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The Necromancer

by aaronfezdeat

	How to Make a Well-Balanced Necromancer Made by:Aaron Nicoll (aaronfezdeat)	
 Table of Contents:
1:The Necromancer
2:Training
3:Stat Raising
4:Skill Raising

Legend:
1:Chp.-Chapter
2:Esc-Escape
3:eg.-excetera

			Chapter 1:The Necromancer

	The Necromancer is a unique character that raises the dead to fight for him or creatures from the earth (eg.The Clay Golem). He (the Necromancer) can also curse his enimies to make fighting more to his advantage, and to weaken them.He can also use Bone Spells (look under Chapter 4:Skill Raising) to raise hs defense or aid him with "bone spells"(once again look under Chapter 4:Skill Raising). The Necromancer can have an advantage over his adversarys because he can use long range spells to attack his enemies (eg.Teeth, look under Ch.4:Skill Raising), and summon the dead or earthly creatures to fight for him to stay out of harm's way well pumelling his enimies with long range spells. There are three kinds of Necromancers, the Skeleton Necromancer, who can summon up to twenty skeletons to create a mini army, the Golem Necromancer and the well-balanced Necromancer who can handle pretty much all situations. I will be focusing on the well-balanced Necromancer. A well-balanced Necromancer is a Necromancer who has use of most of his skills and can deal with any kind of situation. Now that I have explained the different kind of Necromancers, I will begin the guide.(Note; In this guide I  will also be helping with the quests, sometimes in heavy-detail, or sometimes in light-detail). 

 			Chapter 2:Quests/Training

	When training your necromancer, I advise you to be patinet, as you will not level up every 2 minutes. What I advise you to do is this;
	When you first start training, stick to the Blood Moor until you are level 3. Then go to the Den of Evil and complete that quest and at the same time grow 1 level. If you don't want to beat the Den of Evil and want to continue to train there for a couple more levels, what you do is this. When you have killed every monster there except for 1 (you will know you have done this as when you have seen all the monsters, your Quest Log button will appear on the left-hand side of the screen, and when you open it it will say there are how many mobsters are left, as long as you have that quest selected). So when it says there is 1 monster left, you press the Esc button, and then press Save and Exit. Then "log" in again with the same character. Go back to the Den of Evil and you will find that there are new monsters everywhere again. You can do this as many times as you want. Return to town and speak to Akara for your reward (which is a skill point, and at this point I advise you to put it into your Bone Armour). Moving on, then proced to the Cold Plains. The first thing you do is find the Waypoint, as it will make getting there after you die or "log in" much faster. Then travel around for a bit and kill all the monsters you see. It is a good idea to stay here and train on or two levels so you can be prepared to fight the Blood Raven and her minions. Then move on to the Burial Grounds. At this time you should be around levels 5 to 6. The wand you have should give you a skeleton(I advise you to hotkey him), so use him, as he will be to your advantage. When facing the Blood Raven, ignore all here minions, and head straight for her. Only attack her as that alone will be a difficult task. You should keep Health potions in slots 1 to 3 on your belt, and Mana potions on slot 4 as you will be needing them to regenerate your skeleton. Before you face the Blood Raven, prepare a Town Portal, as you won't have time to later and could mean your only way of escaping death. Well facing the Blood Raven, keep your fingers over hotkeys one to four for your belt, as you will be needing potins to live. After you beat the Blood Raven, don't expect to grow a lvl as you were just trying to survive. If you do want to level up after beating the Blood Raven,. train in the Cold Plains until you are about to level up, and then face her. When you kill the Blood Raven, a mass of swirling "lights" will appear and spin everywhere killing her minions. When that stops, collect all the dropped items and head to town using the Town Portal you created earlier. Head to Kasyha and she will give you a mercanarie. A mercanarie is a hired soldier/bowman/bowwoman that follows you around and either attacks your enemies in hand-to-hand combat or from a distance with bows or magic. I advise outfitting your mercanarie as that will make thier attack and damage rating go up as well as thier defense. You can only outfit you mercanarie with armour, helms and certain weapons depending on the type of mercanarie. It is a wise idea to outfit your mercanaries with etheral items as thet have added features and defense, and durability never goes down on a mercanarie. Then go talk to Akara and she will gie you the quest, The Carin Stones. Around this time you should be around levels six to eight. In this quest you have to travel to the Dark Wood and find the Tree of Inifuss, which will give you the Bark Scroll. You have to travel first to the cold plains, and then go through the Underground Passageway. When you get to the end of the passageway, you will be in the Dark Wood. You must search the dark Wood for the Tree of Inifuss. When you have destroyed all the monsters(Treehead Woodfist will be there everytime) and gained the scroll, make a town portal, and go back to the Rouge Encampment. Go and talk to Akara and she will tell you that something like you have to find the Carin Stones in the Stony Field, and activate the portal to Tristram after you have killed Rakanishu and his minions. Then touch the stones in the order the scroll tells you to, and this will activate the portal to Tristram. Go through the portal and you will be in the upper right hand corner of Tristram. Head to the centre of Tristram and kill any opposing monsters. When you reach the ruins you will find some kind of Unique Monsters. Go to the centre of the ruins and either kill the monsters and thier minions. Then move on and kill the rest of the monsters you see before facing Griswold. At this time ignore Deckard Cain's crys for help, and kill Griswold. When facing Griswold it is advised to attack him a long range as he is cursed, but attack him in hand-to-hand comat with you and your mercanarie. When you kill Griswold, go to the bottom and start walking left. Kill all the enimies in you way until you reach Wirt's Body. Click on it and a Wirt's Leg will come out along with piles of money. Pick up the Wirt's Leg and the money, and create a Town Portal. Go to Akara and buy one Identify Scroll for every unidentified item. Sell all the items except for the valuable ones (priced at about one thousand gold or over and magic) because these will be worth more later on in the game. Take all the equipment better than you own and equip it. Sell all the old stuff. Then go to Misc at the top and buy a Town Portal Tome. At this time don't buy any items as at this time you only need gold to repair items and buy scrolls. Then head back to Tristram through the Town Portal you created and free Dekard Cain. A Town Portal will appear and Cain will go through it. Create another Town Portal and head back to the Rouge Encampment. Go talk to Akara and she will tell you we need to seek council with Cain. You will get a ring as a prize that is random in nature. Then go talk to Cain, and he will say he will identify items for you for free as you rescued him. Then go to you private stash and store the Wirt's Leg, all your gold, any valuable items, charms you can't use yet and gems. Then log out and back in and keep going back to Tristram and killing everything. Keep doing this until you are level thirteen to eighteen. The higher the better.When you are around that level(it will take awhile, so be patient) go through the Underground Passageway, and go to the Dark Wood on the other side. Walk around and look for the Waypoint and The Forgotten Tower. If you didn't find the Moldy tome earlier, the quest will appear on your quest log. Explore the Cellar until you reach the fifth level, and go fight the Countess. Resistance to fire will be helpful as she uses Firewall. When you complete this quest, head back to the Rouge Encampment and talk to Charsi. She will give you the Tools of the Trade quest where she aks you to retrieve the Horadric malus which she left in the Monastary. Then go back to the Black Forest and find the Black Marsh and locate the Waypoint. Wander around and kill things until you grow a level and head to the Tamoe Highlands. Train in the Tamoe Highland until you grow 2 levels, then head to the Monastary. In the Monastary, you will find the Outer Cloister. Activate the Waypoint, and explore around until you find the Barracks. As you work your way through the Barracks you will see a small hammer image on your map. Head towards it and kill The Smith. The Smith is extra strong and extra fast, so take out all his minions first, so you can take him on head-to-head or from afar. Grab the malus and other items and head back to town. Talk to Charsi and she will thank you, and say's she will imbue an item for you. You cannot imbue any magical, throwning, socketed item. Save the imbue for later on in the game as it will be more valuable then. Then talk to Deckard Cain and he will give you the Sisters to the Slaughter quest. You must find the Demon-Queen Andariel and kill her. First go back to the Barracks and head to the Jail. Travel through the 3 levels of the Jail(hit the Waypoint on Level 1 of the Jail) until you come to the Inner Cloister. Fight the Unique Spike Fiend Flame Spike the Crawler(unless you have the expansion) and activate the Waypoint. From here proceed to the Cathedral and then to the Catacombs. activate the Waypoint on level 2 of the Catacombs, for future uses or in case you die. When you reach level 4 of the Catacombs, clear all surrounding rooms and the lure Andariel into the room with the lava pool in the middle. Andariel spits out poison so poison resistance and antidote potions will help. When she dies pick up the items she drops and head to the Rouge Encampment. Talk to Warriv and he will take you east to Lut Gholein(aka Act 2 The Secret of the Vizjerei). This is all I am putting of the quests as I do not want to spoil the game for others who have not reached it yet.  

		
 			Chapter 3:Stat Raising	

	Until you are level 5, raise all your stats up to level 25 except for Vitality. Kepp Vitality at 15 through the whole game as you do not need Vitality for the Necromancer. Then as you level up, put 2 points into Strength and Dexterity and the remaning point into Energy.Keep doing this until your Energy is at 70 to 90(not your Mana points, your Energy points), and then put 2 points into Strength and 3 points into Dexterity from now on.

			Chapter 4:Skill Raising

	 When you put points into your skills, in the Summoning & Control and Poison & Bone sections, put at least one point into every skill to balance him out. In the Curses section only put points into Amplify Damage, Dim Vision and Weaken as everything else is not very useful. In the Summoning & Control section, put 3 points into Clay Golem and and 7 into Golem Mastery. Only put 1 point into Raise Skeleton and Raise Skeletal Mage to open up your skill-line for revive. Put 1 point into Blood Golem and 4 into Iron Golem. Then put as many points into Fire Golem as you can afford as he is the most valuable Golem there is. Put around 2-3 points into Summon Resist and 5 to 10 for Revive. In the Poison & Bone section put 1 point only into Teeth as it is only good for the beginning of Act 1, and 3 to 5 into bone Armour. Put some points into Poison Dagger if you like hand-to-hand combat, but if not, put only 1 point into it. Put 2 to 3 points into Corpse Explosion. This may be good, but Poisoin Explosion is better and you want to save points for it. Invest a couple points into Bone Wall as it can be a valuable skill at times. Put as many points as you want into Poison Explosion, Bone Spear, Poison Nova, Bone Spirit and Bone Prison as they are all valuable and VERY useful skills. 
	Here is all the skills for the Necromancer, followed by what level you have to be to use them;

			Summoning & Control
	1. Skeleton Mastery- Level 1
	2. Raise Skeleton- Level 1
	3. Clay Golem- Level 6
	4. Golem Mastery- Level 12
	5. Raise Skeletal Mage- Level 12
	6. Blood Golem- Level 18	
	7. Summon Resist- Level 24
	8. Iron Golem- Level 24
	9. Fire Golem- Level 30 
       10. Revive- level 30 

			Poison & Bone

	1. Teeth- Level 1
	2. Bone Armor- Level 1
	3. Poison Dagger- Level 6
	4. Corpse Explosion- Level 6
	5. Bone Wall- Level 12
	6. Poison Explosion- Level 18
	7. Bone Spear- Level 18
	8. Bone Prison- Level 24
	9. Poison Nova- Level 30
       10. Bone Spirit- Level 30

			Curses

	1. Amplify Damage- Level 1
	2. Dim Vision- level 6
	3. Weaken- Level 6
	4. Iron Maiden- Level 12
	5. Terror- Level 12
	6. Confuse- Level 18
	7. Life Tap- Level 18
	8. Attract- Level 24
	9. Decrepify- Level 24
       10. Lower Resist- Level 30		
																	This is the end of my guide and I hope it was useful to you in any way.Have fun playing Diablo 2 or Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction. Remember, this quide is only a guide ment to help you, and you may customize your Necromancer in any way you want.

	I would put some legal stuff, but, uh, I don't know any legal stuuf. Do what you want to this guide, exploit it if you wish. But all names, items and stuff from Diablo are copyright to Blizzard studios and it's thier crap so don't mess with it. That's all I have to say so have fun playing.(P.S. Pardon the crap pun).