Advice on Summon/Poison Hybrid skill allocation...

[Mperor]

Hey guys,

I was sitting around earlier planning out the skill trees of my Summoner/Psnmancer.

This is what it'll be:

Summoner:
20 Raise Skeleton
1 Skeleton Mast.
1 Clay Golem
1 Golem Mast
1 Summon Resist

Poison:
20 Psn Dagger
20 Psn Nova
?? Poison Explosion (Will be discussed in a bit)
1 Teeth (Pre-req)
1 CE (Pre-req)

Curses:

1 Amp
1 Iron Maiden
?? The rest



Here are the issues:

I've counted my skills - I want to put 1 point in every curse for general usefulness, but I'm also considering trying to add 4 more points into the Summoner branch to get Revives, which would mean 1 in Blood Golem, 1 in Iron Golem, and 1 in Skeleton Mage.

BUT -

Option A: If I put those 4 points into the Summoner branch to get my revives and other golems (excluding fire golem), my build will be theoretically finished at lvl 92, which I think is too high for my taste.

So in the end, I'll be 4 points behind from fully maxing all my Poison attacks (I'm thinking that 88 will be my last limit for a Psnmancer), but I'm getting a whole bunch of revives in exchange - extra meatshields makes me feel safer always.

Option B: I just put 1 point in all curses, and totally abandon the remaining Summons, so by lvl 88, I would have maxed all my poison skills, but I won't have any extra summons other than my skellies.

Option C (Not really applicable): Just play the game and level the Psnmancer up to 92 to get both (but I don't feel like it really)... I know this is the ideal - but please, spare me, lol. Last time I played a Trang Psnmancer, I couldn't kill much, my Psn Nova was around 4K, which I have no clue if it's high or not, but either way, I had tons of trouble killing anything whatsoever with Poison, and had to resort to me Skellies.


What do you guys think?

[Arkardo]

I'd say option B, or Option D: max your poison skills and put any remaining points in Skeletal Mastery.

[boodah]

I really don't see the point in revives for this build. I have a poison/summon hybrid. He has 8 skellies, a gumby, and a merc and that is plenty to both deal physical damage and act as a meat shield for you while you cast pnova.

I often don't even bother to raise skellies and only raise them in areas where I will be running into poison immunes.

[Mperor]

^And you manage to kill everything else?

Do you use LR at all?

I'm talking about Revives just as a safety precaution.

You can see it this way:

Are the extra meatshields worth the 4 points that will be lost to fully synergize Psn Nova?

[boodah]

^And you manage to kill everything else?

Do you use LR at all?

I'm talking about Revives just as a safety precaution.

You can see it this way:

Are the extra meatshields worth the 4 points that will be lost to fully synergize Psn Nova?

IMHO you must max the poison synergies. If you are going to use pnova to do your killing, you need all the help you can get (trangs, deaths web, bramble, facets, ect...). With good gear and maxed synergies non-immunes literally melt away :grin:

My hybrid has a deaths web and full trangs. I dont use LR that often because non-poison immunes die fast and (in my experience, others can weigh in on this) MANY of the poison immunes are not broken with LR (strange but true), so i generally go for amp and let my army tear them up (also use the trangs fire skills).

The extra revives do not provide that much more of a shield anyway. You should have, without the revives, something like 10-12 + meat shields around you. That is plenty to get the job done.

[Mperor]

I see...

Well, I partially get your point, I too have trang, so I'm glad to hear that your Trangomancer did pretty good.

But I don't have Death's Web, do you think Blackbog's a good substitute?

Also - do you advocate max block? I've read in another thread that it'll take a lot of DEX to reach max block with Trang shield.

[boodah]

I see...

Well, I partially get your point, I too have trang, so I'm glad to hear that your Trangomancer did pretty good.

But I don't have Death's Web, do you think Blackbog's a good substitute?

Also - do you advocate max block? I've read in another thread that it'll take a lot of DEX to reach max block with Trang shield.

Yeah, I really think that full trangs is underrated. I have blackbog on switch and its a fine second choice. As a matter of fact, I started this character when i found a blackbog's. He was going to be a pure poisonmancer and was going to use poison dagger + DV most often. I just found it too slow and difficult so started down the hybrid path (I am thinking of trying pure daggermancer again sometime).

I know this is kind of beating a dead horse, but you really shouldn't be getting hit often or at all except for elemental damage (gloams or whatever they are called in hell are the worst), so max block is not going to do that much. Go vita all the way (although blackbogs has a high dex requirement if I remember correctly.

[Mperor]

Yeah, I really think that full trangs is underrated. I have blackbog on switch and its a fine second choice. As a matter of fact, I started this character when i found a blackbog's. He was going to be a pure poisonmancer and was going to use poison dagger + DV most often. I just found it too slow and difficult so started down the hybrid path (I am thinking of trying pure daggermancer again sometime).

I know this is kind of beating a dead horse, but you really shouldn't be getting hit often or at all except for elemental damage (gloams or whatever they are called in hell are the worst), so max block is not going to do that much. Go vita all the way (although blackbogs has a high dex requirement if I remember correctly.

Blackbog needs 88 dex.

Then I guess I'll leave my revives aside for now then...

Yeahhh, a long while ago, I had a Trango-Psnmancer, but he sucked, that's why I'm hesitant this time to remake one, hehe.

But thanks for the advice. Of course, I'll just get enough dex for a Blackbog... It'll be awesome if I get a Death's Web, but I don't, so Blackbog will do for now.

I guess I'll go with Option B, maxing the poison only, with 1 point in each curse.

Thanks a lot for the advice!

[Feonn]

1 thing:
Max all three poison skills, otherwise it just doesnt do enough damage.

20/20/20 poison skills
20 RS
1+ SM
All curses exc. left tree but 1 pt DIm Vision (Optional)

I, myself, don't have put any points in Golem or w/e yet.
Don't know if I should.
He's lvl 87.

[boodah]

1 thing:
Max all three poison skills, otherwise it just doesnt do enough damage.

20/20/20 poison skills
20 RS
1+ SM
All curses exc. left tree but 1 pt DIm Vision (Optional)

I, myself, don't have put any points in Golem or w/e yet.
Don't know if I should.
He's lvl 87.

I really don't think that DV is optional. It is a life saver many times.

[nyberg]

Whats better for a poisonmancer - the death web or blackbog?

[Arkardo]

death web or blackbog?

Death's Web by far.

[Wizdomm]

Whats better for a poisonmancer - the death web or blackbog?

Death's Web for your basicl novamancer. Blackbog would be a great weapon for a daggermancer though.

[HarbingersOfSkulls]

For a venomancer...always max out your poison skills since it's your main damage. I've made many of them using only skeleton summons on one...another had mages...and the other had revives. The last one I made had a buffed gumby...but the easiest and most fun build was with the skeletons.

After maxxing out the 3 poison skills...and getting 1 point into all curses up to LR and one in DV as well...I maxxed skeletons and then put my remaining points into skeleton mastery.

If you want to level really fast though at the beginning of your character... you would go with a +3 skeleton wand and max out skeletons and put only 1 point into skeleton mastery. Having 10 or so skeletons out makes getting to level 24 for ancients a breeze...and the only real tough place is act 4 fighting big D.

In the past...I've proven and betted friends that I could in fact solo hell with this build and even did part of it using just a cracked sash to hold potions since I was being bet 50k that I could do act1 that way...and act3 for another 50k.

Although PN is your main source of damage and does kill things quickly...I liked using skeletons as a 2ndary for of damage although not as damaging as they are with maxxed skeletons mastery...but with +skills I had it over a level 20 with skill points still left to spare...and used a Waheed might merc just to give them extra damage.

HoS

[Damric]

With full trang, the firewall is a really good 2nd attack, meaning you can just use 1 pt revives for meat shields instead of investing 20 in skeles. At least 1 pt lower resist for poison and fire skills is necessary. Also Eventually get all 60 points in poison. Even with all that you will still have a bunch leftover to put in other crap to suit your needs.

[droc]

my lvl 88 has psn tree maxed, rs maxed, LR, DV, clay golem, golem mast, summon resist, and now im putting the rest of my skills into mastery. i dont see why you cant finish your build by 88...doesnt make any sense. by your standards i wouldve finished your build by like 80 at the latest. i think you forgot about skill quests maybe