Pure Summoner

[kandrathe]

Think "White", the rune word. I have 3 of them, which I make as I find 2 socketed wands with multiple and good + skills. Yes, only + 4 skeleton mastery, but...

There is "pure", and there is practical. "Pure" is fine if you want to stop at the end of nightmare difficulty, or slog it out for hours with the Hell Act bosses and avoid most of the Hell monsters. That is true for not just the necromancer.

My summoner "Don Perfecto" (he began life as my PGem mule) is lvl 42 and mid way into nightmare and is viable and fun so far. My strategy was to build him as a poison dagger melee-mancer, with maxed summons (not numbers, but power). Here is what I did in the summoning tree (w/+skills); skeleton 1(7), skeleton mastery 10(16) (will max eventually), clay golem 1(7), skel mage 10(16), golem mastery 16(25) (will max), blood golem 1(7), iron golem 1(10) (will max), fire golem 1(7), Summon Resist 4(10) (add as needed), he also has a point in amplify damage(4), teeth(4), corpse explosion(4), poison dagger(4), and poison nova(4). White gives you +3 P&B skills and +2 in Bone Spear (8), and Bone Armor(8) to boot. And, I went with Prayer merc, and I love that guy! His stats are Str is 67(+10,+5), Dex 34(+10,+10,+4), Vit 93 Nrg 96(+10). In my summoning stance, I have +3 to summoning and +3 all necro skills so I have a minimum of 7 in all summoning skills.

For equipment I was motivated into building him when I found a rare unraveller skull with +2 Necro skills and +2 iron golem, +3 golem mastery with dual resists are a bonus. Trangs set would be nice, but I only have the gloves which wouldn't help him. He wears the following; Undead Crown, Snakecord, (Spineripper, Swordback hold) for combat (+3 necro skills), (Gravenspine or 'White' wand, rare unraveller head) for summons (+6 summoning skills), +2 necro skills ammy, rare ring with FR, LR, AR, DR - rare ring with AR, LR, CR, rare gothic plate (+3 def/lvl, + mana, FR, DR, MDR), Sanders Taboo, Sanders Riprap. I also keep a "Pusspitter" in the Cube with bolts for those times when I need to stand off behind my tanks. Blackbogs Sharp is another common weapon alternative that I find frequently, but I just like the concept "Spineripper". :)

Most of the time you can just follow along behind, amp damage, and let your forces engage from the rear, while you send in a bone spear once in a while to influence the battle. Eventually a real nasty unique or superior will decimate your force and you will be left with your Merc, and Golem, or less. That will always be the case with the Act bosses, so you need to build with that and the ancients in mind. You can see by my strategy that I like to have options for multiple tactics. I can jump in and melee with poison dagger, or stand off and knock down the real bad ones (LEB) with the crossbow.

I made the mistake with my first summoner in single player to focus on numbers rather than power. I was level 32, when I faced Diablo in Classic with ~20 skeletons and 10 Skeleton mages. One or two fire rings from Diablo turned my forces into dust, including my golem and merc. Needless to say Diablo biatch slapped me, and christened that necro "A Little Girl Named Susan", as I ran screaming from the Chaos Sanctuary.