Support/Summon Necromancer!!!

[RazorTalon]

Support/Summon Necromancer!!!

How's this for a proposal?

It is to look cool, be fun, be useful,(even solo), and when used properly, is quite awesome.

-20 Skeleton Mastery (Increase Revive+Skellies)
-20 Skeleton (Main Summons/Damage)
-20 Revive (Meat Sheilds/Look Good/Fun)
-20 Amplify Damage (Amplifies Damage/Max Last/Rely On +Skills For Now)
-20 Life Tap (MAIN CURSE/Use For Summon's Life/Cast On Groups, Let Merc Kill)

GEAR: Undecided. Includes Eth Insight On Act 2 NM Offensive (Might) Merc.

Strategy:

-Get mercenary ready, then go to a place such as the cold plains, cast life tap everywhere, and let him kill everything.
-Summon maximum amount of skeletons.
-Once summoned, run with merc and summons to the place you need to go.
-Start casting life tap/amp damage everywhere, and watching the war rage.

Tips/Explanations:

-THIS BUILD IS NOT COOKIE CUTTER, NOR DOES IT HAVE ANY (PARTICULAR) PURPOSE.
-It is mainly built for support, fun, and a decent(ish) amount of solo damage.
-Life tap will help with your mercenary, so levelling him up should be NO PROBLEM AT ALL. Will also help with uber runs, and hell boss killing in 2+ player games, if someone is a melee build (e.g Smiter/Zealer)
-I know that amp damage probably shouldnt be maxed last, but i will rely on +skills, as life tap will be more useful, being a support class.

-Finally, please do not point out things such as "20 life tap is too high" or anything, i realise this, and am just making this build as a this-is-my-idea-of-fun build.

Thanks,
Razortalon.

 

[Ed from Russia]

I'm always supportive of new ideas. Doing this solo will be hard, because you don't have Corpse Explosion (which will make it slow though doable). It does work in multiplayer, but here are some thoughts:
- In multiplayer people don't like too many summons. You will have 30+, which is really a lot.
- You didn't want to hear this, but even if 20 points in Life Tap is justified, I can think of lots of other skills you could invest in that would be more effective.

Here's an overview of my 'multimancer', that I intend to build soon:
- 20 Dim Vision (very nice for multiplayer as it eliminates most threats)
- 20 Corpse Explosion (even in MP does awesome damage)
- 1 Iron Golem (made out of Insight item)
- 20 Skeletal Mastery (strengthens IG)
- 1 Revive (with skill bonuses you get 10+ minions)
- 1 Golem Mastery and Summon Resist
- 1+ Amp Damage (range must be comfortable)
- 1+ Lower Resist
- 1+ Life Tap
- 1+ Decrepify
- 20 Skeletal Mastery (strengthens revives, max this one last)

I haven't decided on equipment yet. I may go for:
- Crushing Blow melee build
- Ranged attack (e.g. Faith or Ice bow)
- Auramancer (carrying Infinity and other equipment with useful auras)
- Skill boost and safety (equipment with skill bonuses and resists)

 

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Why place 20 hard points in some of those when you can put 10, and let +skills raise them, and then put 10 hard points into other skills to give yourself even more options?

The skeletons deserve the hard points. But Revives? After 10, you'll start to wonder why you did 20. If you have +skills, 1 point in Revives is fine. Remember that revives basically do no damage at all. You will need to use AMP to get anything to happen with them. They're just going to be meat shields. But skellies are already massive meat shields and your merc. Only those big crushing blow monsters will actually do some damage. If you just want them there because you like the look, I'd go 1 point to 10 points at best.

Life Tap is made of awesome, but you don't need 20 points in it. At level 9, it's 8 yards and has half a minute duration. That's way enough. That's the radius of a maxed CE. This lets you invest hard points into another curse. Your army will be basically immortal with Life Tap. But we're talking about an army that is already near immortal.

Amp is not something that needs 20 hard points either. Level 10 puts it at 8 yards. That's way enough.

-- Now, this is not to say like in your warning that these are "too much." What I'm getting at is that you can save 30ish skills doing this, and now place hard points into new curses or new skills. This lets you pike up a Golem. This lets you pick up Mages. You can get a nice Decrep for boss fighting. You can get some love in Summon Resist so that lighting doesn't blow your army away. A little Dim Vision for those Souls that aren't going to just stand toe to toe as they dance and shoot you.

Another reason I mentioned the Revives going down is because you'll have to find groups that are ok with summoners. Most realm people cringe the moment they see more than 1 or 2 minions and eventually get all irate and silly over it. Just a thought, because if you have a group to already play with, great. But if you're just going to pub with this guy, prepare to meet scorn b.net kiddies who will instantly start the "no pp nec ng" stuff.

Otherwise, have fun dude. :thumbsup:

=============================================================

Back before Synergy & Skeleton enhancement, Necros often played Support in the Realm and were referred to as "Curse *****es." Just load up on monstrous high level curses, of all kinds (Amp, Tap, Dim, Decrep, Lower Resist) and just control the field from the rear, with no other skills.

I play a raw support Necro who has no kill skills of his own beyond a low level CE, and only a Clay Golem for a minion. He supports a Rogue Merc, not even a Might Act2 Merc, and I can clear the Worldstone with him. He mainly runs a level 30+ Dim Vision. In party play, it's immensely fun to blind the entire Chaos Sanc and other places, and turn it into a cake walk where the monsters just stand there and let everyone pelt them from afar without getting mobbed to the point of "Deeds" or "Slain slain slain" depending on where you play.

Cheers, :sunny:


Mod Edit: Please, think of the poor word filter

 

[RazorTalon]

Okay, thanks both of you, after all this time i think i've decided.

As i will mainly be playing this in multiplayer, mostly with smiters/zealers, i'm keeping the life tap for fun.

As with the rest, what about;

-20 Skel Mastery
-20 Skel
-20 Mage
-20 Life Tap
-20 Corpse Explode
-1 Pre-reqs
-1 Amp Dmg.

?

 

[MasterMynd]

My first thought was that Summon Resist is missing. Don't know if that was just an oversight, or if it is planned, but it seems to me that Hell will be next to impossible without it. That's the only thing I see that I would consider "critical".

Good luck and have fun with it.:smiley:

 

[MalVeauX]

Okay, thanks both of you, after all this time i think i've decided.

As i will mainly be playing this in multiplayer, mostly with smiters/zealers, i'm keeping the life tap for fun.

As with the rest, what about;

-20 Skel Mastery
-20 Skel
-20 Mage
-20 Life Tap
-20 Corpse Explode
-1 Pre-reqs
-1 Amp Dmg.

?

If you're with smiters & zealers, Life Tap will certainly be great (just make sure they don't all wear Dracs/Exhile and cast Life Tap themselves... otherwise, it makes your 20 points ... pointless). The mages are great because chill & poison = stops monsters regen & slows in hell, which is seriously good. Skels hold the line and deal damage. CE is great, you will level the floor after the first body drops.

You've basically got a Fishy going, using life tap for melee-party members and mercs to live upon.

I think I would not focus on CE myself--that's not a support skill, it's a `kill' spell. Your melee boys will have nothing to attack if you bomb the house with CE after the first body or two drops. They'll have little to do other than to make that first body for you.

Cheers, :sunny:

 

[RazorTalon]

hmmmmm yeah 5 summon resist too, oversight. :$

Anyway, yeah, i was thinking that, and when i want to mf, i put mf **** on my merc, and life tap everything, and he pwns?

But yeah, fishy, and um, i was thinking, i usually leave one of my five-maxed-skills to max last, for example:

-If i chose SM, Skels, Mages, CE, and LT, and i choose CE last, then i put 1 point into it, and max it after EVERYTHING else is done.

This leaves the char done at level 80 or so, but this time, i was wondering, considering the 20 life tap is kind of overkill, what if i just get 10 LT and 10 CE, then leave those remaining 20 points to last, so im done (except for 10 more in LT and CE) at level 79-80.

(is 10 LT and 10 CE better than just 20 LT?)

Thanks, keep talking to me about this, it's great.

 

[Rawness]

LT: 20 points = Overkill. you may as well just throw it several times with a 1pt... boosted by /all skills.

 

[RazorTalon]

okay well, first stuff up.

Just added 1 too many pts into iron maiden instead of LT. :'(

Anyway, adaptation no.1,

-20 Mastery
-20 Skelly
-20 Mage
-20 Corpse Explosion
-15 Life Tap
-5 Summon Resist
-5 Iron Maiden
-1 Dim Vision


So great, now this is a modified version of a fishy.

One more thing while i'm here, what about this order.......for levelling and skill point allocation.....

-Get SM to 10 (10 remaining)
-Get Skelly to 10 (10 remaining)
-Get Mage to 10 (10 remaining)
-Get Iron Maiden to 5 (Done)
-Get Life Tap to 15 (Done)
-Get CE to 10 (10 remaining)
-Get Summon Resist to 5 (Done)
-Finish SM to 20 (Done)

-----Last points because in multiplayer, should have too many summons (lag etc)---------------

-Finish Skelly to 20 (Done)
-Finish Mage to 20 (Done)
-Finish CE to 20 (Done)


This may not be the best build, but it will still be fun.

Hotkeys:

Right:

F1: Life Tap
F2: Skelly
F3: Mage
F4: Corpse Explosion
F5: Iron Maiden
F6: Dim Vision



Thanks,
Razortalon.

 

[bruticus]

for what it's worth, i think if you're playing with decent smiters/zealers, more points in lifetap will help them out quite a bit by setting them up with lifetap on the next monsters they hit. dracs is only chance to cast, and smiters have died on a bad streak of LT not casting

i like the idea of maxing out the revives! everyone says laggy, but i think it's awesome to run around with 15 skellies, 12 mages and 20 revives. i don't think it's any more laggy than 3 javazons with torches spamming the throne. ;-)