Summoner Dilemma

[Elia]

I have a level 84 Summoner with 22 unused skillpoints, where should i put them? Mages? Bone Armor Synergies?

My Setup (+ Skills):

SM 20 + 30
RS 20 + 28
Clay Golem, Sumon Resist, Golem Mastery, Skeleton Mage, Blood Golem, Iron Golem, Revive 1 + 24
Teeth 1 + 12
Corpse Explosion 20 + 12
Amplify Damage, Weaken, Terror, Decrepify 1 + 14

Help!

[gotfocus]

I always like having all the curses in my tool box to use when certain situations arise.

I also consider mages a good choice to help deal with the physical immunes and provide added defensive coverage, however, many people will probably recommend not using them.

It just depends on what you need;
more physical defense? - bone armor
elemental sources? - mages

[Evrae Altana]

I went for mages. More meatshields FTW. And they look pretty.

[SirBeetle]

omg I hate the 20 in ce. But for your situation, skele mages are the god.. And I'm not kidding. getting 15-17 of these dudes out just pwns.

[HarbingersOfSkulls]

I love my mages...every summoner build I make gets maxxed mages after skeletons and mastery. They are very useful.

HoS

[twisturwhig]

omg I hate the 20 in ce.

I find you to be thoroughly mistaken, as i find CE is one of the best crowd killers in the entire game. Its a great skill cause it stays effective throughout all difficulties, regardless of 8 ppl or not, cause it stays balanced with monsters' life.

Now back to the question at hand.... I'd have to agree with Evrae, since you maxed mastery , id suggest maxing mages, and putting only ONE point into revives. Your item + to skills will give you around 10 of em. There simply isnt any better option then mages at this point my friend.

[zuke]

My summoner is level 90. It was my first one and although he can kick serious butt at pvm I'd do a few things differently. I put a single pt in bone armor/wall/prison/spear & the 3 poison skills thinking that my +skills gear would boost them all and give decent synergy. In reality it didn't really work and so it was a waste. Due to that and putting 3 or 4 pts in revive, my mages aren't maxed yet. If/when I do it over, I'll simply max mage and forget anything bone or poison related. Even still, my 14 skellies/10 mages handle everything just fine.

And yes, 20 in CE is a must for a summoner - I don't care what anyone else says. In hell, the purpose of minions is to bring down 1 monster and then let amped CE do the rest.

[Kirah]

Greetings and salutations fellow practitioners of the undead!

The summoner build is very frugal with skill points. I went with SM, Skellie, Skellie Mages. The one point wonders were all the rest (curses, Gumby, skellie resists, revive, CE). With all the +skills, I've found that CE only needed a point. I've still got points left also and am considering if I should raise my golem mastery or follow other advice to increase my CE radius. The radius is actually pretty good right now so I'm not really in any hurry to use up the points. I put a point into bone armor, but didn't use any other points in the bone/poison path. Gumby doesn't die much and manages to slow down the boss.
I'm glad you went with mages. They look cool and provide additional monster cover. Their poison does a pretty good job of slowing some of the monster bosses insane healing rate. The extra elemental damage is nice for those PI monsters and those monsters that hide behind barriers. My biggest problem is with those funky gloams (or whatever they're called) and the Vipers in the halls of the dead and their wierd poison clouds. I've been using the wisp ring, but I still take a pounding whenever faced with a gloam pack (esp. when fanaticized or champion gloams). Some Necros complain about serpent mages and their bone spear, but they've nevered bothered me much (shrug).
Does anyone use bone wall as an additional shield? Will 1 point be enough to survive in hell? How about Bone shield? I've been dim visioning the gloams and archer types, but wonder if any of the bone pathway can be useful in missle control.

I'm still pretty newbie to the summoner necro, but find him to be one of my favorite builds (Nightfish guide is excellent!).

cheers, and good hunting!
Kirah

[Hipknowsis]

In my eyes, there are two types of pure summoners: Warlords and Lichlords. In the first, you sort of just walk around, casting Curses and Corpse Explosion. You're using only Skeleton Warriors, and playing in parties. In the second, you're using the infamous "mage blob" technique, mainly teleporting, having less time to cast Curses/Corpse Explosion. It's a more hands-on approach.

Lichlords CAN uses Skeleton Warriors and make some use of them, such as teleporting directly on to bosses. Warlords CAN NOT use Skeleton Mages and make use of them. It's a myth. Without the "mage blob", their damage is pitiful and spread out. People who do that are basically just wasting their skill points. I would much rather max out Amplify Damage or Lower Resist for Warlords and Lichlords respectively. Maybe max Golem Mastery, or even pump up some poison spells (20/10/20 Dagger/Explosion/Nova). Bone/Summon is unreiable.

If I were you, I wouldn't touch mages, unless you shift your focus into the Lichlord. It's more efficient to pump Amplify Damage, and get the rest of your Curses to 1.

Summary: Mage Blob + Warriors = GOOD. Warrior Focus + Mages = STUPID. Poison/Summon / Commando are viable. A simple way is to just max GM/Amp.

That's my 2 cents.

*Hipknowsis

EDIT: While I may seem to contradict myself by saying that Lichlords + Warriors are good because of boss teleporting, they are good because they are good in a blob in other situations too. Personally, I like to blob right on top of enemies in a series with my Lichlord. You're not going to do that with a Warlord.

[zuke]

Why wouldn't you do that with what you call a "Warlord"?

I tele on top of monsters all the time with my little army of merc/gumby/skelliewarriors/mages/revives. Said monster then dies within moments - it's the closest thing you can get to direct damage for a fishymancer.

[Hipknowsis]

That defeats the purpose of maxing Corpse Explosion. Basically, the first example stays back and uses CE, while his Warrior slice down the enemies. The second example does the teleporting right on to monsters and cursing, disregarding CE outside of boss fights.

Looking back, I worded that post all wrong. Just pay attention to this one please. I adamantly stand by my statement that Fishymancers have no use for Mages, and the telestacking Necromancers can use both to good effect.

I hope you all understand what I am trying to say. :-)

*Hipknowsis

[twisturwhig]

In addition/support to what you're saying my friend, In HC, mages are a must if you are summoner, teleporter or not, cause they cover the rear.

However, i must disagree with you. After maxing mastery, I think mages is points better spent then pumping golem mastery, or bone shield/wall.

[Hipknowsis]

I'm not going to argue that they are useful in HC as meatshields- but in SC, the meatshields are somewhat unnecessary. It is key for a summoner to stay back, and not be overwhelmed under any circumstances. There are a few areas in the game where they may be needed... Travincal/Durance come to mind. Lots of fast/sneaky enemies that can get behind you and kill you before you can say TELEPORT. Maxing Amplify Damage would be my priority after Corpse Explosion is done, and everything get fuzzy from then on. I have been looking in to Poison/Summon in the past few days, and that seems like a good outlet for your excess skill points. If you really want the meatshields, one point along iwth +skills should probably be sufficient. I'd say you'd get around 8 mages.

Regarding immunes: Doesn't Amplify Damage remove pretty much every physical immune in the game anyways?

I just don't see the point in maxing mages, seriously. The meatshield argument is void, you don't need 15+ mages as meatshields. If I start dying while soloing Players 8 full clears of WSK/Throne/Baal, I'll look into it. I've had one scare in the past few weeks. Lister spawned with some beastly mods, on top of me somehow not being able to break his physical immune. Luckily there were plenty of corpses from the previous waves to make fried dinosaur of him before he totally annihilated me.

*Hipknowsis

[Mad Mantis]

Regarding immunes: Doesn't Amplify Damage remove pretty much every physical immune in the game anyways?

Stone Skin on monsters with high natural Physical resist, or natural Physical immunity and Physical immunity on Possessed monsters can't be broken.

[twisturwhig]

I agree 100% with mantis. In SC, no need for mages whatsoever. Ill even go a step further and say that bone armor+wall+prison is silly unless you are using as spirit/spear synergy. Poison nova + synergys are skills best spent after mastery+skellies.

[Hipknowsis]

Hey, I'm not Mantis. :-(

Yeah. If you've got a Death's Web lying around, go for Poison! If you don't, I can't suggest that with a straight face- Lower Resist won't make your damage high enough alone. Maxing CE/Amp would be more beneficial, due to the lack of that giant -50 PR.

*Hipknowsis

[Elia]

I already have 15 in amplify damage with only one hard point..and it covers all the screen. Won't be other points wasted?

[Koshio]

From my experiences, although limited to act 1 (I basically just run pit with my summoner) I've found mages to be basically useless. Hell, my skeletons' damage is useless, too.. but my bone armor, so far up to 200 damage, helps a hell of a lot. Those arrows are damn hard to see, and they whack me for often 200 per arrow from just a normal monster. I can't really see mages being of any use ever, espescially with my playstyle because skeletons + revives are enough meatshielding right there, and corpse explosion does all the killing.
So, I say, build up some bone armour.

[Hipknowsis]

A 26 yard Amplify Damage will not only just cover the screen, but affect monsters that you can't even see yet. This allows you to just spam Corpse Explosion for a while.

*Hipknowsis

[SirBeetle]

I'm not going to argue that they are useful in HC as meatshields- but in SC, the meatshields are somewhat unnecessary. It is key for a summoner to stay back, and not be overwhelmed under any circumstances. There are a few areas in the game where they may be needed... Travincal/Durance come to mind. Lots of fast/sneaky enemies that can get behind you and kill you before you can say TELEPORT. Maxing Amplify Damage would be my priority after Corpse Explosion is done, and everything get fuzzy from then on. I have been looking in to Poison/Summon in the past few days, and that seems like a good outlet for your excess skill points. If you really want the meatshields, one point along iwth +skills should probably be sufficient. I'd say you'd get around 8 mages.

Regarding immunes: Doesn't Amplify Damage remove pretty much every physical immune in the game anyways?

I just don't see the point in maxing mages, seriously. The meatshield argument is void, you don't need 15+ mages as meatshields. If I start dying while soloing Players 8 full clears of WSK/Throne/Baal, I'll look into it. I've had one scare in the past few weeks. Lister spawned with some beastly mods, on top of me somehow not being able to break his physical immune. Luckily there were plenty of corpses from the previous waves to make fried dinosaur of him before he totally annihilated me.

*Hipknowsis

The key of a summoner isn't to just sitback, I've gotten mine to lvl90 and I couldn't see why not maxing mages would help WHATSOEVER. When you have 17 mages casting anyhting, monsters die (also RULE PVP). I just tele around, cast amp dmg, and tele into what needs to die (including ubers whom get decrepified). I find it funny on how you think maxing amplify damage is helpful at all. Putting more than a single point into any curse is pretty terrible (unless your a like holy fire aura necro or something and do lower res). maxing corpse explosion is also pretty wasteful since the only places to level up in this game really don't have a ton of monsters anymore (nothing like cows back in the day)... Then again, you'll have like ~20 points leftover to throw in something fun after maxing your useful summoning skills. I just threw mine in revives so I can technically summon 80 somthing monsters as the moment for some f'd up dueling purposes.

idk, I just can't see not maxing mages, they're way too useful.


You know, I just looked, am I the only one dealing good dmg in the 800's (WITHOUT AURA BONUSES) with skeles? c'mon people +25 to skills isnt that hard, lvl 30 skele's and mages are useless, 40+ are incredible.

[garion]

put 1 into bone armor and the rest into mages....