Introduction

This build is very versatile, lots of fun, very effective, and uniquely useful. I will go over all the key points to build and play this character. This is the most effective pvm build for all around play in the game. It is the only character who can do EVERYTHING with only 1 set of gear. Many people say smiters, but smiters can’t run their own baal games and solo ubers with only 1 gear set. Hammerdins can’t either. They require gear changes to run different types of games. If you are like me and want to focus on a good character for climbing the ladder and be effective in every playing situation with only 1 character, my summoner build is for you. I encourage challenges as I have the answers to your questions so post away.

Leveling

This section is important because no matter which method you use to level your summoner, your help is of tremendous value.

Path 1 Uber-trist: Clearly the most efficient way to level. Get glitch (or classic) rushed to hell act 5. (Important note: Follow the rusher in chaos for all 3 difficulties or until you are level 12). You have become the star of the show in rushing because you are now the only useful leecher with your capacity to use bonewall for the duration of the uber leveling service.

Path 2 Chaos: So you don't know enough of the right people to run uber-trist and you're forced to chaos. No worries, you are still a very well liked build for chaos games. No other low level character can use corpse explosion(c/e) or cast amp damage/lower resist. Whoever is chaosing you will appreciate the help in killing waves of monsters with your curses and c/e.

Path 3 Regular: So you really have no friends and nothing to trade for a glitch rush or classic rush. Well you have just become the best friend of the newbies. Tristing, tombing, cowing, normal and nightmare baaling all benefit greatly from the summoners’ curses and corpse explosion. I will not address gear to use for this method of leveling, but overall, you can use pretty much any old crap because you stay at a distance of harm and don't require any gear with skills because for leveling, corpse explosion and casting is already maxed as far as damage goes at just level 1.

Gear
I have updated my guide to incorporate the “Rich Man’s Plan” & the “Poor Man’s Plan”. It is important to note however that both plans require two rather expensive rune-words. Enigma and Faith are absolutely required to build this Necro in an effective manner. I would not even consider beginning to build this summoner without these two rune-words because he will not be able to teleport and your skeletons will not have the enhanced damage and attack speed to be useful in a timely manner. Also, you will not under any circumstances be able to run baal games or Uber-trist.

The Gear Listed First is the Rich Man’s Gear. I have listed my gear here. While I am not the “Rich Man” this is my only character on East right now so my Summoner is not only rich, but also the best equipped out there.

Helm: 2 Necro(summons) 20 FCR with modifiers circlet (I use a 2 necro/20 fcr/29 str/71 mana diadem with Jah in it.


Armor: Enigma is only choice. If no enigma, do not build. (I have enough strength to use Ap Enigma, you may have to use one with less strength based on the other gear you have)

Amulet: 2 Summons Skills, 20 FCR crafted amulet with modifiers is first choice (mine is 2/20/20 dex/19 str/9 mana regeneration.).


Weapon: Hoto is your weapon here because of skills, resistances and fcr.

Shield: Dark force with 3 summons skills and 7FHR/15Res all jewel.

Belt: Arachnids is really the only possible option here if you want to meet breakpoints.

Gloves: Bloodfists (either Up’d or not; mine are double up’d).

Boots: Sandstorm Treks (mine are 15/15 to help with strength needs).

Rings: 2x BK

Swap: CTA, Spirit

Inventory:
Torch and Anni (as close as perfect as you can get).
8-9 Summon lifers (Or just plain if you cant afford lifers)
9-10 20 lifer/5 res scs. (or just 5 res if you cant afford lifers).

Mercenary:
Faith (very important) (Mine is Perfect 15 Fanaticism, 2 All Skills Hydra Bow)
Andys face or Giant skull (I use Giant Skull so she knocks enemies back and doesn’t get hit. Also, its good because it can get more Ias than Andys and you don’t need to ral it or put any other kind of 30 fire resist jewel in it.)
Fortitude.
Note: Merc gear can really be anything but faith is a must for Fanaticism.

Poor Man’s Gear

Helm- Any 2 Necro/20 FCR Circ (people give them away on jsp if they have bad stats)-1 to 5 fg

Armor- Any old Low strength req. Enigma <50 Fg

Belt- Craft a 10% FCR belt or get 1 from someone on jsp- Free-5 FG

Rings- 2 10% FCR Rings with resists Free-10 FG (for both)

Gloves- Trangs or Mages-1-5 FG

Amulet- +1-2 Necro/15%+FCR- Free to 5 FG ( I got 1 for free the other day just to make sure this was plausible. PM a known Crafter; He has 1 for you I promise)

Boots- Junk Treks – Free-3 Fg

Shield- Spirit Monarch >5fg

Weapon- Wizzy>5 FG

Merc Faith- >50 FG

Grand Total- >138 FG

What do you sacrifice by using Poor Mans gear- Skills. That is all. With Wizzy you will still max out resistances and FCR and get 56% Breakpoint for FHR but you lose skills. This isn’t the worst thing in the world and at least you can build up from here. 138 for a full character is a very reasonable amount and I bet it could be less than 100 if people are willing to give you some of this stuff for free. I have used this gear and deemed it a feasible build for game play. Ubers are a little tough with the loss of skills and damage for your skeletons, but it is still possible.

Stats/Skills

Stats
Strength- 0
Dexterity- 0 (No need for max block unless you are a pure dueler. Even then Your life is too low to survive in my opinion)
Vitality- Everything
Energy- 0

With BP or MP enigma, you can wear anything. If you have enough strength without adding any stat points to it, wear AP enigma for that little extra defense (with perfect Anni, Torch and my circlet and amulet, I can wear AP enigma with pure vitality).

Skills
Poison and Bone Skills
Bone Armor-1
Bone Wall-1
Teeth-1
Corpse Explosion-1

Curses
Put 1 into every skill.
My last build I said do not put any into Dim Vision, Confuse or Attract. These are actually quite cool for ubers (especially Attract for Mephisto and Dim Vision for helping weak characters out in baal runs from souls).

Summon Skills
Skeleton Mastery-20
Raise Skeleton-20
Raise Skeletal Mage-1
Revive-1
Clay Golem-1
Iron Golem-1 (Do not max. That just adds damage and we don’t want him to be powerful because then he will die by iron maiden)
Golem Mastery-20 (Life Synergy for Iron Golem)
Blood Golem-20 (Life Synergy for Iron Golem)
Fire Golem-0
Summon Resist- All remaining Skill points

Breakpoints
FCR:
15 - 0%
14 - 9%
13 - 18%
12 - 30%
11 - 48%
10 - 75%
9 - 125% (With the gear I have laid out, you will hit this)

FHR:
13 - 0%
12 - 5%
11 - 10%
10 - 16%
9 - 26%
8 - 39%
7 - 56% (With the gear I have laid out, you will hit this)
6 - 86%
5 - 152%
4 - 377%

Strategy

AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON SUMMONING!!! Kill Nihlahtak but DO NOT GET HIS WAY POINT!!!!! If you don't get his waypoint, the portal to his temple says open and you can use the corpses inside to summon your skeletons. I use 6 skeletons.

First thing you want to do is craft your Iron golem out of an insight polarm class weapon. Lower damage is better so he doesn’t die at the hands of iron maiden. With insight, you get Meditation and is the chief reason you can teleport without using 1 energy potion.

As long as you have maxed out Resistance and 125 FCR, you can tele baal games. Once you are level 80, This is what I suggest you do.

Your mercenary should be an act 1 fire arrow archer. Mine is named Fiona (because of Eurotrip). With faith bow, she gives your skeletons fanaticism and she uses inner sight to drop the defense of your enemies.

Game strategy

Baal runs- Summon 6 skeletons in Nihlahtak’s temple, make sure you have your insight iron golem and faith merc. Teleport to baal. Cast amp damage over monsters and as they die one by one, use Corpse explosion to take out the rest of the wave. When you get to baal, cast Decreptify as it is the same damage as Amp damage, yet it slows him to a standstill.

Chaos Runs- These are harder to do than baal runs. I suggest you raise 10 skeletons and 10 revives (made out of pit-lords in chaos sanctuary) Still cast amplify damage and use corpse explosion. Make sure your golem stays alive though because the knights can be especially brutal to him.

Keyfinding- 4 Skeletons will do here. Amp damage Summoner and Countess then teleport right on top of them and pick up your keys. Since we don’t get the waypoint at nihlahtak, it takes a little bit longer to teleport to the halls where he dwells but you can still kill him easy. Take 5 skeletons down and cast amp damage. As his creatures die, be sure to use corpse explosion before he does so you, and your army doesn’t die.

[img]Uber trist[/img]- This is 1 of 2 characters that can solo uber trist in under 4 minutes. Summon an army of 15+ Skeletons, 10+ Mages, and 20+ revives. Teleport on durial, lillith, and izzy, cast decreptify and watch 30 second deaths. Once trist is open, Kill Mephesto first because he is the hardest. You want to cast iron maiden on for him because he will leech life off the skeletons he kills, so you want him to lose more life than he gets. Teleport right on to him then run away quick. If your merc doesnt walk away quick, keep feeding her potions till she gets the clue. Next I kill diablo. He is MUCH easier than meph (it’s almost a joke), Teleport on to him. Cast Decreptify or Life Tap and watch him die in seconds. Last I go for baal. DECREPTY IS IMPORTANT HERE, if he starts walking all over the place, your army doesn’t stick together and his army picks them off quickly. A complete Trist run has taken me anywhere from 3-8 minutes. Once I employed this method of cleaning it out, I have yet to take more than 5 minutes from walking into trist to leaving with my torch. Make sure you only do this alone though because more people in the game will make the game lag and crash since you have in the neighborhood of 50 summoned army members.

Magic Finding- I switched out gear for this to get 469 magic find and only dropped 1 breakpoint in FCR. Put ur CTA on swap with a 100% MF Monarch, shako (p-topaz’d), Chancies, and Travs. Then Switch out 1 charm for a gheeds. I get skeletons in Nihilahtak’s temple. Then kill Pindle, Shank, Eldrich, Mephy, Andy and the Pit. It takes about 1.5 minutes for a run once you get the rhythm down.

Conclusion

PVM, this character is the most diverse and effective. It takes a little bit longer to kill bosses like baal and diablo, but I would say it doesn’t take much longer than a hammerdin. When you run your games, make sure you don’t have more than 6 skeletons because people wont stay in your runs very long if you are lagging them like crazy with a ton of summoned army members. If there is another summoner in your game, tell him NOT summon or cast his curses. He's in the wrong game if he wants to be the summoner.

If you hit max resist and 125 FCR and 56% FHR, you are unstoppable in any pvm situation in the game. This build is a lot of fun and it makes peoples (even seasoned players) jaws drop when they see a summoner tele'ing to baal and clearing the throne. The other good thing is if you don’t want to rush the ladder with your summoner, its no big deal because you can max what you need very early on. By 88 you are maxed without dropping a lot of skills into Summon resist.


Not to the players insisting on Beast with Pride/Might merc:
1) Baal games usually have a hammer din with 30+ conc which has a better boost than pride for your skellies
2) Faith has a much higher Fanaticism level meaning greater damage from fanat and faster ias.
3) With Beast, good luck maxing resistances and FCR
4) If you use beast and you use FCR rings and gloves and a spirit, you lose 8 Skill levels which is NOT a good thing for a Summoner. I hit level 50 Skills and if I only hit 42, my summons would not be as good as they are at level 50 even with the extra aura boosts.

I have made this build several times and switched back and forth and ultimately, the Hoto Summoner is a better all around build.

I look forward to any comments. I will happily show you my summoner if you so desire.

pretty nice.

isnt it better if u get act 2 merc and put that weapon that gives concent?
and you use beast?

As outlined in the very last note:

Not to the players insisting on Beast with Pride/Might merc:
1) Baal games usually have a hammer din with 30+ conc which has a better boost than pride for your skellies
2) Faith has a much higher Fanaticism level meaning greater damage from fanat and faster ias.
3) With Beast, good luck maxing resistances and FCR
4) If you use beast and you use FCR rings and gloves and a spirit, you lose 8 Skill levels which is NOT a good thing for a Summoner. I hit level 50 Skills and if I only hit 42, my summons would not be as good as they are at level 50 even with the extra aura boosts.

I have made this build several times and switched back and forth and ultimately, the Hoto Summoner is a better all around build.

nice guide, I see you revised it as pvm only

nice job adding the pics (circ is still one of godliest I've seen)

I still disagree with the darkforce choice I think you'd be better off with spirit and hit the 86fhr breakpoint, tele'ing baal runs lands you in packs of champ lords pretty often and you can get stuck pretty easy.

You should mention your in-game stats (life, skel level etc).

vouch for an original take on the summoner, this should be sticked

Always appreciative of your comments.

Yes I did revise this to PVM only. There were many comments that there was no PVP section in the last one and I honestly feel that any summoner cannot survive in any "Good Mannered" Duel (specifically on the point that you are not supposed to have a Merc in Gm Duels and a Summoner needs his Merc) so I fail to see the point in attempting the discuss a Summoner in this sense.

Thank you on the circ comment. I wish it was 2 socketed so I could Jah it again.

In- Game Stats

575 into Vita after its all said and done at Lvl 97.
3.8k Life with my charms in and my own Battle Orders
Lvl 49 Skeletons and Skeleton Mastery
Lvl 30 Revive
LVl 17 Curses and C/e
116 STR before I put Enigma On 188 After.

Spirit- I agree. If you can get a circ or an ammy with 35 Or so Fire resistance Spiri is a valid way to go. For me though, I seek to attain a certain number of style points and I personally believe a Voodoo Head is required for a Necro Seeking Style. Plus I get an extra Skill point out of my Darkforce Spawn. So yes, Spirit is a great choice. I just decided against it for myself.

One other note. Prebuffing with demon limb to give your merc Enchant is very cool because it lasts for like 10 minutes and it adds a lot to her damage. She is better than most of you bowazons when you chant her (not really but shes good).

This post was edited by mephistophilis on Dec 16 2007 11:40pm

yes true that.
but when ubering? pking?


EDIT : srry not pking T.T just read the part that you are only PVM.

ONCE AGAIN GOOD GUIDE FOR RICH AND POOR

This post was edited by Dan4749 on Dec 16 2007 11:47pm

I see no reason to switch to these items in ubers. I run ubers in under 4 minutes.

Ultimately, as it was pointed out in my last guide, this is a preference by the user. My build works more effectively for some while the beast/pride version works well for others.

But, my build hits better breakpoints and teles faster while the beast/pride form kills Slightly (and i emphasize slightly) faster.

This post was edited by mephistophilis on Dec 16 2007 11:50pm

i see.
i will try it out 2morrow ^^

I duel mosh with no merc / no revives. Mages take out what can't be stomped. It's harder but it's very doable.

Also, another reason not to use Pride for a summoner: the ed% from Conc stacks on the ed% from skel mastery, as well as the might aura from the merc, meaning you only add about 20% damage by swapping on Pride. If you are going to use an a2 merc the only choice really is infinity.

I like the guide to ubers. You may want to put um'd kiras on the merc if you find her dying a lot from meph. Oh, and everyone knows this but maybe mention that you should revive urdars from durance or river for their crushing blow.

Oh, I'd also still vote for 20 in mage vs 20 in blood golem, iron's can be made into tanks pretty easy with 1pt iron/mastery/blood.

Points well taken.

I have tried the Infinity route as you let me know of in the past. It is also a good choice.

My merc, after I tele onto mephy tends to walk away fairly quickly, I do have to feed her health potions when her life gets low from poison but she doesnt die all that often.

Yes- I get my revives from two places, Durance/River and also the Frenzy Demons in act 5 are amazing strong (as we all know when we tele into them). I summon about 5 of those and 15 Urdars.

The first time I built this character (this is my 2nd rebuild) I maxed mages and put the 1 into golem mastery and blood golem. I found though that it was extremely difficult to keep my golem alive for more than 15-20 runs in a full game. Monsters were just too strong for him. I dont even use mages except in Ubers so maxing those, for me is not very useful. The golem I have built now stays alive for around 200 runs. He usually only dies once per my level.

And maybe Im just bad at dueling which is entirely possible. My wireless mouse doesnt keep up with my tele very well in fast pace duels (maybe its just the batteries). But I have a feeling it is just Me. Thats why I stick to rushing the ladder.

This post was edited by mephistophilis on Dec 17 2007 12:00am