How to build a Necromancer

[tonymke]

Hello friends,

I'm afraid I'm utterly stuck on Normal Diablo at level 27 when playing the Necromancer, and I'm worried I don't quite know how to build him. I'm a bit lost on what questions to even ask, so I'm just going to write what I did.

I gave two basic concepts a shot:

Playing him like a Sorcerer that has minions instead of mana shield

40 STR for gear, 50 VIT for some buffer, rest in MAG. Max resistances, mostly +magic for gear stats. ~75 AC.

I found that I could get to Diablo himself reasonably well, but the skeletons were completely useless and little more than a way to get the AI to stand still for a few seconds while I cast spells at a stationary target.

Diablo would simply execute all the skeletons with his opening "circle of flame", and, lacking buffer, I'd either stand there and die quickly, not able to put out damage fast enough, or kite and fall pray to his "stop trying to cheese me" stomps.

After a few attempts of this, I grew a bit discouraged, and rerolled to be a more Necro-Necro, instead of just a Diet Sorcerer.

Skeletons for days with some light magic

33 STR for gear, 30 DEX for gear, 35 MAG for light spells, rest in VIT. Max resistances, mostly +vit and +mag for gear stats. ~60AC

This gettup was a bit harder in the early-mid game, but the skeleton swarm was much more useful getting through Caves and Hell. I could mostly lean on Lightning where they weren't quite enough.

However, melee elites still simply chew through Skeletons too fast, and I find I can work through waves of regular mobs easily, but the skeletons are impotent against any high-AC melee boss packs. High-level Blood Knight champ packs are an exercise in patience.

I find I can't even get past the Blood Knight boss in Terror's Domain - he kills my skeletons as fast as I can pump them out, and they seem unable to actually hit him. I can somewhat play games where I weave in spells between skeletons, but his tank is massive.

Even if I got through him, I doubt I could get Diablo down like this.

Any advice would be appreciated. I'm a tad lost on what to do.

[jcvmarques]

Judging by the character level, I assume you're in Normal difficulty right ?

I'm not a Necro expert, as I just finished Normal with him. Most of the stats should go to Vitality, it will make your skeletons much more durable.

For more difficult bosses you need Golem, it can tank much more than skeletons. If I recall correctly, the Blood Knight boss in Terror Domain can be killed with Bone Spirits. Just make sure you have a proper tank. Same strategy for Diablo.

Good luck !

[Ugily]

Ugily the Necromancer is currently level 56.

Early in the game on Normal Diff, I had to keep farming and leveling up before I was able to defeat Diablo. That took me about 5 attempts before I had the equipment, stats, and strategies to be successful in Terror Domain. I do not remember what level Ugily was at that time.

Here are some cut & paste snippets of prior posts on this subject:

I have had the same difficulty defeating Diablo on Normal through Nightmare, currently trying to attack him on Hell. Each case, I have had to just slug it out with very fast melee weapon and as many healing pots as I could carry. On Hell, my problem is that I run out of time clearing the other three chambers before I can slug it out again with the Dark Lord. I waste a lot of time with the spawns of summoned terror fiends and skeleton archers in the first chamber.

I forgot about spam Guardian and Teleport to wear Diablo down for the kill. I was able to craft a Conjurers Staff of Guardian with 96 charges and other benefits.


Ugily the Necro through the mid levels of Hell and early Nightmare was about 50% melee with distance spells like lightning and chain lightning. Each time I faced Diablo was only able to defeat him by slugging it out in melee. I used some sort of Flail of kill everything with DPS of about 2800 and HP steal. So, at these levels my necro build was very much melee and spell caster, but always kept an army minions and revives to fight mobs.

Towards the end of Nightmare, began to mainly use distance spells and minions. Stay out of the battle, and strategically place skeletons to maintain distance from bosses. Weaken mobs with area effect spells.

Now, level 51 in dlevel 5 torment. Minions only, just walk around and pick up loot. Most common spells are Telekenesis and Charged bolt to break up barrels. Clear mobs with corpse explosion. Just be careful not to let baddies sneak up on you.

I recently went back to Nightmare to kill Diablo with only skeletons and was able to beat him very quickly.

[tonymke]

Thank you very much, both of you.

If nothing else, I don't feel quite as bad about myself

[riesa]

My experience with necro is back to times when Diablo could be blocked and didn't resets his position, an fire/lightning walls didn't had cooldown. Back then i waited till clvl32 before taking Diablo down. Last skill makes the difference. I've been putting all my points into VIT. At clvl32 HP is both your mana and hp with the last skill.

Like Ugily said, on normal necro is mainly melee, sometimes sorc (guardian, chain lightning and teleport. But rarely because of his poor mana pool). So you mainly need melee equipment, but still not such great, because of putting all stats into VIT. Jewelry with +cth/+required stats are always welcome.

@Ugily
I don't know how it looks now, but back then teleporting at some alone baddie teleports everything near this guy and only mions was attacked even when you still stand on same plot. So tele, and walk away. I'll try necro, cause i saw recently that Tchernobog is in 0.1.1 now. If there's still no single then i'm gonna instal Bel again.

[SyncroScales]

I noticed that the skeleton will recharge vitality. I think if your Necromancer has items and equipment that recharge vitality the skeleton also does this. I did not notice if this happens when self-heal or vitality potions are used.

Is a staff or shield and other weapon recommended for melee? I think whatever increased dps and chance to hit.

When the Necromancer was character level 8, 3 zombies could be cast instead of one and only one skeleton.

What are the maximum number of zombies, skeletons and revive (enraged monsters) that a Necromancer character can get? What are the character levels or ways to measure this from level 1 - level 60?

Do the defense, chance/accuracy to hit and health of each minion increase also? Only if the Necromancer has more vitality? Those zombies seem to only have a ~50% chance to hit.

I noticed when trying to kill King Leroic that he was vampiric. When I sent zombies and a skeleton to fight him and I used melee weapons or magic, the minions were killed and King Leoric had full health. There did not seem to be a way to stop this.

Diablo, King Leroic and some other monsters are vampiric for vitality or mana or both. Sometimes it depends on the type of character used for what is depleted and that can affect the monsters vitality, magic or something they do.