Curses a group of enemies, increasing the non-magic damage they receive.

Cast Delay: None

Curses a group of monsters. Reducing their vision radius.

Cast Delay: None

Player vs Player: This curse will not work on other players.

Curses a group of enemies. Reducing the amount of damage they inflict.

Cast Delay: None

Curses a group of enemies, causing them to damage themselves when damaging others.

Cast Delay: None

This only works on melee monsters.

Curses a group of monsters, causing them to flee in terror.

Cast Delay: None

Curses a monster to force it to attack random targets.

Cast Delay: None

Curses a group of monsters so that damaging them gives the attacker life.

Cast Delay: None

Curses a monster to become the target of all nearby monsters this curse may not be overridden by another curse.

Cast Delay: None

Curses a group of enemies to make them slow, weak and take amplified damage.

Cast Delay: None

Curses an enemy to take more damage from all magical attack lowers resistances of monsters lowers maximum resistances of hostile players.

Cast Delay: None

Lower Resist is highly effective in a multiplayer setting where you are helping your allies' weapons and spells do more damage. This also helps the summonable creatures that use elemental attacks, such as the Skeleton Mages or the Fire Golem, not to mention any Revived monster you may control.

Fires a barrage of summoned barbed teeth.

Cast Delay: None

Creates an orbiting shield of bone that absorbs melee damage.

Cast Delay: None

Bone Armor only protects the Necromancer from Physical Damage .

Adds poison to your dagger attacks.

Cast Delay: None

Poison Dagger can be extremely deadly should you focus on it. The Poison Dagger Spell is designed to offer Necromancers the option to effectively use another weapon type should he choose that path to follow. There are some rare, high-level, Necromancer oriented daggers in the game that will be desired by any poisonous player.

Cast on the corpse of a slain monster, it explodes, damaging nerby enemies.

Cast Delay: None

If you want to make a big mess, Corpse Explosion is the skill for you. Once dubbed "The Best Skill of All Time" by Blizzard Employees, Corpse Explosion is a favorite among many. Corpse Explosion is great for clearing out crowds of monsters very quickly. All you need to destroy large groups monsters is a body, and to lead that group of monster near that body. Explode the corpse to create a new corpse, continue to use Corpse Explosion until there is nothing left. Minions and Bone Spells can help you create an initial corpse to use, then you just have to lead the monsters near the bodies when you cause them to explode. As you put more points into Corpse Explosion you can hit monsters further away from the corpse.

Creates an impassable barrier of bone and debris.

Cast Delay: None

Nightmare/Hell: The stats shown below are only for Normal difficulty. The Bone Wall hit points increase for Nightmare, and again for Hell Difficulty.

Cast on the corpse of a slain monster, toxic gas is released that poisons nearby monsters.

Cast Delay: None

Summons a deadly spike of bone to impale your enemies.

Cast Delay: None

Creates a barrier of fossilized bone around your target.

Cast Delay: None

Player vs Player: You can use Bone Prison on other players.

Emits an expanding ring of concentrated poison.

Cast Delay: None

Poison Nova does not overwrite itself, and its duration is always 2 seconds. Therefore you get almost no benefit from casting Poison Nova more often than once every 2 seconds (because each subsequent casting doesn't increase the duration on monsters that have already been affected). Even so, it is still a very cool skill.

Releases a spirit of the restless undead that tracks its target or finds one of its own.

Cast Delay: None

Player vs Player: You can cast Bone Spirit at someone trapped in a Bone Prison and it won't damage the Bone Prison.

Cast on the corpse of a slain monster. This raises a skeleton warrior that fights for you.

Cast Delay: None

Skeletons can work great throughout Normal Difficulty especially with points into Skeleton Mastery (or a point and +Skill Items). Once you hit Nightmare and Hell difficulty, generally Skeletons will die very quickly. You may wish to, once you hit Level 30, upgrade to Revived Monsters and switch to Revived Monsters and Skeletal Mages. However, if you max Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery, use an Aura from an Act II Mercenary, and have good use of Curses, you can still continue to use Skeletons in Hell difficulty.

Passive Effect: Increases Life and Damage of Raised Skeletons and revived creatures.

Cast Delay: None

Investing points into Skeleton Mastery will increase Skeleton Hit Points and Damage. Points in Skeleton Mastery will also pay off later on if you use Revive.

Creates a Golem from the earth to fight by your side.

Cast Delay: None

The Slow %, coupled with the attack bonus, is the main reason to use the Clay Golem at higher levels of difficulty.

Passive Effect: Enhances Speed and Life of all your Golems.

Cast Delay: None

Golem Mastery adds more Hit Points to the Golem's Original Base Life, not the Life shown with more than one point into a Golem skill. Clay Golem: 100 HP, Blood Golem: 201 HP, Iron Golem: 306, Fire Golem: 328

Cast on the corpse of a slain monster. This raises a skeleton mage that fights for you.

Cast Delay: None

You cannot set what type of elemental attack a Skeletal Mage will have. You can keep raising a new Skeletal Mage until you get the type of Mage you want. Skeletal Mages have a high resistance to Magical Attacks, especially when they have the same elemental attack as the monster or player attacking them.

Creates a Golem that shares with you the Life it steals and damage it receives.

Cast Delay: None

The Blood Golem's life drain is now based completely on its own attack rather than the total amount of your enemy's hit points. Furthermore, if it is affected by a damage return ability like Thorns or Iron Maiden, the life drained is based off of its attack rather than how much damage the enemy attacker did to it.

Passive Effect: Increases the resistances of all summoned creatures.

Cast Delay: None

Summon Resist helps minions survive against spells, and this becomes vital in the later acts when Zakarum Priests are calling down Blizzard and Lightning on their heads. These resistances are helpful for keeping pets that were difficult or expensive to get, such as a strong monster you Revived or a powerful Iron Golem for which you sacrificed a good item.

Transforms a metallic item into a Golem that gains the properties of the item.

Cast Delay: None

The Iron Golem's strength lies in his Thorn Damage. This Golem is very powerful against Melee attackers.

Creates a golem that converts the damage it receives from fire into Life.

Cast Delay: None

The Fire Golem causes massive fire splash damage similar to the Paladin's Holy Fire Aura, causing monsters in the area to become hit by fire.

Returns a monster to life to fight by your side.

Cast Delay: None

While Skeletons, and Skeletal Mages are great early on, Revived Monsters are the ultimate Minions (ignoring Golems). Once you've created a corpse, revive a monster and it will be back in action with more Hit Points and fighting on your side. Quickly the monsters will find themselves outnumbered as you raise more and more Monsters during the battle to use against them. You can increase the Monster Hit Points and damage of Revived Monsters by putting points into Skeleton Mastery. You can increase their resistances with Summon Resist.