Any non-Enigma Skellimancer MFers about?

[Starseed]

Any non-Enigma Skellimancer MFers about?

Just wondering where you do your runs/which are fastest/most productive (without Teleporting) and what armour do you use in place of Enigma? I've been posting in all the forums today looking for a good idea for a new MFer (I'm very sick of Sorcs & Hammerdins) and, as always, end up back with a Necro, lol.

As far as starting gear ALL I will have is:

Chanceguards, Goldwrap, Tarnhelm, a 3 socket PTopaz Curiass, 7 PTopazes, 21% MF Boots, 11%/15% rings & 16% Ammy. (just listed to avoid suggesting items I don't/won't have).

The only other thing I need is a point in the right direction.

Also, how well do they hold up in hell? I know this is a loaded question, since it's all dependent on what I'll be wearing by that point, but if there's any way to answer it excluding my end-game gear, it'd be appreciated.

 

[Pier]

A skellimancer is perfect for running the Pit at Hell. But make sure you are of decent leve (80+), otherwise your skellies will have a hard time hitting anything.

Furthermore I consider it pretty safe for running hell Baal. Just one tip: make sure your merc has some CB gear (Hone Sundan, GFace, Rattlecage), otherwise it will take ages.
And beware of vipers and gloams, since they shoot right through your meat shields.
Be creative with the use of curses: cast terror to isolate the boss with the nasty aura, cast attract on an archer in the back. Decrep death lords.
Just don't ALWAYS use amp.

For eq:
You should swap the 3s armor for a 4 socket.
The rings can be easily replaced with nagels.
Get an Arm of King Leoric: the best necro summoner weapon. Just don't get hit in melee: the bone prison is annoying.
Furthermore aim for a lot of + skills. Just read some guides.

Skelliemancer hold up very well in Hell, and they don't need uber gear.
But don't start hell untill your lvl 75+.
Chance to hit is affected by difference in monster/player lvl and your skellies have your level. But if you do full clears in full games (no cheesy rushes; except maybe for maggor lair and arcane sanctuary), not only do you learn how to handle you character and skills, but you will also be approx lvl 75 when you finish nightmare.

Grr pIER

 

[Myrakh-2]

Well, I only have one char, so obviously he's also picking up the items he finds.

He's wearing full TO (so, I'm using TO armor as armor ), and since I don't have SOJs, using MF rings is the natural replacement for them.

Still missing the Gull, though. I'm already wearing close to 200% mf, so Gull isn't that important anymore.

As for "where" do I play... everywhere, although usually I don't go to Maggots Lair or Arcane Sanctuary. Other than that, I hop around everywhere, depending on what I feel like doing. I took a mule along when I killed Baal, so I have access to cows as well.

 

[Peacrusher]

summoners are safest build for mfing baal in hell and if you have the patience run meph too.

Pits are a pain...

 

[Pilsbane]

Skele-mancers are VERY viable in hell. I soloed Hell Baal at level 78 with mine, using only gear I had found along the way (ie less than a full set of Trang-ouls). My resists were barely positive, I had about +8 skills to my skeletons, and a little bit of MF...nothing special. With Clay Golem + Decrepify + Chill from cold Mages = Baal just stands there waiting to die. It took over 5 minutes of beating on Baal to bring him down, but in no way was I in danger. I'm probably not going to run Hell Baal until I figure out a way to kill him quicker. Hmm, maybe Crushing Blow on the merc...

 

[Peacrusher]

CB is crucial on merc... or carry it yourself and take a few whacks...

Gface is awesome for merc

 

[Final]

Well...i just finished my trang skelie mancer :bonk: and he has a godly 27 mf rawr i use him to run teh magik pits woot!! No summon gcs yet.

A skellimancer is perfect for running the Pit at Hell. But make sure you are of decent leve (80+), otherwise your skellies will have a hard time hitting anything.

Nah not realy my mancer is clvl 72 and skelies have a easy time running the pits only takes me about 5 mins..yes that includes getting there.

 

[Vakarrona]

I'm lvl 90 and I make: tristam, pit, andy, ancient tunnels, travincal, shenk and his friend, pindle, baal. I don't use teleport or map hack, I just kill whatever stands in my way till I find the exit to next lvl. I don't go in a hurry, patience is a good virtude with a necro. My merc is a migh one, armed with tons of CB. I use gull dagger, skulders, rare mf boots, some mf charms, shako... I pointed mf to 300% and still have around lvl 26 skellys and lvl 29 poison nova.

 

[Vakarrona]

I'm probably not going to run Hell Baal until I figure out a way to kill him quicker. Hmm, maybe Crushing Blow on the merc...

Might merc with Upgraded Hone sundan + Orphan set helm + some armor

 

[Myrakh-2]

Pits are a pain...

Why would pits be a pain?

Never noticed that myself: I let skellies and whatever gets in my way mingle a bit, then I blow everything up with slvl 28 corpse explosion, and continue to next pack.

Lvl 2 is particulary nice, since it has multiple bosspacks crammed into a comparatively small area... so the "searching for cannon fodder" time is down to 0.

EDIT: maybe you are thinking too much in sorc-terms? "There's a pack of fireimmunes, I'll teleport past them". Skelemancers work best if they kill everything --- women, children, babies, old people, puppies, whatever gets into range.

 

[DiRolfo]

Skelemancers work best if they kill everything --- women, children, babies, old people, puppies, whatever gets into range.

Haha true true

 

[aquamoeba]

And it is not wasted times since the pit, ancients tunnels, WSk... are high level areas. So it is worth it to kill everything.

My main strategy is to make every "valuable" spots (pindle, shenk, eldritch, baal, meph, andy, pit except for the mausoleum and ancients tunnels which I find too narrow to be fun) in one game. It is a LOT less boring then a one minute run to meph 1000 time a day because u actually play.

As for my necro, he's in the late 80's ( can't remember exactly :innocent: ) wearing full trang socketed with ptopaz & pdiamond, MF rings & charms. But until lvl 79 he was wearing crap (self found items-untweaked- I had a 4 sockets armor with only 2 ptopaz since i hadn't enough ptopaz :flip: ) and had no real problems except for his resistances (I had ~-40 cold and poison and something like +5-10 in light & fire, I had to be carefull with souls or cold enchanted boss since it was a "one hit dead")

So it is really doable,
aquamoeba

 

[Myrakh-2]

Durance, River of flame, Chaos Sanctuary and Worldstone Keep are also high level (Durance being the only one here that isn't alvl 85, it's "only" 83). In addition, NOT ALL of the good stuff needs mlvl 85+ to drop, so I don't mind killing stuff on the way to andy (catacombs are "only" alvl 73) or anywhere else (tower cellars are 75-79, tamoe highland is 69). Or just doing an entirely different area --- one that isn't alvl 85 and doesn't lead to an act boss either. Act 3 has a few lvl 79 areas, but most are 80+. Act 4 and 5 never go below 80.

I just don't like doing the same area over and over and over and over and over... again and again and again and again...

Diablo-2 is boring enough as it is. No need to make it worse.

 

[Lord_Shinnok]

meh

When i feel like taking my necro out for a spin i usually just go around to all the act and kill everything that gets in my way. For me, I do all of act 4 because of the drops and the fun i get from beating the entire act. I make the usual stops for all the other acts. My 89 summnoner usually just plow through the competition without much hassel. The pits are by far one of the easiest spots to hit and Worldstone one of the hardest only if there are souls. Its not fun to walk into the main throne room with all your troops n front and 10 lightning bolts shoot through them and crispify moi. Nowi have a lot of resists but i think we can all agree that they tend to kill you anyway when there in pacts.

Altogether necros are my favorite class to have fun with. My necro isn't exactly pumped up with mf (about 100% i think) but he still finds stuff because mf is all luck of coarse. And the experience tends to stack up while doing runs and u never even notice it. my guy has gone from 84 to 89 just doing stuff like this.

I mean who would have thunk it? You can kill stuff and get stuff besides uniques and such. Just imagine...... :howdy:

 

[Starseed]

I just hit level fifty and I'm hanging around in A5 NM until I get to 75 but I only have about +3 to skellies, heh.. will that be enough for me in Hell until I can find more skillers? :drool:

They're plowing through everything now but then again, NM tends to be easier than Norm so it's easy to get ones hopes up when thinking about Hell, hah.

Would I be better off just collecting pgems in NM for awhile to trade for +skill charms for when I get to Hell or will it be safe enough to hit The Pit with lvl 23 RS/22 Mastery? (also gonna throw a point into revive once I max CE and then work on Mages at a more leisurely pace).

EDIT: So I just did a NM Meph run and my skellies got completely dominated by the Big M himself. I had to run off and revive more skellies about several times before I could take him down. Looks like I'll be hunting for Pgems before I get to Hell difficulty, lol.

 

[Myrakh-2]

EDIT: So I just did a NM Meph run and my skellies got completely dominated by the Big M himself. I had to run off and revive more skellies about several times before I could take him down.

This is not good.

You DID use the classic act boss strategy? "gumby him, decrep him, and let your skellies beat him to a pulp"?

Mephisto and Andarial can be a bit of a problem because of their poison attacks --- it doesn't matter if they are slowed, since the poison works over time anyway. I don't know the exact numbers, though --- my skellies don't have such problems anymore, but I think I faintly remember similar problems early in this ladder season.

You did spend a point in Summon Resist?

Also, DO shop for a +summoning wand. I don't think you can buy +3 at your level, but +2 should be possible. +skills are often vastly underestimated, but they should be 1st priority for a Skelemancer.

If you only have 23 RS/22 Mastery, you aren't paying enough attention to +skills. If you don't want to trade for stuff; at least look at all the necro shrunken heads that you find.

Also, people tend to ignore that the skellies are cast at YOUR level. So by simply levelling up a bit more, they'll be higher level --- it doesn't change their attributes/stats, but they'll hit more and get hit less because attacker/defender levels are taken into consideration for that.

 

[Starseed]

Yep, always use decrep/clay golem on 'im.

I'm actually still using the wand I got at the beginning of the game; haven't come across anything better yet and the shrunken head (which I got off anya) gives nothing to skellies. :/

I put a point in Resist as soon as I finished off Skel. Mastery.

They don't do too badly outside of boss fights, but like you said, I'll need to level up more to see a difference, I'm sure.

 

[Myrakh-2]

Shopping for a wand with +summoning or +all(necro) skills is quite easy: in nightmare, create a new game. Go to act 2 and check whether the town exit is next to drogman. If it isn't, make a new game. Repeat until the exit is next to drogman (this can take a while nowadays, due to the realm-down issues).

Then, all you have to do is check drogman for a suitable wand --- if he doesn't have one, go out of town for a second to reset the shop. Repeat until you get a decent wand.

The stuff offered to you in nightmare and hell depends on your level, so at some point you'll be able to get +3 summoning wands, but offhand I don't know the level requirements for these.

For starters, it doesn't matter whether the wand has +skills to any useful individual skills; shoot for a general +2/+3 summoning first, but feel free to continue shopping for a wand that also has some individual +skills.

Shrunken heads aren't sold in shops, so you have to pick up the ones that drop from monsters. Don't ignore them just because they are blue (magic).

EDIT: all of this even makes sense if you intend to trade for items... since most people don't give away items for cracked sashes.

 

[darzog]

I think you should definitely get more +skills. The two easiest that come to mind are Trang armour (+2 to summon and 857 defense) and Leoric's arm. The armour is pretty easy to find (I've found 2 myself already) and Leoric's costs about 20 PGems which should be easy since Necro's walk around killing so much. You should be able to buy both pretty cheaply.

Between those 2 items you get +7 to raise skeleton and skeleton mastery (and ONLY +6 to mages).

And for bosses make sure to get as many revives as you can. For Meph I like to raise the Blood Lords in the front room. They don't get a bonus from Amp or Decrep but they don't crowd with skels, shoot from far back and have decent damage with FBall, FWall and Meteor. For Baal I like the Venom Lords or Oblivion Knights. Gloams also work really well since they don't have to crowd next to him to melee.

_________________
Darzog