I expect You got there, because You followed some wise Youtuber Necromancer guide and got wrecked after meeting Duriel on normal 🙂 . Its mostly because these people play 5+ years and have no idea what it is to start from nothing. They advice Insight for infinite mana (but You cant get that in normal, even in nightmare it needs farm..) , or cassualy mention Enigma, which is endgame Hell gear.

Here is video of me killing Duriel half asleep, doing literally nothing. on 4 mana pots. Did not use any curse, and any attack skill, random gear, just chill. That was gameplay I was seeking, and had to figure out somehow myself.

I am lazy person, and I want summons to do everything for me. I want to click as less as possible and ideally to press not a single keyboard button 😀

I call this.

Lazymancer

1. Lazymancer is lazy, first thing he do he go settings and set map display mode to top right corner. Last thing we want is pressing TAB whole game right ?
2. Lazymancer is lazy, second thing he do he go to settings and switch item display mode from “hold” to “trigger”. Last thing we want is pressing ALT whole game right ?
3. Check belts early, they add potion slots! We are lazy and do not want to play with potions in inventory, they are stored automatically to belt slots, later it can add even 3 rows of potions or even 4. It literally expands Your inventory!.
4. Buy Identify/Portal book ASAP, all identify/portal scrolls will be placed in it automatically, we are lazy we like automatic stuff. It expands your inventory!

Skillpoints:

1. put 1 point in skeleton mastery, then put points into Raise skeleton, till first Golem opens.
2. When opened, put 1 point to Clay Golem (no more)
3. Put points in raise skeleton till Golem mastery opens
4. Put skill points to Golem mastery till Blood golem opens
5. From now on just max Blood golem to max.
6. Put 1 skill to summon resist when it opens up (ideally before Diablo, do not forget this 😀) .
7. When having +2 or +3 to summon skills gear it is worth to put 1 point to iron golem and fire golem, since Blood golem will get bonuses from them as your +all skills gear raises.
   

Normal skill progression

1. Act 2 Duriel – Blood golem 5, Golem mastery 7, Raise skeleton 8, Skeleton mastery 1
2. Act 3 Mephisto – Blood golem 9, Golem mastery 7, Raise skeleton 8, Skeleton mastery 1
3. Act 4 Diablo – Summon resist 1, Blood Golem 11, Golem Mastery 8, Raise skeleton 8, Skeleton mastery 1
4. Act 5 Baal –

Stats

Divide stats between Vitality/energy, half/half. We are lazy we need that mana to pot as few pots as possible. Leave about 30 free points, use them on Strenght when You drop any interesting gear which needs higher strenght.

Mercenary

This is bread and butter of this build. Act 1, fire arrow mercenary, will melt whole normal with all its bosses. Your Golem and skeletons will ensure its safety. Summoner is best possible match for archer mercenary, he will hardly ever die, even on act bosses. You can gear mercenary, and its fun, put him any bow that drops, then give him any bow that gives lighting/cold/poison damage, which is applied in arrows he shoot between skills. So he has innate fire damage, physical damage in between, and even cold/lighting damage to it, not like there are any much imunities in normal, but it will melt everything. (even cold is good, some corpses will dissapear, but we are not using them much at all, its even good at monsters that ressurrect other monsters). She has AOE exploding arrow to kill group of enemies, and also does Inner sight debuf which lower deff, which helps also Your skeletons, how cool is that 😛

When You get hands on Hoardic cube, use it as expansion of Your inventory! You can put all stuff in it 😛

THIS IS ALL you need for Normal really. Continue reading for more info but its optional. If You are new to game too much of informations can take off the Joy

Important notes :
– Check gray bows and STORE 3 slot gray bow, You’ll need it and it does not drop in higher difficulty.
– Store Tir Tal Amn runes for edge runeword in 3 slot bow, it gives reflect aura to skeletons and this will carry You on whole nightmare!
– Pick up gems! you can combine 3 same gems to better gem, do it but always leave at least 3 or more chipped (lowest grade) of same color, You need them for creating runes or re-roll/re-socked blue bows.
– Red gems are important, for Diablo fight You need high fire resist, store fire resist gear, but if have none You’ll buy 3 socket shield in act 2 and put 3 red gems for resist. Or You die in 1 hit from Diablo ring of fire.

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Mephisto Normal (Lighting mercenary is for fun do not try to gear it.)

Diablo Normal

Baal normal (Lighting mercenary is for fun do not try to gear it.)

Nightmare – difficulty

So You got Baal to kiss the floor. Now in Nightmare wondering, cant this build work in there? Yes it can! More-ever with this build Nightmare is much much easier than normal was.

1. First thing to do. Take 3slot armor and 2 slot helm and put resist runes Tal / Ral / Ort / Thul runes into them, adding 30% resist to all, and put it on Your Act 1 mercenary, she will hardly die even at act boss fights. I tried spear mercenary and holly molly amount of gold on his resurrects was high 🙂

2. We will slightly invest to Raise skeletons to have them more. In nightmare difficulty they are boosted up and will start shining slowly.

3. You want craft EDGE runeword as soon as possible, “Tir Tal Amn” . You probably have 3slot bow from normal if not farm normal Cows level. (I did not drop 3slot bow whole nightmare!). You probably already have “Tir” and “Tal” and miss Amn rune. Now is the first time for a bit of farm (Not much really), Get to Black Marsh portal in ACT 1 on nightmare, run on map find tower, kill Countess in fifth floor, she is special and almost always drol 2 or 3 runes. Where Amn is pretty low one, Even if unlucky, You can take 3 of same runes and craft higher rune, so Youll get to Amn no matter what. 3x Thul Runes + 1 Chipped Topaz –> 1 Amn Rune (Remmembered why we stored chipped gems :P, btw this is cube recipe)
3. After getting Edge runeword on Your bow mercenary, You are good to beat whole Nightmare, really, skeletons even Golem are overpowered with it, for some reason they also get a lot tankier, and actually kill stuff!

Skill progression

Act 2 – Duriel – Blood Golem 20, Golem Mastery 13, Raise skeleton 16, Skeleton mastery 1
Act 3 Mephisto –
Act 4 Diablo –
Act 5 Baal –

Sidenotes

This guide is still work in progress, I leave my notes below, since its too much of reading, and for normal just keep it simple.

Blood Golem

From the moment You summon it, forget about potions. Even at Act Boss fights! After You try him once Youll never want another golem :} , more damage he does, more awesome heal he does. I hardly ever died, but I was rescued by his autoheal like 100 times! This allows You rather unique game play like
1. Looting and identifying loot while in middle of fight 😀
2. Slacking while on boss fight 😀
2. Free hand from 1/2/3/4 keyboard potions keys (Lazymancer is lazy so :D)
Blood Golem is only and one utility skill You’ll use:
1. Rush in when mobs show up, just pop up golem infront of You and You are safe, everything will be agroed by Golem almost instantly.
2. This is also great strategy for doors, just rush near doors, pop up golem inside of room, all mobs get dragged to it, so doors are free for skeletons to pass. Or even if skellies are stuck at doors just pop up golem behind.
3. With Golem You have personal teleporter, in Labyrint just pop him across screen under mages, and all projectiles will go to golem instead of You, normal labyrint changed to breeze instead of pain. Also normal Maggot lair, just teleport him behind mobs on normal he kill pretty solid everything.
4. At the boss fights remember to spawn golem, so boss turn to him, and You stand at boss back, with that You are safe for all those boss pierce range attacks.

Skeletons :

Summon them when they die, other than that let them do their job. At bosses/minibisess they will die. Skip skeleton mages, their AI is worst, they will stand in middle of door and will not let any of Your skellies to pass, skellies are much better in moving with no mages, just toss mages their damage is weak, with bow mercenary with fast bow and magic missles from bow, he will shoot like fireworks, no need for mages 🙂

Gear :

Do not really need much, forget any runewords, you cant access 4 or 3 slot gears till on nightmare difficulty. When doing online character (which I strongly reccomend), after reaching act 2 (sand city), create new game till You get wand seller standing next to gate to field map. When you leave gate, and field map name shows up, you can return to seller and his items will reset. You can just run up and back, till You see +1 summoning skills wand. Thats probably best weapon for Normal, can repeat same thing on higher lvl and can get even +2 necro skills in this way. Pick up any wands/heads You encounter, be it white/gray/blue/yellow, in chest You have tabs, so use them. Store all gears that give +1 to iron maiden/decrepify, because we ignore this skill tree for Golem sake, but if we wish we still can use these from gear switch which is cool. Its 5 points till decrepify thats A LOT on normal. Store wands/heads that adds to skeleton mastery/raise skeleton, and of course store wands/heads that give anything to Blood golem/golem mastery, but +1 skills mostly wins globally for wand.

Runes

Store any dropped runes, make one storage just for them, if get 4 of same runes just mix 3 of them to make higher rune. This is perfect page https://www.purediablo.com/diablo-2/runeword-calculator , order them in tab in same order, it fill be satisfiing when You create higher and higher rune (not that You can do anything interesting with them on normal :D)

Gems
Store droped gems/skulls, leave about 2 chipped gems (higher runes craft need 1 chipped gem, you cant break higher gem to get lower) from each kind, and mix every 3 same gems to higher ones. Again there is almost no use for them at normal, BUT You can slot them to mercenary weapon for fun damage effects.

Money

To be actually able to buy anything from merchant, You need some money. Simple way to get rich. Loot while Your minions fight 😀 with blood gollem healing You nonstop You are half immortal 😀 and can loot in middle of fight haha. Most lazy way to get rich is looking on Grey and white items (suprised right :D) , white and gray items do not need identify, global rule is, if it gives +1 to any skill it will net 5000 gold, if it adds +1 to two skills 10 000+ , if it gives +1 to 3 different skills thats where You mostly hit cap, there is cap on item sell, as You progress though acts it raises, so at the end You can sell even for 30k. Same rule goes for blue/yellow, if they add skills they will cost if not do not bother. Do not bother picking any charm on normal, I didnt drop single one worth of picking in normal. Check bows for your merc. Do not bother storing sloted items in normal, this starts on nightmare. Do not bother doing necro +3 poison skills wand runeword, +2 to all skills can be bought at merc and is much better, even +3 in nightmare act 2 .

We are lazy, and identifiing stuff can be daunting and boring task. You can just ignore blue things and just check gray/white to get rich. Just check all wands/heads for You and bows for merc.

There are some Necromancer Myths,
1. You do not need points in mana
You do, ideally split everything into Vitality/Mana, and leave about 30 free points for dex/strenght if some gear need it. You need mana! To not pot like mad .. we are necromancers and lazy people, nobody wana click potions after 1 skill . Youtubers use godly gear, or runewords so they have instant mana always, and then boast how You do not need points in it, You do.
2. Put only 1 point in clay golem, golems are meh anyways.
Oh how wroong this statement is :D. Again, people who claim this have +20 to all skills gear/charms, so they jump to +21 golem by 1 click lol. If You start with no gear lvl 1 golem will do nothing and die faster than skeleton.
I will state this, Your army is as strong as Your Golem.
3. Blood golem is worst.
Blood golem is best possible skill Youll even have 😀 , it has LARGEST hp pool, its relatively cheap on mana. And finnaly, say goodbay to using life potions, like, honestly, it will heal you 1/3 hp like nonstop. At boss fights You will not even use life pots at all, how cool is that. After I got my blood golem I leaved 3 life potions on my belt, and I brought these with me till Diablo haha 😀 . Its insane how chill play starts with Blood golem, Your army fights and in middle of that You can just freely loot and check gear, even if they hit You, You are healed almost instantly. Blood golem = Chillest playthrought You ever had. Golem is agro magnet, when golem dies, your skellies dies, if he lives Your skellies lives. At bosses, just think about it, what do You have when skellies die, your mercenary which die just after them. Yes right You have your gollem, but if he dies in 1 hit, your mana will just die from resumonning, and lvl 1 clay golem will do 0 damage.

4. All summoner builds starts with , go to +20 skeletons then +20 skeleton mastery.
Wrong, this is overkill, honestly for Normal, all You need is 1 point in skeleton mastery and put points in skeletons till You cannot put points into Blood golem, After that put everything into blood golem, and like every third point to golem mastery, so You end up like 20blood golem 5 golem mastery and click 1 point into summon resist when it opens. This will get You through normal bosses. No need for any level grinding or anything.

Maggot lair

On Normal, monsters do not have much hp, so even if You have 1 skeleton attacking at the time and Golem teleported into mobs, things die pretty ok. 100% better than going in with just skeletons and lvl 1 golem that do no damage, that was absolute pain.
On Nightmare this was a bit more pain, mobs have much more HP so main killer is Archer mercenary, its great at straight tunnels but after 2 rounds he tends to stuck, and maxed golem cost quite a mana, I was wondering about using low lvl clay golem to just drag mobs to mercenary and not triing to get mercenary to mobs 🙂 . Anyways its not like Youll have any problem its just pain.

Arcane Sanctuary / aka “Labyrinth”

With teleporting Blood Golem anywhere, its breeze, they even stop fire on You and fire everything on golem which is super convenient. I runed this on normal with Act 2 spear mercenary, which was really stupid thing to do in this location, but anyways Golem killed everything anyways, Take Act 1 bow mercenary and grap popcorn for the show of golem talking and Merc shooting.