Bootstrap Summoner, which items to trade for first?

[MikeFord]

Bootstrap means I don't have a higher char to get me items, I generally have to scrounge gems and cube them to Pgems to trade for what I need. Anything that isn't too critical, that I would replace later anyway, gets skipped unless it just drops into my lap.

Homunculus with a P Diamond tops my want list, and guessing all other necros too, so it requires patience, and worse if you don't put aside "most" of what it takes to trade for one, you will miss opportunities to trade for one.

Bone Wand shopping never stops, great way to spend a couple minutes when you want to perm a game prior to muling, plus I shop for staves for my enchantress at the same time.

Arm of king Leoric, unless I find some insane WHITE first.

Merc Weapon and Armor.
I hope I never have to choose between a Homunculus and some neat etheral weapon for my merc. Which I would get would depend on how neat the weapon was, and how soon and long my merc could make good use of it. Crown of theives is often the very first item I trade for, and the rest is just best of whats available, since the merc MUST be updated several times.

Trang sets bits for me next.
MF items on switch as I find good items, or cheap to trade for.

When I am old and rich, its all about the runewords, again Merc first.

[LordCinos]

Slightly offtopic, but what kind of stuff do you need to have to get a Homunculus, a Trang set or an Enigma?

(as in, what do they trade for?)

[Evrae Altana]

Why not try to buy the entire Trang set. The trophy, gloves, and armor can be bought for pretty cheap. The helm and belt may cost you a bit more, but it's still not entirely unaffordable. Then stick Arm of King Leoric in your weapon slot and you have a pretty nice summoner.

[Myrakh-2]

I always got my trangs with pgems, although occasionally you'll have to shell out some lowish runes such as LEM for things like belt or helmet.

Everything else I *needed* (+3 summon amulet, preferably with something useful as 2nd like MF), AoKL and Marrowwalks went for pgems. So did Gull. Summon skillers went for PUL or 20pgems. Rings I always used magics with +mana/+mf; never had the need to trade for these.

Homunculus goes for pgems as well (needed one for my bonemancer).

Enigma I never used (I don't use dupes), but AFAIK it goes for a bunch of IST runes.

All this was 1.10 European ladder; things might be different today, but since the game hasn't changed I would be expecting prices like in 1.10.

[MikeFord]

Why don't I ....

I after a full week of leveling, messing around, and scrounging every gem I see, I now have about 24 Pgems, which is not enough for a Homunculus. For trade values see the trade values threads, but a WAG is that between 50 and 100 pgems will be required for most of what I want short of the runewords or fancy etheral merc bits.

The reason for not getting armor first, is that if I am REAL carefull my now 72 summoner with -100 in most resists can still play in some parts of hell difficulty with 367 defense. Penetrating missile attacks kill me on the first hit, but as long as I don't get hit, skells do OK, ditto merc, and revives even better. If I could get a nice weapon for my merc, I would even suffer longer without upgrading my armor or the big H.