INTRODUCTION

Several months ago, a player contacted me in regard to Duchess Ember's Hall of Heroes. He intended to play a summoning-ONLY necromancer. All skill points invested only in the summoning tree, and no use of any skills from the other trees, including off of items. No use of weapons or throwing potions. Pure summoning, end to end.

To put it bluntly, I thought that sounded impossible. There was no way he would get past Duriel (in Normal) plain and simple. I wished him luck, though, and did not comment on my grave doubts. Of all the builds I have heard proposed, this was the only one I did not believe that I myself could have pulled off.

The player emailed me again with information on how he had beaten DIABLO. Wow. Uh... wow. (Did I say Wow yet?) Wow.

The trick to getting past Duriel (and all subsequent act bosses) was simply brilliant, and the reason it never occurred to me as a possibility is because it required a bit of sandbagging to pull it off. The trick was... Iron Golem! Just that simple. Dillydally around in act 2 Canyon and false Tombs long enough to level up to clvl 25, and slvl 2 Iron Golem, to get its Thorns into play. That never occurred to me, because I just don't ever sandbag any chars that early in the game, and almost never at all at any stage (leveling Ember in Act 1 Nightmare was the biggest snore fest I ever endured).

I don't know whatever happened to this player, his character, the report, or whatever. I'm still waiting on that report, as it was such a brilliant variant concept, it was the first such concept I'd run across where I simply HAD to try that one myself. (Usually I am the one doing the inspiring, so it was cool to be on the receiving end this time). I don't even remember the player's name, or the char's name, but I'd still like to host that report if you're out there somewhere.

Having played Skeletorr through, I was not ready to commit to another difficult necro summoning variant immediately. I figured I'd wait for the Expansion, and even then, I had other things I wanted to try first. Well, I never expected to be stuck in normal for SO LONG (waiting for a patch to add in runewords, fix some catastrophic bugs and issues, etc etc) to a point where I'd be scraping bottom trying to find something interesting to keep playing while I wait wait wait on that 1.09 patch.

Last on my primary list of things to do in D2X was the pure summoner. I didn't even want to start him until the game was more settled, as I did not want to play hard and commit a great deal of energy only to have some balance change (necessary because the game was, frankly, released before it was done) ruin all my work, or even just skew the results.

But... I've run out of things to play in Normal, so I decided to give this a go. If ANYthing can breathe life into Normal difficulty, it's a completely indirect summoning variant like this. When your entire gameplay mechanism is the manipulation of minions, who are themselves limited, weak, or stupid, you've got to work more to make it through, and if you screw up you actually can be beaten back and forced out of some areas, and there is a real chance to die if you make any egregious errors and get yourself trapped by a hungry mob. You've got to play smart, and you've got to know what you're doing.

My plan for Normal was essentially to follow the blueprint laid out by the other player. Iron Golem would become my primary skill, backed by lots of golem mastery. Fire Golem would have to be added to my mix, though, as I will have to deal with many more physical resistances, and with bona fide physical immunity on many bosses and with a few types of critters. Sadly, the Fire Golem does PHYSICAL damage with its melee attack -- don't know if that's a bug or not. It has the Holy Fire aura effect, though, and it explodes on death for half physical, half fire damage. So I can have that as a way to deal fire damage to any target, albeit perhaps at massive mana costs. Will that be enough? No, it won't. So... I will have to use revives cleverly, and likely skeleton mages as well. I hope to get enough +skill or +tree items so that I won't need to invest much into skeleton mages. I'll try to get by with as few points there as possible.

I will swing my wand only as required to produce a body, up to clvl 6. With luck, I may get away with just ONE such kill, the very first kill. As long as I have minions, they will do all the killing, and once I reach clvl 6, I will have a golem, and it can get me started again if I run out of bodies.

I will sandbag in act 2 until clvl 24. In D2X, I am certain to have a chance to buy a Graverobber's wand by that time, with +1 to the Summoning Tree, thus I need only get to clvl 24, not 25, as slvl 1+1 Iron Golem will be the undoing of the Lord of Pain.

I will sandbag again in act 4, leveling from 26 to 30 before I tackle the chaos sanctuary and Diablo. I could perhaps finish sooner, but Iron Golem's thorns are no use against Lord De Seis, and with that fanaticism enchantment, and stronger bone spirits, and Diablo's improvements, well, it will just be a lot less painstaking to go in there with fire golem and a couple Revives on hand. And I have probably spent less time in Act 4, proportionally speaking, than any other player in my general category of time spent playing this game. Act 4 was the big multiplayer leveling ground for D2, and I almost never dallied there. I think Astra was the last time I did so. Or maybe it was Wussie. However, in those cases, it was sandbagging INCLUDING Diablo, not building up to face him. I did so in those cases to reach level 30 skills before I moved on to Nightmare. So this will be new for me. I've never sandbagged a char through Normal quite as much as I will for this one.

Skeletorr was such a joy to play. Skeletons were so weak, though, that I NEEDED the curse support. I also had to swing my weapon on odd occasions, such as Durance 3 or the CS, in Nightmare. Didn't have to do that much, but I did on a couple of occasions. That won't happen for this summons-only necro. He will have revives, he will have very strong golems (golems with boosted life in higher difficulties, also), and he will have numerous minor changes to the necromancer that will add up to huge shifts in results: namely, the ability to transfer minions between acts (allowing me to pick from ALL the monsters I've killed before in that difficulty level, for revive options), and the ability to summon golems in town, which will help enormously with managing iron golems over the long haul. Then there are the collisions which have been removed (no hassles in town, and no need for Terror to save my ass because my own minions have trapped me), and then also, though seemingly a minor thing, I can now drink from wells and heal all my minions in the field.

This will be my first-ever use of the Revive skill, and it will come under the greatest pressure possible: no curse support, no bone/poison support. I will have to employ the revives artfully, but this is such a strong skill, and having played Skeletorr, I know every trick in the book when it comes to corpse and minion management. I wrote that book! If I can't pull this off, and I mean for a FULL clear, well... I'm sure that I can do it. Period. Immunities be damned, they're all gonna die! Especially in light of the fact that I'm going to play it softcore. I believe I have a shot to make it through without dying, but if I do die, I won't let that end the run for me. I proved all I need to prove TO MYSELF with Skeletorr. This time the fun will take priority over the challenge, although I will go deathless if I can manage it. I've set that as one of my goals.

No use of non-summoning skills. Period. Nada. Zippo. No non-summoning skill use off wands, no charged items, none of that. No weapon use, no throwing potions. No mercs either. This is a pure summoning variant, no loopholes, no shortcuts. Not even merc use in line with old D2, where I'd hire em for Viper 2, Duriel, and the Kurast temples. Golem and Revives are far tougher than skeletons. I will be all right without the mercs there to act as crutches. Or... so I believe.

I picked a stupid name, I know. Subpoena. Pronounced "suh-PEE-nuh". That's a court summons, to which you are legally bound to respond in person, to appear in court to give testimony. My summon-only necro, well, all he does is summon. You might say that he issues subpoenas that not even the dead can ignore. Ha! So I've named him Subpoena. That's such a dorky name, though, so I'm going to call him P for short. P's going to have it interesting starting right away, in the Blood Moor, as he follows an slvl 1 skeleton around, waiting for it to kill quill rats. Yep. This is going to be one Hell of a ride, and it's only going to get better and better as we go.

- Sirian

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