Can I play a necromancer?

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I read a post from back in April of 2006 (patch 1.11 I think) that said " Necromancers stand the best chance solo."??
I'm interested in a good summoner necro if there is one? I love the summoning the druid gets but I've tried a necro before and gave up. I love the idea of summoning things to help me inflict pain on my enemies.

My problem was keeping them alive. They always die to easily. Especially vs. bosses. I tried summoning 5 skels and 5 skel mages and pumped a lot into skel mastery. Was that a bad idea? I did summon the clay golem too so I had it for what it's worth. I gave up after a couple levels of that build.
I hate the curses for some unknown reason so I'm guessing that's part of the problem?
I tried to get to bone spear to help out but never made it.

Any advice would be great.

 

Don't spread out your skills that much. you pretty much want to focus on one tree almost exclusively.
A bonemancer will spend almost all his points in the bone tree, maybe a few points into getting 1 or 2 curses, but that's it.
Similarly, a summonmancer will spend all his points into summoning - again, spending maybe a few points to get a curse or 2, but nothing into the bone tree.
The poison nova necro can be fun too, using the lower resistance curse and poison nova (obviously.) synergises well with corpse explosion/revive.

Summons being relatively weak is a known problem, especially vs bosses. it's ok for taking on normal mobs since you will have enough corpses to recast your summons from, but some bosses can really tear through your army without leaving any bodies for you to spawn a new one.
That's why if you are going solo, but still want to summon i would go hybrid poisonmancer.

For your summons, put the following points :
15 in raise skeleton, 10 in skeleton mastery, 10 in clay golem and finally 5 in summon resist. (youll also need to put 1 in golem mastery to unlock summon resist.)
that takes care of your army, no points into skeleton mages since they are a waste of points.

As soon as you are able start putting points into poison nova, untill you max it at 20 - it's the skill you will be spamming while your skeletons tank for you.
Another skill to lvl to 20 is poison dagger - you'll have to use a dagger on your necro, but it's pretty great for those moment where you have to melee, and points in poison dagger give a +20% bonus to poison nova per point.
Any points you have left you can put into poison explosion - also gives a bonus to poison nova's damage, and even though you need corpses to cast it on, it does great damage so use it when you don't need the corpses to raise summons.

for your curse, just put 4 in amplify damage (start with just 1 in it, put 4 later as needed to give the curse a big enough size so you don't have to spam it too much.)
amplify damage enhances your summons damage, and since it is the first curse on the tree you don't waste points. Lower resistance would be better for your poison damage, but you need to put points into 3 other curses to unlock it (and its the last curse in the tree so you only get it at lvl 30) so it's a waste of points.

total points needed : 93. with the +skills you get from quests during normal/nightmare/hell you should be able to get the final build when you hit lvl 80.

From your post i don't know if you have the lord of destruction expansion installed.
if not, a good way to get +3 to all skills is :
-Get sigon's shield (set item, +1 to all skills - no other set items required)
-Get angelic raiment armor, ring and amulet (+1 skills on the amulet if you wear 3 items in the set.) you don't have a use for the angelic set's sword, since this necro build uses daggers.
-Get the tarnhelm (unique, +1 to all skills) or wormskull (unique, +1 to all necromancer skills) helmet.

The best dagger to get is the unique Spectral Shard, for it's +50% faster cast rate - it allows you to really pump out a ton of poison novas.


Of course, if you DO have the LOD expansion theres a ton of better items to grab later on.


That said, necros are okay but by far not the 'strongest' class.
If you want to solo and faceroll everything, make a hammerdin.

 

Thanks guys. I did forget to mention that yes I play solo only and I usually don't go past nightmare level. I just seem to die to easily or I just want to start a new toon.

Actually solo is wrong. I forgot my nephew just got it re-installed on his PC so we have fun together

I may just have to get a go at hell too now with the advice given. Thanks again. Much appreciated.

Now I feel even stupider than I did trying to start a conversation with dmc.
I swear I saw that post yesterday but now it's gone??

 

Thanks for the link dmc. Why don't you use skeleton mages?

 

Does anyone remember the name of the dagger that gave +3 to poison dagger and +2 to poison nova? Or something crazy like that anyway. I had that before too but forget what it is. Damn I miss my old characters. dmc you wouldn't by chance have one your willing to just give away would you? I'm currently working on the skeletons and skeleton mastery. I got 1 point in clay golem and I just got corpse explosion and I'm dipping into the poison/bone tree for something to do other than just sit and watch as my enemy gets swarmed and maimed
Not sure why but I want to try the bone spear for some odd reason.
Going to start getting the curses after 1 more skeleton.
Right now I'm 8th level with 2 points in skeleton mastery, 3 points in skeletons, 1 point in the golem, 1 point in teeth and 1 point in corpse explosion.

Woops. Forgot to mention poison nova too. I'll be shooting for that one as well. But not for a bit. Need to get the necessities going first. That's why I want to hunt down that dagger.

 

that would be Blackbog's Sharp, it gives +4 To Poison Nova, +4 To Poison Explosion, +5 To Poison Dagger.
Battle.net actually has all unique/set items listed : http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/exceptional/udaggers.shtml

 

Sweet! Thanks xosmi.
dmc that would be great. As for running in hell difficulty I doubt I will. All the times I've tried hell I have gotten cremated so I usually don't run it. But I will give it a go at least.

 

Has it gotten any easier since 1.09? I think that's the last time I tried. I tried a barbarian and a paladin. Ran into a lot of physical resistance or something like that. Never tried a summoner though so I'll see how that goes

dmc do you have any runes you could send my way? Sorry if I sound greedy. I just like to have stuff to use as soon as possible so I get maximum enjoyment

 

Thanks dmc. Just got it in my email from you. Nostalgic? You don't currently play? Blasphemy! Lol.

I'll have to make a daggermancer after this one.

 

Which golem should I concentrate on? The clay slows opponents so maybe that one? Or should I go for the iron golem?

 

Thanks dmc. I'm thinking to go skeletons/mastery before the golem? What level should I get the golem/mastery too before worrying about the skeletons/mastery?
Also, is there a program out there on the inter-world that allows you to reset/respec your skills? I know you get the 1 to start with but what if I've already used it?
I see why it's recomended to NOT use skeleton magi. They seem to be stupid and be the 1st to try and run in but actually end up clogging the entry way. I thought they would be "support" from the back lines. Bad idea