Whilst I understand the nerf to life drain, as it may have been necessary(I never once used it in a full INT, ie cryo, pyro, etcetera, build), I do not believe the scaling to INT was the right choice. You're just locking more and more players into the INT meta that is running rampant in the game. Now, more than ever, the incentive to run INT builds is going to destroy the overall balance to builds. Less and less WIS builds will be played as their viability has been all but removed. Very few are going to run pure WIS exclusive builds(ie no INT), for what? Heals? A buff or two? No. They'll just spec int/wis so they can continue to be involved in DPS to a greater extent than ever with better choices for damage.
Was it necessary to strip the necro abilities for real melee casters? You're just giving more ammo to the 70% of players running int builds and stripping the fun, theory crafted, off-meta builds of more and more shenanigans. Just curious. Tad salty that my str/con/wis build that was already kind of trash is being punished even more.
I'm not sure where to be anymore constructive with this post, but I think Necro scaling off wisdom was the right choice. The antithesis of Druidcraft, but sharing the same catalyst for efficiency sounded about right, tbh. Thematic, if you will.
The rest of the changes in the recent patch didn't effect me, directly, therefor I can't comment on them. But the changes to Necromancy quite literally ruined a build that kept me playing this game. Having to now fall inline with all of the INT builds kind of makes me wonder if I shouldn't just go for an objectively better caster build, now that I've wasted time and in-game money on meticulously building an off-meta, subpar build that was, above all else, fun to play.
Perhaps, after many future patches, it'll be viable to spread across four stats, instead of just three, and I'll once again be able to play my dream build of some sort of melee necromancer - a Deathknight/Blackguard playstyle. But for now, I'll just be spamming everyone's favourite INT spells until that day comes. Why limit myself to a subpar build when I can play the meta since I already have the stat scaling for it?
Thank you for your time.