Hello D2 fans,
I am orientating on this build:
from a link I cant post here.
Necromancer Summoner Build
20 skeletons, 20 skeleton upgrade, 20 magic skeleton,1 fire golem.
What skills should I max out first as necromancer???
I am level 24 right now and my gear is garbage.
Are range magic skeletons better to max or my golem or rather go debuffs or what is highest damage in low levels?
Playing on normal right now.
Range skellies first, they are too good. Put one in golem for the slow and one in golem mastery. After that max out skellies mastery and one point into revieve. Always get one point in every curse that seem to fit your Playstyle, -res and this blue slow curse are the best one. - Res for your skelly armie ( for elemental immunes ) and this slow thingy for physical immune ( it breaks it).
After that, just try to max the skellies first with mastery and give some points into the curses.
There are many endbuilds for necro but I like the “overlord” the most. Get as many minion’s as the game allowed you, get an Tele staff or enigma and just stomp everything into dust with a Tele stomp!
Also late late game you could get an iron golem ( consumes a metallic item) with some end game rune words with auras. I remember having a faith act 1 Merc and an iron golem with that concentration aura. Also infinity Merc is godly on this build. But remember once your golem dies the item is gone, and once you over summon him with other golems it’s gone too.
This build can do anything from farming bosses to kill Ubers
Also early game corpse explosion is imba
What about stats. Guide says just go to 26 STR and everything else in Vitality. Was it really that simple?
Just vitality and nothing else?
Vitality is king, always try to keep about 25-50 stats for some unexpected gear upgrades! I wouldn’t go that low when you don’t have a perfect torch and anni, these can give up to 40 all stats together + late game expensive.
I would hover about 50-70 and keep stats for future upgrades. You won’t need much health as an overlord because, who will touch you?
When you got yourself a telestaff ( charges) don’t forget to telestomp and immediately move away from mobs.
Curse, corpse explosion and you good. Good cow clearer good nihlatak farmer.
Also, never get " monsters rest in peace" on any equipment or you can’t explode corpses nor can you summon skellies
+Skills is best for every slot. There are boots with + skelly, but very rare. On helm lore runeword is +1, spirit as weapon and a necro shield with plus necro skills /and or skelly mastery / skelly something.
Also I know revieve sounds too good to be true, but keep it for later it’s pretty op to resurrect souls later or these big hobgoblin guys, but early on its not that good.
Also skellys scale with normal nightmare and hell.
And I can’t press this enough, a necro without corpse explosion is a necro wrong played!
Edit, also don’t just spend away your restatt with akara, keep it for later !
You can farm tokens but it takes a while…
Later in endgame when you have gz gear you can totally get away with just restatt and put everything into vitality. But early ladder/ early game without any gear? I wouldn’t do it. It’s just unrealistic and frustrating.
Also boss fights with aoe can kill your army, just go back to act1 kill some guys get your army back and stomp that beach
25 str to wear a belt with 3 rows, by the time you are around level 12.
34 strength for a 3 socketed shield by the time you have the runes for Ancient’s Pledge.
43 str when you’re done with Normal and can get your hands on a Spirit runeword crystal sword.
55 str for a good caster body armour (mage plate)
156 str is required for a 4 socket Monarch shield for your offhand Spirit Runeword, but that will come much later
Basically, you don’t need strength (and dex for some weapons for melee chars) for anything other than requirements for your gear so aim for the absolute minimum required.
And as a caster/minion necro you will never need to be very tanky
Magic skeles suck.
Personally, I would go 20 skeles, 20 mastery, 10+ corpse explosion - whatver you need to fill the screen with your + skills, get an off hand with decrepify so you don’t need to waste skills buying that unless it is killing too many skeles and annoying you. Then maybe just buy the first curse, or go for decrepify.
Then the rest can be whatever you want. Some people take revives and a golem. Personally, I prefer going for poison but it’s hard to pull off.
really? i thought they very weak even upgraded, low damage and health. no?
Don’t invest in squelletons mages, they suck.
What are you guys talking about, never played an overlord?
Mages suck, they don’t do enough damage, they block your raise skeletons and you can’t stack amp dmg and lower resists. So one group is doing less dmg.
As amp dmg breaks phys immune and lower resist doesn’t break immune its clear that your better of pumping rs, sm, amp dmg, and ce.
With left overs in whatever.
Though in old d2 it was fun building an overlord army in pindle, then joining the baal run and loads of people crashing as their comps couldn’t handle all the minions.
There’s some good advices here, thanks! 
Also if you follow some guides Stormwind, don’t forget that a lot of them are written for endgame, and may not quite suit you while you go through the difficulties and level up your hero!
That being said, don’t forget that you can talk to Akara in the Rogue camp to reset your talents once per difficulty, so you can always try things out a bit, put more Strength in if you feel like it, and then redo it all once you have a better idea of what you need.
Yeah I am not sure if I should re-roll to an Mage. Necro seems very tough in higher difficulties at the start.
What others have said.
Ignore skeleton mages.
1 point in Amplify damage (always use this)
1 point in decrepify (use on bosses)
1 point in skeleton mastery, then max skeleton warriors.
1 point clay golem.
1 point golem mastery and summon res.
Then max Corpse explosion.
I am beating hell with this. While my Cold sorceress buddy struggles or have to skip certain enemies.
I usually love Summoner builds in games like this but I have to say I am having issues in D2. I more or less use the build above and yet my Summoner Necro was by far the most difficult char to get through Act 1 with. [I levelled many classes to end of Act 1 as I had not played many in the past and wanted to see which I liked. Summoner Necro was easily the weakest].
The problem was Andariel killed my skellies quickly, and I soon ran out of bodies to make more. Can someone tell me what you are supposed to do when that happens? I presume future bosses will equally destroy my skellies before I kill them. The idea of having to jump out to another zone to collect skellies multiple times in a boss fight is not something I am prepared to entertain, so how do you deal with it?
Note that most games with similar Necro mechanics usually give the player a way of creating viable bodies via his other skills, but not here.
Afaik D2 is a heavily item/stats based game.
So even the best build means nothing if you dont have good items.
What blue/magic items should I try to get first?
I heard “The Pit” is the best way to farm good magic items for the beginning!?
Ok Ill skip Magic Skeletons then.
Guess I have to check where to reset my skill.
iron golem because IYKYK, only pros use iron golem,
amp, decripifiy, lower resis
max skellies, mage skellies, revive, skelle mastery and summon resist to make them survive hell
60 str
130 dex
max vit
0 energy