Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

 

Recently I came back to this rather interesting game. I played Diablo ever since my teens. My early builds were not that good, but I could still finish the game on normal with Barb, Amazon and Assassin. Later I learned to play better.

Recently however I wanted to finally finish the game on all three difficulty levels and finally see the fancy end-game gear and so on. So, I dusted out my old saves and begun playing again. There were fewer characters that I remember. My second barb from 2018 was absent but my first one from 20 years ago is still here, so were my chars from 2022 but that is more explainable. 

However, my Necromancer with completed Act I on NM was among them. 

I decided to go into summonmancer build early and for the most part it was success. There were few challenges however, rune drop was low and most runes I got were low level. Even when I got runes, I often missed bases to build needed runewords. I got Lore rather fast and later even White. White is not useful for summonmancer build, but I used it as secondary back up weapon and it helped me against Hell Mef. I also got Splendor in a Shrunken Head that I also used as secondary because I needed Shield with resistances. 

I wanted to wear basic RW Smoke all NM and later Hell but could not get it. Later in late Act V on Hell I got if for Merc as I myself got Trans-Oul Scales from Contess run after I cleared Mef on Hell. Highest rune I could get was Pul on random drop in Spider Forest in all places. I only had a ready supply of runes Hel and lower even though on Hell there should have been more higher runes.

As for game then both Act II and Act III had mixed feelings for me. I like Act II design, but summonmancer build works poorly there. Especially in maggot lair and arcane sanctuary. My skeletal army and merc just stuck in every place possible. The very same AI that controls my enemies however is much better at finding their way towards my char. 

On NM I often used curse Attract to make monsters kill each other, but on Hell they are just too beefy for that to work. On Hell even palace was a challenge as there are too many shooters that hide in cages where they shoot with impunity as my melee skelles cannot get to them.

In contrast fetid jungle of Act III that does not appeal to my aesthetics, was a constant boon of good loot and rune galore. Fetishes and even Stygian Dolls, who are bane of Sorc existence, are hardly a challenge for summonmancer.

It only gets bad on Travincal where ledges and Hierophants who cast Blizzard and keep Zealots alive with healing can really be problem. Named consul members are also a problem.

However, that only applies to open areas, as caves can be challenging.

Summonmancer is a very unconventional build in practice. You can easily kill Duriel that intimidates most other builds, but at the same time the Summoner would be near impassible obstacle as skelles and merc just could not get to him through all these stairs and ledges. I almost considered doing Duriel runs for farming stuff, but some monsters in the desert around tombs could be rather challenging for summonmancer. There are too many uniques with hard properties.

In the end I got level 84 while fighting Baal. Killing him was mostly a battle of endurance as my Merc with just Demon Arch for a weapon (no Crushing Blow or Open Wounds) and 6 of the remaining melee skelles took a lot of time to kill him. Baal killed all but one ice skellemage but could not kill merc or melee skelles. I kept Baal in constant Decrepify.