Well, I decided to make this guide because I noticed some deficiencies in the summoner guides here. Contrary to popular belief the Summoner necromancer is actually a very good PvM character for MF in single player and multi player games. One of the greatest qualities of a summoner is it's adaptability for new players and using an incredible amount of MF gear simply because a summoner doesn't need great gear. Other classes like the Hammerdin need extremely good gear to be effective. I encourage everyone new/experienced to try a summon necro to play around with it. It's a great amount of fun playing around with gear to see what you can get away with. Therefore, in the gear section, I will speak in more general terms since I play around with gear A LOT and never really fit one template. Lets begin by getting the skills out of the way.

Skills.

As far as skills go, the necromancer has ,by far, the most versatile set of skills. You will also find that summoner builds can have a tendancy to have a lot of points left over which is another luxury. I have had many variations of the necromancer summoner that were effective but this is my favorite so far. Also, if you are new to D2 a necromancer is right for you. Why? Because unlike some other characters you start right away allocating your skills and they are effective throughout the entire game. Unlike some other builds they peak at late levels in the game and require someone to rush you because you are so gimp early on. The Necromancer is good at PvM/MF in Normal/Nightmare/Hell difficulty levels.

Primary Skills

These are your primary skills and hopefully this gives you some idea when you should allocate them.

Raise Skeleton - 20 - Start maxing right at the beginning and your skellies shred. Get Amplify damage in here at some point, it improves your skellies damage.

Skeleton Mastery - 20 - Start Maxing this next but get some key skill like Corpse Explosion and Clay Golem in here at some point.

Amplify Damage - 1 point - This a very important skill so get it early. Even though you only spend 1 point in this skill it's critical to use at all times.

Clay Golem - 1 Point. You may want to add a point in this relatively early so you can slow the bosses attacks.

Corpse Explosion - 10 + in the end. Corpse Explosion DOES take a lot of mana but it is one of your primary attacks. This skill helps you kill large groups of monsters with any immunities at a very quick pace. WARNING: This is a very mana intensive spell so be careful as you allocate points to make sure you can keep up with the mana used. x Mana per kill items are very helpful offsetting the mana cost here. Additional points allocated here only increase the radius of this spell but that actually means more damage/more mana back from + x Mana per kill/fewer casts of CE to get the job done. Corpse Explosion is 50% Physical Damage/ 50% Fire damage. So, you can use amp damage for fire immunes and Lower Resist for Physical immunes to improve the dmg

Raise Skeletal Mage - I have some summoner builds that don't use skeleton mages because the Skeletal warriors do enough damage with the right gear. However, you have already allocated 20 pts to skeleton mastery so Mages mean more damage!

Dim Vision - 10 + Probably the most underrated and unmentioned skill in all of the necro guides I have read. With proper point allocation and use of this skill you can literally neglect your resists and defense because it completely negates ranged attacks by blinding ranged attackers. Perfect for Burning souls.

Other skills
Summoning:
prereqs: 1 point
Revive: 1 point let plus skills take care of the rest. DO NOT max this out.
Summon Resist: 1 point. Let +skills take care of the rest.

Curses:
1 point in each except Dim Vision which you will want to allocate more points.

Stats:

Strength:
Basically, you want to allocate as few points as you possibly can here. You don't need defense as a necro so don't sacrifice for armor. Basically, you want to have enough strength to equip low strength req enigma. I use Dusk Shroud Enigma with str req 77.

Dexterity
Don't let anyone try to convince you of max block with a summoner because it's wasted points.

Vitality
The rest

Energy:
Nothing here. Some new players may have mana problems with CE but just use pots. Summoning an army will tap your mana but that's ok because the skellies don't die often.

Gear:
This section is VERY difficult section to write because you can literally do just about anything for gear. So, please try removing ideal killing speed gear for MF gear until you strike the balance you enjoy. Remember, there is no diminishing return for the amount of MF gear. Anyone who tells you there is does not know what they are talking about. You can verify this on Blizzard's Arreat Summit magic find section. You can ask others for many of the items I have listed below since many players will give them away. The only required peice of gear for fast MF is enigma so you can teleport.

Poor Mans Gear:
Yep the necro truly can get away with having poor gear

Helm:
3 perfect Topaz socketed Helm of any type - 72 MF
Tarnhelm with perfect topaz - 74%

Amulet:
Anything with +Necro Skills/Magic Find/resistances

Weapon:
Buy + skills wands from vendors in game or get any of the Unique/Set +skills necro wands.

Sheild:
Again, look at each of the shrunken head drops in the game for +skills.
Any shield/shrunken head with plus skills
Any MF shield such as Melobrega's
You can also look at runeword shields since there are a few good cheap ones such as Rhyme.

Helm:
I chose to use a eth zodded shako because of the +135 Life [Based On Character Level] (- Im a 90 so i used 135for an example) & +135 To Mana [Base On Character Level] and last but not least the excellent 10%.

Gloves:
Chance Guards or Frostburns or any MF gloves.

Rings:
Try to get Soj's but if you absolutely cannot get them us any +Skills rings/resists/Magic Find

Belt:
Goldwrap drops frequently.

Feet
Anything with MF/faster run walk or + skills. Noobs will probably want more stamina and faster run walk here. Look at all the set boots on Arreat Summit. Many low level set boots drop that are very useful

Gear for the experienced or Rich

This is basically a cookie cutter section that you will find on most website guides. This is NOT required gear except for enigma but if you have all of this stuff you will not be upset with how well it works.

Amulet:
Mara's Kaleidoscope Amulet

Weapon:
Since we are using the Might Aura merc you will want to equip Beast runeword axe for the level 9 Fanaticism Aura. This enhances your kill speed tremendously.

Shield:
Homunculus - By far the best all around Shrunken Head for the Necro. Some guides mention Boneflame but it doesn't stand up to Homunculus att all.

Armor:
Some guides say to get the Highest Defense Enigma you can. I DISAGREE get the lowest Str Req Enigma you can that has good defense. For example, Dusk Shroud.

Gloves:
Some guides say Magefists. I disagree. I say use a high MF chance guards.

Ring's:
SoJ's or MF rings such as Nagelrings. I use Nagelring on both slots.

Belt:
Many guides say Arachnids but I don't use it. I don't care about the extra +1 skill and FCR really. FCR is for Hammerdins Yep, I use Goldwrap so flame me later

Boots:
War Travelers for MF.

Anni/Torch/Charms
Can't say anything bad about having anni and the necro torch. Get charms to balance your character out based on your gear because that is what they are for. Personally, I like having a lot of inventory space for my good loot.



Switch Gear:

Many peope will say get Call to Arms for the BO and Spirit for the shield. You know what, I actually use MF gear on my switch though. To be honest, my skellies have plenty of health without the need of BO.
Blade of Ali Baba 99% with 2 30% Ist Runes Socketed and 4 Socket Shield with 4 Ist Runes.


Merc Gear:
Weapon - eth pride which gives level 16-20 concentration.

Helm - Andareil's Visage is a great all around helm. If you are going for MF Merc kills stealskull is actually pretty decent.

Armor - Runeword Bramble for the 15-21 Thorns Aura. It helps but you can also gor for MF.

Alternate Gearing options for Merc. I have to admit I have played around with a crushing blow geared merc. Crushing blow is kind of fun against bosses but I do kill fast enough without it. Runeword Infinity could be quite effective with the might merc.Runeword pride irritates me because it freezes targets so it interferes with summoning corpses. Infinity has 40% Crushing blow, level 12 conviction Aura to help your skeletal mage damage, and 30% MF. Not to shabby really.


Basic Strategies.

- Simply go to Frigid Highlands to summon your army. If your merc is using Pride just go to the super unique closest to the Frigid Highlands WP and let your merc kill then summon. Everyone always says it take forever to summon an Army. It's not true.

- Use enigma during boss fights. Simply tele on to the boss repeatedly and he will drop very quickly.

- Use corpse explosion A LOT. I simply tele into a pack of critters and let my summons kill one instantly then I CE everything. This is what I do as I tele around.

- Use Dim Vision!! Use it, Love it!

Dim Vision, Tele into the Blind crowd, and CE CE room dead. Much fun!

Hope you enjoyed the guide. I love my summoner

Skeletal Mage should be 20 pts. allocated. For some reason it won't let me edit my original post.

Any comments appreciated.

Nice one.

What mercenary are you using? I assume the one that uses Might Aura, since Holy Freeze might shatter monsters.

Ever thought of a Prayer Merc along with an Insight? The recovery of health is great... Since you don't use Battle Orders.

Overall a good guide, I'd like to see it stickied ^^

Thanks. I do use the might merc but insight would be nice for mana regen Never tried the prayer merc but I have been wanting to. However, I use enigma and get plenty of health back when doing CE.

Well as you said in your topic you would make a guide. And I like it. Did you try your rich man's gear in pvp?

10/10

Thanks. I have done a little PvP with the necro but I'm actually still doing a lot of PvM right now trying to rebuild my accounts that expired =/

PvP with a summoner is kind of a pain since you need corpses to summon. However, I can tell you that if I tele on someone with a full stack of summon with the rich mans gear they will die

answer this question

if i raise skeletons with king leoric wand and then switch to beast, do the skelestons retain the life and damage they had when raised by king leoric?


also, my pride merc freezes up bodies, making it hard to spam CE as to if i use a insight merc...any way around this?
im using might merc with pride/bramble, insight ig, and me carrying beast btw
thanks

This post was edited by DonnyL on Nov 21 2006 06:38pm

I cannot answer about the health of your summons on switch. I know if you summon on one weapon config that can summon 13 skellies and switch to another config that only summonds 12 one skelly will die. We can only make our conclusions from that.

Yeah pride is a problem that I mentioned in my guide. Freezing corpses actually can reduce your damage significantly by eliminating your CE. So, I would say you are very well off going with Insight and use Pride on bosses.

OR you could use Infinity since it has 40% Crushing blow, level 12 conviction Aura to help your skeletal mage damage, and 30% MF.

"pre summoning" with king leoric wand does indeed boost life AND dmg
even when you switch back to beastz, only the skeleton number goes down
you cant change the stats of already summoned skeletons
ive tested this; when dueling always presummon with leoric wand lol it helps