We all know the current cookie cutter necromancer: several revives, maxed IM, a golem (usually blood) and some points into bone spear/spirit. Revives are considered by some as part of any necromancer a must have as much as a static for sorceress or weapon mastery for a barbarian. Many times when I was partied, people would ask me where were my revives. Most people understood, and there were fewer attempts to educate me as my necromancer got higher and higher. My favorite was when a sorceress 20 level below me kept telling me to summon revives, and would not understand that I did not have any. She left later, because "without revives she was dead". Now my necromancer is level 80 in about a month, and he almost never dies, except to some very bad lag or desynchronization from the server. Here is a picture of him in the middle of a crowd:
I am aaaaalright =). As long as I keep IM on the monsters, blood golem will keep me alive and well.
Try not to use a golem when gathering monsters. He will often stop and engage them, splitting up your mob and generally interfering. This becomes even worse when revives are involved. Take a look:
I keep my necromancer in top shape. Lots of running, exercise... Well, that is what you have to do: make the monsters follow you until you gathered large enough group so that you can use CE successfully.
This idea actually started out from an attempt to create the most dueling-centered necromancer, without any points into "useless" skills in dueling, such as Revives and skeletons. Most people were doubtful, after all necromancers level slow enough with Revives, wouldn't this way be even slower?
The general idea of this leveling style is to get enough monsters in one area, so that Corpse Explosion can feed off itself, meaning it kills more monsters then it uses up corpses to do so. As you can imagine, in 8 player games mobs must be quite large in order to achieve this. Thus, sometimes it requires a very "active" way of gathering monsters. You simply run around without a golem or anything, making monsters follow you, until you think you have enough. Once you have enough, cast IM on them, create a golem between you and the onrushing mob, and they should go after the golem. Some of them will go after you, so you must run around (instead of watching the paint dry, I mean watching revives). Once a few monsters go down, you can start using CE. Even then, you must move around so as not to be caught up in a mob. You can use CE together with a few curses, which I will explain later.
Here some some screenies:
Run, little man... I am IMing all the monsters. While they kill themselves on my golem.
Time to die...I have now enough corpses to chain-react CE. I have decrepified all monsters for the increased damage, and so that I don't have to constantly avoid monsters.
The cleaning lady will have a fit... A few seconds later after I start the chain reaction, the whole mob quickly dissipates.
This is a leveling oriented necromancer, which just happens to be somewhat different style from many other necromancers out there. It's a pretty unique experience, different from your average necromancer with revives, and lots of fun and action =).
There are several advantages as well as disadvantages compared to the usual Revive/IM playing style. I will state the ones that I have noticed from my own experience, although I understand that I could have missed some.
Advantages:
This way of leveling requires much more action - running, constant cursing (not swearing, cursing =), and being in the thick of things. Compared to other people complaining of being bored to death while watching monsters kill themselves on IM, I consider this quite an advantage. In addition, I feel (and had several people tell me), that this way of leveling is actually faster then using revives: they don't fall behind, don't lag you, and there is no need to waste time on summoning new ones. In areas with lots of melee monsters, Blood golem makes you nearly invulnerable (see the picture above). Since more monsters attacks blood golem, he regains more life for you, thus you can take more punishment, making your golem a walking life supply. =). I would say that this is usually faster leveling way, although more dangerous.
Disadvantages:
In areas heavy with ranged attackers, revives keep you safer, distracting the fire. They are better when going up against bosses, since they act as a living wall. Hephasto is a piece of cake for revives. They also do better against end quest bosses as well. To summarize, they provide more safety.
While this necromancer is effective by himself, he can also be very effective in a party as well. High level Lower resist combines with sorceress static and either Frozen orb or Corpse Explosion as a finisher for very fast clears. Amplify damage and Decrepify help barbarians, amazons and hammerdins, with CE becoming even more useful because of the ease of getting those first bodies.
There is no real equipment requirement, although a few would be very useful. Generally, you should try to get your equipment to get you enough + skills, decent cast speed, and, just as important, resists.
Wand - Ume's Lament or any other good wand with + skills, mana, resists, fast cast, etc.
Helm - Wormskull and Tarnhelm both are good, and the magic find on the Tarnhelm actually is useful, since most of the actual kills are done by you. Even Howltusk with 35% damage goes to mana can be useful. However, a good rare helm won't hurt either.
Armor - Silks are nice, but have high strength requirement. Goldskins are good, because they give you your most important defense - resists. But they slow you down and require 80 strength. Garb is a good armor, because of some resists, 25% mana regeneration, and only 45 strength requirements. Twitchthroe is another good choice, because it give +strength/dexterity, increased blocking, requires only 27 strength is does not slow you down. A decent rare armor will do as well.
Shield - 3 Diamond gemmed shield is very good for places with a lot of elemental damage, Sigon's shield gives good block and +1 skills, so it is also a good option. Wall of the Eyeless is another great choice because of fastest cast and +5 mana per kill.
Belt - I would heavily recommend Nightsmoke. Since you will be hit a lot, this will quickly replenish your mana in tough situations. And since blood golem keeps you healthy, you can take some punishment without endangering yourself. +20 mana and 10% resists are not a bad addition too. Lenymo sash is not a bad choice, for its 30% mana regeneration increase and resists. But if you don't have Nightsmoke, any good belt will do.
Boots - any fastest run boots will do, but you will definitely need fastest run. The rest of the mods are icing. =). Resists should be above all else though.
Gloves - Magefists might be the best choice, because of 25% mana regeneration and fastest cast. Frostburns are nice, but require 60 strength and if you are using 2 Stones of Jordan, the additional 40% mana boost is not that significant. I generally would not recommend any rare gloves, but if you don't have the above 2, anything will do.
Rings - I would recommend 2 Stones of Jordan for a big mana boost and +2 skills. However, other rings can be used, for resists, +mana, fast cast, etc.
Amulet - any + necromancer skills amulet, preferably with good mods. Eye of Etlich is good for starters, but its mods are useless to a necromancer, besides +1 skills.
A decent level of Iron Maiden and Corpse Explosion are needed for this to work effectively. I would recommend the following setup:
Corpse Explosion - 10 points
Iron Maiden - 15-20 points
Blood Golem - 1-5 points, depending on how many + skill items you have.
Golem Mastery - 1 point
Lower resist - 5 points
Decrepify - 10 points.
Amplify damage - 1-5 points.
Bone wall/prison - 1 point
Poison Nova - 0-10 points (optional)
Bone spirit - 10-20 points.
Total - 55- 65 points.
You should be able to have those levels of skills by level 50, since many of them are prerequisites to each other.
Now lets take a look at each skill:
Corpse explosion -10 points
Why only 10? At level 10 its radius is big, more then enough to hit every enemy in the mob that surrounds your golem. After level 50-60, you can start pumping it more, but at level 10 (or more with items), it's pretty much all you need. In addition, since the cost increases at higher level, you might as well save some mana.
Some people might say that Corpse Explosion radius is not enough to use it successfully. Ohmn and Eddy Currents tested its radius to be about the width of the screen at level 15, and covering the whole screen at level 25 or so. This is far more then enough, because the monsters will gather around your golem, with the few corpses being in the center of the mob. With more then half a screen range of the CE, you can hit a whole screenful of monsters - I think that's quite good.
Iron Maiden - 15-20 points.
Damaging enemies with bonespear/bonespirit in 8 player games is out of the question. You will need your whole mana ball to kill just one monster. Thus Iron Maiden is the only real choice for you to get those few corpses. Since you want those corpses as soon as possible, the higher IM, the better. And it will heal your blood golem more, giving you more life and keeping you alive better.
Blood golem - 1-5 points.
At level 5 Blood Golem steals more then enough life to keep both of you alive. More points are not really necessary.
Golem Mastery - 1 point
A point in this is useful, which should become better if you get +skill items. I don't feel that you need more then 1 point in it =).
Lower Resist - 5 points
This is mostly useful against bosses. This will increase the damage of your bonespirit by almost 50%, and will help greatly when fighting magic resistant bosses.
Decrepify - 10 points.
First, what it does:
50% slower speed
50% less damage from the cursed
50% more physical damage (like Amplify Damage)
33% slower attack rate.
Why decrepify? It makes crowds much more manageable. I recommend it over Amplify damage for that same reason. If you cast Amplify damage, there will be no Iron Maiden to keep you and golem alive, and with a few monsters pounding on you, casting anything gets interrupted, making it hard to use CE. But with decrepify, you still get 50% more physical damage, as well as slowed mob. Thus if a few of them start pounding on you, not only will their attacks be slower, but it will be so much easier to move to another spot and continue with Corpse Explosion.
Why level 10? Because at level 1 the duration is very short, so you need those few points to get solid duration and extra radius.
Amplify Damage - 1 -5 points.
Why should I invest into Amplify damage at all, if I will use decrepify? At early levels, monsters are easier to handle, and you won't get decent level Decrepify until level 30. Until then, you can use Amplify damage - even one point is enough.
Bonewall/Boneprison - 1 point.
Bonewalls are very effective at creating another distraction for a mob, as well as blocking off different approaches to you.
Boneprison works great against bosses, especially Multishot Lightning Enchanted ones. It also works great on Oblivion Knights, De Seis in particular.
Why only 1 point? Both bonewall/prison scale up in difficulties, so 1 point should be more then enough in hell/hell.
Poison Nova- 0-10 points
While it does lousy damage, poison nova is good at preventing monster heal, which makes killing them faster (monsters do not regenerate life). It's not really necessary, but you can add it for convenience. The only problem would be reduced poison length in hell difficulty, thus you might want to put a few more points to make it last. Optional.
Bone spirit - 10-20 points.
As your number one weapon against bosses/ranged attackers, I think it is probably best to max it. I prefer it to bone spear because it tracks it's target, does more damage faster, and does not really require aiming. Combine it with Lower resists to add more oomph to it.
After you reach the recommended amounts, perhaps you should invest more into Corpse explosion, some more points into decrepify (to increase duration), and improve in other areas. Put a point into summon resist, max bonespirit, add a few into lower resist, the choice is yours.
However, all these recommendations are subjective: if you find something that works better for you, great! For example, dim vision could be useful in keeping the monsters in one place, while you CE them. Attract can direct some monsters from you. Or you might want to go totally minionless... The general idea of using CE on large crowds will still work.
Well, there is no strict rule... Get enough strength to use your items, generally no points into dexterity, put a few points into energy, but not too much - you want to have high life as well. While this necromancer requires about the same amount of mana as revive/IM one, he can effectively use Nightsmoke or any other "damage goes to mana" items to replenish his mana in combat. Getting hit is unavoidable, especially in the lag that is now Battle.net. Blood golem should keep you alive through almost anything, so you shouldn't worry about that. Sometimes I would personally come up to a monster to let him hit me, while the blood golem is sucking enough life to cancel out the damage.
By level 75, I would recommend 400-700 mana for leveling, and as much hitpoints as you can muster. 700-1000 hitpoints is a good number to shoot for, although it probably will be more like a far horizon.
- When you level, all your attention should be on leveling. Disregard all the item drops, except yellow and gold (rares and uniques =). This is especially true for a sorceress and a necromancer, who have almost nothing to repair, and can clear whole areas without the need to go to town.
- Disregard tough monsters. Kill the "meat" and leave the "bones" =). For example: You are leveling as a sorceress in Outer steppes. You encounter a pack of Venom Lords, Doom Knights and lurkers. You will most likely kill all the venom lords and doom knights, but quite a few lurkers will remain. Forget them, move on. In the time it would take to kill them, you could kill the next group of monsters together with some of the lurkers that followed you.
- The more monsters the better. Killing big mobs is easier and faster way to level then taking out small groups. This is only true of area of effect spells, since in this way you maximize their potential by hitting as many monsters as possible. For example, staticing one big group and then finishing off with orb is faster then staticing two groups.
- Avoid tough areas. This might be obvious, or not. Barbarians should avoid Chaos Sanctuary; necromancers should avoid all ranged attackers, unless they are in a party. Avoid Durance of hate because of stygian dolls. Etc.
Generally any place with lots of melee monsters and preferably no ranged attackers. The monsters should not be slow, or it will take you forever to gather them and kill them. Some good places would be Canyon of the magi (except when it has javelin slingers), Lower Kurast, Outer steppes and Plains of despair (don't even try to kill Izual - will take too long). Chaos Sanctuary is not a bad place, because most of the monsters fall fast to Iron Maiden, leaving only Oblivion Knights to worry about. However, those can be taken out with Bone spirits/Bone prisons =).
-Where can I get the most experience?
Necromancers have one advantage other classes don't - power leveling. They can easily level in hell/hell at level 40. But you can go for less danger at lower levels and get experience in Canyon of the magi - Crushers give great experience, and unless there are javelin slingers (where you should leave =), you can clear the whole canyon pretty fast. And nobody usually goes there, so you can have the Canyon all to yourself in 8-player game. In fact, this is what I did, and I leveled very fast.
-How do I get through other areas, such as Arcane Sanctuary and Sewers?
Blood golem should keep you alive through many places. You will need high resists however to protect yourself from ranged attackers/spell casters. Lower resist + Bone spirit works good against many annoying ranged attackers/spellcasters. You might want to get through other areas with not a lot of people in the game, since Bonespirit is you main weapon against the ranged attackers (sometimes you can use higher level Corpse explosion, but in closed areas it's hard).
-Which monsters should I avoid?
You should avoid spawning monsters, especially maggots. Vile mothers are bad, but at least their children have decent amount of hitpoints. Many times you can kill them by killing the mother first, and then exploding her corpse. Respawning creatures are a pain too, like skeletons, fallen, and flayers.
Flayers present additional danger, being fast, small and deadly. Many little fast enemies will simply run past your golem and straight for you. Especially avoid undead fetishes/flayers.
Another enemy you will come to hate is corpulent/corpse spitter. They are slow, run away when close to death, and, worst of all, eat corpses. This takes away your valuable "ammo," and if there are big groups of them, you might be better off to just move on.
Any ranged attackers, especially with elemental damage, are also a big problem. Try to make them attack golem instead of you, and pick them off with Bonespirits, or get them into range of CE.
b) On Skill Usage:
-What curses should I use with CE?
I try to keep IM on the monsters most of the time. This kills the monsters and gives me plenty of life. So first, I get the monsters health down with IM. Then my action depends on what kind of mob it is. If the mob is very dangerous (Extra fast/strong vile mother or Multishot Lightning Enchanted Finger mage), I keep the IM to keep me healthy, and just use CE without any backup curse. If the mob is mild, I found that Decrepify works wonders when I start using Corpse Explosion: it slows the mob down, increases physical damage by 50%, and decreases the mobs damage. Thus I am pretty safe when I keep switching between a shot of decrepify and several rounds of CE =). If you don't have decent level decrepify, or the mob is pretty safe, you might be better off using Amplify damage to get 100% more physical damage and kill monsters even faster.
Or you can just party up - you curses are helpful to everyone - Amplify damage for barbs/zons/paladins, Lower resist for sorceress, Life tap comes in handy, and so does Decrepify.
-Will revives help?
The way this strategy works, is that you need to clump the enemies together as close as you can. With golem, they gather around one target, and form a tight group. With revives, the monsters will be more spread out, and the Corpse Explosion won't be as effective. The worst part about them is that they tend to get stuck behind, while your whole strategy is based on quickly gathering a horde, and then quickly destroying it. Revives will often fall behind, attack the monsters that your are trying to clump up, and generally will slow down the whole process.
The only time I would recommend them is for having them as tanks to get through tough areas.
-When, where and how should I use the golem?
In relatively safe areas with only melee monsters you can run around collecting monsters without golem at all, because he will only slow you down and stop monsters from following you. But once you think you got enough, cast the golem between yourself and the main mob, then IM. They will usually go after golem, although some will go after you. That's when you have to move around.
After the fight, the golem will usually fall behind anyway and die (oh, cruel fate =).
If there are ranged attackers, you might want to keep recasting your golem to attract the attacks. Use him as a shield/distraction. Recast him often if needed. Use the obstacles if you can - keep on the other side of the bridges, watch the fight across the river. A good way to achieve this is to use golem as a bait and Decrepify to slow everyone down, so you can get away easier, and cast IM, or Corpse explosion, or do whatever you need to do.
c) On dealing with enemies
- Should I always use blood golem?
The only time you might want to use a different golem is in areas with heavy spellcasters or ranged attackers. It's likely that they will cause more damage to your golem then he can regain, so fire golem might be a better choice. This is especially the case when fighting Diablo, Mephisto, or even Duriel.
- What if I can't handle the enemies?
Bonewalls/boneprison are your last resort. Since they don't provide experience when monsters kill themselves on them, I would not recommend them for leveling... But in emergencies, they are a handy distraction. Cast some around Multishot LE boss, or cutoff that bridge so the monsters cannot get to you. Just remember, if you mistakenly bonewall yourself in a bad situation, the bonewalls have a lot of hitpoints and last for a long time. Be careful where you cast them =).
Bone prisons in hell games have a lot of hitpoints, and are quite good at keeping the ranged attackers at bay. They work especially good against Oblivion knights, since only their Bone spirits go through, but their elemental attacks don't. Bone prison De Seis and his friends for an easier time. Boneprisoning other dangerous bosses (especially the ones with ranged attacks) is very effective and useful.
All in all, this leveling is much more fun then watching monsters kill themselves on your revives, and is just as fast (if not faster), then revives/IM route. I agree, it's more dangerous, especially in Chaos Sanctuary, but that only makes it more fun =). And I was able to survive huge lag spikes, a few times standing in the middle of a mob together with my golem, and he worked hard for both of us, stealing more then enough life to keep me alive =P.
d) On dealing with end quest Bosses:
Note: stock up on potions, especially mana ones. Since you have no real way to steal mana back, and no static to reduce the hitpoints, it might take quite a few shots to bring the boss down.
- Andariel
Your golem usually dies quickly to her. In normal difficulty, you can try to use golem/spells, while pounding on her with a weapon or bow. In later difficulties, Bone spirits with lower resist spell work great against her. Throw a golem to occupy her, while shooting the bone spirits - as soon as the golem dies, throw up another one. This is best done with clay golem, because of his low cost. She should fall shortly if you are playing in 1 player game. In 8 people games, it might take a while.
- Duriel
This is a tough one. Always hire a mercenary before going in. Throw up a golem while shooting BS, and when the golem dies, throw up another one while continuing to pound him. Bone prison works great, but you have to be careful, since you will not get the end quest drop for killing him with bone wall. In normal difficulty, you will probably use bone spear instead of bone spirit.
- Mephisto
He is helpless in boneprison. His melee attacks are weak, and his ranged ones do not get through the bone prison. A golem works well too. Just keep him under Lower resist, and fire those bone spirits (bone spears).
- Izual
I put Izual here because it's so hard to kill - it takes forever to kill him on any difficulty. Usually, especially on hell difficulty, you can IM Izual, go watch some TV while he pounds on him (the blood golem), and come back from time to time to recast IM. Using bonespirits does not help much, because you run out of mana just to get his health down 1 notch. If you have any damage goes to mana items, this task becomes much easier. All you have to do is get Izual to attack you. Blood golem will steal enough life so you won't die, and Izual will keep refilling your mana ball. Then you can cast Bone spirits almost non-stop, reducing the time needed to kill him. On normal difficulty he is much easier - IM + golem works fine against him and does not take forever.
- Diablo
Stock up on potions. Using golem + IM against Diablo is pretty useless, perhaps use a golem only as a distraction. Fire golem works well, because he can regain some life from Diablo's fire spells. Although Lightning Breath of Death will usually destroy him. Keep Diablo under lower resist, and use Bone spirit. Try using corners as a protection. Since Bone spirit is auto-targeting, you can fire it from far distance, or around corners. Keep your distance, and eventually you will kill him =)
I would like to thank Lancewhitefist for being one of the few people along with me (I don't dare to say first - I am sure someone somewhere already did this =) to use this successfully and exchange information =). Cheers to Eddy Currents and Ohmn for their Corspe Explosion tests. Also, I would like to thank _Mr_Death_, Bat777, atomicdrop, and PHILG for their comments and suggestions, along with the rest of the people who helped me, such as Spiderdrake.
Any comments, suggestions and ideas are welcome, you can always reply here or send me an e-mail.
Navigation:Home 
Strategy 
