2 quick questions about poisonmancers

[CosmicDare]

1) Do seperate castings of Poison Nova stack? Is this -really- a good skill, I can't tell?

2) Do Summon Skele Mages just suck? I haven't seen a single build on here that recommends them at all; SM doesn't seem to boost their damage either =/

Here's what I'm thinking, a Poisonmancer (20/20/20 in the three poison skills) and 20 points in Skele Mage, plus Lower Resist curse. The idea is to maximize magical (and especially poison damage), if Skele mages just plain suck and NOTHING (not even lower resist) can help them, I will probably change my plan to pumping up Fire Elemental to take maximum advantage of Lower Resist which I will also invest in a bit.

What do you guys think? Retarded spec? lol

[Miikai]

1. Not sure but im going to say NO!

2. They suck. I would put extra points in golem or CE. Put 1 point in Revive

[Zauzich]

I duno about 20 points in mages. I'm going for 20/20/20 and have 20 in melee skeletons.

I put 1 point in mages but they are mostly for show. The 3 or 4 that I summon are usefull in that when they die (this happens quite a bit) it was a good death. They took the hit from something off to the side thats's not engaged with my main army, or they fell among the ranks letting me know I should probably cast another nova before the real troops start to go down.

Novas don't stack.

There is a litch-lord build that uses max mages.

[MrGoth]

LoM = lord of mages, pretty good & strong if you can setup your gear for them. Mages can pack a punch when they are all together ontop of you & attacking the same target. If you have access to any teleport, they are great. If you want to make them really good, use lower resistance and infinity merc.

[CosmicDare]

So then how solid does 20/20/20 poison skills + 20 Fire Golem + ~20 Lower Resist sound? The idea is just to get something that supplements both my poison damage and something else; How much worse would this be than 20 in SM and RS?

[sequoia]

it's not necessary to max either lower resist or fire golem. lower resist you may want a few points in if you don't have a ton of +skills, but fire golem's damage is terrible.

[CosmicDare]

Well, damn.
So even for the poison itself I shouldn't put many points in lower resist? I guess I'll just stick to 20/20/20 + SM and RS or something. It just sucks I can't do something a little more outside the box (and have it work well, too.)

[timevalue]

CosmicDare,
I agree with you. I've been looking for something that's outside the box that would work well soloing 8-player Hell games, but I'm afraid all of the possible angles in the game have already been carefully explored by the Diablo 2 playing community.

[WrongdayJ]

A friend of mine uses his necro in a very cool way. . .

1st- He casts a Poison Nova.
2nd- While the nova is working, he puts up a couple Bone Walls.
3rd- Then he hits everything on the other side of the wall with Iron maiden.

The whole time they are pounding on the wall (and suffering from the poison) they are hurting themselves. He doesn't use the Iron Maiden for damage per se. . .the poison is the main killer. . .but if he can get them to inflict some damage to themselves while he's waiting. . .all the better.

Kinda cool. And it works like a charm.

For ranged attackers- he uses dim vison.