Not doing to well with my skelliemancer

Not doing to well with my skelliemancer

First of all I like to thank the people for writing those helpfull guides towards making a necromancer. Really helpfull for people who don't have alot of time to do the experimenting themselves.

I followed the nightfish 2.0 fishymancer guide to the letter. In this guide he states he completed the game fairly easy. Well I'm having a hell of alot of trouble in hell. Starting from act 1. I'm a total noob at this game and never really played a char before. I have no good equipment to start of with. This character is untwinked. All stats below are base stats.

Character stats:

Strength: 105
Dex: 170
Vitality: 120
Energy: 70

Summoning spells:

RS: 20
RM: 1
SM: 20
GM: 1
CG: 1
IG: 1
SR: 2
Revives: 6

Poison/bone spells:

Teeth: 1
CE: 20

Curses:

AD: 4
DV: 1
Confuse: 1
Attract: 1
Weaken: 1
Terror: 1
Decrepify: 1

Resistances:

Fire: -28
Cold: 0
Lightning: -71
Poison: 45

I have the feeling I totally wrecked my char by putting too many points in revives. I see alot of people posting not to put anymore then 1 point in it. So I wasted another 5. I also think I wasted another 3 points in AD.

With the equipment I have +4 to all skills. And I also have +2 to all curses on top of that. I'm concerned about my LR. It's really really low. I'm aware of this. However I find it really hard to find decent LR equipment w/o sacrificing other good equipment I'm wearing.

Also my char is extremely and I mean extremely fragile. My cold resistance is at 0. But my char DIES of a cold resistance unique wich dies. The cold blast KILLS my character when I don't have full health. When a cold unique monster dies it causes a cold shockwave. When I'm not carefull it finishes me.

I'm not wearing high end equipment. I have an armor of 129 defense with 3 perfect topazes in them. I wear a crown with decent 111 defense and +3 to SM. I use a soul rock preserved head of a meager 8 defense and 23% CTB. I know it's low. But it gives me +1 to all skills and +3 to SR. That's why I keep it around. Haven't found anything more decent yet. I have found the Trang'oul belt and bracers. I'm using the carrion ring. I have a yew wand wich gives me again +2 to all skills and some + to other summoning skills. Decrepify +2, SR +1 and IG +1. And finally I wear an amulet wich gives me + 1 to all skills. I also have an amulet wich gives me +3 to all curses. But I prefer the +1 skills.

At this moment I'm CLVL 82. I have 30 statpoints and 7 skillpoints left. I'm afraid to spend them because I have no clue what to improve. And I don't want to waste another single point.

I was hoping on making this char a viable hell character. But I can't seem to manage. I'm using an ACTII NM might merc. I have equiped him with decent stuff I like to think. My merc has a defense of 2180. With the might aura he can do over 1500 damage. He has a pike wich prevents monster heal. Although it doesn't seem to work for some odd reason. In the extremely annoying faggot lair I use him to create the first corpse so I can CE everything. On unique monster prevent monster heal doesn't seem to work. Because my merc wounds it and it regenerates happily. I truly hate, hate, hate the faggot lair and arcane sanctuary.

I'm now currently at the arcane sanctuary and am getting nowhere. I've tried using curses like Terror to free up stairs. To get my skeletons to fight in a more open area. I don't have teleport skills.

Before this I alreay had a hard time with the desert. Packs of monsters with a unique in it wipe out my skeleton army if I don't use CE in time. Now how is this possible? Nightfish tells he solely relied on his skeletons and that he finished the game using them solely. I don't understand this. Since mine seem to be dying very frequently. What am I doing wrong. I do use the curses when necessary. Mostly AD. At rare occasisons I use decrepify when up against extra fast/strong monsters. My point is that my skeletons are useless when I'm not constantly using CE. In fact my only hope of finishing hell is constantly CE everything. I'm rather dissapointed with this build. Because I expected more from those skeleton warriors.

If I ever make it to act III. I'm very afraid to face those horror gloams again. They truly kill me every time. Sure DV everyone says. How? You don't ever get to see them. You know they're there when you're dead. What's the remedy? Move one step. DV every corner of the screen. Go look. Move a bit further again. DV again the whole screen. It seems to be the only remedy against these horrors. This strategy will take huge amounts of time.

Did I do something wrong with this character. Is there anyway I can improve it so it can be more viable in hell? Or do I have to start all over again.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I'm using the Clay Golem as a tank for my army. I like to cast him in front of a monsterpack so they concentrate on him. I also use the crowd control curse like attract to distract the monsters. But even with these extremely helpfull tools I'm not cutting it.

 

SM= Mage or Mastery? I was always confused about that. Use the skels... duh. If you want to use CE, you might want to max synergies on it if there are any. You shouldn't be having a problem. It seems that your only problem is equipment. Do act runs in Nightmare and get enough items for intermediate trade until you can get the high end stuff.

 

I have a level 86 Skellemancer that has finished Hell difficultly and I found it pretty easy. Just be patient later. You need to get your resists up. Try replacing your armor with a runeword of +resists. Smoke is great and pretty easy to get, gloom, maybe stone or lion heart, but the first two are better. Also try replacing your shield with a 3 socketed perfect diamond shield. I know you get some good skills from your shield, but it's also the best place to get resists. Try to get one with higher blocking (around 40% or more) since your dex is pretty high. You can also try the Ral/Ort/Tal runeword, Sanctuary (but the runes are hard to get) or even rhyme if you don't need a lot of resists. You need max lightning resists for the gloams and lightning enchanted bosses. Your skellies should be able to shield you from most other elemental damage, but I'd recommend all the values to at least be in the 50's or higher and more if you are still dying.

You probably didn't need the extra points in Revive, but I think your character looks fine. I'm not sure what to put my extra skillpoints in either so I have 21 or 22 extra skill points right now. I've got 20 in SS, SM and CE and 1 in most of the curses and the rest of the summon tree except Fire Golem. You probably don't need anymore in AD, but you may consider more DV to get a good radius.

I would probably drop the Carrion Ring and get something with resists, +skills (if possible) or mana. You also might try replacing your helm with the Lore runeword. +1 to all skills will probably help more and it gives +energy and LR.

For your merc find some life leech for him if he doesn't have it. A number of unique helms have it and you can find rare helms. Also try shopping for a ED polearm with sockets or socket a good one if you find it.

Try to find some more +skill items (after resists). Skellies get much more powerful as they get higher in level and you get more of them. I had around +8-9 to summons when I started hell and my skillies lasted pretty well. Gamble for amulets and you may find a +2-3 summoning skills. Also shop for a wand of +3 summoning skills. Useful when raising your army and reaching breakpoints for extra skellies. You can raise some of the key curses with your skill points. Dim vision mainly. AD is cheap to cast. Try it and see what you think.

As for general strategy, take it slow and stay back. I still believe a skelliemancer is one of the easiest to play, but it isn't the fastest. You need to be patient. Make sure you are out of range when a fire/cold enchanted boss dies. Use dim vision to stop the shamans and such from reviving and CE to remove the corpses. Try to avoid begin in front of your skellies and let them enter rooms before you do. Retreat a little so you fight outside a door if enough skellies can't attack at once.

The maggot lair and arcane sancutary are hard. I tended to use only my merc for the maggot lair and finish things off with CE. A amulet of teleport is priceless to move everyone around. You can also get these by gambling. Move slowly in the arcane sanctuary to avoid large groups of wraiths or whatever they are called. They can kill quickly in large groups.

You didn't list your life, but I'm guessing it's a little low with 120 vitality. You might place for in vit. Shoot for 600+ and get all the +life charms you can. Also +resists for any areas you are low in.

 

Yeah, well, nothing left to say here

Only thing i might add to the other replies is, that if you find hell too difficult to play in, you might want to try mf'ing on nightmare for better stuff with good resistances.
You really DO need around 75 % lightning resist to survive a pack of gloams on hell difficulty.

When i started playing lod after a pause, i didn't start hell before mare mephisto had dropped a shaft, an oculus, vipermagi etc.
It's not really that hard to get decent stuff on mare,
so :thumbsup: just keep trying.

There really is nothing wrong with your character, but as you stated that you are a "total n00b" i'm guessing there might be something wrong with your play strategies.
What curses do you use, and in which situations? If your skeletons are taking a lot of damage when fighting some monsters, use decrepify (and sometimes life tap), and if they aren't losing much life use amplify damage.
It takes time to learn the strategies that suit you the best, so just relax.

And don't worry about your skill points.
You haven't exactly "wasted" any of them. No one's first char is their best.

 

I made my first necro back in the days before the expanion, but gave it up and went down the tragic path of sorcery instead. With the release of the newest patch, I read about the huge boost necros finally got, and returned quite happily. I browsed the guides on the forum when I was starting, and came out with a build similar to yours, it looks something like this (not on my home pc right now, so some values may be wrong.)

clvl 85
strength low 100's
dex low 100's
life...can't quite remember, have about 1400 in the end
mana base
(with wiz spike, 75, 75, 74, 75 resists)

Max raise skelly (36 with +skills)
Max skelly mastery (36 with +skills)
16 clay golem (with +skills)
8 Golem mastery (with +skills)
6 Summon Resist (with +skills)
6 Skelly mage

6 poison dagger (with +skills)
6 poison explosion (with +skills)
14 poison nova (with +skills) (only cause i do norm rushes and it kills fast)
16 corpse explosion (with +skills) working on maxing now
6 bone armor (with +skills)

10 Amp damage
10 decrep
8 in all others
again, if the numbers seem off, they may be, i'm just going off of memory.

Notice that i haven't put any points in golems beyond clay, thus no revives. The reasoning is this: I beat hell baal solo at clvl 81 with 11 skellies, 3 mages, merc, and cg. Only the golem died once, the rest stayed strong.

I think the problem you are experiencing is a lack of strong equip and strategy. (Not to be critical or anything, as I haven't had the years of experience that some in this forum have had). I too started playing and had trouble staying alive, that's when I sat back and slapped myself for going commando as a summon necro. You are not meant to go into battle, you are the commander of your subjects, observing from the sidelines.

My preferred method is to amp and stand back. For nearly all situations, this works fine rarely resulting in a minion death. Once one corpse is down, the pack will fall fast to ce.

Since you are in hell, I would recommend going back to act 1 and running the pit and various other areas to get some good gear.
I myself am wearing a set-up like this: Trang gloves, armor, and helm, homonculous, wizard spike (arm of king leoric on switch for when i do summon), waterwalk boots, raven frost/29% nagle, +2 necro skills 22 % mf ammy, and a fcr, +mana belt (nothing special). Most of it has been found by me, or traded for by things I've found mfing.

I do have one question, what realm, (and ladder or not). I might have some equip that can help you.
I'm useast, non ladder, soft-core *distancepieman /w me if you wish

~bails :thumbsup:

 

I'd like to emphasise one or two things and add a little to the good advice all the others have contributed.

You really need to sort out the resists especially lightning.
Your Skellies will benefit from greatly from + skills in Hell and so those points in revives are not wasted, until you get those + skills, Also as you gain more levels your skellies and merc become better versus the monsters.
A good item that could help would be a Helmet with the Lore Runeword... +1 skills and 30% Ligthning. I know you are trying to mf as you go using the 3 P Topaz armor but that is costing you resistances that you need to survive.

To survive the blast from a Cold or Fire Enchanted boss make sure you are far enough away before using CE. You seem to be using the full range of the curses and with experience you will get control of the situations.

The Prevent Monster Heal mod does not work for Mercs, only players can use it.

Good luck and persevere

 

SM = Skeleton Mastery

I don't use mages. Only as cannon fodder for the one point that's invested.

There are no synergies for CE. That's why I chose to max it out for the huge blast radius wich has saved my *** plenty of times.

I tried doing continues MF runs on NM. Unfortunately the chance of good stuff is very, very low. I get alot of useless set items I don't need. Sigon items drop alot for example. And I'm using between 130 - 200 % MF

 

That does sound as good advice. And yes I myself was thinking about using runewords too. You already stated the problem there. They are really hard to find. I had some good runes and perfect gems. But I lost them all when I was muling. I was so cautius and made a testgame to be sure the game still existed after I left. It went without a hitch. Then I made a new game with my char and dropped my good stuff. I then tried to rejoin with my mule and the game didn't exist anymore. You can imagine how dissapointed I was. They were some very good runes with took me awhile to collect. And now I can start from scratch. So I can't collect anymore stuff then my stash and inv. can carry. I'm NOT trying to mule one damn time anymore. I really, really am pissed of about what happened.

I guess I will have to sacrifice the + skills for better resistances then. It'll make my army weaker though and only make me depend on CE more. I hope I come across some good stuff soon.

I finally made it through the arcane sanctuary. I did notice that the summoner seems to be on the path that contains the lightning rods. It seems to be the case everytime you play it. So I took the right path and used another trick to circumvent my vulnerability to lightning. I casted my glay golem to the far end of the screen and see if there's a lightning beam. This way I managed to move along without constantly being fried. This way the lightning was directed to my golem. If there were enemies I used attract to distract the lightning rod.

My vitality is indeed low. But I did that intentionally because the summoner doesn't get into the heat of battle. He also gets less life for every vitality point compared to the other classes. I'm currently at 495 life. Maybe I should add a few points to it. But I'd rather save them for max blocking and a little more strenght.

 

I guess I will sacrifice my current shield for one with alot of lightning resist.
I do like to think that I use the right curses at the right time. For bosses and really fast moving/hitting monsters I use decrepify. For normal monsters I always use amplify damage. And for larger groups I use attract to make them attack eachother. I haven't used dim vision alot because it has a very short duration. And I do not find it very usefull vs. gloams at this point because I'm usually fried when I know they're there. They fire out of vision range. They're often 1 1/2 screen away and start firing. Now pretty impossible for dim vision to catch for me considering I have low lightning resist. I think I'll work on that first.

 

I do not fight myself. I stay behind my army and support them with curses. I appriciate your offer but I play on the europe realm and I rather collect my own equipment. I don't like to get things that I haven't collected myself.

I tried doing pitruns. I have about 150% MF on me when I try. But the danger I'm in is not worth it. I've done 10 or more runs and died about 3 times doing it. I'm just to fragile at this point doing pitruns. I often die to the cold explosions from unique cold res. bosses who die. If I have cold res maxed I should be able to withstand those blasts or not?

 

I agree that I should work on my resists. Runes are not going to be an option any time soon I'm afraid. I've lost all my good ones for a reason I mentioned in a reply above.

I can't have both. Good resists and + skills. I haven't found that good stuff yet. And considering the luck I had so far this won't be anytime soon. The only lucky hit was in the Jail cellar level 1 in Act II. I got both my trang'oul pieces there when I was playing a quest.

I always try to stay away from those cold explosions when a unique boss with cold resist dies. But unfortunately it's not going as planned everytime. I guess I should work on my cold resistance as well, just to be able to withstand such a blast.

I had a good cash reserve of over a million. I lost it almost all to tho that arcane sanctury and reviving my merc. 50 K for reviving a merc is madness. On top of that I lose a ton of health potions just trying to keep my merc alive. It was pretty tedious. But I finally got past this crappy part of the game.

Thanks to all people who replied. I hadn't expected to see this many replies when I checked back.

 

Hey man, If you like I could hook you up with a little better gear. You remind me so much of my own ladder skellymancer. (first char) I have a few decent spare wands and a lore helm, also sazabi's helm which you could stick an ort rune into for extra light res. I have an old goldskin if you need resists too.
IMO you can fill you resist probs with light res charms, I have a few spare also.

Anyway, let me know if you are interested.

 

Keep the sigon items if you get a complete set then you can usually trade it for low lvl nm stuff.

Check every amulet that drops for a teleport ammy. It will be useful for the Maggot lair and the Arcane Sanctuary. You may also want to just use your merc. If that's the case then in those instances you'll almost always want to use Decrepify over Amp Damage (for confined spaces only) just to keep him alive.

I have a merc that I put Guillame's Face and Rattlecage on and I absolutely love him. I have a Reaper's toll on him as well but that's for my Frostdin and a Reapers will remove your control over your curses. The crushing blow helps him bulldoze almost anything, and if he's hurting for resists you can socket a UM or if you're poor like me you can choose between Tal, Ral, Ort, or Thul. Lastly, you can put either the runeword Strength or Malice on him to augment the Crushing blow.

Lastly an option that you have is to rush through Hell and get to Pindle. Most Skellimancers start their MF runs there. You go and raise your army before Pindle's wakes up and you run amuk for the rest of the game.

 

Thanks for the kind suggestion. I hope you're not offended but I don't want it for a reason I stated earlier.

And I also have half my inventory filled with charms that up my resists. Any more and I won't be able to pick up things when I go. ;-)

 

I didn't think of keeping these low level set items. But I never completed any set. I ALWAYS get the same item from a given low set over and over again. From the sigon's it's almost always the helm. This is done on on oh so many pitruns and NM baal runs. The only success I had was by just playing the game and stumbling upon a good item now and then. I believe this whole MF to be a hype everyone is doing and forgetting to just play.

I do check every magic amulet and ring I come across. I take the time to pick them up and let Cain identify them. If they're worthless I use the cube to transmute them for a 2nd chance. I haven't had much luck with rings or amulets as well. Picked up nearly a ton of them and only a few had some decent properties. But I keep getting at it, collecting them that is.

I don't gamble for amulets or rings because it's too darn expensive and I desperately need the money in case my merc dies or my char dies.

One thing I'm wondering about Pindleskin. The red portal dissapears. But there's a way to keep it open. Is it true it stays open when you NOT get the halls of pain waypoint? But you do complete the Anya quest and kill Nihlatak?

 

Untwinked skellymancers will start to kill pretty slow in hell, definitely get a might merc with some crushing blow, and use CORPSE EXPLOSION.
That's your fastest killer really, I wouldn't hesitate to put your extra points in that.

 

I have a might merc. Only I haven't come across a good weapon with CB. I was planning on making a runeword with CB for my merc. But I lost alot of my good stuff for a reason mentioned earlier.

I also have CE maxed out already. And I'm using it all the time. I amp and explode so to say. I just love to see all those sparky dungbeetles go with only one blast.

 

I wouldn't bother cubing the ammys and rings it takes too much time that could be spent killin. I usually have my cube full of crap that it's such a pain to transmute.

As far as Pindle goes I just don't kill Nil'. That way the Portal stays open. I've never felt the need to personalize to personalize anything.

If you're into trading you can trade Sigon's helm for another piece. Someone probably keeps coming across other pieces as well. The helm plus another item is a good twinking item in and of itself. It adds 8 attack rating per level.

Aside: My standard Twinking gear is Clegaw's set, Sigon's Helm, Sigon's Armor, Hsaru's belt and Hsaru's Boots. It gives like 20 AR per level, 33% crushing blow, and Deadly Strike... On top of that the sword gets +1 max damage per level. I can usually get to hell just using that... lol.

My brother once traded Civerb's Icon for an SoJ. Aparently, Civerb's is good for twinking magic users and the guy had more SoJs and didn't have the patience to find Civerb's.

 

Strength: 25% Crushing Blow and uses the runes Amn + Tir

 

My skellymancer is now at level 90..

Same problem for me at the beggining of Hell..

I suggest to you this gear.. [ isn't so hard to find these items.. in normal and in nm... ]

Weapon: Rare Wand with +skills to summoning, resistances.. Or just try to buy a decent Wand..
Helm: Worm Skull socketed with an Ort rune
Armor: Skin of the ViperMagi, good resistances and a +1 skills..
Gloves: Decent rare gloves with plus elemental resistances..
Amulet: Gambled amulet.. with +skills to summoning.. or +skills in general.. [ better with other mods like resistances.. ]
Belt: Unique belt Nightsmoke.. +10 to resistances.. Or every rare belt with good resistances..
Ring1: Rare Ring with other resistances..
Ring2: Stone of Jordan.. Manald Heal.. or other decent ring with some good mods..
Boots: Rare Boots with plus FRW.. [ ideal is 20% or plus.. ].. and eventually other resistances..
Shield: Good head with +skill to summoning.. socketed with 2 perfect diamond

With these items i rarely die in Hell beggining..

Keep your resistance up.. if you have -71 to lightning resist.. one bolt could take you down!

Give more points to vitality is another way to survive well..

In Act1, when you switch to MF gear.. keep your resistance above -1.. Poison is not a problem... Cold will be a problem if you dont pay attention at what your minions are doing in certain moments.. The boss of a monster group.. is always different to the rest.. [ color.. ] Look at the stats.. if he is fire enchanted or cold enchanted stay away from him when you see that your minions are dealing with him! Same thing with lightning enchant..

Use always Attract.. this curse is so helpfull! Do not use only Amp..

Especially with Archers in the pit.. attract them with other monsters behind them..

If a few monsters escape from the line of your skeletons trying to surrond your Necro.. switch to Terror keeping them away from you..

When you enter in areas where Shaman.. [ or other monsters that revives minions.. ].. are surrounded by minions... Attract every shaman that you see.. so all the minions immediatly starts to deal with him.. The Shaman trying to defend himself from his own minions.. stops immediatly to resurrect them.. or to use range spells..

Use your immagination and pay attention to everything! If you die.. try again and again!

The skellymancer is a great build.. trust me!