Quote (nsanee @ Wed, Mar 11 2009, 05:51pm)

You shouldn't use beast ;]

Quote (WWI @ Tue, Mar 17 2009, 12:14am)

I personally have had the same exact skill layout necro and loved it, I found my gear setup much better for many reasons, not that I'm frowning down upon your main setup..

What I used;

shael shako
40 res hoto
enigma
35fcr spirit monarch
sandstorm treks
arachnid mesh
2soj
trang-oul gloves
2nec or summon/10fcr/mods amulet

125fcr/86fhr/more life/18%dr/+1 more skill overall

I used the same faith merc however in great bow.

I used pride golem, I found it much better.

Quote (mephistophilis @ Mon, Mar 16 2009, 10:30pm)

only reason infinity > pride is because it helps you, your mages, your skeletons, and your mercenary. Pride only helps your skeletons and mercenary. Don't forget conviction not only decreases defense to helm merc and skeletons ar but it also lowers resistance for your corpse explosion and mages damage.

My initial build was for hoto. I've basically used every weapon and now I'm using a suicide branch.

My faith is now Great Bow as well.

Trangs gloves are inferior in my opinion because mages have better mana attributes and the +1 fire skill counts towards your corpse explosion.

Shields are nice on a necro but I am really trying to limit the runeword use. basically you have all runewords.

Instead of Having:
Nigma
Faith
Infinity


You have:
Nigma
Hoto
Spirit
Faith
Pride



Basically if I had to rewrite the gear section again it would look like this:

Suicide Branch
2/20/stat circlet
Darkforce
Arach
Nigma
Bloodfist
2x sojs
2/5% fcr amulet
Treks

125% fcr/13 Skills on gear/tons of life/Tons of resistance/enough mana to teleport without use of insight. 56% fhr breakpoint with 1 7%fhr/15 res all jewel in your suicide branch. (or add 3 grand charms for 86%)

Merc
Faith Great Bow
Eth 30% ias/ res Giant skull
20/-20 Fire Jewelers or just 4os plate (this is actually about equal to fortitudes damage and cooler.)

Golem
Infinity-low dmg obv.

Swap

Demon Limb for Chant Charges (ist'd)
Splendor Necro Head (20% mf)

or

a nice ondals is pretty godly here for leveling.

Quote (WWI @ Tue, Mar 17 2009, 12:46am)

Why limit the use of runewords? And what of those who play the ladder?

7/15 jewels and 5/-5 facets are more expensive on the ladder. Spirit monarch is much easier to attain/create yourself on the ladder too. Shako > plain 2/20/2 circ

With this you get more resists than you would with suicide setup and still +14 skills off gear, more life and damage reduce, and higher fhr bp with ease.

Quote (ziesta @ Wed, Mar 18 2009, 02:28pm)

Where is the video you promised to make couple of weeks ago? Now it seems that you finally have yourself a char. I want to see your Ubertrist-runs like you have already mentioned about.

Quote (mephistophilis @ Wed, Mar 18 2009, 05:36pm)

There are two different ways to build a summoner.

1) Beast Build

2) Faith Build

I am going to do a comparison with these two types of builds.


First thing we must be aware of is:
Both are going to be build for 125% FCR
Both are going to have Full Summon Skills GC inventory
Both are going to have Infinity


Gear Layout for each

Beast Summoner (numbers in parenthesis = number of skills each item has)

Beast Axe (0)-0% fcr
Enigma (2)-0% fcr
Spirit (2)-35% fcr
Circlet (2)-20% fcr
Arach (1)-20% fcr
Mages (0)-20% fcr
Boots (0)-0% fcr
Amulet (2)-2 necro/10 fcr
Rings (0)-2x fcr rings

Grand total
9 All Skills/125% fcr


Faith Summoner
So many options for weapons I'll just lay out my favorite:
Suicide-(1)-50% fcr
Enigma-(2)-0% fcr
Dark Force-(3)-30%fcr
Circlet-(2)-20% fcr
Arach (1)-20% fcr
Bloodfists (0)-0% fcr
Treks-(0)-0% fcr
Rings-(2)-0% fcr (2x sojs or bks)
Amulet (2)-5% fcr (2 necro/5%+ Crafted fcr amulet)

Grand total
13 All skills/125% FCR


Beast we have
lvl 9 fanaticism
9 Summons Skills
13 Summons Skills in inventory
Total 22 Skills
Level 17 Might from Mercenary

Skeleton Damage
16489.2 in 14 frames



Faith we have
lvl 15 fanaticism
13 Summons Skills
13 Summons skills in inventory
totall 26 Skills
No Might from Mercenary

Skeleton Damage
16834.1 in 13 Frames



So, your total skeleton Damage is better with Faith than with Beast.



Your total damage though is going to be greater with Beast than with Faith because Your act 2 mercenary will do about 15k damage.

My argument here is that you do more total damage with beast but it is not better.


With my faith Act 1 merc we do about 4-5k Damage (after godly gear + enchant pre-buff). BUT!!! we get Inner Sight. This matched with infinity's conviction drops the defense of your enemy so considerably that you are going to hit more frequently so your skeletons damage will be more effective.









There are two possible ways to make your Beast Summoner do an intense amount of damage that might offset the use of Faith.

1) Craft Iron golem out of Beast. This will free you up to use more skills on your person. You could basically just use the set up I laid out for Faith and you'll have some more skills and the damage would be higher than Faith build.


2) Craft Iron golem out of Pride.




There are shortcomings of using an act 2 mercenary. He can die from iron maiden and his crushing blow doesnt match that of udars which you will summon with revive anyways.



Overall, I've built summoners since the game first came out. Several years ago I developed the Faith Merc Summoner that many people have used. I've written this defense before, but it was years ago so here it is again for you to bitch and moan about.