The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 5: Corpse Explosion is overrated

I should dispel the illusion that I'm running out of ideas and trying to draw this out by focusing on a single skill. I'm not going to write one of these for every skill in the necromancer's repertoire. Corpse Explosion isn't just any skill. It's one of the defining features of necromancers. Some consider it to be one of the most powerful skills in the game. Paradoxically, it is both a one-point wonder (because it does its full damage with only a single point invested) and a skill to prioritize (because of the geometric increase in range). For summoners in particular, maxing Corpse Explosion is almost mandatory and it's generally thought of as the main damage source for summoners. Skeletons are there to make the first few corpses. The bulk of the monsters are then destroyed by Corpse Explosion. Since it does both fire and physical damage and necromancers have Amplify Damage to weaken monsters to the physical component of the damage, Corpse Explosion is effective against almost all mobs that leave corpses behind and the few that resist it sufficiently can be dealt with by pets.

Of course, all of this requires corpses as ammunition for the skill. A summoner also needs corpses to raise new pets. But that's a minor limitation and usually not a problem. No skill is perfect, and this consideration wouldn't be nearly enough to stop Corpse Explosion from being awesome on its own. And yet, Corpse Explosion really is overrated. It has two major weaknesses.

The damage from Corpse Explosion ranges between 70% and 120% of the exploded monster's maximum health. Since most monsters in a mob have about the same maximum health, blowing up a single corpse can potentially kill some and blowing up three or four while all the monsters are cursed with Amplify Damage will kill everything in the area (excepting bosses and such). But on higher player counts, the damage remains the same as it would be at /players1, while monsters have much higher health pools. At higher player counts, a single Corpse Explosion isn't likely to actually kill anything. I've seen the sentiment that this is not a problem for Corpse Explosion because it just means the skill must be used more times, which is true for all of the other skills used to kill enemies. This reasoning fails because those other skills don't require corpses as ammunition. I played the whole game on all three difficulties with a summoner on /players8. And I contend that no one who has done that would express the sentiment that Corpse Explosion isn't weakened more than other skills by the player count increase. It's very difficult to get a Corpse Explosion chain going. Letting pets or a mercenary bring down one monster and using that corpse to wipe out everything on the screen might work on /players1, but it's impossible on /players8. In some circumstances, I found it faster to use those corpses for Revives instead of blowing them up. In contrast, other damaging skills really do still work on /players8. The character I've been working through Hell most recently, my auradin, tears right through everything on /players8 without any problems at all.

I realize that this limitation only applies to increased player counts. And one might dismiss it on the grounds that those increased player counts are not the "real" game (unless there really are multiple players, in which case one would have help from other players). If Corpse Explosion is still awesome at /players1, then at least it's still awesome at /players1. I don't buy this. I would buy it if higher player counts were something that limited almost all characters to this extent. That's simply not the case. I now play all of my characters on /players8 (my druid, the character that I started first but only finished most recently, was on /players3 for much of Hell because /players8 was taking too damn long, but I did solo some of the most difficult areas on /players8 and even beat Uber Diablo on /players8, which my summoner couldn't do). Some are certainly better than others. The summoner was so slow that I only persisted because I really, really wanted to. And Corpse Explosion was only moderately useful.

Corpse Explosion has another, perhaps more obvious, weakness. Any idea how much damage Corpse Explosion does to Duriel? Several of the strongest monsters in the game spawn in areas with either no corpses or a very limited supply of corpses. For every other damage-dealing skill the game (except Poison Explosion, which is mainly just a synergy for the other poison skills anyway, on account of its limited range, although it does kill almost anything it actually hits), this is not even a consideration. Corpse Explosion is mostly just nonviable against bosses. And on some level, that's fine. Most classes have skills that are better suited to wiping out waves of weaker monsters and are not the primary method of killing stronger monsters and bosses. As utility, Corpse Explosion is fine. I'm not saying that the skill needs another buff or that it's a bad skill. But it doesn't deserve the hype. It's a situational way to weaken or finish mobs, not a primary killer.

Oh, and its range when maxed is overrated too. Some players seem to think it's like a hydrogen bomb, obliterating every monster for miles around. It does have a large area of effect, but the range has definitely been exaggerated.

The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 4: Summoning isn't reliable

So far, I've presented problems pertaining primarily to poison necromancers, bone necromancers, and melee necromancers. Those familiar with Diablo II will easily notice the topic that I've avoided up to this point. The necromancer has a whole skill tree devoted to summoning and summoners are the most popular type of necromancer. Even granting the inferiority of other types of necromancers, one could simply assume that summoning is where the true power of the necromancer is to be found. However, the single character I've spent the most time on has been a summoner, and I contend that summoners have some major problems.

Just to be clear, unlike with the poison skills, the bone skills, and melee, I will never make the claim that the necromancer is outclassed in this particular area by the other characters. By this, I mean that I fully acknowledge that when it comes to using pets as a primary killing method, the necromancer is the most powerful. That's not much of a point in his favor because pets aren't generally a viable primary damage source anyway. The amazon's Valkyrie and the assassin's Shadow Master are not meant to sweep out dungeons by themselves. They are utility. They distract monsters, tank bosses, pick off occasional stragglers, and add a little damage during intense fights. The only character other than the necromancer that can run around with multiple pets is the druid. And I suspect that a summoner druid wouldn't be that great anyway. The druid does get excellent utility out of his pets when used alongside his other skills, though.

The summoner definitely has some things going for him...

1. Each point put into Raise Skeleton makes skeletons stronger, and every three points put into it gives another pet. The same goes for Raise Skeletal Mage. Every point put into Skeleton Mastery also increases the potency of these pets. And every +skill that affects these keeps on giving all of those bonuses. So the summoner gets more out of +skills than just about any other build in the game. Maxing Raise Skeleton only allows for 8 skeletons. But with +skills, my summoner went up against Baal with 14 of them. And to reiterate, it's not just quantity: those skeletons are also stronger.
2. Most monsters never get the chance to touch the necromancer. Defensive measures are still necessary. Having high resists is a good way to stay alive. But once a summoner has enough pets, they serve as a sort of protective barrier.
3. Amplify Damage makes everything die faster and breaks most physical immunities.
4. The skeletal mages have fire, cold, lightning, and poison damage. Nothing resists all of those. Unbreakable physical immunities are generally not much of an obstacle.
5. The golems make decent tanks.
   
6. Skeleton Mastery also makes Revived monsters stronger. They're virtually impossible to kill.
7. The summoner is one of the least item-dependent characters possible. Powerful equipment is good for a summoner, but it's not as vital as it is for most builds.
   

With all that, one might wonder what the problem is. Well, I usually play on PlugY. So back when I was working my summoner through Hell, on /players8 like I'd been playing the whole game, I suddenly got the Uber Diablo event. I was in the Durance of Hate at the time. I went back to Act I and let Uber Diablo spawn in place of Rakanishu, so that he wouldn't interfere with my getting to Mephisto. I ran up to him with my army and watched as they were wiped out. I tried replacing my fallen skeletons with new ones, but quickly ran out of corpses. I managed to save myself from dying thanks to my "Enigma" runeword's Teleport and some potions. I went back multiple times, bringing my full army of skeletons, my golem, my mercenary, and as many revives as I could. I tried teleporting my full army right on top of him. I tried teleporting around him and letting my mages blast him. Nothing worked. I couldn't kill him. My army could damage him enough to beat his regeneration for a while, but then he'd kill enough of my skeletons that his regeneration was outpacing our damage output. I ran into Uber Diablo later with that same character, facing a similar outcome. And then, amazingly enough, I got the event a third time with my summoner. The third time it happened, I remembered to switch to /players1 immediately. He spawned in Pindleskin's place. This time I brought urdars. He still wiped my army out, but at least I cleared the area of other monsters. I went back to the River of Flame and got as many urdars as I could. I brought extra potions and made sure to keep my mercenary alive. I used my "Beast" axe and joined in on the action myself. I used Lifetap after he hit us with a big spell and kept him under Decrepify at other times. It took a while and my Revives started dying, but I did kill him.

Perhaps that anecdote makes it seem as though I'm expecting too much. After all, this was an event monster, substantially more powerful than anything in the normal game. Against almost any other boss, my skeletons would be more robust and I'd be able to go back and grab some more without the boss regenerating if my army did perish. I was actually a bit worried about the Ancients in Hell for this reason, but they ended up not being a problem. However, I'll note that I also got Uber Diablo when my poison necromancer was in Act I. Even though it did take a while, I beat him rather easily. Shut up, that's not proof that necromancers are actually good.

I think what this really illustrates is that with summoners, if something goes wrong, recovering is an ordeal. In Nightmare difficulty, Baal depleted my army considerably, but they finished him off. In Normal, I actually did have to go back after Diablo wiped out all of my skeletons. At high levels, with godlike equipment, a summoner's skeletons may be strong enough that most enemies won't pose a threat. I did have to do a whole lot of summoning in the Halls of Vaught when the guest Tomb Vipers decided to destroy half of my army Fortunately, I had so many skeletons that they were able to win, even if it was only barely. But this is all just mitigating a problem that, for most characters, doesn't exist. I suppose that an amazon might need to worry about running out of arrows. But no other character has to worry about running out of corpses.

The need for corpses is actually quite irritating. Druids, amazons, and assassins don't need corpses. They can summon their pets out of thin air. The only pet the necromancer can get without corpses is a golem. If golems could become real powerhouses, that might help balance things. Instead, the golem is one of the least damaging things in the whole game. This is something that baffled me when I started building characters in the other classes. Why wouldn't a golem be able to do some damage? Even for a powerful summoner, skeletons do tend to die and need to be replaced. Revives are much hardier, but they only last three minutes. Sure, monsters are numerous in this game, so potential corpses are common, but some areas lack a ready supply of corpses (you can't replenish your skeletal army while fighting Duriel, for example). Some monsters don't leave corpses behind and some monsters have abilities that destroy corpses. And in addition to needing corpses to replenish the undead army, summoners generally make use of Corpse Explosion to speed up gameplay. That's another expenditure of precious corpses. Speaking of speeding up gameplay, summoners are slow. And speaking of relying on Corpse Explosion, well, more on that later...

The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 3: He has the worst skill kit for weapon-based damage

The game is all about killing monsters. To kill monsters, you have to do damage to them. To do damage to them, you have to use skills. Although it isn't explicitly stated in the game, there are two major paths to dealing damage, both of them branching out into subcategories. A character in Diablo II can either rely on weapons or spells for damage. There are throwing weapons, missile weapons, and melee weapons. Any of those can be used without skills, but they really shine when used with a skill like the paladin's Zeal or the the barbarian's Whirlwind. And these skills really shine when used in combination with an overpowered runeword or unique weapon.

To put it bluntly, spellcasters just aren't as powerful as characters that use melee or ranged skills. That's because of the aforementioned synergy between these skills and the godlike items that they can be used with. Equipment can't do as much for spellcasters: faster cast rate and +skills are good, but not as good as what equipment can do to improve melee and ranged skills. Spellcasting can still achieve respectable damage levels, though. The sorceress is particularly adept at this, with several builds that hit waves of monsters with gigantic elemental damage.

I've already touched on the weaknesses of necromancers as spellcasters somewhat and will be visiting it again later. But for all classes taken together, most builds are not casters, and use the superior weapon-based skills to kill monsters. The barbarian has his combat skills tree and in particular, Concentrate, Double Throw, Frenzy, Whirlwind, Berserk, and Leap Attack are all very good. The amazon has two full skill trees devoted to enhancing weapons, one for bows/crossbows and one for spears/javelins. The paladin gets Zeal, Smite, Charge, and Vengeance. The druid's shapeshifting tree offers multiple options, with Maul/Shock Wave for bears, Fury/Feral Rage and/or Rabies for wolves, and Hunger/Fire Claws for both. For the assassin, there is the entire martial arts tree along with Blade Fury (which behaves like a spell, but works with weapons) and Venom (which adds poison damage to strikes).

In addition to skills that deal damage, these classes have other skills that complement their damage-dealing skills. For the barbarian, that's basically all of his other skills except for some of the shouts (e.g. Find Item), giving him considerable offensive and defensive bonuses. The amazon has skills to let her dodge attacks. The paladin has Holy Shield and two skill trees full of auras. The druid gets bonuses from his shapeshifting, spirits, and vines. The assassin has the powerful shadow disciplines skill tree, most of which can be used to either enhance damage or increase survivability, and Blade Shield.

Two classes are left out of this: the sorceress and the necromancer. Of course, there could be some sense to this. The rationale seems to be that the sorceress and the necromancer are more focused on using magic than on using weapons. When someone builds one of these classes to actually pick up a weapon and hit monsters with it, that's a "meleesorc" or a "meleemancer." Those terms don't apply to barbarians, because almost all barbarians (throwers excepted) are already melee. For the enchantress and the necromancer, each gets only a single skills that improves weapon damage: enchant and poison dagger, respectively.

Well, this isn't about the sorceress. She's already the most powerful spellcaster. But building her melee is totally doable, assuming one has the right equipment. I'm building an enchantress now. Enchant adds huge fire damage to every swing, even moreso if it's synergized. Using the "Dream" runeword for her helmet and shield gives a level 30 Holy Shock aura, which can be enhanced with Lightning Mastery. Oh, and the "Passion" runeword gives the sorceress access to the paladin's Zeal skill, enabling her to hit multiple targets very quickly. And I'm sure there are other viable options. In addition to enchant and the elemental masteries, the sorceress has excellent skills for positioning herself in melee and protecting herself. Teleport and telekinesis let her be where she needs to be and can keep her from getting surrounded and taking hits. Energy Shield is potentially one of the strongest damage reduction abilities in the game. The ice armors can also reduce damage and weaken enemies. Static Field is an easy way to take away a large chunk of health from monsters before the fight even starts.

Poison Dagger is subject to all the problems I already covered when I wrote about the lack of versatility hampering a poison-based necromancer. But it's worse than that. Relying on Poison Dagger as a melee skill means that you must use a dagger as your weapon. That rules out the awesome runeword weapons that other classes can use. I hope you like Blackbog's Sharp, because that's about the best you can get. Daggers have short range and are slow. Poison Dagger does boost attack rating, which is good, because while you're swinging your slow dagger to hit something, you want to be sure to land that first hit, so as to move on to the other 50 monsters that are rapidly closing in on you. And for those rather common poison immune monsters, the physical damage of daggers is puny and since Poison Dagger is so slow, killing these monsters takes forever.

Like the other classes, necromancers can complement their melee with other skills to improve both offense and defense. Curses have their own problems, which I'll cover later, but they do work. Amplify Damage would be an amazing asset to the necromancer's physical attack if he had any to begin with, which he doesn't. Decrepify and Lifetap have the same problem. Lower Resist does complement Poison Dagger, but, well I've already explained the problem there. Curses and bone skills offer some crowd control, but this slows down gameplay and will kill the necromancer with boredom before he ever manages to make it through all of the monsters.

Meleemancers can and do work, albeit slowly and with some difficulty. But they're outclassed by Enchantresses and the sorceress is really the only character that shares the necromancer's dearth of weapon-based skills. For everyone else, it's not even close: options abound and even the builds that aren't quite as powerful are still far more effective than any weapon-based necromancer.

The frustrating thing about Poison Dagger is that it should represent exactly the sort of thing that appeals to me. I like the idea of trading acute damage for lingering damage and often try to make that tradeoff in any game that allows for it. Poison Dagger does that. Weaker enemies take one hit and, eventually, die. Stronger enemies can be poisoned, then crippled by other skills and have the poison applied again until they die. Poison Dagger really does have support (Lower Resist, crowd control from curses and bone prison/wall). And it really does do massive damage. I desperately want it to be good. But I've used it with some of the most powerful equipment for the job and found it lacking.

The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 2: Everyone else that uses magic damage is better at it

The necromancer, like the other classes, has three skill trees. Later, I'll elaborate more on curses, which aren't really viable as anything more than utility, and summoning, which has its own problems. The poison and bone tree is the one that gives the necromancer offensive spells. Bone spells do seem to have certain advantages over poison. Firstly, there are more synergies here, which means investing heavily in bone spells improves their damage incredibly. Secondly, they offer better defensive capabilities. Poison can, well, poison monsters and nothing else. The bone skills offer a shielding spell, walls, and the ability to strike from a greater distance. And finally, they do magic damage. Poison immunity is very common in Hell. Magic immunity is the rarest immunity for monsters to have, meaning that a character that relies primarily on magic damage can run around in Hell and generally ignore those "immune to..." labels on everything.

Synergies are the key to using the "bone" portion of the poison and bone skill tree. The increase in damage output from synergies is massive. But compare it to other classes. Most of the other characters don't have any source of magic damage. The amazon has Magic Arrow, but the magic damage there is an afterthought, not a primary killing method. The assassin is in a similar position with Psychic Hammer. Two other characters have access to a single magic damage skill that really is all about magic damage: the barbarian with Berserk and the paladin with Blessed Hammer. They both completely outclass the necromancer. While the poison necromancer gets more poison skills than other classes and can get more raw damage, but loses out on versatility, the bone necromancer, with far more investment into his magic damage skills, actually gets less damage than other magic specialists. And yes, he's still less versatile.

Using Berserk, a barbarian's weapon damage is factored into the skill damage. Berserk has two synergies that improve the damage, but most berserkers only max one of them anyway. The rest of the skill points can go into typical barbarian skills, so that you can dominate everything in your path. When a berserker runs into magic immune monsters, he can easily demolish them with physical damage from Concentrate, Frenzy, Leap Attack, Double Swing, or whatever. Probably Concentrate, though. So yeah, more magic damage than bone skills, and easy access to skills that can absolutely wreck magic immune monsters.

Blessed Hammer has two synergies, like Berserk. When I made a hammerdin, I maxed both of them, so that's more investment than a berserker would need, but still a lot less than a bone necromancer would require. The main advantage to Blessed Hammer is that paladins get the Concentration aura. With Concentration maxed, Blessed Hammer does far more damage than bone spells, and flies all over the place, killing everything on the screen. Blessed Hammer no longer ignores the magic resistances of anything (before the latest patch, it ignored the resistances of undead and demons). But almost everything that is immune to magic is undead anyway, and the paladin's Holy Bolt, which is enhanced by points put into Blessed Hammer, does affect undead that are immune to magic. But a hammerdin can easily mitigate the immunity problem with Smite, Charge, or Zeal. Smite really only requires a single point and is improved by Holy Shield, which a hammerdin should be maxing anyway. And that Concentration aura will still work wonders with whatever combat skill one chooses to deal with magic immunity, improving the damage of those skills by even more than it improves the damage of Blessed Hammer.

It's true that this issue only applies to bone necromancers, but dammit, these skills take up most of a skill tree. They should work. Barbarians and paladins, on top of having far more options to increase survivability and to deal with magic immunity, also get far more magic damage for a smaller investment in skill points. That's just wrong. Oh, and did I mention that these are some of the coolest looking skills in the game. Bone Spear and Bone Spirit look awesome and are a big part of the appeal of the necromancer.

Blizzard should just fix this one. At the very least, the bone skills should get massive damage upgrades. Better yet, there could be a curse that actually works with them, because that's the real problem here. The barbarian uses masteries and such to improve damage from his skills, including Berserk. The paladin uses auras to improve damage from his skills (specifically the Concentration aura in this case, although Fanaticism and Conviction are the more prevalent ones for paladins that are not hammerdins). The necromancer's analog to those enhancements is curses. He has a whole skill tree devoted to curses. He has Lower Resist for elemental and poison damage. He has Amplify Damage (or Decrepify) for physical damage. There is no curse that helps the bone skills. And there is no reason not to have one. My preference would be Decrepify. For some reason, that one makes the most sense to me. But there should be some curse, any curse, that lowers magic resistance. Since there isn't, the bone necromancer is completely outclassed.

The Necromancer is Underpowered Reason 1: Everyone else that uses poison is more versatile

Any character in Diablo II can use poison from charms or equipment. The damage from charms and equipment alone isn't huge, though. Not everyone has poison skills, which can make poison a primary damage source. But of the classes that do have poison skills, all can put it to good use, at least against most monsters. The amazon, druid, assassin, and necromancer all get poison skill damage.

The amazon has Poison Javelin and Plague Javelin. Maxing both skills and using appropriate equipment give considerable poison damage. The druid in his werewolf form has Rabies and a little help from his Poison Creeper pet. The assassin has the incredibly powerful Venom skill. All of these are viable. The necromancer gets more poison skills than the others, with Poison Dagger, Poison Explosion, and Poison Nova, and his poison skills all synergize with each other. On top of that, the necromancer has the Lower Resist curse, letting the necromancer weaken enemies to his poison and even break the poison immunities of most monsters.

All of that would make the necromancer seem to be the best poison-user, not the worst. Other characters have less poison damage and can't weaken the poison resistance of monsters. The problem is that for any of the other characters, investing in poison can be part of a versatile build. For the amazon, poison skills lie in the spear and javelin tree. Maxing both poison skills leaves her with plenty of room to stack points in the other spear and javelin skills for lightning and physical damage. A werewolf druid can easily dump points into both Feral Rage and Fury (Fire Claws would probably be a bit of a stretch). An assassin can max Venom and go with pretty much whatever else she wants. So yes, the necromancer can get the most poison damage and can break some poison immunities. That's good for him and makes a "poisonmancer" one of the most viable options for killing monsters with a necromancer. But some monsters have such a high poison resistance that Lower Resist cannot break their immunities and some poison immune monsters cannot be cursed. This isn't much of a problem for other poison specialists, because they can easily destroy poison immune monsters with damage from other skills.

For my own poison necromancer, I addressed the issue by equipping the full Trang-Oul's set, giving me access to fire damage, and using Grief as my switch weapon. With the Lifetap to keep my health from dropping, I can wear down almost anything. But it's slow and clunky. It relies on a full set of elite equipment. Now, this certainly works. My poison necromancer is powerful. But I contend that I could get similar levels of power with other characters while using cheaper gear.

Lower Resist is essentially only available to a necromancer (there are items that can cast it, but they only provide low-level versions of it). In terms of sheer poison power, especially factoring in Lower Resist, the necromancer beats everyone. This might seem like an odd point in favor of my claim that the necromancer is completely underpowered, but I'm leading with poison because it's all downhill from here. The necromancer gets his greatest strength, the one thing he does better than everyone else, first. His other skills are weaker in comparison.

Most importantly, the necromancer has the the worst capacity for complementing poison damage with damage from other skills. Maxing all three poison skills requires 60 points. Then there are the prerequisites and the extra points into Lower Resist (I've put five points into the curse for my necomancer and let +skills do the rest, because upgrading the curse yields diminishing returns). That doesn't leave much to work with. The bone spells require even more points. A poison necromancer could put points into the summong tree and let pets do part of the killing, but the skeletons will be too weak unless some poison damage is sacrificed. You can have a poison necromancer with massive dagger/nova damage or you can have a summoner with powerful skeletons, but you can't really have both. And a poison/summon hybrid still runs into the problem that summoners have in general. More on that later, though.

This is why I use the word "versatile" in the title here. Other poison specialists can branch out into other skills and be effective with them. It's no problem at all for the assassin (Venom only takes 20 points) and the druid and amazon even have skills that could be one-point wonders like
Fury and Fend. The necromancer doesn't have those options. Poison is all he has.

The necromancer is the most underpowered character in Diablo II

So I still have some actually important writing to procrastinate on. None of this is new information to me. I didn't stumble on any startling revelations. But this has been bugging me lately and it probably bugged me before and now I'm going to write about it instead of doing important things. This is a poor decision on my part, but shut up.

I like necromancy. Whenever I play a fantasy game, if I can, I play a necromancer or, if there is no necromancer option, whatever class is closest to looking like a necromancer. Perhaps this is because I am a twisted individual. It's not the black robes or the skulls or anything like that. And it's not so much that I think death is awesome. It's more that I like the idea of controlling death. As a necromancer, I get to use the ultimate weapon, death itself, to smite my enemies. And in the process, I make death my bitch. I win.

Diablo II has seven playable character classes. Six of them are stronger than the necromancer. Since the necromancer is necessarily my favorite, I do not like this. Most games have problems balancing things like the power levels of classes, so I could write it off as an unfortunate coincidence. But there's something else that bugs me. No one else ever points out that it is, in fact, the necromancer that is the weakest class in the game. When I've looked for guides or game information on the internet, I've never run into anyone saying, "Yo dawg, the necromancer is the weakest character." To my knowledge, I am the first person to officially declare this fact. Of course, I'm sure I'm not the first person to do so in reality, but the fact that I never see anyone say it indicates that, at the very least, it isn't being said enough. So I'm saying it now. Yo dawg, the necromancer is the weakest character in Diablo II. If you want to have a fun time and not be frustrated at the fact that everyone else does everything better than you, don't play the necromancer. The barbarian is stronger than the necromancer. The amazon is stronger than the necromancer. The sorceress is stronger than the necromancer. The assassin is stronger than the necromancer. The druid is stronger than the necromancer. The paladin is stronger than everything.

Whatever man, that's just, like, your opinion. Well no, actually it isn't. The necromancer really is underpowered. I was going to provide a list. But I ran out of time and wasn't nearly done. I'll post this, then do a separate post for each reason.

Patriarch Oberon

I could be writing about actually important things right now, but I choose not to. Anyway, I just played Diablo 2 for the first time in a few months. When I sat down and played the full game with the expansion, LOD, for the first time, I decided to try out one of the characters that wasn't in the original version of the game. My first character was Oberon, a druid. I learned a lot playing him and was able to make stronger characters. Because I started Oberon earlier, he initially had a level advantage on my other characters. But as I played my newer, more powerful characters more often, Oberon fell behind. With the advent of the respec, I was able to fix the errors I'd made with him and turn him into a fully synergized fury werewolf. He still isn't my strongest, but I was able to easily solo any area of the game at low player-count settings. I didn't find him as interesting as some of the others, so I wasn't motivated to play through all of Hell on /players8 because some of the mobs would take too long to kill (usually went with /players3 or so). Well, Oberon has finally beaten the whole game. Baal killed my mercenary a few times, but I couldn't bear to finish him without her.

So far, only three of my characters have finished Hell difficulty, but I have three more that easily could (even on /players8) assuming I invest the time. But I don't know. I don't play this game as much anymore. I guess we'll see.