Guide Summon Necromancer Guide

So, you've got some interest in the Summon Necromancer. In this guide I will try to give you the pointers you need to get use to this class.

Pros of the Summon Necromancer

• They can kill literally anything that the game throws at them due to Amplify Damage and Corpse Explosion being a mix of both Fire and Physical Damage.
• They are relatively safe and won't die provided you have plenty of skeletons up and descent resists. I recommend 15+ skeletons.
• Corpse Explosion will be your main kill move. This move has a massive radius and hits its entire radius without any delay, whereas a hammerdins hammer takes a while to cycle through its entire radius (not shaming hammers).
• They can have more auras up than a paladin! Iron Golem can be used to put up an Aura. Popular Auras are Mediation from Insight, and Fant from Beast.
• Due to the way this server works, you can have multiple characters up at the same time, so you can buff summon necros hard to really increase their damage.
• Summon Necs are quite possibly the cheapest class in the game.
• Can use PnB skillers to boost CE and ur Def (bone armor) or Summon skillers to boost Skelly and Revive Damage and have an indestructible Iron Golem. Summon Skillers and Beast are required for Ubers.
• You can throw gold find gear on them and farm gold easily since Corpse explosion damage does not depend on high +skills. Each run you will earn less gold than a gold find barb but your runs will be much faster since you will assist in the killing.

Cons of the Summon Necromancer

• Corpse explosion falls short in damage when there are many players in the game. You won't be killing as fast as a Hammer, trap sin, java, or light sorc with CE in an 8 player game. Not that it matters though, if you cast Lower Resist, you've made friends
• Can't PVP Damit! Time to use a Token and make a Bone Necro
• Requires Enigma to really shine. But then again so do most of the other classes.
• Your Merc has to be strong since he will be getting the intial kill so that you can start to use CE

Breakpoints You need to hit For your Necromancer
FHR: Either 56% or 86%. Try for 86% by using charms.
FCR: Either 75% or 125%. If you want to use auto-tele, you really need a 9 frame tele and so 125% is mandatory. I try to always hit this with my builds.
FBR: Who cares, you wont be putting any points into dex. If you are going for the max block build then FBR frames are at 20%, 32% or 52%. There isn't much you can do about this.

Breakpoints You need to hit for your Hire
If you decide to use a Cryptic Axe or Colo V then with no level 9 fant from beast you can hit 60, 70, 90, and 105 for IAS.

If you decide to use a Great Pole Axe then with no level 9 fant from beast you can hit 65, 75, 105 for IAS.

If you decide to use a Cryptic Axe or Colo V then with a level 9 fant from beast you can hit 65 or 105 for IAS

If you decide to use a Great Pole Axe then with a level 9 fant from beast you can hit a 45 or 75 for IAS.

Before reading below: If you wish to use a fant aura and a merc that uses Rising Sun for the fire absorption which literally makes your merc invisible, you should make a GPA infinity. Your merc will do slightly less damage, but he will never die. If you want to use a merc that uses Highlords, read notes below.

IMPORTANT NOTES From This: If you want to maximize crushing blow on your merc with a fant aura then with optimal gear and forty you will hit 65% IAS thus a Cryptic Axe or Colo V are the best weapons for you. If you want to maximize crushing blow on your merc with a fant aura and use Treachery then you will hit 110% IAS and so a Cryptic Axe or Colo V is still the best weapon for you! If you are not using a level 9 fant aura, then a Great Pole Axe is the best weapon for you.

On the builds below, I will assume you will be trying to achieve 100% crushing blow for your merc. Doing this makes your merc a smiter and this will allow you to kill Diablo and Baal in no time at all provided you have high IAS. I always run a merc with 110% IAS and 100% Crushing blow with Treachery. If you use forty, yes your merc will do more damage but most of it will be redundant since a merc without forty will still 1 shot mobs.

Chars you can use to buff (cheese with) your Summon Necromancer

You may opt to run 3 games windows at the same time. They will contain an enchant fire sorc, a warcry barb, and your summoner.

The Fire Sorc: Get as much FCR and + to skills on this sorc as you can with whatever gear you can get your hands on. If you don't have enigma, you will want to use this character to teleport you to the Chaos Sanctuary since the path to get there is narrow and summons are quite dumb in constricted areas. They are fine in wide open areas. Moreover, you will want to use this character to cast enchant on all of your skeletons and your hire. Note that when enchant is in the mid 30's in terms of level, it lasts for 10+ minutes and adds roughly 2500 fire damage to anything it is cast on. If you have your hire and +18 skeletons, this is an additional 47,500 fire damage you get for free! If you are able to telebomb with enigma and have a maxed out enchanter, this amounts to some serious damage with or without an infinity! If you have a high lvl enchant (see below) avg dmg is 5167. If you have 17 skeletons up then that's 87847 fire dmg for free. Clearly when you run enchant, having Fant aura with beast is a priority.

Sample Pics:



dat 1% be buggin me

The Warcry Barb: Put all of your points into Shout, Battle Orders, and Battle Command and get some + to skills gear on a barb and you'll have a solid life/mana/def buf that will last you for about 10 minutes. Just enough time to get your run done. When you have a Call to Arms, this isn't necessary however, there are plenty of benefits of having a high level shout cast on your Necro and summons. The high defense will prevent your Necro from getting hit when you tele near mobs. Moreover, the high defense will prevent your minions from getting hit, thus their attacks will not get interrupted and thus you have a dps increase. This buff really isn't necessary but its still fun if you run the entire game.

Notes about your main kill move -- Corpse Explosion
Corpse explosion deals 50% fire and 50% physical damage. The radius of the physical damage is 50% less that of the fire damage. The radius you see in game is for the fire damage radius and not the physical damage radius. Two curses boost corpse explosion damage, namely Amplify damage (-100% to monster Physical resistance) and Lower Resistance (~-50% to monster fire/cold/lightning/poison resistance). Ofc if you have the choice, you should use amplify damage. However if after using amp damage, the monster still has physical immunity, you may opt to use lower resist. Both the fire damage and Physical damage are not consistent. They will deal 35% to 60% of the corpses life. This is why you will be in games and it will take 1 CE to kill a pack and then for an equivalent pack it might take 2 CE.

Notes about using Infinity as a weapon for your hire and not Pride
Infinity will boost the fire damage done by your Corpse Explosion due to it lowering monster resists to fire. Infinity also helps your minions land attacks since it lowers monster defense. Infinity has enhanced damage whereas Pride does not. Pride also has a freeze target mod. Your hire will shatter enemies and you won't be able to corpse explode them . Some say to use pride, I prefer infinity. An interesting combo is using a beast double axe with a might merc using infinity, and a pride iron golem. If you are using an enchant buff, infinity is vastly superior to pride due to the reduction of monster fire resists and defense.

Screen Radius
In 800x600 screen resolution, the screen is 16.7x23 yards. Use this to get a good idea of how much area your Amp and CE is sweeping. After playing the class for a while, you will have good judgement on killing enemies you can't see on your screen with maphack knowledge.

Notes about Selecting an Enigma Base
Everyone has their own opinions on which armor is most optimal. These are mine.

In terms of a base there are three options

Mage Plate
This should be used if you do not intend to use any rings/amus/boots etc with strength. The base strength requirement is 55 and if you have perf attribute torch and anni, you will have 55 str automatically. ie) 15 base start + 20 Torch + 20 Anni.

Dusk Shroud
This should be used if you intend to use some gear that has + to strength. Please note that this has a downfall since you will limit your ability to use different gear combinations in duels. If you are a good dueler, you will know that one gear set is not optimal. You should be switching your equip based on the character you are facing. If you limit yourself to strength equipment, then you limit yourself to different build combinations.

Archon Plate
This should be used if you do not intend to use strength gear and want to be able to use Crown of Ages. Archon Plates have a base str requ of 103. If you are level 95 then the + to str that enigma gives is +71. Thus, if you get your strength to 103 and slap on enigma at lvl 95, you meet the 174 strength requirement of Crown of Ages perfectly.

Gear -- Low End
Helm -- Any Shako Socket with Ral for +30 fire resists
Amulet -- Trash Maras
Weapon -- Any unique wand you can get your hands on or White in a descent base (Dol/Io)
Armor -- Viper Magi Sock with Um for resists or Shael for FHR or Bone Plate (Sol/Um/Um)
Shield -- 35% FCR Spirit (Tal/Thul/Ort/Amn)
Gloves -- Magefists (+1 fire skills gives +1 to CE). If you lack cold res, use Trang.
Ring L -- FCR ring. Try to get strength and res if you can.
Belt -- Trash Arach
Ring R -- Any BK ring or Rare ring with some good mods that you need
Booties -- MarrowWalk
Iron Golem -- Insight (Ral/Tir/Tal/Sol)

Most people are very nice on the server and will throw most of this gear on the ground as freebies.

Hire -- Act 2 NM offensive Might Merc -- Low End
Helm -- Andys
Amulet -- Highlords Wrath
Weapon -- Obedience (Hel/Ko/Thul/Eth/Fal) placed in a Pole arm. In this scenerio, you want to put it into a great pole axe or cryptic axe. GPA will hit better breakpoints if you do.
Armor -- Any Plate with Treachery (Shael/Thul/Lem)
Gloves -- Crafted 20 IAS gloves. Try to get 10% crushing blow.
Ring -- Carrion Wind
Belt -- Nosferatu's Coil
Booties -- Gore Rider

Gear -- Mid Range
Helm -- Shako socketed with Shael
Amulet -- Maras 30
Weapon -- HOTO
Armor -- Any Enigma. Donating to get an enigma is a good idea. You support the server and you don't have to go through all the BS of getting Jah and Ber with bad gear. It's a win win scenario.
Shield -- 35% FCR Spirit (Tal/Thul/Ort/Amn)
Gloves -- Magefists (+1 fire skills gives +1 to CE). If you lack cold res, use Trang.
Ring L -- FCR ring with Any res you need to cap out. Extra life or strength is a bonus.
Belt -- descent def Arach
Ring R -- SOJ or BK
Booties -- HotSpur. Grab these from Blood Raven in a1 Norm.
Iron Golem -- Insight (Ral/Tir/Tal/Sol)

Hire -- Act 2 NM offensive Might Merc -- Mid Range
Helm -- Guillaumes Face with IAS jewel
Amulet -- Highlords Wrath
Weapon -- Infinity Great Pole Axe (Ber/Mal/Ber/Ist) if you have it or still stick with Obedience.
Armor -- Any Plate with Treachery (Shael/Thul/Lem)
Gloves -- Crafted 20 IAS gloves with 10% crushing blow and strength
Ring -- Carrion Wind
Belt -- Nosferatu's Coil
Booties -- Gore Rider

Please Note Beyond this point: If you are not using Summon Skillers, then you should be using HOTO or Spirit as your main weapon. Beast should only be used when you are using Summon Skillers and you are buffing your merc and skells with enchant for that OP damage.

Gear -- Top Tier Nuke Build (You want 125% FCr, the biggest CE ever, insane FHR (152%) with no Max Block, great defense with bone armor, and have a pack of PnB Skillers)
Helm -- Crown of Ages Socket with 2 UM runes
Amulet -- Maras 30 or Necro FCR Amu
Weapon -- 35% FCR Spirit (Tal/Thul/Ort/Amn) in a sword. Long Sword FTW.
Armor -- Perfect Enigma from shop
Shield -- 35% FCR Spirit (Tal/Thul/Ort/Amn)
Gloves -- Mages (+1 fire skills gives +1 to CE). If you lack cold res, use Trang.
Ring L -- FCR ring with Life/Mana and Res or FCR and strength requ for equips, or BK or SOJ
Belt -- High Def Arach
Ring R -- FCR ring with life/mana res or BK or SOJ.
Booties -- Aldurs
Iron Golem -- Insight (Ral/Tir/Tal/Sol)

** To reach 152% FHR, you will have to use 1 PnB skiller with FHR. Achieving 125% or in this case 130% fcr can be done with rings or amus. I don't know which you want to use. Either is fine since CE damage is not dependent on + to skills. Increasing its radius is a priority since you are effectively increasing its damage due to the physical damage being half the displayed radius.

This build will easily wreck Poison Nova builds in 1p and 3p games in terms of speed. I personally feel it is the fastest and one of the most safest of all the builds I've written about.

Below are builds that utilize Summon Skillers.

Gear -- Top Tier Version 1 (you cant part ways with your insight IG and also want Fant for your minions)
Helm -- +2 Necro, 20 FCR, Res, life, and if feasible, strength. Socket with whatever res you need.
Amulet -- +2 Necro 10 FCR ammy with res and life. If you are extremely lucky +2 necro 20 fcr ammy.
Weapon -- Beast Double Axe with good str mod
Armor -- Perfect Enigma from shop
Shield -- 35% FCR Spirit (Tal/Thul/Ort/Amn)
Gloves -- Magefists (+1 fire skills gives +1 to CE). If you lack cold res, use Trang.
Ring L -- FCR ring with Life/Mana and Res or FCR and strength requ for equips.
Belt -- High Def Arach
Ring R -- FCR ring with life/mana res
Booties -- MarrowWalk with 20 str
Iron Golem -- Insight (Ral/Tir/Tal/Sol)

Gear -- Top Tier Version 2 (if you don't mind playing without your insight IG and want to gamble with a Beast Iron Golem) Prepare to guzzle tones of Purple Drank!
Helm -- Shako socketed with Ral
Amulet -- Maras 30
Weapon -- HOTO
Armor -- Perfect Enigma from shop
Shield -- 35% FCR Spirit (Tal/Thul/Ort/Amn)
Gloves -- Magefists (+1 fire skills gives +1 to CE). If you lack cold res, use Trang.
Ring L -- Ring L -- FCR ring with Life/Mana and Res or FCR and strength requ for equips.
Belt -- High Def Arach
Ring R -- SOJ for some extra mana.
Booties -- MarrowWalk with 20 str
Iron Golem -- Beast (Ber/Tir/Um/Mal/Lum)

Gear -- Top Tier Version 3 (Max Block with Beast)
Helm -- +2 Necro, 20 FCR, Res, life, mana. Socket with Shael.
Amulet -- Maras with 30 res
Weapon -- Beast Double Axe with good str mod
Armor -- Perfect Enigma from shop
Shield -- Homunculus socket with shael
Gloves -- Magefists (+1 fire skills gives +1 to CE). If you lack cold res, use Trang.
Ring L -- FCR ring with life and res
Belt -- High Def Arach
Ring R -- FCR ring with life and res
Booties -- MarrowWalk with 20 str
Iron Golem -- Insight (Ral/Tir/Tal/Sol)

*Note: You might need to get a +15 res GC to cap out your resists. You should use 2 FHR+Res SC's and 2 FRW+Res SCs to help out as well. This set up will grant you 80% fcr to hit the 75% fcr breakpoint. If you have a sweet +2 fcr amu, you can always swap out maras however, good rare rings are better than soj or bk.

Hire -- Act 2 NM offensive Might Merc -- Top Tier Version where you have a Crypt Axe
Helm -- Guillaumes Face with IAS jewel
Amulet -- Highlords Wrath
Weapon -- Infinity Cryptic Axe (Ber/Mal/Ber/Ist)
Armor -- Any Plate with Treachery (Shael/Thul/Lem) or Eth Bugged Fortitude
Gloves -- Crafted 20 IAS gloves with 10% crushing blow and strength
Ring -- Carrion Wind
Belt -- Nosferatu's Coil
Booties -- Gore Rider

Hire -- Act 2 NM offensive Might Merc -- Top Tier Version where you have a GPA (After some testing I'm really starting to like this modification since my hire never dies!)
Helm -- Guillaumes Face with IAS jewel
Amulet -- Rising Sun
Weapon -- Infinity Great Pole Axe (Ber/Mal/Ber/Ist)
Armor -- Any Plate with Treachery (Shael/Thul/Lem) or you can use Fortitude Plate
Gloves -- Crafted 20 IAS gloves with 10% crushing blow and strength
Ring -- Carrion Wind
Belt -- Nosferatu's Coil
Booties -- Gore Rider

**Note that this will basically make your merc invisible due to the fire absorption of Rising Sun. This only works well with GPA infinity due to break points. You will hit 90 IAS so you hit the 75% break point. If you use Fortitude, you will hit 45% and meet that break point perfectly!

Secondary Weapons
In all cases you should be using a Call to Arms (Amn/Ral/Mal/Ist/Ohm) and a Spirit to cast Battle Command and Battle Orders to boost the HP of yourself and your minions. BO is extremely helpful in keeping your Iron Golem alive.

Skill Trees
Summoning Spells
20-Skeleton Mastery
20-Raise Skeleton
20-Golem Mastery
1-Clay Golem
1-Blood Golem
1-Iron Golem
1-Summon Resists
1-Raise Skeletal Mage
1-Revive

Poison and Bone Spells
20-Corpse Explosion
1-Teeth
1-Bone armor
1-Bone Wall
1-Bone Spear
1-Bone Prison

Curses
1- in Everything. You may opt to not get Dim Vision, Confuse, and Attract. You can go even further and not get Iron Maiden, Life Tap, and Lower Resist. Decriptify is a must for fast and efficient baal kills.

Extra Points: You will have a few extra points to play around with. You may opt to put them into Amp Damage to increase it's radius (I recommend this the most), into revive to get more minions (only for ubers most of the time you will only use your skelies), blood golem to increase the HP of your Iron Golem.

Stat Points
Strength -- Enough for your gear. In some cases Zero
Dexterity -- Zero (if running block, you should put around 80+ points into dex, max block requires 100+ points dex)
Vitality -- Everything else!
Energy -- Zero

Overall Play Strategy with Enigma

1. Teleport very close to mob
2. Amp damage
3. By this time you cast your amp damage, your hire should have killed a monster and so start to corpse explode.
4. Pick up loot, recast bone armor.
5. Rince and Repeat

Situational deviations: If you run into a mob that has tones of ranged attacks, cast Attract and they will start to hit the monster that has been cursed. This is extremely helpful against monsters that cast Hydra and Lightning. Against Baal you should always use decrp, this will prevent him from being extremely annoying by teleporting and casting clones of himself. If something is physically immune after casting amp damage, try casting lower resist and hit it hard with your minions that were enchanted by fire and note that 50% of Corpse explosion damage is fire!

Run Path for geared Necros.

1. Stony Field and Kill Griz and Pick up Wirts Leg. During this, get your max # of skeletons in Trist.
2. With second game window, bring sorc into the game and open the cow level. Go into the cow level with both chars, BO your sorc with your nec if you have it and have your sorc cast enchant on your Necros minions. Exit game with sorc.
3. Murder Dem cows. Pray for Zod!
4. Countass. Pray for Lo (Should skip this if you don't use auto tele)
5. Andy -- if you need blue essence
6. Summoner -- mmm hate keys. Sometimes he drops soj and nice rare helms :0. Note that Specters (the ghosts) have good drop tables for gems, jewels and runes You may opt to skip this.
7. If you have amp damage cast on you, go and do Trav. Afterwards use the well to get rid of amp damage and then proceed to meph. If you don't have amp damage on you, proceed to meph and then do trav. In doing this you are hoping for a Unique GC drop or some good rune drops in trav (rarely happens). If you have amp damage cast on you, teleporting in the durance can be dangerous since the skeletons can kill you if while teleporting your merc decides to kill them.
8. Diablo. In Chaos, I prefer to kill everything. The density in chaos is very good. This is where I mainly get my good drops and high runes. If you don't have enigma, quit out.
9. Nith. Don't be afraid, be a man and just tele in there amp damage and CE. Nith will die instantly and shouldn't get an opportunity to CE you.
10. Baal. Depending on monster density, you should just tele and get to the throne room asap.
11. Got 3x3 keys? Kill Ubers. Note that Ubers require a fant aura and lots of revives. Your merc should remain alive if he has fade. If you are using eth bugged forty, bring a barb and use shout.

Holy crap if you got through all of this, give yourself a pat on the back.

So you're broke and you just started. What should you do to get started with a Summon Necro.

1. Make a summon Necro and Fire Sorc
2. Make a game asking for some freebies or shoot a post on the site and try to get some freebies. Aim for Low end gear option.
3. Get rushed or play the game till you are lvl 85+
4. Play the game with 2 game windows open. Raise skeletons and enchant them as well as your merc.
5. Play only wide open areas with very high monster density. The best spots are the cow level and chaos sanctuary. You should use your fire sorc to go into Trist and get the leg and open up the cow level. Then use the sorc and go into river and teleport to the middle of the chaos sanctuary where Diablo spawns. Open up a portal and let your Necro with his fire enchanted summons in. Exit the game with your sorc.
6. Kill Diablo then go back to Act 1
7. Do cows for gems and high runes
8. Rince and repeat. After some time, you will eventually get a nice gear drop or enough runes to make Enigma and Infinity. You can also sell all of your gems and jewels. The current price is 40 Gems for Vex and 40 jewels for Vex+Gul or perhaps Ohm. If you have a ilvl 94,95,99 Grand charm from Diablo, Nith, or Baal you should roll your gems. At the current price of 40 Gems for Vex, mathematically it is more beneficial to roll your charms. If the price of gems goes to 40 gems for ohm, the odds are fairly stable and so you can go either way.

Good Luck!

 

Very good guide @D2GoForBroke , Great work !

 

Gj bro

 

nice very nice to see new guides made for old game and never dying community

 

Tyvm for guide pretty much keep it open all the time while playing.

 

great guide.
but
why not goblin toe on merc. 25 vs 15 cb.

 

What you think abou wz + storm or kokomal and reach 125fcr max block and nice rez?

 

Can you show how you count it?

 

Great review I have been playing a summon Necro since the start