Skel Magi / Lower Resist Summoner?

[Mad Mantis]

I suppose the "mages are safer" thing (which isn't actually the case) is just that: they tend to be scattered around you, making it easier to find a safe spot.

With Mages it is also easier to use BW’s to keep the enemy busy. Mages can still attack over a BW or BP, but Warriors can’t. So if you want safe you can wall yourself in and still deal damage.

 

[Uzziah]

You can actually play only summon skills with a build consisting of just skeletons

20 skeleton mastery
20 raise Skeleton
20 skeleton mage
20 summon resist
1 golem mastery
1+ clay golem

The warriors AI works as a tanking character where as the mages AI as a caster character. If you stick to the walls there is little worry of being flanked with such a build you have your tanks up front with mage support from behind, the build works quite well. no its not a fishymancer, and no your not cursing with the build but as for safety its a decent build. and it leaves 28 skill points to play with as you please, possibly more if you skimp on summon resist and let +skills build it up. Might merc, and lower resistance may be a fun combo. It all depends on how you want to play. I would call this the true skelemancer build, unlike the fishymancer build it doesn't rely on corpse explosion to help the skeletons out.

 

[Myrakh-2]

20 summon resist

Not sure whether you noticed, but diminishing returns hit very hard. I would never place more than one point in SR, unless I expect, for some reason, to not get any +skills in the summon tree. Which is very unlikely if I'm making a Skelemancer...

 

[cerve]

This is my fauvorite build, its not so good, cause i had magies lvl 50 and mastery 51 and they didnt kill a ****.

But i come back with this build again, in order to be more effective, you must be the main attack. ( maibe using nova )

I got a question, can the fire skills of full trang oul ( with +all skiller ) be effective in hell with low ressist ?
Id like to use only the fire skillers, and spend points in golem ( i know it sucks, but i like so much ) max low ressit and boneprision / wall ( wich one of this skills would be better, if i wear marrowwalks ? )

Thanks to all, Id like you guys to talk more about this build :clap:

 

[Pitboss_2000]

Not sure whether you noticed, but diminishing returns hit very hard. I would never place more than one point in SR, unless I expect, for some reason, to not get any +skills in the summon tree. Which is very unlikely if I'm making a Skelemancer...

To back this up:
Lvl 01 SR gives 28% resistance
Lvl 10 SR gives 57% resistance
Lvl 20 SR gives 66% resistance

 

[Myrakh-2]

The firewall can kill stuff, especially with lower resist. Keep casting it, to stack them. Still, I only use it vs monsters with high physical resist (with LR then), or a lot of hitpoints (like the act bosses, but not vs dclone because of his high resists), without LR in this case.

Fireball is only useful early in normal difficulty. Meteor has no use.

Do NOT max lower resist. One point is enough for 99% of the people, as diminishing returns hit hard and early --- so, a few +skills from items is all you need.

 

[Mad Mantis]

This is my fauvorite build, its not so good, cause i had magies lvl 50 and mastery 51 and they didnt kill a ****.

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

Unsummon most of the Cold and Poison Mages to increase your damage output.

Id like to use only the fire skillers, and spend points in golem ( i know it sucks, but i like so much ) max low ressit and boneprision / wall ( wich one of this skills would be better, if i wear marrowwalks ? )

Wall is very good to close off passages and to stop ranged attackers. Bone Prison is very good in stopping melee attackers. I would go for BP because I find it easier to use.

 

[cerve]

Thanks but no one actually answered my question
Are fire skills of trang oul enough effective in hell ? If i add some facets ?

Or should I use nova by spending some points that i can spend in otherthings happily?. :scratch:

Oh, bone prision and wall sucks cause they dont stop ranged attacks

 

[Myrakh-2]

Wall is very good to close off passages and to stop ranged attackers. Bone Prison is very good in stopping melee attackers. I would go for BP because I find it easier to use.

Funny enough, when I tried a bonemancer on the previous ladder (I didn't have or even know about marrows back then, and had prison maxed), I found wall easier to use since you don't need a target. Also, monsters usually come in packs, which often leaves holes in the prison.

I mostly prisoned act bosses.

For a standard build using the synergy bug, prison will probably be expensive since you'll have to constantly recharge your boots. So, wall is the obvious only choice for most people anyway.

The path finding algorithm employed by D2 is VERY bad (the whole AI thing is most likely intentional, as smart monsters don't usually go well with the hack&slash D2 theme), so it's not particulary difficult to "prison" monster packs with walls.

 

[Myrakh-2]

Thanks but no one actually answered my question
Are fire skills of trang oul enough effective in hell ?

My posting, which is only two postings above yours, starts with "the firewall can kill stuff".

 

[Mad Mantis]

Funny enough, when I tried a bonemancer on the previous ladder (I didn't have or even know about marrows back then, and had prison maxed), I found wall easier to use since you don't need a target. Also, monsters usually come in packs, which often leaves holes in the prison.

I mostly prisoned act bosses.

For a standard build using the synergy bug, prison will probably be expensive since you'll have to constantly recharge your boots. So, wall is the obvious only choice for most people anyway.

It probably depends on what your playing style is. Since I am used to Meleemancers I am used to control groups with my curses. I usually use BP to make my BA last longer against a particularly hard target. That is probably why I find BP easier to use.

But BW is about equal to BP. Which one you should choose depends, as you say, on what equipment you use and personal preference.

Oh, bone prision and wall sucks cause they dont stop ranged attacks

Just use an AI curse.

 

[darnocpdx]

Yeah I'd go with no skelles warroirs, no bone walls (well mabey for synergies), +15 attract...it will tighten the packs of beasts for a more effective CE and the beasties tank for you quite well. Plus on all those but the the attracted you can have LR'd so your mages and your CE get that curse benifit too. You can also toss in a few points into confuse to bring in more beasties, so that you cut down on your travel time (and your mages wander time) and let the beasts come to you, just gotta cast the LR before the attract then so that confuse gets overwritten since attract wont overwrite confuse by itself.

Once you start to play with the curses you'll like em you have complete controll of them and you can mix and match the damage and AI curses to fit many different situations unlike skelles. They work well without alot of plus gear, and once you get them down you'll realize they are some of the most powerful spells in the game (hence one of the only spell lines without synergies). But there is a learning curve to them- you gotta know what to cast when with what, where to stand when to run where to run when to stand still, and each one (and combo) is a little different.

 

[royalesse]

Bone wall + Dim ... Attract ... The best advice I got was to play as a Mojomancer for a bit and you'll get a true appreciation on how to use curses. Personally, I liked the Dim + Confuse combo. It helped out vs. bosses and made tanks unnecessary except for lvl bosses.

CE is always a time saver, so are revives with crushing blow as well as a crushing blow merc. Don't underestimate the duration of Poison Mages, they are hilarious.

 

[Myrakh-2]

Don't underestimate the duration of Poison Mages, they are hilarious.

Yes, they are pretty much an extremist fraction of the skellies: they refuse to do any damage, but the poison duration is insane. I get more than 500 seconds (!!) according to arreat summit; I can only see that it is LONG, but haven't bothered to check it. And that's with cheap gear (Lvl 37 Mastery, 34 Mage).

The "no damage" part is dead serious: they aren't even getting 1 poison damage/s.

The league of cold mages is trying to do the same, but they can't. They deal a bit of damage, and with the 1/4 duration in hell already accounted for, it still ends up at more than 12 seconds --- an impressive number for chill duration, I think, especially considering that necros aren't using cold charms.

Fire and ligthning mages are the best damage dealers among the mage clans; too bad that their casting rate is comparatively slow :-( The fire mages take the lead, though; considering that "lightning" is actually "air"-magic, I wouldn't be too surprised some storm hits the mage clan castle and blows out their fires.

All according to Arreat Summit; I just raise my guys and let them do their stuff. Only really interested in knowing that I get insane poison duration, as that's what keeps dclone from healing

 

[Kaze]

Cerve is a noob , dont listen to him! :lol: (Hey Cerve it's me Ash)

Boosted Thrang firewall with +skills as previous poster said can killl things , in fact coupled with LR and golem / revives / etc that keeps monsters in a line , is pretty devastating i can say! mine is lvl20 , mastery 10 and is awesome ... I encourage u to continue tunning this build , sounds like great fun

See you in diablo :buddies:

 

[WilliamShatner]

These are the skills i vested on my summoner:
raise skeleton 20
raise mages 20
skele mastery 20
ce 20
utility points in dim vision, revive (though i dont use it) and all in between
did not use bone armor... dont need it in fact only put one point in teeth so I could get to ce. Left the rest of poison/bone tree alone.

basically:
amp monsters
spam ce after first one dies
rinse, repeat
lower res if cant get to monsters and let mages have at em or if i just want a change of pace .
16 skeletons
16 mages
1 clay golem (slows monsters 60%)
1 might merc

Now, my gear is a bit pricey, but I use him for mfing anywhere in Hell.
king arm ist
shako ptopaz
homunculus um
enigma archon 1362 def
war travs
arach mesh
soj
bk
anni
5xs summon gc
gheeds 39
mf small charms
trang gloves
+3 summon ammy

merc gear:
tal mask ptopaz
tal armor ptopaz
tomb reaver 2 amn combo'd w/tal mask gives: 24 ll

My resists lack something to be desired, but when you have 34 "targets" waltzing around you, resists just really aren't an issue. Yes even those pesky lightning shooters really aren't a problem... just dim vision and tele right on top of them and "WHAMMO!!!!" a job well done! :thumbsup:
some people complain when I join Baal runs about lagging this and cant see that, but they usually shut up when they see how fast I can dispatch his minions in 8 player hell games.

Places I like to mf:
I go to act 5 and run thru anya's portal and raise 16 skeles real quick then straight to Pindle.. amp - ce - collect... back to base
Then go to act one outer cloister... run pit (raising mages as I go)
Then Andy
Then Meph
Then rof area and Chaos/Diablo (keep raising skeles/mages as necessary) (leave merc dead until at diablo... im will cost ya $$ otherwise)
Then Shenk and that other guy above him
Then WSK/Minions/Baal (be sure to clear out all the areas as I tend to find the really good items on just the regular monsters more often than the Act Bosses)

These runs are a bit tiresome if you dont have some source of teleport, so keep that in mind when you see my lengthy array of places I hit per game.

Well, that's my 2cents on the matter,
Your beloved Capt. :teeth:

 

[WilliamShatner]

Forgot to mention,

I mf cows after all the other places... then it's on to the next game.

Your beloved Capt. :teeth: