First-timer dying in Hell mode...expert advice?

Hi! First post.

So for my first ever build I decided on a Fishymancer, loosely following the helpful guide on this site. My skeleton army tore through Nightmare difficulty like nobody's business. I died a few times, but Diablo, the Ancients, Baal's minions, Baal -- nobody put up much of a fight. No map gave me much difficulty. Well, entering Hell difficulty at level 70, that changed pretty quickly. I kept dying in the Stony Field, and after I entered Tristram, the baddies completely destroyed my army. My merc dies especially easily. (By the way, this is single player, v. 1.13, expansion, and I was doing players=8 throughout normal and much of nightmare but switched to players=1 around act 4 of nightmare.)

I have this sinking feeling that I both have to respect and to start worrying seriously about gear, the latter of which I don't really have the knowledge to do. I've basically been equipping whatever mediocre thing crosses my path and looks moderately decent.

Here's what I'm working with at the moment:

Lvl 70

WITHOUT ITEMS:

Str 89

Dex 84

Vit 195

Ener 67

Amplify Damage 3

Weaken 1

Terror 1

Decrepify 1

Dim Vision 1

Confuse 1

Attract 1

Teeth 1

Corpse Explosion 20

Raise Skeleton 20

Skeleton Mastery 20

Clay Golem 1

Blood Golem 1

Iron Golem 1

Fire Golem 1

Raise Skeletal Mage 1

Revive 1

Golem Mastery 1

Summon Resist 1

WITH ITEMS:

Str 89

Dex 84

Vit 195

Ener 69

Fire Resist 30

Cold Resist 15

Lightning Resist 22

Poison Resist 7

Amplify Damage 7

Weaken 5

Terror 5

Decrepify 5

Dim Vision 5

Confuse 5

Attract 5

Teeth 5

Corpse Explosion 24

Raise Skeleton 24

Skeleton Mastery 24

Clay Golem 5

Blood Golem 5

Iron Golem 5

Fire Golem 5

Raise Skeletal Mage 5

Revive 5

Golem Mastery 5

Summon Resist 5

GEAR:

Pain Cry Burnt Wand (Rare--that's yellow, right?)

damage: 8-18

fast attack speed

2 to necro skill lvls

10% faster cast rate

adds 10-34 cold damage

knockback

50% damage to undead

Gemmed Full Plate Mail 'TalOrtRal'

defense 153

lightning resist 30%

fire resist 30%

poison resist 30%

Superior Minion Skull (with per topaz and perf diamond)

defense 155

chance to block 23%

adds 25-50 poison dmg over 4 sec

11% enhanced defense

cold resist 19%

lightning resist 59%

fire resist 19%

poison resist 19%

Skull Hand Demonhide Gloves (rare)

defense 48

5% chance to cast lvl 3 frost nova when struck

11 to attack rating

35% enhanced defense

cold resist 15%

half freeze duration

Infernostride Demonhide Boots (unique--or light brown text)

defense 104

5% chance to cast lvl 8 blaze when struck

20% faster run/walk

adds 12-33 fire damage

148% enhanced defense

15 defense

10% to max fire resist

fire resist 30%

59% extra gold from monsters

2 to light radius

Nagelring Ring (unique)

62 to attack rating

magic damage reduced by 3

attacker takes damage of 3

16% better chance of getting magic items

Eagle Gyre Ring (rare)

2 to energy

replenish life 8

cold resist 21%

lightning resist 3%

fire resist 21%

poison resist 3%

Summoner's Amulet

1 to necromancer skill lvls

MERC

"Razan," Act 2 Nightmare offensive "Might" merc (I think--whatever the guide recommended)

Lvl 70

Without gear: str 160, dex 127, damage 109-127, defense 921, resists 30, life 1242

With gear: damage 197-480, defense 1333, life 1310, fire resist 45, all else the same

MERC GEAR:

The Tannr Gorerod Pike (unique)

2h dmg: 25-115

very slow attack speed

84% enhanced damage

60 to attack rating

adds 23-54 fire dmg

30 to life

15 to max fire resist

fire resist 15%

3 to light radius

Rattlecage Gothic Plate (unique)

defense: 332

45 to attack rating

25% chance of crushing blow

hit causes monster to flee 40%

200 defense

Artisan's Death Mask of Balance (magic, socketed w/ two perfect diamonds and a perfect ruby)

defense: 80

10% faster hit recovery

200 to attack rating

38 to life



So that's all the information I can think to give you. I usually cast amp damage and decrepify and use corpse explosion, though of late there haven't been many corpses to explode. I'd love to know how I could more effectively respec (I have one at the moment) or what gear to look for (and where to look for it), either for me or poor Razan. I should add, lastly, that I'm not getting any gear that doesn't drop for me in nightmare.

Thanks for the help!|||First off to help the mercenary I'd give him some sort of leach and possibly a better damage weapon.

Looking for gear is not that difficult. Especially for yourself, just get a lot of plus skills. Since you are playing softcore and do not have to worry about dying as much. I'd get a head with some plus skills if you can. The wand is not bad, but your ultimate wand you want to find is +3 Raise Skeleton and +3 Skeleton Mastery, you can shop in normal Act I for this if you power shop.

Unless you are going max block and you do respec I'd go with a lot less dexterity and more life. If you are going for max block then ignore the suggestion.

P.S. Have you stopped by the Single player forum and gotten ATMA/GoMule, unlimited stash programs? Look in the stickies of the forum for more info.

http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=3

Hope these suggestions help. Save the respec til you need it though your skills are not the problem they appear in the correct places.|||I wouldn't go max block because with Homonculus, probably takes way too many Dex points. Better to just go with life.

You definitely need better merc gear. I'd go farm NM meph a lot, I'm sure he can drop some decent items for your merc. You can easily just "refresh" your map by changing difficulties constantly, till you get a nice map where Durance 3 is a couple steps away.

I believe NM meph can drop vipermagi, shaftstop, vamp gaze, homonc, arm of king leo, waterwalks, rockstopper, and some other pretty good gear. Gonna take a lot of runs, but you'll find enough stuff to get you to be able to live in hell.

The runeword Honor will be great for your merc in an exceptional polearm for the time being, with great damage and life leech. Eventually some elite polearm (unique) or maybe even rare/magic will be really nice.|||Another thing I learned the hard way is go slow so as your army doesn't get overwhelmed. And as stated above, life leech on your merc will help your merc alot, which will help raise your army.|||I recommend checking out the SP forums and using the Runeword mod for SP, then make Spirit ( tal+thul+ort+amn in a crystal/long sword) and an insight (ral tir tal sol) in exceptional or better polearm. Also your merc would love smoke (nef + lum) as an armor. You can too use it yourself. Run nm baal like crazy for some helm with life leech. IIRC tal rasha's helm can drop there.

More mana = more corpse explosion

Try splendor in some nice + skeleton skill head (eth + lum)|||First of all I have to commend you on your first post where you stated your problem clearly AND you gave good info on what you where using so we could actually help.

As some ppl think "halp im dying what to i do wrong" will get them any good awnsers.

Now for my thoughts (even tho most is mentioned allready):

1.Your merc needs some life leech probably the most important single stat for a merc.

2.As you advance levels my advice is to get more points into mages, this is a subject for eternal debate in the necro forum but personly i like mages as it spreads the army out more and leaves some meat shields near you when your skellies is meleeing mobs.

3. you'd like summon resist to get a bit higher atleast to 10-12 or something but then again i advice putting points in it as it should be coverd by +skills gear unless you allready are planning on a respec then summon resist might be a decent place to spend a few points while you wait for the respec.

4. Farm NM bosses for more gear and dont be afraid to carry resist charms untill you find better stuff to equip.

5. you should take a look at ATMA so you could save more stuff that could be usefull later on.

6. i usualy go vit over maxblock so when you respec i advice you do the same.|||Considering summoning necromancers have made it through Hell solo and completely naked, I think tactics need to be analyzed more than gear. Sure, gear can compensate for lack of skill to a certain extent, but a properly played necromancer shouldn't be dying over and over again.|||You should try using dim vision and terror more, so the baddies can't surround and hack away at you.

I see you're doing the summon route - all of my summoners walk (press the R key, if you don't know what I'm talking about) so my minions will always be surrounding me.

Do you like to get in on the action? You can try respec'ing to a summon/poison guy:

20 skeleton mastery

20 raise skeleton

20 poison nova

20 poison dagger/poison explosion (depending on whether you want to stab anything or be safe)

rest into prereqs + 1 pt skills

Or, you can start a new character like a sorc and get back to the necro later on when you feel like you can move on again (take a break).|||Thanks to everybody for the helpful suggestions. While I undoubtedly need to improve my character, and plan to implement your advice in doing so, I've found that a decent quick fix is just to quit the game and re-enter, redistributing the monsters and giving my skeleton army a chance at a better physical alignment against them. It also let me get through act 4 today without those gloam things, which were ripping me apart the first time I tried.

It feels a little cheap to have to reset the game to avoid certain monsters and such, but I'm going to focus on improvement after I get through act 5, unless I run into real trouble.

Thanks again.

P.S. Noodle, you're probably right. I am a new player after all :)|||I certainly didn't mean that as an insult, bjh, just an observation that tactics may be worth taking a look at. I've found that there are certain character types that are a better fit for my instictive gaming style than others. To be fair, the people around here who take naked characters through Hell are 1) pretty insane, and 2) VERY experienced and patient.

And many a player has reset a game to avoid gloams, myself included. I wish you the best of luck as you progress, and congratulate you on making it as far as you have.