Skellemancer in a party

[DyetCoque]

So, got a lan party coming up and they'll be five of us playing.

Now, we're talking about classes and one of the guys is like, "You can't be a summonaner, too many people on the screen."

Any thoughts on that?

-DC

[Myrakh-2]

It might be a bit confusing when there are more party members than monsters, but that shouldn't happen too often. They just have to learn to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys...

[Stompwampa]

the lag shouldn't be bad if it's a lan party either...since it'll all be run on your local TCP/IP connection.

I've played LAN games where all of us are summoners...having 50 skeletons wander the screen is quite a site...nothing survives more than a couple seconds...

[Mammel248]

Summoners are among the most party friendly characters. They just have the reputation of lagging because some n00bs have 56k modem or 233 MHz comp. No wonder they lag then (well I had 233 MHz comp so I know the feeling :grin:)


If you wanna be Summoner in LAN party, just BE a Summoner. :evil:

[AnimeCraze]

Tell your friends to use direct2D, just in case. Anyways, if you want to use a summoner, get a fana pally or something like that in the game.

[waflob]

I don't find that lots of skellies clutter up the screen. What I really find distracting is wind druids. The hurrricane animation makes it really difficult to see what is going on under the swirling leaves (to me, anyway).

DelBoy

[MikeFord]

I gotta say as much as I like D2, it would NOT be my first choice for a lan party, and I haven't tried it or seen it played in any of the lan parties I have helped with, so maybe I am wrong.

Its a party, play what you LIKE to play, summoner is really fairly essential in most groups. Having just finished some Hell Baal games where we had two summoners, that wall of fighting bones made all the non melee people very very happy.

Lesson one for LAN parties is be prepared. Label all your stuff, get plenty of cables, TEST the lan as soon as possible with something simple, don't even think about playing on the floor, only use BACKUP copies of CDs, backup all important files on any PC you "might" be using FIRST. Have some fallback options if even major things don't work right.

Good Luck, LAN parties are great.

[McCain123]

If played the right way, people will love to have a summoner in their run. First of all, don´t go crazy with summons. Even if you can rise 50+, stick with 5 for some tanking and more safety. Secondly, make use of your curses:

amp - for fast melee killing
decryptify - stops teleing monsters
dim vision - shuts down all non bosses so party can engage one by one
lower res - casters will love you for this
lifetap - merc or melee char in trouble? cast it and they are fine
terror - good against dolls surronding portals