I've referred to this for my source on necromancer skills: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/necromancer-curses.shtml

Lower Resist decreases an enemies elemental resistances and Decrepify decreases their physical resistance. Unfortunately, bone spells do magic damage, so I don't think either curse improves your bone spell damage (as Grace Note pointed out). They are only useful for your minions; Lower Resist helps your skeletal mages and Decrepify helps your skeletons. Also, if you are using Revive then those minions will do more damage when you use those curses (most monsters don't do magic damage). In short you've over invested in bone spells and reduced your effectiveness as a summoner (see my sidenote at the bottom for bone spells).

I'm assuming you're going for a summoner build, but could you outline what 1 skill point for the rest adds up to?

For a summoner, playing heavily to revive is a good plan but you have to find the best monsters for whatever you're trying to do. Look at some revive necromancer guides, this being a short example: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=707530. I recommend maxing Revive and one golem (probably Iron), so you have plenty of summons to work with and a golem for killing monsters to get that first revive. I also think you're better off replacing Bone Spear with Bone Prison and Iron Maiden. Then you can lock monsters in with your minions and have them damaged by both their own attacks and your minions, while boosting with other curses you have. Bone spirit is only to help your golem take down monsters without any minions to back you up, but it helps marginally at that.

Sidenote: To get an idea of how much damage a pure bone necromancer does, I'm in Hell difficulty with my necromancer right now using an all bone build, around level 76, roughly these skills (I can update values tonight when I check):

• Teeth: 10 (about +6 with items)
• Bone Spear: 20
• Bone Spirit: 20 (about +4 with items)
• Bone Wall: 10
• Bone Prison: 20
• Some other misc. skills

And I only do over 3000 damage per spirit. That's very little in Hell difficulty and I end up using ally support to take down most things, or I lock them down with a bone prison, cast iron maiden, and spam spirits until they drop. Given I have complete bone synergy, until I get some epic skill boosting items I'm not looking at much more damage. Necromancer bone spells aren't heavy damage and from what I've seen all kills are relatively slow.

I've referred to this for my source on necromancer skills: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/necromancer-curses.shtml

Lower Resist decreases an enemies elemental resistances and Decrepify decreases their physical resistance. Unfortunately, bone spells do magic damage, so I don't think either curse improves your bone spell damage (as Grace Note pointed out). They are only useful for your minions; Lower Resist helps your skeletal mages and Decrepify helps your skeletons. Also, if you are using Revive then those minions will do more damage when you use those curses (most monsters don't do magic damage).

Unless you totally focus on them and skills that synergize (see my sidenote), Bone Spear and Bone Spirit are ineffective because they do not scale up in Hell difficulty. However, Bone Prison and Bone Wall do. Also curses and revives scale up because they are based on the strength of monsters in Hell.

For a summoner, playing heavily to revive is a good plan. Look at some revive necromancer guides, this being a short example: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=707530. I recommend maxing Revive and Iron Golem, so that you have plenty of summons to work with and a golem for killing monsters to get that first revive. I also think you're better off replacing Bone Spear with Bone Prison and Iron Maiden. Then you can lock monsters in with your minions and have them damaged by both their own attacks and your minions, while boosting with other curses you have. Iron Maiden has the nice property that an increase in skill level increases the damage taken, not the spell radius like many other curses. Bone Spirit is appropriate to some extent for helping your Iron Golem take down monsters, but certainly not worth focus.

Sidenote: To get an idea of how much damage a pure bone necromancer does, I'm in Hell difficulty with my necromancer right now using an all bone build, around level 76, roughly these skills (I can update values tonight when I check):

• Teeth: 10 (about +6 with items)
• Bone Spear: 20
• Bone Spirit: 20 (about +4 with items)
• Bone Wall: 10
• Bone Prison: 20
• Some other misc. skills

And I only do over 3000 damage per spirit. That's very little in Hell difficulty.

I've referred to this for my source on necromancer skills: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/necromancer-curses.shtml

Lower Resist decreases an enemies elemental resistances and Decrepify decreases their physical resistance. Unfortunately, bone spells do magic damage, so I don't think either curse improves your bone spell damage (as Grace Note pointed out). They are only useful for your minions; Lower Resist improves your skeletal mages and Decrepify improves your skeletons. Also, if you are using Revive then those minions likely do more damage when you use those curses. In short you've over invested in bone spells and reduced your effectiveness as a summoner (see my sidenote at the bottom for bone spells).

I'm assuming you're going for a summoner build, but could you outline what 1 skill point for the rest adds up to?

For a summoner, playing heavily to revive is a good plan but you have to find the best monsters for whatever you're trying to do. Look at some revive necromancer guides, this being a short example: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=707530. I recommend maxing Revive and one golem (probably Iron), so you have plenty of summons to work with and a golem for killing monsters to get that first revive. I also think you're better off replacing Bone Spear with Bone Prison and Iron Maiden. Then you can lock monsters in with your minions and have them damaged by both their own attacks and your minions, while boosting with other curses you have. Bone spirit is only to help your golem take down monsters without any minions to back you up, but it helps marginally at that.

Sidenote: To get an idea of how much damage a pure bone necromancer does, I'm in Hell difficulty with my necromancer right now using an all bone build, around level 76, roughly these skills (I can update values tonight when I check):

• Teeth: 10 (about +6 with items)
• Bone Spear: 20
• Bone Spirit: 20 (about +4 with items)
• Bone Wall: 10
• Bone Prison: 20
• Some other misc. skills

And I only do over 3000 damage per spirit. That's very little in Hell difficulty and I end up using ally support to take down most things, or I lock them down with a bone prison, cast iron maiden, and spam spirits until they drop. Given I have complete bone synergy, until I get some epic skill boosting items I'm not looking at much more damage. Necromancer bone spells aren't heavy damage and from what I've seen all kills are relatively slow.

I've referred to this for my source on necromancer skills: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/skills/necromancer-curses.shtml

Lower Resist decreases an enemies elemental resistances and Decrepify decreases their physical resistance. Unfortunately, bone spells do magic damage, so I don't think either curse improves your bone spell damage (as Grace Note pointed out). They are only useful for your minions; Lower Resist helps your skeletal mages and Decrepify helps your skeletons. Also, if you are using Revive then those minions will do more damage when you use those curses (most monsters don't do magic damage). In short you've over invested in bone spells and reduced your effectiveness as a summoner (see my sidenote at the bottom for bone spells).

I'm assuming you're going for a summoner build, but could you outline what 1 skill point for the rest adds up to?

For a summoner, playing heavily to revive is a good plan but you have to find the best monsters for whatever you're trying to do. Look at some revive necromancer guides, this being a short example: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=707530. I recommend maxing Revive and one golem (probably Iron), so you have plenty of summons to work with and a golem for killing monsters to get that first revive. I also think you're better off replacing Bone Spear with Bone Prison and Iron Maiden. Then you can lock monsters in with your minions and have them damaged by both their own attacks and your minions, while boosting with other curses you have. Bone spirit is only to help your golem take down monsters without any minions to back you up, but it helps marginally at that.

Sidenote: To get an idea of how much damage a pure bone necromancer does, I'm in Hell difficulty with my necromancer right now using an all bone build, around level 76, roughly these skills (I can update values tonight when I check):

• Teeth: 10 (about +6 with items)
• Bone Spear: 20
• Bone Spirit: 20 (about +4 with items)
• Bone Wall: 10
• Bone Prison: 20
• Some other misc. skills

And I only do over 3000 damage per spirit. That's very little in Hell difficulty and I end up using ally support to take down most things, or I lock them down with a bone prison, cast iron maiden, and spam spirits until they drop. Given I have complete bone synergy, until I get some epic skill boosting items I'm not looking at much more damage. Necromancer bone spells aren't heavy damage and from what I've seen all kills are relatively slow.