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Diablo 4’s necromancer class fails the only test any game with a necromancer class must pass: whether or not you can command a deadly army of skeletons. The minions in Diablo 4 are weaker than the free spider pet that everyone gets as part of Season 3. They are so bad that you can get all the minion-based abilities and do more damage to the Don’t even summon them.
That could change in Diablo 4 Mid-Season Patch next Tuesday. All Necromancer Skeletons have their damage and health increased, and complementary abilities, such as Corpse Explosion, are also improved. Blizzard said in a stream yesterday that these changes will be the first step toward more significant minion tweaks coming in Season 4.
Season 3 highlighted the problems of necromancers compared to the other four classes and the new patch notes seem aimed at addressing them head-on. In addition to lacking good minions, necromancers had no ways to increase their movement speed, which has become mandatory to clear dungeons with any sort of efficiency, outside of equipment.
That won’t be as much of a problem next week when his passive ability, Death’s Approach (formerly Death’s Reach) will be buffed to give you up to 12% additional movement speed before any equipment adds more.
There are so many goodies in the patch notes that it will probably take players a few days to discover them. But the most notable takeaways for me are:
- Minions will eventually do more damage and survive longer
- Corpse Explosion’s increased damage helps it fit into more builds
- Spiked Armor’s new armor bonus lets you equip more offensive gear
- Higher survivability passives make defensive abilities less important
- The Blight and Sever upgrades loosen the grip that Bone Spear had on powerful mid- and long-range builds.
I haven’t done the math, although I’m sure someone will, but various necromancer builds should have better damage and smoother rotations with a better selection of good abilities to choose from. Even if barbarians and rogues continue to dominate the game in terms of speed, necromancers won’t be far behind.
The Gauntlet will be the true test. It will be released on the same day as the patch and will provide endgame players with a fixed weekly dungeon with a scoring system and leaderboards. However, Blizzard has designed it to be accessible to more casual players and will reward you with legendary item caches for beating the set times each week, regardless of your rank. It would be wishful thinking to assume that necromancers will get the best scores, but the gap between this and the other classes might be smaller than you think with the help of the patch.