So Bolty, when are the Diablo 3 Forums going up?

[Kevin]

I'd disagree that the Necro was new. It's just that it took one speciality of the Sorcerer and expanded on it (remember the Sorcerer had the golem in D1).

Everyone could have golem in D1 (everyone could have anything...). And if you want to go that way, you can make links like that to every class in D2.

I'd argue though that your train of thought leads much more to the zon valk than what the necro had (even though the rogue was much closer to the zon) for example.

I suppose you could agrue they built the summoning tree off the golem since the necro does have golems, but the curses, the bone wall and cage the ability to build what at first blush looks like a caster as a melee character. It was a significant departure from the sorc.

The links to the other classes for the necro seem much weaker to me when looking at the original D2 classes. The paladin is closer to a warrior who got mana and used spells (I seem to recall D1 'paladin' guides that did just this or maybe I'm just remember the crazy things I did). The sorc to sorc is pretty clear as is rogue to zon (I played some melee rogues in D1 too). The barb to warrior is pretty clear. The necro is not nearly as clear of a link so I'm fine with saying it was new. I'm actually fine with saying all the classes were new because the game mechanics had such a large departure and there were significant differences even between the "obvious" links.