Hi, very nicely formatted guide. I have been playing Summoners for years, and I wuold however like to add some of my opinions on this particular skill selecton. I plaiy only Hardcore.
Corpse Explosion 20 vs 1. - Corpse explosion points add only Radius, the damage is scaled no monster health. Its a cheap skill to cast. You can cast this twice with a one point by moving your cursor a few yards away from the center of your initial cast the achieve the same effect of a larger radius attack. 19 Points saved.
Curses - 20 amp vs 1. Again, you are only achieving Radius, and maybe duration. Things dont live long enough with a corpse explosion necro to factor duration into the equation and you can cast this curse twice for 8 mana and achieve the sam effect of casting it once. - 19 Points saved.
All other curses vs No other curses. - Amp Damage + Corpse Explosion = One Dead Screen, no need for any other curse - 6 Points saved.
Skeleton Mages 7 vs 1 or zero (1 if Revives) - Mages are useless, I have run level 47 mages just to see and while they make for an interesting lighy show they just dont shore up and protect their Necro Master as well as Melee Skeletons. Again I point to the sheer killing speed of Corpse explosion. You may want 1 point in there as a prereq to revive, I personally dont since I prefer to use an infinity mercenary for the damage boost by virtue of reducing armor class and the boost to boththe physical and elemental sources or corpse explosion damage, (Conviction does more then reduce cold fire light immunity) not to mentin the godly damage and 40% crushing blow vs Baal and anything you need to kill to get that first corpse to cast a cascading Corpse Explosion. - 7-8 Points saved.
0 Bone armor synergies vs all the points I saved (35) - Bone armor synergies are fabulous and my necro has about 700 bone armor at the end of the day, so when I get charged down by snakes or whatever, I lose no life, though I may have to recast my bone armor. Bone armor = Life vs Physical damage, including that from a pack of fanat Boss Archers, etc. I laugh off Nilathek, Claw vipers etc because of godly Bone rmor.
You have been quite thorough in your gear selection, but I will just add that my 'endgame / high end' gear includes a hoto and 35% fcr Monarch Spirit which I prefer fr the attainable 86% FHR breakpoint and 125% FCR for teleporting. I do not believe Beast adds enough damage to justify the sacrifice in +skills, resists or the necessity to prebuff if you use BO + spirit on switc in place of a superior Skelly Raising Main+Offhand. I also Dont bother with Pride for the aformentioned purpose of Infinity, though there is something to be said for a Iron Golem maintained by borrowing points from Bone armor Synergies, and sacrificing the godly crowd control a spammable one point clay golem privides. For 22 points you can make an iron golen with 5k+ life before bo out of Beast/Pride and score Mad Style points,
My skill selection is however based on endgame gear and the +17 points I gain by having good equipment, making my Corpse explosion and Amp damage radius viable with single point investments. I reccomend borrowing points from bone armor synergoes to attain a radius that you are comfortable with, but really, I have never wasted more then a single point in amp.
This is how I play every ladder, I dont die. Cant die. Hardcore.
This post was edited by greymelken on Nov 13 2010 10:51am