fishymancer question

[lousytourist]

I have a lvl 65 fishymancer, 20RS, 20SM, 20CE, etc etc.and in Hell mode I sometimes run across a boss with a whole lines worth of modifiers. My boys, 10 skels a fire golum and my merc all slowly but surely die off and leave the boss relatively unscathed.

Tried casting both amp damage and decrep, neither seems to help.

Short of rolling a new game, what can I do with these baddies?

[korialstraz]

cast life tap so your creature can leach life and that way live longer. if you cant kill him, try geting some better equipment and a better merc maybe?

[GotFriana]

You may need more +summon skills do add to your skeletons but most important lvl 65 is a bit low for hell your skeletons and merc will have a bit of a problem hitting things sometimes at this level. Give your merc a weapon with lots of crushing blow.

[zaempe]

First off, get rid of your fire golem and start using a clay golem (slows target drastically).

secondly, it seems like your merc's not ecquipped too hot, otherwise he'd not just die. may i ask what type of merc you have? might merc has come in handy for any fishy build i've made so far.

for bosses, i usually start using decrep and finish up with amp.

[korialstraz]

some info as to your equipment and your mercs would be great help when trying to figure out how you can improve.

[MarShenk]

Use arm of king leoric to summon for power skellies. Get some skillers to increase you skill levels. As said get a nm might merc. If you are rich, get beast aswell for fana aura. With a few of these things you should have no problem boss running.

[Bipoe]

Get your merc an item with large life leach(crown of thieves, tal helm) that could help.. or try cast life tap:)

[JME]

Alot of these have been pretty good suggestions but, as said before, we need to know your gear and your mercs.

-Personally, I like mages as well (helps when your minions are bottlenecked). The reason I mention it is clay golem(fire is trash), +decrep, +a few cold mages means bosses and champions practically stand still and gets slaughtered. Diablo will attack like every 6-10 seconds or so.

-For unique monsters and mini-boss packs, CE can help turn their minions against them nicely once one of them drops.

-Your level is low, if the game were easy at level 65 in hell it would be quite a disappointment. More hard skill points and + skills with better gear will help alot later on.

-A NM offensive merc (might) will help all of your summons' damage and a little bit of LL and CB will keep him alive and help him take down high hp monsters.

[lousytourist]

OK, I'll go back to NM and do some runs to get good equip -- I have a bunch of +skills but my equip doesn't seem to matter much because once I get in the fray I'm dead within seconds. I usually leave it all to the boys as those wands don't pack a lot of punch.

My merc is a NM act II defensive, I just switched from a normal act II defensive, and now the dog doesn't even give anyone the defense aura. Gotta lose him for sure. He does have a heckuva weapon IIRC but his gear is all MF so maybe not so high in defense.

I've been getting my a** whooped in act I hell, what level should I be before starting hell? I've got the fishy build pretty much fleshed out skill-wise, so I thought it time to go to hell (heh).

[muzzz]

NM act II mercs have different auras than normal or hell act II mercs. Nightmare defensive mercs have a holy freeze aura instead of the defiance aura normal and hell mercs have.

I'd like to add my vote to the might merc. It will benefit your minions more than any other aura. Especially since one of your problems seems to be the fact that your minions aren't doing enough damage.

Most of my characters have been level 72-75-ish when entering hell.

[JME]

If you want to mf that's fine but leave the mf gear to yourself. The merc is one of the strong arms of your army so I wouldn't gimp him with poor damage/life gear. Once the first corpse falls it should all be downhill from there with CE.

Make sure you have 1 point in summon resist to help the longevity of your minions.

[korialstraz]

some good options for merc gear can be andariels face, crown of thieves and vampire gaze for helm. armors could be duriels shell, duress runeword or any armor with some decent defense and res. weapon, well if you don't want him to die from iron maiden easy and only want him for auras, then a low damage weapon will work. having low dmg however will render your merc unable to leach as good, so he will probably die more often. if your going for high damage get act 2 nm offensive aura and equip him with pride or beast for more damage. make those runewords in high damage weapons like cryptic axe, colossus voulge or tresher (ethereal ones are not necessary but it helps your damage).

[Thyiad]

65 really is too low for Hell. Fishymancers will go anywhere but they will never be quick; especially in full games.

Tals Mask, Duriels Shell and Bonehew/any high damage weapon except Reapers is what I shove on my merc. Might merc of course.

Don't forget there is a further life leech penalty in Hell. So your merc will struggle unless you can get a decent amount of leech on him.

Take it easy and don't go blindly rushing in. You need to use some tactics. Attract cannot be overridden so use that to keep monsters busy while you chop away at the edges.

Amp/CE on most monsters with Decrep for faster/more dangerous ones. I wonder what part of Hell you are in, because the only thing that causes me a few propblems are those Lords in Act 5.

Necro Pet Calculator (http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~gottwald/necro_pet_calculator.html) see how much damage they are really doing.

Good luck.

[JME]

if your going for high damage get act 2 nm offensive aura and equip him with pride or beast for more damage. make those runewords in high damage weapons like cryptic axe, colossus voulge or tresher (ethereal ones are not necessary but it helps your damage).

Overall you gave good suggestions, but keep in mind that a beast can't be made in a polearm, only axes, scepters or hammers.