Left over skill points

[Regnar]

Re: Left over skill points

The reason i maxed amp is that if its maxed, with nice gear, youll have about a 2x screen radius x)

When i do Uber Trists or somehing on hell, I want to kill fast..
I only need 1x amp for killen ton of creatures, then i scroll to my CE skill, that kills faster..

Then i scroll to my summon skills and sommmon creatures like a freeking hell gate

The point is, that i dont need to amplify creatures al the time, saving a lot of time..

 

[Pasky]

Re: Left over skill points

With 1 point in amp damage, it's level 18 with + skills. It already covers 1 entire screen, I don't see the point in adding more points then that, even if you can get two screens cursed technically, there are so many maps with walls and obstacles in the way that you need to recast it anyways, as I usually just hold the mouse button down when amping and do a circular sweep of the screen, get everything, wait for a minion to kill something and just start blowing things up. Seems like a waste to me when you can put more health into your golem to tank.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Left over skill points

@Pasky
Your kidding about the mages right? You mentioned that mages do crap damage and then suggest maxing an unsynergized bone spear? Without synergies bone spear will do way less damage than mages.

I know not everyone likes mages, and I certainly understand the annoyance of a popped body from cold mages. But as far as sucky damage goes. With my MF gear on I am doing close to 10k a second elemental damage (total, not per mage, I think 440 avg per mage). When I am fully pimped my mages are doing around 15k a second (again that is total, not per mage, over 500 avg per mage) These damages are including bonus from infinity. When last I checked 10k-15k per second is not sucky damage.

Maxing amp to cover 2x screen in my opinion is an extreme waste. You are cursing monsters that are not in attack or CE range, so even if you do have them amped, it isn't benefitting you. The only skill that 2x screen size would even be considered a good idea for would be DV.

Investing enough after +skills to make amp big enough to cover the whole screen with one click, that is more reasonable, still excessive in my opinion. I usually let +skills bring it up from 1 pt. I am lucky enough to have enough +skills to cover the whole screen, but even if you don't, if your amp covers half the screen, cast it twice, mana is free, extra skill points are not. In the 1-2 seconds that it takes for your guys to get the 1st body you should have time to get 2-3 amps off before you need to switch to CE anyway.

 

[Pasky]

Re: Left over skill points

@Pasky
Your kidding about the mages right? You mentioned that mages do crap damage and then suggest maxing an unsynergized bone spear? Without synergies bone spear will do way less damage than mages.

I know not everyone likes mages, and I certainly understand the annoyance of a popped body from cold mages. But as far as sucky damage goes. With my MF gear on I am doing close to 10k a second elemental damage (total, not per mage, I think 440 avg per mage). When I am fully pimped my mages are doing around 15k a second (again that is total, not per mage, over 500 avg per mage) These damages are including bonus from infinity. When last I checked 10k-15k per second is not sucky damage.

Maxing amp to cover 2x screen in my opinion is an extreme waste. You are cursing monsters that are not in attack or CE range, so even if you do have them amped, it isn't benefitting you. The only skill that 2x screen size would even be considered a good idea for would be DV.

Investing enough after +skills to make amp big enough to cover the whole screen with one click, that is more reasonable, still excessive in my opinion. I usually let +skills bring it up from 1 pt. I am lucky enough to have enough +skills to cover the whole screen, but even if you don't, if your amp covers half the screen, cast it twice, mana is free, extra skill points are not. In the 1-2 seconds that it takes for your guys to get the 1st body you should have time to get 2-3 amps off before you need to switch to CE anyway.

Its not their avg damage that makes them crappy, It's hell immunities and monsters in hell's natural resistance. Seems like a waste of an infinity when corpse explosion takes anything out before a mage ever would and I don't think mages do much to bosses either. I didn't suggest bone spear as a viable weapon, I suggested it for getting that first kill to start the army, its extremely easy to kill a devil kin with maxed bone spear with + skills without synergies if you for some reason, have no cash for a merc.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Left over skill points

I use all fire/light mages, only 1-2 poison for pmh. So if I run into a super unique that is immune to fire and lightning, that is unbreakable by conviction, then I would say you are right about mages being useless. But I have yet to find a monster immune to every element with every element unbreakable by conviction. If I telestomp 10 yards away from the baddies, the mages kill them before the baddies and skellie warriors can get to each other, so they kill pretty fast.

Mages not good for bosses? Prevent monster heal from poison mages. Cold mages slow bosses down by 50%. Fire and light mages do excellent damage.

I'm just saying if I was going to drop 20 points in a skill; Would I want 10k-15k damage and 18 more meat shields, or would I want a few hundred damage from bone spear.

If you are dead set against mages; points in DV, bone armor/synergy, or iron golem would still be a better choice than an unsynergized bone spear.

 

[Blacknec]

Re: Left over skill points

One thing maybe someone can clarify. From what I know, 8 - 10 points in CE is a good chunk of the screen. Now if you have another 8 - 10 in + skills that makes CE even bigger, why bother maxing it?

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Left over skill points

If I recall correctly CE only goes up .3 of a yard at a time, so I believe at lvl 20 with 10 + skills it is still shy of covering the entire screen.

The other thing that you need to remember when adding that .3 of a yard, which doesn't seem like much, is that if you look at the square footage contained within that extra .3 of a yard, it is substantial. If you look at it this way you actually get exponentially increasing returns on area of effect with each point invested.

Also, a fishy has plenty of skill points left over anyway. It would be hard to find another left over and unsynergized skill that could give you the return on investment that CE can.

 

[Pasky]

Re: Left over skill points

I use all fire/light mages, only 1-2 poison for pmh. So if I run into a super unique that is immune to fire and lightning, that is unbreakable by conviction, then I would say you are right about mages being useless. But I have yet to find a monster immune to every element with every element unbreakable by conviction. If I telestomp 10 yards away from the baddies, the mages kill them before the baddies and skellie warriors can get to each other, so they kill pretty fast.

Mages not good for bosses? Prevent monster heal from poison mages. Cold mages slow bosses down by 50%. Fire and light mages do excellent damage.

I'm just saying if I was going to drop 20 points in a skill; Would I want 10k-15k damage and 18 more meat shields, or would I want a few hundred damage from bone spear.

If you are dead set against mages; points in DV, bone armor/synergy, or iron golem would still be a better choice than an unsynergized bone spear.

As far as bosses go, I always use an insight merc as I've never really NEEDED the concentration aura (not that it isn't great), so poison on his weapon is already there to prevent monster heal, slowing the boss down? Thats why I have a clay golem and decrepify. I don't personally max out bone spear, I synergize bone armor and pump points in golem mastery, it was a suggestion because some people do find it convenient to max bone spear to get their first kill in hell. Personally, I use anya's red portal and start my army there and never get the halls of vaught waypoint.

I think mages are useless flat out, they can't tank, they die quickly from say something like diablo's full circle fire attack or any other spell for that matter. As I said earlier, cold mages I'll always unsummon because I don't want monsters turning into icicles, that is one less corpse explosion I can do.

I think they are only viable damage-wise if you use a lower resist curse, but that to me seems like a waste when I have 20+ revives and 16 skeletons that can pound him down faster than 16 mages with a lower resist and conviction.

In my opinion of course....=P

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: Left over skill points

What concentration aura, I only mentioned conviction? You talking about conviction?

Didn't you read the post that you just quoted? Sometimes if I blind tele a little away from a mob, mages start dropping boddies before my skellie warriors even get any action. So they sometimes get me that 1st body faster than my warriors.

Why do you use insight on bosses? It doesn't have crushing blow, and the damage is lowish. You shouldn't need it for mana against a boss, casting decrep shouldn't drop the blue ball too fast.

Clay+decrep+cold=max slow, max is 90%, which is almost like frozen boss, they rarely even attack.

My mages have 2.5k health. Mages don't normally tank, they hang out in back, but mine can if they need to. They don't even get killed by Uber D, let alone regular D. The last time I did ubers I only lost 2 mages. How much tougher do they need to be?

You should never use lower resist over amp for a fishy, besides, conviction puts most baddies into negative resists anyway.

I doubt your 16 skellies and 20+ revives with amp, can pound him down faster than my 18 skellies, 18 mages, and 20+ revives with amp and conviction.

Again, not saying mages are the only option, just saying they are a good one.