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.
@@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.
@@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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
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.
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 CZcams 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.
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.
People have mentioned 'Pride' runeword for the damage boosting concentration aura for your merc but you could also give them a 'Bramble' armour for the thorns aura. I've experimented with using a 'Wisp Projector' ring for a Heart of Wolverine (+damage and +attack rating) but even with the Battle Orders from CTA it dies relatively easily. Still fun to use though if you want 'fully' buffed minions. Speaking of fully buffed, making the 'Pride' into an iron golem and giving an 'Infinity' to your merc instead will also give your enemies the conviction aura which lowers their defense (and resists) meaning your skeletons hit more often. Making such an iron golem is extremely expensive and risky however because while iron golems do remain between games, I've found they have an annoying tendency to just disappear sometimes so user beware. Don't underestimate the power of teleport on a summon necro. The ability to bring all of your minions to bear on a single target by teleporting on the them is very strong. Even just bringing all your minions to your location can be helpful in challenging areas such as the maggot lair and arcane sanctuary. If you can't get an enigma or if you're lower level, shopping a staff with teleport charges for your switch can be quite clutch. Worth noting that amplify damage does increase your corpse explosion damage which is 50% physical damage (the other 50% being fire).
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.
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♡
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.
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.
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.
@@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!
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...
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
I wish they would make summoner as it used to be for the d2 classic version we're getting if you don't want to play LoD where 1 skillpoint in skeletons was 1 skeleton more in your army. Also can't wait to see what Trang'ouls fullset looks like in 3D.
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!
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
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.
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.
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
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.
@@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)
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
Fun to Tele-stomp bosses with this build, cant skip a kelpie snare on the merc though. Also fun to try... the slowness from the Clay Golem stacks with it, and if you add Decrepify bosses more-or-less stop moving. (I know Might is better than Holy Freeze aura, but you have to atleast try it with this slowness setup at least once for fun). So... Slow From Snare, Slow from Golem, Slow From Decrepify, Slow From Holy-Freeze. (it's the Old Bullet-Time Baal Build, Sometimes just called BulletBaal).
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.
![[GUIDE] Diablo 2 - Poison Necromancer](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/H9bgPZKU7kI/mqdefault.jpg)
![[GUIDE] Diablo 2 - Poison Necromancer](/img/tr.png)
![[GUIDE] Diablo 2 Resurrected - How Combat Mechanics Work (Deadly Strike, Crushing Blow, Etc)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/e5iSXOUUMOA/mqdefault.jpg)
Blood Raven: "Join my army of the dead"
Summon Necro: No U
I'd really appreciate if you' put all "guided playthroughs" and subsequent guides into one playlist. Thanks for making them, too!
A well-structured playlist will be a gold mine when d2r drops.
Yes please
yes this would have amazing production value so people dont have to play the game, just follow build like mindless sheep =)
yes please
You can easily make the playlist yourself
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.
Do you know any game like this? I meant the feeling from it. Something like old fallout or UFO aftermatch
all of us gotta do summon necro at least once to feel like a 9 year old with unstoppable power like we used to
It doesnt feel unstoppable when diablo wrecks you
@@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.
@@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.
and gets destroyed by andariel. i will never forget how i felt with my first summoner. i was so bad as a kiddo :D
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
Really appreciate you caring for those players who just wanna play casually! Great guide!
Yes!
A lot of guides assume you're going to trade or nolife which isn't really the goal for a lot of players.
@@belurso5179 Exactly!!
Levelling the Amplify Damage skill is technically not pointless, as it takes a point everytime you level it :)
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.
Clearing speed
Saucy thing
Top kek
You all didnt get the joke apparently........
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
dont even need the clay just decrep but yes very good.
add a merc with cold damage on weapon to slow even further
Fishy>all boss's
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
These guides are awesome! Your content has aided in my reignited love for Diablo 2! Thanks man
d2 necro kindled my undying love for summoners. subbed
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!
Just picked up remastered, was looking for a through level to level setup. Thanks so much for this 👍🏻
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.
Can't wait to see you hit 100k! You're the man. Glad I found you and started following when I did.
This is exactly what I was looking for,
I just started my necromancer today
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
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.
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.
Yeah it's terrible. Would be nice if fixed in remaster
This definitely sounds like something they should fix for the Remaster
revive disappearing is a good way to balance it tbh
@@Philadoni a bad way to lose your beast iron golem. so painful.
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.
Thats so strange , me too ! :)
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 :)
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!
Thanks for doing these guides! Really great to refresh the memory before D2R. I just subbed, hoping you'll hit your 100k subs today!
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!
Best person to ask any question about Diablo II
I actually found max summon resist to be key to taking nightmare bosses . The skeletons last much longer from ae's
Strange that it is worth speccing being diminishing returns
Fantastic guide! Would really appreciate more in this style!
- I bought D2 again in 2021
- start my first summon necro
- start having fun
- D2R gets announced
- wot
Lol same thing for me! Started replaying D2 a week ago and then they announce resurrected!
keep playing refresh ur memory til launch u will have big advantage
Uuuuh not rlly gonna have an advantage when the game has totally different graphics. Its gonna be a totally different game.
@@kileNoe What the hell is that supposed to mean? The mechanics are going to be exact same thing as regular D2. Graphics? Actual lol.
@@kileNoe dude re-read that and think it over.
its an overlay of existing d2
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!
One of the best D2 guides I've ever seen lol
Thanks a lot, more newbie frendly than the other build i have seen on CZcams !
That CZcams voice in the beginning. Love the vids and the streams when I’m able to swing by :)
That youtube voice :)
I love how all of your guides will also work with D2R lol that works out so well!
Almost 100k subs. Good job Lama you earned it.
He just got it... congrats llama :)
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!
Saw Guide D2 Summon Necro and instant liked / subbed.
I like these guides because I can now understand characters I never played 20 years ago.
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.
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.
Thanks Bro for such a detail great guide, I will get D2r tomorrow.
Blizzard should thank you for that 👍
Nice i've been wiating for you to do an up to date guide for this build!
I love your backgrounds, so natural!
Thank you for this :D going to help out alot when I build my Necromancer for the remaster :p
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.
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 CZcams 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.
perfectly timed. Someone linked to your channel and I was just about to boot up the game to play Necro lmao
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.
100k subs ! Congrats, well deserved
People have mentioned 'Pride' runeword for the damage boosting concentration aura for your merc but you could also give them a 'Bramble' armour for the thorns aura. I've experimented with using a 'Wisp Projector' ring for a Heart of Wolverine (+damage and +attack rating) but even with the Battle Orders from CTA it dies relatively easily. Still fun to use though if you want 'fully' buffed minions. Speaking of fully buffed, making the 'Pride' into an iron golem and giving an 'Infinity' to your merc instead will also give your enemies the conviction aura which lowers their defense (and resists) meaning your skeletons hit more often. Making such an iron golem is extremely expensive and risky however because while iron golems do remain between games, I've found they have an annoying tendency to just disappear sometimes so user beware.
Don't underestimate the power of teleport on a summon necro. The ability to bring all of your minions to bear on a single target by teleporting on the them is very strong. Even just bringing all your minions to your location can be helpful in challenging areas such as the maggot lair and arcane sanctuary. If you can't get an enigma or if you're lower level, shopping a staff with teleport charges for your switch can be quite clutch.
Worth noting that amplify damage does increase your corpse explosion damage which is 50% physical damage (the other 50% being fire).
Decrepify and Clay Golem are very important for fighting Act Bosses. They lower boss DPS by so much it can't be overstated
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.
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♡
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.
@@christopherlane467 back then skellies died by a stick 💀
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.
This is exactly what I was looking for!
Amazing guide was extremely helpful cant wait for D2R!!!!!
good guide man. from a summon nec main for many years
A guide that understands that a lot of the game happens before act 5 hell :) awesome :)
yeah, Summon necros are kind of interesting for that. All the important creation decisions are act 1 and act 2 normal.
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.
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!
I kinda miss this game, I just did online
@@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!
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...
Awesome content as always and CONGRATS WITH 100K SUBS! Keep up great work
As I read through the comments, I can see that Llama has a really awesome community behind him :)
gonna go necro for D2:R thank you for the guide. It was very helpful. made me subscribe also :)
Jawoll endlich a vernünftiger Guide. Der Mann kennt sich aus
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
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.
This video was excellent, thank you!
thank you so much for providing this information!
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.
I'm definitely building this necro build when resurrected comes alive on SEPT!!! thanks so much!!!!
👍🏾👍🏾🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 I’ll definitely be studying your videos in preparation for Diablo II
Thanks for this great guide!!
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
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
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
He gained like 3000 the last days
This is my favorite Diablo 2 class. I love the huge army of minions.
mrllama rekindling my love for diablo 2
I'll be keeping an eye on your guides once Resurrected releases...or if I get into the Alpha
Awesome guide thanks, makes me wanna play
you are a nice guys, thanks for taking your time doing those tutorials
The Fishymancer is the first build I did for hardcore and finished the game
The undisputed best hc char
Yes! my favorite class since the game came out
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
Act 2 underground comes to mind! thats when i played in 2000 lol cant wait for d2r!
This one reminds me why i like Carrions so much in POE
Congrats on 100k subs
i would like too see some end game bosses with your build :) nice guide man
Nice! I couldn't play summon necro when I was younger, cause the computer couldn't handle it :D
Meleemancer guide when? :P
Thanks for doing this, without people like you there wouldn't be a community for Blizz to make D2:R for.
Starting to play again while waiting for the remaster... can you make an updated video about what you recommend if anything for game mods?
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
I wish they would make summoner as it used to be for the d2 classic version we're getting if you don't want to play LoD where 1 skillpoint in skeletons was 1 skeleton more in your army. Also can't wait to see what Trang'ouls fullset looks like in 3D.
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!
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
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.
One of my fav builds, maggot lair is painfull tho
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.
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
I loved my Zoomancer in 05, also commonly called the "Lag-amancer."
was having fun till Diablo killed all my summons in one shot
Same here, stuck at Chaos Sanc on Normal. Diablo wipes out all my minions in one shot.
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.
@@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)
@@johnsmith9205 + decrepify his ass
Or just like MrLamma said, spam Iron Maiden and 1 Golem, and wish for that boss physical attack the golem.
I really wish more games had a build your army, and let them go to town summoner style of gameplay like this
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.
Insight is cheap, but not that cheap 😂
@@phuongvu527 yea it is :)
Yes, the summoner is, in fact, my favorite. It's like you know me, Mr. Llama.
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.
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.
@@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.
The nostalgia trip.... I miss my Nigma Necro
Good time to start full time streaming bro especially with D2 remake coming!
Fun to Tele-stomp bosses with this build, cant skip a kelpie snare on the merc though. Also fun to try... the slowness from the Clay Golem stacks with it, and if you add Decrepify bosses more-or-less stop moving. (I know Might is better than Holy Freeze aura, but you have to atleast try it with this slowness setup at least once for fun).
So... Slow From Snare, Slow from Golem, Slow From Decrepify, Slow From Holy-Freeze. (it's the Old Bullet-Time Baal Build, Sometimes just called BulletBaal).
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.