Amplify Damage or Decrepify?

[Dikov]

Hi everyone. Im new to these fourms, so a nice warm welcoming would be nice.

Now for the question. Im planning on making a summonmancer one of these days, and im not sure wether to use Amplify Damage of Decrepify. Any answers would be appriciated.

[Murrogh]

Hi everyone. Im new to these fourms, so a nice warm welcoming would be nice.

Now for the question. Im planning on making a summonmancer one of these days, and im not sure wether to use Amplify Damage of Decrepify. Any answers would be appriciated.

I like amplify, it works well with corpse explode, which is also good with summenables.

[phool]

amp. Decrepify has the potential to be more beneficial to your party but for general solo play amp is superior - minions don't generally need extra help surviving so the large damage increase is well worth it, for skeles/revives and corpse explosion. Even then decrepify is worthwhile, a big help vs more dangerous bosses that would otherwise be able to take out your minions. Decrepify is expensive in terms of pre-reqs so if possible get a wand with +1(-3) to decrepify.

*welcomes warmly*

[Akukami]

The obvious answer would be Amp since you can combo it with Corpse Explosion in addition to the physical damage done by your Skeles. However, if you're really good, you can use both Curses to your advantage. Amp Damage is great for soloing the game, but in parties, Decrepify is much better to use because 1. people in your party will probably ask you not to summon or summon sparingly due to the lag you'll cause, and 2. they're probably going to be the ones doing most of the damage anyways (unless you're playing with all physical damage party members).

To sum it all up, use both Curses on your Summoner, and don't be afraid to spend points to get to Decrepify. Also, if you're looking for a Summoner build, there's one in the Builds Sticky at the top of the forums I wrote called the CE Summoner - a variation of the Summoner I used in HC to solo up to Hell Act 4 (before I died on River due to lag... :cry: ).

- Akukami

[Fists of War]

Or if you don't want to spend points to get it, try and find Umes Lament, which has nice bonuses to decrepify and terror. As well as +2 skills, mana, fcr etc. The lack of res that you might find on a rare isn't so good though.

[Fearlessone]

The reason why alot of necros use decrep is cuz they see alot of other necros using it. Kind of a circular argument. This curse helps keep minions alive in slow moving games, but amp is superior in faster games. Amp will always do more damage, with or without CE. Its just that a necro alone often doesn't kill fast enough to replace his losses, especially around big bad bosses. And its then, around a big bad physical boss, including Diablo, that decrep shines. A big bad lightning boss is going to kill most minions, maybe some revives are best there, with high life.

Decrep has a low radius and short lifetime. A few points in amp+skills may be all you need. The experts on the necro forum always say they only use decrep for big bad boss and mobs. Amp is superior for fire immunes just before a CE, and LowerRes is good for Physical Immunes. Amp and decrep can remove physical immunity, but they may still have high physical resistance. These are the 3 main necro curses. But other curses have their place in the game too...

[Lestumpette]

Use both. I'll add that Decrepify is even better on bosses if you use a clay golem ... the slow from gumby stacks with the slow from Decrepify, so the boss will barely move.

Also Decrepify is good to have ready when you are running around ahead of your minions (yes sometimes necros live on the edge!) ... if a nasty pack surprises you, hit them with Decrepify until they are under control of your minions then switch to Amp for the CE death blows :)

[Fearlessone]

then switch to Amp for the CE death blows :)

This is done by the necro 'experts'. Whatever your curse, switch to amp just before CE, most of the time, but especially when you have fire immunes around. Thats cuz CE is 50/50 fire dmg/phys dmg, and you want to push the physical dmg portion of it. If you have a physimmune, amp so that ur minions can damage it, amp lowers physres by 100%. Should you keep the amp on for the CE, or switch to LowRes curse for PI's? Well, all the regular PI monsters are 'only' 100% physimmune in hell, so amp will lower their physres down to nearly 0%. I'm not sure about most PI bosses, their physres may go way over 100%...

Now you might think, well isn't lower res a better curse then, to get rid of any fire immunity? Sometimes you can get rid of the fire immunity, sometimes not. Even if you do, the LR curse is only working at 1/5 str, until it hits 99%, then it lowers at full strength. So you may only reduce the fire res of the monster to 50-99%. Amp is going to do more damage.

[Isserus]

I think a better question to ask is what order in which to cast first since by now i think every1 cud agree they're both essential curses.
I use a Psn/summoner so run out w/my fire golem fire aura+lower resist+psn nova combo using a deaths web socketed w/a +max and ED% jewel(Also use a psn facet shako)
Immediately after nova hits i cast decrep and bring out clay golem
then i switch to king leorics and it's my revives time. this is where i might cast amp

[Lorg]

I think a better question to ask is what order in which to cast first since by now i think every1 cud agree they're both essential curses.
I use a Psn/summoner so run out w/my fire golem fire aura+lower resist+psn nova combo using a deaths web socketed w/a +max and ED% jewel(Also use a psn facet shako)
Immediately after nova hits i cast decrep and bring out clay golem
then i switch to king leorics and it's my revives time. this is where i might cast amp

Umm.. pretty old thread + no jewels etc on classic ^^

[HegemonKhan]

i'll just re-iterate all the info-comments in my own more concise way:

what do they (skills) do and uses:

1. amplify (amp): 100% Enhanced Damage (EDam) to physical (phys) damage. CAN break phys immunities (immun). purely for offensive (off) use. (if u do NOT need survivability, Amp > Dec). (amp enhances warcry as well, not just phys damage from weapons).

2. decrepify (dec): 50% EDam to phys and greatly slows target (only holy freeze slows target more). CAN break phys immun. mainly for defensive (def) use. (if u DO need survivability, Amp < Dec). (slow is great for powerful-dangerous single, like act bosses or super uniques or uniques, targets or multiple, like fast and fanatical seis' minions, targets). (dec enhances warcry as well, not just phys damage from weapons). (dec is great for pvp, especially with bone necro using bone spirit or bone spear).

3. lower resists (LR): -% elemental (elem) resists (res) to target. CAN break elem immun. purely for off use.

4. Corpse explosion (CE): does 50% phys and 50% fire damage (dam) to target based on the corpse's original total life and it gets rid of corpses (good when shamans or mummies are present so they can't revive fallen or undead corpses). miainly for off use. some def use in that it gets rid of corpses. (amp, dec, and LR enhance CE's damage).

amp vs dec:

if u need survivability = use dec
if u do NOT need survivability = use amp

amp vs LR

if u do more phys than elem damage = use amp
if u do more elem than phys damage = use LR

[Akse]

On bosses like diablo, decre and clay golem are great.

[fredsta54]

speaking of lower reisst beleive it or not my sp fire golemancer is owning with lr and ce, slaughtering hell river of flame and flayer jungle with ease :P (hell mode)

Fire golem rocks (seriously)

of course, corpse epxlosion does 99% of the kills ^^


Fred