Introduction
What is a fishymancer you ask? Simply put it is a summoner necromancer who uses amplify damage in combination with corpse explosion.
This build can be used for ladderrunning. This means it is a self-sufficient character that can survive on its own with crap gear. This guide will be short and concise.

Skill Distribution
As you level, make sure you give these key skills 1 pt in the early stages of your character as they are important.
Amplify Damage
Clay Golem
Skeleton Mastery
Raise Skeleton
Corpse Explosion

Overall skill distribution
Raise Skeleton - 20 points
Skeleton Mastery - 20 points
Corpse Explosion - 20 points
Summon Resist - 1 to 4 points
Amplify Damage - 1 point
Decrepify - 1 point
Bone armor - 1 point
All prerequisites - 1 point
All Summons - 1 point
All curses - 1 point (you will use all of them)

Skeletal Mage - Not more than 1! These absolutely suck. In hell they do NO damage and only block your other skellies. Don't listen to the jargon other people put in their guides about these. They are absolutely worthless.



Now you have some different paths to take.
Path 1
Put rest of points into bone wall to make your bone armor stronger

Other paths
I highly recommend you choose path 1 but hey you could put those points into a golem of choice (clay, fire, blood, metal)...
Or even get yourself some Poison & Bone Skills.

Stats Distribution(please refer back to this when you read the gear section)
Strength - Enough for gear. Please dont go over 100 though. You can build a necromancer with much less, mine has 120 and i started from scratch. Depends on if you start with str+ items or u gotta mf/buy them later.
Dexterity - Enough for max block. Yes this is a must and you can still maintain lots of vitality with it. For this to work well, you MUST use
A)Homunculus (best choice)
B)Whitstan's Guard
C)Sigon's Tower Shield (worst choice)
Vitality - All other points go here
Energy - None! As with most builds!!



Gear
Helmet - Shako (Ptopaz or Um'ed)
Body Armor - Enigma or Trangs (Ptopaz)
Gloves - Frostburns (that damage boost goes to your skeletons) Or use Trang's if you use Trang's body armor.
Belt - Goldwrap or Arachnid's Mesh
Boots - War travelers or Natalya's Soul Mesh Boots, or good Tri-res boots w/ other mods. [!Attention!] Sandtreks Bug with bonearmor no longer works.
Ammy - +Summoning skills ammy with other mods or Maras.
Rings - Nagels or Soj's or Rare rings with mf and res
Weapon - Arm of Leoric or other good unique necromancer wand.
Shield - homunculus (PDiamond) Or whitstans guard/sigon's (PDiamond)
Charms - Summoning GCs, Res SCs, MF SCs, Life/Res GC's, Anni, Necro torch(CHEAP!), Gheeds.



Merc
Hire an Act2 Nightmare Offensive Hireling
His might aura will let your skeletons own!
Equip with...
Helmet - Guillame's face (to give your skellies crushing blow)
Insight - So you can teleport, curse, Corpse explosion, the works.
Armor - Fort runeword/High def armor

[img]http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/9775/mercip2.gif[/img]

Places to mf.... (you will own)
Hell:
the pits
the countess
andariel
mephisto
baal
cows (dont kill king)
Nightmare:
andy for sojs lol.

All in all these items are not very hard to get. They all add up to about 180-200 fg OR 4 hrs if you spend wisely. Most of my stuff i mfed though. Yes I mfed a shako in hell tristram
I also mfed my arm of leoric and 2 mal runes/2 pul runes.

Basic Strategy
Go to cold plains with your merc and curse weak monsters and let your merc kill them. Summon skeletons from the bodies. Get all your skeletons and your golem ready. When you kill a monster, amplify damage curse on the monsters around the dead monster and corpse explosion over and over again the bodies will drop like flies. I have killed cows in hell in full games by myself before. To own baal: Teleport next to him and and decrepify him. Your summons/hireling will be in a pile next to him hitting him all at once.

Curses Explained....
Decrepify - use this on bosses who hit hard (mephy and baal)
Amplify Damage - your main curse for everyone else
Attract - Use this on monsters to get them to pile up on one of there own so corpse explosion will become more effective. Attract stacks on top of amplify damage so both curses effect the monster simultaniously.
Dim Vision - For burning souls... They cannot fire their lightning when cursed with this
Lower Resist - important for sorceresses in your party especially when bail-running. this will take down fire/cold/light/poison immunes. (not physical)

Please post questions comments and suggestions i need them!

PS All those pictures are REAL yes that is my legit battle.net account.

This post was edited by Bill_Jr on Nov 6 2007 08:34pm

Can any mods please approve of whether i can have these images here like this? I will make changes as needed. Thanks. Here is my merc's gear


This post was edited by Bill_Jr on Nov 6 2007 08:37pm

Check my siggy, not rly "the only" fishymancer. Good guide tho.

EDIT: After reading through your guide theres a few things I simply cannot allow to stand:

Skele mages suck: no sir, they do not.

4 points in amp and summon resist: You did not really do that did u

Points into bone wall: whats the difference? bone armor barely sorbs any damage when fully synergised and at the highest levels. Points would better go into mages

Choices in gear: Trangs is not an alternative really, you need a nigma, frostburns shouldn't be used unless you need the mana. no pride merc (or infinity for the matter, since your a 'fishymancer'), no thorns on your merc either, also hoto > arm (unless your prebuffing).

That "all pictures are real and that is my battle.net account" comment was not nessisary, it's nothing to be proud of.

Quote

Sandtreks Bug with bonearmor no longer works.

LOL

And dude, why nats boots?

PS: You can't MF runes, they are randomly dropped.

PPS: Congrats on the 100 def shako and leoric wand mf, those are pretty hardcore.


This post was edited by thepwnbros on Nov 6 2007 08:48pm

Great, another summoner! Well, sorry if I come off harsh, but I'm not really good in these feedback things, so:

Summon Resist - 1 to 4 points
You shouldn't even consider throwing more than 1 point in summon resist...

All curses - 1 point (you will use all of them)
I doubt if you need the left 3 curses, but since you're bathing in skillpoints, why not ey?

Skeletal Mage - Not more than 1! These absolutely suck. In hell they do NO damage and only block your other skellies. Don't listen to the jargon other people put in their guides about these. They are absolutely worthless.
First off, mages do not block your army (certain revives do). Well - you're planning to use Enigma, right? And all your skeletons will charge forward - but your mages will remain on top of you, giving you blob-protection. Besides, they do some damage (I think around 500 a missile for the elemental mages if you have many +skills). I've made a build that relies on mages, and it works quite well.


Gloves - Frostburns (that damage boost goes to your skeletons)
Where did you get that idea?


[!Attention!] Sandtreks Bug with bonearmor no longer works
It was Marrowwalk boots, not sandtrek... and boneprison iirc. doesn't really matter though


Go to cold plains with your merc and curse weak monsters and let your merc kill them
I advise going to your first mf target, Eldritch - your merc can take them on easily. And after one kill the battle is over (CE) Otherwise go to Anya's red portal and resurrect dead bodies.


Insight - So you can teleport, curse, Corpse explosion, the works.
If you're throwing around with hr's, why not equip a pride or an infinity?


Attract - Use this on monsters to get them to pile up on one of there own so corpse explosion will become more effective. Attract stacks on top of amplify damage so both curses effect the monster simultaniously.
I did not know that... might come in handy. Tough you've given quite some misinformation so far...


PS All those pictures are REAL yes that is my legit battle.net account.
Nothing special about those pics... or did I miss something?

Also, why would you utilize max block? Kinda unnecessary.

This post was edited by yerkyerk on Nov 6 2007 08:48pm

LOL I LOVE YOU WE ARE LIKE BROS

you really don't need all curses...
and why did you put so many points into bonewall?
skele mage is good no matter what anybody says. and plus, once you max all the basic stuff, what are you gonna do with all the rest of the skill points? maxing skele mage is a good idea, they do around 500 damage each when you max it, and when you have over 15+ of them it really adds up

Your merc will die without life leech + what yerkyerk said

I said it first!

Dispite my childish exclaimation, this just plan isn't a good build. Check my siggy or stanuls guide if u want better ones

Check my sig if you want a cooler one though

Anyway, I wouldn't say this isn't a good build - it's hard to mess up a skelemancer because they're so overpowered to begin with. Anyway, some good improvements can be made.

damn
Merc
Hire an Act2 Nightmare Offensive Hireling
His might aura will let your skeletons own!
Equip with...
Helmet - Guillame's face (to give your skellies crushing blow)
Insight - So you can teleport, curse, Corpse explosion, the works.
Armor - Fort runeword/High def armor

this shitty work? if my merc wear guillames my sumons i´ll got cb?