Night Hawk Necromancer 2.10

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magz_
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NIGHT HAWK NECROMANCER
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Now with more boom!

Introduction/Changelog
  • Patch 2.10 Buffs hawks even further than their 2.9 numbers, fixed their confusing tooltip (tooltip damage is much closer to actual damage dealt now instead of some weird fractional math), fixes the bug that caused them to occasionally deal zero damage, AND introduces the oskill gloves for some big qol.
  • Patch 2.9 Brings big buffs to Summon Necromancer's single-target skill; Night Hawks, as well as some very nice survivability the spec has been really needing.
The goal of this guide is to teach players how to boss with a summoner; something that has been long misunderstood, and attempt to explain the nuances of how the skill is played. It's an intermediate level guide that assumes you have some knowledge of the game mechanics, but we'll try and be as descriptive as we can, where possible.

Pros/Cons
► Show Spoiler



About Night Hawks
► Show Spoiler



Skills and Stats
Skills

Summon
  • Blood Skeleton: 1
  • Grim Vision: MAX
  • Night Hawks: MAX
  • Violent Immolation: MAX
  • Resurgence: MAX
1 point in all travel skills. We will be maxing Night Hawks, and all of the damage passives that affect them.

Crossbow
  • Life From Death 1-Dump
Life From Death Changes effectiveness based on the path you take in the crossbow tree. The fire side gives Potion effectiveness and duration; which stacks very well with the Chemistry mastery, while the physical side provides much needed physical resistance. With the addition of Graveyard, Necros of all specs get some much needed regen, which means you can afford to take the physical side if you have trouble capping it elsewhere (Note: it's actually slightly more point efficient than the Tenacity Mastery) The choice depends on how you want to play. When you're done maxing your summon tree you can place the required points to get 1 point in this skill, then dump into it later with whatever you have left.

Mastery
  • Meditation: 3**
  • Chemistry: MAX
  • Specialization: MAX
  • Tenacity/Endurance: MAX**
Specialization is needed to push the skill level of your hawks by 5 more base levels. Chemistry is a very strong source of sustain for high-life pool characters. For the leveling process you will 100% need Meditation, but as you start stacking high energy and get more mana regen from Embalming, you can afford to spec out of Meditation and into either Tenacity or Endurance: I recommend Tenactiy as it's hard to cap phys resists on this character.

Reward
  • Veil King: MAX
  • Graveyard: 1
Max Veil King for the large bonus to minion damage (NOTE: you get this bonus whether the veil king is alive or not) and no more than 1 Point into Graveyard. This skill has a fixed duration and points only increase it's damage, not the effectiveness of the regen it gives (1 per 2% minion damage) (Note: the Regen from Graveyard snaphsots, meaning it will provide regen based on the higher of the two stats at the time of casting. Since poison has double the effectiveness of minion damage it is technically possible to wear high poison resist gear, cast graveyard, and swap to your minion damage setup. The duration of graveyard is long enough to make this possible, but short enough to make it annoying/not worth it. I wouldn't bother.)

Deathspeaker
  • Embalming: DUMP
  • Death Ward DUMP
  • Famine: DUMP
This tree will be where you dump the rest of your free points. You will most likely be dumping Embalming at first as you desperately need the mana regen, and Famine for the maximum life. Once you've picked up some of the more stat heavy charms such as
Corrupted Wormhole
Corrupted Wormhole
Required Level: 100
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
you may be able to move points out of these, and place them into Death Ward. Because we wear such heavy armors like
Goetia Plate
Goetia Plate
Full Plate Mail (Sacred)

Defense: (8467 - 9339) to (10376 - 11445)
Required Level: 100
Required Strength: 700
Item Level: 120
+3 to All Skills
+1 to Maximum Necromancer Minions
+(151 to 200)% to Summoned Minion Life
+(51 to 75)% to Summoned Minion Damage
+(172 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
+100 Life Regenerated per Second
+750 to Life
+375 to Mana
-4 to Light Radius
Socketed (6)
, MOing defense and increasing it in the tree is not a bad idea.

Stats

Strength:
  • Enough for gear. Late game armor like
    Goetia Plate
    Goetia Plate
    Full Plate Mail (Sacred)

    Defense: (8467 - 9339) to (10376 - 11445)
    Required Level: 100
    Required Strength: 700
    Item Level: 120
    +3 to All Skills
    +1 to Maximum Necromancer Minions
    +(151 to 200)% to Summoned Minion Life
    +(51 to 75)% to Summoned Minion Damage
    +(172 to 200)% Enhanced Defense
    +100 Life Regenerated per Second
    +750 to Life
    +375 to Mana
    -4 to Light Radius
    Socketed (6)
    has high Strength requirement, but early on a few levels worth to make sure you can wear your gear is recommended.
Dexterity:
  • None. You could try to run a shield and block, but my approach is high vit/regen.
Vitality:
  • Dump the rest of your points here when your str/ene needs are met
Energy:
  • Around 500 (no more than 1000) should be good depending on your regen. Veil king and hawks are costly spells so you'll definitely need some.

Gameplay
    Minute to minute gameplay
  • Is all about maximizing your output and maintining buffs. Stay as close to the minion cap (displayed on the skill) as possible, while trying not to over-summon. Replace Veil Kings near death, and keep Graveyard up. Micro-managing your hawks so that they die and are replaced by new ones as quickly as possible is the name of the game. You alternate between stutter-step casting them, targeting bigger enemies directly, and blowing them all up at once. This for me, is the fun of playing a birdmancer.

    Disclaimer: Night Hawks is not a farming skill
    However :coolstorybob:
  • Because they have a small-ish aoe (it's actually more of a star pattern; they fire projectiles that effectively work as an aoe, but as you get farther away the damage falls off because you're not hitting with multiple projectiles), Hawks are not completely useless in clear. Especially while leveling, they will be quite strong, but give way to a proper clear skill later on and take the throne as a single target skill. If you're into fast clear, you need to look into a traditional summoner or attempt to support this build with
    Back To The Abyss
    Back To The Abyss
    Demon Head (Sacred)

    Defense: 1448 to 1766
    Chance to Block: 2%
    (Necromancer Only)
    Required Level: 100
    Required Dexterity: 445
    Item Level: 120
    Abyss Knights Die After Being Summoned
    +(2 to 3) to Necromancer Skill Levels
    +150% to Summoned Minion Damage
    +(101 to 150) to Energy
    +200 Life Regenerated per Second
    Decrease Maximum Life -10%
    Physical Resist 20%
    50% Magic Find
    Socketed (4)
    and Abyss Knights, or the
    Archbishop Lazarus
    Archbishop Lazarus
    (Tribute Set)

    Lazarus' Chasuble
    Lazarus' Surplice Cap
    Lazarus' Votive Lamp
    Lazarus' Lamen

    Set Bonus with 2 or more set items:
    +25% to Summoned Minion Damage
    +25% to Summoned Minion Resistances

    Set Bonus with 3 or more set items:
    +100% to Summoned Minion Life
    +50% to Summoned Minion Attack Rating

    Set Bonus with complete set:
    +1 Extra Veil King
    +2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
    +100% to Summoned Minion Life
    +50% to Summoned Minion Damage
    +50% to Summoned Minion Attack Rating

    set for an extra veil king. They act as meat shields for your hawks to blow things up.
  • The minion AI for Hawks is wonky, and this can play into our favor, or against us. They can clump up together and move uniformly, or scatter all over the place, and this all depends on how you cast them, and how you move around while they're up. There are cases where you want to make use of both behaviours. Thankfully, we have several tools to manage this.

    Warp Strikes and Teleports
  • The Necro comes innate with the teleport skill Bend the Shadows (BTS). This is a short range, short cooldown teleport that will be your bread and butter until later on. When the necromancer teleports, he brings all of his minions with him, and Hawks specifically will attack the target of your teleport (aka the closest enemy). If you have a particularly troublesome enemy you need dead and your hawks just wont seem to attack it, teleports will force them to do the job.
  • This has nuance of backfiring or helping. If you miss your target with a teleport skill, your minions can scatter and not attack your target. This behaviour can be useful if you're being swarmed and you need 20+ tiny meat shields ASAP, so it's important to know when to teleport to group or scatter your minions.
  • Later on, you can pick up a
    Relic (Colosseum)
    Relic
    Required Level: 75
    (11 to 15)% Block Speed
    (11 to 15)% Hit Recovery
    +(4 to 8) to Colosseum
    for a warp strike. Warp strikes are very useful for Hawk necros because they require a target and the chance of missing and your minions scattering everywhere is dramatically reduced. There are a few different options but colosseum is a good one because it also debuffs your enemies physical resists, which works well for hawks.
  • Until you get a colosseum relic, use the shortest cooldown/best teleport skill you can. BTS will be the fastest for a long time.

    When in doubt,
  • Simply re-cast. The cap for the maximum amount of hawks allowed changes in different ways (skill level and gear). When your hawks are misbehaving, casting the skill again while at the cap will kill the oldest ones and replace them with new ones.

A Note on Veil King
  • The uber skill you take for hawkmancer Provides you with the bonus damage listed on his skilldesc regardless of whether or not he is alive. This means you can forego summoning him in boss fights where his existence is not welcome (fights like baal, or any fight where there is simply too much incoming damage to keep him alive) opt to distract bosses with hawks instead.


GEAR

Leveling
► Show Spoiler

Upgrades and endgame
► Show Spoiler

Sockets, UMOs, Relics, Misc
► Show Spoiler



PROGRESSION AND UBER QUESTS
Let's get to the actual guide.
Early Leveling
► Show Spoiler

Hell & Ubers
The majority of Median takes place in hell. By now I will assume you are familiar with the questing process and will outline Charms you need to look out for, strategy for certain areas of the game, and big milestones.

  • Gearing at this stage is entirely dependant on luck and a bit of smart farming. Note the Item level (Not The required level to wear it), and find out if the zone you want to farm drops that base commonly enough, and farm there. This will mostly happen in Duncraig but farm anywhere comfortable that drops the base corresponding to the item you want. In Teganze you can find runestones and essences, in our case to make
    Rathma's Blessing

    Rathma's Blessing
    Circlets

    'OrtGlaThulGla'
    Runeword Level: 100
    +(2 to 3) to All Skills
    +50% to Summoned Minion Life
    +25% to Summoned Minion Damage
    +50% to Summoned Minion Resistances
    Lightning Resist +25%
    Cold Resist +50%
    +10 Cold Absorb
    (15 to 20)% Magic Find
    , if your RNG has been poor and you need it.
  • My personal early-hell leveling strategy is campaign to ~105-110 (or sunless sea if needed) → Cows/Torajan Jungles to 115Tran Athulua or High Heavens until 120. At 120 your options begin to open up, but first lets talk about charms and ubers; ones to target asap will be underlined.

    Very Easy
    • Butcher- Should be quite easy, just stutter-step cast Hawks, and don't stop moving. Be sure to enter the arena with every summon up.
    • Infernal Machine- Can be a bit tricky. Approach him from the outside, clearing as many (or all) of the minions as possible. When he starts to pulse with fire, run away. Cast on top of him to avoid hawks wandering off.
    • Invasion I- Enter with all your summons up, avoid the lightning storms and burst down. This charm is good for us.
    • Death Projector- Thankfully easy due to how our spec works. Pull 2 engineers from the edges of the arena, and walk around it in a circle, casting hawks directly on the machine
    • Isle of the Sunless Sea- your first rift. Lots of invisible enemies here, so opt to cast hawks ahead of you. If you get swarmed, blink away or on the closest target to burst it down and give yourself some breathing room.

    Easy
    • The Binding of Baal/Tal Rasha- Enter with all of your minions up, and get to safety asap. Take down all of the minons that give Tal Rasha Invulnerability and then burst him down from afar. You'll want to avoid blinking on him as the point in the game you can fight him he's dangerous. Cast from afar and take it slow, keep casting until you're through all of his forms (of which he has multiple). He's annoying to get back to if you die.
    • Jitan- Stay far away. You likely don't have even close to enough Physical damage reduction or resistance to be near him yet so if you get his attention, keep summoning hawks and running; ideally back the way you approached him, so you don't get overwhelmed by enemies,
    • Torajan Jungles/Akarat- Your next major rift, and where you can farm signets for a while (aside from disenchanting sacred uniques) if needed. Akarat should go down just fine even in your leveling setup, but you may need to blink on him with a full group of hawks to ensure this.

    Moderate
    • Rathma Square/Primus- take it slow. You can hop over the ledge directly to him and burst him down. Keep your distance.
    • Black Road/Buyard Cholik- Unlocks Graveyard, your black road skill. Extremely important.
    • Azmodan/Heart of Sin-Stay away. You can cast Hawks over the gap to fight him for you, and the fight should stay mostly clean. Reposition as needed. +2 MR important.
    • Invasion II- Standard Riftwalker 2 strategy, stay in the ice ring as it appears, avoid storms, cast hawks on riftwalker (and occasionally the shambler. +1 all sk important here.
    • Kurast 3000 BA (K3K)- +2 all skills for necros, very important charm. I dont like farming this rift so I don't bother.
    • Tran Athulua- Quite tough when you first get here but worth doing for xp if you can survive. Summon hawks way ahead, take it slow.
    • High Heavens/Library of fate- Relatively easy, but the ear dropped by the bosses in the library is very important for doing Heroic High Heavens, and accessing Angelic Items at 125.

    The strategy for clearing rifts from here on out is the same for every rift; keep as many hawks up as possible to distract monsters, and resummon as things die. You may want to consider a dedicated farming spec when it's time to stop bossing and level a bit. Videos of the rifts as pure hawks will come if requested. Remember that Veil king is helpfull (and easier to keep alive) in clearing scenarios, but is very hard to keep alive while bossing. Hawks will still do the job of distracting bosses, just not quite as well, so pay closer attention in these scenarios.

    Hard
    • Judgement Day/Malthael & Imperius- this uber can be really hard for some builds, but thankfully your minions should keep the Edyrems busy. Keep some around you, while trying to cast them on top of the bosses. The upgrade is good here.
    • Quov Tsin- a bit of a difficult fight. He likes to blink around a lot and deals heavy damage, so casting minions on top of him is not easy. Opt to cast a bunch of hawks and blink on him, as his trinity beam deals less damage as you get closer.
    • Kingdom of Shadow- very hard, but very important. Keep as many minions up as possible to pull aggro, and keep the zombies busy. BTS as often as needed to get out of hairy situations, and take the longer path to the boss if you have to.
    • Banisher of Light/Kabraxis- Should actually be pretty easy as long as your damage is decent. Kabraxis will pounce on you if you get to far away from him, but you can use this to your advantage. move at a steady pace while continually summoning hawks, and he'll go down nice and smooth.
    Very Hard
    • Eve of Destruction/Baal- DO NOT SUMMON A VEIL KING FOR THIS FIGHT, LEST YOU BE SWARMED BY BOSS SUMMONS. Thankfully Hawks kill themselves, so Baal's summoning habit should be under control. Burst him down as quick as possible, and try not to get overwhelmed. It helps to pull boss summons away from baal and deal with them to avoid getting swarmed by too many.
    • Lord of Lies/Belial- Use and abuse minion offscreening here. Keep summoning them and letting them clear while you're sitting a safe distance away, and this should be a cakewalk.
    • Bremmtown- Cast Hawks ahead of you to bait the ghosts into attacking them. Move quickly. (Tip: if you find yourself with not enough time to upgrade, you can simply farm this area slowly for a good charm, and put it in your cube. Once you kill the Darkstar Dragon, open your inventory, open your cube and press 'C'- the default keybind for transmute. You need the PR from this charm, and it unlocks chemistry, so do this asap.
    • Xazax- Unfortunately Xazax's minions are untargetable, and your hawks will prioritize Xazax. Try to cast them directly on top of him, or use teleport skills to blow them up on him.
    • Astrogha- As long as you stay mobile and out of the way of his poison, this fight shouldn't be too bad. For maximum saftey, clear the towers first, and then keep summoning on astrogha to keep him occupied.
    • Nymyr's Light/Atanna Khan- She hurts, but the strategy here is similar to Kabraxis; keep moving, keep summoning. Getting her down slowly is better than dying. (Note: for your sleep charm upgrade take Astrogha, and with your second one I recommend a defensive bonus like Viz-Jun, but this choice is up to you)


This build has been tested in the 2.10 beta and seems to be doing late game ubers just fine. Find me in the Median Discord as "magz" if you have any questions.
-Thanks to Wulf for letting me use his well-structured guides as a jumping off point for this one-
-And the MXL Team for their hard work (and buffing this spec) :flip:-


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Enjoy this AI attempt at generating a Hawk Necro :top3:
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magz_
Balrog
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yoimk
chadnewton
Prowler
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playing this as starer hope i survive! thanks for info
qiandongyq
Skeleton
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Thanks for the build. I'm new player and will start with this build. Do you have filter available too?
jicsou
Vampiress
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Donated 5 times
Any Labs expérience?
Benben
Invader
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Id like to see this in action.
Currently 120, and just trying to get upgrades from the TUs/Honorifics to something better, but having a hell of a time.
djrimsa
Fallen
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hello, thanks for your guide
you can upload your filter plz