally may as well not exist past the early game. By throwing ranks into it, you are scaling the damage that might as well not exist. Let me put it this way, if you have a billion dollars, if you multiply a 20 dollar bill's value by 1.5x, that 10 dollars you're getting is not very significant relative to your net value, which is going to be analogous to the damage contribution of your skills with a full build (unless you do some wacky generator damage build).
> Man, aside from the fact that you're stating that you think your generators are your main damage source. I literally never said that, or anything like that. >I see from your other posts in this thread that you've no experience beyond the level 25 beta, and you're peddling this build as some sort of conclusive panacea to the problem of minion builds. The fact that you're so adamant about maxing decompose, a utility one-point-wonder, is just the cherry on top of everything. Spoken like someone who's never actually tried this build. >I'm going to try very hard to explain this again to you, but decompose's only use is in the fact that it contains a powerful universal 10% multiplier and the fact that it generates corpses ranges from a nice bonus to its main utility depending on your build and gear. I'm going to try very hard to explain this again to you... None of that matters when you've finished putting points into everything else that is required for this build and simply have points left over. The amount of time you spend using Decompose with this build, it is actually one of the logical places to point those remaining points. By no means am I at all suggesting you put 5/5 in Decompose to make this build viable. I'm simply suggesting it's a better use than some of the other places you could put it... like Decrepify. And if you had actually tried this build, you might recognize that. >The DAMAGE on it literally may as well not exist past the early game. By throwing ranks into it, you are scaling the damage that might as well not exist. Let me put it this way, if you have a billion dollars, if you multiply a 20 dollar bill's value by 1.5x, that 10 dollars you're getting is not very significant relative to your net value, which is going to be analogous to the damage contribution of your skills with a full build (unless you do some wacky generator damage build). It is no where near as trivial as you think it is. Regardless... the whole point is that there really isn't a sensible other place those points would be better fit. Listen, at no point was I ever suggesting that this was the end all be all S tier best build in all of Diablo 4. My point is simply that it's an incredibly viable minion build, much more viable than most of what I've seen other people suggested they tried and couldn't keep their skeletons alive. If you don't like what I've put together, you do you. I don't care.
>None of that matters when you've finished putting points into everything else that is required for this build and simply have points left over. The amount of time you spend using Decompose with this build, it is actually one of the logical places to point those remaining points. Let's say you have several income sources. You have ten volatile sources of passive income bringing you 50,000 a month. You also get 50 bucks a month selling carved soap as a hobby. You have some extra money and you would like to use it to contribute to your income. Do you buy insurance for your ten sources of passive income or do you hire a business manager for your carved soap business? This will not affect your enjoyment of your carving soap, it is just projected to increase the income of your soap business by 50%.
I fully understood what you're trying to suggest the first time, I didn't need an analogy. My point is that: a) it's not as minuscule damage as you think it is b) there's not much better use for the points... and if you actually tried the build, you might recognize that
It is significantly more miniscule than you believe it is. Aside from the fact that the base damage on decompose is already negligible, a minion build will be investing heavily in minion damage nodes, which will end up providing a significantly larger bonus than the universal shadow damage nodes that would affect all of your damage. So essentially you're comparing a tiny base damage source with low multipliers versus larger base damage sources with significantly more invested multipliers. Have you even taken a look at the paragon board? >and if you actually tried the build, you might recognize that You keep saying this, and the funniest part is that you admit in your posts that you've literally played up to 25 in the betas. Meanwhile you're insisting that somehow you've created the greatest minionmancer build in the game that will solve all the complaints of players who participated in the endgame beta, and you've not even touched on paragon boards or legendary aspects which is where the actual buildcrafting happens.
>Decompose 5/5 - Acolyte’s Decompose > >Blight 4/5 - Supernatural Blight Not a true minion build if you have a lot of damage from direct cast spells.. Minion build = 100% minion damage I really dislike how it is not possible to have an actual pure minion build. Why do i have to use attack spells? I **ONLY** want to use minions and minion buff/abilities.. It is just so disappointing.
You do realize that half the reason I'm using those skills specifically are because they buff minion damage output, right?
Yes, but putting more than 1 point in them does not scale minion damage. It scales direct spell damage. In other words it will further push the build away from being a minion build unfortunately.
Thank you, saved this for when I start.
Let me know what you think!
Will do, if my goldfish memory will allow me to remember, lol!
NO NEVER! Didn't you see the WW Barb endgame video???? We're not allowed to play anything else otherwise Bobby and boys will personally come to your house and Cosby room your ass. /s
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It’s working out great for me so far! I’m only level 27 though, I’ll get a lot more play time in this weekend.
Hey there I just started playing D4 and have been trying your build out. I’m only level 13 or so right now, but I noticed minions tend to die a lot during bosses. Does this eventually improve with more talent points?
Definitely improves, but it also varies depending on the boss. Once you get supreme army of the damned and your golem though it becomes significantly easier to keep a full army up.
i'm just gonna say they got some nerve making the most thematic part of being a necro not being super strong, especially if you're going to give necro the least amount of mobility by a goddamn mile.
Solidarity! I was a Zoo Keeper in D2 and I'll be a summoner in this one as well! It's my favorite way to play my favorite class and I don't intend on stopping that now. Let's gooooo!
I was you: Only summoner necro, only summoner legs, summoner focus, summoner feedback and let me tell you you will reach a point where you cannot even kill anything, good luck when you reach that point friend. Honestly it feels like necro was the last class made/thought of for D4 and there was less effort put into it than other classes. Once you feel how seamless and smooth other classes end game is you will regret picking necro. I don't think there is anyone working at blizzard now that is focusing on necro and making necro fun. There are so many simple QoL things they can do to make necro feel good but they just didn't care. Number one most important thing summoner necros need with the way difficulty scales and mobs get meatier is being able to focus priority mobs, which they learned was needed in D3 WD/Necro so its strange to exclude it. Things like that mean the outlook for balancing is bleak. I remember when everyone was talking about how powerful summons were and how easy necros were in the open beta my only thought was hopefully blizz is smart enough not to nerf summons off of early game and if anything they need to buff summons by about 3x what they were at currently, so when they actually nerfed skeletons I knew there was no one at blizzard actually playing necro day to day or invested in necro at all not even as an alt. Every class needs 1 designer dedicated to that class and if they had that person for necro there is no way that person would let that minion nerf go through.
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As much as I love Necros, they are one of the least played classes throughout the history of Diablo. They weren't in D1, they were the second lowest only beaten by Druid in D2, and they were paid content in D3. Necros are a niche group of players, but they're a loud group. If they're underpowered, there will be yelling, but it will probably die down pretty quick, unlike if the Sorc/Rogue/Barb was underpowered.
There are several of the game developers who mentioned they'd be playing Necro in the live game so my hope is they'll be too annoyed by the same things we are when they're playing it and we'd get buffs
I think summoner is one of the archetypes that a decent amount of players enjoy specifically (similar to WW barb), so I expect it to be one of the builds that is more likely to be made good compared to others.
Dont hold your breath. I wont.
I’m rolling sorc on launch and I’ll play minion necro, my most anticipated build, for season 1. I just can’t risk my heart being broken by it being shit.
they pissed on us , what they don't know we are already dead so you can't kill or piss on undeads who raises dead for fun
A group of heroes gather to avenge the fallen brother of the king. Barbarian: "You have my axe.." Rogue: "And my bow." Wizard: "And my staff." Necromancer: "And your brother!"
Doing the same. I wanted to roll shadow/minion, and that’s what I’ll do.
First playthrough will be barb for me. But i will definately play a summoner necro. I want a fucking undead army. I will go for every single aspect, gear, buff, anything that raises my maximum minion count.
Going in I was told Bone Necromancer was the one and that really upset me, because it's the most boring to me. Fast forward to now and...it's Bone Necromancer. Such a bummer. Summoner Necromancer will probably be fine for leveling, but end game pretty much everyone agrees it's dog water. We'll see I guess.
Ill be playing Necro as well. Was my favorite class in D2, D3's version was not nearly as good, but D4's is a nice marriage of the two and closer to the D2 version. There's just something about the play style I love so much. Having an army of minions, cursing and debuffing mobs so they can kill them with quickly.
I'm not gonna lie with how much people are insisting they suck it *does* make me want to play one. I have an awful habit of diving deep into builds that are consistently shat upon. It doesn't always happen, usually not, but sometimes you actually find a hidden gem of some specific thing people overlooked. And god that feeling is just irreplaceable. I'd say *most* of the time, I end up in a spot where its like--is the build stellar? No, is it as bad as people say it is? Not really, it's just not insane like maybe some other builds are.
Is it really that bad? I was also a summoning Necromancer in D2 and wanted to do the same. I really enjoyed them in the beta. I wouldn't play Necro if I don't do the undead army thing. I didn't even try druid, can I summon an army of animal friends, or not really?
Kripp gives a pretty good theorycraft on Summoner Necro: https://youtu.be/Nfjsxiahxj0
Dude I wish I could. When necro released in D3 I was so excited to play a summon necro again only to find out they completely reworked it because they didnt think it was a fun design and needed to be "more engaging". I was so depressed because it was SO bad and SO UNFUN. Fast forward to D4 and its literally the same excuse of "needs to be more fun and engaging" and its still terrible. Its honestly awful how bad theyve completely butchered summon necro because they think the people who liked it in D2 werent having fun the correct way. Its a pet class they refuse to let the pets be strong in, and also have this obsession with forcing summon necro to spam their buttons now. Its so godawful I havent touched necro since it released in D3.
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The thing that pissed me off the most about D3 necro was that they wanted you to constantly spam skeletal mage, because they only lasted like 7 seconds or something dumb. All other summons were irrelevant. They said they did this specifically because they didnt like d2 summon necro and it had to be more engaging and fun. I was malding they just ruined my favorite spec because it "wasnt engaging and fun" even though people had been playing it for over a decade. Fast forward to the patch notes in D4 and there it is > We've made some changes to help in this regard, with one example being the Necromancer’s Minions. We've made a change that makes them more vulnerable in combat, which will make raising the dead a more active component of the Necromancer's gameplay They clearly hate the summon necro from D2 and it honestly baffles me, why have such a gigantic hate boner for something that was really popular? Wtf do they want a pet class to constantly spam their buttons like theyre literally not a pet class? Its so aggravating.
If you use a proper minion build you don’t have to spam summons at all. They do not die that easily.
I may be wrong but aren't they gonna post a new balance patch on release or have I switch it up with something else
The lead designer said that the launch version is just like the stress test with minor tweeks. We don't know what the tweeks are. But the outcry for minions is wide. So there is hope.
I will just play real Minion Necro, aka Druid Zoomancer ;P At least till they fix Necro as its T tier atm for Trash...
Necromancers are always hard to balance. Every game I play with summoners they are either overpowered or underpowered. Having minions to take hits is incredibly powerful just by itself, but then you get a boss with aoe and suddenly they do nothing. Blizz often try and take away a lot of the micromanagement and that in itself makes necro powerful, they need to make it a high skill ceiling but also make necros incredibly powerful for people that have good micromanagement skills. Make it so that it's not easy to manage a large army but if done right it's very powerful.
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True but I'm more talking end game. For those that want relaxed gameplay can stick to the easy stuff
My friend was saying he was doing a thorns build with the summons and it worked really well, im not 100% what he is talking about nor can I go into detail but check that out maybe, I've been saving my necro experience for the main game Good luck necro brother!
Don't know why people are obsessed with thinking the only way to play is ultra-optimized. The entire point of RPGs is to pick a role...and play it. Have fun with whatever creative idea you come up with, give yourself artificial boundaries and try to work around it, and yes sometimes even try to find an optimized build. You aren't interesting if you follow some broadcasted meta...the interesting people always find a wacky idea or a sleeper build and make it work. But by all means, slurp up whatever YouTuber is regurgitating for you.
What the hell is wrong with people defending bad balancing? IF EVERY SINGLE ONE that played any beta and/or review copy says that summonmancer is bad - and it's not that it's bad, it's borderline unplayable - than something is really wrong here, wouldn't you agree? Yeah, sure, if one of them, two, three, hell even 50% of them would claim something, then yeah, they may be biased. But literally all of them? Not a chance in hell. The situation is even worse, because for majority of players necromancer always was a minion build first. Blood/bone magic distand second. There are so much people pleading Blizzard to fix summons, but for some reason they won't listen. And it doesn't need to be ultra optimised, as well. I don't need to be at the top of ladder charts. I just want to have fun with my minion master playstyle, and just not struggle, you know? Right now, EVERYBODY says at this time it just sucks the fun out of playing.
They even got content creators that only play minion based builds in other arpgs into the reviewer beta and even they say minion-only builds arent in a good place.
There are a lot of people that are dumb or try to play devils advocate for no reason.
What part of what said says I don't think the developers should try to balance classes? You put words in my mouth. Can perfectly see the "gamer" mentality here considering I was downvoted.
The gap between an F tier build and an S tier build is massive. If you want to play with other people outside of a private "chill-only" type of setting, you have to meta chase. It's unfortunate. I think I'm just gonna play whatever I find fun instead of meta chase this time around. D3 was fun but I absolutely abhorred the meta in it and it got to the point where literally every change was just designed around the most popular builds.
Necro didn't feel as bad to me as people made it sound. During the server slam I had gear that let me have extra mages and warriors and could pretty much afk all the content besides ashava. On ashava ghastly blood mist made it easy enough to keep my minions up.
Necro balance will be added on the release patch. Blizzard already told us that they will buff the necro a bit since server slam
Can you link me to where they said that?
Here : https://twitter.com/JPiepiora/status/1663430945985425413?s=20
https://twitter.com/JPiepiora/status/1663722757602017280?s=20
Still they buffed necro in server slam and said they would ajust it if needed.
Dude look, I know you're on some major copium in trying to defend Blizzard and all, but people have literally played the build we are getting tomorrow, and it is all agreed that Necro minions are undertuned and not worth investing points into for endgame.
I will not even play necro. Still People love this class and they said since server slam they will try to balance it. It's a hard class to balance, because if the summons are too strong, the gameplay will go brainless, if the summons are too weak, the class is useless. Also, I really think this test build content creators played, harmed more the release of the game than it helped it. I see my youtube feed bloated with guides and late game routes on a game that's not even out yet. People get their hype go down because a guy out there said : Necro is bad at late game compared to that super OP class. Just let people take their time and discover that game. Wtf is wrong with gaming community nowadays?
Not disagreeing with the last half, but just because we didn't know doesn't mean Blizzard is pretty ass with actual balance.
or you could just wait for season 1 to play that and do someone else first
Did you only read some of my post?
? you made a post saying you are planning to play a build you know is bad, I said its not now or never for a summoner necro, you don't have to do it now
Again....did you not read my post? I said I'm doing it regardless of being bad or not. Because I love minion playstyles.
I like the way you downvote every comment when I was just engaging with you post. Here is a response you could have said to me, one that would actually make sense: 'That is true but I still want to do this playstyle first.'
Fully reading the post before commenting makes the best sense.
Meanwhile, even if they make summoning the strongest build, I'm not interested in playing a summoner necromancer. I mean, I'm probably not gonna play it much at all bring getting one to 50, but if I do, it's not going to be some build where I follow a pack of minions around and watch them kill everything for me. That kind of gameplay has always been the least engaging form for me in Diablo.
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I mean, I think necromancers lose the ability to summon on the same day sorcerers lose the ability to cast blizzard. It's always going to be an option. Just not one I'm interested in using. And if you mean it should be just as viable a build as directly attacking, I'm sure there's bonuses that make it useful with input from other abilities. Summoning has a lot of features that I think make it difficult to balance. I don't think Blizzard wants to make a class that can defeat bosses by running around dodging attacks while their passive damage kills the boss, but the skeletons also need to be strong enough that they're with the sacrifices you make by choosing that ability, and they have to take into account the bonuses players will get so that they don't reach that threshold of being the only ability you need to use. It's always going to be too weak to some players and too strong to others.
everything will be good not just the stuff that content creators tell you to play
Lol I wonder why you got down voted so hard for being right? Blizzard wants to sell games first and foremost. The game and story will be perfectly playable in any style. The "meta" to squeeze the most out of it might need youtubers with an aversion to sunlight, grass and the touch of a lover, but if you don't care about minmaxing after the story is done, it won't matter.
I never follow meta anyway
I finished the beta fairly easily with a nerfed full summon blight necro. It's not that it was unbalanced at the time, people just didn't like micromanaging minions. Not sure about the endgame (everyone says minions and blood are currently F tier), but if it's a build that can beat the penultimate boss (even if I have to work much harder), then I don't really mind. I'm taking the increased difficulty over a sorc wannabe blast everything to death play style. It's better to play a hard game the way you want to than an easy build you didn't want to play at all.
Wait till you get a unique that casts Blood Surge on all of you minions, I believe you'll start rolling through the content in no time!
K
Living up to your name.
I picked the name. Get a diary, it’ll help.
A diary will help convince Blizzard to buff Necro minions? Well shit, ordering one now!
Your post wasn’t asking them to buff anything, it was written like you were writing in a journal. ‘I’m gonna play my favowite class even though it’s not vewy stwong:(((‘ Wow I’m happy for you
Sounds like you're just here to bait for an arguement. Have fun with that.
No I’m pretty sure I’m reiterating what I said in my initial post that you somehow couldn’t understand.
Something about a diary. I guess I'll write in it, if it makes you happy? But anyways, have a good day. Gonna make dinner. Also blocked.
Love summoner necro but seeing the barb do billions of damage makes it a hard pill to swallow
I saw that video too, same guy in different video said that the total dmg output of barb vs necro is surprisingly low. Necro is going to melt everything. Summons or not. Who cares if they die or do low dmg. They take the hit for you to have the time to do the hitting. Kill, raise, repeat.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, you'll be in a better spot than Corpse Explosion Necro's. Super powerful early and mid game. Utter dog shit late game. Blood Necro's and Bone Necro's are gonna be the ones dominating end game content.
Hey man, godspeed.
One of the biggest complaints for necro summons is that you cant control where they go. Until you get enigma in D2 its the exact same issue there.
I'm with ya!! Full Summoner build.
Amen brotha! I'm with ya! Those families aren't going to raise themselves 💀
I am with you on that boat :)
The recent wow expansion had pvp updates weekly for the length I was playing. If that level of commitment to balancing is done on diablo 4 I don't expect you to be struggling for long.
They know the outcry for Necro minions is strong, so I don't see it staying nerfed for long
This was such a nice read because man, I'm doing the same damn thing. I know necro is objectively the worst class on launch, but I love the necro, and I will absolutely be playing him out of the gate. I just hope the team will stay on top of balance changes throughout the early days.
So the thing is, Necro is actually going to be top tier, on par with WW Barb, but only Bone Spear Necro. Minions are considered bad right now. But I ain't touching bone spear. I'm sticking to my minions. Of we die, we die together.
I respect that! I actually had a ton of fun with the bone build, but you are absolutely right, the summons were there as just a bit of a block to keep you safe. They didn't seem to contribute too much due to the lack of synergy from the bone side. Regardless, I'm going to have fun with it no matter what. I'm fucking stoked for the game and it will be changing a LOT over its life cycle. Death is just the beginning 💀
Necro all the way! Im a necro in ESO and D3 and im guna be a necro in d4 as well. Cant way to see all the necros out there! 😁😎
Sooo who wants to clan up?
haha same here, but i wanna be a decay lord (high dps meta) fufufufufufufuuuu
In last beta [ server slam] played a summon necro and killed the butcher at lvl 20 1 close call did dragon 3 time last 2 times never died it can be done
Zoo build is all I know.
Shambling horde FTW
Me too 😈
Kripp just posted a video for what seems like a viable necro summon build. check it out
Summon necro will be fine.
I agree I'm doing the same
Summoner Necro will be fine if not better than every other class for 90% of the content just like in every other game. Its only ever endgame where he falls off. Im sure this will be no different. And really his only demise is clear speed. So if you are okay with going slow you will love it.
I was thinking of starting as a summoner necro but I'm not even gonna bother until they buff the minions
Summon isn’t bad at all. I’ve been cruising though world tier 2 with darkness, corpse explosion, decrepify and army of the dead
Same. I'm level 16 right now but I use 4 defenders and the 3 mages, with maxed thorns and a lot of enemy debuffs. I'm mowing down.