| Overall: A+ | Early: A+ |
| Late: A+ | NMM: S- |
| Adventure: A+ | Arena: A |
| Clash: S | Boss Brawl: A |
Necromancer, my arch-nemesis, is up for the lucky draw, which means I have to review the guy. And I'm not happy about it, because he's fantastic… and I don't have him.
He's an all-around A+ / S- type hero. He's really strong in some of the more niche modes, like Hero Clash and Nightmare Mode, and he can also put out serious damage in Boss Brawl with a forged-up weapon.
He's just an all-around fantastic hero.
His main mechanic is his minions. He doesn't do any direct damage himself, much like Spirit Shaman, but unlike Spirit Shaman, his minions do actual damage, seem to have smarter AI, and are actually fun to look at.
His minions do better when there's a limited number of hordes, so events like Hero Clash suit him more than, say, the end of Hard Mode. When you're dealing with an endless sea of enemies, his minions have less time to ramp up.
So, your primary job with the Necromancer is to manage and maintain your minions. The closer you stand to them, the more damage they do. Managing that damage is the key to maximizing your damage as Necromancer.
Now, let's call up our long-lost ancestors as we review the best gear, jewels, pets, and weapons for the leader of the undead.
The most important part of the Necromancer is understanding the different types of minions he spawns and his interaction with them. He does no damage, like Spirit Shaman, and instead relies on an army of undead to do his bidding.
Every few seconds, the Necromancer summons a new minion.
He has base skeletons that run around and hit stuff.
Then he has a stronger, ranged Wraith minion, which spawns every five summons. These act more like turrets.
His ultimate summons a giant Abomination minion based on other minion kills. So if one of his minions kills a horde, the abomination can spawn, which makes sense since the Necromancer himself isn't dealing damage. It's all minions.
And finally, his evolved 4* weapon summons a giant wyrm that flies across the screen, possibly multiple at a time.
Unless otherwise specified, minions last until killed. So you will get a small army of wraiths and skeletons running around the battlefield.
The strength of his minions is tied to weapon damage and life. The minions have their own cooldown, but their health and armor pools get augmented by the Necromancer's health. so to keep them alive, you'll want to prioritize defensive stats like life and armor.
Life Tome is especially good. It's how you evolve the Necromancer's weapon in the forge, and it lets you build into something like Ice Wand, all while buffing the minions.
Also note, minions can pick up experience orbs, which isn't great for farming in modes like Adventure, where you want to scoop up all the XP at once, but good for every other mode.
The Necromancer emits an aura that decreases minion cooldowns. It starts at 30% and scales up with skill level. So, the more minions you keep inside that aura, the higher your damage output.
It's easier to keep ranged minions within the aura (they stay near you like turrets) compared to melee minions (like wolves), who run all over the place.
You will maximize your damage as you juggle the number of minions within the aura without getting yourself into trouble. Playing around this aura is what separates the good Necromancers from the great ones.
Unlike Spirit Shaman, where you just get three static wolves (which is the obvious comp), the Necromancer has the potential for four different summoned creatures, each doing different things with different abilities.
Fill the screen with minions!
The Necromancer wants to keep minions alive. Unfortunately, I do not have the hero, so I can't run any tests here. But you should probably run the HvH standard max damage per second (DPS) gear build.
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Rogue | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Wizard |
MarioVX pointed out that Necromancer's overall DPS does get impacted by the cooldown cap because it affects the summoning intervals of minions. And I confirmed the minions can crit, so this will probably be your best build.
Necromancer is a boss in Hero Clash. A top 5 for the mode, he can carry you through league 11. Here's a build for that mode:
| Helm: Rogue | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Ranger | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Rogue |
You want Ranger Chest for the additional shuffles at Ascended plus.
Necromancer also works for Nightmare Mode. Here's a build for that mode:
| Helm: Wizard | Gloves: Knight |
| Chest: Wizard | Necklace: Wizard |
| Boots: Knight | Ring: Wizard |
He's one of the best heroes in Nightmare Mode.
The other option would be to run a defensive Flag Pole build around Knight Gear. At higher levels, the plus percent health bonuses and armor might give you more minion uptime, hence more damage. Something like this:
| Helm: Knight | Gloves: Rogue |
| Chest: Knight | Necklace: Rogue |
| Boots: Ranger | Ring: Knight |
Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it's worth swapping out cooldown and crit for survivability. So you would have to test it.
If you have Necromancer's 4* forge, then always go with Ice Wand and Life Tome. If not, then go either Crossbow or Ice Wand, depending on your playstyle:
You can substitute in better special weapons like Mighty Borer if you have them.
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Cooldown
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Life
Crticial
Again, go life tome with 4* Forge for the weapon evolution.
You don't evolve Crossbow because the increased number of projectiles apply a ton of vulnerability to targets that increases your overall DPS more than the evolution to Crossbow would. The Crit Tome also plays into the Rogue 4x multiplier gear.
You want to focus on getting your minions beefy with this one:
Armor Tome
Life Tome
Fire Orbs
Bomb
Duplicator Tome
Area Tome
Get beefy my friends..
Early game, I would 100% go with Dragon's Breath over Ice Wand or Crossbow. And you could consider Armor Tome + Vampire Aura for a build something like:
Tomes to compliment the build are:
Area
Duplicator
Damage
Armor
Regeneration
You need 4* arcane staff to make the Werewizard build work, but boy does it work:
Armor Tome
Ice Wand
Life Tome
Arcane Staff if 4*
Boomerang 1 level
Duration Tome
Duplicator Tome
Area Tome
Bombs
Crossbow
If you're doing nightmare content, you probably have done enough Arenas to upgrade bombs or crossbow to 2*. They both get a disruption chance at that point in the form of freezes or stuns. You should use whichever is at 2*.
Jewels are straightforward for Necromancer. You don't want to deviate from the max damage jewel build:
Ultimate Charge
Ultimate Duration
Vulnerability
Cooldown til 60%
Projectile (P)
Critical
Explosion
Run cooldown jewels until it hits 60% in the detail window. You cap cooldown at 60% because you get 30% from cooldown tome. 90% is the max cooldown cap in Normal, Hard, Arena, Boss, and Guild modes.
The Necromancer's minions do not benefit from Area of Effect,so I would run critical strike chance after maxing cooldown.
You have some leeway here to use much higher-level jewels instead of lower-level cooldown jewels. For example, I'd consider a level 7 Projectile (P) over a level 1 cooldown. You can always test which does more damage in your game by doing the same run with the same gear and weapons but changing the jewels.
Forging up the Necromancer's weapon so that it can summon the worm is awesome. It's a very cool and unique mechanic.
Minions collect little souls that spawn, filling a soul counter at the top left of your screen. Once you get rolling, you'll have worms constantly flying around.
It's awesome.
Increase Minion's health by 20%.
I'd go increased movement speed in modes where minions need to be on Horde, like NMM and possibly Hero Clash, but go increased area of attack for Normal, Hard Mode, Adventure, and Arena-type content.
+50 Health
Collect souls to call upon the great Wyrm's fury. This is awesome.
Increase Shadowwyrm damage by 505. Additionally spawns 3 skeletons and 1 wraith.
Most of Necromancer's globals are health-focused. Makes sense since the minions benefit from health. But his level 120 global is one of the best in the game: a 2.5% cooldown reduction. That's just… so good. Makes me sad I don't have him.
Necromancer doesn't get as insane scaling as some other adventure heroes from skills, but they still more than double, going from 1 to 3 stars.
Emits an aura that reduces the Cooldown of any nearby ally by -30%. This aura is exactly like Spirit Shaman, but is not impacted by area of effect. Stand near your undead friends.
Every 5 summons summon a Wraith instead that shoots ranged projectiles dealing 100% damage.
Summon an Abomination that deals area of effect damage. Very nice thematically; make sure to stand near him as best you can to max damage via the cooldown area. He scales incredibly well with hero star level, so push Necro to 3* for the Abomination.
You want to go max damage pets. That typically means your highest rarity pet as your main pet, and the next two highest as passives. A standard setup would be Basilisk main with Emberpaw and Pyrokraken passives.
Here's a detailed breakdown of the best main pets and best passive pets to help you think through your choices.
Overall, the Necromancer is an incredibly strong hero. His kit synergizes well and can clear most content in the game. Plus, he just looks fun to play.
This is how you do a summon-based hero in Heroes vs. Hordes.
As much as I don't like to admit it, the Necromancer hero is very cool.
April 10, 2025: Fixed image bug. Added quote from Freywood on minion CD.
