Faster to good MF'ing: Lvl 75 summoner or Lvl 1 sorc?

[BlargX]

Here's a theoretical. Sorry it is so long!

My skeleton summoner necro("fishy" necro) is level 75 and just got into Hell. He is my first character, and untwinked. He's not much for gear yet, using kelpie snare, blackhorn's face, and skin of the flayed one. His slow is very nice, but he has no crushing blow, etc. I'm walking around with rares and a nice +2 skills necro wand, no good uniques or runeword stuff yet, only a nagelring in that regard. I love the character, but he's a little weak, especially resistances, in hell. Magic finding on him is pretty slow, as he has to conjure his army, etc., to do Pindle or Mephisto or the like, has no teleport, etc. I would like to improve his gear, and make him more suitable for hell, but I have a feeling it will take a long time. A necro taking 10 or 20 minutes to magic find isn't the epitome of speed. Also, I hear that the merc's level in hell makes it hard for him to do much damage in hell, and makes him take a ton of damage, until he gets to around level 85, and I'm 10 levels short of that now.

I also want to make a sorcerer, probably more than one, at some point soon, to do some concentrated magic finding. I do single-player so I won't be getting rushed or anything. I do have some rares by now to twink the sorcerer with, including some nice rare orbs and the tal rasha lidless eye swirling crystal, plus some charms and a +1 sorceress skills amulet I could move over to her, along with some magic find rings and amulets. But some of that is level-limited, of course. I don't have much in the way of starter's sets, like Sigons, etc., but do have some rares and magics that are okay.

So, considering normal playing speed without ultra-twink gear, do you guys think I would be more likely to find good gear at a good pace by just plugging away on my necro now, or would I save time overall by just starting a sorceress from scratch and giving her some non-uber twink gear, then letting her take over the magic find duties?

Btw I played the necro to 75 by playing at /players8 almost everywhere in the game, but got killed twice in Act 1 of Hell at /players1, by exploding dead unique monsters.

FWIW, I do enjoy the necro and expect I'll play and enjoy a sorceress a lot too, as I most typically play and enjoy magic casters in games.

[MYK]

After normal I wouldn't bother playing at higher player settings. Set it to one in Hell so your spells will do more damage.

I'd farm nightmare baal runs some more for gold/other sellable items or good things that drop. Gamble! Circlets/Amulets. Keep gold find items/charms and wear them when resists permit. Gold drops like crazy in nightmare travincal, but don't stand in the hydras/next to the Fire Enchanted dudes or you'll bite it and lose more than you earned.

Until level 70+ I wore stealth armor (Tal + Eth) and a Lore helm(Ort +Sol). Those all drop in nightmare sooner or later. I made a few stealths just for looks, hehe. Remember, you can also shove resist runes into an armor or use an Ancients' Pledge large shield(Yeah, I used that in hell, too) The most important resists are Fire and Lightning. After that, you can chug thawing + antidotes a ton before you leave town - I can't remember the duration each one gives, so I check the stat screen often!

[Alc]

30 seconds per potion iirc, but drinking more makes the effect last longer.

To answer the original question, mf sorcs are cheap and easy to make, and for can do a variety of mf runs very quickly.

[BlargX]

I started one up with relatively minor twinking last night, and I think I answered my own question as to whether it was worth it. It's fun! So even if it takes a while, I'll be fine with it.

Doesn't look like she will take too long though -- she is a very fast killer. And she's very strong in melee at this point, up to level 11. I started a meteorb, and she seems ridiculously easy so far. Frost nova-ing when I have to, but a lot of just meleeing down. Kills so fast that I constantly have to watch my stamina bar so I don't outrun my area. Very good with a cold rogue merc with a garbage bow. We'll see how tough Duriel is. I think this character will rocket through the levels compared to my summoner necro.

[tigercan]

Your necro will be fine for MFing - throw on a 4 topaz armour with a 3 topaz hat, rhyme shield (find a nice necro head with 2 holes) & you've got close to 200MF right there which is plenty for MFing.

Resists other than lightning shouldn't be an issue, and the only reason lightning is an issue is due to gloams piercing lightning attacks. Note that Dim Vision negates that if you use it right. You are using CE as soon as the first body drops aren't you? Not too many skills in the game kill faster than that, especially on /players1

Take your necro to The Pit on /players1 & you're sure to find some pretty decent loot.
If you're planning on boss running I'd probably go with a sorc, but for general MFing of lvl 85 areas there's not much that can stop a fishymancer.

[BlargX]

Can't wear all my magic find gear on my necro anymore, it kills my resists in Hell. Two exploding uniques killed him because his resists were too low and he was too close. Unfortunately, with 9 skeletons, 3 to 5 mages, and six revives running around, sometimes I don't even know exactly which mobs every one of my guys is fighting, can turn the corner, and BOOM insta-death. He's actually able to run some of Act 1 with /players 5 and above, but the bosses, or any mobs that can revive others, are killer.

I'm using CE liberally, and it's presently level 19 with +skills taking it to 21. I'm not up to gloams yet in hell; I did fine with them in nightmare. In Hell, I died twice in Act 1, the highest problems I've gotten to was rakanishu.

I love my necro, and he's far from a weak character, but I think I'll be going pretty slow in Hell at level 75 untwinked there. I hear you should be 85 for hell. I was wondering if going from 75 to 85 at the rate I'm going now would be all that much faster than just leveling a sorceress up to be able to do at least some really quick nightmare mephisto runs. I find the necro slow for boss running because I have to gather skeletons first, and ideally would like some revives -- but the revives vanish one or two at a time when I waypoint back to town and then take my portal back to the bosses. He seems ideal for places like Kurast, though, where he can get an endless supply of revives as he keeps killing, and find lots of chests and hollow logs and such to loot. He's a great area runner, but I'm at the point where I need to do some serious magic finding, and that looks like it is going to be very slow compared to getting a sorceress to the point of doing nightmare mephisto and reaping the rewards of magic finding trips that only take a minute or two.

When I get enigma for the necro, I think his ability to do quick runs will increase drastically. He'll get to places much quicker, and won't lose his revives along the way. As it is now, it takes a good while to get to nightmare mephisto and I've spent as much as 15 or more minutes trying to kill him. The whole run can take 20 to 30 minutes easily. That just can't compare to a sorceress teleporting in and doing him in two minutes or whatever.