Act1 Faith merc vs Act2 MightPride/Beast Nec - Experianced Only Please!

[Amaruak]

Act1 Faith merc vs Act2 MightPride/Beast Nec - Experianced Only Please!

My mind hurts, I can't think anymore and I don't have the runes to experiment just yet with all of this eq. So I'm looking to those who have experimented with BOTH.

My Pvm/mf summoner currently uses act1 faith merc and he kills rather well. But with an Act2 might merc +Pride +Beast on my nec I read that skells will be doing 6k+ dmg per hit. great deal more than the Act1 faith merc.

I want to know about people opinions and experiances with these setups. Its possible to keep 125fcr with the beast option, but is it worth it? Mf will drop a little, but will kill speed be enhanced therefore faster runs = more drops theory.

I am going to gather the equip to try the act2 merc and experiment myself, but Id just like to know what people think/have found with their necs.

Mf runs are in the order of Pindle, shenk/eld, andy, meph repeat. With an Act2 merc cs is out of the question, but might make solo baals viable if i'm killing a lot quicker?

Anyway thanks for inputs, just wanted to involve some more people.

 

[phool]

act 2 with infinity is the way to go.

1) already tons of %ED on skeles from your fanat and merc's might
2) skeles hit a lot more with conviction
3) corpse explosion will do 2x damage not 1.5x
4) conviction aside, infinity has gorgeous stats... lots of damage and CB.

Summoner is a really bad choice for running bosses but 125 fcr isn't realistic even then, unless you're happy to juggle weapon switches between possibilities of beast, CTA, aokl, and fcr setups. Better suited to mfing areas in a players 1/3/5 game where tele is used primarily to boost skeles' total damage not get past enemies. The minion stack means you won't need great a framerate for the latter anyway. I'd definitely recommend soloing WSK+baal over the areas sorcs specialise in.

 

[NumtyDoo]

I just did a trial on the pet calculator and with pride/might/fana/HOW level 45 skellies do 2k damage each, with amp that comes out to 4k, so I would say that 6k is a guess on the too high side.

I agree that conviction from infinity is the way to go. Pride boosts your skellies damage a couple hundred but makes your merc very weak. Also the CB really helps against bosses. You won't notice the chance to hit increase, except on bosses, as skellies already have great AR. But mages will do almost double damage, mine do over 11k a second now (all mages together I mean) and as PHOOL mentioned, infinity makes it so a single CE can kill the whole screen.

I disagree about running bosses though. Not a single boss, even in 5 player games lasts more than 15 seconds. I run 350% MF. Not to mention, fishy is way safer, when you get a 10-20 second bnet lag spike, with sorc your dead. With fishy, when lag clears, boss is dead, pick up your drops.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Forgot to mention about MFing, that a single CE (with the help of infinity) can clear a whole screen+. Hard to do area clears any faster than that. Lets face it, most of your damage comes from CE, and not from skellies. So infinity wins again.

 

[Smackin]

U cant possibly use anything besides an act2 merc for fishy. Fanat from faith pales in comparison to what infinity gives u.

 

[Mullet Power]

Infinity sounds great and all if you have max mages, which i don't, hell i don't even bother summoning any now that I can kill baal without summons dying(used it before because cold + clay golem + decrep = useless baal). So in my case i would benefit more from a might merc using pride.

So i think it is more about playstyle then "infinity is the only choice". Also for CE i don't think you will notice that much of a difference since most screens get cleared in 2 tops, maybe 3 if they are phys immune before amp.

 

[canudig]

actually CE would clear a lot faster then skeles with concentrate IMO......not that you could go wrong with either one.....I also think infinity has ALOT more resale value then pride......

 

[Mullet Power]

I'm just saying clearing trash is not an issue with a necro, it takes seconds no matter what you give your merc. Now vs Bosses is where you have to improve your kill speed, and CE is close to a non-factor vs Bosses.

 

[phool]

It sounds like you're running in p1 games so it really doesn't matter what you go for tbh. You're obviously well equipped to take out everything very fast in just a single player game.

The semi-ITD effect of conviction is most effective vs bosses however and will probably increase kill speed by just as much.

I don't say don't run act bosses because necros are bad, just because they're worse than a build which can just enter game, walk to wp, and be half way there by the time a necro's completed the core of his army. Wheras necros actually excel with or at least are extremely competetive with other classes in area clears on games with 5 or less players.

 

[Jolokia]

Bosses aren't really an issue with crushing blow available. Give your merc an Infinity (or Obedience, which is much cheaper but still very nice) and make an Iron Golem out of some cheap item with crushing blow - I believe Immortal King Maul was designed for Iron Golems.

Merc + Golem will waste any boss in seconds.. if that's still not fast enough, go revive some maulers (who also have crushing blow).

Anyway, I agree with Mullet Power - just give something with lots of CB to your merc to help take down bosses faster. For area clears the merc just have to kill one mob - Amp + CE will take care of the rest.