skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

[shovz]

skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

Hey, just restarting Diablo 2 (after a year or so...haha) and have decided to make a skelliemancer just because I've never made one before, was wondering if anyone had some hints/advice on how to get on a bit quicker and get some decent (low) level stuff?

Also, I'm not too sure on stat distribution as I have no idea what my final equip is going to be...absolute aaaaages until I'll have enough for an enigma or something ...
Thanks in advace

 

[canudig]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

check the fishymancer guide, it should be in the sticky......basically ALOT of room for customization (check other threads on the first page for more info on that) and has the ability to play naked so low-end items aren't a problem

 

[zallus]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

I suggest if you are new with no equipment to Put a couple of points into Raise Skelly Then max Skelly Mastery.

In normal you will find them killing faster with a few strong ones over many weak ones.

 

[MasterMynd]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

Nightfish's guide is the definitive guide for the Skeleton-based Necromancer.

Once you've completed that (at around clvl60), the Dim Vision variation is probably the best way to go for a first character. It's just about the safest and easiest build in existence. (Arguably the most boring too.)

Nightfish doesn't go into the post-clvl60 variants too much, but basically the DV variation is just maxed Dim Vision with everything after that into Bone Wall, for the Bone Armor synergy.

One thing I like to mention to new Fishy builders is that shopping is your best option for obtaining wands. A +3RaiseSkeleton/+3SkeletonMastery wand can be shopped in A1 from the very beginning and can be used starting at level 3. (+2RS/+2SM can be used at lvl 1). Wands are very cheap compared to their relative power. A +3RS/+3SM wand sells for ~7K gold. A +3Summonig sells for ~16K gold.

I managed to shop a +3RS/+3SM/+2BA wand (took about half an hour) that I now use on all my up-and-coming Fishys from clvl3 to clvl45 (when +3Summoning wands can be shopped/used).

Also, the best Shrunken heads for a Fishy (i.e. with +RS and/or +SM) drop in the early/middle parts of A1 (Stoney Field, Dark Wood, Black Marsh). I would recommend "farming" these areas for good heads. I managed to find a +1RS/+1SM, a +2SM, and a +3SM head (all <= clvl3 req) in a single run through those three areas. Of course "Your results may vary", but as with shopping, enough time/energy spent on it will eventually put the odds in favor of your success.

So as you can see, with some patient shopping and farming, you should be able to head into the Monastery with a minimum of +3 to RS and +3 to SM. With that kind of "head start", it's a cakewalk all the way to the end of Norm. And by then, you should be able to make a 3PDiamond shield, which should cover your resist needs through the end of Nighmare. Things will slow down in Hell, but with high level Dim Vision and judicious use of other curses (Attract/Terror), it's still pretty much a cakewalk.

P.S. I have to respectfully disagree with Zallus re early skill point allocation of RS.vs.SM. The defensive benefits of a large number of minions greatly outweighs the offensive benefits of stronger individual minions. I've run both ways, and I find that, even though each individual skeleton is statistically stronger, my "actual progress through the game" is faster with highRS/lowSM than with lowRS/highSM.

P.P.S. Read the RIP thread if you want to learn from others' mistakes.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

Nightfish doesn't go into the post-clvl60 variants too much, but basically the DV variation is just maxed Dim Vision with everything after that into Bone Wall, for the Bone Armor synergy.

Well, I do have some suggestions in the guide for spare points, but tbh, you could plant them all in act 1 and grow a skill tree and never miss those points...

What I liked best was the golem mastery + fire golem for a strong *iron* golem route. (golem mastery boosts HP, fire golem boosts damage) That actually helped my kill speed most but does require a decent surplus of IK Mauls or similar items. Which I usually had, of course, due to heavy duty MFing.

Dim Vision is something I personally never even cast but each to his own. I found that with 10 skellies, plus revives, plus golem, plus merc, plus attract, plus being able to move, I never really needed dim vision.

P.S. I have to respectfully disagree with Zallus re early skill point allocation of RS.vs.SM. The defensive benefits of a large number of minions greatly outweighs the offensive benefits of stronger individual minions. I've run both ways, and I find that, even though each individual skeleton is statistically stronger, my "actual progress through the game" is faster with highRS/lowSM than with lowRS/highSM.

It was like that for me as well. What I never actually did is try to find the sweet spot between RS and SM. I guess if you somehow managed to get 20 RS and 1 SM that would be worse than 15 RS and 6 SM but 20 RS and 5 SM would probably beat 15 RS and 10 SM again.

I didnt actually go and gather hard data on this, but I do find that high RS plus low SM beats low RS and high SM. Of course it's only a temporary matter but I found my progress through normal severly hampered when I tried the inverse way of my normal skilling.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

I played with it on the pet calc and mastermynd and nitefish are right. With setup A (17 SM and 3 RS), each skellie you have will do as much damage as setup B (17 RS and 3 SM), about 35, the AR is almost the same too. But with setup A you will only have 178 HP per 3 skellies, while with setup B, you will have 528 HP per 7 skellies.

Setup C (Raising SM and RS up at the same time so they are always equal) keeps skellies at same life/damage as setup B, but you end up with a couple less skellies.

So as you can see, maxing RS first, then SM is the only way to go.

 

[shovz]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

Ok, thanks for the advice guys! Yeah, I did follow nytefish's fishymancer guide.
At the moment, I'm at level 80, and have like 10 points left over and not completely sure what to do with them, I guess I might go with a bit of a hybrid like nightfish said in his guide. However, I seemed to have grossly miscaculated my strength and put way too much in as I had shoddy equipment before and now with some better equip, it's sort of way overshot the mark (I was pumping it up to use marrowwalks) :S I'm up to around 130 as things stand.

Eq
AoKL
Homunculus (UM'ed)
Shako (p'topazed for mf - not so sure about that decision but whatever...)
Skullder's Ire/Trang Scales depending on what I'm doing
Magefist
Goldwrap/Bladebuckle (I know :S)
Rings -6% Manald (mana regen.) and 27/73 life/mana ring (just because I don't have anything better to use)
Eye of Etlich ammy

Now, I'm just trying to do some mf, but without tele it's pretty hard going, just doing pindle//shenk really, anywhere else is quite laborious...but also just because I don't have that much MF...
What kind of other equip should I be aiming for (bar eni obviously I guess), and anywhere else I should be running/doing? Also I find p8 hell games quite tough in act 4/5, but also just in general, is that just because summoenr's are a bit weaker or am I not doing something right?
Thanks again

 

[canudig]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

get some chance guards if you want to mf......put on your goldwrap........I would replace the marrowwalks for boots with some mf/res......pretty much just slap whatever mf stuff you have because summoners can get through the game without any equipment, therefore you can pretty much put whatever you want on him and he'll still be fine......I'd just go mf in private games with shenk, eldritch, pindle (if you still have portal), trav and lower kurast if you have the wp for it and open all the chests/stash/etc.......

 

[Dyshein]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

I've made over 5 skelliemancers and the build I've found works best is to max skellies, max mastery, max Corpse Explosion, and one in amp damage, decrepify, and summon resists. And for the love of god, please dont' be like all the other noob skelliemancers out there who don't realize that decrepifying baal makes him stop his stupid teleporting -_-.

Mages suck, revives are strong but have stupid pathing, best thing to do is just stick with regular skeletons and get a strong might merc. Most physical immune enemies can have their immunity negated by amp damage, and the few that can't you can always CE to death with the fire damage from it.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

mages suck? you are kidding right? I know not everyone uses them but if you do you get:
1) Free prevent monster heal from poison mage (10 minutes at level 40) which is really useful for ubur runs, monsters cannot naturally regen life while effected by poison.
2) Free Chill/slow effects from cold mages. Add this to the slow from decrep and clay golem and most bosses are so slow that they rarely fire a spell before getting interupted.
3) Fire and lightning mages do a reasonable amount of damage allowing you to kill those undefeatable Physical immunes. My mages with bonus from infinity are doing over 10k elemental damage a second (thats all 17 mages combined)
4) Mages are an additional meat shield to prevent you from getting hit. Each of my mages has 2k life.
5) Mages help a lot in tight areas like maggot lair or arcane sanctuary.
6) There is absolutely no better way to spend the last "maxable" skill on a necro. Poison/Bone skills will be too weak with such a small investment, and with +skills items, most everything else are one point wonders.
Don't know where else you would get all of the above for just 20 points.

Revives are good, you just need to get the right ones. I don't revive everything, you'll get a good idea of which monsters make the best revives. I tend to mostly revive ranged monsters as with 17 melee skellies there is no extra room for melee monsters, half of them will just be standing around cause they can't reach the enemy. Urdars and other monsters with crushing blow and/or high damage are good too.

 

[Dyshein]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

No, i'm absolutely not kidding. Like I said, I've gone through over 5 80+ skelliemancers (stupid 3 month character deletion =/) and in my experience mages suck big time.

Poison and bone skills too weak? My friend, corpse explosion annihilates everything. So long as my skellies can get one dead enemy (assuming i my merc has insight for mana regen) i can just blast the rest of them to pieces with the insane range of maxed CE. There's simply no need for mages in the mix, the only enemies whose phyiscal immunities are not revoked by amp are uniques. And mages are weak as hell, I try using them sometimes and they rarely stay alive for more than a few seconds, usually one hit and they shatter into pieces. I do use revives sometimes (enemies like black souls are very useful revives) but all i'm saying is you don't need mages, they'll just clutter up your army and put more strain on your program.

 

[canudig]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

corpse explosion is useful....but I think he was probably referring to poison nova, bone spear, bone spirit, etc......mages are OK for me, I guess it depends on the gear you use. Mine rarely ever dies in hell 1 player games.......

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

Dyshein, I have 3 90+ necro's so does that mean my advice is better than yours?

Anyway.

Of corse CE is good, who said it wasn't? We were talking about what to use your extra points on after you max RS/SM/CE (standard fishy).

Spear/spirit will do crap damage because you don't have enough points left to synergize them, same with poison skills. Those are the PnB skills I was refering to.

My mages have over 2k life with 70% resists, and seldom die, might lose one or two over an entire MF run.

How does prevent monster heal for 10 minutes, boss slow, and 10k elemental damage a second suck? Or an extra 34k worth of HP added to your army of meat shields. Mages usually surround me so if some baddies come from behind I have time to get out of the way.

If you are going completly untwinked I wouldn't use mages, but if your using +skill items and/or an enigma, there is no other skill left that will give you the damage output and hit protection you get from mages.

What else you gonna do with the points? get a couple hundred point bone armor?

 

[Dyshein]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

I'm not saying i know more because I've had alot of necros, I"m just saying that i've had alot of experience PLAYING as summonmancers and i've never felt the need to use mages in the mix. CE kills enemies fast enough, CB on a merc kills bosses plenty fast, and if you have nigma then why the hell do you need an extra meat shield when the skellies surround you everytime you tele? And I don't put my points into any pnb skills besides CE, i usually end up putting the rest into the golem trees and then making iron golems out of the dozens of IK mauls I find mfing.

 

[MasterMynd]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

My first two Fishy's used maxed mages. On the third one I decided to try going the DV/BA route (Max DV and everything left into BW for the BA synergy.) ... and never went back. Basically, I feel much safer with one dozen minions and everything “frozen†in place, than I do with two dozen minions and chaos all around me. I still put 1 point in both Mages and Summons. But I hardly ever use them against anything except Act Bosses. (If I think of it, I'll raise all my Mages when I'm in open areas.)

So, as always, the choice comes down a matter of what playstyle you prefer.


Note: I play strictly HC.

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

I am all for non cookie cutter builds, and unique item setup. Not everyone chooses to use mage, and thats cool, I didn't always use them. But look through the recent posts, they are filled with people who thought mages sucked (I was one of them), then gave it a try and saw how much faster that 1st body dropped, or how much faster the bosses go down.

You don't even need to believe thier opinions, just look at the numbers I posted. A 10k per second boost to damage is certainly welcome. Meat sheilds that keep you protected in the back lines while your warriors protect you from the front. You may not like mages, but I would say that they are far from sucking. That was my point, you didn't say you didn't use mages, you plainly said mages suck.

I have tried IG before, and I am 100% sure 10k a second damage is better than an IK maul golem. Although an insight golem might be worth the extra points, I would just drink pots, it's cheaper and pots are everywhere.

Not sure if I mentioned this on the post before, but I am recomending mages on a twinked fishy. Untwinked I would probably go DV.

Matermind, I agree, DV/BA is definately the way to go on HC.

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

Basically, I feel much safer with one dozen minions and everything “frozen†in place, than I do with two dozen minions and chaos all around me.

Until a few champ (and a possessed) frenzytaur flank you, that is. I had lost a summoner that way.

Seriously, I think mages are more important to untwinked characters than to twinked ones. PI's is always a problem, especially with stone skin or posessed. And unbreakable PI's is a even bigger one, if you have the desire to kill everything on the screen (I know I do).

 

[NumtyDoo]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

The reason I didn't used to use them untwinked is that they often got in the way in doorways and tight passages without enigma. They also do not get into the great damage/hp catagory without +skills and a boost from infinity. But a friend recently told me that he uses tp's and tele charges on an ammy and staff to collect mages when this happens, so may not be a bad choice untwinked either.

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: skelliemancer tips; restarting d2,=

I use the hotkey called unsummon. If they block, they die. Besides, no one says you need to have the mages up 24/7. Just don't summon them in places where there are a lot of doorways (which there aren't all that many, and they are not in places that matters, like WSK).