The class is in many respects in a worse state than when the game was released. There have been a few skill and trait improvements. But overall we are weaker than we were, and several interesting mechanics were removed. All in all, there is not much build diversity, which is a shame. Especially in PVE we are in a very sorry state. Of course any of the PVE content can be played by any of the classes, but comparatively the necro is the worst class to bring into a dungeon (no team support, conditions and control are sub par, poor access to stability, and no defense against one-hit kills).
From memory, since release we’ve had:
The good:
+ Spectral Wall causes fear
+ Dagger now hits up to two targets
+ Necro can now interact and finish opponents while in Death Shroud
+ Torment added to DS skill bar
+ Dhuumfire introduced, and then toned down, which it needed badly
+ Minor improvement of life stealing
+ Spectral Armor improved
+ Tons of bug fixes to skills and traits
+ Unholy Sanctuary now allows you to do something the class should be able to do by default. This makes it less useless than before, but it’s still rather silly.
The bad:
- Damage taken in DS now spills into our actual health pool, thus removing an interesting game mechanic from the class
- Several skills got severely nerfed due to Dhuumfire, and never got reverted
- Well of blood got a massive nerf, probably due to bad math
- Flesh Golem, Lich Form and Plague are much weaker than they were before
- Minion ai is worse than at release
- Weakening Shroud nerfed
- Signet of Vampirism…. no comments, just this skill
- New bosses now have a new permanent boon that makes them immune to even more conditions!
