best pvm necro build (poor)

best pvm necro build (poor)

i need advice on how to build the most efficient pvm necro w/o godly items. As of now I plan on using gravespine and sigon shield.

All pieces of advice will be welcome! All sets and uniques apply.. just avoid suggesting the +2 necro skill, prism ammy, +14 str :crazyeyes:

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

I always had great success with necro pvm's as i dont like sorcs much and this was always the best way for me to kill lots of monsters on my own with practically no gear from an early start:

15 raise skeleton
10 skeleton mastery
4 amp dmg (mainly for radius)
10 clay golem
5 summon resist
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then i went for:
20 poisen nova
20 poisen dagger
rest into poisen explode

mainly because if you amp the monsters, the skeletons attack them and you can puff away to weaken them more.
Also, the poisen nova and clay golem is usefull to kill things to get your skeleton army up in the first place.
You could go for bone spear or spirit to kill things but you need a lot of points to get decent damage and tbh you would be a bone necro if you did that.
The beauty of the above stats is that if you use a +2 wand/dagger, a sigon shield or a tarnhelm is that you get a nice boost to your skeletons and poisen.

* oh just thought i would also add, that as most people dont seem to do the hellforge quest if you can persuade someone nice to go get you a hellforge hammer you can use that really early on for every character to kill things nice and quick to get yourself a nice little boost to about lvl 12 whereby you can throw the big clumsy thing away and have your own skill set to use - oh and i didnt mention gear on the above build as summon necros can make do with practically bugger all due to the fact that as soon as you have some skellies they kill everything for you and you can sit back and look like a little tactical commander kekeke

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

Another pvm necro build that is very easy to run completely untwinked is the skelemancer/fishiymancer build, it provides great protection early on and becomes very powerful in mid to late nm due to increasing CE radius:

max raise skelleton (max this before the mastery for more powerful skellies)
max skeleton mastery
1-pt teeth (prereq)
max corpse explosion (your main killing skill in late nm and hell)
1-pt each in all curses (you can choose not to get the AI curses in the left column but they can be helpful for survival)
1-pt each in clay golem, blood golem, iron golem golem, revive and summon resist
1+ (depending on preference) golem mastery, and raise skeletal mages

The rest of your stat points can be placed to your preference. If you are interested in keeping your golem alive longer, particularly if you eventually make an iron golem from an expensive item, you can pump the extra points into golem mastery and blood golem. If you want extra meat shields and a free source of prevent monster heal and slow you can pump points into mages. If you want some extra defense put a single point into Bone armor and then pump points into Bone Wall and/or bone prison. Or you can add points to some of your favorite curses to either increase their radius or extend their duration, depending on the curse. Another option as set forth above is to dump as many points as remain into either the poison skills or bone spear (especially if you go the bone armor route) in an attempt to get some killing skills of your own to get the first copse to start building your army.

There are several versions of this guide in the stickies on the necromancer forum and it is discussed pretty regularly. Once you do get going you will find that the skellies keep you very safe through at least nm and you can spend your time looking for gear behind the front lines. In classic this build is a little less overpowered than it is in LOD especially since you cannot keep your act 2 merc from act to act but the synergies are still there and finding or buying a = necromancer skills wand and gambling for a skills ammy are not to difficult..

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

id have to disagree with you on the poison part of the build, for end game reasons thats is. poison will never ever do as much dmg as corpse explosion/ amp will do in cs. thats cool if it works but, ive made pure poison nova necs before and they dont kill anything past act2 hell[3k+ nova + high lvl lower res with godly gear, sojsx2, gg wand, ammy etc], and by the way ive gotten the most dmg of any char in classic ive ever seen, from poison explosion with max synergies+ skills, like 30,000 dmg over time 12-15 seconds lol, never really used tho, ce is better,the only thing that nec did good was pvp actually, owned most bvbs with lower/decrep and then 2 novas. so i dont think a split summoner with clay golem/poison is as effective as corpse explosion/ summoner, not saying it cant work, but wont work as wellin hell cs.
yah, hellforge is gg for lvling without chant. back in the day thats how we all used to roll in hc,before chant synergies, 5-8ppl with hellforges can hit lvl 15-20 by act 2[ ina good party].

Tim, if you are looking for a good pvm build there are some ce/summmoner builds in the threads, aslo poison summoner, bone nec's etc.

but id have to agree with eagle and say summoner is the safest. u wont alwys be welcome because of the lag summoners create, but its a safe solo build. a good summoner can clear hell cs alone, with minimal resists. skeletons are better imo than mages, because skeles will run and atttack ppl, a better meat shield than mages, who will stay ranged and not tank as well for you. revives arent a bad idea as well. fire golem is a good tank in hell cs, iron golems return dmg has been nerfed this patch[ amp+iron maiden + ce used to clear hell cs very easily] so i dont recommend it.this patch i tried an old build, a lvl 7x max iron golem/amp/ ce and he couldnt even kill hellcows anymore, or create corpses before gloem dying zzzz], clay golem is good for the slow but, not as good a tank for cs, your end game lvling area. bone necros are good imo,pvp or pvm, the can wall and prison anything, and spirit is un-stackable and un blockable. synergies for spirit [spear,bwall,bprison] are good for pvm and creating corpses, and lvl 1 bone armor is sufficient for a good physical barrier [synergies for armor inlcude wall/prison, so by beefing up spirit, u also beef up bone armor]. a low lvl ce with +skills is sufficient for clearing baddies around your walls once u get a few corpses made. ce is like the most powerful skill in the game[like static], every necro should have it hotkeyed with amp as backup skill imo lol. if you have ever seen a max ce/ high lvl amp-decrep necro clear cows/cs u will understand what i mean. just some info for you, Tim. try the searching the nec builds, or i can figure one up for you if u prefer bone/poison/summoner. ive made all but summoner this patch, so i can try and help.

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

Can the necro actually kill something in act4? Ive never made my own necro in classic, byt I had a level 60 necro in LOD (basically +8 skills) and he wasnt too good..

If I were you Id probably go max + skills to have the highest skeleton damage, but this way you would have no MF.. Anyway, can the poison nova actually kill something? Bone spirits are sloow PvM.

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

its hard to kill with pnova, even with high lvl lower res in hell. it can own all of nm in 1-2 nova without lower on tho. so its a nm cleaner basically. but a nova dueler is gg for bvb, and actually kills hamemrdins gg, just pound nova ll over it has larger radius then hammers and they will get hit by it, and it hurts like hell with max lower res on.its prolbably the best clag pally killer ive ever used last , even better than other pallies or barbs , honestly u dont have to aim it just keep shooting... ima have to remake that sucka...
ya fledge completely viable in hell duels even kills sorcies and zonz, ppl totally negate poison.... its usualy in the red anyhow.. ima remake for bvb killer and pally killer omg.. i havent seen one on west sc either, its amazing how some good builds are just not used. like smiters for fc zonz, this nova works well.. make one fledge just stop lvling lower at like 50 or so %, the diminishing returns are a pain.. just means ua re done faster... rant over.

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

So ive decided on summoner / CE ... but what curse should I use... I am very fond of mages so should i use lower resist? Or is amp the way to go? Is there a way to do survive in hell w/o gg and no summon? Im not into pvp at all so....

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

search the stickies at the top of the forum, the scroll down to the necro build guides. look there for ce/summoner gude by akukami. heck, read the other ones for more info. ive read them all , it only helps.

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

Amp tends to be the primary one I use with Decrepify for bosses and Dim Vision for ranged attackers (damn gloams/souls hurt:scared Lower Resist can work well with mages if you go that route especially for unbreakable physical immunes. The real benefit to both Amp and to a lesser extent Decrepify is that it helps both your minion damage as well as your CE damage (it is 50% physical damage after all). For a long time, on my summoner I ran with just Amp and Decrepify (+ prerequisites), it was not until Hell that I ran into my first unbreakable physical imune and really wished for mages and Lower Resist. The same can be said for Dim Vision (or the other AI curses if you prefer) as the danger from ranged attackers really does not get too terribly bad until you reach hell with lightning enchanted Archers and more importantly lightning casters (ie Gloams etc.) However, a lot of hardcore necros swear by maxed Dim Vision as you can blind several screens worth of monsters with a single cast due to the incredible radius at high levels.

 

Even if you get the best possible necro PvM build, you may very well do crappy with it. That's my experience with many people, esp the ones who just want to cast a minion now and then and maybe keep their finger depressed on bone spirits, and thats about as much work as they want to do.

I very frequently play with teams of 2-4 necros who have a rough time. They might be around lvl 70-80 and almost always use either bone spirits or spears. Either is slow killing a mob, although spears are better if they are crowded or lined up. Got 15-20 monsters all over the screen? Then, nothing is faster for a necro than LR curse followed by about 30 seconds of pnova's. And thats if no one else can kill. Then start the CE cascade. Not true that Pnova can't kill past act2 hell ... some ppl just cant figure out the sequence of buttons you have to push. In addition to sequence, there is timing. It's like playing on the piano. You can either play the right notes, with the right spacing between notes, or u can "Duhh, take that<Dmajor!>, and that<DMajor!>, and here's some more <Dmajor!> <DMajor!> <DMajor!>, damn, im good...heh"

Clay golem as advised above is my advice too. A few revives last longer than skellies. A good level of CE, but not need to max it. Some amp and some lower resist and some decrep, the +skills take care of each.

You can't beat a 'lousy' +2 necro ammy with at least some resists. Magical +2 is about 400K gold. Then you can forget the sigon shield and get a 3 diamond tower or gothic shield for resists. Rings with any sort of mana and a resist are quite nice. Even a low dual resists on belt and boots is good. Wormskull, it's cheap too. Magefists/frosties are a bit harder to come by, but worth it. Armor - use anything with good resists and other mods thats low str req.

The build i use is good alone, in a variety of parties. But there isn't any good necro build for fast cs games. All a necro does in them is run, maybe he can cast decrep on mobs to stay alive. Maybe a CE now and then. Too many necro's are consumed by pvp and build their bones to outrageous levels, and still are a slow kill and have NO curses, NO minions, and NO CE, so they suck anyways...

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

Okay so please comment on my plans:

20 CE
20 Skel Mast
20 Revive

What golem should I use?
What curse should I use? i've decided against raising skeleton / mages.
I am thinking about maxing bone armor.. is it worth it?
Should I even put points into bone spear or spirit?

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

i started a new poison nec yesterday, got him to lvl 28. so far ive got :
umes/gs,wall of eyeless,magefists,wormskull,twitch,using ang ammy +ring for life,fcr rings on standby, 30 frw 3 res 30+ boots,
yeah pnova necs can be effective into hell abit but, trying to do act2 with all the poison immunes is a pain*, hell anywhere poison immunes are basically owns novanec[venom lords ^^?hell/nm?] so
im basically maing him for pvp, but well see how he ends up.my old one worked quite well vs barbs/pallies. if this buld is successful i will post a guide for critique and advice. i think i do have the correct order of operations regarding curses/attacks in succession, without the right ones necros are toast mostly, they are very fragile without high dmg bone armor absorb, or high life walls and prisons. all of which dont apply to the build im thinkin, hehe.
we have alot of the same ideas, about how nec works fearless, reading ur post is like talking to myself for the most part, i agree with alot you've said, and appreciate it.
well, i was kinda thinkin maybe lvl 1 summon skele/mage up to revive, to get a bit of meat shield[wont work very well at lvl 1 but revives might last a minlol]. and yes ill be using a grip of curses amp/decrep/lower/terror etc. and i do have a lvl 1 claygolem/mast[just for that initial slow]. the +skills will give me a weak little gang, but prolly wont add them until later. lower res has bad diminishing returns atfer lvl 10-12, so i was thinkin of getting some summons with extra points stated above.. still not sure. but it really is hard to kill anything in hell cs in 8 player game with nova/lower.even with good gear, its pretty difficult[with nova at least, ce/amp/decrep is diff story tho]. i do agree, a necro that doesnt utilize a few curses is largely wasting the talents of that type of char, who doesnt love decrep/lower res/amp, gogo life tap for cs ww barbs , back in the day......and ce is the most powerful skill in the game, imo, any necro who doesnt use it when they can is silly...

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

barty,

if u don't know:

FCR does NOT help a poison (PN=poison nova) necro.

your fast pn's only reset the poison timer and it does actually less damage when u do so. the pn's do NOT stack.

though:

if u are doing pvp than FCR can be good for bone prisons or bone walls or bone spear or bone spirit etc..
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crucial,

1. u really don't need other skills other than summons. your summons will keep u the safest (and be able to take u from norm act 1 to hell act 4 diablo)(except for act bosses. they get special bonuses against your summons) of any build in pvm.

2. if and since u said u dont wanna use the skel warrior and skel mage skills that's fine either way if u do or don't.

3. i personally don't feel a need for the 20 ce. though many like it. for me, i've found once i get 1 corpse dead and i ce it than i'll have another corpse to ce and on and on. so i never had the need for 20 ce. but its up to u. doesnt matter either way.

4a. u dont really need curses either. more points ONLY improve its range and duration. also most of the curses u might want u can have on your wand.

4b. exception: LR (lower resist curse). if u wanna go the elemental route than u wanna max LR and choose revives that do good elem damage and/or use skel mages.

4c. basically u need to decide if your going to do phys damage or elem damage path with your summon army. if u jsut do phys than u just need 1 pt amp and/or 1 pt decripify, both of which u can get from wand, and u have no need for skel mages. also try to choose revives that do good phys damage. if u choose to do elem damage than u need 20 pts into LR. and u want skel mages. also try to revive good elem damage monsters.

5. CE is enhanced by amp (and maybe decrepify, but no reason to use decrep). so ALWAYS amp before u ce for much more damage.

6. fire golem's death fire splash damage does BOTH fire and phys damage. so both amp and LR enchance it. depends what u want.

7. the golems wont be too helpful too u unless u put pts into them and its still not helpful...1 golem...at best its a tank for u like the valkyrie for an bowazon though the valkyrie is much more powerful.

8. what i WOULD recommend is some pts into summon resist. how many u wanna do is up to u. but it helps keep them alive much longer. more useful for skel warriors and mages than revives though.

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

i know dude the reas on for mages is: im using lvl one CE with +skills to get by till nova does dmg... will be a while..
adds +1 to ce, its a fire skill..mana regen...20 fcr
reason for eyeless:
when u ce in cows or cs u get 5 mana per kill, helping with the massive amount of mana it takes to use, with a small radius of ce u have to cast more, 20 fcr
So, im hip to all that, and btw fcr is gg with corpse explosion...yah i wil use different gear to pvp with hege, thats just to start out making cows/leveling easier and such ..
@tim: i would recommned looking up the build guides for the ce/ summoner.
your are going to want a mmid/high amp lvl 12 or so with no +skill gear for a good radius, lvl 20 ce is like 10-12 yards, because u want amp to cover your ce radius to do massive dmg, use a eyeless for the +mana per kill, that adds up. in cows u can never have to pot if you have a big ce radius and kill 30 cows in 3 blasts, u get about the amount of mana u spend.
if u are summoning skeles, ull want mastery. reg skeles w no mast is just too weak. its all or nothing splitting up the build greatly reduces effective ness unless split in beneficail ways. 20 summonskel 20 summon mastery 20 revives [ good meat shield, good killin] mid lvl amp mid lvl ce 10/10 or 15/15 cleans up as soon as u get 1 corpse from your baddies. theres a build right there.
bone armor isnt that good for a summoner , they shouldnt really need it iirc, maybe 1 point +skills be enough. unless u are a boner, having 1 point to bone armoras a pre-req, then maxing wall/prison will give u max synergies and 500+ absorb with a lvl 1 bone armor... amp/decrep/lower res/terror/confuse can be used very effectively for necro, dont forget attract as well. ive seen necros use nothing but curses, to some effectiveness in parties. beleive thats called a mojomancer, nothing but curses. lol. that dude was crazzzzzy. hard to lvl, beleived his main killer was ce btw. attract, iron maiden the rest, they die amp then ce. easy. dont always work now since im got nerfed this patch.

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

I saw a clip of a necro completely handling diablo in hell on youtube... he revived the big gorilla looking guys with clubs and they just destroyed diablo... i couldnt tell what curse, but I remember hearing its because those guys have like 50% crushing blow.

if you know what video im talking about.. is that possible? I mean diablo died in about 45 seconds or so

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

You hit on the key of that video is that the guy was using Urdar Revives which have a crushing blow attack. On bosses in particularly Big D I always use Decrepify instead of Amp at least to start the fight because of the extra slow.

Also there was something earlier in the thread where someone was talking about the slow effect from gumby being a radius effect. That is not entirely true, the truth is Gumby's slow effect can apply in two ways 1) whenever he hits someone or something, or 2) whenever someone or something hits him. Because he is such a magnet for monsters, he quite often gets surrounded and when he does he will be hit by several monsters all of whom will be slowed so it may appear that his slow has an area of effect but it is really the vast number of monsters landing mele hits on him.

If you decide to go with exclusively Revives instead of Skellies you may have a little difficulty in maintaining the army together because in addition to their shorter life span they have one other big problem, they do not teleport to you like skellies if you get to far ahead. The fix for that in LOD is Enigma or a teleport ammy. I cannot remember if Teleport is even available on an ammy in classic but if not you may find yourself going through TP scrolls like tp in order to constantly regather the revives.

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

the vast difference bewtween lvl 20 ce +skillgear [making it up to 25 easy], compared to lvl 1 ce +skills is about like tossing hand grenades instead of 500lb bombs.Why would you not take advantage of the MOST POWERFUL SKILL IN THE GAME???!![if your build is not bone/ pure poison etc, your missing out with low lvl ce.....] it can be used as stated before at low lvls, but with summons a high lvl ce will protect your minions better than anything you can do... even raising the mastery of summons or resists.. as soon as one dies they are all dead..
yes, ce is enhanced by amp ONLY because CE = 1/2 PHYSICAL dmg, 1/2 FIRE DMG,
guess what? lower resists ALSO enhances CE by lowering fire resists.....
Decrepify adds 50% physical ED like 1/2 amp + 1/2 slow... So.. decrep ALSO adds to ce dmg, but adds slow[adds 1/2 the dmg of amp, so amp is the most help if u dont want slow]. so if u are using a lvl 1 CE+SKILLS [hopefully not] then u can decrep them and keep them from running away from corpses as fast, making smaller radius more effective... so they are all very, very, usefull , not just amp.....
on the curses topic, any GOOD necro will utilize any curse he can, anytime he can, throwing terror/dimvision/attract/confuse etc. on groups to bypass them completey in cs, or anywhere,decreping for parties in cs, amping while ce'ng, using lower res for sor/pal/zon. you will never get those all those from 1 wand, so to amke a good nec u need curses. necros are a party friendly class, such as pallies, and over the years ive seen many gg nec's with crazy builds and they only work because they CURSE[MOJOMANCER??]. so, saying that necros dont need curses[other than bone] is like saying you dont need legs to walk.sure boners dont use curses mostly, thats their build.any summoner needs at least mid lvl amp mid lvl ce to augment their killing speed. btw, my lvl 1 clay golem is for when i NVBVB or NVP, to get that added slow, i dont want a tank, or any thing like that, i want a barrel of tar to throw in your path on the way to me... even if it lasts 1 hit.. thats all i need with decrep, its crazy slow..

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

eh, max ce is indeed powerful.

jsut saying that *I* usually dont find i really need it and can use the skill pts else where. i still kill quite fast, i just end up casting ce more instead of fewer times, which is hardly a concern.

the choice is up to that person. max ce or dont (i jsut gave my opinon on it)
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i usually dont waste pts into golems when im doing a summoner. i just use a lvl 1 (+skill gear) of whatever golem i want/need.

i never have tried a pure golem user..i wanna try it. at least to see how weak it is
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i thought amp gives u 100% phys (no fire damage i thought). decrepify gives 50% phys and slow. i thought it was the fire golem death splash that gives the 50% phys and 50% fire damage.

if this is incorrect or if i happen to be right let me know cuz now i'm not sure anymore.

 

Why do u feel the need to adopt a skill and max it crazy? Isn't a skill useful at a nice level, so u have enough saved skill points left over to pick up another good skill? If you want a nice level of protection with minions, and some nice curses, and nice CE ... then you have to start thinking about your main attack to start making the corpses. If you go hog wild maxing 3-4 skills, then you short yourself on a main attack.

A poor necro won't have many +skills, but should have some. So a lvl 10 CE should be a lvl 15 CE with gear. And you will do well with that! You are not required to spend skill points as soon as you get them, or max a skill to death. If you choose such high lvls in Revive and SkelMast, then it seems your main attack is Revives, but someone else will have to make the corpses you will need in the first place, cuz you won't be able to do it yourself. Will you be playing in a party?

Also, someone said to max bone armor, and someone else said it wasn't necessary. If you're going to raise lots of Revives, bone armor is ok at a low level. Besides, the way the synergy works, you look at another bone skill on that subtree and put points into it and get better armor .... it's weird, but thats how they made it.

It's worth saying over and over again, people who spend skills instantly and max a skill they havent tested like crazy are in for a big disappointment...

 

Re: best pvm necro build (poor)

Well I dont want my necro to be a jack of all trades / master of none... like a tweener.. think Darius Miles. Also, how does poor gear equal +5 skills... in that case I guess I am really poor.. so every point counts in my case and i need a clear path