Necromancer Minion DoT Builds feel very bad / Rant about Necromancer in general

Acolyte
1

I made a new Necro in 1.2, anticipating the reworks for 1.3 since I love minion builds and have always wanted a necromancer. But my personal opinion and the general sentiment ive found through people ive talked to is that this Necromancer rework/overhaul hasnt been great.

The reworks to minions in general have been good, removing snapshotting and buffing overall minion power is nice, but it seems to have done next to nothing for Necromancer.

My biggest concern is the passive tree, its like there is nothing for minion DoT builds outside of the “Forbidden Teachings” node (which admittedly is quite powerful). The tree is absolutely stacked with minion crit stuff and flat damage, but for anyone wanting to do a minion DoT build with Necro, they are shit outta luck.

Outside of the Frostbite node, there is nothing in the Necro tree that is geared towards specifically DoT. Attack speed for minions scales both DoT and crit builds in fairness, but for ailment chances and unique interactions with minion ailments, I find myself investing points in every tree except Necromancer, the tree and mastery specifically catering to minions!

In theory, this insistence on sacrificing and killing minions is a great concept. Its fresh and unique compared to generic minions seen in other games, but its implementation is laughable. Why play a class where the only viable builds are Abom or Wraithlord (which requires a unique to even function).

For my particular build, which is a Bleed damage minion army, I have to use sinathias set to guarantee skeleton resummon, without it, they just become another button I have to spam because they are built like twigs in anything above 300c. I get that they are squishier by design, but why dont they respawn after 3 seconds by default. I have to invest 5 skill points, 5 passive points, and use Sinathias set just for this one effect.

This point is more personal opinion, but to me, Necromancer invokes a general idea of an undead army. When I play a “Necromancer” in any game or genre, I instantly think of an army of skeletons and ghosts and zombies, but in LE, this army playstyle is terrible when comparing to other builds that can do even just 300c only.

Sorry for the long rant, I just really love minions in all games I play, especially the Necromancer archetype, but it just feels butchered by LE specifically, and I wanted this rework/overhaul in 1.3 to fix some of these issues.

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What bums me out is that we have been begging for Zoomancer builds to be viable for endgame, and in one stroke they make an item that makes it possible on another class. (Froggys)

Why can’t they do the same for skeleton setups? Not everyone likes the “super buff one big summon” playstyle. Personally I hate abomination - its clunky, awkward, and always a pain to setup. And thats really the only S tier minion setup for necros right now, while Beastmasters have Bears, Froggys, Raptors, etc etc.

Makes me wonder why they are against necros having the same playstyle so much.

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it just sucks that zoo keeps getting the short end

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I haven’t given up yet, but I’m only in the middle of Normal Monos. With 18 minions, and Rip Blood to buff them, the minions seem OK for the moment, and I rarely get targeted. I too love minion builds, but for some reason I haven’t played my Spriggan/Cold Minions build much this season.

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What I did was make a Fire Zoomancer, using Abomination, Mages, Wraith, Shade, and Zombies.

(1)Abomi - take the picky eater. That way you can make the abomi out of 6 zombies, and still use everything else, and you can still use the zombies. Plus it gets fire attacks.
(1) Shade - attach to 1 minion but its an aura.
(2) Wraiths - Fire wraiths. Only 2 but they are perma.
(5) Mages - Fire mages.
(6) Zombies - Fire zombies
(1) T-rex - the buff is nice for pets.

Just got to 100 corruption today, but so far damage and pets are holding steady. If it can get to 300 I’ll be content.

The other idea I had was ice/chill zoomancer, since that might really boost minion surviving if that proves to be a problem later. (Which it will, it’s just a matter of “when.”) But I never tried a cold zoomancer setup before, so not sure even how much that would prop up the pets either.

But so far, Abomi is indestructible as always.