Necromancer Skeletal Mages Support

Necromancer
1

Hello Fellow Gamers.
I’ve been playing Diablo 3 for years and i really like the game.
I’m particularly fond of the Necromancer class, but sometimes i feel that it hasn’t received it’s proper dues in regards to supporting gear and more beneficial abilities.
I’m trying to perfect my playstyle on all of my character classes, but somehow my Necromancer struggles. I’ve tried nearly all viable builds, tried desperately to fulfill the ultimate Melee-Mancer while using “Inarius” or “Legacy of Dreams” with full ancients + Upgrades. All to no spectacular lenghts past GR 100. I’ve opted to return to my LoD Singularity build and It’s working fine. I’m still pushing with it and my strategies have improved greatly. My only gripe about this build is the lack of sufficient damage reduction, however it does possess excellent sustain. The only piece of gear with no direct application to this play style is the Phylactery. So here’s my idea of Phylacteries that would directly benefit this build.

Oath Keeper (Phylactery)
Legendary affix:
Gain 3% damage reduction for each active Skeletal Mage.

This ability is only triggered if you cast a Skeletal Mage with Full Essence
And is snapshotted + refreshed retroactively for previous Skeletal Mages.
The buff itself is visible near your other buffs and stays for 30 sec. after you have stopped casting Skeletal Mages.

Heir Of Khanduras (Phylactery)
Legendary affix:
After casting “Land Of The Dead”, gain 30% damage reduction as long as 2-4 Skeletal Mages are active. This effect lasts for 1.5 min.

Leoric’s Salvation (Phylactery)
Legendary affix:
Each time you suffer damage which is equal to or above 30%-50% of your total HP, 2-4 of your Skeletal Mages explode dealing xxxx% damage and reducing the last damage you have taken by half.

This is it for now
I will probably think of more ideas later.
Thanks for reading.

2

Hey man. I love the initiative.
I am in the same boat as the Necro is my favorite class and I too have been playing for years now.

Personally, I think that the necromancer already suffers too much of a penalty when the final service passive is procced.

When going into higher GR’s some Elite affixes trigger the final service proc immediately when running a standard Rathma or Legacy of Nightmares Singularity build. Sometimes you need only see the elite or jugger before the final service is procced. This in turn also means that you have to start casting mages all over again, and which also means that your damage multiplier needs time, kills and/or land of the dead to ramp back up.

In that respect, I totally agree that something really needs to be done about the Necros defensive abilities.

That being said, I’m personally not convinced that basing the defensive multiplier on the number of mages up at any given time is the best solution as it would further the punishment for proccing final service even more.

I do think introducing a new phylactery with an actual useful defensive affix is a good idea and something I hope the devs will look into, although I’m not quite sold on your specific idea’s regarding potential item affixes.

Cheers