Raise Skeletal Mage

Cast on the corpse of a slain monster, this raises a skeleton mage that fights for you.

Raise Skeletal Mage is a level 12 Necromancer spell (Summoning tree, requires Raise Skeleton; it unlocks Revive). Cast on a corpse, it raises a necromage pet that stands back and fires an elemental missile (sumskill1 "NecromageMissile"), fire, lightning, cold or poison, chosen at random when the mage rises. The count follows the same rule as Raise Skeleton, 1 at level 1, 8 at level 20 and 12 at level 30, and the mage's life grows +10% a level from level 4. What the mage actually shoots is set by its missile level, which is Skeleton Mastery's level plus half the skill's level past 2. Mana is 8 at level 1 and 27 at level 20.

The numbers

• Skeletal Mages is petmax (lvl < 4) ? lvl : (2 + lvl/3): one a level to 3, then one more for every three levels, rounded down. 5 at level 9, 8 at level 18 through 20, 12 at level 30.
• Life is calc1, "HP % Modifier": Param2 10 ("HP % per level") times the level minus 3, nothing below level 4: +10% at level 4, +170% at level 20, +270% at level 30. The Basin's older page has 7% a level; the table's 10 is the current game. The tooltip pairs it with Skeleton Mastery's flat life (passivecalc1, Skeleton Mastery level × 8), applied before the percentage, and the base is the mage's own, which the Basin gives as 61 in Normal, 88 in Nightmare and 123 in Hell. The Basin warns the in-game tooltip leaves the +% life out entirely.
• Defense is Param5 10 ("Armor per level") times the skill's level and Skeleton Mastery's level added together (aurastatcalc1); the table above shows it with the mastery at 0, 10 at level 1 and 200 at level 20, and each level of the mastery adds 10. The Basin adds a base of 24, 26 and 28 by difficulty plus the monster level.
• Missile level is sumsk1calc max(Skeleton Mastery level + ((lvl < 4) ? 0 : (lvl − 2) ÷ 2), 1): nothing from the skill below level 4, then half a level per level, so 9 at level 20 and 14 at level 30 from the skill alone, plus the whole of Skeleton Mastery's level. At Raise Skeletal Mage 20 and Skeleton Mastery 20 the missile is level 29.
• Mana is 7 + the level (mana 8, lvlmana 1): 8 at level 1, 27 at level 20, 37 at level 30.

Every line reads lvl, including the Skeleton Mastery term, so +skills from items count in full everywhere.

How it works

Raise Skeletal Mage needs a corpse and rolls nothing itself; the mage is a skeletonmage pet that fires its missile from range. The Basin's rules:

• The element is chosen at random when the mage is raised; unsummon the ones you do not want and raise again.
• The missile's damage is read against the target's resistance to that element (Dealing Elemental Damage, Resistances and Immunities); a mage of the wrong element does nothing to an immune. In Resurrected the caster's Monster Fire Immunity is Sundered, Monster Lightning Immunity is Sundered, Monster Cold Immunity is Sundered and Monster Poison Immunity is Sundered are applied to the mages' missiles (passivecalc2–5).
• The level used in chance to hit and in defense is the caster's level at casting; stats are set at the point of casting, but the number of mages follows the current skill level, so a weapon swap can lose mages.
• Summon Resist applies. Drain effectiveness is 0% and chill effectiveness −50.
• Skeleton Mastery's +life is applied before the skill's +% life; Battle Orders and Oak Sage are applied after both.

The missile's damage by missile level is in the Basin's tables; the current game's missile table is not in the repo's bank. At missile level 9 (skill 20, no mastery) the Basin gives fire 19–23, lightning 9–33, cold 10–13 with a 9-second chill, and a poison bit rate of 15 over 100 seconds. At missile level 29 (skill 20, mastery 20): fire 121–125, lightning 29–196, cold 71–74 over 29 seconds, poison bit rate 97 over 300 seconds. The cold length is the missile level in seconds and the poison length 10 + 10 × missile level seconds.

Twenty points in the skill move the missile only nine and a half levels; twenty points in Skeleton Mastery move it twenty. The mages' damage lives in the mastery, the skill buys bodies and life.

Synergies and +skills

No synergy lines: Raise Skeletal Mage has no dsc3 synergy and feeds none. Skeleton Mastery is read at full level by the mage's life, defense and missile level, so +skills to either skill count. The Basin lists Arm of King Leoric at +2 and the +1–3 affix on wands and shrunken heads of item level 12 and above.

Against players

The Necromancer casts nothing on a player with this skill. The mages' missiles on a player are elemental hits cut to 17% by the player-versus-player rule and then read against the player's resistance; see Player versus Player.

Build notes

• Level 20 is eight mages at +170% life and a level 9 missile for 27 mana a raise; the same eight with Skeleton Mastery 20 fire a level 29 missile for the same mana.
• The count is the same curve as Raise Skeleton, so the two armies grow together; a +skill is worth exactly a hard point on every line.
• Re-raise after a gear change, and cull the elements the area is immune to: the stats and the element are fixed when the corpse rises.