[GUIDE] Diablo 2 - Summon Necromancer

[@couchpotato5592]

Blood Raven: "Join my army of the dead" Summon Necro: No U

[@3931aaron]

Summoner necro was probably my fave build out of all 7 characters, an I had thousands of hours into d2 expansion. I'm 34 now, an I'll be walking down memory lane on September 23rd. Cannot wait. Good luck to all.

[@phonestercze]

Do you know any game like this? I meant the feeling from it. Something like old fallout or UFO aftermatch

[@3333218]

Really appreciate you caring for those players who just wanna play casually! Great guide!

[@belurso5179]

Yes! A lot of guides assume you're going to trade or nolife which isn't really the goal for a lot of players.

[@3333218]

@@belurso5179 Exactly!!

[@Ghooostie]

Not a huge thing, but I feel it's important to mention the big downside to revives, which is if you get too far away from them, they'll just straight up die/despawn, regardless of time left on them. You can see it happen around 15:22, goes from 12 revives to 6, then to 1 a little later. I think regular skeletons also have this issue, though it happens less frequently with them.

[@BenCarnage]

Yeah, revives more or less require and Engima to be consistently useful. I sometimes even use the staff with teleport charges in early ladder to kill act bosses.

[@kaelos4]

Yeah it's terrible. Would be nice if fixed in remaster

[@dragdritt]

This definitely sounds like something they should fix for the Remaster

[@Philadoni]

revive disappearing is a good way to balance it tbh

[@alisaforster28691]

@@Philadoni a bad way to lose your beast iron golem. so painful.

[@selensewar]

I'd really appreciate if you' put all "guided playthroughs" and subsequent guides into one playlist. Thanks for making them, too!

[@cremdilly7176]

A well-structured playlist will be a gold mine when d2r drops.

[@huntergodfrey2255]

Yes please

[@mmeeegaming6425]

yes this would have amazing production value so people dont have to play the game, just follow build like mindless sheep =)

[@jamesherrero7334]

yes please

[@BluRaise]

You can easily make the playlist yourself

[@interrobangings]

all of us gotta do summon necro at least once to feel like a 9 year old with unstoppable power like we used to

[@legion999]

It doesnt feel unstoppable when diablo wrecks you

[@itsghello5825]

@@legion999 Very true. Remembered my first time playing a necro when I was 13 years old. I thought nothing can kill me and my army. A few lasers later, I raged quit. In a corner thinking how stupid I was.

[@huleyn135]

@@legion999 Yeah, summon necro is a power fantasy but he is very very weak in hindsight. Only way i managed to kill diablo as a kid was spamming the iron maiden curse while constantly spawning earth golems. Skellies were useless. Sad that D3 necro is more like a specllcaster than a summonmancer, every summon has a timer. Very annoying.

[@shinuizabusa2180]

and gets destroyed by andariel. i will never forget how i felt with my first summoner. i was so bad as a kiddo :D

[@Moonface00z]

If your skeletons died quickly. Then you are doing it wrong My skeletons never really die out. Maybe one or two and thats it because maybe they were low hp before the boss fight

[@whatcubedIlIlIl]

Tip for Baal fight: If you get your Clay Golem to hit Baal, and keep your Decrepify curse active on him, he won't teleport or cast clone. He will just stand there and melee your army. GG EZ

[@SuperZakaru]

dont even need the clay just decrep but yes very good.

[@Philadoni]

add a merc with cold damage on weapon to slow even further

[@joeltowart8396]

Fishy>all boss's

[@danielbengtsson5168]

You don't even need a merc. Just that one of your skele mages need to spawn with cold damage. Cold mage skele + clay golem + decrepify = super slowed boss. Deff can reccomend

[@psychotic4560]

Llama I came back specifically for your video because you're the only one I know who shows how to do skill distribution from 1 to endgame. Thank you!

[@taylorschafer5073]

One thing I always like doing that I didn't see mentioned was making a "White" runeword out of a wand. You can go to act 2 drognan in normal difficulty and he sells 2 socket wands sometimes, just keep rerolling until you get summoning skills. I've found one with +2 skele +2 mastery with 2 sockets before. And then the white runeword adds +4 to skeleton mastery. I think a perfect +3 skeleton +7 mastery might be on par with king leoric wand.

[@queazyjam6924]

- I bought D2 again in 2021 - start my first summon necro - start having fun - D2R gets announced - wot

[@Lkymn]

Lol same thing for me! Started replaying D2 a week ago and then they announce resurrected!

[@eb664]

keep playing refresh ur memory til launch u will have big advantage

[@kileNoe]

Uuuuh not rlly gonna have an advantage when the game has totally different graphics. Its gonna be a totally different game.

[@TheCooderix]

@@kileNoe What the hell is that supposed to mean? The mechanics are going to be exact same thing as regular D2. Graphics? Actual lol.

[@freemaysin5088]

@@kileNoe dude re-read that and think it over. its an overlay of existing d2

[@FrostedKatana]

Wow lol, i installed d2 after the d2 remaster announcement that you were part of. Summoner was my class choice, funny you released this today.

[@Addicted2wowlulz]

Thats so strange , me too ! :)

[@aaweaweaweawe8576]

me too summoner necromance was my first character when i start play D2 at relase and D2R will be necro summoner my first character too :)

[@1Lyc]

d2 necro kindled my undying love for summoners. subbed

[@michaelmoody9145]

I actually found max summon resist to be key to taking nightmare bosses . The skeletons last much longer from ae's

[@sandro5535]

Strange that it is worth speccing being diminishing returns

[@Feltip6]

I can't believe it. I literally just opened up D2 plugy again today, after a few months on the 'shelf'. Loaded up my level 75 necro, searched on KZbin to see if you had anything on necro summoner builds (I basically had done what you're suggesting here) and halfway through the video I notice you uploaded this today xD. Ha! What the hell. Can't wait for Resurrected. Great roundtable with the Blizzard guys. Love from a long-time D2 player and fan.

[@naihwong8504]

Levelling the Amplify Damage skill is technically not pointless, as it takes a point everytime you level it :)

[@NinjaSushi2]

It increases the range at which Amplified damage cast and so you don't have to cast it as often and if you're using a corpse explosion build this can save you lots of time.

[@tomodachininarou3113]

Clearing speed

[@mikewilliams-no9cm]

Saucy thing

[@juangonzalez9848]

Top kek

[@bratarnolda1014]

You all didnt get the joke apparently........

[@Utiti]

A little thing I like to do on a super high end necro is to remove points from skelly mages and get a tanky iron golem (max golem mastery and clay golem for the life synergy, leave the actual iron golem skill at 1) and then make an iron golem out of an aura item. A cheap alternative is insight, for infinite mana. The iron golem dies if you die though, but not if you leave the game.

[@Parzival.007]

Hey! Llama it would be awesome if you made a guide to Diablo 2 as a whole! Such as how to find certain items (torch,anni,etc.) because I’m sure many people & newer players will have no clue or may have forgotten how everything is obtained once D2R comes out!

[@Kardfogu]

7:22 the sign of a REAL pro, one who understands what Dim Vision really does and how great it is. Keep up the good work!

[@Ancient_Ys]

The imminent release of d2r is making these guides really relevant and helps newcomers and d2 vets alike to relive and enjoy d2r even more! So I Thankyou for making these indepth guides. Much appreciated!

[@lastleft5809]

Im pretty impressed that summmoner build actually works to this degree. The diablo guide book that you can get heavily hated on skellies for how flimsy they are. Im a fan of swarm♡

[@christopherlane467]

So am I! But to be fair, at first (read: original skills) the skellie skills were basically just adding a skeleton per point with minor stat boosts. They *were* fairly weak back then, but you could have an ungodly swarm of 40 skellies if you maxed both skellies and skellie mages. Good times... but fuck the Maggot Lair, Arcane Sanctuary, and every other cramped Dungeon lol. When they redid the skills, they capped them at 5 each, but buffed the skills to give better skellie stat growth per point, making them much better overall with both attack and survivability. It's still my favorite build, but I have a tendency to... experiment with the builds I like.

[@cumenjoyer5343]

@@christopherlane467 back then skellies died by a stick 💀

[@goathiz]

This is exactly what I was looking for, I just started my necromancer today

[@sirdiealott]

Couple nitpick/disagreements. First amp damage is -100% physical resist, not 100% more damage. For most monsters, especially early on, this is a distinction without a difference. But it is important when it comes to anything with physical resistance like stone skin, because it actually means your skeletons will do more than 100% more damage than they would otherwise. Second is mages. If you are fighting an enemy that is particularly hard, a poison mage will stop the monster regen and a frost mage will slow them down so they aren't hammering your skeletons so hard. Plus they are just one more target that isn't you when it comes to tougher encounters. Better to lose a mage than have to corpse run.

[@olegano4019]

Best person to ask any question about Diablo II

[@christianarroyo3033]

Decrepify and Clay Golem are very important for fighting Act Bosses. They lower boss DPS by so much it can't be overstated

[@thundercricket4634]

This. And it brings up the one point I disagree with in this breakdown. I love having an Act 2 Nightmare Defensive merc on my Summon-mancer. With Decrepify, Clay golem, and the HF Aura all applying their slow effects, bosses basically stand still and get beat to death.

[@AlgorithmMockery]

Just picked up remastered, was looking for a through level to level setup. Thanks so much for this 👍🏻

[@coldfusionIce]

back in the days, we used to call this build ''Lag--o-mancer'' because it created a lot of lag online in a 8 players game!

[@TheStygianKing]

I kinda miss this game, I just did online

[@coldfusionIce]

@@TheStygianKing the worst part for me is that I used my old keys to create the new key and when I installed the game, I can't play on bnet for some reasons, it always DC me, so I can't enjoy the game for now, am waiting for the remaster!

[@sodapopinski8064]

Great guide from a guy who hates playing summoner! One very important tip: Insight polearm for Merc is suuuupppppeeer helpful and cheap! It'll buff his damage and you can spam CE/amp, which you'll need to do towards end of nm and in hell.

[@TotoMuffinJoly]

Thank you so much for this guide. I made some false comments on your video before based on my misconceptions on the raise skeleton skill. Appreciate the clarity!

[@gvulture1277]

Necromancer is the reason Ressurected requirements are pretty high. Imagine 8 of these dudes all with skeletons casting a light source and teleporting around the club

[@AldarisFenrir]

Imagine the same in 200x when the game just release whit a lot more of skells couse in old version you can summon a lot more =D hahaa summ nectro= troll

[@badgoyqc1647]

was having fun till Diablo killed all my summons in one shot

[@johnsmith9205]

Same here, stuck at Chaos Sanc on Normal. Diablo wipes out all my minions in one shot.

[@johnsmith9205]

Update: I meleed Diablo finally. It was a mess, died multiple times, but it worked - some melee gear (attack rating), a special necro wand that did lots of fire damage, and another wand on the offset for +3 to iron maiden. Lots of town portal scrolls and potions, but way less than the first try, where I didn't have enough melee gear or attack rating.

[@Karpacjanos]

@@johnsmith9205 Spam golem near his face, he always attacks golem first. Doing that your minions will have a short amount of time to make dmg until he does nova and you have to repeat it few times. I got 59 summon necro on hardcore (prepping for remake)

[@Karpacjanos]

@@johnsmith9205 + decrepify his ass

[@chienphan6037]

Or just like MrLamma said, spam Iron Maiden and 1 Golem, and wish for that boss physical attack the golem.

[@TylerLawlawsy02]

That KZbin voice in the beginning. Love the vids and the streams when I’m able to swing by :)

[@danielcury9111]

That youtube voice :)

[@wchenful]

Nice guide - I'd recommend using a 2/20 circ / crafted ammy and a 10fcr ring for the endgame build to get to the next fcr breakpoint.

[@mathiasiversen7848]

Dark Wood and Black Marsh on normal is the best place to farm heads for summon mancers as they are more likely to spawn with raise skele and skele mastery, might be lucky and get amp on top so you can save the skill point early - took me a few hours to farm my +3 Skele/+3 Mastery/+2 Amp :) I think the only key part of the end-game summoner you missed is that you want to use multiple sets of gear; one for summoning that focuses entirely on maxing skills, another for buffing the army while giving you survivability and optionally a bit of MF. This isn't the kind of character that makes sense to do repeated meph runs on, instead focus on larger areas. Personally I like doing Pindle (free corpses), then Cows, Lower Kurast, Trav, Chaos Sanctuary, Shenk and then Worldstone Keep before resetting the game and starting over.

[@ohtheforlanity3205]

A guide that understands that a lot of the game happens before act 5 hell :) awesome :)

[@Benkenobi8118]

yeah, Summon necros are kind of interesting for that. All the important creation decisions are act 1 and act 2 normal.

[@vajazzlerthis]

Played this game for a stupid amount of time back in the day and never knew you could teleport with anything other than the sorcerer

[@majora2765]

yeah kinda makes pvp boring to watch i feel ruins it everyone just spamming teleport looks dumb. It will good for the sweaty players who farm enigma to gank pvm players though thats what i will do.

[@martonturbuk3060]

As I read through the comments, I can see that Llama has a really awesome community behind him :)

[@bratarnolda1014]

Almost 100k subs. Good job Lama you earned it.

[@Toadette-]

He just got it... congrats llama :)

[@pat777b]

Great guide overall. The only real improvement I see is when you talk about end game ideal set up, I think you should also include a discussion about an ideal merc set up. You touch upon this a bit at the end when you correctly point out that the might merc is the best. I think an infinity might merc with bramble is the best for summon necro since it increases corpse explosion damage and it lowers monster defense so summons hit more often. But as you said, that is unnecessary due to the effectiveness of this build.

[@gerharddiedericks2120]

Great guide - thanks! Also played Necro back in the day. I do, however, remember running into 2 main challenges later in the game: 1. Bosses. If you're highly dependent on skeleteons and the boss fries all of them (diablo used to 1 shot my first skeletons with all his fire spells; can't remember whether this was due to insufficient character level or points spent in summon resist); aren't you essentially screwed? 2. Many of the enemies (rares, few mini bosses etc) will be immune to several damage types; Cold/physical and Fire/physical combinations being fairly common... would this build not run into some trouble with those encounters? Did I miss something and if I did - how do you work around those?

[@j.b.7813]

Once you raise the skills and find some items melee skeletons become almost invincible and will rarely die even to act bosses. Amplify curse ( -100 physical protection) can break immune to physical. Skeletal mages are weak and have a lot of other issues as well so I can't really recommend them. A might aura merc + items with crushing blow can destroy act bosses pretty quickly.

[@gerharddiedericks2120]

@@j.b.7813 Tnx for the build - definately going to try this one out when resurrected launches :)

[@brantbiggs]

what I do is once he spawns, I run fast to him, then tp right beside him :) when i go back they all hit him at once, in telestomp, the clay golem goes to work slowing, and then quick decrep and hes neutered..one time i did lose 2 skeletons tho

[@gerharddiedericks2120]

@@brantbiggs 2 of them! :'( That must have been traumatizing ;) Thx for tip mon ami. Still a big fan of D2; and the enhanced edition, too. High hopes for D4 "getting there"

[@krioni86sa]

The Fishymancer is the first build I did for hardcore and finished the game

[@joeltowart8396]

The undisputed best hc char

[@11219tt]

For those who want to be even more gg end game, I recommend trying pride on your merc and then using a junk insight to make an iron golem. This way skeles with have 2 auras one from your beast and one from the pride. Pride give concentration aura which increases damage.

[@phuongvu527]

Insight is cheap, but not that cheap 😂

[@11219tt]

@@phuongvu527 yea it is :)

[@imma5269]

Thank you as always for these videos, it makes playing the game even more fun. And I suspect MrLlama’s gonna be big pimpin soon when D2:R releases

[@fcv1967]

I like these guides because I can now understand characters I never played 20 years ago.

[@HoboGod]

Great guide, but 2 1/2 caveats. First, the hit points a necromancer gets from vitality is pathetic, therefore before you dump all your remaining skill points in vit, make sure you have enough points in dexterity to reach the block rate cap. It's a bad idea on other mages, but necro isn't bothered that much by getting block locked because his summons are still doing damage. Second, you really glossed over the importance of a well equipped mercenary. Many of the bosses in hell can be outright impossible or an exercise in frustration for a summon necro without a reliable source of crushing blow and percentage health damage. That mercenary is more useful than just an aura. And lastly, not a whole caveat, but iron golems need love, too! They might not be objectively better Clay Golem, but they can be sometimes theoretically maybe the better choice with the right item.

[@tannbraz7826]

Can't wait to see you hit 100k! You're the man. Glad I found you and started following when I did.

[@kenjijohnsonsanzenin3388]

Isnt corpse explosion 1 ppint wonder let the plus skill increased its radius?

[@florianrausch1706]

Jawoll endlich a vernünftiger Guide. Der Mann kennt sich aus

[@gmoe1337]

These guides are awesome! Your content has aided in my reignited love for Diablo 2! Thanks man

[@1985Mischief]

Starting to play again while waiting for the remaster... can you make an updated video about what you recommend if anything for game mods?

[@Azim6868]

Thanks Bro for such a detail great guide, I will get D2r tomorrow. Blizzard should thank you for that 👍

[@Phaxey]

Thanks for doing these guides! Really great to refresh the memory before D2R. I just subbed, hoping you'll hit your 100k subs today!

[@joemobes1632]

Best way to farm gold with summoner 1) join chaos run game (preferably with bots because they have a lot of gold) 2) raise summons in cold plains 3) hostile the party 4) tele to chaos and cast amplify damage on everyone 5) channel your inner Nihlathak and corpse explode for EZ money 6) OPTIONAL - collect their ears and drop them in town for disrespect points

[@markpeterson1027]

A rogue merc with edge RW can be fun to play around with early game as well. Prevents boss healing, adds thorn aura, grants your merc life steal and you can use your merc for storage for when you want to buy those expensive wands and might like the 15% cost reduction edge grants. Realistically, though, there's a fairly small window where this runeword is relevant for a neccromancer as it requires level 25.

[@miks301]

Imo early on I'd do something like this Max raise skeleton Max skelly mastery Along the way like 3 to 5 pts summon resist 1 to 5 into revive Rest into corpse explosion Sometimes I'll max poison dagger and get a Strength Kris (amn tir) for the extra crushing blow. Rhyme shield with max block can help attack rating too. Depending on gear found I might just dump the rest of points into clay golem for maximum slow on bosses like diablo and baal. Safe but it takes like ten minutes to kill them. The most important early items to find are the staff with teleport charges and anything that buffs your skeletons. Plus 3 skeleton and plus 3 mastery being the obvious one. As far as quality of life, merc damage and kill speed is your damage and kill speed, so early on that progression is like Savage polearm recipe - reroll until you get an exceptional weapon Insight -can easily be endgame weapon if you get something easy to wear like a cryptic axe Magic cruel elite spear or polearm - I always reroll magic war pikes and such with my spare gems, not gonna do much else with them Obedience elite polearm, eth preferred obviously. I can usually keep all my respects until the gear improves so no biggie there for somewhat weird builds. Bosses in Hell can be awful to fight with crap gear. Summon necros dont tend to have a problem fighting trash mobs, it's usually guys like hell diablo or lord de seis that give any trouble. If hardcore, dump at least 10 points into dim vision and clay golem for the ultimate afk experience.

[@hizzousekakashi8836]

21:45 you don't even need to wait till nightmare, I found a necro wand with +3 summon skelly and +1 mastery at level 1 at akara.

[@franciscodetonne4797]

Llama doing Diablo 2 full time makes me feeling hot under the collar.

[@francisgaliegue6645]

I have already mentioned it in another video of yours, but what AD does is NOT doubling the damage -- it lowers the foes' physical resistance by 100%. 0 becomes -100, 50 becomes -50 etc. THis is very different than doubling the damage and this is why I consider this curse the best available. It works particularly well in Hell where all monsters have at least 50% physical resistance. You effectively triple the physical damage they take. Which is also why it's deadly in combination with Thorns.

[@fattony75]

I love how all of your guides will also work with D2R lol that works out so well!

[@haledin]

Saw Guide D2 Summon Necro and instant liked / subbed.

[@robertsims9201]

My problem is that I cannot find decent gear even when I have some magic find. My luck is horrific.

[@SenseiDonGraham]

One of the best D2 guides I've ever seen lol

[@ferds30]

mrllama rekindling my love for diablo 2

[@BenCarnage]

Good guide. The merc should use Infinity, then there are some good options on helms and armors. I like fortitude (or treachery early game) and Andy's visage or something depending on speed breakpoints. You can also use the Iron golem to provide Insight (mana regen aura). Some people say Pride is good, but it rarely has as much impact on the build as Infinity and Insight. A high level Insight really makes the build flow much smoother, especially during corpse explosions or mass revives. You do loose the clay golem, and he is amazing against bosses, but then decrepify also does the job. I would say that after raise skeleton, skeleton mastery and corpse explosion are maxed and you have put a point in all the one hit wonders you should make your golems powerful. Even with + skills only the clay golem is pretty tanky. If you're gonna be spending gear on an Iron Golem you want deaths to be rare. If you're on battlenet you can always get reject insights for quite cheap, but their mana regen won't be as good.

[@wchenful]

I recommend Fortitude over Treachery for the corpse production speed. That way you maximise the probability of your merc landing a 1 hit KO and producing a corpse when you telestomp. Summoner mercs aren't as reliant on the tankiness from Fade luckily.

[@BenCarnage]

​@@wchenful ofc fortitude is the better armor :) treachery is just easier to get early. Summoner wants many things so investing in fortitude might be one of the later upgrades you get.

[@TheSeeker225]

This is my favorite Diablo 2 class. I love the huge army of minions.

[@kekero540]

The reason I don’t like raise skeleton as much is because skeletons get clogged and sometimes you’ll only be able to have maybe 2-3 skeletons fighting depending on the map

[@oriondx72]

Act 2 underground comes to mind! thats when i played in 2000 lol cant wait for d2r!

[@DeuceGenius]

my all time favorite character in diablo. the summon necro is how i spent most of my time in this game. let ppl say they were no good at dueliing but they were not bad when you go to act 3 and revive the apes that had crushing blow and then teleport on top of people

[@louis-carlparadis3968]

Thanks a lot, more newbie frendly than the other build i have seen on KZbin !

[@mikerz8843]

Thanks for the video! I wanted to ask how you getting rid of your stats? Like at 12:10. Is it hotkey to minus them or something?

[@pipMcDohl]

one thing that is really nasty is when your might aura mercenary get killed all the time. so maybe use the bug to make him invisible to non-range monsters?

[@FFSteve81]

They took that bug out a couple days ago :(

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

I'll take the Healing Aura Mercenary and go full pure Summoner Necro with max Skeleton, Mage, Raise Dead, 18 Skeleton Passive, and 20 to Summon Resist. Unless Summon Resist only affects the Golems, then I'll use those 20x points on a Curse. Either way, it's 30 Summons total... If only there were 30 corpses to find or make. Unless Raise Dead doesn't have an amount cap like in Diablo 3.

[@IkarosTypeAlpha]

perfectly timed. Someone linked to your channel and I was just about to boot up the game to play Necro lmao

[@redelfshotthefood8213]

I’ve tried it Mr Llama’s way. And I’ve tried it as follows. This way yields Robust skeletons. Skeletons and Skeleton Mastery. Get summon skeleton up to where you have 3 skeletons. Then points into skeleton mastery. Why? Because you want 3 tanks. A point into raise skeleton does have the multiplying damage factor. That’s great. But you need your skeletons to add 2 damage per hit, instead of 0.14 damage per hit. That’s right. Calculus. Related rates. Your damage output per skeleton must outweigh the growth in damage the opponent monsters provide. You’re not playing in a vacuum. You’re playing against the design decisions of the developers. You want your skeletons to be each like a golem. They are the mainstay of the necro army. Don’t let them be outpaced by their opponents!

[@jonnyfreshtv6598]

Llama what will be your choice of character when Resurrected goes live ?

[@nickbrown2906]

just noticed your subs.. almost 100k you deserve it, ive not subbed to anybody but i want you to get that trophy so i sub

[@yanniblumstein1]

He gained like 3000 the last days

[@Commandos12]

when deciding raise skeleton vs skeleton mastery, my rule of thumb is skeleton mastery lvl is the same as the number of skeleton warriors you can summon. so at lvl 20 you can summon 8 skeletons (so skeleton mastery is at lvl 8) :D

[@MagpieMcGraw]

For mages, Skeleton Mastery is extremely important. It's way better than raising the mages themselves. If you look at the skill tooltips, you can see that raising mages doesn't increase their base health, but mastery does. On my level 28 necro I have 9 in mages and 17 in mastery.

[@Commandos12]

@@MagpieMcGraw oh ya, only time mages are alright is when play poison nova necro because u'll be using lower resist. but they're still not that good XD

[@adamhu5983]

Great video, I reckon you should create a video for all the new comers. Like what sort of white drops to look for, what quest to do to socket, how to do rune words. Or what sort of progression one should take coming in first to the game till you finish hell and do uber etc...

[@m3.s0]

hey thanks for the guide, but as player that didnt played for 10years+ im missing some keyinformation like how is it in hell? can it deal with all immuns? what difficulties has the build in the game, like what bosses are hard with it, i played a summoner in normal and all my summons died on the first AOE firewave of diablo, what then? how do you get summons when you cant kill a mob in the first place? (in hell)?

[@krumenmonsternomnomnom5041]

Getting past diablo on norm is the hardest part for summoner necro. Many people just use clay golem to tank Dia and iron maiden will do the rest. You could also try to get new skeletons from act1 or wherever and jump on diablo for a quick attack. Probably have to repeat that 5 or 10 times. Once you hit lvl 40 with maxed skellis and got some items with +skill its getting easier. My necro mostly wears rare and magic drops except for viper and arm of leoric. No highend stuff yet. Had no problem to kill high council or mephisto on hell players 3. Pindleskin a5 same. Most physical immunes can be pierced with amplify damage or decrepify.

[@nightflame69]

The thing he isn’t mentioning is how many corpses he needs to summon all of the skeletons

[@mikkelnebelong6136]

I only get raise skeleton to where I have 3-4 of them and then max skeleton mastery. I have tried either way multiple times, and I think the math is correct but other “issues” make skeleton mastery far superior. First reason is focus fire. If you are facing a group of 9 monsters with 9 skeletons they will tend to spread out their damage. If you only have a few stronger skeletons they can’t spread out damage as much, even if they all hit different targets one will die faster than with 9 skeletons and then you can corpse explode to speed up the rest. Even if more skeletons are mathematically stronger, corpse explosion combined with the stronger focus fire will more than make up for that math. Second benefit with fewer skellies (at least until you can reposition with teleport) is they tend to get stuck in doorways and tight hallways. Act 2 normal is way more enjoyable with few strong skellies because of this. You also need fewer corpses to resume on your army when you have fewer skeletons that are less prone to die. This often allows you to corpse explode more. Finally, act bosses with aoe won’t be able to massacre the fewer stronger skellies and will be faster to kill (live skellies deal more damage than dead ones). And you can still do the iron maiden trick but won’t need clay golem for it.

[@Lucas-dq1tr]

Fantastic guide! Would really appreciate more in this style!

[@GBIGBIGBI]

Hi, d you plan to have a video on D2 from a comparison / intro view? As D2 resurrected will bring many people back I think it would be a good thing to compare it to D3, Grim Dawn, PoE, etc so that people have an understanding what to expect, etc. I played with D2 for many many years but for the last 6 years it's only been D3 for me. It would be nice to get a refresher on tips and tricks, etc

[@RunalzOrz]

Wew I didn't know this - I was advised you go raise skeleton until you have 4 skeletons then you max mastersy, simply because having more skellies just means there are more spastics running around haha

[@peterwright5311]

Rather than Corpse Explosion I put points in Bone Spirit & Bone Spear - they speed up boss kills. Act2 NM Merc iirc gives an additional slow aura that stacks with cold, decrepify and clay golem to leave enemies moving at crawling pace.

[@HippieInHeart]

i can still remember way back when raise skeleton actually didn't make the skeletons any stronger at all but every single point in raise skeletons would add another skeleton, with maxed raise skeleton you'd have literally 20 skeletons. that was also the time before your character was able to walk through summoned minions or mercenaries. you can imagine how much i hated the worm cave back then lmao.

[@khatack]

You should max out that clay golem to make it as tanky as possible for boss killing, also to max out the slow effect. To that end, Golem Mastery is rather good to have as well, your Golem will become pretty much unkillable. Then obviously you should max out corpse explosion to get as large a radius for it as you possibly can.

[@lanceknightmare]

I am curious what this one Necromancer Wand is. I saw the wand a few decades ago. The player who had it claimed to be one of the richest players in the original Diablo 2. This was not the expansion I was playing. He claimed the wand was worth 24 Stone of Jordan. It was the most epic Necromancer Wand I have ever seen. The details of its stats are fuzzy though I remember clearly it was easily the best Necromancer Wand I had seen. Necromancer was my main class back in the day.

[@DeuceGenius]

good guide man. from a summon nec main for many years

[@jeffreybarker357]

Yes, the summoner is, in fact, my favorite. It's like you know me, Mr. Llama.

[@Jord_45]

I always thought mages were a waste.. do they actually do damage? i put a few points into clay golem, based off one of your newer videos. You didn't really go into mages on the new one. How come?

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

On Hell Mode, enemies have high resistances to elemental damage. Unless you have a way to strip away resistances or have friends who can do so. I think that's why Mage was avoided... I don't think the -100% Resistance to your Character affects your summons. Either way, on Normal to Nightmare difficulties. Resistances are not too difficult to handle from -0% to -45% Resistance to your Character. Oh wait... Unless you saved your three Respects per Difficulty. I can see why spending Skill and Stat points willy nilly can cost you to just make a new character if you cannot defeat the final bosses of each Act consistently on Hell Difficulty.

[@mmzmunkynutz]

What are useful normal runewords for starting out? I made a Stealth early on but confused on what else to make to help leveling up

[@khatack]

You don't want any of that fancy crap for your necro, you want plain and simple +all skills and +summoning skills. You definitely want a wand and a necro-head that boosts your skellies and if you can get ones that also have +1 to all skills, all the better. All those aura items you can equip on your merc, which you should get from normal act 2 to have a maxed out might for your skellies. Enigma is the only runeword you'll really need, thanks to +2 all skills and teleport. Teleport is essential in many situations because it allows you to move your skellies. Other than that, you'll just need life and resistances. Stone of Jordan or Wedding Band is the best ring, the really important part is the +1 skills. Skeletons scale up something CRAZY once you begin to get them to level 30+

[@JeanPaulBaranz]

I love summonmancers, for a more active gameplay I like to twist it to use a bow or a crossbow, what equippment would you recommend? I hope to craft a glove with multishot charghes. only played thru vanilla but now I have PlugY 1.14 and so ladder runewords!

[@JeanPaulBaranz]

rw Passion on a Xbow for Heart of Wolverine charges? For endame would you recommend Brand or Faith rw?

[@lanceknightmare]

I thought Skeleton Necromancer was a weak build based on the few examples I have seen in Diablo 2 Resurrected. I saw a Summon Necro who was running 93 energy and basically nothing for their defensive statistics. They assumed those skeletons would be enough for Duriel. It was not even close. The other example of the build I saw was more like I used to use as a Necromancer years ago. Bone Spirit + Fire Golem. That build seemed to be holding it's own. Nice to see the Skeleton Necromancer used properly in this video.

[@dreamingflurry2729]

Army-Mancer FTW :) - Greatest Army ever, people are dying to get in! (SCNR!) Loved to play that what 10-15 years ago as one of my go to classes (the others would be the Sorc (Hybrid Cold/Fire) and the Barbarian (Whirlwind! Spin to win!)...I had all the other classes as well, but I only leveled those three really...Barb was 87, sorc 85 and the necro was in the low 70's...good times, good times :) )

[@chrislognshot]

question i have rod that let me +2 to skeletons. but still only get 4 at lv skill at lv 6 but i at lv 10

[@dragon2ajack]

Im playing version 1.07, summon skeleton doesnt add hp or dmg to the skeleton, it only increases the mp cost and the number of summons

[@ifappaccino3269]

Well if you think about it adding points to summond skeleton is fine but having a wand+3 summon skeleton only adds damage it does not add summons is the damage better wand+skeleton mastery since it adds damage same as a non hard skill point

[@fatmajinbuu112840]

I'm definitely building this necro build when resurrected comes alive on SEPT!!! thanks so much!!!!

[@DstrydConcept]

Hello. Just wanted to know if there was a different build priority for skills when playing Multiplayer vs Single player. Thanks

[@shaunmccoy5840]

An idea for future content or addendums to these are what character skill/equipment variants are better for Hardcore mode. I feel like % damager reduce and lightning absorb become more critical so a soul can't just wipe you out one day as you skate into Worldstone Lvl 2. I'd love to hear your thoughts on survivability, Llama!

[@jaywalker6464]

Diablo 2 skill tree one of the most sophisticated skill tree in the game history.