Summoner Necro

[Guest]

I've been looking at builds on other websites on skeleton necromancers. Most seem to use a curse, usually being Iron Maiden or Decrepify, and one guide reccomended Life Tap.

Opinions anybody?

[Chesspiece_face]

Amp damage all the way.

[Sid]

Amplify damage is good but you'll want points in Decrepify as well. Amplify Damage is best when breaking physical resists and when your minions are in a winnning situation. Decrepify is your life saver against bosses or when you are overwhelmed. It slows the enemy down, reduces the damage they deal and still increases the damage they take. It really changes the course of a battle. Quick example- Using AmpDam against Hell Baal on players 1 I steadily lose skeletons, and I'll have to go ressurect my army at least once. Using decrepify I can take Hell Baal on Players 8 without losing a single skeleton. Of course it takes ****ing ages to kill him though :lol:
Decrepify has a really short timer which is annoying but if you've got some +skills then it doesn't take many points to be usefu;. And if you're playing a summoner then recasting a curse every 8 seconds or so shouldn't be much of a strain. I mean honestly, what else does a summoner have to do? :D

[Caaroid]

I mean honestly, what else does a summoner have to do?

cast firewall :P

[Minionman]

If you use corpse explosion a lot amp damage will make it more powerful. Life tap is useful for healing mercenaries or the necromancer if it uses a weapon.

[Guest]

Here is what I plan my skills to be so far:

20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Skeleton Mage
20 Skeleton


Those are absolutes. I plan to do a bit of fighting myself. How many points should I put in amp/decrepify? What about summons resist? Is that a one point wonder, or should I be maxing it eventually?

[Caaroid]

I plan to do a bit of fighting myself.

Don't. If we're talking hell here, the equipment needed for your survival would not go well with the summoning equipment. For a summoner's true power to shiune through, you need level 35+ summoning skills, what is achievable (arm of king leoric, anyone?), but not with melee-enabled gear.

If you wear the full trang set (highly advisable), you can play around with the fire spells if you're bored.

It is, however, a very real possibility to build a summoner that is capable of meleeing himself. The key thing is, that you need incredibly expensive equipment to do so. (Enigma and Beast are the start.) This type of character, the teleporting-fana-enchanted melee-summoner is one of the most powerful PVM characters in the game, very durable and posessing insane killing speed. IF the items required to build such a character, do so, since they are supposedly fun to play.

[Guest]

I'm going to be playing untwinked. Even if I wasn't, I don't have enough items to give me +15 all skills.

[Caaroid]

I'm going to be playing untwinked. Even if I wasn't, I don't have enough items to give me +15 all skills.

There was a thread somewhere (I wish I knew where, does someone care to post the link so that I can archive it please please), that described the REAL effect of +skills to summon skeleton and skeleton mastery. In short, the character screen is way off, your skeletons are a lot tougher, and there is a WORLD of a difference between lev 20/20/20 and 30/30/30. The same difference applies to 30* ->35*.

So in case you play untwinked (and don't have a handy trang oul's avatar ready in stash), you'd be even more desperate for +skills. Mind you, I'm not only yapping here, I did try this out (I made a summoner/boner with the idea of maxing skeletons, mastery, prison and spirit, and getting 1 in revive and the curses). He did not work with lev 25/25, since the skeletons just kept dieing (the idea was mausoleum running, and they could not even handle that. My friend's pure summoner does baal runs. Go figure :)

Ok, so this is going to be a fun build, do what you feel like doing, man! Just do not feel disappointed when you start to face difficutlies.

[Guest]

Kk, you talked me out of it.

[Striker]

One curse will most likely not get you through the game. Depending on the situation, every curse has its own use. Before v1.10 came out, necromancers were considered by some to be the 'thinking man' class, especially Mojomancers (curses only) and cursing summoners. This is due, in no small part, to the feeling that necromancers were like generals out on the battlefield, surveying the scene and deciding what action to take, rather than just bullrushing ahead without considering the consequences. I don't feel this is the case anymore with the new patch since players are more cautious and the skeletons are stronger than they were before. But this still doesn't mean that you should use only one curse to help out your army.

But to help you decide on some curses, here's a primer on all the curses, grouped by how often I've used them. Note that all curses can be overwritten, with the exception of Attract. (All of the curse descriptions and the more technical data can be found on the AS.)

Frequently used curses
Amp damage: Want to kill fast? Then this is the curse for you. It removes physical immunity from most monsters and it works partially with corpse explosion. Works by reducing physical resistance by 100%. Typically the curse of choice.

Dim Vision: Perfect scouting curse. Especially with ranged attackers since it shuts them down. Usually recommended to max it out since that increases duration and area of effect. Usual strategy is to cast this first and overwrite it based on what you find after scouting. Doesn't work with champs and bosses. Does work on minions, though. Duration is reduced in nightmare and in hell.

Decrepify: A 'weaker' version of amp in that it doesn't reduce physical resistance as much. However, it also slows monsters down and reduces their damage output. This is the curse I use the most. Nothing like slowing monsters down to a crawl while my minions take their shots at them. Great for solo play. Note that the area of effect is fixed, which is different than amp.

Life Tap: If your army isn't leeching enough, this is the curse to help them out. Extremely useful against skeletons since this is the only way to leech life from them. Usually cast once to get their life back up, and then overwritten with something else to help the battle. Melee party members love this curse.

Not-so-frequently used curses
Lower Resist: If you dish out more elemental damage than physical, use this one. Can break immunities. Perfect against physical immune monsters where amp is useless. Elemental party members love this curse.

Attract: Useful in crowded situations. Cast this on something in the back of the battle, and the battle typically thins out from divided forces. Can't be overwritten, so keep that in mind. Use attract on revivers (shamans for example) and use another curse on the other monsters. Duration is reduced in higher difficulties.

Confuse: Chaos in a can. In a crowded area, this is great for thinning out the other army. Found on the runeword 'Delirium'. There are reports that confused monsters that are killed give you zero experience, so keep that in mind. I haven't confirmed that myself. Like dim vision and attract, duration is reduced at higher difficulties.

Terror: Great for clearing out some room for your army or for giving you a breather in the middle of a tough battle.

Rarely used
Iron Maiden: If you meet a hard hitting group of monsters, then this might help to kill them faster than any of the other curses. But given the high life and regen of these monsters, your army might be decimated before that happens.

Never used
Weaken: Since this doesn't help your damage output, I only put one point here as a pre-req for the other curses. It might be useful at lower levels, but by level 24, decrepify should replace this curse since it does the same thing, but better. Plus it has other additional effects.

That should be enough to help you decide which curse to use and when. Good luck with the build.

[Obi2Kenobi]

There are reports that confused monsters that are killed give you zero experience, so keep that in mind. I haven't confirmed that myself. Like dim vision and attract, duration is reduced at higher difficulties.

'Tis true, along with attract, as they aren't considered "partied".

[Gerto]

SUMMONING

Skeleton Mastery and Raise Skeletons is the summong skills to max. You dont need Skeleton Mages cus they dont do that much damage. 1 point in mages is enough. Mages are good for one thing...When a creature that gives physical damage have the Iron Maiden curse on it self and kills the mage the creature dies. U dont need more that 1 point in Iron Maiden to do so.

Revive is a good skill but dont put more that 10 point in it. That what I would say is the max skill points to put in it.

CURSES

Decrepify and Dim Vision is the curses to put ur point in. They are lifesavers and u need them when enter nm and hell. Amp gives u minions more damage, but its better to give a bitt lesser damage and slow and weaken ur enemies!

SKILLS

20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Decrepify
15 Dim Vision
10 Revive
01 Bone Armor
05 Bone Wall

This is a total of 91 skill point and the toalt of skillpoint u can get is 107 i think :)

[Fragbait]

Hi Gerto,

the toalt of skillpoint u can get is 107 i think

98 levelups and 12 quest-specific skill pints would add up to 110 free points, methinks.
One thing that's completely neglected most of the times however is that one won't be playing one's character all the time with all skill points distributed, so one should pay attention on having fun and getting along well during it's ascend, too, no?
I would consider going well up in the 80ies realistic, and if you're doing all quests that give you points til then you should have , say at lvl 85, probably 96 points to distribute.
I only managed to get over lvl 85 with 3 out of my 25 characters, my pala, my bowama and my javazon. Some people are real powerplayers I guess :rolleyes: ...

Greetings, Fragbait

[Gerto]

Ok. Sry it was 110 :P but anyways thats how I built my necro. It worked great in norm, nm and hell :) The only char I like playing is the Necromancer and I have built a lot of them. Well. Im starting to get a bit board now :P :)