Killing in hell with summoner

[Battleman]

I somehow feel that the summoner necro really does need good gear once you get into hell.


I have basically nothing, and I really mean basically nothing. My wand has maybe a few +SM +RS on it, a nagle ring, some other rare ring with resists, and undead crown and a head with some + to skellie skills on it. Not sure about boots. Ammy has some resistances on it and maybe + 1 to necro skills.

My merc has no gear at all. I have nothing useful for him.


I can get a kill in act 1 blood more (in hell) if I use a fire golem and iron maiden. It's slow but I can get skellies.....


However things are so slow... soo slow and without good gear the skellie mancer dies so easily. I have almost 800 life but I really can't afford to get hit at all.

I just tried to do my hell forge and both times got killed less then a min into clearing.

Am I missing something or do you really need better gear then whats led on? While I was able to parade through normal and nightmare.... hell is quickly becoming aggravating.

What can I do?

[scollin]

The issue is your mercs gear i suspect, you really do rely on him to get the first kill and then you can spam your corpse explosion to clear the screen. Try to find him a decent ethereal polearm and make an insight, its dirt cheap and does a ton of damage. Obedience is another good, although more expensive option.

Really there shouldnt be a huge difference in kill speed in hell. Your skellies arent meant to kill things once you get that far, they are simply meat shields who give a half decent bit of damage to help you out. The killing comes from your merc (a might merc ideally) and then from you with CE. Killing speed should not be an issue since Corpse Explosion does damage based on monster life, so its almost as effective in hell as it is in normal (a little slower due to higher resists on average). Use amplify damage (not Iron Maiden, it really sucks in hell), let your merc get a kill, and then spam corpse explosion. Make skellies out of the remaining corpses, and move on to the next group. You should have an army in no time.

As for the survivability issue... What sort of enemies kill you in general? Make sure you have half decent lightning resists as gloams are the biggest ranged threats you will meet. Otherwise i think you should be fine, once you kill things faster they cant kill you as quickly... maybe just focus on using mostly defensive items for now, + skills are nice but not really necessary for a summon necro.

Hope it helps

[Black Lotus]

NM diablo/baal/cow runs until you get enough gear (mainly, resists for Necro and good weapon for merc). Should be insight (I was lucky enough to get ethereal bill this ladder, it's not partizan however) or Hwanin's Bill or Obedience or any other pole with decent dmg and other mods.
I'm not sure what to do next, but you can probably do Pits until lvl90 or so without going to act 2 . I am still 68 lvl this ladder, act 1 hell.

[DaPuffin]

NM diablo/baal/cow runs until you get enough gear (mainly, resists for Necro and good weapon for merc). Should be insight (I was lucky enough to get ethereal bill this ladder, it's not partizan however) or Hwanin's Bill or Obedience or any other pole with decent dmg and other mods.
I'm not sure what to do next, but you can probably do Pits until lvl90 or so without going to act 2 . I am still 68 lvl this ladder, act 1 hell.

Do exactly that. I spent a few hours mfing cows/diablo/baal in NM getting a very limited amount of gear...Namely stuff for the merc, tals helm, insight, and a unique embossed plate with 35% crushing blow (name escapes me). Now I'm just chillin and killin in the pits until I've got enough gear on the merc and myself to keep moving.

[magicrectangle]

I'm doing a trapsin this ladder but last ladder I went straight through with no stopping to level up / gear up with my skelemancer. Nightfish isn't lying when he says you can beat the game naked with that build.

At the risk of stating the obvious... are you spamming corpse explosion? Your skeletons/merc only need to kill one or two enemies, no matter how big the pack is, then you can just wipe the rest out with CE.

If you're having trouble with your merc or skellies dying before they can make any corpses for you to CE, use dim vision or decrep. Switch to amp when the corpses are down and then CE away.

Insight for the merc is nice but not necessary. Any weapon with good damage does the trick. If you start boss farming you'll want crushing blow on him, but don't worry about that yet (if you find a hone sundan or manage to make obedience, that's wonderful, obviously).

In my experience a lot of people who have trouble with low level / low gear necros aren't making good use of the utility curses. Case in point:

I can get a kill in act 1 blood more (in hell) if I use a fire golem and iron maiden. It's slow but I can get skellies.....

If your merc's gear is so bad he can't get your army going off the stragglers in blood moor, the solution is attract, not fire golem. Fire golem takes forever to kill anything, and is in fact, useless. find a big pack and attract/amp. Make strategic use of dim vision if things get ugly but generally attract will get corpses down. Once there's 2-3 corpses CE the mess down and there should be 20 corpses left over to raise your whole army from.

You don't even need to go to act 1 to do it, I used this method a lot in act 5 because it was faster than going to act 1 and letting my merc kill stuff in blood moor. Just don't attract gloams, dim those (they shoot lightning at the attracted one, it passes through and hits you).

[Battleman]

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess most of my frustraitions lie in the fact that I have utterly **** resistances in hell. I need better gear to get those up. The river of flame is a dangerous place for me, the oblivion knights (or whatever is shooting those green and blue flame balls at me) make quick work of the army I spent ten min trying to raise.

My merc dies quickly, perhaps an insight will help him to stay alive. I have really no good gear for him.

I will try the attract / amp damage idea. I will admit that half of my issues are with not properly using my curses. I think the other half are in not having anything decent for my merc.

I'll try to MF the pit in hell and see what comes out of that. If I can't do that then maybe some NM cows/diablo.


Thanks again.

[Black Lotus]

I'm doing a trapsin this ladder but last ladder I went straight through with no stopping to level up / gear up with my skelemancer.

I think the first time I beat Baal at nm, is level 48-50. How come you go straught for Hell (lvl 70+ mobs) without leveling up? Fishy was a SP player and suggested players 7 in his guide, which INDEED solves a problem of recreating games . But on ladder? I dont think it is good idea to go into hell underleveled, there is no reason to do it even.

[magicrectangle]

I think the first time I beat Baal at nm, is level 48-50. How come you go straught for Hell (lvl 70+ mobs) without leveling up? Fishy was a SP player and suggested players 7 in his guide, which INDEED solves a problem of recreating games . But on ladder? I dont think it is good idea to go into hell underleveled, there is no reason to do it even.

Because I can? I was in my high 60s when I killed baal on hell difficulty (with quite a few trips for more urdar revives, since I hadn't found any CB gear for my merc). Leveling up more just isn't that essential for a summoner. Once you have maxed RS, maxed SM, and all the one point wonders you're good to go. You get all of that stuff long before you finish nightmare, so why not move on to hell? You've got all the tools.

I wouldn't recommend it for somebody who hasn't ever played a fishy before, but if you know what you're doing it isn't hard. leveling up to ~70 or so before going very far into hell is fine if you're having trouble, but leveling to 90 by doing pits before moving past act 1 is ridiculous for any build - let alone the strongest, safest, least gear dependent build in the game.

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess most of my frustraitions lie in the fact that I have utterly **** resistances in hell. I need better gear to get those up. The river of flame is a dangerous place for me, the oblivion knights (or whatever is shooting those green and blue flame balls at me) make quick work of the army I spent ten min trying to raise.

Raising your resists won't help keep your skeletons alive. You can put more than 1 point in summon resist though, the build has points to spare. You can always respec them later when you get more +skills and don't need the extra hard points. The real solution to oblivion knights though (or rather, the solution to all ranged attackers), is dim vision or attract. Which you use is situational. I prefer attract unless the enemy has a piercing attack like gloams or spearcats, in which case I prefer dim vision. The reason is, as fishy says, amp doesn't over-write attract.

In terms of resists, my goal with a summoner is generally to have light be 75, the rest I don't care what they are - if I get some on a piece of gear, great, but I don't go looking for it. The reason is simple enough - gloam lightning is the only piercing elemental attack. The rest gets soaked by skeletons. So long as I don't stand next to a cold enchanted unique they just don't matter.

[Battleman]

I don't really have problems with my skellies surviving. Infact I think once I get my insight ( I do have ral, tirl , tal and sol runes... just need a good weap to make it in) my skellies will be hard to kill.

I have problems with my necro dieing. Ranged attackers almost always get him, some that are off the screen even.

Perhaps I just need to use corpse explosion better?

[magicrectangle]

I have problems with my necro dieing. Ranged attackers almost always get him, some that are off the screen even.

Perhaps I just need to use corpse explosion better?

Dim vision.