I’m brand new to D2, so please be gentle. When does Summon Necro start to become very effective? Also, is there a way to direct which target your pets attack? I was watching mine fight a group of some little red guys, and it was taking forever. I finally realized that the shaman mobs were raising the dead, and the pets were focusing on the raised and not the shaman! LOL I could have just beat the shamans down with my stat stick.
Thanks!
This all comes down to how you build your necy. If you do it right you are shredding things by lvl 5. this happens by dropping all your points into summoned skellys so that it’s maxed, along with a few other skills by lvl 23.
Here’s a thread asking something similar over in the necy forum
As long as you stick with raising skeletons/skeleton mastery early on with 1 point into Amplify damage, then points into Corpse Explosion, you’ll skate through normal/nightmare and early hell.
The only time you’ll have trouble is with normal Diablo. When your skellies die, run away and TP out to go somewhere else to raise your skelly army, come back. He’ll eventually die. I had to do this 3 or 4 times. Depends on how often he casts lightning hose, which murders skellies. My skellies were able to tank his lightning hose in Nightmare.
Don’t bother with mages until high level. I just 1 pointed mages and revives. (I’m using Iron golem, so I had to one point the mages)
Warning about Iron golem: There’s a bug that will cause him to be targetable when he gets stuck, your skellies will kill him! So if you plan on using Iron Golem, don’t use any expensive items to make him until they get that bug fixed!
Using clay golem + decrepify + cold damage source will render Baal an easy kill. He wont teleport, and he can rarely attack because he’s so slow he’s stuck in hit recovery. 
Be on the lookout for the Arm of King Leoric. 
Hello Goatleaker,
a summon necro is fun, but usually less effective than most other “mainstream” builds.
You usually need to reach a certain comfortable spot regarding skill levels on skeletons, skeleton mastery and such. this is either done by leveling up (normal & nightmare) or by getting +skill items (and charms) (hell).
There is no way to directly target something, but you can indirectly achieve that by knowing how to move as the center of your mass of summons and how to drag them with you.
What makes this much more effective and easier to achieve is an item that allows you to teleport. There are some staffs(green)/axes(gold) that you can wield on your swap, some amulets (blue ones) and ultimately the runeword enigma, which combines the best of both worlds (+skills and teleport as a skill).
Having revive as a skill can also help you greatly, as these mobs might be alot stronger than your skeletons, but it depends on the area and difficulty.
Also picking the right curse for the occasion is helpful. And since you only need 1 point in them, you basically have free choice. I often use amplify damage when i am ahead and decrepify when i am behind.
Corpse explosion is also very, very helpful to snowball and do any reasonable damage in short time.
Check out this guide for more details: https.://d2.maxroll.gg/guides/summoner-necromancer-guide
Short answer : No
Long answer: Yes, with a but…
teleport is the only thing that will allow you to have control over the summons target by placing them closer to it. You can’t direct them to attack one target or another. Just have to position yourself in such a way to make them do what you want. After a while you’ll see you don’t need to tell them a specific target.
summoner is slow but steady.
Something else not mentioned yet is to farm the vendors for a necro wand. You can go in and out of town through the gate or take the portal to cold plains and back to reset what they have to sell. Akara in act 1 and Drognan in act 2 can have some very very nice wands with 3 to skeleton and 3 to skeleton mastery in addition to another mod like golem. They can be a bit expensive so make sure you have a bit of gold, but this will make the beginning of the game much easier. You should be tearing through monsters in no time once you get 4 skeles which is around level 5-7 iirc.
As to low level taking out shamen’s etc:
At higher levels we just CE everything and the shamens die or have no one to rez. At low levels pick up poison potions. They clear out flayers really quickly, you can target down the flayers or the shamens.
If you want a more active roll in killing them you can get throwing daggers or invest pts so you can use a crossbow. This will let you sit back and target specific things yourself while your boiz kill stuff. This is just a low level solution by the time you are in Nightmare these won’t be much of an option or needed.
Starts to be really effective once you get a powerful mercenary and corpse explosion.
Summonancers are generally effective at all levels. From my experience, their main challenges are:
For point 2, get 55% Faster Run Walk and buy a teleport staff from Akara. It’s not as good as the Sorc, but it helps.
Regarding point 1, starting out, my skellies could hold their own in normal act 4 but then get absolutely shredded by Diablo, which caused me to have to go back to Act 1 to raise another army quite a few times. This was a bit frustrating…
My struggle against bosses continued all the way through Hell. I solo’d all of them, even Hell Baal, but it was a challenge to keep my army alive.
Now, my summonancer is extremely stout and can kill Hell Diablo and Hell Baal with ease.
What caused it to get easier? I found/traded for better items to push Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery as far as possible. Here’s what I used with good success:
Spirit sword
Spirit shield
Staff with Teleport charges on swap
Stealskull Helm for MF (I replaced it with a Shako)
Trang Armor with +2 Summoning Skill and 40% FRW
Rare Belt with +life and Resists
Rare Gloves with MF and resists
Marrow Walk Boots with +2 Skeleton mastery (self found)
Rare +1 Skills Necro amulet with MF (just replaced with a 30 Mara’s that I found in CS)
Nagel Ring with 30 MF
Rare Ring with +mana, resists, and MF
Hellfire Torch
Inventory with resist and life charms (not the greatest, but it helps)
Also, my merc has a Colossus Voulge Insight. He hits pretty hard.
With the above gear, I do well enough and can handle everything.
Back to your questions, summoners get good when Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery are maxed, so focus your points on them. Also, put just 1 point into Mages and 1 point into Revive. 1 point, Visiley, 1 point only.
Regarding the Shaman question and targeting, no, you can’t have your minions target a mob. The answer you seek without knowing it is Corpse Explosion. Max out this skill. It can have insane range at higher levels. When your skellies kill one of the little demons, Corpse Explode them to kill everything around them. This can lead to a chain of Corpse Explosions and soon the whole screen is dead including the Shamans. Max Corpse Explosion.
Also, make sure you use your curses. My go to curses are Confuse, Amplify Damage, and Decrepify.
Confuse agros mobs which helps with clear speed. It also takes the heat of your army
Amp Damage doubles you Army’s damage and increases Corpse Explosion damage by 1.5x (CE does 50% physical and 50% fire danage).
Decrepify slows enemies which helps your army’s survivability. It also increases damage by a bit. I use Decrepify against strong enemies like Minions of Destruction. Once one dies, I cast Amp Damage on the mobs and then corpse explode them all.
Next time I watch that, all I’m gonna hear is d2 puns, so thanks for that.