Starting 2nd playthru...How is Necromancer?

Here's a rough build for you:

www.rpg-gaming.com/daisc.html?d=t&c=m&b=Mage%20-%20Necromancer&t4=1245789bce&t3=1467&t2=45789ef&t1=4b&t0=1346c&a=00111422432e43454164974c

I haven't played as a necro but I did use Dorian quite a bit. The prevailing view seems to be that it was lacklustre pre-Trespasser but the new upgrades to spirit mark and walking bomb make it much better. The walking bomb upgrade is great for big single target damage, which the necro is otherwise poor at. The build above assumes you have Trespasser.

The inferno tree synergises well with necros due to the great passives, and you definitely want the mana surge passive from the winter tree. Energy barrage is a great opening spell because each projectile has a chance to critically hit and activate flashpoint (no cooldown on next spell used).

How much you want to spec into the barrier tree is up to you and probably depends on whether or not you have another mage in the party. You could always drop barrier or even immolate for a focus ability.

Prioritise gear/crafting that boosts critical chance (for flashpoint) or guard on hit. You should definitely use the sigil of the great bear too - due to a coding oversight the mana regen penalty essentially doesn't apply to your natural mana regen rate (only to the regen rate from death siphon, which IMO isn't a massive loss) so you're basically just doubling your mana pool. This is great, because necros chew through mana.

I tend to prefer companions who don't need micro management! Really tho, the only micro management a necro needs above and beyond other mages is to trigger walking bomb explosions at the right times, and that's mainly important against bosses. Spirit mark looks after itself and horror is just a mook killer.

As decent as the necro skills are, it's a bit disappointing that they are mostly rehashed spirit and entropy skills from previous games.