Several Questions about my Build, Gear and MF.

[dodenbezweerder]

Several Questions about my Build, Gear and MF.

Yesterday i started my new ladder summoner necromancer that i plan to use for Magic Finding all these items i will give away in the Free Item Fund Thread . But before i can do that i have some questions.

After reading several threads on MF with Necromancers, i read that many people use the same items. So i figured this would also be the gear i would aim for, during my travels. The gear i've picked is:

Skullders Ire,
Chance Guards,
Gold Wrap,
Homuncules,
War Traveler,
Harlequin Crest,
Blade of Ali Baba,
Arm of King Leoric on switch,
2 Nagel Rings (or perhaps some others),
Mara's Kaleidoscope.

Now if i am correct these items give me +7 skills to all and +2 extra skills to the curse tree and some extra from the Arm of King Leoric for the pre-buffing of my skeletons. It can also give me about 350%/400% MF, according to my excel sheet.

Q: is my gear ok? or should i improve a lot of it?

According to my 'excel' sheet, i should get 32 in each of SM and RS when i have the Arm of King Leoric selected.

Q: Are my skeleton skill levels high enough for the entire game? Last ladder i had a 'non-MF' summoner which had the same in SM and RS, but that was still in the hellish Act 1. So are these numbers still as viable in Act 5 for instance?

As for my Skill selections i plan to use the 'basic' summoner guide. Thus:

20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Raise Skeleton
1 Golems (except fire)
1 Golem Mastery
1 Summon Resist
1 Raise Skeleton Mage
1 Revive
20 Corpse Explosion
1 DimVision, Confuse, Attract, Decrepify
10 Amplify Damage (to make the radius a tiny bit larger then the corpse explosion radius)

I should reach this at level 73/75 or so.

Q: Since i'll mostly use Corpse Explosion to kill the packs, i do am wondering if putting 10 points in Amplify Damage is worth it?

If i put all the right formulas in my excel sheet i should have around 700 life and 480 mana at level 75 when i include all the help i get from items and the likes (not counting the Arm of King Leoric). My blocking would be like 13% so i guess that is useless.

Q: is this enough life and mana? Or does someone have some advice on this matter? My last ladder necro had pretty much the same, but was in Act 1 of Hell.

Now, calculating everything is all nice, but it only works when i can actually get the items on my 'most wanted' list. Last Ladder i had half of those items, but i got them from someone who 'left' Diablo. Except the Goldwrap, i found 3 of them, which got me interested in MF a little bit more.

To get the items i figured i can do some of the following:

1. hope someone gives them to me (but that is not likely)
2. trade for them, that would probably mean pickup every rune and +flawless gems and cube them as high as possible.
3. i could just do runs with 0% MF and hope they drop (but is this useful)?
4. gamble for it?

Q: can you advice me on how i can get the items on my 'most wanted' list? Even if i went to pick up runes, which runes should i pick up?

I've seen several thread on Gambling. But there are some things that are unclear to me.

Q: is it possible to gamble for an unique items like that Arm of Leoric or is it just not possible?
Q: does MF help with Gambling? Since i've read someone say yes and others say no.
Q: i've read two conflicting things. Assume i would want to get myself a nice Amulet. Someone said that if i first get a 'useless' one, i would have leave town to reset the 'shop seller'. Since it will only give me useless ones, if i don't reset it. Another person said that re-opening the gamble window is enough? Is there any truth to either one?

After looking at the trading value thread, i notice that trade values between realms is sometime different. Europe Realm seems cheaper than US East? Is there any reason for that?

Q: since i've just switched from Europe to US East i now wonder if that was a good idea?

Thank you for all your help, advice and effort.

*dodenbezweerder

 

[Myrakh-2]

Q: can you advice me on how i can get the items on my 'most wanted' list? Even if i went to pick up runes, which runes should i pick up?

Maras is extremely expensive. Used to be around IST, IIRC (never bought one myself).

Q: is it possible to gamble for an unique items like that Arm of Leoric or is it just not possible?

No, because you cannot gamble wands (IIRC --- check the shop).

Other than that, you can get sets/uniques from gambling. However, if the item is an exceptional/elite you'll have to roll exceptional/elite first, then roll unique/set. Good luck...

Q: does MF help with Gambling? Since i've read someone say yes and others say no.

Bnet garbage. MF doesn't affect gambling.

Q: i've read two conflicting things. Assume i would want to get myself a nice Amulet. Someone said that if i first get a 'useless' one, i would have leave town to reset the 'shop seller'. Since it will only give me useless ones, if i don't reset it. Another person said that re-opening the gamble window is enough? Is there any truth to either one?

Both is crap. If you get a "useless" amulet (or two), you'll *have* to close the gamble screen to gamble more since none will be left to pick...

Leaving town has no effect on gambling.

In addition, the game has no idea what is useful and what is not, so you can safely discard anything that claims that the game makes a distinction based on the usefulness of an item.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Q: is my gear ok? or should i improve a lot of it?

Q: Are my skeleton skill levels high enough for the entire game?

Things are looking nice. Your Skellies should be able to handle themselves well if you do a nice pre-buff with AoKL. CE will probably be the main killer in Hell.

Q: Since i'll mostly use Corpse Explosion to kill the packs, i do am wondering if putting 10 points in Amplify Damage is worth it?

If you find the radius of your boosted Amp to be insufficient than you can place some extra points. But I'd say that a level 1 Amp should do the trick.

Q: is this enough life and mana?

Looks decent for beginning Hell. Just chug some pots if you get into trouble. Or try to equip your Merc with an Insight.

Q: since i've just switched from Europe to US East i now wonder if that was a good idea?

More players from the forum. That can be a bad idea depending on what you think of us.

 

[dodenbezweerder]

Thanks for the replies.

There seems to be a lot of gambling info that is wrong circulating battle.net then. When i read your explination it does sound very logical that the game does not know what is useful and what is not.

Currently i do only have 1 point in AMP, no plus skills yet. I do find it lacking radius at the moment. But my skells are doing pretty good, hardly no 'deaths'. Probably because of my +3 raise skeleton wand.

Now, a question to Mad Mantis. If i am correct, you are from the UK, i think i read it somewhere (i'm from the Netherlands, so we are quite close)? Anyway, how do you find the Lag when you play on US East in general. Yesterday i tried to play, but the Lag i encountered was very high (unplayable). Yet the day before yesterday everything was fine.

Thank you.

 

[Mad Mantis]

There seems to be a lot of gambling info that is wrong circulating battle.net then.

That is correct. People WANT to see connections and explanations in things they don't understand. Combine that with a tendency to notice negative responses stronger than positive responses and you'll get all sorts of weird theories. You can compare it to the way the ancients used gods to explain physics.

Now, a question to Mad Mantis. If i am correct, you are from the UK, i think i read it somewhere (i'm from the Netherlands, so we are quite close)? Anyway, how do you find the Lag when you play on US East in general. Yesterday i tried to play, but the Lag i encountered was very high (unplayable). Yet the day before yesterday everything was fine.

Actually I'm also from the Netherlands (Gelderland, oh yeah). With my ADSL connection I normally have very little lag on US East. Even later at night when the Americans start to play.

If my little brother is trying to DL something big the lag will go up and it can become hard to play.

Every now and then there seems to be a surge of lag. Also the fact that the ladder just started will increase the lag. More players are on now all the time.

 

[Myrakh-2]

That is correct. People WANT to see connections and explanations in things they don't understand. Combine that with a tendency to notice negative responses stronger than positive responses and you'll get all sorts of weird theories.

In addition, the wrong stuff somehow seems very persistent (maybe because it often fits people's expectations better...). Cow-rules are a good example --- "no king", or even people asking who made the game or opened the portal.

You can compare it to the way the ancients used gods to explain physics.

Ancients? Gods?

There isn't a lot of information about the Ancients before they were known as the gate builders. And mind you, their "defeat" by the Wraith wasn't physics related: they easily won every battle, but they lost the war because no matter how many Wraith they defeated, they just kept coming (must be some Bloodraven-type Wraith somewhere... guess they didn't find him)... so eventually they left Atlantis and returned to Earth.

And 10000 years later, Atlantis is still almost fully operational (the only real failure I remember that wasn't related to lack of power is the defense satellite). So apparently they didn't need Gods, since they knew very well what they were doing

SCNR :stoned:

If my little brother is trying to DL something big the lag will go up and it can become hard to play.

You could try to trafficshape things, but that's not a simple thing (with LInux at least, it's terrible).

But eventually your little brother will be your big brother, and then he's going to download more little things?

 

[dodenbezweerder]

I'm used to FreeBSD, which does trafficshaping very well. Luckily i only have a gf who does some MSN. So i hardly see that much lag.
Or you could simply disconnect him when you are playing. And then thump your brother when he complains?

Yesterday i've played on US East and had no lag what so ever. So i guess my previous encounter with the lag monster was just a random one.

Time for me to find some more MF gear, since i only have it on 36% right now.

greetz,
*dodenbezweerder

 

[dodenbezweerder]

Since i have a new question, i figured it would not make a new thread but simply continue this one.

My build is a bit different then i first thought of in my first post. Instead of having 10 points in amp. I've put 5 in amp and 5 in dim vision. At the moment i only have 3 +skills, so a total of 8 in both is what i feel sufficient in almost every case i encountered so far. Currently i'm at level 78, the build is finished and am questing in act 4 hell mode. It's getting quite scary since my resists are -80 or so. Nor do my skellies do enough damage to kill the bigger baddies. Usually that will be de job of my mercenary. I should really get myself some more +skill points.

I've read in these forums that crushing blow is a very nice mod on your mercenary. I never had a chance to find that out, but on my travels i found a Guileme Facemask or whatever it was, with a lot of crushing blow on it. And yes, i really really like it. The bosses i encounter usually get wacked pretty easily. The road the boss is much harder, then the boss it self. So the build seems to work out just great.

But on to my question. Every now and then my mercenary loses his aura (at least visually). This usually happens what i townportal, or navigate a stair or enter a new level. Does this mean my merc does not provide the aura or is it just a visual bug?

Thanx.

 

[nydo]

If you are relying on your merc to kill bosses, yet, Guillaume's Face is a great helm for him. Your merc should retain his aura when you teleport or change acts; this is probably just a lag-related phenomenon.

 

[dodenbezweerder]

If you are relying on your merc to kill bosses, yet, Guillaume's Face is a great helm for him. Your merc should retain his aura when you teleport or change acts; this is probably just a lag-related phenomenon.

Just relying on my merc isn't the right word. It's more that my skellies can kill, just that my merc kills a lot faster.

About the aura, sometimes it takes a few minutes (up to 5) before the visual aura comes on. I usually just townportal back and forth another time. Which usally triggers the aura. I was just curious if it was a known 'bug' or glitch. If it were lag i would assume i could not play or at least sluggish. But play-mode seems to be just fine, just not nice aura around my merc and my nice minions.

Another thing. I'm now in hell Act 5. I had just leveled with Diablo to 79. I exited the game (i had exhausted act 1 for easy killiable minions). I figured i would check if there is a 'Kill Ancients' game to get the wp. Well there was, so i went to kill the ancients together with a sorc. After three resets, the sorc left with the standard 'too strong, you **** (fill in nasty word) '. Anyway, i didn't agree and was able kill the ancient with losing only a few skeletons.

But.. i didn't level. I did notice that instead of my xp bar being at the beginning (i didn't play that much after my level with diablo, so it should have been at the beginning) it was now at 3/4 or 4/5 of the xp bar. I always assumed that killing the ancients got you enough xp for a full level. Is that wrong of me?

regards,

 

[Day]

Couple of ideas for you - not sure how much of your target gear you have found?

4 Topaz gems in any armour gets you nice MF also stick one in your helm.

Rare boots/gloves ofton have MF on them so gamble or at least check those that fall.

Have the ali baba (or even a gull dagger) paired with a Rhyme Shield. Summon and switch. This works very well for me - the small loss of skills in CE and curses isn't a problem.

CB as you say is very nice on the Merc - try a Strength pole arm or spear for a cheap way to get some more - also Hone Sudan if you have one is great vs Baal (even 8 players).

I like to have 10 revives - I find them useful vs Baals minions I also like to take some pitfiends vs Baal. So depending on your skills an extra point or two here (after switching from summoning gear otherwise they disappear!))

I find teleport useful vs Baal - try gambling for an amulet with teleport on it and check all Rare and Bliues - my Necro uses 20% resesit all and teleport amulet. As soon as you see hime teleport back off cast decipify -- he gets mobbed you just refresh dercipify until he dies.

I ignored blocking. No points in dex at all.

Minimum strength the rest in vitality. With a Shako on I have a decent amount of life - you'll easily top a 1000. Your 700 figure looked very low - are you counting the quests 60 points and the points you get free per level?

Your skeletons will be fine at your planned skill levels - mine are no better (as I have gone for MF over skills) and I have no problems anywhere.


On the hell ancients I think it now gives a fixed amount of Xp - so no you don't necessarily get a level.

 

[dodenbezweerder]

I haven't found anything of my gear yet. Am trying to trade a homuculus at the moment. Currently all my MF (about 120) is of Topaz and magical MF gear.

My skellies are at level 23, but they hold their own even in act 5 hell. Just when they get overwhelmed they can drop quite easily. I still think the key to them being alive is coz of the might aura from my merc.

As for hitting baal. I just run up to him, just don't stop, keep running past him. You're skellies will all engage then i decrep and spent my time with healing my merc if it is needed. The biggest merc saver is my little mud golem.

I've never teleported with a necromancer before, so i can't really say much about that. I heard it's great, but i have not found any +teleport things yet.

700 life seems to be sufficient at the moment. I never get hit, except by those damn gloams/souls. So i might spent my left over 4 skillpoints to put into Dim Vision to increase it's range. Not sure if that is worth those points.

 

[abarlament]

Hey guys. I'm having some troubles in Hell with my fishymancer while MFing. My skills are standard fishy-fare, here's my gear:

Tarnhelm- 32% MF
Skullders- 105%
Milabrega's shield (until I put Rhyme in something)- 20%
Crafted gloves- 23%
Goldwrap- 30%
Ring- 19%
Charms- 20% total
------------
259% MF total

Anyways, my resists are teh sux0rs in Hell, I can do the pits fine (sometimes die from a damn cold explosion if I'm too close, but 90% of the time I'm fine), but Hell Meph is tough (granted, I haven't rolled a good map yet), and Hell Baal is untouchable wearing my MF stuff. My resists are all in the negatives (-30 or so, fire is +4), is this the case with you guys or do you have good resists with your MFing gear on in hell? Do you do it with charms, or would I have to just have better MFing gear?

 

[dodenbezweerder]

Hey guys. I'm having some troubles in Hell with my fishymancer while MFing. My skills are standard fishy-fare, here's my gear:

Tarnhelm- 32% MF
Skullders- 105%
Milabrega's shield (until I put Rhyme in something)- 20%
Crafted gloves- 23%
Goldwrap- 30%
Ring- 19%
Charms- 20% total
------------
259% MF total

Anyways, my resists are teh sux0rs in Hell, I can do the pits fine (sometimes die from a damn cold explosion if I'm too close, but 90% of the time I'm fine), but Hell Meph is tough (granted, I haven't rolled a good map yet), and Hell Baal is untouchable wearing my MF stuff. My resists are all in the negatives (-30 or so, fire is +4), is this the case with you guys or do you have good resists with your MFing gear on in hell? Do you do it with charms, or would I have to just have better MFing gear?

It seems you are in a better shape then my necro. I too can do pits fine. Also meph works just fine for me. Although i must admit that it is slow going to meph. But once i meet him, he goes down quite easily. Diablo the same, the road to him is though. But Diablo himself goes down quickly (not as quickly as meph, but i do beat him everytime). Baal, i haven't tried. I encountered Dark Souls yesterday and bailed out. Then there was dinner, etc, etc. So i haven't had time to try it again. Personally i think it will be same, the road to him is though. But the demon itself should be fine. Unless he teleports and my forces split up.

My resists are also in the negative, but more like -80 or so. i believe i have poison at -50. I don't have that much MF as you (willing to part with your gear? pleaasse.... )

Any, does your merc have crushing blow. It really rocks against the bosses. Mostly my skeletons are only there to keep the heat of my merc.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Hey guys. I'm having some troubles in Hell with my fishymancer while MFing.

Your problems could also be the result from something else. What is your level? How well do you pre-buff the Skellies? What level is your Merc and how is he equipped? Do you use AI curses to keep monsters from targeting you?

If you find you're dying too much it is better to give up some MF. Better a bit less MF while doing runs safely. In the end it will give you greater rewards.

 

[abarlament]

Both my necro and merc are lvl 85. He's got Atma's Wail, Guillame's Face, and an Honor grim scythe. I use blind on ranged attackers if i can't get my mobile meat shield in front of me. Pre-buffing?

 

[abarlament]

It seems you are in a better shape then my necro. I too can do pits fine. Also meph works just fine for me. Although i must admit that it is slow going to meph. But once i meet him, he goes down quite easily. Diablo the same, the road to him is though. But Diablo himself goes down quickly (not as quickly as meph, but i do beat him everytime). Baal, i haven't tried. I encountered Dark Souls yesterday and bailed out. Then there was dinner, etc, etc. So i haven't had time to try it again. Personally i think it will be same, the road to him is though. But the demon itself should be fine. Unless he teleports and my forces split up.

My resists are also in the negative, but more like -80 or so. i believe i have poison at -50. I don't have that much MF as you (willing to part with your gear? pleaasse.... )

Any, does your merc have crushing blow. It really rocks against the bosses. Mostly my skeletons are only there to keep the heat of my merc.

If you are on SP then I can hook you up with a few things I'm sure.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Pre-buffing?

Equipping all kinds of sweet +skills gear and then summoning your Army. After this you can switch back to MF stuff. You'll loose a few Skellies, but the remainders will be hella tough. The better your meatshields are the easier things will be for you.