Skeleton Necromancers

[Speedwrath]

Just a quick question related to Skeleton Necromancers. This also includes Skeleton Mages.

Are they any good? Do they do any damage to be worth it past Nightmare? I'm talking about using Skeletons combined with Amplify Damage or an Iron Maiden of some sort. I'm just wondering because I got a level 50 Necromancer with no skill points at all and I was wondering what type of Necromancer I should make, and I wanted to know if I specced a Skeleton Summoner, if I would do any decent damage.

If someone that has a Skeleton Summoner Necromancer could also post how much damage each of their Skeleton does, that would be very helpful.

[Elgar]

Skelimancers are very strong. My first character through hell this ladder was a skeli, because they require very little in terms of rare items. Now you do kinda have to do more than the skels and amp to get through hell at a decent pace, and the necro has the perfect way: corpse explosion. I also didnt use the mages, as i felt they didnt do enough damage, but i still summon them as PI help and distractions for monsters. I dont know the skel damage, but im sure it depends on your skill level. Id suggest looking in the necro forum for the "fishymancer" guide.

[Pherdnut]

Skeletons work more as tanks unless you get really good gear. The damage they do is quite good but they swing around once a second and their accuracy is terrible without runeword auras to help that situation. At 35/35 in SM RS they do about 450 points of damage before your might merc's aura kicks in and amplify damage doubles that. Most of the time, your might merc will get the first kill and Corpse Explode will do the real damage, however, but when they gang up on enemies they tend to die fast. Try 'em out. They start off as one of the most survivable builds in the game, capable of going anywhere they want and can end up being one of the fastest killers.

I think mages are worth it. They don't make great primary attackers but the damage does add up and it's good to have a solid ranged attack that you don't even have to put any effort into using. Just keep the poison and ice mages to 1 each since they don't do as much damage but provide chilling and prevent heal.

[Noodle]

I'll second my colleague Phernut, and add that a few revives can be a huge help in certain spots. Urdar type monsters have Crushing Blow, which is wonderful against bosses. Ghost type creatures can stack up and help out in areas too narrow for your army to effectively gang up on monsters, such as the Arcane Sanctuary or the Maggot Lair.

A very good Pindleskin runner, as you can head out there and just raise the dead warriors littering the landscape. No need to rely on your merc for the first kill.

- Noodle

[stkrause]

The part about how well a skellimancer does in hell is already answered, I can only second the posts above (even if I do prefer a skellie-bone hybrid).

That leaves me to ask the question (no offence meant): How the heck does one get a char with no skillpoints to level 50 while not knowing one of the strongest (in terms of surviveability) builds in the game? :scratch:

*stkrause

[Speedwrath]

Just leech. Tristrun, Tomb Runs, Cowruns, Baal runs. Go on Quest games. For Normal I just got a sword and went slashing things.

[mhl12]

Just a quick question related to Skeleton Necromancers. This also includes Skeleton Mages.

Don't go for mages. They aren't as strong as regular skellies by a long shot. Max out summon skelleton, skelleton mastery, one point in bone armor, all curses, summon resist, clay golem, and golem mastery.

For more help, try the guides in the necro forum.

[Pherdnut]

Not as strong as doesn't mean not worth having. These are minions. It's not like attack and magic skills or the golems where you can only use one or the other.

It only takes 46 points to get maxed skeletons, amp, and 1 point in CE. If you're going with revives and the full curse tree (recommended) the lack of synergies for bone or poison skills aren't really going to be worth it. There is nothing wrong with having another dozen minions or so that do ranged elemental damage. with around 15 plus skills fire and lightning mages do around 300 points of damage each. That adds up when they are all firing on the same targets and they're great for tackling targets that can only be hit at range like tentacle beasts and also help out with hard physical immunes when there aren't any handy corpses nearby. Think of mages like Thunderstorm. It's another 3,000 or so points being dished out every second. Furthermore poison and ice are great for providing another slow source in addition to Decrepify and the Clay Golem and preventing heal on quick-healing critters like Diablo Clone.

You could use those mage points for bone skills with marrowwalks but would need to be firing twice a second with bone spirit constantly to equal mage firepower. However, you have to stop to cast curses and corpse explode. They just keep plugging away until everything is dead or they are.

[Myrakh-2]

Are they any good?

A Skelemancer is my main playchar (http://diablo.cable.nu/Syndur.html) --- the only one who can do anything in the game with no major issues (granted, with just 2 chars, the other one being a bowazon, this doesn't mean much...).

So yes, Skeletons rock. Mages are a bit weaker; you have to know what they can do, and play accordingly. I play a pure Skelemancer, so I use both types. Other players just use the warriors to free skillpoints for something else.

You also need +skills. The more, the better.

Act 2 Might merc (nightmare offensive) is a must, for the added damage.

EDIT: As for damage... I don't feel like doing the math now. Skill tab for skellies says 548-552 damage (Raise Skeleton lvl 38), which already includes the +245% from lvl 40 Skeleton Mastery. Take out the 245% to get base damage, then add those 245% and the 290% from the Might aura (lvl 91 merc with +7 skills) to get the final damage (before amp, of course). There are 14 of those skellies, plus 14 mages (lvl 37). Of those 2x14, I usually play with 2x13 since weaponswitching to Gull kills one of each type. I hardly ever use Revives, which are at lvl 16 (or 14 when switched).

The lvl 29 Corpse Explosion is supposed to cover a radius of 12 yards.

EDIT 2: I'm currently a bit weak on the resists --- 59/68/68/75. Should probably replace some MF charms with resist charms... still, considering that I don't have runewords at my disposal, I think the build is doing very well. I even use some magic items :-)

[Speedwrath]

Right. Thanks for the help, guys. I'll still be looking into a Poison Necro to compare but this looks promising. :)

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

Poison or Bone necromancers are better for relatively rich players.
Summoner is one of the cheapest build. Even with crap items they can be viable.
A note on skeleton mages:
some of them will spawn as poison attackers (green lights on their hands). Unsummon them, and raise more mages, until you have as less poison mages as possible. This is because at higher skill levels their damage increases, but the duration of poison increases as well. As a result, high-level poison mages do crappy damage per second. Fire and lightning ones are best, it's true.

[Myrakh-2]

This is because at higher skill levels their damage increases, but the duration of poison increases as well. As a result, high-level poison mages do crappy damage per second.

This is intentional.

Poison mages are there to prevent healing --- when I'm dealing with dclone, I can just go elsewhere to get skellies, and leave him sitting around, and he won't heal: that's because my poison mages have a duration of far more than 500 seconds (it's been a while since I last checked it...)

Cold mages do "medium" damage; their main use is for the chilling. Duration is pretty long as well --- 1/10th of poison, IIRC, but further reduced by /4 in hell.

Fire and lightning mages have no other use; consequently they have the highest damage.

[yelopen]

wait, so for skellimancer

you need

20 raise skele
20 skele mastery

what else you need to max/put points in?

EDIT: ino mhl12 already said some, but just making sure
do you need revive at all?

[Elgar]

wait, so for skellimancer

you need

20 raise skele
20 skele mastery

what else you need to max/put points in?

EDIT: ino mhl12 already said some, but just making sure
do you need revive at all?

1 point most/all curses, clay golem, golem mastery, summon resist, revive, teeth (for prereq)
1 (for prereq) or max mages
max Corpse explosion

thats ~30-50 SP + the 40 for SM/RS. I tend to not pump the mages, and tend to dump a few extra points in amp damage to get the bigger radius.

[stkrause]

Base build:

20 raise skellie
20 skellie mastery
1 claw golem
1 golem mastery
1 summon resist
1 amp
1 corpse explosion

The rest depends on your build :rolleyes: read the guides in the necro forum, there are many possibilities.

You don't NEED revives, but then again, if you're building a pure summoner, you have lots of points to spend, so why not 1 point in revives? If you make a summon-bone-hybrid, you'll need every point, so stick with skellies.

*stkrause

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

to Myrakh-2:
did anybody actually TEST in the real game, that Poison = Prevent monster heal, no matter the damage?
Isn't it working this way: regeneration is healing a monster over time, but poison damages him over time, and if posion damage/sec is higher than regen/sec, then it works like Prevent Monster Heal, while it's not really the same.

[HulkaModock]

i've played quite a few necromancers and i find if you use stkrause's suggestion plus max CE it does quite well. skeletons just mainly there to get you first corpse and be a tank while you getting your main dmg from an amped ce. I've found that revives and mages aren't really worth it because of their poor damage (both rev and mage) and rev's worthless AI. With max SM you will be summoning enough skeletons that more tanks aren't really necessary and more physical dmg from your minions isn't necessary cause CE takes care of it.

Just my two cents from playing quite a few skelliemancer variants.

The fishymancer guide is undoubtedly the best imo.
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=349093&page=1&pp=10

[Myrakh-2]

to Myrakh-2:
did anybody actually TEST in the real game, that Poison = Prevent monster heal, no matter the damage?

I did it myself, although only for dclone. I can't comment on other monsters, but if poison works on dclone, I tend to assume it works on everything since he probably has the highest regeneration rate.

I even try to get only cold and poison mages when dealing with the clone --- with 95% resists the elemental damage is insignificant, so only the secondary attributes are needed.

EDIT: this is, of course, under the assumption that reports about dclone being fully healed after a trip to town are actually correct. After the first stage of dealing with dclone (mages and crushing blow revives) I leave him sitting for quite some time, since I'm returning to town to resurrect the merc, then I go somewhere else to get my full skeleton army up and the might aura activated before returning to the dclone. And he has *never* healed a single HP.

EDIT-2: the other assumption is that CB-revives don't have PMH :-)

[jiansonz]

to Myrakh-2:
did anybody actually TEST in the real game, that Poison = Prevent monster heal, no matter the damage?
Isn't it working this way: regeneration is healing a monster over time, but poison damages him over time, and if posion damage/sec is higher than regen/sec, then it works like Prevent Monster Heal, while it's not really the same.

See this post (http://forums.diabloii.net/showpost.php?p=3524433&postcount=299) (the sidenote starting about 3/5 from the beginning of the post). If that isn´t enough proof, I don´t know what is...

[Elgar]

i've played quite a few necromancers and i find if you use stkrause's suggestion plus max CE it does quite well. skeletons just mainly there to get you first corpse and be a tank while you getting your main dmg from an amped ce. I've found that revives and mages aren't really worth it because of their poor damage (both rev and mage) and rev's worthless AI. With max SM you will be summoning enough skeletons that more tanks aren't really necessary and more physical dmg from your minions isn't necessary cause CE takes care of it.

Just my two cents from playing quite a few skelliemancer variants.

The fishymancer guide is undoubtedly the best imo.
http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=349093&page=1&pp=10

For the 2 skill points to get revives i find its worth it. I only use revives for end bosses where i cant get more skels easily, ie hell Diablo, Ancients and Baal. Reviving the balrog types (easy to do for diablo or baal) help a lot as the skels die quickly enough but the rogs have enough life to take a beating.
Elsewhere the permanence of the skels is superior to the revive.

id also strongly recomend decrepify, almost to the point of it being required for the build. Gumby + decrep = very slow boss.

[Rolland Salvathorre]

I have given these skills into my skelimancer:
20 raise skeleton
20 skeleton mage
20 skeleton mastery
20 corpse ecplosion
1 clay golem

I used mercenary from the second act with might aura. Skeletons were very strong, I did not have any problems. If you want to try HardCore character, Skelimancer is very good for it....

[Myrakh-2]

For the 2 skill points to get revives i find its worth it.

Definitely, even though for a Skelemancer it's 3 skillpoints, or even 4: Blood Golem, Iron Golem and Revive = 3 points
Skeleton Mage = 1 more point, if you don't use mages

[Speedwrath]

OK I finally got my Necromancer finished. Here's how I put it:

20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Raise Skeleton Mage
20 Golem Mastery
1 Summon Resist
1 Clay Golem, Blood Golem and Iron Golem
1 Revive

1 Teeth
1 Corpse Explosion
1 Bone Armor

1 Amplify Damage

With Trang-Oul and Arm of King Leoric, it boosts my skills up, so even those 1-point skills become useful, like Corpse Explosion, which I'll be maxing now. I need a +3 Summon Amulet and some skillers, but I'm doing OK. Iron Golems make good tank. 5500 Iron Golem life now. :D 12 Skeletons, 11 Mages, 8 Revives. Amplify Damage, Fire Wall with good 1k damage, currently 5 radius Corpse Explosion... HAHAHA! Nothing stands in my way!!!

[QuestionMark]

You guy's think this build could work well? Any advice would be appreciated.

20 Raise Skeleton
20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Corpse Explosion
10 Summon resist
5 Amplify Damage

1 Clay Golem
1 Blood Golem
1 Iron Golem
1 Fire Golem
1 Revive
1 Golem Mastery
1 Teeth
1 Bone Armor
1 Dim vision
1 Attract
1 Decrepify
1 Iron Maiden
1 Life Tap
1 Lower Resist

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

Myrakh-2, jiansonz, thanks for info.
to Speedwrath:
I beleive, Golem Mastery 20 is a little bit overkill. You can expect about +10 to summoning even with average gear. On GM 11 your Golem will live just fine and move fast enough. More points in CE or Bone Armor synergies is better IMO.
to QuestionMark:
AD - 1 point, no need for more. With some +skills it will have enough duration/radius.
10 Summon resist. Assume about +10 to summoning skills. SR lvl 11 gives +59% resists, level 20 - only 7% more. Waste of points, IMO - if summons are dying quickly with 59% resists, there'll be pretty much the same with 66%.
Corpse explosion and/or Bone Armor synergies once again.

[Speedwrath]

Hmm... maybe you're right. Maxing Golem Mastery is a little too much. :/ However my Skeletons are lasting more than my Golems! lol And this is with 1 point in Summon Resist (+8 from equipment). If they did more damage, I could kill Baal in Hell, but after like 5 minutes of fighting him they start to die. :(

[Myrakh-2]

Hmm... maybe you're right. Maxing Golem Mastery is a little too much. :/ However my Skeletons are lasting more than my Golems! lol And this is with 1 point in Summon Resist (+8 from equipment). If they did more damage, I could kill Baal in Hell, but after like 5 minutes of fighting him they start to die. :(

My Skelemancers "always" start with TO, AoKL, +2 Marrows and a +3 summoning amulet, and they are doing just fine --- so I guess instead of the wasted skillpoints in Golem Mastery, the +3 summoning amulet is the thing you really need.

Having skellies die on Baal is really an accomplishment --- it's not that easy. Did you cast Gumby and Decrepify on him? Do you have a Might merc? Is your level reasonably high (chance to hit/chance to get hit takes your level into account)?