Diablo II Beta News: The Necromancer Unveiled

One of Diablo II's more unusual character classes is the necromancer, whose lack of physical strength is compensated for by his ability to command legions of undead and to debilitate his foes with curses and poisons. The necromancer can also cast a variety of unusual spells.

Although the Diablo II beta reveals only around half the necromancer's attainable skills, even at low levels the necromancer must choose carefully from a number of viable options for expanding his skill set. His most intriguing abilities are his summoning skills: The necromancer can raise skeletons from the bodies of his enemies, and the skeletons will fight for him to the death. Each point you put into skeleton summoning lets you command one more skeleton at a time. You can also allocate points into skeleton mastery, which bolsters your undead minions by substantially increasing their damage output and hit point totals. Skeleton mastery actually changes the physical appearance of your skeletons; your bare-bones minions will rise from the grave with better weapons and armor if you're more proficient in the skill.

The necromancer also gains the ability to summon a clay golem. The golem is fairly powerful, and can take a real beating. Additional points in golem summoning grant the golem more hit points and better damage ratings, although you can't ever command more than one golem at a time. The golem mastery skill makes your henchman faster and also boosts hit points.

The necromancer can summon skeletal mages once he reaches the twelfth level. Skeletal mages are randomly summoned with the power to attack with fire, ice, lightning, or poison ranged attacks. You can tell by the glow of the skeleton's hands. Skeleton mages are tougher than normal skeletons, and their ranged attacks provide deadly support fire for the necromancer. As with regular skeletons, additional skill points in skeletal mage summoning lets you simultaneously control additional mages.

The necromancer's spells include bone armor, an invaluable swirling shield of bone debris that absorbs damage that would otherwise harm him; teeth, a magic missile attack that launches a spread of projectiles; and bone wall, which creates an impassible wall to impede rampaging enemies. He also has some more unusual spells like poison dagger, which lets the necromancer inflict additional damage with stabbing attacks; and corpse explosion, a deadly spell that makes the bodies of the necromancer's fallen foes detonate violently, dealing grave damage to any living enemies nearby.

The necromancer has certain weaknesses: He doesn't increase in physical power very much as he gains levels, which forces him to rely heavily on his pets and his defensive magic. He's a battle mage, so he must distribute his statistics points fairly evenly between the five primary statistics. Although he's able to summon an increasingly large army of undead, his helpers aren't very smart or very powerful, and the necromancer has no direct control over them. Furthermore, his minions have trouble navigating tight corridors. Finally, the necromancer's curse abilities, which can reduce his enemies' sight radius, make his enemies flee in terror, or make them more susceptible to harm, seem less useful than his other skills.

Fortunately, the necromancer is also adept at making a quick getaway. All he need do is summon a clay golem to divert his enemies' attention, or block himself off with a bone wall. He's an interesting character with many tactical options. And his undead armies are more than enough to make the other four character classes jealous.