Hi folks, i'm not an expert on summoner, i tried it only once and was realy disappointed about skeleton damages. I had a might mercenary equipped with obedience, and the result was : mercenary is doing all the job, the army of summons was only here to tank, and killing mobs was reaaallyyy slow. I tried to switch for pride, but then mercenary damages was crap, and increase on summons was negligible.

So i'm thinking of boosting as possible damages, as following :
- might mercenary
- pride on necro
- iron golem with beast (can also be pride on golem and fanaticism on necro, but + skills from mara, shako etc would be better on pride i think ?)

So mercenary weapon is free, so i can choose a weapon with CB for fast killing boss, as obedience, botd with gulli, eth tomb reaver soxed with bers...
I could even pick act 5 mercenary with eth lastwish (might aura so it is equal to act 2 mercenary)

Also was thinking about infinity, is it very efficient with this build ? (-xx defense to mobs, so skeleton will hit almost every time ; - res for mage skeleton and - res for corpse explosion)


Please tell me what you think would be the best stuff to boost damages, with the assumption that we don't care of price stuff

Can I expect summons to kill something better than an A1 crappy mob ? Or will they still be there only for tanking ?

This post was edited by piglou on Nov 4 2018 06:32am

Infinity on might merc
Pride golem
Beast on hand

Merc has very nice crushing blow with his ias and guillaumes

Level 20 skeletons do almost no damage, indeed. Try with level 55 instead, and see the difference. As a whole, they deal a lot more damage than any mercenary.

And what wupa said about mercenary setting.

OK thanks I may try this setup soon then

Last time I maxed skeleton, so with + skill i was around 35 i guess, but even with skillers, i don't see how can I get lvl 55 ?

a friend told me +3skills from hoto would increase more damages than a best would do with fanaticism

what do you think ?

HotO adds no damage to skeletons.
Fanatism (from Beast) increases their attack speed, attack rating (chance-to-hit) and damage.

HotO is good for Corpse explosion (cast faster, and higher range thanks to +3 skills).

Skeletons stats are set when you summon them.
For this, you should use something like :

+5 Arm of King Leoric
+3 to +5 shield (Darkforce, Boneflame, Splendor in a 3/3 base, rare shield)
+2/3 amulet (Mara or magic amulet)
+2/3 helm (Harlequin or magic circlet)
+2 Enigma
+3 rings & belt (Arachnid, SoJ)
+0/2 boots (Marrowwalk)
+5 Torch, Annihilus, Battle command
+5 to 9 (skillers)

total +27 to +33 (with extra +2 to Skel. mastery)

Level 55 is reached with a skill shrine, you can forget about that.

The difference between level 35 and 55 is impressive. Unlike many other skills, skeleton power increases according to the square of their level...

People told you hoto is better because your main damage is corpse explosion and it makes you teleport faster

Alright, i thought summons were only depending on actual wearing stuff

i'll have a look at all this !

thanks all for you answer and your time, such an old game and still plenty of things to learn

This is the optimal setup in my experience.

You can have HotO or Leoric as a summon stick, then switch to Beast once your army is up. HotO obviously better for tele.

As you say, Conviction from Infinity is great for lowering monster defence, helping your mob hit more often, and the -res will boost your CE damage.

This post was edited by Mukhalif on Nov 4 2018 01:11pm