Hey folks,

I'm just coming back to D2 from taking a long, several-year break for the return of D2R and I decided to start off my account with a Summoner this time.
I've always wanted to put together a decent Summoner Necromancer, so that's what I'm working on. At the moment, I'm using an Act II NM Offensive
mercenary for the might aura in combination with an Insight. I threw an Andy's Visage on his face and some random Topaz'd armor. He seems to be doing
just fine and surviving most of what's thrown at him.

I'm sure this has probably already been done, but I'm thinking of possibly swapping out his insight for a Pride (as long as I don't have any mana issues)
I'd like to know some thoughts and opinions on what I'm considering, here. Below is the build I want to try:

STATS:
Str: 120-ish ... Enough for gear.
Dex: Base
Vitality: All
Energy: Base

GEAR:
Shako (Um)
Mara's
X2 SOJ
Arachnid Mesh
Homunculus (Um)
Dusk Enigma
Beast Naga
Magefist
Marrowalks

Off-hand:
CTA / Spirit

Inventory:
Necro Torch
Anni

SKILLS:
20 Summon Skelleton
20 Skelleton Mastery
20 Summon Resist
20 Revive
Remaining into Clay Golum/ Golum Mastery
1 into Corpse Explosion, Amp Damage, Decr etc...

MERC:
ETH Pride CA
Delirium
Bramble (for Thorns)

I'm very curious what kind of damage output could happen when using a Pride on my merc, for the Concentration Aura
in conjunction with the Might Aurua, Fana (from Beast) and Amp Damage. I'm sure that someone out there has
played with this build concept. I'm just wondering if mana is a problem without the Insight, and what kind of damage output
This build could provide.

Thoughts?

This post was edited by KoJNorth on Sep 21 2021 12:27pm

Best merc for summoner
Guillums face
treachery
infinity

75% cb destroys bosses and the -res+CE destroys all monsters. Also tbh beast is not really needed either. I prefer hoto+spirit for fcr and mana. If you do go with your build I would change 1 soj fcr ring to hit the 30 bp. Also why would u want Delirium on merc when you will use amp?

Don't put 20 into revive better do 20CE or 50/50 between amp and CE. It's not like you will even bother go keep 40 revives alive at all times.

You don't need 120 str either more like base or like 20 points.

I should clarify, my STR is going to be around 120 AFTER Enigma and Marrowalks, etc.
Currently, I'm clearing Pit, Countess, Andy, Summoner, Mephisto and Pindle in about 12 minutes with no issues. All I'm really looking to do is speed up clearing the larger mobs in conjunction with CE, rather than single target boss kill time.

I'm not really needing to speed up my boss kills with CB, as they go down pretty fast. I'm actually keeping all my revives up at all times for max damage output. Per hit/monster combination Pride/Fana/Concen/Might with about 48 summoned.

This post was edited by KoJNorth on Sep 21 2021 01:36pm

Merc is your strongest minion by far. Pride does almost no damage. To speed up runs get more fcr and put infinity on merc. I assume single player since with the 18 fcr bp it would take ages without knowing the map to tele. I did only chaos+baal when I had my necromancer. I don't remember times but was almost as fast as my hdin.

That's surprising to me that the Concentration Aura from Pride does almost no damage, but I'm going to test this suggestion and get an Infinity on my Merc and I'll go with Guillume's to see how this turns out. I was thinking Delirium at first for the terror and slight crowd control, but now I'm considering changing that.

It's true delirium is a underated merc helm but not really for necromancer since you don't want terror and confuse to override amp.

And of course the concentration gives damage but runeword has no ed so the damage your merc delivers will be weak. Also it has freezes target which you don't want either since you want CE + summons.

Merc damage to boss monsters is significantly nerfed.

If he has 48 revives up and pride/beast combo all those extra bodies do a hell of a lot of damage, also to bosses.

Infinity as a weapon is superior, and it lowers monster defense which ups global damage by like 25% (just by increasing chance to hit) but Pride is no joke combined with 15 skeletons and 48 revives. The raw physical damage is higher with the pride setup. CE damage is higher with infinity, but given that half of hell is fire immune and CE is shit in higher player counts, yeah theres nothing wrong with pride setup.

As far as lower player counts and speed, infinity and hoto setup is hard to beat. Beast adds a lot less than it looks, summons have an attack delay so fanaticism only speeds them up by a couple frames. It is nice to use more for the boost in attack rating than anything else.


http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~gottwald/necro_pet_calculator.html

CE fucking shreds even at /players 8. What do u mean?

See, this was my thinking with max revives and summons up. The Concentration aura with Pride, focusing on physical damage rather than CE for a more laid-back, raw physical damage play style just keeping up revives. I actually tried Infinity today and yeah, I did see a bit of an improvement, but I'm ready to try out a Pride next and see how much faster the kills happen. I'm still using in conjunction with CE, but I just have to use CE less often unless I run into a giant mob that I need to end quickly. 30-40 in one group, then I pop CE and wipe them off my screen. Explode the room and then have a hard-hitting army all around me for picking off groups of 10 or so nearly instantly.

Its alright but for what you get on players 8, synergized nova with a point in revive does it faster.

That and my summon necs go heavy on summons so theres not a lot of bodies for CE. Great skill for what it is, I leave it at a point because I still get like 20 to all skills and I dont aggro enough shit to make maxing it worth it