I Need Necro Advisement

[Finch]

I started playing LOD again over the last few months. My attempts at creating an MF character from scratch has failed twice already with a WW barb and a Hammerdin due to the inability to stay alive in hell (poor equipment).

So I looked into creating a Fishymancer. I just had two questions.

1). Once the core skills have been maxed there are around 30 skill points left to invest into whatever. Nightfish advises that you put them into curses and such. Can you also put them into Poison explosion and Nova? I have heard that at high levels they can do some pretty brutal damage and it makes sense that it would really help your skellies clear crowds. Is this a good idea? How would i go about it properly?

2). I have also heard that some Necros, although they don't have to lift more than a finger, can use a crossbow or other ranged weapon; thus, actively participating in the battle. Is this a valid idea? What can you experienced mancers tell me about this theory?

Thank you

[peytron]

I wouldn't bother with poison, the corpse explosion will clear crowds much faster. If you want a ranged weapon, a faith bow will help, gives you some ranged firepower, plus the aura will really help your minions clear much faster.

[Mad Mantis]

Can you also put them into Poison explosion and Nova?

Welcome Newcomer to The Darkness. Grab a brew :guiness: and feel free to raise some corpses.

For this path to be viable you need some very good Poison gear. Since you are building an MF-er I'd say that this isn't a viable route for you. It would be very hard to get it to function properly.

2). I have also heard that some Necros, although they don't have to lift more than a finger, can use a crossbow or other ranged weapon; thus, actively participating in the battle.

This is another gear-dependent build. You really need some equipment to make it function well, but you can start without good gear. It can be fun at times, but you'll have better success by focusing on +skills gear.

For pure MF and survivability your best hope is to make a standard Fishymancer.

[5zigen]

A harmony (tir ith sol ko) bow could be workable on a necromancer if you were silly enough to go with a ranged weapon.

giving skels vigor cant hurt either, but I guess the real problem is not having the resistances from a shield or skills from shield or wpn will cripple you.

[Finch]

Haha I just realized how much using a two-handed weapon would weaken your +skills. :hammerhead:

I thought of some other questions to ask.

In hell what is the best way to combat physical immunes with my skellies?

Also, is using Trang's set a good idea? I didn't read a part where fish mentioned it.

[5zigen]

Haha I just realized how much using a two-handed weapon would weaken your +skills. :hammerhead:

I thought of some other questions to ask.

In hell what is the best way to combat physical immunes with my skellies?

Also, is using Trang's set a good idea? I didn't read a part where fish mentioned it.

Using trangs works if you like it, some people hate using it though.

For PI's amp should handle them... if it doesnt hope you can CE something nearby.

[RealmOftheWolf]

After the 3 core skills i prefer to just pump mages as a constant utility since it can provide Chill to slow enemys down not useful at the beginning and probably the worst of the elements to have for shattered corpses and poison to negate enemy regeneration and also can do some decent damage with more skills. Oh and there more bodys to protect your ***.

Ive never been a fan of adding more to curses since its easy to get at least +5 skills in mf gear and i never needed any more than level 6 to 10. And bone armor without heavy investment isnt really as good as mages in protecting you from physical attacks.Mages stick close to your *** and dont run off as far as skeles. clay seems to have more than enough health without resorting to pumping golem mastery with a little plus to skills. Summon resist has really bad returns after the first 5 points and everyone will agree. All attack skills require decent amount of gear and skill points to be effective past nightmare.

Since you have already contributed 20 points to senergizing mages might as well add em in. Also if you ever get the best gear possible then a merc will make those mages more than just a utility while upgrading your skeletons a bit too.

Best gear IMO for a summoner and a fishymancer.
Andys visage
COH
Infinity Thresher.

Andys visage
All skills boosts the mercs natural aura and frees alot of slots since it gives a little attack speed and 8-10% life leech. Everything a growing merc needs. Not to mention a free socket and it can be picked up dirt cheap last time i played. it has other useful stats too:D

CoH.
Again boosts the natural aura of a merc and adds life leech a nice boost to strength and a massive boost to resists.

Infinity
40% Crushing blow,Nice damage and conviction to increase your cold,fire and lightning mages damage also reduces enemies defenses. SO all around the best weapon possible. Not to mention increases CE effectiveness.


I have level 20 with gear Corpse explosion since i dont really need a huge radious on it since most groups are barely a screen full and are quite a distance away from the second lot in most places. I made all my mf necros with a end result of being a decent summoner with best possible gear and as little wasted skill points wasted. A decent hellforge drop can buy you a near entire perfect set up and on ladder you can get it for 200 pgs for mf. Except enigma.

[mephiztophelez]

there have been numerous, credible accounts of a skelly'nec (fishymancer) solo'ing their way to guardian status, NAKED.

seriously, the core build is so strong equipment is something of an afterthought. this is why it's hands down, the single best starting 'toon you can build.

my skelly'nec is kitted out for goldfinding, has negative resists in Hell and i literally cannot remember the last time he died.

personally, i like putting a few extra points into Dim Vision. that just shuts down ranged attackers (read Souls, Gloams and other nasties).

you'll want to experiment with the following curses: Dim Vision, Amp (the goodness is obvious once you get the 'ole Corpse Explo howitzer going), Attract (keep nasties occupied until you get around to them), Decrepify (stops Baal summoning his double and keeps him from teleporting all over the place), Life-Tap (i only really use this occasionally on Mephisto when my merc is copping a bit of a hiding).

the one thing i really strongly suggest you avoid is any form of Cold Damage on your Mercenary. Cold Damage can lead to shattered corpses, which means less ammo for the CE Howitzer.

[MichelRPG]

As a now-experienced fishymancer player, I can advise you to focus mostly on + to skills. Let the mf items gradually come your way. A gheeds and a chanceguards for yourself alone will work wonders without sacrificing any + to skills slots. My necro wears a skullders since I couldnt afford an enigma earlier, and I have a sweet, cool 240mf (with some small sc's added). And the items I have found in the past few weeks include stuff such as Maras Kaleidoscope, The Arachnid mesh (5 mins ago actually), leorics arm, etc etc.

I must warn you though, necro's arent exactly "fast" mf characters. even with my lv35 CE and lv 39 skeletons (+41 mastery) I can't clear areas THAT fast. The fishymancer is a very boring character early on and I dare say it is a build that requires LOADS of patience and an undying love for the necromancer class.

[Zarniwoop]

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:

STATISTICS:
strength - I keep as low as I can. I'm lazy so I'll usually bump it to 40 or 45 until I get my enigma.
Dexteriry - I pray you do not listen to those that tell you max block isn't important. You're using a homunculus I hope, and it will save you where hit points can't. Just enough to max block once you have homunculus.
Vitality - every other point you have.

SKILLS:
20 skeleton mastery
20 raise skeleton
20 raise skeletal mage (they are NOT useless)
10 - 12 corpse explosion
10- 12 dim vision
1 in the rest of the summoning tree except fire golem
1 in the rest of the curse tree
I like to put a single point in bone armor (more is useless)

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. What that means is, if you don't have a long-distance crowd control curse, ranged attackers will fry you.

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. I strongly suggest you don't. 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.

The order of skill spending is as follows:

Raise skeleton
Skeleton mastery

Then just have fun, because you probably won't mess it up if you just make sure at the end your points are in place. I personally get 10 or so in corpse explosion after that then do dim vision, then mages and one point wonders.


For equipment in the early/midgame:

Grab a cheap vipermagi (armor), a homunculus(shield), an arm of king leoric (weapon), 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.

I usually have 28 summoning skills early in ladders and the only thing that gives 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.


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
Amulet: Either a great +3 summoning ammy, a +2 necro magic find, or a maras kaleidescope.
Rings - 2x nagels

Weapon switch: arm of king leoric (we have no need for a CTA).
Shield switch: Spirit in a monarch or another homunculus.



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.

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.

HERE IS A WEBSITE THAT IS INVALUABLE: http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/

Welcome to the necro class!

Z

[MichelRPG]

STATISTICS:
strength - I keep as low as I can. I'm lazy so I'll usually bump it to 40 or 45 until I get my enigma.
Dexterity - I pray you do not listen to those that tell you max block isn't important. You're using a homunculus I hope, and it will save you where hit points can't. Just enough to max block once you have homunculus.
Vitality - every other point you have.

SKILLS:
20 skeleton mastery
20 raise skeleton
20 raise skeletal mage (they are NOT useless)
10 - 12 corpse explosion
10- 12 dim vision


what is the fascination of people with the homunculus? Honestly it's overrated. A boneflame is just as good or even better. It lacks block and %mana increase but hell, you can get past that.

I played differently from this build. I spent a single point on dim vision (and only to get attract at that), and + to skills did the rest. It's at a cool +18 now or something, more than enough to handle any area. CE however, is maxed, and has a nice 14 yard radius.

Skeletal mages however.. won't say they're useless, but I won't say spending 20 points on them is a must. I spent 3 points on them, and with my current build I can summon 9 of them, which does it for me. I spent the 17 points from mages into bone wall, a single point in spear/ spirit, and let the bonewall synenergies give me an EXCELLENT synenergy for bone armor and spirit.

Max block, I find I didn't need it. I barely ever get hit to begin with, and if I'm hit it's usually by gloams (and block doesnt help against them). I did it a bit different, and I ended up with a nice 25% block, a nice 430hp bone armor, and exactly 999 hp (with 55 statpoints unspent).

The Str I agree can be kept low IF you can get an enigma. But personally I recommend you to get around 120 str or so, then you can wear Marrowwalks and pretty much everything your heart desires, without having to worry about reqs. (120str is only like, 24 levels.. leaves plenty of statpoints for the other areas).

[Zarniwoop]

Nothing is imperative in the summoner build except 20 in rs and 20 in sm. Then highly advisable is at least some form of crowd control and some CE.

After that, you could play naked. So, I agree that you can feel free to mix and match and try different things.

It is just my opinion that homunculus cannot be improved upon.

If you use an enigma and like to port on top of bosses, which speeds the necro up to almost hammerdin speed, max block is unbeatable.

It's just a playstyle. I preach max block. Others live without it.


I'm never going to tell anyone, it can't be done another way. I'm always interested in how others play, because I instantly swap gear around and try it. I've even rolled 2 necros to try with block and without. I just infinitely prefer max block.

[MichelRPG]

Of course, if you prefer that by all means, do it. I just believe that with 20+ minions on me I don't get hit that often that I would need max block. So I invested in Bone Wall which boosts my armor AND my bone Spirit (and with some + to skills you can still do some modest damage). 430hp bone armor and 25% block keeps me around long enough. Most of the time I dont even have to recast bone armor for a long time.