So I have a summon necro, skels and golem as is typical, and I use CE. That is the spec right now.
A long time ago, like 15 years ago, I recall playing a summon necro and having a rough time with the ancients. The skels just die in a heartbeat and then it’s try to keep the merc alive and recasting the golem. CE obviously does nothing here.
So I’m currently about halfway through act 5 normal and wondering if I need to respec. The act bosses have been kind of tough so far but I’ve gotten through them. Ancients are harder IMO.
Should I respec or will I be fine as is?
As long as you have decrep the ancients will not be a problem. You probably remember 1.09 or before when skellies fell over if you look at them, now they are pretty tanky. I’ll assume you are in normal, thus you may not have Decrep yet. If you don’t, try to get a point into it before you fight them. The other option is try to shop a wand with + to decrep on it for the fight.
Kit your merc out decently, if you can keep him alive all the skellies can die and it won’t matter.
Another option is IM + Clay Golem, this works on 2 of the 3.
Thanks, that’s a good tip. I’ve been using amp damage and was eventually going to get decrep but I’ll just get it sooner now. There’s enough left in act 5 before the ancients for me to gain 3 more levels and get it even without any grinding, or very little grinding.
Decrepify will help a lot when paired with the clay golem as the clay has a slow effect as well. When paired with Decrepify the clay does pretty good and with the Ancients attack slowed down your minions get more hits it. You just have to keep casting it as it doesn’t last too long at low skill levels (1 point I think is 4 seconds and goes up from there but only one point is needed because all that changes with points is radius and duration). I also use bone spear from a distance to help kill them so + to skills help with it’s damage.
He is in normal. Decrepify + Clay Golem + any insight merc would do the job. To be sure, I’d spread life pots on the ground to heal the merc if he runs out of them.
I have +4 all skills already, as I had plenty of twink gear in the stash when I started the character, so I should have decrep at least at lvl 5, possibly higher if another piece of skill gear becomes available in the next 3 levels.
I do use the clay golem and it’s been the main reason I’ve gotten through the act bosses so far. Basically, the boss kills the skels in no time, while the golem lasts a bit but has to be recast numerous times. The slowing effect is key, though on ancients, you probably won’t get the golem slow on all three at once. Hence, the need for decrep.
I like the idea of putting pots on the ground before clicking the statue, to replace the ones you used. I recall that back in the day I had to repeat hell ancients on the necro like 20 times and I eventually did it by farming 16 full rejuv pots for my belt but I hadn’t considered putting some on the ground.
Throwing pots on the ground before the fight…never thought of that. Good idea.
I can’t remember if you can pop a TP after triggering the Ancients fight. It’s usually the first thing I do with boss fights to have the quick “panic” out. If I remember right I don’t think you can.
You can’t and in fact it’s the only combat encounter in all of D2 where you can’t, if memory serves. Or, to be technically accurate, yes you can tp, but then the encounter resets and you have to start over. That is the main reason why ancients is overall the only somewhat difficult encounter in the game, more difficult by far than any of the act bosses. Especially for certain classes and builds. It’s not such a great fight for a summon necro, but I did eventually complete it on my old necro on all three difficulties. Will probably do better this time.
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If you pop a TP in the fight you reset the fight. Pots on the ground are important if you expect a long fight. If you have maxed skellies already and have decrep you will have no issues. I just did the ancients on my bone necy at lvl 30, had give my merc insight. The fight was over before I knew my merc had killed them.
I have an Insight which is on my bowazon’s merc ATM but unfortunately it’s on a Giant Thresher where level requirement, str and dex are all out of reach at the moment. I suppose I should have the bliz sorc farm normal or nightmare cows again for an appropriate base. Sigh. The farming never ends.
Edit:
An update. I did this last week and it was easy. I was probably over-reacting to my necro from a long time ago having trouble with Ancients on Hell. Anyway, I had Decrep but hadn’t set it for hot key, and so at first I used Amp Damage. Was going to switch to Decrep but noticed no skels had died in the first 5 seconds, so I let it ride. No minions or the merc died. I had also forgotten how useful Prayer aura is in keeping minions alive in Normal.
Also Baal was a joke. Decrep renders him feeble and useless, just as I remembered.