Patriarch Samuel, Untwinked Fishymancer

[Cattleya]

After the frenetic play style from my untwinked ranged enchantress, I decided I needed something safe and maybe a bit boring. So, it was time to finally try the Fishy. I'll be honest, it's never been a build that has really appealed to me, and playing all the way through the game on one didn't really change my mind on that. (Although I loved the Necro voice lines, so there will probably be more necromancer in my future at some point — but something less reliant on corpses.)

Stats (with gear)​

Level: 83
STR: 90 (105)
DEX: 25 (63)
VIT: 325 (357) [975 life]
ENG: 25 (25) [327 mana]
30 unspent stat points

Fire Resist: -10 | Lightning Resist: 23 | Cold Resist: 21 | Poison Resist: 32

70% Magic Find
50% FRW
110% FHR (6 frames, and way over the 86% BP)
69% FCR (11 frames — it looks like I changed out a FCR ring at some point and didn't adjust around it.)

Skills (with gear)​

Raise Skeleton: 20 (24)
Skeleton Mastery: 20 (25)
Clay/Blood/Iron/Fire Golem: 1 (5)
Revive: 10 (14)
Summon Resist: 2 (6)
Golem Mastery: 1 (5)
Skeletal Mage: 1 (5)

Corpse Explosion: 20 (22)

All Curses: 1 (3, with amp at 4)

3 unspent points

(One point in all needed pre-reqs.)

Gear​

• Weapon: Spirit Broad Sword (35% FCR!)
• Shield: Rhyme Preserved Head (+1 SM, +1 Teeth, +1 Amp)
• Helm: Rare Coronet — +2 Necro Summon, 24 life, 22 lightning resist
• Neck: Caster Crafted — 9% FCR, 14 mana, 6% mana regen, 21 lightning resist
• Armor: Stealth Ghost Armor
• Gloves: Hand of Broc
• Belt: Bladebuckle
• Boots: War Traveller (45% MF)
• Ring 1: Rare — 10 Dex, 22 cold resist, 15 poison resist, 30% gold find
• Ring 2: Rare — 12 dex, 15 mana, 15 lightning resist, 5 CR + FR + PR
• Charms: various life and resist charms

Mercenary Gear (Fire Rogue)​

• Weapon: Insight War Bow (Level 13 Meditation)
• Armor: Arctic Fur
• Helm: Undead Crown

Interesting Finds​

He picked up the War Travelers in Hell Act 1 (I think the Stony Field if I'm remembering correctly) and I immediately used up some of his saved stat points so I could equip them.

He had pretty decent rune luck. NM Hellforge dropped a disappointing Hel rune, but a random monster dropped an Um run a minute later making up for it. He picked up a Gul rune in Tal Rasha's Tomb on his way to kill Hell Duriel, and a Vex on the way Nilathak. Hell Hellforge dropped a respectable Ist.

Overall Thoughts​

It was generally safe — my deaths were generally either to lack of attention on my part (a large hazard with the build) or visual overload. I pretty much followed the Fishy guides, and they didn't lead me astray. Attract was an amazing utility curse that got heavy usage (and that I might not have thought about without Nightfish's guide.)

I ended up going the Revive route, mostly because I didn't want to deal with finding good bases for Iron Golems while untwinked. I think it was the right choice for me. It was a bit frustrating at times as the short timer means you are mostly stuck with what has spawned in the zone with you. Quillrats were one of my favorites to revive. Small, ranged, and their poison damage helped counter mob regeneration. Obviously Urdar were the superstars for bosses. Vampires were a terrible terrible mistake the one time I tried it — so much fire everywhere with no way to tell if it was the friendly type or the type that makes a necro with negative fire resistance dead. (Spoiler alert! — it was the dead necro type.)

Once he was cruising, he was fine to play. Corpse explosion is satisfying to use. I found raising an army at the start of sessions and waiting for them to get the first corpse for some explodey goodness a bit tedious. I was too lazy to shop a teleport staff, which was probably a mistake. The army had a very bad habit of spreading out reducing killing efficiency. (I did learn to use Town Portals when things were really bad to get them focused again.)

In the end, though, the real issue I ran into was that I just had a miserable time parsing what was happening on the battlefield. I have visual processing issues, and the summoner necro just dialed those issues up to 11 for me. I spent a fair amount of the time watching the minion count on the corner of my screen to decide if I was hitting the button to raise more minions or corpse explode while blindly waving my mouse across the screen hoping there was a corpse to use and listening for the mercenary's bow to see if there was still stuff that needed killing. So, while I can absolutely see why people would love this build, it is just not for me.

 

[LouB]

@Cattleya Congratulations for sticking with the build. It's hard to believe that Nightfish's guide is over 18 years old!! Even with all of the changes it is still a workable if some what boring build. I did my one and only back in 2005.

I can sympathize with what I call the light show effect. It can be overwhelming at times.

 

[little birdy]

Nothing wrong with Um, Ist, Gul, and Vex all in one playthrough! That's a nice bit of luck.

 

[DaveW]

Nice one CattleYa. Have you considered the Might Merc? Really does ramp up damage. As for weapon try a few Pit runs with an Edge Bow which grants the Thorns aura. Damage increase is exponential.

 

[Cattleya]

Nice one CattleYa. Have you considered the Might Merc? Really does ramp up damage. As for weapon try a few Pit runs with an Edge Bow which grants the Thorns aura. Damage increase is exponential.

While a might merc would have been a lot more damage, it would have made the visual clutter even worse. I really don't think I could have managed all the minions running around with a flashing might aura.

 

[DaveW]

I understand. BTW thx for all your work at the old forum.