Can these skellies kill any faster?

[wwyvern]

Can these skellies kill any faster?

Hello,

I play a summoner lvl 78 now, act 5 hell and though he can kill almost everything in the game, it's not going very fast. What I'm asking here is for ways to increase the effectiveness of the build so things can go smoother.

Current build (listing only skills of interest):
max skellies, max skele mastery, max CE
2 skele mages, 1 revive, 1 clay golem, 1 golem mastery, 1 summon resists
1 bone armor (using the marrow bug here which as far as Im concerned is just a compensation of the fcr rate bug from TO set)
1 amplify, 1 decripfy, 1 lower resists, 10 or so dim vision

Total: 34 skele master/32 skele

Merc catches up in lvl, he is like lvl 70 now, I know that when he's gonna be 85 the build will kill faster but I dont know if it will be fast enough. Btw, a related question: equiping +skills stuff can raise his aura past lvl 20 or is it capped at 20? I'm thinking of andys face, arioc and arkaine, which can make a +8 to aura.

Equipment: TO set, +2 summmoning/nice res/mf amulet, natures piece, 27mf rare ring, leoric, naj staff on switch for tele. No skillers unfortunately.

So, what can I do to make it kill faster? I'm not rich enough for soj/bk rings and dunno if I can even get skillers. So no 'beast' suggestions please.
Maybe it's something to come with the level? I have some skills ponts left to invest, any idea where?

Needless to say, help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
WW

 

[Myrakh-2]

Assuming you keep monsters amped and that you use CE as soon as corpses start appearing, the only way to increase speed is to increase levels.

Maybe it's different perception --- my own TO based Skelemancer has lvl 35 warriors, lvl 34 mages, lvl 37 mastery and lvl 28 CE, and I don't feel it's slow (well, in 2 player games, anyway. Don't know about more players). The speed is probably "different" from other builds --- my skellies have to kill a monster or two first, but then the CE drops the others very fast --- so the kills/time isn't at a constant high; instead it's a lower baseline with very high needles shooting up.

And yes, +skills on the merc also increase warrior damage. I'm using a +4 Ariocs needle, and still hoping to get an Arkaine's some day I have never heard of a cap on the +skills.

EDIT: *maybe* it also has to do with your level: you/your skellies are level 78, but in act 5 everything is level 80 or higher. So the "attacker/defender level difference" that it used in to-hit calculations works in favor of the monsters.

For myself, I'm level 90 --- so the same part of the to-hit calculation works in my favor, since even bosses (not counting act bosses here) are only lvl ** at most.

 

[wwyvern]

Yes, amped and CE all the way

Hm, first of all I didnt really invest in the mages, just 2 points... you think I should put more in the mages over trying to max dim?

Merc equip: yeah, I have an arioc +2 and a nice andy for him, I'll give him those when he is high enough. Maybe an upped skin would also be nice; arky is kinda out of reach. But a friend told me that merc skills are actually capped at 20, maybe someone else can give some more insight about this? Anyway I can test it on my physical damage if it increases or not.

And finally, yeah, Im hoping it has to do with the levels too so later it would go better

 

[Mad Mantis]

Anyway I can test it on my physical damage if it increases or not.

Let's say that your Merc normally has a level 16 Might aura. You now what the %ED is that you receive. Than equip his +skills gear and calculate what the level of the Might aura will be. Let's say that he reaches level 24. You know what damage you will do at both levels.

Now find a victim for the test. The goal is to find a victim who has enough life to survive one blow of your weapon with the %ED from the level 16 aura, but not enough life to survive the blow of the same weapon with the %ED from the level 24 aura.

So calculate your damage for both levels of the Might aura, then search through the monsters to find one whose life complies with the damages you calculated and whack it.

 

[Myrakh-2]

Yes, amped and CE all the way

Just had to make sure

Hm, first of all I didnt really invest in the mages, just 2 points... you think I should put more in the mages over trying to max dim?

Mages aren't the big damage dealers, although I never cared to run the numbers --- IIRC my mages are at "relative skill level 53" or close to that (based on the arreat summit info), so the fire and lightning mages do something, but not a lot. Especially since most of the time I use amp.

I mostly maxed the mages because they are there, and as a pure skelemancer I don't have anything else to max They make good minions, and are very useful in some situations --- the poison mages get insane duration, which helps when dealing with the diablo clone, and I suppose the chilling from the cold mages is also good vs. act bosses and stuff like that. They are also my only way to kill monsters that try to "hide" off accessible areas, since you can't even cast firewalls there. And, last but not least, whenever I have to deal with monsters that I choose to lower-resist/firewall, the mages get some bonus to their attacks as well.

So, I won't actually recommend to max them, but I won't try to prevent anyone from using them either.

But a friend told me that merc skills are actually capped at 20, maybe someone else can give some more insight about this? Anyway I can test it on my physical damage if it increases or not.

As I said, I've never HEARD anything like that. As far as the might merc is concerned... AFAIK the Might level is "(lvl-15)/4", so my lvl 90 currently has lvl 18 might. As far as I know mercs only get to lvl 98, not 99 --- so the top might level he can reach naturally is 20. Maybe that's what your friend was talking about...

I'm just too lazy to find out how to calculate my own physical damage, so I can't easily check whether my increase in physical damage with the Ariocs is a lvl 20 might or a lvl 22.... it would be easier if there were paladins with maxed might

 

[wwyvern]

@Mad Mantis:

Hehe, problem is that the damage from weapon is often variable too

Anyways, I hate this kind of tests, I was kinda hoping someone would confirm that a merc can reach level 27-28 aura with the +skills from gear (andy face/arioc 4/ upped skin or arkaine).

Cheers,
WW

 

[Mad Mantis]

Anyways, I hate this kind of tests, I was kinda hoping someone would confirm that a merc can reach level 27-28 aura with the +skills from gear (andy face/arioc 4/ upped skin or arkaine).

From what I know from this and other boards you can increase the level of a Merc with +skills.

If you want to know for sure, then go over to Statistics. They know all about the restrictions in the game code.

 

[wwyvern]

@Myrakh-2: Ill first definitivate my gear and then Ill see if some plus skills there will give me maybe one or tow more mages

As for the might level, Ill do some tests when he is lvl high enough and Ill see I think it would raise anyway.

Thanks

 

[Myrakh-2]

Hehe, problem is that the damage from weapon is often variable too

You don't have to run the test.

The Diablo code is pretty much f*d up in some areas, but let's take a step back and look at what we are trying to determine.

A might aura, from an external source. Is is at lvl 20, or is at lvl 22?

Now, in order for the character screen to be bugged (i.e. displaying a lvl 22 might damage increase even though it's only a lvl 20 aura) it would take a lot of effort on Blizzards side to actually produce this kind of bug. Even Blizzard programmers aren't that stupid --- they won't add a lot of code to create a wrong display; instead, they'll just pickup whatever might aura is active and use that. The game code has NO reason to care whether the aura comes from a paladin or a merc, and it certainly has no reason to do something like "if it's from a merc, I need to check the merc gear to determine the wrong damage increase to display", instead of just taking the aura level.

As such, it's sufficient to look at the physical damage that's displayed in your character screen.

You would have to run actual damage tests if we wanted to find out whether the "received %ed" is capped at a lvl 20 might. But if that was capped, somebody probably would have noticed it by now ("lvl 30 might is the same as lvl 20").

 

[wwyvern]

Hehe, looking at the char screen was the 'test' i had in mind Mor that that is too much for me, I'd be just to lazy to do it

 

[aquamoeba]

We have to understand that the summoner do have some limitations. For the first time, I did a solo baalrun in hell yesterday with 8 players in game and it took me ages to do it! Not really against Baal himself but the Listerpack especially crushed my army twice! It was the first time I had to retreat with this character. So yes (for me) the summoner is the safer and as speedy then other build in 1-4 players games, in 8 players it is another story (not saying any charac can run trough it in a minute )

I think Myrakh told it before, this build can do everything everywhere with any players in game but some cases might take a little time.

I have 13 skel/12 mages/14 revives and a merc lvl86 without +skills. So u know where yours stands.

aquamoeba