Chapter 5: Curses Skill Tree

Amplify Damage: Increases the amount of physical damage dealt.

Dim Vision: Blinds the target monster

Weaken: Makes the target deal less damage.

Iron Maiden: THE ULTIMATE CURSE! Similar to thorns, it deals damage to the cursed who attack others.

Terror: Makes the cursed run away in fear.

Confuse: Target monster attacks randomly.

Life Tap: Anyone who attacks the monster in melee steals life

Attract: Makes the target a universal enemy

Decrepify: Slows the victim drastically

Lower Resist: Elemental attacks do more damage to victim

When you Lvl up, you get 5 experience points and 1 skill point. Correct placement of each point is crucial for success. The common Necro may say "Hah, I'll just put all my attribute points into energy!" That will give you lots of energy, but you won't be able to put on anything besides quilted armor. Here is a guide on where to put your attribute points

Attribute	Lvls 1-17	Lvls 18-53	Lvls 54+
Strength	1	2	0
Dexterity	1	0	0
Vitality	1	0	0
Energy	2	3	5

At lvl 53 you will have 100 Strength for Silks of the Victor, 41 dexterity, 31 vitality, and 162 energy. This combination will give you 156 life, 147 stamina, and 266 mana. At lvl 70 you will have 190 life, 164 stamina and 470 mana. You need the dexterity for your bow before Bone Spear. That way you will be able to hit your opponents from time to time.

My skill distribution.

Lvl or Quest	Skill
2	Raise Skeleton
3	Amplify Damage
4	Skeleton Mastery
Den of Evil	Teeth
5	Save
6	Clay Golem, Corpse Explosion
7	Dim Vision
8	Clay Golem
9	Corpse Explosion
10	Save
11	Save
12	Iron Maiden, Skeletal Mage, Golem Mastery
13	Golem Mastery
14	Skeletal Mage
Book of Skill	Poison Dagger
15	Golem Mastery
16	Save
17	Save
18	Bone Spear, Blood Golem, Confuse
19	Blood Golem
20	Poison Explosion
21	Bone Spear
22	Save
23	Save
24	Iron Golem, Attract, Summon Resist
25	Iron Golem
26	Bone Spear
27	Skeleton Mastery
Fallen Angel 1	Summon Resist
Fallen Angel 2	Attract
28	Save
29	Save
30	Fire Golem, Revive, Poison Nova

Now remember that I like Bone Spear more than Bone Spirit, and I think that you need Poison Nova, so any changes will help your other skills. From lvl 30 and beyond, you aren't reserving for any other skills, so go all out on your favorites.

Chapter 8: How to handle Bosses

Rather than run down the general strategies for kill the bosses, I'll tell you how to survive the hardest ones.

Blood Raven
The first real super-unique, she is hard to kill. By now you should be at lvl 6 and have a clay golem under your command. First charge into the area with your golem and skeletons. By all logic, 20-30 hungry dead will "charge" at you, charge being in quotes since zombies move slower than snails. If you have a bow, this is easy. Wait for Blood Raven to shoot at your party. Then head alone to where the arrow came from and start firing at her. Cast Dim Vision and and keep it on her so that she won't be able to see you. Keep firing till she is dead. When she dies dozens of holy bolts will come out of her which will kill all the zombies.

Griswold
Griswold is the blacksmith from Diablo 1. He is very strong, and he curses you with amplify damage, which can be a killer. He is strong in all categories but one, speed. He is hella slow. If you have a bow, victory is easy. Just shoot him and never let him touch you. This takes long and uses up ammo, so you should do the second strat. First, kill all minions before encountering him. Then cast a clay golem and amplify damage. Just let them duke it out until your golem dies, then make another one, until Griswold is dead.

The Smith
Actually easier than Griswold, just send up your golem backed with COLD skeletal mages and iron maiden and The smith will die quickly. And I mean quickly. The first boss that will literally kill himself. But you must be at least lvl 12 to take him on, otherwise you are dust. Without iron maiden your golem will die fast while not dealing any real damage, and soon enough you are running for your life. A second option, if you aren't at level 12, is to lead the Smith back to the outer cloister. Once he's there, try to trap him on one side of the cross shaped garden, specifially use the long end. If you are lucky he will be trapped on one side. Fire arrows or bolts at him and

Andariel
In my opinion, the hardest boss for a Necro. Ever. With the exception of Diablo of course, but still not by much. Without a good range spell, you will have to resort to a slow process of sending clay golem after clay golem up to her with iron maiden on her and hoping to god that she will kill herself before she kills you. Try to get a bow with fire damage since she has a -50 resistance to fire, which is extremely bad.The main problem is that she uses this modified poison nova that can kill you in seconds and she uses an extremely powerful normal attack. The only other option for killing her and going on to act 2 is to ask a barbarian to be your temporary golem. That's how I did it. She only drops some gems, 2 chipped and one normal, but they are rarely skulls and thats the only gems you really need after lvl 18.

Radament
Relatively easy, just get to lvl 18 before fighting him. Kill all his undead and CE them, or PE them if you can. Poison Explosion takes less mana than CE, so use it here to remove corpses from Radament's control. Then send your BG up with IM backing him and let Radament kill himself, helping out with Bone Spear if things take too long.

The Summoner
The summoner of the arcane sanctuary is fairly easy, but that doesn't mean he is a push-over. Part one is actually getting to him. He fires Fire Walls when you are too far away from him, he also has glacial spike and Fire Ball. Once you get to him, have your blood golem go up and take damage while you fire away with bone spear. He will die quickly, but you may die in the process of getting to him.

Duriel
Once you are outside of Tal Rasha's chamber, go back to town to get your horadric staff. Then go to Greiz to hire a man. Then go to the corpses and raise skeletons and skeletal mages. Then make a blood golem and go in. All the minions will act as cannon fodder so you don't die easily. Run away from him so you are not near the entrance in case you die, and then do the BG/IM combo. He will die much faster than Andarial did. In fact, the only dangerous part is actually entering the chamber.

Mephisto
After you enter lvl 3 of the Durance of Hate, watch out. Mephisto has several minions that you must deal with first. I encountered those blood lords, which cast a thousand meteors within a few seconds. Let your iron golem do the fighting. Once you see Mephisto, charge him with a golem. Make sure you are on the side of the blood where Mephisto started. Now abandon your golem, and run to the other side of the blood pool. Your golem may die, but don't feel worried, you are out of danger. Keep Mephisto to the edge of your screen, and fire away with bone spear. Due to an AI problem, Mephisto will not fire at you. If Blizzard fixes the AI, use BG/IM combo to kill him. All thanks to the good folks at Infoceptor for this lovely tip.

Izual
The first of three Hell super uniques, Izual is fairly easy. Just use the classic BG/IM combo and watch Izual die. To hurry the process up use bone spear.

Hephasto the Armorer
The second hell Super unique, he is just as easy to kill as his brother, the smith. Use Blood Golem and Iron Maiden for a quick kill. The pesky minions will cause a small problem, but fire bone spear to dispose of them quickly.

Diablo
The hardest monster of the game, you will meet your match. I suggest two things: 1, get to lvl 30 so you can use Fire Golem. When I finally killed him I needed this bad. 2, work alone. No other players in the game. They just ramp up the damage Diablo can take and they usually take all the rares. The trick to this is perseverance. NEVER EVER GIVE UP! Don't run back in a town portal because he will cast bone prison and trap you just long enough to zap you. The biggest trouble with him is pink lightning. This is the ultimate attack and will kill you quickly. Stay far away from Diablo at all times. Cast Fire golem and iron maiden to help Diablo die. You will need the death damage created by your fire golem to win. Before going up against him switch CE with clay golem on your hot key list. This will provide a cheap diversion for you to run to safety so you can stock up and CE is useless on Diablo. By casting Fire golems a lot you will hurt Diablo very badly. You may need to fire bone spears or bone spirits to help out but you should try to stay inconspicuous. If you die, head back for your corpse because it takes a long time to activate all 5 seals and you don't want to do that over and over again.

Chapter 8: Tricks of the Trade

The powers of the necromancer include a fair amount of fun and games. A lot of abilities can be used in ways never thought of.

The Fire Bomb
This technique is powerful, but can lead to severe mana loss. What you do is you lead a large group of baddies, like the cows in Moo Moo Farm, and summon a fire golem to fight them. Let them crowd around it and start attacking it. Then Summon 2 more fire golems in rapid succession near the first one. What will happen is the unsummoning of the fire golem will deal lots of fire splash damage, and the fact that this happens twice will deal lots of damage. It is very powerful but mana draining. I suggest only doing it against bosses or really large groups of baddies., and even then, be careful. You better have lots of potions, cause this will drain mana like a female dog (think for a sec cause i don't like to swear). Before doing this, take off any + to fire golem or + to all skills items because it will not help the death damage but it will cost 10 extra mana per skill level. Put the stuff on afterwards, of course.

Iron Maidon and Blood Golem Combo
I have talked about it a lot so far, and I should tell you what it is. It is a trick where you cast iron maiden on a big monster and use a blood golem on it. As I said before, the Iron maiden damage is from that creature being attacked, so the Blood Golem will be attacking the monster and thus be stealing life. The life it steals will counter the damage taken and keep your golem fighting fit. This technique can be used on all sorts of baddies, especially super uniques and bosses. But be warned, it won't work on Diablo. The damage he deals will kill your blood golem in one shot unless you have BG and GM at high levels. Note: This may or may not be a bug, so don't base your entire game around it, since it is risky and may be fixed like the CE thing.

Necromancer Hotkeys
This is my necro's hot key list. I use this because it offers the quickest access to my favorite skills.

My suggestion is to do this: At lvl 30, you should have my skills hot keyed if you have poison nova, with maybe Bone Spirit instead of Bone Spear if you want. If do not use Poison nova, put these on hot key: Fire Golem, Blood Golem, Iron Golem, Revive, Bone Spear, Bone Spirit (if you have it), Attract, and Iron Maiden. If you don't use amp damage, use another curse. Chapter 9: Common Necro Types

There are essentially 4 types of Necromancers. There is the Golem Necro, the Skeleton Necro, the Melee Necro, and the PKing necro.

Golem Necromancer
This Necromancer bases his entire tactics around Golems. This means lots of points into Golem Mastery, Fire Golem, and very few points into any of the skeletons, including Revive. The Bone and Poison Skills revolve around Corpse Explosion and Bone Spirit/Spear. Also the Curses are only Iron Maiden and Amplify Damage, and maybe Attract. This Necro must be very fast and ready to run quickly. This is by far the most common Necro.

Skeleton Necromancer
This Necromancer is entirely based around the skills affected by Skeleton Mastery, being Skeleton (rare to see many of these), Skeletal Mage, and Revive. You will often see them with many Revives and maybe a low level golem to get the ball rolling. They do not use corpse explosion because it shrinks their possible army considerably. They will use many curses, especially Amplify damage and Attract, along with the other, minor curses if they wish. The golem they use is a Blood Golem + Iron Maiden because of low casting cost and high survivability. This is another Common Necro, but not quite as common as the Golem Necro.

Melee Necromancer
Contrary to the intended purpose, these Necros fight with swords and shields, not from afar with their golems along side them. They eschew the summoning skills completely, and concentrate on Curses and Bone and Poison. They use Bone Armor to give themselves added hp, and they use wide varieties of curses. They use Bone Spear/Spirit to reduce the number of bogeys, and they go in with swords when their mana is drained. The rarest of the Necros, they are played by the risk takers and Barbarians who like the bone skills and curses.

PK Necromancer
The evil necros, these guys are very painful. Although a necro isn't the best PKers (Sorceress and Barbarians), they do have some good spells. For instance, curses like weaken or decrepify work on barbarians and bone spirit will kill many a sorceress, pending you can actually hit them. Some will use bone prison to catch Amazons and paladins and shoot through it with bone spear. They don't use summons because they are so easy to go around. They will use poison nova for some powerful poison damage. Be very careful when you see a member of the PK clan enter a game. BTW, a tip for battling PKers, tell them to meet you in the city of the damned. I have died many a time in there a few seconds after warping in. Or the inner cloister, since the dozen spike fiends deal too much damage. The transvincial is a good place too. Basically tell them to go to a place where many a monster will attack you quickly.

Greater Mummies
The Greater Mummies are the shamans of act 2, and they will revive all undead, so be warned. You will often find yourself fighting off dozens of skeletons that just won't stay dead. So here's a tip. After your golem kills a corpse (I suggest the IM/BG combo for fighting the large amounts of skeletons) explode it. Use PE if you have it since it takes less mana. The explosion makes the corpse unusable for everyone including the shamans. CE will work here but you just want to lower the # of baddies before you kill the Greater mummies.

Vampires
Vampires are the first real mages you encounter. The first ones, Banished, are deadly in groups. These only know Fire Ball, so dealing with them just requires a fair amount of skill by casting Dim Vision allowing you're golem to get close so you can cast iron maiden. The second kind, Ghoul Lords, know fire wall as well as Fire ball, so you want to charge them so they will attack you with fire ball instead of the powerful firewall. Once close cast confuse so they will fight amongst themselves so your blood golem can get close enough to do some damage. The third kind, blood lords, know meteor, so you want to be verrrrry careful in attacking them. Keep running so your blood golem/iron golem can get close enough to deal some real powerful damage. If you find yourself in major trouble, cast attract to buy some time. Since these are mages, revive them if you can, since they will kick a** with their fire skills.

Wraiths
Surprisingly enough, these are my LEAST favorite monsters (see my name to get the joke). Since they often attack en masse you will find yourself fighting against several of these often. Don't even let them get close, since they steal mana with each attack. Run as fast as you can away from them, then cast a golem and iron maiden. MAKE SURE NONE OF THEM TOUCH YOU! They can float through bars and over ravines, so these make ok revives.

Blunderbores
These monsters are big, tough and deal a stunningly powerful blow, literally. If they hit you once, you will have a very small chance of being able to run since you will be stuck in place. You must use iron maiden here because they will keep your golem stunned, which means that they will not be hit back. Once dead, they are also excellent revives because of their brute force.

Fetish
Everyone hates fetishes. They're fast, reasonably strong, and revivable. The shamans shoot a high power inferno, making melee against them next to impossible. In normal, you just have to send a blood golem up there with IM hoping that he won't melt. At lvl 24, you get attract, so once you get it use it to distract the shaman so your iron golem can get within range. Bone spear against the shaman will really kick a** so use it if you can. In nightmare and hell, just use a fire golem since the inferno flame will only help him.

Sextons
Sextons are early mages of act III. They cast a few skills including lightning and blizzard. They also heal all units, so killing these baddies first if especially important. Be sure to have lots of cold resistance so that you don't die to the blizzard they set up for you. Fire Bone Spear after Bone Spear to kill him, so that the others don't kill you.

The Council
The guys are very powerful baddies. As the remnants of the Council of Zakarum, aka the paladins, killing these guys should hold no qualms. Raise an Iron golem, and go in there with spears a blazin'. Odds are the hydras will kill you easily once or twice, so be very, very careful if playing as a hardcore Necro. Beware of meteors, lightning, and other monsters, as it will be hard to kill them all on one try. Once the iron golem gets close, though, it will be easier. Cast attract so that your golem can get close to the enemies. Keep attract on until your iron golem dies, then do the BG/IM combo. Once they all die to the thorns and/or each other, attack the bosses. There are three so try to split them up with a golem by drawing one away from its allies.

Copulants
Ugh. Never, ever fight these monsters after dinner. They regurgitate corpses at you, and they deal a fair amount of damage. When ever you see these head away from battle, follow it so you can blast the corpse that it is about to eat. If they do get to a corpse, cast attract on another monster so it takes the full blow of the corpse.

Death Knights
All three of these knights are different. The Doom Knights are fighters only, and they can deal a fair amount of damage to you if they reach you. Kill them with bone spear before they reach you. Abyss Knights are fighter Mages, so they will fire elemental attacks at you and cut you up with their sword. Let your golem take the damage while you cast attract on them. Oblivion Knights are the most powerful, non unique monsters in the game. They fire elemental attacks at you with great accuracy and precision, along with many curses, including Iron Maiden and Decrepify. Do not let them hit you. Instead, run around them and fire bone spear to kill them, letting your golem deal damage as well. Abyss Knights and Doom knights can be revived, and they kick mucho asso doing so.