12-04-2004, 01:28 PM
1. Skills
Curses
+1 to all Curses
(some you won't use much, this build uses Amp, Decrep, and Attract a lot, but the rest are nice for party play and don't require but 1 pt investment)
Poison/Bone
+20 Bone Spirit
+20 Bone Prison - (only costs 1 mana at high level and has insane amounts of life, great for tying up all sorts of annoying enemies and especially LEB's and Baal's minions as well as bosses, This is also really good for bone walling out any party members who cant teleport or leap attack so that you get a better chance at the boss drops, it pretty much ensures an amazon cant get anywhere near Baal when he dies)
+1 Prerequisites
Nothing into Poison
All extra Skills into Bone Wall or Bone Spear (basically if you want a useful bone spear or extra bone armor)
Summoning
+20 Skeleton Mastery
+3 Skeleton
+3 Skeleton Mage
+3 Revive
+5 Golem Mastery
+2 Clay Golem
+1 Summon Res
+1 Blood/Iron Golem (perhaps not necessary except for clay golem synergy)
(the rest of the summons are fleshed out by plus to skill and give you a fairly substantial and undying army if done correctly)
Do all the pre-req's (meaning everything else up there except for the golem mastery) before you max bone spirit and Skeleton Mastery, and try to put 4 or 5 points into bone spirit as soon as you get it, then go back to Skeleton mastery and max them both at the same time. Then max prison, and then allocate points into whatever other bone synergy you desire.
I have all 16 skills allocated on my keyboard in this arrangement to prevent easy use of almost any curse.
BS on Left Click
F1 - Amp
F2 - BA
F3 - CE
F4 - Decrep
F5 - CG
F6 - RS
F7 - RM
F8 - Revive
F9 - BP
F10 - Attract
Then on the Insert- Pg Down keypad I have 6 more curses I use for party play or when bored
2. Stats
Strength - As much as needed for gear 60 for Vipermagi/Frostburns, more if you have a higher strength enigma (95 for scarab husk probably the heaviest) or however much you need for Trangs
Dexterity - Either enough for max blocking for whatever head you have or none at all. With this build you will have very substantial Bone armor and block won't help against elemental attacks so it might just be good to with none. My necromancer has max block for Homunculus and has no problems however.
Vitality - The rest of your points after Strength/Dexterity/Energy
Energy - I would recommend at least 50 pts into here since this build relies on Bone Spirit a lot and I use Trangs gloves instead of Frostburns, but someone with a lot of mana charms could probably get by without any.
3. Gear
Several things to note before I get into this. Max Resists are very very nice for this build, but Cannot Be Frozen isn't necessary since you will be standing behind a wall of minions or bone prison most of the time. I will also put a special section into MF gear at the end since he can be used quite well for MF.
Fast Cast is nice, but isn't critical, therefore I would suggest taking gear for resists and + to skill over Fast Cast in this case. You tend to run out of mana and chug blue potions fast enough as it is.
FHR is also nice but not critical since your Bone Armor will usually protect you until you can run behind you minions again as well.
Trangs Set probably works well for this build though I haven't tried it, I'll be listing the Trangs set pieces as choices for gear. Then uniques and Runewords I use, I like better than Trangs and I don't look like a stupid Bloodlord.
(I'll be listing an ideal candidate and then several other useful ones as well, some cheap and some good for low level)
Helm
Ideally, Harlequin Crest, Um'ed, Ptopaz, or Pskull all work well
Also Wormskull
Undead Crown
Lore
Peasant Crown
+2 Circlet with good Mods
Trangs
Armor
Ideally, Enigma so you can teleport your army
Also Vipermagi is especially good
Que Hegans
Spirit Shroud
Duriel's Shell
Trangs Armor
Belt
Ideally, Arachnid Mesh
Also Nightsmoke mesh belt (upgraded)
Trangs Belt
Gloomstrap for extra mana
Tal's belt
Crafted Caster belt
Lenymo for really low levels
Glove
Trangs Gloves Ideally (the +2 to curses is nice)
Frostburn
Magefist
Boots
Ideally, Marrowwalk for the + to Skeleton mastery and the other good mods or if you don't use bone prison and just use Bonewall, though I think that getting to use bone prison outweighs the Bone Spirit synergy
Good rares with mana 30% FRW and Resists
Silkweave
Nats boots
Aldurs Boots
Waterwalk
Shield
Ideally, Homunculus, Preferably with an um rune for more resists. You just can't beat this shield
1.10 Necromancer heads
a good rare +1 or +2 head
Trangs head
Rhyme head with good + to skill
Wand
All sorts of choices here, I'm partial to Blackhand for the extra curses, but Umes with its big boost to decrepify is nice, The Arm of the King works well, Gravenspine is good at low levels, as is the Torch of Iro which can be used at level 5, and the new wands or a magical +2 to skill wand are all good choices.
Rings
Ideally 2 sojs,
otherwise ravenfrost, especially if you go for blocking or a Bahamuts ring of the apprentice with a sick amount of mana and 10% fast cast work well too.
Amulets
IMO Ideally Maras for the resists and the + to skill, otherwise any sort of +2 to necromancer skill amulets with good mods like mana, fast cast, res all, life, strength, dexterity are very useful, as is the Eye of Etlich at low levels, or a +2 caster amulet
Charms
You will want a mix of PB and Summon Charms depending on how the rest of your gear shakes out, mixed with 10-11% res small charms or 5% res all small charms to shore up resistances you don't have maxed. The Annihilus is awesome for those lucky buggers who managed to get one as well.
4. Mercenaries
I know lots of everyone always use Act 2 mercenaries, but I highly recommend an act 1 Fire Rogue mercenary for this build. My reasoning behind this is that she does really good damage with a decent bow, She doesn't die, and she does wonders in getting you that first corpse either for CE or for Revive, Skeleton, etc. You don't really rely on your minion damage enough in this build to merit a might mercenary IMO. If you do decide to go act 2 Mercenary, then go for might, as he is the best one of them for this build.
I don't suggest cold because shattered corpses are useless to a necromancer.
Gear for the mercenary
Helm - Rock stopper, Steal skull, Gaze, Val wing are all useful, with my suggestion being the rock stopper since its cheap and has resists.
Armor - Duriel's shell, Crow Caw, Twitch throe, Skin of the Flayed one. Basically resists, attack speed, life leech, dexterity are things to look for
Bows - Start with a 3 chip gemmed hunters bow, then get rares or whatever you can find until she can use skystrike or riphook. Both work well. Then Cliffkiller or Goldstrike being great choices, and Eaglehorn or Windforce for the rich.
5. Strategies
I generally play a melee necromancer with a 3 socket chipped gem spear through act 1 normal and use clay golem and iron maiden to kill off Andariel. (Power leveling strategies include getting a Khalim's Flail or a Hellforge hammer with another char and murdering everything everywhere in act 1 and 2) By act2 I have enough of an army to start playing like a Skelemancer. 3 skeletons, 3 mages, a golem and mercenary at the very least make a pretty good army for going through act 2. (with good gear by level 25 you should have +4or5 to skill and your minions just run though and destroy everything, otherwise you will just have to be patient, keep recasting, and keep a melee weapon on switch) Decrepify works wonders on the bosses and they should die pretty fast to your buffed out minions. You might also use attract or confuse on groups of monsters here since it is very effective in normal.
Normal Diablo/Baal will probably be the biggest problem for this build, my suggestions are either to get in a party, or use iron maiden and clay golem, or decrep them and hope your minions are strong enough to do it. Also at this point you should have a few points into bone spirit/spear and be able to support them that way.
Corpse Explosion is a great skill to use in 1-3 player games, and after that its better to just revive the corpses for use as meat shields for the party rather than wasting them on blowing them up for negligible impact.
Killing magic immunes is pretty easy, as they die to the rogue generally, or amp+CE and minions.
Once you get to nightmare and hell, the bosses should be pretty easy to take on, decrep and clay golem and bone prison usually renders all of them as easy meat to your army, provided you have high resists and can stand up to any elemental attacks. Diablo and Mephisto die especially fast to this. Baal running takes a little while but is generally pretty safe behind the wall of minions.
To kill Black Souls, max resist is nice, but its also good if you just cast your golem near them, decrep them or dim vision them, and let your mercenary shoot them from a distance while you send Bone spirit's their way as well, Dim Vision is pretty much the best way to go since it prevents them from shooting.
6. MF
Ideal Gear
Shako with Ptopaz
Enigma
Chance Guards
War Travs
MF Charms
Ist'ed wand
:: see the rest of the gear
I really cant justify sacrificing anything more than this for the purposes of MF since the idea is to not die, and if you lose plus to skills with the Necromancer your killing speed drops quite a bit.
That's it. Suggestions welcome.
Curses
+1 to all Curses
(some you won't use much, this build uses Amp, Decrep, and Attract a lot, but the rest are nice for party play and don't require but 1 pt investment)
Poison/Bone
+20 Bone Spirit
+20 Bone Prison - (only costs 1 mana at high level and has insane amounts of life, great for tying up all sorts of annoying enemies and especially LEB's and Baal's minions as well as bosses, This is also really good for bone walling out any party members who cant teleport or leap attack so that you get a better chance at the boss drops, it pretty much ensures an amazon cant get anywhere near Baal when he dies)
+1 Prerequisites
Nothing into Poison
All extra Skills into Bone Wall or Bone Spear (basically if you want a useful bone spear or extra bone armor)
Summoning
+20 Skeleton Mastery
+3 Skeleton
+3 Skeleton Mage
+3 Revive
+5 Golem Mastery
+2 Clay Golem
+1 Summon Res
+1 Blood/Iron Golem (perhaps not necessary except for clay golem synergy)
(the rest of the summons are fleshed out by plus to skill and give you a fairly substantial and undying army if done correctly)
Do all the pre-req's (meaning everything else up there except for the golem mastery) before you max bone spirit and Skeleton Mastery, and try to put 4 or 5 points into bone spirit as soon as you get it, then go back to Skeleton mastery and max them both at the same time. Then max prison, and then allocate points into whatever other bone synergy you desire.
I have all 16 skills allocated on my keyboard in this arrangement to prevent easy use of almost any curse.
BS on Left Click
F1 - Amp
F2 - BA
F3 - CE
F4 - Decrep
F5 - CG
F6 - RS
F7 - RM
F8 - Revive
F9 - BP
F10 - Attract
Then on the Insert- Pg Down keypad I have 6 more curses I use for party play or when bored
2. Stats
Strength - As much as needed for gear 60 for Vipermagi/Frostburns, more if you have a higher strength enigma (95 for scarab husk probably the heaviest) or however much you need for Trangs
Dexterity - Either enough for max blocking for whatever head you have or none at all. With this build you will have very substantial Bone armor and block won't help against elemental attacks so it might just be good to with none. My necromancer has max block for Homunculus and has no problems however.
Vitality - The rest of your points after Strength/Dexterity/Energy
Energy - I would recommend at least 50 pts into here since this build relies on Bone Spirit a lot and I use Trangs gloves instead of Frostburns, but someone with a lot of mana charms could probably get by without any.
3. Gear
Several things to note before I get into this. Max Resists are very very nice for this build, but Cannot Be Frozen isn't necessary since you will be standing behind a wall of minions or bone prison most of the time. I will also put a special section into MF gear at the end since he can be used quite well for MF.
Fast Cast is nice, but isn't critical, therefore I would suggest taking gear for resists and + to skill over Fast Cast in this case. You tend to run out of mana and chug blue potions fast enough as it is.
FHR is also nice but not critical since your Bone Armor will usually protect you until you can run behind you minions again as well.
Trangs Set probably works well for this build though I haven't tried it, I'll be listing the Trangs set pieces as choices for gear. Then uniques and Runewords I use, I like better than Trangs and I don't look like a stupid Bloodlord.
(I'll be listing an ideal candidate and then several other useful ones as well, some cheap and some good for low level)
Helm
Ideally, Harlequin Crest, Um'ed, Ptopaz, or Pskull all work well
Also Wormskull
Undead Crown
Lore
Peasant Crown
+2 Circlet with good Mods
Trangs
Armor
Ideally, Enigma so you can teleport your army
Also Vipermagi is especially good
Que Hegans
Spirit Shroud
Duriel's Shell
Trangs Armor
Belt
Ideally, Arachnid Mesh
Also Nightsmoke mesh belt (upgraded)
Trangs Belt
Gloomstrap for extra mana
Tal's belt
Crafted Caster belt
Lenymo for really low levels
Glove
Trangs Gloves Ideally (the +2 to curses is nice)
Frostburn
Magefist
Boots
Ideally, Marrowwalk for the + to Skeleton mastery and the other good mods or if you don't use bone prison and just use Bonewall, though I think that getting to use bone prison outweighs the Bone Spirit synergy
Good rares with mana 30% FRW and Resists
Silkweave
Nats boots
Aldurs Boots
Waterwalk
Shield
Ideally, Homunculus, Preferably with an um rune for more resists. You just can't beat this shield
1.10 Necromancer heads
a good rare +1 or +2 head
Trangs head
Rhyme head with good + to skill
Wand
All sorts of choices here, I'm partial to Blackhand for the extra curses, but Umes with its big boost to decrepify is nice, The Arm of the King works well, Gravenspine is good at low levels, as is the Torch of Iro which can be used at level 5, and the new wands or a magical +2 to skill wand are all good choices.
Rings
Ideally 2 sojs,
otherwise ravenfrost, especially if you go for blocking or a Bahamuts ring of the apprentice with a sick amount of mana and 10% fast cast work well too.
Amulets
IMO Ideally Maras for the resists and the + to skill, otherwise any sort of +2 to necromancer skill amulets with good mods like mana, fast cast, res all, life, strength, dexterity are very useful, as is the Eye of Etlich at low levels, or a +2 caster amulet
Charms
You will want a mix of PB and Summon Charms depending on how the rest of your gear shakes out, mixed with 10-11% res small charms or 5% res all small charms to shore up resistances you don't have maxed. The Annihilus is awesome for those lucky buggers who managed to get one as well.
4. Mercenaries
I know lots of everyone always use Act 2 mercenaries, but I highly recommend an act 1 Fire Rogue mercenary for this build. My reasoning behind this is that she does really good damage with a decent bow, She doesn't die, and she does wonders in getting you that first corpse either for CE or for Revive, Skeleton, etc. You don't really rely on your minion damage enough in this build to merit a might mercenary IMO. If you do decide to go act 2 Mercenary, then go for might, as he is the best one of them for this build.
I don't suggest cold because shattered corpses are useless to a necromancer.
Gear for the mercenary
Helm - Rock stopper, Steal skull, Gaze, Val wing are all useful, with my suggestion being the rock stopper since its cheap and has resists.
Armor - Duriel's shell, Crow Caw, Twitch throe, Skin of the Flayed one. Basically resists, attack speed, life leech, dexterity are things to look for
Bows - Start with a 3 chip gemmed hunters bow, then get rares or whatever you can find until she can use skystrike or riphook. Both work well. Then Cliffkiller or Goldstrike being great choices, and Eaglehorn or Windforce for the rich.
5. Strategies
I generally play a melee necromancer with a 3 socket chipped gem spear through act 1 normal and use clay golem and iron maiden to kill off Andariel. (Power leveling strategies include getting a Khalim's Flail or a Hellforge hammer with another char and murdering everything everywhere in act 1 and 2) By act2 I have enough of an army to start playing like a Skelemancer. 3 skeletons, 3 mages, a golem and mercenary at the very least make a pretty good army for going through act 2. (with good gear by level 25 you should have +4or5 to skill and your minions just run though and destroy everything, otherwise you will just have to be patient, keep recasting, and keep a melee weapon on switch) Decrepify works wonders on the bosses and they should die pretty fast to your buffed out minions. You might also use attract or confuse on groups of monsters here since it is very effective in normal.
Normal Diablo/Baal will probably be the biggest problem for this build, my suggestions are either to get in a party, or use iron maiden and clay golem, or decrep them and hope your minions are strong enough to do it. Also at this point you should have a few points into bone spirit/spear and be able to support them that way.
Corpse Explosion is a great skill to use in 1-3 player games, and after that its better to just revive the corpses for use as meat shields for the party rather than wasting them on blowing them up for negligible impact.
Killing magic immunes is pretty easy, as they die to the rogue generally, or amp+CE and minions.
Once you get to nightmare and hell, the bosses should be pretty easy to take on, decrep and clay golem and bone prison usually renders all of them as easy meat to your army, provided you have high resists and can stand up to any elemental attacks. Diablo and Mephisto die especially fast to this. Baal running takes a little while but is generally pretty safe behind the wall of minions.
To kill Black Souls, max resist is nice, but its also good if you just cast your golem near them, decrep them or dim vision them, and let your mercenary shoot them from a distance while you send Bone spirit's their way as well, Dim Vision is pretty much the best way to go since it prevents them from shooting.
6. MF
Ideal Gear
Shako with Ptopaz
Enigma
Chance Guards
War Travs
MF Charms
Ist'ed wand
:: see the rest of the gear
I really cant justify sacrificing anything more than this for the purposes of MF since the idea is to not die, and if you lose plus to skills with the Necromancer your killing speed drops quite a bit.
That's it. Suggestions welcome.
