Necromancer

The Apprentice Necromancer / Necromancer / Necromancer Lord is an Unholy Boss that appears in the Ruins.

Ancestor's Memoirs: The Necromancer
"Mastery over life and death was chief among my early pursuits. I began in humility, but my ambition was limitless. Who could have divined the prophetic import of something as unremarkable as a twitch in the leg of a dead rat.

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I entertained a delegation of experts from overseas, eager to plumb the depths of their knowledge and share with them certain techniques and alchemical processes I had to found to yield wondrous and terrifying results. Having learned all I could from my visiting guests, I murdered them as they slept.

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I brought my colleagues back with much of their intellect intact - a remarkable triumph for even the most experienced necromancer. Freed from the trappings of their humanity, they plied their terrible trade anew: the dead reviving the dead, on and on, down the years. Forever.

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- The Ancestor.

History
The Ancestor invited several scholars to study with him, only to murder them in their sleep after he learned all their secrets. To show off his newfound powers, he brought them back through necromancy with much of their intellect intact, but there was nothing left of their humanity. The Necromancer and his Apprentices now lurk within the ruins, using his magic to bring the corpses buried deep beneath the ground to life as his servants.

Behavior
The Necromancer starts in rank 1. Each time he uses an attack he creates a Skeleton in rank 1, steadily pushing himself back until he is in rank 4. His attack does not have to hit a hero in order to trigger this ability - therefore the only way to stop him summoning a minion in a turn is either to stun him, or for there to be 3 of them existing already.

Unlike most unholy creatures, the Necromancer has low resistance to Bleed, which possibly ties in with the fact that he is part eldritch. For a boss, he is also quite susceptible to being moved about. Exploiting these attributes could be very crucial in taking The Necromancer down with minimal hero casualties.

Trophy
After completing the Necromancer's champion quest, he will drop his collar as a Trophy.

Abilities
Apprentice =

Veteran =

Champion =

* The Summon Skeletons ability has the chances of summoning the following and will occur regardless if the abilities land or not:

Strategy
The most recommended way to deal with this boss is by having a character take care of the skeleton adds he spawns, while having the other characters focus on stacking bleed/blight on the Necromancer. In terms of priority, sword and shield skeletons must be felled to mitigate damage coming from the adds. You may safely ignore any of the club-wielding skeletons the Necromancer summons (i.e. Bone Rabble, Bone Conscript, and Bone Militia) because of their relatively low damage and lackluster utility.

The Crusader is particularly good at defeating the skeleton adds, as he deals increased damage to Unholy. As long as you don't let him move out of your hit range, the battle should have no other issue than stress, as his attacks aren't particularly devastating. Alternatively, instead of bleeds and blights, one could position 2 crusaders with the Holy lance ability in either the 2nd and 3rd or the 3rd and 4th ranks to use a strategy similar to the Gatling gun combination that use the highwayman's point blank shot to position the other highwayman and deal damage.

The Hound Master can cause bleed and attack any rank, so he is highly advisable.

The Hellion as well can cause bleed, and attack all positions. Her Iron Swan ability is useful for constantly dealing damage to the Necromancer when it is at the very back.

A Plague Doctor could also be a useful Hero for her blight abilities since many of the mobs in the Ruins are immune to bleed effects and since the Necromancer's resistance to bleed and blight are identical. A Plague Doctor can also be useful through her Disorienting Blast ability which can stun the Necromancer if not on the 1st rank, and shuffle its position to the front where frontline fighters like the Leper or the Crusader can hit him.

Heroes such as the Occultist or Bounty Hunter can constantly pull him to the front and put him in range of your heavy-hitting frontline fighters, though they will need trinkets to assist in this at higher difficulties.

This fight becomes much harder on higher difficulty levels, as the Necromancer starts to spawn armored enemies.

Upon killing the Necromancer, the quest will be completed despite any remaining skeletons. You can retreat or even be annihilated by them, and the Ruins will still progress.