D2 General Necro Question

[:1]A little about me:

Love to play hardcore, only hardcore..

Played a maxed out minion necro with meh gear.

Haven't played diablo in a minimum of 5 years.

Now:

When I played a necro awhile back they were great, loved summoning the minion army and going absolutely nuts. The downside is at the time guessing patch 09 minion necros kinda went south when it came to stability in farming hell in hc. The minions weren't up to snuff, they die way to easily and a minion necro + no minions = death. I was wondering if they have become at all viable now, I havent read up on any patches so I don't know if anything has been changed as far as that aspect goes.

Question: Are Minion Necros /w average/above-average gear capable of farming Hell adequately if at all.

**Second Question: What about Minion Druids? better? Worse?**|||Skelemancers are indeed incredibly viable these days.

You can check the fishymancer guide if you'd like details about how the build is usually done.|||Quote:








Skelemancers are indeed incredibly viable these days.

You can check the fishymancer guide if you'd like details about how the build is usually done.




This works immensely, thank you very much|||You can't summon as many skeletons in 1.13, but they are WAY stronger. You could beat hell baal on HC with zero gear if you half way pay attention.|||I found a decent white wand with 3 modifiers on it +corpse +raise skele +bone armor so using that for now, no way to enhance it is there? I have a grey +3 corps 2 socket unravellers head, are you able to make a runeword out of it?

I found a spellblade, the one that gives 20 charges to TP....kinda need a +1 tp amy or something . No +skill items yet and found a few res items but nothing dealing with +res so I'm low in the aspect.

Currently have raise skele maxed, skele mast about half way up, @ level 41. Using Iron Golems as it was mildly suggested, but not sure if clay or fire may be better? Clay has the slow but you can technically get that out of the right item with an iron golem. Using a act2 defence merc atm, will upgrade to act2 merc nm when I can. Thinking about making a malice for my merc as well as making a iron golem out of a malice but since it does not life leech I'm wondering if it will be a huge issue with the lifedrain it has.|||Quote:








Currently have raise skele maxed, skele mast about half way up, @ level 41. Using Iron Golems as it was mildly suggested, but not sure if clay or fire may be better? Clay has the slow but you can technically get that out of the right item with an iron golem. Using a act2 defence merc atm, will upgrade to act2 merc nm when I can. Thinking about making a malice for my merc as well as making a iron golem out of a malice but since it does not life leech I'm wondering if it will be a huge issue with the lifedrain it has.




IMHO while leveling a clay golem is better. Once you're leveled up with good gear an insight iron golem is nice.

I use clay golem the way a zon would use decoy, casting it up in front of me to see if anything nasty is up there while I run around dangerous areas. The iron golem is also really likely to die to things like hell andariel and nilithak.

Kelpie snare is an interesting thought for iron golem but honestly it's pretty hard to beat insight. Insight has that beautiful combination of being cheap to replace if it dies, and being amazingly useful (get all the mana regen you need from the iron golem, so your merc can use a crushing blow weapon like obedience to kill bosses).


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I found a decent white wand with 3 modifiers on it +corpse +raise skele +bone armor so using that for now, no way to enhance it is there?




I wouldn't waste a larzuk on that, but you could socket it in your cube with 1 Ral Rune + 1 Amn Rune + 1 Perfect Amethyst for a 5/6 chance to get 2 sockets (assuming the base wand type can have 2 sockets) , then you could make "white" in it (Dol + Io). That would give you an extra 4 levels of skeleton mastery, and an extra 3 levels of corpse explosion. Not amazing, but better than nothing.|||Hi, one of the best builds (i think) is Beast on necro for Fanatism and Pride in merc for Concentration.|||Quote:








Hi, one of the best builds (i think) is Beast on necro for Fanatism and Pride in merc for Concentration.




Well to me...and a personal opinion...

Beast is too expensive for me to make, atleast at the extreme moment.

I have no interest running around meleeing stuff, turning into a wolf, or anything else. The fanatism is great...but...not at the risk of all the other stats i do not need on that weapon. If I wasn't afraid of the IG dieing I might would consider getting it that way.

As it stands now, the only aura im getting is from my merc, if I make an IG out of an insight its cheap and it would provide me with an aura. If I put a pride on my merc thats aura 2 and the merc itself provides a 3rd aura.

From my past experiences I never did extremely well in the runeing department..like I never got very high level runes. I was only aware of countess runs and altar quests. So building these really high runewards is difficult for me to actually picture.

So I am assuming I want a might merc, but looking back I almost always got the holy freeze merc. Any suggestions? I'm assuming might is the way to go with skeles...|||Indeed you are. Freeze is generally a really good choice, but for summoners specifically, they are the worst possible option, since you don't want mobs to cold-pop.

Apart from might, other, less popular, but also viable choices are blessed aim and defiance mercenaries. What merc to choose is all dependent on playstyle and preferences.|||Quote:








As it stands now, the only aura im getting is from my merc, if I make an IG out of an insight its cheap and it would provide me with an aura. If I put a pride on my merc thats aura 2 and the merc itself provides a 3rd aura.




Pride seems like it would be an awesome merc weapon for a summoner, but it isn't. The reason is that it has lousy damage. The aura boosts your skellies, but the main source of corpses to start a corpse chain isn't your skeletons, it's your merc himself.

Obedience is a good cheap runeword for your merc. Good damage, nice hit rating bonus from the enchant proc, and of course crushing blow so he can kill bosses for you. Once you're rich infinity is the "best" merc weapon. Corpse explosion does half fire damage, so the conviction aura boosts your damage significantly, plus infinity has good damage and crushing blow for the merc to get those corpses started.


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From my past experiences I never did extremely well in the runeing department..like I never got very high level runes. I was only aware of countess runs and altar quests. So building these really high runewards is difficult for me to actually picture.




Rune drop rates are significantly higher than they used to be, but anyway you can make a very strong skelemancer without any high runes.


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So I am assuming I want a might merc, but looking back I almost always got the holy freeze merc. Any suggestions? I'm assuming might is the way to go with skeles...




Holy freeze sucks because of shattered corpses. Might is really the only way to go, it gets that first corpse down faster than anything else. You don't need the freeze aura anyway, your wall of skeletons will keep you more than safe.