It was suggested I ask my questions on this site, so here we are :)
EDIT: I have never played D2R, only D2:LoD. Just bought D2R today.

As the title states, I'm a returning player and feel I need to re-learn everything again. I was curious if there are any newer necromancer builds out there, preferably focused on a summoner build, that I should check out? I'll gladly check out all build recommendations, not just summoner. I've tried looking up some videos, but most that I've found seem to be from a few years ago and I'm unsure if anything has changed/something better has come along since.

Any overall tips, tricks, guides, etc. for beginners (again) are greatly appreciated! I'm new here and still getting use to navigating around so feel free to point me in the right direction 😅

Apologies for my newbness and thank you in advance for any help provided.

This post was edited by xzaelx on Sep 8 2025 07:37am

A summoner becomes great once you have enigma, allowing you to teleport all summons and merc on top of a monster to instantly kill it, then casting corpse explosion can eventually deal enough dmg to kill the whole screen (when paired with Amp and Infinity).

It’s gonna take a while until you reach that point.
Prior to having the full end-game build, a summoner is still a very noob-friendly build that can slowly walk through the game even if you have no gear at all.

Max both skeleton and skeleton mastery.
This is your main dmg, the skeleton mage are useless, no need to summon them.
Amplify damage curse will greatly boost your skeleton warrior and merc dmg. Cast it on everything you see.

Once you have maxed both skeleton and skel mastery, with 1-5 pts in amp, you can start maxing corpse explosion.
This will become your main dmg, but it cost a lot of mana. Each lvl augment the area of effect, not the dmg, but it’s well worth it.
The dmg is based on a % of the monsters hp, but it doesn’t scale with the bonus hp they get per player… this is why this build is ideal if you play alone, or at a low player count.

If you lvl up with a friend, the best summoner allies are :

Paladin
His aura boost your army, your curses boost him

Sorc
She can enchant all your summons and both merc, and if she use static field then your corpse explosion can 1-hit kill everything that was lowered by her already.

That’s a very brief overview… but if you have question you can pm me

Edge bow is easy to make early
Tir tal amn

It gives thorn aura, which is the best increased dmg you can get early on. The returned dmg is also amplified by your Amp curse.

You can either equip edge yourself and use an a2 merc. Or give it to an a1 merc.

Amazing, thank you so much!
Interesting, I always thought Decrepify was better than Amplify. Maybe I'm remembering wrong lol it has been over a decade since I've played lmao

amp is -100% DR, big scaling radius (easily full screen)

decrep is -50% DR, small radius of 4yd

The only advantage of decrep is that it also reduce attack & mouvement speed, as well as damage. So it's a reliable way to keep your summons alive vs bosses.
It's a 1 point wonder, only used vs bosses. Always use amp vs anything else.
And eventually, with a full late-game build, you'll completely stop using decrep, since your summons will be strong enough to survive the quicker fight using amp instead.

Oh, very good info, thank you, again!

I actually just jumped on for the first time and wow- I'm definitely not used to old school D2 community being so kind and generous right away with new players like D2R is so far! I already have quite a bit of good necro gear ready for when I level up, all gifted, haha! Still lvl1 as had to jump off for a bit, but planning to jump back on again and hopefully can get lvl'd up/rushed through at least normal.

Ohhh prepare to face a wall if you think the whole community is helpful haha
The vast majority is either gonna try to troll and send you in the wrong direction, or just gonna hate and trash talk against you no matter what you say.

Good luck on your journey!
And again, don’t hesitate to pm me if you have any questions and prefer to avoid getting into what I mentioned above haha

Welcome back man. This is the place you wanna be for sure

If you played lod then you already kno

I recently got back into it my self and went pnb nec (I like the pvp in this game)

So my reasons may differ then yours

But ya enigma and beast and shako and you should be good

This post was edited by tyrant4444 on Sep 12 2025 02:44pm

I ended up going with Enigma! Can't use the armor yet, but soon haha

Hell ya. I see a lot of summoners use the beast rune word for the weapon

That gives you the fanaticism aura which is huge for skellys