The necromancer is suffering from many things, but most of all it’s weapon diversity. As of right now there isn’t a ranged weapon alternative for power focused builds, and besides mark of blood on the staff, there isn’t a lot that has synergy with minion masters. So I tried to come up with a weapon that works for both.
weapon: great sword or sword/sword
skill 1: shadow strike: swing your sword, Firing a shadow in front of you that travels along the ground, the shadow homes in on the target. This shadow will hit all enemies in it’s path to the enemy dealing X damage, and applies vulnerability to all that are hit. (projectile finisher 20%)
skill 2: shallow grave: the necromancer stabs into the ground with his shadowy blade, the ground of targeted area is ripped open, applying cripple and summoning X jagged horrors. These are exactly the same as jagged horrors summoned from lich form or the re-animator trait. has a X second cooldown. (blast finisher)
skill 3: spirit of anguish: summon a wraith who generates 3% life force on hit, deals X damage on hit, and has a 15 second life span. (cooldown is 30 seconds)
skill 4: taste of death: the necromancer swings his sword, sending out a green vertical blade/shockwave, applies weakness to enemies hit while dealing X damage, and swiftness to Allies it hits. (20 second cooldown)
skill 5: blood of the master: apply X stacks of bleeding to yourself, you heal x allies around you for X amount and damage enemies around you for x amount. (50 second cooldown)
*I purposefully left some of the statistics ambiguous as I don’t know what the fine balance needed to be met is.
*minion traits DO affect the minions summoned by this weapon (as far as health, damage, and health siphoning goes, not the cooldown).
As you can see, this weapon only deals direct damage, summons minions, and applies conditions that are beneficial to the power builds, and is not reliant on condition damage. There are already 2 condition ranged weapons, so I feel like this would create a good alternative. Not to mention, minions deal direct damage as well, so they too benefit greatly from vulnerability and such.