Skeletons > Revives?

[ekimus]

I've seen this mentioned a few times. I was just curious if anyone could confirm it for me. Also, do skellimancers use warriors or mages? (or both)

Thanks,
Dan

[royalesse]

warriors mainly... some will get mages for back up

[ekimus]

warriors mainly... some will get mages for back up

to the first part of my question: how are skelly warriors stronger than revive?

[JesterRob]

With maxed SM, your skeleton warriors shouldn't be dying much. So yes, the revives will have much more life/damage/whatever, but they are also timed and live a short life, imo. Skellies, especially when maxed, can deal out an inordinate amount of damage, and a might merc only helps that. I'd say only put a few points into revives, just for backup on something like baal.

And to your question about mages: only put one point in them. Any +skills you have can raise them to about 6 skellies, and really I find that there isn't anything that my warriors can't take down anyway. Sometimes I just use the mages to discolor the enemies (frozen, poisoned) so I know I'm not just walking into a group of them. But overall, the mages just end up getting in the way of my warriors, and are only really effective with lower resist (meaning you can't amplify damage, and that decreases your warrior's effectiveness).

[Myrakh-2]

I've seen this mentioned a few times. I was just curious if anyone could confirm it for me. Also, do skellimancers use warriors or mages? (or both)

I don't know how much any confirmation is worth, but...

First: I use warriors AND mages AND corpse explosion. These are the bread-and-butter things for everywhere and everything.

Second: skeletons, especially warriors, hardly ever die. They don't time out either, and they output a consistent and high amount of damage (I don't know how much damage the magi do, though).

If you read the "Raise Skeleton" description at Arreat summit... they have no clue, and the description is just plain wrong. Unless there are 37+ extra strong aura enchanted cursed spectral hit etc. urdar bosses and their minions swarming your skeletons, they do not "die quiickly in nightmare and hell difficulty". Or maybe they just got it mixed up --- it's the monsters that die quickly in nightmare and hell difficulty...

Most of the time I don't bother getting revives (I do have a point in there, and with +skills I get 12 revives atm... but as I said, I don't use them that often). Most people, including myself, recommend putting either 0 or 1 point into revives and the prereqs (so revives cost a total of 3 points --- 1 each in blood golem, iron golem and revive). I think they are worth it, whereas other people might not bother with them at all.

I don't know if people still make Summoner-style builds based on Revives; if they are, it's probably more of a "weird subclass".

[rickcarson]

I don't know how much any confirmation is worth, but...

First: I use warriors AND mages AND corpse explosion. These are the bread-and-butter things for everywhere and everything.


Sure and that sounds like it would be good and work well... but how do you get the first corpse(s)?

Do you rely on your merc? Do you scoop them up from Pindle's garden? Do you mainly play in pubby games?


Second: skeletons, especially warriors, hardly ever die. They don't time out either, and they output a consistent and high amount of damage (I don't know how much damage the magi do, though).

If you read the "Raise Skeleton" description at Arreat summit...


Scroll on down a bit... in the Mages section there are two tables. One to tell you what their level of missile is, and another one to tell you how much damage they do.

The table is ~roughly~ set up so that if you increase the missile level by 50% the damage they do doubles.

I think the damage of the Poison Mages is higher than that listed, but I still unsummon them immediately as a matter of principle.


they have no clue, and the description is just plain wrong. Unless there are 37+ extra strong aura enchanted cursed spectral hit etc. urdar bosses and their minions swarming your skeletons, they do not "die quiickly in nightmare and hell difficulty". Or maybe they just got it mixed up --- it's the monsters that die quickly in nightmare and hell difficulty...


Most of the flavour text predates 1.07 even.


I don't know if people still make Summoner-style builds based on Revives; if they are, it's probably more of a "weird subclass".

I like the ranged ones, others like the big ones with crushing blow. oh, and Gloams are fun for the whole family. :-)

Its a pretty cheap addition to just about any other build out there.

Oh, and HoS will use lots of them just to lag you :D

[Beatboxer]

Another important, major advantage of warrirors over revives is the AI. Skele warriors are very fast when engaging targets and swarm very well. Revives are dependant on the AI of the revived enemy and often lack as a definite, reliable force in usual play.

Great for a skelliman to have a few revs around though. :drink:

[Myrakh-2]

Sure and that sounds like it would be good and work well... but how do you get the first corpse(s)?

Do you rely on your merc? Do you scoop them up from Pindle's garden? Do you mainly play in pubby games?


Depends. The "standard" way is to take an A1 waypoint and let the merc kill some. In my own (1-2 player) games I usually just go whereever I want to go, and grab skellies there, but in large games I prefer to use the cold plains waypoint as I don't want my merc+gumby getting swarmed by some 8-player bosspack in A5 without my skellies around.

Other than that, I do grab the ones from pindle as well, if the portal is there. Pindle runs take a little longer for me because of that --- I can usually raise 10-12 skellies (TO casting rate penalty!) before they wake up, so I have to kill the rest to complete my setup (currently 13 warriors, 13 magi). Since I'm already there I say hello to pindle as well.

But the important thing is still the merc --- he can kill on his own, so that's a reliable source of initial corpses.

[INyCxT]

arreat summit may have meant lvl 20 SM and RS when they said they die rather quickly in nm and hell mode, as that is the case.

however once ur lvl 30+ your skellies hardly ever die.
once your lvl 40+, your skellies are practically invincible unless iron maidened or killed in PvP.

[Mad Mantis]

Revives are dependant on the AI of the revived enemy and often lack as a definite, reliable force in usual play.

Great for a skelliman to have a few revs around though. :drink:

Recently I have been playing around a lot with Revives. They can be extremely powerful, but they take a bit of herding. The timer is not a real issue as you can always raise new ones. The herding is what gives the most problems. Every time I play I manage to loose a few less to corners.

What I am saying is that it just takes a different train of thoughts to get the most out of your Revives. When I finally develop a fool proof method of using Revives in a run, I will let you guys know.

[royalesse]

but they take a bit of herding
Good point Mad Mantis... If you have a tele amy or Enigma then you don't really need to worry about AI or keeping your army together.

Another option is to portal to town and come back just before a big battle. A quick tip... this is from way back when revives & IM were the way to go... If you open a portal over a pile of bodies the portal seems to preserve them so you can go back to the pile and pillage the bodies if your army thins out. This was a lot more useful with revives than anything else.

Supposedly Udars retain their crushing blow. So if the SoJ counter is going nuts and you want to save a pile for Uber D then open a portal over a pile of Udars and adventure until Uber D pops up.

You might want to double check on the portal saving bodies trick just in case anything has changed recently. I haven't tested it in awhile.

[qazxswcde]

revives suck
i got sm up so it gives 335 ed to revives
so with this 435 melle monsters ed times 2 by might
870 then timed again by amp
1740 ed
and 17 of them {all cows} still couldnt kill other cows

[Mad Mantis]

You might want to double check on the portal saving bodies trick just in case anything has changed recently. I haven't tested it in awhile.

Nice trick :thumbsup: . When I find some time I'll test it.

[JoJeck]

arreat summit may have meant lvl 20 SM and RS when they said they die rather quickly in nm and hell mode, as that is the case.

however once ur lvl 30+ your skellies hardly ever die.
once your lvl 40+, your skellies are practically invincible unless iron maidened or killed in PvP.The wording on the Arreat Summit describing when and where to use Skeleton Warriors, Mages and Revives is almost identical to what was there 3 years ago when I first started to learn the Necromatic Arts. It was fairly accurate information then. It has just not been updated to take account of the radical increase in Skeleton Warriors offensive and defensive capability, while mages and revives have remained the nearly the same. Quite a lot of the information on the Arreat Summit is incorrect or incomplete or misleading for the simple reason that Blizzard did what they thought was the minimum amount of update work neccessary for the 1.10 patch, and in some places this is woefully short of what is really required. But then again we should all be grateful for the free 1.10 update so complaining is a bit unfair on Blizzard.

Skeleton Warriors are fundamentally different from Revives. The attacking and defensive power of skeletons is soley determined by the skill levels the player has in RS and SM and to a lesser extent the players own level which affects the cahnce to hit equation. This power is much the same in Nightmare, Early Hell and Late Hell. The offensive and defensive power of Revives on the other hand depend on the monster being revived and the value of SM. Obviously as the monsters get tougher in Hell and then much tougher in late Hell Revives also get correspondingly more powerful. So comparing Skeletons to Revives in Nightmare is nothing like comparing the same monsters in Hell. So the relative worth varies considerably and when people tell you they don't need Revives they are either going into the easier areas or they have a large number of plus skills.

If you are one of the Necromancers who only have (say) +6 skills then your skeletons will be dieing fast when you get into late Hell... don't let anyone else tell you differently. You will be re-building your army frequently after a tough battle an may even have to run away at times as soon as your merc goes down. Then investing a few skill points to get Revive (or even using a +2 magic wand with +1 Revive) will give you 7 Revives and they will make life so much easier for you through Act 4 and Act 5 Hell. You would also be able to venture onto the Cow Level and clear that. Revives are immensely strong and depend on where you chose to go and are largely independent of equipment while Skellies depend on how good your equipment is and especially whether you you have a lot of + skill charms.

Finally, I don't have enough +skill charms to get +40 RS and + 40 SM, but my
old Necro had something like +32 RS and +34 SM and I can assure you that I was replacing more skellies on the Cow level than Revives that timed out. Even high level skellies perform poorly once they are outnumbered (as in the Moo Moo Farm) and when those monsters are tough and can hit hard, skellies die fast. On the other hand I never saw one of the Revived Cows die in combat.


Recently I have been playing around a lot with Revives. They can be extremely powerful, but they take a bit of herding. The timer is not a real issue as you can always raise new ones. The herding is what gives the most problems. Every time I play I manage to loose a few less to corners.

What I am saying is that it just takes a different train of thoughts to get the most out of your Revives. When I finally develop a fool proof method of using Revives in a run, I will let you guys know.
This is good news :) And I agree that it takes a different train of thought to guide them around. It is a bit like riding a bike once you learn to guide the Revives you'll never forget. I was fortunate enough to have to learn in 1.09 when Revives were the main option for a summoner. Eventually, like when riding a bike, you will get to know what is achievable with respect to guiding Revives and not be disappointed by trying things that can't be done easilly.

Recently I have acquired a Naj Puzzler (i.e. Elder Staff with lots of teleport charges) and since my Necro has nothing useful on his weapon switch I'll try that option. That could modify when and where using Revives id practical.

revives suck
i got sm up so it gives 335 ed to revives
so with this 435 melle monsters ed times 2 by might
870 then timed again by amp
1740 ed
and 17 of them {all cows} still couldnt kill other cows:cyclops: And your skellies killed all the cows while the Revives looked on? Revived Cows do at least as much damage as a skeleton and have higher AR so should hit more often. Skeletons, Revived Cows and a Merc can kill cows easilly... combine with curses and CE and the whole level can be cleared in 5 mins.

Incidently, I think your maths on the damage is a bit suspect but we won't get into that now as I written 3 times what I'd intended to.

[royalesse]

The...
The short end of it is that when going above the standard 20 assignable skill points RS + SM does more damage than Revives + SM... of course that is IIRC.

Most people will get revives for meatshields. Skellie Warriors for damage. Skellie mages for 'other' damage.

Personally, If I have teleport... I'd go Zookeeper just cause... no particular reason... just cause... well actually there is a reason and that's cause taking taking 40~50 summons and sitting on someone cracks me up.

Then again in Starcraft I was a base builder not a micro manager and I think Warcraft III being the clicking frenzy that the programmers want sux donke d*ck. But hey... that's just me... but I digress since this isn't the 'hostile necro thread'. ;)

[chi987]

revives are plain difficult to manage. every time you run around, if you aren't careful
you will lose a couple of revives. some revives are extremely slow, and revives can
take longer to target and attack an enemy. revives aren't as good at swarming an enemy as skeletons.

revives can be very powerful and stronger then skeleton warriors but as a main force
very difficult to use. 1 point in revive can give you powerful backups

[JoJeck]

The short end of it is that when going above the standard 20 assignable skill points RS + SM does more damage than Revives + SM... of course that is IIRC.

Most people will get revives for meatshields. Skellie Warriors for damage. Skellie mages for 'other' damage.

...snip...

... but I digress since this isn't the 'hostile necro thread'. ;)
I am puzzled how you could conclude that from what I wrote... :scratch:

It seems to me that the greatest increase in offensive power from minions a Skelliemancer can get for a mere 4 points is to spend them on getting the Revive skill. In contrast skellies require 40 skills points and good plus skills to do well in Late Hell. And anything already spent on SM will boost the Revives anyway.

Also by selecting the monsters to revive carefully they are able to do as much or even more damage than corresponding skellies. They can be much more than mere meatshields. Perhaps your experiences are different but I don't really regard Skellies as > Revives or vice versa I see them as complimentary and to be employed as the situation demands...

I definitely agree this should not become a 'hostile necro thread' whatever our different opinions :)

[royalesse]

I am puzzled how you could conclude that from what I wrote... :scratch:

I definitely agree this should not become a 'hostile necro thread' whatever our different opinions :)
Hehe... I didn't get it from what you wrote. I was just condensing all the reasons why revives hardly get used. Apples to apples the damage ramping is higher for the skellies than it is revives. On the skellie side it starts low and grows a lot quicker so the more +skills you have the skellies will do tons more damage (skellies get more damage with + skills to RS & SM).

On the revive side damage only comes from Raise Skellie. Additional points in revives get you more revives not more damage. Also, the extra damage from raise skellie is percent damage so if you raise something in normal it's going to stink no matter what your skills are. While if you raise a skellie you always get a skellie.

Numbers wise with +20 summon skills you have a skellie warrior doing 599-603 while the revives will be doing +400%. Unfortunately, most monsters do 90~150 max damage which even with the extra damage is still less than the Skellies. Again... that is MAX damage not average damage. So even in this case I'm being generous with the Revives.

Is it's worth at least 1 point? Definitely... Would I max it? Yeah but I'm a nut job and you shouldn't listen to me.

Now group wise if you could have a scenario where you have enough revives that as a group they do more damage than the skellies and still it's a pain to maintain with a 3 minute timer and lag considerations.

All in all it is your character and you can do whatever you want... but I have made characters where headbutting a rusty nail sounded more appealing than playing them through. Somethings look good on paper but in practice is where things really get tested. Usually, the path of least resistance is what people gravitate to...

[Mad Mantis]

Numbers wise with +20 summon skills you have a skellie warrior doing 599-603 while the revives will be doing +400%. Unfortunately, most monsters do 90~150 max damage which even with the extra damage is still less than the Skellies. Again... that is MAX damage not average damage. So even in this case I'm being generous with the Revives.

If you can get the +20 skills than sure they are better. How many of us can field +20 skills? With +10 skills the minimum damage of Skellies is better, but the max damage of Revives is better.
If you have +15 the Skellies are about equal to Revives in terms of max damage.

But to me focussing purely on the damage part means that you are not giving enough credit to both skills. The Revives can be fantastic killers with loads of hitpoints, resists, elemental attacks and melee power. They are however harder to manoeuvre and require that the Necro takes note of good types to use.
The Skellies can stand their ground and are faster to move and attack. They can be made from anything that died and will stay by you. They can be relatively fragile and do not come with a lot of useful secondary mods.

[rickcarson]

revives suck
i got sm up so it gives 335 ed to revives
so with this 435 melle monsters ed times 2 by might
870 then timed again by amp
1740 ed
and 17 of them {all cows} still couldnt kill other cows

I'm not sure the numbers stack up like that.

Lets say a cow has... (goes and looks up stats... cannot find stats on cows... lets use a Siege Beast instead)


Demon Steed
Lvl 85
Hit Points 16693 ... 25964 (21328.5 average (call it 21k))
Melee Attack 134 ... 211 (172.5 average)
Blocking 50%
AR 5793
Defense 1485
And it has some pretty beefy resistances, but the one we care about is:
Physical Damage Resistance 50%


Now lets work out the damage, first, enhanced damage:
Revive 335% + Might 200% = 535 ed (ie 6.35 multiplier)
172.5 * 6.35 = 1095.375
Now lets work out dam res + amp: -50% + 100% = +50% = (1.5 multiplier)
1095.375 * 1.5 = 1643
21k / 1.6k = 13

It will take 13 average hits for one of our 'bovines' to kill another.
Now, that doesn't factor in the blocking, or the %chance ot hit. Lets say they have ~70% chance of hitting, after blocking thats ~35%, multiply 13 by 3 get 39 round up to 40.

It will take approximately 40 swings for one of these Revived 'cows' to kill another.

My question, is how much would it take for Skeletons to do the same amount of damage? They have a much lower attack rating, so will hit less often. And if the screen lists them as doing say 300 damage, that means that before taking ED into account they're only doing 100 points of damage.

Assuming a 50% base chance to hit, and taking those numbers and running them through the same calculation we did for the 'bovines', it looks to me like the skeletons do 100 * (1 + 200% + 200%) * (1 + 1 - 0.5) = 750 damage per hit. So 28 hits, compared to the bovines 13, now taking into account how many are good swings and how many are bad swings, only about a quarter of the swings will connect, so it takes the skeleton 112 swings almost three times as long to do the same job!

So by my calculation, Revives > Skeletons.

[JoJeck]

On the revive side damage only comes from Raise Skellie. Additional points in revives get you more revives not more damage. Also, the extra damage from raise skellie is percent damage so if you raise something in normal it's going to stink no matter what your skills are. While if you raise a skellie you always get a skellie.

Numbers wise with +20 summon skills you have a skellie warrior doing 599-603 while the revives will be doing +400%. Unfortunately, most monsters do 90~150 max damage which even with the extra damage is still less than the Skellies. Again... that is MAX damage not average damage. So even in this case I'm being generous with the Revives.

..You might be confusing Raise Skellie with Skelton Mastery in your first paragraph :spy: Revives get a significant damage bonus from Skeleton Mastery. A counter argument to the one you make is that it takes 3 points to get an extra skellie (as well as some increased damage and other stats) but 3 points in Revive will give 3 revives which will do more damage than 1 extra skellie. However that point is somewhat academic, as I never put more than one point into Revive myself. This is because I have a moderate +8 skills when I play with my mf gear so the 9 revives I get are enough for most situations including Hell Baal although I do like more against Cows.

Why would you choose to compare Revives and Skellies with +20 summoning skills? Few players would have that many and those that do would not use that many + skills in normal questing or mf play. I guess +10 is a more reasonable and easilly achievable amount and many players will relate to using 30 RS, 30 SM skeletons. My argument in the first of my posts in this thread was that Revives are most useful to players with a low number of + skills and who want to progress in Hell. Let's consider + 10 summoning skills as a reasonable number and compare skellies to an actual monster (the Moon Lord found in Crystalline Passage) that is revived.

Skellies at +10 summoning will be dealing 309 - 312 per hit. The Moon Lord does 74 - 139 and when Revived gets a +300% bonus. So a revived Moon Lord will do 296 - 556 = 426 av per hit. Furthermore, the Moon Lord has a much higher AR than the skellies and so will hit more often and then it has level 8 Frenzy. Frenzy at level 8 gives +125% damage (adds with SM), +149% AR, 7-31% IAS, and 47 - 131 % faster run / walk. I guess Moon Lords hit about 3 times for every once a skellie does (due to higher speed with 2 weapons, higher AR and Frenzy). So they'll be doing about 4 times as much damage in melee as a skellie and that's why they mow down things much faster than skellies...

Let's also consider a basic skellie with no plus skills and the corresponding revive. A 20 RS, 20 SM skellie will be dealing 124 - 127 per hit. The Moon Lord will have +200%ED at 20 SM and so does 222 - 417 = 319 av per hit. This strongly supports my argument that Revives help players with a low number of plus skills.

Finally, let's take +20 summoning skills even though few players will have this much. As you say a skellie does 509 - 603 per hit. A revived Moon Lord would get +400%ED and so does 370 - 695 = 532 av per hit. But what you should also take into account is the skellie only has an AR of 1205 whereas the revive has 5929. And that is without the Frenzy which adds AR, speed and damage to its attack... I suspect that the Moon Lord will out perform even a powerful skellie on a one for one basis.

Of course with + 20 summoning skills you would have 15 skellies and 21 revives ...

I hope you agree that revives can be substantially better than skellies for low + skills, and can be more damaging at middle amounts of plus skills. Even at higher levels of plus skills some types of revive will do nearly as much basic damage as a skellie. And if proper account is taken of the characteristics of the monster higher attack rate, higher AR and special ability such as frenzy revives will gain significantly. A fair comparison should not simply be about raw damage per hit but also how often those hits can be made.

So you see, I don't think you were being generous to the Revives at all...kindly reconsider your position :)

[Myrakh-2]

Now, all we need is a reliable way to get all those moonlords. I find that my revives tend to time out...

I don't know or, for that matter, care whether revives could do more damage --- espcially when the area around the waypoints is cleared out. I can't tp in and out of moonlord areas 'cause I need my tp to get back to where I'm playing, and I'll loose skellies/revives when running around, looking for more moonlords or running back to the wp. Besides, it would be a big waste of time...

Thus, I sometimes revive stuff if it happens to be around. But even that I don't always do.

[rickcarson]

For each +1 Revives get an extra 10% Enhanced Damage.
For each +1 Skeletons only get 7% Enhanced Damage. They also get +4 (2 from skill, 2 from Mastery) to base damage.

So if the Revive did a base of 100 dammage, each +1 to all skills would have the Skeletons catching up by 1 point (but not until their *base* damage - not that listed, but rather the damage before ED is applied, gets to about 100).

If the Revives do 134 points or more average damage (before Revived), then the Skeletons will never catch them (unless at some point they start getting +3 per level of Raise Skeleton?)

Now that doesn't include Elemental damage, the AS doesn't seem to have the hard data on that, or include other special things, like Crushing Blow, or that the attacks might be Ranged. I like ranged Revives, they don't tend to get tangled up in the skeletons as much.

But keeping Revives alive is so annoying.. :rant: I can clear the Throneroom level of monsters, then go to one of the four corner rooms, raise up 10 or so revives, and even if I inch round into the room to face the waves of minions, I'll still lose half the Revives. No matter how gently I tug the tether, even on that small a distance, I lose half. Its pathetic! :rant:

-----

The second point is about Skeletons never dying once you get +10 or more skills.

This is pure fantasy. I *used* to believe that too. But what was happening was that I'd have my army of 10-12 Skellies, and be subconsciously checking their numbers and raising them up... and be barely aware that I was doing it. So I *thought* they 'never died', even though I was raising one up every 30 seconds or so.

I think that was because the 'defensive line' almost always held. Sure, I might lose a skellie (or two) to some kind of boss with nasty mods, or even say half the army to a couple of nasty boss packs, but that 'didn't count'. (With some justification - most of my other characters would have died so fast against those same boss packs that they wouldn't have even had time to check out the bosses mods).