Necromancer Levelling Guide - D2R 2.6

Necromancer Levelling Guide

This guide will take you through an efficient method to level your Necromancer and complete the game on Hell difficulty.  There are various approaches to levelling and the method will change depending on your situation (for example if you have been rushed, you will level differently), this guide presents a method for playing through the game yourself and levelling the traditional way.  We will also discuss an efficient way of allocating your skill points and useful items to collect / farm along the way.

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Normal Difficulty

The Necromancer starts with a wand that provides +1 to Raise Skeleton, so after you melee the first monster to death you can raise a skeleton to fight along your side.  For Normal difficulty our build will focus around the Poison and Bone skill tree. When you level for the first time take a point into the Teeth skill, the spell releases multiple teeth in front of the Necromancer dealing damage to the first monster they hit.  As the spell gains more levels, both the damage and number of teeth increases making it very powerful in the early game.  This will be your main spell up to Level 18, so place points here whenever you can whilst also allocating a single point to Bone Armor and Corpse Explosion in the Poison and Bone tree, Clay Golem in the Summoning tree and Amplify Damage and Iron Maiden in the Curses tree.  Teeth will provide you with enough damage to kill monsters, Elites and Champions in Normal difficulty, however once you reach Duriel in Act 2 a new tactic is required which we will talk about shortly.

For your stat points, the general rule is to put enough points into Strength and Dexterity for the equipment you need to use then spend the remainder into Vitality.  Extra points into Dexterity is useful to increase your chance to hit, however the passive fire damage from Holy Fire does enough and I prefer to increase my survivability.

In Act 1 the best place to gain early experience is in the Forgotten Tower beneath the Black Marsh.  Each level in the tower has at least 1 Champion or Elite pack, so you will find a minimum of 5 packs and the Countess herself on level 5 making it very efficient.  Killing the Countess also provides us with early rune drops and there are some very strong low level Runewords that we can target for the Paladin.  You will need to farm Countess until you find a Tal and an Eth rune to make the Runeword “Stealth” (Tal Eth) in a 2 socketed armour (you will find one of these as you play, and if you don’t Charsi sells them).  “Stealth” is a strong runeword for every character, the Necromancer makes good use of both the Faster Cast Rate and the Faster Run Walk.  Other items to look out for as you play through are Rings, Amulets and Wands with Faster Cast Rate to allow faster casting of Teeth.  Act 5 Quest 2 will provide you with a Ral, Ort and Tal rune which we can socket into a shield to make the “Ancient’s Pledge” Runeword which provides a big boost to our resistances – make this in either a 3 socketed Large or Kite Shield, both can be bought in Act 2.

When you fight Andariel in Act 1 drink 5-6 Antidote potions before engaging, these provide a passive boost to your poison resistance.  Similarly, when fighting Duriel in Act 2 drink 5-6 Thawing potions which has the same effect on your cold resistance.  Andariel can be killed using the Teeth ability, however for Duriel there is a more efficient technique.  Cast the Iron Maiden spell on Duriel and let him repeatedly kill your Clay Golem.  Iron Maiden causes the attacker to receive damage equal to 200% of the damage they deal, Duriel deals a high amount of melee damage so by getting him to repeatedly hit your Clay Golem whilst curse he will slowly kill himself.

Once you hit Level 18 gain the Bone Spear ability and use this as your main damage dealing spell from now on, place points here whenever you level up. Continue working your way through the game with this build and you will have very little trouble.  Mephisto can be killed using Bone Spears, however Diablo is more efficient to kill using the Duriel technique.

Once you have worked your way through Normal difficulty you can start doing Baalruns to gain experience and prepare yourself for Nightmare difficulty.  You should ensure you reach level 40 as a minimum before entering Nightmare, this can be done either playing solo or with a group.

Nightmare Difficulty

The Bone Spear build is strong enough to commence Nightmare with, however we will change our build shortly to a more efficient technique.

There are 2 Runewords that we need to farm before changine our build – “Edge” (Tir Tal Amn) and “Lore” (Ort Sol).  Once you reach the Countess you will want to farm her until you gain all of the runes above.  “Edge” is made in a 3 socketed bow (yes, a bow on a Necromancer!).  We won’t be using this bow to attack, however it provides the Thorns Aura which is very strong when combined with the Necromancer’s summon abilities.  Lore can be made in any 2 socketed helmet, it really doesn’t matter which one you use.  Another useful Runeword is “Insight” (Ral Tir Tal Sol) which we can make in a 4 socketed Polearm (farmed in Normal Cows) and give this to an Act 2 Mercenary, providing him with the Meditation aura and sustaining our mana.

Once you have farmed and made all of these runewords, reset your skill and stat points for the following build (assumes level 40). 

Summoning Spells:

• Raise Skeleton (1)
• Skeleton Mastery (5)
• Clay Golem (1)
• Golem Mastery (1)
• Raise Skeletal Mage (1)
• Blood Golem (1)
• Summon Resist (5)
• Iron Golem (1)
• Fire Golem (1)
• Revive (10)

Poison and Bone Spells:

• Teeth (1)
• Bone Armor (1)
• Corpse Explosion (10)

Curses:

• Amplify Damage (5)

The playstyle from this point is quite passive, however very effective.  The 10 points in Revive will allow you to summon at least 10 monsters to fight along your side, cast Amplify Damage on packs of monsters and let your Revives go to work.  The monsters will take damage from both your Revives and from themselves through the Thorns Aura.  As soon as the monsters start to die cast Corpse Explosion on their bodies and watch everything die.  The tactic for bosses is very similar, try to get a pack of revives ready before taking on the boss – cast Amplify Damage on them and watch as their health disappears every time they attack something.

When you finish Nightmare Difficulty, you will want to do more Baalruns and reach a minimum level of 60 before progressing into Hell.

Hell Difficulty

The method for Hell Difficulty is very similar to Nightmare.  You won’t find many monsters that you are not able to kill due to the combination of Fire and Physical damage from Corpse Explosion.  The Necromancer is a squishy character so you will need to play safe, however with plenty of Revives you have a big meat shield to protect you from damage.

The most efficient farm location for the early Necromancer is Hell Cows, the combination of Amplify Damage and Corpse Explosion decimates the Hell Bovine and the area is a popular location for farming Runes to gain currency.