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 Post subject: Summonmancer - (New to the game)
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 9:56 am 

Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2010 9:39 am
Posts: 49
Hey all,

I just recently started playing (within the last week) and I am very much enjoying this game.

I decided to roll one of my favorite but underpowered classes in vanilla, Summonmancer. Off the bat I have noticed it is much more useful in Nightmare than vanilla, but I was hoping to get some tips/information from the more experienced players.

Information I am looking for:

What mercenary is recommended for my build? And what kind of gear should I focus on for the mercenary?

Are there any skill paths that are unwise for a summonmacer?

How far should I develop my curse skill tree in order to be useful in party situations?

What are common courtesies that I should take note of while playing on HU servers? (Example, I was asked to unsummon all my pets during Molech in NM, due to the massive lag they caused. Are there any other similar situations that I should take note of?)

Can I abuse Marrowwalk and Bone Shield with glitched synergy? :roll:

Any other tips/information would be greatly appreciated.

On another note: My summons get completely wrecked by bosses. I've developed a method in which I nonstop summon swords to distract the boss while letting my A1 Nightmare Physical Rogue shoot it. This method works, but takes a very very long time. Is there anything I can do to make my summons more versatile against bosses?

Thanks. :)

-Aegon (*hanayaka)


Last edited by Hanayaka on Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:14 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: New to the game
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 10:35 am 
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Posts: 2432
Welcome to the mod, glad to hear you are enjoying it.

Quote:
What mercenary is recommended for my build? And what kind of gear should I focus on for the mercenary?


I am going to assume this is your first character and is thus going to be providing trickle down gear for future characters. If so, make this character pretty strong and leave the crazy stuff for later builds. For a summon necro, that means get a NM A1 Physical merc and gear her up with lots of dex and damage. She should be able to hit 7-10K dmg pretty easily and combined with your Amp that should really take care of matters. In an odd twist, she will be your main dmg cannon while your summons keep her safe.

Try to find an eth crossbow and put that on her. In this mod, A1 mercs can use xbows and use them to deadly efficiency. I have one with an eth rare Ballista. Since you can punch 4 holes in any rare using 2x quad sockets, I tossed 4x Ko runes in hers. Works beautifully.

Quote:
How far should I develop my curse skill tree in order to be useful in party situations?


I am a little odd in that I like to put 5pts in to Amp. Most people will just go 1pt and let +skills do the rest, but since Amp is a curse I am casting so often I like to give it strength earlier in the game.

Quote:
Any other tips/information would be greatly appreciated.


If you haven't already, be sure to check out critterkiller.arimyth.com and blue.arimyth.com for the information they have. There are a LOT of new uniques and runewords that are very useful and not all of them super high priced. A simple summon runeword for example:

Graverobber (el, eth) - 2 socket wand
+40-60% Better Chance of Finding Magic Items
+40-60% Gold Find
Drain Life +5
+2-3 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
+1-2 to Raise Skeleton (Necromancer Only)
+1-2 to Raise Skeletal Mage (Necromancer Only)
Level 5 Find Potion (50 Charges)
+1 to Light Radius
+50 to Attack Rating
-25 to Enemy Defense per Hit
20% Enhanced Damage

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 Post subject: Re: New to the game
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:10 pm 

Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2010 9:39 am
Posts: 49
Thanks for the reply.

A few questions.

First, I read about "Bosses countering." Would you mind explaining what this means to me?

Second, you mentioned socketing the eth crossbow with Ko runes. Is there any reason I should use +DEX over +IAS and +ED?

Third, are there any oSkill items that would allow me to completely change the way I play? (I know Trang's has Teleport which will allow me to control my summons position, which I am looking forward to)

Lastly, do you have any tips on survival? I have put stats into Strength enough to equip Trang-Ouls if I ever get it, about 15 in energy, and hundreds into Vitality. I'm sitting at about 1.7k life at level 78 -- but because most of my gear is +skills (the only way my minions stay alive late nightmare), I find myself very vulnerable if an enemy manages to break the line. Should I invest more points into bone armor and decide against golems? (When I am able to find Marrowwalk I intend to use that to help me with Bone Armor)

My skill tree is as follows:

Code:
Curses:
Amplify Damage
1

Poison and Bone:
Bone Armor
1

Summoning:
Skeletal Mastery
20

Raise Skeleton
8

Raise Skeletal Mage
5

Clay Golem
1

Blood Golem
1

Iron Golem
1

Force Golem
1

Golem Mastery
7

Spirit Blade
20

Death Knight
20


Edit: I know in Vanilla, if you die you lose the resistances given by the Anya quest until you exit and rejoin. Is it the same in HellUnleashed?


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 Post subject: Re: Summonmancer - (New to the game)
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:37 pm 
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sink remaining points into Corpse explosion. The massive range will clear all areas alot faster than just a merc alone can. CE is probs the most powerful trash killing skill in the game. Your point spread looks fine as it is. You could have used less in mages (1 point wonder and never actualy summon them as they just cause lag from the attacks).

Boss counters mean that they will use skills against attackers. Summons cause alot of counters as they all hit at the same time usualy. This causes a ton of hits and a counter for each hit (20+ counters all coming at you). You are best to kill all skeles before bosses like these. The likes of sarina (kurast bazaar temple) sszak (eye part of the flail) and bosses that use close attack skills/counters are fine to use skeles against. Act bosses are bad to use summons against. Always kill most summons against ardual (light fury and a pack of summons dont mix) and the guardian (same reason as ardual) baals minions are heavy on the counters too so just golems and blades there.

Make sure you always cast a clay golem on bosses right away to slow them down. Make a clay golem again every minute or so to keep the slow effect going. Be prepared to switch to decrep if you see your other party members really struggling.

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 Post subject: Re: Summonmancer - (New to the game)
PostPosted: Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:48 pm 

Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2009 2:09 am
Posts: 736
PureRage-DoD wrote:
CE is probs the most powerful trash killing skill in the game.


correction... CE is *definitely*

with it doing almost a full amount of monster corpse life, 2-3 CEs will almost certainly wipe out anything in its radius. combine that with its damage type, which is half physical (of which you can amp for added effectiveness) and half magical (which i dont think there are any magic immunes), you get by far the best skill for killing trash in the game. nothing comes close. a decently geared necro can clear tundra in probably 7-8 minutes... get real good amp/CE gear on him and reduce it to about 4-5 minutes.

you will want to put as much as you can into CE. you dont need a shitload of summons, they are mainly for keeping things alive as mentioned (you, merc). CE and the merc will do your primary killing (of course CE is not usable on bosses). Id advise even getting a lot of points into amp. Theres nothing wrong with increased radius and duration, especially because i dont think either suffer from diminishing returns. its not necessary, but you wont really need to sink 100 points into summons. knowing how some of the top necros allocated skills, ive heard 60-80 skill points is more than enough for the summon tree, leaving you with the rest (anywhere from 33-53 skills) to go into amp/curses and CE. you wont need bone armor either... your skellies are your meatshields. a good bone armor wont help you anyways if your summons all die.


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 Post subject: Re: Summonmancer - (New to the game)
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 10:01 pm 

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 1:09 pm
Posts: 86
Just wondering for myself, considering Hanayaka put 20 into Spirit Blade... just how much is it worth to have that at 20? Do they actually stay alive long enough to make an impact ever?

Assuming you are grinding where you should be grinding, that is..

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 Post subject: Re: Summonmancer - (New to the game)
PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 11:37 pm 
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blades are good to hold a boss in place with only a 1 sec delay to recast them

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 Post subject: Re: Summonmancer - (New to the game)
PostPosted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:53 am 

Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 1:09 pm
Posts: 86
yes, pretty easy to figure that one out actually... but that doesn't actually say whether adding more than 1 point into them is worth it or not in the long run ..which is what id like to know if anyone can give some feedback

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