At PAX East 2017, I attended a special press event for Diablo 3 (D3) on the Necromancer. While the Rise of the Necromancer was already announced at BlizzCON 2016, this press event revealed details on the female necromancer model as well as a whole new set of Necromancer skills. I also had the chance to go hands-on with the female Necromancer and her melee-focused skill set.
The event started with some background information on the necromancer by the developers. When they set out to add the Necromancer to the game, they wanted to ensure it felt different from the Witch Doctor. Since the Witch Doctor has so many poison-focused skills, they made sure to avoid poison when designing the Necromancer. You might recall that the Diablo 2 Necromancer had poison skills, which made some people think that D3’s Witch Doctor was an updated Necromancer. Instead, they chose to the themes blood, bone, life, and death for the Necromancer, making sure their armor aesthetic simultaneously screamed “commander of the dead” and “1980’s rockstar.” So expect equal parts leather, bone, and disdain.
When the Necromancer was announced at BlizzCON, the set of revealed skills focused more on bone skills and summons. At this event, we were shown a whole new side of the Necromancer: the "meleemancer." These were the new skills we were introduced to:
Grim Scythe: Swing a huge scythe in a wide arc, dealing damage and restoring Essence. Blood Nova: Unleash a powerful nova dealing massive damage to surrounding enemies. o Devour: Consume corpses to instantly restore Essence to power your other skills. Golem: Summon a powerful ally like the mighty Blood Golem, which can drain the blood from your enemies, dealing damage and restoring your health. Blood Rush: Shed your mortal flesh and pass through solid objects to swiftly reach a new location. Leech: Curse enemies so that attacking them transfers their life energy to you and your allies.Grim Scythe is the Essence builder of this kit (Essence being the Necro’s class-specific resource), like the previously announced Bone Spear. When used, the Necromancer cleaves a path in front of herself with a spirit scythe. The more enemies she hits, the more Essence she builds. Blood Nova is the big damage dealer in this set of skills, which not only spends Essence, but also a portion of health. To make sure that players are able to reliably use Blood Nova without essentially killing themselves, the Necromancer needs ways to get that health back. Enter Blood Golem, Devour, and Leech.
Blood Golem is a skill rune applied to the base Golem skill. When equipped on a player’s bar, he’ll run around smacking people, as a good Golem should. He also has an active component: hit the same key and he’ll teleport a short distance to drain blood from enemies, both dealing damage to them and restoring health to you. Devour is a corpse-spender skill, like the previously seen Corpse Explosion from BlizzCON. Instead of doing damage, Devour consumes corpses in the area around the Necromancer to restore Essence and health. Leech is a good old fashioned Necromancer curse, applied in an area of effect. Attacks on Leech-cursed enemies become vampiric, returning health to the attacker. The last skill I got to play around with was a mobility skill called Blood Rush. This skill allows the Necromancer to briefly phase out of the physical world and move swiftly to an area a set amount of distance in front of her. She can pass through solid objects while utilizing this skill, which seems like it will be extremely handy for Champ Packs with Waller.
All of the above skills were combined into a pre-made kit for me to use during hands-on time with the Necromancer. As with all characters in D3, players will be able to mix and match skills to their preferences, but this was the synergized kit we were provided with for the event. For the demo, the Necromancer was dropped into a rift with the simple task to kill all the guardians in the zone. The meleemancer kit felt like a well-oiled machine with a nice ebb and flow of balancing health and Essence for damaging enemies. The Essence-building of Grim Scythe felt responsive, the damage from Blood Nova felt worth the health cost, and it was extremely satisfying to use Devour on a bunch of corpses to get health and Essence back.
Upon completing the rift’s task, a new portal opened up to a boss room. I’ve been out of the D3 scene for a little while now, but the devs informed us this kind of new rift structure will be an upcoming feature. Though my time with the Necromancer was fairly brief, I felt assured that she would be able to stand toe-to-toe with all the other classes in D3 in terms of power and uniqueness.
The Necromancer will be arriving in the Rise of the Necromancer add-on pack, as previously announced at BlizzCON. Players will need to own both Diablo 3 and Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls on PC, or the Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition on PS4 or Xbox One. In addition to the new class, the pack will also contain two more character slots, two stash tabs on PC, a portrait frame, pennant, banner, banner sigil, in-game pet, and cosmetic wings. The price of the pack as well as release date are currently unannounced. The devs mentioned, however, that the Necromancer will hit the Public Test Realms (PTRs) before the release of the pack and will likely be on the PTRs longer than a normal testing cycle. We’ll make sure to keep you all informed on any more information regarding the Necromancer in the coming weeks and months.