Summonmancer
From Diablo Wiki
The Summonmancer is a build that relies on a large number of minions to overwhelm and deal damage to enemies. The role of the player in this build is to support his army by inflicting enemies with curses, replacing fallen minions and by casting Corpse Explosion. When partying with other players the Summonmancer enhances their strengths by casting appropriate curses on enemies and distracting foes with his minions.
The Summonmancer Necromancer build was quite effective thanks to the synergies added in the latest patch.
Prior to this patch, maxed out skeletons were weak. The Summonmancer frequently relied on revive monster skill because the monster's life scaled with the amount of players in the map. If there were eight players, the summoned monster's life would be eight times greater.
On the newest patch, skeletons and skeleton magi became much more effective. With an Act II mercenary giving an aura, the skeleton army became quite powerful. It was even able to last till Hell in Act V.
These type of Necromancers typically do not engage in combat, so the strength attribute is only raised to wear armor.
The Summonmancer had certain complimentary skills. After the point where this build's mana seems sufficient, all points are spent on vitality usually. Even though the Iron Maiden curse might seem good for this build, it will not make his minions last long. In Hell mode Act V, the minions die from enemies, so a curse that keeps the minions alive is needed. Decrepify is a great curse for a summoning necromancer because it reduces the enemies' damage output. Before Decrepify becomes available at level 24 your main curse should be Amplify Damage. When cast on an enemy, it doubles the physical damage they receive, and your skeletons do physical damage. One point in Bone Armor is advised because it prevents against the one-hit kill. If an enemy damages you in melee for 400 life while you are wearing bone armor, the bone armor will disappear but no life will be taken away from your character.
The Summonmancer is a great tank. If the Summonmancer has maxed out skeleton skills, and the proper plus-skill equipment, they can have up to thirteen skeleton warriors and thirteen skeleton mages. This vast number of minions acts as a multi-faceted tank, absorbing the damage. Since there are so many minions, it is easy for companion players to avoid getting hurt.
A drawback in online play of a Summonmancer is the lag, giving it the alternate name of the Lagromancer because of the amount of minions on screen forces all computers synchronized to slow down to the speed of the slowest comp. This is a less of a problem now, for three reasons. First, there were early bugs that caused serious slowdown with lots of minions but they were fixed. Second, computers are much faster now than in year 2000. Third, patch 1.10 reduced the number of skeletons by about a third. Nonetheless, having lots of skeletons running around may annoy many players, forcing sociable summmoners to reduce the number of minions they use and stick to curses and Corpse Explosion. On the other hand, an army of meat shields will usually make things safer for the party, so many players will accept them.
[edit] Sample Summonmancer Starting Guide
When starting a new Summonmancer, put your first skill point into Raise Skeleton and your second into Amplify Damage. Pump Raise Skeleton to level 3 and then learn Teeth, while putting any extra into Skeleton Mastery. At level 6 learn Clay Golem, and next Corpse Explosion. Put the rest of your points into Skeleton Mastery until your character reaches level 12. At this point put one point each into Raise Skeletal Mage and Golem Mastery. Level up Skeleton Mastery until it reaches level 15, then concentrate on maxing Raise Skeleton to increase your army.
The reason for this is because Raise Skeleton increases skeleton damage by a fraction of the base damage, while Skeleton Mastery raises both the base damage and life of your skeletons. Initially you will get greater returns per skill point by pumping Mastery, but once it hits level 15 the percentage increase to damage from Raise Skeleton will become greater and will also increase your army size. At first it's better to have a few powerful skeletons than a flood of weak ones.
Learn Weaken and Terror before level 24 so you can learn Decrepify which will replace Amplify Damage as your main curse, at least against bosses. Put a point into Summon Resist as well. Continue to level Raise Skeleton, but by level 30 learn Blood Golem and Iron Golem so that you can learn Revive. Now max Raise Skeleton and then Skeleton Mastery.
To summarize:
1 Revive
1 Weaken
1 Terror
1 Teeth
Total Spent: 53
Remaining: 57
[edit] At this point, there are numerous paths you could take:
- Put 1 point each into the remaining curses for maximum flexibility.
- Max Corpse Explosion to maximize its effective range.
- Level up the Golem of your choice along with Golem Mastery. (Recommend Clay or Fire Golem)
- Max Bone Spear and/or Bone Spirit for ranged magic damage and to support your army.
- Max Skeletal Mage for a huge army of skeletons. (Mages are not as effective as skeletons)
- Max Revive for a huge army of very strong monsters.
