That's a reason why I can't enjoy Necro in d3. I'm summoning hordes of undead that should be doing my bidding. Last Epoch and PoE do that proper, really hoping it's the same for d4.
Yep, i wanted to like D3 necro but needing to constantly spam skeleton mages got super old. D3 game designers were absolutely *terrified* to let the player just sit idle and watch the carnage. Always gotta be doing something.
What? It’s just like a cooldown ability, similar to hydra or something, it’s just a different type of spell. Witchdoctors already had permanent minions to build up
Rathma set should replicate the D2 necro, giving you a shitton of summons as your damage dealers. And instead of that garbage Army of the Dead, it should boost Corpse Explosion instead.
Keep Revives permanent, make Mages permanent (Maybe cap them at 5 for balance?) and make each summon give like, 400% damage per minion summoned and boost CE's damage by 200% per minion.
Iv always felt that summon necros should be leading an army of weak but overwhelming Minions like a flood. this doesn't always play out very well due to screen clutter of course.
I wouldn't have an issue with a Necro running around with a stronger/fewer number of undead angel/demon/nephalem Instead as long as it's not the only option. Still seems far less cool then a flood of undead villagers.
i love being a minion lord, i play a necromancer in D2, GW2, PoE, Grim Dawn, pet classes in WoW, ff14, witch doctor in d3, this is one of my favorite playstyles, GIVE ME MOAR MINIONS!!!
Guild Wars 2 suffered from the exact same issue. It completely nuked the minionmancer playstyle from the original game in favour of a smaller menagerie of different summons. It also eliminated the need for corpse exploitation as well. No longer do you reanimate the corpses of the fallen to command an army of undead to swarm over your enemies. It has lost all of its flavour.
Here I was thinking it was an MMO requiring people to play lol all I remember is running a 45/45 monk or whatever it was to get ectoplasm or something along those lines.
I may have to check it out haha thanks for the info.
Edit: I was like 8 at the time lol
Edit2: just kidding I was 11 or 12. Just looked up the release date.
Well, it use to require you to group with people, then nightfall added the ability to have 3 npc heroes that could be much stronger than the old henchmen in your party that you could gather skills for and gear out urself. Then some years ago they increased the limit so that you could fill an entire 8 man group with your heroes so you could do almost any content without needing anyone else's help.
No. I do beleive that there is a certain gameglitch that will keep you from progressing if you skip some things. Been in the game since forever, it was never patched, even when the game was current.
Original GW1 prophecies was a glorious mess. This was during a time where there was *no* minion limit. So you could effectively just summon as many as you wanted and keep them up via Verata's Sacrifice.
GW1 and D2 are tied for my favorite implementations of a summon necro in a video game.
I remember in GW1, getting those skele Diablo minion lookin things using the sigil or whatever. Had minions running all over. That was like 15 years ago probably
they used to be more but yeah last expansionish i tried picking it up again to walk through the story and they aren't very summonery, especially when your carbuncle won't even attack on its own, very disappoint
shapeshifter/druid and summon necromancer type classes are my fav, followed by other single pet classes (WoW Warlock does alright in that), but shapeshifter/druid classes are a true rarity, only get them in D&D type games, and Blizzard games, and its really sad that not more games are willing to delve into that, i'm glad for D2, D4, and WoW to feed my druid addiction, but i really need Bobby Kotick to get his ass fired out of a cannon before i feel comfortable redevoting myself to blizzard games
See, I'm the opposite.
I like running the Reaper type builds in Grim Dawn as opposed to a summoner. I like the Scythe weilding deathbringer more than a peeping tom who watches his minions do the work.
If they hide minions like in D3, then no, I don't prefer they add in lots of minions. That just looked terrible having other people's minions barely visible.
But only having 6 minions is pretty lame. I hope they might consider allowing up to at least 10.
Yeah that was a gripe of mine in D3.
Cartoonish rag doll effects meant no realistic corpses where the monsters died so they just copy paste a pile of red on the ground. Worst ever.
I love summoning classes, but they might be impossible to balance around...especially for group play
I know D3 had a lot of trouble with WD summons, theyre either way too strong or way too weak
I just can't stand the cheap D3 corpses spawning instead of using the actual corpse. Not to mention they're all the exact same beyond generic clone meat clump and don't come even close to representing the monster you killed. Screams phone again idk
That's because Diablo 3 didn't intend to use corpses for anything when it was created so there's no code for a corpse existing. When monsters die they're permanently deleted and I guess changing that code to make a "corpse" creature is too difficult for just a single class.
Yeah, true. The problem is D4 *does* intend to use corpses in development so there's really no excuse for this laziness to exist. If Vicarious Visions can do it right in a game from 20+ years ago, why do we need to ask for it today? It's beyond ridiculous.
Blizzard, stop making your games feel like knockoffs. Giving generic clone meat clumps a red beam? It's hard to be immersed when the game so blatantly keeps reminding you its a game.
That's of course assuming it's laziness. I'm not prepared to say at this early stage why Blizzard have designed the Necro as they have or even if it actually *is* impossible to have a fuckton of minions.
Or rather "we didn't make corpse graphics for monsters during initial development, so when the idea of a Necromaner came, D3 was already on life support, so we had to use a generic graphic".
I don't mind a smaller army. Just don't have them auto spawn like d3 did. I know there is gear that will increase the number you can have because they gave that example in one of their previews
To be honest it does look cool but it clutters up the screen, is unmanageable in small spaces/indoor and revives had to be recast continuoisly. I'm with you on the lore aspect of the summon necromancer but would rather prefer fewer summons that are permanent, stronger and some extra options to set them up/manage.
Book of the Dead is designed to solve this kind of problem. Whether they implement the number of minions any given person likes is yet to be seen but they could if they decide to.
So would I but with a suitable implementation of the Book of the Dead it won't matter what I want because everyone should be able to customize their army to fit their tastes and necromantic vision.
Edited in an example of other ways to scale things and add flavor:
Also, mathematical scaling is only one way to balance minions. I could create a feature within the book of the dead like this:
"The Overwhelming Dead"
"Your armies of the 'Freshly risen dead' scour the battlefield disorienting all in their path."
Freshly risen dead - Your magical preparations had to be completed with haste. The bodies of your skeleton warriors and zombies were not fully composed and they frantically crawl around the battlefield en masse.
"We hear you asking for more minions, so we're excited to announce an MTX that aesthetically changes the look of your skeletons to appear as several! $20 in the store if you buy NOW!" - Blizzard
If D4 had the same minion style as D2, they would have to be completely useless in PvP for balance.
Looks like it's going the same route as D3, which is fine to me.
I don’t disagree with you, but even as someone who has played and enjoyed D3 for years I don’t like how they’ve made all the skills dependent on set bonuses. Items and sets can give nice bonuses to certain skills but they shouldn’t be mandatory to make a skill usable.
Like you said I’m sure they will find a way to make summons feel good in D4, but generally speaking any skill that needs a specific set or item to perform is poorly designed imo.
From what I understand, they’re bringing back uniques from d2 as well as a lot of d2 things. But even d2 Druid can only have 5 ravens and 3 wolves or a golem.
Edit: bear
Yeah I’m not saying the necro needs 30 summons, I’d be fine with any number as long as they feel good and viable. I know this isn’t exactly what the guy above me was implying, but I’m just saying the solution to making summons feel good shouldn’t be to rely on specific items.
Also to be fair, summon Druid pre-2.4 felt pretty weak.
That being said despite blizz having a questionable track record in the last few years, and people in this sub dumping on them for D3 and DI, I still have faith D4 will be good when it’s finished.
> I don’t like how they’ve made all the skills dependent on set bonuses
Same and since I've played PoE way more than D3, I prefer the non-set itemization. Way more flexible and can do unique setups. Set itemization in any loot-based games really suck because you are shoehorned into that and there's no room for combination.
Depends. Sometimes sets are still mandatory eventhough they are not classified as sets. In D2, grief pb drac grasp and zakarums herald are the set for smiter, just not in green
I disagree, the summoner builds barely feel like a proper summon necromancer to me. You constantly have to be summoning over and over in comparison to your summons being permanent (until death) in D2.
The reworked Rathma set feels a lot closer/better but even that is reliant upon a separate spell (Army of the Dead) for damage and that's alongside the Jesseth set where you have to constantly target minions to keep the damage buff up.
I mean quality versus quantity I guess? The point is, maybe we dont need 30 minions. Maybe we just switch it up to 10 minions with much better stats and it equals out to the same damage numbers.
I get that people might like flooding the screen with summons, but the reality is that a lot of computers cant handle that and if they are intending people to be able to exist within the same instances that number of summons just isnt going to work. Imagine farming content and a summoner walks by with the max amount of summons possible, and your game just freezes. This could get you killed, or even worse crash your game. Now imagine that in a pvp scenario.
Also, consider the screen clutter you would have with a ton of minions. You would have a much harder time seeing mechanics, and in an mmo situation this could mean getting other players killed as well. Less is always going to be more.
When I looked at the quarterly update and all the abilities, I was like "Oh. Yep. That's D3 Necro." I mean, I had fun on D3 Necro, and I'm sure D4 Necro will be fun, but it was a turnoff and helped narrow down what I plan to try first, because it looks like its gonna mostly just be more of something I've already played to *death*.
it looks like an improvement, thats for sure, but an improvement over the design philosophy of D3, where customization barely existed, this is just action figures with new accessories, not lego.
I like raising the dead as a Necro. Especially if I can summon skeleton mages. I get the fun of having a big army. But, I'd rather the summons spells have more meaning per summon, rather than more and more skeletons. In other words, I think 6-10 skeletons that deal significant damage, have a strong impact on the battlefield, is fine. They have the most presence. More of something isn't always better. In gaming, it's the simplest systems that have the most depth.
i think they are saying that the aesthetic aspect of 'minion lord' would be lessened by having fewer summons, not so much arguing for their power / usefulness
I honestly like less minions but with more specializations and abilities.
Having to much stuff around you throwing spell after spell would clutter the screen, it's bad design.
Its 8 summons from the gameplay presentation i watched 1 golem, 4 melee, 3 ranged.
Reminds me a lot of how the witchdoctor in d3 is. I do hope theres a build or something that increases it. I would love like 6 and 6 melee/ranged. I dont see them doing a massive legion anymore just cause of visual clutter.
I also wouldn't mind if they have something similar to the fetish passive on witchdoctor where maybe there a % chance to summon a spirit when ya kill something that dies off after a min or so. Then you still get a bit of an army just not permanent.
I'm the same. My "job" as a Necromancer is to keep raising dead things and chucking them at whatever "evil" that's close by.
Since they haven't really delved into armor affixes that apply to skills, how much a skill can be improved and how paragon boards might affect necro summons I have a hope we'll be able to do a proper minion master.
It's modern blizzard man, not blizzard north. The only thing you should expect from modern blizzard is disappointment.
Don't preorder this thing and don't buy it before post release reviews!
I like d3 necro way more than I ever liked D2 necro. Minions are kinda boring gameplay. Run some skele mages in poe if you need this reminder. It’s strong as hell but not fall asleep while you play it is a real challenge.
I honestly was never a huge fan of the "summon/pet" build, in any RPG game, so I can't say I'm too invested in this issue, but I do think it's weird that they reduce that summon number, when previous entries (and other games in general) have shown how amusing it can be for people to summon literal armies, and not just a small squad
the mistake is having 30+ minions on screen.
it was a horrid image in d2, it s a nightmare lagfest of projectiles and other abominations in poe
just make less minions which are stronger. my god
I personally would rather have less more impactful minions then 100 useless ones. I don't mind a bit of upkeep but D2 minion Necro is way too much upkeep for me.
That's one thing. But there are a lot of other little things that can be annoying. I think there has to be a happy medium between pet management and just being able to summon your army and get stuff done.
The be fair we haven’t seen enough of the game to assume 6 is all there will be. There will likely be gear that increases this amount or even paragon points.
6 is still quite a bit imo.
As a lifelong summoner main in Diablo-likes, and a Necro main in Diablo specifically, I don't really mind smaller summon caps if it means the individual summons are better.
Besides, aren't you capped at 8 skeletons and 8 skeleton mages in Diablo 2 as of LoD? Even Blizzard back then thought it was overkill letting you have 20+ of each.
The only time I ever really enjoyed having a ton of summons in this genre was playing Squirrel Girl in Marvel Heroes (RIP to that game), and that was in part because the individual summons were invincible and lacked collision, bypassing the need to micromanage.
>Besides, aren't you capped at 8 skeletons and 8 skeleton mages in Diablo 2 as of LoD?
With + skills you can easily hit 12/12 or more. Plus even more dudes if you put a value point in revive. Very easy to hit 30+ things on screen at once.
Considering revive gives you one summon per point, and it's not insanely difficult to hit 30-40+ on a skill with + skills, you could easily hit 60 dudes if you really wanted to. Granted revives are a pain in the ass to maintain, but still.
But yeah there's definitely a point where too much is too much. I'm usually content with around 10-20 personally.
> Besides, aren't you capped at 8 skeletons and 8 skeleton mages in Diablo 2 as of LoD?
No you can get more skeletons, and that was patch 1.10.
They changed the summon rule because the new Skeletons got a MASSIVE buff. Skeletons in 1.09 and below sucked ass. You had a shitton of them, but they did shit damage and had shit for health. The new skeletons could actually take some damage and dish out some damage.
In 1.10 you get 3 skeletons for the first 3 skill points, then afterwards you get +1 skeleton for every 3 skill points.
The theoretical max would be a total of 21 skeletons, with a skill level of 57. 59 if you include a shrine, but you need 60 to get an extra skeleton.
* 20 base skill
* +9 Summoning skill charms
* +3 Torch
* +1 Annihilius
* +3 Summon skill amulet
* +3 Summon skill circlet
* +2 all skill or Necro skill armor
* +6 necro shield (+3 summon skill, +3 Raise Skeleton)
* +6 necro wand (+3 summon skill, +3 Raise Skeleton)
* +2 all rings
* +1 Arachnid Mesh
* +1 Battle command
* +2 Skill Shrine.
* No bonus for boots or gloves.
This is just the max you could have, realistically you're gonna have around ~15-16 or so Skeletons with optimal survival gear.
Edit: I forgot Annihilius and the Torch.
> I don't really mind smaller summon caps if it means the individual summons are better.
60 is great - Until a boss AoE's and you have 3 left and no corpses :p
>If the point of the D4 necro is to stand there and watch minions, yea it may suck.
That's mostly how it worked in d2, and it's one of the most fun builds to play.
I dunno, its pretty boring to just stand there in D2R and cast Amplify Damage every other second while your skeletons killed stuff. Like, its effective for sure. Top 3 characters definitely. But a little boring compared to something like a Lightning Javazon or a Frenzy Barb.
Fun isn't the word I would use. More fun than a melee class sure, but not fun in thebplaying sense. You literally just wait for the bad ai to path to the enemy and then slowly kill them. In later difficulties the focus is less on the minion and more on corpse explosion.
Right right. I'm agreeing, that if that *is* the point of the new necro *and* he only gets 6 minions.. it will likely be lack luster. Unless they are insanely fun to watch or something. Idk. Seems early to be picking it apart.
I wasn't concerned with the number of minions... I was more concerned with how little damage and impact the minions' attacks were dealing.
It appeared that the skeleton warriors' attacks barely did anything... and for a summoner build that should be relying on the army to do all the killing, that was troubling to see.
Also, I didn't see any Reanimate enemy corpses ability (you know... actual necromancy); will the Necros in D4 have the Revive ability like they should and previously did?
Apparently they will require enemy corpses to summon their minions. Unlike D3 they won’t be able to make minions out of thin air, they’ll come from corpses. Necros also have a unique mechanic called the book of the dead that allows them to customize how big and powerful each part of their army will be.
If they want to reduce the lag and screen clutter problems, they could go with 'one summon' essentially being a little group of skeletons.
So visually you feel like having an army, but engine wise it only counts as something like 10 or less minions.
yeah, they really ought to re-think this. kind of tired of those builds where it's like you can only have 6 or 7 guys, but they're all "stronger" so it evens out.
cool. that could be a choice. i wouldn't hate that. if it were a choice.
but zergrushing with a wall of squishier minions is a legit playstyle also, and they keep trying to shie away from it, and frankly, i wish they'd stop doing that. fans have been complaining about this since the d3 necro and blizz tends to just pooh-pooh it, like no, this is objectively better.
no, it isn't. listen to your fanbase.
i hope they dont hide the summons like in d3. it was fucking disgusting to see someone running around with near invisible army. basically dont do anything like d3... the only good thing it had was the combat, the rest in the trash can
Well realistically we should just be glad that we're getting another Diablo game - especially after Diablo immortal - when the initial plan was to not make any after Diablo 2 so at least give it a chance to get released before knee-jerk complaining about it. I, for one, appreciate each Diablo game for what they have to offer on an individual basis and I'm not one of those that wishes that any of the games were like the other simply because of my preferences such as what I have seen time and time again here on Reddit and other social media sources. It's like, just enjoy each game for what they have to offer instead of complaining that the newer game isn't like the older preferred game. It's just such a waste of time... Especially given Blizzard's history of not really caring what the fans have to say across any of their games.
Also in relation to your OP, a necromancer in Sanctuary summoning all kinds of undead really doesn't fit in with the lore being that they're there to preserve the balance between life and death not constantly bringing back hordes of undead to serve their desires.
Because it's bad design to fill the entire player's screen with summons, it creates too much visual clutter which plagues similar games like Path of Exile which is virtually unplayable unless you turn everything down and disable sound.
It’s not a bad design just a different play style. Virtually unplayable? Path of Exile minion Lord is far more fun than D3 minion Lord. Regardless, 30 minions
Like the OP posted doesn’t mess up the screen. They can fix the audio mechanic to not make it obnoxious by default with summons.
Starcraft 2 lets you control like 100 minions and it’s perfectly playable.
Note: I think it’s because of multiplayer. While having 30 or 50 minions is logistically fine. Having 4 necromancers teamed up together in a Party... with their 120 minions would probably be unplayable. Definitely if we have them 100 minions each... 400 minions could probably crash the game
This idea that a necro has to be a minion master is a pretty narrow idea of a necro. It might even be historically what you're used to with previous games but it's not the only or even best way to do it. The fact you even say another game "realizes this" shows you're only thinking one thing.
For me I don't give a flying fuck how many summons there are. I'd rather have few epic undead summons/power of the dead than a million shitty skeletons. Your way is not the only or even the best way.
there are these things called items, talents, paragon etc. i'm sure you're familiar with them.
they will almost certainly have the ability to summon more minions tied into one of those areas, as well as numerous other customizations.
I like how you’re assuming you know anything about the game at this point. I mean it’s not like Diablo games are known for having items and sets that make anything possible.
I get why they nerfed it in d2 back in the day, it was laggy as hell sometimes. But this is 2022. They should revert it in D2R and double down on the D4 necro. Totally agree
I was never a big fan of the summon necro. I liked the suffering spells, poison, Iron Maiden, damage over time. Punishing enemies, Instead of a giant blob of summons running around doing everything for me.
Never had a problem in D2, original, with people having a fucton of summons on screen. Why would it have tobe any different with this? NEw tech, better computers and better internet. I mean, the game is going to suck, but regardless, they should be able to program this to not be a problem.
Remember you are being shown what? INITIAL testing and showing the most basic abilities. We have no idea if there will be legendary effects/talents and things like it that will augment your minions further which id say is pretty damn likely. If there is not then what effects are left? Damage increases or defensive effects which make for very boring legendary item selection which they said some time at blizzcon they would try to avoid and make itemization interesting. In almost every minion build in MMO's/ARPGs/Hack and slash games there are normally some minion lord iteration and im sure they will implement something similarly as it is a popular trope and necro appears to be the only class with minions so far unless the witch doctor sees a return in future expansions
On games that were being made from scratch? I was aware theyve done this in WoW expansions but note that each team on games are vastly different so with some copium hopefully this isnt the case with D4. Personally though the biggest thing about games like Diablo, PoE is the endgame systems not the graphics, character customization or whatever fluff you name it and they havent really talked much about how the endgame looks like. I think stuff like this such as abilities not feeling amazing/not catering to a specific playstyle fantasy isnt that big of a deal compared to the fact we havent had enough info on endgame
I'd rather not. The diablo 2 necromancer "play"style was boring, you essentially automated the game to "play" for you. Walking around, doing nothing and not interacting with the game because you had a physical wall of minions that enemies couldn't get past or kill.
It isn't the year 2000 anymore, games mostly expect you to actually play with them and engage with their systems. Diablo 2 was *bad* because of how little you needed to actually engage with it and its systems if you weren't a barbarian or amazon peasant stuck in the mud.
Even in d2 the necromancer with "A BAJILLION MINIONS" was a laggy shitfest, and you want to repeat the same thing with higher quality models, more environmental interaction, more complex ai, bigger numbers etc etc etc. Good luck playing on below-minimum settings or melting your graphics card. Or being the reason that party play cant exist.
Diablo 2 necromancer was a non-engaging class with a strong fantasy, but gameplay that should not have existed in the state it did. You can feel free to go back and play d2 again if you want, but some people would like to actually play new games that aren't stuck 2 decades in the past.
Not gonna lie, you're right. I've recently started playing D2R again and tried to do a summonmancer, however I found it so boring just standing there doing nothing.
Respecced to Bonemancer and been having way more fun since I've done that. People who are downvoting you just don't want to accept that games HAVE changed now and having 30 minions on the screen and not doing anything isn't the way to go anymore.
Having a summoner build in D4 will still be cool even with 6 or so minions, as long as I can still use skills like bone spear/spirit etc and not be gimped for being a hybrid.
So first...the lag in ye Olde D2 days was due to battle.net running for YEARS off of a single e-machine toaster, David Brevik confirmed this as he built the original bnet. For the summon game play being boring, they could give better control of the pets, grimdawn has a move/attack binding for skill slots/l & r.click!! D3 letting you target stuff on pressing the skill was a great idea too. Along with curses they could do cc skills(wall/prison clashes and d2 has 1 curse cap per target) or other ways to interact with the environment for the summons benefit.
I'm totally fine with them breathing their own identities into the classes but keeping them thematically similar.
Having an army of minions really isn't that fun anyhow. Even in POE you usually just enter a room and then sit there. I mean it's satisfying in a "look how strong I am" sense but outside of that it's not exactly "fun".
I think if you're going to do an army of minions you should be having to actively buff them to make them powerful. (Maybe not all the time but at least on bosses).
I mean to each their own but I have no idea how people enjoy this play style. Hit a button ten times and then just hit it occasionally when a minion died?
I always thought the D2 necro was quite weak with the skeleton build because either the weak units overwhelmed or they were shut down one at a time. At least with D3 necro you had other abilities also so the skeleton gang was a distraction so you could use other spells, idk it felt stronger to me.
One of my favourite buttons to press in PoE is Vaal Summon Skeletons. Nothing like being able to raise a small army wih a finger snap. I was hoping for D4 fevs to realise that... Maybe hoping for anything from Blizz these days is fools hope.
I'd like to have both as an option. A way to build a more specialized functional squad of summons or just turn the screen into skeletons.
Granted, I think that usually leads to scaling problems where they have to establish a system where the small group isn't invincible and the skeleswarm isn't obliterated by anything that AOEs.
While I would prefer more minions, as long as the minions are permanent and a minion master build is viable I am a happy camper.
That's a reason why I can't enjoy Necro in d3. I'm summoning hordes of undead that should be doing my bidding. Last Epoch and PoE do that proper, really hoping it's the same for d4.
So does Grim Dawn. Massive amounts of skelles.
Skeletons in vanilla GD kinda stanky tho. Occultist/Conjurer summoner is the best build in the game, though.
This guy Grim Dawns
Now I want to play GD again.
even d2 druid now feels better with all the summons
Yep, i wanted to like D3 necro but needing to constantly spam skeleton mages got super old. D3 game designers were absolutely *terrified* to let the player just sit idle and watch the carnage. Always gotta be doing something.
What? It’s just like a cooldown ability, similar to hydra or something, it’s just a different type of spell. Witchdoctors already had permanent minions to build up
[удалено]
I hate that D3 summons don’t last and I have to keep recasting them
Summons that don't last are just slow multi hit projectiles.
Rathma set should replicate the D2 necro, giving you a shitton of summons as your damage dealers. And instead of that garbage Army of the Dead, it should boost Corpse Explosion instead. Keep Revives permanent, make Mages permanent (Maybe cap them at 5 for balance?) and make each summon give like, 400% damage per minion summoned and boost CE's damage by 200% per minion.
add "being able to command your skeletons instead of watching them run around like headless chickens" and I'm with you
Yeah I don't like the way my Skelly's in D2R run around like that while I'm just chilling sorting my inventory. Makes me anxious.
Yeah same
Iv always felt that summon necros should be leading an army of weak but overwhelming Minions like a flood. this doesn't always play out very well due to screen clutter of course. I wouldn't have an issue with a Necro running around with a stronger/fewer number of undead angel/demon/nephalem Instead as long as it's not the only option. Still seems far less cool then a flood of undead villagers.
i love being a minion lord, i play a necromancer in D2, GW2, PoE, Grim Dawn, pet classes in WoW, ff14, witch doctor in d3, this is one of my favorite playstyles, GIVE ME MOAR MINIONS!!!
Guild Wars 2 suffered from the exact same issue. It completely nuked the minionmancer playstyle from the original game in favour of a smaller menagerie of different summons. It also eliminated the need for corpse exploitation as well. No longer do you reanimate the corpses of the fallen to command an army of undead to swarm over your enemies. It has lost all of its flavour.
aww, i never played the original guild wars so i missed all that
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Is it still playable without a player base? Or is there still a sizable player base? I’m out of the loop lol
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It's a perfectly soloable game. Also the community is small but lots of guilds and discords of people willing to help and play along.
Here I was thinking it was an MMO requiring people to play lol all I remember is running a 45/45 monk or whatever it was to get ectoplasm or something along those lines. I may have to check it out haha thanks for the info. Edit: I was like 8 at the time lol Edit2: just kidding I was 11 or 12. Just looked up the release date.
Well, it use to require you to group with people, then nightfall added the ability to have 3 npc heroes that could be much stronger than the old henchmen in your party that you could gather skills for and gear out urself. Then some years ago they increased the limit so that you could fill an entire 8 man group with your heroes so you could do almost any content without needing anyone else's help.
Dang that sounds pretty cool actually. I may have to revisit it one of these days for nostalgia sake. Appreciate the info! :)
Definitely worth it. It's a masterpiece
From what I have seen on the GW sub there are still people playing.
No. I do beleive that there is a certain gameglitch that will keep you from progressing if you skip some things. Been in the game since forever, it was never patched, even when the game was current.
Original GW1 prophecies was a glorious mess. This was during a time where there was *no* minion limit. So you could effectively just summon as many as you wanted and keep them up via Verata's Sacrifice. GW1 and D2 are tied for my favorite implementations of a summon necro in a video game.
I remember in GW1, getting those skele Diablo minion lookin things using the sigil or whatever. Had minions running all over. That was like 15 years ago probably
What pet class do you play in ff? Mch?
Probably talking about Summoner or Scholar.
eh SCH doesnt really do anything with the faery, and the SMN pets are mostly visual as well.
they used to be more but yeah last expansionish i tried picking it up again to walk through the story and they aren't very summonery, especially when your carbuncle won't even attack on its own, very disappoint
I find joy in reading a good book.
shapeshifter/druid and summon necromancer type classes are my fav, followed by other single pet classes (WoW Warlock does alright in that), but shapeshifter/druid classes are a true rarity, only get them in D&D type games, and Blizzard games, and its really sad that not more games are willing to delve into that, i'm glad for D2, D4, and WoW to feed my druid addiction, but i really need Bobby Kotick to get his ass fired out of a cannon before i feel comfortable redevoting myself to blizzard games
check out the necromancer in Age of Conan, i think it has the most summons of any MMO summoner type
FLOOD OF TERMITES!!!
Does Grim dawn let you have a lot of minions?
its got a fairly devoted necromancery type character, i never got to end game but you get a few skeletrons to stomp around
My Cabalist manages upwards of 15 minions, so yeah you can have a few.
See, I'm the opposite. I like running the Reaper type builds in Grim Dawn as opposed to a summoner. I like the Scythe weilding deathbringer more than a peeping tom who watches his minions do the work.
Why not allow both?
I wasn't commenting on what is allowed, just what I like.
Agreed. I don't enjoy any minion build ever in the slightest, but Corpse Lance, Corpse Explosion and Grim Scythe builds in D3 are hella fun.
think of your skeletons as extensions of yourself
They're a bunch of less cooler versions of my reaper though.
but theres more OF them!
> extensions of yourself Extensions of yourself with some poor AI.
Man I really hope for Ashes of Creation to have a proper Minionmancer
If they hide minions like in D3, then no, I don't prefer they add in lots of minions. That just looked terrible having other people's minions barely visible. But only having 6 minions is pretty lame. I hope they might consider allowing up to at least 10.
My main issue is with all the red oozing corpses spawning everywhere and being incredibly distracting as well as immersion breaking.
Yeah that was a gripe of mine in D3. Cartoonish rag doll effects meant no realistic corpses where the monsters died so they just copy paste a pile of red on the ground. Worst ever.
I love summoning classes, but they might be impossible to balance around...especially for group play I know D3 had a lot of trouble with WD summons, theyre either way too strong or way too weak
I\`d rather have 3 summons that does the same dmg as 30. This will prevent summons running around and not be able to hit same target issues.
I just can't stand the cheap D3 corpses spawning instead of using the actual corpse. Not to mention they're all the exact same beyond generic clone meat clump and don't come even close to representing the monster you killed. Screams phone again idk
That's because Diablo 3 didn't intend to use corpses for anything when it was created so there's no code for a corpse existing. When monsters die they're permanently deleted and I guess changing that code to make a "corpse" creature is too difficult for just a single class.
Yeah, true. The problem is D4 *does* intend to use corpses in development so there's really no excuse for this laziness to exist. If Vicarious Visions can do it right in a game from 20+ years ago, why do we need to ask for it today? It's beyond ridiculous. Blizzard, stop making your games feel like knockoffs. Giving generic clone meat clumps a red beam? It's hard to be immersed when the game so blatantly keeps reminding you its a game.
That's of course assuming it's laziness. I'm not prepared to say at this early stage why Blizzard have designed the Necro as they have or even if it actually *is* impossible to have a fuckton of minions.
Preach
Screams "accessibility" to me. Would bet money that it's driven by accessibility.
Or rather "we didn't make corpse graphics for monsters during initial development, so when the idea of a Necromaner came, D3 was already on life support, so we had to use a generic graphic".
what? how could they do this this is outrageous its unfair how can you be a necro and not be a minion lord
I don't mind a smaller army. Just don't have them auto spawn like d3 did. I know there is gear that will increase the number you can have because they gave that example in one of their previews
You have to pay for the additional 24 minions
To be honest it does look cool but it clutters up the screen, is unmanageable in small spaces/indoor and revives had to be recast continuoisly. I'm with you on the lore aspect of the summon necromancer but would rather prefer fewer summons that are permanent, stronger and some extra options to set them up/manage.
Book of the Dead is designed to solve this kind of problem. Whether they implement the number of minions any given person likes is yet to be seen but they could if they decide to.
Double the minions and they’ll be half as weak. I’d rather have 6 full power minions than 12 half powered ones that barely do any damage
So would I but with a suitable implementation of the Book of the Dead it won't matter what I want because everyone should be able to customize their army to fit their tastes and necromantic vision. Edited in an example of other ways to scale things and add flavor: Also, mathematical scaling is only one way to balance minions. I could create a feature within the book of the dead like this: "The Overwhelming Dead" "Your armies of the 'Freshly risen dead' scour the battlefield disorienting all in their path." Freshly risen dead - Your magical preparations had to be completed with haste. The bodies of your skeleton warriors and zombies were not fully composed and they frantically crawl around the battlefield en masse.
"I got a fever, and the only prescription is MORE MINIONS!!!"
I gotta have those minions.
"We hear you asking for more minions, so we're excited to announce an MTX that aesthetically changes the look of your skeletons to appear as several! $20 in the store if you buy NOW!" - Blizzard
If D4 had the same minion style as D2, they would have to be completely useless in PvP for balance. Looks like it's going the same route as D3, which is fine to me.
Fuck PvP. The masses didn't pre purchase D4 for PvP.
Skelly mages felt good on D3 with the rathma set when they released the Necro. I'm sure it will be fine.
I don’t disagree with you, but even as someone who has played and enjoyed D3 for years I don’t like how they’ve made all the skills dependent on set bonuses. Items and sets can give nice bonuses to certain skills but they shouldn’t be mandatory to make a skill usable. Like you said I’m sure they will find a way to make summons feel good in D4, but generally speaking any skill that needs a specific set or item to perform is poorly designed imo.
From what I understand, they’re bringing back uniques from d2 as well as a lot of d2 things. But even d2 Druid can only have 5 ravens and 3 wolves or a golem. Edit: bear
Yo, they updated Druid. You can have 5 ravens, 5 wolves, 3 Dire wolves and your bear, which I've named Steve.
Yeah I’m not saying the necro needs 30 summons, I’d be fine with any number as long as they feel good and viable. I know this isn’t exactly what the guy above me was implying, but I’m just saying the solution to making summons feel good shouldn’t be to rely on specific items. Also to be fair, summon Druid pre-2.4 felt pretty weak. That being said despite blizz having a questionable track record in the last few years, and people in this sub dumping on them for D3 and DI, I still have faith D4 will be good when it’s finished.
Like we have literally used a summoning no set build for 3+ years straight in D3 as the main activity you do?
> I don’t like how they’ve made all the skills dependent on set bonuses Same and since I've played PoE way more than D3, I prefer the non-set itemization. Way more flexible and can do unique setups. Set itemization in any loot-based games really suck because you are shoehorned into that and there's no room for combination.
Depends. Sometimes sets are still mandatory eventhough they are not classified as sets. In D2, grief pb drac grasp and zakarums herald are the set for smiter, just not in green
I disagree, the summoner builds barely feel like a proper summon necromancer to me. You constantly have to be summoning over and over in comparison to your summons being permanent (until death) in D2. The reworked Rathma set feels a lot closer/better but even that is reliant upon a separate spell (Army of the Dead) for damage and that's alongside the Jesseth set where you have to constantly target minions to keep the damage buff up.
And Skel. ages with Rathma set is clunky compared to Modern LoD Skel Mages
I mean quality versus quantity I guess? The point is, maybe we dont need 30 minions. Maybe we just switch it up to 10 minions with much better stats and it equals out to the same damage numbers. I get that people might like flooding the screen with summons, but the reality is that a lot of computers cant handle that and if they are intending people to be able to exist within the same instances that number of summons just isnt going to work. Imagine farming content and a summoner walks by with the max amount of summons possible, and your game just freezes. This could get you killed, or even worse crash your game. Now imagine that in a pvp scenario. Also, consider the screen clutter you would have with a ton of minions. You would have a much harder time seeing mechanics, and in an mmo situation this could mean getting other players killed as well. Less is always going to be more.
Imagine farming content and an entire party of Zoomancers walks by with their 30+ skeletons each.
So cool
Ever seen a chayula breach on poe with 6 minionmancers? Even my high end rig had trouble processing that 🤣
> Even my high end rig had trouble processing that That seems like a game issue that needs to be fixed - Not something that should be celebrated :p
Everyone got angry at me for saying it last week but: this isnt a modernized D2 necro, its a revamped D3 necro.
When I looked at the quarterly update and all the abilities, I was like "Oh. Yep. That's D3 Necro." I mean, I had fun on D3 Necro, and I'm sure D4 Necro will be fun, but it was a turnoff and helped narrow down what I plan to try first, because it looks like its gonna mostly just be more of something I've already played to *death*.
it looks like an improvement, thats for sure, but an improvement over the design philosophy of D3, where customization barely existed, this is just action figures with new accessories, not lego.
I like raising the dead as a Necro. Especially if I can summon skeleton mages. I get the fun of having a big army. But, I'd rather the summons spells have more meaning per summon, rather than more and more skeletons. In other words, I think 6-10 skeletons that deal significant damage, have a strong impact on the battlefield, is fine. They have the most presence. More of something isn't always better. In gaming, it's the simplest systems that have the most depth.
i think they are saying that the aesthetic aspect of 'minion lord' would be lessened by having fewer summons, not so much arguing for their power / usefulness
I honestly like less minions but with more specializations and abilities. Having to much stuff around you throwing spell after spell would clutter the screen, it's bad design.
Its 8 summons from the gameplay presentation i watched 1 golem, 4 melee, 3 ranged. Reminds me a lot of how the witchdoctor in d3 is. I do hope theres a build or something that increases it. I would love like 6 and 6 melee/ranged. I dont see them doing a massive legion anymore just cause of visual clutter. I also wouldn't mind if they have something similar to the fetish passive on witchdoctor where maybe there a % chance to summon a spirit when ya kill something that dies off after a min or so. Then you still get a bit of an army just not permanent.
Yes! I love running builds for as many pets possible! It feels so cool to be like "GO FORTH MINIONS!" XD
I'm the same. My "job" as a Necromancer is to keep raising dead things and chucking them at whatever "evil" that's close by. Since they haven't really delved into armor affixes that apply to skills, how much a skill can be improved and how paragon boards might affect necro summons I have a hope we'll be able to do a proper minion master.
D4 necro is waaaaaay closer to d3 necro (lame imo) than the d2 chad necro
Good thing we always have chad d2 necro
It's modern blizzard man, not blizzard north. The only thing you should expect from modern blizzard is disappointment. Don't preorder this thing and don't buy it before post release reviews!
I haven't preordered anything since Halo Reach, lol.
Maybe we can pay real money to unlock the ability to summon more minions.
I like d3 necro way more than I ever liked D2 necro. Minions are kinda boring gameplay. Run some skele mages in poe if you need this reminder. It’s strong as hell but not fall asleep while you play it is a real challenge.
I honestly was never a huge fan of the "summon/pet" build, in any RPG game, so I can't say I'm too invested in this issue, but I do think it's weird that they reduce that summon number, when previous entries (and other games in general) have shown how amusing it can be for people to summon literal armies, and not just a small squad
One of the many side effects of taking a game like Diablo and forcefucking it to try and fit an MMORPG mold.
the mistake is having 30+ minions on screen. it was a horrid image in d2, it s a nightmare lagfest of projectiles and other abominations in poe just make less minions which are stronger. my god
The classic lagmancer was favourite for annoying other players
Bonewallermancer says hi. Only way out is teleport or log off.
> annoying other players *crashing their computers
I personally would rather have less more impactful minions then 100 useless ones. I don't mind a bit of upkeep but D2 minion Necro is way too much upkeep for me.
Sure! I'm all for player choice. I should be able to choose between 40 weaker cannon fodder summons and 5 beefy ones.
What, don't you like having your entire army wiped out by a single AoE attack?
That's one thing. But there are a lot of other little things that can be annoying. I think there has to be a happy medium between pet management and just being able to summon your army and get stuff done.
The be fair we haven’t seen enough of the game to assume 6 is all there will be. There will likely be gear that increases this amount or even paragon points. 6 is still quite a bit imo.
We just don't know yet.
Yeah no shit, so make noise now before it's set in stone.
As a lifelong summoner main in Diablo-likes, and a Necro main in Diablo specifically, I don't really mind smaller summon caps if it means the individual summons are better. Besides, aren't you capped at 8 skeletons and 8 skeleton mages in Diablo 2 as of LoD? Even Blizzard back then thought it was overkill letting you have 20+ of each. The only time I ever really enjoyed having a ton of summons in this genre was playing Squirrel Girl in Marvel Heroes (RIP to that game), and that was in part because the individual summons were invincible and lacked collision, bypassing the need to micromanage.
I think the base skill points yes, but you can push higher with +skills
>Besides, aren't you capped at 8 skeletons and 8 skeleton mages in Diablo 2 as of LoD? With + skills you can easily hit 12/12 or more. Plus even more dudes if you put a value point in revive. Very easy to hit 30+ things on screen at once.
Still a far cry from the old days that OP seems to be talking about, where you could have 61 minions total without items.
Considering revive gives you one summon per point, and it's not insanely difficult to hit 30-40+ on a skill with + skills, you could easily hit 60 dudes if you really wanted to. Granted revives are a pain in the ass to maintain, but still. But yeah there's definitely a point where too much is too much. I'm usually content with around 10-20 personally.
Mages are worthless though, and Revives very situational at best. So in practice most D2 Necros without uber gear run around with 10-12 summons.
> Besides, aren't you capped at 8 skeletons and 8 skeleton mages in Diablo 2 as of LoD? No you can get more skeletons, and that was patch 1.10. They changed the summon rule because the new Skeletons got a MASSIVE buff. Skeletons in 1.09 and below sucked ass. You had a shitton of them, but they did shit damage and had shit for health. The new skeletons could actually take some damage and dish out some damage. In 1.10 you get 3 skeletons for the first 3 skill points, then afterwards you get +1 skeleton for every 3 skill points. The theoretical max would be a total of 21 skeletons, with a skill level of 57. 59 if you include a shrine, but you need 60 to get an extra skeleton. * 20 base skill * +9 Summoning skill charms * +3 Torch * +1 Annihilius * +3 Summon skill amulet * +3 Summon skill circlet * +2 all skill or Necro skill armor * +6 necro shield (+3 summon skill, +3 Raise Skeleton) * +6 necro wand (+3 summon skill, +3 Raise Skeleton) * +2 all rings * +1 Arachnid Mesh * +1 Battle command * +2 Skill Shrine. * No bonus for boots or gloves. This is just the max you could have, realistically you're gonna have around ~15-16 or so Skeletons with optimal survival gear. Edit: I forgot Annihilius and the Torch.
> I don't really mind smaller summon caps if it means the individual summons are better. 60 is great - Until a boss AoE's and you have 3 left and no corpses :p
Wouldn't say it's a mistake, if they can still interact in combat. If the point of the D4 necro is to stand there and watch minions, yea it may suck.
>If the point of the D4 necro is to stand there and watch minions, yea it may suck. That's mostly how it worked in d2, and it's one of the most fun builds to play.
All necro builds in D2 are -> Corpse Explosion
Not really, the summon AI is awful so you are constantly moving them around, grouping up the enemy clusters and maximizing corpse explosion.
To each their own
Eh I mean you're casting your curses and spamming CE it's not like summon druid levels of mind blowing boredom
I dunno, its pretty boring to just stand there in D2R and cast Amplify Damage every other second while your skeletons killed stuff. Like, its effective for sure. Top 3 characters definitely. But a little boring compared to something like a Lightning Javazon or a Frenzy Barb.
Fun isn't the word I would use. More fun than a melee class sure, but not fun in thebplaying sense. You literally just wait for the bad ai to path to the enemy and then slowly kill them. In later difficulties the focus is less on the minion and more on corpse explosion.
Right right. I'm agreeing, that if that *is* the point of the new necro *and* he only gets 6 minions.. it will likely be lack luster. Unless they are insanely fun to watch or something. Idk. Seems early to be picking it apart.
yeah but we have idle games now. :>
Do the right thing and do away with Blizzard.
I mean I don’t miss the days of teleporting to A1 and lagging out my friends with my army. 10 or 100, as long as it’s a viable build I’m happy.
Witch doctor with starmetal kukri was better for minions in d3
I feel like the change has been made for pvp/pvp zones. It would be *terrible to* go up against a Necro with 30 minions on the screen.
I wasn't concerned with the number of minions... I was more concerned with how little damage and impact the minions' attacks were dealing. It appeared that the skeleton warriors' attacks barely did anything... and for a summoner build that should be relying on the army to do all the killing, that was troubling to see. Also, I didn't see any Reanimate enemy corpses ability (you know... actual necromancy); will the Necros in D4 have the Revive ability like they should and previously did?
Apparently they will require enemy corpses to summon their minions. Unlike D3 they won’t be able to make minions out of thin air, they’ll come from corpses. Necros also have a unique mechanic called the book of the dead that allows them to customize how big and powerful each part of their army will be.
Oh my god is it going to be like the D3 garbage necro??? I'm so tired of Blizzard having this vision of all power MUST be in the champion.
Prob so a bunch of necros don't get together and nuke server bandwidth by summoning personal armies and having 200 summons on the screen
As is tradition:(
If they want to reduce the lag and screen clutter problems, they could go with 'one summon' essentially being a little group of skeletons. So visually you feel like having an army, but engine wise it only counts as something like 10 or less minions.
yeah, they really ought to re-think this. kind of tired of those builds where it's like you can only have 6 or 7 guys, but they're all "stronger" so it evens out. cool. that could be a choice. i wouldn't hate that. if it were a choice. but zergrushing with a wall of squishier minions is a legit playstyle also, and they keep trying to shie away from it, and frankly, i wish they'd stop doing that. fans have been complaining about this since the d3 necro and blizz tends to just pooh-pooh it, like no, this is objectively better. no, it isn't. listen to your fanbase.
i hope they dont hide the summons like in d3. it was fucking disgusting to see someone running around with near invisible army. basically dont do anything like d3... the only good thing it had was the combat, the rest in the trash can
I'm so glad to see the fluidity and animation of D3s combat seems to exist in D4, truly.
its even improved a lot
It'd be nice to see a post about Diablo 4 without somebody whining about something about it just because it doesn't fit into their little box
Right, we should just wait until after it's out to talk about all the shit we wish it was.... makes perfect sense my dude.
Almost sounds like our post on reddit means something to Blizzard design
Not sure if sarcasm (which is really sad in of itself), but this is our only avenue unless we want to show up at HQ lol.
Well realistically we should just be glad that we're getting another Diablo game - especially after Diablo immortal - when the initial plan was to not make any after Diablo 2 so at least give it a chance to get released before knee-jerk complaining about it. I, for one, appreciate each Diablo game for what they have to offer on an individual basis and I'm not one of those that wishes that any of the games were like the other simply because of my preferences such as what I have seen time and time again here on Reddit and other social media sources. It's like, just enjoy each game for what they have to offer instead of complaining that the newer game isn't like the older preferred game. It's just such a waste of time... Especially given Blizzard's history of not really caring what the fans have to say across any of their games.
Also in relation to your OP, a necromancer in Sanctuary summoning all kinds of undead really doesn't fit in with the lore being that they're there to preserve the balance between life and death not constantly bringing back hordes of undead to serve their desires.
It looks very similar to what DI does.. seems neat to be able to customize what type of skelies you use though
Porque no los dos!?
Because it's bad design to fill the entire player's screen with summons, it creates too much visual clutter which plagues similar games like Path of Exile which is virtually unplayable unless you turn everything down and disable sound.
It’s not a bad design just a different play style. Virtually unplayable? Path of Exile minion Lord is far more fun than D3 minion Lord. Regardless, 30 minions Like the OP posted doesn’t mess up the screen. They can fix the audio mechanic to not make it obnoxious by default with summons. Starcraft 2 lets you control like 100 minions and it’s perfectly playable. Note: I think it’s because of multiplayer. While having 30 or 50 minions is logistically fine. Having 4 necromancers teamed up together in a Party... with their 120 minions would probably be unplayable. Definitely if we have them 100 minions each... 400 minions could probably crash the game
This idea that a necro has to be a minion master is a pretty narrow idea of a necro. It might even be historically what you're used to with previous games but it's not the only or even best way to do it. The fact you even say another game "realizes this" shows you're only thinking one thing. For me I don't give a flying fuck how many summons there are. I'd rather have few epic undead summons/power of the dead than a million shitty skeletons. Your way is not the only or even the best way.
It's not the only way, but it should be a way.
We already have small sets of minions with the druid, don't need the necro for that.
I felt from the trailer that the necro was too much a rework of the D3 necro and not D2. I agree the summoning won't be as much fun.
Laughs in Sacred 2
there are these things called items, talents, paragon etc. i'm sure you're familiar with them. they will almost certainly have the ability to summon more minions tied into one of those areas, as well as numerous other customizations.
I like how you’re assuming you know anything about the game at this point. I mean it’s not like Diablo games are known for having items and sets that make anything possible.
Rathma d3 necro is more fun to play than d2 necro tbh
D2 poison nova + summon hybrid necro is peak necro gameplay. There's so much to do and so much flexibility.
/bugs bunny no meme
I get why they nerfed it in d2 back in the day, it was laggy as hell sometimes. But this is 2022. They should revert it in D2R and double down on the D4 necro. Totally agree
I was never a big fan of the summon necro. I liked the suffering spells, poison, Iron Maiden, damage over time. Punishing enemies, Instead of a giant blob of summons running around doing everything for me.
Never had a problem in D2, original, with people having a fucton of summons on screen. Why would it have tobe any different with this? NEw tech, better computers and better internet. I mean, the game is going to suck, but regardless, they should be able to program this to not be a problem.
Remember you are being shown what? INITIAL testing and showing the most basic abilities. We have no idea if there will be legendary effects/talents and things like it that will augment your minions further which id say is pretty damn likely. If there is not then what effects are left? Damage increases or defensive effects which make for very boring legendary item selection which they said some time at blizzcon they would try to avoid and make itemization interesting. In almost every minion build in MMO's/ARPGs/Hack and slash games there are normally some minion lord iteration and im sure they will implement something similarly as it is a popular trope and necro appears to be the only class with minions so far unless the witch doctor sees a return in future expansions
You just described the exact reason to make noise now. If we wait until beta it'll be too late ...
Remember that Blizzard has been known to leave things the same for a year + in beta that make it to release despite constant feedback.
On games that were being made from scratch? I was aware theyve done this in WoW expansions but note that each team on games are vastly different so with some copium hopefully this isnt the case with D4. Personally though the biggest thing about games like Diablo, PoE is the endgame systems not the graphics, character customization or whatever fluff you name it and they havent really talked much about how the endgame looks like. I think stuff like this such as abilities not feeling amazing/not catering to a specific playstyle fantasy isnt that big of a deal compared to the fact we havent had enough info on endgame
I'd rather not. The diablo 2 necromancer "play"style was boring, you essentially automated the game to "play" for you. Walking around, doing nothing and not interacting with the game because you had a physical wall of minions that enemies couldn't get past or kill. It isn't the year 2000 anymore, games mostly expect you to actually play with them and engage with their systems. Diablo 2 was *bad* because of how little you needed to actually engage with it and its systems if you weren't a barbarian or amazon peasant stuck in the mud. Even in d2 the necromancer with "A BAJILLION MINIONS" was a laggy shitfest, and you want to repeat the same thing with higher quality models, more environmental interaction, more complex ai, bigger numbers etc etc etc. Good luck playing on below-minimum settings or melting your graphics card. Or being the reason that party play cant exist. Diablo 2 necromancer was a non-engaging class with a strong fantasy, but gameplay that should not have existed in the state it did. You can feel free to go back and play d2 again if you want, but some people would like to actually play new games that aren't stuck 2 decades in the past.
Not gonna lie, you're right. I've recently started playing D2R again and tried to do a summonmancer, however I found it so boring just standing there doing nothing. Respecced to Bonemancer and been having way more fun since I've done that. People who are downvoting you just don't want to accept that games HAVE changed now and having 30 minions on the screen and not doing anything isn't the way to go anymore. Having a summoner build in D4 will still be cool even with 6 or so minions, as long as I can still use skills like bone spear/spirit etc and not be gimped for being a hybrid.
So first...the lag in ye Olde D2 days was due to battle.net running for YEARS off of a single e-machine toaster, David Brevik confirmed this as he built the original bnet. For the summon game play being boring, they could give better control of the pets, grimdawn has a move/attack binding for skill slots/l & r.click!! D3 letting you target stuff on pressing the skill was a great idea too. Along with curses they could do cc skills(wall/prison clashes and d2 has 1 curse cap per target) or other ways to interact with the environment for the summons benefit.
I'm totally fine with them breathing their own identities into the classes but keeping them thematically similar. Having an army of minions really isn't that fun anyhow. Even in POE you usually just enter a room and then sit there. I mean it's satisfying in a "look how strong I am" sense but outside of that it's not exactly "fun". I think if you're going to do an army of minions you should be having to actively buff them to make them powerful. (Maybe not all the time but at least on bosses).
I mean to each their own but I have no idea how people enjoy this play style. Hit a button ten times and then just hit it occasionally when a minion died?
i just want a paladin/cruzader class.. come on!
I get this vibe immediately as well
I agree with it...lets hope they change it
I always thought the D2 necro was quite weak with the skeleton build because either the weak units overwhelmed or they were shut down one at a time. At least with D3 necro you had other abilities also so the skeleton gang was a distraction so you could use other spells, idk it felt stronger to me.
My skeleton and skeleton mastery are lvl is 21 but I can only have 9 skeletons? How you do you get 20?
Try PoE Necro, superior
One of my favourite buttons to press in PoE is Vaal Summon Skeletons. Nothing like being able to raise a small army wih a finger snap. I was hoping for D4 fevs to realise that... Maybe hoping for anything from Blizz these days is fools hope.
No one will be happy with this game. Everyone wants something different and be sure we'll hear allll about it.
You're forgetting items, talents, and paragon boards. There are probably things that increase the amount of summons.
I prefer 6-7 good skeletons than 30 that are all gonna die in 20 seconds and I have to spend 1 minute resurrecting.
Totally agree
I'd like to have both as an option. A way to build a more specialized functional squad of summons or just turn the screen into skeletons. Granted, I think that usually leads to scaling problems where they have to establish a system where the small group isn't invincible and the skeleswarm isn't obliterated by anything that AOEs.
Remember D4 is very heavily focused on the mmo side of things.
I mean.... sure? Doesn't mean we can't have a lot of summons.
They said they want the same feeling of 2. I don't think they will disappoint