Fisheymancer help!

[chrisng]

Fisheymancer help!

heya guys! :wave:

i just made a fishymancer and i'm having a somewhat similar problem as rizzlan with his fishymancer. i've maxed out raise skeletons, skeleton mastery and CE and i'm really pressed for ideas with my remaining points.

i'm leaning towards the idea of either getting bone armor and synergising bone wall or skeleton mages rather than golem mastery, since all golems now other than iron golems are pretty much glorified, recastable, golemy golems that don't really do any real damage. i don't really come by ik mauls at all and i don't think i would make an insight golem. i made a fishymancer because it was one of the few characters that isn't really dependent on items, haha!

just some background info, i plan to use my fishymancer to mainly solo the pits on ladder alone with zero mf in search for some good socketables to sell off! currently i'm using a homo and i have max block with it. i have an act2 might merc and it will be equipped with an insight soon. it's using the skin of the flayed one for life leech, and howltusk helm, haha! with my current items, i can raise 10 skels, 4 mages and 6 revives to follow me around!

my main question is how can i speed up the killing? killing lots of monsters and fast is a real challenge, since i'm barely killing slightly faster than the devilkins get revived!

i'm planning to get a guilame's helm (however you spell it, hah) for my merc soon to help with the killing, that should help quite a bit, wouldn't it?

i'm worried that if i dump all my remaining skill points into raise mages, that the mages will not be doing enough damage. are maxed out mages even helpful in hell with all the immunities and resistance?

should i max out any curses? currently i only have 1 point in amp damage all the way to deciprify and i'm counting on my +skill items to boost up their slvl. i was reading the fishymancer guide that is attract is very useful. i have an item that gives me the attract skill, but it doesnt seem very useful to me! is there anyone out there who uses attract sucessfully? is lower resist of any use to me? the guide said it would be useful to break some physical immunes who had over 130% immunity but i'm not sure how lower resist would help.

and my final question, if skel mages (if i do max it out) are weaker than skeletons, then i should keep amp damage on all the time to speed up the killing, right?

thanks for reading and any input at all would be helpful!

 

[shijo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

What's your current gear setup? You look like you're lacking in +skills. You need to increase the number of skeletons you have. Try to get around 14 or so. Keep in mind that as your +skeleton/sm goes up, their damage per hit goes up too. Also gearing your merc up with crushing blow and a solid weapon (bonehew isn't a bad choice) will help a lot.

Putting extra points in curses won't make a very big difference.

Extra mages won't be very helpful.

Attract is a great curse. It's fantastic for crowd control, but doesn't really cause any damage to be done.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

I love mages, mages are great for extra damage, but I wouldn't use them without lots of +skills, enigma, and infinity. (enigma allows you to concentrate the fire and infinity doubles thier damage)

With the lack of +skills that you have I would probably go with DV. Use DV to blind the whole screen, then use amp or decrep on the monsters right in front of your skellies. i use decrep cause the radius is small so I don't overide DV on the rest of the screen.

 

[MasterMynd]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

i'm barely killing slightly faster than the devilkins get revived!

To me, that's the biggest reason for using DV. It shuts down the Shaman's ability to see his dead minions, thus stopping him from reviving them.

Killing speed is another matter. Once you've got RS, SM and CE maxed, about the only way to significantly affect killing speed is with Mages + Infinity.

 

[shijo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

Killing speed is another matter. Once you've got RS, SM and CE maxed, about the only way to significantly affect killing speed is with Mages (for added elemental damage) and/or Conviction (for increasing damage from Mages and CE).

This is why +skill items are crucial. As a minimum, to be reasonably efficient in Hell, you want to run with Leoric, Homunculus, Shako, +2 Marrowwalk, a +2 arkaine's valor or a vipermagi/skullders ire, and a +3 summon ammy. Frostburns/Magefist/Trang Gloves are pretty negotiable. Rings and a belt are negotiable because SoJ/Bk/Arach are expensive. The rest of that stuff shouldn't run more than a pul each, except the +2 Arkaine's, the shako and maybe the +2 marrowwalk if the %ed is high.

I'm sure we can all attest to the importance of +skills. I know with my ideal setup, I can do a solo Hell Baal run in an 8 player game. About the only thing that gives me trouble with that many people in a game is ubers.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

yea, a fully pimped fishy is about as overpowered as they come. I used to think my sorc and hdin were overpowered till I made my fishy. in full games they can still do a few spots a little better than him, but on less than 5 players he does everything way better.

 

[JubalBane]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

Chrisng: Are you talking about the initial kill to start a CE chain? If so a high radius Amp damage would help. If you can get the area increase from equipment. That way you can switch to a smaller radius for targeted monster killing.

DV and Attract are both good curses for crowd control but don't really add much to kill speed.

IMHO I use max skeleton mages to increase the damage output. When I can I pre-buff 8 skeletons, 8 skeleton mages and about 10 revives. Then I switch to high curse, resistance, or bone equipment for general play. I like to keep my minion numbers in the hard point range so I can switch with out the annoying "crunch" of destroyed skeletons. I get that first few fresh corpses and the CE chain begins.
P.S. I can easily finish the game on 8 person but I can't do ubers.

 

[shijo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

I go for as many skeletons as I can get. The highest I've been able to reach is 18 (19 if you use a cta). Now when I switch to my beast, it drops to 17(18 w/ cta). But I take that, a golem and my merc with infinity/guilluame's (75% cb) and chew things to bits. Revives are really situational, and about 75% of the time I'll CE the corpses instead. Unless it's a horde of melee stuff that I'd like to have. I don't use an enigma that often either.

 

[MasterMynd]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

you want to run with Leoric

Caveat: AoKL is the best single summoning item there is, no doubt about it. And every summoner should have one. But I wouldn't recommend using it as your "working" weapon unless you're confident that you'll never take a melee hit (which is a pretty silly notion.) I have only had two AoKLs and both were the eventual cause of deeds for the character that used them, due to being trapped inside a Bone Prison with a monster that triggered the ctc BP.

But then again, if you have Enigma (or some other source of immediate TP) then ctc Bone Prison wouldn't be quite so dangerous.

And of course, if you're playing SC, then you can completely ignore this post.

 

[shijo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

That's very true. I'm basing that on the assumption that beast is the alternative weapon to use in its stead. I suppose you can run with a wizspike, a gull/ali baba or something else until you get that. I just don't usually bother.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

I agree with materMynd, I use AOKL for prebuff only. I used to run with beast too, then realized I was so overpowered anyway, I only noticed the killing speed difference with beast in 8 player games. I run with HotO now, gives me faster tele and better resists.

 

[shijo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

The only reason I don't use a hoto and rarely an enigma is because -everyone- runs that gear setup. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just boring to me. I'd rather run CoH/Beast.

 

[chrisng]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

What's your current gear setup? You look like you're lacking in +skills.

that's true!

my current gear
helm: wormskull
ammy: +1 curse
armor: cathan's (lol :jig
wand: ume laments
shield: homo
belt: gloom's trap
rings: 2 X manald
glove: magefist
boots: sandar's rip rap

which brings me to a grand total of only +5 necro skills and +8 to curses!

thanks to shijo for pointing out that i should get marrowalks, i COMPLETELY forgot about that! :shocked:

I'm sure we can all attest to the importance of +skills.

what slvl should i be aiming for? in 8 player games, my summons are barely making dents to enemies and my merc is a free frag, haha. i'm desperately trying to upgrade to a low shako, get any sort of +1 armor and get either a +2 necro or +3 summoning ammy, oh, and an AoKL! that should help quite a fair bit by increasing my slvl of SM and RS by about 6 from it's current level, right?

i really can't afford an infinity and i doubt i'll ever be that rich... i guess that makes skeleton mages pretty useless to me?

To me, that's the biggest reason for using DV. It shuts down the Shaman's ability to see his dead minions, thus stopping him from reviving them.

haha, oh yeah! DV would actually work a whole lot better than attract against shamans!

i'm pretty sold on the idea of dumping my remaining points into DV and quickly killing small groups of monsters with amp or deciprify! i read off arreat summit that it disables some units spells/skills, like blood lord's frenzy. has anyone had problems of minions recklessly running off to engage enemy units that have been DV and still draw a large crowd?

i reckon that a smaller group of monsters will have my skeles and merc killing a monster faster because the damage is not spread over more monsters and i could start the CE chain quicker!

oh, should i bother to even invest 1 point to lower resist? it doesn't assist my build, right?

thanks guys for the advice so far, it has been really helpful! :smiley:

 

[maiku]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

heya guys! :wave:

i just made a fishymancer and i'm having a somewhat similar problem as rizzlan with his fishymancer. i've maxed out raise skeletons, skeleton mastery and CE and i'm really pressed for ideas with my remaining points.

Max Mages, max Golem Mastery and make a special Iron Golem ("Insight," IK Maul, etc.), or simply hold them in reserve until you can decide. On my Fishymancer, I maxed Magi for a little more back up and damage and now I have started to add points to Golem Mastery to keep my mana golem in better shape. I'm quite fond of my mana golem, to be honest, although Gumby and Sparky served me well at times.

i'm leaning towards the idea of either getting bone armor and synergising bone wall or skeleton mages rather than golem mastery, since all golems now other than iron golems are pretty much glorified, recastable, golemy golems that don't really do any real damage. i don't really come by ik mauls at all and i don't think i would make an insight golem. i made a fishymancer because it was one of the few characters that isn't really dependent on items, haha!

They're still awesome additions to the army. Although a Fire Golem doesn't really do any damage, his Holy Fire aura pulls enemies toward your blob (and their doom) and can help keep them focused on the golem rather than the Necro. I used one for this reason for most of my Fishy's career. Clay Golem offers boss-killing Slow, and is probably the best one to use against Ubers or nuisances like the Travincal Council, who you can shut down with a few well-aimed Gumby casts.

just some background info, i plan to use my fishymancer to mainly solo the pits on ladder alone with zero mf in search for some good socketables to sell off! currently i'm using a homo and i have max block with it. i have an act2 might merc and it will be equipped with an insight soon. it's using the skin of the flayed one for life leech, and howltusk helm, haha! with my current items, i can raise 10 skels, 4 mages and 6 revives to follow me around!

Wow. Upgrade your Merc's stuff--that's easily the fastest way to improve kill speed! Once your Merc + skellies drop the first body, you can begin the Amp + CE chain, and that's what kills most enemies in Hell. You can use their huge life to provide for huge and punishing CE blasts.

i'm planning to get a guilame's helm (however you spell it, hah) for my merc soon to help with the killing, that should help quite a bit, wouldn't it?

Yes, it is an awesome helm, because it provides a lot of +Str, Deadly Strike, and most importantly, Crushing Blow! Crushing Blow will improve your Merc's performance a lot. I like to use it in combination with an ethereal Hone Sundan Yari for a hard-hitting Merc (because I can use a socket on the Yari to provide leech).

For your Merc, arm him with a lot of Crushing Blow, leech, damage, and +skills if possible.

These are some setups I have run on my Fishymancer's Merc before:

1. "Insight" Thresher + Guillaume's Face + "Treachery" armor (drawback is no leech, which makes Merc more fragile, but he can survive most of the time if you have enough skeletons up)

2. Upped Ethereal Hone Sundan Yari w/ 2 Shaels + Amn + Guillaume's Face + "Treachery" (well-balanced setup that makes Merc able to kill bosses and everything with ease, also he is really sturdy)

3. Arioc's Needle + Guillaume's Face + "Treachery". Arioc's could be used for a "max skills" Merc to get an enhanced level of Might to boost your skellies. If you could get an ethereal Arioc's, that would be really cool!

4. "Crescent Moon" Thresher + Guillaume's Face + "Treachery." While this doesn't provide leech, it does provide AoE spell: Static. Helps whittle monsters down fast and allows skellies + CE to finish the job. Can also use an IAS helm like Stealskull or Andy's Visage with this setup. I use the CM Thresher now on my Poison/Summoner's Merc.

5. Ethereal "Obedience" Thresher + Andariel's Visage + "Treachery" (current Merc setup, and the one I like the best for its combination of Crushing Blow, very high damage, +skills, speed, and leech)

One more setup I haven't tried but I know would work is a Bonehew or ethereal Bonehew on Merc, and you could socket with an Amn + Shael and use Guillaume's Face to provide the Crushing Blow and extra damage. I'd recommend using "Duress" or "Treachery" armor with such a setup, although a Crow Caw, Griswold's armor, etc. could be substituted.

The simplest Hell-viable Merc setup I can think of, although it's not very efficient or powerful, is Tal's mask + "Insight" Colossus Voulge + Griswold's armor. I used to use that in early ladder with several of my characters and their Mercs. However, I do not recommend it now, because for pgems you can buy much better equipment and improve his performance so much more. An ethereal "Obedience" Merc setup as I mentioned above makes your Merc nigh invincible, and capable of killing Hell Diablo and Baal with ease.

i'm worried that if i dump all my remaining skill points into raise mages, that the mages will not be doing enough damage. are maxed out mages even helpful in hell with all the immunities and resistance?

It's true their damage is not all it could be because of monster resists, but I am finding them useful. Once I have Mages and Revives up, I can storm places like Worldstone Keep and Travincal without worries (except for IM on WSK3). Magi also provide slowing via cold and prevent monsters from healing via long-lasting poison.

should i max out any curses? currently i only have 1 point in amp damage all the way to deciprify and i'm counting on my +skill items to boost up their slvl. i was reading the fishymancer guide that is attract is very useful. i have an item that gives me the attract skill, but it doesnt seem very useful to me! is there anyone out there who uses attract sucessfully? is lower resist of any use to me? the guide said it would be useful to break some physical immunes who had over 130% immunity but i'm not sure how lower resist would help.

I don't recommend adding to Amp unless you're really not expecting to get more +skills items. With enough +skills, 1 point in Amp covers a good portion of the screen, or if you use Homunculus + Trang's gloves, those give a good boost to Amp as well.

Lower Resist is better used on a Poisonmancer, Lord of the Magi, or other build. Your primary form of damage will be physical (Merc + skellies + CE), with fire damage as a secondary (from CE).

and my final question, if skel mages (if i do max it out) are weaker than skeletons, then i should keep amp damage on all the time to speed up the killing, right?

Yes, unless you run into troublemakers, which should receive Decrepify or Dim Vision, depending on the threat. If bosses or Trav Council, you can Decrepify them and they will be easy to kill. If Gloams, Dim Vision is probably your better bet.

 

[shijo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

that's true!

my current gear
helm: wormskull
ammy: +1 curse
armor: cathan's (lol :jig
wand: ume laments
shield: homo
belt: gloom's trap
rings: 2 X manald
glove: magefist
boots: sandar's rip rap

what slvl should i be aiming for? in 8 player games, my summons are barely making dents to enemies and my merc is a free frag, haha. i'm desperately trying to upgrade to a low shako, get any sort of +1 armor and get either a +2 necro or +3 summoning ammy, oh, and an AoKL! that should help quite a fair bit by increasing my slvl of SM and RS by about 6 from it's current level, right?

i really can't afford an infinity and i doubt i'll ever be that rich... i guess that makes skeleton mages pretty useless to me?

Get this: (+skills in parenthesis)

helm: shako (+2)
ammy: +3 summon ammy
armor: Viper magi (+1)
wand: AoKL (+3 SM, +3 RS, +2 all summon)
shield: homo (good! keep that)
belt: a goldwrap for MF or a belt that has resists
rings: try to aim for BK rings. I'm pretty sure they're the less expensive of the +skill rings (+2 total)
glove: magefist (trangs or frostburns work well here too)
boots: Marrowwalk (+2 SM)

That will put you at 13 skeletons that do 456-460 damage each. Then try to get +summon gcs. Those will make the largest impact.

One of the easiest ways to make money is to collect and cube pgems. Pick up every gem you get. 40 pgems tends to equal a Pul, and you can get a lot of what I listed for pgems. Don't worry about infinity or other big dog runewords right now. Get yourself geared up to where you can function, and then you can move forward.

Also for your merc, get a guillaume's face. That's such an important helm, and it's really inexpensive too. A good starter weapon is a Bonehew for your merc. If you can find an ethereal one, you're in a great position. You might consider socketing it with an amn for life leech, or maybe a nice jewel with resists if you have one. As for armor, put on the highest defense armor you can find. If it has resists, that's a big plus. If it's unique, even better.

Hope this helps.

 

[chrisng]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

thanks maiku and shijo for the replies, it was of really great help to me! :smiley:

Max Mages, max Golem Mastery and make a special Iron Golem ("Insight," IK Maul, etc.), or simply hold them in reserve until you can decide. On my Fishymancer, I maxed Magi for a little more back up and damage and now I have started to add points to Golem Mastery to keep my mana golem in better shape. I'm quite fond of my mana golem, to be honest, although Gumby and Sparky served me well at times.

i've been playing with my necro and sometimes when i find random rare weps, i make iron golems and they last pretty decently! i think i will max golem mastery, but i'm just going to hold on to my points until i can bring myself to invest in a mana golem, heh!

5. Ethereal "Obedience" Thresher + Andariel's Visage + "Treachery" (current Merc setup, and the one I like the best for its combination of Crushing Blow, very high damage, +skills, speed, and leech)

One more setup I haven't tried but I know would work is a Bonehew or ethereal Bonehew on Merc, and you could socket with an Amn + Shael and use Guillaume's Face to provide the Crushing Blow and extra damage. I'd recommend using "Duress" or "Treachery" armor with such a setup, although a Crow Caw, Griswold's armor, etc. could be substituted.

The simplest Hell-viable Merc setup I can think of, although it's not very efficient or powerful, is Tal's mask + "Insight" Colossus Voulge + Griswold's armor. I used to use that in early ladder with several of my characters and their Mercs. However, I do not recommend it now, because for pgems you can buy much better equipment and improve his performance so much more. An ethereal "Obedience" Merc setup as I mentioned above makes your Merc nigh invincible, and capable of killing Hell Diablo and Baal with ease.

i was looking at all your merc set-ups and i REALLY love #5! an eth obedience is going to have really wicked sick damage, woot! i do have a question though, why do you equip all your mercenaries with threachery? is there a certain ias breakpoint that you're trying to hit for the merc?

i read the rest of your advice and i've found it useful! when i do pit runs with my necro, having magi's are useful which i meet with a stoneskin super unique and they help me slow him down with all the different elemental effects. it's like a christmas tree! i have not found myself using any other curses other than amp and decrip, but sometimes i use weaken to light up the pits when its really dark.

Get this: (+skills in parenthesis)

helm: shako (+2)
ammy: +3 summon ammy
armor: Viper magi (+1)
wand: AoKL (+3 SM, +3 RS, +2 all summon)
shield: homo (good! keep that)
belt: a goldwrap for MF or a belt that has resists
rings: try to aim for BK rings. I'm pretty sure they're the less expensive of the +skill rings (+2 total)
glove: magefist (trangs or frostburns work well here too)
boots: Marrowwalk (+2 SM)

That will put you at 13 skeletons that do 456-460 damage each. Then try to get +summon gcs. Those will make the largest impact.

my current gear
helm: wormskull
ammy: +3 summoning, +76 life (WOOOT :jig
armor: que hagan's
wand: AoKL
shield: homo
belt: gloom's trap
rings: 2 X manald
glove: magefist
boots: sandar's rip rap

i know, i know, it's still not good enough! your idea of getting bk rings because they are cheap is a very very good idea, i didn't think about it, heh. thanks! now with my current set up, i've slvl for RS at 32 and my skels are doing around 360 damage each. i'm going to get a ntorch, get a shako and then start saving up to get those bk rings, marrowwalks, and then maybe, an enigma? :laugh:

Also for your merc, get a guillaume's face. That's such an important helm, and it's really inexpensive too.

ok, i've been thinking quite a lot about my merc set-up. and i think i have dreamt up the perfect gear that doesn't use infinity. maybe after i pimp out my necro, i'll go for infinity, but i don't think it will be anytime soon, haha. and if i'm rich enough to spend a few runes on my merc, i'd probably be rich enough to make mana golems, haha

helm: andariel's visage (life leech, str, ias, +skill)
armor: duress in eth elite armor (FHR, slight %e damage, 15%CB, resists)
weapon: obedience in eth elite polearm (mega damage, FHR, 40%CB, resists)

how does that sound, eh? but in the meantime, while i work towards that, i'm going to use this

helm: guillaume's face (CB)
armor: skin of flayed one (ll)
weapon: insight CV (mana)


i have a question about iron golem though. the life that it has is the life listed on the skill when you cast it, correct? and what is the damage that it does? does he do the exact damage listed on the weapon he was created from? i only know that he takes over resists and other mods, but i'm very curious about the damage that he does and the life he has, since i might be making a mana golem in the future.

once again, thanks to all the guys out there for everything! your advice has been invaluable! :smiley:

 

[maiku]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

thanks maiku and shijo for the replies, it was of really great help to me! :smiley:

Cool.

i've been playing with my necro and sometimes when i find random rare weps, i make iron golems and they last pretty decently! i think i will max golem mastery, but i'm just going to hold on to my points until i can bring myself to invest in a mana golem, heh!

Mana golem is rather nice. I like being able to spam CE while my guy is loaded with mainly MF gear. He doesn't have large mana reserves, so CE and Revives can tax him, especially if I need to cast them in a hurry.

i was looking at all your merc set-ups and i REALLY love #5! an eth obedience is going to have really wicked sick damage, woot! i do have a question though, why do you equip all your mercenaries with threachery? is there a certain ias breakpoint that you're trying to hit for the merc?

An ethereal Thresher "Obedience" will be almost exactly 1K damage by itself. On my Might Merc, it does ~6K damage per hit with his aura on, and it does more when Amp is in effect. It makes the Merc a real beast and he can comfortably kill all the Council Members at Trav or just about anything else I run across (provided it's not an OK who casts IM on him...). It also outdamages the ethereal Hone Sundan Yari setup and makes the Merc much safer and tougher at the same time.

Because "Obedience" offers a lot of Crushing Blow, I want to trigger CB as often as possible, so I try to hit either the 44% or 75% IAS breakpoints for a Thresher (which is fast and still has good damage). 44% IAS yields 4.1 attacks per second; 75% IAS yields 4.5 attacks. The current setup is designed to provide 75% IAS, for the 2nd fastest attack possible (5 attacks per second requires 142% IAS, IIRC...impossible to get without Fanaticism), some +skills, and high survivability for the Merc. "Treachery" offers two things that really catch my eye: 45% IAS and Fade, which grants the Merc 15% damage resistance while it is in effect and +60% all resists. Since he's getting attacked so often, he triggers Fade a lot and walks around like a ghost. Even against monsters enchanted with Conviction auras (like Council members often seem to be), my Merc can kill them with ease because his resists are so stacked and the stack also makes up for the Andy's fire penalty. (If I find a fire resist IAS jewel, be sure that I'll Hel out the old IAS jewel and put in that one.) In addition, this'll come in handy if I feel like running Ubers with my Necro and I want my Merc to live against Meph. The Venom and other stuff are extra bonuses. I have 3 or 4 "Treachery" armors I've made, so usually I have a few on Mercs. It's a versatile and cheap armor.

i read the rest of your advice and i've found it useful! when i do pit runs with my necro, having magi's are useful which i meet with a stoneskin super unique and they help me slow him down with all the different elemental effects. it's like a christmas tree! i have not found myself using any other curses other than amp and decrip, but sometimes i use weaken to light up the pits when its really dark.

It's pretty much Amp 95% of the time for me. Decrepify on occasion if I feel a monster is too big and bad for its own good. Magi also provide more bodies around your Necro, which keeps him safer too. :smiley:

my current gear
helm: wormskull
ammy: +3 summoning, +76 life (WOOOT :jig

Wow, nice ammy. I wish I had one like that on my Fishymancer. I think I just use a plain +3 at the moment.

armor: que hagan's
wand: AoKL
shield: homo
belt: gloom's trap
rings: 2 X manald
glove: magefist
boots: sandar's rip rap

Everything else is working out to be pretty good mid-level gear. See if you can gamble for some nice rare boots with faster run, resists, and MF. Also, maybe see if you can craft a nice caster belt with 10% fcr and other mods. I got a few with 10% fcr after about 3 or 4 tries for my Sorcs.

i'm going to get a ntorch, get a shako and then start saving up to get those bk rings, marrowwalks, and then maybe, an enigma? :laugh:

Ntorch and Shako will make a big difference.

helm: andariel's visage (life leech, str, ias, +skill)
armor: duress in eth elite armor (FHR, slight %e damage, 15%CB, resists)
weapon: obedience in eth elite polearm (mega damage, FHR, 40%CB, resists)

Should work out. It'll give Merc high defense, he'll hit one of the lower breakpoints at 20% something IAS, and have even more CB than what my Merc is packing.

how does that sound, eh? but in the meantime, while i work towards that, i'm going to use this

helm: guillaume's face (CB)
armor: skin of flayed one (ll)
weapon: insight CV (mana)

That'll work pretty well. Only prob with a CV is that it's spectacularly slow, but it is very easy to obtain and make into an "Insight."

i have a question about iron golem though. the life that it has is the life listed on the skill when you cast it, correct? and what is the damage that it does? does he do the exact damage listed on the weapon he was created from? i only know that he takes over resists and other mods, but i'm very curious about the damage that he does and the life he has, since i might be making a mana golem in the future.

After you initially summon him, Iron Golem is actually "recast" in every game you enter according to the skill level and gear you're wearing that influences his Golem Mastery and skill. So if you're wearing a lot of +skills when you enter a game, he'll gain more life and be tougher. Also, I don't believe the display about his life is correct. Try the Necro Pet Calculator here:

http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~gottwald/necro_pet_calculator.html

I've tinkered with Iron Golem stats, and you can expect around 6-8K life if you have 20 in Golem Mastery and a fair number of +skills with 1 point in Iron Golem. With +skills GCs, you will be looking at 10K or more. He does pretty pidly damage, but when made from an "Insight," it's best to go for a normal polearm like a Voulge, IMO. "Insight" grants like +2-6 Critical Strike and ED, and that might influence his physical damage somewhat, and that wouldn't be good if you wanted to make a mana golem from something like an "Insight" CV. If he's made from a normal polearm and has very high life, he should be able to tank hits from IM quite well. (I wish the Merc could say the same.) An Iron Golem also is immune to lightning and poison and has fast regeneration, so he's a good trooper if you take care of him.

I've only lost one mana golem so far, and that was when I was tired and careless and got my Necro killed by Pindle's FE blast. My Necro was at half life. All I had to do was gulp a potion, and save my hide. Totally my fault. Second mana golem is still going and I haven't died since. I wish the mana golem was immune to human error.

 

[Nightborn]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

....alright, I'm about to reveal my own neophyte status when it comes to Fishymancers here. So....not too much bashing, eh?

First off, I was glad to read through this, because until now I was considering [and starting to, unfortunately] placing points into some of the curses to boost their AOE. This was because the Fishymancer Guide suggested to avoid mages and golems as they didn't do much for you. The Clay Golem was enough at 1pt for boss killing, and that was it. Physical was the entire aim of the build, with CE as a hybrid physical/elemental skill. Now, you're advising that the skeleton mages wouldn't be bad even without the boost from Infinity/Lower Resist due to Amplifying or Decrepifying everything.

Second, on the Attract issue, I've found moderate success. It's used to help sow chaos among the minions. Cast it on minions and they are slaughtered by their Champions. Cast it on Shaman and their own peons revolt. Dim Vision hasn't been pulled out it's arsenal, but I haven't really run him up against Gloams yet outside of runs. Resists are way too low to consider that as of yet. Yet, I can see the use of Dim Vision there.

Third, I agree that mana is an issue for Revives and spamming Corpse Explosion. I'm not looking forward to it, and as such use CE conservatively due to limited in-gear regeneration and not a lot of mana, even at clvl 85. I even considered Insighting my merc for it, which I've never considered doing outside of a Sorc or HDin. This leads me to this point of ignorance. Unless I'm doing something wrong, in the realms, don't Iron Golems disappear between games? I could have sworn they did, and thus I avoid their use. If they don't, short of dying, that'd be a much simpler solution and free up the Merc's weapon slot for the Bonehew I just found randomly lying around.

And last for now, I have to inquire as to the use of the Thresher weapon. I understand that it is for the IAS breakpoint, which is definitely useful to have. However, the Range 2 hinders things, I would think. If you used the Giant Thresher, which has the same -10 base speed but more range, you would get the same basic speed and damage as I understand it. However, the merc would be out of range of certain melee attackers, and could, in theory, attack from behind a wall of skeletons. The only major difference is the maximum sockets. Threshers have a maximum of five sockets, and Giant Threshers have six. I can only assume this is so you could find an etheral Thresher and rush a mule to A5 Normal and use the Socket Quest as opposed to cubing and having a random 1/6 chance for the right number of sockets.

Thanks for the good input, and I'm going to have to consider the amount of points I have left and see what is available.

-Nightborn

 

[shijo]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

Third, I agree that mana is an issue for Revives and spamming Corpse Explosion. I'm not looking forward to it, and as such use CE conservatively due to limited in-gear regeneration and not a lot of mana, even at clvl 85. I even considered Insighting my merc for it, which I've never considered doing outside of a Sorc or HDin. This leads me to this point of ignorance. Unless I'm doing something wrong, in the realms, don't Iron Golems disappear between games? I could have sworn they did, and thus I avoid their use. If they don't, short of dying, that'd be a much simpler solution and free up the Merc's weapon slot for the Bonehew I just found randomly lying around.

First, if you use frostburns, 2 sojs and a homunculus, the only time you'll really deplete your mana hard is when you summon your army for the first time or panic spam CE. Outside of that, very seldom will you need to go buy more mana potions or chug them constantly. Even just having the frostburn and homunculus provides a lot of extra mana.

Iron Golem stays from game to game until it dies. That's why people talk about making insight/beast(sometimes) IG's. No way does someone spend those runes if it's just gonna die when they leave a game.

@chrisng

I like the merc setup with the andy visage/duress/obedience. There's enough crushing blow there, and that's a really inexpensive build compared to the infinity/fort/guillame's build.

I totally forgot about the +1 skill on the Que-Hegan armor. That's a good midlevel armor. Also, great find on the ammy. That's a big hunk of life in that slot.

 

[Nightborn]

Re: Fisheymancer help!

Shijo, thanks for the reply and insight -- pun intended -- into the Iron Golem. I'll have to see if I can get a Homonculus, as the Frostburns are available at the moment. SoJ's, however, are a myth in-game for me. I've actually never seen one, even when people show off their gear.

I'm still curious about the Thresher/Giant Thresher debate, and why the Thresher is typically preferred. Range 2 vs. Range 5 and 5/6 max sockets are the only differences that I see.

Thanks again for your time,

-Nightborn