Need help speeding up MF runs

[VanCleef]

I am a fishymancer running MF in hell at lvl91. It's going slower than dirt. I have the following gear which gets me about 10 skellies and 7 revives:

Weap1: Arm of K. Leoric
Shield1: The Ward (+35 res)
Weap2: Ali Baba
Shield2: Whitstan's
Helm: Nat's Totem; Tarn in Inventory
Ammy: Tele w/ 25 charges; +20 res in inventory
Armor: Skulder's, just replaced Trang's Scales
Belt: Goldwrap
Gloves: Trang's
Boots: Rares with +32% LR and CR; +35% MF in inventory

Merc:
Weap: Arioc's +4
Helm: Guillaume's
Armor: Toothrow

Is it better to MF in a lvl85 area like WSK / The Pit or to spend $$$$$$$$ on tele charges by quickly teleporting to Meph / Baal? In my experience, I get more uniques and set items by popping chests over the bosses. Countess continuously only drops me Nefs and Tirs. Then I got Ist, Skulder's and Tal's ammy from a chest and basket in Cat lvl2 and Durance2, respectively.

I can only do about one run per night, b/c it takes so long to solo Pindle, Andy, The Countess, Meph and Baal in one sitting. About 2 hours or so.

Would I be better off strictly doing Pindle & Shenk runs until I can get Enigma with its unlimted teleport charges?

[Blizzatch]

Are you playing on Bnet?

If so, get better gear. You MUST have Homonculus, socket it with a PDiamond and it will help with skills and resists. Try to get a Shako. Get some Chance guards. Get more Skellis, don't worry about revives, they're not necessary.

For your merc, make him an Insight weapon. It will help with your mana and his killing speed. I like Duriel's shell better than Toothrow, and it's cheap. Use that until you can make him Duress.

If you're not on Bnet for some reason, I find open areas such as the Pit and the WSK the best places to run my Fishy. Right now I'm trying to level him up, so I just do endless Pindle/Eldritch runs, which take about 3 minutes.

One thing to consider: Last night I got bored with repetitive runs, and decided to give Nightmare Andarial a try. It's easy, you're in no danger, and relatively quick because you can just ignore monsters and run past them. In about 15 runs I found Tal's ammy and an SOJ! Gotta like those odds.

[VanCleef]

thx for the response.

I am on bnet, though everything I have is self-found. I have only made one trade (a low gf extra goldwrap for the ali baba). Everyone is super greedy.

I have yet to find anyone who will trade a homunc for the quoted prices from the trade forums. Everyone wants pul and up (or 40+ pgems) when it says 10-20 on all the guides. They all laugh when I offer pgems. Basically, everyone's kind of a ****.

The few trades I've tried to set up on the forums here don't get any response. any pointers?

[Gnetic]

The guides aren't exact. A pul is a pretty fair estimation for the Homunculus. Using a spirit for a shield will help with the resistances and skills.

Necro's aren't the strongest MF characters so you might want to make a sorc to speed things up. They aren't too costly to make.

2 hours for one single run is insanity.

[Hrus]

VanCleef, Fishymancers are good in area runs not in killing bosses. Do Pindle/Pit runs. Also even a naked fishy can do area runs fast - just remeber that your primary killing spell is corpse explosion, use it a lot.

Blizzatch: you don't need homunculus. And PDiamond gives damage against undead in weapons - which is totally useless for fishymancer.

[Pitboss_2000]

PDiamond in Homonculus gives resists, since it counts as a shield.

[Hrus]

OOps my bad. I don't even want to describe my associations leading me to the mistake that Homunculus is a weapon. I blame durf, and me thinking about rebuilding my MF sorc without an occulus (which sounds similar to homunculus)...

[VanCleef]

Homunc with PDiamond is helping, thanks. So is Naj's Staff.

CE is the best. I spam it constantly.

[GreatInRemembrance]

Fast Andariel and Meph runs are best left to sorcs. Total time for doing both on my sorc is about 5 minutes, Pindle about 30 seconds, and Shenk about the same.

Where your character/build will shine is indeed in WSK and The Pit. Load up on the MF and go nuts.

[Blizzatch]

Homunc with PDiamond is helping, thanks. So is Naj's Staff.

CE is the best. I spam it constantly.

If you have problems with mana at all, get Insight for your merc. You can spam CE all day long and never see your mana drop. If you can't get the runes for some reason, PM me and I'll donate them. In fact, I actually have an extra one right now. I was saving it for my Meteorb sorc's merc, who's not strong enough to use it yet. But I love Necros, so I rarely play the Meteorb. You can have it if you want, by the time I get back to the Sorc, I can make another one.