Soon going to do Hell Duriel and thinking of respecing based upon my experience with Andy and expected issues with Diablo et all. Am a Summoner but don’t expect to use Corpse or have the army last very long b/c of lack of bodies. Merc is 588-2886 with Bless Aura. With these considerations been thinking of going to Bone Spirit to add a little more damage. Also weighing it vrs Bone Spear which does less dmg but is quicker. Do I have tunnel vision thinking adding +dmg is going to be helpful for the Boss battles or are there other viable options im not considering?
Thanks for your opinions.
Summoner can do very well in Hell. Go back to Act 2 Nightmare and get a Might aura merc for your minions. Do max out corpse explosion and pickup decrepify and just 1-3 hard points into revives (the AI is the biggest problem). All that said, you do depend on your Merc to get the first kill for Corpse Explosion + amp damage.
If you do want to go Bone, spear is way better because it naturally pierces. You’re still gonna get at least 10-11 hard points in corpse explosion if not max it out. Max out bone prison and wall for the spear damage and learn to use prison when things look like they’re getting hairy.
Get one point in each curse on pretty much any Necro build imo.
If you go bone, you can even one point all the summoning tree and pickup revives if you’re OK sacrificing a bit of spear damage from Bone Wall and what not. Revives are there just to be meat shields but you can get some heavy hitters depending on the area you’re in. The giants typically have crushing blow which is nice.
Thanks alot for the reply…was very helpful.
Have fun.
Changed to Might aura and his damage dropped to 367-1689 a loss of 1000 to max and don’t understand why using the same gear. Change of -1 to level. But that’s ok.
Summoner works quite well on hell.
Would change merc to Might (although you have more options, this one gives you more speed).
When facing random, Amplify and when first falls, Corpse Explosion.
When facing boss, Decriphy and Clay Golem will lock them into not really doing anything, make sure your merc has Crushing Blow.
Sometimes when you feel pressure, Life Tap to fill up your summons and possible Attract one monster so you get a easy kill, then Amp+CE.
Keep checking which curse is needed, max Skelly and Mastery and you should be fine.
If you do respec, don’t think Bone Spear / Spirit are very nice for soloing through the game, Spear better than Spirit but neither very nice.
Did like Poison Nova, but Summoner felt easiest.
Thanks for the detailed info. Have max Bone Spear solely for those Physical Damage Immune mobs. Also have the Fire Golem max. Going to reconsider my choices with a new respec. Duriel was easy but im struggling a bit in Act 3.
If you are struggling the question is what level are you and how many + to skills you are sporting. I personally only have +3 (which is low for a summoner) and I’m doing fine. Also double check your mercs level, if you changed him in, you need to level him.
Most physical immune will be dropped to Amp, if you face something that you can’t remove with Amp, then a different source may be needed. Some necy’s swear by bone spear, I like mages. 20 pts in Mages is actually more cumulative damage than 20 pts in spear. Some just like spear so they have something to do while waiting for a body.
CE: I don’t know why any necy would not use it. It’s the bomb! (in all seriousness it’s the
Clay golem is really more useful than Fire, he slows things down. With clay and Decrep bosses don’t move, either way I don’t put more than 1 pt in each. At lvl 20 fire golem he is only sporting about 650 damage. Each mage will sport about 180 damage at 20 points invested and you have 9 of them so roughly 1620 cumulative dps. 20 pts in spear would bring in only about a 300 spear for a 600 dps at a similar level. For comparison your skellys at the same level will be putting out 600 damage each for about 5000 dps this is because they are amped and mighted!