Necromancer - Summoner Tank

[Tyrael]

Necromancer - Summoner Tank
Remember: This build is only for dedicated players who enjoy epic battles.

1: Stats
2: Skills
3: Gear
4: Mercenary gear
5: Strategy

1:Stats
The Summoner Tank depends mostly on gear when it comes to self-sustenence, because each character level you gain 1.5 H.P., and 1 stamina (It is very important). The necromancer starts with 45 hitpoints, and gains 2 every stat point invested into vitality. We will discuss much of this in gear, actually, and it's okay to skip ahead to gear and completely ignore stats right now.

Strength: Do not bother with until you fulfill the gear that is specified.

Dexterity: None.

Vitality: All of your points except what is needed for strength.

Energy: None.

2:Skills
Your skills are quite sparsed among all the skills trees for such an amazing summoner. I will deeply discuss every skill you will use.

Summoning Tree

20 points - Skeleton Mastery: This is one of the three cornerstones in this build; this is the muscle behind the arm.

20 points - Raise Skeleton Warrior: This is the second cornerstone in the build; this is the arm.

20 points - Raise Skeleton Mage: This is the third most unnessecary part of the build, but still extremely important. They take the bullet for your warriors.

20 points - Summon Resist: At level 20 it gives 66% resistance against all elements (that means no poison). What's beautiful about it is that it just keeps going when your gear helps you. It is 1/3 as important as Skeleton Mastery.

Everything else gets 1 point, and for these reasons:

• Golems are only one targets, and they do not help enough without pouring all of your skill points into them
  
• Revives will cause epic lag; putting 1 skill point into them can earn you around 20 revives anyway.

And none into fire golem.

Curses Tree
All curses get 1 point, except for the three stand-alones on the left (starting with Dim Vision) because they are epically useless for the summoner; any other build that means no army would greatly benefit from them, but they do the job that your skeletons would do. I also encourage people to dabble with the times that these should be used.

Amplify Damage: Double-damage means wartime is cut in half. 'Nuff said.
Use: Use this on weak masses (Monsters in normal and nightmare such as fallens and oblivion knights)
Iron Maiden: Mainly a useless skill, but really proves itself when doing Hell mode Ancients.
Use: Hell mode Ancients and any other melee monsters giving you trouble.
Terror: Never use it, it defeats the entire purpose of your necromancer
Use: N/A Might as well use a town portal scroll.
Life Tap: The third cornerstone of the build; I'm saving this for the strategy section.
Use: Every opportunity that doesn't fall into another curse's use.
Decrepify: An important curse, it will slow anything down. It is a major player for killing bosses.
Use: Champion Monsters, Bosses (especially Diablo and Baal).
Lower Resist: I never use it.
Use: Any physical-immune monster that won't go down from Mages, Golem, and Mercenary.

Poison and Bone Tree
I always thought of this tree as an awkward tree; it never had the potential I needed to be solely used. This tree holds all the auxillary skills you will need, they all need just one skill point - None of these are required!

Bone Armor - This is your last failsafe; it will protect you against a blow that may have killed you.
Corpse Explosion - This is the ultimate crowd control, it will aid your skeletons with massive damage, but make sure you have bodies assured for resummoning!

3: Gear
Now that your skills and stats and settled, it is time for gear. I will not give a 'cheap' set and the 'right' set; I will only give the right set.

Helm: Bone Visage Delirium runeword [[Lem + Ist + Io]]

Must have near 400 defence to make a difference from shako. Mostly I use it for the 1% delirium, but if you fear this will get you killed (And it does sometimes) stick with shako.

Armor: Archon Plate Enigma runeword [[Jah + Ith + Ber]]

Yeah, I'm not going to go safe with Mage plate. Requires 103 strength, gives + (0.75 strength Per Character Level), topping off at 74 in the end. Now, if you can get 103 strength, then this puppy will pay for the rest.

Boots: Marrowalk boots

These things give 2 to skeleton mastery. HAVE I GONE TO HEAVEN?!?! Don't use their charges, Charsi will get you for it later.

Belt: Arachnid Mesh

This thing gives you +1 to all skills; Dungos? Pfft, pvp is not the answer (although this build is perfect against any melee character, given you use iron maiden each time *tee-hee*)

Gloves: Trang-Ouls Bracers

The lesser of two evils, the greater evil being every other glove out there.

Shield: Boneflame Succubus Skull

Why not Homunculus or Darkforce?

*Homunculus: +3 over +2; this build does not comfort your necromancer, it comforts your skeletons.
*Darkforce: Faster run/walk over cast rate. You are not going to cast 'raise skeleton mage' like a sorceress casts firebolt, so...

Amulet: Golemlord's amulet (preferably of the mammoth for life)

+3 to summoning. NEXT.

Rings: Bul-kathos'

Why not Stone of Jordans?

*You don't need life, not mana. Plus it gives stamina bonus.

Weapon: Arm of King Leoric Tomb Wand

I can hear the cynics: "+3 HOTO and res > Leoric"
I haven't been typing this for the last hour just to get to a brick wall.

+2 To Raise Skeletal Mage
+3 To Skeleton Mastery
+3 To Raise Skeleton
+2 To Summoning Skills

There you have it.

Switch weapon: Crystal sword runeword Call to Arms [[Amn + Ral + Mal + Ist + Ohm]]

Perfect battle order (6) (Getting tired - 12:49)

Switch shield: Spirit monarch [[Tal + Thul + Ort + Amn]]

+2 to skills.

Get a hellfire torch, annihilus, and stock up on Graverobber grand charms.

4: Mercenary

Act 2, Nightmare Offensive (gives might, which is like honey for summoners)

Weapon: Insight (any, really)

Helm: Andariels Visage with a ral in it

Armor: (my favorite) Ethereal Fortitude with defense around 4,000

5: Strategy
Finally, we come to a close. Here I will show you how you can take on any monster in any difficulty.

First off, your skeletons naturally know their place. Mages move to the back, Warriors to the front, and your golem wanders aimlessly as usual.

Do not teleport directly into the fray, that will kill you. Make sure you go from a side, work into the mass, cut through.

Use Life tap for most of the game, it will almost 100% assure you that no warriors will die (in many cases, but they do other times).

Your mages will go first in many cases, because they have to attack and then move backwards, which can kill them if the opponent is strong, given they have less than 500 hp.


That's it, you are ready to face hell! Now good luck and have fun!

[romanceisdead]

this is decent.
i really miss my summoner.
my gear was different though.
i used:
armor - enigma
shield - up'd um'd homunculous (great res, and the +2 curses is really useful)
belt - arach
boots - marrows
helm - shako
weapon - beastz (makes your skeles do a lot more)
ammy - mara's, i used this for the res and attributes. i had a +3 summon/life in stash, i found that the +2 all was much more useful for curses and such.
rings - 2x soj (i used for mana. tele'ing on people/monsters with a summoner is fun.)
switch - cta/spirit (obviously.)

a2 might merc:
armor - e'bugged fort (obviously.)
helm - eth andy's.
weapon - infinity. (i used for my skele mages, i was working on getting pride. (pride gives conc. conc + might + fanat = gg skeles.)

[Tyrael]

Yeah, I was thinking of including the whole pride, beast, whatever you can think of aura bonuses, but the current way is still very nice.

[romanceisdead]

well, if you really wanted to be rich, you could do this:
make a iron golem out of eth pride polearm
and then use an a3 lightning merc with:
dream diadem (holy shock)
last wish phase blade (might)
phoenix monarch (redemption)
and either eth coh or eth vmagi.

[Tyrael]

The holy shock would be a little trivial, given it isn't that much damage.

As for the redemption, that would just clean out bodies I would need to summon with.

A3 merc with Last Wish, Bramble armor, and andariel's mask with a ral in it.

[romanceisdead]

well, redemption pulses every 2 seconds like every other aura, so you'd have plenty of time to summon some.
lightning mercs have lightning mastery. which means holy shock's damage would go up a bit.
why in the world would you put bramble or andy's on an a3 merc?
andy's only gives melee +'s (other than skills), and an a3 merc hardly ever swings it's sword.

[Tyrael]

The thorns will transfer to the minions, andys is for psn, def, and redemption only helps with life and mana, given its cost I can just drop him some pots every onceand awhile.

[Rap]

1/10
1 for trying

delirium is terrible helm.
Shako/circlet >

YOu dont need ap enigma it requires too much strength, MP > Ap since you can wear all your q
with basic str then.
Marrowalk boots are horrid imo, that +2 skeletal mastery is nothing compared to 20fhr from treks/rare boots or waterwalks.
boneflame is crap, you need fcr for tele , obv you dont want to be slow as crap. Spirit > any of shield for summoner.

rare ammy/mara > 3 summoning skills , 2 to bo skills/res/stats or stats/life/res/mana is far better then some damage you will receive using plain crap ammy.

would strongly advise sojs for summoner, life from bks is not boable, so its actually crap. 50% more mana> 50 non boable life any day.

arm of leoric tomb is crap, Hoto/carin shard > this anyday
I dont need to spell it out for you why, do i?

Merc:
Insight > agreed
Andy > agreed
Fort > LOLNO merc is not here to do damage , replace with bramble irongolem aura doesnt transfer to minions or you, you will need it. + annoying when im'd. you can also get high def eth uppd shaft
to make him not 2 hit himself when imd

Way better merc:
rogue

Bow: faith
Aura -> huge ias bonus/damage to your skeles
Armor: Bramble
aura
Helm: Gaze - dr


Before you interrupt with nonsense and ignorant arguments
I am not saying your build cant do hell, problem is its not as efficient as build i posted, My build will solo anything far easier , faster, + I will be able to do ubers with np.
Also 5-10 points into revive is needed, for you to resurrect Giants from Mephisto place (they have huge CB %) meaning they will own everything way easier.

I can put fort/hoz/Ebotdz/dracs on zealer (with nothing else on it)
and solo hell with 4 -6 players ingame.

before you write a guide get some facts and knowledge, this guide does not need to be taken to drawing board or revised it needs to be deleted, so newbs dont go ahead and own themselves.

[Tyrael]

[Rap]

[Tyrael]