Is fishymancer best?

[Snipes]

I'm planning on making a summon necro to keyfind and eventually take on ubers. Is following fishymancer suit best way to do this? or should i branch into mages and more revives? maybe ditch CE?

Just curious to everyones opinions as i haven't had much experience with summon necros... im just really lookin to get away from hammerdins ;]

[Ed from Russia]

Fishymancer is the best setup for summoners; see the guide by Nightfish in the stickies. That means you max Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery and Corpse Explosion. However, once you have maxed those and put points in a few other skills, you still have about 30 points left to invest. One point in Revives will get you a couple of those, and nothing is to stop you from getting mages as well; it's probably the most common 4th skill to invest in for fishies. .

[amdZeroNineEight]

dim vision is nice too, it blinds everything save for a few, and it shuts down souls and other things that can 1 hit you from far away

i always max it, since it blinds a whole screen, i spam it on corners, and then amp the area my skellies are fighting, and then move around

you can also put more points into clay golem, my clump has around 5k hp right now [20 golem, 10 mastery] and he only dies when i recast him
his slow + decrep is great for taking down any boss

since your going to be key running, dim vision might be better, especially in act2, itll stop those wraiths and whatever is near the summoner, also will help in the tower for countess

[jamesL]

I haven't done any key hunting yet
I'm new to this
but I have a level 84 fishymancer in hell difficulty about to battle the ancients andits been fairly easy so far
especially after putting points in dim vision
dim vision is a life saver

[Ed from Russia]

I didn't notice that before, that you mentioned keyhunting. A summoner isn't the best character for that, though with Enigma he'll do fine. I'm much more prefer a fast-moving caster (such as a Lightning sorc, Hdin or Poisonmancer), especially to run Countess and Summoner.

[Snipes]

dim vison does sound very useful. i'll sink points into that.. although im not sure exactly. my end goal is to have around 15 extra points coming from gear so i don't see a point in sinking many points into that. Im more curious if mage is worth it. Revive really only needs 1 or 2 seeing how after the extra points from gear u have 15 revives u can summon and hitting that means they start dyin on you. But im more curious wat else to put points into. I know a hammerdin would be better for magicfinding but im lookin for a capable summon necro. One that can keyfind, but mostly take on ubers. Clay Golem might be a choice...

[jamesL]

I have 7 or 8 in mage; one hard point and the rest from items (sigon's shield, lore helmet and so on)
I'm level 85 now and haven't casted a mage for around the last 40 levels
if there's a dead monster on the ground, I either leave it there in case I need a skeleton warrior later, or I revive it if the dead monster has a ranged attack or if I'm about to fight an act boss

mage's just don't do enough damage
they don't get a bonus from my might merc or from amplify damage
I could put a point or two in lower resistance and cast that, but that would override amplify damage and therefore cut my skeleton warrior's damage in 1/2

right now (not counting skills from items) I have
a couple of skill points in each golem (although clay is the only one I use so far, I just have points in the other golems for bonuses, but I intend to use iron later when I find lots of good crushing blow items)
maybe 5 in dim vision, 3 in golem mastery, 3 in summon resist, 2 in amplify, 2 in decrepify, max corpse explosion, max skeleton mastery and max skeleton warrior, one in attract, one in confuse and the other prereqs

the only real problem I'm having so far is going throgh the frozen tundra: the skeletons stop and attack EVERY blockade and door they come across
I'm running circles around poison, cold and fire catapults that are being guarded by mobs of archers and those stinking teleporting demons; my skeletons ignore the catapult, the archers and me getting bombarded with arrows and just pound away on the nearest door :)
stupid skeletons

oh, I also have problems going back to Travincal because so many monsters cast blizzard and meteor while standing on the upper wall, so its difficult for my skeletons to get to them; dim vision has surely made it easier and safer; but still, getting bombarded by ranged attacks is a pain
si I try to cast my clay golem right in the middle of them to hold their attention while my skeletons, my merc and I go running around to get on the wall

[Snipes]

All good info guys thanks.

I'm just curious. Anyone have any summoner experience with the Ubers and would like to share ;] ???

[shuy]

Fishymancer is best for killing Countess, Horazon and Nihla, but key hunting is either teleport. You can have wizzy + spirit on switch but usually it is hard to get 75 FCR. Especially if you have few str points invested, even with enigma can be hard to get 156 str. If you can use wizzy (or succide) on switch fishy is nice. I prefer bone necro anyway ;)

[MichelRPG]

I have a fishymancer, a very succesful one at that, without using enigma. A necromancer honestly doesnt need teleport to boost the speed by large amounts, except for one location; the arcane sanctuary for the summoner.

Speed tips for the countess; you're already past Hell mode (having beaten Baal or being able to) so I assume the monsters here are childs play. Dim vision like mad and run past them. Works fine by me. And the forgotten tower seems to have a clockwise pattern in it (though it takes a while to figure it out). I can do a countess run without teleporting in about 2-3 minutes, provided I dont run into a horrible combination of uniques. None too impressive, but still good without use of teleporting.

Speed tips nihlatak: Erm... you dont want speed against him. There's a thread on nihlatak somewhere on how to get to him the fastest way through the WP (theres only 3 maps for that section). The damn problem there are the tomb vipers, and Nihlataks CE. Unless you are an absolute expert at nihlatak runs and know what to expect, I advise you never to randomly teleport towards his location. Nasty surprises may await you. Even so, I can do a nihlatak run in about 4 minutes, depending on the monsters I come across.

[Ed from Russia]

Fishymancer is best for killing Countess, Horazon and Nihla, ...

That's not Horazon. He was a deluded fool who came too close to real power.

[Ed from Russia]

I have a fishymancer, a very succesful one at that, without using enigma. A necromancer honestly doesnt need teleport to boost the speed by large amounts, except for one location; the arcane sanctuary for the summoner.



That's true, but a key runner needs teleport.

[MichelRPG]

That's not Horazon. He was a deluded fool who came too close to real power.

yup. Thats the wizard/sorcerer from Diablo I (Blood Raven being the Amazon and the Dark Wanderer being the Warrior :D)

[CCCenturion]

Unless you are an absolute expert at nihlatak runs and know what to expect, I advise you never to randomly teleport towards his location.

Don't mean to brag here, but I am probably the greatest Nihlathak runner who ever lived.:crazyeyes:

Seriously, though, I do pretty well. Basically what it comes down to is having max (125%) fast cast rate, maxed CE, and a tough merc and golem. It's nice to have a few skeletons, but not necessary. You also need to memorize the maps for Halls of Pain and Halls of Vaught.

What works for me is to teleport into his room as fast as I can, and then teleport behind the platform he's standing on. 9 times out of 10, you'll be able to skip past the Vipers that way, unless there's a pack of them in the back corner. Then you cast amp, switch to CE and start right-clicking like crazy. If your merc is built tough enough, he'll get a kill pretty quickly. Then it's a CE duel between you and Nilly. As long as you have 125 fcr, he doesn't stand a chance. Once your merc gets that first kill, you set off a CE chain reaction and the room will be empty in less than 5 seconds.

[tetracycloide]

All good info guys thanks.

I'm just curious. Anyone have any summoner experience with the Ubers and would like to share ;] ???

Yes.

Mages are essential when assembling keys and running Ubers because the poison mage has a super low DPS but very long lasting poison that negates the regen on Uber Diablo and Uber Baal. I would recommend maxing skele, mastery, CE, and mages then putting all the left over points in dim vision. A bigger radius on dim vision is a life saver and even against ubers will help against their summons, just terror till they're a safe distance away then dim vision to keep them there.

Teleport is essential for ubers and for the minis to a lesser extent but enigma is not automatically required. I ran ubers a few times before i assembled my first enigma using naj's staff for teleport and it worked just fine. I actually paid for my engima with one of my first torches.

Level is important for Uber and mini-uber running. I would suggest getting your summoner to high 80s low 90s (93 is a good level for summons and for crafting). The difference between running ubers and 80 and 90 is night and day, summons die less, hit more often, and are just generally more useful. In the low 80s I had some trouble with deaths from light enchanted meph and even diablo's normal fire skills but in the low 90s these all but dissapeared.

As a starter gearset i would suggest:
Shako
Trang armor
Trang belt
Trang gloves (3 pc set bonuses offer several large resists)
Arm of king leoric
Homonc w/ pdiamond
boots with life or resists or both (the +2 SM boots are not required but may be helpful if your skeletons are dying a lot)
Any +skills ammulet (my first was only +1 necro)
Any rings you want

merc starter gear:
obidence thresher or giant thresher
duress or eth duriel's shell
gulliame's face

you will loose mages during a run but and your merc will occasionally die but your revives and skeletons should be fine. plan ahead, you control when and how you fight minis and ubers so scout out durance 3, palace celar, and river of flame for urdar cousins to revive. make sure there are enough for 2 or 3 trips to start with, 1 or 2 after your gear improves.

Tip: On nilhil runs when facing vipers use teleport more frequently to prevent your merc from walking through clouds. Standing in clouds will do almost no damage in decent gear and the bug only triggers if you move. Use this to your advantage and vipers will never be much trouble. Also keep in mind the clouds last longer than the graphic so if you see a cloud dissapear wait a few seconds before walking through it just to be safe.

[jevgeni]

I have been trying to solo the übers couple of times. Once got lucky. Twice got slaughtered by one of them.

First time it was Mephisto. So in the second run i used Treachery to trigger the fade. It was successful.
On my second failure it was Diablo who caused trouble. His life just regens too fast. My strategy is to telestomp on him, run farther, cast terror to get those venom lords away and then dim vision them.

He kills my minions in matter of seconds.

My skillpoints:
20RS
20SM
10RSM
10SR
1 revive

Mages only get one shot on him and then shatter to dust.

[MichelRPG]

jev, what setup do you use?

[jevgeni]

From the "Just post your necro's stats/stuff/skills"
Gear
Shako (ptopaz)
Enigma
Beast
Homunculus (Um)
Trang gloves
Arachnid Mesh
Waterwalks
Magic Amu 30res 7str
Magic ring 15res 1max dmg
Rare ring 29lr 30fr 21mf
Switch AoKL + Homunculus (pdiamond)
Anni + Torch

Merc Act 2 Might
Guillaume
Fortitude eth scarab
Obediance eth sup thresher

Also using Treachery rw to get fade to stand Mephisto.

[MichelRPG]

hmm.. not the ideal setup. But like you, my problem is mephisto. The minibosses, no problem. Baal and Diablo are beatable too. But Mephisto and his blizzard/lightning attacks is just too much. Havent beaten him yet. A strategy I havent decided on just yet though is to cast attract/confuse on any monsters he summons and hope there's a few close to him and he attacks those instead. Not only does his conviction make sure some immunities are broken, meph will automatically provide you with nice new revives to use just in case your maulers die.

[tetracycloide]

I have been trying to solo the übers couple of times. Once got lucky. Twice got slaughtered by one of them.

First time it was Mephisto. So in the second run i used Treachery to trigger the fade. It was successful.
On my second failure it was Diablo who caused trouble. His life just regens too fast. My strategy is to telestomp on him, run farther, cast terror to get those venom lords away and then dim vision them.

He kills my minions in matter of seconds.

My skillpoints:
20RS
20SM
10RSM
10SR
1 revive

Mages only get one shot on him and then shatter to dust.

First things first, what level are you? If it's less than 90 I'd suggest you level more and then have another go. If your revives and skeles are dying to any of the ubers your level probably isn't high enough.

Unforuntatly you'd have been better off putting 20 points in RSM and 1 in SR instead of splitting them like that. The skeles and revives don't have much trouble staying up even vs. conviction so SR is really just to help the mages and they'd be better served by maxing their own skill.

To help your mages consider picking up a CTA, it's not absolutely necessary but a +1 BO could help your mages stay up long enough.

Also consider micromanaging your mage summons. Take your time and unsummon any that aren't poison. Even if they die fast if they're all poison at least one should get one shot off and that's all you need for several minutes. Also try not telestomping baal and diablo right away, port a half screen away and wait for mages to fire a few poison bolts and then stomp. The mages will last longer at range.

How many urdar are you picking up for each uber? If one is giving you trouble take the time to pick up some extras, 10-12 ought to do it but it's hard to say exactly how many without knowing your level.

Eth fort is a heavily overrated merc armor. I'd suggest trading it away for an eth CoH. The CoH will add more survivability through leech, DR, and massive resists and also adds more damage to your minions via the +2 all skills which does cout toward the merc's might aura. The physical damage of your merc on the character screen should be the third priority on a MM merc set up behind surviving and buffing the other minions. All that said, however, it's certainly possible to down the ubers without either armor.

[shuy]

Here you have 2 descriptions of UTristram experiences.
http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=706832
Diablo has very dangerous attack
http://classic.battle.net/images/battle/diablo2exp/images/superuniques/diablo.jpg
I call it welding machine. Fortunatelly this attack does not work (or is less effective) if you/your minions are less then 1pt range from Diablo. This is the reason, that mages die fast and skelies survive. This is either reason that smiter can easy beat UDiablo or Clone when frenzier (weapon range 3) have some trouble.

Ref to keyrunning - my keyrun with all 3 bosses (no Baal) takes less then 5 minutes (game is not permed). Usually I go Summoner (revieve few ghosts), go to Nihla, go to Baal (ghosts dying after 3 minutes, revieve monsters from 3rd and 4th wave), Go Countess (revieve dying usually when I'm killing her or few second before). This run takes about 7-8 minutes, because I need revieve twice. Fast bone necro is best rush/keyhunting character.