Necro summoner questions

Hello guys, I'm new to this mod although I was playing diablo 2 long ago.
Considering how much the necro has change with the mod (especially with the lack of magic skills like the good old nova), I have to ask some questions about how some things work for him and his summons in order to fix my build and make him more than a maggot :p

First of all, I would like to know what stats should a summoner focus on. Since there is a very good passive for mana regen he doesn't need that much energy but I am not sure if his summons are effected by any stat he gains (like the more str he has, the more dmg they deal, etc).

An other thing I would like to know is weather or not do his summons share his resistances and/or his elemental damage.

Last thing I wonder is why does a great summon (veil king) turns evil when killed. That has basically render the summon useless since there are times some weird elites pop up and me and my summons are all dead in secs, if I have this summon too, I have to deal with it in addition to the elites which causes more trouble than any good. The worst part of course is that without this summon I don't have many options for good summons since aside the rampagors the others either die too easy or have little damage.
Maybe there is a way to keep him from going against you when he dies which I don't know, or maybe there is an other way to deal with this while keeping the summon so if you know something that helps, please let me know.

Any other advices, tips and guidelines for necro summoner are welcome.

Welcome
You should max out energy, reason why is because having spell dmg for your towers (which you should use) greatly increases your killing speed in early-mid game.
Second of all, minions get their stats separately. There are item modifiers such as +%minion dmg, hp, and resistances. All of these you can get from cubing Mystic Orbs onto your items. They dont get bonuses from your stats though.
Veil king is like that. Some people prefer not to use him because he does that, while others like him because of his fast kill speed. You can always re-summon him when you see he's about to die, which doesn't turn him against you. And if you choose to use him, make sure to max that skill and get %minion life. Lategame he is quite useless because he dies so quickly in ubers and is melee, so keep that in mind.
Have fun!

Thanks botnik.
So far I have focus my items on minion damage and health but they still die a bit too easy and have problems killing those with poison immunity ( which is a lot of mobs now that I have reach the 2nd difficulty ).

Necro summoner can become 1 godly build if RC uberskill can be used as oskill in SSU or SSSU wands, or crafted wands or lastly in staves RW or rare/crafted/uniques staves... Going to Dest and ubers whitout defese(I mean, RC as uber, not DW) its suicidal... I've tested that....

My def isn't that good right now MUS (around 1000-2000), probably because I don't know where to get any good items aside from killing bosses. Still though I have keep mostly some low level rare items (aside a unique wand) so I can stack more orbs to them.
Currently around level 60- I have just complete the first difficulty and I'm thinking to ether keep killing some bosses in the first difficulty to make a unique set or check for runewords close to my level.
I'm also thinking to put aside the minion damage for now and focus on resistances and life to make sure the survive easier at a fight even with elites.

U dont need to boost minion damage. If u dont want to make entire build around it. U need 75% minion resists.

Just max death fury totem, shadows and jinn. Totem will give ur minions flat elemental damages, shadows aura will incrase it and jinn aura will give them monster elementar pierce that will almost double damage. Also use ur Veil for another 140% damage boost

It easy to reach 20k tri-elemental damage on each mob, and possible to get around 44k. Its without -~75% elmental pierce from jinns.

U dont need much defence for a summoner. U need %minion life and maxed black mass its huge difference between 20% avoid and 35% when u give it to huge numbers of summons. U need only about 50k+ defence so u wont be struck absolutely every time.

For more killing speed try to put some point in elemental towers (i like the fire one). No need to put much 1-15points is fine. U will get huge boost to its damage from ur shadows ~150%+ and from your Veil ~140%. 15-25k damage easy to get. And u can put all points in energy u dont really benefit much from vitality.

Also u can try different merc and gear for them. They get damage from Death Fury tower and jinn buff too.

All u need from gear is small amoung of Total Character defence for ~50k+ defence, huge numbers of %minion life and +necro skills\+all skills and a very bit of -monster elemental resists (ur tower type resist) + jinn buff must be -100%

Secondary are %spell damage (ur tower type damage), %energy, flat energy, % avoid and whatever u like else like acid fiend oskill, overlord oskill etc..

Thanks a lot ruby, I have just try your tips (those I could so far, jinn is out of reach for now) and it seems to be doing a good job. Great job giving specific instructions, very helpful.

welcome, this is just common\easy\item independant summoner build. there are many other ways to build him lategame so u can try else later.

With 50k of def, you are being 1 shotted in Fautzville , TA, Bremtown, etc(insert here all hard damage ubers). Necro summoner with RC in theory is great, but in practical results, he es under average char...yeah, RC+VK is great, but in Median mobs target the char first, summon only after melee contact, so necromorbs, harpys, etc 1 shooted you(I do 1 build time ago, I called "The reeturn of the king"and it failed in DEST...ubers...)..Solution: that RW Styx wich gives oskills(wich fit the build) and the imbaness Warp Armor oskill...Sadly, you can't use the new Laz set(best set around in the game for summonerr/totemancer builds, or Necromancer summoner set) AND this RW USES AN SHAAD... good luck try to get 1 in Toraja with 50k of def.

I farm Toraja and TA easily with ~50kdef i almost dont get hit. Bremmtown is pretty easy with summoner lol, just summon infront of u and stay back. Fautzville just requires some better gear with +necro minions, overlord, slayer etc and 500 bonus stats, also piano skills.
Sure i need avoid instagibs in ubers, but u know if u will get 500k def even arrowside will kill u if u wont avoid manual.

No idea why summon necro needs high def since he cant get high enough anyway. And with tainted blood + lionhearth from cheapy wand i get 100k without any investing in def. Id rather get more %dr and put some in vitality.