Help with skellymancer - how do you kill bosses?

[Myrakh-2]

I dont use a weapon switch with ow, cb and -defense and my skelliemancer still is very effective against hell baal.

Same here. Both my weaponswitch options are taken --- Gull and Arm --- so even if I wanted to I couldn't fit in another weapon. And, frankly, I don't see the use for it --- the only monster where I need crushing blow is Diablo clone, and I wouldn't even consider meleeing him with a Necromancer.

A one-handed ranged weapon with autoreplenish, crushing blow and a ton of AR could be an option --- I could switch the Gull for that when dealing with dclone, since MF isn't really useful vs. dclone anyway.

I'm still playing a Skelemancer, not some halfwit wannabee melee fighter.

 

[FrozenSolid]

I'm still playing a Skelemancer, not some halfwit wannabee melee fighter.

Heh, agree
A deidcated, hardcore skelliemancer should really just let his army do all of the dirty work

 

[froob]

another point pertaining to what item should be socketed into the fleshripper:

since fleshripper already has a very fast attack speed with a necro and only -50% defense, wouldnt it be advisable to just go ahead and socket it with an eth for the extra -25% defense instead of increasing the speed just a little?

 

[Mad Mantis]

If you only have a Shael to boost your IAS the increase in speed would be 2 frames per attack. You can calculate what would be more effective, but remember that mods from the rest of your gear also apply. So the faster you can attack the more chance you have of triggering them. A small calculation might be in order.

 

[bill_n_opus]

So things like crushing blow apply to your skeletons too? I thought it just applied to your necro. So if you have a weapon or ring with life leech, your skeletons will heal you?

No, CB does NOT apply to your skellies. That would be just plain unfair. You have to do the dirty work yourself and whack a monster the personal and traditional way.

Same with life leech. Imagine if you had a minimal 5% leech. If the game allowed you to have leech through your skellies that would lead to a generic example:

- one skellie hitting for 500 damage at higher levels would leech back 25hp at 5% ll for you. At higher levels as a summoner you would realistically have 10-12 skellies with regular gear. So, at any given moment your skellies would be leeching 250-300hp per attack that hits which is quite often. Methinks you would be pretty much immortal even with a life leech penalty in NM and Hell.