The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 11: Defensive skills

A common theme in most of my points has been offensive deficiency. Killing monsters in Hell requires lots of damage. To be fair, summoners can potentially generate considerable physical damage and poison necromancers can kill monsters that do not resist poison very quickly. Both methods are generally surpassed by what other classes can do, but they do work. However, there's no point in being able to deal massive damage if you're instantly killed whenever monsters do land hits. Survivability is just as necessary as lethality. To this end, all classes have defensive skills. And all of the other classes have better defensive skills than the necromancer.

There are several ways to increase survivability in Diablo II, notably one can increase defense rating, increase the size of the life pool, increase block rate, resist elemental damage, absorb elemental damage, leech life from monsters, impel monsters to attack false targets or to attack each other, stun monsters, push monsters away, kill monsters from a greater distance than the distance from which they are able to attack, cause monster attacks to miss, and provide some means of escaping from aggressive mobs. Not every character does all of these and some of them are done more by items than by skills. With the right gear, any character can have appreciable survivability, even without using defensive skills very much. But skills do help.

The amazon has Slow Missiles, Dodge, Evade, Avoid, Decoy, and Valkyrie, all in her Passive and Magic skill tree. This kit is all about being hard to hit in the first place. The Valkyrie and Decoy can act as human shields and the other skills can make it so that few attacks actually damage the amazon in the first place. Amazons can easily invest in all of these skills to avoid damage while spending most of their points on offense. Equipment can enhance offense and simultaneously mitigate the damage from those attacks that do manage to hit the amazon. Amazons can also strike from great distances and bow specialists can slow monsters down with their cold skills.

The assassin has Burst of Speed, Fade, Psychic Hammer, Cloak of Shadows, Weapon Block, Mind Blast, and Shadow Warrior/Master in her shadow disciplines tree. This is a tankier kit than the amazon's, with multiple skills that can reduce the damage taken from hits, but it still employs measures to avoid and outmaneuver enemies by knocking them back, keeping hidden from them, moving away from them, and using a pet to distract them. With traps, the assassin can easily damage monsters from a distance, but a melee assassin can also have excellent survivability.

The barbarian's masteries give him Increase Stamina, Increased Speed, Iron Skin, and Natural Resistance. These help the barbarian to act as a tank and also improve his ability to escape. His combat skills tree is primarily offensive, but does give him options to stun enemies to leap away from them, even if the barbarian is surrounded. The barbarian's warcries help make him one of the most impressive tanks in the game. Howl and Taunt are of minor use as crowd control, but Shout and Battle Cry can reduce the amount of damage monsters deal and War Cry gives a stun. But it's Battle Orders that really gives the barbarian defensive power. Even without a shield, a barbarian is an incredible tank.

Like the amazon and assassin, the druid can use pets to distract monsters. In fact, the druid gets more pets, including pets that can heal the druid or increase his total life. But the druid's defensive kit is less focused on avoid monsters and is better for making him a tank, although not quite to the same extent as the barbarian. Elemental druids also get Cyclone Armor, which reduces elemental damage, usually the deadliest kind of damage, as well as some stuns from their wind skills. Shapeshifting druids are better off, with Lycanthropy and both of the were-form skills enhancing the druid's total life. And the attacks in the shapeshifting tree can knock enemies back or leech life from them. The druid's defensive skills definitely let him be a respectable tank and his summoned pets let him avoid some damage altogether.

As in all other areas, the paladin excels in defensive skills. Since he can only have one aura active at a time, the defensive auras are largely situational. Vigor is great for mobility while Salvation and Defiance can be used to survive while taking huge amounts of damage. Cleansing can remove poison and curses. A paladin that does choose to put points into the resistance auras, like my auradin, gets improved maximum elemental resistances, although the auras themselves aren't great. Paladins can also use Holy Freeze to keep from being swarmed. But the paladin's real defensive power lies in Holy Shield. With Holy Shield, a paladin easily reaches max block with minimal dexterity investment, allowing for more points into vitality. The skill also gives a huge bonus to defense rating. These advantages combined with the powerful shields paladins can wield that other classes cannot (Herald of Zakarum and Exile in particular) turn paladins into awesome tanks.

The sorceress has many spells that can damage enemies from far away, allowing her to focus more on offense than on being able to tank, but her defensive skills are also impressive. The Cold Spells tree has three different ice armor skills, each with their own advantages (Shiver Armor is probably the best). These provide defense bonuses and slow or completely freeze monsters. Cold spells in general are good for slowing monsters down. The Lightning Spells tree has Telekinesis to push monsters away and Teleport to escape and outmaneuver monsters. Should a sorceress choose to employ Energy Shield, she has, for an admittedly costly skill investment, one of the best damage reduction abilities in the game and can become a tank that rivals the barbarian and the paladin.

Other than using pets to distract monsters and tank, which requires a necromancer to become a summoning specialist, the necromancer doesn't have much. Bone Armor is a terrible skill and doesn't absorb that much damage. Decrepify does slow enemies down and lowers the damage they do. Life Tap would be good if the necromancer had enough melee damage to take advantage of it, which he usually doesn't. There are several crowd-control curses, but they can't be used alongside another curse and they only serve to keep monsters from getting close to the necromancer without offering a permanent solution. Other than that, all the necromancer gets are Bone Wall and Bone Prison, which can keep monsters from swarming him.

Now, the necromancer does have a defensive skill kit. I never said that his survivability was non-existent Decrepify does work. Golems can distract monsters. The bone skills and curses can keep monsters from reaching the necromancer. But for all other classes, preventing large mobs from pinning the player down is only part of a defensive skill kit. Everyone else can either use skills to avoid most hits entirely or to reduce the damage that incoming attacks do. For that, all the necromancer gets is Bone Armor, which does nothing against elemental damage and doesn't absorb that much physical damage anyway.