[L] Need help with a skellimancer

[Melbourne]

[L] Need help with a skellimancer

Hey guys, just made my first necro ever and i am really loving it. All my little minions crushing the cursed monsties is realllll fun. Unfortunately i am a bit of a perfectionist and want to make the best necro i possibly can. He's a Summoner purely for PvM and i want to clear up the issues i have with him.

Firstly i need to know about the skills. Obviously RS and SM are going to be maxed but after that i am not sure. I have a rather large collection of +summoning skills that i will get (About 20 odd) so i don't think i need to max anything else. I have heard that clay golem is the best to use so i might just avoid the fire golem and save myself a point. Thats only going to be about 48 skill points there (to get all summoning) and that sounds a bit light, so plz tell me if it is.

I am thinking of putting 1 point in all curses cause they will get about +10 skills so that should be enough, of course i could be wrong . PnB is where i am worried. I like to make chars that can kill pretty much everything no matter the resistances are so i am thinking maybe getting a few bone skills will be good. Maybe maxing spear, spirit and getting the 33 from marrows (sry :scared: ). That should max at about 90 odd but it might be just a waste of time for the PnB skills.

Stats.
Strength - will be around base 100 so i can wear the marrows.
Dex - A bit lost. Not sure whether to go for the max block of 203. Normally i would but i don't know which is better, homonculus or darkforce. It would be a massive waste to get 203 dex for darkforce.
Vit - Obviously the rest
Energy - 0 (At least i know that one)

Most of my items are pretty obvious but if you can see a better one let me know.
Gloves : Trangs
Rings : 2 x Soj
Belt : Arach
Boots : Marrows
Armour : Enigma (Best for this is? My friend tells me Mage cause of the lower strength)
Helm : Shako
Ammy : Maras
Weapon : Really tempted to make a Beast. I have the 'cash' for it but is it worth it?
Shield : Homonculus. Should i splash out for the Darkforce? Or is it a waste for a PvM like me?
I have 9 x Summoning which will usually be 7 for baal and mfing. Plus anni of course.

There are alot of questions i know but finally the merc. If i go beast (which i probably will) should i still get might merc? do they stack or is Cold the way to go? Hopefully someone out there in necro land knows about this stuff cause i would really appreciate some help. Thanks guys.

 

[Myrakh-2]

I've never made a hybrid, and my gear is quite different from yours, so I won't go into detail there. With your gear, "hard" physical immunes or physical immune/high resist monsters can be a problem, so the bone spells are certainly an option.

As for your skills: the "core" build maxes SM and RS, and puts 1 into clay, golem mastery and summon resist (with +skills this is enough). I also like to add the 3 more points to get to revives (blood golem, iron golem, revive).

Weapon: I've never had a beast, but it's ok. It DOES stack with Might (they are different auras), so Might is the way to go. Put an Arm of King Leoric on switch to raise your skellies.

Blocking is generally a waste on Skelemancers, since very few attacks get through to you, and even fewer of those can be blocked. As far as I can tell, the javelins from those javelin-throwing cats are the only things that get through to you AND can be blocked. Not worth it, IMHO.

Instead of dumping 200 points into dexterity for that, I much rather put these into vitality for another 400 life, which does help against piercing elemental attacks such as Black Soul lightning bolts.
My own skelemancer has more than 400 vitality, more than 1100 life and maxed resists; Black Souls do still hurt but I'm not a one-hit kill for them (never been killed so far).

 

[Mad Mantis]

Maybe maxing spear, spirit and getting the 33 from marrows (sry :scared: ). That should max at about 90 odd but it might be just a waste of time for the PnB skills.

Just to add some links to the info given by Myrakh-2, check out the Bone/Summon Hybrid Guide by Angst and the Summon/Bone Hybrid by Dracoy.

 

[Melbourne]

I heard that decrepify removes the PI from monsters. Thats why i am not sure whether to go for the bone spells.

 

[Myrakh-2]

I heard that decrepify removes the PI from monsters.

Decrepify (-50% physical resistance, slow, weaken) and Amplify Damage (-100% physical resistance) CAN remove physical immunity according to the usual rules: if the monster is immune, they only remove a fraction of the amount I just listed; if the monster still has >=100% resistance it will still be immune.

I call those that are still immune even after Amplify Damage "hard PIs"; these do exist, but they are not THAT common. There's also the classic example of the possessed ghost champion: they are immune physical by default, and cannot be cursed because they are possessed.

Also, removing physical immunity from a monster might still leave it with high resistance; this is commonly seen on bosses with physical immunity and stoneskin. Unfortunately, the game doesn't tell you whether a monster has +99% resist or -100%... but the difference is very noticeable (hitting with 1000 damage will do 10 damage or 2000...)

My Skelemancers are based on Trang Oul's, so I use firewalls in cases where physical damage is low or for hard PIs. My mages are also helping there, esp. if I decide to lower resist the creep. With a bone-hybrid, that would be cases for bonespear instead --- this even has the advantage that you can keep the amp or decrep on the monster, since lower resist doesn't help at all; so the warriors might still be able to get some physical damage through.

For my build, the worst case is a hard hitting/high hitpoint creep with physical immune, fire immune and stoneskin; this can obviously be topped if you add a holy freeze, might or fanatism aura into the mix. They take a while to kill. I don't know whether magic immune spawns as a random mod on bosses.

 

[Black_Rose]

My beloved necromancer looks like this:

20 Skeletons
20 Mastery
20 Bone Spear
20 Bone Spirit
1 Clay Golem
XX Teeth

I use a wand with dol + io, which had already summon resist (2pts saved) and Decrep (4pts saved). I believe this runeword is the best choice for a bone/summon necro. Massive mastery bonus, even more to chosen bone skills and uses wand's base skills as well.

With this build I used 2soj, though for a pure summoner, I'd use a wisp projector with Heart of Wolverine. Nice damage boost and I just love how that aura looks on my army. With its bloody look it's even nicer than fanat graphs.

I take advantage of the Marrowalk bug, however I don't pvp. Skellies have huge life and good damage (with a might merc) and spear/spirit do well over 2k damage - maybe seems low, but doesn't take more than few hits to kill uniques.

If I only had the money for enigma, like on the char I planned in single player

 

[Melbourne]

Thanks alot for the feedback guys. One final question, should i go all curses so i have lots of variety of focus on just a couple?

 

[Myrakh-2]

*I* have decrepify and lower resist, plus the prereqs for these. I also have dim vision, but I find I don't use it; I don't have attract/confuse.

There are different opinions on this, though.

I currently have a few points left; I don't know where to put them yet, but dim vision is an option I'm considering (to increase radius and duration, so maybe I'll use it then). Got to level 90 yesterday... so another skillpoint on the storage dump.

As for a bone hybrid... you aren't doing elemental damage, so lower resist would mostly be a party-curse for you (ignoriing the few cases where lower resist might be more effective for corpse explosions than amp damage; I don't generally care enough to figure these things out anyway).

Decrepify is definitely useful.

The AI curses on the left side of the tree could be useful vs. Black Souls; somebody else might be able to provide more detail on this.

 

[Mad Mantis]

The AI curses on the left side of the tree could be useful vs. Black Souls; somebody else might be able to provide more detail on this.

With Black Souls and other things that have a piercing attack you have to be careful with your AI curses. Things like Confuse and Attract can get you caught in the crossfire. DV is good if it has a high level.

Skellies are so damn good that they only need Decrep and Amp.

 

[Melbourne]

Thanks guys. The only thing now that bothers me is my stats. I will get Enigma but i am not sure whether that means i can ignore strength altogether. And also dex, is none here common?

 

[Myrakh-2]

Strength: as usual, "enough strength to wear your stuff"

Dexterity: Dexterity = blocking. If you want to go the blocking-route you need dex. I think that blocking is a waste on Skelemancers, so no dex for me.

No energy is a given.

Bottom line: I vote for "strength for gear, vitality gets the rest"

 

[Melbourne]

K. Seeing as how i won't be dueling i may as well just go for the extra Vit. Should make me near-invincible with the gear. Thanks guys.

 

[Draupner]

First post for me but i have been around for a while. I started my necro in 1.09 ( massive amount of useless skeletons :lol: ) . Anyway i decided to go pure summoner (no melee and no offensive bone-spells) and it works great. I do have 20 points in mages and find them usefull. If you use enigma as i do i think u will find that teleporting in your army on a mob will be enough. Nothing will stand up against your entire army long. In PvM i think that a pure summoner build is a bit better (by the time u cursed the mobs and switch back to bonespirit/bonespear the mob will be dead). As for Beast i find that the biggest advantage is the ar bonus. Try baal without and then with it. The decrease in killtime is much more then the ias and dmg increase can cause (must be the ar :idea: ). Btw if u get a merc with Doom u can go with amp instead of decreap.... IMHO

 

[Mad Mantis]

@ Draupner : Welcome Newcomer to The Darkness. Grab a brew :drink: and feel free to raise some corpses.

 

[Draupner]

Btw if u go pure summoner i recommend the boneflame... since u won´t need the fcr of darkforce and blocking of homunculus (if u do ure to close :evil: ). Don´t think u will miss the extra mana from homunculus either if u go pure summoner. The skeletons don´t die... Mages do sometimes but...

 

[Final]

on a summoner i would recmoned trangs set or a expensive set (for fun)
witch would look something like this

enigma
2x sojs/bul kathos
trang gloves
marrows
arm of king leric
3x summon ammy
3x summon circlet
Homaculs or darkforce spawn or boneflame

wepon switch:
1-6 bo cta (dosnt matter)
splendor (i like this better than a lidless just cause its a rune word )

An army must fear his commanders more than he fears the bullets of the enemy, if he dosn't under stand this he is doing no more than creating chaos.

 

[Myrakh-2]

1-6 bo cta (dosnt matter)

If that thing doesn't do anything besides BO it's useless: BO only increases skeleton life, which is useless if they don't die without BO.

I don't care if a barb BOs my skellies --- they aren't getting any better through that, but at least it doesn't hurt them either. I prefer a Paladin with a decent aura anytime

If you want to go the expensive way, use Beast: the aura DOES help your skellies.

 

[Final]

If that thing doesn't do anything besides BO it's useless: BO only increases skeleton life, which is useless if they don't die without BO.

I don't care if a barb BOs my skellies --- they aren't getting any better through that, but at least it doesn't hurt them either. I prefer a Paladin with a decent aura anytime

If you want to go the expensive way, use Beast: the aura DOES help your skellies.

O yes i understand what u ment but the way I biult my necro (rushing) the skeiles needed the bo cause of the things i put him up for and also that damn Diablo and his fire wave of menise to your skelies :rant: .

An army must fear his commanders more than he fears the bullets of the enemy, if he dosn't under stand this he is doing no more than creating chaos.

 

[bobbob]

i currently have a lvl 81 version of what you want with worse gear. no enigma or mara's not even a homonc. he rocks hell. act 4 IM curse slows me down, other than that, he rocks. the marrowwalks really help

RS:32
SM:34

maxxed bone spear
putting points into spirit, i think it's at ~12 hard points.

the spear is really useful i've found. you can target choke points and specific monsters. it doesn't do enough damage to be a solo skill, but it's super useful as a secondary skill.

also, i would switch out frostburns for trang's claws. more mana is nice. i have both and just don't care about +2 to curses. the 40% bigger mana pool means more spamming spears and ce's all over the place.

 

[Kyo]

If that thing doesn't do anything besides BO it's useless: BO only increases skeleton life, which is useless if they don't die without BO.

I wouldn't exactly say Call To Arms "useless" -

+1 To All Skills
+40% Increased Attack Speed
+250-290% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Adds 5-30 Fire Damage
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
+2-6 To Battle Command (varies)*
+1-6 To Battle Orders (varies)*
+1-4 To Battle Cry (varies)*
Prevent Monster Heal
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

As you can see it got quite a lot of decent attributes but the main thing that i would like to highlight

BO= Good for the extra life boost. Making you and your skeletons/minions/party more tougher. Note that "you" dun care about it but still a good bonus for most necros as i personally wouild not be complaining about the extra life. It is still possible to have max block and have 1k life even without this skill.

BC- Adding extra +1 skill ontop of the already 1 skill attributes give a Plus 2 overall skill would help your overalll necro skills on all trees. Including the summon tree.

BCry - Halves your enemies defence as well as make them deal out less damage is a really good bonus. Thus making your minions and skeletons more powerful still as it works all monsters including act bosses and champions.