[v6d] Summoner Necromancer

The Summoner Necromancer
UPDATED 03/21/2013 @12:46-AM ~ REVISION 1.3

This super cheap and easy summoner can complete all basic ubers with TU gear only!
by Taem

General Info
In a nutshell, this is an in-between guide, meaning once you hit 120, you can use this character with it's current skill and gear setup to get all easy ubers, and most moderate ubers before needing substantial gear upgrades. Basically, you get a ton of high hit point summons and let them go to town with rainbow damage and crushing blow. I find it amusing how many said this build would fail for ubers, but the numbers kept adding up and in the end, I was right. Try it for yourself and see how effective this build can be.

Skills Placement
Take a look at it: HERE

Before any endgame ubers are done, before any challenges complete, this is how your skill points will look. And with this build using these skills and the items suggested, you will be able to do all of the easy ubers without any problems.

Max Summon Shadows: Life bonus caps out, but elemental damage bonus continues and enhances Death's Fury damage.
Max Summon Rampager: These bad boys deal massive poison damage and can take some serious hits before dying.
Max Summon Jinn: These when maxed will lower enemy resists by 50%, essentially doubling the elemental damage your minions are doing; that and bring up your Max Fire resist.
Max Death's Fury Totem: This adds a massive amount of elemental damage to your summons attacks.
Max Howling Totem: This adds tons of physical damage and crushing blow to your minions attacks, which can easily get to the 50% mark with items.
Max Embalming: This adds tons of life to your minions, and yourself of course.
1-Point Summon Void Archon: With all of the +skills you'll have at the end of the day, this guy at 1-point will still cause a nice slow on enemies.
1-Point Bane: With all of the +skills, this skill will drop enemy physical resists by 50% essentially doubling your physical damage.
1-Point Black Mass: This skill is used to further buff your minions giving them Avoid and Life on Strike making your army gods.
1-Point Graveyard: Just cast it and forget about it. Overall, it's your minions you should care about, but the few enemies this kills make it a nice 1-pointer at the end of the day.

Stat placement
First thing is first; throw away that Character Orb. You won't have accurate stats if you are using it, then suddenly find yourself without it at 120. I never used it the entire time I played my build. Second, just put points where you need them, and once you get better gear, charms, respec to lower your Strength and Dexterity as much as possible and put the rest into... duh duh duhhhh.... VITALITY! Once you get all attribute signets, you will notice a little over 2K added life when you put it all in Vitality. Unless you are mastering the elemental totems, putting points into Energy is useless for this build, although another possibility I didn't try was Smaxing Dexterity to get at least a 50% block. I suppose this is viable, but I saw no need for it. I was never in danger with my summons.

Strength: Enough for gear
Dexterity: Enough for gear
Vitality: EVERYTHING!
Energy: Nothing

Gear Pieces
There is an order to follow when getting this gear. In Ultimative, it requires lots of Arcane Crystals, which means lots and lots of tiered-uniques!
Best Practices; In Order:
1) Early on, equip the best rares you can find and try to get Lucky on everything.
2) When your a bit richer and older, farm for TU's; I usually hit Andy, them Mephisto, then Tran Athula, in that order.
3) Next, gamble for TU-6 gear of the type you need and turn it into uniques, or runewords. You just get +999 Sha-add on your weapon!
4) When you get old enough and accumulate enough arcane crystals, craft jewels with +20% or more minion life* and Lucky and insert them into every slot!
5) Use Mystic Orbs on your weapon and whatever else is available to get +75% minion resist. You should still have a ton of mo space for whatever you need... defense, resists, minion damage or life.
6) Reroll ilvl 99 jewelry until you get rings with +1 skill level and +minion life, and an amulet with +3 skills Lucky to +4 skills and minion life.
* THIS SECOND TIME AROUND, I CRAFTED JEWELS WITH MINION RESISTS AND REROLLED TILL THEY HAD +LIFE ALSO!

Weapon:
Blackheart
Grim Wand (6)
One-Hand Damage: 39 to 61
Durability: 108
(Necromancer Only)
Required Dexterity: 92
Required Level: 55
1% Chance to cast level 18 Gift of Inner Fire when Attacked
+(2 to 4) to Necromancer Skill Levels
40% Faster Cast Rate
40% Faster Hit Recovery
+(11 to 12) to Dark Power
+(22 to 25) to Summon Darklings
+(41 to 45)% Bonus to Summoned Minion Damage
Replenish Life +(1.5 per level) (Based on Character Level)
Socketed: 2

NOTE-1: REROLL THIS UNTIL YOU GET +4 SKILLS AND DOUBLE-MO BONUS! YOU'LL NEED A NICE SUPPLY OF ARCANE SHARDS!
NOTE-2: IN SOCKETS, PUT 2-PERFECT BLOODSTONES!
NOTE-3: DARK POWER GRANTS A HUGE DAMAGE BUFF TO YOUR MINIONS! DARKLINGS PROVID A PASSIVE -DAMAGE TO YOUR MINIONS MAKING THEM HARD TO KILL!

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Shield:
Nahual
Level 78
+Kur
Necromancer Shields
10% Chance to cast level 4 Gift of the Wild when Struck
+2 to All Skills
15% Faster Run/Walk
+(4 to 14) to Defender Spirit
+(2 to 12) to Greater Manifestations
+(201 to 250)% Enhanced Defense
+(31 to 40) to all Attributes
Increase Maximum Life and Mana (21 to 40)%

NOTE-1: REROLL THIS GREY ITEM UNTIL IT GETS SUPERIOR WITH 50% ED AND LUCKY! REROLL UNTIL YOU GET AT LEAST +10 DEFENDER AND MANIFESTATIONS!
NOTE-2: THESE MINIONS WILL BENEFIT FROM ALL YOUR BUFFS/AURAS AND SPREAD THE LOVE WITH RETALIATE! GODLY!

Spoiler:

Armor:
Dragonheart
Level 94
+Kra
Body Armor
+2 to All Skills
50% Increased Attack Speed
+(3.5 per level)% Enhanced Defense (Based on Character Level)
+500 to Life
Level 15 Blood Flash (20 Charges)

NOTE: REROLL THIS GREY ITEM UNTIL IT GETS SUPERIOR WITH 50% ED AND LUCKY!

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Helm:
Dreadlord
Level 75
+Lah
Helm
25% Chance to cast level 22 Mind Flay on Attack
(41 to 50)% Bonus to Summoned Minion Attack Rating
5% Chance of Crushing Blow
+(1 to 6) to Death Coil
+(2 to 4) to Maximum Necromancer Minions
+(41 to 50)% Bonus to Summoned Minion Damage
+(201 to 250)% Enhanced Defense
3% Bonus to All Attributes

NOTE: REROLL THIS GREY ITEM UNTIL IT GETS SUPERIOR WITH 50% ED AND LUCKY!

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Belt:
Aerin Orbiter
Belt (6)
Defense: (1044-1390)
Durability: 43
Required Strength: 288
Required Level: 48
30% Faster Cast Rate
+(27 to 30)% to Fire Spell Damage
+(27 to 30)% to Lightning Spell Damage
+(27 to 30)% to Cold Spell Damage
+(131 to 150)% Enhanced Defense
+(36 to 40) to Energy
All Resists +(18 to 20)%
Magic Damage Reduced by (18 to 20)
Socketed: 2

NOTE-1: REROLL THIS TU UNTIL IT GETS +140% ED AND LUCKY!
NOTE-2: I WENT WITH MOONWRAP THE SECOND TIME AROUND BECAUSE I WAS TOO LAZY TO GET THE PROPER ONE, BUT THEY ARE ALMOST IDENTICAL!

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Boots:
Lionpaw
Chain Boots (6)
Defense: (718-997)
Durability: 55
Required Strength: 282
Required Level: 48
+(131 to 150)% Enhanced Defense
+(27 to 30) to all Attributes
+(131 to 150) to Life
+(131 to 150) to Mana
Total Character Defense Plus (18 to 20)%
(216 to 250)% Extra Gold from Monsters
Socketed: 4

NOTE: REROLL THIS TU UNTIL IT GETS ED 140%+ AND LUCKY!

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Gloves:
Aiwass
Level 69
+Zod
Gloves
+2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
Shadows Spawn Corpses on Striking 5%
+(21 to 25)% Bonus to Summoned Minion Damage
(11 to 20)% Bonus to Strength
+93 Defense
Level 4 Rune of Mana (78 Charges)

NOTE: REROLL THIS GREY ITEM UNTIL IT GETS SUPERIOR WITH 50% ED AND LUCKY!

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Amulet:

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Ring-One:

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Ring-Two:

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Mercenary For Hire
Your merc is your best friend, and it pays to fully equip him with the same shit you'd wear! I try to go with mercenaries that can tank, so if my summons get overwhelmed and my screen lags out, I still have my trusty merc there to back me up! So a tank is nice, and one that has an aura which enhance your weapon - your minions - is also a huge plus! I like going with the Shapeshifter merc for his survivability and damage buff to my minions! Additionally, I like to fully deck my mercs out in the finest gear, and go that extra mile to make sure it's all Lucky, double-mo'd, with quality crafted-jewels for min/max damage, and that 6-socketed Pike can sure hold a lot of crafted-jewels!

This second time around, I went with an A1 Priestess and wow does she kick some major ass! She heals, your minions, does a crushing-blow type attack (tremor) screen wide, and with a Shockwave bow made of high quality gear, she can almost clear some uber levels on her own! Definitely a fantastic alternative choice if you feel "tanky" enough with your minions to not worry about the extra meat shield.

BOOTS:

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AMULET:

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HELMET:

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ARMOR:

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BELT:

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GLOVES:

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WEAPON:

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Keyboard Layout
With this gear and skill setup, your minions will have an incredible amount of life and deal a terrific amount of damage that will bypass every type of resistance except immunities requiring Purify to bypass. You just have to master when to cast what and where to cast it! Here is how I laid out my spells:

LMB-Summon Shadows
RMB-Skill Switch;
1-Black Mass (hold to cast)
2-Bane (ten second spell timer)
3-Dark Power
4-Burning Veil
5-Bend The Shadows
F1-Summon Darklings
F2-Summon Rampagers
F3-Summon Jinn
F4-Summon Defender Spirit
F5-Summon Lamia
F6-Summon Void Archon
F7-Death's Fury Totem
F8-Howling Totem
F9-Sacrafices

Best Practices; In Order:
1) Go to Cold Plains with your merc and cast Sacrifices.
2) Summon two Death's Fury and Howling totems.
3) Summon all your summons (Lamias are not necessary, and Darklings can be cast up to 38, so just go with what you need)
4) Now your ready for action. Pre-buff with Burning Veil (should last 45-60 seconds) and Dark Power then set out using Bend the Shadows every two-screens to keep your army.
5) When you engage a mob, first cast Bane, then recast Burning Veil and Dark Power, then hold down Black Mass and wait.
6) If you minions don't clear the area in 10-seconds, recast Bane and Black Mass again. Re-summon as needed.

Uberquests review
I'll be tackling each uber one at a time and posting videos of each here, as well as a brief description oh what to do in case the video is not clear enough.

Butcher & Creature of Flame
On my first try, the butcher kept placing stars right where I needed them and I had him dead in under 20 seconds. My second try took a bit longer, but at least I remembered to get the video . In a nutshell, I summoned my army and buffed, summoned the Butcher, teleported behind his stars and cursed him with Bane and gave my minions Black Mass (standard actions really).



As for Creature of Flame, omfg it was so easy I completed it so fast a video is totally pointless. Basically I just walked into the dungeon, teleported over towards the Creature of Flame and avoided his instant death attack and he was dead in about 3-seconds. Would have been a fucking short video, so I didn't bother.

Infernal Machine
Killed this beast in record time. Super easy with this build!



Tal Rasha
I used the standard corner trick and hit summon, remembered 1-second later to hit RECORD, and he died that fast as in the video FYI. A super easy boss with this build, and my resists were barely 75% in Destruction.



Statistics Showcase
Here are the stats on my new summon necromancer direct from the PlugY pages upon first entering Destruction:
***NOTICE: I twinked over signets of learning, arcane crystals, and lots of money from another character because I already had it!***

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Here is a quick video of me just demonstrating how this necro works pretty much right after I beat A1. As you can see by the description in the video, I'm showcasing my summoner on players 8 in destruction; first I summon, buff, then murder baddies on my way to andy no problem. When I fight andy, I loose my entire army in less than a second but I have two points on this you should be aware of: Usually you can just teleport directly on top of Andy and she dies in less than one second (refered to as a Telebomb) but if you watch the vide, I lagged and could NOT summon a damn minion next to her AND teleport fast enough... I was madly clicking teleport, but nuttin was happenin... Point two, if this happens to you, understand the following about summons; bosses do 10x more damage to mercenaries and summons, so this is not indicative of how summons normally work. My apologies for not adding any music! I'll do it in the Uber videos, I promise! From the Arreat Summit:

Hirelings vs. Bosses
Hireling damage is 50% against Bosses in Normal, 35% in Nightmare, and 25% in Hell difficulties. Additionally, Hirelings takes 10 times more damage from End Act Bosses.

Fighting Duriel

wouldnt be a good idea to use TROLLSKULL shield for this summoner build? if you dont benefit from defender spirits that much..

why? it will add around 750-2500(min can be over 3000) fire/cold/light dmg to your minions(kraken stance), and you have djinn -%100 enemy all res aura when smaxed or near it. your minions will deal 1500-5000 dmg per hit with kraken stance plus it has bloodlust buff which will add good dmg too...

also there is su bone wand (trang oul) which has summon acid fiends o skill, that aura really helps your summon move/attack speed and psn dmg, also it has %10 chance to avoid dmg...

thats what i always use for pure summoner combo, maybe good idea to improve a bit but your items cheaper than these ofc.

first thing I thought after reading "summoner necro": he better be using cheap items.
and it was right. gz taem

I'm lazy to read the guide, so I won't be giving any suggestions. I'll be figuring a way to add it on main thread soon.

Cheers

stoya wrote:wouldnt be a good idea to use [item name here] for this summoner build?

These are non-SU, not-great runeword items that can be found or made by anyone in Hatred Difficulty, and the build is still highly successful in Destruction Ubers.

stoya wrote: if you dont benefit from defender spirits that much..

Huge, huge derp on my part for omitting that. I knew I was missing a hotkey, but since I didn't have my skill plan or character to reference anymore since I deleted it, I was writing from memory a week after I deleted. I'll change the guide to reflect the Defender Spirits...

Well, I'm an hater...You're ignoring the deadly lazorbeam of death ubers...You simply coan't stay in the entrance of COV, cause Inarius will rape your minions.... ad you can't advance cause Cleircs and Crystall ball deadly ray will rape them. IMHO, even RC minions die from that thing....

Also Jinns don't remove inmunities=crap. Maybe which Marco fix that thing in Ultimative.(But there's no -resistances[at least not at actual state], so I figure which this uberskill will can be modified)

I loved in older times that build..But suddenly become crap... I try all forms: Jinns with DFT, and fail. Then I plain Bane+HT+VK+RC and the result was: fail. After "easy" ubers your rampage is stopped, hav end game equipment isn't relevant...The results stays the same.. Maybe which use Defenders can add more crowd control. I will try that last option in Sigma(sumoners are usually "first" chars, cause they don't need too much equipment)...But the build, played with normal defense is screwed. A bit of more avoid for the necro will help.

For CoV, i think traditional method work better.
You dont need to hide when killing crystal ball, you just bend the shadow at side of it.

With all minion stacking on each, it only short while until the crystal orb dead.

COV is an example.... I don't wish include other ubers like Vizyun...But you get the point. Summoner isn't able to make almost all ubers...only the easy-mid ones.

Also, given the actual state of things, I think which Defender spirit+VK+RC+HT+BM+VA+BANE is the best build at moment. With 5 rc'ed defender spirit+Leoric and removing inmunities/amplifing damage thanks to Bane you have Crowd control an solves inmunities problem... with the support of HT. Even heroics are more affordable in my opinion v/s Jinns which will be instaraped by QuovT-sin Ray...

What think about that route??? Cause my old Leoric build fail for don't have crowd control. and get hited quickly by piercing mobs..but defenders should do an better job with the survability problem..Also, They're poison inmune..Yayyyy

No need to ignore the Char Orb, just cube it differently with no %stats. Iths, skulls, emeralds, sapphires, res gems, class charms, health pots etc

Or use it with %stats and just respec at 120

Cool guide btw

@MUS01

You probably have better build idea, but i think the guide concept is:

This super cheap and easy summoner can complete all basic ubers with TU gear only!

Which seem super easy for newbie.
In your case, noob probably:
1. Died to evil Veil King at low level (before RC)
2. Rune are slightly harder to get than TU.
3. Bane are bit tricky skill that people hate to use.

Of course, if player have good playing skill then your build can work better.
It just... not this guide 'current goal / objective'.

On paper the Summon Jinn uberskill looks great, but summoners all have the same problem - piercing/aoe attacks can kill the summoner fast, your army is no protection against them

And once the summoner dies the army follows. Zons can protect against this by using Champions of the Sun (res stacking and pdr)and SoV (more life) to attack from behind the lines with greater safety. But a pure summon necro has no such defences. RC has the same issue - you can make a minion invincible, but not the caster

But Death Ward gives that protection where the other uberskills don't (by adding %avoid), keeping the summoner alive while his totem-enhanced army does the dmg

It's strange that the best uberskill for summoner survival isn't either of the summon-based ones at all

That being said, i love the cheaper gear reqs here. Gives it some cookie-cutter potential too