I'm making a fishymancer for a solo walk through. I plan to play P8 the whole time.

Honestly it's my first necro.

What gear should I be farming/keeping an eye out for?

And how do I build him, for gear. He seems like he doesn't need cast rate or ias so do I just build him like a tank and stand back?

Fishymancer DOES falloff hard in high player counts fyi. CE takes the mobs P1 HP and that is the damage applied in p8 games.

That being said its my favorite build.

+all skills are gonna be your best friend. All 3 trees are used so none are wasted.

Early on Spirit/suicide branch. And decent necro head with +relevant skills (2 os for Rhyme is good). Lore, sprit shroud, v magi, any armor w plus skills.

Later on iike to pre cast summons with Arm of king leoric and humonculous. Then have wiz spike and trang shield on swap (im using full trangs). When you swap you may lose a summon or 2 but the remaining summons will have the stats from whatever they were cast at.

If you aren't going full trangs, which is not BiS for fishymancer anyways. Then your typical high +skills loadout is best. 2 sojs or Bk rings, arachnid mesh, shako, maras , enigma etc.

Marrowalks for skelly mastery boost. And my hot take is that Thorns will out perform might at p8 since it was buffed. If you can get both even better (might merc w bramble).

As for build max raise Skeleton, max skeleton mastery. And some people argue that CE is a 1 pt wonder. I disagree and max it. Remaining pts into Bone armor. If you can get good enough gear and some summon skillers your Skeleton and mastery will be above lvl 40.i hate mages AI so I don't bother. 1pt into revives is usually good. Clay golem good early on. Later on i make iron golems out of insights.

You playing SC or HC? If HC then do not sleep on fcr and res (hence wiz spike). In HC after pre casting Gerkes sanctuary is another good shield option. If you are doing solo self found p8 then this will be difficult. You may need to switch to p3 or p5 until you get GG gear.

Early merc insight of course, any help w life leech and stealth armor.
Later on i like Obedience/Treachery and Ral'd andy or vamp gaze.

Physical sunder charms REALLY help the build but make sure you get good rolls. 30% increased phys dmg will wreck you in p8 hell. Fcr is good for spamming CE, quickly Dim vison'ing souls and archers from afar. Ias is useless, spot on there. And stats are cookie cutter str/dex for gear, rest into vit. Maybe 20pts into energy til you can get insight then respec.

On P8 it’s true that things get a little rougher in Hell as CE loses some of its shine on P8.

Early doors pick up everything that might sell for a few bucks, as you can shop brilliant wands in A1, but of course they cost more the better they get.

+RS, SM, AMP, DIM VISION are great early on. Shop for bone armour for your switch.

Check all nec heads you see. Every single one. A half decent one is your first Rhyme shield. CBF is important. Later Homu. Is my fave.

Get all curses. The only exception is if your nec shield has Decrep or attract. If HC learn to love Dim Vision.

Amp breaks near enough all immunes, so your army can kill anything even if sometimes slowly. Keep the level low though so you can target small areas keeping the rest of the crowd immobile with DV or attract (works differently of course, but I play HC only, so DV is my AI curse of choice).

Max RS, max SM, 1 pt revive, CG, GM Summon Res and all curses. Totally ignore mages. CG is the only golem you’ll need unless you want to run insight IG.

Yes Obedience and Treachery for merc. He must have CB, otherwise bosses are just too painful.

You will reach 24 before Duriel, so will have decrep +cg to treacle all bosses. Your only problem before Hell will be Normal D. However, you should be level 30 by then, should make things a little easier.

The benefits you put into +Skeleton and +Mastery is exponential, so the higher points you get beyond +20 the better. Mastery isn't as beneficial as +Skeleton, but you'll want both maxed and high as you can go. A good level to aim for is around 28-30 by hell.

Make sure you have certain curses early on. You're going to want at least 1 pt to Amp by Anderial, and 1 pt Decrepify Baal. Confuse and Dim Vision may be helpful in later game stages.

In Nightmare, your Merc becomes just as important to gear as you, since Might Aura on your Merc is what will bridge the gap.

Golems don't do damage, use Clay Golem for the slows with boss. Blood is good if you're walking to restore a bit of health.

Revives are better meat shields than they are damage dealers. They don't last long and they cost a lot to summon. I wouldn't max this skill; just use your +skills to enhance the revive count.

Another thing to consider is phy immune monsters with stoneskin mod. enemies that are phys immune and stonekin will take a really long time to kill. If they are low hp mobs that are NOT fire immune sometimes lower resist will enhance CE damage more than amp. The Succubus mobs in wsk come to mind.

And if you are going to play HC (you should play HC ) you should start a ladder char. If you wanna do all self found gear then go for it!

Doesnt mean you cant have a friend to BO and help clear other "dammit i wish i wasn't a necro right now situations" haha

Really good advices here
Duriel can be a bit hard early on, but there is a little trick to deal with him. Bring a lot of mana potions. Use iron maiden and let him hit clay golem. He will kill him but he will be hurt. Cast golem again and again. This also works well with diablo.