Finishing up a skelliemancer, skills?

[UncleSporky]

Finishing up a skelliemancer, skills?

level 87
20 in skellies, mastery, mages, CE
1 in everything else except Confuse, Attract, FG and most of P&B tree
3 unused points

Equipment is fairly standard, some of Trang's, Marrowwalk, AoKL, Homunc. I have no trouble killing anything ever but I also don't do ubers (at least, not yet).

What to do with my 15 final points? I don't really need anything else, but I'd rather spend the points than let them collect dust. What will benefit me the most?

Right now I'm leaning towards Bone Armor/Wall/Prison. If my calculations are right, one point in each (boosted to 9) will get me 100+90%+72%=262 HP instantly. If I dump the rest of the points into BA it would end up around 550. IIRC BA also avoids the hit recovery animation and cuts off the excess damage when it's depleted, right?

Should I bother to pick up the last two curses? Even having access to most of them, the only two I ever use are Amp Damage and Decrepify. (I need to remember to use Dim Vision on gloams once in a while. :tongue: ) I can't see myself ever using them. I don't think I need to pump up any of the curses either as the range is already more than what I need (boosted to 11).

The only other option would be pumping up golems or Summon Resist or something. Pointless, from what I hear.

What would you do?

 

[Eilo Rytyj]

If you can live without them, don't bother with Confuse or Attract. They're more for Necros who don't have a huge army to keep the heat off of them. You don't really need Lower Resist either, I hope you didn't put a point there.

Summon Resist is good enough with 1 point. Skeletons usually don't die anyway in Hell.

You can get away without ANY Bone Armor/Wall/Prison. A waste of 3 skill points IMO if you know what you're doing and don't get yourself killed.

I'm putting my final skill points into Golem Mastery. That way I have the option of a decent Iron Golem that wont die, in case I want to make him from something valuable. It also makes Clay Golem that bit more indestructible (not that he isn't already), and the increased speed means he's a little more useful at tanking too. He's the first one to reach the enemies, so he's the first one they'll target.

I say go with Golem Mastery.

 

[UncleSporky]

I did put one into Lower Resist for giving my mages some extra killing power and for grouping with sorcs etc. I've dicked around with it a little, and I like it. Not as useful as some of the other curses, though.

All those points just for buffing up one of my minions? Feels wasteful, but I might do it...

EDIT: Ooh, I calculated that Bone Armor wrong, I used the % synergies listed on the other two. That means it sucks quite a bit more...

 

[Eilo Rytyj]

Iron Golem isn't just any other minion. It's what you make of it, literally. It can give you a good source of Crushing Blow without Urdars. It can be another aura-totem-thing, one more aura for you and your army to share.

TBQH I can't see where else you can put those points that will be as effective. You're a summoner, minions are your thing.

 

[GotFriana]

Right now I'm leaning towards Bone Armor/Wall/Prison. If my calculations are right, one point in each (boosted to 9) will get me 100+90%+72%=262 HP instantly. If I dump the rest of the points into BA it would end up around 550. IIRC BA also avoids the hit recovery animation and cuts off the excess damage when it's depleted, right?

What would you do?

If you havent put any point into BA yet then I d invest there. It is allways nice to have an extra protection, as Summoner ideally you shouldn t be hit often at all but there s still allways a chance it will happen. BA doesn t allways avoid the hit recovery animation but it does absorb damage reducing how much damage you recieve, so it does make it less likely for you to get into hit recovery animation. (I dont know if I said it clear :-/).
However if you read the skills and the synergies you will notice investing more than 1 point into BA itself is not as good as investing into the synergies.

 

[UncleSporky]

Yeah, that's clear enough. With the BA I have more total HP so there's less chance of a hit triggering the anim.

I put a point into BA and one in BW and then I realized that apparently only "hard" points increase the synergy; level 9 BA is 100 HP but with 9 in BW it only says 115. I think I knew this at some point but I forgot. Ah well, I have a minimally better BA and also BW now. It did make my last trip in hell noticably less risky. (I run around too much and do get hit every once in a while.)

I could use the rest of my points in BW to get BA up to 310 HP or I could do golem mastery as was already recommended. However GM is already boosted to 14, my clay doesn't need any more AR and he lives forever. Also I have ~900 HP right now, so BA would be a 30% increase on that...I think I'll do that.

 

[OneFromBeyond]

Just so you are aware, bone armor doesn't give extra hit points, it reduces (non elemental) damage.

*OneFromBeyond

 

[UncleSporky]

Just so you are aware, bone armor doesn't give extra hit points, it reduces (non elemental) damage.

*OneFromBeyond

Of course, I just see it as roughly equivalent...although I know there is a significant difference, physical damage is about the only thing that can kill me in a few hits anyway as I've got max resists (other than !@#$ gloams...).

Thanks for the help guys, I know it's frustrating when I come and ask a question and then do what I was going to do anyway, just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything I was forgetting about.