Diablo II Hints

Skills: Summoning and Control

• Summoning and Control are the spells that you probably think of first when you think of a Necromancer.  The ability to raise the dead to do your bidding is a bit spooky, but very useful.
  
  Blood Golem -- This is a great step up from Clay Golem.  He will get extra health by hitting your enemies, so he can actually heal in battle.  A bad effect is that if he is hurt, you will be hurt too!  A great curse to use with a Blood Golem is Iron Maiden.  With Iron Maiden working on the enemies, the Blood Golem will heal every time he is hurt.  It is a great combination.
  
  Clay Golem -- This is an early form of golem.  It is much more durable than a skeleton, and it hits harder.  Don't put too many points into your Clay Golem spell, and put some into Golem Mastery instead.
  
  Fire Golem -- This is the most powerful golem type.  The best situation to use a Fire Golem is where there are a lot of fire-based attacks, as a Fire Golem will gain health from those attacks.  Fire Golem can be cast anywhere, unlike the Iron Golem.  At level 12, a Fire Golem can land a 100 hit point punch.
  
  Golem Mastery -- This skill is the way to make your golems faster, and tougher.  If you intend to keep using a golem for long, you should be prepared to stick a fair number of skill points into Golem Mastery.
  
  Iron Golem -- This is a fun spell.  The Golems that you make from iron weapons or armor will take on the attributes of the original item.  For this reason, it is best to select magical items, especially ones that have fire or cold damage.  Fully repair items before using them for an Iron Golem if you can, to give them more durability.  Iron Golems also have an ability to return damage to the attacker.  Putting points into Iron Golems will boost this ability.  Using Iron Maiden will add to the effect.
  
  Raise Skeletal Mage -- This skill is like Raise Skeleton, except instead of getting a fighter, you get a magic user.  Strangely, Skeletal Mages are much tougher than fighters, but they do their work best from a distance.  To use Skeletal Mages effectively, you will need to have something to hold the enemy back.  Skeletons, golems, or your Necromancer character can do this for them.
  
  Raise Skeleton -- This is the first spell you are likely to use.  Add points as you wish to expand your army of front line troops.  Remember, however, that too many skeletons can be a drag to haul around.  You may spend much of your time dispatching them.  I don't like to use more than three, but some people make as many as ten at a time.
  
  Revive -- This is a good advanced spell that allows you to make a wide variety of undead minions, which will fight on your side the same way that they fought against you.  There are a couple of drawbacks to watch for, though.  First, not all monsters can be revived.  The spell will not activate over the corpses that are not eligible.  The revived monsters aren't as smart about following you as a golem, or even a skeleton in some cases.  They also have a limited lifetime of three minutes.  On the plus side, they do come back with even more hit points than when they were alive.  Boost the level of this skill so you can run more revived creatures at a time and make them even stronger.  Summon Resist and Skeletal Mastery also both work to improve your revived creatures.
  
  Skeleton Mastery -- This is a basic skill for all those Necromancers who want to raise Skeletons, Skeletal mages, or to Revive dead enemies.  Because it is an early skill, you can easily add points here that will always be useful to you if you are resurrecting the dead.  Each level up will boost the strength and durability of your army of minions. 
  
  Summon Resist -- This skill helps your minions to be immune to attacks based on poison, cold, lightning, fire, or magic.  As you go on, several points in Summon Resist will be a great help for your golems, skeletons, and revived monsters.
  

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