View Full Version : Noob Necro starting a Summoner
Spikemang
11-10-2006, 09:03
Hey everyone, I've been a long time D2 player since back in the days when wf and gf were considered godly. 1.08 or 9 I believe that was. Anyways, I just started playing again and I love the changes in the game. Moreso, I've never created a Necromancer (or never followed through with it for that matter) so I used Nightfish's guide for the Skelliemancer.
I'm loving the build so far, I'm at lvl 75 with RS, SM, and CE maxed. I have some decent equipment to work with too:
Shako
Maras (+23)
Arm of King Leoric
6 BO CTA (on switch)
Enigma DS
Homonculus (PDiamond)
Trangs Gloves
X2 Manald Heal Rings (I plan on getting SOJs)
Credendum belt (Plan on getting Arach)
Marrowwalks +2
And only charms I have are a few strength ones and anni.
Researching here has been a great aid to me. I found out a lot of information about Necros and playing with them is a welcomed change from the usual D2. When I see all my minions fighting it kinda feels RTSish.
I do have a few questions though. With the mages, would it be pointless to put like 10 pts in here? Same goes for the revives. Also should I invest in other curses like Life Tap, Lower Resist, Iron Maiden, or Dim Vision? All those seem to have some potential use. Or even the bone walls to help protect me and box in the baddies. I just want a few more additions to my bag of tricks to help me further in hell and uber trist. Just want to know what my options will lead me to.
Thanks again to everyone, I'm a Necro lover now. (That sounds kinda weird though) Any help is appreciated.
-Mike
FrostBurn
11-10-2006, 10:45
Welcome back to the game.
Some people like the mages, others do not. Since you have Enigma, I'd say max the mages. The more skill points spent, the more damage they do, and with teleport, mages blocking doorways will not be an issue.
The Revives only require 1 point though. They are vitually immortal for the 3 minutes that they last, and there are plenty of corpses around for reviving more when the timer expires for the previous ones.
Dim Vision is extremely useful for blinding monsters, like Gloams. Lower Resist is useful for your mages against unbreakable PIs, but they are so rare, that I personally did not bother with LR. Life Tap could be used to help your merc or other partied members (especially in Uber Trist), whereas IM has little practical purpose in PvM. Both are not at all essential. And 1 point in each curse that you intend to use is sufficient... +skills will take them the rest of the way.
1 point Bone Armour and maxed Bone Wall will give you a good defense against physical attacks, and the BWall can be useful in a few situations.
DIEnamic
11-10-2006, 15:23
don't forget about decrep. extremely useful skill especially when it comes to ubering.
i think lower res is nice one point wonder to have for summoner.. there are annoying monsters that still keep phys imm after amp and if you do have those mages (and perhaps some caster revives) it really helps out to cast lr on those meanies :rolleyes:
atleast i want to kill every damn uniq monster in wsk while heading to baal :prop:
Spikemang
12-10-2006, 03:22
Thanks for your responses guys, I'll definetly try those skills out.
I totally forgot about the merc too....does he really make a difference? I have a 68 Kiras and COH that I could throw on him but what weapon should I use? It should be a might merc right?
FrostBurn
12-10-2006, 03:32
Correct, Might merc. Act 2 NM Offensive.
The mega rich will use eth BotD, eth Fortitude, and eth Andy's Face with 15% IAS / 30% Fire Resist jewel. Just an example.
Or Bramble, Dream and Infinity for an aura merc.
Kira's and CoH works very well as well. For the weapon, something with +skills, like Arioc's Needle works, since the +skills increases his Might aura, which in turn benefits the skellies.
Spikemang
12-10-2006, 04:09
Should I get him Infinity, the conviction aura would definetly help. Or Tomb Reaver seems like a good choice.
Thanks again, you guys rock by the way. My buddy is jealous of my necro. :D
FrostBurn
12-10-2006, 05:01
The Conviction aura wouldn't help too much on a mainly physical damage based summoner. The -enemy defense will, but my skellies do just fine without it. If you can afford Infinity, then you're better off building a pure lightning sorc or javazon.
Any big damage weapon with +skills will do nicely. BotD, Pride, Infinity, Obedience, and most of the elite polearms/spears... take your pick.
Welcome back!
Consider an Act 1 Rogue with a Faith bow (fanatacism is fun!), maybe put a bramble on her also? Untouchable by those silly Iron Maidens and helps to kill off those silly physical immunes. Or maybe Rogue with Bramble + Edge (but less helpful against physical immunes). Of course amp damage curses will negate the physical immunity in most cases.
Good luck and Good Hunting!
Kirah
so true on the "if you can afford infinity then just make yourself a lightning sorc" notion....
They are the new hammerdin..... Light sorc with infinity seems to be the new cheesespamming class build. Not without reason either....
A VERY underrated weapon is Kelpie's Snare as it slows everything to such a slow rate as to be neutered. Baal is petting zoo goat material with that thing. Especially if you decrep/gumby him on top of it. He practically can't move while you and a ton of your closest friends (skelly's) wail on him....
IronCrown
24-10-2006, 12:42
Yes I can second the kelpie snare on bosses wich makes it really easier as they get down to a crawl, although I feel that the damage from that is actually lacking a bit(try to get an eth one), but with a expansive army in tow as well as the might aura it will be very effective.
Yes I can second the kelpie snare on bosses wich makes it really easier as they get down to a crawl, although I feel that the damage from that is actually lacking a bit(try to get an eth one), but with a expansive army in tow as well as the might aura it will be very effective.
The riphook bow is also a low level slow them down alternative for those liking Act 1 rogues.
Kelpies, Gumby, Decrep, and a cold skele mage for good measure....I'd love to see that in action against any boss :P
I'm thinking you might also benefit from Pride runeword....might + concentration + fanaticism (if you get beast) + amp damage is just sick. Only problem is the freeze target that pops courpses *shrug* maybe use another weapon at first to kill that first corpse haha.
You can also up the kelpies snare to a higher level, and maybe socket with ohm or jewel?
I always point out how slow baal is when killing him with gumby and decrepify. spreading the word on how effective necros can be.
xNamastex
24-10-2006, 23:17
Act 2 Might Merc thoughts. I would stick with Andy's visage (eth if you can get it) and socket with an Um rune. I would try for an Eth Bramble or even and Eth Fortitude. For weapon, I have used many, Pride (for lvl 20 conc aura), Obedience (lots of goddies on it) and Infinity (CB and convinction for mages). I like the Infinity the best and the Pride 2nd best.
I do think an Act 1 rogue with Andy's, Eth Bramble and a Faith bow would be real sweet too - never tried it yet though. I think my mages would go on strike if I switched and since they do nice damage currently I have to stick with my Infinity Might Merc.
:)
Delreich
24-10-2006, 23:30
A VERY underrated weapon is Kelpie's Snare as it slows everything to such a slow rate as to be neutered. Baal is petting zoo goat material with that thing. Especially if you decrep/gumby him on top of it. He practically can't move while you and a ton of your closest friends (skelly's) wail on him....
If you have Gumby, there's no need for Kelpie. They will just overwrite each other.
For non-necros however, Kelpie's awesome.
Act 2 Might Merc thoughts. I would stick with Andy's visage (eth if you can get it) and socket with an Um rune. I would try for an Eth Bramble or even and Eth Fortitude. For weapon, I have used many, Pride (for lvl 20 conc aura), Obedience (lots of goddies on it) and Infinity (CB and convinction for mages). I like the Infinity the best and the Pride 2nd best.
I do think an Act 1 rogue with Andy's, Eth Bramble and a Faith bow would be real sweet too - never tried it yet though. I think my mages would go on strike if I switched and since they do nice damage currently I have to stick with my Infinity Might Merc.
:)
About the bramble on eth armor, i kinda think it is a waste.
Since the thorne is about letting monster hit you, and you have so many allies that you just don't care if he take a few hits.
the eth bramble would be used on the merc...who doesn't use up durability for their items
the eth bramble would be used on the merc...who doesn't use up durability for their items
That i know. Just eth armor would be better to be use on fortitude or rw that take advantage of its high def.
Bramble doess't have good def mode and you want monster to hit you for the thorn damage to reflect, thats why eth armor is a waste on bramble.
Mad Mantis
25-10-2006, 21:58
They will just overwrite each other.
Actually, they stack. Though not in straight percentages.
Isn't it the same premesis as using Gumby and Decrepify? I can definately notice the difference when Gumby is slowing him down and I use Decrepify. This also goes when I use Decrepify and then I cast a Gumby on him.
Delreich
26-10-2006, 00:33
Actually, they stack. Though not in straight percentages.
How sure are you about that? If what RTB says in the Golem FAQ is correct
(ie. gumby slow is as from an item) then overwriting seems much more likely.
I think we can all agree that what RTB says is usually correct.
Another supporter of this theory: http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=403875
Mad Mantis
26-10-2006, 14:35
How sure are you about that? If what RTB says in the Golem FAQ is correct
(ie. gumby slow is as from an item) then overwriting seems much more likely.
The slow is the same kind of slow as you would get from an item, but that doesn't mean it won't stack. There are several sources for slow and each of those sources works together to make things slow down. Some info on slow (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=199564).
Mantis,
Whoa... that's pretty intense. So the Golem's slow is an Aura effect that activates upon the animation of attacking? (The aura effect has a low radius of 1 yard ). I always thought that anybody who hit him or he hit would be affected by the slow. Kinda like being stuck in the mud. So if I want faster slow aura, I should have a fanatacism aura up or HoW running, huh?
Cool!
Good luck and Good hunting!
Kirah
Slowing is Awesome!!! Hmm, question, Arach has 10% slow target, is this only delevered by an actual melee attack? or can you just spam a lvl 1 bone spear at bosses to slow them down even further? hehe 133% to slow is awsome.... just hope i can get the 144 :cool: .
Pride can be a bit of a pain until you have a couple skeles up, but at least a few frozen monsters leave corpses on the odd occasion. In an ETH elite polearm he'll be killing fast enough that it doesnt matter, or you can just head to A5 and summon in the pindle area.
Infinity would make CE more effective in multiplayer games since it doesnt seem to scale with the increased monster HP. Overall i prefer pride, since lvl 20 concentration is about 50% stronger than might.
If you have 40+ in summoning skills mages will kill PI super uniques relatively fast with or without LR so that can be skipped to save a few points.
Not sure if bone wall or bone prision would be more effective to use since both give same synergy to bone armor. prison can be used to stop your skeletons from attacking a particular thing such as cow king if needed, or to seal off a fake baal so that skeletons can only attack the real one.
Spend a bit of time hunting for a plain +3 RS/SM sheild in A1/2 norm to put splendor runeword into for summon switch. Much better than my original plan of rolling a rare shield with +2 all/summon and +3 RS/SM.
Eilo Rytyj
28-10-2006, 11:17
Slowing is Awesome!!! Hmm, question, Arach has 10% slow target, is this only delevered by an actual melee attack? or can you just spam a lvl 1 bone spear at bosses to slow them down even further? hehe 133% to slow is awsome.... just hope i can get the 144 :cool: .
Slows target mods only works by hitting the enemy with your weapon. Bone Spear and other spells like that wont work.
If it worked like that, then 1 point in Teeth would be awesome =)
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