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Zoomancer Guide

2006-09-13T21:59:28Z

Masterkilla: /* Amulets */

The '''Zoomancer''' is a [[Necromancer Technical Information and Build Guides|Necromancer build]] that specializes in the use of the summoning tree for its offense and defense. This is intended as a PvM build, and would fare poorly in PvP.
==Introduction==
The Zoomancer is one of THE easiest builds to create and play. Starting at level one and through the rest of the game, a Zoomancer can be very effective, and offers a break from the traditional clickfest that is Diablo. Relying on only two core skills, it allows for a great deal of customization to your favored play style.
===Strengths===
*'''Safety'''. A Zoomancer must kill his first monster completely alone. Once he's dirtied his wand for hopefully the last time, he may never intentionally get close to another enemy ever again. He will have potentially dozens of minions, all happy to waltz into harm's way so that their master doesn't have to.
*'''Versatility'''. Most characters will eventually need help versus the immunes of Hell difficulty. This builds damage is primarily physical, but physical immunities can almost always be broken by the use of Amplify Damage. Later on when unbreakable physical immunes are encountered, they can usually be dispatched with your secondary skills. A summoner can go anywhere in the game and kill anything. And the Zoomancer can do all of this naked or with magic find gear.
===Weaknesses===
*'''Minion Dependence'''. Without you, your skeleton army is useless. Without your skeleton army, YOU are useless. Starting out a new game, especially in Hell difficulty, can be dangerous, and you will usually rely on your mercenary or Iron Golem to make the first kill. In addition, you may have low resistances, low hit points, a low defense rating, and negligible blocking.
*'''Choke points'''. Doors and bridges are your enemies. The Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary will make you utter curses more frequently than your character. Your explosion skills can take advantage of these situations, but they are still a nuisance.

==Skills==
The core skills for this build are '''Raise Skeleton''' and '''Skeleton Mastery'''. After you've made that 40 point investment, you will be "Hell viable". You could go ahead and max out Summon Resist, Weaken, and Bone Armor if you wanted. But for the love of Trang-Oul and all that is unholy, DON'T!
===Summoning===
====Raise Skeleton====
Max it first. It will be the first spell you ever cast, and raising an army at the start of the game will become ritual to you. The best place to do this at the beginning of a game is Nilathak's Garden (aka Pindle Garden, Anya Portal, etc.). There are a lot of corspes there with about 6 seconds to raise as you please. with a good knowledge of what the corpse layout is and fast cast, 12 skellys can be raised.

====Skeleton Mastery====
Max it second. If you aren't using Skeleton Mages, you should initially build up your character with a 3:1 Raise Skeleton to Skeleton Mastery point allocation ratio. If you're using mages or revives, you may want to opt for a 2:1 ratio instead.
====Clay Golem====
1 point suggested. The basic clay golem has enough hit points to stay alive most of the time, and can be simply recast when it dies or needs to be repositioned. It has an extremely useful "slows enemies" effect that is particularly of note versus act bosses.

====Skeletal Mage====
0-20 points. These guys have two main purposes: broadening your damage, and defending your flank. Their damage output is rather low, but will sometimes chill monsters and prevent their healing, and can harm those physical immunes that refuse to die even after you've reduced the corpses around them to chunky kibbles. Also, a monster will sometimes sneak up behind you or around your front lines. This is particularly frequent when facing blowgun fetish and demon imps. Your mages will hang out in back with you, and you can hide amongst them instead of having to frantically block with your clay golem.
====Golem Mastery and Summon Resist====
1 point wonders. With +skills items, they get as high as they need to be. More, however, is generally a waste. Summon Resist suffers major diminishing returns, but your minions do not suffer the same resistance penalties that you and your mercenary do in Hell difficulty.
====Blood Golem and Iron Golem====
1 point each as prerequisites. A blood golem is a liability, one that is made unnecessary by the use of healing potions. An Iron Golem is immune to poison and returns damage to melee attackers, so it has its uses.
====Fire Golem====
0-1 point. It attracts enemies with its fire aura, which can help keep the heat off you. It has a tendency to pull extra monsters, but Zoomancers are seldom afraid of a large crowd, especially if they have....
====Revive====
0-10 points. With the exception of NASTY monsters like [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-blunderbore.shtml Urdars] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-bloodlord.shtml Frenzytaurs], their damage output is not helpful, but for those three minutes you have them they are practically indestructible. In addition to these two, you may want to bring along the following...
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-vilechild.shtml Vile Children] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-sandmaggotyoung.shtml Sand Maggot Young]. All revives have enough hit points. These little buggers are very fast and very aggressive.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-corruptrogue.shtml Corrupt Rogues]. Like Vile Children, they are fast and aggressive, and will patrol a wide radius looking for trouble when not in combat.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-clawviper.shtml Claw Vipers] are nasty and fire bone spears!
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-thornedhulk.shtml Thorned Hulks] are very similar to Urdars.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-councilmember.shtml Council Members] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-vampire.shtml Vampires] make excellent revive mages.

===Poison & Bone===
You may want to eventually put points into the higher-level damage skills for this tree. Poison in particular may be useful, as those skills require a lower skill point investment to be effective and can be boosted by Lower Resist.
====Teeth====
1 point. It is a prerequisite to Corpse Explosion, and may be the only skill you can bind to your left click button. You can bind the "throw" action instead, but Teeth will remain bound even when you switch weapons. You do NOT want to accidentally walk up to monsters you click on!
====Corpse Explosion====
1-20 points. The greatest skill of all time. Even with only one point, your +skills items will bring it up to a useful radius. It really shines at choke points and with tightly packed mobs. That, and it's really good at making a cool mess. You should Amplify Damage or Lower Resists all monsters in the vicinity before you cast CE, to maxime its potential.
One thing to note is that CE does not scale with higher player count, so your CE damage will drastically be lowered in games with many people, doing only 2/9 of the damage in a 8 player game.

===Curses===
====Dim Vision====
1-20 points. This is your primary defense against ranged attackers, particularly piercing ranged attackers, and even MORE particularly against [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-willowisp.shtml Gloams]. It also helps to keep enemies from attacking your army all at once, which is useful for getting that crucial first corpse before the bone hits the fan.

This skill can also be very useful by preventing enemies from casting spells. Shamans will not resurrect their minions, Pit Lords will not use their Inferno attack, and Vampires will not drop meteors on you. However, [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-undeadhorror.shtml Oblivion Knight] mages are immune to Dim Vision, Attract, and Confuse... the only way you can effect their AI is with Terror, which often is not desirable at all.

====Confuse and Attract====
0-20 points. Some players hail them as incredibly useful because they trick monsters into fighting each other. However, that damage is not particularly high, and is chiefly a bonus before your skeletons get in for the major damage. Attract in particular can be useful, as the defeated monster can quickly avenge himself by blowing up all of his traitorous friends via Corpse Explosion. These skills tend to make a more chaotic battlefield, so they are often ineffective when you are trying to keep piercing ranged attackers from shooting all over the place wildly. To best achieve this defensive effect, use Attract on a monster in the rear of the pack.
====Everything else====
1 point wonders. Amplify Damage is a MUST for your skeletons. Lower Resist is great for parties, poison skills, and skeleton mages. Decrepify is most useful versus bosses, and ideally is attained before facing Diablo. Life Tap will keep your minions (most importantly your mercenary) alive when the going gets tough.
==Stats==
===Strength===
You can get through the whole game leaving it at base. You will need 81 strength to equip the entire Trang-Oul's Avatar, widely considered the best Necromancer set in the game. Bringing it to above 100 is pushing it, but some players like to do so for alternative gear.

===Dexterity===
Base. You aren't swinging at anything, and the amount of points you need to invest for blocking just isn't worth it. The only exception is if you're using Poison Dagger as an alternate skill.

===Vitality===
CRANK it! You won't get hit much, but when you do, it will HURT. You will ''never'' regret putting points into Vitality.

===Energy===
How much you need is entirely depend ant on your auxiliary skills, as Raise Skeleton is rather cheap. Around 100 points should be enough for most summoners. You'll encounter more mana potions than you need, and running out of mana will rarely be as disastrous as it would be for the other classes. If you use an Insight weapon on an Act II mercenary, you will regenerate all of your mana quickly enough to spam Corpse Explosion and Revive to your heart's content.

==Mercenary==
You're going to want to use an Act II mercenary. Their auras are far more useful than anything the other mercs have, have better survivability than the Act I or Act III mercs, and comparable damage potential to the Act V merc.
*'''Prayer''' is useful at lower levels, but later on the healing just isn't significant. It's nice to regenerate, and great if you're waiting for one of the Nightmare difficulty auras, though.
*'''Defiance''' is useful early on, but eventually your skeletons will rock so much later on that you just don't need it.
*'''Blessed Aim''' is also good early on, but like Defiance it eventually becomes unnecessary.
*'''Thorns''' will rock while your character level is low compared to the monsters, but loses effectiveness as you level up. You can also get the Thorns aura easily from an Edge runeword weapon.
*'''Holy Freeze''' is good defensively, but can cause monsters to shatter and rob you of a corpse.
*'''Might''' is generally considered to be the most useful aura for a Zoomancer, as it will ''significantly'' improve your minion damage. Once you get to Act II Nightmare, grab it!

==Equipment==
In general, stock up on Magic Find. You won't be getting hurt much, and don't really ''need'' equipment to be effective.
===Helms===
*The [http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/lore_OrtSol.htm Lore] runeword is very useful, and not too difficult to create.

===Body armor===
*[http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/stealth_TalEth.htm Stealth] is easy to make early in the game.

===Shields===
Good luck with that! A good shrunken head is very hard to find.

===Gloves===
*'''Frostburns''' are great for the mana bonus, although you may end up not needing it.

===Boots===
*'''Marrowalk''' is good for the skill bonus, but otherwise a pair of magic find boots may be more worth it.

===Belts===
*Anything with four slots should be adequate. A common practice is to imbue the first exceptional sash you find.

===Weapons===
Remember to use weapon switch! You only need those high summoning skill levels while you're raising your army... after that, you can equip something that provides them with an aura or boosts your curses.
*Any wand with good skill bonuses is nice.
*For an alternate weapon, try using an '''Edge''' bow. That Thorns aura really comes in handy, especially when you encounter an extra strong, extra fast, cursed Urdar boss pack.

===Rings===
As usual, skiller will be nice, and a Stone of Jordan will help your CE'ing as it gives quite a bit of mana. Otherwise, rare rings with stats/resists/FCR will be awesome.

===Amulets===
+3 Summoning skills and +2 Necromancer skills can be gamebled, and can also come with other great mods. Craftings can also get skills and even more cool mods, watch out for the level 89 requirement on the +2 Necro ammy crafts though.

===Charms===
As a Zoomancer, your primary purpose in combat is to pick up loot. Charms make you less effective at this. Don't use them unless they give you something VERY nice.

==Strategy==
===Shamans and Greater Mummies===
Dim Vision on the monster raising its allies is your best bet. It will force it to mill around until your troops come in to attack it melee, and by then it's in big trouble. If the target is immune to AI curses (Champion/Unique) or your Dim Vision skill level is too low, try summoning a clay golem next to it instead. The golem will distract the monster more than simply hanging in back would have, and slow it as well.

===Act Bosses===
In general, Decreptify is your best bet against bosses, since it will slow them to a crawl and they will be struck down by your skellys slowly. The Clay Golem alos provides slow, but usually not enough to get them to stay still. Some Act bosses have large "bases" meaning they take up a large sapce, so more skellys can crowd around and attck, but with smaller ones charges of teleport is really handy and makes the fight a lot faster. These strategies below are all for normal, there is no boss you cannot take down in NM/Hell as long as you have Decreptify.
====Andariel====
This shouldn't really be a problem if you chug mana pots and cast Clay Golem next to her as his health goes down. Meanwhile, you skellys are beating down on her.
She will only focus on the Golem as long as you keep casting it, so if you are fast she may never cast her poison attack.
====Duriel====
A good strategy here is to cast Iron MAiden on him and watch him beat himself up on a skelly. Sometimes he hits too hard for your skellys to take, in that case revert to the Clay Golem strategy with Andy again. He doesn't seem as attractted to the golem as Andy though.
====Mephisto====
He is a wuss, his close up attacks don't really do anything, and his life is low. Amp him and be done is about 15 seconds.
====Diablo====
Considered the bane of all summoners, even with Decreptify, at around level 30 your skellys cannot take his powerful attacks. This battle is based on luck, hopefully you have Decrep by now, or it will definately be a lost cause. You can help out if you have a wand with Bone Spirit, but all it comes down to is who kills the other faster.
====Baal====
In normal, if you STILL do not have Decrep he will be quite hard, as he like to teleport away frequently and cast a clone if you spare him some time. Get close, slow him down, and hit hard.

==Contributors==
If you've helped build this guide, brag about it here!
*Yo. --[[User:Explodicle|Explodicle]] 03:56, 24 Aug 2006 (BST)
*I did something! :) [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 22:52, 13 Sep 2006 (BST)

Zoomancer Guide

2006-09-13T21:58:02Z

Masterkilla: /* Rings */

The '''Zoomancer''' is a [[Necromancer Technical Information and Build Guides|Necromancer build]] that specializes in the use of the summoning tree for its offense and defense. This is intended as a PvM build, and would fare poorly in PvP.
==Introduction==
The Zoomancer is one of THE easiest builds to create and play. Starting at level one and through the rest of the game, a Zoomancer can be very effective, and offers a break from the traditional clickfest that is Diablo. Relying on only two core skills, it allows for a great deal of customization to your favored play style.
===Strengths===
*'''Safety'''. A Zoomancer must kill his first monster completely alone. Once he's dirtied his wand for hopefully the last time, he may never intentionally get close to another enemy ever again. He will have potentially dozens of minions, all happy to waltz into harm's way so that their master doesn't have to.
*'''Versatility'''. Most characters will eventually need help versus the immunes of Hell difficulty. This builds damage is primarily physical, but physical immunities can almost always be broken by the use of Amplify Damage. Later on when unbreakable physical immunes are encountered, they can usually be dispatched with your secondary skills. A summoner can go anywhere in the game and kill anything. And the Zoomancer can do all of this naked or with magic find gear.
===Weaknesses===
*'''Minion Dependence'''. Without you, your skeleton army is useless. Without your skeleton army, YOU are useless. Starting out a new game, especially in Hell difficulty, can be dangerous, and you will usually rely on your mercenary or Iron Golem to make the first kill. In addition, you may have low resistances, low hit points, a low defense rating, and negligible blocking.
*'''Choke points'''. Doors and bridges are your enemies. The Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary will make you utter curses more frequently than your character. Your explosion skills can take advantage of these situations, but they are still a nuisance.

==Skills==
The core skills for this build are '''Raise Skeleton''' and '''Skeleton Mastery'''. After you've made that 40 point investment, you will be "Hell viable". You could go ahead and max out Summon Resist, Weaken, and Bone Armor if you wanted. But for the love of Trang-Oul and all that is unholy, DON'T!
===Summoning===
====Raise Skeleton====
Max it first. It will be the first spell you ever cast, and raising an army at the start of the game will become ritual to you. The best place to do this at the beginning of a game is Nilathak's Garden (aka Pindle Garden, Anya Portal, etc.). There are a lot of corspes there with about 6 seconds to raise as you please. with a good knowledge of what the corpse layout is and fast cast, 12 skellys can be raised.

====Skeleton Mastery====
Max it second. If you aren't using Skeleton Mages, you should initially build up your character with a 3:1 Raise Skeleton to Skeleton Mastery point allocation ratio. If you're using mages or revives, you may want to opt for a 2:1 ratio instead.
====Clay Golem====
1 point suggested. The basic clay golem has enough hit points to stay alive most of the time, and can be simply recast when it dies or needs to be repositioned. It has an extremely useful "slows enemies" effect that is particularly of note versus act bosses.

====Skeletal Mage====
0-20 points. These guys have two main purposes: broadening your damage, and defending your flank. Their damage output is rather low, but will sometimes chill monsters and prevent their healing, and can harm those physical immunes that refuse to die even after you've reduced the corpses around them to chunky kibbles. Also, a monster will sometimes sneak up behind you or around your front lines. This is particularly frequent when facing blowgun fetish and demon imps. Your mages will hang out in back with you, and you can hide amongst them instead of having to frantically block with your clay golem.
====Golem Mastery and Summon Resist====
1 point wonders. With +skills items, they get as high as they need to be. More, however, is generally a waste. Summon Resist suffers major diminishing returns, but your minions do not suffer the same resistance penalties that you and your mercenary do in Hell difficulty.
====Blood Golem and Iron Golem====
1 point each as prerequisites. A blood golem is a liability, one that is made unnecessary by the use of healing potions. An Iron Golem is immune to poison and returns damage to melee attackers, so it has its uses.
====Fire Golem====
0-1 point. It attracts enemies with its fire aura, which can help keep the heat off you. It has a tendency to pull extra monsters, but Zoomancers are seldom afraid of a large crowd, especially if they have....
====Revive====
0-10 points. With the exception of NASTY monsters like [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-blunderbore.shtml Urdars] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-bloodlord.shtml Frenzytaurs], their damage output is not helpful, but for those three minutes you have them they are practically indestructible. In addition to these two, you may want to bring along the following...
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-vilechild.shtml Vile Children] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-sandmaggotyoung.shtml Sand Maggot Young]. All revives have enough hit points. These little buggers are very fast and very aggressive.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-corruptrogue.shtml Corrupt Rogues]. Like Vile Children, they are fast and aggressive, and will patrol a wide radius looking for trouble when not in combat.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-clawviper.shtml Claw Vipers] are nasty and fire bone spears!
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-thornedhulk.shtml Thorned Hulks] are very similar to Urdars.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-councilmember.shtml Council Members] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-vampire.shtml Vampires] make excellent revive mages.

===Poison & Bone===
You may want to eventually put points into the higher-level damage skills for this tree. Poison in particular may be useful, as those skills require a lower skill point investment to be effective and can be boosted by Lower Resist.
====Teeth====
1 point. It is a prerequisite to Corpse Explosion, and may be the only skill you can bind to your left click button. You can bind the "throw" action instead, but Teeth will remain bound even when you switch weapons. You do NOT want to accidentally walk up to monsters you click on!
====Corpse Explosion====
1-20 points. The greatest skill of all time. Even with only one point, your +skills items will bring it up to a useful radius. It really shines at choke points and with tightly packed mobs. That, and it's really good at making a cool mess. You should Amplify Damage or Lower Resists all monsters in the vicinity before you cast CE, to maxime its potential.
One thing to note is that CE does not scale with higher player count, so your CE damage will drastically be lowered in games with many people, doing only 2/9 of the damage in a 8 player game.

===Curses===
====Dim Vision====
1-20 points. This is your primary defense against ranged attackers, particularly piercing ranged attackers, and even MORE particularly against [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-willowisp.shtml Gloams]. It also helps to keep enemies from attacking your army all at once, which is useful for getting that crucial first corpse before the bone hits the fan.

This skill can also be very useful by preventing enemies from casting spells. Shamans will not resurrect their minions, Pit Lords will not use their Inferno attack, and Vampires will not drop meteors on you. However, [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-undeadhorror.shtml Oblivion Knight] mages are immune to Dim Vision, Attract, and Confuse... the only way you can effect their AI is with Terror, which often is not desirable at all.

====Confuse and Attract====
0-20 points. Some players hail them as incredibly useful because they trick monsters into fighting each other. However, that damage is not particularly high, and is chiefly a bonus before your skeletons get in for the major damage. Attract in particular can be useful, as the defeated monster can quickly avenge himself by blowing up all of his traitorous friends via Corpse Explosion. These skills tend to make a more chaotic battlefield, so they are often ineffective when you are trying to keep piercing ranged attackers from shooting all over the place wildly. To best achieve this defensive effect, use Attract on a monster in the rear of the pack.
====Everything else====
1 point wonders. Amplify Damage is a MUST for your skeletons. Lower Resist is great for parties, poison skills, and skeleton mages. Decrepify is most useful versus bosses, and ideally is attained before facing Diablo. Life Tap will keep your minions (most importantly your mercenary) alive when the going gets tough.
==Stats==
===Strength===
You can get through the whole game leaving it at base. You will need 81 strength to equip the entire Trang-Oul's Avatar, widely considered the best Necromancer set in the game. Bringing it to above 100 is pushing it, but some players like to do so for alternative gear.

===Dexterity===
Base. You aren't swinging at anything, and the amount of points you need to invest for blocking just isn't worth it. The only exception is if you're using Poison Dagger as an alternate skill.

===Vitality===
CRANK it! You won't get hit much, but when you do, it will HURT. You will ''never'' regret putting points into Vitality.

===Energy===
How much you need is entirely depend ant on your auxiliary skills, as Raise Skeleton is rather cheap. Around 100 points should be enough for most summoners. You'll encounter more mana potions than you need, and running out of mana will rarely be as disastrous as it would be for the other classes. If you use an Insight weapon on an Act II mercenary, you will regenerate all of your mana quickly enough to spam Corpse Explosion and Revive to your heart's content.

==Mercenary==
You're going to want to use an Act II mercenary. Their auras are far more useful than anything the other mercs have, have better survivability than the Act I or Act III mercs, and comparable damage potential to the Act V merc.
*'''Prayer''' is useful at lower levels, but later on the healing just isn't significant. It's nice to regenerate, and great if you're waiting for one of the Nightmare difficulty auras, though.
*'''Defiance''' is useful early on, but eventually your skeletons will rock so much later on that you just don't need it.
*'''Blessed Aim''' is also good early on, but like Defiance it eventually becomes unnecessary.
*'''Thorns''' will rock while your character level is low compared to the monsters, but loses effectiveness as you level up. You can also get the Thorns aura easily from an Edge runeword weapon.
*'''Holy Freeze''' is good defensively, but can cause monsters to shatter and rob you of a corpse.
*'''Might''' is generally considered to be the most useful aura for a Zoomancer, as it will ''significantly'' improve your minion damage. Once you get to Act II Nightmare, grab it!

==Equipment==
In general, stock up on Magic Find. You won't be getting hurt much, and don't really ''need'' equipment to be effective.
===Helms===
*The [http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/lore_OrtSol.htm Lore] runeword is very useful, and not too difficult to create.

===Body armor===
*[http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/stealth_TalEth.htm Stealth] is easy to make early in the game.

===Shields===
Good luck with that! A good shrunken head is very hard to find.

===Gloves===
*'''Frostburns''' are great for the mana bonus, although you may end up not needing it.

===Boots===
*'''Marrowalk''' is good for the skill bonus, but otherwise a pair of magic find boots may be more worth it.

===Belts===
*Anything with four slots should be adequate. A common practice is to imbue the first exceptional sash you find.

===Weapons===
Remember to use weapon switch! You only need those high summoning skill levels while you're raising your army... after that, you can equip something that provides them with an aura or boosts your curses.
*Any wand with good skill bonuses is nice.
*For an alternate weapon, try using an '''Edge''' bow. That Thorns aura really comes in handy, especially when you encounter an extra strong, extra fast, cursed Urdar boss pack.

===Rings===
As usual, skiller will be nice, and a Stone of Jordan will help your CE'ing as it gives quite a bit of mana. Otherwise, rare rings with stats/resists/FCR will be awesome.

===Amulets===
===Charms===
As a Zoomancer, your primary purpose in combat is to pick up loot. Charms make you less effective at this. Don't use them unless they give you something VERY nice.

==Strategy==
===Shamans and Greater Mummies===
Dim Vision on the monster raising its allies is your best bet. It will force it to mill around until your troops come in to attack it melee, and by then it's in big trouble. If the target is immune to AI curses (Champion/Unique) or your Dim Vision skill level is too low, try summoning a clay golem next to it instead. The golem will distract the monster more than simply hanging in back would have, and slow it as well.

===Act Bosses===
In general, Decreptify is your best bet against bosses, since it will slow them to a crawl and they will be struck down by your skellys slowly. The Clay Golem alos provides slow, but usually not enough to get them to stay still. Some Act bosses have large "bases" meaning they take up a large sapce, so more skellys can crowd around and attck, but with smaller ones charges of teleport is really handy and makes the fight a lot faster. These strategies below are all for normal, there is no boss you cannot take down in NM/Hell as long as you have Decreptify.
====Andariel====
This shouldn't really be a problem if you chug mana pots and cast Clay Golem next to her as his health goes down. Meanwhile, you skellys are beating down on her.
She will only focus on the Golem as long as you keep casting it, so if you are fast she may never cast her poison attack.
====Duriel====
A good strategy here is to cast Iron MAiden on him and watch him beat himself up on a skelly. Sometimes he hits too hard for your skellys to take, in that case revert to the Clay Golem strategy with Andy again. He doesn't seem as attractted to the golem as Andy though.
====Mephisto====
He is a wuss, his close up attacks don't really do anything, and his life is low. Amp him and be done is about 15 seconds.
====Diablo====
Considered the bane of all summoners, even with Decreptify, at around level 30 your skellys cannot take his powerful attacks. This battle is based on luck, hopefully you have Decrep by now, or it will definately be a lost cause. You can help out if you have a wand with Bone Spirit, but all it comes down to is who kills the other faster.
====Baal====
In normal, if you STILL do not have Decrep he will be quite hard, as he like to teleport away frequently and cast a clone if you spare him some time. Get close, slow him down, and hit hard.

==Contributors==
If you've helped build this guide, brag about it here!
*Yo. --[[User:Explodicle|Explodicle]] 03:56, 24 Aug 2006 (BST)
*I did something! :) [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 22:52, 13 Sep 2006 (BST)

Zoomancer Guide

2006-09-13T21:56:53Z

Masterkilla: /* Raise Skeleton */

The '''Zoomancer''' is a [[Necromancer Technical Information and Build Guides|Necromancer build]] that specializes in the use of the summoning tree for its offense and defense. This is intended as a PvM build, and would fare poorly in PvP.
==Introduction==
The Zoomancer is one of THE easiest builds to create and play. Starting at level one and through the rest of the game, a Zoomancer can be very effective, and offers a break from the traditional clickfest that is Diablo. Relying on only two core skills, it allows for a great deal of customization to your favored play style.
===Strengths===
*'''Safety'''. A Zoomancer must kill his first monster completely alone. Once he's dirtied his wand for hopefully the last time, he may never intentionally get close to another enemy ever again. He will have potentially dozens of minions, all happy to waltz into harm's way so that their master doesn't have to.
*'''Versatility'''. Most characters will eventually need help versus the immunes of Hell difficulty. This builds damage is primarily physical, but physical immunities can almost always be broken by the use of Amplify Damage. Later on when unbreakable physical immunes are encountered, they can usually be dispatched with your secondary skills. A summoner can go anywhere in the game and kill anything. And the Zoomancer can do all of this naked or with magic find gear.
===Weaknesses===
*'''Minion Dependence'''. Without you, your skeleton army is useless. Without your skeleton army, YOU are useless. Starting out a new game, especially in Hell difficulty, can be dangerous, and you will usually rely on your mercenary or Iron Golem to make the first kill. In addition, you may have low resistances, low hit points, a low defense rating, and negligible blocking.
*'''Choke points'''. Doors and bridges are your enemies. The Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary will make you utter curses more frequently than your character. Your explosion skills can take advantage of these situations, but they are still a nuisance.

==Skills==
The core skills for this build are '''Raise Skeleton''' and '''Skeleton Mastery'''. After you've made that 40 point investment, you will be "Hell viable". You could go ahead and max out Summon Resist, Weaken, and Bone Armor if you wanted. But for the love of Trang-Oul and all that is unholy, DON'T!
===Summoning===
====Raise Skeleton====
Max it first. It will be the first spell you ever cast, and raising an army at the start of the game will become ritual to you. The best place to do this at the beginning of a game is Nilathak's Garden (aka Pindle Garden, Anya Portal, etc.). There are a lot of corspes there with about 6 seconds to raise as you please. with a good knowledge of what the corpse layout is and fast cast, 12 skellys can be raised.

====Skeleton Mastery====
Max it second. If you aren't using Skeleton Mages, you should initially build up your character with a 3:1 Raise Skeleton to Skeleton Mastery point allocation ratio. If you're using mages or revives, you may want to opt for a 2:1 ratio instead.
====Clay Golem====
1 point suggested. The basic clay golem has enough hit points to stay alive most of the time, and can be simply recast when it dies or needs to be repositioned. It has an extremely useful "slows enemies" effect that is particularly of note versus act bosses.

====Skeletal Mage====
0-20 points. These guys have two main purposes: broadening your damage, and defending your flank. Their damage output is rather low, but will sometimes chill monsters and prevent their healing, and can harm those physical immunes that refuse to die even after you've reduced the corpses around them to chunky kibbles. Also, a monster will sometimes sneak up behind you or around your front lines. This is particularly frequent when facing blowgun fetish and demon imps. Your mages will hang out in back with you, and you can hide amongst them instead of having to frantically block with your clay golem.
====Golem Mastery and Summon Resist====
1 point wonders. With +skills items, they get as high as they need to be. More, however, is generally a waste. Summon Resist suffers major diminishing returns, but your minions do not suffer the same resistance penalties that you and your mercenary do in Hell difficulty.
====Blood Golem and Iron Golem====
1 point each as prerequisites. A blood golem is a liability, one that is made unnecessary by the use of healing potions. An Iron Golem is immune to poison and returns damage to melee attackers, so it has its uses.
====Fire Golem====
0-1 point. It attracts enemies with its fire aura, which can help keep the heat off you. It has a tendency to pull extra monsters, but Zoomancers are seldom afraid of a large crowd, especially if they have....
====Revive====
0-10 points. With the exception of NASTY monsters like [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-blunderbore.shtml Urdars] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-bloodlord.shtml Frenzytaurs], their damage output is not helpful, but for those three minutes you have them they are practically indestructible. In addition to these two, you may want to bring along the following...
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-vilechild.shtml Vile Children] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-sandmaggotyoung.shtml Sand Maggot Young]. All revives have enough hit points. These little buggers are very fast and very aggressive.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-corruptrogue.shtml Corrupt Rogues]. Like Vile Children, they are fast and aggressive, and will patrol a wide radius looking for trouble when not in combat.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-clawviper.shtml Claw Vipers] are nasty and fire bone spears!
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-thornedhulk.shtml Thorned Hulks] are very similar to Urdars.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-councilmember.shtml Council Members] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-vampire.shtml Vampires] make excellent revive mages.

===Poison & Bone===
You may want to eventually put points into the higher-level damage skills for this tree. Poison in particular may be useful, as those skills require a lower skill point investment to be effective and can be boosted by Lower Resist.
====Teeth====
1 point. It is a prerequisite to Corpse Explosion, and may be the only skill you can bind to your left click button. You can bind the "throw" action instead, but Teeth will remain bound even when you switch weapons. You do NOT want to accidentally walk up to monsters you click on!
====Corpse Explosion====
1-20 points. The greatest skill of all time. Even with only one point, your +skills items will bring it up to a useful radius. It really shines at choke points and with tightly packed mobs. That, and it's really good at making a cool mess. You should Amplify Damage or Lower Resists all monsters in the vicinity before you cast CE, to maxime its potential.
One thing to note is that CE does not scale with higher player count, so your CE damage will drastically be lowered in games with many people, doing only 2/9 of the damage in a 8 player game.

===Curses===
====Dim Vision====
1-20 points. This is your primary defense against ranged attackers, particularly piercing ranged attackers, and even MORE particularly against [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-willowisp.shtml Gloams]. It also helps to keep enemies from attacking your army all at once, which is useful for getting that crucial first corpse before the bone hits the fan.

This skill can also be very useful by preventing enemies from casting spells. Shamans will not resurrect their minions, Pit Lords will not use their Inferno attack, and Vampires will not drop meteors on you. However, [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-undeadhorror.shtml Oblivion Knight] mages are immune to Dim Vision, Attract, and Confuse... the only way you can effect their AI is with Terror, which often is not desirable at all.

====Confuse and Attract====
0-20 points. Some players hail them as incredibly useful because they trick monsters into fighting each other. However, that damage is not particularly high, and is chiefly a bonus before your skeletons get in for the major damage. Attract in particular can be useful, as the defeated monster can quickly avenge himself by blowing up all of his traitorous friends via Corpse Explosion. These skills tend to make a more chaotic battlefield, so they are often ineffective when you are trying to keep piercing ranged attackers from shooting all over the place wildly. To best achieve this defensive effect, use Attract on a monster in the rear of the pack.
====Everything else====
1 point wonders. Amplify Damage is a MUST for your skeletons. Lower Resist is great for parties, poison skills, and skeleton mages. Decrepify is most useful versus bosses, and ideally is attained before facing Diablo. Life Tap will keep your minions (most importantly your mercenary) alive when the going gets tough.
==Stats==
===Strength===
You can get through the whole game leaving it at base. You will need 81 strength to equip the entire Trang-Oul's Avatar, widely considered the best Necromancer set in the game. Bringing it to above 100 is pushing it, but some players like to do so for alternative gear.

===Dexterity===
Base. You aren't swinging at anything, and the amount of points you need to invest for blocking just isn't worth it. The only exception is if you're using Poison Dagger as an alternate skill.

===Vitality===
CRANK it! You won't get hit much, but when you do, it will HURT. You will ''never'' regret putting points into Vitality.

===Energy===
How much you need is entirely depend ant on your auxiliary skills, as Raise Skeleton is rather cheap. Around 100 points should be enough for most summoners. You'll encounter more mana potions than you need, and running out of mana will rarely be as disastrous as it would be for the other classes. If you use an Insight weapon on an Act II mercenary, you will regenerate all of your mana quickly enough to spam Corpse Explosion and Revive to your heart's content.

==Mercenary==
You're going to want to use an Act II mercenary. Their auras are far more useful than anything the other mercs have, have better survivability than the Act I or Act III mercs, and comparable damage potential to the Act V merc.
*'''Prayer''' is useful at lower levels, but later on the healing just isn't significant. It's nice to regenerate, and great if you're waiting for one of the Nightmare difficulty auras, though.
*'''Defiance''' is useful early on, but eventually your skeletons will rock so much later on that you just don't need it.
*'''Blessed Aim''' is also good early on, but like Defiance it eventually becomes unnecessary.
*'''Thorns''' will rock while your character level is low compared to the monsters, but loses effectiveness as you level up. You can also get the Thorns aura easily from an Edge runeword weapon.
*'''Holy Freeze''' is good defensively, but can cause monsters to shatter and rob you of a corpse.
*'''Might''' is generally considered to be the most useful aura for a Zoomancer, as it will ''significantly'' improve your minion damage. Once you get to Act II Nightmare, grab it!

==Equipment==
In general, stock up on Magic Find. You won't be getting hurt much, and don't really ''need'' equipment to be effective.
===Helms===
*The [http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/lore_OrtSol.htm Lore] runeword is very useful, and not too difficult to create.

===Body armor===
*[http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/stealth_TalEth.htm Stealth] is easy to make early in the game.

===Shields===
Good luck with that! A good shrunken head is very hard to find.

===Gloves===
*'''Frostburns''' are great for the mana bonus, although you may end up not needing it.

===Boots===
*'''Marrowalk''' is good for the skill bonus, but otherwise a pair of magic find boots may be more worth it.

===Belts===
*Anything with four slots should be adequate. A common practice is to imbue the first exceptional sash you find.

===Weapons===
Remember to use weapon switch! You only need those high summoning skill levels while you're raising your army... after that, you can equip something that provides them with an aura or boosts your curses.
*Any wand with good skill bonuses is nice.
*For an alternate weapon, try using an '''Edge''' bow. That Thorns aura really comes in handy, especially when you encounter an extra strong, extra fast, cursed Urdar boss pack.

===Rings===
===Amulets===
===Charms===
As a Zoomancer, your primary purpose in combat is to pick up loot. Charms make you less effective at this. Don't use them unless they give you something VERY nice.

==Strategy==
===Shamans and Greater Mummies===
Dim Vision on the monster raising its allies is your best bet. It will force it to mill around until your troops come in to attack it melee, and by then it's in big trouble. If the target is immune to AI curses (Champion/Unique) or your Dim Vision skill level is too low, try summoning a clay golem next to it instead. The golem will distract the monster more than simply hanging in back would have, and slow it as well.

===Act Bosses===
In general, Decreptify is your best bet against bosses, since it will slow them to a crawl and they will be struck down by your skellys slowly. The Clay Golem alos provides slow, but usually not enough to get them to stay still. Some Act bosses have large "bases" meaning they take up a large sapce, so more skellys can crowd around and attck, but with smaller ones charges of teleport is really handy and makes the fight a lot faster. These strategies below are all for normal, there is no boss you cannot take down in NM/Hell as long as you have Decreptify.
====Andariel====
This shouldn't really be a problem if you chug mana pots and cast Clay Golem next to her as his health goes down. Meanwhile, you skellys are beating down on her.
She will only focus on the Golem as long as you keep casting it, so if you are fast she may never cast her poison attack.
====Duriel====
A good strategy here is to cast Iron MAiden on him and watch him beat himself up on a skelly. Sometimes he hits too hard for your skellys to take, in that case revert to the Clay Golem strategy with Andy again. He doesn't seem as attractted to the golem as Andy though.
====Mephisto====
He is a wuss, his close up attacks don't really do anything, and his life is low. Amp him and be done is about 15 seconds.
====Diablo====
Considered the bane of all summoners, even with Decreptify, at around level 30 your skellys cannot take his powerful attacks. This battle is based on luck, hopefully you have Decrep by now, or it will definately be a lost cause. You can help out if you have a wand with Bone Spirit, but all it comes down to is who kills the other faster.
====Baal====
In normal, if you STILL do not have Decrep he will be quite hard, as he like to teleport away frequently and cast a clone if you spare him some time. Get close, slow him down, and hit hard.

==Contributors==
If you've helped build this guide, brag about it here!
*Yo. --[[User:Explodicle|Explodicle]] 03:56, 24 Aug 2006 (BST)
*I did something! :) [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 22:52, 13 Sep 2006 (BST)

Zoomancer Guide

2006-09-13T21:54:38Z

Masterkilla: /* Corpse Explosion */

The '''Zoomancer''' is a [[Necromancer Technical Information and Build Guides|Necromancer build]] that specializes in the use of the summoning tree for its offense and defense. This is intended as a PvM build, and would fare poorly in PvP.
==Introduction==
The Zoomancer is one of THE easiest builds to create and play. Starting at level one and through the rest of the game, a Zoomancer can be very effective, and offers a break from the traditional clickfest that is Diablo. Relying on only two core skills, it allows for a great deal of customization to your favored play style.
===Strengths===
*'''Safety'''. A Zoomancer must kill his first monster completely alone. Once he's dirtied his wand for hopefully the last time, he may never intentionally get close to another enemy ever again. He will have potentially dozens of minions, all happy to waltz into harm's way so that their master doesn't have to.
*'''Versatility'''. Most characters will eventually need help versus the immunes of Hell difficulty. This builds damage is primarily physical, but physical immunities can almost always be broken by the use of Amplify Damage. Later on when unbreakable physical immunes are encountered, they can usually be dispatched with your secondary skills. A summoner can go anywhere in the game and kill anything. And the Zoomancer can do all of this naked or with magic find gear.
===Weaknesses===
*'''Minion Dependence'''. Without you, your skeleton army is useless. Without your skeleton army, YOU are useless. Starting out a new game, especially in Hell difficulty, can be dangerous, and you will usually rely on your mercenary or Iron Golem to make the first kill. In addition, you may have low resistances, low hit points, a low defense rating, and negligible blocking.
*'''Choke points'''. Doors and bridges are your enemies. The Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary will make you utter curses more frequently than your character. Your explosion skills can take advantage of these situations, but they are still a nuisance.

==Skills==
The core skills for this build are '''Raise Skeleton''' and '''Skeleton Mastery'''. After you've made that 40 point investment, you will be "Hell viable". You could go ahead and max out Summon Resist, Weaken, and Bone Armor if you wanted. But for the love of Trang-Oul and all that is unholy, DON'T!
===Summoning===
====Raise Skeleton====
Max it first. It will be the first spell you ever cast, and raising an army at the start of the game will become ritual to you.
====Skeleton Mastery====
Max it second. If you aren't using Skeleton Mages, you should initially build up your character with a 3:1 Raise Skeleton to Skeleton Mastery point allocation ratio. If you're using mages or revives, you may want to opt for a 2:1 ratio instead.
====Clay Golem====
1 point suggested. The basic clay golem has enough hit points to stay alive most of the time, and can be simply recast when it dies or needs to be repositioned. It has an extremely useful "slows enemies" effect that is particularly of note versus act bosses.

====Skeletal Mage====
0-20 points. These guys have two main purposes: broadening your damage, and defending your flank. Their damage output is rather low, but will sometimes chill monsters and prevent their healing, and can harm those physical immunes that refuse to die even after you've reduced the corpses around them to chunky kibbles. Also, a monster will sometimes sneak up behind you or around your front lines. This is particularly frequent when facing blowgun fetish and demon imps. Your mages will hang out in back with you, and you can hide amongst them instead of having to frantically block with your clay golem.
====Golem Mastery and Summon Resist====
1 point wonders. With +skills items, they get as high as they need to be. More, however, is generally a waste. Summon Resist suffers major diminishing returns, but your minions do not suffer the same resistance penalties that you and your mercenary do in Hell difficulty.
====Blood Golem and Iron Golem====
1 point each as prerequisites. A blood golem is a liability, one that is made unnecessary by the use of healing potions. An Iron Golem is immune to poison and returns damage to melee attackers, so it has its uses.
====Fire Golem====
0-1 point. It attracts enemies with its fire aura, which can help keep the heat off you. It has a tendency to pull extra monsters, but Zoomancers are seldom afraid of a large crowd, especially if they have....
====Revive====
0-10 points. With the exception of NASTY monsters like [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-blunderbore.shtml Urdars] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-bloodlord.shtml Frenzytaurs], their damage output is not helpful, but for those three minutes you have them they are practically indestructible. In addition to these two, you may want to bring along the following...
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-vilechild.shtml Vile Children] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-sandmaggotyoung.shtml Sand Maggot Young]. All revives have enough hit points. These little buggers are very fast and very aggressive.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-corruptrogue.shtml Corrupt Rogues]. Like Vile Children, they are fast and aggressive, and will patrol a wide radius looking for trouble when not in combat.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-clawviper.shtml Claw Vipers] are nasty and fire bone spears!
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-thornedhulk.shtml Thorned Hulks] are very similar to Urdars.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-councilmember.shtml Council Members] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-vampire.shtml Vampires] make excellent revive mages.

===Poison & Bone===
You may want to eventually put points into the higher-level damage skills for this tree. Poison in particular may be useful, as those skills require a lower skill point investment to be effective and can be boosted by Lower Resist.
====Teeth====
1 point. It is a prerequisite to Corpse Explosion, and may be the only skill you can bind to your left click button. You can bind the "throw" action instead, but Teeth will remain bound even when you switch weapons. You do NOT want to accidentally walk up to monsters you click on!
====Corpse Explosion====
1-20 points. The greatest skill of all time. Even with only one point, your +skills items will bring it up to a useful radius. It really shines at choke points and with tightly packed mobs. That, and it's really good at making a cool mess. You should Amplify Damage or Lower Resists all monsters in the vicinity before you cast CE, to maxime its potential.
One thing to note is that CE does not scale with higher player count, so your CE damage will drastically be lowered in games with many people, doing only 2/9 of the damage in a 8 player game.

===Curses===
====Dim Vision====
1-20 points. This is your primary defense against ranged attackers, particularly piercing ranged attackers, and even MORE particularly against [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-willowisp.shtml Gloams]. It also helps to keep enemies from attacking your army all at once, which is useful for getting that crucial first corpse before the bone hits the fan.

This skill can also be very useful by preventing enemies from casting spells. Shamans will not resurrect their minions, Pit Lords will not use their Inferno attack, and Vampires will not drop meteors on you. However, [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-undeadhorror.shtml Oblivion Knight] mages are immune to Dim Vision, Attract, and Confuse... the only way you can effect their AI is with Terror, which often is not desirable at all.

====Confuse and Attract====
0-20 points. Some players hail them as incredibly useful because they trick monsters into fighting each other. However, that damage is not particularly high, and is chiefly a bonus before your skeletons get in for the major damage. Attract in particular can be useful, as the defeated monster can quickly avenge himself by blowing up all of his traitorous friends via Corpse Explosion. These skills tend to make a more chaotic battlefield, so they are often ineffective when you are trying to keep piercing ranged attackers from shooting all over the place wildly. To best achieve this defensive effect, use Attract on a monster in the rear of the pack.
====Everything else====
1 point wonders. Amplify Damage is a MUST for your skeletons. Lower Resist is great for parties, poison skills, and skeleton mages. Decrepify is most useful versus bosses, and ideally is attained before facing Diablo. Life Tap will keep your minions (most importantly your mercenary) alive when the going gets tough.
==Stats==
===Strength===
You can get through the whole game leaving it at base. You will need 81 strength to equip the entire Trang-Oul's Avatar, widely considered the best Necromancer set in the game. Bringing it to above 100 is pushing it, but some players like to do so for alternative gear.

===Dexterity===
Base. You aren't swinging at anything, and the amount of points you need to invest for blocking just isn't worth it. The only exception is if you're using Poison Dagger as an alternate skill.

===Vitality===
CRANK it! You won't get hit much, but when you do, it will HURT. You will ''never'' regret putting points into Vitality.

===Energy===
How much you need is entirely depend ant on your auxiliary skills, as Raise Skeleton is rather cheap. Around 100 points should be enough for most summoners. You'll encounter more mana potions than you need, and running out of mana will rarely be as disastrous as it would be for the other classes. If you use an Insight weapon on an Act II mercenary, you will regenerate all of your mana quickly enough to spam Corpse Explosion and Revive to your heart's content.

==Mercenary==
You're going to want to use an Act II mercenary. Their auras are far more useful than anything the other mercs have, have better survivability than the Act I or Act III mercs, and comparable damage potential to the Act V merc.
*'''Prayer''' is useful at lower levels, but later on the healing just isn't significant. It's nice to regenerate, and great if you're waiting for one of the Nightmare difficulty auras, though.
*'''Defiance''' is useful early on, but eventually your skeletons will rock so much later on that you just don't need it.
*'''Blessed Aim''' is also good early on, but like Defiance it eventually becomes unnecessary.
*'''Thorns''' will rock while your character level is low compared to the monsters, but loses effectiveness as you level up. You can also get the Thorns aura easily from an Edge runeword weapon.
*'''Holy Freeze''' is good defensively, but can cause monsters to shatter and rob you of a corpse.
*'''Might''' is generally considered to be the most useful aura for a Zoomancer, as it will ''significantly'' improve your minion damage. Once you get to Act II Nightmare, grab it!

==Equipment==
In general, stock up on Magic Find. You won't be getting hurt much, and don't really ''need'' equipment to be effective.
===Helms===
*The [http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/lore_OrtSol.htm Lore] runeword is very useful, and not too difficult to create.

===Body armor===
*[http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/stealth_TalEth.htm Stealth] is easy to make early in the game.

===Shields===
Good luck with that! A good shrunken head is very hard to find.

===Gloves===
*'''Frostburns''' are great for the mana bonus, although you may end up not needing it.

===Boots===
*'''Marrowalk''' is good for the skill bonus, but otherwise a pair of magic find boots may be more worth it.

===Belts===
*Anything with four slots should be adequate. A common practice is to imbue the first exceptional sash you find.

===Weapons===
Remember to use weapon switch! You only need those high summoning skill levels while you're raising your army... after that, you can equip something that provides them with an aura or boosts your curses.
*Any wand with good skill bonuses is nice.
*For an alternate weapon, try using an '''Edge''' bow. That Thorns aura really comes in handy, especially when you encounter an extra strong, extra fast, cursed Urdar boss pack.

===Rings===
===Amulets===
===Charms===
As a Zoomancer, your primary purpose in combat is to pick up loot. Charms make you less effective at this. Don't use them unless they give you something VERY nice.

==Strategy==
===Shamans and Greater Mummies===
Dim Vision on the monster raising its allies is your best bet. It will force it to mill around until your troops come in to attack it melee, and by then it's in big trouble. If the target is immune to AI curses (Champion/Unique) or your Dim Vision skill level is too low, try summoning a clay golem next to it instead. The golem will distract the monster more than simply hanging in back would have, and slow it as well.

===Act Bosses===
In general, Decreptify is your best bet against bosses, since it will slow them to a crawl and they will be struck down by your skellys slowly. The Clay Golem alos provides slow, but usually not enough to get them to stay still. Some Act bosses have large "bases" meaning they take up a large sapce, so more skellys can crowd around and attck, but with smaller ones charges of teleport is really handy and makes the fight a lot faster. These strategies below are all for normal, there is no boss you cannot take down in NM/Hell as long as you have Decreptify.
====Andariel====
This shouldn't really be a problem if you chug mana pots and cast Clay Golem next to her as his health goes down. Meanwhile, you skellys are beating down on her.
She will only focus on the Golem as long as you keep casting it, so if you are fast she may never cast her poison attack.
====Duriel====
A good strategy here is to cast Iron MAiden on him and watch him beat himself up on a skelly. Sometimes he hits too hard for your skellys to take, in that case revert to the Clay Golem strategy with Andy again. He doesn't seem as attractted to the golem as Andy though.
====Mephisto====
He is a wuss, his close up attacks don't really do anything, and his life is low. Amp him and be done is about 15 seconds.
====Diablo====
Considered the bane of all summoners, even with Decreptify, at around level 30 your skellys cannot take his powerful attacks. This battle is based on luck, hopefully you have Decrep by now, or it will definately be a lost cause. You can help out if you have a wand with Bone Spirit, but all it comes down to is who kills the other faster.
====Baal====
In normal, if you STILL do not have Decrep he will be quite hard, as he like to teleport away frequently and cast a clone if you spare him some time. Get close, slow him down, and hit hard.

==Contributors==
If you've helped build this guide, brag about it here!
*Yo. --[[User:Explodicle|Explodicle]] 03:56, 24 Aug 2006 (BST)
*I did something! :) [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 22:52, 13 Sep 2006 (BST)

Zoomancer Guide

2006-09-13T21:52:27Z

Masterkilla: /* Contributors */

The '''Zoomancer''' is a [[Necromancer Technical Information and Build Guides|Necromancer build]] that specializes in the use of the summoning tree for its offense and defense. This is intended as a PvM build, and would fare poorly in PvP.
==Introduction==
The Zoomancer is one of THE easiest builds to create and play. Starting at level one and through the rest of the game, a Zoomancer can be very effective, and offers a break from the traditional clickfest that is Diablo. Relying on only two core skills, it allows for a great deal of customization to your favored play style.
===Strengths===
*'''Safety'''. A Zoomancer must kill his first monster completely alone. Once he's dirtied his wand for hopefully the last time, he may never intentionally get close to another enemy ever again. He will have potentially dozens of minions, all happy to waltz into harm's way so that their master doesn't have to.
*'''Versatility'''. Most characters will eventually need help versus the immunes of Hell difficulty. This builds damage is primarily physical, but physical immunities can almost always be broken by the use of Amplify Damage. Later on when unbreakable physical immunes are encountered, they can usually be dispatched with your secondary skills. A summoner can go anywhere in the game and kill anything. And the Zoomancer can do all of this naked or with magic find gear.
===Weaknesses===
*'''Minion Dependence'''. Without you, your skeleton army is useless. Without your skeleton army, YOU are useless. Starting out a new game, especially in Hell difficulty, can be dangerous, and you will usually rely on your mercenary or Iron Golem to make the first kill. In addition, you may have low resistances, low hit points, a low defense rating, and negligible blocking.
*'''Choke points'''. Doors and bridges are your enemies. The Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary will make you utter curses more frequently than your character. Your explosion skills can take advantage of these situations, but they are still a nuisance.

==Skills==
The core skills for this build are '''Raise Skeleton''' and '''Skeleton Mastery'''. After you've made that 40 point investment, you will be "Hell viable". You could go ahead and max out Summon Resist, Weaken, and Bone Armor if you wanted. But for the love of Trang-Oul and all that is unholy, DON'T!
===Summoning===
====Raise Skeleton====
Max it first. It will be the first spell you ever cast, and raising an army at the start of the game will become ritual to you.
====Skeleton Mastery====
Max it second. If you aren't using Skeleton Mages, you should initially build up your character with a 3:1 Raise Skeleton to Skeleton Mastery point allocation ratio. If you're using mages or revives, you may want to opt for a 2:1 ratio instead.
====Clay Golem====
1 point suggested. The basic clay golem has enough hit points to stay alive most of the time, and can be simply recast when it dies or needs to be repositioned. It has an extremely useful "slows enemies" effect that is particularly of note versus act bosses.

====Skeletal Mage====
0-20 points. These guys have two main purposes: broadening your damage, and defending your flank. Their damage output is rather low, but will sometimes chill monsters and prevent their healing, and can harm those physical immunes that refuse to die even after you've reduced the corpses around them to chunky kibbles. Also, a monster will sometimes sneak up behind you or around your front lines. This is particularly frequent when facing blowgun fetish and demon imps. Your mages will hang out in back with you, and you can hide amongst them instead of having to frantically block with your clay golem.
====Golem Mastery and Summon Resist====
1 point wonders. With +skills items, they get as high as they need to be. More, however, is generally a waste. Summon Resist suffers major diminishing returns, but your minions do not suffer the same resistance penalties that you and your mercenary do in Hell difficulty.
====Blood Golem and Iron Golem====
1 point each as prerequisites. A blood golem is a liability, one that is made unnecessary by the use of healing potions. An Iron Golem is immune to poison and returns damage to melee attackers, so it has its uses.
====Fire Golem====
0-1 point. It attracts enemies with its fire aura, which can help keep the heat off you. It has a tendency to pull extra monsters, but Zoomancers are seldom afraid of a large crowd, especially if they have....
====Revive====
0-10 points. With the exception of NASTY monsters like [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-blunderbore.shtml Urdars] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-bloodlord.shtml Frenzytaurs], their damage output is not helpful, but for those three minutes you have them they are practically indestructible. In addition to these two, you may want to bring along the following...
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-vilechild.shtml Vile Children] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-sandmaggotyoung.shtml Sand Maggot Young]. All revives have enough hit points. These little buggers are very fast and very aggressive.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-corruptrogue.shtml Corrupt Rogues]. Like Vile Children, they are fast and aggressive, and will patrol a wide radius looking for trouble when not in combat.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-clawviper.shtml Claw Vipers] are nasty and fire bone spears!
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-thornedhulk.shtml Thorned Hulks] are very similar to Urdars.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-councilmember.shtml Council Members] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-vampire.shtml Vampires] make excellent revive mages.

===Poison & Bone===
You may want to eventually put points into the higher-level damage skills for this tree. Poison in particular may be useful, as those skills require a lower skill point investment to be effective and can be boosted by Lower Resist.
====Teeth====
1 point. It is a prerequisite to Corpse Explosion, and may be the only skill you can bind to your left click button. You can bind the "throw" action instead, but Teeth will remain bound even when you switch weapons. You do NOT want to accidentally walk up to monsters you click on!
====Corpse Explosion====
1-20 points. The greatest skill of all time. Even with only one point, your +skills items will bring it up to a useful radius. It really shines at choke points and with tightly packed mobs. That, and it's really good at making a cool mess.
===Curses===
====Dim Vision====
1-20 points. This is your primary defense against ranged attackers, particularly piercing ranged attackers, and even MORE particularly against [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-willowisp.shtml Gloams]. It also helps to keep enemies from attacking your army all at once, which is useful for getting that crucial first corpse before the bone hits the fan.

This skill can also be very useful by preventing enemies from casting spells. Shamans will not resurrect their minions, Pit Lords will not use their Inferno attack, and Vampires will not drop meteors on you. However, [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-undeadhorror.shtml Oblivion Knight] mages are immune to Dim Vision, Attract, and Confuse... the only way you can effect their AI is with Terror, which often is not desirable at all.

====Confuse and Attract====
0-20 points. Some players hail them as incredibly useful because they trick monsters into fighting each other. However, that damage is not particularly high, and is chiefly a bonus before your skeletons get in for the major damage. Attract in particular can be useful, as the defeated monster can quickly avenge himself by blowing up all of his traitorous friends via Corpse Explosion. These skills tend to make a more chaotic battlefield, so they are often ineffective when you are trying to keep piercing ranged attackers from shooting all over the place wildly. To best achieve this defensive effect, use Attract on a monster in the rear of the pack.
====Everything else====
1 point wonders. Amplify Damage is a MUST for your skeletons. Lower Resist is great for parties, poison skills, and skeleton mages. Decrepify is most useful versus bosses, and ideally is attained before facing Diablo. Life Tap will keep your minions (most importantly your mercenary) alive when the going gets tough.
==Stats==
===Strength===
You can get through the whole game leaving it at base. You will need 81 strength to equip the entire Trang-Oul's Avatar, widely considered the best Necromancer set in the game. Bringing it to above 100 is pushing it, but some players like to do so for alternative gear.

===Dexterity===
Base. You aren't swinging at anything, and the amount of points you need to invest for blocking just isn't worth it. The only exception is if you're using Poison Dagger as an alternate skill.

===Vitality===
CRANK it! You won't get hit much, but when you do, it will HURT. You will ''never'' regret putting points into Vitality.

===Energy===
How much you need is entirely depend ant on your auxiliary skills, as Raise Skeleton is rather cheap. Around 100 points should be enough for most summoners. You'll encounter more mana potions than you need, and running out of mana will rarely be as disastrous as it would be for the other classes. If you use an Insight weapon on an Act II mercenary, you will regenerate all of your mana quickly enough to spam Corpse Explosion and Revive to your heart's content.

==Mercenary==
You're going to want to use an Act II mercenary. Their auras are far more useful than anything the other mercs have, have better survivability than the Act I or Act III mercs, and comparable damage potential to the Act V merc.
*'''Prayer''' is useful at lower levels, but later on the healing just isn't significant. It's nice to regenerate, and great if you're waiting for one of the Nightmare difficulty auras, though.
*'''Defiance''' is useful early on, but eventually your skeletons will rock so much later on that you just don't need it.
*'''Blessed Aim''' is also good early on, but like Defiance it eventually becomes unnecessary.
*'''Thorns''' will rock while your character level is low compared to the monsters, but loses effectiveness as you level up. You can also get the Thorns aura easily from an Edge runeword weapon.
*'''Holy Freeze''' is good defensively, but can cause monsters to shatter and rob you of a corpse.
*'''Might''' is generally considered to be the most useful aura for a Zoomancer, as it will ''significantly'' improve your minion damage. Once you get to Act II Nightmare, grab it!

==Equipment==
In general, stock up on Magic Find. You won't be getting hurt much, and don't really ''need'' equipment to be effective.
===Helms===
*The [http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/lore_OrtSol.htm Lore] runeword is very useful, and not too difficult to create.

===Body armor===
*[http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/stealth_TalEth.htm Stealth] is easy to make early in the game.

===Shields===
Good luck with that! A good shrunken head is very hard to find.

===Gloves===
*'''Frostburns''' are great for the mana bonus, although you may end up not needing it.

===Boots===
*'''Marrowalk''' is good for the skill bonus, but otherwise a pair of magic find boots may be more worth it.

===Belts===
*Anything with four slots should be adequate. A common practice is to imbue the first exceptional sash you find.

===Weapons===
Remember to use weapon switch! You only need those high summoning skill levels while you're raising your army... after that, you can equip something that provides them with an aura or boosts your curses.
*Any wand with good skill bonuses is nice.
*For an alternate weapon, try using an '''Edge''' bow. That Thorns aura really comes in handy, especially when you encounter an extra strong, extra fast, cursed Urdar boss pack.

===Rings===
===Amulets===
===Charms===
As a Zoomancer, your primary purpose in combat is to pick up loot. Charms make you less effective at this. Don't use them unless they give you something VERY nice.

==Strategy==
===Shamans and Greater Mummies===
Dim Vision on the monster raising its allies is your best bet. It will force it to mill around until your troops come in to attack it melee, and by then it's in big trouble. If the target is immune to AI curses (Champion/Unique) or your Dim Vision skill level is too low, try summoning a clay golem next to it instead. The golem will distract the monster more than simply hanging in back would have, and slow it as well.

===Act Bosses===
In general, Decreptify is your best bet against bosses, since it will slow them to a crawl and they will be struck down by your skellys slowly. The Clay Golem alos provides slow, but usually not enough to get them to stay still. Some Act bosses have large "bases" meaning they take up a large sapce, so more skellys can crowd around and attck, but with smaller ones charges of teleport is really handy and makes the fight a lot faster. These strategies below are all for normal, there is no boss you cannot take down in NM/Hell as long as you have Decreptify.
====Andariel====
This shouldn't really be a problem if you chug mana pots and cast Clay Golem next to her as his health goes down. Meanwhile, you skellys are beating down on her.
She will only focus on the Golem as long as you keep casting it, so if you are fast she may never cast her poison attack.
====Duriel====
A good strategy here is to cast Iron MAiden on him and watch him beat himself up on a skelly. Sometimes he hits too hard for your skellys to take, in that case revert to the Clay Golem strategy with Andy again. He doesn't seem as attractted to the golem as Andy though.
====Mephisto====
He is a wuss, his close up attacks don't really do anything, and his life is low. Amp him and be done is about 15 seconds.
====Diablo====
Considered the bane of all summoners, even with Decreptify, at around level 30 your skellys cannot take his powerful attacks. This battle is based on luck, hopefully you have Decrep by now, or it will definately be a lost cause. You can help out if you have a wand with Bone Spirit, but all it comes down to is who kills the other faster.
====Baal====
In normal, if you STILL do not have Decrep he will be quite hard, as he like to teleport away frequently and cast a clone if you spare him some time. Get close, slow him down, and hit hard.

==Contributors==
If you've helped build this guide, brag about it here!
*Yo. --[[User:Explodicle|Explodicle]] 03:56, 24 Aug 2006 (BST)
*I did something! :) [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 22:52, 13 Sep 2006 (BST)

Zoomancer Guide

2006-09-13T21:51:52Z

Masterkilla: /* Strategy */

The '''Zoomancer''' is a [[Necromancer Technical Information and Build Guides|Necromancer build]] that specializes in the use of the summoning tree for its offense and defense. This is intended as a PvM build, and would fare poorly in PvP.
==Introduction==
The Zoomancer is one of THE easiest builds to create and play. Starting at level one and through the rest of the game, a Zoomancer can be very effective, and offers a break from the traditional clickfest that is Diablo. Relying on only two core skills, it allows for a great deal of customization to your favored play style.
===Strengths===
*'''Safety'''. A Zoomancer must kill his first monster completely alone. Once he's dirtied his wand for hopefully the last time, he may never intentionally get close to another enemy ever again. He will have potentially dozens of minions, all happy to waltz into harm's way so that their master doesn't have to.
*'''Versatility'''. Most characters will eventually need help versus the immunes of Hell difficulty. This builds damage is primarily physical, but physical immunities can almost always be broken by the use of Amplify Damage. Later on when unbreakable physical immunes are encountered, they can usually be dispatched with your secondary skills. A summoner can go anywhere in the game and kill anything. And the Zoomancer can do all of this naked or with magic find gear.
===Weaknesses===
*'''Minion Dependence'''. Without you, your skeleton army is useless. Without your skeleton army, YOU are useless. Starting out a new game, especially in Hell difficulty, can be dangerous, and you will usually rely on your mercenary or Iron Golem to make the first kill. In addition, you may have low resistances, low hit points, a low defense rating, and negligible blocking.
*'''Choke points'''. Doors and bridges are your enemies. The Maggot Lair and Arcane Sanctuary will make you utter curses more frequently than your character. Your explosion skills can take advantage of these situations, but they are still a nuisance.

==Skills==
The core skills for this build are '''Raise Skeleton''' and '''Skeleton Mastery'''. After you've made that 40 point investment, you will be "Hell viable". You could go ahead and max out Summon Resist, Weaken, and Bone Armor if you wanted. But for the love of Trang-Oul and all that is unholy, DON'T!
===Summoning===
====Raise Skeleton====
Max it first. It will be the first spell you ever cast, and raising an army at the start of the game will become ritual to you.
====Skeleton Mastery====
Max it second. If you aren't using Skeleton Mages, you should initially build up your character with a 3:1 Raise Skeleton to Skeleton Mastery point allocation ratio. If you're using mages or revives, you may want to opt for a 2:1 ratio instead.
====Clay Golem====
1 point suggested. The basic clay golem has enough hit points to stay alive most of the time, and can be simply recast when it dies or needs to be repositioned. It has an extremely useful "slows enemies" effect that is particularly of note versus act bosses.

====Skeletal Mage====
0-20 points. These guys have two main purposes: broadening your damage, and defending your flank. Their damage output is rather low, but will sometimes chill monsters and prevent their healing, and can harm those physical immunes that refuse to die even after you've reduced the corpses around them to chunky kibbles. Also, a monster will sometimes sneak up behind you or around your front lines. This is particularly frequent when facing blowgun fetish and demon imps. Your mages will hang out in back with you, and you can hide amongst them instead of having to frantically block with your clay golem.
====Golem Mastery and Summon Resist====
1 point wonders. With +skills items, they get as high as they need to be. More, however, is generally a waste. Summon Resist suffers major diminishing returns, but your minions do not suffer the same resistance penalties that you and your mercenary do in Hell difficulty.
====Blood Golem and Iron Golem====
1 point each as prerequisites. A blood golem is a liability, one that is made unnecessary by the use of healing potions. An Iron Golem is immune to poison and returns damage to melee attackers, so it has its uses.
====Fire Golem====
0-1 point. It attracts enemies with its fire aura, which can help keep the heat off you. It has a tendency to pull extra monsters, but Zoomancers are seldom afraid of a large crowd, especially if they have....
====Revive====
0-10 points. With the exception of NASTY monsters like [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-blunderbore.shtml Urdars] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act5-bloodlord.shtml Frenzytaurs], their damage output is not helpful, but for those three minutes you have them they are practically indestructible. In addition to these two, you may want to bring along the following...
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-vilechild.shtml Vile Children] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-sandmaggotyoung.shtml Sand Maggot Young]. All revives have enough hit points. These little buggers are very fast and very aggressive.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-corruptrogue.shtml Corrupt Rogues]. Like Vile Children, they are fast and aggressive, and will patrol a wide radius looking for trouble when not in combat.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act2-clawviper.shtml Claw Vipers] are nasty and fire bone spears!
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-thornedhulk.shtml Thorned Hulks] are very similar to Urdars.
*[http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-councilmember.shtml Council Members] and [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act1-vampire.shtml Vampires] make excellent revive mages.

===Poison & Bone===
You may want to eventually put points into the higher-level damage skills for this tree. Poison in particular may be useful, as those skills require a lower skill point investment to be effective and can be boosted by Lower Resist.
====Teeth====
1 point. It is a prerequisite to Corpse Explosion, and may be the only skill you can bind to your left click button. You can bind the "throw" action instead, but Teeth will remain bound even when you switch weapons. You do NOT want to accidentally walk up to monsters you click on!
====Corpse Explosion====
1-20 points. The greatest skill of all time. Even with only one point, your +skills items will bring it up to a useful radius. It really shines at choke points and with tightly packed mobs. That, and it's really good at making a cool mess.
===Curses===
====Dim Vision====
1-20 points. This is your primary defense against ranged attackers, particularly piercing ranged attackers, and even MORE particularly against [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act3-willowisp.shtml Gloams]. It also helps to keep enemies from attacking your army all at once, which is useful for getting that crucial first corpse before the bone hits the fan.

This skill can also be very useful by preventing enemies from casting spells. Shamans will not resurrect their minions, Pit Lords will not use their Inferno attack, and Vampires will not drop meteors on you. However, [http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/monsters/act4-undeadhorror.shtml Oblivion Knight] mages are immune to Dim Vision, Attract, and Confuse... the only way you can effect their AI is with Terror, which often is not desirable at all.

====Confuse and Attract====
0-20 points. Some players hail them as incredibly useful because they trick monsters into fighting each other. However, that damage is not particularly high, and is chiefly a bonus before your skeletons get in for the major damage. Attract in particular can be useful, as the defeated monster can quickly avenge himself by blowing up all of his traitorous friends via Corpse Explosion. These skills tend to make a more chaotic battlefield, so they are often ineffective when you are trying to keep piercing ranged attackers from shooting all over the place wildly. To best achieve this defensive effect, use Attract on a monster in the rear of the pack.
====Everything else====
1 point wonders. Amplify Damage is a MUST for your skeletons. Lower Resist is great for parties, poison skills, and skeleton mages. Decrepify is most useful versus bosses, and ideally is attained before facing Diablo. Life Tap will keep your minions (most importantly your mercenary) alive when the going gets tough.
==Stats==
===Strength===
You can get through the whole game leaving it at base. You will need 81 strength to equip the entire Trang-Oul's Avatar, widely considered the best Necromancer set in the game. Bringing it to above 100 is pushing it, but some players like to do so for alternative gear.

===Dexterity===
Base. You aren't swinging at anything, and the amount of points you need to invest for blocking just isn't worth it. The only exception is if you're using Poison Dagger as an alternate skill.

===Vitality===
CRANK it! You won't get hit much, but when you do, it will HURT. You will ''never'' regret putting points into Vitality.

===Energy===
How much you need is entirely depend ant on your auxiliary skills, as Raise Skeleton is rather cheap. Around 100 points should be enough for most summoners. You'll encounter more mana potions than you need, and running out of mana will rarely be as disastrous as it would be for the other classes. If you use an Insight weapon on an Act II mercenary, you will regenerate all of your mana quickly enough to spam Corpse Explosion and Revive to your heart's content.

==Mercenary==
You're going to want to use an Act II mercenary. Their auras are far more useful than anything the other mercs have, have better survivability than the Act I or Act III mercs, and comparable damage potential to the Act V merc.
*'''Prayer''' is useful at lower levels, but later on the healing just isn't significant. It's nice to regenerate, and great if you're waiting for one of the Nightmare difficulty auras, though.
*'''Defiance''' is useful early on, but eventually your skeletons will rock so much later on that you just don't need it.
*'''Blessed Aim''' is also good early on, but like Defiance it eventually becomes unnecessary.
*'''Thorns''' will rock while your character level is low compared to the monsters, but loses effectiveness as you level up. You can also get the Thorns aura easily from an Edge runeword weapon.
*'''Holy Freeze''' is good defensively, but can cause monsters to shatter and rob you of a corpse.
*'''Might''' is generally considered to be the most useful aura for a Zoomancer, as it will ''significantly'' improve your minion damage. Once you get to Act II Nightmare, grab it!

==Equipment==
In general, stock up on Magic Find. You won't be getting hurt much, and don't really ''need'' equipment to be effective.
===Helms===
*The [http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/lore_OrtSol.htm Lore] runeword is very useful, and not too difficult to create.

===Body armor===
*[http://www.diabloii.net/items/runes/runewords/stealth_TalEth.htm Stealth] is easy to make early in the game.

===Shields===
Good luck with that! A good shrunken head is very hard to find.

===Gloves===
*'''Frostburns''' are great for the mana bonus, although you may end up not needing it.

===Boots===
*'''Marrowalk''' is good for the skill bonus, but otherwise a pair of magic find boots may be more worth it.

===Belts===
*Anything with four slots should be adequate. A common practice is to imbue the first exceptional sash you find.

===Weapons===
Remember to use weapon switch! You only need those high summoning skill levels while you're raising your army... after that, you can equip something that provides them with an aura or boosts your curses.
*Any wand with good skill bonuses is nice.
*For an alternate weapon, try using an '''Edge''' bow. That Thorns aura really comes in handy, especially when you encounter an extra strong, extra fast, cursed Urdar boss pack.

===Rings===
===Amulets===
===Charms===
As a Zoomancer, your primary purpose in combat is to pick up loot. Charms make you less effective at this. Don't use them unless they give you something VERY nice.

==Strategy==
===Shamans and Greater Mummies===
Dim Vision on the monster raising its allies is your best bet. It will force it to mill around until your troops come in to attack it melee, and by then it's in big trouble. If the target is immune to AI curses (Champion/Unique) or your Dim Vision skill level is too low, try summoning a clay golem next to it instead. The golem will distract the monster more than simply hanging in back would have, and slow it as well.

===Act Bosses===
In general, Decreptify is your best bet against bosses, since it will slow them to a crawl and they will be struck down by your skellys slowly. The Clay Golem alos provides slow, but usually not enough to get them to stay still. Some Act bosses have large "bases" meaning they take up a large sapce, so more skellys can crowd around and attck, but with smaller ones charges of teleport is really handy and makes the fight a lot faster. These strategies below are all for normal, there is no boss you cannot take down in NM/Hell as long as you have Decreptify.
====Andariel====
This shouldn't really be a problem if you chug mana pots and cast Clay Golem next to her as his health goes down. Meanwhile, you skellys are beating down on her.
She will only focus on the Golem as long as you keep casting it, so if you are fast she may never cast her poison attack.
====Duriel====
A good strategy here is to cast Iron MAiden on him and watch him beat himself up on a skelly. Sometimes he hits too hard for your skellys to take, in that case revert to the Clay Golem strategy with Andy again. He doesn't seem as attractted to the golem as Andy though.
====Mephisto====
He is a wuss, his close up attacks don't really do anything, and his life is low. Amp him and be done is about 15 seconds.
====Diablo====
Considered the bane of all summoners, even with Decreptify, at around level 30 your skellys cannot take his powerful attacks. This battle is based on luck, hopefully you have Decrep by now, or it will definately be a lost cause. You can help out if you have a wand with Bone Spirit, but all it comes down to is who kills the other faster.
====Baal====
In normal, if you STILL do not have Decrep he will be quite hard, as he like to teleport away frequently and cast a clone if you spare him some time. Get close, slow him down, and hit hard.

==Contributors==
If you've helped build this guide, brag about it here!
*Yo. --[[User:Explodicle|Explodicle]] 03:56, 24 Aug 2006 (BST)

Talk:The Mighty Kodiak

2006-07-19T20:43:59Z

Masterkilla:

Good job SSoG. [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 20:43, 19 Jul 2006 (GMT)

Act 4

2006-06-06T01:59:19Z

Masterkilla: /* The Hellforge */

= The Fallen Angel =
:Objective
::Kill Izual, found in the Plains of Despair

:General Notes
::There is a chance that the Plains of Despair will contain Burning Souls, a variant of Gloams. On normal difficulty these are not a problem, but in Nightmare and Hell difficulties Burning Souls can be ''very'' dangerous for characters with low lightning resistance.

:Quest Reward
::Talk to Tyrael for reward of 2 skill points.

:Multiplayer Notes
::If a partied player killing Izual has previously completed the quest, a questing character must be within roughly 1-screen distance from Izual to receive credit for the quest.

= The Hellforge =
:Objective
::Smash Mephisto's Soulstone with the Hellforge Hammer, which is dropped by Hephasto the Armorer. Hephasto is not to be looked down upon, as he spawns with a aura and are surrounded by demons. He has a high level and is extremely dangerous in hell. He is also one of the few monsters that can also drop any rune in the game.

:Quest Reward
::Smashing the Soulstone produces one perfect, two flawless, and one normal-quality gems, in addition to one rune. The rune that drops has an equal chance of being one of eleven different runes, depending on the difficulty level of the game. The runes that can drop from the Hellforge in each difficulty level are:
:::Normal: El-Amn
:::Nightmare: Sol-Um
:::Hell: Hel-Gul

:Multiplayer Notes
::This quest will be completed for all partied players in Act IV when the Soulstone is smashed. For each additional party member, the Hellforge quest will drop one additional perfect gem.

::Because the marginal reward for each additional party member is so low compared to completing the quest alone, the Hellforge quest is typically completed outside of a party. It is considered good etiquette to leave the party before completing this quest.

:Classic Notes
::In Classic Diablo II, runes cannot be dropped. The quest reward for the Hellforge quest is only the gems.

= Terror's End =
== Objective ==
Kill Diablo in his Chaos Sanctuary.

== General Notes ==
The Chaos Sanctuary will always contain Oblivion Knights. These monsters are feared by melee characters for their ability to use the Iron Maiden curse (among other nasty curses). If characters choose to use melee attacks within the Chaos Sanctuary, they should do so with '''extreme''' caution.

Venom Lords are another dangerous monster found here. They have a powerful Inferno attack that can cause a lot of damage to characters with low fire resistance.

=== Seals ===
Diablo is contained by five seals. Three of these seals spawn a superunique boss and a monster pack nearby when activated. These monster seals do not count as having been activated until their respective boss has been killed. The remaining two non-monster seals do not spawn any monsters. Once all five seals have been activated, Diablo will spawn above the pentagram in the center of the Chaos Sancuary.

==== Left Monster Seal ====
Superunique Storm Caster Boss: Grand Vizier of Chaos
==== Top Monster Seal ====
Superunique Oblivion Knight Boss: Lord deSeis
==== Right Monster Seal ====
Superunique Venom Lord Boss: Infector of Souls

== Quest Reward ==
Quest drop if killed by questing character.

== Multiplayer Notes ==
It is considered good etiquette to warn other nearby players before activating a monster seal. Activating seals without warning, specifically the right monster seal, can lead to unintended deaths. It is also good etiquette to refrain from activating non-monster seals until all monster seals have been activated and cleared.

If a partied player killing Diablo has previously completed the quest, a questing character must be within roughly 1-screen distance from Diablo to receive credit for the quest.

When being power-acted, low-level characters often hide behind two outcroppings in the wall directly above where Diablo spawns. If Diablo remains where he spawned, the low-level characters will be shielded from Diablo's attacks, while still being close enough to receive quest credit.

== Classic Notes == In Classic Diablo II, killing Diablo will cause the game to end in 90 seconds.

Talk:Main Page

2006-06-06T01:55:23Z

Masterkilla: /* Whoohoo for Diablo II! */

Apparently the main page doesn't exist yet. Might as well make it then, eh?

-hiry

This is the place we talk about what to put on the Main Page.

== Whoa, nice. ==

Howdy! Nice stuff. :)

-Drake

== I guess I should learn to skin wiki, huh? ==

I haven't spent any time with the CSS or layout of this thing. What you see is the 'out of the box' design.

== When editing CSS... ==

Don't forget to make sure the two link types are of a different color; in the default skin, red links lead to empty pages that haven't been created yet while blue ones lead to pages that have user created content. It's very handy, because when you make guides you will often put Wiki links that lead to pages not yet written, having them another color is helpful for readers. :)

-Drake

== ARR mateys ==

it does work. It's quite sensible that the OOB design is, uh, working well ^^

Please sign your comments .)

-MOnkeycid

== Table of Contents box ==

Where did it come from? Was it auto-generated? It isn't shown when I edit the page.

TPJ

The wiki config automatically adds the tabel of contents. You can add a line to remove it from a given page. The command slips my mind at the time tho. Doh! Ralph provided the info in the very next section. --[[User:Jini|Jini]] 14:06, 17 Apr 2006 (GMT)

== Re: Table of content ==

Its generated automaticly because we have more then 3 headings on the page, use the "__'''NOTOC'''__" code to turn it off (bold to prevent it working).

<table border = "0" cellpadding="10"><tr><td bgcolor="#6600CC">Ph34z</td><td bgcolor="#0066CC">My</td></tr><tr><td bgcolor="#00CC66">HTML</td><td bgcolor="#CC6600">Skillz</td></tr></table>

-Ralph

Edit: Looks like my failure to use the preview button has clogged up the log a bit, sorry

== DAoC ==

Mmm so earlier I removed the link to the DAoC section as sort of an acknowledgement of its closing. However someone put it back. Am I misunderstanding what is said here: http://www.theamazonbasin.com/daoc/ ? Does/will DAoC generate enough content to be a whole section?

-kosmikpanda

==Signing your comments==
Comment signatures anywhere is easily added and timestamped by using the code <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>. It will turn into what you see after this comment. -- [[User:Jugalator|Jugalator]] 17:50, 15 Apr 2006 (GMT)

==Whoohoo for Diablo II!==
I'm editing some of the stuff on the D2 side. Just to let people know. [[User:ForeStorm|ForeStorm]] 05:10, 26 Apr 2006 (GMT)
:Could someone look at Act IV Quests on the D2 side? I don't know which formatting to go by - oops. [[User:ForeStorm|ForeStorm]] 05:33, 26 Apr 2006 (GMT)
::On it. :) [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 01:55, 6 Jun 2006 (GMT)

User:Masterkilla

2006-06-06T01:52:25Z

Masterkilla:

Currently a member of the DiabloII guild of the Amazon Basin.

Pandemonium Event

2006-06-06T01:50:42Z

Masterkilla: /* Pandemonium Diablo */

= Andariel =
:''"Die, maggot!"
Andariel, Maiden of Anguish and [[lesser evil]], is lurking within the depths of the Act 1 Catacombs. She is the leader of the [[corrupted rogue]]s. She has mastered the vile arts of poisoning, and heroes challenging her should keep in mind that she is particularly vulnerable to fire.
== Lilith ==
Looking suspiciously much like Andariel, Lilith is ...
= Duriel =
:''"Looking for Baal?"
Left behind by Baal as a surprise for unwary adventurers, Duriel, Lord of Pain and lesser evil, is guarding the ancient tombs of [[Tal-Rasha]]. Charging with demonic speed, he is a formidable foe especially to heroes lacking vitality and defenses. To make matters worse, he also employs a freezing aura to chill mercenaries unfortunate enough to face him to the bone. Duriel is often fought up close or against a wall, so he can't make repeated charges.
== Über Duriel ==
= Mephisto =
:''"My brothers have escaped you."
Mephisto, Lord of Hatred and a [[prime evil]], lurks in the depths of his Durance of Hate of Act 3, well guarded by corrupted [[council member]]s, [[undead stygian doll]]s, and more hellspawn. Even the spirits are allied with him in his lair, although you will have worse things on your mind if he fires a skull missile at you.
== Über Mephisto ==
= Diablo =
:''"Not even death can save you from me."
Diablo, Lord of Terror and a prime evil, feels right at home in Hell, where he unleashes flames and lightning to fry unprepared victims where they stand. His thick carapace makes him hard to score physical hits on, unless they are magical projectiles or spells.
== Über Diablo ==
This beast eats SoJ's for breakfast.
In addition, the version of Diablo spawns with very high life and resistances. And his attacks are of course, beefed up.

== Pandemonium Diablo ==
Much like the Über vesion, but he only appears in Überland and has 2 brothers to back him up.

= Baal =
:''"My brothers will not have died in vain!"
Baal, Lord of Destruction and a prime evil, hides in Mount Arreat, where he plots against humanity by using the Worldstone to finally literally raise Hell on Earth. If challenged, he is happy to demonstrate his powers in sorcery by summoning monsters, creating clones of himself, and draining mana of his victims.
== Über Baal ==

= The Cow King =
:''"Moo-moo moo moo moo, moo moo-moo moo?"
The infernal Cow King is not your regular cow, and with his legion of halberd-wielding cows is eager to make short work of any who dare to enter his realms. The Cow King can occasionally drop special [[set item]] pieces, forming the rare Cow King's Hide set.

Pandemonium Event

2006-06-06T01:49:49Z

Masterkilla: /* Über Diablo */

= Andariel =
:''"Die, maggot!"
Andariel, Maiden of Anguish and [[lesser evil]], is lurking within the depths of the Act 1 Catacombs. She is the leader of the [[corrupted rogue]]s. She has mastered the vile arts of poisoning, and heroes challenging her should keep in mind that she is particularly vulnerable to fire.
== Lilith ==
Looking suspiciously much like Andariel, Lilith is ...
= Duriel =
:''"Looking for Baal?"
Left behind by Baal as a surprise for unwary adventurers, Duriel, Lord of Pain and lesser evil, is guarding the ancient tombs of [[Tal-Rasha]]. Charging with demonic speed, he is a formidable foe especially to heroes lacking vitality and defenses. To make matters worse, he also employs a freezing aura to chill mercenaries unfortunate enough to face him to the bone. Duriel is often fought up close or against a wall, so he can't make repeated charges.
== Über Duriel ==
= Mephisto =
:''"My brothers have escaped you."
Mephisto, Lord of Hatred and a [[prime evil]], lurks in the depths of his Durance of Hate of Act 3, well guarded by corrupted [[council member]]s, [[undead stygian doll]]s, and more hellspawn. Even the spirits are allied with him in his lair, although you will have worse things on your mind if he fires a skull missile at you.
== Über Mephisto ==
= Diablo =
:''"Not even death can save you from me."
Diablo, Lord of Terror and a prime evil, feels right at home in Hell, where he unleashes flames and lightning to fry unprepared victims where they stand. His thick carapace makes him hard to score physical hits on, unless they are magical projectiles or spells.
== Über Diablo ==
This beast eats SoJ's for breakfast.
In addition, the version of Diablo spawns with very high life and resistances. And his attacks are of course, beefed up.

== Pandemonium Diablo ==
= Baal =
:''"My brothers will not have died in vain!"
Baal, Lord of Destruction and a prime evil, hides in Mount Arreat, where he plots against humanity by using the Worldstone to finally literally raise Hell on Earth. If challenged, he is happy to demonstrate his powers in sorcery by summoning monsters, creating clones of himself, and draining mana of his victims.
== Über Baal ==

= The Cow King =
:''"Moo-moo moo moo moo, moo moo-moo moo?"
The infernal Cow King is not your regular cow, and with his legion of halberd-wielding cows is eager to make short work of any who dare to enter his realms. The Cow King can occasionally drop special [[set item]] pieces, forming the rare Cow King's Hide set.

Talk:Diablo II

2006-06-06T01:47:10Z

Masterkilla:

I will try to add more to this page since i found out about it :P. Please guys, sign your name in the talk pages after you added something! We want to give credit where it's due! :) [[User:Masterkilla|Masterkilla]] 01:47, 6 Jun 2006 (GMT)