Necromancer Summoner build - Criticism Thread

[moltovir]

Moltovir’s Guide to the Necromancer Summoner


v1.1
Last edited: May 11, 2005

A Summoner Necromancer is a Necromancer who is centered around two skills: Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery. At first this build may seem weak, since you can only summon a few skeletons with low life and low damage,but as you advance further in the game, you will notice that the summoner is one of the easiest characters to play. When fully maxed, your skeletons deal a nice amount of damage, rarely die and they are capable of handling everything the game throws at you. It’s the most newbie-friendly build: no waiting until level 30 for your main skills, no worrying about equipment or resistances, and an excellent magic and gold finder. Read, and become addicted...


Stat Points

Strength: Enough to wear your gear. Aim for 100-110 by early Hell, this will allow you to wear most good armors.

Dexterity: Again, enough to equip your gear. 70-80 should be enough.

Vitality: Almost all points go in here. You will rarely get hit, but for the rare occations when you will be, like in the stair traps in Worldstone Keep, you want a decent amount of life.

Energy: Normally I would leave this at base because summoning a skeleton requires a small amount of mana, but I put some points in here when my Corpse Explosion starts getting higher.


Skill Points

A common skill layout for a lvl 75 Summoner: (note: these are hard points, without +skills)

Summoning Tree

Raise Skeleton: maxed
Skeleton Mastery: maxed
Clay Golem: 1 point
Golem Mastery: 1 point
Natural Resist: 1-5 points
Skeleton Mages: 1-20 points, player’s preference
Revive: 1-5 points

Poison and Bone Tree:

Teeth: 1 point
Corpse Explosion: 15 points
Bone Armor: 1 point
Bone Wall: 1-5 points, 20 for Hardcore
Bone Prison: 1-5 points, more for Hardcore

Curses Tree:

All Curses: 1 point
DDC of choice: 20 points

Raise Skeleton: Your main skill. For every 3 skill points (less for slvl 1-10) you get one more skeleton. You should max this as quick as possible. High level skeletons seem to have a low amount of life; however, to know the true life of your skeletons, you should multiply the value shown in the game by 1 for Normal, 2 for NM and 3 for Hell. Now that’s a lot better, isn’t it?

Skeleton Mastery: Improves the life and damage of your skeletons. When you can choose between RS and SM, always pick RS. Sure, SM will add damage to all your skeletons, but that extra point in RS might give you another skeleton, good for a damage increase of 500 per second at higher levels. I advise maxing RS and SM at a 3/1 ratio: 3 points in RS for every point in SM, and max SM when RS reaches 20 (without skill adders).

Clay Golem: Very useful against Act Bosses, as it slows them down. If you combine this with Decripify, most Bosses will move so slow that they won’t use their special abilities, eg Diablo’s Lightning Breath or Baal’s Teleport.

Golem Mastery: Makes your Clay Golem tougher, prerequisite for Summon Resist.

Summon Resist: Useful in Nightmare and Hell mode, but let +skills equipment take care of it instead of waisting your precious skill points.

Skeleton Mages: Good to add some extra elemental firepower to your arsenal, but I rarely use them. They are handy when you meet Unbreakable Physical Immunes, but a good Merc with a high elemental damage weapon can take care of those too. If you do decide to max these, remember that Cold Mages will shatter corpses and that Poison Mages do a pitiful amount of damage (3,5 per second)

Revives: Meat shields. They’re only useful to take blows off your skeletons, but skeletons are very hardy and will rarely die. Never max this: Revives have a tendency to disappear around corners, and they last only 3 minutes anyway. I put one point in this.

Teeth: Prerequisite to Corpse Explosion

Corpse Explosion: Blam ! Splatter ! Splash ! Fantastic skill. CE scales with the life of the monsters and will only improve in radius when you put more points in it. It does 50% Fire and 50% Physical damage. Cast Amplify Damage or Lower Resist, and you will get one-hit kills on any monster of the same type that you blow up. Maxing this after your other main skills are maxed is a very good idea: it adds lots of firepower, lets you deal with unbreakable Physical Immunes (by casting Lower Resist and detonating other monsters around it), and is just the funniest skill in the whole game. The mana cost gets higher as you increase its slvl, but consider this: an slvl 20 CE’s mana cost is double of that of an slvl 1, but the radius is 20 times bigger: lots o’ bang for your buck.

Bone Armor: Very effective for MF’ing, this lets you take some hits while trying to find the passage to the next level. Never put more than one point in here: its’ synergies, Bone Wall and Bone Prison, add more to its’ life than points in BA itself.

Bone Wall: Useful for “closing” your front line, so that no monster can pass your skeletons to kill you. Put points in here when you’re playing Hardcore, as it will improve the life of your Bone Armor. Be warned: Bone Wall can attract enemies from 3 screens away, so use it with caution!

Bone Prison: Only used to lock those irritating monsters, like unbreakable PI’s, away while you deal with their minions. Also a synergy for Bone Armor.

Amplify Damage: Lowers the Physical Resistance of monsters by 100%, effectively doubling your damage output. Very useful for breaking physical immunity. In Hell, this will lower monsters’ resistance to –50% due to the global 50% physical resistance; but, going from 50% resistance to –50% resistance, is actually a tripling of your damage output! Put only one point in here, and cast it around your skeletons.

Dim Vision, Attract, Terror and Confuse: see next paragraph

Iron Maiden: Totally, utterly useless. The Blood Golem + IM trick no longer works. Put one point in here only because it’s a prerequisite.

Weaken: Cuts the damage of opponents by 1/3th. Useful against Normal Duriel to protect your Merc, but there are better curses. 1 point only.

Life Tap: When playing solo, ingore this or only use it when your Merc’s hit points are getting low. In multiplayer games, your party members will worship you for using this curse. Keep it hotkeyed.

Decripify: Your main curse against Act Bosses or strong Uniques, like Lister’s pack. I prefer Amplify Damage for normal monsters, as they don’t pose a threat to your skeletons. Still, useful in some other situations.

Lower Resist: Very useful against Unbreakable Physical Immunes (but only if your Merc does Elemental damage or you use the CE trick). Also, sorceresses will love you if you use this on their targets.


More on DDC’s

A Necromancer is a crowd controller like no-one else: he controls the flow of battle better than any other character in the game. This is where the Direct Distraction Curses comes in: while dealing no damage or negative effects to your enemies, they let you decide how much monsters you want to fight at once. DDC’s are AI curses: they affect monster behaviour. The four DDC’s are Terror, Dim Vision, Attract and Confuse. A short description:

Terror: will send enemies scrambling away in fear. Not a good choice when fighting packs of monsters because it will break your front line, but it can be a life saver when you’re being overwhelmed. I advise putting 1 point here, and letting +skills equipment take care of the rest.

Attract: will cause all monsters in a small radius to attack the Attracted monster. This is a nice curse, as it will tigh enemies together in one small pack that just screams for a Corpse Explosion chain. There are disadvantages however: it will often attract monsters from screens away, which can lead to overwhelming odds in favour of the enemy.

Confuse: will cause all enemies to wander around aimlessly or to attack the nearest creature. I consider Attract better, as it gives more control over the enemy’s actions. Sure, it will cause monsters to stop attacking your skeletons, but it will create a chaotic mass, and chaos doesn’t equal control. But if you like Hollywood Bar Brawls, this is the curse for you.

Dim Vision: the favourite of many Summoners, DV is an extremely useful curse: it will stop any enemy from attacking or walking, unless when you’re right next to it. Dim Vision will also disable flee or teleport AI: great against Flayers or those Gremlins from Act V. I use this on nearly every Necromancer build I make.

Either way, choose one of the last three and max it. More points will increase both the radius and the duration, and since the duration of these curses is cut by ¾ in hell you’d better have it maxed by the time you enter Act 1 Hell.

[moltovir]

Equipment

A skilled Necromancer can beat Hell Baal naked. But still, it is much easier when you have some decent gear. The most important equipment for a Summoner is +skills gear, as it will strengthen your skeletons by boosting both Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery. You should aim for slvl 30 RS/SM by early Hell. I will not list the uber dream equipment, because most of it is impossible to get. Instead, I will give some suggestions for the average player, things that can be easily found or traded for. A Summoner is a very good Magic Find character, as he can clear areas fast and has much space for MF equipment.

Helm: +skills and resistances is what you’re looking for.
Beginning: Undead Crown is a very good choice, with it’s +3 Skeleton Mastery, but I prefer Wormskull as it will boost your curses and other skills too.
Mid-game: A rare circlet with +1 Necromancer skills and resists, or the unique Peasant Crown war hat
End game: A Harlequin Crest or a rare circlet with +2 Necromancer skills, resists and MF
Magic Find: A Harlequin Crest socketed with a perfect Topaz (not an Ist! There is much better use for Ists than socketing it were you can also use a cheap PTopaz)

Armor
Beginning: Any rare with decent modifiers will do.
Mid-game: Trang’Ouls Scales, for the +2 to Summoning Skills. If you can’t find one, search for a Skin ot Vipermagi or a Spirit Shroud, for their +1 all skills bonus
End game: Keep the Trang’Ouls.
Magic Find: A “Wealth” armor (LemKoTir) or a 4 PTopaz armor.

Belt: An upgraded Goldwrap or a rare belt with MF and resists. Trang’Ouls is a good choice too.

Gloves: Chance Guards for MF or Trang’Ouls claws for the boost to curses

Rings: Rares or magics with MF, +life, and resists. One of the unique +skills rings if you can afford them, or Nagelrings for pure MF.

Amulet: Magical with +3 summoning skills.

Weapon: A necromancer has his own special class of weapons, the wands.
Beginning: one of the normal unique wands, like the Gravenspine. If you can’t find one of these, try to shop for a wand with +3/+3 RS/SM. If it’s a Bone Wand or higher, socket it with your Larzuk quest reward and make a White (Dol-Io) in it.
Mid-game: a White +3 RS/SM wand, or an Arm of King Leoric.
End game: keep the Arm. It’s the best summoner’s wand in the game.

Shield: unlike other classes, the Necromancer has two class-specific items, the wand and the head. These heads are used in the shield slot and give a bonus to skills.
Beginning: any head with + RS/SM. RS is more important than SM, so give RS priority.
Mid- and Endgame: there’s only one viable choice for the summoner: a head with +2 or 3 to RS/SM, with a Splendor (Eth-Lum) runeword. If you have the Arm of King Leoric, you get a +10 bonus to RS/SM for only two equipment slots! If you want to look menacing, use a full Trang’Ouls set. Launch a fireball at your friends in the Durance lvl 3 and see them wet their pants

Boots: Rares with Faster R/W, MF and resists. Marrowwalks if you can find/afford them.

Charms: MF charms, resists, +life/mana, and Graverobbers Large Charms with +1 to Summoning skills.

About resistances: with a wall of 15 skeletons with 5000 life each in front of you, you should rarely get hit. However, there are some very dangerous enemies with Piercing attacks (fear the Burning Souls of the WSK!) which can severely harm your Summoner. Don’t try to have maxed resistances in Hell: I’m happy when they’re not negative.


Mercenaries

There’s only one viable choice: an Act 2 Desert Warrior. These have their own paladin auras which will affect your entire army.

Normal/Hell:
Prayer: Useless, as your skeletons have an insane amount of life and a very fast regeneration rate.
Defiance: Useful in the beginning, but as you advance in the game your skeletons will become so sturdy that this Merc will lose his usefulness.
Blessed Aim: If you want to rush through the game, pick this one. Your skeletons are created at your character’s level, so their to-hit chance depends on the difference between your level and the area level. If your clvl (character's level)is lower than the level of the area you're in (alvl), this Merc will greatly improve your skeleton's chance to hit monsters. Just keep your clvl close to the alvl of your location, and pick a Might merc instead. Here's a link to a site listing the alvl of all areas in the game, click the "experience" link

Nightmare:
Might: My favourite, this one will add up to 210% damage to your skeletons. Meaning, you’ll kill things twice as fast.
Thorns: If you absolutely want Thorns, then pick a Might merc and give him a Bramble runeword armor. The damage done to your enemies does not compensate for the extra damage added by Might.
Holy Freeze: Very useful for crowd control, but the aura shatters corpses on death, making a nice CE chain impossible.

Mercenary Equipment

Helm: the best choice here is a Tal Rasha’s Mask. Double 10% leech, prismatic resists and a nice life bonus are very good attributes for a Merc, plus it’s very cheap.

Armour: A Duriel’s shell for the resist and Cannot Be Frozen, or a Stone or Duress runeword in a high defense elite armour. I prefer Duress, as it’s cheaper and has better attributes than Stone.

Weapon: The cheapest and best way to go is an elite spear or polearm (ethereal if possible!) with the Insight runeword. For four lowlevel runes you get one of the best runewords in the game. Lvl 17 Meditation aura will refil your mana orb in no time, and the Enhanced Damage and Critical Strike will result in some pretty serious damage. If the stats are bad, just remake it: it’s not like the runes are worth a fortune.

Note: I know that there are several very expensive runewords which add all kinds of super strong auras to your Merc (Pride, Bramble and Faith in particular), but I’ve not listed them because the runes required to make them are very rare. If you have the required runes to make these, don’t hesitate! They will triple the damage output of your army, making it so strong that you’d hardly have time to curse anything before it rolled over it.


Tactics and Strategy

Your skeletons will not accompany you from game to game, so the first thing to do is go the Cold Plains waypoint, let your Merc kill some Fallens and raise your army. When you see a pack of enemies, cast one of the three AI curses on the pack and cast Amplify Damage centered on your skeletons. Remember to keep Amp’s radius low, you don’t want to overwrite Dimmed/Confused/Attracted monsters that can’t be reached by one of your skeletons (that’s why + summoning skills are better than + necromancer skills)! Use your AI curse to control the number of monsters your skeletons face: with 3 or 4 skeletons engaging a monster, not much will be left after some seconds (except for some bloody pulp, which you immediatly detonate with CE to make... more bloody pulp). Some exceptions to this scenario:

- Flayers. Just keep these Dimmed all the time, as their flee AI will shatter your frontline, making you lose your control over the battle.
- Champions and Uniques can’t be Dimmed, Attracted or Confused, but they will fight any Attracted or Confused monster, so use one of those (preferably Attract) if you meet them.
- No matter which curse you have as your main DDC, always use Dim Vision on piercing ranged attackers like Gloams! They can quickly tear your summoner to shreds, but Dim will prevent them from shooting much. Place yourself around corners or behind pillars for that extra safety factor.

[moltovir]

Specific Scenarios

Act Bosses

General Strategy: Always use Decripify on Act Bosses. Combined with the inherent slow effect of Clay Golem it will slow bosses down by more than 70%. Slowed bosses will not initiate any special attacks, like Diablo’s Lightning Breath. Cast the Clay Golem behind the Act Boss, and recast it when it dies. The Boss will concentrate on the Golem, giving your Skeletons free hits on him. Very useful when Diablo decides to shoot an LboD after all.

Andariel: Drop some cheap weapons on the ground and use a wand with Iron Golem instead of Clay: IG is naturally poison immune and will take no damage from Andariel’s attacks.
Duriel: Cast a Bone Wall in front of him to stop his charge attack. Decripify him, cast a Clay Golem at his far side, and beat him.
Mephisto, Diablo and Baal: You’ll want to slow these as much as possible to stop them from using their elemental attacks. Remember to put your golem on the far side of the Boss! Normal Diablo is a pain for summoners: don’t hesitate to ask for help (but make sure you ask a friend, or that friendly player you met five minutes ago will probably steel the loot and PK you after that)


Trouble Spots

The Ancients: Enter, activate the altar, and go drink a beer. The Ancients are a pushover for a Summoner. Cast Bone Prison on some of them (but not the leaper!) while you engage them one by one. Again, Decripify is the curse of choice.
Note: put Iron Maiden on the prisoned ones, it will soften them up a little.

Maggot Lair: * shudder *. This is the worst area in existence: the narrow corridors make it impossible to arrange your army, and 9 of your 10 skeletons will only hamper your movements while the tenth tries to fight 50 maggots. The best thing you can do here is asking a friend for help; if you’re playing solo on B-net, bring in another character to clear a path through levels 1 and 2 and let your Summoner handle the last fight in the big room (this room just screams for Corpse Explosion!). If you’re playing singleplayer, good luck. Make sure your Merc is alive and well and has lots of lightning resistance and life. Let him kill a monster and quickly detonate it in hope of starting a chain reaction. Really, there’s not much else you can do. If anything, this place will let your Merc shine.

Arcane Sanctuary: Same as the Maggot Lair, read above strategy. Use Amplify damage to de-immunize the Ghosts, and detonate as much corpses as possible. Confuse the monsters around The summoner and hope that they will kill him. Both in the Maggot Lair and this area a staff with teleport charges will be very handy, it shouldn’t be very hard to shop for one.

The Palace Cellar: Keep your Bone Armour up at all times, because you’ll have to open lots of doors in here while being shot at by numerous undead archers (use Dim on them!). If a battle is really impossible, either skip it or try to approach from another side to give your skeletons the advantage of space and numbers.

Oblivion Knights: Iron Maiden will tear through your army quickly. Keep them occupied with expendable minions, like Golems or Revives, or cast Attract on a nearby monster. While they are busy handling these, teleport next to them and let your skeletons handle them. When your Skellies are IM’ed, wait until it wears of before continuing

Unbreakable PI’s: Cast Lower Resist and detonate their friends, or use a Merc with a strong elemental damage weapon.

Playing in a Party

If the party consists mainly of melee characters or there are some people with a bad connection, reduce your number of skeletons to 3 or 4. You’re a support character, not a killer: analyze every situation and react accordingly. Is there a Barbarian or Paladin nearby? Cast Amp to double their damage output. Is the life orb of your friend dropping dangerously low? Use Life Tap to save them from certain death. Partying with Sorceresses and Druids? Using Lower Resist will make you some new friends. Keep using your DDC to reduce the amount of foes your party has to face, and detonate some bodies when you have enough time. If the party is in danger of getting overwhelmed, Dim or Terror can save their day. Keep some skeletons and revives up for meat shield purposes when playing with Bowazons and Sorceresses, and ask them not to use too much Cold Damage spells. Never ever use Iron Maiden or Bone Prison! Iron Maiden is next to useless, and getting trapped in a Prison together with Mephisto is not something your barbarian friend will like.


Special Thanks to:
Gamebanshee, for hosting this guide
Duke_Trout from the Amazon Basin, for inspiring me to start a Summoner and for providing the best Summoners guide on the internet – read it here.
The folks at the Amazon Basin, for guiding me through the Maggot Lair a dozen times.
C. Elegans, for helping me with my miserable knowledge of the english grammar.

[Grimar]

oh. this one i like! will definaatly try this one. but my PC is so bad that it will lag like **, so i'l have to wait. Sorry for spamming, just want to say thanks

[Noober]

Though I disagree with a number of your equipment choices (and many of the best top choices are missing), still a nice guide .

You might also want to mention the effect of Marrowalks on Bone Prison.

Also, I still maintian that >1 point (in your DDC) is a waste.

[moltovir]

[QUOTE=Noober]
Also, I still maintian that >1 point (in your DDC) is a waste.[/QUOTE]

Imagine the average player would have +10 to all skills, resulting in 11 points in DV. An slvl 11 DV has a duration of 27 seconds. However, this duration is cut by 3/4 in Hell making it +- 7,5 seconds, which is waaay to short imo. The point of Dim is to reduce the amount of enemies you have to face, and a large duration and radius is required for doing that. I advise you to play a Summoner without twinking, without the standard tristram-till-20 and arcane-till-30 runs and without trading. Unless you have extremely good luck while trying to find gear, a high-radius high-duration DV will save your life countless times.


[QUOTE=Noober](and many of the best top choices are missing)[/QUOTE]
I quote myself:
[quote="Moltovir]I will not list the uber dream equipment"]

[C Elegans]

Excellent guide, Molto, I'll put a link to it in the sticky thread as soon as you feel it is finalised.

One thing: wouldn't it be good to also include the top gear? It's always nice to dream, and also the average player can get a lucky break sometimes. When I try out a new build from a guide, I always think it's nice to know what the most "godly" gear is, since if I like the build will make an effort to do specific runs for the desired item/s. (Ok, not Last Wish )

[Noober]

[QUOTE=moltovir]Imagine the average player would have +10 to all skills, resulting in 11 points in DV. An slvl 11 DV has a duration of 27 seconds. However, this duration is cut by 3/4 in Hell making it +- 7,5 seconds, which is waaay to short imo. [/QUOTE]
Surely you intend to cast it more then once? But regardless, Amp is FAR more commonly used then DV (seeing as you should hardly ever be hit with you minions and Copse Explosion).

[QUOTE=moltovir]without the standard tristram-till-20 and arcane-till-30 runs[/QUOTE]
Why? That's just pointless. It's called good planning.

[QUOTE=moltovir]I will not list the uber dream equipment, because most of it is impossible to get (without trading, 6000 Baalruns, or whatever other gimme-1337-itamz-plzzz tactic there is)[/QUOTE]
But surely if you only play single player, if you are to get to a high level, at least one very good item will drop?

[moltovir]

[QUOTE=Noober]Surely you intend to cast it more then once? But regardless, Amp is FAR more commonly used then DV (seeing as you should hardly ever be hit with you minions and Copse Explosion).[/QUOTE]

No, in fact I don't. I want to cast DV once and then concentrate on other parts of the battle. The great thing about curses is that they're flexible. When the whole screen is Dimmed, you can concentrate on small "trouble spots" and influence those with your other curses, without having to worry that your Dim wears off and that that XS XF Fana pack will suddenly target your mercenary.

[QUOTE=Noober]
Why? That's just pointless. It's called good planning.[/QUOTE]

Yep. It's good planning for players who want to do
- cowruns
- magic find runs
- duelling
It isn't good planning for those players who want to
- play the game like Blizzard designed it

[QuOTE=Noober]
But surely if you only play single player, if you are to get to a high level, at least one very good item will drop?[/QUOTE]

Indeed, and most players will recognize that item as better than their current item and replace it. I only give guidelines to what you should aim for, these aren't rules. If you ever find an SoJ, by all gods, throw that rare ring in the first river you see.

Good point about the Marrowwalk bug though, I'll write a small paragraph about that when I have time.

[Quote=CE]One thing: wouldn't it be good to also include the top gear? It's always nice to dream, and also the average player can get a lucky break sometimes. When I try out a new build from a guide, I always think it's nice to know what the most "godly" gear is, since if I like the build will make an effort to do specific runs for the desired item/s[/quote]

You might be disappointed when you read this, but: I've already listed the Top-End gear. The most important gear for Summoners is +skills, and the items listed, even the exceptional uniques, are the best choices for a summoner. Some small changes:

Godly (best possible) gear:

Helm: A rare circlet class item with +2 Necromancer skills and other desireable modifiers, like Prismatic resists, one or two strong single resists, Magic Find, and +life/mana. If a magical +3 summoning skills Circlet gives you 1 more skeleton, pick that one, otherwise the rare is the better choice.
Armor: Trang'Ouls scales. F R/W and + summoning skills are very good for Summoners. The only other +2 skills armor is an Arkaine's Valor. I found one in the Pit last week, saw the strength requirement and the other properties, and gave it to my Frenzy barbarian.
Boots: Marrowwalks, for their strenght and dex boosts, the F R/W and the +2 to Skeleton Mastery
Shield: A native + 3/3 RS/SM head with the Splendor Runeword
Weapon: The Arm of King Leoric. The two elite unique wands are designed for Bonemancers and Nova-based Venomancers.
Gloves: There aren't any + all skills gloves and most unique gloves are melee-orientated, so I prefer Trang'Ouls gloves or Immortal King's Forge (for the Str and Dex boost)
Rings: 2x SoJ's
Amulet: Magical amulet with +3 Summoning Skills and 30% MF.
Charms: An Annihilus, a perfect Gheed's, and lots of Graverobber's Grand Charms (+1 summoning skills)

Pretty easy to get, eh? Remember: above all, the Summoner is a Magicfind character, not a to-be-Magicfound character. The Summoner, like the Sorceress, can easily run bosses and areas with a minimal investment of equipment, in order to find Unique and Set items for classes who really need them.

If you want to join the Magicfind craze that's overwhelming the Realms, equipment choices change:

Godliest MF equipment (source: the Arreat Summit)

Helm: Fortuitous Circlet of Luck socketed with 2 Ist runes (good luck gambling for this and finding the Ist runes...)
Armor: Skullder's Ire socketed with 1 Ist rune
Weapon: 1-Handed weapon socketed with 6 Ist runes (better have mules full of Ists)
Shield: Any shield socketed with 4 Ist runes
Belt: Goldwrap (finally something easy to get)
Boots: perfect War Travelers (easy to find, hard to get perfects)
Gloves: Chance Guards (another easy item)
Amulet: Fortuitous Amulet of Luck
Rings: 2x Fortuitous Ring of Fortune (these are insanely rare, but not impossible. Before starting an MF character, make a Goldfind character first. You'll need quadrillions of gold to gamble for one of these)
Charms: 1 perfect Gheed's, and 37 perfect xxx Small Charms of Good Luck

[Noober]

[QUOTE=moltovir]Godly (best possible) gear:

Helm: A rare circlet class item with +2 Necromancer skills and other desireable modifiers, like Prismatic resists, one or two strong single resists, Magic Find, and +life/mana. If a magical +3 summoning skills Circlet gives you 1 more skeleton, pick that one, otherwise the rare is the better choice.
Armor: Trang'Ouls scales. F R/W and + summoning skills are very good for Summoners. The only other +2 skills armor is an Arkaine's Valor. I found one in the Pit last week, saw the strength requirement and the other properties, and gave it to my Frenzy barbarian.
Boots: Marrowwalks, for their strenght and dex boosts, the F R/W and the +2 to Skeleton Mastery
Shield: A native + 3/3 RS/SM head with the Splendor Runeword
Weapon: The Arm of King Leoric. The two elite unique wands are designed for Bonemancers and Nova-based Venomancers.
Gloves: There aren't any + all skills gloves and most unique gloves are melee-orientated, so I prefer Trang'Ouls gloves or Immortal King's Forge (for the Str and Dex boost)
Rings: 2x SoJ's
Amulet: Magical amulet with +3 Summoning Skills and 30% MF.
Charms: An Annihilus, a perfect Gheed's, and lots of Graverobber's Grand Charms (+1 summoning skills)

Pretty easy to get, eh?Remember: above all, the Summoner is a Magicfind character, not a to-be-Magicfound character. The Summoner, like the Sorceress, can easily run bosses and areas with a minimal investment of equipment, in order to find Unique and Set items for classes who really need them.[/QUOTE]
A Godly Circlet is pretty easy to get?!?!?! That is FARRRR rarer then possibly even Tyreal's Might. But it is sure godly .
Enigma, Bramble, Vipermagi etc. >>> Trang'Ouls. Btw, are you playing 1.07? Or did you just overlook the runewords?
Some would argue that Leoric is inferior to HotO (FCR can be important as well as resists), including myself, though really that's personal preference (and the fact that I PvP).
Marrowalks are least used for Mastery, but much more for the Marrowbug. Otherwise godly (or preferrably 'classic') rares are much better.
I believe it is only possible to have a single +3 on an item, though I may be mistaken. But where did you Darkforce Spawn, Homunculus and Spirit go?
I say that IK has far to high requirements, so I would agree that Trang's are best by far.
Where did you belt go (*cough* Arachnid's Mesh *cough*)? And where are your resists??

[QUOTE=moltovir]It isn't good planning for those players who want to
- play the game like Blizzard designed it[/QUOTE]
Hardly. Blizzard intended for areas to be re-run for experience, we have simply identified the most efficient locations so you can have a less frustrating game in the future. And you did mention that MF was the purpose of the build...

[QUOTE=moltovir]No, in fact I don't. I want to cast DV once and then concentrate on other parts of the battle. The great thing about curses is that they're flexible. When the whole screen is Dimmed, you can concentrate on small "trouble spots" and influence those with your other curses, without having to worry that your Dim wears off and that that XS XF Fana pack will suddenly target your mercenary.[/QUOTE]
That might be related to your horrid (based on your item choice) FCR. It is generally much faster (and arguably safer) to simply finish off the enemy with Amp so you can CE and Revive. I've only needed DV to deal the those annoying souls. Of course, if you used Enigma, you would worry about your defence the least....

You may also like mention summon from the entrace to Nihilaks (sp?) temple.

[moltovir]

A Godly Circlet is pretty easy to get?!?!?! That is FARRRR rarer then possibly even Tyreal's Might. But it is sure godly .
Enigma, Bramble, Vipermagi etc. >>> Trang'Ouls. Btw, are you playing 1.07? Or did you just overlook the runewords?
Some would argue that Leoric is inferior to HotO (FCR can be important as well as resists), including myself, though really that's personal preference (and the fact that I PvP).

I can follow all your arguments, but why in the seven higher and lower hells would a summoner need FCR? A summoner doesn't cast anything, he sees his skeletons slaughtering some things and detonates a corpse every now and then. Do you want to raise skeletons at superduperfast rate? Do you want to spam the same curse on the same enemy over and over again? No, that's right, you don't want to do that. About your armor picks:

Engima: for a ridicilously high cost, you get the same things Trang'Ouls gives: +2 to all skills and F R/W. The teleport oskill is great, but I can get the same on a 5000 gp Staff of Teleportation. The Damage goes to Mana, +life and +defense aren't needed, because you're not supposed to get hit. Strength boost is nice, but my Summoner isn't going to wear Ogre Mauls nor is he going to hit things with his pathetic 1-2 dmg wand. +14 life after each kill is useless, because you're not going to kill things yourself. 8% DR is good for duellers, but Summoning duellers are probably bad duellers anyway. The Magicfind is great, but when I go magic finding I just equip my Skullder's Ire which has more MF and is ten times cheaper. Consider this: when you had a Barbarian, a Summoner and an Enigma, who would you give it to?
Bramble: Yay I just waisted a Sur to get Thorns! If you really want a Bramble, give it to your Mercenary (as I did say in my paragraph about Mercenary equipment) and keep your precious +skills. Better idea: give your Merc something else and go build a Venomancer
Skin ot Vipermagi: +1 to all skills, whereas Trang'Ouls gives 2. This is the thing you should always look at first: how many more +skills does it give me? Even with the ED, the Defense is still low, especially when compared to Trang'Ouls. MDR and prismatic resists are slightly useful, but not that useful that I'd give up my TO for it. And finally, the FCR: who needs FCR anyway? Bonemancers, Sorceresses, Druids, heck even Hammerdins. But not Summoners.

Marrowbug is only useful for Bonemancers. Sure, the extra 100 life to your Bone Armor is nice in Hardcore, but I use those boosts because they add a nice amount of damage to my Skeletons. 2 points in SM add 10-20 damage to your skeletons, but that's base damage. If you multiply it by your Might bonus, your Concentration or Fanatiscism bonus when you have those expensive runewords, and your amplify damage bonus, that's a lot of extra daamge. All the unique Necromancer heads have nice resists and extra blocking, but the highest +skills Head is the Boneflame and only if you have a perfect roll on the skills. +3/3 heads are rare but do exist, and with Splendor that's +4 to your RS/SM, and you get some Magic Find on your shield too. But you'll probably have found 5 Homunculi before you find a perfect +3/3 head (unless you go hunting for it like I did, took me only 2 months ), so you win here. But that doesn't mean that I agree with the rest of your arguments Sorry for missing the Belt, Arachnid Mesh is indeed the best choice.

Must be my Amazon Basin mentality coming up again. Imho Blizzard created a game so that players could play that game in it's totality. Why would they have spent time on creating the Arachnid Lair and the Swampy Pit when they knew that every player would just rush through the acts to get to the bosses as quickly as possible? This is a stupid computer game, not real life. Computer games are meant to be fun, not to be an exact RL copy where everyone is constantly trying to get as rich as possible, trying to earn a "status" by duelling, or just trying to swindle everyone by hacking, botting, duping and god knows what else. MF is indeed the purpose of this build, but I just slowly work my way to Guardian or Patriarch before I begin doing boss and area runs. Perhaps I'm not as rich as everyone else on this boards, but at least I know every single item I have is both legit and found by me personally.

Why would I need FCR? Answer me that and I'll gladly continue this discussion.

Kids, if you need skeletons, go through the red portal next to Anya in Act V and quickly summon your skeletons before the undead wake up. And kill Pindle while you're there too. Afaik the red portal will disappear when you either kill Nihlathak or activate the Level 2 Waypoint. The reward for killing Nihlathak is funny at best and you should never come back to the Halls anyway (unless your HC, HC players love Halls), so just do neither.

[Noober]

[QUOTE=moltovir]Engima: for a ridicilously high cost, you get the same things Trang'Ouls gives: +2 to all skills and F R/W. The teleport oskill is great, but I can get the same on a 5000 gp Staff of Teleportation. The Damage goes to Mana, +life and +defense aren't needed, because you're not supposed to get hit. Strength boost is nice, but my Summoner isn't going to wear Ogre Mauls nor is he going to hit things with his pathetic 1-2 dmg wand. +14 life after each kill is useless, because you're not going to kill things yourself. 8% DR is good for duellers, but Summoning duellers are probably bad duellers anyway. The Magicfind is great, but when I go magic finding I just equip my Skullder's Ire which has more MF and is ten times cheaper. Consider this: when you had a Barbarian, a Summoner and an Enigma, who would you give it to?[/QUOTE]
Have you ever heard of summon stacking? Consider that absorbing about 5000 attacks, while dealing the damage of all your summons at once. Obviously a Staff of Teleport is nowhere near as practical, and certainly unsuitable for PvP, not to mention that you sacritice an item slot (at the very least the equivalent of Enigma). And if you aren't summon stacking, you will be hit, be it from Gloams or pk'ers. If you consider Life useless, you could not be more incorrect. Strength is good because it allows you to keep base strength, which means more life, or half price block (assuming you don't use that silly Splendor sheild). Summoners are good, though arguably bad mannered duellers. You stated the best possible items, cost is irrelevant. If I had a Barb & Summoner with a single Enigma, I would mule, though Enigma is FAR more effective with a summoner then a Barb. Not to mention that Teleport speeds up MFing ALOT. And you also need it to micro your Merc. Enigma is the single most common armour among top level summonmancers. Period.

[QUOTE=moltovir]Bramble: Yay I just waisted a Sur to get Thorns![/QUOTE]
Obviously you have absolutely no experience in these matters. There are entire characters based on Thorns + summons. Certianly also opens the secondary summon tree. Of course you ignore important things such as Resists (inc. Max resists), and mana (and FHR if you plan to PvP).

[QUOTE=moltovir]Skin ot Vipermagi: +1 to all skills, whereas Trang'Ouls gives 2. This is the thing you should always look at first: how many more +skills does it give me? Even with the ED, the Defense is still low, especially when compared to Trang'Ouls. MDR and prismatic resists are slightly useful, but not that useful that I'd give up my TO for it. And finally, the FCR: who needs FCR anyway? Bonemancers, Sorceresses, Druids, heck even Hammerdins. But not Summoners.[/QUOTE]
If you honestly think that skills are the single most important features on items, try duelling and rushing with a competent character. +1 difference is negligable in comparison to resists and FCR. Go ask any top player (not just the dominant figures on forums) whether they would prefer Trangs or Vipermagi. A gloam would kill you in a single lightning without resists. I will explain FCR later. And if you think that Defence on armours matters on a build like this I can only laugh.

[QUOTE=moltovir]Marrowbug is only useful for Bonemancers. Sure, the extra 100 life to your Bone Armor is nice in Hardcore, but I use those boosts because they add a nice amount of damage to my Skeletons. 2 points in SM add 10-20 damage to your skeletons, but that's base damage.[/QUOTE]
If by 100 you mean 500 and by 10-20 you mean 4, then you figures are correct. I'll give you a generous 75 damage extra. Multiply that by 20 = 1500 damage. What's that? 2 milimetres off an enemies health (assuming you summon stack with that oh so rubbish Enigma, otherwise maybe you can multiply by 5?) in chapter 4 Hell? Compare that to absorbing 500 hp (495 to be exact) at a time, and the ability to recast in dire situations.

[QUOTE=moltovir]Must be my Amazon Basin mentality coming up again....[/QUOTE]
If you would permit, I would rather not debate this topic as it inevitably dissovles into a cycle of flames and repeated arguments. Go search up a multitude of Powergamer vs. RP'er threads if you want.

[QUOTE=moltovir]Why would I need FCR? Answer me that and I'll gladly continue this discussion. [/QUOTE]
If you honestly think that Summonmancers don't do anything, you are sadly mistaken.
- Teleport (arguable the most common use)
- Curse spamming (e.g. confusion, attract, decrepify against WW'ers and bosses)
- Curse combos (e.g. Teleport + Bone Wall + IM or Attract (and terror if you choose the Poison sub-tree) + Corpse Explosion if you are more inclined to PvM)
- Chain Corpse Explosions
- Revive spamming (though generally to a lesser extent)
- Hybrid spells (e.g. Bone and Poison since you will have an excess of skills)
- Hoping to compete or defend against PK'ers
- Clay Golem recasting (as it has higher targetting priority then you, against bosses you may find yourself using this often)

If should probably also be noted that most of my suggestion carry much bias towards high level PvM (e.g. Players 8 Hell) or PvP (which requires far more skill...generally at least =p)

[C Elegans]

@Noober and Moltovir: This is an interesting discussion, so please keep it within the forum rules and refrain from flaming or insulting the other persons' opinions. State your opinions and present your arguments pro and con, but no flaming.

@Noober: Please state your opinions without using insulting expressions such as questioning your opponent's intelligence.

Thank you.

[Noober]

Sorry, edited. I was in my D2 forum mild flaming mood .

EDIT: @moltovir would you like to move this argument out of your thread, seeing as it is really polluting your excellent guide?

[moltovir]

Sure I'll reply in another thread when I have more time, just quickly checking the boards now.

[C Elegans]

Thanks Moltovir and Noober, I hope to follow your continued discussion in another thread. I sticky this to the Build-thread now.

[blubbber]

guides ok, but not like great or anything..noobie is alittle better but still noobish

if you build a necro like this guide, man good luck having fun with your necro. So much hassle and fuk crowd control, just let them come and kill them all. And looking at the recommended gears good luck with hell. Unless you like to prod along in hell at a slow azz pace scared about getting hit and dieing and getting hit from range attack....worrying about casting multiple curses, curse the mob in front, amp whatever, or mobs coming from the side dv them, or oh no, range attacks, confuse them, whatever. Arghh there's a couple minibosses coming from the side/rear, can't curse them. Oh yeah monsters/bosses have a tendency to lock onto you and mages, well they just don't make great tank especially against bosses. You could play a summoner naked through hell and make it through but do you really want to or even need to? Why do you want to worry about certain monsters and areas, skels and merc getting ironmaiden, reliances on your merc to kill cause you are the fukking weak link of your army, the general...when you don't have to. Hey, and don't tell me about building a necro for mfing, unless you can teleport/engnima you are not going to be doing much mfing in areas with a better drop rate, Besides no one out of their right mind decides, hey i'm goign to make a necro to mf...I think a necro would be close to the bottom of their list. For the guy who says, dont' worry about resist as much as long as its not negative.....I don't care how big an army you got, if you wanna steamroll through hell fast, easy, and efficiently, then you wanna be able to hold your own without your army, cause once you fall because maybe souls kill you, monsters converge on you, you encounter a msle boss or whatever, or AoE spells like diablo's nova, clone's amageddon, new uber's/trist abilities, piercing range attack, or you just took a misstep...once you fall, there is no army. Who wants to keep going back to town, who wants to die and have to rebuild ur army. +skill is the not the number one priority like its stated multiple times. All about balance between power and survivability. If you have a choice between a +3 summoning skill ammy and a mara..where a mara will max out your resist in hell..typically at about 75.. then you go for the mara. This is getting way too long. I will write a guide on how to make several types of necro with stats, skills, endgame gears/mercs (the best gears, not the crap that was listed in this thread) and what to expect out of the necro (solo/party).

[Noober]

Roffle. You must be a Blizzard forum noob. Please present your views in a mildly coherant and justified way so that I might humiliate you more easily and thoroughly. Also it is advisable to, generally speaking, have played the game at at least level 3 before giving advice.

Good luck in levelling up.

[Dottie]

@blubbber: The reason to suggest mid or low level gear is that not every player will have access to all items. It takes a lot of time just to find all standard items in the game, and the high level runewords are extremely difficult to find if you want to play legit.

It's very good with a guide that allow you to complete the game without equipment that is very hard to find.

Many people also chooses classes not on what is nessecarily the most efficient, but rather what they want to play.

[C Elegans]

@blubbber: This forum is for discussing the Diablo-series and also for helping newcomers who just started to play the game. The Blizzard forum and pubbie game jargon is not welcome here.

If you wish to critise suggestions made by other users, do so in a factual way and present arguments for your own opinions. Also, it is against the Forum Rules to avoid the profanity filter by using alternatives spelling.

[url="http://www.gamebanshee.com/sitefeatures/forumrules.php"]Forum Rules[/url]

@Noober: No flaming please, it's also against forum rules.

Thank you.