Building a Summon Necromancer without Corpse Explosion or Enigma:

Necromancer
1

So, I was in a public game a few days ago and I was playing my summon necro for ladder this season. It’s one of three builds I have been playing this time. I had a mixed party of several players drop in and out as I did pretty close to a game cleaning run with the build. I got some interesting comments and one of the players I was with mentioned a topic on the forums here about running this sort of a build. I took a read over it and after some thought I decided I would add my summoner build to the board but in the necromancer section rather than dropping it on as a reply to that long of a thread.

This build is a typical zoomancer type summon build. However, it was well liked by a lot of the players in my party since I wasn’t just killing everything immediately with copse explosion and it gave them a chance to do their share of the fighting. My kill speed and setup are slower than a corpse explosion focused summoner. However, I have better survivability and I slot very well into any group that I join if they want to do a more open ended game run. I can support any playstyle and I just wanted to offer it as an alternative to the typical Enigma teleport happy Corpse explosion summoner for those who wanted something different. After some positive feedback from my group I decided to post it here. I would welcome some feedback and I am always looking for ways to improve any setup.

The Build:

Stats:
Strength: 118
Vitaltiy: Everything Else

Skills:
Poison and Bone:
Bone Armor: 1

Curses:
Amp Damage: 1
Iron Maiden: 1
Life Tap: 1

Summoning:
Skeletons: 20
Skeleton Mastery: 20
Clay Golem: 1
Golem Mastery: 20
Summon Resist: 1
Blood Golem: 1
Iron Golem: 1
Skeleton Mages: 20
Revives: All remaining Points

My Current Gear:
Helm: Circlet +3 summoning skills, 30 faster RW, socketd Ral Rune
Amulet: +3 summon Skills, Teleport charges
Armor: Trang Guls Scales, Socketed Um Rune
Weapon: Arm of King Liorc
Sheild: Bone Flame +3 necrco Skills, +29 all res, Socketed Per Diamond
Swap Weapon: Hex Fire Shamshere
Swap Sheild: Sigon’s Shield
Gloves: Trangs Claws
Rings: +120 mana, 24 to life: 14 Fire res, +82 mana
Belt: Trangs Girth
Boots: Marrowalks +2 skeleton mastery

Inventory: Torch 14/15, Anni 14/19,
+1 summon skill grand charms x 3
Small Charms +54 life, 24 mana, 2 cold res (mixed)

This leaves me my two tomes, 16 open boxes and my cube empty.

Merc: Act 2 Might
Helm: Cure
Armor: Bramble
Weapon: Infinity scythe

So, looking at my gear it’s not exatly budget. However it’s mid tier in price aside from the merc. But the way this build exicutes, you have some flexibility as you work your way up the food chain. If I had infinite resourse I would probably swap my rings out for 2 SOJ’s and get better summon grand charms. But, the rest of this I am pretty content with. You could buy everything I am currently wearing for about a Lo rune if you chopped it up and did a little farming. That is aside from the Infinity and Bramble on the merc. I bought them for Ber rune and a Lo rune respectively on Traderie. There is a reason, I am using a scythe with piss poor roles and a bramble with 27% increased poison damage. The way this build works we want the conviction and thorns auras and the rest doesn’t really matter all that much. Obviously an Eth mancather infinity and a really good eth bramble with a 21 thorns arua would be ideal. I am sure the people who sold me these bottom rolls were happy to cut their losses.

Playing the Build:

So, nothing overly complicated about playing this summoning build. I head out into the field. Let my golem and Merc kill a few enemies and get my skeletons going. I have 16 skeletons all dealing a base damage of 680 physical. After that I get the 15 skeleton mages going, then pile on the revives and refresh any skeletons that die. I think I have a top count of 28 revives at my current level. Once I get my army going I let them walk with me and slaughter everything that moves. Nothing overly complicated. I do have teleport charges on my amulet if I need to cross a troublesome piece of turrain or telestop an act boss. But for the most part I just walk.

Other than summoning or ocasionally teleporting I pretty much just cast amp damage on everything that moves. This boosts the physical damage of my skeletons, golems and revies and pairs very nicely with the merc’s might aura. Amp damage also let’s the thorns aura from bramble deal a nice additional amount physical damage as well. After all at peak I am fielding around 50 to 60 bodies at a time. The Conviction Aura off the infinity helps my mages deal a little more damage. However, it’s mostly there to gut the def stat of the monsters to allow the physical units to hit more often.

Why Skeleton Mages:

I know skeleton mages are viewed a waste of points by some players that could be put to better use on something like 20 hard poins in CE. However, while their attack damage is not great, they have just as much health as a melee skeleton and they deal just as much thorns damage as one. This also gives me an extra 15 bodies that are not on a 3 minute experation date like the revives. This helps to spread out enemy attacks and keep them off my the merc, the golem and myself.

The Gear:

So, I know a lot of players go with the idea if you are not running Enigma you are doing something wrong. However, the 3 pieces of Trang’s give me the same +2 skills as enigma (summoning at least). Likewise they have a nice mix of resistances and I can add an Um rune to the armor vs the no resistances on Enigma. This means I can get an extra +2 skills from my +3 summoning amulet and circlet withouth having to rely on something like a +2 circlet or Mara’s to meet my resistance needs and I still have teleport charges on the amulet for when I do need it. Also this build has 120% faster run walk. So, mobility is less of a problem.

Last, the 3 pieces of Trang’s set give me level 13 firewall or level 17 with the hexfire shamshir and sigons shield on swap. I don’t have enough strength for spirit. It’s low damage, but I can use it to help get my merc and golem get my inital skeletons or deal some extra AoE damage if I have nothing better to do.

My Golem:

So, the last piece of this build is my Golem. There are several different strategies about what golem a summoner should run and how much they should invest in it. I am running an iron golem with 1 hard point in it and 20 points in golem mastery. I have seen several different ideas about what people think they should make theirs out if. Mine is an Insight made from a colosal voulge. For those of you who don’t know how an iron golem works, basically it has the base stats listed in the description window. Plus, it get’s equipped with whatever you make it out of.

Colosal Voulges are a common drop and since they max at 4 sockets they have a 50/50 chance to get 4 if you roll them in the cube with a perfect amethist, ral and amn rune. Ral, Tir, Tal, Sol is cheap and it makes a decent golem you can replace if it dies. On average you are looking at around 100 to 500 base physical damage. Mulitiply that by the mercs might aura and you are up to 1800 physical on the high end. Add my amp damage and we are at 3600 with a 40 to 50% chance to do double damage. So, the golem dishes about about 1500 to 7200 per hit on average.

In addition to that it has a pretty high hit chance thanks to the merc’s conviction gutting the enemy def stat and it has thorns damage too. Not to mention the level 12 to 17 meditation aura on top if. Plus with 20 hard points in golem mastery it has 8,800 heath. Finally, if my golem starts taking a beating I just swap from amp damage to life tap for my curse and it can heal itself through leeching. Same thing goes for my merc, or I can feed him potions as needed.

What makes the Build Work:

This take on the summon necromancer is more about survivability over pure clear speed. Normally, once I get going I am fielding 50 to 60 bodies at a time. That means I normally outnumber the enemies 2 or 3 to 1. This keeps myself, the golem and merc from being singled out as a target and keeps them safe enough. This build slots well into any party that has a little patience. If you’re a caster my army provides a you a safe place to launch your spells from without having to expose you to enemy attacks. Plus, I have infinity to boost elemental attacks as well. If you’re a physical characer I have infinity to solve AR problems, and I am stacking might and amp damage on top of anything else you have yourself.

Likewise, if I enter a bigger party with several elemental casters. Sometimes, I will gimp myself a little swapping the arm of king leoric for a random wand with other curses, like +3 to lower resist. If we have a lighting javazon or a well built sorceress. I am ok, just being the walking debuff machine providing the mobile safe space. After all, I don’t have to do all the killing. It’s a fun build that’s a different take on the summon necromancer if you have a little more patience and want to try something different.

2

Love it. Been necroing loads recently on Hcl and after naby builds have something similar.

20 skels, mages, corpse explosion, mastery. 1 in summons. 1 in revive.

I’m curious how good bramble is for you as I’ve been dreaming of it. I usually just run insight on a2 merc with recastabke ckay golem for the slow, but ultimately I want bramble and pride merc.

Few things I think about when everyone else is having families and getting in with their lives.

1, why does noone self wield pride? Pride in lowbie base would be 300oercent Ed to the army. I get yih miss out in skills.

2, why does noone self wield mist. Mist can have 15 concentration And have 3 all skills on it. Can swap for whatever you want, summon set or cta or whatever.

3, why does noone use clicky heart of wolverine, heart of oak, poison creeper or spirit of barbs. Barbs stacks with thorns and has 800iah life from clicky skill, so 1.5k with cta or whatever it might be as I don’t got one.

4, how can anyone pass up on the opportunity to have 15 skeleton mages casting in a second wave or elemental beauty. It looks so cool your infantry charging in and mages forming a second wave of tiny pixel damage. Also, decline or whoever you fight will usually be slowed from cold, and hopefully the poison ones act as an open wound effect stopping regen. They are awful at times as they make cold useless corpses, but they look cool which is the important thing.

Also, just for kicks, get a nirnlagla a2 prayer merc with your army, do act 2 when it goes all dark around staff amulet but and see how cool that looks. A sea of blue aura bursting through the midnight darkness.

People will tell you just to kevek one time and put a skill in corpse explosion though. One point can’t hurt.

Tldr: overall, did brambke make a noticeable difference. Aura looks like dog poo, which is more than just unfortunate.

3

First off self weilding pride, mist or faith doesnt work. Mist has plus 3, pride has plus 0 skills versus the 7 to 9 you get to all your summoning skils from pair arm of king leroic and bone flame. While an optimal role on one of the auras can yields slightly higher damage per attack. You lose 3 skeletons, 3 mages and 6 to 7 revives. The overall damage boost doesnt make up for fielding 10 to 13 less bodies. Plus all of you summons are less powerful in there health and attack rating. In short if you want pride give it to the merc.

As for a vine if you want to run carrion wind you can, but the vine will be doimg 400 poision damage over 8 seconds about half of what one of you skelton mages with the poison attribute does. In short there are better choices for you ring slots.

Adding a spirit via charges to your army is doable if you want. But again it comes down wheter its worth your time to do so. The spirit of barbs from the wisp projector doesn’t do enough damage to be worth it. Likewise the level 2 oak sage has too short of a radius to help your army and dies too quickly. Natured peace ring is a poor choice for a summon necro for slain monsters rest in peace. The spirits from hoto and oath both have some potential. But you have to have a second bone flame and use the as your swap. Plus you have to wear a wisp projector to keep them from despawning on swapping back. They can help but is it worth the hastle. That is up to you.

As for thorns, its very powerful if you are doing a zoo mancer like i am. Any time something makes an attack the level 17 thorns arua from my mercs bramble does 350 physical damage to it. The also take 7 times any physical damage they to any of your minions on top of that. Normally the high health and 50% base physical reduction on hell limits this. But amp damage strips this away and with 40 to 60 bodies on the field it adds up fast. A lot of times your mages will do more physical damage than their elmental attacks do. So definaely worth it.

If you want bramble and cannot get Sur and ohm to make it check traderie and other sites. Most players who make bramble are doing a poison necro or rabies druid. If the poison damage stat is low they eill often sell it at a steep discount after they get a better one to recoup some of their investment. Low rollef ones often sell for an Ohm or Lo rune if all you care about is the thorns aura.

Hope that clears some things up and helps.

4

Wonderful post, but I will challenge one point. When you summon with leoric and Boneflame, you might consider swapping to cta for no, at which point you have +3 anyway and lose a few skellies.

So then, should you wish to use cta you might consider mist being primary. You can always use leoric and Boneflame to summon for really difficult fights and swap out or hold mist on swap instead of cta.

But yeah I agree.

Fantastic to know brambke is worth it. I’ve really been thinking about it.

Love Boneflame for the frw also. 129 percent is bloody amazing so bully for you.

Thaaaanks

5

A lot of players run Hoto as a primary with this sort of build. Mostly because they don’t like dealing with the chance to cast bone prison when struck on the arm of king leoric. Several summon builds rely mostly on corpse explosion to do their killing. In that case the number and strength of your skeletons is less important as once you have a few dead bodies in an enemy group CE does most of the work.

Also you could have the arm as your swap. that way when you summon the skeletons, mages and revives they are just as strong as when you have it as your primary, you just don’t get as many. Likewise, Hoto has all resistance and if you are getting your teleport from enigma rather than amulet charges like I am this can be nice since enigma doesn’t have any res on it. My build is relying on thorns to deal a lot of it’s damage and the more bodies you have the more damage thorns does. That’s why I am going with the arm of king leoric over hoto or CTA. As Hoto is +3 and the arm is +5 to to skeletons, skeleton mastery and +4 to mages.

If you are using my build, then CTA is a terrible choice for your primary weapon or a swap for that matter. I am running a +3 summoning amulet, +3 summoning circlet, Trangs armor, and bone flame for my shield. So, the only plus to universal skills on my gear would be the +1 from CTA itself and the +1 from the Anni. That would mean battle orders and battle command would each have a duration between 60 and 80 seconds. So, that would add another casting upkeep on an already busy build when trying to keep the revive count high. Now if you were using enigma, shako, maras and a spirit monarch instead then CTA would make a lot more sense. But, that would give you 7 less points in your summoning skill pool compared to my gear. That’s 3 less skeletons, 7 less revives and -240 damage per attack from each of the skeletons and revives. Again it comes down to how you want to structure your build and the gear you have available to work with.

Edit:

Also you keep bringing up a mist bow as an option for the build as well. Just to clairfy on that I have built a bowazon the last 3 ladder seasons and I normally go for mist over faith since it has 100% pierce on attack freeing up a few skill points and 40 to all res which is nice on a two handed weapon. If you were to build one in a low stat required bow and drop it on the necro rather than bone flame and arm of king leoric let’s take a look at the math.

40 all res is nice, not as good as bone flame with an um rune or perfect diamond, but certainly workable and you get +3 skills. this puts you down +5 skill points in summon skeleton and skeleton mastery. It also puts you down 4 points in skeleton mages and 4 points in revives. So, thats 2 less skeletons, 2 less mages and 4 less revives. This will make your skeletons do about 220 points less physical damage per hit and cost your mages about 150 points of elemental damge an attack. The rest of the bow’ss abilities do basically nothing for the build aside from the level 8 to 12 concentration aura. Assuming an ideal roll of 12 (20% chance on crafting) You get 225% off weapon physical ED added to your skeletons. At that level it’s about 380 physical damage to their attack. The base damage shown on the skill screen doesn’t get multiplied completely, this is how the math actually works out. So, you take 380 - 220 and you get 160 extra physical damage over having the extra skill points. Keep in mind you are down several bodies and concentration only works with physical damage. So, any revives that make magic attacks and your mages get nothing from it. That’s why mist really isn’t a workable option for this build. Pride has a higher level concentration aura available, but you are down +8 to skills instead of +5 and the math works similarly.

6

Yep. That pretty much explains it. Brill answer thanks. I also sense thorns has a big effect and is worth the runes, so cool.

Imagine ifnthere was a metal bow, could make a harmony iron golem for vigor!

Love yer work, keep it going!

7

Figure I’d mention that if you roll Bramble on your Merc that you avoid using Cure for the Helm. The reason for this Cleansing and Thorns conflict with one another when it comes to Return% Damage. Return Damage is based on damaged done to your Army. This is amplified if they get Cursed but Cleansing(via Cure) shortens the Curse Duration, thereby weakening the value of Thorns.