Overview

Through the darkened shadows of despair, a shrill cry pierces the night. A crackle, as of bones being moved, then, unearthly silence. The air, damp and chill, sends shivers across your spine. Death hangs oppressively upon you. You can feel it, taste it. It hungers for your soul. A low groan escapes from the ground beneath your feet. Something nearby rustles and moves. There is a glimmer of light. It glows eerily in the near-total darkness. With one last heave, the corpse rises from the earth to stand before you. Its head swivels on its rotting neck. Its mouth agape in the faint mockery of a smile, it waits. Your dry lips curl in amusement. The curl becomes a slow smile and then a grin. And finally you throw your head back with a gleeful cackle! YOU have mastered Death. YOU have uncovered its secrets. YOU are the Necromancer!

Summon your minions from the corpses of your enemies! Curse those who oppose you! Use your unholy black arts to bend Death to your will! This is the power that lies ahead for those that choose the Unholy Path. This is the dark majesty of the Necromancer.

I loved playing the Necromancer! Killing things, while always amusing, takes on new irony as you raise your former enemies to serve your needs. Death is your only true ally with this character class. Kill a creature, then cast Corpse Explosion to eliminate his friends. Or better yet, raise it to fight as a skeleton for YOUR cause. The Necromancer is just full of nasty tricks that will keep us dark-hearted adventurers occupied for months!

This Looks Like The Start Of A Beautiful Relationship

Knowing more this time about the game and how the skill system works, I took a close look at the Necromancer's skills. What I discovered about the Necro, is that he likes to play with dead things. Since I like to MAKE things dead, I figured this was the start of a beautiful relationship.

It was. But I gotta admit, planning out my Necromancer's skill progression early was probably one of the smartest things I did. After examining the various skill tabs, I decided that Zarox the Necromancer would focus his dark arts on Raising the Dead. Let me tell you why.

Under his Summon tab, I have access to 5 skills: the 1st level Raise Skeleton, 6th level Summon Golem and 12th level Raise Skeleton Mage. These are all pretty neat themselves but the additional two skills are where the Necro is truly able to shine. These are his "Masteries." While each additional skill point in Raise or Summon allows for an additional creature to be raised or summoned, the Masteries are the skills that improve the quality of those creatures!

Skeleton Mastery for instance adds 7 hit points and +2 damage per level of mastery to the 1st level Skeletons I raise. The Masteries don't add health to the Skeleton Mages, but they do add damage! I took one look at these 3 skills specifically and knew that I, Zarox the Invincible, would be Master of the Undead! All would fear me! All would die! *insert maniacal laughter here*

But I'll get to the undead armies in just a minute. First let me talk about how I put Zarox through his paces.

Just before I created him, I was chatting online with some other Beta Testers. Someone was in the middle of saying that a Necromancer using a bow was a great idea. He argued that since you are summoning minions to fight for you anyway, using a bow can keep you well out of the reach of most monsters while still allowing you to participate in combat. Since he isn't a "strong" fighter like the Amazon or Paladin, this was the best way to go.

It sounded like a solid plan. Sure, others argued that getting in and hacking around with a sword was still fun, and I'm not disagreeing! But I hadn't made Kellara the Amazon into a Bow-azon, so I wanted to see if using a bow was as good as others were claiming. And if I had minions mincing monsters anyway, I could save on health potions by staying out of harm's way, right?

Starting out, I was equipped solely with a Yew Wand and Buckler. The wand did some horrendously poor damage like 2-4 or some such, but it DID give me +1 to Raise Skeleton. Heh heh. Rise my pretties, rise!

The Buckler added to defence of course, which isn't a major factor in the Blood Moors. Anyway, after receiving all my quests and talking to the townies, it was time to take on the Moors! As soon as I had made my first kill, I targetted the corpse (which I was now able to highlight like any item found on the ground) and with a dark-sounding groan, presto-chango...my first minion was by my side!

Of course as I've mentioned before, the Blood Moors are not exactly a challenging arena. But the exhilaration of seeing that first minion stomp around and splatter things? Now THAT'S fun!

Artifical Intelligence Is No Match For Natural Stupidity

So I ran around the Moors doing a lot of bloodletting. And here came the first test of the class: could the skeleton follow me? Was it fast enough? Would the AI work properly? The short answer is, yes. But let me qualify that...

What I noticed right away was that this was no "stupid skeleton." Happily, I can report that the minions I summoned didn't just stand around or get too badly under foot. They pace back and forth "patrolling" a radius centered around you. If they see any creatures nearby (even if they are off-screen), they will attack and pursue them! This is great and makes their management somewhat easier. Of course, this is dependant on you and your posse being OUTDOORS.

The bad news is that INSIDE the dungeons, your minions still do get stuck on corners and outcroppings. In fact, a Necromancer indoors is a terror for more reasons than one. They often run into each other as they try to patrol, they get stuck in rooms or get left behind and they often get in YOUR way, preventing you from entering or exiting rooms. This gets incredibly annoying!

Blizzard was made aware of a lot of these issues and their Beta Test patch looked like it addressed at least some of them. I'm sure a lot of these problems have been fixed for the final release. I hope so! Still, while much, much better than I thought it would be, the AI could still stand some tweaking.

I have two very simple suggestions to make the minion AI better. The first is simply to change their "instructions" when you enter a dungeon or catacomb. Instead of actively "patrolling" like they do outside, they should stand still in a circle around you. If you approach them, they fall back a bit (i.e. out of your way). This will stop them from constantly getting under foot, running into rooms without you (yes, they open doors themselves, the little devils) and generally being a nuisance.

The second thing I would love to see is the implementation of some "command" buttons. In fact, all things considered, I think this is a necessary addition for the Necromancer. As a player, you need some way to send all your minions in one direction, call them to you or tell them to defend you. With all of them just milling about attacking things on sight, you have zero control over the very creatures you are supposed to command! It's a simple thing really, but oh-so necessary in this game. Too often, my guys got wrecked because they are programmed to attack what they see and keep attacking until it's dead - or they are. Some "command" buttons would GREATLY improve their usefulness and duration.

Let Your Bodies Do The Blocking

In any case, I was still pretty impressed with my pretties. I went in search of the next upgrade to my character: a bow. Once I found something useful, I dumped the wand and stocked up on arrows. I needn't have bothered. With all the minions running around doing my fighting for me, I often didn't have anything to do during a battle but watch!

I used the bow to great effect on boss monsters and tough creatures. I kept a Raise Skeleton spell on my hot key and whenever I noticed the number of skeletons dropping, I just targetted some corpses and Whoomp! There it is!

Actually, you get a tiny little portrait of your minions in the top left of the screen. There is a small number in the bottom right of that portrait that lists the number of creatures you control. Pay attention to this number! Be aware of how many of each type of minion you should have and make sure you ALWAYS have the maximum allowed. Your creatures have a nasty habit of getting themselves killed without your permission so make sure you replace them as soon as they're gone.

One interesting thing to note is that if you summon a golem, it has a status bar that gives you an idea of how much health it has left. The skeletons don't have this. This is very frustrating since even if you point to one of your skeleton minions, you have no way of knowing how many health points it has left.

Wasssuuuuupppp????

In any case, combat is way-easy with the Necromancer. You don't even have to point and shoot. Just stand there and look ugly! (This is something I'm quite good at).

I was able to sit back in relative safety as my creatures fought my battles for me. I could run around picking up treasure, help out my minions by shooting at the monsters, or just go get a brew from the fridge.

I can't help thinking of those new "Wassup?!?" Budweiser commercials. You know the ones I'm talking about...

Amazon: "So whassup 'N'?
Necromancer: "Watchin' the game, havin' a Bud."
Amazon: "True. True."

Heh heh, I love those commercials.

Anyway, fun as it is to watch a horde of 10 or 12 minions tear through all your opposition, it really is kind of a brainless way to play the game. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

As always, it comes down to a matter of play style. I loved putting the game on auto-pilot. It allowed me to really absorb what was happening, enjoy the graphics and get some great screen shots. But this may not be for everybody. There is a danger because later on, you DO have to pay attention.

Curses And Corpses And Crypts, Oh My!

It was more difficult for me 'n my posse at higher levels where monsters were able to do significantly more damage and the spaces were far more cramped. With so many minions running around, they couldn't all move around very easily and either they or I were blocked from passages sometimes. Often if 2 of them were hacking something in a doorway, the rest were milling around or doing stupid things like leaving the room. This is why a few simple command buttons would be very useful. Blizzard's Starcraft controls would be ideal here:
- Attack direction
- Defend location
- Patrol area

When those big bad bosses come after you, you can get into serious trouble PDQ. Powerful bosses and tougher monsters can wade through your minions with ease at later levels. Often the bosses are strong enough to take out your creatures quickly, especially with the limited skeleton AI (and no command buttons). Skeletons will simply walk up to a creature and start pummeling. A boss that can take out a minion with one or two hits is in no danger of suffering damage from anything but you. And that's where the Necromancer can be kind of weak. Unless you have some tricks up your sleeve, you could get a bitter taste of death from the other side of the wand.

I had a lot of trouble with Andariel too, since my minions all evaporated about 2 seconds into the battle. I did a lot of running and summoning but using a bow does not do a lot of damage quickly if you're constantly on the move. And Andariel is FAST. I may have been better off with a sword as some Beta Testers suggested because without my minions, there wasn't much else I could do except go toe-to-toe with the big bad mama.

I did manage to defeat her of course, but the lesson was well learned. If you focus exclusively on summoning, you will be very weak without your minions. But this was the way I had decided to play Zarox and he did very well, all things considered. I mean, it really was a heck of a lot of fun.

The Knee Bone Connected To The Leg Bone...

Like I said, a large part of my enjoyment came from the creatures I could summon. Those first level skeletons I raised? I really like them! They have 21 hit points and do 1-2 points of damage. Not terribly strong, I know, but then again, this was just a 1st level creature! If you think about it, that skeleton meant one extra combatant on MY side in a fight. It meant more damage to the bad guys and less damage to me. Heck, that's even better than Dodge or Avoid! Now that's strong!

But, like I mentioned before, the true power comes in the form of Skeleton Mastery. This skill increases the hit points of skeletons by 7 per level. It also increases the damage they do by 2 per level. Thus a 1st level Skeleton with Level 7 Skeleton Mastery has 70 hit points and does 15-16 points of damage. A real terror to the monsters!

And if you think that's good, check out the 12th level Skeleton Mages. Mages are wicked cool! They have 61 hit points each (this doesn't change), but the neat thing about them is that they are ranged MAGIC attackers. Skeleton Mages use all the basic 1st level skills available to the Sorceress - the equivalent of "firebolt," "icebolt," "chargedbolt" and "poisonbolt." The type of spell each casts seems to be randomly set when you summon the mage. Each extra point in Skeleton Mastery, increases the damage each mage does on their attack.

How much damage is done exactly is hard to define, but it seems to me (don't quote me on this) that each point in Skeleton Mastery increases the effective LEVEL of the spell the mages cast. Thus 3 points in Skeleton Mastery, would allow a Skeleton Mage to cast a 3rd level firebolt. There's no real way of knowing this for sure, since the damage they do is not listed anywhere. But that's what it looked like to me. And tell me that's not cool!

So obviously the more mages you summon, the more magical ranged damage you can do. That was the premise behind my skill tree development. My plan was to build Zarox's Skeleton Mastery as much as possible and then focus on recruiting mages. I took 2 Raise Skeleton, 1 Summon Golem and 7 in Skeleton Mastery (plus a couple of other skills I'll get to in a bit), before my mages became available. And I've been taking nothing but Skeleton Mages since. As you can probably guess already, they ROCK!

Of course you're also wondering what this Golem thing is, right? Well, there was nothing wrong with the Golem minions. They start with 100 hit points, which means they last a whole long time in a battle. Unfortunately, they only do 3-5 points of damage and this doesn't change with Golem Mastery. What does change (with increased points in Golem Mastery) is their hit points (which increase 35 per level if I remember correctly) and their move/walk rate (by about 6% per level). So as you've already guessed, they are big, dumb, slow and tough. Good additions as shock troops, but I didn't think they held a candle to the Skeleton Mages.

Other Tricks Of The Trade

I should also drop a quick note on the Necromancer's other skills. I mentioned earlier that his other skills were pretty good. While they did not suit my style of play, they are obviously effective. I encountered one Necromancer in a multiplayer game one time who had NO minions whatsoever. He was going around with a Bone Armour spell swirling around him, casting spells and curses and just wrecking things left and right. So it's not necessary to summon minions for you to succeed, but really, why WOULDN'T you summon a Skeleton Mage to kick some demon ass?

A couple of other spells I should mention that I really liked were Teeth and Corpse Explosion. Now, Corpse Explosion is THE spell everyone is talking about. It was a favourite at Blizzard and anyone who's used it knows why. Basically with this spell, you turn any dead creature into a hand grenade. This is a great way to clean up on mobs of MOBS. I didn't actually try this myself, but I've seen it in use and woo-wee, do I like when things go kaboom!

The other spell I liked was the first level Teeth spell. It's kind of cheap and not super-powerful, but it's efficient. This spell fires x + 1 magical "teeth" (where x is the skill level). Each tooth does 2-3 damage + 1 per level. It fires out in a wave so although it's not huge, it is fairly effective at the lower levels.

So like I said, the Necromancer is NOT a one trick pony (like some classes we won't mention...Barbarian). This will allow for a good mix of play styles and character development, which really is one of the main reasons Diablo 2 is so great. There are however some weaknesses to be aware of:

And In This Corner...

The Necromancer is not the character I would first choose for a duel. Ok, true, I didn't really do a lot of duelling with him. But it's pretty easy to see that a Necromancer who has focused on summoning is going to be weak in a duel unless he has tons of fresh corpses nearby.

Even with his other curses and abilities, he may not prove strong enough against an "intelligent" opponent who has some more battle-oriented skills. Mind you, I probably should reserve judgment on that until I actually get a chance to try a Necromancer with other skills. I know that some of his abilities are awesome. But I get the impression that he really hits his peak in situations with lots of fresh bodies around.

Of course if you DO have enough minions, you might be able to win the duel by creating so much lag on your opponents computer that he'll just stand there while you dance around and whack at him! Which unfortunately is also one of the reasons why he's not so great in multiplay.

The Necromancer has quickly become the guy you DON'T want to adventure with in a large group. Why? Like I said, the performance hit can be bad. While I'm using a pretty fast AMD-Athlon 700Mhz machine with a cable modem connection, I have heard that it can get just plain ugly on slower computers. Second, it gets WAY too confusing.

With a swarm of your creatures and a swarm of bad guys, there's just too much happening all at once to follow it all - even if YOU'RE the Necromancer! This is compounded by the fact that there is no way to distinguish between your skeletons and monster skeletons. Fortunately, your minions are unaffected by "friendly fire." But still, in a multiplayer game, this just gets incredibly confusing.

Lastly, the multiplayer Necromancer runs into the same problem as the single player in the lower dungeon levels; it's just too cramped. It's tough enough trying to keep an eye on your creatures getting stuck in rooms when you're playing by yourself. But when you add other players too (and heavens forbid you have multiple Necromancers!), it's virtually impossible to manage it all.

Now anyone who's glanced down at the bottom of this article has already noticed that I rated the Necromancer "weak" in multiplayer. And based on the above description, this makes sense. The thing is, the Necromancer I designed was weak in multiplay. In other words, a Necromancer that doesn't focus exclusively on summoning is likely to be more useful in the multiplayer arena.

In fact, I would argue that such a character is virtually essential to a party! With his area-effect curses, mass damage spells (like Corpse Explosion) and the ability to summon walking shields, he can surely rival both the Paladin and Sorceress in multiplayer usefulness. So keep in mind that the "weak" rating is specific to MY Necromancer only.

Conclusion

Now after all this talk about what's bad about the Necromancer, it may sound like I wasn't very impressed with him. But that's not true! I LOVED this guy. In fact, next to the Amazon, he's probably my favourite. It's wonderfully entertaining to watch your Skeleton Mages bolt the snot out of Bishibosh or other mucus-filled bosses. You really have to see for yourself how effective an undead swarm of skeletons can be. And since I do have a decent computer and connection, a lot of the potential lag problems really didn't affect me very much.

But unlike the Amazon, you can't just play the Necromancer one way and know that you will be fine. You have to put some thought into his development. For instance if you are going to summon creatures, focus on the Masteries. They are key to keeping your critters kicking (and screaming, and biting and...).

It's also important to not get trapped into a routine. You have to play smarter as the levels get tougher. Don't just let your minions walk in unaided. 'Cuz if you don't help make things dead, you may find yourself being raised as a mindless corpse yourself. And trust me, it's MUCH harder to get a date when you can't keep your nose on.

Which reminds me, is the Necromancer any good at getting dates? You bet! Now, I don't know all that much about the opposite sex. But I've learned a few very important facts in my time. And since you're all such good fans, I'll share with you three Truths that I've learned and tell you why the Necro is such a darn-good date:

1. He can make things go BOOM! Women are absolutely fascinated by loud noises, big explosions and tons of gore. Just take them to any Van Damme flick and you'll see them squeal with delight as body parts go flying around in fiery fury. The more blood the better! So trust me, Corpse Explosion is THE way to impress a woman. ("Ooh look, Bishibosh bits!")
2. He can cast curses like Buffy can slay vampires. And as everyone knows, the key to any good relationship is developing those oh-so-special terms of endearment. Ordinary people say things like "Honeybuns, Sweetcheeks," and "Sugarlips." But the Necromancer is way ahead of the game here. I mean if you're talking body parts, what's better than "Rot-Nose, Spleen-Eater," and "Puss-Face?" The swanky Necromancer doesn't just compliment her EXTERNAL appearances, either! No, he can curse her very bones! I'm telling you, Curses are THE way to tell a woman you love her.
3. He can summon servants. Why do you think manicurists and "health" spas are so popular with the ladies? They want to be waited on hand and foot! And what better way to wait on them than with some actual hands and feet? Watch as her eyes go wide with appreciation when those body parts start falling off right in front of her! Trust me, Raising Skeleton servants is THE way to flatter a woman.

So as you can see, the Necromancer, more than any other class, is the real lady-killer. Keep your women close to hand when he walks into the room! Rowr!

From worst to best, the ratings are:
Poor, Weak, Average, Good, Strong, Excellent

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