Technical questions surrounding a build

[Crystalion]

You can check to see just what the stats of the skeletons are with different levels of SM and RS.

Well, I looked at the spreadsheet and ran the test I can do now (my Necro is clvl 26, untwinked, and only has 13 skill points to test with).

The following tests done under slvl 30 enchant (1400+ fire and ~+290% AR, iirc)...

Putting one point into SM and 3 into RS generated skelies that helped, if I tanked (teleported into thick of enemies and didn't move) because either myself (ouch, ouch) or my hireling or clay golem took the heat. As the battle thinned and my skelies moved around I lost them (testing vs. Eldritch & co.).

I bumped up RS to 12, for 6 skelies. (new game, both games players 1 as Sorc left after blessing). These were sturdier, as I killed Eldritch & Co. and then Shenk & Co. without tanking and while losing only one skelie. So I waypointed into Durance. I lost skelies in encounters with the ghoul lords (I'm assuming the firewalls got em) and the same plus Council members on Durance 3. By time I got to Mephisto I had one skelie left. I threw a (slvl 6) clay golem into Meph's face and teleported in after. The Clay Golem vanished almost instantly, but I saw my skelie was still alive and swinging so I cursored Meph (being very nervous that at any moment he'd nuke me, as I have only ~136 HPs--a consequence of having 102 undistributed stat points and not being a twink)... Meph was, a couple seconds into the battle, down to ~10% of his HPs left. He died a moment later and I goofed by not already being in transit to town, as my poisoned skelie collapsed before I could make it through (I'd also wasted precious time drinking an antidote potion from inventory myself--doh!).

The merc is an act 2 Blessed Aim and I think he's nearly my level (forgot to check). I've given him a Partizan (cube recipe, after a bunch of attempts) so his damage is pretty good, relatively speaking that is, before the enchant. I'd have to say, at only 1 SM and 12 RS that the skelies are a little too fragile for level appropriate hunting whereas my merc is solid enough to carry the day with appropriate crowd control/distraction.

My conclusion is that the build should be started as a summoner, without pumping CE and DV (as I have), if you're going to have the services of an Enchantress starting at 24 (when you can first use charges of teleport on a staff), so that you have enough points to have the skelies generally last through typical battles (and of course they regen after or you can hit town).

My next test is likely to be to location rush a new -act 5 clvl 33 necro to act 5 and try again with a fresh point distribution. I rather expect his skelies will be studly enough for him to breeze through everything in act 5 except fire immunes and Baal & co. (That is, I don't think the ancients have the HPs to be much of a problem--after all, in the prior test, Shenk and Mephesto go down so fast you'd better not sneeze, or you'll miss it). I think I'll probably twink only +1 net necro skills (since that's all I can conveniently--remember my hands will be full with a staff, so I can't use the rod/shield slots to help) so I can get slvl 21 for RS (a multiple of 3 for the extra skelie at 21). Certainly any reasonable untwinked character that has gotten an OrtSol or gambled will likely have, at clvl 33, +1 from Lore or Circlet or Amulet, eh? (I'm only interested in the +1 to summoning tree, of course).

Dim Vision still seems like a great idea--I'll see. CE doesn't seem necessary until late enough in the game that the Skelies don't survive drawn out battles (so you need to assassinate and then CEnd them quickly).

More info when I've tried it...