Too low Corpse Explosion as for me, ignore mages and put these 19 points in CE. Do you play in party? If no, you also don’t need Iron Maiden, Life Tap and Lower Resist, better put these points in Bone Wall for stronger Bone Armor. Everything else is fine, except maybe Thorns merc. Use Might merc to buff your skeletons. Make IG from Insight, it’s cheap so even if you die and lose your golem, there will be no problem to make another. Hustle is ladder only, so you have to buy another one if you lose it.
You only need 1 point in amp damage - don’t need any other curses.
EDIT: forgot mercenary, use the might aura merc for the second setup, first you can stay with thorns.
This is my take if you intend to stay trangs:
Max out corpse explosion.
Use the insight on mercenary.
Use clay golem for bosses, fire golem for aggroing mobs.
Don’t use skeletal mages.
If you intend to go with enigma:
Max out corpse explosion
Clean out the ethereal cryptic axe insight and make an infinity for your mercenary. (This is a significant boost in your overall clear speed and dps
Make iron golem out of any insight
Max out skeletal mages and use them, making sure to only have 1 poison mage, rest fire/lightning if you want to be optimal.
Aim for 75% FCR breakpoint, if possible without shield or weapon included in there for the ability to swap weapons and to stormshield or homunculus… but not necessary.
Only summon revives just before bosses (not necessary or needed for anything other than ubers). Some revives can be used all the time like ghosts/gloams.
The first setup is cheap and can clear all content without issue. The second setup obliterates PvE and can also destroy most things in PvP - you’ll want to keep a setup like this for trolls and people who join your trade games to mf.
Thanks for the feedback. A few things I guess I should clarify, first this is a season 5 ladder character so my gear isn’t top notch as I haven’t found the stuff for infinity or enigma yet. Likewise, I do play in parties probably about 30% of the time. When I am soloing I just use amp damage. The reason for the thorns merc is that it allows the skeleton mages to deal physical damage in addition to their elemental attacks through the aura when paired with Amp damage. Hence I am using thorns over might.
If I was strictly solos I would agree wtih you on respecing to only have 1 point in amp damage. However, I do play with parties about 30% of the time. Normally, it’s with my brother who is running an FOH paladin who is using a level 25 conviction Aura. So, I like having lower resist to stack on top if it if we get a few elemental based characters in the party. I know this weakens my personal DPS, but with a sunder charm and hard cast Lower Resist and Conviction stacked I am alright being a support build with a lot of mobile meat shields letting the javazons, trapsins and sorceresses melt everything that moves.
Likewise, I have lifetap in case I need to heal my iron golem, since I am don’t have telelport on anything but a swap stick which I use spariingly as it kills about 8 of my summons when I invoke it.
Curses give you flexibility, if you run mages sometimes you want LR, if you run publicly and do baal runs you want LR as using amp isn’t as important as LR when you are running with 2 sorcs a lit fury zon, a trapper, etc. Personal damage is not as important when you can boost the damage of 5 party members.
Dim vision can shut down gloams nicely thus can be useful.
Attract similarly can be great to keep groups busy and not attacking you if you have multiple groups attacking you at the same time.
Use what you value, I know many don’t bother with more than amp, I get all curses as it keeps my APM going up…
Merc - Might is the best to use with skellies. That’s not up for debate.
Thorns can be useful but you really want to run that with a fire golem. Summons take 4X the damage from bosses, if you amp the boss cast a fire golem in it’s face you are doing 8X the damage from thorns to the boss. Fire always takes agro and will always be the main target of the boss and it doesn’t slow down the attacker which is what you want when running thorns. The last thing you want when running thorns is a clay golem. I run this on a poison necy and Might on a summoner.
Insight is the best of your two options on the merc if you have an extra hustle might as well use it for an IG. Insight is all ‘on weapon’ ED while the Fanat from Hustle is off weapon. That makes Insight the better option.
I personally prefer the large CE radius over the Golem Mastery, I never found a high GM to be needed to keep my IG’s alive. The screen deletion of a high level CE is just to good to pass up, but to each his own. I run mages as I like the ranged and extra damage, again personal preference, others don’t like it. do as you will.
Right and wrong.
1 point is all you need in Amp, as +skill items will increase it’s effectiveness. To be effective you also need Decrepify [to use with Clay Golem on bosses, Ancients, etc.] and Lower Resists, which comes in quite handy solo or group play.
Absolutely! The one merc aura that totally enhances your skeleton army.,
NEVER! Do NOT waste points doing this. 1 hard point combined with +skills on gear, charms etc. will boost this as high as you need. I have 1 point in it and cover half of the throne room with it. That’s more than enough reach for this skill.
Wrong again. Trangs summon necro will never need the aura for mana. The set up provides plenty of mana, energy, and mana replenishment. For your might merc to be an effective killing machine, you need Obedience. It provides:
40% FHR
370% ED
40% chance crushing blow
+200-+300 defense
20-30 res all
and added str to help with other high end gear to equip
Agree with Clay on bosses. Fire is a good option, but, here you can pretty much do as you please. Personally, I just use clay non-stop.
Wrong.
Some areas they can be a hinderance. Like: where there’s a lot of doors, as they block doorways, act 2 worm tunnels, places like that …
but …
I wide open areas and humongous room areas, they add to damages done, helping take the enemy down. NEVER totally rule them out. They are another tool in your arsenal to be used.
Now, bear in mind, you need to up your res’ as well as your health. UM’s in shield/armor/helm will help here a lot.
Full trangs
marrowwalk boots
arm of king leoric for weapon
+3 summon ammy
res ring or soj’s
torch/anni/7 summon gc’s
Max out summon skels
max out skel mastery
10 points clay
5 points golem mastery
max semmon res
1 point in rest
1 point bonewall
1 point CE
1 point each skill to get to lower res
-after that, skill points go wherever it tickles your fancy
VGaze is good for merc
stone is good for merc, lotta merc choices … life leech, res, high defense is what ya neeed