I don’t like that it requires corpses because they die so easily. If I can pop out a skeleton like I can a golem then I think things would be a little better.
Wait there was a ‘tremendous dmg boost’? when did that happen, what did I miss???
There was no tremendous damage boost, they just ‘evened’ them out. The Lit and Cold were brought in line with the fire mage and the poison mage had his duration shortened, which arguably was a bad idea.
Mages will never be as strong as the warriors because they do elemental damage. There is no way to boost elemental damage only a way to lower the resists of monsters. In fact mages and warriors do about the same base damage. For physical you can lower the resists and boost the damage with aura’s etc. This virtually has no upper limit, only limited to the arua’s you can get.
Mages are currently a place to put extra pts. As a summoner you will max warriors, mastery and usually CE. You still have 20 pts to put somewhere and mages are the best damage boost you can get for your overall DPS for those 20 pts. They don’t compare to warriors, never will, but they are better than spear.
If you started maxing mages mid-normal, they would be decent for your normal Baal runs and ‘back up’ your merc decently. If you maxed them by 40 you would still be ok with your merc and mage back up until you get to 60 when you will actually have your skellies up.
When I build a summoner with mages I first max RS then SM, then fill out my curses, get 5 pts in CE, max mages and finally fill out CE. Once CE is Maxed I work on the golems. I generally get mages maxed right before I start Hell and get CE maxed as I’m farming things.
I really don’t see what all the “huff & puff” is all about. I have played a necro-summoner for well over a decade and they are stronger than they ever have been.
Skel mastery: 45 [synergy]
Summon resists: 41 [synergy]
Skel mages: 43
skels: 44
I have 16 skels and 16 mages. I run all hell level 85 areas and a lot of baal runs. Trav, and all the bosses.
I see a remarkable improvement and have no issues with their damage or their staying alive. My army is very strong. I even solo’d baal runs with 7 other players in the game in hell. It was an experiment.
So, honestly, I don’t see what the big “to-do” is at this time.
As far as your question goes, in NM, they rock! LOL. NM has become quite easy. So, take it for what it’s worth. Build the build and try it for yourself. I run Trangs and Arm of Leoric. Cheap build and easily done. So, won’t be costly to try out. You’ll appreciate it more by building it and running it. There will be some coming on here that will doubt and quote numbers and demand proof. Take it from a seasoned player. Plus, the proof is in the pudding. Git offa yer lazy butt and build it yerself and run it before you make claims.
And as far as where to put points, all you really need [no matter what they quote at you]:
skel mastery: 20
skels: 20
skel mages: 20
Summon resists: 20
Rest of summoning tree: 1
- 1 base point plus your +skills gear will be plenty in rest. My golems are all 22 and Golem Mastery is 22. My Clay Golem NEVER DIES!
PNB:
Teeth: 1
CE: 1 [Currently level 12, 6.3 yards & 70-120% of corpse life] Have had no issues here at all.
Bone Armor: 1
Bone Wall: 1 [As a last resort back-up if get into major trouble]
Curses: 1 in each of the curses on the right hand side. Amp, Decrep, & Lower res are the only ones you really use.
***AFTER THAT!!!
Put points where you desire and/or see fit. If you praise CE, add there. If you praise PnB skills, add there. THERE IS NO ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ANSWER. IT’S ALL SUBJECT TO PERSONAL PREFERENCE.
Now, if ya wanna know what I run:
Act 2 Might Merc with Obedience
Mostly Clay Golem
Skels
Skel Mages
Rarely: Revives, but they don’t last long and I don’t really need them to beat anything in the game. Not even Diablo Clone.
Gear:
Trang Oul’s Set
Arm of King Leoric
Marrowalks [+1 Mastery]
I do have an UM in helm, armor, and shield.
I do now have a torch and an Anni.
I have 7 plain Summon GC’s
+3 Summon ammy [Plain, no other stats on it]
Coupla good Res rings.
Some SC’s that vary from life to Res.
Curently, Merc uses Stone Armor, Lore Helm [Hahahahah], and Obedience thresher. His life is at 1950, his defense at 3358, & damage at 468-3413. His Might aura is at level 19 and damage is at +220%. Again, nothing to measure with, but gets the job done.
I did concentrate HEAVILY on stacking Res’s on my Necro. Argue all you want, it works for me and I don’t die. All of my Res’ in Hell are:
Cold: +165
Light: +135
Fire: +141
Poison: +166
- That’s AFTER the 40 reduction in NM and the 60 reduction in Hell.
Nothing fancy nor anything to measure your “thingy” with in this build. But works great and is not over the top costly.
OH, and on weapon switch, I have a Great Maul with PMH on it. just for D-Clone. I may or may not need it, but, I have it for good measure. D-Clone goes down rather fast and I lose no army. I really don’t care if you can kill D-Clone in 6.8 secs or not. I can kill him fast enough and that’s good enough. I get an anni just like you do. And, I don’t see any inscriptions on the anni that say “WOW, you killed D-Clone in 6.8 seconds.” LMFAO!
–Sometimes I’ll run Norm trist runs for peeps, lol. I only use merc and fire golem, he owns, lol. I ran him through WSK 1-3 and all the waves and Baal in NORMAL … with merc and fire golem only, no curses, LOL. They rocked and I thought that was funny as hell.
already not a problem, without amp damage melee skeletons are terrible, and without lower resist skeleton mages are terrible. Infinity merc is not enough for mages to do damage, and the poison skeletons would do nothing at all. Infinity can break resistances, but there’s still 90%+ resist left and lower resist is what helps like facets, crescent moon, griffons, ect.
Feel free to go test in hell with mages and infinity and no lower resist
Seems in line with Spirit Wolves, except 5 worthless wolves vs 18 worthless mages 
For comparison: at level 48: 5 total wolves doing 1469-1493 cold damage each…
At level 20, still only 5 wolves doing 154-166 cold damage.
These numbers include the damage synergy from Grizzly
2 Likes
That would be so good.
Maybe they should buff em and just cap em between 5 and 10 each for both skellies and mages…
So if I read your post right you have some pretty good gear. Crazy resists 20+ bonus skill points. You must see this is not average gear or be trolling.
With +21 to summoning skills… what you are saying is that your damage comes from your obedience merc and CE…
Clay golem and iron Maiden for act bosses right?
The fact that you dumped 19 extra points into Sunmon Resist for a whole 5 extra resistance (67 at level 22 vs 72 at level 41)…
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They should give skeleton mages level 100 holy fire with no aura limits.
They dont seem viable in hell mode anyway.
1 Like
So i decided to do the math, could this help skeleton mages or not, you know. And here are the results.
level 100 Holy Fire
2085-2394 on melee attacks.
347-798 aura tick damage every 2 seconds.
8 total skeleton mages at level 20
Skeleton Mages dont melee so that damage is wasted.
8 Skeleton mages with level 100 holy fire aura would do
1388-3192 fire damage per second before resists
funny how terrible that would be.
But how about if you had a max total of 17 skeleton mages level 48 skill?
your 17 skeleton mages would do
2950-6783 fire damage per second before resists
not as much as i was expecting tbqh…
take for example a Single meteor from a fire sorc does
6856-7314
a Single Fireball from a fire sorc does
3462-3931
So while it would be a nice little small buff for a bad skill, even getting level 100 holy fire for each skeleton mage is not going to bring them up to par.
not when Hydras are doing @same level
Hydra – Level 47
Damage: 9845–10,869
Cast Rate: 8 frames (3.13 casts per second)
Max 6 Hydras
Damage per Second: 699,074
and still falling short of the other 2 sorc trees.
Just triple buff the mages damage and we’ll all turn into quiet little memeboys you see once every 100 games joined.
1 Like
I want skeleton mages to be converted into ghost mages, so they dont block the melee skele’s anymore. I will NEVER use mage skeletons for anything outside of exp running due to them getting in the dang way. their dmg is poop, and the block the way for the true meat of the army.
melee skele’s need +1 more to their dmg per lvl, mages need their dmg buffed by around 10% more, and to be changed into ghosts instead of being skeles(so they dont block melee minions and mercs).
I think this is a solid request.
EDIT: when skele mastery and raise skele both hit lvl 20, I want them to look similar to the hell knights of D1, for visual effect…bells and whistles
3 Likes
Why they aren’t bad now they just can’t take a hit skelly warriors do little damage too but the numbers and curses Make them good
And Corpse Explosion. Every necro build needs it.
Dont need it it just speeds things up lol a pure summoner can easily clear hell without CE
I never use mages, they are weak.
With CE its pointless if you use them… with strong mages you have to much single target as well… and thats 2 op.
I’ve always wanted an additional skeleton - Skeleton Archer.
I’ve never liked mages, they don’t seem to help summoners too much, and they override poison nova if using a poison build. However, some archers… they could do physical damage base + fire or cold arrows. Please please!!! I want to tele with poison nova and archers. Not revives
2 Likes
How about magick arrow skelys?
2 Likes