Guide To Necromancers

Necromancers are my second favorite race in Diablo 2 (Paladin being first). They use their dark power to manipulate the undead forces to smite their enemies. In this guide I will be explaining my strategy with using Necromancers. My build mostly uses the amplify damage curse along with the powerful spell, corpse explosion. Also this build uses only a single golem as summon for tanking. Read: No lag inducing mass skeletons here. Before I continue here's some key notes about this guide.

Even though this build can be successfully used while soloing, its best used in parties. Even though you will be hogging up most of the kills with corpse explosion. ;)

This guide is based on version 1.09, but I also included some info as far as version 1.10 beta. This includes some of the synergy bonuses, the new Trang-Oul's Necro set, and the immunity removing properties of Amplify damage, and Lower Resist curses.

Skills
The Necromancer has three tech trees. Summoning Spells, Poison and Bone Spells, and Curses. This guide will be sampling from all three tech trees. The order in which these skills can be learned will be explained later in this guide. As explained before the core skills will be Corpse Explosion and Amplify Damage, but along with those skills I will discuss other skill that can be used to make this build effective.

Summoning Spells
Raise Skeleton: 1 point for Prerequisites. The necromancer starts out with a wand that allows him to cast level 1 raise skeleton, but you will be trading that wand in for something better eventually so you'll want to at least put one point in. Now some people might say that massing skeletons might be effective, but I personally didnt like skeletons in 1.09 and I dont like skeletons in 1.10 beta so they wont be used in this guide. Skeleton are weak and will quickly die to enemies. Plus they clutter the screen making it annoying for other players to see other enemies, especially skeletal enemies. Just dont use it, trust me. In defense of the skill does help you early in the game just dont put more than 1 or 2 points in it.

Skeleton Mastery: None. Like stated above, this build doesnt use skeletons so obviously skeleton mastery wont be needed.

Clay Golem: 1-3 points. Clay golem will be your first summoned "friend." Which in the case of this build will basically be tanking for you while you cast corpse explosion away from danger. See Below

Golem Mastery: 20+ Max Out. Since you will be using a golem for tanking golem mastery is a must adding additional life to your golem.

Raise Skeleton Mage: Ignore -_-

Blood Golem: 1-3 points. Blood golem will be the next golem you should be using after clay golem. You might want to put more points since in 1.10 the synergy gives more life to golems. See Below

Summon Resist: Ignore this skill. Especially if youre using a fire golem since it screws up his fire absorb.

Iron Golem: 20+ points or 1 point See Below.

Fire Golem: 20+ points or 0 Points See Below. Even if you decide not to use this golem its synergy bonus for 1.10 (increased damage) should be taken advantage of.

Revive: 0 points. Revives are slow, stupid, and they clutter up the screen. Ignore this skill like a plague.

Which golem to use?
A widely discussed debate on which golem is the best for a necromancer. Every golem has its merits. Clay golems have fast health regeneration. Blood golems can basically keep you alive with its leech life ability. Iron golems gain the properties of the item used. It will increase in defense depending on the defense of the item used and other mods such as Knockback, and they also have the thorns ability. Fire golems have the most hit points, strongest attack, deals holy fire damage, and absorbs fire damage.

I rarely ever see a necromancer with clay golems they just dont have the damage or the hit points to survive in the hell games even with their regeneration. So its down to Blood Golem, Iron Golem, and Fire Golem. For my guide I am using fire golem for because of the fact that they have the most hit points of the four types, which for this guide the main purpose of the golem will be to tank, not being able to do alot of damage. This is where his holy fire comes in handy. The holy fire will actually be used to "attract" enemies to him, and his fire absorb can make him basically invincible against monsters with fire attacks.

What about Blood and Iron golem? Well Blood golem doesnt have the hit points that the fire golem has and the whole "double-edge sword" effect with his life leech (you also lose life when he takes hits) is turn-off. Iron golems have a thorn aura which I've said before that thorns are overated and most enemies will shrug off the damage. Plus having to carry around items in order to summon the damn thing can be annoying. Make an iron golem out of your friend's Grandfather sword. :)

Poison & Bone Spells
Teeth: 1 point for prerequisites. Can be handy for early in the game when you need an extra kick against enemies.

Bone Armor: 0-10 Points. This one is your choice. I dont use it. Since most enemies in hell will destroy it in one hit. If you want to use it, put a good bit of points in so its worth it.

Poison Dagger: 0 Points. Honestly this has to be the most useless skill in Diablo 2. Perhaps useful if you're going to be a meleemancer.

Corpse Explosion: 20+ Max Out. Now we're talking. This skill is quite possible the most damaging skill in the game next to some of the sorceress skills. Simply kill one of the monsters in a pack and use corpse explosion and watch all the bodies hit the ground. Since the damage is equal to the HP of the monster, it would make sense to kill the strongest monster than finish off the rest with corpse explosion. Enemies take more of the "full effect" of this spell the more tightly packed they are around the corpse. This is where the golem comes in to tank. Monsters surround the golem hopefully close to a corpse then you spam corpse explosion until everything is dead. Go crazy with this spell, turn the entire area into piles of monster blood and guts. Prevents those damn shamans from resurrecting dead fallen demons. With level 20 corpse explosion you'll be damaging stuff from across the screen.

Bone Wall: 0 Points.

Poison Explosion: 0 Points. No where as good as corpse explosion.

Bone Spear: 1-20+ points (depends See Below). Bone spear should be on your left click attack as soon as you get it. Use it on a single enemy then follow up with corpse explosion.

Bone Prison: 0 Points. Good for dueling apparently, but I dont duel and this is not a guide for dueling.

Poison Nova: 0 Points. Some people just love poison nova. I hate it. Using poison means patience, something I dont have.

Bone Spirit: 1-20+ points (depends See Below) Like bone spear, this should be used as your left click to kill a single enemy then follow up with corpse explosion.

Bone Spear vs. Bone Spirit
Lets put it this way. Bone spirit does alot more damage than bone spear does, but bone spear can attack multiple enemies. In hell difficulty you will need a big attack to take down an enemy (then follow up with corpse explosion). This is why I like bone spirit rather than bone spear. Bone spirit will cost more mana, but this shouldnt be a problem with good stat skill management and mana potions.

Curses
Amplify Damage: 10-20 points. Amplify Damage is the first curse available and its the best curse to go along with corpse explosion. Corpse explosion does 50% physical damage and 50% fire damage which means you will be 150% physical damage with this curse. Thats a shitload of damage especially since corpse explosion is already doing 60%-100% of the monsters' HP. In 1.10 Amplify also seems to remove the physical immunity from monsters. As far as I know this is not a bug. See Below

Dim Vision: 0 Points

Weaken: 1 point for Prerequisite.

Iron Maiden: 1 point for Prerequisite. Hooray for thorn damage! -_-

Terror: 1 point for Prerequisites.

Confuse: 0 Points.

Life Tap: 1 point for Prerequisites. Might be good to help out your melee allies since it gives them leech life.

Attract: 0 Points. Note the fact that I am ignoring this side of the tree if you havent figured it out already.

Decrepify: 1 point Prerequisites. Seems tempting since its like amplify damage with added slowed movement but its not worth it.

Lower Resist: 10-20+ Points. Can be an alternate curse for amplify damage. Can remove monster immunities as of 1.10 See below.

Amplify Damage vs. Lower Resist
This one can depend on different things. First off is your party mostly melee or spell casters like sorceress? Sorceresses will be your best friend with lower resist. As will melee allies with amplify damage. Corpse Explosion will always do more damage when used with amplify damage. Lower resist will also be a benefactor with corpse explosion as it also does 50% fire damage. Note that you CANNOT bring a monsters resistance below 0.

Removing Immunities?
I discovered this while playing 1.10 beta with friends. I was casting lower resist while on hell difficulty and I noticed that the "Immune to Fire/Etc." disappeared on the monster. So we reached the conclusion that it actually did remove the immunity. This also works with amplify damage and with the paladin's conviction aura. Blizzard's list of Patch Changes mentioned this.
"Lower Resist and Conviction skills now work against immune monsters (those with 100+ resistance) at 20% effectiveness."

They didnt add amplify damage but I know for a fact that the immunity was removed unless it was a bug. I've also noticed that sometimes when casting the curse the immunity was not removed. I guess this is where the "20% effectiveness" comes in.

What order to put these skills in
Before Level 30: Get all your prerequisites. Such as teeth and amplify damage. At level 6 get corpse explosion follow by clay golem. Try to find wands or necromancer shields that have + to corpse explosion and/or amplify damage. Around level 18 you can get bone spear and blood golem and keep getting the prerequisites. Around level 24 is more prerequisites. Keep putting points into corpse explosion, amplify damage, and golem mastery. You could also put more points into bone spear so you have a stronger attack.

Level 30+: Now you've opened up fire golem, lower resist, and bone spirit, get them. Max out Bone spirit as quickly as possible so you have a good strong attack before starting into hell difficulty. Also max out golem mastery so your golem can take hits and survive. Corpse explosion and amplify damage should be at a lower priority since each point is just a larger range.

Stat Points
Strength: Being a spell caster, the only reason you need strength for is to equip items. Trang-Oul's helm needs about 106 str to equip but the shield also gives you +25 to strength. But even if youre not going to wear Trang-Oul, anywhere from 60-100 will be all you need.

Dexterity: Necromancers also dont need alot of dex. The only reason to need it is to increase your chance to block. With all the golem tanking (and corpse explosion killing) you will be doing you wont be in the middle of the fray. You could just leave this at base dex.

Vitality: Necromancer will need a good bit of vitality since he's so weak that a couple hits will simply crush him. Get about 150+

Energy: This will be your core stat. 200+ here. Spamming Corpse explosion and bone spirit will eat your mana quickly. Having items that give mana will also allow you to stack off on these points.

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