Well the next installment here is in act5. Just defeated Diablo.
Not much difference in the way things played through till the CS. Skellies held thier own and made things move a decent pace.
A few highlights.
Duriel. Well after being shot down to 2 mages I TP'ed out got some more minions from act1 rasied my merc and went back in there. I feel it's a pity that a Necro just does not have enough strength in 1 set of minions to be able to kill bosses. This was on players 5.
Moved onto act 3 and everything was a fair breeze. Same deal with Meph, had to TP out and gather up a second batch of minions. Was running 5 Skels and 4 mages. About level 25 at this stage.
Onto act 4.
Again with a wall of undead that tend to not die on your average monster things move along quite well. So far zero deaths since act 1.
Izual
Easier than I expected. He's just plain stupid still. He kill 2 skeletons throughout the whole fight.
Hellforge. Mr angry here was might enchanted so it appeared that IM took down things nicely as his damage returned was also being transferred to the host that followed him around.
And now we get to the CS.
As I've played lots of Necros I thought the best thing to do here was to set players 1. Diablo is just too damn hard for a summoner at higher player levels.
CS was a fair breeze, why they changed de Sies's minions to doom knights I'll never know. He's just not a threat now. Bring back conviction for him and bremm, you KNEW fear then.
So off to Diablo and as was expected my 5 skellies and 5 mages 1 golem and merc all died in the first sweep of the fire nova. *sigh I think this is the most annoying thing about a summoner. Against normal creatures they walk along killing at a slow but steady pace. As soon as you get to a boss. Particularly Diablo, your toast. I was level 29 at this stage, and had one point in summon resist, still made little difference to my minions.
I on the other hand had max fire resist thanks to gear, and thought I'd try the old IM + Blood golem thump yourself to death routine on the big D.
Lets just say that IM + Blood golem no longer works. Remember those times when 1 blood golem and a level 1 IM could keep you alive and standing around for hours in hell games before? No longer, the damage returned granting the golem life and hence yourself just doesn't work as well as it used to, so the pile of bones just turned to mush at Diablos feet.
HO HUM WHAT IS A NECRO TO DO???
think think. *light bulb
Well lets see the same tactic with a bucket of bolts. *summons iron golem. Lo and behold this actually worked and quite well, it only took about 5 minutes and 30 golems to finally spike Diablo in the butt, along with about 3 trips to act 1 shops for cheap daggers and whatnot to stash in my inventory for ready golem creation. I'd run back to the CS, throw all the weapons on the ground, and thanks to my high fire resist was able to run around and summon golems. I found that actually running in myself and whacking diablo with my wand made the big guy go hand to hand with the golem instead of frying it with a lightning hose.
Well Iam going to push on. There's a few things that niggle me about the summoner and others that depress me. I've heard and can see from the stats on the Arraet Summit that Summons health at higher level is a joke, so I expect a summon necro to never really bother going into hell if he's relying on skeletons.
If the Summons would scale to higher difficulties and bosses did less damage to them then you could even maybe, just maybe come out somewhere close to on par with other classes in damage output. As it stands there's just no comparison to the necro and other classes.
Well I boldly step through the red portal and turn to see what act 5 can dish out....
Not much difference in the way things played through till the CS. Skellies held thier own and made things move a decent pace.
A few highlights.
Duriel. Well after being shot down to 2 mages I TP'ed out got some more minions from act1 rasied my merc and went back in there. I feel it's a pity that a Necro just does not have enough strength in 1 set of minions to be able to kill bosses. This was on players 5.
Moved onto act 3 and everything was a fair breeze. Same deal with Meph, had to TP out and gather up a second batch of minions. Was running 5 Skels and 4 mages. About level 25 at this stage.
Onto act 4.
Again with a wall of undead that tend to not die on your average monster things move along quite well. So far zero deaths since act 1.
Izual
Easier than I expected. He's just plain stupid still. He kill 2 skeletons throughout the whole fight.
Hellforge. Mr angry here was might enchanted so it appeared that IM took down things nicely as his damage returned was also being transferred to the host that followed him around.
And now we get to the CS.
As I've played lots of Necros I thought the best thing to do here was to set players 1. Diablo is just too damn hard for a summoner at higher player levels.
CS was a fair breeze, why they changed de Sies's minions to doom knights I'll never know. He's just not a threat now. Bring back conviction for him and bremm, you KNEW fear then.
So off to Diablo and as was expected my 5 skellies and 5 mages 1 golem and merc all died in the first sweep of the fire nova. *sigh I think this is the most annoying thing about a summoner. Against normal creatures they walk along killing at a slow but steady pace. As soon as you get to a boss. Particularly Diablo, your toast. I was level 29 at this stage, and had one point in summon resist, still made little difference to my minions.
I on the other hand had max fire resist thanks to gear, and thought I'd try the old IM + Blood golem thump yourself to death routine on the big D.
Lets just say that IM + Blood golem no longer works. Remember those times when 1 blood golem and a level 1 IM could keep you alive and standing around for hours in hell games before? No longer, the damage returned granting the golem life and hence yourself just doesn't work as well as it used to, so the pile of bones just turned to mush at Diablos feet.
HO HUM WHAT IS A NECRO TO DO???
think think. *light bulb
Well lets see the same tactic with a bucket of bolts. *summons iron golem. Lo and behold this actually worked and quite well, it only took about 5 minutes and 30 golems to finally spike Diablo in the butt, along with about 3 trips to act 1 shops for cheap daggers and whatnot to stash in my inventory for ready golem creation. I'd run back to the CS, throw all the weapons on the ground, and thanks to my high fire resist was able to run around and summon golems. I found that actually running in myself and whacking diablo with my wand made the big guy go hand to hand with the golem instead of frying it with a lightning hose.
Well Iam going to push on. There's a few things that niggle me about the summoner and others that depress me. I've heard and can see from the stats on the Arraet Summit that Summons health at higher level is a joke, so I expect a summon necro to never really bother going into hell if he's relying on skeletons.
If the Summons would scale to higher difficulties and bosses did less damage to them then you could even maybe, just maybe come out somewhere close to on par with other classes in damage output. As it stands there's just no comparison to the necro and other classes.
Well I boldly step through the red portal and turn to see what act 5 can dish out....