The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 8: Class-exclusive items

This reason is admittedly not particularly severe. Many items in Diablo II either have properties that are specific to a single class or that can only be equipped by a single class. In just about all cases, some of the items are terrible and some of them are worth using. My point here is not "the necromancer gets the worst items." That wouldn't be true. It's more complicated than that. And it's muddled by the fact that some of the other class items might seem better because they are being used by those other classes in the first place. A rigorous analysis would be required to determine which class really has the best class-specific items (it's the paladin, of course). My intention here is not to present such an analysis, but to contend that, in general, the necromancer is lacking here. For the previous reasons in my list, the necromancer was either worse than everyone at something or had his own particular flaw. This one is a bit different: multiple classes are deficient in this category. The necromancer isn't alone for once.

Paladins have class-specific shields. Any class can use a shield and most characters end up with a shield. But the best shields can only be equipped by paladins. Since paladins have access to the amazing Holy Shield skill, this helps to compensate and give the other classes an advan—oh wait, it does the opposite of that. The combination of Holy Shield and paladin-specific shields, which often have high resistance bonuses and block rates, lets paladins reach max block far easier than other classes while achieving massive defense ratings. With a single skill and the right shield, a paladin can tank almost any monster in the game. There's even a powerful runeword that only works in paladin shields.

Claw-type weapons can only be wielded by assassins. These weapons aren't particularly impressive on their own, but combined with assassin claw skills, they excel. As a class-specific item, claws generally make sense. Assassins can dual-wield claws and can even use them to block. The claw-based skills also work well with these. Not every assassin needs to use claws (kickers don't have much use for them), but they can be potent.

Amazons have both their own class-specific bows and their own class-specific spears and javelins, so any amazon can have access to these weapons, no matter her specialty. The amazon also has exclusive access to her bow/crossbow and spear/javelin skill trees. With the best weapons of these types and skills that only work with weapons of these types, it's almost as though these weapons solely exist for the benefit of the amazon.

The barbarian can dual-wield one-handed weapons. This is useful for some of his skills, but there are not technically any barbarian-exclusive weapons. He just uses the same weapons as everyone else. The only exception is the Bul-Kathos' Children set, which consists of two swords (so only a barbarian can equip the full set). However, the barbarian does have skills based on throwing weapons. Other than the amazon's javelin skills, no other class can use skills with throwing weapons, so while throwing weapons (and throwing axes in particular) are not barbarian-specific, the barbarian makes the best use of them. For actual barbarian-specific items, there really isn't much. Barbarians get some helms that only they can equip. These helms are not particularly amazing, so barbarians sort of lose out here.

Like barbarians, druids have their own class-specific helms. Pretty much the same story here. The helms aren't necessarily awful, but they aren't that great. They give bonuses to druid skills. I know my theme this whole time has been the necromancer and his problems, but the druid and barbarian aren't much better off here, if they are at all. Some unique items that are worth using happen to be barbarian or druid helms, but overall, these helms just don't provide the power that the other classes get from their exclusive items.

Sorceress orbs are terrible melee weapons and are obviously designed with casters in mind. Since most sorceresses are casters, this makes some sense, I guess. You'd never want to actually hit something with one of these things because they do virtually no damage. They do have considerable bonuses for spellcasting, which is what sorceresses are supposed to specialize in anyway. Perhaps because they are necessarily focused on spellcasting, orbs don't seem as strong as the class-specific items that amazons, assassins, and paladins get. But I'd still rate them higher than the special helms barbarians and druids get. Sorceresses also have staves, many of which have properties that only benefit sorceresses, but staves are not technically unique to sorceresses and orbs are better anyway.

Wands are the typical necromancer caster weapons. They often have bonuses to necromancer skills and some general properties that help spellcasting. Technically wands are not unique to necromancers. Anyone can use them. But the main attraction on wands are bonuses to necromancer skills, and obviously other classes don't benefit from those. Wands are abysmal as melee weapons. So are orbs, but any sorceress that is a caster can use a good orb. Caster necromancers would be better off with Heart of the Oak or something. Necromancers using Poison Nova could be an exception to that with Death's Web, but Death's Web is good for poison in general and other poison-based characters could use it because, after all, wands are not necromancer exclusives. I will note that I made extensive use of Arm of King Leoric on my summoner and I consider it to be a pretty good wand, although it's mainly a pre-buff sort of thing.

So sorceresses get orbs, paladins get special shields, amazons get special weapons, assassins get claws, and barbarians and druids get some helms. What do necromancers get? Severed heads. They can carry the severed heads around and use them as shields for some reason. Not only is this thematically moronic (why would a severed head be a shield?), they aren't even good items. Severed heads have bad block rates and mediocre defense values. Like all class-specific items, they can give bonuses to class skills, so they're not completely worthless. But most of the time, a real shield would be better. It's rather annoying that paladins, the class that get Holy Shield and don't need help with defense, get powerful exclusive shields while necromancers are stuck with these pathetic severed heads.

Even with the skill bonuses, severed heads are generally not worth it because of the dexterity investment required to reach max block. The biggest exception is probably Trang-Oul's Wing because of the bonuses associated with the Trang-Oul's Avatar set. And it's probably the worst item in the set. I did use it on my poison necromancer, but the massive amount of dexterity that took only serves to further my annoyance as this disparity. Severed heads are generally lackluster and compound the deficiencies of necromancers.