Diablo 3 Necromancer concept/ideas

I love the idea of his proposed Resource so much that I based the whole class around it.

I would really like to see a "dark", morally flexible class in Diablo 3 and I think the Necromancer would be a perfect fit. With a lot of people hoping for a class with a shapeshifting aspect, I also thought up something like this for a Diablo 3 Necromancer and I think it would fit the theme quite well.

Please post some comments on what to add/ change and I will edit this post.




Here is a quick mockup of the Resource:

100 Balance points.

Half black and half white. Some skills lower the balance while others raise it. You can't use certain skills anymore if there is an imbalance.


Main Stat: Vitality

At first I thought that a char with Vitality as main stat would be a bad idea, because the character would probably feel too tanky. After a quick check on d3planner.com it turned out, that even with all ancient items and Vit + Armor + AllRes on almost every piece you're only at ~27mio toughness. You have around ~2mio life, but you're really lacking Armor and AllRes compared to the other classes. This leads to a very low Recovery stat and probably would make the Necro a pretty bad melee character. With the help of some passives that reduce life by a certain percentage but increase your AllRes or Armor, this might be less of a problem though.

Skills:

Skills can either raise the balance or lower it.

Skills that damage an enemy directly raise the balance (you take someones life away), while summoning skills lower the balance (you give life to something).

Bone and Posion Skills

Teeth

Raise balance on hit.

Poison Nova

Bone Prison

Bone Armor

Your armor is increased by 20% for 60 seconds. Your balance is raised by 5 points everytime you are hit.

Curse Skills

I'm not sure how many curse skills there should be and what should be done with runes yet.


Amplify Damage
Increases damage taken of your target. Every cursed enemy raises your balance by 1 point every second.

Runes

• Iron Maiden (Damage dealt is damage received)
• Life Tap (Attacking a cursed soul gives you health)

Weaken

Decreases the damage the target can do. Every cursed enemy raises your balance by 1 point every second.

Runes

• Terror (Cursed enemy runs in fear)
• Decrepify (Targets Speed is reduced)

Vanish

The cursed enemies no longer hinder your movement. Your movement speed is increased by 15%. Raise balance by 5 points. Cooldown: 6 seconds.

This skill is something like a Spirit Walk curse, I can't think of a better mobility skill yet.

Sacrifice

Curse your self by reducing your own life in order to restore the balance by 30 points.

Summoning Skills

Raise Skeleton

Raise a skeleton at the position of you cursor that fights for you for 10 seconds. Lowers balance by 20 points.

Runes:

• Skeleton Army (Raise 3 skeletons that fight for 12 seconds)
• Skeletal Mage (Deal random elemental damage) This should maybe be a skill on its own.
• Giant Skeleton (Raise one giant skeleton for 30 seconds)
• Exploding Skeleton (Summon an unstable skeleton that explodes after 1 second)

Raise Golem

Passive: Raise a Golem that fights by your side. Lowers balance by 1 point every second.

Active: The Golem moves to the position of your cursor.

Runes:

• Clay Golem (More Damage)
• Blood Golem (Life Leech)
• Iron Golem (Maybe there is way for this to work with Legendary Affixes)
• Fire Golem (Burns the Ground it walks on)
• Teleporting Golem (Active attack teleports your Golem to the target destination)

Raise Demon

Raise a Demon that charges to the target position and deals damage on its path. Lowers balance by 20 points.

Would be a mixture of Phalanx and Zombie Charger. A skill that deals massive damage and "costs" resources.

Shapeshifting Skills

Vampre

Inspired by /u/Ceek4y and the Trang-Oul's Avatar set from Diablo 2

Passive: Transforms the Necro into a Demon. Adds life leech and increases Movement and Attack Speed. Lowers balance by 2 points every second.

Active: Cast a Fire Ball. Raises Balance by 5 points for every enemy you hit.

I don't know about skills like fire wall and meteor. They might be too similar to the wizard skills


Edit: Below are my old suggestions for a shapeshifting demon, but maybe it doesn't fit the necro theme very well.

Inner Demon

Passive: Transforms the Necro into a Demon. Adds Resistance to all Elements and Attack Speed. Lowers balance by 2 points every second.

Active: Attack with a powerful melee attack for 400% weapon damage. Raises Balance by 5 points for every enemy you hit.

Runes

• Fiery Demon (Attack becomes ~ Disintegrate - Orlash Style)
• Poisoned Demon (You release a vile stench that deals 500% weapon damage as Poison every second to enemies within 8 yards.
• Demonic Slaves (Summons two Demonic Slaves that fight by your side and are connected to you and to each other with a chain)
• Behemoth (Bigger, more damage)

Winged Terror

When in demon form, you grow a pair of wings and charge through enemies to the selected location. Lowers balance by 10 points.

Fires of Hell

When in demon form, you release a gigantic wave of power, dealing damage to all enemies 15 yards. Raises Balance by 2 points for every enemy hit.

Passives

As mentioned above, there should be somne passives to help the Recovery stat of a Vitality based class. Passives that restore some percentage of your life or that lower your life but increase your Armor/AllRes.

Items

I really like the idea of a set that doesn't support specific skills, but changes the way you play.

My idea would be a "Balance of Life" set, that increases your damage depending on how balanced your resources are. So if they are exactly 50/50, your damage is increased by 1000%, but if the difference is greater than 40/60 the damage increase is only 500%, down to 0% by 10/90.

This would probably be a 6pc set bonus, with the 4pc bonus balancing out your resources by 1 point every second or something like that.


Another set could be focused around your summoning skills, by making your Skeletons last until they die and increasing your pets' damage to cursed enemies. Supporting items could give Raise Skeleton the Skeleton Army rune or give your Golem the Teleporting rune.


I had a lot of fun writing down my ideas and I hope a lot of people join this discussion about possible skills for a Diablo 3 Necromancer. After hearing about the Witch Doctor in Diablo 3 I thought that there wouldn't be the need for another summoning class. But after writing down all this stuff I think that it would fit in the game quite well.

What are your thoughts?

Posted in: ideas, thoughts