Zoomancer Guide

The Zoomancer is a Necromancer build that specializes in the use of the summoning tree for its offense and defense.

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 for 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

Personal Weakness. 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 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 Urdars and 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...

Vile Children and Sand Maggot Young. All revives have enough hit points. These little buggers are very fast and very aggressive.
Corrupt Rogues. Like Vile Children, they are fast and aggressive, and will patrol a wide radius looking for trouble when not in combat.
Claw Vipers are nasty and fire bone spears!
Thorned Hulks are very similar to blunderbores.
Council Members and 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 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.

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.