At Blizzcon 2016, the Necromancer was announced for a return to the Diablo universe. After not having been initially released with Diablo 3 when it came out five years ago, the decision behind releasing a minor content update like a single class type seemed a bit strange.
After discussion amongst the community settled down, play testing from the Convention floor started to build hype and slowly but surely my excitement grew to a fever pitch. The Necromancer was my favourite class during my days of Diablo 2 and its absence from Diablo 3 was keenly felt.
Sadly, I was not a part of the select group who got to play the Necromancer during its Beta test during the first half of the year. I was, however, online when the servers came back up with the Necromancer patch live and playable.
Now it has been almost two weeks since the initial release of the Necromancer onto live servers and I have perhaps spent more time than is healthy getting to know this new character on my roster. Like any new class in Diablo there are growing pains involved in getting to know what your abilities do and how they work with other ability you have available. A lot of the time I have spent in game has been me doing various trial and error runs with different builds and gear sets to figure out not only what I enjoy the most but also what does the best output while still having that level of enjoyment.
I find using the bones of my enemies as armor to be rather enjoyable.
Like everything that Blizzard releases, the Necromancer is polished and well balanced against the other classes in game. It has its weaknesses but it also has strengths that other classes were lacking. Some people in game were saying that it was a clone of the Witch Doctor when really the Witch Doctor felt more like a cheap imitation of the Diablo 2 Necromancer.
Somehow the team at Blizzard have managed to capture all the nostalgia I had for the Necromancer class and translate it seamlessly into a modern game with updated mechanics and gameplay. I am well aware that the Necromancer and even the gameplay of Diablo 2 does not hold up well against modern standards. So being able to take the core of the class and bring it into the modern world of Diablo is an amazing feat.
Honestly I could gush for a few thousand words about how much fun the Necromancer is and how much fun Diablo 3 is as a whole, the Monk is pretty great too, but instead I will let you find out for yourself. Blizzard have a pack which contains both the base game and the Reaper of Souls expansion available on their e-store or they are available for pretty decent prices in your local game shops as well. The Necromancer pack itself is another $15 USD or about 125,000 in game World of Warcraft gold for a Battle net credit token, if you don’t want to spend real world money.
