I'm new and looking for advice with my Soothsayer

[Kesshi]

I'm very new to the game, and I think I may have made a few mistakes in my current build. I have a level 18 Soothsayer who is currently traveling just outside of Egypt. I'm finding that investing in the lich may have been a big mistake, as even on defensive he gets himself killed way too easy.

I see lots of builds, but they usually show how your character should look at level 50+ or that suggest items that come from a specific area of the game. I am a newbie and don't have access to a lot of those items, so I'm stuck with whatever is shiny that drop from the last monster I killed and I flat out don't know what's lurking around the next corner. But I keep watching my pets die at non-boss fights and it's frustrating.

What could I do to this charater to make my life easier? I'd have no problem paying for some respecing if that's what it would take.
Also, any advice on what my character's future should look like would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[ffreakk]

Well, im really not an expert or anything like that in non-fighter kinda chars.. But i ll giv it my best shot anw ..

As far as i know, wolves helps out more early-game than Lich does, and you can up Regrowth to heal them, so that they dont die too often.. Maul helps on the Offensive, and Survival Instinct helps on the Defensive.. 1 point Heart of Oak gives a decent HP bonus to you and ur Pet, and i s'pose the 10% total speed helps too..

Hope that helped .

[yerkyerk]

Well, soothsayers are most effective as petmancers.
It's kinda hard to give advice if we don't know the first thing about your current build.

If accesible, most skills deserve at least 1 point - they get the biggest bonus from the initial point.
You need Heart of Oak, Regrowth, Plague, DeathChill aura and perhaps 1 point in Vision of Death too. Preferably all with synergies, even if you can only 1point them.
The skills that are not very useful are: the whole Briar Ward Tree, Overgrowth (nymph skill), Arcane Blast (Lich skill), Enslave Spirit and Circle of Power.

If you want a strong Lich - I recommend maxing him out asap.
Else go for the wolves, personally, I'd try to make sure I've got a maxed out Lich at level 10-11, but if you like wolves better, I'd only put 1 point in Lich and max out Wolves. For Lich btw, you only have to max out Lich itself - the petskills it has are not very useful, perhaps you might want to consider investing 1 point in Wraith Shell to make it more survivable, but that should be it.
For Wolves, I'd put 1 point in Maul (max it out later in the game), 1 in Survival Instinct and max out both the wolves as well as Strength of the Pack.

You get 3 wolves at level 18, but you can only max out to 16, so you need +2 nature skills if you want to do it effectively. Btw, if you activate a mastery shrine and summon pets, your pets will keep the power of the levels you summoned them at, so be sure to resummon your pets once you find a mastery shrine (you'll also get to keep 3 wolves).
Also, hold on to any +skill items you get, they're probably the most powerful items in the game for any petclass.

Hope that helps you for now..

[CAP007]

Hi Kesshi, Soothsayer is a fantastic character, great for multiplayer and solo play. If you are gaming with a group then focus on the pets. If solo then balance the Pets and ternion attack. Put all attibute points in intellegence untill you max both mastries then drop the occasional point in dex as well. Basicly you want all the pets fighting out front on aggresive while you blast away from behind with Ternion.

[yerkyerk]

I am very much against using Ternion, but I guess that's a personal choice.

[Kesshi]

Thanks for the replies.

If you missed it, my character's stat distribution was in my first post:

Originally Posted by Kesshi

a level 18 Soothsayer

I thought this would give enough insight to see that I'm focusing on pets (11 into wolves, with a nymph, and a liche with not much else.) My apologies for assuming the build would tell you my goal.

My goal is to be a petmancer. Though I would have no problem deviating from that role if to make my time a bit easier while leveling up.

CAP007, you mentioned a "ternion attack." So far I have not been a fan of my melee (or ranged) offensive abilities. I feel far too vulnerable standing around and feel more comfortable with a stick-and-move type attack. I send my pets in to attack, then pop plague (maybe), and if something is coming for me or shooting ranged at me I run around a bit. Typically one of my pets will pick it up and I pop a heal (usually we're all in a big group) and heal virtually all of us back to full health. That is how most fights go, and to be honest, I enjoy it. As an ex-Diablo II player* I enjoy something that mixes it up more than stand-still-attack-get-hit-attack-get-hit-attack ad infinium.

Anyways, I'm looking for ways to continue my strike-and-move playstyle if possible.

*I had some awesome 1.08 and 1.09 characters, and a few handy 1.10 players as well, thank god for my 1.09 857% MF barbarian who could solo hell baal! Just a FYI that I'm not new to this gameplay, just this game.

[ffreakk]

Well, i say we drop the Nymph altogether and just take the Lich King.. Would be far better IMO.

[yerkyerk]

Heh, I missed that build
At least 1 point in Nymph is good - it's just cool to have, besides, I'm sure she does some damage.

Also, with getting +9skills in total, you'll be able to max all useful skills. Would even work with +8 or maybe even +7skills if you discard the crappier skills.

Your build seems good, but do get Deathchill aura. And RoT if you installed the community patch. I see you're going with the wolves - I think they're a bit weak and do to little damage, but they're ok enough to max first. Maxing them should be your first aim, and try getting them to level 18 to get 3 of them. After 1pointing all useful skills I'd go ahead and max the Lich, but there are more ways, perhaps it's more interesting to find out by yourself.

Eventually you should max Dark Covenant and its synergie too, but preferably when you can keep it up constantly in combination with Refresh (with no -%recharge equipment you need level 11-12 of Refresh, no higher, no lower).

[PUF-PAF]

Having been experimenting very much with soothsayer skills, i am afraid i have to disagree with some of you.
Mine is 55lvl at the end of epic and xmax mod
Sry, this post may get longer than i thought

So, for normal at the end of act3 you wil notice that your wolves are becoming weak and you will face some problems with typhon(especially if you face 3 of them What i did was remove the wolves and use the lich with maxed dark covenant+synergy and outsider. Just remember to take the shrine mastery to the left, and then summon the lich and the outsider

I suppose that by that time you will have some pet bonus gear - rings, staff and amulet. Also try to keep any items with + skills and -recharge
For act4 maxed dark covenant with liche and refresh can do a really good job - u can remove outsider and plague and put your points into maxing ternion and refresh - they do wonders with maxed dark covenant+synergy. For bosses of course outsider is a must, maxed HoO as well

act4 normal was the hardest so far. You can use wolves if you max them - they wont die if you play properly but they really lack the damage.

when you reach epic dont forget to buy new jewelry - pet bonuses are greater. My advice is to ignore the bonus pet defence. Try to shop a puppetmasters amulet or staff, or amulet of convocation. Well by early epic i managed to gather 53% recharge from green items and with maxed refresh you can keep outsider almost constatly on - and this is what you want) Problem with this is that it gets boring on epic cuz outsider smashes everything and all you do is refresh and recast him. So at act3 epic i rearranged my points only to wolves and the lich. I aso put aside my -recharge items and equipped +skills. I bought a yellow +2 to nature staff which i keep on offhand just for summons)
Also maxed plague with synergies starts to shine on epic axt3 because of more narrow passages and plague spreads very good. Of course, if you dont play on xmax mod it might not be that useful to you....not maxed may be
Nymph can be very good if you have attack speed bonus for pets. notice that with her second synergy she does similar elemental damage with the outsider, but strikes faster and from distance. Again - in act3 she shines with attack speed and arrow pass through enemies.

And last, a few words regarding ternion and deathchill. Great skills for sure, but i wont advise you to use them.
1. you wont do much damage with ternion, but you will attract lots of agro mobs, which is what you dont want
2. deathchill does exactly the same - you only need to walk around them and monsters start firing at you
3. Plague does everything deathchill does, only safer and with greater effect)

Remember that with a soothsayer you dont have powerfull AoE skills, so you need not attract many agro monster from which your pets cant save you
http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc.a...12-1-8-0-0-6-0
this is the build - remember to summon wolves and nymph with max + nature skills

Put points into int and dex just to match the greaters requirements - everything alse put bravely in health - you wont regret

damn it was really long, sorry if it gets boring

[yerkyerk]

Heh, I read it. I agree with not putting points in Ternion - to me it weakened my build as I started trying to do more myself, impairing my support skills for my pets.
Anyway, not putting points in Deathchill tree sounds like a bad idea to me; it's a really good skill that not only greatly weakens enemies' offensive powers - it'll also greatly decrease their defensive powers, so your pets will kill even faster. Yes, Plague can do that too, but you can use them together for extra effect.

As for the attribute points - it's fun to make it a strength based character - that allows you to equip a shield. But else I guess min req's and rest in health is ok too.