So, this was my starter character for ladder season 1. I ended up playing him to level 92 as I wanted to try some other builds and ended up doing 6 characters. That being said, this was still my favorite one that evolved as my understanding of what was really on offer from the latest patch. So, I thought I would share one last write-up before we see the start of season 2. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge, but he holds his own well and can handle any area in the game solo or with a party. Let’s take a look.
Stats:
Strength: 98 or 156 depending on gear see below
Dexterity: 55 or none depending on gear
Vitality: Everything else
Energy: 0
Skills:
Summoning:
RaiseSkeleton: 1
Skeleton Mastery: 1
Clay Golem: 1
Golem Master: 1
Skeleton Mage: 1
Blood Golem: 1
Summon Resist: 1
Iron Golem: 1
Revive: 1
Optional:
Fire Golem: 1
Curses:
Amplify Damage: 1
Optional:
Terror: 1
Iron Maden: 1
Life Tap: 1
Weaken: 1
Decrepify: 1
Lower Resist: 1
Bone and Poison:
Teeth: 1
Corpse Explosion: 1
Bone Armor: 1
Bone Wall: 20
Bone Prison: 20
Bone Spear: 20
Bone Spirit: 20
Max out the subtrees you want first. Then max bone spear, bone wall, and bone prison in that order. Bone Spirt should be last. Any remaining skill points should be invested in teeth to further boost your bone spear damage.
Gear:
Primary Weapon: White Wand (+3 Bone Spear) + any other base skills
Primary Off Hand: Homunculus Shield (perfect diamond), bone flame (perfect Diamond) or Spirit Monarch
Helm: Flickering Flame Any base
Amulet: Seraphs Hymn or Mara Kolidiscope
Armor: Trang-Ouls Scales Um Rune
Gloves: Trang-Ouls Claws
Belt: Trang-Ouls Girth
Boots: Marowwalk, Aldur’s Advance, Storm Trek, Water Walks, Natalias, Silkweave
Rings: Soj, +10 FCR with life, mana, resist, FHR, etc.
Swap Weapon: Naj’s Puzzler, Call to Arms, Hexfire Shamshir
Swap Shield: Spirit Monarch, Lidless Eye, Sigons Sheild
Charms: Necromancer Torch, Annialys, +1 to summon skills large + whatever else you want.
Mercenary: Act 2 Thorns
Weapon: Insight
Armor: Arcane’s Valor
Helmet: Andarial’s Visage
So, there are quite a few necromancers out there in D2R. Most of them are either summoners or poison nova necromancers. However, many start out as bone necromancers and then transition to poison or summoning at a higher level. That being said, the bone spear necromancer is incredibly flexible towards the end game as he deals pure magic damage just like a blessed hammer paladin. This setup offers, a lot more versatile than a hammerdin, along with an interesting playstyle unique and all its own. Let’s take a look.
At our core, this build is a slightly watered-down bone necromancer whose bone spear will max out doing 3,300 to 3,500 magic damage with the gear listed above. You can get it up to 4,400 to 4,600 if you want to load up the rest of your inventory with +1 to bone and poison grand charms. But that is up to you where you want to get off. Likewise, our cast speed is going to be between 10 and 12 frames depending on which gear choices you make and how much FCR you load up with. Our primary attack is bone spear against groups or bone spirit against a single target. Likewise, we have about 1,000 points physical damage shield from bone armor. Along with corpse explosion to help clear out groups and bone prison and wall to direct traffic.
Running the 3 pieces of Trangs Armor offers good resistance, several necromancer skill boosts good mana recovery and level 13 firewall. With the +2 from your amulet, +3 from your hat, +1 from the anni, and possibly +1 from a ring you are looking at bringing this up to 20. If you are running a spirit monarch we are at +22 which is a good amount for fire damage. Especially with the -15% fire resist from flickering flame and another 55 to 60 from lower resist. This gives us another widespread attack if the enemies are spread out in laterally to us rather than in a line in front of us. It also offers a direct damage option for those annoying hand full of opponents who are immune to magic damage.
With this setup, we have 12 revives, a golem of your choice, 6 skeletons, and 6 skeleton mages. Now, I know most people are saying with only one base point in each skill. Aside from the revives these guys aren’t going to do squat for damage. However, our mercenary with the gear listed has a level 30 thorns Aura. When you cast amplify damage on any monster who is not outright immune to physical. If that monster uses physical attacks it will normally beat about 30 to 50% of its health out before you plow it under with bone spear. I have watched Diablo pummel himself to death with my merc and 6 skeleton mages on players 1 with this combo. When you have 27 bodies on the field, Thorns puts in work against any physical attacker. Likewise, that is a lot of meat shields. Finally, the skeleton mages are actually able to deal effective damage on the hell difficulty.
So, our strategy is to summon up a horde. Cast amplify damage on everything that moves. Then start spamming out bone spear or firewall to finish everything off. Pretty basic combat loop once you get the hang of it. For our gear, your flickering flame’s resist fire aura will negate the -30 fire resist on your mercs Andarial’s visage. It will also max your fire resist and make your summons immune to fire even on the hell difficulty. Trangs set, your shield, torch, and anni should handle the rest of your resist.
One drawback to this setup is we are not using enigma. So, running Naj’s for teleport charges in your off-hand solves this. If you are willing to go without teleport. Then you can run CTA and a +skills shield to add some health to your summons and merc to better take advantage of his thorns aura. Mara’s amulet provides an additional +2 and over resistances. However, Seraph’s hymn is cheaper and you probably don’t need the resists from Mara’s anyway. Alternatively, if you just want to max out your firewall and fireball for when you use them. A hex fire shamshir and spirit monarch will provide an additional +5 to them.
For your on-hand shield, Spirit offers likely one frame faster FCR, +2 to your fire skills, along with Mana and life. Bone Flame will offer better resistance and +3 to necromancer skills while requiring less strength. Likewise, the homunculus offers the best overall resists with a higher block rate and some additional mana recovery. The necro shields offer better resists since they can be socketed up with a diamond or an Um rune. So, take your pick.
This setup offers a lot of variety. You have a powerful magical damage linear piercing attack. A horde of summons that can deal massive physical damage in retaliation to any physical monster. We have you over resisted, with a variety of curses for any occasion. Last you also have a few fire spells to sprinkle in as needed or if the enemy placement favors them over bone spear. It took a little while to assemble this build. Likewise, the build is relatively affordable, only needing an Vex rune for the flickering flame and a few Ist runes, and some self-farming for everything else. If you are looking for a different take on the necromancer give it a shot.