Another Necro Summoning Question

[Bahamut]

hey guys :)

Now I am playing my summoning necro right now... and I was just wondering which golem is his best partner. now I have invested a lot (and should) on the skellies, but what about Magi? I heard they were pretty weak. I love skelletons, and Golems but then will they last althroughout the game? :)

[usamahanas]

Clay golem is your final goal, because of his slow enemies property one point in clay golem and one in golem mastery and that's enough IMO. For skelly mages they suck realy unless you have many + skills from gear (at least 10) then they are just small skelleton shield :teeth:

[Bahamut]

So summoners only go for skellies thus the name fishymancer? Is that right?

[usamahanas]

yes and no, fishymancer (the name comes from the author Nightfish) has maxed RS, SM, CE and optional maxing skelly mage and +5 revive or so. Wherase a summoner maxing all summmons including revives (as I know). IMO fishymancer is the best you can read the guide for more details in the strategy compendium.

[Bahamut]

Ahh... so I guess I am somehow on my own... I am not exactly a CE fan... dunno why.

So Blood, Iron and Fire Golems are not really worth it? I wanted to go for Fire Golem... I am just concerned about their survival in NM and Hell

[corax]

all the golems survive just fine if you max them and mastery. they all survive fine when surrounded by skellies anyway. so if you wantedanother one go for it. although a fire golem wont benefit from your amp curse so a clay for slow or an iron golem made out of a crushing blow weapon would be better options

[Bahamut]

Thanks guys... I have checked the guide... it seems that CE is a support spell and not exactly your main beef on murdering the monsters... still looks positive for my build... so far I have been doing the right thing...

Iron Golem disappears also when you save and exit? Or they stay in the game?

[corax]

generally iron golems stay with ya between games but ive seen a couple just dissapear for no reason. thats only happened 2-3 times though out of all the times ive used an iron golem

[Bahamut]

So an Iron Golem looks good then... :)

Yep thanks corax :D

[Milamber]

Your skellies will be doing most of your damage for you, and CE is your mopping up skill.

If you where to use mages, then I would assume you would also have to invest in Lower Resist for them to be really effective...and this will negate either Amp Dam or Decrepify for your melee bones.

I would leave mages alone.

Might merc is your friend, and will help your Skeletons kill (however don't equip his with a Reaper's Toll as the Decrepify on it will override your own curses)

[Bahamut]

Yes you have convinced me Mil not to use magi. Thanks :D

I really appreciate it :thumbsup:

[Milamber]

Yes you have convinced me Mil not to use magi. Thanks

I really appreciate it :D Your next build could be a Lord of Mages where the little bones get to throw coloured pixels at your enemies! ;)

Good luck! :thumbsup:

[Bahamut]

Yes... I would... but I don't have too much time in my hands... and I have to study and all. Hahaha :D

I make my skellies drink milk and shower them with toothpaste. ;)

[Milamber]

Yes... I would... but I don't have too much time in my hands... and I have to study and all. Hahaha :D

I make my skellies drink milk and shower them with toothpaste. ;)
When did study ever stop Strijdje? :teeth:

*eagerly awaits DoOm* ^^

[Bahamut]

Ahh you have a point... Hmmm Nercos are fun to play with in 1.10 it seems... Bonemancers are just plain boring in the beginning... I might just max out magi hahaha! :)

[HBeachBabe]

my Fishy uses his 5 magi (all from +skills exact the prereq 1). they aren't as tough as skellies and not as effective, but they are 5 extra meat shields as well as adding some elemental damage. more often then not, there is no reason not to use them.

[factotum]

I dread to think how slow you'll be killing stuff in Hell without Corpse Explosion. You'll still probably be perfectly safe without it (although some stuff in Acts 4 and 5 will give you a run for your money!), but you'd be amazed how much faster you can clear groups of monsters using it.

[Razz.NL]

I dread to think how slow you'll be killing stuff in Hell without Corpse Explosion. You'll still probably be perfectly safe without it (although some stuff in Acts 4 and 5 will give you a run for your money!), but you'd be amazed how much faster you can clear groups of monsters using it.

I did notice that when I killed monsters with Corpse Explosion they dropped way less items (not even a potion or something), or nothing.
Is this just bad luck or is there a reason for this?

[vajurewi]

even though theyre timered, I find revives more useful than magi. if you're having trouble with a boss or ancients, go pick up some maulers/yeti's/woodie's and they deliver a much better bruisin then the magi.

[Bahamut]

HBeachBabe and factotum: Well you're right, but then when I checked their damages when maxed (considering I have a LOT of + skills) they can very potent. Although you'd have a hard time finding yourself amidst all the carnage... :)

factotum, I plan on using P8 all the way anyway (not perhaps if even I reach the MF stage). Will CE still help when I think I am doomed to be in for a loooong and boring ride in Hell?

vajurewi: Yes, I will chip in in the Revive skill... I will figure out how it works by then hehehe ;)

Razz.NL: The items got burned? Hehehe I think you just got unlucky there ;)

[AlterEgo]

Ahh... so I guess I am somehow on my own... I am not exactly a CE fan... dunno why.

So Blood, Iron and Fire Golems are not really worth it? I wanted to go for Fire Golem... I am just concerned about their survival in NM and HellYou're not on your own at all. That sort of build is more the classic Overlord (Summoner). I brought one of those to Guardian with no CE. I had a wicked fire golem (15 pts at the end) with maxed golem mastery - he survived very well all through the game. The build does kill more slowly though.

I just point this out so that you realize you have options besides the fishymancer that everyone else is doing. :uhhuh: (No offense to Nightfish intended.)

[Bahamut]

Not on my own..? Damn! hahaha kiddin' :)

When you say slow it isn't as slow as it looks right AE? And you yourself would be against the maxing of Magi also? :)

[AlterEgo]

When you say slow it isn't as slow as it looks right AE? And you yourself would be against the maxing of Magi also? :)It's pretty slow, but very safe for HC ;) Oh, and I forgot to mention, I used an A2 Thorns merc too - I'm such a contrarian!

I only had one point in mages, but +skills brought it to 7 & I used them in most open areas, or if I needed extra elemental damage as HBB said. I'd clearly invest in revives before mages.

[factotum]

factotum, I plan on using P8 all the way anyway (not perhaps if even I reach the MF stage). Will CE still help when I think I am doomed to be in for a loooong and boring ride in Hell?


Well, CE doesn't scale with number of players, so it's bound to be more effective at /players 1. However, consider this: a decent level CE will hit everything nearby (and "nearby" means anything within 9 yards at Slvl 20!) for 60-100% of the /players 1 life of the monster you blow up, and this is mixed fire and physical damage so there's not much which is immune to it. Add Amp Damage or Lower Resist (depending on circumstance) and the damage goes even higher.

A Zombie in Act 1 Hell has over 3000 hit points. No matter how buff your skellies are, they ain't going to be able to deal 3000 damage in a fraction of a second to every creature within 9 yards!

Besides, CE gives you something to do besides act as curse ***** for your skeletons :-).

[Bahamut]

Yes AE... I can see that now! :) I think I will do the same also, trying out revives first because I am still unsure if I want to do this or not. He is currently at lvl 19 Outer Cloister. I have a long test tom so I am studying my butt off plus other deadlines to meet. :(

factotum, you have brought up a great point. :) But then, how big is the circumference of 9 yards in DII?

I guess an overlord or fishymancer can just summon his baddies and go in the middle of the field and have a snack, how about a date with the rogue archer? Or a picnic with your Might auraed merc? hahaha

[Milamber]

Yes AE... I can see that now! I think I will do the same also, trying out revives first because I am still unsure if I want to do this or not. He is currently at lvl 19 Outer Cloister. I have a long test tom so I am studying my butt off plus other deadlines to meet.

factotum, you have brought up a great point. But then, how big is the circumference of 9 yards in DII?

I guess an overlord or fishymancer can just summon his baddies and go in the middle of the field and have a snack, how about a date with the rogue archer? Or a picnic with your Might auraed merc? hahahaRevives are good, but they are terribly stupid. :teeth: If you can teleport they are good, but then if you don't have Enigma to teleport their backsides around is expensive. Try and get the better ones in each act, I found that:

Act I - Corrupted Rogues and like, Misshapen and type, Vamps where good
Act II - Urdars
Act III - Thrashers and type, although they are slow, Urdars, Council Members
Avt IV - Doom Knights, Balrogs, Gloams and Urdars
Avt V - Frenzytaurs, Doom Knights, Gloams, Council Members

Regarding CE...LOL, I've only divested one point in it so far, after maxing Bone Spirit it is next on my agenda (everything else is done) and I just madly click and watch things die :innocent:

[Bahamut]

Thanks for the tip Milamber :thumbsup:

I thought about maxing one bone spell instead of going CE (so that I would still have that sense of independence), but then without the synergies it wouldn't be as good as it was potentially made to be...

Watching things die really is fun... but then I love to make things die (that's why my first love is Barb) :D

[Milamber]

Thanks for the tip Milamber :thumbsup:

I thought about maxing one bone spell instead of going CE (so that I would still have that sense of independence), but then without the synergies it wouldn't be as good as it was potentially made to be...

Watching things die really is fun... but then I love to make things die (that's why my first love is Barb) :D
Well the build I am doing is known as a WFmancer or Bone/Skelly Hybrid.

20 Raise Skeleton
20 Skeletom Mastery
20 Bone Spirit
15 CE
Prereqs
2 Summon Resist IIRC

The idea is to use the 'Marrowalk Feature' hehe for the synergy bonus.

[usamahanas]

Well the build I am doing is known as a WFmancer or Bone/Skelly Hybrid.

20 Raise Skeleton
20 Skeletom Mastery
20 Bone Spirit
15 CE
Prereqs
2 Summon Resist IIRC

The idea is to use the 'Marrowalk Feature' hehe for the synergy bonus.
well if she want to go hybride, I've made a pat hybride bone/summon which is realy powerfull the skill points will be like this (much better):
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Skeletom Mastery
20 Bone Spear
20 Bone Wall
1 in Summon Resist, Clay Golem and Golem Mastery
1 in amp, decrepify and dim vision
1 in pre request
use a white rune word in a wand with inherite +3 bone spear and some other usefull bonuses like CE or RS, and use Marrowwalk. My necro is now clvl 88 and has:
3600 bone spear
800 dmg absorb from bone armor
13 skelly each with 1 k life and good dmg (don't remember but it's something like 500)
and of course a might merc.

[Pier]

In my opion is any necro build with 20RS, 20 SM, 1 pt Amp and a might merc viable.
Add a clay and decrep curse for bosses and summon resist and you can handle (almost) anything.

I consider revives a 1pt wonder (+8-10 summon relatively easy atainable, and 9 suckers is more then enough).
I revive the council and vampires before I do Meph, Balrogs before Diablo, and both before Baal, although I sometimes get Urdars or something with CB for the latter.
Furthermore I revive archers in the Pit.
Archers + amp + might behind meat shield = dead monsters

What comes next after the summons just speeds up your killing and is up to your own taste.
I like poison, so I added PN and PE. (still waiting for a Deaths's web and trang's pieces though...)

Grr pIER

[Bahamut]

usamahanas: Umm... you weren't referring to me as a she right? hehehe But hey, your build generates interest. But then that's Bone Spear right? Hmm, you have skeletons there and then Spear them all to hell... that could be a good alternative to CE, but it'd cost me another 20pts. Unfortunately I am severely interested with Magi... LOL

Milamber ahh... You have something up your sleeve ei? I don't know of that feature... rather um bug? hehehe

[cft]

Since you are already maxing Skel Mastery and Skeletons, I would get 1 click in Skel Magi. With +skills this should get you 3+ magi. Having a poison magi or 2 will help stop things from regenerating.

One downside to magi is that they are BAD in tight spots. If a magi stands in the doorway as starts shooting his spells at something, it blocks all your skels from getting through the door.

But on open areas, I like having a couple skeles up. For me, 2 poison and 2 cold are ideal for anti-boss hunting (cold slows it a little, adding to the clay golem's slow and any slow my merc might have) and the poison keeps it from regening.

The magi will be weaker, and kept killed kinda often, compared to your skels. But it shouldn't be too hard to keep 2-3 of them around most times.

Clay golem is quite excellent in 1.10 with the slow effect. Hes got a lot of hps and the slow effect makes him even better at tanking. AND he's even cheap to re-cast (compared to fire golem) and no item needed (compared to iron golem).

My skelemancer made guardian with 20 skel, 20 SM, 1 CE, 1 magi, 1 revive, 1 golem mastery, 1 summon resist, 20 Pnova, 20 Pexplosion, 1 bone armor, and 1 each in several curses. I twink, so I had several +skills, which really helps necros - all the curses work well with just 1 and +skills, revives make nice situational tanks with 1 and +skills (will get you 3-5 revives, which is about all I needed when I needed some extra tanks) With my skeles, I didn't really use my poison skills too much, if I were redoing the build I might skip them and use the clicks for bone spear or something.

2 things that are VERY BAD for a skel build: IM and Thorns. If a Oblivion Knight casts IM on your skels, they will drop fast. And if you run into a Aura Enchanted miniboss with Thorn aura, avoid it, your army will all die trying to kill him.

As for CE, I love it. But I played through normal and most of NM on /players 8, so CE was less effective. When I use it the most, is when my army is stuck at a doorway, with only 1-2 of my skels able to attack, and a bunch of monsters on the other side.

I found, I only need 1 click in CE. With +skills, it has just enough radius to blast a tight grouped set of monsters. Just like the tighty grouped set of monsters on the other side of the doorway.

When my skels get the first kill or two, I spam CE to blast all the other monsters. On higher player settings, it doesn't kill em, but just hurting them all speeds things up.

Also that would be a good situation to use the fear curse, to push back the monsters and let your army into the room to fight more effectively.

[cft]

AE -- you use Thorns??

Wow, very contrarian indeed. I was old school D2 Classic BG/IM necro, but it used to pain me how slow my kills were (even with level 24 IM), when I would watch other characters kill stuff.

What I found, with revives, is that they have decent high hps. But that their damage doesn't seem to be as powerful. SO I would suspect thorns is slow at doing extra damage, compared to the hps of the monsters.

I wonder - does thorns do anything to a physical immune monster? I suppose if thorns ignored physical resists, then it could be impressive.

[usamahanas]

usamahanas: Umm... you weren't referring to me as a she right? hehehe But hey, your build generates interest. But then that's Bone Spear right? Hmm, you have skeletons there and then Spear them all to hell... that could be a good alternative to CE, but it'd cost me another 20pts. Unfortunately I am severely interested with Magi... LOL
I thought you're unique Elite :teeth: lol :P
anyway if you're so disperatly after those mages make a Lord of mages necro (dunno if there's a guide out there) but I think this will work good:
20 Mages
20 SM
5 SR
5~10 Revives (to tank)
5 LR
10~20 attraction
1 point in CG, GM and all curses
get a Act3 merc and load him with -% enemy resist items, or Act 2 pray and equipe him with crescent moon ad any other items with -% enemy resist.

[decibel]

with my necro, i've maxed RS and SM. i'm now at the point where i'm wondering where to start spending my unused points. i've been hesitant to use CE (as it takes away from being able to cast skellies) but if it's the best option in hell, i'll use it. assuming i do go with CE, should i max it? also, what is the best curse to compiment it? i was thinking of decrepify.

[AlterEgo]

AE -- you use Thorns??

Wow, very contrarian indeed. I was old school D2 Classic BG/IM necro, but it used to pain me how slow my kills were (even with level 24 IM), when I would watch other characters kill stuff.

What I found, with revives, is that they have decent high hps. But that their damage doesn't seem to be as powerful. SO I would suspect thorns is slow at doing extra damage, compared to the hps of the monsters.

I wonder - does thorns do anything to a physical immune monster? I suppose if thorns ignored physical resists, then it could be impressive.
I have this wacky idea to try to use each type of merc with a 1.10 character. It seemed an overlord was my best option for Thorns. :) I'm probably the worst person to talk about any of the technical game mechanics. I really have no idea how well thorns would work against PIs - it didn't even enter my mind :teeth:

[ThePunisher]

My first character ever was a thorns paladin, based on the advice of my friend who introduced me to D2. I played along with a necro, and thorns did essentially nothing starting about half way through nightmare. Especially in hell, the monster's hp is just too high for it to be very worthwhile. My paladin was abandoned at Act I hell, and I replaced him with a different character to get through the rest of the game with my friend's necro.
Anyway, I think thorns will be useful up to a certain point after which it will quickly become far less useful. Since you are an overlord, it will help more than any other char class I think though.
I believe thorns is affected by physical resistance, though. So no damage to PIs. But I'm not positive; you'll have to let us know when you find out!

[Bahamut]

cft: Thanks for the input. So I guess your answer to Oblivion Knights is to cast PN or PE? :) I find it quite hard to see that CE can answer my problems with IM and Thorns? Well massive summoning can do the trick... given that you have lots of corpses nearby.

usamahanas: No! I am NOT an elite unique, I'd like to talk about elite uniques at times though but that's a different story :) Moving on, it seems that if I go down that road on where I would love to see myself surrounded with such white arrogant skellies I would have to resort to LR because of the magi. That's obvious but I didn't think of that. hehehe Attraction would help keep the attention of the monsters off my skeletons right?

decibel: From what I have read, CE is often used so it increases the killing speed of your necro. Decrepify is only usually used on Act Bosses because of its short time span and high mana cost (don't know if it goes down though). I think if not Decrepify it could be LR. Just an advice from an inexperienced necro dude ;)

AE: That's a great wacky idea... I am starting to get sick of hearing Act II mercs... LOL but then I would be using one here. Thorns of Might I suppose, Thorns would be a nice bet if I went maxing out the magi skill. What do you think?

ThePunisher: Yup, used and be used. Skeletons can be bait, and thorns makes their job easier as well. Now it is starting to sound like a fun build. Who cares about PIs?? Kidding :)