Diablo 3: Necromancer – Reviving Allies? Unfortunately not

In a Q&A session, Blizzard updates the community on the Necromancer in Diablo 3. Here’s what you should know.

In January, there was already a Q&A session about the Necromancer in Diablo 3. It provided a rough overview of what we can look forward to and which skills the Necro will use.

In yesterday’s Q&A session, the Blizzard team spoke about the current state of affairs and what challenges the Necromancer faces. They also addressed feedback from many testers who can already play the Summoner on the PTR servers.

Pets, Skills, Mechanics, and Reworks – The Q&A Summary

At the beginning, the team, consisting of Community Manager Brandy Camel, Lead FX Artist Julian Love, and Senior Game Designer Travis Day, introduced the Necromancer pack. The Summoner comes with two additional character slots, two extra stash slots, a pet, cosmetic wings, a portrait frame, a banner, a banner sigil, and a flag. Once again, there was no new information about the price and release date of the Summoner.

• Sets and Portals: There will be four class sets and set portals for the Summoner.
• Number of Set Pieces: Sets will not consist of seven or more pieces.
• Damage Type: Primarily, the Necro kit consists of physical damage. Cold and poison damage are also part of the kit, but are not as frequently represented.
• Melee Set: The Saint set is more aimed at players who prefer the “melemancer” playstyle.
• Curse Mechanics: To get ideas for the curses, the team looked at Diablo II mechanics. Not all curses are designed to “just increase damage,” but they all have slight differences.
• Thorns Build? There is no specific thorns set for the Necro. However, there are smaller “things” that are beneficial for this playstyle.
• Resource Cost Reduction on Life Points? Players asked if the resource cost reduction would also affect the cost of life points. The designers were close to incorporating this mechanic but ultimately decided against it. Given the many interactions with legendary items, this mechanic would be too risky.

Pets, Plague Set, and Necro Expectations

• More Pets? Currently, there are no items that increase the timers or the limit of pets. Instead, items are on the way that will allow you to reach the pet limit faster or further buff the companions.
• Plague Set Synergy: The Plague Set will receive cool legendary items next week that harmonize particularly well with the set.
• Expectations: The Summoner was designed based on the expectations of players with curses, pets, blood, and bones. The developers did not specifically focus on 2-, 3-, or 4-player rifts during the design.
• Summoners are squishy! Travis Day paid attention during testing to how players perform with the Necro in high rifts. It was noticeable that Summoners are squishy and take a lot of damage. More legendary items and skill changes are on the way to compensate for this.

Blood is Power Skill is Being Reworked – Was Broken

• Originally, “Blood is Power” did: Every time you lose 5% health, all remaining cooldowns are reduced by 1%.
• This ability now needs to be reworked because players could exploit the skill to become invincible and have a massive damage output.
• The theme of this ability will not change but is intended to be less “broken.” Additionally, the invulnerability rune of the Bone Armor will be altered so that the cooldown starts only after the skill ends.

Weapons, Resources, New Legendary Items

• Weapons, but no Armor: Summoners will get scythes as weapons. Similar unique armors are not planned.
• Automatic Regeneration: Automatic regeneration of essence was internally tested but felt unsatisfying. Instead, generator skills have been made more efficient.
• All Legendary Items: All new legendary items are expected to be available next Tuesday.
• Changes to the Blood Set: The Blood Set will undergo fine-tuning: healing mechanics should not consume stacks too quickly. The playstyle of the set will not change, but there will generally be more healing.

Two-Minute Skills Should Feel Really Strong, Reviving Allies: Interesting, But No

• More Power: All two-minute skills from the Summoner should feel truly strong. Currently, the developers are observing how the sets and legendary items interact with the skills. Precise adjustments will follow based on these observations.
• Reviving was a major challenge: In the game, there are over 1100 different monsters that had to be adjusted for revives.
• Reviving Allies: Reviving allies would be an interesting idea. However, there are currently no plans to implement such a mechanic.
• Iron Golem? The Iron Golem from Diablo 2 will not be present. The interaction of players would focus on items and less on gameplay, which felt “not right” to the developers.
• Set Dungeon Rewards: Summoners will receive two flags as rewards. There will be no interaction with old achievements for set dungeons, so you will not need to complete these Necro dungeons for the wing reward.

  

Console and PC Need Separate Versions of Rise of the Necromancer

• The Necromancer pack does not transfer to another platform. If you want to play the Summoner on PC and Xbox, you need to purchase the packs separately.

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What can the Necro actually do? All Necromancer skills in German can be found here