I want power!

[peanut]

So, back to d2 after a long wow addiction, good to be out of that trap..

Anyhow, first time poster and i have a few questions.. Im building a summon necro, mainly because i find it the most fun, got some gear together and i'd like to hear your input on what to improve etc. I plan on running uber trist with this char, boulderdudes ftw!

This is the gear i have so far..

Me:

Weapon: Hoto 35 / homun.. might get king leoric, but i like the res and the fcr tbh..
Switch: Cta6 / spirit
Armor: Dusk 15% ed nigma
Helm: Shako
Gloves: Trang-oul's (?)
Boots: Marrowalk
Amu: havnt got one yet, im making crafted stuff myself, so i hope on rolling something godly soon.. else ill just get a 3+summon
Rings: Havnt got soj or bk, what's my best choice before getting them you think?
Belt: Arach¨

Merc:

Helm: Kiras / Guil face (can't spell it :P) I'll switch for bosses, he'll need res for uber meph etc.
Armor: eth bramble
weapon: lvl 17 pride

Extras:

Irongolem made out of lvl 17 insight
Annhilius
Torch
Summoning Skillers (I havnt got these yet, but soon hopefully)

I've been thinking of getting beast to get fana aswell.. but tbh, now i have might, consecration and thorns aura, and meditation. I dont think the dmg and ias will be THAT much better than the 3+skills / res / fcr etc... ill get a spirit from hoto etc..

Stats and skills:

Stats:

Strenght: Base, with anni and torch i will be able to equip my enigma.
Dex: Base, i dont think it's worth hitting maxblock when i have marrowalks to bug bonearmor
vita: everything
energy: base ofc

Skills:

Curses:

1 in everything, with +skills should give me enough radius

total: 10

Psn and bone:

1 teeth
1 bone armor
10 corpce explotion (with +skills i imagine it'll have a good enough radius)

total: 12

Summoning:

Skeleton mastery: 20
Raise Skeleton: 20
Raise Skeleton Mage: 10ish (?)
Golem mastery: 10ish (to make my insight golem survive abit longer)
Summon resist: 5ish (dont know how much this will help, just guessing)
Revive: 10-20 (my main source of crushing blow)

Total: about 80

Brings me to lvl 90 wich is a perfect number for me.

If I, according to you, have really wrong ideas about stuff, help me out here, not very experienced so i trust you. (as long as you'r not flaming me :))

Hope to get your honest opinion, Cheers

MrPeanut

[mii_the_people]

i'm sure you'll get more advice, but for starters, marrowalk's bone prison charges no longer synergise bone armor. that bug was removed in 1.10(?)
infinity runeword has 40% crushing blow vs. pride's 0, and infinity has conviction, lowering enemie's defense, making things easier to hit
other than decrep, life tap, and terror, i'm not sure you need other curses
some people like using clay golems for their slow effect, instead of iron golems.
this thread may also help http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=706832

[peanut]

Is it proven that infinity -defence is better than pride +damage?

[billking]

Is it proven that infinity -defence is better than pride +damage?
Considering that most of your damage is done with Crushing Blow, I'd say so.

Plus, if you had to you could have the Necro carry the Pride.

[peanut]

ok, got a low infinity now :)

[LongingForDeath]

Is it proven that infinity -defence is better than pride +damage?

I'm not sure if Infinity is better than Pride for your skellies. However, a Necromancer usually does most of his damage through Corpse Explosion, where Infinity will help a lot by lowering enemies fire resistances. I think that's the main reason why it's recommended over Pride.

[billking]

I'm not sure if Infinity is better than Pride for your skellies. However, a Necromancer usually does most of his damage through Corpse Explosion, where Infinity will help a lot by lowering enemies fire resistances. I think that's the main reason why it's recommended over Pride.
Well yeah, that too. Most of your damage to plain old monsters is Corpse Explosion. Infinity helps there. Most of your damage to bosses is Crushing Blow (off of merc and Urdars). Infinity helps there too. The only thing left for Pride to do is to help you get those first few corpses, when you're starting a new game. Surprisingly, Pride is kinda bad at that, too: it freezes the corpse so it shatters when it dies.

I haven't got any of that good stuff yet, but I am going to get Infinity on my merc and Pride on my necro himself. That should increasing killing speed more than +skills items (and more than the Beast switch), and resistances can always be handled with charms. In the meantime, holding Insight (instead of making a golem out of it) has proved very effective; the Magic Find on Insight is nice.

[peanut]

that's a very weird take on it imo.. im using beast / homun, i get killing speed and +skills+major resists.. why on earth would i give that up for some magic find? I have wt's, enigma, gheeds, nagles and shako.. about 350 mf.. and that's the gear i use for ubers aswell.. just seems like a proper waste if you ask me.

[billking]

that's a very weird take on it imo.. im using beast / homun, i get killing speed and +skills+major resists.. why on earth would i give that up for some magic find? I have wt's, enigma, gheeds, nagles and shako.. about 350 mf.. and that's the gear i use for ubers aswell.. just seems like a proper waste if you ask me.
Beast/homunculus impresses most people, but it doesn't impress me as much. I'm not so terribly concerned with resists, blocking, or anything else involving my survivability, because as long as my summons are alive I've never been in any serious danger, except when I was being a careless dumbass. I'm not saying resists don't matter, I'm just saying that I'm willing to only get them from charms, maybe Mara's, and that if I don't get all my resists to 75 I'm not that worried about it. And +skills is a means to an end; the end is the survivability and damage output of my minions, and the damage output of my Corpse Explosions. This makes for faster runs.

Pride increases minion damage far more than Beast runeword, even factoring in the increased attack speed. Insight isn't necessarily good on a high-level character with good equipment (especially +mana items), but it's amazing on a relatively low-level character with crap equipment, because those characters have mana issues with Corpse Explosion without the Meditation aura to help them out. I'd recommend a base-dex (or 41 dex, if you think Scythes look cool) fishymancer, wearing an Insight polearm early and a Pride polearm when available.

Beast/Homonculus may be a better option for Hardcore, where survivability is more important. In Softcore, I think the typical fishymancer equipment is just too conservative and not offensive enough.

[peanut]

First of all, i find myself rarley using CE, it's when i do pits / shenk and maybe the occational wsk run.. i'm using an insight irongolem since i never seem to need clay golem, otherwise i just tele around next to the mobs and my mages will take out anything nearby.. nasty ranged dudes i just cast dim vision on and be on with it.. i might turn my golem into a pride golem instead of a insight golem and use hoto instead of beast.. with hoto i get more skills, mana, fcr and resist, will need to chug an occational mana pot for heavy teleporting... but wearing insight myself.. dude, you cant argue that's a better choice in any way..

[billking]

but wearing insight myself.. dude, you cant argue that's a better choice in any way..If you have access to Pride or Beast, and especially if you have enough points in Golem Mastery for an Insight Iron Golem to be durable, then you're absolutely right. I'm just saying Insight is a great option for necros who are just starting out and are on a budget.

I guess if you're went heavily into Skeletal Magi there is no way to undo that, so you might as well continue. However, I think a maxed CE is far better than a maxed Skeletal Magi in terms of kill speed.