As fans dive into the world of Diablo 2: Resurrected, they’ll also want to know the best ways to make fantastic builds for their characters. When it comes to the Necromancer, there are a lot of options, from Bone Spells to Poison Novas. So what build is the best?
The Summoner Build
The Summoner build (sometimes called the Summonmancer) is arguably the best Necromancer build in the game. The basics are that you bolster your character’s ability to summon skeletons, undead mages, and golems to create a giant army that destroys every enemy in your path.
Meanwhile, you also lower enemy defenses and use their own cadavers as weapons against them. There is some build variation depending on personal preferences, but the core of the build roughly stays the same.
Abilities
- Raise Skeleton – This is the Necromancer’s basic ability to summon bone buddies. You cast it on the fallen corpse of an enemy and it constructs a skeleton warrior to fight by your side. It can raise up to eight skeletons. Put 20 points into this, it’s one of the most important skills in your build.
- Skeleton Mastery – Once you have Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery helps your undead thralls pack a bit more punch. With 160 more life points and 40 more damage to your bone battalion, your army will last a lot longer on the battlefield. Much like Raise Skeleton, this is part of the core focus of your build, so put 20 points put into it.
- Corpse Explosion – After casting this on a carcass, the body will explode and damage all nearby enemies. The Necromancer doesn’t have enough mana to raise every skeleton in a dungeon, so Corpse Explosion is a great way to get good use out of every dead body in your path.
- Raise Skeletal Mage – The skeleton warriors are strong, but the Necromancer can go one step further using this skill and summon a skeletal mage. Much like warriors, you can summon up to eight, but they use magic attacks instead of physical, diversifying your undead army’s damage.
- (Your Favorite) Golem – As you get stronger, the golem tree branches into a handful of different golems. The most popular is fire golem, which deals burn damage as well as turns any fire damage it receives into life. The Iron Golem, Clay Golem, and Blood Golem are also popular choices.
- Golem Mastery – The Necromancer can summon golems of different elements, and this increases their speed and life by 33% and 400%, making them a longer-lasting threat in any fight.
- Lower Resist – To make sure your army does as much damage as possible while they’re up, this ability curses the enemy to take more damage from magic attacks and, as their name implies, lowers their resistances. This can be very helpful, for example, against a demon resistant to fire so that your fire golem can do more work.
- Amplify Damage – This ability curses your foes to take more damage from you and your allies. However, it does focus on non-magic damage.
- Dim Vision – To help disorient your foes and make your skeletal army all the better, this decreases their range of sight. This can be used to get an advantage in a fight or, in some cases, help you rush past enemies in a dungeon to speed-run an objective.
Best Gear
A major part of Diablo is the grinding and loot-hunting, so while you burn down hell’s armies, don’t forget to keep an eye out for these top-tier Necromancer items. However, there are hundreds of great items throughout Diablo 2, so feel free to explore your options until you find gems like these.
- Weapons: Carin Shard, Arm of King Leoric
- Armor: Harlequin Crest, Trang-Oul’s Scales, Arachnid Mesh, Marrowalk, Magefist, Trang-Oul’s Claws
- Focus: Homunculus, Darkforce Spawn, BoneFlame
- Jewelry: Stone of Jordan, Mara’s Kaleidoscope
Rune Words
- Enigma (Jah + Ith + Ber) The Enigma runes give a Necromancer a general quality of life improvement, improving teleportation, walking speed, strength, health, and mana regeneration. Requires level 65.
- Heart of Oak (Ko + Vex + Pul + Thul) This group of runes helps boost your personal vitals as well as your damage against demons, increasing attack damage and attack speed. As a more mage-like Necromancer, the extra resistances and life can be particularly important. Requires level 55.
- White (Dol + Io) These runewords make your bones stronger: your bone spear, bone armor, and your skeletons. Requires level 35.
