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Rak's Hardcore Summoner Necro guide
Hi everyone! This is my first guide on these forums, and I'm focusing on a summoner necro playing Hardcore difficulty. I have tried to keep this guide short, succinct, still containing all the pertinent details you would ever like to know. I give credit to Nightfish (this is a Fishymancer based guide), Hrus (for demystifying Andariel bug), and you for reading this guide!
If you notice any errors in this guide, or any controversial points you haven't seen being discussed elsewhere, feel free to post a comment here!
1. Why hardcore?
As you all probably know already, you can play LOD in hardcore and softcore modes. In softcore, you can die as many times you like, press escape key, and be reincarnated in the town to rock again. In hardcore, you live only once. You die and it's all over - everything is gone! My Fishymancer has beaten softcore to death, and I got ALL the items I ever wanted! And I think now it's time for some more adventure. Therefore I play hardcore only - I think it's much more challenging. If you are a hardcore character, your name appears in red letters in battle.net chat screens, you get different titles for finishing game difficulties, you get ranked on a separate ladder, and your character animation is different ("more active") in the character selection screen as well as battle.net chat screens. The best thing about playing hardcore is - everybody knows you never died!
2. Why Necromancer?
(i). Fun factor: When Blizzard released Diablo 2 in the year 2000, they provided us five character classes to play with. My group of friends was one of the first to lay our hands on the game, and each one of us tried different builds. Whereas other characters did fairly well, no one was able to go far with a necromancer, most likely because this character was very different, and it still remains a lot different from other chars. It requires a very different approach to play the Necromancer, and there is a lot of room for customization. The necromancer is very versatile, and can assume many strategies depending on how you build him. Except for Druid, I consider the Necromancer the most versatile of all the characters available in Diablo2 LOD today. After the huge success of my Fishy in single player some time back, I introduced this build to several of my friends, and now I have a small clan of 8 people who play Summoner Necromancer only. This char is fully packed of fun, and you'll never be bored!
(ii). Independence from gear: The Fishymancer does not need a lot of gear to beat the game. It is claimed that a Fishymancer can beat the entire game naked, but I do not have enough time to try this out. Maybe someone has done it already! Please let us know your experience if you have tried finishing the game naked. A more common variety of Fishymancer is the "untwinked" Fishy - you use only the items you find yourself. No trades or whatever. Currently I am an untwinked hardcore Necromancer on US East Ladder, and playing extremely successfully.
(iii). Max block practically attainable: Blizzard has not given the Necromancer a lot of godly items as compared to some of the other chars, but they have given him one of the best shields in the game - the Homunculus. This shrunken head comes with a lot of cool mods, one of which is 72% chance to block. If you place enough points in dexterity, you can actually achieve max block with Homunculus. This adds tremendously to survivability in hardcore.
(iv). Magic finder: I know a couple of people who play a h*din. However they use a Sorceress to magic find for their h*din. I think they do this because the h*din is very much item dependent. Fishymancers in comparison, do not need a lot of items once their army has been summoned. Therefore I summon my army with my summoning gear (+skills etc) and then switch to magic find and resistance gear. Therefore I do not need a second char to mf for my Fishy - the Fishy will do it himself. Fishymancers do it better than other classes without using even one small charm of 7% magic find or whatever, because they can wear all mf gear themselves. This makes this char a great item hunter too, considering the hell pits are now level 85 areas, and they're so easy to run by Fishymancers. Both "% chance to magic find" and "% extra gold from monsters" you're wearing are transferred to your summons.
Another question was raised by someone - lite sorc is the best mfer in the entire game. I agree that she's the best IF she has good gear. Fishy is good with crap items too (how about a four topazed armor and a three topazed helm alone?), and you can buy godly summoner items for cheap (look at the price of Arm of King Leoric on these forums, and you will know what I'm talking about). At the same time, lightning sorceress requires infinity runeword to be fully effective in hell. Look if you can find infinity on the forums for trade, and look at the price (if you can find one).
3. Essential skills (Thanks to Nightfish):
20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Corpse Explosion
1 in each curse (total 10)
1+ Skeleton Mage *
1 Clay golem
1 Golem Mastery
1 Summon resist
1+ Revive
1+ Bone Wall
* I usually choose Skeleton Mage to max out because they have fairly decent damage, and come in handy when dealing with physical immune monsters whose immunity cannot be removed by casting Amplify Damage curse.
Prerequisites: 1 iron golem (hardly used except in special situations I'll list below). 1 in Teeth as a prerequisite for Corpse Explosion. 1 in Blood golem as a prerequisite for Iron Golem/ Revive.
Fire golem is not necessary at all because there are better skills to place points in.
Some people max their Dim Vision curse, but I just go by doing a few extra clicks (and wearing Trang gloves if I really need to increase the curse levels). I think maxing mages is a better bang for the buck.
Remember that later in the game you'll be getting lot of +skill items, so take into consideration when pumping all the points in another skill not recommended to max here (e.g. Revive)
4. Skills progression overview:
So you start as a tiny little necromancer in Rogue Encampment in Act 1 of normal difficulty! Initially place enough points into Raise Skeleton to get 3 skellies. Then put points into Skeleton Mastery, and then make sure Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery run at equal level. More points into Raise Skeleton means more number of skeletons you can have. More points into Skeleton Mastery means your skeletons will be stronger. Due to this trade-off between quantity and quality, I prefer keeping both Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery at equal level.
Get each curse as it becomes available, don't delay curses - you will be using them all in particular situations. Amplify Damage (Level 1) on everything. Decrepify (Level 24) on bosses.
Level 6: Clay Golem and Dim Vision: Get clay golem as soon as possible, he'll be a cheap and good meat shield, even with just one point. Get Dim vision on ranged attackers like archers and lightning souls.
Level 12: Also get a Skeletal Mage as soon as you touch level 12 - and always use the cold mage - he'll prove extremely helpful in reducing some of the corpses to molten ice that can't be revived by shamans. Plus the cold mage will have slowed all the monsters including the bosses. Some people argue that cold mage causes some bodies to shatter, but trust me it'll do more good than harm in the long run. Even if some bodies shatter, it's okay because all your army is summoned already, and you can always find more bodies to explode. You can also use the poison mages to slow the bosses' life regeneration to some extent. Also get Terror at level 12, for use just in case you're surrounded by monsters. If you don't like the type of Mage you summoned (e.g. you want cold but summoned lightning instead) you can use the unsummon spell to get rid of him, and try summoning a new one. You cannot control which type of Mage you summon (cold, fire, lightning and poison) - it's totally random.
Level 15: Get bone armor now, although it was available much earlier - this is the time when you're nearing the catacombs - and you will need all the protection from the archers. Level 1 bone armor absorbs 20 damage, which is a significant percent of your life at low levels. Actually a one-point wonder in normal difficulty at least. Recast your bone armor if you get hit even a little.
Level 24: Get summon resist as soon as it becomes available. Only one point will suffice, as you’ll get rest from +skills items later in the game when you require them the most.
Lower Resist: If a particular unique monster spawns with physical immunity, you can usually break it with Amplify Damage curse. Sometimes the physical immunity is so strong it cannot be broken with Amplify Damage. In that case you can try using Mages to take that monster down - use Lower Resist (Level 30) curse in that case to hasten the killing. In my opinion, you don't need Lower Resist before you start Hell difficulty though.
5. Stat point distribution:
(The values given here refer to the final values after applying all bonuses from charms and other gear.)
Strength: None if you have Enigma runeword waiting for you somewhere. But if you're poor and untwinked like me, the target strength is 118 for wearing marrowwalk boots.
Dexterity: To obtain max block, your target dexterity is varies by your character level (with homunculus shield) as following (the number in the bracket is the Dexterity value when you are using a crafted safety amulet with +10% blocking with homunculus for a total of 82% blocking)
Level : Target dex for max blocking (Wearing +10% safety amulet)
Level 42: 103 (92)
Level 50: 119 (106)
Level 60: 140 (125)
Level 70: 161 (143)
Level 80: 182 (161)
Level 90: 203 (180)
Level 95: 213 (189)
Level 99: 221 (196)
Formula: DEX needed for max block = {(150 * clvl) / blocking} + 15, rounded up.
Max block is very helpful for hardcore players because you avoid a large fraction of physical damage that way (remember those javelin-throwers in bloody foothills?). On the other hand, if you place all those stat points into vitality instead, you will have about 300-400 extra life. I have made two necromancers in softcore using vitality, and this time I want to try out the max block because I feel this may be better suited to my playing style. The enhanced dexterity also lets you use other items (e.g. necromancer daggers like Fleshripper). Also check the gear section about shields below.
Vitality: Everything else
Energy: zero (use frostburns, spirit runeword, or insight runeword on your merc from nightmare onwards. If you have steady supply of four socketed polearms and sol runes, consider making an iron golem from insight runeworded poelarm) (Tip: After making iron golem, make sure you put teeth or a curse at your golem hotkey, because sometimes I forget that I have an iron golem and press the hotkey to create a clay golem, and it destroys my cheap runeword iron golem. Therefore, you must change the hotkeyed spell to something other than a golem)
6. Merc: Cold arrow act 1 rogue for normal difficulty. Offense act 2 merc from nightmare onwards (you must hire this merc in nightmare difficulty for might aura). Give them equipment with resistances, life steal and crushing blow. Give an "Insight" runeworded polearm to your act 2 merc - he will genearate mana for you to keep exploding corpses. Rich people can use infinity because it reduces the defense of enemies (skellies have more chance to hit) and reduces their resistance as well (mages damage improves)
Some people hire act 2 mercs in normal difficulty itself, but they did not work for me - he kept dying a lot, especially at normal Diablo. I had to switch back to Act 1 Rogue merc and she helped a lot in finishing Diablo for me. If you can lay your hands on a good polearm, consider buying act 2 merc. But if you have a better bow, consider keeping Act 1 Rogue merc.
7. Final gear:
Note: Fishymancers do not need much equipment, except for some resistance gear. If you do not have any of the below, just wear anything that gives you high/max resists, trust me that works well! Take care of lightning resist in particular.
A. Summoning gear (for summoning the army initially)
Weapon: Arm of King Leoric Wand
Shield: Boneflame unique Necromancer shield (+3 all skills) (Otherwise just use homunculus, or any shrunken head with +3 skeleton mastery mod, if you do not have boneflame)
Helm: Harlequin Crest ("Shako") with Um rune in it for resists
Armor: Smoke runeword armor (Nef + Lum) for resistances (or Enigma if you're rich)
Belt: Arachnid mesh is useful for summoning the army, but otherwise not very helpful.
Amulet: amulet with +3 summoning skills for summoning. Then use a crafted safety amulet as described below.
Rings: Ideally rings with + skills (Stone of Jordan or Bul Kathos' wedding band) for summoning army. If you're not rich, just use anything with resists and life/mana.
B. Switch gear (for use after you have completed summoning your army)
Weapon: Beast runeword if you are rich. Otherwise resistance or mf gear depending on needs.
Shield: Homunculus is a great shield for any necro build - socket it with a perfect diamond to make it even better. Some Fishymancers also use Stormshield, but it requires too much strength (156 to be precise). If you don’t want to pump a lot of points in dexterity and still want to have max block, you can use Whistan’s guard. Whistan is rather a bland shield without any great other modifiers except blocking, but it’ll let you have few extra points in vitality.
Armor: For magic finding, consider "Wealth" runeword (Lem + Ko + Tir) if you do not have Skullder's Ire or Enigma runeword)
Belt: Thundergod's vigor belt for lightning absorption (alternatives are Verdungo's hearty cord and Nosferatu's coil for physical damage reduction). If nothing else is available, just wear a rare/crafted belt with resists and +life.
Boots: Consider Sander’s boots or Natalya’s boots for faster run/walk, or War Travelers for magic find.
Note that if you have additional skeletons because of + skill items, the additional skeletons will disappear when you switch from your +skill gear to your mf or resistance gear if your number of skills drops. For example, your current Raise Skeleton level is 20 right now after all +skill items. Then you switch your gear, and then have only level 10 in Raise skeleton. This will cause 3 skeletons to disintegrate. The disintegration of additional skeletons is instant in town, but they can linger on for a minute or two when you switch outside town. Don't know why that is so, maybe a bug. I prefer never to switch weapons in town for this reason, one extra skelly for a few minutes can't hurt
8. General strategies:
(i) Killing bosses: The general strategy for killing all bosses is the same – cast Clay golem on them to slow them, and also cast Decrepify curse on them to slow them more. In addition, have a cold mage to further slow them. They’d be barely able to move.
Still many bosses can wipe your entire army, but no worries. If you think you're losing your ground, immediately run back to any act 1 area, resurrect your army, replenish your supply of potions, and then jump back into action. If the boss is proving too much for you, consider doing some earlier levels again to level up a bit, and then come back to beat the boss. Keep some extra full or partial rejuvenation potions in your stash ready just in case you run out of the ones in your belt. Before you kill a boss, consider touching an appropriate shrine to max your resists (poison for Andariel, Cold for Duriel, Lightning for Mephisto, and Fire for Diablo. Shrines effects have little use against Baal because he negates it by casting his own spell)
In Hell difficulty, revive some Urdars and take them to the bosses. The Urdars have Crushing Blow in hell (they remove a significant percentage of Boss’ life in one hit) and will quickly bring boss’ health down so your skeletons can easily kill him then. The Urdars are commonly found in (i) Act 2 in the Seven Tombs of Canyon of the Magi, (ii) Durance of Hate, (iii) River of Flame. They may not spawn in some games however, so just make a new game if you want.
(ii) Trading in multiplayer: There are almost no trade games in progress in hardcore mode on battle.net. Try trading through these forums instead. Even then there are far less trades available in hardcore as compared to softcore. If you played softcore for a long time, maybe you didn't realize that the townsfolk in Diablo have a really nice inventory of items for trade. Check them out more often than you do in softcore. (Vendor details below)
(iii) Passworded games: If you play in open public games in hardcore, be aware that other people may try to kill you. Believe me the danger is more real than you can imagine. To stay out of trouble, always play in a passworded game, and only with your trusted buddies. Never play in public hardcore games - you will regret once someone kills you.
(iv) Connection issues: If your buddy has a laggy internet connection, you might want to play with someone who has faster connection. Or else just play alone. If your own connection is laggy (downloading in progress etc) then do not play with your hardcore char for that duration. You have been warned.
(v) Dueling: This build is not intended for PvP use, so don't even think of dueling in hardcore. This is because minions damage is cut by a large fraction in PvP. If someone asks for duel, just say thanks and leave the game.
(vi) Rushing: Most people rush on battle.net these days, and some swear they can't live without it. Recently I came across the extreme form of rushing called "ubering" or "gubering". These are practical ideas for softcore, but way too dangerous for hardcore chars. Hardcore chars should focus on building them "naturally", advancing through quest, so they avoid death as long as possible. If you rush, hardcore is the same as softcore - not fun!
(vii) Crafting items: The game may not be generous enough to give you good items, so you must do something yourself in order to survive. If you got a spare rune, a gem and a jewel, keep crafting items for your use. Craft a safety amulet (Magical amulet + Thul + Emerald + magical jewel) for more blocking and damage reduction. You should use amulets dropped by high-level super-uniques for better results (e.g. Diablo, Baal etc). If you are not able to find a lot of Thul runes to craft with, consider nightmare countess runs. She can drop upto Ko runes I've heard. Also consider trading pgems and other runes for Thul runes on battle.net and these forums.
(viii) Magic find: Wearing magic find gear all the times may not be a good idea because you will sacrifice resistances etc. Rather, you should carry on your game with your resistance and damage reduction gear. When you are bored, then put on your mf gear and farm the last boss you killed. Nightmare Andariel runs are good for drops as well as leveling up from level 30-45.
(ix) Potion quaffing: In hardcore, make it a habit to use healing potion when your life globe is drained out by upto 1/3rd. Use rejuvenation potion as soon as you find your life globe is more than 1/3 empty - always try to stay at maximum health! Keep picking up all those partial rejuvenation potions, and cube three into one full rejuvenation potion. These will go a long way in saving your life in hardcore!
(x) Corpse looting: As mentioned in the Arreat Summit:
(xi) Exploders: Anything that explodes (e.g. fire or cold enchanted monsters) can kill you instantly, especially in hell difficulty. There have been reports of “bugged†fire enchanted monsters although I’m yet to encounter one, fortunately. Rule of the thumb – observe the radius of cold explosions (these are usually the widest range explosions) and maintain at least that much distance from all monsters (I recommend staying away from ALL monsters because sometimes you are not able to read the monster properties well, and they can explode too close to you.) You get too close, and be ready to die.
(xii) Golems: You are given four kinds of golems in the game, although you can have only one at a time. These are Clay, Blood, Iron and Fire golems. None of these golems have sufficient killing powers, but they're used for other reasons.
Clay golem is the best choice because it’s cheap to make (requires very little mana), requires no items (contrast iron golem), and slows enemies by a large percentage (about 50% at level 10 and 63% at level 20). Clay golem is popularly known as "gumby".
Iron golem has its use in specific situations – if you have a good item lying around you dont intend to use or trade, you can make an iron golem out of it. Iron golems are commonly called “rustbuckets†for that reason. The best item to make an iron golem for Baal runs is perhaps Immortal King’s maul or any other item that has crushing blow. Another option is to make iron golem out of items that have aura (e.g. Insight runeword polearm) so your merc can wear something else (e.g. Infinity). Be warned that iron golem will die sooner or later, or it’ll just wander away and disappear, or be killed by a monster, so do not use very costly runes or items for iron golems. High damage iron golem can kill itself by thorns curse by Oblivion Knights in Chaos Sanctuary. Therefore if you’re making insight iron golem, make it out of the lowest damage polearm. Iron golem is popularly known as "rustbucket".
The stats of iron golem are recalculated once you join a game, so make sure you are wearing all your skiller items when you join the game. The iron golem remains at the same level throughout the current game (unless you cast a new iron golem), and the stats will be recalculated when you join the next game.
Blood golem is a very bad idea in hardcore in my opinion because it shares the life and damage with you. It gets hit too much and your life drains drastically, so do not use blood golem unless you really have a compelling reason.
Fire golem is immune to fire, and in fact it heals itself by absorbing fire. It also has a holy fire aura that hardly does any damage in hell difficulty, but it draws all the enemies around to your fire golem, making him the magnet. Some people use fire golem for this reason, but I still feel it's not worth it when you have a cheap, slowing clay golem available.
(xiii) Clay golem as a scouting tool: If you have played an Amazon, you probably already know the value of a Decoy. Necromancers can use the Clay Golem in the same way. Cast Clay Golem in unexplored territories, and he’ll seek out the good, bad and the ugly for you.
(xiv) Mana problems: When you initially start using Corpse Explosion, you will keep running out of mana constantly. This happens around levels 30-55 when your mana pool is not significant, and Corpse Explosion takes a significant chunk of mana in a few clicks. To solve this problem, the best solution is to use Frostburns gauntlets (40% extra mana) with two Stone of Jordan rings (20% extra mana each). (Note that more mana increases mana regeneration too). However if you’re not rich like me, consider using any item with +mana after each kill (you explode bodies and get the mana back with each kill – e.g. Lidless shield), Raven Frost rings (+40 mana), any magic ring with lots of mana (like 100+), mana charms, or Manald Heal rings. Also consider equipping an Insight runeworded polearm to your act 2 merc. Once your merc has insight, you will never run out of mana! If you have a steady supply of runes and four socketed polearms, you can also make an iron golem out of insight runeword.
(xv) hotkeys: You may have to use a lot of hotkeys because of the versatile nature of Necromancer. By default, the game gives you 8 hotkeys from F1-F8. However, you can configure up to 16 hotkeys, and I frequently find using all 16 of them! This is my hotkey setup:
F1: Raise Skeleton
F2: Raise Skeleton Mage
F3: Raise Clay Golem
F4: Bone Armor
F5: Amplify Damage curse
F6: Corpse Explosion
F7: Attract
F8: Decrepify
F9: Dim Vision
F10: Bone Wall
F11: Terror
F12: Town Portal
Backspace: Teleport (charges / Enigma)
+: Revive
-: Life Tap
0: Lower Resist
I wish Blizzard could let me have more than 16 hotkeys, I’d use them too!
(xvi) Teleport: Sometimes your army members will wander astray and get stuck in doorways or tunnels. In such situations, teleport is an essential skill to recollect them all together. You can have teleport either via Enigma runeword armor, or from items that have teleport charges (amulet, Naj's puzzler, Spellsteel unique axe etc). Apart from collecting the minions, teleport also has other uses like bypassing walls to access some areas, avoiding enemies, and namelocking of bosses and other monsters etc. Please remember that items with teleport charges are sometimes very expensive to repair/recharge. If you do not have teleport at all, you can also cast a town portal or act-end stairs/ waypoints to collect your minions.
RAK'S HARDCORE NECRO SUMMONER GUIDE v 1.1
Hi everyone! This is my first guide on these forums, and I'm focusing on a summoner necro playing Hardcore difficulty. I have tried to keep this guide short, succinct, still containing all the pertinent details you would ever like to know. I give credit to Nightfish (this is a Fishymancer based guide), Hrus (for demystifying Andariel bug), and you for reading this guide!
If you notice any errors in this guide, or any controversial points you haven't seen being discussed elsewhere, feel free to post a comment here!
Table of contents:
1. Why hardcore
2. Why Necromancer?
3. Essential skills
4. Skill progression overview
5. Stat point distribution
6. Merc
7. Final gear
8. General strategies
9. Act 1
10. Act 2
11. Act 3
12. Act 4
13. Act 5
14. If you die
15. Uber Tristram with Summoner Necro
16. References
1. Why hardcore
2. Why Necromancer?
3. Essential skills
4. Skill progression overview
5. Stat point distribution
6. Merc
7. Final gear
8. General strategies
9. Act 1
10. Act 2
11. Act 3
12. Act 4
13. Act 5
14. If you die
15. Uber Tristram with Summoner Necro
16. References
1. Why hardcore?
As you all probably know already, you can play LOD in hardcore and softcore modes. In softcore, you can die as many times you like, press escape key, and be reincarnated in the town to rock again. In hardcore, you live only once. You die and it's all over - everything is gone! My Fishymancer has beaten softcore to death, and I got ALL the items I ever wanted! And I think now it's time for some more adventure. Therefore I play hardcore only - I think it's much more challenging. If you are a hardcore character, your name appears in red letters in battle.net chat screens, you get different titles for finishing game difficulties, you get ranked on a separate ladder, and your character animation is different ("more active") in the character selection screen as well as battle.net chat screens. The best thing about playing hardcore is - everybody knows you never died!
2. Why Necromancer?
(i). Fun factor: When Blizzard released Diablo 2 in the year 2000, they provided us five character classes to play with. My group of friends was one of the first to lay our hands on the game, and each one of us tried different builds. Whereas other characters did fairly well, no one was able to go far with a necromancer, most likely because this character was very different, and it still remains a lot different from other chars. It requires a very different approach to play the Necromancer, and there is a lot of room for customization. The necromancer is very versatile, and can assume many strategies depending on how you build him. Except for Druid, I consider the Necromancer the most versatile of all the characters available in Diablo2 LOD today. After the huge success of my Fishy in single player some time back, I introduced this build to several of my friends, and now I have a small clan of 8 people who play Summoner Necromancer only. This char is fully packed of fun, and you'll never be bored!
(ii). Independence from gear: The Fishymancer does not need a lot of gear to beat the game. It is claimed that a Fishymancer can beat the entire game naked, but I do not have enough time to try this out. Maybe someone has done it already! Please let us know your experience if you have tried finishing the game naked. A more common variety of Fishymancer is the "untwinked" Fishy - you use only the items you find yourself. No trades or whatever. Currently I am an untwinked hardcore Necromancer on US East Ladder, and playing extremely successfully.
(iii). Max block practically attainable: Blizzard has not given the Necromancer a lot of godly items as compared to some of the other chars, but they have given him one of the best shields in the game - the Homunculus. This shrunken head comes with a lot of cool mods, one of which is 72% chance to block. If you place enough points in dexterity, you can actually achieve max block with Homunculus. This adds tremendously to survivability in hardcore.
(iv). Magic finder: I know a couple of people who play a h*din. However they use a Sorceress to magic find for their h*din. I think they do this because the h*din is very much item dependent. Fishymancers in comparison, do not need a lot of items once their army has been summoned. Therefore I summon my army with my summoning gear (+skills etc) and then switch to magic find and resistance gear. Therefore I do not need a second char to mf for my Fishy - the Fishy will do it himself. Fishymancers do it better than other classes without using even one small charm of 7% magic find or whatever, because they can wear all mf gear themselves. This makes this char a great item hunter too, considering the hell pits are now level 85 areas, and they're so easy to run by Fishymancers. Both "% chance to magic find" and "% extra gold from monsters" you're wearing are transferred to your summons.
Another question was raised by someone - lite sorc is the best mfer in the entire game. I agree that she's the best IF she has good gear. Fishy is good with crap items too (how about a four topazed armor and a three topazed helm alone?), and you can buy godly summoner items for cheap (look at the price of Arm of King Leoric on these forums, and you will know what I'm talking about). At the same time, lightning sorceress requires infinity runeword to be fully effective in hell. Look if you can find infinity on the forums for trade, and look at the price (if you can find one).
3. Essential skills (Thanks to Nightfish):
20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Corpse Explosion
1 in each curse (total 10)
1+ Skeleton Mage *
1 Clay golem
1 Golem Mastery
1 Summon resist
1+ Revive
1+ Bone Wall
* I usually choose Skeleton Mage to max out because they have fairly decent damage, and come in handy when dealing with physical immune monsters whose immunity cannot be removed by casting Amplify Damage curse.
Prerequisites: 1 iron golem (hardly used except in special situations I'll list below). 1 in Teeth as a prerequisite for Corpse Explosion. 1 in Blood golem as a prerequisite for Iron Golem/ Revive.
Fire golem is not necessary at all because there are better skills to place points in.
Some people max their Dim Vision curse, but I just go by doing a few extra clicks (and wearing Trang gloves if I really need to increase the curse levels). I think maxing mages is a better bang for the buck.
Remember that later in the game you'll be getting lot of +skill items, so take into consideration when pumping all the points in another skill not recommended to max here (e.g. Revive)
4. Skills progression overview:
So you start as a tiny little necromancer in Rogue Encampment in Act 1 of normal difficulty! Initially place enough points into Raise Skeleton to get 3 skellies. Then put points into Skeleton Mastery, and then make sure Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery run at equal level. More points into Raise Skeleton means more number of skeletons you can have. More points into Skeleton Mastery means your skeletons will be stronger. Due to this trade-off between quantity and quality, I prefer keeping both Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery at equal level.
Get each curse as it becomes available, don't delay curses - you will be using them all in particular situations. Amplify Damage (Level 1) on everything. Decrepify (Level 24) on bosses.
Level 6: Clay Golem and Dim Vision: Get clay golem as soon as possible, he'll be a cheap and good meat shield, even with just one point. Get Dim vision on ranged attackers like archers and lightning souls.
Level 12: Also get a Skeletal Mage as soon as you touch level 12 - and always use the cold mage - he'll prove extremely helpful in reducing some of the corpses to molten ice that can't be revived by shamans. Plus the cold mage will have slowed all the monsters including the bosses. Some people argue that cold mage causes some bodies to shatter, but trust me it'll do more good than harm in the long run. Even if some bodies shatter, it's okay because all your army is summoned already, and you can always find more bodies to explode. You can also use the poison mages to slow the bosses' life regeneration to some extent. Also get Terror at level 12, for use just in case you're surrounded by monsters. If you don't like the type of Mage you summoned (e.g. you want cold but summoned lightning instead) you can use the unsummon spell to get rid of him, and try summoning a new one. You cannot control which type of Mage you summon (cold, fire, lightning and poison) - it's totally random.
Level 15: Get bone armor now, although it was available much earlier - this is the time when you're nearing the catacombs - and you will need all the protection from the archers. Level 1 bone armor absorbs 20 damage, which is a significant percent of your life at low levels. Actually a one-point wonder in normal difficulty at least. Recast your bone armor if you get hit even a little.
Level 24: Get summon resist as soon as it becomes available. Only one point will suffice, as you’ll get rest from +skills items later in the game when you require them the most.
Lower Resist: If a particular unique monster spawns with physical immunity, you can usually break it with Amplify Damage curse. Sometimes the physical immunity is so strong it cannot be broken with Amplify Damage. In that case you can try using Mages to take that monster down - use Lower Resist (Level 30) curse in that case to hasten the killing. In my opinion, you don't need Lower Resist before you start Hell difficulty though.
5. Stat point distribution:
(The values given here refer to the final values after applying all bonuses from charms and other gear.)
Strength: None if you have Enigma runeword waiting for you somewhere. But if you're poor and untwinked like me, the target strength is 118 for wearing marrowwalk boots.
Dexterity: To obtain max block, your target dexterity is varies by your character level (with homunculus shield) as following (the number in the bracket is the Dexterity value when you are using a crafted safety amulet with +10% blocking with homunculus for a total of 82% blocking)
Level : Target dex for max blocking (Wearing +10% safety amulet)
Level 42: 103 (92)
Level 50: 119 (106)
Level 60: 140 (125)
Level 70: 161 (143)
Level 80: 182 (161)
Level 90: 203 (180)
Level 95: 213 (189)
Level 99: 221 (196)
Formula: DEX needed for max block = {(150 * clvl) / blocking} + 15, rounded up.
Max block is very helpful for hardcore players because you avoid a large fraction of physical damage that way (remember those javelin-throwers in bloody foothills?). On the other hand, if you place all those stat points into vitality instead, you will have about 300-400 extra life. I have made two necromancers in softcore using vitality, and this time I want to try out the max block because I feel this may be better suited to my playing style. The enhanced dexterity also lets you use other items (e.g. necromancer daggers like Fleshripper). Also check the gear section about shields below.
Vitality: Everything else
Energy: zero (use frostburns, spirit runeword, or insight runeword on your merc from nightmare onwards. If you have steady supply of four socketed polearms and sol runes, consider making an iron golem from insight runeworded poelarm) (Tip: After making iron golem, make sure you put teeth or a curse at your golem hotkey, because sometimes I forget that I have an iron golem and press the hotkey to create a clay golem, and it destroys my cheap runeword iron golem. Therefore, you must change the hotkeyed spell to something other than a golem)
6. Merc: Cold arrow act 1 rogue for normal difficulty. Offense act 2 merc from nightmare onwards (you must hire this merc in nightmare difficulty for might aura). Give them equipment with resistances, life steal and crushing blow. Give an "Insight" runeworded polearm to your act 2 merc - he will genearate mana for you to keep exploding corpses. Rich people can use infinity because it reduces the defense of enemies (skellies have more chance to hit) and reduces their resistance as well (mages damage improves)
Some people hire act 2 mercs in normal difficulty itself, but they did not work for me - he kept dying a lot, especially at normal Diablo. I had to switch back to Act 1 Rogue merc and she helped a lot in finishing Diablo for me. If you can lay your hands on a good polearm, consider buying act 2 merc. But if you have a better bow, consider keeping Act 1 Rogue merc.
7. Final gear:
Note: Fishymancers do not need much equipment, except for some resistance gear. If you do not have any of the below, just wear anything that gives you high/max resists, trust me that works well! Take care of lightning resist in particular.
A. Summoning gear (for summoning the army initially)
Weapon: Arm of King Leoric Wand
Shield: Boneflame unique Necromancer shield (+3 all skills) (Otherwise just use homunculus, or any shrunken head with +3 skeleton mastery mod, if you do not have boneflame)
Helm: Harlequin Crest ("Shako") with Um rune in it for resists
Armor: Smoke runeword armor (Nef + Lum) for resistances (or Enigma if you're rich)
Belt: Arachnid mesh is useful for summoning the army, but otherwise not very helpful.
Amulet: amulet with +3 summoning skills for summoning. Then use a crafted safety amulet as described below.
Rings: Ideally rings with + skills (Stone of Jordan or Bul Kathos' wedding band) for summoning army. If you're not rich, just use anything with resists and life/mana.
B. Switch gear (for use after you have completed summoning your army)
Weapon: Beast runeword if you are rich. Otherwise resistance or mf gear depending on needs.
Shield: Homunculus is a great shield for any necro build - socket it with a perfect diamond to make it even better. Some Fishymancers also use Stormshield, but it requires too much strength (156 to be precise). If you don’t want to pump a lot of points in dexterity and still want to have max block, you can use Whistan’s guard. Whistan is rather a bland shield without any great other modifiers except blocking, but it’ll let you have few extra points in vitality.
Armor: For magic finding, consider "Wealth" runeword (Lem + Ko + Tir) if you do not have Skullder's Ire or Enigma runeword)
Belt: Thundergod's vigor belt for lightning absorption (alternatives are Verdungo's hearty cord and Nosferatu's coil for physical damage reduction). If nothing else is available, just wear a rare/crafted belt with resists and +life.
Boots: Consider Sander’s boots or Natalya’s boots for faster run/walk, or War Travelers for magic find.
Note that if you have additional skeletons because of + skill items, the additional skeletons will disappear when you switch from your +skill gear to your mf or resistance gear if your number of skills drops. For example, your current Raise Skeleton level is 20 right now after all +skill items. Then you switch your gear, and then have only level 10 in Raise skeleton. This will cause 3 skeletons to disintegrate. The disintegration of additional skeletons is instant in town, but they can linger on for a minute or two when you switch outside town. Don't know why that is so, maybe a bug. I prefer never to switch weapons in town for this reason, one extra skelly for a few minutes can't hurt
8. General strategies:
(i) Killing bosses: The general strategy for killing all bosses is the same – cast Clay golem on them to slow them, and also cast Decrepify curse on them to slow them more. In addition, have a cold mage to further slow them. They’d be barely able to move.
Still many bosses can wipe your entire army, but no worries. If you think you're losing your ground, immediately run back to any act 1 area, resurrect your army, replenish your supply of potions, and then jump back into action. If the boss is proving too much for you, consider doing some earlier levels again to level up a bit, and then come back to beat the boss. Keep some extra full or partial rejuvenation potions in your stash ready just in case you run out of the ones in your belt. Before you kill a boss, consider touching an appropriate shrine to max your resists (poison for Andariel, Cold for Duriel, Lightning for Mephisto, and Fire for Diablo. Shrines effects have little use against Baal because he negates it by casting his own spell)
In Hell difficulty, revive some Urdars and take them to the bosses. The Urdars have Crushing Blow in hell (they remove a significant percentage of Boss’ life in one hit) and will quickly bring boss’ health down so your skeletons can easily kill him then. The Urdars are commonly found in (i) Act 2 in the Seven Tombs of Canyon of the Magi, (ii) Durance of Hate, (iii) River of Flame. They may not spawn in some games however, so just make a new game if you want.
(ii) Trading in multiplayer: There are almost no trade games in progress in hardcore mode on battle.net. Try trading through these forums instead. Even then there are far less trades available in hardcore as compared to softcore. If you played softcore for a long time, maybe you didn't realize that the townsfolk in Diablo have a really nice inventory of items for trade. Check them out more often than you do in softcore. (Vendor details below)
(iii) Passworded games: If you play in open public games in hardcore, be aware that other people may try to kill you. Believe me the danger is more real than you can imagine. To stay out of trouble, always play in a passworded game, and only with your trusted buddies. Never play in public hardcore games - you will regret once someone kills you.
(iv) Connection issues: If your buddy has a laggy internet connection, you might want to play with someone who has faster connection. Or else just play alone. If your own connection is laggy (downloading in progress etc) then do not play with your hardcore char for that duration. You have been warned.
(v) Dueling: This build is not intended for PvP use, so don't even think of dueling in hardcore. This is because minions damage is cut by a large fraction in PvP. If someone asks for duel, just say thanks and leave the game.
(vi) Rushing: Most people rush on battle.net these days, and some swear they can't live without it. Recently I came across the extreme form of rushing called "ubering" or "gubering". These are practical ideas for softcore, but way too dangerous for hardcore chars. Hardcore chars should focus on building them "naturally", advancing through quest, so they avoid death as long as possible. If you rush, hardcore is the same as softcore - not fun!
(vii) Crafting items: The game may not be generous enough to give you good items, so you must do something yourself in order to survive. If you got a spare rune, a gem and a jewel, keep crafting items for your use. Craft a safety amulet (Magical amulet + Thul + Emerald + magical jewel) for more blocking and damage reduction. You should use amulets dropped by high-level super-uniques for better results (e.g. Diablo, Baal etc). If you are not able to find a lot of Thul runes to craft with, consider nightmare countess runs. She can drop upto Ko runes I've heard. Also consider trading pgems and other runes for Thul runes on battle.net and these forums.
(viii) Magic find: Wearing magic find gear all the times may not be a good idea because you will sacrifice resistances etc. Rather, you should carry on your game with your resistance and damage reduction gear. When you are bored, then put on your mf gear and farm the last boss you killed. Nightmare Andariel runs are good for drops as well as leveling up from level 30-45.
(ix) Potion quaffing: In hardcore, make it a habit to use healing potion when your life globe is drained out by upto 1/3rd. Use rejuvenation potion as soon as you find your life globe is more than 1/3 empty - always try to stay at maximum health! Keep picking up all those partial rejuvenation potions, and cube three into one full rejuvenation potion. These will go a long way in saving your life in hardcore!
(x) Corpse looting: As mentioned in the Arreat Summit:
(xi) Exploders: Anything that explodes (e.g. fire or cold enchanted monsters) can kill you instantly, especially in hell difficulty. There have been reports of “bugged†fire enchanted monsters although I’m yet to encounter one, fortunately. Rule of the thumb – observe the radius of cold explosions (these are usually the widest range explosions) and maintain at least that much distance from all monsters (I recommend staying away from ALL monsters because sometimes you are not able to read the monster properties well, and they can explode too close to you.) You get too close, and be ready to die.
(xii) Golems: You are given four kinds of golems in the game, although you can have only one at a time. These are Clay, Blood, Iron and Fire golems. None of these golems have sufficient killing powers, but they're used for other reasons.
Clay golem is the best choice because it’s cheap to make (requires very little mana), requires no items (contrast iron golem), and slows enemies by a large percentage (about 50% at level 10 and 63% at level 20). Clay golem is popularly known as "gumby".
Iron golem has its use in specific situations – if you have a good item lying around you dont intend to use or trade, you can make an iron golem out of it. Iron golems are commonly called “rustbuckets†for that reason. The best item to make an iron golem for Baal runs is perhaps Immortal King’s maul or any other item that has crushing blow. Another option is to make iron golem out of items that have aura (e.g. Insight runeword polearm) so your merc can wear something else (e.g. Infinity). Be warned that iron golem will die sooner or later, or it’ll just wander away and disappear, or be killed by a monster, so do not use very costly runes or items for iron golems. High damage iron golem can kill itself by thorns curse by Oblivion Knights in Chaos Sanctuary. Therefore if you’re making insight iron golem, make it out of the lowest damage polearm. Iron golem is popularly known as "rustbucket".
The stats of iron golem are recalculated once you join a game, so make sure you are wearing all your skiller items when you join the game. The iron golem remains at the same level throughout the current game (unless you cast a new iron golem), and the stats will be recalculated when you join the next game.
Blood golem is a very bad idea in hardcore in my opinion because it shares the life and damage with you. It gets hit too much and your life drains drastically, so do not use blood golem unless you really have a compelling reason.
Fire golem is immune to fire, and in fact it heals itself by absorbing fire. It also has a holy fire aura that hardly does any damage in hell difficulty, but it draws all the enemies around to your fire golem, making him the magnet. Some people use fire golem for this reason, but I still feel it's not worth it when you have a cheap, slowing clay golem available.
(xiii) Clay golem as a scouting tool: If you have played an Amazon, you probably already know the value of a Decoy. Necromancers can use the Clay Golem in the same way. Cast Clay Golem in unexplored territories, and he’ll seek out the good, bad and the ugly for you.
(xiv) Mana problems: When you initially start using Corpse Explosion, you will keep running out of mana constantly. This happens around levels 30-55 when your mana pool is not significant, and Corpse Explosion takes a significant chunk of mana in a few clicks. To solve this problem, the best solution is to use Frostburns gauntlets (40% extra mana) with two Stone of Jordan rings (20% extra mana each). (Note that more mana increases mana regeneration too). However if you’re not rich like me, consider using any item with +mana after each kill (you explode bodies and get the mana back with each kill – e.g. Lidless shield), Raven Frost rings (+40 mana), any magic ring with lots of mana (like 100+), mana charms, or Manald Heal rings. Also consider equipping an Insight runeworded polearm to your act 2 merc. Once your merc has insight, you will never run out of mana! If you have a steady supply of runes and four socketed polearms, you can also make an iron golem out of insight runeword.
(xv) hotkeys: You may have to use a lot of hotkeys because of the versatile nature of Necromancer. By default, the game gives you 8 hotkeys from F1-F8. However, you can configure up to 16 hotkeys, and I frequently find using all 16 of them! This is my hotkey setup:
F1: Raise Skeleton
F2: Raise Skeleton Mage
F3: Raise Clay Golem
F4: Bone Armor
F5: Amplify Damage curse
F6: Corpse Explosion
F7: Attract
F8: Decrepify
F9: Dim Vision
F10: Bone Wall
F11: Terror
F12: Town Portal
Backspace: Teleport (charges / Enigma)
+: Revive
-: Life Tap
0: Lower Resist
I wish Blizzard could let me have more than 16 hotkeys, I’d use them too!
(xvi) Teleport: Sometimes your army members will wander astray and get stuck in doorways or tunnels. In such situations, teleport is an essential skill to recollect them all together. You can have teleport either via Enigma runeword armor, or from items that have teleport charges (amulet, Naj's puzzler, Spellsteel unique axe etc). Apart from collecting the minions, teleport also has other uses like bypassing walls to access some areas, avoiding enemies, and namelocking of bosses and other monsters etc. Please remember that items with teleport charges are sometimes very expensive to repair/recharge. If you do not have teleport at all, you can also cast a town portal or act-end stairs/ waypoints to collect your minions.