Fellow necro's I need some help

[High Priest]

I've been playing now for about 3 months very slowly to see what kind of character I liked made about all of them up to around 30 - 60 levelish, but I found my home with the necro. It's the $hit to see 50 plus guys running around and killing when you want them to. But to my questions:

A little bit of backround:

Level 83
summonmancer
vit no max block

Gear:
shako ptopanz
homo pdiamond
enigma 1200 defence
plus 3 pnb ammy
r frost ring
mf ring 30%
tangle gloves
mf boot 30%
wizardspike

switch white with plus 7 sm/3 gm
+ 3 sm head

5 plus 20 life charms with nothing else on them and Annihilus with 14 att/7%xp I think I'd have to check.

skills:
20sm
20rs
20smage
1all other

16 in CE

1 in decrep
1 in attract
and pre reqs

Merc
Hurtttttttttttting
weapon Pierre Tombale Couant
armor crap something with plus life
helm crap something with plus life
need to upgrade bad any thought other then the best gear out there??????

With this set up why am I getting my a$$ handed to me in hell baal runs? In grp it's cool but solo I'm not so good.

For mf I keep running the pits and cows(while tell my skellies killed the king without me there, smoke break.):sad2: do I need to be higher level for some good drops? it dosen't seem like $hit is dropping for me?

Also is act 4 good for mf? I don't do so bad there tell I hit like 30 plus knights then I'm like WOW where all my mage/merc/skells going byebye .

So any of you out there got some tips for me?

Thanks

Priest

[High Priest]

How high should I get my plus to? The white wand is not for bone necros, where else can you get a wand with a +7 SM at? The bone armor and greater range on CE is just cake. But getting the plus skills you sayed don't I lose almost all my MF? nigma and shako is only around 150 or MF, isn't that low? I use wizardspike for max resist with homo. I guess charms is where everything is instead of gear. Hmmmmmm

[Myrakh-2]

You are bad because from the looks of it your gear is crap --- I'm hardly seeing +skills for summoning, and you even have extra +pnb skills which are next to useless for a Skelemancer. Your wand is a bonemancer wand as well, except that it sucks there as well because it seems to have +3 skeleton mastery on it...

Get some +skills. I'm not particulary familiar with unique-setups for Skelemancers, but my starting point would be a bonemancer setup (Homunculus, Maras, Shako, Arachnid, +2 Marrowwalks (for a bonemancer one can use other boots nowadays, but there's really no other choice for Skelemancers), Trang Gloves, Vipermagi), using AoKL as a wand instead of White. In your case, your enigma dupe can replace the vipermagi, but you'll probably need some more resist charms then. Depending on availability of resist charms you could even replace the Maras with a +3 summoning amulet and use even more charms to make up, although there's always the space tradeoff... summoning charms aren't expensive.

Act 4 is all level 80+, so it's good. River of Flame and Chaos Sanctuary are great --- level 85, large, and Diablo at the end.

*My* preferred Skelemancer merc gear is Andariels Visage (RALed), some +1 armor (+2 would be great... but +2 Arkaine isn't cheap) and a +4 Ariocs needle. Other people prefer crushing blow gear.

[High Priest]

would a Tomb Reaver with BerBerUm be good?

[High Priest]

In your case, your enigma dupe

Why it gotta be a dupe? Well unless the runes are duped because I just made it this weekend.

[MikeFord]

Summoners have two sources of damage, Merc, and CE once merc drops the first body. I use a Might merc with obedience in I think a plain cryptic axe with crown of thieves, and a griswalds with two sockets open, and dust everything with amp damage. Right now the only time he dies is when I am watching tv too much.

My own gear is totally half done, some Trang (not the armor), no homunculus, very red resists, but great chickenhood keeps me alive mostly.

MF also sucks for me, but I have no MF items and solo games have less drops.

Keep in mind many of the people that talk about great items only get them from doing endless runs with chars that are no fun or something.

[the boss]

would a Tomb Reaver with BerBerUm be good?

Eth Obedience is cheaper if you are on ladder

[High Priest]

I'm non ladder!

[the boss]

Non-Ladder eth Obedience should go around 2-3 sojs depending on the weapon made(made in eth Thresher is 2 sojs, made in eth Cryptic is 3 sojs, from my experience, since I have one on my summoner merc righ tnow)

[MikeFord]

Why play NL?