First time necro in Hell - need some advice

[Orcin]

First time necro in Hell - need some advice

My necro is twinked with decent gear, and I want to use him for magic finding. He is a summoner, but now I am trying to decide whether to use Bone Spear or Corpse Explosion as my main support spell.

He is level 75 with 15 unused skill points including the hell den of evil quest. I want to be able to do baal runs in the mid-80's, so I want to assume that I will have only 25-30 skill points left.

My current build is:
20 Raise Skel
20 Skel Mastery
3 Skel Mages
1 point in almost everything else b/c I wanted to try stuff

I get +6 to skills from items, although I will have a Arm of Leoric on switch to buff my army. I will field 10 skels, 5 mages, might merc, clay golem, and revives.

This is a pure PvM character, and I like to play alone mostly in 1 player games. I do party with a couple of friends occasionally, but I rarely play in large party games.

The way I see it, I could either dump all of the points into Bone Spear or I could max CE. I will need the rest of the points (5-10) to bump up the radius of Dim Vision and add to Summon Resist.

I think it would be useful to have a damage spell to speed up general boss and baal killing when there are no corpses around to explode. I have seen bone spear in use because my pally's merc had a bonehew, and it seemed to be quite effective particularly against ghost packs and physical immunes. I assumed this was because it can't be blocked, it pierces, and very few monsters are immune/resistant to magic. Maybe someone can correct me on those points or elaborate.

I play faster when I can use left button for support and right button for curses, so I think I would feel more comfortable and have more fun with Bone Spear. But I am concerned than level 26 Bone Spear plus a few (or ideally zero) synergy points will not be useful. I do not want to use Marrowwalks, because I would have to remove my War Travelers. I don't want to spend 10 points in bone synergy either, unless it would really be a difference maker. I already have 1 point in all of the synergy skills except Bone Prison.

Can someone please give me some guidance on the allocation of these remaining skill points? Will I be extremely disappointed in the damage from a level 26 Bone Spear against monsters in 1-2 player games?

 

[Dazuni]

have you thought of poison route? with full synergy poison is very cool I was told.

my first hand experience is a bone-mancer. at level 84, I have the BSs maxed Bone Prison Maxed and on the way to max wall (lvl19). I completed the game at level 76 or something, now is MFing only. I have white and with other gear that gives me level 32 bone spear, it is doing 2.2-2.3k damage. most non-boss monster take about 4 hits in hell / elderich Shenk runs.

I can say that if you are in the bone route you really have to spend all point to max synergy. may be save 20 on Bone prison and use morrow walk. but that is it, 80 points on teeth, wall, and 2 BSs. that is a long way to go.

poison on the other hand, only have 3 skill, and each feeding to each other. it is much easier to max them.

 

[Peacrusher]

Since you must use curses with skellies to help them... IMHO you need CE... Skellis easily take down small groups and individual monsters.. Large Packs Drop fast with Maxed CE... plus the radius is like 3/4 the screen... and I've notice in Durance CE will kill through walls.

Good merc will slash bosses like meph and baal while Skellies distract them... lol

Good luck

 

[GenXCub]

I'd DEFINITELY go with Corpse Explosion. My HC Summoner is My MF character. He has PTopaz Harlequin, PTopaz Skullders, Goldwrap (will change to 15 tals when I find one), I have ali baba and rhymen on switch, and have a few MFSC's.

 

[Orcin]

Thanks for the replies so far. A couple of comments:

I won't be going max poison with 25-30 skill points to spend. I won't be filling in the bone synergies either. So neither of those is a viable option.

Dazuni, you did provide me with some interesting information there. "it is doing 2.2-2.3k damage, most non-boss monster take about 4 hits in hell" That means my 350 damage bone spear would be pretty useless against a boss, huh. It would take 24 of them to kill the non-boss.

So it sounds like Peacrusher's advice is the way for me to go. Thanks.

GenXCub: You have the Ali Baba on switch? I was planning to go the other way around and use the Ali Baba with the Arm on switch to raise the army. Your way, aren't you missing the magic find bonus most of the time?

 

[ender11782]

Not really any good skills for speeding up boss killing. Maybe poison nova would help prevent healing, if you aren't already doing something about that. Skeleton Mages can add damage, and they'll always be at least 50% useful (average) since they do 4 kinds of damage. Bone spells are all-or-nothing, so avoid those. But for boss killing, your best bet is probably to throw some crushing blow gear on your mercenary to speed things up. Max CE is a blast (har!), by the way.

 

[Orcin]

Doesn't one poison mage accomplish the same thing as poison nova? All that is needed is to poison the target to prevent healing... the amount of damage doesn't matter, right?

 

[SDC Pred]

Not really any good skills for speeding up boss killing. Maybe poison nova would help prevent healing, if you aren't already doing something about that. Skeleton Mages can add damage, and they'll always be at least 50% useful (average) since they do 4 kinds of damage. Bone spells are all-or-nothing, so avoid those. But for boss killing, your best bet is probably to throw some crushing blow gear on your mercenary to speed things up. Max CE is a blast (har!), by the way.

Actually, if you have revives just get some maulers/blunderbores by tping out, find blunderbore type monsters somewhere (I always find some in Durance lvl 2) and going thru the nearest wp and back thru the tp to whoop the boss. Blunderbores and their kin have 25% crushing blow I think, so get as many of them as you can when fighting the boss. Nothing beats the satisfaction of killing Hell Baal in 1 minute with 8 Maulers

 

[ShadowmageIX]

Also, don't underestimate the power of bone wall and bone prison in breaking up enemy packs, and removing selected opponents from battle.

I have prison maxed (though it's overkill for prison use, I just wanted synergies) and wall at around 18 with my +skills on.

I tend to spam multiple walls to protect myself from nasty melee monsters, and prison to isolates bosses from their packs. Also, note that bone prison and wall will stop lightning spam from LE bosses and those #%!#$! beetles in act 2.

it would be lovely to have your skellie mages behind a 4-deep row of bonewalls really.

 

[pliu]

Also, don't underestimate the power of bone wall and bone prison in breaking up enemy packs, and removing selected opponents from battle.

I have prison maxed (though it's overkill for prison use, I just wanted synergies) and wall at around 18 with my +skills on.

I tend to spam multiple walls to protect myself from nasty melee monsters, and prison to isolates bosses from their packs. Also, note that bone prison and wall will stop lightning spam from LE bosses and those #%!#$! beetles in act 2.

it would be lovely to have your skellie mages behind a 4-deep row of bonewalls really.

For me I done need walls. Just hide behind you army

 

[HarbingersOfSkulls]

Doesn't one poison mage accomplish the same thing as poison nova? All that is needed is to poison the target to prevent healing... the amount of damage doesn't matter, right?

No, because with Poison Nova can actually do all the killing for you, and your Skeletons would just act as a wall for you(that can kill very well on their own)

When using Death's Web, everything falls kinda fast.

Though I'm thinking about either remaking my Venomancer, or just trading off my Venomancer equipment...just don't know yet.

Though with your build, I would suggest maxxing out both Mages and CE. Seems that a Summoner has a easier time with both Skeletons and Mages in hell baal runs(without teleporting) and do a good job on those Lighting monsters also(without having to use DV)

After watching Hammer's Summoner do this, It made me make my Summoner almost like his.....though I like to lag people alot than Hammer.

HoS

 

[Orcin]

Though with your build, I would suggest maxxing out both Mages and CE. Seems that a Summoner has a easier time with both Skeletons and Mages in hell baal runs(without teleporting) and do a good job on those Lighting monsters also(without having to use DV)

After watching Hammer's Summoner do this, It made me make my Summoner almost like his.....though I like to lag people alot than Hammer.HoS

Thanks, this is exactly what I have decided to do, although I wanted to spend a few points in Dim Vision and Summon Resist (2-3 each), so I may not get to completely max mages. This seems to fit my play style best.

Thanks to all who posted, I have gotten a lot of help from this thread.

 

[ender11782]

Thanks, this is exactly what I have decided to do, although I wanted to spend a few points in Dim Vision and Summon Resist (2-3 each), so I may not get to completely max mages. This seems to fit my play style best.

Thanks to all who posted, I have gotten a lot of help from this thread.

I would advise against more than one point in summon resist. After considering +skills eq (which you'll want a lot of anyway), your extra three skill points will likely only be buying you an extra 3% in resists. You'd probably be better off putting the points in CE, mages or curses.

 

[Wolfedude]

Ce........!

 

[JettJagwar]

its already been said, but allow me to concur...
your build would benefit far more from max corpse explosion than getting into poison or bone skills
leave the poison to venomancers, leave the big damage spear/spirit to boners.

 

[Kyo]

No, because with Poison Nova can actually do all the killing for you, and your Skeletons would just act as a wall for you(that can kill very well on their own)

When using Death's Web, everything falls kinda fast.

Though I'm thinking about either remaking my Venomancer, or just trading off my Venomancer equipment...just don't know yet.

Though with your build, I would suggest maxxing out both Mages and CE. Seems that a Summoner has a easier time with both Skeletons and Mages in hell baal runs(without teleporting) and do a good job on those Lighting monsters also(without having to use DV)

After watching Hammer's Summoner do this, It made me make my Summoner almost like his.....though I like to lag people alot than Hammer.

HoS

Hos - Any tips you can share on not what to do with venomancer. Be intresting to point anything that you wouldn't do again if your remaking your venomancer?

As with hammers summoner? Sorry been away a few weeks so been out of touch with a forums a bit. Anything that i missed can someone fill me pls :spy:

Cheers

Kyo

 

[Orcin]

its already been said, but allow me to concur...
your build would benefit far more from max corpse explosion than getting into poison or bone skills
leave the poison to venomancers, leave the big damage spear/spirit to boners.

The more points I get in CE and the more that I use it, the more I understand just how good a spell this is. It almost feels like cheating (I said almost).

For people who played Diablo I... it feels like that Staff of Apocalypse that I had on my sorc lol.

For example, one of my best moments was when my Barb friend and I were running the pit and we were stuck at the tiny choke point at the start of level 2. Some multishot babe was pelting us from below and he was trying to no avail to get at her. Of course, my skels were all blocked up too. One monster died and then *pop* *pop* *POP-POP-POP-POP*... problem solved. He just typed "whoa!". :yep:

 

[HarbingersOfSkulls]

Hos - Any tips you can share on not what to do with venomancer. Be intresting to point anything that you wouldn't do again if your remaking your venomancer?

As with hammers summoner? Sorry been away a few weeks so been out of touch with a forums a bit. Anything that i missed can someone fill me pls :spy:

Cheers

Kyo

I find the Venomancer to be my favorite build(with my Lagamancer and Bone guy a close 2nd)

I'm thinking about making a 2nd Venomancer and without the Skeletons this time. Maybe put spare points into Bone Wall...and will think about something else after that is done.

HoS