SUMMONMANCER Build Diablo 2 Original Necromancer Skeleton Summoner

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Summonmancer D2

Summonmancer is a Diablo 2 Build in Blizzard North's cRPG of 2000, Diablo 2. Due to not being gear-dependent, the summoner necro is one of the easiest builds with which to play through Normal and Nightmare modes. It is only in Hell mode that we need decent gear. Indeed, for newbies just starting off, summon necros are probably the quickest and safest way to gain a degree of wealth (which can then fund more expensive, gear-dependent builds).

When a build isn't gear-dependent for its basic function, gear can be tailored towards Magic Find and Gold Find. In addition, this build is barely ever the focus of aggro. Instead, its skeletons, revives and golem are. That means we can just derp around, picking up gold and items while our skellies slay all the stupid stuff that can't get within arm's reach of us.

On Normal mode untwinked summonmancers can easily do trav runs, meph runs and chaos runs for item-finding purposes; moreover, on /players 8 difficulty. No other untwinked class can easily do such runs. Thus, summonmancer is the best class with which to begin a Diablo 2 career since it sets the foundations for other builds by farming the items they need.

We Amplify or Decrepify the mobs so that our skeletons can tear them up more easily. We also liberally cast Corpse Explosion in order to clear out doorways and other chokepoints.

The Summonmancer build focuses heavily on Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery, Raise Skeletal Mage and Iron Golem. The build and its items are tailored to the offensive and defensive capabilities of such minions.

Skeleton Summons. Not counting magical +skill charms, we can summon 17 skeletal warriors (45 ranks in Raise Skeleton) that are perma-buffed with:

• lvl 9 Fanaticism aura from Beast rune word (dmg +93%, attack rating +80%, attack speed +29%) 
• Might aura from an Act II Nightmare Offense merc (maxes at 20th for +230% dmg)
• lvl 12 Conviction aura from merc's Infinity polearm (+83% defense, +85% resists)
• (The merc wears ethereal Treachery or ethereal Fortitude, and Guillaume's Face, ethereal Vampire Gaze or ethereal Andy's.)
• lvl 20 Concentration aura from an Iron Golem made out of Pride rune word (+345% dmg)
• lvl 21 Thorns aura from Bramble amor rune word (+1010 dmg retributive)

It's not the number of skeletons we have that counts, it's how tough they are. Don't get seduced by setups that allow for more skellies because they're too weak and you'll be constantly resummoning. 10 skeletons buffed as per above is enough to rip anything apart.

We use ENIGMA to reposition our skeletons. Without Enigma, the build sucks.

Note that Amplify buffs Thorns' retributive damage.

Skeletons at 33 ranks:

I don't use the mages, this is just an example:

We can crank Revives as well. Some revives can be situationally optimal, but they are not as reliable or as useful as skeletons in general play.

Equipment is more or less as per the poisonmancer, except we swap out the Death's Web unique for the Beast rune word, and Rainbow Facets are eschewed in favor of magical and rare jewels (which barely matter).

Beast rune word in a Berserker Axe:

Ideally, we want stacks of:

• Shimmering Small Charm of Vita, perfect
• Shimmering Grand Charm of Vita, perfect
• Graverobber's Grand Charm of Vita, perfect
• Fine Small Charm of Balance, perfect

Diablo II v1.0 Necromancer

Pure Skellymancer is super-weak in Diablo 2 v1.0. The skeletons will not last long during the first 20 levels, even if you employ Amplify and focus on Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery skills (10/10 RS/SM).

It isn't possible to do a pure Summon/Curse Necromancer in v1.0; you want Bone Spear for the Maggot Lair, and you need Bone Spear for the Arcane Sanctuary. However, one hard-point or wand-point suffices. You will also want one point in Corpse Explosion. You could wield dagger-type weapons with the Poison Dagger skill, but that requires investment in Dexterity (which means fewer Life/Mana points).

Curse-wise, you need Iron Maiden for living monsters and Amplify/Decripify for undead. You can slay Duriel with skeletons and Iron Maiden with 10/10 RS/SM.

The Skellymancer finds Act II to be the most tedious Act thanks to the Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary; skeletons and golems are basically useless on maps with narrow passageways, but wide-open maps are smooth sailing. Act III-IV are easy for focused Skellymancers.

Blizzard North greatly improved the behavior of skeleton summons in subsequent versions of Diablo 2, up to and including v1.14d: the skeletons react much more quickly and keep pace with necromancer movements. In addition, they don't block the necromancers movements.

When starting off in Diablo 2 with your first character (to build up items and wealth), the v1.0 summonmancer is one of the worst choices you can make whereas the v1.14d summonmancer is probably the best choice  you can make.

Legion of the Necromancer: 100 Simultaneous Minions

This modded summonmancer was for experimentation purposes only. By modding key files this summonmancer has access to all four golems at once:

So here we have our legion:

• Necro
• Merc
• 4x golems: Clay, Iron, Blood and Fire
• 20x skeletons
• 20x skeleton mages
• 54x revives

Perma-buffed with:

• 9th level Fanaticism aura from the Necromancer wielding Beast
• 23rd level Might aura from an Act II Nightmare mercenary
• 12th level Conviction aura from the mercenary's Infinity polearm
• 20th level Concentration aura from an Iron Golem made out of Pride.

That's four simultaneous auras thugging out 100 combat units and debuffing hundreds of on-screen enemies.

Through Enigma, we can teleport our legion anywhere on the playing field in the blink of an eye. Each time we teleport, the legion streams out and drowns the hordes by flooding the playing field.

A few notes:

• The Clay Golem's on-hit Slow stacks with the Necomancer's Decripify skill (thus, bosses don't move).
• The Fire Golem is excellent at drawing aggro.
• The Necromancer has access to Corpse Explosion. This is capable of flattening hundreds of enemies with a single corpse-pop (max MonDen + MaxSpawns).

What can stand against this army? Well, MaxMonden + Max Spawns on /players8 can certainly do so. I mean, check out this mob-density:

So yeah, it's still slow-going in comparison to my legit unmodded Bowazon in 90% of combat encounter scenarios. That mega-mob screencapped above? It stretches off two screens to the right yet my Bowazon would mow it down in two seconds flat.

Note that the auras and equipment are 100% legitimate. It is the amount of combat units that are not. 63 is the legal maximum for this build, unmodded. 63 is still devastating in /players8 PvM, though. But only Bowazons, Javazons and Lightsorcs can take on my Max MonDen + MaxSpawns setup. Everything else is too slow in killspeed or gets slain immediately.

Max Median XL summons:

Not as many as vanilla Diablo 2 but the difference is that these are perma-summons, not inefficient Revives. cf. Satanic Mantra (Median XL).

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