The Fishomancer Guide 1.13 - Topic

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May 1 2010 07:41am

Thesis:
The Summon Necromancer is the best pvm character, for many reason, including the fact he can "never" be in combat, utilizes all curses, and does all damage types at once.

Concept:
While it does not directly put out any damage, the Summon Necromancer, or the Fishy, can kill and types of monsters easily and can quickly clear cluster-ducks of enemys utilizing one of the best-most under used spells there is corpse explosion. Skeletons deal below average damage, but combined with curses, auras, and natural modifiers like +1 skill charms they can become unstoppable at higher levels. This guide will portray an easy to build, amazing summoner, good for ladder or nonladder.

Basics(tl'dr section):
This build will reach 4k+ life when all the gear is perfect.
This build will reach 86% fhr and 75% fcr break points, which can be changed for 125% fcr if you want to tele super fast, for a rush in example.
This build will not work for PvP, but there are builds that can do well in pvp, I personally do not pvp.
You will reach 18 skeletons, 18 skeleton mages, and over 30 revives at level 90.

Skill Placement:
Skill placement is simple, but key for this build, the main thing is to understand you are going to have to be versatile, not set in stone on what to cast when. The good thing about the summon necromancer is how easily he can deal with anything once you are comfortable with how he works. Curses are your biggest learning curve, I will explain when to use them.

Put 20 skill points into:
Raise Skeleton
Raise Skeleton Mage
Skeleton Mastery
Corpse Explosion

Put 1 skill point into:
Lower Resist + Requisites.
Dim Vision.
Revive + Requisites.
Summon Resist.

This will leave you at 95 skill points to do that, when you have done this, and you have skill points left over, I would put points in summon resist, it makes your minions more survivable.

Skills Explained:

Amplify Damage. "This deceptively potent curse rapidly advances the age and putridity of any wound. Ordinary blows will cut through flesh and carve particularly vicious wounds that fester and seethe Effect: Increases the amount of damage received. Amplify Damage lowers monster Physical Resistances by 100%. It will also remove the Immune to Physical on Monsters." Since you're main hitting power is skeletons this will make them effectively hit any target twice as hard. If they did 1000-2000 damage per attack, they would do 2000-4000 per attack when this spell is cast. This will be used for 90% of situations. Cast it after teleporting in before anything can attack you.
Life Tap - "This skill allows the Necromancer to literally suck the life from his victims. The Necromancer is able to reach into the wellspring of mortality and siphon off its essence, consuming it to replace his own. Effect: Attacking a cursed soul gives you health. Attacker gets Healed 50% of Attack Damage" When your iron golem or mercenary are in combat and lose health, you can teleport back, cast life tap, and teleport forward and they will regain health quickly.
Dim Vision - "Damning an enemy to the darkness of their own evil, this curse surrounds the afflicted in a sphere of perfect darkness and silence, blinding them. This allows a Necromancer and his party to slip by unnoticed or maneuver close for a more effective attack. Effect: Decreases radius of awareness." If you reach an entire screen of shooting enemies, this skill will stop them for seeing you. They only see you or your minions within 7 melee range boxes. Which is about 2.5 character widths. This skill is especially great for Burning Souls!
Decrepify - "This curse gives the victim a glimpse of his own mortality, briefly aging the victim. Imagining itself with an infirm body of advanced age, the afflicted believes it is no longer capable of youthful exertions. Effect: Target's Speed, Damage and Physical Resistance -50%" This spell is used in place of amplify damage on bosses. Diablo + Baal mainly.
Corpse explosion. "Every corpse created as a result of a violent death carries with it the anguish of its final moments. With this spell the Necromancer is able to call upon those energies and focus them into a single violent force. This force then expels itself from the carcass with such power that it causes a dramatic explosion. Effect: The targeted corpse explodes, damaging all nearby enemies. Corpse Explosion does 50% Physical damage and 50% Fire damage. Monsters that are resistant to Fire will take less damage. [Damage output] 70-120% of Corpse Hit Points". Since this spell cannot be cast until things are dead, you need a merc to hit them first. Casting Amplify damage to allow your merc to create a corpse to explode will work on anything, even act 5 hell monsters. For merc see "merc gear". You will cast this 1-2 times on a large group of enemies under the effects of amplify damage and it should kill them all. When there is no more immediate threat to you, cast raise skeleton until there are no more bodies. When you have a few you can rely on the skeletons and merc to chew through the next group of monsters to gain more corpses. When i hit about 12 skeletons I feel comfortable going anywhere in the game. If I really want I can build up to 18 skeletons, 18 mages, and a few revives to go camp uber bosses. Between Life tap and Decrypify they usually won't damage you, they will be too focused on your minions.
Raise skeleton - "Early on, Necromancers learn to control the skeletal remains of deceased creatures. Invoking this skill causes a nightmarish jumble of animated bones to rise from a fresh corpse. Animated partially through their own will and partially through the summoned spirits of ancient warriors, Necromancers often maintain a small host of these reanimated soldiers to do their bidding Effect: Cast on the corpse of a slain monster. This raises a skeleton warrior that fights for you." This is your main summoning skill. You do not need mages to do quick magic find runs. 10-12 of these guys is plenty when you have your merc around to help. Following battle orders, at level 45 (full invo of charms and the gear listed) this will be the stats of your skeletons when you have Battle orders, merc, and everything up properly, assuming you're level 9X and in hell mode: Hit points: 9213 Attack Rating: 8917 Damage (average): 1353-1360 (1356) Attack Frames: 14 Hit Recovery: 7 Resistance: 68 Number of Skeletons: 17 Average DPS (with 17 skeletons): 19884.5... Now that is a base damage per second, that doesn't include amplify damage being added on to that, so minus and resistances, you're doing 39769 damage / second with 17 skeletons up from just the skeletons.
Raise Skeleton Mage - I won't go into too much detail here, as there are so many variables on what they do for damage because they randomly spawn with a specific element, however, they do elemental damage, so I will say you shouldn't pass them off as worse, they are just different.
Revive - "The ultimate goal of a Priest of Rathma is the perfect reanimation and control of a dead creature, maintaining the purity and properties of its body while releasing its soul to allow the Necromancer full control. When a Necromancer at long last gains this ability, he can truly claim mastery of the Great Cycle of Being. Effect: Resurrects a monster to fight for you." These monsters last for 180 seconds and then die, they have very high hit points and the stats of the monster your resurrect. I use this spell for a simple but effective reason.. "summon stacking" when you teleport, your summons will scatter to the four winds, but with a large scale revive, they cannot move. Therefore use this spell if you want, but you don't need to.
Iron Golem - "While many mages spend their lives devoted to studying the transmutation of base metals into gold, the Necromancers have always had a somewhat different approach to transforming metals. Through complicated arcane rituals and great mental concentration, a Necromancer can summon forth a Golem from common base metals. The construct takes on the properties of the original source material, including any magical effects or other properties the original metal might have possessed. Effect: Summon a Golem from a metal item. The golem gains properties of the item." ...The iron golem gains the properties of the item... That includes auras. When you make an iron golem from an eth. exile, it gives it and your army Defiance aura. Iron golems follow you from game to game unless you or they die. They are immune to poison. Collect cheap items with good auras incase they die. Doom Weapons (holy freeze), Exiles (defiance), Pride (concentration), Insight (meditation). Personally I use insight because it's cheap to make and lets me nearly-never use potions.

Hot Keys:
F1 Corpse Explosion
F2 Teleport
F3 Amp Damage
F4 Life Tap
F5 Dim Vision
F6 Decrepify
F7 Lower Resist
F8
F9 Battle Cry
F10 Battle Orders
1 Belt 1
2 Belt 2
3 Belt 3
4 Belt 4
5 Raise Skeleton
6 Raise Skeleton Mage
7 Revive
8

Status Points:
Strength - As little as humanly possible. Enough for gear.
Dexterity - Absolutely nothing.
Vitality - Every Last One.
Enery - Absolutely nothing.

Gear:
Weapon: This is dependent, my main weapon is a beast axe or scepter. This will make your minions 1 frame faster on the attack and increase damage all around. You will also want a Wizard's Spike with "Hel" inside it to break the 125 fcr point. This will help with teleing and rushing if you want.
Helm: Shako - Shael Rune
Armor: Enigma
Shield: Spirit (must be 35% fcr to reach BP)
Amulet: Mara's 30%
Belt: Arachnid's Mesh
Rings (both): Bul-Katho's Wedding Band
Gloves: Trang-Ouls Claws
Boots: Sandstorm Treks +15 Strength
Switch: Call To Arms 6 Battle Order, Spirit Shield any

Merc Gear:
What merc: Act 2, Nightmare, Offensive. Might merc. Do not put cold damage on your merc, you will make the bodies of the things you kill disappear and won't be able to resurrect them ):
Weapon: Infinity Polearm. This will lower the Resist of monsters and increase the damage of corpse explosion. Just Like Amp. Damage does. Since it's 50/50 fire and physical. Also it will lower the defense and help against high defense targets like act 5 minions of destruction in the throne room.
Armor: Treachery 1k+ defense. Between 45 IAS, fade, and venom, I personally believe there's no other merc armor. This is it.
Helm: Up to you, I have used a 80enhanced damage, 30 ias crown of ages. .08 patch Vampire's Gaze. Right now I'm using Andi's Visage for life leech and high defense.
Stash Gear:
Dwarf Star if you want to Gold Find at travincal.
Wizard's Spike for 125% fcr.
Doom Axe to replace beast for continuous chaos runs. The slow really helps in chaos.

Iron Golem Gear:
Again, this is up to you, I use insight the most, but things to get to try out would be:

Insight
Pride
Doom
Exile
Bramble

Final Thoughts:
This is my first guide, if you see a fail, tell me and I will try to correct it. It's fun. I mean it

Sources
The Arreat Summit

original post - http://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=42207182&f=87