Summoners battle with summoned dead, poison, and curses in Diablo 2: Resurrected. MeinMMO presents you 2 builds for the powerful necromancers and explains how to play them correctly.
What are these builds? Among the 7 classes of Diablo 2, summoners stand out with their ability to utilize the corpses of deceased enemies for their magic, summon skeletons and golems, or curse enemies with powerful hexes.
MeinMMO introduces you to 2 builds with which you can play necromancers ideally: Bones and Summons. Both builds are extremely strong in solo play and turn summoners into true damage monsters:
- The Bonemancer actively uses powerful attack spells and can take a lot of damage – and it’s quite inexpensive to build
- Summonmancer does not actively fight, but unleashes armies of the living dead on enemies – the classic “Pet Build”
In the individual sections, we will show you the pros and cons of each build and explain which skills you need and how best to allocate the attributes. There will also be tips for your equipment, playstyle, and a gameplay video.
Bonemancer – Cheap and Easy to Play
These are the skills you need:
- Clay Golem (Summoning) – 1 point
- Golem Mastery (Summoning) – 1 point
- Monster Resistance (Summoning) – 1 point
- Teeth – 20 points
- Bone Armor – 1 point
- Corpse Explosion – 1 point
- Bone Wall – 1 point
- Bone Prison – 20 points
- Bone Wall – up to 20 points
- Bone Spear – 20 points
- Bone Spirit – 20 points
- Amplify Damage (Curses) – 1 point
- Decrepify (Curses) – 1 point
- Fear (Curses) – 1 point
- Lower Resist (Curses) – 1 point
- Any leftover points, or those you save on Bone Wall, can be invested in the Iron Golem
Your most important spells are Bone Spear and Bone Spirit. Try to get these as early as possible. Corpse Explosion does a lot of area damage, but you need some dead enemies first for it to work. Amplify Damage helps with that.
Bone Armor should also be leveled up as quickly as possible. This keeps you alive and saves you a ton of potions. With the Clay Golem, you have an early companion and protector in the game.
Hexes like Lower Resist help especially against stronger bosses. With one skill point into Blood Golem and Iron Golem, you’ll have another strong companion later on. Further down, we will explain to you how exactly the Iron Golem functions.
Here’s how to allocate your attribute points:
- Strength – Enough to wear the respective equipment
- Dexterity – Enough for items or to have 75 % block chance (only with shield and only hardcore)
- Vitality – All remaining points into Vitality
- Focus – No points
Which items are important? For the build to work, you should create the rune word “White” in a staff (Runes Dol + Io – make sure to use the correct rune!). The rune word enhances your poison and bone skills in general as well as some important skills directly.
With “White”, you already have the tool for most damage at hand. In our guide, we show you all rune words and how to build them. For the remaining equipment, you should pay attention to the following attributes:
- +Skills
- higher cast rate
- resistances and recovery after being hit
- magic find, if you want to farm – here you will find the best farm spots
Particularly items with the “+Skill” attributes are strong, as these enhance one or several skills. Only then do most builds in Diablo 2 become powerful. Additionally, the class-specific item “Homunculus” can help you. The off-hand increases your block rate enormously and thus saves many points in Dexterity, especially in hardcore mode.
Other rune words can help you to improve further. Some of them are already useful at the beginning:
How do I play the build? Always ensure that your Bone Armor is active. This protects you from damage and ensures that you are not overwhelmed by groups of enemies. Otherwise, take out the first enemies in packs with Bone Spears and let their corpses explode when about 3 or more dead lie there.
Against bosses, you should rather use Bone Spirit, as it deals more damage against individual targets. With the Clay Golem and Lower Resist, you can slow down any opponent so much that they can hardly reach you.
If you want to play cooperatively, you should invest a few more points in curses. As a pure damage dealer, sorceresses are better here, but with Bone Armor, you can temporarily tank. In the gameplay from Diablo 2 expert Dbrunski, you can see the build in action:
Summonmancer – High Damage and Dozens of Minions
These are the skills you need:
- Raise Skeleton – 20 points
- Skeleton Mastery – 20 points
- Clay Golem – 1 point
- Blood Golem – 1 point
- Iron Golem – 1 point
- Raise Skeleton Mage – 1 point
- Reanimation – 1 point
- Golem Mastery – 20 points
- Monster Resistance – 1 point
- Teeth (Bone & Poison) – 1 point
- Corpse Explosion (Bone & Poison)- 20 points
- Amplify Damage (Curses) – 20 points
- Remaining points as desired – preferably into other curses like Lower Resist
Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery are your key abilities that you should maximize immediately after assigning the first points into all prerequisites. You should also level the Clay Golem as soon as possible.
Amplify Damage and Corpse Explosion are needed to eliminate groups of enemies. The various curses are useful at higher difficulties to secure your survival and build your army.
Consider the Iron Golem later when you can spare appropriate items. Further down, we will explain how the Iron Golem works exactly.
Here’s how to allocate your attribute points:
- Strength – Enough to wear the respective equipment
- Dexterity – Enough for items or to have 75 % block chance (only with shield and only hardcore)
- Vitality – All remaining points into Vitality
- Focus – No points
Which items are important? As a Summonmancer, you primarily want the rune word “Enigma”. This grants you the Sorceress ability Teleport. With a teleport, you gather all your summons to yourself to unleash them from there.
The rune word is extremely expensive, regarded as one of the most expensive and best items in the game. On eBay, such armors are occasionally offered for over 2000 euros. Aside from “Enigma”, you should pay attention to the following attributes:
- +Skill
- higher cast rate
- resistances and recovery after being hit
If you have trouble finding runes for your words, you can use the Horadric Cube. With this you can easily upgrade runes. In our guide, you’ll find all the recipes of the Horadric Cube:
How do I play the build? As a Summonmancer, you first need to build up your army. Use your Clay Golem and your Mercenary to eliminate enemies so that you can turn their corpses into skeletons. This can take some time.
Once you have the army, you can teleport through the levels thanks to Enigma, and your minions will follow you. You deal little damage yourself, but your companions, especially the Mercenary, deal significantly more. Skeletons are primarily cannon fodder.
Reanimation is ideally only used against bosses, as the skill can disrupt your companions’ AI. They may then not swarm out on their own. Thanks to the many curses, you are also useful in co-op mode.
In the gameplay video by Diablo 2 expert Dbrunski, you can see what the build looks like in action:
How the Iron Golem Works
To summon the Iron Golem, you need an item made of metal. The properties of the used item then transfer to the enemy. That’s why the rune word “Infinity” is often used here.
Drop the item on the ground and use the skill on it. The summoned golem will then have the “Conviction” aura, which originally belongs to the Paladin. This lowers the resistances of enemies and thus increases your damage.
Iron Golems remain intact when you switch maps or even games. They accompany you until they die. This makes the use of a rather expensive rune word like “Infinity” worth it by being sacrificed.
Alternatively, you can give your Mercenary the weapon. However, this sacrifices some of the power of the necromancer. You can better use other items or rune words for the Mercenary that can further enhance you.
The builds presented here differ greatly in playstyle but are both excellent for solo runs and farming. Summoners are generally one of the more popular classes for tackling the content of Diablo 2 alone. If you’re new to Resurrected, we have prepared some tips for beginners here:
Diablo 2: Beginner’s Guide – Everything you need to know as a beginner
Which builds do you prefer playing with the Summoner? What items can you recommend?
