poison/summon hybrid

[zooply]

Hello. Working on a poison/summon necro. I plan to max the poison skills. My questions is concerning the summon skills, which I see going 1 of 2 routes:

1. max rs, and put one point into every other summon skill and use the left-over points on sm, which with points in pnb, curses, and summons, would lead to a sm of 13

2. same skills in pnb & curses, but for summons rs is maxed, a point into ra, and a point into clay. this would lead to a sm of 18

My question is which one is more viable. Revives are a big help sometimes where skellies normally get killed, but with only 13 sm and the fact that the build will focus more on helping boost the poison, is it worth it? maybe the revives won't die, but the skellies may end up getting eaten alive alot more often.:undecided:

In 2. the skellies would be much tougher, but again won't be too tough cause of less focus on pumping the skellies, and would get killed in areas where you'd probably need revives. (although they're smarter & don't disappear:tongue: )

So far I've been leaning towards a higher mastery (although beforehand I thought of using revives). I realize that with this build the skellies will be more of meat shields while poison will be doing the most damage, but I still want whichever is stronger and more viable.

p.s. read the infinity vs. pride thread. how bad *** would it be to put a beast on a summon nec and have the might merc carry an infinity?:grin:

Any help on this is much appreciated.

[Mad Mantis]

My question is which one is more viable.

Welcome Newcomer to The Darkness. Grab a brew (http://www.holland-at-home.nl/images/bier.jpg) and feel free to raise some corpses.

Since you are just using them for meatshields the first path is more viable. You get more meatshields and the loss of a measily three points in SM isn't that noticeable.

[zooply]

stumbles back in drunk*

<nitpick> Actually I'd be losing about 5 points </nitpick>

Still not sure. I was planning on having it a bit half & half. The summons wouldn't be completely meatshields, just more so than a pure summon nec. Or who knows maybe I'll make them complete meatshields with focus only on poison lol. What's the one program that lets you test out point allocation on single player? Maybe that'll help me decide. =P

By the by anyone know when ladder reset is coming for useast?

[MuhammadJihad]

Fully poison
with a point in revives
1 fire golem

all you need.

[Hipknowsis]

If he's using summons as meatshields, Revives won't be able to keep up with a Necromancer doing drive-by Poison Novas.

If I were you, I would just shoot for 10 SM. You won't be getting to 99 any time soon. Definitely get Summon Resist and Fire Golem. That's all I can really say right now, I might edit this post later when I am... well, awake.

P.S.: Regarding Single-Player testing: Google 'Zonfire'. Not sure if I can post links to that here. Regardless, I'm too lazy to go fetch it myself. :-)

*Hipknowsis

[Bladewind]

Fully poison
with a point in revives
1 fire golem

all you need.

You seem to assume that everyone is going for a pvp build... well i can tell you this guy is not.:rolleyes:

[Mad Mantis]

Not sure if I can post links to that here.

You can't.

[zooply]

Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I'm kind of iffy about downloading programs like zonfire, cause of all the trojans pass around, or the people that take harmless ones and bug it with keyloggers. (even though I know asked for the program lol)

[zooply]

Hmm.. used that d2items skill placer, and the more I think about it the more I think I'll have to side with mantis on this. 5 skill points doesn't seem to make TOO much difference in mastery, and with the extra points i'll be able to put a point 1 point into every skill in the summon tree.

Also, I'm going to go with the 3 trang pieces (belt gloves & shield). The guide from the mouldy tome suggests to put points into dex to max block, but with a trang shield is that still viable? I'd think it'd take alot of dex points to max block on it as compared with a homunculus.

[Mew]

Okay let me give you some advice here...There is really no point to being poisen AND summon, you either become summon......or poisen.........Heres why you want to choose either....

You go your planned path. You either don't have enough points for poisen and then it'll suck, or you don't have enough points for a lot of summons, so they will suck for damage and suck for quantity, now if you choose just poisen, you can get off with this

20 Poisen Dagger
20 Poisen Explosion
20 Poisen Nova
10 Bone Armor
10 Bone Wall
20 Bone Prison

That will let you trap your enemies, and then poisen the **** out of them, and with level 10 bone wall for leveling, it'll be quite enough, and level 20 for dueling, youll just plain rape.

Now as for summoning, I reccomend this...

20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Raise Skeletal Mage
20 Revive
10 Amplify Damage
10 Corpse Explosion

The rest can go into amp or bone armor, youll be able to do tons of extra damage, and wide spread, with corpse explosion, have many powerful minions, and just plain rape everything to no end.

If you go for both, you either don't have enough poisen and oto much summon, or not enough summon and too much poisen, so just pick one or the other, or frankly, you'll just suck.

[Socialism]

What is it with people and the whole "MY WAY IS TEH BEST, U DO ANYTHING ELSE U SUCKZOR" attitude? The original poster was looking for some intelligent insights into how to improve his current project; this was OBVIOUSLY not a "HELP! GIEB ME BEST MF NECRO BUILD W/ PERFECT EQ AND EVERY STAT PT PLACEMENT" post.

Some people might be looking to optimize builds for fun, you realize, not just "raping everything to no end" - to quote your odd and sexually violent choice of imagery.

Now, to address the actual issue at hand:

I'd go with the Mantis route(TM).

With +skills, you'll net a slew of ACTIVE WALLS (effectively) with the revives and probably won't even feel the effects of -5 mastery when your enemies are crumbling to poison damage. I'm a HC guy, so I'm partial to safety - and in this scenario, more minions = more safety. I'd rather have 20 not-so-durable minions than 15 somewhat-more-durable ones anyday.

Good luck!

[Bladewind]

Mew's idea is bad, i don't know who have that much time to play and so much skill points. Anyway if u don't have enigma, i doubt u can move around with a total of 60+ minions.

Just stick to the plan, -5 off SM won't even affect you when your poison cuts the enemies to piece, the extra minions are just walls for you to stay safe and remain as distractions.

[Eilo Rytyj]

mew's idea is bad for the simple fact of 20 points into revive, and more than 1 point in amplify damage. summoners/most necros generally run on +skill equipment, even with +5 all skills that's around 10 skeletons, 5 magi (with a 1 point investment) and 6 revives, 21 minions already.

dim vision deserves far more of an investment than amplify damage ANY DAY, since you can effectively shut down almost every monster that poses a threat, and it will save your life when facing ranged monsters with piercing attacks. a low-radius amp can be used to 'wake up' only the monsters that your minions are fighting, and leave the others blinded and harmless.

[zooply]

Ya same here, mantis route. Don't get me wrong though I appreciate all the help everyone is tossing in. Another reason for the lower skellies is I'll get a point for fire golem for duels.

This build is for fun/raping. Mostly want to try something different, and I love the skellies (got a pure summoner, heck my first build on the game was a summoner).

Actually now that I've made decision btw the bladewind, this build will be partly pvp. I'll be putting a point into fire golem for it (and also save up for enigma to switch from bramble). I don't expect to 'pwnzorz omg' everyone, especially cause I've never really dueled lol. But it'll be nice to be able to, unlike my summoner who has to waste time getting skellies when he dies. =/

One more thing. Hate to ask again but is maxing block within reason for trang shield? I'll be using it over homunculus cause the build is pvm foremost, and therefore I'm assuming achieving max block will be much trickier.

Again thanks for all the help guys =D

[Mad Mantis]

One more thing. Hate to ask again but is maxing block within reason for trang shield?

At 99 it is 263 Dex for max Block. At 85 it is 228 Dex. Doesn't sound that reasonable.

[leddan]

20 Poisen Dagger
20 Poisen Explosion
20 Poisen Nova
10 Bone Armor
10 Bone Wall
20 Bone Prison


Why put 10 in Armor, when those points would be better spent in Bone Wall?