For the first points you should
allocate, I recommend this order:
- Bone Armor (Poison and Bone
Spells)
- Raise Skeleton (Summoning
Spells)
- Skeleton Mastery (Summoning
Spells)
- Amplify Damage (Curses)
You may want to take bone armor
after Raise Skeleton, or even after Skeleton Mastery, but I like not having
to drink any potions right from the start :). I've been able to get out
of Act 1 without ever having to drink one of those pathetic Minor Healing
potions with this strategy.
The order after the first four
or so levels is up to you, but I recommend making sure you take a golem
at each level you can get a new one. I also recommend saving skill points
for the gateway levels (6, 12, 18, 24, and 30) so you may put one point
in each new skill you're going to need.
Here's the level of skills
you should go for:
Summoning
Spells
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Raise Skeleton:
1
They're useless later, but put a point in to it for the skills that
come after it. Quite useful when you first get them.
Skeleton Mastery:
20
It increases the Damage and Hit Points of all of your skeletons
and revives. Start putting points in to this one right away to help
you with your crappy skeletons, and later on, your already powerful
revives.
Clay Golem:
1
Just one point so you can get to the other golems... Useful at level
6 though.
Golem Mastery:
5-20 1-20
Increases the hit points, and speed of your golem. Five points should
do it with some plus to skills. You basically just need enough points
so that your golem can survive killing one creature in Act 4 Hell
difficulty, and stand up to Diablo for a little while. Also, you'll
want your Blood Golem to be able to take a couple hits from Duriel
in Hell difficulty. Personally, I only put 5 points in to this.
Revision: In retrospect , you only really need one point in this
to be effective. Having decent plus to skills will increase your
golems health enough to be effective.
Raise Skeleton Mage:
1
They're useless later, but put a point in to it for the skill that
comes after it. Quite useful when you first get them.
Blood Golem:
1
Just about the most powerful golem in terms of simply having a cool
ability. When he gets hit, you take some of the damage. When he
hits back, he steals life for the both of you. And there's a great
trick with Iron Maiden. When a monster cursed with iron maiden hit's
something it is damaged by it. So when it it hits your golem, and
your golem damages it from Iron Maiden, it steals life, meaning
that instead of taking damage, you and your golem are healed. However,
with the recent gameplay changes this isn't quite as powerful as
it used to be. More information on this is explained in the curse
section where it talks about Iron Maiden.
Summon Resist:
1
With plus to skills one point will go a long way. Only one is needed,
since it's being on a curve makes any extra points wasted.
Iron Golem: 1
Create a golem out of an item. The item can be armor, weapons, and
I believe boots, helms, gloves, and possibly belts will work. But
it only works with metal items. (So no making an Iron Golem out
of Quilted Armor :) These are quite power full if you find a nice
item that you don't want to use, and doesn't make much selling money.
Such as a Superior Lance, or a Superior Martel de Fer. A Martel
de Fer would be a better choice, since weapon speed and range are
ignored when you make a golem, so just go with the weapon that has
better damage, or enchantments. Iron Golems also heal rather quickly,
and have an automatic weak version of Thorns that is applied separately
of Iron Maiden.
Fire Golem: 1
Some people don't like Fire Golems, because everybody has them,
but that's for a good reason!. They absorb Fire Damage and turn
it in to health, have a weak version of Holy Flame (the Paladin's
fire damage Aura), and when they die they do a ton of fire damage
to the monsters in melee range (the damage is based on your golem's
hit points, which should be quite a bit). Extremely useful when
fighting a lot of fire attack monsters like Vampires, Fallen Shaman,
Fetish Shaman, and plenty of other Monsters.
Revive:
10-20 5-20
Since this skill revives monsters based on their power, your revived
monsters in Act 4 Hell difficulty are still just as powerful as
they are when you first get them. The number of points in to Revive
determines how many you can Revive. Ten can be enough, but twenty
wouldn't hurt.
Revision: With decent plus to skills, just five points in to Revive
can go a long way. (as much as level 14, not counting if you get
a wand that has a special + to Revive)
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Poison
and Bone Spells
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Note: I didn't say anything
about the Poison Dagger > Poison Explosion > Poison Nova skills,
since they're not worth it. Don't put any points in to any of those
skills.
Teeth:
1
It's useless, but put a point in to it for the skills that come
after it. Doesn't even help enough on level 1 to be worth wasting
Mana on.
Bone Armor: 5-20
A necessity for any Necromancer, but many points are not needed
if you have enough items with plus to skills. Increasing to level
twenty wouldn't be a bad idea, but if you really want you can get
by with five all right, or even one if you're really crazy. Always
keep this up when headed in to battle.
Corpse Explosion:
1-?
I personally only put one point in this, and let my plus to skills
do the rest. You may want to put as many as three points in to it
for a good radius. Good for Getting rid of corpses so other monsters
can't revive them, while doing some damage at the same time. More
powerful in games with less people in them, devastating if you're
the only one there.
Bone Wall: 1
With plus to skills one point will be plenty to be helpful even
in hell. Use it to block off creatures in to an area, block you're
self in to an area until you're minions deal with them, or use it
to stop lightning from lightning enchanted enemies.
Bone Spear: 1-20
Helpful when you first get it, and it may remain so for a good long
while. If you're going to max an attack spell decide between this
one, and Bone Spirit. They both do respectable damage in Act 4 Hell
difficulty. This one does less damage, but can go through enemies,
and hit multiple targets.
Bone Prison: 1
Same as bone wall, except it makes a complete prison around the
enemy. Useful against enemies you don't want to move, like Diablo.
Diablo Strategy:
Make a Bone Prison around Diablo and your Fire Golem while Diablo
is cursed with Iron Maiden. He'll take out plenty of golems though,
so you'll probably run out of Mana constantly from recasting your
golem inside the prison, and either have to go to town a lot or
use a lot of Mana potions. Eventually he'll have killed so many
of your golems, he'll have died of it :) . If you don't have a
Fire Golem yet, or can't stand the Mana cost, make Iron Golems
out of stuff you find in Diablo's Chaos Sanctuary. If you don't
even have an Iron Golem, use a Clay Golem. And, as always against
bosses, try to team with a Sorceress who is intelligent enough
to use Static Field.
Bone Spirit: ?
0-20
This one is debatable. You may want to put no points in to it, or
you may want to max it out. Once you've maxed out all of the good
stuff, on really high levels you'll have plenty of extra points
to put here, or you may want to max it right away, or just completely
ignore it. You're call, although I personally don't use it. It does
more damage than Bone Spear, and turns to seek enemies, but only
attacks one at a time.
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Curses
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Note: I didn't mention
the curses that I didn't recommend taking: Weaken, Terror, and Decrepify.
Lower Resist is mentioned, however.
Amplify Damage:
1
This is the only level one spell that is worth using throughout
the game. So much so, that I keep it bound to a hot key. Extra points
only increase the radius, but plus to skills will increase it plenty,
and even if you have to cast it a few times, it's quite a cheap
curse, so it's not a problem.
Dim Vision: 1
This should be self-explanatory. It's like casting "stop attacking
me" on ranged attackers. They see you if you get within melee
range, but it's quite helpful when you don't want to deal with a
lot of enemies simultaneously.
Reviving Monsters Strategy:
Dim Vision is also good for keeping Shamans, and Mummies from
raising their monster brethren from the dead, although I would
suggest simply making use of the corpses instead with Corpse Explosion
or Raise/Revive a minion from it. For that purpose skeletons are
handy even in hell.
Iron Maiden: 20
A great curse, get this one to twenty as soon as you can. Don't
altogether stop putting points in to the other skills, but make
this the first to hit twenty. This has become especially important
with the recent gameplay changes where the power of the Blood Golem/Iron
Maiden combo is weakened (and with good reason, it was way
too powerful of a strategy), but it still works wonderfully once
you get Iron Maiden higher. The problem is that with the recent
changes low level Iron Maiden will still steal life for you and
your golem, but not as much, and when combined with elemental damage
that your Iron Maiden doesn't effect, your golem will eventually
die. The solution is not more points in to Golem Mastery, since
that just means he'll still die, just take a longer time of doing
it. For him to steal enough life from Iron Maiden get Iron Maiden
up higher, eventually to level twenty. This is not the main purpose
of Iron Maiden however, although it is a reason to increase it's
level. The main purpose of having level 20+ Iron Maiden is that
when you join a Hell difficulty game with eight people, and go to
Act 4 with your fire golem, Amplify Damage and attract won't be
enough to get that vital first kill to make your first revive, but
high level Iron Maiden will cover it well. The reason why is must
be first to reach twenty, is that Necromancers typically play well
ahead of their level in quest games, and they can reach Act 4 in
Hell difficulty, and even kill Diablo there to become a Baron before
hitting level 30 if they wanted. (Although I don't recommend going
that far without revives! :)
Confuse: 1
Only works properly when the Monsters don't see you first, and as
such doesn't work too well. But it is necessary to get to the Attract
curse. I think it may work well if you cast Dim Vision, and then
Confuse, but I haven't tried this yet.
Life Tap: 0-1
It's quite possible to get by without it, but any melee characters
you party with who don't have enough life steal would be grateful.
:) It can also work well if you're not using a Blood Golem, and
you want to heal him without going back to town. If you decide to
get Lower Resist, then you'll need this one.
Attract: 1
One of the more under-appreciated skills. If you're fighting a huge
swarm of monsters, and don't have enough minions to keep them from
attacking you, cast Attract on one of them. Another example is this:
once when I was running ahead of my minions looking for the stairs
down (I was in Act 1, Catacombs Level 3, Hell difficulty) I came
across a group of four zombies, and my minions were stuck on a corner,
as usual, so I cast Iron Maiden on all of the zombies, and then
cast Attract on one. The other three zombies attacked him, and died
from the Iron Maiden, and the one who I cast Attract on died from
taking all of the hits.
Lower Resist:
?
This one is debatable. You may want to put no points in to it if
you plan on partying with a friend who has a Sorceress a lot (a
powerful team, since the Sorceress has not minions to distract the
enemies from killer her mercilessly, and the Necromancer has no
way of doing as much wide area damage as a Sorceress.) The main
drawback to this one is that you would have to put points in to
Weaken, Terror, and Decrepify, all of which are nothing terribly
great for a Summoner.
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DeadPete's Email: deadpete@iname.com
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