After making fishy - best customization?

[Zodiacz]

After making fishy - best customization?

My fishy is complete, and I've used every other skill point towards 1 of every skill.

Now what? I hear I should have more Revives, but what about those skeleton mages? What about curses? I'm going for pure PvM.

Also, is it at all possible to up my bone spear/spirit poison nova attacks to a level good enough to get that first kill, without sacrificing power from my summons? Without having to use mana pots, I mean.

Thanks in advance.

 

[canudig]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

Are you rich enough to afford an infinity? If not then don't put too much in mages.....I'd just go for revives or corpse explosion. Or if you want defensive then one into bone armor and rest into bone wall

 

[Zodiacz]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

I can't say. I've always been a Necro character, so if I get rich, he'll get the benefits first and foremost.

Are there any 'safe' skills I can invest in, such as summon resist, which would apply to any build, rich or not, until I have a better idea?

Also, is trying to enhance Poison Nova or Bone Spirit/Spear futile at this point?

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

If you do not have corpse explosion, max it now.

IMO, poison nova is rather weak unless you fully synergize it (and have 20/1 skeletons instead). Definitely no more than 1 in summon resist because of the diminishing return.

I would say mages. 1 more hit on a minion is 1 less hit on you, even if they don't do much damage without infinity.

 

[Zodiacz]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

My tree:

20 in CE
20 in SM
20 in RS

All other skills have 1 point in them.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

after you have done the standard:
20 CE
20 SM
20 RS

the usual routes people go are

max mages (I only recomend this with enigma as mages will sometimes get in the way without it, infinity is a big boost too)

max dim vision. idea here is blind the whole next screen so skellies can 1v1 the monsters, i.e. monsters won't swarm you. then use decrep to weaken the monsters that your skellies are immediately fighting while everything else stays blinded.

1 pt bone armor, rest in bone wall/prison. bone armor only gives 10hp per point while wall and prison give 15. this will give you several hundred hit points against physical damage.

 

[MasterMynd]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

If you go the DV route, you can have it maxed at around clvl 75. From there, you can pump Bone Wall and still end up with ~200 absorb on your Bone Armor.

Curses:
Personally, the only curses I use are:
- CE and Amp (basic build)
- Decrepify (for bosses and extra fast/fanat packs)
- Dim Vision (for true crowd control instead of just crowd "mitigation")
- Attract (for creating "pseudo-decoys" when confronted with ranged champion/unique attackers that can't be DV'd)

(I once had a shrunken head that gave +1Necro, +1Attract and +2Decrepify, which I loved because it freed up 5 skill points for me - Attract, Decrep, and 3 prereqs.)

I also use DV as a "pro-active" alternative to the "re-active" use of Terror to clear doorways. Cast DV through the doorway to freeze anything on the other side, then just walk toward the doorway and let some skellys go through ahead of you. If there's anything that wasn't blinded, it will charge the skellys going through the door. Otherwise, just stroll through the door and continue normally. I use this extensively for all the "tunnel" type areas. (Places like Ice Caves of A5, River of Flame, etc. aren't usually narrow enough to need it.)

One other thing about DV - doors and walls do not block it. So you can cast it from behind a closed door (right in front of it on your side) to blind everything on the other side to avoid getting mobbed as soon as the door opens. Very handy where there are a lot of doors.

 

[JubalBane]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

Zodicz: What is your equipment like? I like to have around 10-15 revives to help start the CE chain. I only use found equipment on my Skellimancers so I need to pump skills like Revive. However you don't need more than 5-15 depending on personal choice. One point and decent equipment can get you easily to the 5-15 number.
Dim Vision is a life saver to shut down alot of distance attacks. Attract is another good skill for when Dim Vision fails.

I personally like mages and pump them up. The elemental damage is nice for the few PI that don't break with Amp damage. They also make decent shields. The Lower Resist curse is nice when using Mages.

Look into a golem. Clay plus Golem Mastery can offer an interesting variation.

JubalBane

 

[flamingchen]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

I'm interested in this too, as I don't know if I want to pay for infinity+mages. My 67 necro is in NM right now and kicks total *** because I have a good load of +skills right now, combined with insight for spam CE.

I use marrow walks so I could use bone skills effectively? Kinda cheesy, but whatever. I might just go mages anyway since I'm savin up for a nigma.

 

[charlengu]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

The marrowwalk glitch/bug/whatever doesn't work anymore.

Iron plus Golem Mastery is also good.

 

[money]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

if you tele a lot, like I do with my fishy, you definitely might look into iron golem plus mastery. I'm not sure what the most effective way to do this is(prob just pump mastery) but it was so disappointing to me after using insight for so long, then switching to infinity for my merc that I no longer had insight and an unlimited mana pool. It really bothered me to the point I'm remaking my nec right now just to have insight IG.

With that said, my original build I maxed mages and started putting points into bone wall. The bone armor definitely helped w/ hits I was taking, but gosh I'd rather drink a few health pots to keep my life max than go through way too many mana pots getting to where I want to go/summoning my army/CEing.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

I always see people having mana problems on these forums. I get enough mana from items to tele to any boss without needing to drink a pot. When I do walk the WSK or CS, sometimes I run low on mana from using CE, I just drink a pot. Pots are everywhere, why are people so against using them?

 

[canudig]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

yeah....just slap on dual sojs and mana problems are pretty much all solved.....add on anni + torch and even better

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

I use bul-kathos for the extra life, I still have enough mana.

 

[Zodiacz]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

Zodicz: What is your equipment like?

Nothing high-end at the moment. Pretty much all rares, some charms and Ume's.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I will go the DV route.

Are mages an all-or-nothing deal?


As for mana: There are only so many CE's the enemy can take, and monsters give more than enough pots. I wait until after I've used my mana up, drinking the pots, then picking up those they left. I always travel with it maxed and never have any problems.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

Mages are not all or nothing, but if you are not using enigma and/or infinity, those points might be better spent somewhere else.

If you do have those two items then mages rock. Besides, if you can afford infinity/enigma, you should have enough plus skills that everything else but mages are 1 hit wonders.

 

[MasterMynd]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

Yeah, 1 hard point and +5 from items give you 4 Mages. Since they serve a "supporting role" only, 2 Cold (for slowing) and 2 Poison (for stopping life regen) is plenty. (1Cold+1Poison is actually all you really need, but a second one is always nice to have for "backup" when one gets lost or killed.)

 

[canudig]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

it's gonna be a pain to make sure you have those exact same ones in your 4 mages......

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

Unless you are playing HC, I strongly recommend against DV. You will have more than enough +skills sooner or later to cover the screen easily with a few casts anyways. I mean, DV overrides amp, which is a very, very bad thing.

The only things which you really use DV on are souls anyways, as:
i) The only other piercing attack comes from spear cats, and DV is useless as they will still use ranged attack when your skeles close in.
ii) Attract solves the issue for everything else.
iii) What attract can't solve can't be solved by DV anyways, and you better pray for luck.

If you think mages are not worth it (which I think they are), I would pump golem mastery, or even bone armor.

 

[Zodiacz]

Re: After making fishy - best customization?

Hmm. Guess I have points to spare.

How about Iron Golem? I hear good things about it (and seen them).

Mages haven't helped me much lately unless they're taking hits (which I can get with Revives anyway). Of course I'm not the expert and I have yet to see them with me in high-end gear.

Lemme ask - what'll make Hell Baal runs the simplest? I'm at level 81 now with all skill quests complete and a point to spare. I do intend to get high-end stuff for my necro down the line for MFing.