My skellies have become useless

[Archangel Manael]

My skellies have become useless

I'm done with Act 1, was gonna do some Andy runs to lvl up, but I found I can't even kill a regular catacomb monster. I have like 6 or 7 of my skellies attacking, and it takes FOREVER to hack down one of the monsters.

They currently do 135 damage, and are level 21 skellies, level 20 SM (that's including + skills). I think I have +7 SM and + 3 or 4 RS.

When I revive monsters, they do well of course, but without revives, my necro is pretty much useless at this point.

What am I doing wrong? I mean, besides, the obvious, that I need to max RS and SM, will that be sufficient?

My skellies are surviving, they just arent doing damage! lol

In fact I dont lose a single skelly, though my Skellie Mages die easily, as I stopped lvling them up at level 6. Gonna finish that last.

Right now I want to max RS and SM, and put like 6 into Resist, as after that it's not worth the points. And I want to max CE too eventually, I got level 10 I belive now.

Anyways, what can I do to get more offensive damage out of my necro?

I guess I havn't been casting as much amp as I should, though I had gotten used to only casting amp on bosses, as my skellies could manhandle anything that got their way up to later parts of Act 1 NM.

Suggestions appreciated, thanx

to summarize, right now

Char Level 49

SM 20
RS 21
RSM 6
Revive 6
CE 10
all prerequisites with + 3 skills I think.

Vita about 135
Energy about 70
Strenth 75 or something
dex base

What do I need to focus on immediately to start doing damage in NM again?

 

[HarbingersOfSkulls]

Have a merc? If not... get a nm offensive one from act2.

HoS

 

[BlargX]

How are you doing on other skills? At your low level, I wonder what curses you have.

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

I would suggest you gamble/trade for +skills gear. Get those skellies up to higher levels. You'll notice the damage goes up quite a bit more. From there, a Might Merc is ideal. Have a nice person get you to Act2 and pick up Offensive Emilio. Make sure you're casting Amp Damage on anything your skeletons attack.

200+ damage skellies with Amp & Might on their side are doing tons of damage, like 800? That's plenty when 9~11 skellies are wacking on something. And when that body drops, CE the thing to make even more bodies.

Cheers, :sunny:

 

[anilrobo]

SM 20
RS 21
RSM 6
Revive 6
CE 10
all prerequisites with + 3 skills I think.

MalVeauX's advice hits the nail right on its head. Plus my two cents:

Short Answer: Skeleton mastery needs to be pumped more. Do some normal Baal runs to level up.

Long Answer: I made a fishy in softcore this ladder season, and learnt from his skills progression mistakes. Granted it's hard to mess a Fishy up in skill allocation, still you need to know how to "proceed" with skill allocation for smooth gamepley. I advise RS and SM to be at equal value, run parallel. If you try to max RS first without raising SM, you have more skellies but they are weak. If you pump SM too much, you have too few skellies that are strong, so you lose that good meat shield in front of you.

 

[prion]

amp everything.
If those are 70 hard points in energy (i hope not) then put it to use, start micromanaging curses and CE whenever you can.

 

[HCKull]

You need some points in Sum Resist so your guys will survive elemental a
Do you have an insight merc ? They give almost unlimited mana so you can rip off lots of CE, curses, etc..

You should use curses. My fav is dim vision as it pins the bad guys in place preventing them from attacking yoo and letting your guys swarm them. I cast amp just before each CE which doubles its effect. Decrep is great for the bosses.

How many + skills do you have for summons ? You should have at least 8.

2-3 amulet
2-3 weapon
1-2 armor
2-3 shield
1-3 helm

 

[Thyiad]

Necro Pet calc.

 

[Archangel Manael]

I have about + 7 SM and + 3 RS skills.

My merc is a Level 38 Cold Mage from Act 3.

The only curses I have are Amp and Weaken right now.

I was planning on getting decrip.

 

[zuke]

Get 1pt of Summon Resistance. That's a necessity to keep skellies alive. That will also give you Golem Mastery (prereq) and gumby. Use a clay golem too.

The standard way to play a skelliemancer (I have a lvl89) is to get a nm act2 might merc. Get rid of your cold mage. Amp damage on all monsters you fight except Act bosses. Use decrepify on Act bosses.

It sounds to me like your trouble is one of technique more than anything else. Get the right merc, use amp and you'll be vastly increasing the amount of damage your skellies do. Plus, remember that as you get higher in level, the main purpose of your skellies is to be a meat shield, NOT kill things. That's what corpse explosion is for. Your merc or merc & skellies kill one or two monsters in a pack, you CE the rest. Rinse, repeat.

As someone else has suggested, Insight runeword on a polearm is a big help. It's dirt cheap. The only drawback to it is that it doesn't have any source of crushing blow. Your merc needs crushing blow or Act boss kills will be slooooowwwwww. My current merc setup, which is pretty cheap, is Insight cryptic axe, Treachery runeword armor, and Guillame's Face helm. It's been a good combo. If you don't have a source of CB for your merc from the body armor or helm, I recommend a Hone Sundan socketed with 3 shael's. Nice cheap solution.

 

[Everglows]

I assume you're doing hell? I tried hell with 23/21 RS/SM and I couldn't kill anything so kindof like you!

Here's what I did, ran it and out of act1 town until I found a +3 summoning wand. I ran nm meph collecting gold and gambling it until I got a +3 summoning amulet. at 26/26 your skellies should be doing ~200-220 and you should have around 9 of them. You can start running pits now.

Save pgems, junk jewels, runes and so on and buy yourself: Homunculus, Arm of King Leoric, necro torch, shako (they're all relatively cheap, and by the time you get a couple of them from gems you'll find something nice to buy the rest!) and you should destroy pretty much everything! And then you get more and better gear and so on! (skiller charms, enigma, bla bla)

What I think people forget to mention is that while 20/20 does 150, 28/28 does 250, 30/30 300 and so on! The damage scales a lot more after 20/20 than before!

 

[AnimeCraze]

Probably nightmare, given the level. Probably on players 8 too.

 

[Archangel Manael]

Indeed, NM Act 1. Had problems with Catacomb monsters, just seems skellies are just scratching the surface of the monster.

And plus, if skellies cant even kill one guy, then I cant use CE...sometimes even amp didnt do anything.

But great advice from all, I'll stop pumping into CE, I now have a decent level 9 or 10.

And I'll max SM and RS, I think I have 7 for SM and 3 for RS to go...and that'll give me a 27 SM and 23 RS I think.

We'll see how it goes. I'll also look into getting an Act 2 "might" merc, whatever that is

 

[Smackin]

skellymancers are quite easy to play with, given that u have the necessary skills:

max rs
max sm
gumby
1pt sr
amp
decrep
dim vision
max ce

Those are the core components of a fishy. If u find ur skellies arent doing much dmg, gear up ur necro and merc:

peasent crown(cost 1-3 pgems)
3summon ammy(couple pgems)
AoKL(couple pgems to lem)
crappy vipermagi(couple pgems)
low ed homun(couple pgems to lem)
trangs gloves(few pgems)

Merc(act2 might)
insight elite polearm(CB weapon for boss)
duriels shell
tals mask

with those gear, u'll have +8 to curses, + 9 to summon, +12 to RS, +12 to SM, +11 to mages, +6 to pnb, which should be more than enough to cruise through nm. Once u get torch and anni, its EZ like pie.

 

[jkra]

Yep. What zuke said. Get a Might Merc, put a point in summon resist, and for goodness sakes get some more curses.

But then you were already given this advice in the previous thread you made. http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=612592

Hate to say it--but--told you so! :grin:

(actually most of the best advice in that thread was given by rawness. Go back and study a bit what he wrote and you'll have no troubles with act 1 monsters.)

 

[jkra]

Oh and you can find the might merc in Act 2 of NM. Just go buy one of the guys labeled offensive.

Also, maxing skeletons before you pump up CE is definitely a good idea. But you have to go back and max CE later if you want to have an easy time in hell.

 

[Archangel Manael]

A little update on my Summoner.

These were the stats when I complained about how much my Necro sucked.

to summarize, right now

Char Level 49

SM 20
RS 21
RSM 6
Revive 6
CE 10

Well, I'm surprised, because my skills are not ALL that much better, and yet I've never had an easier time. I just own everything in my way, and the easiest to own bosses. I just sit and watch the show.

Right now I believe I have the following:

SM: 27
RS: 25
RSM: 9
SR: 5
GM: 5
CE: 13
Revive: 7

That's including + skills.

Anyways, right now with 10 skellies, 5 mages, and 7 revives (my merc and blood gholem) I just own everything in my way.

CE is not exactly necessarity, but it speeds things up.

My tactic, for those who care, has been this:

Always make sure I have a full army. Whenever I see some missing, I always pay attention to revive so I have a full 24 member army. I know the numbers, so I watch to make sure they are always max.

I try to revive the best monsters of course, but usually if there are some crappy monsters, I revive them anyways and then re-revive when I find better ones. Just costs me a few blue ones, no biggie.

When I see monsters, first step is to Cast amp all over the place. I only have level 2 amp...so it takes a few casts. Once everybody has those pretty little red flames on their heads, and my army is buchering them, then I go in with CE and blast the whole place to bits.

Then the process starts over...make sure everybody is revived, cast amp, and CE my way through the levels.

With bosses, I just switch to my secondary gear that gives me + decrip, and use that instead of amp, as that's what people in this forum suggested.

Now the only question is, I'm at lvl 59...RS and SM maxed...and things are looking great, and I'm just wondering where I should spend the 15 or so next skills that are gonna come my way with NM baal runs.

I could either max CE, I could max RSM, I could add some to Summon Resist, or I can add a few of those skills to revives and just have an enormous revived army (currently I have 7, and they rock).

I never really thought about it, but I've been in games with necos that cast curses that take up the whole screen. I'm guessing Dim Vision or Amp maxed.

Kindo looked nice to not have to click click click a thousand times to get everyone amped...

but then that'd take away from my summoning tree and some from CE.

Thoughts, comments, advice welcome.

 

[AnimeCraze]

When you have like +10 skills, you don't need to click much at all. Curse radius goes up faster than CE's.

 

[Archangel Manael]

so I shouldn't put any in dim vision or any curse except 1 point?

also Q, if I cast Dim vision, and then amp , will both curses take effect?

Or is it dim vision or amp?

Currently I'm at lvl 70, just did some baal runs.

I've maxed RS, SM and CE.

got 3 saved skills...so looks like I'm gonna put into RSM.

As it's not worth to put in Summon Resist...it's got 5 points from + skills right now...any each addition skill adds only like 3%...so it seems a waste.

 

[AnimeCraze]

It's 1 or the other for the curses.