View Full Version : No Necromancer, confirmed by Bliz
From news today (http://www.diii.net/n/681640/d3-team-says-no-necromancer-in-d3). D3 lead designer Jay Wilson talks about why no necromancer in d3, though he leaves open the possibility of a return in some future expansion.
“Our approach for classes in ‘Diablo III’ is that we don’t have a strong desire to bring back classes from the previous game,” Wilson told me. “The goal is to try and give people new gameplay and not just re-hash old gameplay. We’re not just making a ‘Diablo II’ with updated 3D graphics.”
...
“The problem was, we looked at the class and didn’t think that we could really make him a lot better,” he explained. “We could add some new stuff to him but for the most part — curses, corpse explosion, skeleton pets — done. That’s the class. We wanted to create new gameplay, so we chose to do the Witch Doctor as a different kind of class.”
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“If [the Necromancer] dealt damage, it was through corpses laying around or through his pets,” he said. “The Witch Doctor, his pets are a little more transient. If you watch the gameplay video, you really notice his pets come and go like crazy. There’s a wall of zombies that go away fairly quickly or pets that just kind of blow up willy-nilly. That was intentional — to try and make him different than the Necromancer.”
More interesting to me than the necromancer bit (when it was obvious they wouldn't have 2 pets/curses/undead summoners out of the 5 at launch) is what this last paragraph says about the WD's play style. Clearly the goal is not to have tons and tons of pets, or very long lasting, powerful pets. They want WDs to play actively, not just max out summoning skills and stand back while skeletons/revives/golems beat monsters slowly to death. They want constant action, more attack spells, powerful minions that don't last long or do their most damage in death, etc.
That sounds like a lot of fun to me; I always got bored with Necros since there was inevitably standing around waiting, on some monster types or levels. Or endlessly long/slow boss fights.
Glad to hear that they dont want to just bring old classes back. That gives me hope that the paladin isn't going to make it into this game. Muahaha.
Luckymofo
06-08-2008, 08:10
uh, they brought back the barb, that's an ''old'' class......
uh, they brought back the barb, that's an ''old'' class......
Did anyone say they didn't? I suspect you interpreted my post as meaning that it is something that they wouldn't do at all; that isn't what I said or meant.
uh, they brought back the barb, that's an ''old'' class......
But they also changed him to an incredible degree. The barbarian only had 2 "moves" that were attacks not consisting in standing still and whacking 1 enemy with a weapon.
They wanted to leave the core of the archetype (summoner) but change the gameplay, it's pretty evident from that quote.
I'm just glad we can put this whole nonsense to rest.
I hope the Ranged attacker has just as varied types of attacks that aren't restricted to the kind of weapon he's using. Meaning a javelin, throwing knife/axe, or bow will still be able to use skills like the Barb can use Whirlwind, cleave and his other attack skills with Axes, Swords or Hammers. Unike their predecessors, the Amazon.
Mad Mantis
06-08-2008, 08:59
Clearly the goal is not to have tons and tons of pets, or very long lasting, powerful pets. They want WDs to play actively, not just max out summoning skills and stand back while skeletons/revives/golems beat monsters slowly to death.
It sounds like a fun way to play. I generally play Necromancer builds that require me to be a bit more hands-on than a full summoner. This could be very interesting. Still I wonder if something like a Golem would fit into the WD arsenal. Also is there a link to the article?
Or endlessly long/slow boss fights.
CB on your Merc and/or get some Urdars.
But they also changed him to an incredible degree. The barbarian only had 2 "moves" that were attacks not consisting in standing still and whacking 1 enemy with a weapon.
That is true. They totally changed the Barb from D2. But if you look at it like that then the reason from Jay Wilson doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
“The problem was, we looked at the class and didn’t think that we could really make him a lot better,” he explained. “We could add some new stuff to him but for the most part — curses, corpse explosion, skeleton pets — done. That’s the class. We wanted to create new gameplay, so we chose to do the Witch Doctor as a different kind of class.”
All he is really saying is that they weren't creative enough to come up with a new and improved playstyle for the Necromancer and so chose to abandon him. I'm fine with the Necromancer being gone, but if you do add in the Barb and then give us this lame reason for why you scrapped the Necro you can expect some questions and remarks.
That is true. They totally changed the Barb from D2. But if you look at it like that then the reason from Jay Wilson doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
All he is really saying is that they weren't creative enough to come up with a new and improved playstyle for the Necromancer and so chose to abandon him. I'm fine with the Necromancer being gone, but if you do add in the Barb and then give us this lame reason for why you scrapped the Necro you can expect some questions and remarks.
I disagree. Basically what they were saying is they would have had to completely revamp his skillset anyway, since his summons (skeletons and such) aren't conductive to the "transient" gameplay they wanted to encourage.
I don't know why you can even come to the conclusion that they simply "weren't creative enough to change it enough" when they clearly have changed the way the necromancer plays by replacing him with the WD.
So what would they have ended up doing? Completely changing basically all the skills? They had the perfect opportunity to actually add more variety to the game in the form of a new class.
It seems to me all this is just misdirected bitterness that the Barbarian got to return but the necromancer didn't.
Plus the Barbarian completely pwns Necros :)
Mad Mantis
06-08-2008, 09:57
I don't know why you can even come to the conclusion that they simply "weren't creative enough to change it enough" when they clearly have changed the way the necromancer plays by replacing him with the WD.
Exactly. They couldn't change the Necro, while keeping it a Necro, and thus made the WD. While the WD is a creative new class, they couldn't envision the Necro playing differently.
So what would they have ended up doing? Completely changing basically all the skills? They had the perfect opportunity to actually add more variety to the game in the form of a new class.
Didn't they basically do this for the Barb? They changed almost all the skills he had. In doing so they managed to get the Barb to play differently. They could have done the same for the Necro, but they didn't. And according to some interviews there are other classes that aren't being replaced. Just be honest with people and say that you didn't like the Necro that much and replaced him with a different class. The end result is the same.
rrrrathmaberollinhisrs
06-08-2008, 10:15
This guy basically is a Necromancer. Same dark aesthetic, same minion based gameplay. He's just a little different. It's like they smashed a Druid and a Necromancer together and you end up with this. I don't buy the crap about them "not being able to do anything innovative with the Necromancer gameplay wise" at all though. Zombie Wall? You can't see a Necromancer doing that? Locusts? Substitute a wraith and it sounds like a nice variation of the Wraith summon. I think they just didn't like the Necromancer enough to give him his own spot so they stuck him together with the Druid and redesigned him to be in keeping with their new look and flash for the game as a whole. Which is a shame because I'll miss him. I hope there are still Necromancers in the game though and that one of the places you can travel to is there underground cities... but it looks doubtful to me now.
If there's a Druid in the game I'll be mightily pissed.
Blizzard plz put Necro in expansion pack :'(
If you can make a Ranger Paladin you bet your *** I'll be making a Necromancer Witch Doctor :)
Animation
06-08-2008, 16:40
I don't mind that there won't be a Necromancer. That's fine.
What bothers me is that they (Blizzard) seem to have a very limited view of their own classes.
From their comments on summing up the essence of the Necromancer, I worry that there may not be many different approaches to characters in Diablo 3. They said that the Necro was summons and corpse explosions and curses, "done". They also said that they did damage from summons or corpses lying around. What about Poison Dagger based necros? Melee + Curse + Bone Armor necros? Pure Bone Tree / Spear / Teeth necros? And hey a long time ago before they nerfed them for damage, you could make a rockin' Golem necro.
I'm a little worried that there will be one "accepted" mechanic for killing things with a class, and not a variety of totally different approaches to each class. I'm just basing that on their simplistic view of their own classes from D2. I hope I'm wrong.
Lewis
Because they chose to point out the most apparent and memorable part of the Necromancer to a media interview they don't get the "essence" of the Necromancer.
Riiiight...
You just extrapolated their entire view on the most important aspect of Diablo 2 based on 3 paragraphs. You have a bright future ahead of you as a career psychic.
Funkopotamus
06-08-2008, 21:25
This guy basically is a Necromancer. Same dark aesthetic, same minion based gameplay. He's just a little different. It's like they smashed a Druid and a Necromancer together and you end up with this. I don't buy the crap about them "not being able to do anything innovative with the Necromancer gameplay wise" at all though. Zombie Wall? You can't see a Necromancer doing that? Locusts? Substitute a wraith and it sounds like a nice variation of the Wraith summon.
Except for the firebomb, all of the Witch Doctor's skills I've seen are skills a necromancer would use. They could of made him a more active character, but they didn't. Oh well, I kind of like the goofy looking headdress.
I don't mind that there won't be a Necromancer. That's fine.
What bothers me is that they (Blizzard) seem to have a very limited view of their own classes.
From their comments on summing up the essence of the Necromancer, I worry that there may not be many different approaches to characters in Diablo 3. They said that the Necro was summons and corpse explosions and curses, "done". They also said that they did damage from summons or corpses lying around. What about Poison Dagger based necros? Melee + Curse + Bone Armor necros? Pure Bone Tree / Spear / Teeth necros? And hey a long time ago before they nerfed them for damage, you could make a rockin' Golem necro.
I'm a little worried that there will be one "accepted" mechanic for killing things with a class, and not a variety of totally different approaches to each class. I'm just basing that on their simplistic view of their own classes from D2. I hope I'm wrong.
Lewis
Melee was never a class defining aspect of necros.
They clearly wanted to do 2 things with the new summon character. They wanted to make the summons more of an active activity instead of a summon and sit back, and they wanted to make it so that you could buff your summons with your own spells.
Neither of those would have worked with the necro's system. Skeleton summons? Not really condusive to exploding even if they changed them so you could summon them from nothing. Bone spells? Not really going to be good for enchanting your pets.
So what would the necro be without bone spells or skeletons? Those were 2 of the largest character defining aspects of the necromancer. Yeah you could have variants without those things (bad ones) but really, you'd only be left with curses and everything else would change.
Barbarian could stay because they didn't have to change the Barbarian they only had to change the skills. The fundamentals of the barbarian are still intact. He's still a big guy who swings weapons at enemies until they die (and occasionally shouts about stuff). They've just added new ways for him to swing the weapons.
On the other hand, would the necromancer really have still been the necromancer with the changes they wanted to implement (that is exploding summons, enchantable summons etc.) Would a necromancer still have been a necromancer if they removed all the bone based skills from him? I don't think he would have.
Sure they could have done one of the 2 things to keep him. Either a) don't change the gameplay at all, or b) dont worry about the fact that it makes no sense to have an exploding skeleton and somehow have the bone spells "enchant" the skeletons though it also makes no sense. OR they could do the sane thing, replace the necromancer with something else that can have new lore and is a better fit for the mechanics they wanted to introduce.
rrrrathmaberollinhisrs
06-08-2008, 22:21
Melee was never a class defining aspect of necros.
They clearly wanted to do 2 things with the new summon character. They wanted to make the summons more of an active activity instead of a summon and sit back, and they wanted to make it so that you could buff your summons with your own spells.
Neither of those would have worked with the necro's system. Skeleton summons? Not really condusive to exploding even if they changed them so you could summon them from nothing. Bone spells? Not really going to be good for enchanting your pets.
So what would the necro be without bone spells or skeletons? Those were 2 of the largest character defining aspects of the necromancer. Yeah you could have variants without those things (bad ones) but really, you'd only be left with curses and everything else would change.
Barbarian could stay because they didn't have to change the Barbarian they only had to change the skills. The fundamentals of the barbarian are still intact. He's still a big guy who swings weapons at enemies until they die (and occasionally shouts about stuff). They've just added new ways for him to swing the weapons.
They clearly wanted to have a character with exploding summons? Doesn't that seem kind of narrow-minded to you? But even so I don't see why a Necromancer's minions can't explode. If he can do a corpse explosion he can blow up his own minions.
How about unique explosions per minions? Cold skeleton mage = some kind of cold nova that does cold damage. Fire and poison mages their own type added etc. Or better yet how about some kind of suicide spell you can trigger in your skeleton mages? For plain old skeletons how about when they are killed by an enemy instead of dieing they just break apart and their various limbs hop and crawl around still attacking and have to further pulverized out of existence?
And of course he could bolster his own minions with his skills -- imagine casting bone armour on your skeletons. The bone wraith variation I mentioned could work just like the locusts. Cast it on an enemy and it drifts from enemy to enemy killing or weakening. Cast it on a minion and it flits around it attacking defensively and perhaps adding life drain to that minion. Turn all your skeletons into blood skeletons!
There's plenty they could have done. They could have made a new updated Necromancer. I'm guessing it was just when they were in the process of brainstorming for him they said "to hell with it let's have some fun with it and make a new guy!".
Animation
06-08-2008, 23:03
Because they chose to point out the most apparent and memorable part of the Necromancer to a media interview they don't get the "essence" of the Necromancer.
Riiiight...
You just extrapolated their entire view on the most important aspect of Diablo 2 based on 3 paragraphs. You have a bright future ahead of you as a career psychic.
That is why I said "seem to" as well as "a little worried" and "hope I'm wrong." It should be clear that I was nervous about it, but that at no time was I saying that it would definitely be the case. It should be obvious that there isnt enough information yet to be sure. I'm stating my concern and hope; I am not making a prediction. I don't see why you took it that way.
Lewis
jamesisbest
06-08-2008, 23:18
I suppose they probably wanted to do a somewhat rehashed barb because he is a more beginner-friendly character. I'm guessing they wanted to make a new character with a new feel when they came up with the witch doctor. They probably brainstormed the personality and look of the character before his function, decided they liked the feel to him and wanted to make a function that would fit his character type. If they developed the witch doctor that way then they realized they will have to cut the necromancer from the game in the process to avoid redundancy/overlapping. Still there is a chance they have a character with a similar gothic personality the necromancer had but with a different class function.
The Barbarian class is a versatile enough "palette" that you can change pretty much any skill around and it can still be, essentially, a Barbarian. It's a very wide, encompassing character class .. almost anything of a physical nature can be fudged into a good Barbarian skill. That is why he stayed.
The necromancer, on the other hand, they said it: "Curses, corpse explosion, skeletal pets". He is a very passive, "stay back and watch the fight" kind of character. If they changed that to fit their vision of a more active, transient playstyle, then all the Necromancer fans would throw a fit that they changed the class so radically. If they didn't change his skills, then Blizzard is guilty of not taking a single step forward in 10 years, and not being "creative enough." Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Personally, I think the WD is an ingenious solution to the problem, and gives them much more "breathing room" without the dangers of having to appease certain expectations.
Animation
06-08-2008, 23:23
So what would the necro be without bone spells or skeletons? Those were 2 of the largest character defining aspects of the necromancer. Yeah you could have variants without those things (bad ones) but really, you'd only be left with curses and everything else would change.
You seem to believe that I want them to keep the Necromancer. I don't. If anything, I lean towards ditching it. I already prefer the Witchdoctor from a theme / cool factor perspective.
Also, the other variants (say, the Poison ones; or the Golem ones) were not always bad; they just later mindlessly hacked in a higher difficulty based on blanket monster toughness and damage dealt, which killed some hell-viable builds, but not others, and not just for the Necromancer.
Still, I'll give you that the developers obviously considered the Skelemancer and the Max Bone Spear type approaches to be the "essence" of the Necromancer, since when they made the difficulty harder with 1.10, they made sure that those versions of the Necro were very easily Hell viable. Anything they didnt see as core to the vision, they didnt care if it was hell viable or not, so most of them dead-end at early hell. With the right gear, though, a few of the other options still kinda work.
Would a necromancer still have been a necromancer if they removed all the bone based skills from him?
Well, they could, but I dont think they would. You could certainly make a Necromancer with only spirit / dark energy powers, and make him crushingly effective. I agree that it isnt how their Necromancer is in their Lore.
OR they could do the sane thing, replace the necromancer with something else that can have new lore and is a better fit for the mechanics they wanted to introduce.
Right. I agree entirely. I'd rather have something new. I just see some signs that the old Diablo 2 team (a different team from D3) had fairly strict views on what each class should be, especially from 1.10 onward, when you could see the builds that didnt fit that get hammered more by "adjustment omission."
I understand that you have to have some iconic elements to generate a certain style, but I'm simply hoping that each class has at least 2 viable builds that are fairly different (not simply variation in the emphasis on which core skills you want to use more heavily) ... preferably 3.
As an example, I'd love to see the following 2 Witchdoctor approaches, and I would want them viable to the endgame on highest difficulty without having to stray into hybrid territory:
1) A heavy summons + disease option
2) A heavy confuse + fire damage build
I would want at least 2 unique approaches for all the classes. There should be some Barbarian builds that don't use Whirlwind, for example. In Diablo 2, you could also do a great Frenzy build (fast) or a pure Concentration build (slow but very safe) that all played different from the others. You COULD have hybrid builds, but you didnt have to. I'd love to see the new Barbarian have a couple of very different melee approaches and maybe one more mystical build. I dont expect them to make a Leap Attack barbarian viable (sadly) through the endgame, but at least I should be able to make a powerful barbarian that doesnt use whirlwind (for example).
Anyway, this is all just random chatter. Blizzard knows how to make fun games. I'm not overly worried. Worst case scenario, I'll have fun playing through as the Witchdoctor at least once.
Lewis
They clearly wanted to have a character with exploding summons? Doesn't that seem kind of narrow-minded to you? But even so I don't see why a Necromancer's minions can't explode. If he can do a corpse explosion he can blow up his own minions.
How about unique explosions per minions? Cold skeleton mage = some kind of cold nova that does cold damage. Fire and poison mages their own type added etc. Or better yet how about some kind of suicide spell you can trigger in your skeleton mages? For plain old skeletons how about when they are killed by an enemy instead of dieing they just break apart and their various limbs hop and crawl around still attacking and have to further pulverized out of existence?
And of course he could bolster his own minions with his skills -- imagine casting bone armour on your skeletons. The bone wraith variation I mentioned could work just like the locusts. Cast it on an enemy and it drifts from enemy to enemy killing or weakening. Cast it on a minion and it flits around it attacking defensively and perhaps adding life drain to that minion. Turn all your skeletons into blood skeletons!
There's plenty they could have done. They could have made a new updated Necromancer. I'm guessing it was just when they were in the process of brainstorming for him they said "to hell with it let's have some fun with it and make a new guy!".
You don't see any problems with your suggestions?
Why would you want to explode your ranged units? They arent even in range of doing damage via an aoe explosion. As for exploding skeletons.... hello... theres nothing to explode. They're floating bones. I mean, suspension of disbelief and all, but I have a hard time imagining that a massless body with bones could really "explode".
And enchanting skeletons with bone? You don't think that's a little excessive... redundant?
And "bone wraith" that's like saying, incorporeal solid... They could have done anything with the skills, but having some semblance of "making sense" is a good thing. Yeah, they could have really stretched everything, made some sacrifices in variety, left the bone based necromancer in the game (and necro's really were very bone oriented, just read their lore) but what they did was ultimately a better choice. Why stretch everything so much when it can simply make sense under another class.
Mad Mantis
07-08-2008, 09:54
They're floating bones. I mean, suspension of disbelief and all, but I have a hard time imagining that a massless body with bones could really "explode".
You could have a sort of flechette effect to the exploding Skellies. Shower an area with sharp bone fragments.
Verashiden
08-08-2008, 05:25
Better yet, have a summon for the Midget Hand Grenades (Stygian Dolls).
I think the issue with trying to update the necromancer was just that the term necromancer is too stringent a set of expectations to make very many changes. The barb COULD be changed because the core of the idea isn't all that complex, hit stuff HARD. All of those new dynamic skills do pretty much that, they hit stuff REALLY HARD. The necromancer is a bit more specific, he deals with the dead what with summoning skeletons and what not, plus the general life draining feel behind corpses.
The more specific the class idea the less movement and creativity with it is allowed and still be true to the core concept. How much else is there really that could be done to the necromancer and still call it the necromancer? They have been through this before when they made the class in the first place for diablo 2, they have explored the necromancer pretty thoroughly and if you asked someone to build a new necromancer from the ground up in this type of game, how much could they differ from what was in D2?
If I am right about how the design philosophy is working here then I suspect that the Sorceress (or whatever her clan is called) is the only other class to make a reappearance. Maybe Paladin, MAYBE. If the requirement is a broad arch-type without too many stringent expectations then the class is more likely to make a return. I say sorceress because the idea is "elemental based glass canon", examinations of other games will show just how much can be done with it. Not that the new encarnation would be anything terribly different but thats the idea, making something new yet keeping the style and feel of it.
To reiterate; its not a lack of creativity from anybody, its that the tight requirements of what a necromancer must do to deserve the name don't allow for it. Now the question I pose is would you rather play something that is called the necromancer but doesn't feel like one (anywhere on the scale from not at all to vaguely) or play something that stands in its own spotlight?
Reddimus
08-08-2008, 12:27
I don't think anyone had touched on the aspect of his character in the world yet. The Necromancer was a fairly old guy. It doesn't sit right with me that Cain is still somehow alive 20 years later, so at least one of the old farts has to go, right? :P
I'll sure miss the Necromancer, but then I'm also sure I'll be missing a lot of old playstyles from a lot of classes because they're all changing drastically. A way I'd be content though, is if they put the Necromancer's 'character' into the game, voice actor and all--he still might be dead because of the age he portrayed, but it'd be cool to have his voice play over in some dark journal of his you find, eh?
Necromancer's voice is still doing work for games ^_^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0566332/
rrrrathmaberollinhisrs
08-08-2008, 15:15
Yay! Read this!
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/08/08/diablo-3-lead-necromancer-other-classes-could-return/
You don't see any problems with your suggestions?
...They arent even in range of doing damage via an aoe explosion. As for exploding skeletons.... hello... theres nothing to explode. They're floating bones....
Firstly, you make a good point about the skeletal mages. I wasn't thinking of how they'd work theoretically. In my defense though I was going from experience as my skeletal mages certainly did their share of dieing at the hands of melee monsters. And I don't see anything wrong with exploding skeletons. Bones to my knowledge have mass and are quite dense, you add velocity to that and you have the ability to cause damage. I like Mad_Mantis's fragmentation skeleton idea. But yeah casting Bone Armour on minions might get old.
But how is "Bone Wraith" any more stupid than "Bone Spirit" (when I was talking about "nice variation of Bone Wraith" before I actually meant Bone Spirit but it's been a very long time since I played Diablo II)? It says in the manual it's just a spirit (vengeful revenant or such) so it doesn't HAVE to be bone. And what about Bone Spear? He summons a bone out of nowhere. It doesn't have to make so much sense because it already doesn't. What metal is the new Barb Hammer spell made out of do you say?
Anyways I appreciate the mass market appeal of the Witch Doctor over the Necromancer as well as the fact that he is broader and easier to design for than the Necro and also that it's still quite early and we haven't seen most of his spells and we might yet see how different from the Necro he is. They may have purposefully chosen his more "Necromancer-eee" spells for the gameplay demo. All I'm saying is I wouldn't have minded them expanding the character's abilities one bit. And I don't think the average Necro fan ('game is too colorful!' crowd excluded) would either. The Necromancer for me is the most interesting character in the game: live off in deep underground cities, don't ally themselves with Heaven or Hell, completely pragmatic, not at all afraid of Death as they alone already know as much about it as the demons or angels. When I read that leak last year I was so happy because I wanted to be walking around the town in Heaven listening to the Necro give lip-service to the angels. This Witch Doctor is just like a Barbarian with voodoo: live in secluded harsh environment, clan warfare... that's it as far as I can tell. If they'd have given him a locusts spell and explained it away somehow I wouldn't have cared. I'da been kickin *** with my favourite character regardless. (Look at Iron Golem - nothing really undeadish about reforming metal, but they can do it because of their familiarity with potions - so maybe they can create a pheromone to summon locusts because of that same potion ability). This got long, if you're still with me, kisses and hugs.
They clearly wanted to have a character with exploding summons? Doesn't that seem kind of narrow-minded to you? But even so I don't see why a Necromancer's minions can't explode. If he can do a corpse explosion he can blow up his own minions.
How about unique explosions per minions? Cold skeleton mage = some kind of cold nova that does cold damage. Fire and poison mages their own type added etc. Or better yet how about some kind of suicide spell you can trigger in your skeleton mages? For plain old skeletons how about when they are killed by an enemy instead of dieing they just break apart and their various limbs hop and crawl around still attacking and have to further pulverized out of existence?
And of course he could bolster his own minions with his skills -- imagine casting bone armour on your skeletons. The bone wraith variation I mentioned could work just like the locusts. Cast it on an enemy and it drifts from enemy to enemy killing or weakening. Cast it on a minion and it flits around it attacking defensively and perhaps adding life drain to that minion. Turn all your skeletons into blood skeletons!
There's plenty they could have done. They could have made a new updated Necromancer. I'm guessing it was just when they were in the process of brainstorming for him they said "to hell with it let's have some fun with it and make a new guy!".
Yeah they could have easily improved on the Necro. I don't see why they couldn't have just updated him like the did with the Barb, and from a lore viewpoint I see the Barbs and Necros as the ones that would be most likely to jump into the new action in D3.
Some good points in this thread. Seems obvious to me that the Devs felt they couldn't improve on the Necro, so they decided to leave him out, as they didn't need/want to change him. Like everyone has said though, they could improve the barb, while still leaving him a barb, so thats why he is still in the game.
Us Necro lovers should be happy that the Necro will forever more remain a Necromancer, just as we played him. He was already good enough, and in a way thats pretty cool. Just my 2 cents.
The Necro still plays unlike any other game i have laid hands on. I've been playing summon centric builds since Diablo 2 came out.
Certainly hoped to hear that the WD summons could be made into a killing force. Was thinking that that would be the route with the elemental skill 'buffs'
It will be interesting to see where the WD pets go for sure and is certainly what i'm looking forward to most. Just hope they are not like 1.09 and before skells!
From news today (http://www.diii.net/n/681640/d3-team-says-no-necromancer-in-d3). D3 lead designer Jay Wilson talks about why no necromancer in d3, though he leaves open the possibility of a return in some future expansion.
More interesting to me than the necromancer bit (when it was obvious they wouldn't have 2 pets/curses/undead summoners out of the 5 at launch) is what this last paragraph says about the WD's play style. Clearly the goal is not to have tons and tons of pets, or very long lasting, powerful pets. They want WDs to play actively, not just max out summoning skills and stand back while skeletons/revives/golems beat monsters slowly to death. They want constant action, more attack spells, powerful minions that don't last long or do their most damage in death, etc.
That sounds like a lot of fun to me; I always got bored with Necros since there was inevitably standing around waiting, on some monster types or levels. Or endlessly long/slow boss fights.
Well this is a problem for me as i am a summoner type class fan.
I just feel great when i can command my legion and watch as they tear apart everything on they way. Only d2 necromancer gave me this feeling and it was great. Before d2c came out i already knew that my first char will be necro (i was sad that they cap golem to one and he is a shadow of his former) and it was only char which i beat game on all difficulties i found others character very boring and most of them didn't go far than lvl 30 (barb). It was this way before 1.10exp patch came.
So as you see people are different and likes different things. I hope that summoner WD will be viable to play and have good fun :/.
I is not as summoner is a must because i like played direct combat character too but if they are like mage from d1 not a "spam one spell/skill" (fireball sorceress after 1.10 f.e.) char but more like "you can beat them on many ways".
Now WD is on my target i hope that on next blizzcon we will see some more creatures and spells. I am afraid to see something like clums,y uncool, weak hth golem from d2 i would rather see something like golem from d1 when he hit you feel a tremble :).
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