Necromancer - upgrade summoner (w/ Beast + Infinity) or Respec to Poison nova?

Hi

Since I started D2 I wanted to build a full summoner Necro (stay behind and let the Minions do all the kill ).

At first I even put 20 points in

Skeletal Mage and some extra points on

Revive (now after a lot of trying and disappointment I decided to have just 1 point on each and don't even bother summon mages anymore...)

Nowadays, with my 20

Skeleton Mastery and 20

Raise Skeleton (and 21 +skill), Skeletons don't kill many things (even on players 1)...
In practice they are just "shields" and

Corpse Explosion do all the job after them or Merc killed something

Will upgrade my Heart of the Oak to Beast and my Merc's Insight to Infinity make my Skeletons significant better? Or even with this change they will still be just shields?
(According to https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/ the average damage / second from Skeletons will increase ~+33% which does not seem enough to make the army viable as the main source of damage...)

I'm thinking in admit that they can only be shields and respec to

Poison Nova (with just 1 point on each

Skeleton skill)...

----

Calculations:

- current build:

Raise Skeleton – Level 41
Damage per Second: 9147
Attack Damage
996–1002
Attack Rating
4720 (77% vs dummy)

- with Beast + Infinity:

Raise Skeleton – Level 38
Damage per Second: 12131
Attack Damage
1004–1010
Attack Rating
8334 (95% vs dummy)
Attack Speed
29%

Infinity shouldn't change anything for regular skellies. Beast aka

Fanaticism will make a difference. However if you don't want to cast Amp dmg/

Decrepify you can consider putting something like

The Reaper's Toll on Merc that will help with breaking/lowering physical res/imm.

If you use CE or

Poison Nova or even

Bone Spear I can only see minions as a meat-shield (well I guess

Iron Golem can have more use). You can also use Beast as a base for

Iron Golem thus allow yourself to carry something else...

I would suggest to make a new character if you have character slots available and go fully poison there if you want because those 2 are completely different gameplay experiences but that's just me.

TheDoo wrote: 3 weeks ago

Infinity shouldn't change anything for regular skellies.

The level 12

Conviction aura will greatly lower the defense of mobs: -83%.

TheDoo wrote: 3 weeks ago

Infinity shouldn't change anything for regular skellies. [..]

While the elemental benefit is far more obvious, normal skellies do actually still benefit from the defense-reduction Infinity's

Conviction would slap onto their targets. Lower def = higher hit chance = more dmg overall.

Infinity increase the chance to hit (as

Conviction reduce enemy defense) so in practice it increase

Skeleton damage over time.
Actually, on calculator, the Damage per Second increased more because of Infinity than because of Beast

Even with

Amplify Damage (that I always use, as

Corpse Explosion is 50% physical damage), Skeletons don't kill much...

I even started to help the initial kill with my 1 point

Bone Spear because they sometimes take a while to kill...

IMO summons actually don't really kill anything. Even when you get Beast + Pride +

Amplify Damage. But that isn't their purpose, imo.

Summons are, as you said, shields and a way to dilute enemy damage so your necro or your merc does not get killed. You should, no, you MUST use

Corpse Explosion alongside the summons.

And in my summon build, i get 20

Skeleton and 20

Skeleton Mage, 20

Corpse Explosion and only 1 point into

Revive. And i'll be honest with you, i almost never

Revive anything, barely at all.

And regarding the

Poison Nova build: i highly recommend it. But as our friend stated: get another fresh necro, so you can have both summon and

Poison Nova.

Poison Nova +

Lower Resist +

Corpse Explosion = FTW

luizgeo wrote: 3 weeks ago

And i'll be honest with you, i almost never

Revive anything, barely at all.

I stopped using

Revive all the time too (for me the time spent to keep my full army up ended up increasing my overall "farm time" instead of accelerating it with the "extra damage" from a big army...)

I normally just create Revives on the last mob groups just before a Boss.

I mostly use revives on

Baal runs, only on that last part were he summons the super-uniques waves.

Revives can occasionnally be a top spell, typically when reviving Urdars to deal with DClone and Ubers.

But it's definitely a 1 point wonder.

Schnorki wrote: 3 weeks ago

TheDoo wrote: 3 weeks ago

Infinity shouldn't change anything for regular skellies. [..]

While the elemental benefit is far more obvious, normal skellies do actually still benefit from the defense-reduction Infinity's

Conviction would slap onto their targets. Lower def = higher hit chance = more dmg overall.

I somehow always forget that -def is part of Infinity actually... Both you and SnowSnow are right. However I have a question knowing how hit% formula looks alike, since it takes attacker and defender's levels in consideration which stat is uses for pets, in this case what is considered "

Skeleton level" -- it's skill level, character level of summoner or that part of equation just falls off?

Almost sure that the Minions Level (for hit chance and similar things) is your level when you spawn them.
(so I re-spawn everybody after gain a new level )

fredkid wrote: 3 weeks ago

Almost sure that the Minions Level (for hit chance and similar things) is your level when you spawn them.
(so I re-spawn everybody after gain a new level )

If that's the case doesn't Infinity's -def losses it's value over time (as you level up and thus level up your minions as well)?

If you roll some numbers you'll see that as you pass lvl 85 effectiveness of AR's value actually significantly falls off in manner of hit% and that you can still achieve 85-90% hit chance even with low-ish AR numbers. That is why I'm asking...

EDIT: P.S. I know that is very expensive but I would genuinely argue that maybe dual Last Wish Act 5 Merc is a better end-game option for pets. Ofc correct me if I'm wrong.

Make sense
(but

Terror Zones will match your level up to 97 )

TheDoo wrote: 3 weeks ago

EDIT: P.S. I know that is very expensive but I would genuinely argue that maybe dual Last Wish Act 5 Merc is a better end-game option for pets. Ofc correct me if I'm wrong.

Act 5 - Dual Last Wish = Might 34 = 370% ed
Act 2 - Pride + Might =

Concentration 16+ Might 15+ = 465+% ed (285 +180)
(but Merc itself will do pitfall damage )

Probably in practice Act 2 with Infinity will be better because the increase in "chance to hit" is kinda multiplicative over the final damage, while the "second" Might (or

Concentration) is additive with other %ed effects (like the

Raise Skeleton %ed bonus)

Heey this looks like a question for your Friendly Necrohood Mancerman!

Gonna 1st off agree with comments above and say, if you want a

Nova Necro. go on and make a new character if the slot is available

But if we trying to find the one Necro to rule them all. That is in no doubt the Summon Necro and here's why

For the simple reason that

The Summoner is capable of farming 25 different locations (according to Maxroll) Including Ubers

Basically you are capable of doing anything and everything with a summon necro!

where as for the Nove Necro, it's stated only 13 good farming locations.. plus 1 point into skeletons = dead skeletons

So for a summoner, YES Those skeletons are more of a Meat Shield for you and Mercenary more then anything

But if you really looking to see them SMASH you gotta have the Enigma and Tele Stomp enemies

Cause as a concentrated collective those skeles can whip out some massive damage!

Merc: Bramble (Fortitude Optional) Infinity and Andarial Visage with Beast + Enigma makes a world of difference

The Infinity basically turns your corpse explosions into Nukes

So Stomp Amp CE and repeat. Nothing is more satisfying then Smashing Diablo in 2 seconds without lifting a finger

Nova Necros can clear mobs slightly faster due to not having to stop, just

Nova tele

Nova tele

But they are not great against Bosses so basically forget farming

Baal Diablo Meph or Andy

Unless you have Maximum GG gear going on, but even then that won't compare to

The Summoner's Tele Stomp method

So yeah, in short summary. Summon Necro is the one to pick above all if we only get to choose one

Best Survivability combined with Hardest Hitting makes the Summon Necro the Best

and even competes with Paladin and Sorcerer imo dare I say

The Tele Stomp technique work for Bosses (kill Diablo kinda fast) or tought Uniques, but for "regular farm" is faster to just dish

Corpse Explosion

And forget that Infinity increase

Corpse Explosion damage too (50% fire)

fredkid wrote: 3 weeks ago

The Tele Stomp technique work for Bosses (kill Diablo kinda fast) or tought Uniques, but for "regular farm" is faster to just dish

Corpse Explosion

well when I see a cluster of monsters. I'll tele to either the front or back of the pack which usually instantly kills one

then amp damage

Corpse Explosion the rest. with little practice, you get the hang of tele amp CE your way around maps

if you want more details on how I build my summon necro. Maxroll provides a build guide

However I do have two summon necros. one aimed towards MFing and the other Ubers

MF Necro only has Amp and Insight

Iron Golem where UberNecro has

Life Tap,

Decrepify and

Fire Golem

Fire Golem pulls Aggro better in turn works more effectively with Bramble as demonstrated in the video below Maxroll build guide

so

Fire Golem = Less Merc Deaths and Insight

Iron Golem to help Tele around map more with CE without worry of Mana since he's a MFer

I'm sorry the newbie talk, but what is Aggro? I've seen people using this term always when talking about

Fire Golem, but i'm wondering what that means.

luizgeo wrote: 3 weeks ago

I'm sorry the newbie talk, but what is Aggro? I've seen people using this term always when talking about

Fire Golem, but i'm wondering what that means.

'Aggro' is a term that was popularized by MMOs such as WoW - meaning to draw & hold the attention/aggression of enemies towards oneself (or in this case towards the summon), usually by a tanky character that can sustain/absorb a lot of damage (in this case the

Fire Golem), in other to lower the pressure on the more squishy characters (like a healer or a damage dealer, which are often "glass cannons" in order to maximize their efficiency - in this case the Necromancer). I have never played any MMOs myself but this is my understanding of the term