Back to the necro lab

[dcrunk]

Hello necro brethren.
I have put together my second necro and I wanted to take this summoner/fisher to the single player arena.
The build is basically like devilfish's archetype.

20 skele mast
20 raise skele
20 mages
1 prereqs
1 clay golem
1 Revive
1 amp
20 CE

I want to mf but find that my merc gets shredded by range archers (fanatical/might) and or cold aura/might -range/melee boss packs.:thumbsdown:

starting with my necro gear:
2 soc helm (2 ptopaz)
34 mf ammy
lidless wall- (switch milbrega)
3 raise skele wand- (ali baba)
low vipermagi
deathguard belt (not frozen helps)
chanceguards
15 mf rings(mods not worth mentioning)
20mf boots
*inventory full of smf charms/large, resists charms

Merc gear:
Guil face (no soc)
twitchthroe
"strength" Ogre Axe

I want to be able to mf stuff like wsk/pitts/ lvl 85 areas- and survive... :hang:

[Zarniwoop]

Copy paste from me.



I have played a fishymancer (summoner) for many ladders.

It is devastating once built. If you can get your skellies pumped just a bit, 26+ you'll be fine.

Here is my build:

20 skeleton mastery
20 raise skeleton
20 raise skeletal mage
10 - 12 corpse explosion
10- 12 dim vision
1 in everything else.

No points in any bone skills except 1 in bone armor. No points in Fire Golem.

If you don't like dim vision, you need to take a different crowd control spell for gloams and other things. Attract works well I've heard. I like dim vision because it just shuts down every ranged unit on the screen. At high levels it will affect places you cannot even see yet.

Do not put any points in fire golem. Do not put more than 1 point in any golem skill. Clay golem is the BEST golem. It will die endlessly until you get more + skill gear later. don't worry about it.

I'm serious, you do not need to sink more than one point into any other skills but the 5 listed to beat the entire game fairly easily. Oblivion knights will still suck, and until you get about 28 in your summoning skills the rare fanatical lightning enchanted double packs will clean your clock.

Grab a cheap vipermagi, a homunculus, an arm of king leoric, A necro helm with +2 summoning skills and resists or life, and a +3 necro summoning amulet and you're already at like 32 summoning skills and owning everything.

By the time I get 28 summoning skills the only thing that will give me trouble is oblivion knights (and gloams because my + all skills isn't high enough yet to really pump dim vision). The writer of the fishymancer guide suggested 20 in dim vision. That certainly works. But, from experience I know that 10-15 is more than enough long term.

One note: to turn the summoning necro from a great class to a overpowered class, you will need an enigma. There is no substitute. No amulets. Enigma.



Later in the ladder, my gear will be:

Head: shako
Armor: Enigma runeword
Boots: War Travellers
Weapon: Heart of the oak runeword in a flail
Shield: Homunculus with a perfect diamond socketed
Belt: Arachnid mesh OR Thundergods Vigor (FCR isn't that important for a fishy if you know what you're doing, but try to hit the first breakpoint)
Amulet: Either a great +3 summoning ammy, a +2 necro magic find, or a maras kaleidescope.
Rings - 2x nagels or some really good rings if I find them (something with str, fcr, life, and resists for example is filled with win).
Gloves - Magefists if I'm min/maxing, but most likely 38+ mf Chance guards.

Weapon switch: arm of king leoric (we have no need for a CTA unless doing ubers).
Shield switch: Spirit in a monarch or another homunculus.
I drag around a baba for boss kills.

This character can EASILY carry 450 magic find and still wipe any pack of mobs out without trying. Dolls, gloams, lightning enchanted, etc. It doesn't matter. Even OKs get less scary once you realize that with enigma you can essentially break them as they will almost always overwrite iron maiden with decrpify if you teleport on their heads or just cast your clay golem right next to them. Necro has no weakness except it's not quite as fast as the very top hammerdins and sorceress'. But, it's a ton safer and you will never need to leave a game because there's a double lightning enchanted bunch of dolls, with champion gloams, supported by oblivion knights in the throne of destruction.



You can dress your merc in anything. But, you want to get him crushing blow. The way I typcially do it is to buy him a guillaime's facemask which has 35 perecent CB and costs pgems. People talk about using uber runewords for his weapon, but I always use an insight in a cryptic axe or thresher. Having plenty of mana is great and I tried using infinity and pride and it makes no real difference. I wipe out anything with or without them. For armor, the best value is CoH if you have cash (chains of honor). If you're struggling, slap anything on him. Shaftstop is a great one, duriel's shell doesn't suck, Guardian angel - all of those can be gotten for less than a lem by now. Duriel's for like 5 gems tops. Heck I throw them away. Seriously, if you can't get a coh, get the Shaftstop if available. If not, get the GA or Duriel's. I know that leaves your merc without life leech. Too bad. Mine has zero life leech and dies just about never. It's hard to hit your merc when you teleport right onto the bosses head (or the oblivion knights head, etc).

If you want to do UBER Tristram with a necro, then I do suggest you read the uber tristram guide for necros because you will need to make some changes.



Welcome to the necro class!

Z

[Tarantella]

Hello necro brethren.
I have put together my second necro and I wanted to take this summoner/fisher to the single player arena.
The build is basically like devilfish's archetype.

20 skele mast
20 raise skele
20 mages
1 prereqs
1 clay golem
1 Revive
1 amp
20 CE

I want to mf but find that my merc gets shredded by range archers (fanatical/might) and or cold aura/might -range/melee boss packs.:thumbsdown:
............

I want to be able to mf stuff like wsk/pitts/ lvl 85 areas- and survive... :hang:


Alternatively one point in dim vision, decrepify, summon resist and one in bone armour and maybe bonewall gives strength and versatility.

Decrepify to decrease speed and damage output of ranged attackers, summon resist which helps all summons including revives, bone armour for personal defence and bonewall for either shutting out attackers or preventing them from running away. Pursuit of fleeing ranged attackers breaks up your army. Repeatedly tossing gumby into the middle of an archer boss pack also takes the pressure off the merc whilst he's closing to fight.

[sequoia]

when it comes to single player mf'ing nothing... really... nothing - is faster. corpse explosion is way too strong for 1 player games.

by far my favorite class to MF with, very easy to play, but loads of fun to play with and watch. can also stack tons of MF.

[billking]

I think it's interesting how we're talking about Uber Tristram to a player that is having difficulty with normal everyday monsters. One thing at a time, people. You aren't addressing his concern at all.

The reason your merc keeps dying is because he is not outfitted for survival. If he is a Might merc, his job is not to kill things himself, but to more or less do what you do: hang around, provide bonuses to the undead army via aura(s), and just generally not die. Anything he kills himself is gravy. Oh, and you might want some Crushing Blow against bosses, especially since the bosses will mash your merc if they don't go down quickly.

That said, Twitchroe needs to go. It's Studded Leather, for Pete's sake. No wonder he keeps getting hit by arrows, he's missing what should be a large defense bonus. Get him something like Smoke runeword armor, which will max out his resistances (VERY nice in Hell difficulty) and provide a beefy bonus to his defense against missiles. Or basically any unique you find with decent defense and hopefully some useful mod like life steal, replenish life, damage reduction, etc.

Even though your merc's AI will send him right into it (eventually at least), there are still some things you can do to help him out. Resummoning Clay Golem right next to some archers will draw some fire away from an advancing merc, letting him get within life-leech range. Attract or Dim Vision can also help to divert attention. But the best defense is keeping your merc surrounded by skellies; its not just your best defense, it's his best defense too. In a world without Enigma, don't be afraid to hotkey Town Portal and use it often; when you return through the portal, you will have minion stack, which gives concentrated fire and a bunch of skeletons to absorb hits (instead of your merc). TP scrolls are a lot cheaper than reviving your merc.

[dcrunk]

thx guys for the responses, I will invest in dim vision though i have not really tried it much. Just picked up a duriel shell in pits the other day so tossed that on my merc. Would insight on my merc get me through hell?
Havent seen much better stuff for my necro as of yet...
I want to try doing wsk runs but from experience its very hard to get that first (gloam) whatever to drop.
Ill keep posted on when i get there with this character, creeping up to act 3 (slowly)