My new Necromancer gloves turn Diablo 4 into a hell governed by sprinting, suicidal skeletons
Unique items have gotten a bit of a bad rap since Diablo 4 came out, and I can kind of understand why. It's annoying to pick up a piece of long-awaited gear only to discover that it doesn't fit your build. Even worse; it might be just about good enough to justify the massive cost of respecc-ing everything to fit it in.
While the Unique items that can be equipped by all classes are mostly useful—my Necro's wearing a thorny Razorplate right now—the class-specific Uniques are definitely guilty of flipping the table. They often feel experimental in a game where gear costs too much to justify messing around. But here's the thing: I think they're great.
I love picking up a piece of gear that's like "Hey, you know that ability you're crutching on? Now it does something completely different and potentially useless. Go nuts!" It often feels like you're being posed a challenge in making it work. You might have seen the Barb's Fists of Fate that Tyler posted about the other week, but the Necromancer has some preposterous Unique items, too. The Bloodless Scream scythe makes all Darkness skills apply Chill, which really threw a wrench in my Shadow Necro build. My personal favourite, though, is Howl From Below.
Imagine taking a reliable ability like Corpse Explosion and transforming it into pure anarchy. Instead of exploding a body, these gothic gloves make it so that the corpse spawns a sprinting skeleton who beelines in a random direction and finds an unwitting enemy to detonate. With the speed at which you cast Corpse Explosion, this leads to an endless procession of suicidal skeletons, born running in random directions only to explode a moment later. You'd almost feel bad if it wasn't for the enemies they're taking with them.
The true challenge with Howl From Below, as with most Unique items, has been trying to integrate it into my setup. As you can tell from my Necromancer build, I really like Corpse Explosion, but it's hard to be consistent when so much is left up to the will of the skellies. Will they damage the enemy I want them to? Or will they run in the opposite direction? Maybe this is what it feels like to be a minion; powerless as you watch as your precious volatile skeletons disappear into the distance, leaving a horde of untouched enemies ready to clobber you.
Still, I definitely prefer my Unique items to be a bit random or completely change how an ability works. The only thing I really wish is that Blizzard made it easier to experiment and play around with this stuff without having to sink absurd costs in respecc-ing. I guess, like my exploding bone-friends, I'm just doomed to create a new Necromancer each season so I can try them all.