Diablo 2 Necro build?

Salarus

Dalayan Master
I just re-started diablo 2 with some friends, and i'm looking to try a necro. I've never been able to pull them off as an AoE killer, as in the past I usually went curses and blood golem, but I never quite mastered the class.

Anyone have any recomendations?
 
Fishymancer, with 20 Raise Skeleton, 20 Skeleton Mastery, and to hell with Raise Skeletal Mage. You use Revives and your army of skeletons to devastate everything, while using your curses such as Dim Vision, Decrepify, and a couple others to keep your horde awesome. Get an offensive merc from Act 2 to make your army destroy all comers. It's hilarious fun watching your horde of undead take all the hits you'd normally worry about.
 
AoE necromancers are pretty fun although very gimmicky. In hell mode there is a shit ton of poison immune crap so you would never be able to solo worth a damn.. but the stuff that isnt immune will die in seconds which is pretty funny to watch.

As Cless said, fishymancer is probably the most overpowered build there is for a necro. Only thing that sucks about it is getting the first few mobs dead to start your army of rape face.
 
if you play on USEast softcore ladder I prob have a bunch of shit you guys can have.
 
On USwest, thanks though.

And thanks for the suggestions guys, I think i'lll try that skele bullshit haha.
 
It really depends on the gear you are using. A very basic but popular build is the skellymancer.

It can help you go through all of the game and hopefully get some stuff on the way.

20 Skelly
20 Skel mastery
20 mage
1 in every curse ( that's debatable but AT LEAST 1 in AMP. damage )
1 in revive
1 summon resist
1 corpse explosion


Rest is up for grabs... Personally i like having decrepify around. And I only put 1 point in golem and 1 in golem mastery. Golems are meh meh.

Some people feel the mages are weak but I kinda disagree. Having the elemental damage can help tons sometimes. You don't want to be cockblocked because of a PHYS immune.

Having a good Merc on your necro will also help a lot, act 2 nightmare MIGHT will make your skellies dish out pretty insane damage with a lot of + skills and amp damage as curse.

This build really shines when you can get an Enigma to teleport around. Teleporting makes your minions stack up on one another and they actually pull a hit before stacking off so you can trounce any mobs ( and it's pretty good in PvP also )

There are a couple of semi-decent Necro builds but as far as PvM goes, this one is the easiest and the best. It also requires next to no gear to be successful.

As far as STATS goes, you should have close to 300 VIT by the end of the build. Energy is not really required. Dexterity is not either. And STR is debatable depending on what you will be using. A good BASE number for untwinked chars is around 90. You can wear some decent elite armors like Archon and Great Hauberk and still have some margin. It is always a good idea to keep 20-30 stats un-invested when you are in the 50-60s because you can't really plan on what you will be finding. :)

If you have any in depth questions about the game feel free, I unfortunately know the whole fucking game by heart.
 
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Max corpse explosion and the rest doesn't matter haha. But no, when I was playing it I was rolling with a set up pretty similar to this:
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Golem Mastery
1 Clay Golem
1 Skeleton Mage
1 Summon Resist
1 Iron Golem
1 Revive
1 Blood Golem (prerequisite)
20 Corpse Explosion
1 Bone Armor
1 Bone Wall
1 Teeth (prerequisite)1 Amplify Damage
1 Dim Vision
1 Decrepify
1 Weaken (prerequisite)
1 Terror (prerequisite)


The logic being that curses get beefed up by +skill gear, you have either a clay golem up for slowing or a big fat beefy iron golem up to take the big hits. Then you just let the minion swarm make a few corpses, soften stuff up with curses as needed, and then corpse explode for victory. (The recent patch made it so that the base damage and max damage of the explosions are upped by 10%, so it's even more OP than before)

Also just dumping into vitality sucks, you get like the lowest yield per point of vitality. You want to dump into dex to maintain max block % (Because blocking 75% of the necro-smashing hits coming your way RULES) and then put into vitality with the extra, you will live much more often if you do this~

You can put more into skeleton mage, but that's diverting from Corpse Explosion points, which sucks. Also, this build doesn't need jack shit for gear. If you get an Insight on your merc then it's freaking easy mode, but its still totally doable with out. (If you want to be a total gangster then make an Insight-based Iron Golem for meditation Aura, then put something DPSy on your merc for your skeletons :V)
 
Max corpse explosion and the rest doesn't matter haha. But no, when I was playing it I was rolling with a set up pretty similar to this:
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Golem Mastery
1 Clay Golem
1 Skeleton Mage
1 Summon Resist
1 Iron Golem
1 Revive
1 Blood Golem (prerequisite)
20 Corpse Explosion
1 Bone Armor
1 Bone Wall
1 Teeth (prerequisite)1 Amplify Damage
1 Dim Vision
1 Decrepify
1 Weaken (prerequisite)
1 Terror (prerequisite)


The logic being that curses get beefed up by +skill gear, you have either a clay golem up for slowing or a big fat beefy iron golem up to take the big hits. Then you just let the minion swarm make a few corpses, soften stuff up with curses as needed, and then corpse explode for victory. (The recent patch made it so that the base damage and max damage of the explosions are upped by 10%, so it's even more OP than before)

Also just dumping into vitality sucks, you get like the lowest yield per point of vitality. You want to dump into dex to maintain max block % (Because blocking 75% of the necro-smashing hits coming your way RULES) and then put into vitality with the extra, you will live much more often if you do this~

You can put more into skeleton mage, but that's diverting from Corpse Explosion points, which sucks. Also, this build doesn't need jack shit for gear. If you get an Insight on your merc then it's freaking easy mode, but its still totally doable with out. (If you want to be a total gangster then make an Insight-based Iron Golem for meditation Aura, then put something DPSy on your merc for your skeletons :V)

Golem mastery ? Fuck no.

And i see the logic behind putting points into dex, but it's simply not necessary with a necro unless you plan on doing a large amount of PvPing.

You shouldn't get hit at all, and when you are, it pretty means you are gonne die anyway because you are supposed to have 30 minions around you taking the hits and most of your damage taken will be from gloams and succubus blood star which hits for obscene amount of damage sometimes.

Also do yourself a favor and get Lower Resist if you don't play single player ; it can help your party A BUNCH and at level 11, you can break IMMUNITIES off of monsters.
 
Golem mastery let's your one beefy golem be a freaking hoss-tank for taking down act bosses and uniques and stopping you from having your face beat. The mages are really terrible because of the proliferation of resists in the later difficulties, and that's like the only other viable alternative to the points. You see way more yield out of a beefy golem that can wreck everything but the rare physical immune mobs vs alot of mages who are mostly innefective due to resists.
 
Golem mastery let's your one beefy golem be a freaking hoss-tank for taking down act bosses and uniques and stopping you from having your face beat. The mages are really terrible because of the proliferation of resists in the later difficulties, and that's like the only other viable alternative to the points. You see way more yield out of a beefy golem that can wreck everything but the rare physical immune mobs vs alot of mages who are mostly innefective due to resists.

Listen to this guy, mages are for massive newbs. Also, can't stress enough how much corpse explosion owns. Seriously, so overpowered.
 
Golem mastery let's your one beefy golem be a freaking hoss-tank for taking down act bosses and uniques and stopping you from having your face beat. The mages are really terrible because of the proliferation of resists in the later difficulties, and that's like the only other viable alternative to the points. You see way more yield out of a beefy golem that can wreck everything but the rare physical immune mobs vs alot of mages who are mostly innefective due to resists.


You shouldn't need golem for any act bosses when you have maxed your skills. The only one who has potential to kill the minions is diablo.
 
Listen to this guy, mages are for massive newbs. Also, can't stress enough how much corpse explosion owns. Seriously, so overpowered.

Massive what ? They clearly aren't good but they can kill the occasional phys immunes. The golem doesn't add anything.
 
Thanks for all the advice. One question though:

Does dex actually effect block chance? If so, is it more valuable than vitality on a caster?
 
yes and yes.

Chance to Block

Total Blocking = [(Blocking * (Dexterity - 15)) / (Character Level * 2)]

Blocking = A total of the Blocking on all of your items. (E.g: Guardian Angel, Twitchthroe, Any Shield, Holy Shield)
[] = Round Down

Note: Blocking on shield shown in game is capped at 75% while it may actually be higher. For a true account of most shields blocking ability... Look here forUnique, Set, and Magical/Rare shields. (for magical/rare, add the Blocking % from the suffix to the base blocking)

Note 2: Block chance is divided by 3 after the 75% cap. You can't block more than 25% when running.

Example: A lvl85 Paladin with 100 Dex, Guardian Angel(20%), lvl20 Holy Shield (35%) and a Herald of Zakarum(82%).

Total Blocking = [(Blocking * (Dexterity - 15)) / (Character Level * 2)]
= (20 + 35 + 82 * (100 - 15)) / (85 * 2)
= (20 + 35 + 82 * (85)) / (85 * 2)
= (20 + 35 + 82 * (85)) / 170
= (20 + 35 + 82 * (85)) / 170
= (137 * 85) / 170
= 11645 / 170
= 68.5
= 68% Chance to Block

----

if you are a caster, a general rule of thumb is put enough points in strength to wear your gear, put enough in dex to keep your CTB at 75%, put the rest in vitality, put nothing ever into energy ever holy shit dont do it.
 
Thanks for all the advice. One question though:

Does dex actually effect block chance? If so, is it more valuable than vitality on a caster?

99.9 % of the time, you want DEX on your caster. Maybe not 75 % , but you should look forward to having close to that which is one of the reason Annihilus and torches are so useful to have around. + stats are actually very darned good and whenever you get rich, you will start planning far far more ahead your stat points, wasting them can be costly in the long run.


Cinn is dead on but the problem is putting no energy usually suits casters better IF they have some good gear OR if you rush them OR if you join games and leech.

It doesn't work if you fail to meet one of the condition. If you decide to level up with your friends, play single players, you will run out of mana so often you better keep your belt full of Mana pots and that is arguably one of the most annoying thing ( for me ) to do.

Fun Fact : DEX didn't apply to Block in Classic D2.
 
I rolled a sorc to farm shit for my necro got her to 73 so far with no points into energy, so it's not that bad (spamming pots ftw)

Too bad I did a vit dump on her, and i'm just now putting shit into dex (45% block chance ftl is making hell really annoying)

Thanks again guys.
 
I rolled a sorc to farm shit for my necro got her to 73 so far with no points into energy, so it's not that bad (spamming pots ftw)

Too bad I did a vit dump on her, and i'm just now putting shit into dex (45% block chance ftl is making hell really annoying)

Thanks again guys.

Off of the act boss, the only attack you can block is the cold-based ball from Mephisto. The rest goes straight off the resist chart only. ( ain't talking about Duriel since i doubt you are running him at all )
 
you'll block a lot of attacks when you tele to andariel, and def when you tele into her room to snipe her with all of those mobs up on hell.

max block is well worth it in my opinion for an MF sorc.

also I had forgotten about the reskill/stat ability in the latest patch so technically you could dump your shit into whatever you wanted to level up and then just put your real stats in with a reset.

also if you make a d2jsp account magina I'll toss you some forum gold. I don't have much but it should be enough to get your some basics.
 
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