My Fishymancer is Dying :( Any advice appreciated

[cyruseli]

My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

Hey everybody! So, I read Nightfish's guide and made myself a mf fishymancer. I was pretty stoked on him until I got to hell mode, at which point he is getting kind of slaughtered moderately regularly. I'll list his stats, skills, and items to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with. Maybe I'm just playing him wrong...?

Stats:

Lvl: 72
Str: 125
Dex: 167 (blue)
Vitality: 130
Enr: 45 (blue)

Resists (I think this might have a lot to do with it, but I don't know):
Fire: -21%
Cold: 16%
Light: -21%
Pois: -21%

Skills:

Maxed RS
Maxed SM
1 into all other summon tree except Revive
Maxed CE
1 into all curses except DV, Confuse, and Attract

I have 5 unallocated skill points, hoping to get an idea of where to put them

Gear:

Weapon: Blade of Ali Baba
No alt weapon yet, haven't found a good one

Shield: Homunculus with pdiamond

Belt: Seriously its embarrising, but I'm very poor on ladder and haven't found anything better than a plus to cold resist magic belt. Its sad. I know.

Gloves: 27% Chances

Boots: 31% mf boots

Rings: 29% and 26% Nagelrings

Armor: Quad socketed armor with 4 ptopaz

Helm: Triple socketed helm with 3 ptopaz

Amulet: 26% mf amulet with (dun dun dun) +1 to Assassin skills


So there he is in all his glory. I heard these things were supposed to be able to beat the game naked, so maybe I'm just doing something wrong. Like I mentioned above I have no wealth, which I why I am building this character, so he's just loaded with mf til I can afford some enigma, shako, and the like.

Thanks for any help, suggestions, advice, casual jokes at my terribleness at this game, all of it

Take care,
-Cy

 

[canudig]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

put a point in revive, they are pretty good for untwinked (no pimped) summoners.....get one point into Dim Vision to use on ranged attackers......yes they can finish hell naked but it takes some skill and being very careful......I'd just start sticking p'diamonds into the helm or armor that you have or keep resist stuff as you find it.....maybe do some more nm baal runs until lvl 80 to get more skills/stat points.....Also consider spending a point in bone armor since it can mean the difference between life and death sometimes......

 

[cyruseli]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

thanks for the tips, i managed to do my first pit run after putting some points into revive. i think my "personalization" will be to alternate points between SR and Revive, seems maybe like a good build?

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

You don't really need more than 1 point in SR. All I really have to say is to play smartly. In theory, crappy resist and low life should not concern this build. (though in reality it does since no one can play perfectly)

How much life do you have? It looks like you went maxed block. You better have some life charms to cover that if your life is low. (so that you won't get 1 hitted by explosions)

1 simple improvement on your gear: Shop for a +3 summon wand from Akara. You can summon more buffed skeles first, then replace it with your MF switch after.

 

[mouseman]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

You have too much MF.

Here is a copy/paste from soj guide at strategy compedium: http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=558

+%MF total +chance to find a unique item, %
-----------------------------------------------
0 0
100 71
200 111
300 136
400 154
500 167
600 176
700 184
800 190
900 195
1000 200

As you see, the first 100 mf is, by far, the most important one. I'm usually okay with 150 mf (being a rather poor player myself) but usually people say it's okay between 200 and 300. If I estimated correctly, you have over 400 mf, which isn't really that helpful.

So gear down your mf, get some more killing speed. MF doesn't guarantee good drops - only endless drops can. So if you handicap your killing speed by too much mf, you end up getting less good items. [the number of drops > mf]

Straight quote: "And it is better to do MF runs with 1 minute speed and 100%MF than with 5 minute speed and 500%MF. Although don’t sacrifice damage and resistances for MF."

You can get OK gear with just pgems you've probably found already. Do some fast NM runs to get you started on the gear, if you don't have enough pgms. Aim for resists and life. Put some more hard points on vita and get life charms (even if they're clumsy +20 to life grand charms) for starters. Resists are the main reason you're dying I'd say. (I always go for max resists with every char, and even though I play soft, I haven't died more than 2-3 times with all my chars). I usually emphasis on life also. It's something you pick up after playing HC for a while But really, it's important in soft also, because dying really ruins your mf runs.

Get a +skills wand and use ali baba and milabrega shield on switch. Switch when the boss is nearly dying to get the mf boost. Even this is enough mf for boss running if you're poor and don't have great mf items like shako.

 

[Ava]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

If you have the runes, you can make a white wand in a +3 Skeleton Mastery wand. This will give you a whoppin +7 Skeleton Mastery which will make your skellies quite a bit more powerful. After you summoned your army, you can keep AliBaba as your main weapon imho. Personally, I think the points in Fire Golem and all curse point except Decrep and its prereqs a waste. You'll rarely use Lower Resist in this build. A point in DV is recommended though.

I'd just start sticking p'diamonds into the helm or armor that you have

Uuuhm, pDiamonds don't give resists in armors/helms; only Um runes and resist jewels do. Since they're probably a little out of your budget, maybe try Ral and Ort runes for fire and lightning resists.

Personally, I like running with 200-250% mf. Less if my killing speed is too low. Depending on what items you have, replace some of the items with more defensive gear.

 

[stephan]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

I'd just start sticking p'diamonds into the helm or armor that you have or keep resist stuff as you find it

Diamonds only give a resistance bonus when socketed in shields.

 

[Antonio]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

1 into all curses except DV, Confuse, and Attract

I didn't read through the whole post, so i might be missing something. But this is the main reason why are you dying. Dim vision is the best curse necro has so put some points into it and you will be a lot safer. Some resist wont hurt too. Just dim vision the whole screen of monsters, amp those your skeletons are attacking and explode the corpses when the first one is dead. Also a point in Attrack is preferred. Crowd control ftw!

 

[canudig]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

ah yes......forgot about that >.<.......then use um if you ever find one

 

[MasterMynd]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

I have nothing really new to add. But I'd like to emphasize some things that have already been mentioned:

- Both Dim Vision and Attract are very helpful in Hell. Those two, plus Amp and Decrepify are the only curses I use with my Fishy.

- I'd say your resists are not a problem if you play carefully. But it wouldn't hurt to pump them up a bit.

- Some FHR would probably help

- If I read right, you've only got +2skills (from the Homu). I'd say that this is a big factor in your problem. Considering that it's very easy to buy a +3 Summoning Skills wand, there is absolutely no excuse for your +skills to be that low. The very first thing I'd advise is to shop a +3Summoning Skills wand. Use that plus the Homu for the "summoning" switch, and get a 3PDiamond Large Shield and a Spirit Crystal Sword for the "fighting" switch. (They're both dirt cheap.) That exact setup has worked quite well for me.

Good luck!:smiley:

 

[flamingchen]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

Your resists are in the dumps. The biggest thing that plagues fishys is elemental crap, since that gets by your skelly army faster
Get your hands on a skin of vipermagi, boots with resists, trang gloves (30 cold resists), IK belt (25 LR and FR, bit str bonus), a rockstopper, 20+ resists ammy and you'll be looking a lot better. And do anya quests.

Do some nightmare meph or andy runs or something first.

Try and get arm of leoric, its only around 10 pgems.

 

[maiku]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

Weapon: Blade of Ali Baba
No alt weapon yet, haven't found a good one

To use as your alt summoning weapon, shop for a +2 Necro Skills magic wand. Or shop for a +3 Raise Skeleton bone wand and make that into a "White" (+3 or +4 to Skeleton Mastery, +3 to PnB skills, which includes CE). Both of these will significantly boost the power of your skeletons as prebuff equipment. Later, trade for an Arm of King Leoric or keep identifying rare wands in case a godly one drops. In general, I recommend AoKL as prebuff wand and it should be pretty cheap now, as in available for pgems, so farm and horde them if you can.

Belt: Seriously its embarrising, but I'm very poor on ladder and haven't found anything better than a plus to cold resist magic belt. Its sad. I know.

Try crafting a caster belt to aim for 10% fcr. This is like a cheap version of an Arachnid Mesh, but it can net you a lot of +life, +mana, +Str, resists, and an additional 10% fcr. Requires a few items that can be easily farmed. Check AS for the formula.

If not, save your gold and gamble, gamble, gamble for a nice rare. Goldwrap, Lenymo, Nightsmoke--these all are fine options and quite a bit better if they're upgraded (so you get more slots). If you don't want a rare or crafted belt, think about using one of these.

Gloves: 27% Chances

These are all right, although you may want to consider Magefists or Trang's gloves for more fcr and possibly more curse radius or explosive range from CE (+1 fire skills on Magefists).

Armor: Quad socketed armor with 4 ptopaz

If you can, swap this out for a Skullder's Ire w/ perf topaz or a Vipermagi for more fcr, resists, and +1 skills. Vipermagi is really nice all-around armor.

Helm: Triple socketed helm with 3 ptopaz

Either save up for a Shako (which seem to go for pgems now or mid runes) or think about using a 40-50% MF Tarnhelm, socketed with perf topaz, and replace that 3-socket helm. You can get your +skills fix and MF at the same time. Another option is to gamble for circlets like a maniac and get a +1 or +2 Necro circlet that you can socket or will help fill in your other gaps (like low resists, fcr, health, mana, etc.). If you sacrifice a little MF for much more survivability, it's totally worth it. Trust me.

Amulet: 26% mf amulet with (dun dun dun) +1 to Assassin skills

Get yourself a +2 or +3 summoning skills amulet for a few pgems. Honestly, this'll make your Necro much better. Keep the +1 Assassin amulet for a MFing Assassin of the future. :wink3:

So there he is in all his glory. I heard these things were supposed to be able to beat the game naked, so maybe I'm just doing something wrong. Like I mentioned above I have no wealth, which I why I am building this character, so he's just loaded with mf til I can afford some enigma, shako, and the like.

Yes, they can. Corpse retrieval is very easy with a Summoner, so long as he can get a few skeletons and revives up and running. In general, though, you shouldn't be dying, even if you have terrible resists. Do you have max block with your Homunculus? I use one on my Fishymancer and also had tons of points that I put into Vitality as well, so that he has a decent chunk of health as well as max block. IIRC, his resists are kinda so-so, but not too much gets through skellies or max block, and I have enough life to take a few scratches. That's one of the nice things about using a Homunculus.

Thanks for any help, suggestions, advice, casual jokes at my terribleness at this game, all of it

Take care,
-Cy

First, build up a horde of pgems, jewels, Rals, Orts, Tals, Thuls, and Hels. These'll help you net about 75% of what you need. Many rare items or uniques are purchasable for a certain amount of pgems. The one consistent thing I get with my Fishymancer is an overwhelming number of flawless gems and jewels, which I take and turn into pgem wealth. Most of my wealth has been built on pgems, and the Fishymancer is one of the best builds for farming them since he can do area clears nicely. I also find my Fishymancer is one of my few characters capable of doing Hell Travincal runs for money, gems, uniques, and rune drops. (Some of my other characters can meet a nasty end if a FE boss explodes or the Merc dies from Hydras. With a Fishymancer, this is not an issue. Mindless minions to the rescue.) Pit, Shenk, Eldritch, and Pindle runs are nice too. They're my staple, because they're fast and can have decent drops. (In the case of Pit, occasionally you get fantastic drops.)

Second, make sure your Merc is armed with a hefty polearm, good armor, and leech. If you can, load him up with Crushing Blow, +skills, MF, cold damage, etc. He's a key player for a Fishymancer and the skelly army, because he tanks uniques, bosses, and often helps you get the first kill to start strings of CE blasts. In Hell, unless you are running very good equipment or lots of bonuses to your skellies, CE will be doing most of your killing once the chain starts.

Good Merc weapons: "Obedience," "Insight," Hone Sundan Yari (ethereal and upped is best), Bonehew (eth is best), etc. (Best are "Infinity" and "Pride" but these require HRs/duped runes.)

Good Merc armor: "Treachery," "Duress," "Lionheart," Shaftstop, etc.

My favorite and cheap power combo: "Treachery," "Obedience" ethereal Thresher, IAS helm (like Stealskull w/ IAS jewel or Andy's Visage) to make Merc poke faster and thus score more CB against bosses or tough monsters.

Second favorite: Eth upped Hone Sundan Yari w/ Amn and 2 Shaels, Stealskull/Vamp Gaze, "Treachery"/"Duress"

I have tried both setups and they work well in Hell.

Generally, you should find a weapon combo that allows your Merc to have high damage, leech, and Crushing Blow. Anything else on top of those, like MF, lots of IAS so he attacks fast, or +skills, are gravy. He needs to work with skellies to get you that first body so you can start exploding.

 

[cyruseli]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

got a gull for my mf switch, someone is interested in trading me a aokl but i haven't found them on bnet yet. also got a +3 sum amulet. things are looking better and better

thanks for all the tips!

 

[McCain123]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

What did you change so far?

Seeing your first posts I would give you these advises:

-Swap your weapon for a Wizardspike. With -20% res every Black Soul will shred you to pieces, with 55% your chance to survive are way better.
-Swap the two Nagels for blue rings with 10-15% resist to all elements to max your res. If you want to keep your mf high, swap the belt for Goldwrap.
-Sink one point in Dim Vision and one in Revive. Dim Vision is helpful against Souls ( naked necros go for 20 Skill Points here ) and some Revives can help you in tough fights.
-Level some more in nightmare ( at least to 75 ) and sink the points in vitality. I would expect your life around 1k which is pretty low for a Summoner.

All my mentioned items won´t cost you more then a few gems, some might be free and it would make your Summoner ready for hell.

 

[cyruseli]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

My resists now sit at -11, and cold at -3, which is still bad, but no AS bad. I've been doing countess and pit runs in hell to gain levels, and i can do them fairly quickly now too thanks to all my +skills equipment. I really need someone to trade me an Arm of King Leoric, but I'm having trouble meeting up with people.

My newly calculated mf % is at 383, meaning if the guides are right I can stand to lose about 83% mf, so ditching my nagels and boots for something with resists is my next goal.

I now have dim vision and revive, btw, might have sunk extra points into it, but, meh, I don't mind having a lot of little buddies I also found that my dudes were dying to really heavily lightning enchanted things, so i put some points into SR and now they seem indestructible.

My life right now is only at 615! And my chance to block isn't even maxed. I really like having max block and I'm too invested in it now stat point wise to back down from it, so it looks like I really need to gain some levels... (level 74 now)

oh, and, i found a Tal Rasha's helm in a pit run, I was pretty excited as it is my first even kind of worth while drop, uh, ever!

Thanks again for all the help everyone!

 

[maiku]

Re: My Fishymancer is Dying Any advice appreciated

Gull Dagger is what I use as part of my Fishymancer's adventure gear. Gotta love an instant 100% more MF. (With Gull, I use Homunculus.) On switch, I have AoKL and "Spirit" Monarch for summoning and prebuffing my minions.

If you are having trouble meeting up with traders because of scheduling problems, you might want to consider setting up a mule or asking them to set up a mule for the trade and then check it later when notified. Make sure the trader is trustworthy, and if it's through one of the trade forums on this site, then you probably can count on it being all right. Also, not having to meet up with traders means more time for MFing or leveling up your guy, although it's nice to chat with them. :wink3:

Try to get more than 1K+ life if you can. It may require adding +life charms. Even with max block, sometimes you'll be thankful you have enough life to soak up stray hits or enemies who slip past your minions. If you already have so much MF, you could also keep your Nagels on and use a Wizard Spike to cover your resists quite handily. And later, when you get other items that grant more resist, then switch back to Gull. Remember that good MFing depends on surviving, killing fast, and toting around a decent amount of MF, usually around 200-300% MF. If you can get more MF and still keep your kill speed and survival up, that's really good. (And the Fishymancer is one of the few builds that can have 400-500% or more MF and still kill really well. Admirable. Basically, MF gear can be your normal gear.) Surviving = less waste time = more MF. Fast kills = more MF.