Thank you for all the advice, I havent yet bought the necro class as it wasnt part of the battle chest and I wasnt sure if it was worth it to bother. I had my fill of necro from D2 and was more of a amazon/sorc/barb fan there so I figured it could wait until I ran out of stuff to do without it. I guess if i run out of stash tabs its worth buying but so far Ive got plenty of space still and so many other classes to try out that Im not sure if I should grab it yet. It is on sale though so maybe I should just to complete the package.
The biggest reason why I like the Necromancer is that I feel like it's a pet class that at least gives you
some control over your pets. If you've played an MMO like World of WarCraft, you might've played some sort of pet class that has pretty good control (attack, defend, etc.). However, in Diablo III, pets are pretty much AI-controlled. For the most part, this isn't an issue, but when specific mobs give you trouble, you may want to ensure your pet(s) focus on them first.
Now, the reason why the Necromancer is different is because Command Skeletons has an active ability as well as its passive. By default, when you choose Command Skeletons, you will begin to spawn up to seven skeletons. The active effect of Command Skeletons forces your skeletons to attack the highlighted target. While it's not as nice due to having a decent essence cost (40 essence), it is better than nothing.
Unfortunately, as you get into higher level content (I'd say by about GR60-65), your Skeletons aren't your main source of damage, and Magi aren't nearly as nice. Skeletal Magi work by focusing on whichever enemy was highlighted when you summoned them, or if you summoned them without a target or if the target dies, they just kind of do whatever... which sometimes includes sitting there doing nothing!
I did notice that with my demon hunter on the GR20 run that things do start to hit much harder and I had to start paying more attention to not actually getting hit where before that I could pretty much just stand around shooting.
I don't spend a lot of time with every class, but from what I've seen, you almost always get a set bonus and some other piece of gear or two that gives you high defensive capability. For example, Rathma's 4-piece bonus makes every minion's hit grant you a 1% damage reduction that stacks up to 50 times. Along the same lines, with my Sunwuko Monk, I gain damage reduction for having Sweeping Winds up. As for non-set gear, a Rathma Necromancer can use Dyntee's Binding (belt) that gives up to 50% damage reduction as long as at least one enemy is afflicted by a curse, and a Sunwuko Monk can use a pair of bracers that give you... I think it's up to 45% damage reduction when you use a spirit generator.
The one reason why I recommend using Endless Walk at the start is that it is a double-bonus set where standing still will gradually grant you a bonus that increases your damage by 100%, and moving will gradually grant you a bonus that reduces your damage taken by 50%. (They're mutually exclusive, so as you gain one, you lose the other.)
Im still learning the ins and outs of the cube and what it can all do
The Cube has a decent number of functions, but a few of them will be important to you:
- Extract Legendary Effect - This will destroy a legendary item and give you the ability to select its effect as a free bonus. You can only select one weapon, one armor and one jewelry effect, and typically, these are important parts of a build.
- Upgrade Rare Item - This will take a yellow-quality item and upgrade it to a random legendary or set piece. The resulting item can be ancient or even primal ancient. This can be a nice alternative to gambling with Kadala as weapons are quite expensive to purchase via gambling.
- Reforge Set Item - This will take a set item from a set that has at least three pieces and change it into another item from the set. The resulting set piece cannot be ancient or primal ancient. This can be handy if you keep getting every part of a set except for the last one.
- Reforge Legendary Item - This will reroll any legendary item, but keep in mind that it does not keep ancient or primal ancient status, but the resulting item can be ancient or primal ancient. This can be handy if you get an item to drop on one class and you'd need it on another. For example, I get Pig Sticker a lot on my Necromancer, and it's a really good item for Invoker Crusaders ("Thornsaders"). I could use the reforge to recreate it with Strength rather than Intelligence.
- Add Primary Stat (Caldesann's Despair) - This will take a legendary gem, 3 of the highest rank non-legendary gems and an ancient or primal ancient item, and apply a bonus amount of primary stat (intellect, dexterity or strength) on it. The amount of primary stat that you get depends on the legendary gem provided (gem level * 5; e.g. 65 gem = 325 stat). The primary stat that you get depends on the gems provided as all three gems must be of the same type. Also, the page will denote the requirements as specific item types require at least a specific level gem, but that's sort of a non-issue as the point of Caldesann's Despair is to get as high of a bonus as you can get... especially with the gem requirement.
- Remove Level Requirement - This will take any item you want and remove the level requirement.
There are a few other recipes, but no other important ones come to mind. It's worth noting that some of these recipes are pretty expensive.
I have seen mention of ancient legendaries which I dont know much about yet.
Ancients... I can't remember if there's a Torment restriction on them, but I think they just have an even lower chance to drop than normal. As you start doing higher Torment levels, you'll start to see them drop more and more. Ancients are essentially better versions of the originals with higher stat ranges. There are also Primal Ancients, which aren't much different than Ancients. The biggest difference is that Primal Ancients
always roll the top stat. For example, if an item can have between 50-100% Critical Hit Damage, a Primal Ancient will always get 100%. To unlock Primal Ancients, you must successfully complete a Greater Rift level 70 solo. This will unlock it for
all characters, but unlocking it on live does not affect your seasonal characters.
I have seen mention of ancient legendaries which I dont know much about yet. It does seem like they made it an easy cheat to run low levels up to max quickly though (after you get a high level gems anyways) by throwing a high end damage gem into a low level weapon.
It's actually far better to toss a level 25 Gem of Ease into an Ancient 2H weapon. Gem of Ease is the only non-jewelry legendary gem, and its leveled bonus is to grant a bonus experience per kill. That per-kill bonus can be
HUGE for leveling quickly as I took it up to around +2000 experience per kill. At level 20, you only need around 20,000 experience, so you can imagine how fast it will go. However, there's another good advantage of the Gem of Ease. At level 25, it gains its special bonus of removing the level requirement of the item that its socketed into. In other words, your level 1 is now able to use a 4000+ damage Ancient 2H weapon.
The torment items from the key holders also dont mean anything to me yet although I read there is portals to some uber diablo equivalents through them that can drop so unique items.
These are used to get the crafting materials to make a Hellfire Amulet, which is also good for leveling. Hellfire Amulets have no level requirement, but they have the stats of a level 70 item. They also grant a random passive for the class that creates it, and for some builds, they are the recommended item. To craft one, you need some Primal Essence along with the crafting materials that drop from the bosses in each of those portals. To access the portals, you need to go to Tristram (Act I), go to the heretic's house (right beside the medic) and just right click on the item. It will open a red portal (there are four spots), you go in, kill the bosses, and get materials. Depending on your Torment level, you get more materials.
Also, it's worth nothing that part of the season journey requires you to kill them. You have to kill two of them on... I think it's Torment IV? The other two have to be killed on Torment X.
Can all the sets and legendaries be crafted or are there certain ones that are drop only?
Unfortunately, almost all crafted items are worthless. The only good crafted item is Reaper's Wraps. The plan drops from Malthael, and is commonly used with Rathma Necromancers due to their incredibly high essence use.
Although, it is worth noting that as you're starting out in a season, it is worth using crafted weapons as you're leveling up. Weapons pretty much provide the biggest damage boost, and keeping your weapon up to date can be a huge boon in overall power. So, crafting a new weapon every 5 levels really helps with that.
EDIT:
By the way,
this is the website that I use for tracking my season progress. It's not automated or anything like that, but it will give you an idea of what you need to do since the game only shows you your current journey level... even though you can complete journey goals in levels ahead of yours.