20 Skeleton Mastery
13-14 Raise Skeleton
1 Magi
1 Revive (and prerequisite golems)
1 Summon Resistance
1 Bone Armor
1 Corpse Explosion
20 Bone Spear
20 Bone Spirit
1 Bone Wall
1 To all curses, that are not in left branch (though 1pt in dim vision can be dam useful. A must if playing HC)
Rest to Bone prison
Even without all the tiptop gear, I find this more to my liking than a pure summoner. I often start the season with a necromancer.
This is almost exactly how I play my cookie cutter Necromancers. Although two things I do differently. First, I usually max Raise Skeleton and drop Mastery much lower. I find that my skeletons do not die all that often, and higher Raise compared to Mastery means more damage but less health (which as I just stated, I have never really needed).
Second, I usually just ignore Spirit. Spear gives you comparable damage at half the mana cost, so I really don't find a use for Spirit. Although I know a lot of players like to use spirit on certain enemies (for the homing effect). The result is I get to dump more into Wall/Prison which in turn gives me a higher bone armor.
I also disagree on Dim Vision being a must for HC. It is easily one of the most imba skills in the game and good to pick up for any Necro, but the only time it would come in necessary in terms of HC survival, is for nasty Gloam packs. But, it doesn't work on unique mobs anyway, and typically I just let my skeletons wander up to them while I am hiding behind a corner/pillar and once they are in melee range, they don't use lightning anymore. Then again, I also thow on a #!!! ton of MDR and always go max vita (never max block) on my HC/PvM necros, so I can take quite a few hits from normal gloams without too much threat.
I also agree on enjoying the hybrid more than the full out summoner. I find that all out summoner builds are extremely reliant on mercs (compare a summoner build without a might merc stacked with CB to one with said merc - the difference is huge, especially on act end bosses). Since I don't use mercs, I prefer to have the utility of having a high level bone spear to clear out tightly enclosed zones and act end bosses.
