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Getting Started in Necrosmith 2

Necrosmith 2 drops you into a hostile world where you act as a necromancer, constantly balancing the defense of your home tower with exploring the map for resources. If you focus too much on defense, you run out of parts. If you explore too fast, you get overrun. Here is how to survive your first few hours.

The Core Loop​

The game operates on a persistent cycle of exploration and defense:

  1. Build Minions: You assemble undead units from various body parts collected in the field.
  2. Explore the Fog: You send these units out to clear the fog of war. They act automatically, capturing bases and picking up gold or new body parts.
  3. Defend the Tower: Daytime triggers global enemy waves directed at your central tower. You need stronger units and active spells to hold the line.
  4. Upgrade: When you inevitably lose your tower, you spend the gold you found on permanent upgrades to push further in the next run.

First Hour Strategy​

Do not hoard your starting parts on the Portal Disc (Disc 1). Build a few basic skeleton or zombie units immediately and send them out.

Your minions are autonomous but predictable. Keep an eye on the mini-map. If a large enemy wave is moving toward your tower, you can use the Teleporter spell to recall your units or rely on your tower's base defenses.

Uselessness of Starting Units on Disc 3​

While standard Skeletons carry you through Disc 1, they become entirely obsolete on the Master Disc (Disc 3). The game generously grants two free skeletons at the start of a run, but on Disc 3, these units deal zero effective damage and are one-shot by early threats.

Do not deploy starting Skeletons for combat on Disc 3. Instead, immediately dismantle them in the Mana Extractor for an early mana boost, or hold them safely behind the tower solely to trigger localized resource gathering out of harm's way.

Managing Aggro​

As covered in the Exploration guide, proximity to a lair triggers localized aggro. This is the most common new player trap. If you send fast units in every direction, you activate too many spawners at once and overwhelm your defenses. Pick one or two directions to explore first, clear the camps in that area, and then expand.

The Disc 2 Difficulty Spike​

The transition from Disc 1 to Disc 2 feels mathematically insurmountable. Basic units are instantly destroyed, and the second boss (often referred to as the Pope or the Giant Slime) will walk through fully upgraded defenses as if they do not exist. Raw numbers (health/damage) no longer suffice.

How to survive: Abandon standard, slow-moving undead assemblies. The most reliable early strategy relies on speed-kiting: equip a minion with Fire Elemental legs and a movement-speed artifact to outpace the boss while constantly burning the ground beneath it. Alternatively, heavily invest in the Lightning Spell, paired with an artifact that occasionally resets spell cooldowns, for sustained ranged execution.

Permanent Upgrades​

Gold carries over between runs. Prioritize upgrades that increase your starting parts and gold gain. The faster you can get units on the board at the start of a run, the easier the mid-game becomes.