Time to resurrect this discussion.
I just finished up an insane run as Necromancer (my first insane win), and I wanted to weigh in that the class is not only good in theory, but is absurdly strong in practice. My build did not come close to unlocking the full potential of the class, and I still found things miles easier than any other class I'd tried on Insane even Archmage, although I don't think I've ever built an Archmage properly. I didn't build my Necromancer properly either though, and I still won, which I think says something about the class.
The first thing that stood out to me was just how awesome 5/5 Blurred Mortality is in the early game. Necro has a lot of ways to waste time without actually dying and I found myself below 0 hp constantly in the early game before I found a heroism infusion. This ability alone made the transition to T2 substantially less brutal. Max this crap ASAP, its 250+ hp at basically no cost, and pretty much every class/build need to find at least that much bonus hp from *somewhere* to not just be meat paste. Necro gets that free. For FREE.
The other ability I found to be completely bonkers was Forgery of Haze. This thing spawns with +2 talent points spent in most of your skills so they have higher damage bases (and sometimes even larger size), and once you are geared for endgame with 100% crit, it's extra points in Magic of the Eternals for crit damage, and the fact that its damage penalty uses additive math against your dark (or ice) bonus leaves it consistently doing more damage than you do. You don't even have to max it to get great mileage because for its last few turns it will likely use garbage abilities you have 1 point in. You just want to be sure it has enough time to cast all your best stuff (it probably will). It especially loves to cast Fear the Night, so if you have 2 turns before something nasty gets to you, summon the forgery and it will almost certainly cast Fear for you, letting you do it again yourself in a turn or three. Note that whatever is on cooldown when you cast it is *also on cooldown on the forgery* so summon it before you blow your load. 3 points in the ability is a break point where you get 2 turns of duration for 1 point, so I stopped there. The thing still carried hard. It consistently broke 3k (I never quite got a number that large), and it solo'd Grushnak (while standing in Bathe in Light and face tanking him) while i was out of LoS from him and hadn't yet realized he wasn't just another Rare. Oh, and it uses Tactical AI not Dumb AI, so it will never hit you with Starfall. Watch out for Chill of the Tomb and Cold Flames, though, because it does not account for where you might want to be in the future, and those move slowly.
The build I used is not optimal (no Sacrifice, no Draconic Will, no Hidden Resources, no cheese with Timeless) and ended up pretty item dependent, so I wont speak to the endgame strengths of the class if you don't pillage your vault (which I did, so if you think that hurts the legitimacy of my post ... well so do I). But wow just wow did Blurred Mortality do a load of work all the way through Nur (where the vault took over, and I stopped really being in much danger). Once I was geared up, Forgery of Haze sure was a beast. Those two abilities stood out to me as generically good non-cheese.
And now for the bad. The crappiest thing about the class is that you pretty much have to get the Celestial/Light tree, and if you don't find an Anorithil that costs you a prodigy. My winner was an Adventure character, but I'm positive I could have beaten it on Roguelike if I had found an Anorithil in any of the T1/T2 dungeons and wasn't forced to take Worldly Knowledge at 42 (which I should have just gotten at 30, its that important). I was floating 8 generics and a cat point from 10 on in order to dump into Light. Every death was preventable with one cast of Bathe in Light, not to mention how I probably would have never been in danger if my minions had been more durable on account of being able to heal/shield them. Bathe in Light as a single ability is really goddamn stupid overpowered on a Necromancer, and the class is a *lot* weaker without it. You need a cheap and effective way to heal your minions in order to get good mileage out of them as a defensive wall. There is no ability that does this in the core Necromancer kit. Essence of the Dead/Shadow Tunnel is both inefficient in terms of turns, and a stupid use of souls. Bathe in Light lets you quickly heal your defensive line on the same turn you yourself are in trouble, and the shield can even be used to protect your husk, which is completely impossible to sustain otherwise. The downside to Bathe in Light is supposedly that you might heal your enemies, but with proper positioning, the minions occupy all of the squares. And as I only ever had 3 points in Necrotic Aura, I could pretty reliably summon the minions directly into squares I was afraid might get taken over, and you can still cast shadow tunnel to guarantee they fill things in. There is no downside to Bathe in Light on a Necromancer. It will do your taxes, walk your dog, and give you a blowjob. Love it. And of course the rest of the tree is Providence, an extra shield when buffing up, and a resource-less heal. I always wondered why Worldly Knowledge even existed, and now I know. It is to salvage your character so you don't just have to start over because you had bad luck with escorts.
All in all, I think Necromancer is an amazing class. Probably not S tier because you *must* get Light, and preferably as early as possible. But it definitely belongs at the top of A where you have it. I was appalled to find there are no other Insane winners in the vault, because Necro is awesome and you should all play one.
Do not copy my build btw, it is bad. If you were to copy it for some reason, at the very least move the 7 points in Starfall and the extra category point in Nightfall all into Sacrifice, and hope you are lucky enough to just learn Light at 0.8 so you can grab Hidden Resources. Starfall did not scale up to endgame levels of damage, although the Forgery likes to use Starfall (and pretty effectively), and the Forgery's version was both larger and significantly more damaging. Starfall seems to get a lot out of talent levels, so being in a 1.1 tree really hurts it. And there is a strong argument for never becoming a Lich in the first place, so that frees up another 11 free points. Personally I just wanted to be an immortal Lich. I mean that is your one true goal, right?
http://te4.org/characters/150331/tome/d ... e33011160b
A few queries from the character vault: