While Diablo 3 remains one of my favorite games right now, the Necromancer pack wasn't the greatest thing in the history of the universe. It adds a new class and a bunch of other cosmetic things for other blizzard games, a few new areas and some items and quality-of-life fixes to go with all of that. We're very far from Reaper Of Souls, an expansion that brought a ton of new gameplay systems, fixed itemization and made the game endlessly enjoyable, alongside a new act of story content.
First and foremost, my biggest problem is that I don't even like the Necromancer class that much. It just doesn't work with the way I usually play ARPGs. I don't like having a bar full of active abilities that I need to either use all the time, or never use, and the necromancer is full of that. While wizards have armors that last ten minutes, the necromancer's lasts 45 seconds and needs to be created near enemies. While the witch doctor has pets, the necromancer's are all tied to active abilities. Having too much to do at the same time isn't fun. Do I need to use my pet special attack? Curse enemies? Use a poison skill? A bone skill? I wish that there were more things I could fire and forget so that I could focus on a few two or three core skills. The curses are nice in theory, but why waste time on doing something to weaken enemies while I could be killing them instead?
Corpse skills require you to use slain enemies as ammo - I find it funny that even ghosts and plants drop bloody corpses - and in practice, I've found that you need to plan around corpses a bit much if you want to build yourself in that direction against bosses because there aren't enough enemies to kill there, usually. There is a skill that allows you to forego the corpse requirement to use these skills, but at a 120 seconds cooldown, it's not that convenient. A bunch of skills cost health to use as well, which is a nice idea, but since I play hardcore, it's a bit too risky for my tastes. Overall, besides the skill combos that are suggested via the necromancer item sets, I'm not too fond of what he can do.
There's not much else for me to review here, I enjoy the fact that now crafting materials have their own UI and don't take space anymore, I think that having multiple 'sets' of gear you can quickly switch between is a nice idea for other people and I like that you can do any act you want in adventure mode and get the special reward. I just feel that this release was too thin and didn't bring much else besides the necromancer. What's next for Diablo? I wonder...
