Necromancer

{{Infobox The {{PAGENAME}} is one of the six upgrades from the Overseer, and can be selected at Level 45.
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Design
The features a square with two inactive trapezoid Spawners, one for each side. The generates Drones only by bumping into Squares and by hitting Squares with its previously “captured” Square Drones. In FFA it’s hard to say whether a peach coloured Drone is a or the Summoner (If the Summoner is present in the arena).

Ability
Initially starting out with no Drones, the must bump Squares with its body in order to gain Drones. This “infects” them, darkening their color to a peach tone (or to the player's team’s colour if they are playing in a team game mode). These Drones may then be controlled by the player. These “infected” Square Drones can be used to hit other Squares, which also turns them into Drones. Note that a player must destroy the Square to “capture” it. Also note that Green Squares can also be captured by this tank, but the resulting Drone will not be any different from other Drones.

Without any upgrade points, the can control a maximum of 22 Square Drones at any time. However, the player can control an extra 2 Drones for every upgrade point they spend on the Drone Count stat (which replaces the Reload stat), which can be applied up to 7 times for a maximum of 36 controllable Drones.

The Square Drones of the, with a maximum Drone Health and Drone Damage Stat, have 21 HP and have Health Regen and so are able to restore health if untouched for some time.

Because of the 12 Polygon limit, the max Drones in Sandbox is 12, rendering Drone Count useless there.

Controls
In terms of controls, the is basically the same as the Overseer and the Overlord. Pressing E for Auto Fire causes Square Drones to follow the cursor without holding left click or space and holding right click or shift repels them from the cursor. Leaving the mouse unpressed causes them to congregate around the player in a dense cloud and slowly orbit them in a continuous clockwise rotation or attack the nearest Polygons.

Strategies

 * Strong Against: Individual tanks, Overlords with low reload, Boosters, Sniper Branches, Smasher Branches.
 * Weak Against: Penta Shots, Spread Shots, Octo Tanks, Fighters, Predators, Triplets, Overlords with high reload, and groups of enemies. When unarmed, weak against everything.

As the

 * The is one of the hardest tanks to use effectively, due to its lack of reload. A high skill level is needed for this tank, but it can easily become one of the best tanks in the game if it is effectively used, easily usurping the Overlord if you are aware of ’s repelling ability.
 * Squares are central to the Necromancer's ability, so upgrade the where Squares can be found with ease & there are no players to interrupt the collection of Drones. A Necro's drones are it's primary offense as well it's defense, so it is wise to put several points into drone upgrades.
 * Players should never swarm their drones forward or just block the enemy's bullets with drones. Both of these strategies will lead to the enemy cutting right through the drones, then they will be left defenseless. A better strategy is a player using its drones to attack and hope that they kill them or injure them so severely that they have to retreat. Players should make sure to also stay near squares when in battle.
 * Players should play this tank like an Annihilator, not like an Overlord. Necromancers are meant to barge in, claw everything, then regroup and try again. Attacking trappers and bullet spammers is not recommended until the player mastered ’s tech and ambush ability first.
 * The "claw" is a very common strategy among skilled Necromancers. To perform it, a player must click shift/their right mouse to repel their drones, then hold their mouse far away from the drones to keep them in a tight formation. The claw must be tight enough to destroy everything in the area it is sent it in while still being spread far enough apart to kill bullet spammers. Only three tanks are able to survive and counter this tech, so it is a good idea to try mastering it in sandbox.
 * Necros should stay away from the Pentagon Nest unless they have teammates to protect them there.
 * A necromancer holding its cursor right in front of themselves in the direction they are moving is a good defensive strategy. This moves all their Drones into an armor-like formation that completely covers their tank, protecting them from enemy attacks and Body Damage tanks like the Booster. Because of this, using this strategy will make them almost immune to attacks from Invisible enemies.
 * In Team Deathmatch they make great support tanks as they can use their large amount of Drones to cover teammates while healing or under fire, making them very useful in those game modes.
 * A way to quickly gain Squares is for a player to first infect a few, then go to a relatively undisturbed area with lots of Polygons and send their Drones spreading through it by clicking and holding the right mouse button. If they wait around ten seconds then call their squares back, they can usually gain almost a maximum number of Drones. Before the player attempts this, they should make sure there are no hostile tanks around because they will be undefended.
 * In Team Deathmatch, an effective (albeit slow and conservative) strategy is to stay within the Team Base and send out all your Drones along the borders of the base with left click. Because of the sheer amount of Drones and the ability to infect (and thereby resurrect) other Squares, these Drones can continue indefinitely through all but the heaviest enemy fire and destroy every Polygon in their path. The player should be wary of holding shift long enough for the Drones to hit the enemy Base and be destroyed, and it is also not recommended ttouse this strategy in Maze.
 * Despite the annoyance of gathering more Drones from within their Base if they are destroyed, it allows the player to effectively grow even if the entirety of the server is controlled by the enemy team. So long as the Necromancer never leaves its Base, it can't die until the server closes.
 * A famous strategy for killing rammer tanks is the “Border Claw.” To perform, players must use the right mouse button to make their drones scatter along the border of the Arena, then sit idly above the drones. If a rammer tank decides to attack the player, the Necromancer can then summon their drones back and surround the rammer.

Against the

 * s can defeat a wide variety of tanks, but it’s not so dangerous against certain high rate of fire tanks, such as the Penta Shot or Spreadshot. All others should attempt to avoid the.
 * s cannot target fast moving tanks such as Boosters and Smashers. Unless the is skilled, the player can just keep on running around it while killing its Drones (this works especially well with a Fighter). If the Necromancer does not engage when the player applies this tactic, the player should disengage and go somewhere else. Skilled Necromancers will keep themselves shrouded in their drones and retreat, and they will try to surround and dispatch of the player should they get too close. It is not recommended to use this strategy with any other tank besides the Fighter.
 * Using the Predator is a good strategy because the player can try to catch a off guard.
 * Another useful strategy is trying to catch inexpert players who are attempting to learn how to use this tank. Because of its fame and difficulty to master, around a third of players will not be able to properly utilize this tank and are easy prey. If they have a score of 100K or above, however, it is advisable for the player to use the tanks that we have listed as strong against the Necromancer.
 * The player could also try to team against and stalk the . They should keep in mind however, that this may result in a lot of the people in the server trying to kill them. It is has been proven that almost all skilled diep.io players hate teamers in FFA.
 * On rare occasions, the Octo Tank is an effective counter against the Necromancer.

History

 * Necromancer Drones used to display Health Bars, the Health Bars on the Necromancer Drones were later removed.
 * In earlier versions of the game, Drones could spawn very slowly from the ’s spawners, and ‘Reload’ stat can slightly decrease the reload time. This feature was removed because it is somewhat pointless as it would take hours to amass an army using this feature.
 * As of June 13th, the Reload was changed to Drone Count. The Drone cap with zero Drone Count is then 20 and the full Drone count is then 34.
 * As of October 23, the s’ Drone Count was buffed, from 20 to a minimum to 22 and 34 to a maximum to 36 as a secret update.
 * On July 30th, the was balanced, decreasing its Drone Health but increasing its Drone Speed.
 * On October 23rd, the ’s drone speed was increased in a secret update.

Trivia

 * The is based (named) after s, a type of wizard known for raising and controlling the dead. This references the ’s ability to control Squares when they’re “killed” by the.
 * This is the very first tank added to the game after the Changelog was released. The was added in the May 18th update in the same patch the Changelog itself was added.
 * It is the first playable tank with a square shaped body, the only other square-shaped tanks being the Factory and the boss, Summoner.
 * It is also the only tank with inactive Spawners. They are just for a decoration design of the tank.
 * It is also one of the tanks that had some of their functions removed (spawning squares)
 * Some players (especially on Reddit) refer to the Necromancer's drones as "sunchips", as they resemble Sun Chips.