The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 15: The previous reasons compound each other

This will be my last one. In case the title is misleading, my point is not to reiterate my reasons from one to fourteen. They stand on their own. But the intersection of all these weaknesses really deserves its own post. I've hinted at it before, but only vaguely. The fact that the necromancer's weaknesses compound each other is the crucial problem that makes him underpowered.

No class in Diablo II is perfect. The druid has a sort of jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none thing going on. The amazon is almost forced into ranged attacks, which can lack damage output compared to melee. The barbarian has virtually no utility. The assassin hits quickly but isn't all that robust. The sorceress can only cast one type of elemental damage at a time and must sacrifice damage output for versatility or vice versa. The paladin? Well, he's overpowered, but he's still not perfect. With these classes, their weaknesses are what force them into roles, helping to define them. Having each class be better at some things and worse at others is what makes the game interesting.

The necromancer's weaknesses are different because he gets stifled at almost every turn. That bone spells take so many points to achieve respectable damage prevents them from being used alongside anything else, ruling out bone/poison or bone/summon hybrids. Personally, I'd love to play a bone/poison hybrid. But it's impossible. And that Poison Dagger is his only melee skill and is slow limits the power of poison necromancers while also making the necromancer a poor choice for melee combat in general. Since casting is weaker than weapon-based damage, he is further weakened. Since he gets diminishing returns on key skills, he can't invest in those skills to compensate for his weaknesses in other areas. Since he lacks good defensive skills, trying to use curses to compensate for melee inadequacy is difficult. And since skeletons require corpses and Corpse Explosion requires corpses, using cold (which can prevent corpses from being left behind) is detrimental. Because skeletons can get killed quickly by powerful monsters, Revives are necessary for summoners. Because Revives are clumsy and only last three minutes, summoners are clumsy too. Because auras are better suited to players characters than pets, other classes benefit more from runeword equipment. And so on. The deficiencies spiral out of control.

Oddly, some of the same attributes that make necromancers underpowered as solo characters make them desirable for parties. Ranged attackers would appreciate being able to strike from behind Bone Walls. A necromancer can do more with curse than other characters, helping melee to tank bosses with Life Tap, slowing mobs down with Decrepify, and weakening monsters to sorceress spells with Lower Resist. But since I've almost always played solo, the fact that the necromancer is a good team player isn't much consolation.

A single change, if big enough, could solve the problems of a single necromancer build archetype. But what the necromancer could really use is a complete rework. Annoyingly, Blizzard seems to think that the necromancer is just fine. This post concludes my reasons that the necromancer is underpowered. I think I've made my case, perhaps even made my case a little too exhaustively. I will write one more post to conclude this series. It won't focus on how the necromancer is underpowered, but will instead explore ideas, some simple and some drastic, on how the necromancer could be fixed.