Summoner rebuild, need feedback

[Anti-Life]

Summoner rebuild, need feedback

hi all

ok im making my summonancer back up again after feeling my old one isnt performing as well as i would like and after accidentally killing nilithak and no-longer able to do my fav MF spot for those hard to get TC 87's....pindle.

basic summoner skills
20 mastery
20 skellies
20 CE
pre-reqs and needed curses
1 point BA (saves ur *** for just 1 point ive found, never needed or wanted more)

now with this i finish at around level 60-70 IIRC.

now should i invest points to golem mastery and use an insight IG to solve CE mana issues? this build is mainly for MFing


also for merc im going against the grain and going to get a barb

reason?
last wish CB grants level 17 might
chance to cast life tap...annoying at times, but never enough to get ur merc killed or minions ive found. a simple cast of amp will get rid of it also, and save a skill point if u do want it for watever reason

now i am at a loss for what helm to give him.

he will be getting a ebugged 3k+ def fort eventually...just got to get those low runes off countess first.


now i know people are thinking 'why the hell is he getting an A5 merc and not an A2 merc w/ might and XXXX weapon?'

reason:
i want to be different

my old necro had a might merc with an Infinity CA. this was great for CE as it increased the fire damage it did, amp increased the physical damage it did, and it also made the minions hit more by reducing the enemies defence by an insane amount and having CB also was nice.


i considered using Pride on an act 2 merc but the +3 freeze mod put me off as it means corpses get shattered by the cold damage, meaning u cant revive them. ive not tested this so any sonstructive feedback on this RW would also be great. if it holds and wont shatter every body, it may just be a viable option with might/conc/fanat auras on the go at once with med from insight IG also...looks nasty if it works

now just opinions on merc selection would be nice.. just need constructive feed back on my A5 merc choice and such.

remember...this is an MF necro.

i may also be using beast on switch for fanat aura also if that helps any.


regards

Anti

 

[GotFriana]

If you are going to use the IG made out of any valuable object and you want it to last then I d say yes, invest in golem mastery. I guess the act 5 merc could work with the might aura but dont forget he will also have Hit Blinds Target so he may overide your curses too often and you are missing a 3rd aura, act 2 mercs can provide your army with 2 auras given the right equip + your beast.
He has life tap from LW but you may overide it too often to actually be of help for him so for the helm I d say give him one with life leech so he has a constant source of leech. Andy s, Stealskull maybe.

 

[batuchka]

Well if i were u and wanted to be different i'd go with an act 1 non cold arrow merc and slap 'Faith' hydra/grand matron bow on her Lvl 15 fan aura, some more minions (reanimated) sounds like a lot of fun and with ias from aura maybe mages firing rate would improve? An investment to mages would appeal to me ^^ I agree with GotFriana - Last Wish would override necro curses but Act 1 merc with faith does not get killed by IM, not in front line so less baby sitting with minions around. I would say with that many minions, a maxed golem mastery is not needed and besides Insight is such a cheap r/w hehe Hope i helped.

 

[Anti-Life]

baby sitting with IM is easy as i have enigma, listen for the tell tail sound and tele away from the mob.

u loose some skellies sometimes but nothing that 20 seconds worth of battling cant fix or 1 simple CE amoungst an amped crowd.


now act 1 merc CANT be handy i agree, but why bother when i already have fanat aura from beast. as they dont stack at all its a wasted merc slot IMHO


after testing the viablilty of LW on a barb merc it CAN work but its too much of a hassle i found as u all said. thank god i only used my phase blade LW from my smiter to test it and didnt shell out to make the one i was going to


so out of my options of act 2 mercs (sadly) might obviously the aura of choice. now what weapon would be optimal for killing speed improvement, boss killing speed (read: Crushing Blow) and survivability. i can see infinity and pride...both good, both have pros and cons.

need opinions on these 2 items please

thanks

 

[GotFriana]

Pride = no crushing blow, no enhanced damage, hit blinds target, hit freezes target. Good improvement in your melee army damage.
Infinity = crushing blow, conviction, good improvement in your CE damage, doesn t overide anything for you, reduces target defense, your mages will do more damage.

I d say if you are not going to use Mages then go with Pride, if you do use mages and CE often then Infinity.

 

[batuchka]

Oops my bad - didn't notice u plan to use Beast on your necro ^^ Well then Infinity would be my choice (with maxed mages) cos compared to pride it makes your merc an anti boss weapon and that conviction 'amps' mages elemental damage output and the fire damage component of CE which cuts down the hordes most of the time anyways Plus with tele your mages reposition themselves instantly to provide concentrated elemental firepower @@

 

[KavikKang]

Oops my bad - didn't notice u plan to use Beast on your necro ^^ Well then Infinity would be my choice (with maxed mages) cos compared to pride it makes your merc an anti boss weapon and that conviction 'amps' mages elemental damage output and the fire damage component of CE which cuts down the hordes most of the time anyways Plus with tele your mages reposition themselves instantly to provide concentrated elemental firepower @@

Yes, but his skill points didn't list maxing mages. I can understand a debate or Pride or Infinity with maxed mages, but without mages there really isn't a debat. Without mages Pride is clearly better.

 

[mjpw]

as we have a dupe craze more people will finally start to see pride for what it is. it would a fantastic weapon if it was not for the cold damage whch shatters the corpse.

no skelly
no revive
no CE

great weapon but not for a CE summoner

 

[SmiterMcZealot]

If you don't want to bother with Infinity and want a boss-killing weapon for your merc, Obedience is fantastic and unreasonably overlooked. It's superior to Pride for a summoner.

 

[bogie]

I would disagree that infinity is useless w/o mages for the following reasons...
1) It gives your merc insane damage with over 300% ed
2) It gives your merc 40% cb, awesome for bosses
3) Greatly Improves your CE dmg, meaning that combined with amp it will kill most to all the monsters within its radius.
4) It lowers defense of monsters by 85%, so that your skeles can hit almost all the monsters in the game.

On the other hand, pride has that annoying hit blinds target, +3 freeze target, and crappy merc dmg, the only good mod is the concentration, which frankly isnt that good, as your main dmg comes from your merc (which is nonexistent with pride) and CE (reduced w/o infinity).

So I would strongly recommend using an infinity merc over pride, but if you want to use an Act 5 merc to be different, then go for it!

 

[zeskelnec]

or a faith merc rogue ......to put some spice in the debate.