does summon necro use life tap on uber?

its such a crucial skill for other builds yet necros all seem to just use Decrepify, wouldn't use Life Tap more effective or do I miss anything in this formula?

Life Tap can be very useful and the fact that it does not suffer from drain penalties in higher acts gives it great value as a super fast way to top off your army.

There are some tradeoffs though, as with everything.

Decrepify gives your army extra damage and slows its targets, reducing incoming damage. The bonus to survivability from Life Tap must thus be weighed against the loss of minion damage and the increase in incoming damage from not using Decrepify. If you are using Iron Golem instead of Clay Golem, such as to have an Insight, the increase in boss damage output when Decrepify is gone is quite severe. Losing minion damage can also have you run into issues with the duration on buffs like Merc Fade from Treachery or Revive uptime.

In my experience, with mid to low gear Necros using Decrep + Clay Golem, it's often the duration of my revives that causes a return to base vs ubers, not my minions' health. As such, shortening the fight with Decrepify helps a ton! With high gear necros, bosses don't last long enough for either health or duration to matter, at which point you might as well still use the higher damage curse.

So, personally, I never use Life Tap. I always go Decrepify. However, I am sure there are necros out there that will swear by it against ubers because it does make sense to use.

Winterkill wrote: 3 years ago

Life Tap can be very useful and the fact that it does not suffer from drain penalties in higher acts gives it great value as a super fast way to top off your army.

There are some tradeoffs though, as with everything.

Decrepify gives your army extra damage and slows its targets, reducing incoming damage. The bonus to survivability from Life Tap must thus be weighed against the loss of minion damage and the increase in incoming damage from not using Decrepify. If you are using Iron Golem instead of Clay Golem, such as to have an Insight, the increase in boss damage output when Decrepify is gone is quite severe. Losing minion damage can also have you run into issues with the duration on buffs like Merc Fade from Treachery or Revive uptime.

In my experience, with mid to low gear Necros using Decrep + Clay Golem, it's often the duration of my revives that causes a return to base vs ubers, not my minions' health. As such, shortening the fight with Decrepify helps a ton! With high gear necros, bosses don't last long enough for either health or duration to matter, at which point you might as well still use the higher damage curse.

So, personally, I never use Life Tap. I always go Decrepify. However, I am sure there are necros out there that will swear by it against ubers because it does make sense to use.

Interesting, you prefer Decrep over amp Damage For summoner ?
Wouldn't the 50% more damage from amp be even better for combat accélération?

Necrarch wrote: 3 years ago

Winterkill wrote: 3 years ago

Life Tap can be very useful and the fact that it does not suffer from drain penalties in higher acts gives it great value as a super fast way to top off your army.

There are some tradeoffs though, as with everything.

Decrepify gives your army extra damage and slows its targets, reducing incoming damage. The bonus to survivability from Life Tap must thus be weighed against the loss of minion damage and the increase in incoming damage from not using Decrepify. If you are using Iron Golem instead of Clay Golem, such as to have an Insight, the increase in boss damage output when Decrepify is gone is quite severe. Losing minion damage can also have you run into issues with the duration on buffs like Merc Fade from Treachery or Revive uptime.

In my experience, with mid to low gear Necros using Decrep + Clay Golem, it's often the duration of my revives that causes a return to base vs ubers, not my minions' health. As such, shortening the fight with Decrepify helps a ton! With high gear necros, bosses don't last long enough for either health or duration to matter, at which point you might as well still use the higher damage curse.

So, personally, I never use Life Tap. I always go Decrepify. However, I am sure there are necros out there that will swear by it against ubers because it does make sense to use.

Interesting, you prefer Decrep over amp Damage For summoner ?
Wouldn't the 50% more damage from amp be even better for combat accélération?

For Ubers, yes, I prefer Decrep. Amplify for all other circumstances.

my 95 online solo necro is very much decked out at this moment, I'm trying out all kinds of expensive things on him, but I only ran uber half successfully once before with some help, thus I'm gauging all the approaches here, especially I'm planning to use a Pride IG (to replace Insight) so decrep seems crucial to keep him alive during the fight