summoner advice

[divinius]

hi everyone
i have a level 62 summoner on single player just because im tired of bnet lag
i have raise skel skel mastery and corpse explosion maxed
no infinity in single player so should i really put points into mages?
and if not mages what would you all suggest thanks for your help

[RedArchon]

You've got the heart of the fishymancer already so anything else after that is gravy. A few options would be Amplify Damage to make CE hurt more. Decrepify for it's utility (add in Clay Golem for super slow bosses). Mages and revives never hurt...

[Mursilis]

It depends on how many +skill mods you have on your equipment. If you have quite a few then only one point is needed in Skeleton Mage and Revive.

I had a summoner with only one point in revive, with about +12 skills and could therefore have 13 revives running around. Rarely did I have all 13 at once, as it's rather tough to find good monsters and keep them replenished, so don't put too many points into revive.

Summon Resist is a great skill to get some points into, it has rather steep diminishing returns, so not many points needed there.

One point in the Golems is always nice, they are very good tanks, especially the clay golem.

[noobintraining]

Like others have said, it depends on how many +skills you have.

But I would encourage more points in Summon Resist, Revive, and possibly Dim Vision or Amplify Damage, simply to increase the radius.

[maxicek]

Have a read of Nightfish's Guide (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=349093) if you haven't already. It has good suggestions on what to do with the extra points.

Personally I think mages suck, and I put the points into Bone Wall. Have a read of my Pat thread (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=531772)for more comments.[/shameless self publicity]

[Mursilis]

Well mages aren't great but I do recall someone recently using them almost exculsively and doing fine (think it was in a tournament but can't recall which one atm). Normally I only put one point in and summon them last as ranged backup to the skeletons. The more meatsheilds the better.

[Arreat_mercenary]

Remember that Mages do low damage unless you have a very good ammount of +skills and invest in lower resist, otherwise, don't even bother. Also Mages are a PAIN in narrow places, where they just stand still attacking and blocking the rest of your army and making you say some bad words

[Lord_Alucard]

In my opinion, Mages are underrated. Sure, their damage isn't all that great unless you have supergear, but they can poison the enemies, meaning no life reg, they can slow them with cold, and take care of phys imune.

Another thing you might wanna do with your Necromancer is to invest one point in every curse. That's right, EVERY curse, I have yet to play a Necro without one point in every curse and I thank myself everytime I use the curses other find useless. Other than that, the others have said what needs to be said.

Good luck with the Necro, once he finds some decent gear the killing speed wilol fly through the roof.

[TedDeeBoy]

I think mages are underrated as well, but you to properly position Mages sometimes teleport is necessary as they can ,

If your something similar to this to twink in your stash

Golemlord's Grim Wand of Lower Resistance
One-Hand Damage: 5 to 11
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 45
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10 Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x337b0525
150% Damage to Undead
+3 to Summoning Skills (Necromancer Only)
Level 3 Lower Resist (82/82 Charges)

or your char can save a few pts to not get LR, otherwise one in curse is useful for flexibility. You can shop for these, Level 1 LR one is available in NM. Out of the Nightfish's options for my summoner I choose 17 Dim Vision and the rest into Mages, basically for WSK runs primarily.

[Nerigazh]

Remember that Mages do low damage unless you have a very good ammount of +skills and invest in lower resist, otherwise, don't even bother. Also Mages are a PAIN in narrow places, where they just stand still attacking and blocking the rest of your army and making you say some bad words

lol, in this case you should definitely not use mages if you have small children!

[divinius]

thank you all for all your opinions it will help my decision a lot....any thoughts on max block or pure vitality?

[aarrgus]

A lot of people go with max vit because life means you can survive more physical damage or elemental damage that gets through. However, if I understand it all correctly, the roughly 200 dex that you might put into vit is only worth 400 HP max in the end, which isn't really all that much compared to the 75% chance you take 0 damage from a physical attack IMHO. Either one could save your life in a specific situation. It all depends on what you value more, the life or the block.

I'll say this about my Necro... I went with block because I'm using the Homunculus as my end game shield. In regular play, I miss having the nearly 400 extra life, but my level 83 Necro has a smidge over 830 life right now thanks to a Shako and some life charms. I am currently running Meph right now with MF gear (and -3 to all resists) and every time I get hit with bolts or a lightning attack from Mephy I have to be real careful because I almost always get taken down to 1/2 or 1/3 life. I usually gulp a potion at this point and frantically move back and forth in case he centers on me again because until the life bulb fills up there is a chance I could be killed from a lucky strong attack from him. However, on the other side of this issue is the fact that I seem to almost always block his orb attack.

So really it all comes down to what you value more. The 350-400 life or the max block.