Skeleton Mages

[candystar]

So whats everyones opinion on these bad boys? I know they're quite controversial just want to hear everyone's opinion.

I have a summoner right now following the fishymancer guide with maxed corpse explosion, skeleton mastery and raise skeleton. And the usual curses. The killing is sooooooooo slow I swear its terrifying (without CE but CE isn't always viable and it takes forever to get one corpse down and even that corpse doesn't save the day)

Anyway so skeleton mages? I heard they add good damage. And I also heard they aren't even noticeable. :crazyeyes: Comments?

Oh and concerning damage mages generally outdue skeleton warriors right? Without curses and such.

With that said so if i opt for lower resist instead of amp it'll improve damage output yes? And since CE is 50% fire it'll work just the same as amp regarding that area as well, right?

Thanks.

[Fortysix]

I've been wondering the same thing myself, i haven't raised CE to 20 yet, because I'm thinking it'll be viable at one with my +skills. I could be wrong here though, any input would be appreciated. Basically bumping...

[NumtyDoo]

I like mages myself, they have lots of benefits...

Cold mages slow things down, especially bosses.
Poison mages stop regen, so improves killing speed, especially bosses.
Fire/light mages do decent damage.

As for whether they do "great" damage depends...

In hell, many monsters have 50% resist, so mages are only doing 50% damage. Also mage damage doesn't get real high without decent +skills. Last season I had a Fishy with lvl 50 mages and lvl 52 mastery, I also had infinity so that is good for -85% enemy resists. So with that gear mages did insane damage, with lvl 20/20 mages, no infinity, they will just be so-so.

A great thing about mages that has saved my butt a few times is that they hang out near you, usually surrounding you, so when some fast moving baddies come from behind, you have time to get clear before they fight thier way through the mages.

Once you have the base fishy build done, the only extra damage skill that you have left is mages, all other options (DV, BA, GM) are defensive, and as I stated in the previous paragraph mages can help defensively as well.

[Epik]

I don't think mages are quite as good as Skeletons but what else is there? I've found that I recast 7-8 mages in the same time period I recast one Skel. I like them but wish they were a bit tougher.

[pat965]

I have a few questions, and bear in mind I'm only an 82 fishy necro, and this is my FIRST character, and my best item would be what many consider common garbage. I've maxed out RS, SM, and CE and I guess like the original poster, I'm wondering about mages... I'm also fairly certain I will not be able to get +20 to skills, and +10 would be just wonderful some time down the line... also, fighting physical immunes is becoming a chore, when they do crop up (even with amp and my merc, who enjoys dying alot)

I was thinking about getting revives, because they scale with the mob difficulty, but I find in dungeons they lag behind and dissapear (I don't have any teleport :( ), and they're of course dependent on what monsters you can find. I think having 5 revives is enough anyways

I was also thinking about Golem Mastery, as I could just summon my clay golem around the place, tanking whatever needs to be tanked (my skellies only have 700ish health? I figure this would help me survive, but my killing speed would be slow as ever and still very dependent on corpses)... oftentimes i'd summon the golem in a room and he'd get cut to ribbons in seconds... but I think my normal skeletons can take the heat most of the time anyways...

Then there are mages, which don't benefit from my amp damage, have little HP, and I don't really know how much damage they do, but as mentioned, their damage is already cut in half by resistances, and it'll be a long time before i get something like the conviction aura or whatever, so I'd be stuck at 20something/20something mages... if they do stay near my necro though, that could be very good for tanking, as mentioned, but I've never really seen it in action... fishy seems to not like mages, and since my build is a fishymancer, I try to follow his advice, but I'm left wondering what to do with my skill points..

Right now I'm leaning towards mages... just because I think I need reliable killing power, even if it is a little stunted, since my "MF runs" (if you can call them that) go at the speed of molasses... please advise!

(I also plan to level more obviously)

[Epik]

Are you using a might merc, pat? I'm only Lvl 32 on HC East but I had a Pally group with me for a bit and his might aura combined with my amp damage had my skels ripping through any and everything. Of course this was just normal Act5.

[pat965]

I am indeed... trying to level him or get him something to help him survive... he does ok, so long as hes not tanking everything

[NumtyDoo]

1 point in revives is a good idea, should get you 5-10 with self found items.

If merc is getting spanked, use decrep more often. decrep reduces enemy damage output by 50% and their speed by 50%, which means he will be taking 75% less damage and spend less time in hit recovery.

[Epik]

Does anyone know how effective/efficient it would be to get Fire Golem and Golem Mastery high? If the holy aura worked well enough and it was strong enough, you wouldn't have to worry about defense and just let your skels go on the offensive. Then again, it might be a better use of points to put 5 or 6 into getting Decrep instead of 30+ in the golem tree.

[NumtyDoo]

all golems do poo damage. Clay golems are good at tanking and slowing, Iron golems are usually used for an aura runeword, and fire golems are sometimes used to pull agro, but they all do crap damage.

[pat965]

So I guess the question for me is, do I beef up Clay golem, Golem Mastery, or skeletal mages? (or a combination)

[Epik]

Not sure, Pat. But for me, I've decided to try and stay focused on my Skeletons and amplifying their physical damage and keeping them alive with Decrepify at bosses.

So I'm not going to get a fire golem or additional mages this time around. I'm just going to pump up Amplify Damage, Corpse Explosion, Decrepify, get as many +skill items as I can, and just hope for the best.

[candystar]

Not sure, Pat. But for me, I've decided to try and stay focused on my Skeletons and amplifying their physical damage and keeping them alive with Decrepify at bosses.

So I'm not going to get a fire golem or additional mages this time around. I'm just going to pump up Amplify Damage, Corpse Explosion, Decrepify, get as many +skill items as I can, and just hope for the best.

How would you pump up amplify damage? Increasing the skill level simply increases the radius which I have no problems with with +1 skills

[Mad Mantis]

So I guess the question for me is, do I beef up Clay golem, Golem Mastery, or skeletal mages? (or a combination)

Clay doesn't need pumping with some +skills. GM only needs pumping if you want a strong IG. Mages need pumping if you want to use them.

[pat965]

Maybe I'll boost decrep for now and use it instead of amp, as a kind of beginners crutch (if I'm suffering losses)

EDIT: Scratch that, I'll probably just put skills into mages... I can just spam decrep, and later on maybe I'll have a use for mages, and I'll take any DPS boost I can get

[Epik]

How would you pump up amplify damage? Increasing the skill level simply increases the radius which I have no problems with with +1 skills

I think I'd like somewhere around 6-8 amp after +skill items. Decrepify can be lower though since it's only for a few distinct mobs.

[Stefo]

I found 1 pt in each curse is enough! The only one I wish to up a bit it Dim Vision! Now I have RS, SMastery,SMages and CE maxed, 1 pt in each curse and 1 pt in fire golem too, but I absolutely don't know where to put the other skill points (just 2 for now, but i'm lvl 89)!

[candystar]

I found 1 pt in each curse is enough! The only one I wish to up a bit it Dim Vision! Now I have RS, SMastery,SMages and CE maxed, 1 pt in each curse and 1 pt in fire golem too, but I absolutely don't know where to put the other skill points (just 2 for now, but i'm lvl 89)!

I'm 79, how are u doing in hell? My damage is way too low and I've maxed what the fishy guide suggested and I don't think my gear is great but its no beginners either.

[lumpor]

Remaining points can be put into golem mastery if you want a good iron golem. Don't waste them on whatever you feel like though, since skill points always are valuable.

Cadystar, you could try some equipment that gives auras, if you can afford them

[Arkansaw]

It's quite normal, the summoner is not a power build and with average gear...you will have no problems in single player games, but with more players the merc will be the main killer with some kind of high damage weapon. The minions deal enough damage in total, but the damage is scattered unless they are all attacking a single monster, which is rarely the case. Most of the time, the minions kill very slowly compared to the merc, although they are also able to tank for a long time

[Stefo]

At first in hell I had some problems... I couldn't get my first kill to start raising skellies even in Act 1... -.-
The most important thing is a good merc and a tanking golem! Give him a really high damage weapon and a really high defence armour, and something with life leech if u can! after raising your full powered army, it won't be a problem to cope with any monster or boss in games 1-4 players! for games with higher number of players, well... skellies still survive, but damage is quite low ^^
Beware physical immune, stone skin bosses! They are tough to kill!

[NumtyDoo]

fishy's are great because they can do everything ok, with ok gear. But with 20-30 +skills, an enigma, and an ifinity, maybe a pride golem, they rule the PvM world.

[kaervek]

Skeleton mages put out a reasonable amount of ele damage compared to your alternatives which are an un-synergised PN or BS if you chose to max CE.

They provide poison to prevent regen, cold for chill effect and the fire/lightning ones spit out about 100%-50%(starts near 100% at 20/20 decreasing to 50% at 48/48) of the damage of warriors before auras/curses are taken into consideration.

Having damage spread too thinly is more a problem at lower skill levels, at the higher levels you have a lot more skeletons doing a lot more damage to make up for it.

[LupusPhoenix]

So points in mages is a viable/effective place for skills in a fishy? My fishy is 70ish now and maxing out CE and I've been trying to decide where to put points for him later on. Unfortunately getting gear has been hard (I'm still using a white wand I bought from akara in normal) but I found a homunculus which made me happy.

Been looking at dim vision for radius vs gloams.
Mages for... magey-damage-ness... I always liked mages.
A little golem mastery.
Some summon resist. Is this worth it or will +skills be plenty when I have more?
Maybe some amp or decrep for duration and the like.

[NumtyDoo]

Mages, like regular skellies, get increased damage/life from Raise Skeletal Mage, so If you are going to go mages, it is best to go all out and put 20 points in it.

[LordLocke]

The thing with Skele Mages is that they're going to be an all-or-nothing investment- either you're going to put 20 points there, or none. There is no real middle ground, which is why a lot of people are hesitant to put anything there at all.

That said, Fishies have the spare skill points to do it. Even after optional stuff (getting additional curses for Crowd Control in large games, getting a few points into Summon Resist, Revives, and Golems/Golem Masters to let +Skills do the rest) you'll likely have the 20 points to spend. RSM benefits from being on your primary tree (making it easier to +skill up) and already having it's primary synergy maxed in your build, but it's a corpse-eater, which can already be a difficult economy to maintain on a Fishy build, and their damage is only really as good as you're willing to let it be, since odds are if you've built to max your skel warriors/CE/merc's damage, your Mages' damage will suffer.

As for what else you can do with your points, common other dumping grounds seem to be Bone Spear (helps to get the first couple corpses) or Iron Golem/Golem Mastery. If you want to use RSM, think about getting an Infinity on your merc, or making an IG out of one, since your standard options (Amp Damage, Might Aura, Decrep) should be invested to help your merc/skels/CE deal damage first. (Without some skill point investment, though, Iron Golems won't be survivable enough to count on having their Conviction aura around, and by spending 20 points in RSM, your spare point pool suffers a major hit...)

[NumtyDoo]

The thing with mages though, vs unsynergized spear/spirit or nova, is that mages will actually do more damage per second than you will with your weak-ish bone skill, and once summoned, that damage is mana free.

I disagree with Lordlocke on mage damage suffering. mage damage shouldn't suffer by boosting skellies as they are on the same tree, and merc damage is completely irrelevent to mage damage. Unless what he was trying to say was that with amp and strong merc/skellies the added damage from mages will seem small.

[LordLocke]

The thing with mages though, vs unsynergized spear/spirit or nova, is that mages will actually do more damage per second than you will with your weak-ish bone skill, and once summoned, that damage is mana free.

I disagree with Lordlocke on mage damage suffering. mage damage shouldn't suffer by boosting skellies as they are on the same tree, and merc damage is completely irrelevent to mage damage. Unless what he was trying to say was that with amp and strong merc/skellies the added damage from mages will seem small.

That's exactly what I'm saying- Mages don't really add a remarkable amount of damage compared to what your Warriors and Merc can already do with the normal Fishy setup. If you're having a slow time getting the ball rolling with Skeles + Merc, then Skeles + Merc + Mages isn't going to go that much faster unless your Merc, your Golem, or a friendly Pally is helping out with Conviction aura or you're dealing with a PI/SS boss.

The only reason I mention Bone Spear is for getting that first kill in a pack while soloing- that's always the slowest one, since more targets for pets/merc to hit + everything healthy = slow kills. Bone Spear lets you drop that first one and start CEing that much faster on a new group. It isn't going to revolutionize the world for a Fishy, but it'll speed things up.

[kaervek]

At 23/23 skeletons and mages(fire/lightning) are pretty much equal for damage output.

At the endgame 50/50ish warriors are ~1k damage and mages are ~500 damage. 18x500 is a LOT more than a weak spear/bs/pn. Its not about comparing them to warriors, its about the alternatives.

Inbetween you generally dont have enough warriors to give you decent cover in open areas.

Getting your first couple of kills should either be left to merc with amp/decrep depending on how well geared he is, or a quick trip to A5 for the graveyard or the ~3 corpses immediately outside the main gate.

Now auras make a pretty big difference to the warrior/mage balance, the right runewords putting warriors over 2.5k on a might merc and switching between summon gear(for initial summon) and normal runword gear. Still, at high levels 2-3 mages will equal your spear/spirit/pn damage.

Heres a calculator that you can use to see how strong your mages are or skeletons with auras (because skeleton base damage is NOT whats listed on skill).

http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~gottwald/necro_pet_calculator.html

[NumtyDoo]

I agree with kaervek on this one. With low +skills mages are about the same damage output as lowish bone skills. They help with the meatshield aspect as well when you have low +skills. With end game gear (after infinity and fana) they can put out 12k-15k damage per second (total, not each).

Getting your army should be a non issue, between the nith' grave yard, and the act 5 gate, you should be able to get your army up without a fight. before act 5, just walk out the rogue encampment, even a weak merc can take out devilkins.

[Daimoth]

I have a 74 summoner, which I've been soloing with. I've hit hell and the mages are the only thing keeping me alive when I have to fight physical immunes. They take them down in a about twenty seconds each or so. Slow, but I'm doing it by myself and I have no good gear - at all. That and my skeleton mage skill is low. But yeah, they're necessary for me, and they're what I add to nowadays.

It's worth mentioning that I typically have a few magical summons around, and I have maxed skeleton mastery.