09-24-2004, 01:17 AM
I've built a sunmmoning Necro and had very nice results. He was made complely solo (single player), no-twink, and has an easy time even in act 5 hell.
Skills:
Max Raise Skeleton
Max Skeleton Mastery
Max Raise Skeletal Mage
Max Golem Mastery
1 pt in everything else in summoning tree
1 in teeth/CE
1 in Amp / Weaken / Terror / Decrepify
The main thing I did while playing him was look for +skills equipment, namely + summoning. I guess I got lucky, but by the time I hit hell I had +5 to summoning and +1 to all skills. Skeletons are ultra tough, so survival isn't usually an issue. Currently, he has +9 to summoning and +2 to all skills from a rare head. Pick up every magic wand you find later on, and gamble all the circlets and amulets you can once you're high enough level to get the +3 summoning modifier (this is all assuming you don't already have nice +skills equipment).
I use clay golem for two reasons. One, slows target. Two, highest life of any golem (with enough +skills). Your mileage may vary. At first, Iron Golem is the best bet until you get more +skills equipment. I decrepify everything except physical immunes in hell (I amp those for more damage). I picked up a blessed aim act 2 merc in normal and is still going strong in hell. (Even with sub-par equipment, they survive well due to all your other minions). I believe blessed aim is the way to go, since skeletons have bad AR. However if you play with AR boosting allies (or equivelant, like a Conviction Pally), you can get a more effective merc like might, or perhaps thorns.
Also: Revives. Revives are REALLY GOOD. By far the most powerful of your minions (at least if you revive the right things). If you know you can get a lot of +summoning, only 1 base point can give you enough revives to slaughter with. Recommended revives: Corrupted rogues (especially archers in hell), goat men, ghosts, gloams, balrogs, doom/abyss knights, bascialyl any not-too-slow-moving and hard-hitting monster. The all around best revives I like are Blunderbores and Thorned Hulks, and the kings of revives, Minotaurs.
That's really all the strategy there is. Just stand around and keep everything decrepified, and watch all your minions kick butt. Starting off, max raise skeleton and skeleton mastery first. Get decrep as soon as possible, and have a golem. Be sure to get your point in revive at level 30 or realy soon after. After skeleton/mastery are maxed, either work on mage or golem mastery. Once everything is maxed, you can increase corpse explosion. My necro is level 83 now, and he is just starting to do that. Corpse explosion serves quite well in hell to speed things up a bit.
I've concluded that this build can be done without mages at all, but I like them. They do low damage, but enough of them can still take out physical immune creatures that amp/decrep cannot un-immune.
If you are solo, act bosses in normal will be a HUGE pain. Just stick it out. When they slaughter your army, TP out, WP to an easy area and rebuild your army, and go back through your tp for another round (just remember not to TP out of the area you are in when rebuilding, or it may be a long hike back to the boss). I found Diablo to be the hardest boss to kill, and Baal the easiest (I had a nice army and revives by then). Diablo took many, many TP army rebuilds to beat. I'm pretty sure I cleared most of act 1 just rebuilding my armies, but he still fell in the end.
With clay golem, decrep, and at least 1 cold mage, most bosses are a joke. The slow effect from those 3 things will make things near statues. Baal's AI completely screws up when slowed this much, making him nearly unable to attack at all. With decrep and cold mages, alone, not many monsters will pose much of a threat to your army at all. Even if you don't use clay, I reccommend throwing him in there to get a hit on a hard boss to tag him with the slows target (unless you use an Iron golem summoned form something really nice).
When you get high level and lots of +skills, you'll have over 30 minions wreaking havoc across Sanctuary.
Wow, I should have just made a guide. :P
-Barrid
Skills:
Max Raise Skeleton
Max Skeleton Mastery
Max Raise Skeletal Mage
Max Golem Mastery
1 pt in everything else in summoning tree
1 in teeth/CE
1 in Amp / Weaken / Terror / Decrepify
The main thing I did while playing him was look for +skills equipment, namely + summoning. I guess I got lucky, but by the time I hit hell I had +5 to summoning and +1 to all skills. Skeletons are ultra tough, so survival isn't usually an issue. Currently, he has +9 to summoning and +2 to all skills from a rare head. Pick up every magic wand you find later on, and gamble all the circlets and amulets you can once you're high enough level to get the +3 summoning modifier (this is all assuming you don't already have nice +skills equipment).
I use clay golem for two reasons. One, slows target. Two, highest life of any golem (with enough +skills). Your mileage may vary. At first, Iron Golem is the best bet until you get more +skills equipment. I decrepify everything except physical immunes in hell (I amp those for more damage). I picked up a blessed aim act 2 merc in normal and is still going strong in hell. (Even with sub-par equipment, they survive well due to all your other minions). I believe blessed aim is the way to go, since skeletons have bad AR. However if you play with AR boosting allies (or equivelant, like a Conviction Pally), you can get a more effective merc like might, or perhaps thorns.
Also: Revives. Revives are REALLY GOOD. By far the most powerful of your minions (at least if you revive the right things). If you know you can get a lot of +summoning, only 1 base point can give you enough revives to slaughter with. Recommended revives: Corrupted rogues (especially archers in hell), goat men, ghosts, gloams, balrogs, doom/abyss knights, bascialyl any not-too-slow-moving and hard-hitting monster. The all around best revives I like are Blunderbores and Thorned Hulks, and the kings of revives, Minotaurs.
That's really all the strategy there is. Just stand around and keep everything decrepified, and watch all your minions kick butt. Starting off, max raise skeleton and skeleton mastery first. Get decrep as soon as possible, and have a golem. Be sure to get your point in revive at level 30 or realy soon after. After skeleton/mastery are maxed, either work on mage or golem mastery. Once everything is maxed, you can increase corpse explosion. My necro is level 83 now, and he is just starting to do that. Corpse explosion serves quite well in hell to speed things up a bit.
I've concluded that this build can be done without mages at all, but I like them. They do low damage, but enough of them can still take out physical immune creatures that amp/decrep cannot un-immune.
If you are solo, act bosses in normal will be a HUGE pain. Just stick it out. When they slaughter your army, TP out, WP to an easy area and rebuild your army, and go back through your tp for another round (just remember not to TP out of the area you are in when rebuilding, or it may be a long hike back to the boss). I found Diablo to be the hardest boss to kill, and Baal the easiest (I had a nice army and revives by then). Diablo took many, many TP army rebuilds to beat. I'm pretty sure I cleared most of act 1 just rebuilding my armies, but he still fell in the end.
With clay golem, decrep, and at least 1 cold mage, most bosses are a joke. The slow effect from those 3 things will make things near statues. Baal's AI completely screws up when slowed this much, making him nearly unable to attack at all. With decrep and cold mages, alone, not many monsters will pose much of a threat to your army at all. Even if you don't use clay, I reccommend throwing him in there to get a hit on a hard boss to tag him with the slows target (unless you use an Iron golem summoned form something really nice).
When you get high level and lots of +skills, you'll have over 30 minions wreaking havoc across Sanctuary.
Wow, I should have just made a guide. :P
-Barrid