The Occultist and the Houndmaster in particular can Stun the Necromancer fairly well, but other characters can also Stun him if equipped with the proper trinkets. The most consistent strategy is to stun the Necromancer. Furthermore, the Necromancer takes his skeletons with him when he dies, so taking him down first can prevent more attacks than slowly chopping through his army. Pulling him can be highly effective, since he moves backwards slowly and most heroes have an easier time hitting the front ranks. He will continue to move back while summoning skeletons, but when all 4 enemy slots are filled up, a Pull can permanently move him to the front. His low resistance to Movement also makes him vulnerable to being pulled forward. His infrequent actions make Marks, debuffs, and stuns more effective, as he is slow to recover from them. This makes the Necromancer very vulnerable to both forms of damage over time, but since he has only one action per turn and no Protect, damage over time is neither necessary nor the most effective way to deal with him. The Necromancer's resistances are all relatively low, aside from his fairly high resistance to Stun.

As of The Color of Madness patch, all of the Necromancer's summoned minions are life-linked to him and will expire when he does. On higher difficulties, the Bone Soldiers summoned by the Necromancer have Stealth for 2 rounds. The Necromancer notably has no weighted skill selection or targeting, making his series of attacks effectively random. Corpses do not block this ability either they will simply be replaced by newly summoned skeletons. His attacks do 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. Each time he uses an attack, he creates a skeleton enemy in rank 1, steadily pushing himself back until he is in position 4, where his attacks no longer spawn anything. The Necromancer will always start in position 1. Freed from the trappings of their humanity, they plied their terrible trade anew: the dead reviving the dead, on and on, down the years.

I brought my colleagues back with much of their intellect intact - a remarkable triumph for even the most experienced necromancer. Having learned all I could from my visiting guests, I murdered them as they slept. 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 found to yield wondrous and terrifying results. Who could have divined the prophetic import of something as unremarkable. I began in humility, but my ambition was limitless. Mastery over life and death was chief among my early pursuits.

Darkest dungeon hag