Summ Necro (Fishymancer), first time playing, about to use my first restat

Alright so I was playing along and following the fishymancer guide, I'm now level 25 and have just started on Act 4. My skills and stats are as follows:

Stats:

63 Strength (+4, making 67 with my equipment)

30 Dexterity (+1, making 31)

36 Vitality

77 Energy (+6, making 83)

5-15 Attack damage

211 Attack rating

142 Defense

123 Stamina (+7 making 130)

141 Life (+7 making 148)

189 Mana (+10 making 199)

55 Fire Resistance

0 Cold Resistance

29 Lightning Resistance

17 Poison Resistance

Skills:

20 Raise Skeleton (+2, making 22)

5 Skeleton Mastery (+1, making 6)

1 Amplify Damage

0 Iron Maiden (+2, making 2) - find this quite useful for raising my initial skeles since I don't have CE yet

0 Bone Wall (+1, making 1)

My equipment is as follows:

Helm

Defense: 24

+10% faster hit recovery

+28% enhanced defence

+2 to energy

+5 to mana

Amulet

+4 to energy

14% better chance of getting magic items

Wand

Damage: 2 to 4

+10% faster cast rate

7% mana stolen per hit

7% life stolen per hit

+1 to bone wall

+2 to iron maiden

+1 to raise skeleton

Hit causes monster to flee 100%

Lightning resist +9%

+50% damage to undead

Armour

Defense: 88

+16% enhanced defense

+7 to life

Fire Resist +10%

Poison Resist +12%

Magic damage reduced by 1

Requirements -20%

Shield/Head

Defense: 7

Adds 2-7 poison damage over 3 seconds

+1 to raise skeleton

+1 to skeleton mastery

+5 to mana

Gloves

Defense: 3

+1 to strength

+1 to dexterity

+7 maximum stamina

Fire resist +5%

Poison resist +5%

Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

Ring 1

Fire resist +21%

Half freeze duration

Ring 2

+1 to maximum damage

+86 to attack rating

4% life stolen per hit

Lightning resist +20%

Fire resist +14%

Belt

Defense: 8

10% faster hit recovery

+15 to attack rating

+15% enhanced defense

+3 to strength

Fire resist +5%

+1 to light radius

Boots

Defense: 5

12% better chance of getting magic items

---

So anyway, I think I went too high on energy, as I stopped paying attention to the fishymancer guide for a bit then just checked it again yesterday - I also think maybe I should have gotten Corpse Explosion earlier on.

What should I put my skills and stats into when I restat using Akara?

Also, how does my equipment look for a level 25 normal difficulty fishymancer just beginning act 4? What needs to be replaced first and where am I most likely to find good replacements?

Thanks in advance Sorry if my post is a little unclear, this is my first character so I'm not too knowledgeable about the game yet

(Edit: PS this is a single-player character if that makes any difference?)|||I wouldn't restat yet -- alil too much energy doesn't hurt in the beginning and will probably be comfy to have for awhile. Instead of CE I'd get a merc with a malice pole, or something that can inflict some damage (pole with some gems in it)

I wouldn't sacrifice skellies for CE early on --- get a 3+CE wand instead.

I'd say Ormus in act 3 is pretty much your guy, and can probably give you some neat-statos-wands, but so could that guy in act 2.

Otherwise I'd get on with it. Your gear isn't of that much concern yet, it will however be off concern when youi begin running into trouble... but you do have 3 resets, and you could of course reset if you feel it necessary. But CE isn't of that high radius in the beginning, and killing many enemies with it is not as probable.

When I think about it, you could use the Curse Attract or confuse to get the enemies fighting; not that it is highly efficient, but simply a way to get those first skellies.

Like the HST picture |||I'm glad to see there's at least one other HST fan here

Thanks for the advice. If I did redo my skills I'd most likely put one skele mastery point into CE since getting my skeles in the first place is getting quite difficult - but once they're summoned they're having zero/few problems so I don't think 1 less skele mastery would hurt.

The main reason I was thinking of using the restat is as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), you get one per difficulty, so when I move on to the next difficulty, I'll lose the chance to use that first one - right?

Also, do the wands in the shops reload every time you reload the game? I haven't paid attention to if they do or not but I think they do as I'm pretty sure I saw a +3 raise skeleton wand that I wanted in act 2, but when I finally got enough cash to get it there wasn't even a single +1 raise skeleton wand in sight, nevermind a +3 one. The wand I have now is the item that I got imbued in Act 1.

I'm still using the initial mercenary from the first act, now level 22 with some okay gear. Probably a stupid question but if I get a new mercenary, will it start off as a weak level 1? Also, is it possible to have more than one?

Thanks again |||Quote:








I'm glad to see there's at least one other HST fan here

Thanks for the advice. If I did redo my skills I'd most likely put one skele mastery point into CE since getting my skeles in the first place is getting quite difficult - but once they're summoned they're having zero/few problems so I don't think 1 less skele mastery would hurt.

The main reason I was thinking of using the restat is as far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), you get one per difficulty, so when I move on to the next difficulty, I'll lose the chance to use that first one - right?

Also, do the wands in the shops reload every time you reload the game? I haven't paid attention to if they do or not but I think they do as I'm pretty sure I saw a +3 raise skeleton wand that I wanted in act 2, but when I finally got enough cash to get it there wasn't even a single +1 raise skeleton wand in sight, nevermind a +3 one. The wand I have now is the item that I got imbued in Act 1.

I'm still using the initial mercenary from the first act, now level 22 with some okay gear. Probably a stupid question but if I get a new mercenary, will it start off as a weak level 1? Also, is it possible to have more than one?

Thanks again




You won't lose the chance to do the restat, you can go back to normal when you're in hell and still do the restat....

The mercenary you buy will not start off as a lvl one, the level will be relative to yours. (So if you're a lvl 85, the mercenary will be about the same lvl as you are)

It isn't possible to have more than 1 mercenary, and if you buy another one the gear that you merc have will be replaced if you don't take the equipment of first.

Also, do the wands in the shops reload every time you reload the game?

That is true... and everytime you enter and re-enter with the use of a waypoint, the shops will have new inventory. That way you can, with alittle patience get a 3+wand.|||Yeah skellies are extremely powerful normal and (most of)nightmare, especially when pumped straight in there like you did, there is little need for ce|||The biggest hurdle to overcome in normal for a skellimancer is normal Diablo. CE is useless against Diablo as there are no corpses around. It's all about having skeletons and skeleton mastery, and virtually all of your points should go there.

Basically, you want Decrepify, its prerequisites, a single point in clay golem, golem mastery, and summon resist, and everything else in skeletons/mastery - emphasizing the skeletons more than the mastery.) Respecing after killing Diablo isn't a bad idea, but I think your current skill setup is ideal up to that point.

I also highly recommend that as soon as you kill the last seal boss, you move your entire army to the pentagram and have them waiting when Diablo spawns. If he spawns before you get there, he can blast off one of his circular fire attacks, wiping out your entire army before they reach him. Make gratuitous use of Decrepify and Clay Golem, and you should be OK.|||Ah, I forgot that CE required an actual corpse, the main reason I wanted it is because I find it hard to kill monsters to get my skeles in the first place - but if it requires a corpse then it's not going to help there at all.

Anything else that'd be useful for that purpose? Iron maiden helps a bit, if I cast it, run, and let my merc kill them.

In fact, I didn't think of this before, and I'm pretty sure its possible. If necessary I can go back to act 1/2/3, kill some monsters there, raise skeles, and then go back to act 4, right?

I'm thinking at the moment I might redo my stats a little, maybe take some off energy and split it between dexterity and strength. I'll leave my skills as they are, and if necessary just go around and train up a bit for a few extra skill points so I can get decrepify etc for nightmare. Sound good?

Thanks for the advice everyone |||It's totally possible to go back to Act I and raise your initial army if you're having difficulty getting your first few corpses in Act IV.

If Diablo takes out your army you can certainly go back to anywhere else and re-raise it. However, if you leave Act IV and go back to any other act to do so, your town portal will disappear, which is problematic. Having to run back to Diablo from the River of Flame waypoint is no big deal, but as you approach he can just cast his circle fire attack again and take out your entire army again.

If you army goes down, you will want to open a town portal right next to Diablo, go back somewhere else in Act IV to raise your army, and then walk back through the portal so your entire army is right on top of him immediately.

As for decrepify, you may want to use your respec so that you have that skill avialable when you fight Diablo. Under the effects of Decrepify, his attack will do only half as much damage, and he'll only attack at half of his previous speed, so you'll effectively be reducing his Damage output by 75% when he's under the effects of that curse.|||I used the act 1 merc with a good bow (+elemental dmg) and my clay golem and decrep to wittle him down my first time, it took me about 10 minutes and a bunch of TP scrolls/health pots to do it but I got it done solo and without worrying about keeping an ample supply of skeletons. Just keep spamming the clay golem and decrep and make sure your merc can get some good shoot time (shift + belt slot number to feed her health pots).

I did notice or so it seemed that when he would raise up to cast his breath weapon of death I would hit him with decrep and it would cancel his cast. It might have just been him yawning out of boredom but it looked like he was casting. I do know he didn't get many casts off with that method, it just took forever to kill him.

on wand shopping:

The wand merchant in act 1 sells really nice skellie wands, I snagged a +2 summon skeleton +3 skeleton mastery from her for 5k gold. To change her inventory selection just run outside of town and back in and she has a whole new set of wands, with luck you can get the mods you want on it. Same for act 2 merchant, although he seemed to have more wands focused on higher tier skills (skelly mage, CE, bone wall etc..)|||Hi JG

I would say optimal build for a 28 level summoner would be 1 point in summon resist, 1 in decrepify, 1 in CE and 1 point in each of the prerequisites. The rest in raise skeleton and skeleton mastery. Though points may be saved by having skills on items.

How do you get skills on items if you havent got the cash?

1)Buy cheap skillless blue bone wands(giving a chance of 2 sockets for inserting poor quality resistance jewels) fron Drognan in act 2 and reroll in the cube using chipped gems. If its not quite what you want sell in act 4 for up to 20k each.

2)Find a blue necrohead and keep rerolling using 2 skulls(chipped will do) and spiked club recipe till you get something good.

3)Repair damaged white wands and heads using el/eld +chipped recipe. You will get repaired items with a chance to get up to 3 low level skills.

Are but 3 options.



Have fun.