Lord Of Mages

[Salo]

Hey, I thought it would be good to have a thread that talks about these with those people who USE them and LIKE them. No talk about Swarriors being blah blah or whatever.

So, first question is, what increases damage per mage more? Skeletal mage or Skeletal Mastery?

I am trying to figure on what makes a better white, more mastery or more skeletal mage.

Also, can someone report their normal difficulty derived Prayer merc and how that works. not IF it works, cuz anything works but how and what tips to give?

[Mad Mantis]

So, first question is, what increases damage per mage more? Skeletal mage or Skeletal Mastery?

Points into Mastery give you a bigger increase in damage than points in Mage. This is opposite to the Warriors.

[GenXCub]

Don't forget to check the damage matrix for skellie mages at the arreat summit.

[Salo]

Don't forget to check the damage matrix for skellie mages at the arreat summit.

yeah i saw that. kinda interesting, no doubt. hm.

I made a White stick, preliminary one, going for Bone Spirit not Spear, trying something new. it wont be as buff as a synergized spear, but all of them will hit. I only need to hit big boss doods, the regular foes should be easy with lr and mad mages.

My white has +2 mastery and +2 mages, took a few hours of Drognan zinging to get, then i socketed it.

[jgreg7]

I'm also playing a LoM build right now. This thread (http://www.rpgforums.net//showthread.php?t=240626) by rickcarson has some good points. By maxing mastery first before mages I was able to cruise through normal at players8 and NM at 3-8 (depending on location). I'm now in Act 1 Hell, and the mages are still going strong.

I have two suggestions (both of which may be obvious). First raise bone prison to a decent level. I spam it to keep monsters at bay and hold 'em while the mages beat 'em down. Second I use a teleport staff on weapon switch often during battles to reposition the mages near a single target to rescue them from danger.

One question: what difficulty level did you get the +2 Mastery/+2 Mage wand in? I've finally got the runes for a white runeword myself. Is a +3/+3 wand possible? Which act would be best to find one? (i.e. Drognan is the fastest, but are the odds better elsewhere?)

[Salo]

Yeah It's possible.

Improbable, but possible. My Dream would be +3 skel +3 mastery +2 golem mastery from drognan. Some may want that to be +2 spear, but I am not going spear, I think when the time comes to need a direct attack and not be a master of curses to assist my Boyz, i will be in deep doo doo, aka, baal/diablo, and wont be in sit and target mode.

You cant get 3 3 3, only 3 3 2 to skills, I normally only see 3 1 3 though at best.

I, like you would settle for a 3 mage 3 mastery :) Nice to havea 7 Mastery!! (moan)

[Kyo]

You can try and aim for a +3 Summon. You never know it almost christmas ! :xmad:

[Salo]

You can try and aim for a +3 Summon. You never know it almost christmas ! :xmad:

can't have a +3 to a tree or +1 all or whatever like that on a white wand.

believe me, i would get one!!

[rickcarson]

Anyone have any ideas for these?

I thought Edge (bow with lvl 15 Thorns) might be an interesting option for an Act 1 Merc. A LoM skellies are quite a lot weaker than a fishymancers, so the thorns should be better for us than for them. Maybe it enables some low level Commando-mancers?

Whats the line? "I eat green berets for breakfast"? Maybe a 'cheap' Commando-mancer could be a GreenBeretMancer?

I'd be interested to see how the Vigour in Harmony effects minion movement. Go go moonwalking Magi! ;-)

But... with all the Sorcs going berko over Insight, its probably worth pointing out that it does more for a caster Necro than it does for the sorcs (except maybe E-shield?).

Spam that funky Bone Spear white boy.

[Salo]

Anyone have any ideas for these?

I thought Edge (bow with lvl 15 Thorns) might be an interesting option for an Act 1 Merc. A LoM skellies are quite a lot weaker than a fishymancers, so the thorns should be better for us than for them. Maybe it enables some low level Commando-mancers?

Whats the line? "I eat green berets for breakfast"? Maybe a 'cheap' Commando-mancer could be a GreenBeretMancer?

I'd be interested to see how the Vigour in Harmony effects minion movement. Go go moonwalking Magi! ;-)

But... with all the Sorcs going berko over Insight, its probably worth pointing out that it does more for a caster Necro than it does for the sorcs (except maybe E-shield?).

Spam that funky Bone Spear white boy.


lol yes it does in many ways. You lose a lot of skills, but that doesnt matter.

Meditation was a VERY powerful spell, too powerful for a runeword. Another one thats too powerful is Concentration, but they didnt do that thankfully. Fanaticism is kinda ok for minions, speeds up attacks but half the listed damage and really short radius, so at least it has something holding it back.

Speeding skellies on vigor is SICK to watch, my friend does it to my skellies, they go faster than a barb with 200 speed.

[Butchke]

Merc wielding lvl 12 conviction... Infinity

[Salo]

Merc wielding lvl 12 conviction... Infinity


THank goodness I dont play ladder, too cheesy for me. blech. All those runewords that never would have come out a year ago.

Yes, this would be sick to watch though :) i cant say that while i blech at this new word, a LOM build would be sick with it and LR pumped.

People discuss about breaking immunities and such, LOM doesnt need to as it has all elements, however, with both LR and CONV on jeez.

[Myrakh-2]

People discuss about breaking immunities and such, LOM doesnt need to as it has all elements

Let me disagree with that.

You can count out poison --- no argument there. The duration is insane, the damage is ridiculus --- less than 1 poison damage per second. If you want to kill something with poison... take your time and make sure you have the phone around so you can order pizza.
Poison mages are designed to prevent healing. They do an EXTREMELY good job there. They don't kill anything.

I would also count out cold. While cold does more damage than poison (well, picking up a rotten leaf and poking the monster with it does more damage than poison...), it's still very low damage. Cold mages are a compromise --- they provide chilling with pretty good duration exceeding 10 seconds in hell, but their damage is "kinda low".

So, for the "real damage" you are left with fire and lightning mages. And even they have problems when it comes to immunities: Lower Resist has the usual "1/5 efficiency" when used vs. immunes, meaing a 50% LR will bring a 100% monster down to 90%. NOT really a lot to build on. Since -enemy resist and +damage gear does not work on minions, there is no way to lower resistances further without having a conviction paladin around.

All of this DOES make immunities a concern. If a monster is fire or lightning immune, you loose a lot of your damage potential. If it's BOTH fire and lightning immune you loose most of your damage --- even if lower resist can break one of the immunities you aren't going to do a lot of damage, leaving only cold damage.

[jgreg7]

All of this DOES make immunities a concern. If a monster is fire or lightning immune, you lose a lot of your damage potential. If it's BOTH fire and lightning immune you lose most of your damage --- even if lower resist can break one of the immunities you aren't going to do a lot of damage, leaving only cold damage.While all your points are true, I don't think the situation is quite as bad as you suggest.

For these types of double immunes you also have magic damage from bone spear/spirit, plus physical damage from a rogue merc. As I said above, bone prison can hold these foes in place long enough for the cold + magic + physical to take them out. It obviously won't be as fast as with the fire + lightning added, but it isn't glacial either. [Probably no worse than any other build would do when facing monsters immune to their primary and secondary attacks.]

I like to keep one (or sometimes two) poison mages in the pack after unsummoning the rest. I figure they come in handy in just such a situation, to essentially PMH while the lower damage attacks add up.

[Kyo]

Why be content being Lord of mages when u can be lord of warriors and mages (Overlord General) Muahahahhahahah :xgrin:

[Wambat]

Why be content being Lord of mages when u can be lord of warriors and mages (Overlord General) Muahahahhahahah

For style mostly. Also if you want to hybrid, as this fellow is, with P'n'B skills you wont have enough skills for max warriors and mages.

[Kyo]

For style mostly. Also if you want to hybrid, as this fellow is, with P'n'B skills you wont have enough skills for max warriors and mages.

That why i said overlord general with my statement and it wasn't meant to be taken literally. :xx:

and besides a hybrid can go for mages or warriors with P&B and in that occasion he will have enough points :xrollseye

[Wambat]

Oh you figurative bast*rd!

[cuibono]

Let me just add, 20 into GM and 20 into Fire Golem really doesn't do much in terms of kill speed. So disappointing, after all that hard work leveling perhaps the weakest build in all LoD. Have not tried the Infinity runeword polearm for the merc though. On the plus side that FG never ever dies.

I have 20 SM, 20 RSM, 20 GM/FG, rest in LR.

[Salo]

Let me just add, 20 into GM and 20 into Fire Golem really doesn't do much in terms of kill speed. So disappointing, after all that hard work leveling perhaps the weakest build in all LoD. Have not tried the Infinity runeword polearm for the merc though. On the plus side that FG never ever dies.

I have 20 SM, 20 RSM, 20 GM/FG, rest in LR.

this is a courageous build that requires a huge fun level of +summons. the fire golem attracts the ends of the earth I'm imagining, so cursing isnt so furious, gloams dont do jack to you (yes i know they are lightning but man, your FG must have high res all and just tank like a mofo)

I wonder what happens if you put out a fanaticism runeword with him. i mean, it might be pricey but it has style seeing him swing a lot with a 65+ % LR.

LOM still owns a heck of a lot, doing well with it, just a tad slow when I go up to a new area too soon.

-----

I add now this: With LR and trang gloves on, Poison Explosion might be a good addition to this build. Yes it will weaken the bone spear or spirit, but not much more than say 400 pts, yet add a significant poison damage to the fray.

[cuibono]

In reply to above, I have +12 Summoning on this LoM; so 32 SM, RSM, GM, and FG. I imagine many have more skillers, but I consider 32 reasonable. NM is slow, but do-able. Hell is "do-able" in the sense that an Act Boss is "do-able" with lvl 1 Teeth and PMH -- i.e., most would not consider it "do-able" and no one would consider it fun.

Lvl 20 FG/GM is something all Nec lovers should try at least once though, I now consider it the best tank in Diablo, superior to even a synergized Grizzly, because not only does it not die, it sucks every mob to it like a vacuum, keeping you and your fragile Mages alive. I really do wish Blizz would make FG's dmg half fire, half physical, like CE.

[rickcarson]

In reply to above, I have +12 Summoning on this LoM; so 32 SM, RSM, GM, and FG. I imagine many have more skillers, but I consider 32 reasonable. NM is slow, but do-able. Hell is "do-able" in the sense that an Act Boss is "do-able" with lvl 1 Teeth and PMH -- i.e., most would not consider it "do-able" and no one would consider it fun.


Since everything has at least one immunity Hell is a bad thing for a LoM. Their damage goes down in Hell compared to what it was in Nightmare.

By comparison Skellimancers do more damage in hell than in Nightmare. This is because it solves one of the big problems with skellies, which is getting them 'face time' with the enemy. When they kill something, they run around, do a victory dance, snort a line of coke, go off and sulk etc. In Hell it takes longer to kill things, so they spend longer in combat, and less time (as a percentage) running around ignoring the rest of the combat.

Hardly anything is Physical Immune anymore.

Lvl 20 FG/GM is something all Nec lovers should try at least once though, I now consider it the best tank in Diablo, superior to even a synergized Grizzly, because not only does it not die, it sucks every mob to it like a vacuum, keeping you and your fragile Mages alive. I really do wish Blizz would make FG's dmg half fire, half physical, like CE.

Maybe combine a high level nigh unkillable Golem with the new Thorns aura runeword?

Fire Golem + Mages was never a build I seriously considered, because I thought Gumby was better (and cheaper!). And I value the 40 skill points more elsewhere.

Also I never really considered the Mages to be 'fragile'. But then I like a good mix of Cold + Fire + Lightning, despite what other people have said.
I don't think that Cold damage is as weak as they report. My recollection is that it is roughly 2/3rds the Fire damage, which is about 5% better than the lightning.

I also have a fondness for the best defensive merc bar none: Act 3 Cold Merc (much better than Act 2 Holy Freeze). I'm also quite happy to use my 3-4 skillies as cannon fodder, or explore other defensive options.

Recently with my various Lord of Mages I've added 1 point (or more) of Revives, giving me half a dozen (or 20+) Revives to provide additional blocking and smackdown. That gives me 10+ minions who do melee to 'block' for the Mages, without even really trying.

The necromancer has the most and the best when it comes to defensive options. So you shouldn't complain about Mages being 'fragile' you should get creative!

[Mad Mantis]

I don't think that Cold damage is as weak as they report. My recollection is that it is roughly 2/3rds the Fire damage, which is about 5% better than the lightning.

With the numbers reported by cuibono I'm getting the following damage numbers:

Cold Damage: 161 - 164 (ø162.5)
Cold Duration: 11.75 Seconds
Fire damage: 283 - 287 (ø285)
Lightning damage: 47 - 448 (ø247.5)

So Cold damage is a bit more than half the damage from Fire attacks.

[Salo]

With the numbers reported by cuibono I'm getting the following damage numbers:

Cold Damage: 161 - 164 (ø162.5)
Cold Duration: 11.75 Seconds
Fire damage: 283 - 287 (ø285)
Lightning damage: 47 - 448 (ø247.5)

So Cold damage is a bit more than half the damage from Fire attacks.


I agree with having cold mages, and more than one. so far, 2 of them works great, not all of them focus on one monster, and running around, many get chilled. also, for act bosses, you never know whats going to die, and oddly, i found these guys, with decrep and slow from merc weapon, really saved the day more than the damage dealers. bosses go to a crawl and dont snap out of it.