I can't believe it. WotC finally did it, and I only now noticed.
Necromancers now have an actually good 2nd Tier Necromancy offence spell.
Wither and Bloom: 10-ft radius AOE of 2d6 necrotic damage with a CON save for half damage.
And here's the real kicker: it lets you [i]heal[/i] someone in that radius using their hit dice.
[i]Actual healing[/i], as a freaking [i]wizard[/i].
Add onto that a Necromancer's normal Grim Harvest trait for self-healing and that this spell is 2nd tier (and so much bang for your buck), and this is literally everything the Necromancer has been missing to make Grim Harvest actually consistently viable (especially at lower levels). Before this spell, either the options were too weak/too unlikely to proc the Grim Harvest with a kill, too uncommon/expensive (requiring higher tier spell slots), or just straight up not Necromancy-type spells, which is what you want to proc the highest return healing on a kill.

Now, you have a spell that even if it doesn't actually get a kill (which is still quite likely at the level it becomes available), you can drop on your own area to still heal you with the bonus effect. Not to mention that it's SELECTIVE AOE with absolutely zero friendly fire, which is actually pretty rare and can be useful for clearing out enemies that are clumped on your party.

Malcer is 100% going to have this spell.