All Life, No Block?

[cracked sash]

All Life, No Block?

Currently building a skelly summoner and was looking at that nifty +2 runeword shield. It has a really bad block % tho. I have always gone max block, but a necro with all life and little to no investment in Dex be a viable build? He is going to have that 10+ skelly meat shield, Amp and CE too(CE is fun!). Have a Dusk Enigma and a low HOTO, still probly be hurting for Res in Hell but whats new. SC/PVM/MF solo mostly.

-Sash

 

[batuchka]

Hmm a pure skellimancer will have lots of minions especially if you max out mages as well and having no block is viable except you have to be cautious entering areas/starting games w/o minions initially and i have made lots of necros w/o block and all out vita sucessfully. This is even sweter for you as u have enigma hehe. Actually if you are going for the 75fcr b.p then a Hoto and a 35fcr Spirit Monarch would be a good idea with that +str from Enigma but a +3necro boneflame with a pdiamond/um would have far better resists and maybe trang's gloves,etc if you want to hit 48 or 75fcr? A homunculus would be a great endgame shield too imo.Most crucial resists are lightning and if you could hit 60+ lightning resists and have t-gods for lightning absorb Black Souls will never 1-hit kill you In .09 i wore a Blackhand Key socketed with a 30 lightning /30 cold resist jewel and that worked in hell with p-diamond homo I suspect you are gonna with arach's but nightsmoke and credendum or even nat's boots could be avenues should you want more resists. The one problem with no block are ranged attackers and this makes trangs gloves even nicer for its +2 curses so you have a larger radius Dim Vision for these peeps or if you wish some points into that curse. Lastly with high base life this could be further beefed up with those oak sage charges on Hoto hehe Cheers and i am sure you are having a ball exploding and making minions outta corpses hehe

 

[waflob]

Hi,
with my pure summoners, I usually go the max life route, unless I get some good blocking shield / head. As you only get 2 life per point, it is often argued that dexterity is better used, especially as it is easier to up life with charms than up dexterity with charms.

My current summoner has full Trangs and 75% res in hell. His predecessor didn't have max res and went down to burning souls (or whatever the hell equivalent is) in WSK4. Basically got smacked by a group who were off-screen at the time. All the life I had didn't help one little bit then.

I really do think that it is better to get max res (especially lite), even at the expense of some life. I still get worried when there is a pack of burning souls, with a conviction boss. Takes my lite res down to -5, which isn't good ...

DelBoy

 

[SharnMes]

I always play pure summoner and I have never wasted points in dexterity or spent time worrying about how good block I have. Strength and vitality are the only ones I spent points on and I have never had any problem with that.

 

[cracked sash]

Good. I am glad to have a positive responce. If I plan on using war travs(for the MF) and my armor req is 77 str, then I drop 67 str and the rest in life. BK ring and shako will help up the life as well.

And those are all good shield suggestions, and I can use any of them if I choose later in the game, as long as I don't worry about the block % and concentrate on res/+skills. Enigma will provide the Str. The FCR is not that important I don't think. A CE chain is usually pretty quick, amp can be a little slow sometimes tho. Or is the FCR for teleing, I dont think I will have the Mana(base) to tele all over the place constantly, could be wrong.

I am also looking at that runeword bow with fanaticism, Faith I think. On an act 1 rouge merc it could help my skelly army with a higher fanaticism aura than a beast weapon, leaving that slot in my char free for a wand/HOTO. The "inner site" spell she casts lowers def of monsters as well right?

And I was thinking of mages as well, but they don't work well in tight spaces.

thanks for all your help,

-Sash

 

[Pherdnut]

I'd go with Homonc and Arm of King Leo for your primary weapons and then Spirit and Wiz Spike for teleing rapidly unless you plan on using Beast. In that case, Spirit and Arm for prebuffing and teleing and Beast and Homonc for straight up killin'. Trang's Gloves, Arachnid's, and a good crafted necro amu are all good ways to get the FCR up for teleing. Even if you don't want the block, Homonc's resists and +skills are a very nice combo. I'm kind of a +skill fiend when it comes to summoners though, so I'd probably try to find a Darkforce with +3 Summoning and try to find some other way to get my resists up.