Necromancer question/ help

Console Discussion
1

I got a noob level necro I guess I will do summoner but just wondering if I should use a dagger for chip damage or is it useless do I just cast purely? No weapons or putting any skill points in?

2

The most effective starter Necro is pure summoner (max skeleton, then skel mastery, then corpse explosion) with one point in amplify damage curse. Later levels you can get decrepify and work on a golem and/or revives.

Daggers, poison skills, etc. aren’t good for that build and should be avoided entirely.

That being said though, you can generally run any build through at least normal however you want to play around with skills, then you can use your respec quest to redo your build once you figure out what you want

2 Likes
3

Why don’t you check some YT videos?

Your weapon, damage-wise, is not important. In normal you won’t be able to find a very good weapon anyway. This is a relatively slow but a very safe build. Just stay out of battle and cast amplify dmg.

max skeleton & skeleton mastery - should be your primary damage dealer
amplify dmg - 1 point, spam cast it always

clay golem - 1 point, with decrepify - 1 point - important for diablo, diablo will obliterate your skeletons (they won’t even be able to approach him) and your merc will be dead in like 5 secs so unless you feel like portaling in and out 30, 40, 50-times and trying to hit him with your dagger, definitely put a point to these two. There also won’t be enough corpses lying around to raise your skeletons again. You could also invest to some offensive spell, if you like that more and then respec.

4

Personally i play Offline as Necro and Summoner works fine. I have split points between Summon Skeleton / Skeleton Master and 1 point to Decrephy IS MUST asap. As example Diablo will be your first true test, without Decry your cahnges to win him is kinda small alone. Also 1 point Clay Golem is handy. Personally i used some Spears to throw at Act 1 and at Act 2 i left Spear throwing behind and only casting Amplify and watched how Skeles + Merc kill all. Add points to Energy to get some Mana ( my personal suggest ) so you can spam Amplify often and re cast Clay Golem if needed, something like ~150 Mana points is kinda minimum to have. Corpse Explosion will be your AoE dmg later at game, but what i have tested it’s kinda low effect skill if you don’t invest alot of points to it ( too low area effect with just 1-3 points ) later when you have more +Skills to gear it will be really handy.

5

Thanks guys should I use a shield or no shield? And I assume I just wana put stats into strength and vitality ?

6

your weapon won’t matter.

first off ill tell ya, my summoner is still using this unique wand (thats right, a WAND) while im up in act 1 nightmare.

anyways, get skeles, a golem, then start spamming ‘amplify damage’ and ‘corpse explosion’ all day, every day.

eventually you’ll get enigma, and literally pwn ALMOST the entire game, EXCEPT uber tristram.

edit:
for stats - you only want enough strength and dexterity for gear. NOTHING in energy. dump everything else into vitality

7

As most people are recommending, Summon Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery are must haves to max early.

Amplify damage really starts to shine in mid to late Nightmare when lots of enemies become tanky, while Decrepify is really nice for general casting on most normal mobs (especially really fast enemies or those that run away often) and especially for most Act bosses. I find myself using both sometimes. I’ll use Decrepify as more and more monsters join the mob my army is fighting till they group up into a large mass, then cast Amplify, then Corpse Explosion and its devastating.

Clay Golem is handy as it inflicts a slow effect when landing a blow (stacks with Decrepify or other skills that cause slowdown), but I would recommend only putting extra points in when you feel it dies too quickly. Your end goal will be to eventually have it maxed out in the skill tree.

Corpse Explosion is by far one of the most powerful skills to have in your arsenal. When used, it converts the dead body of a monster into a bomb, dealing 70-120% of that monsters total health pool as damage to an affected radius, so having a single point in it can have catastrophic effects on your enemies, no matter the difficulty (Normal, Nightmare and Hell). That being said, I would highly recommend maxing this if possible after Summon Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery, when you can afford to drop points into it. It doesn’t improve damage but it does increase the radius of the explosion and also increases mana consumption, so be cautious of your mana pool (running the runeword Insight on your Act 2 hirelings polearm will work wonders for mana regen).

Lastly, a single point into your Summon Resistance and a handful of points into Golem Mastery will help a good bit.

As stated above, most of your stat points will be dumped into Vitality. If you find your Strength stat shorthanded and want better armor, just XP farm a bit and put what you need in Strength as you go. When you’re ready to respec your points when you have found the really good stuff and you have an idea for a more optimized build for yourself, go see Akara :slightly_smiling_face:

8

personally i would never recommend to max out corpse explosion.

the reason being is that once you got enough +skill items, it is literally wasted skill points, being it only affects the radius and does not increase damage at all.

but hey, please experiment- after all, variety is the spice of life.

9

This is why I said to respec after finding really good gear and when you figure out your own optimized setup

10

After maxing skeleton and skel mastery, corpse explosion should be the next skill to max, 100%. This is the top tier summoner Necro build. The difference between 1 point + skills and level 20 +skills is like 9 yards, and makes a huge difference since you can’t control where your enemies die, generally.

Your corpse explosion only damages what is in its radius, so while extra points won’t increase its base damage, it will increase your damage by affecting more monsters.

Also, in hell the vast majority of your damage to everything except bosses will come from corpse explosion.

But most importantly, there aren’t any other skill candidates to max. 1 point in decrepify and amp damage is enough for curses. Golems aren’t enough of a game-changer to dedicate maxing points into. Skeleton mages are horrible late game. Revives are nice, but I prefer just 1 point +skills since they have the same stats and duration with 1 or 20 points.

Play how you want, mess around in normal, etc. etc. But if you want the actual summoner Necro build, you want 20 in corpse explosion.

1 Like
11

Trashcan I hope you consider that dudes reply next time you want to call someone out for being ignorant, an idiot and whatever else you can dig out of a thesaurus.

12

I’d say a single point in iron maiden and clay golem is well worth the investment as well for normal. Iron maiden kills bosses like nothing in normal. Pretty useless in NM though to be fair.

13

I have arm of king leoric, Trang-ouls scales armor, poison and bones gc, wormskull for necro if you want to trade. It’s all good stuff for necro summoner. I need occy, or anything great for blizz sorc.

14

Well maxing :

  • Summon Skeleton

  • Skeleton Mastery

  • Corpse Explosion ( high radius )

  • Amplify Damage ( high radius )

Had been prooved to best way to clean up any common area of this game. Summon Necromancer is fastest class to play at /player 1-4, faster than Hdin or Light Sorc after Skeletons are made. One point skills are Revive / Decrepify and some other Curses and maybe Bone Armor. I read comment where someone said that Summon Necro can’t do Uber Trist and i just let that be… Bcoz Summon Necro is SAFEST Uber Trist hero and really fast one ( not as fast as Smiter but still )

Anyone who is intrested about Summon Necro and want read all facts about Dmg and cleaning areas should read this topic :

h ttps://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=48460552&f=87&o=0

( Delete ”space” between first ”h” and ”t” )

There is everything about gear, skills, stats and so on. I just leave this information here, not starting arguing about anything with anyone.

15

I’d personally keep a decent shield in the 2nd slot and swap to it if times get really rough, otherwise try finding trophies and heads with +stats to your build.

Enough strength to wear gear, the rest in vitality. You could even invest some points into dex for a little blocking if you wanted, not really necessary though.