Need guidance on Necro build

[PrestonBurke]

I started on a Summon Necromancer today and got him to level 20. I currently have Summon Skeleton maxed out to 20, and i plan on spending my next 20 skill points on maxing out Skeleton Mastery. But after that, i don't know where to put my skill points in. By then i would be level 40, and i'll be ready to enter nightmare difficulty. What other skills would be benefical to a Skeleton summoner?

Current Stats and Skills:
65 Strength
25 Dexterity
65 Vitality
25 Energy

20 points in Skeleton Summon
1 point in Amplify Damage

2 Spare Skill points from Izual

And do you guys have any gear that would be good for a Necromancer? What gear should i get for him? And if you guys have any gear and play on US.West could you guys message my account "FatBarbarian" and trade with my Necromancer? On my necromancer, i currently have these items:

Rares:
Glyon Hew Crystal Sword (Highlight of this item: +1 Warcries for Barbarian and Mana Steal)

Set Items:
Sander Taboo Heavy Gloves (Traded)
Cathans Rule Battle Staff
Clverbs Ward Large Shield
Sigons Wrap Plated Belt
Sigon Sabot Plated Boots

Unique Items:
SteelClash Kite Shield (For Paladins)
Bloodfist Heavy Gloves (Traded)
Venom Warp Breast Plate

Thanks in advance.

[Aqo]

One thing you're generally missing is a Golem. Every necromancer must have one. Choose any of the four you have available (most choose clay for its slowing ability & high hp or fire for the damage aura it has that attracts enemies)
Make sure to throw one point at Corpse Explosion (your main spell in Hell) and Summon Resist.

Getting some points in Revive can also be a good idea. It's annoying that they disappear after three minutes, sometimes even randomly faster, but once you get used to it you get to see they're generally very useful. It's usually not a problem to revive more as previous ones die, just makes sure you keep enough mana potions with you at all times. Each revive has the potential to be as strong as a maxed-out golem, sometimes even more.

With your spare points, you could put 1 point into Bone Armor and the rest into bone wall & prison (they synergy they give to Bone Armor is more effective than putting points into Bone Armor itself, so don't waste points into it). Bone Armor gives you a free boost to hitpoints, and walls & prisons are generally quite useful against pretty much anything if you just use them correctly.



Why a Summon Necromancer though? :/

[PrestonBurke]

Why a Summon Necromancer though? :/
This is my first Necromancer ever. I've seen a couple of PVP Necro's and they don't seem that fun to play, plus i would have to put points into dexterity (which for some strange reason, i really hate) to make any weapon or shield that i give my Necro useful.

As for Summon Necro's... raise a bunch of minions than amp some boss and watch him get swarmed. Not to mention, my strong skeletons make me a good team member because then the rest of my part doesn't have to worry about getting there butt's kicked in a large battle. Just send the Skeletons in and some spell support > Everything.

I was thinking about getting some Trang, but obviously my character is too low of a level to wear the equipment. So i would have to settle for infernal set instead for now. Unless you guys know any good unique necro equipment.

[Aqo]

Dueling necros aren't that fun because they basically just use Bone Spirit which is auto-target direct-damage. In PvM, however, they're very fun, seeing as they have at least 6 main spells that can be used effectively.

I just can't see how is a Summon Necro fun. Once you have your minions you just stare the screen and walk around, what's fun in that? :/

"First necro" is not an excuse, making a bonenecro is easy.
1 - Teeth
2 - Bone Armour
3 - Teeth
4 - Teeth
5 - Teeth
6 - Clay Golem
7 - Teeth
8 - Teeth
9 - Teeth
10 - Teeth
11 - Corpse Explosion
12 - Bone Wall
13 - Golem Mastery

After that just keep adding points to teeth or bone wall (the latter would give the same synergy for Bone Spear, which will soon become your main spell, and it will also give you bonus points to Bone Armour, so you probably better do that) and in time points into Bone Spear.

When you approach level 30 you may throw one point into revive (and its reqs..), let the +skills you have to do their work and add revives to be cannonfodders for you while you shoot things.
Choose any Golem (I don't recommend the Iron Golem, because it requires 6 slots of your inventory for every time you'll want to revive it, while is rather impractical. You'll normally want your golem alive at all times, meaning you'll resummon him every time his HP falls below 10% or if you want to "teleport" him).

Golem Mastery adds to the golem's speed and hitpoints, so get points into it too.
As for the Bone Spear synergy, at its maximum without +skills the spell can deal 1267-1346 damage (1306av.). If you drop 20 points from the synergy (probably 10 from wall and 10 from prison), you lose 21.3% effectiveness, meaning you'll cast 5 bone spears instead of 4 to deal x damage. This is a fair trade considering you can use those 20 points to get a powerful golem, which will help a lot in drawing fire.

For example, with those 20 points allocated 11 into mastery and 15 into blood, and +skill items that overall give you +5 to bone spear and blood golem, you can get a blood golem that restores you and himself 138% of the monster hitpoints every time it hits a monster. That's A LOT. The downside is that if it gets killed you lose 50% of your hitpoints, but resummoning it often solves this. 101 mana cost -> not that much, throw some attrbs into energy.

[Neo]

Oh quit your summon necro bashing Aqo.

As a summoner you need to do more then just summon -- you need to be cursing anything that comes in range -- and not only that, using the right curses at the right times.

-Neo

[Aqo]

"The right curses at the right times"

Small mobs: Amplify Damage
Powerful mobs: Decrepify
Mobs that almost kill you: Terror

HARD. -_-

Or you can just max your Iron Maiden and only use that all the time.

[Neo]

"The right curses at the right times"

Small mobs: Amplify Damage
Powerful mobs: Decrepify
Mobs that almost kill you: Terror

HARD. -_-

Or you can just max your Iron Maiden and only use that all the time.

OMFG, you never max Iron Maiden. Get a freaking Thorns Mercenary (or a Bramble <3) Amplify works better with that.

You cant consider yourself a true necromancer until you've utilized such curses as Confuse or Attract or Dim Vision.

In fact, Dim Vision is one of the only ways (Barring Cloak from a Sin) one can negate Gloamy things.

-Neo

[Aqo]

Mind you, death negates stuff I come across pretty damn well.

[Neo]

let me know how well that bonespear does against magic immune and resistant monsters plzkthxbai.

edit: Summoners can go anywhere in the game. The only other character with as much, default, freedom is a hammerdin.

-Neo

[Aqo]

magic immune cripple to my feet. All I need to do is kill one of their friends, and pop his body. GG.

[Neo]

Yes well, let me know how that "killing his friend" works out.

-Neo

[Dayoh]

I always thought a corpse explosion necro was the funnest, A summon necro is ok but at certain bosses if not played right you can lose all of your skellies.

[WimzWaben]

I made a pretty interesting build based on a summon/bone hybrid. He was actually one of my best characters because he could go through all of hell by himself. If you would like, I can put his build up here for you.

And do you guys have any gear that would be good for a Necromancer? What gear should i get for him? And if you guys have any gear and play on US.West could you guys message my account "FatBarbarian" and trade with my Necromancer? On my necromancer, i currently have these items:

As for you....
I also play on USWest and can hook you up with a few things to get you going. I'm typically on the account Clan.SDA or ConWaben. I usualy chill in channel () so you can check If I'm in there next time you're on. Just ask for Greg if somebody's in there, and they should know who you're talking about if I know them.

[Aqo]

summon/bone hybrid aint too hard, seeing as bone attacks have a linear increase rate with the synergies and skeletons only require 40 points...

Raise Skeleton 20
Skeleton Mastery 20
Revive 1
Summon Resist 1
Bone Spear 20
Teeth 20
Bone Prison 18
Decrepify 1

Is that what you had in mind?

[Giantfish]

When it comes to gear, there are a lot of options. Here's some of the items I use. Keep in mind that summon necros do not depend on items a lot so even with npc store bought gear, you can still do well.

Call to Arms runeword - Battle Orders will boost your minion's total life as well as your own. Battle Command will all of your skills, making your minions stronger and improving your ability to help them. Makes a good secondary weapon.

Beast runeword - Probably one of the most popular items for a summon necro because of fanaticism.

Pride runeword - Concentration grants your minions huge damage boosts. Often given to a Act 2 mercenary (getting a mercenary with might and then giving him a Pride spear while equipping yourself with a Beast axe makes your skeletons hurt a lot).

Trang Oul's claws - The plus to curses could come in handy, but that's about it. It gives some faster casting rate if you want it.

Homunculus - This head trophy makes a pretty good shield. It has a really high block rate with faster blocking and gives a decent amount of resist. It also has +2 to all necromancer skills and some to curses as well. Unless upgraded, it gives the least defense out of the three head trophies.

Enigma runeword - It gives two to all skills, which is always nice. Some people take advantage of the strength bonus that Enigma gives so they don't have to put too many points in strength. Teleporting is also useful to summon necros because your minions warp to your location when you teleport. You can use this to move all your minions right next to a monster so they all target it.

[WimzWaben]

summon/bone hybrid aint too hard...
Is that what you had in mind?

Mine was a little different. I actualy used mages instead of warriors as my primary minions, and I plugged 1 into lower res as well. I don't remember the exact distribution of my bone spells, but it was probably similar. I'll look it up and post it in a few minutes.

[WimzWaben]

summon/bone hybrid aint too hard...
Is that what you had in mind?

Mine was a little different. I focused less on skellie warriors and more on mages in conjunction with the lower resist curse.

(Based on lvl 82 with all skill and stat quests: 81+12= 93 skills total)

Summoning Skills:
1 into Skeleton Mastery
10 into Raise Skeleton
1 into Clay Golem
20 into Raise Skeleton Mage
1 into Golem Mastery
1 into Summon Resist
1 into revive
2 into pre-reqs
37 total

Poisen and bone skills:
1 into bone armor
1 into corpse explosion
20 into Bone Spear
20 into Bone Spirit
5 into Bone prison
2 into pre-reqs
49 total

Curses:
1 into Amplify Damage
1 into Decrepify
1 into Lower resist
4 into pre-reqs
7 total

Gear:
Weapon1: White Bone Wand (+8 bonespear)
Weapon 2: Call to Arms Flail

Sheild1: Homonculus
Shield2: Lidless

Helm:Rare circlet +2 pnb skills, 20% faster cast rate, +29 to strength, +17 to all resistences, 20% faster hit recovery(Socketed with shale rune)

Amulet: Maras

Ring1:10% fcr ring with mana and resists
Ring2: The Stone of Jordan

Gloves: Trangs

Boots: Sandstorm Trek

Armor: Enigma Breast Plate

Charms: Necro Torch, 3x Poisen and Bone gcs, 3x Summon gcs, 1 Curse gc, Mixed life mana, faster hit recovery and resist charms.