Corpse Explosion Vs Other Skills

[wonka]

Here is the jist of it...

I want to be a summoner necro, possibly hybrid but only to support my army and get kills.

What I've came up with so far is 20 RS, 20 Mastery (I've seen 20 RS and 10+ mastery but I'm worried without mastery skeletons will be frail.)

and then 20 of either Poison Nova, or Bone Spear (I think poison nova will do more damage than bone spear at 20? I've also heard that you should only do 16 bonespear/poison nova to get the synergies since + to skill gives you no synergy benefit. Please correct me if I'm wrong on either case.)

1 to all curses, 1 in Revive, 1 into golem and golem mastery and 1 into resists.

(Sidenote, with only 1 point into golem and golem mastery, is Clay golem still sturdy?)

The debate really is, should I max CE and really is it worth it? Some people are behind it, posting in threads how much area it adds and doing the math. Even with the math, CE is no good if you can't kill something to begin with.

I'm also worried that in 8 player games, CE will not do as much damage as compared to a single player game, leaving me to rely on my poison skills to kill things when I run out of corpses

The alternative for me to this would be just putting one point into CE, 10 pts for all my curses, IE basic Psn/Summoner build with 20RS, 20 Mastery, 20 Nova, 20 Poison Dagger.

On the other hand, I will admit CE maxed is tempting, and if I knew that Poison nova could do enough supportive damage for me to down monsters without a merc, and add good damage while my army tanks then I would drop the synergy(20 into poison dagger), leaving only 20 into poison nova.

Yes I have read the posts, but it doesnt answer my questions specifically in the situation.

So help me out guys.

[Spamisgood]

I may be way off base in saying this, but I always kind of assumed the guys who are against maxing CE have never actually done it. Sure on paper it seems "meh" to max it. In reality? You will be killing things 1 or 2 screens over, things you didn't even know were there.

Personally I always max it. Even in 8 player games when creatures have 450% life and you are only dealing 1/4 of that with CE, you will still be dealing tens of thousands of damage to the entire screen with just a few clicks.

Also, maxed corpse explosion makes dim vision practically obsolete.

Edit: You should be relying on your merc to get that first body. Without alot of + poison skills nova isn't going to be doing much besides stopping monster regen in hell. Also, Clay Golem will be plenty sturdy with just 1 point in it, it doesn't really have to be though, just recast it.

[juzamaku]

A note on synergies, from what I understand, synergies don't get bonuses on + skills so you would want to get them to 20

[Mad Mantis]

I think poison nova will do more damage than bone spear at 20?

Correct. However without synergies both really aren't worth your trouble.

I've also heard that you should only do 16 bonespear/poison nova to get the synergies since + to skill gives you no synergy benefit.

Correct. Only hard points in a skill will give synergies.

Sidenote, with only 1 point into golem and golem mastery, is Clay golem still sturdy?

He will need some +skills to become really sturdy, but you will get those anyway.

The debate really is, should I max CE and really is it worth it?

For a hybrid it is not worth it. If you want to have some success with the other part of your build you need the points in the synergies. You can't throw them into CE.