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The ultimate necro
This has to start with a story because I (Gaby de Wilde) spend way to much time figuring this build out, it should be absolutely clear what it does and why because it is such a strange necro. I made many necromancers, this one is by far the best. You will find the rest of your party way behind you wondering where all the monsters went. Important: This build doesn't require any items. So listen, this is important.
The build
A hardcore necromancer that will eventually have max corpse explosion, max amplify damage, ordinary skeletons, skeleton mastery and 1 point in attract. You buy a sorceress Stave with teleportation charges in the shop. (they just sell those things)
Our necro will be wearing a breastplate. Find it, it is the first kind of reasonable armor it can wear, put it on and only take it off to have it imbued and personalized. We are going to wear it until it is lvl 99. In stead of putting a single point in dexterity and strength you put all of the points in health and a few in mana. At level 81 you have 80 X 5 stat points and you get +1 health for each level up, for every point of vitality you get 2 health. This makes a total of 925 health. More on this later. (Dont expect the imbue to give the armor any useful stats, it is purely for entertainment value.)
We will be using the act 2 merc with the might aura. A good mercenary weapon is the only real item you will need to obtain for this necro.
Manual of operation
You are in a full game and you see a big mob of monsters. Now you cast lvl 25 Amplify Damage (Diablo II). (18 yards/80 seconds!) Your curse is huge and lasts forever so you need not worry about it any further. The curse should be so big it makes you laugh every time.
You now cast Attract on one of the closest monsters and in that same second you weapon switch to the teleport staf and teleport right next to the attractive monster, in that same second you switch back to your normal weapon and shield and you must also take a step back. You have to learn to do this super super quickly.
The mercenary and the skeletons teleport with you and are now positioned right next to the target. Attract doesn't really deal damage but it gives the other monsters something to do. You just don't want to teleport next to 100 oblivion knights just like that because of you know what. Attract gives you a few seconds to deal with the situation.
The mercenary, the skeletons combined with the attract create the first corpse fast enough. You now cast your lvl 25 corpse explosion! (which is 10.6 yards) BOOM! The second monster dies very shortly after because he lost so much health from the ce and he is taking damage from the merc as well as the skeletons, all with amplify damage. You now cast the lvl 25 corpse explosion again and BOOM everything else is gone. You will be like WTF LOL? every time.
All of this should not take more than 3 seconds. Learn to do it faster.
Just don't forget the attract doesn't work anymore if the monster is dead so you do have to cast the corpse explosion immediately. Waiting is instant death. But do it in time and BOOM everything else is gone!
It is just gone! The radius is bigger than your screen so there might be additional corpses around the corner just waiting for you to blow up after casting that awesome amplify damage curse. wooo hooo it is huge! and... and BOOM again!
What people see is: You just teleport into the monsters and everything dies. This necro can do this on a baal run in a full game on nightmare at lvl 22. You start out by walking behind everyone casting amp and blowing stuff up. The party can kill 2 things and you blow up everything else. Consider how lame this already is, you are making 90% of the kills if not more. After a few runs you will be running up front slaughtering everything without their help. Eventually attract/mercenary/skeleton/amplify damage will be strong enough to make the 2 corpses and kill everything before you are killed, because of attract it even looks like all of the monsters are attacking in your direction.
It is important to do this on hardcore in a full game because people are so afraid of everything. They will just stand there with their mouth open delivering full game exp to you. The necro levels up really really quickly. He also almost dies every time he attacks something, drinks one potion after another and he spends a fortune on teleport charges. All stuff we can manage.
You will learn to do it faster and faster.
Because of the teleport I would eventually go though the skills so fast my necro would move forwards faster when there are monsters then when there are non. The rest of the party should have a hard time keeping up. They cant go kill those huge mobs before you do. They have to stay back until everything is dead again.
o wow, so what is your necro wearing?
As your necro rules so hard inquiring minds will be asking you. This is where you show them the breast plate, the rare item with 1% cold resist and 10 stamina.
Keep every resistance charm you find in the inventory even if it is only 1 point.
Find a wand with +3 corpse explosion and make the White wand. This rune word is cheap and it gives +3 to Poison and Bone Spells. The cheap wand then gives +6 corpse explosion as well as 10 more vitality and a little bit of cast rate. 10 vit is 20 health 925 + 20 = 945!
None of the items our necro wears is worth anything even tho he rules hard. The fun is to push it to the very limit, it gets scary enough without any valuable items. If you by accident do put some unique in his inventory you need to mule it away. Just don't have a reason to moan when it dies.
Of course if you want to put some expensive rune or jewel in the breastplate you are immensely cool. A gem or some crap jewel would be more appropriate. But be sure to socket the imbued personalized breastplate. Just A ruby is just great. +38 life.
note: 945 + 38 from the ruby = 983 health! A few more items and a few charms and he will have well over 1000 life. If there is a barb in your party the total health is just silly, especially for a necro. Barbs do get 4 points for every point in vitality but they also need strength and dexterity very badly. The meat on this breastplate necro is just unbelievable. It gives comfort to this hardcore playing. Research has show that all Barbs also love giant amplify damage credible sources report.
You have to eventually find some good necro shield without any requirements. Until you do the Ancient's Pledge will be great. Before that we just stick any diamond in a socketed shield. By lack of godly items you really need a shield with lots of resistances and you need to use the whole inventory for crappy resistance charms. Be happy when you find any of those, you need them more than you think.
When you find your Skull Collector you will need 10 extra strength, try make this from items that do not give +life. For example: Amethyst gives 10 strength (in armor/helmet) but Ruby gives 38 life which would be 19 vitality in stat points. Better use the ruby in that case.
The skull collector is for the mana after kill. You could also dress up your necro with Tir rune to further boost the effect.
Stats
Strength
none.
Dexterity
none.
Mana
If you really cant get frostburns but not advisable.
Vitality
Every point will go in here.
Skills
These skills - require 85 of 110 possible skill points.
Summoning Spells
- Raise Skeleton. You need 20 points in this.
- Skeleton Mastery. You will need 20 points in this too.
No magi, their dps is meaningless.
Curses
- Amplify Damage (Diablo II) will essentially double the damage of your Skeletons and mercenary and greatly enhance corpse explosion. Eventho it doesn't seem necessary we really want 20 points in this. At level 25 Amplify Damage covers 18 yards for 80 seconds. Level 10 is only 8 yards for 35 seconds.
- Dim Vision 1 point
- Confuse 1 point
- Attract 1-3 points (at lvl 1 it lasts 12 seconds, at lvl 3 it lasts 19.2 seconds)
Poison and Bone Spells
- Teeth 1 point
- Corpse Explosion 20 points! At level 25 it is 10.6 yards people! Level 9 is only 5.6 yards. You can fit several of those small circles in the big one. The barb on the edge of your screen kills something, you cast the curse where he is standing covering everything in his vision. Then you blow everything up. Just like that. Who would not want to put points in something as awesome as corpse explosion? It must be some one who has never seen it on level 40. It makes frozen orb and whirl wind look like silly skills.
Gear
Helmet: Gamble some coronet
Chest: imbue, personalized, socketed breastplate with Perfect ruby.
Belt: One with 4 rows of potions.
Feet: Buy some boots with faster run walk in the shop.
Hands: Frostburn
Weapon: White wand or Skull Collector
Weapon 2: Stave with teleport charges
Shield: Ancient's Pledge
Rings: keep those with resistances, you might want to swap them later.
Amulet: keep those with resistances, find one with +2 necro skills or +3 to poison and bone as well as lots of resistances.
Mercenary's Gear
Helmet: 3 el rune (+3 light radius)
Chest: 4 el rune (+4 light radius)
Weapon: Cruel pike or Honor rune word (+1 light radius)
(a glowing beacon of light)
Popular myths
- You need armor. This is just not true, unless you have godly HC items spending those points on vitality is just great. It gives you that 1/5 second you need to drink a potion.
- High level Amplify damage is not good. This is just not true. The enormous curse is fantastic for the party. At lvl 25 it still costs 4 mana.
- Don't spend to much points on Corpse explosion. This is just wrong, it is hard enough to find a corpse, when you got one you got to wrench the max out of it. Because of it's long range there is potential for chain reactions that are just impossible with lvl 10 ce.
- You need items! Partially true but the crap used to build this necro shouldn't take more than 10 min asking around. He will eventually find everything he needs. In stead of +20 to all skills from super items and charms you only get a few points. Not that I want to suggest lvl 40 corpse explosion isn't awesome.
- Necromancers are slow. Yeah, that was what I thought before I started building them like this. I was wrong, so are you.
| Necromancer Builds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Amplify Damage Necro by Gaby de Wilde • Bonemancer by Kickin It • Hardcore Summoner by Stefke-HC Skellymancer by LinkX |