This will give you a little enlightment on how golems are useful in hardcore games If you can't afford a good runeword, any item with Crushing Blow can help a lot (especially against the Act bosses). If you have time and money to invest in your Necromancer (+summon GCs, gear, etc), you can equip yourself with Beast (or Faith, if you want to forgo an offhand), an Act II Merc with Might with Infinity, and an Iron Golem made with an item with Pride or Insight (a very good and cheap runeword to start with), once you have you army (all the auras stack and will benefit your summons immensely) summoned you'll be nearly unstoppable! Stacking Summon Resist (helps buff your skellies too) and Golem Mastery can help to keep your golem alive against bosses and mobs later on in the game (at the higher difficulties). The Iron Golem even becomes ethereal if you use an ethereal item to create it. It won't disappear when you log out,unlike the other golems. The only real downside with Iron Golem is that you lose the armor/weapon you use to make it. If you have enough to invest in a (metal) weapon/armor with decent attributes or runewords, the golem will inherit most of the attributes (very useful especially for runewords that give auras such as Insight). I'm very surprised no one has talked about the hidden features of Iron Golem. And 1 point in all prerequisites, of course (I believe this includes some of the golems).Īround level 80, you'll have run out of other places to spend your points anyway. Again, just 1 point is enough as +summoning skill items will bring it to acceptable levels. However, revived monsters are also useful in some cases. They die too quickly against bosses and don't do enough damage against normal mobs. So my advice: just invest that one point and resummon it when required.

The cheap resummoning is also nice against bosses, as it allows you to summon an endless stream of new targets.

Besides, +summoning skills will bring it acceptable levels anyway. Resummoning is cheap, so there is no need to buff its health. You mentioned this yourself.Īll it takes is one point. The Clay Golem is useful, as it slows down the attacker which allows you to interrupt their abilities (especially useful against bosses).

Diablo 2 clay golem