Fishymancer vs. Sorc vs. Hammerdin

Right now I've been using a fishymancer for my MF runs.

Current gear:

Shako (ptopaz)

Smoke runeword (currently looking for some socketable armor to stuff flawless topazes in)

Homonc (pdiamond)

Ali baba sword (spirit sword for summoning)

arachs (impulse buy...pul+um)

waterwalks

bloodfists (alternate with magefists)

rare ammy (resists, life, +1 necro)

ravenfrost

rare ring (life, mana, resists)

Merc

Eth CV Insight

Duriel's Shell

Vamp gaze

The nice things of my fishy?

-Surviving (I never die lol). Even when I ditch my smoke runeword for a topazed armor, I'll probably be able to gather up enough resists and keep surviving

-corpse explosion clears out crowds super super fast

-no worries about immunities

Bad?

-Running -__- I usually only run mephy/pindle/eldritch/pits because it takes too long to do stuff anywhere else

-slow boss kills -__- Even when I found that snazzy eth 4os CV, it still takes a good minute or two to kill mephy, and baal can seriously be hell to kill.

So my fishy obviously has some good MF, good survivability. But he is slow to kill shiz.

I'm considering making a hammerdin. I can definitely use a lot of my current necro gear and get some more hammerdin gear as well.

Hammerdin would probably improve on:

-killing speed for bosses

-running (vigor)

but may be worse on

-clearing stuff (hammers vs. CE)

-survivability?....maybe

Again, he still needs to run around though.

So maybe I should make a sorc.

Issues are that a lot less of my gear would work for a sorc IMO, and she doesn't survive well at all. Teleport is huge though, she could actually run countess/andy, find and kill meph faster. Still, idk if she can kill baal/diablo.

Any recommendations on what to do? I feel like making a sorc will get the best results, but maybe I should stick with my fishy?

I'm basically trying to save up for an engima. Once I get enigma, fishy/hammerdin will definitely be the best options.|||The problem with eth CV insight is that it's a slow weapon which has no CB and has low ED. I would use Obedience in an eth CA or Thresher which gives 370 ed and 40%Crushing blow.

And a better armor for your merc would be duress which also adds CB.

You havn't mentioned how many skellies you got- buffing them up abit will hasten runs and boss killing aswell. Clay Golem is great for slowing down act bosses u almost have no need for decrepify, only for a few clay golem hits at act bosses.

My fishymancer can kill hell Diablo under 30secs, Baal in1min(usually), havn't run Mephisto in ages, i still need that Enigma .

Hammerdin's gear will be much more expensive and as u mentioned the survivability could become an issue. On the other hand hammer dmg is awesome, which helps you to do runs with 4-5 or even more ppl in game, therefore increasing the chances of dropping more items(runes :)) , necro's CE will lose effectivness in higher players limits that's one of the biggest pros for Hammerdin and a biggest con for a Fishymancer.

A Sorc is always nice, it just depends where you like to mf, i think a Blizz sorceress is the most economical build when starting out.

She can do AT, Pindle, Mephi, Andy( i thiink) these are pretty good places for finding early ladder wealth.

A Fishymancer is just a good all round MF'er who doesn't need expensive gear, but with enigma he really starts to step on the toes of sorceresses and hammerdins aswell. Personally i prefer Fishy. Hammerdins are for lamers who like the most overused build in the game and who of us hasn't played a sorceress who MF's .|||I have 12 skellies, level 30 or so Raise Skeleton/Skeleton Mastery.

I probably should get crushing blow. I love insight for the infinite CE though, and later with engima, the infinite tele. I suppose I would have to just use Duress, maybe with guillames. Leech then becomes an issue but I could always throw a life tap out too. Meph drops really quick actually. i'll probably try chaos runs again, but last time I did it my merc died a couple times.

I suppose if I had to, I'd make a sorc. Will start looking for gear while I make stuff I guess.

Or I could just save up for an enigma. I think I'm getting closer in terms of runes...|||I would also max bone spear(helps abit with bosses and strong stone skin monsters) and put 1 point in every synergy of the bone armor(don't max bone armor), rest into bone spirit.

The only curses that i use besides amp are: Attract(for ranged attackers), decrepify and confuse(these may come handy, when u get stormed, by some random mob).

I dont really need the Dim Vision anymore-mb ocassionaly at WSK, but i don't run that place any longer.|||Update: A few very nice finds, rune flipping, I am a proud owner of an enigma mage plate

Damn it's nice being able to run everything fast. I managed to find resists in some rings/gloves/charms, and it feels good to blitz everywhere. I think I'll stick with my fishy, as CE reallyl clears out CS/Pits/WK, and kills mephy fast, Diablo fast enough. Baal still takes forever though. I do have a HoZ sitting around, and with arachs/enigma/shako I could make a hammerdin I guess, but maybe not yet.

I only have 1 respec left (tried out explosiomencer, bit eh). Idk about maxing bone spear since I feel like the damage is still going to be pretty weak without the synergies. Though I guess there really isn't much else to put points into.|||Well congratz, i'm slowly working towards my eni aswell about halfway there.

As for your merc's helm Andy Face is the top choice- LL STR bonus IAS, can't get much better than that, socket with somethin decent, either an ed or ias jool and voila.

Btw how is the survival while porting around, you don't feel the temptation to go for max block?|||A summon necro's mana consumption isn't so high that it can't be solved with potions, so if you mainly make boss kills, you could equip your merc with an eth, upgraded Kelpie Snare, with an Amn rune. Crushing blow would be useful on your merc as well, e.g. from Guillaume's. Good mods on armor are res, IAS, fhr and %def. Griswold's with IAS jewels, Treachery or (if you want to spend that much) Fortitude or CoH come so my mind.

You can also get CB from revived Urdars and the like (found in the River of Flame and Durance 2, for example).

However, act boss runs are a waste of time if your character cannot teleport. Better do them with a sorc, she reaches Meph and Andy in 10 seconds - 1 minute (depends on dungeon layout) and even with less than perfect gear (let's say Tal's set+Spirit+Magefists, but no skillers or torch), a meteorb sorc needs a dozen meteors to kill Meph and 8 fireballs for Andy.

An alternative would be Obedience with Andy's visage (+Ral rune... fire is one of the typical merc killing effects) and one of the armors mentioned above. You just need 1-3 corpses, to be blown up with corpse explosion. Infinity might be nice as well (but expensive), its aura increases fire damage of CE and it helps your minions to hit the enemies.|||I would say diablo is still worth running because CS is a lvl 85 area, where every item can drop and it's full of lots of monsters and bosspacks. The only thing that sucks, is gettin through the narrow spaces, before the entrance to CS.



Mephisto and Andy a waste of time without tele. I guess you can say the same for Baal, even though WSK and throne of destruction are lvl 85 area's they don't spawn nearly enough monsters to be worth running without tele, plus PI Hell temptresses will slow you down cosiderably. And there are much better builds for running and killing Baal effectively IMO.|||Right now my MF run is pindle, eldritch/shenk, pits, countess, andy, meph, diablo/CS with my engima. Killing is quick, and both meph and diablo fall nice and quick.

Baal takes a whileee though so I don't really run him. Is it worth swapping my eth CV Insight for an obedience or something to run baal?|||I would swap Insight for obedince any day becasue of the CB. If u miss the mana from insight, u can use silkweave boots or frostburn to help u spam CE.

As for the best merc polearm for skelliemacer as krischan already pointed out is infinity, gl finding the runes though.