Bone Necro Questions

[JoeBruce]

I'm working a Bone Necromancer through nightmare at the moment (just entered A4); I've skimmed through most of the pat/guardian threads, but have a few questions for anyone that might know the info.

I was always under the impression that Lower Resist also worked for magic resistance, but I am wrong about this? None of the threads I looked at used or mentioned lower resist as a skill.

Most folks (except Vang's awesome Blood Golem/Life Tap bonemancer) used 1 pt Clay Golem/Mastery/Summon Resist, and said the golem did fine in hell. At /p8 in mid-nightmare he vaporizes pretty quick. I don't have a lot of +skills, so that's a big difference, and maybe at /p1 hell it won't be so rough for him. I could also do better with crowd control. Any ideas about golem survivability?

I went with an A5 merc for bonus points (and I was tired of the Desert Merc standing around not helping), plus I had a cool ethereal Legend Sword in which I've made the Crescent Moon runeword for him. I also found a sweet Necro head with +3 bone spear, +1 bone spirit and +3 revive, so I can summon other meat shields.

I've upped his strength to 60 and dumped the rest in vitality; debating if I want to get him any block, or maybe even commit heresy and get him some extra energy. It's a HC character, so vitality is always tempting, but necros have such great crowd control.

At this point (cLvl 64) I have one in every curse, one in clay golem and supports, max spear and spirit, and pumping bone prison. A respec may be in his future. Lots of room for customization in this type of build, as Bone Spear gets very strong even without all of its synergies.

Please avoid making gear suggestions; he's twinked about as much as I can make him at this stage (HC wealth is as limited as my play time), and any upgrades will most likely be found during play-through. I'm interested in stat/skill distribution and tactics.

 

[Rawness]

Lower resistance doesnt work with Magic, no, so respecing that into something else is always a good choice. What you want is deciphrify or whatever its name is, and since you are in HC dim vision should help with ranged characters since it makes them blind. Shop a good 3 pb wand from Drognan and make a white for the White runeword and you got 8 bone spear which is nice, dol io are fairly easy to come by, and the ral/thul/pamy is also fairly cheap way to get a 2os wand. Also remember that a splendor runeword can be done in a white necro shield, so making one into a 1+ revive will get you 10 fcr, 1+ skill and some mf.

If you are contemplating spending energy, you might as well accept the cookie cutter approach of insight, meditation aura for the mana regeneration, paired with a prayer merc for the extra life regen. You could also use a holy freeze aura merc, for the crowd control & extra survivability to your clay monster. Or you could stick to the act 5 guy, I guess. 1+ clay golem without support of either skill + in p8 will almost always evaporate, not much you can do.

You already got revives. You can always use a temp something wtih teleport charges to keep em with you, or use the teleport scrolls to go in and out to keep em with you.

 

[japanzaman]

If you are looking for a better meat shield, then Revive is probably the better 1 point wonder option. They won't be able to keep up with you, but if you take it slow 1 can pretty much absorb the abuse from an entire pack of enemies.

 

[RobbyD]

To clarify Rawness' point, you can only get a non-magic wand from NORMAL Drognan, but it can get +3 Bone Spear. I agree with japanzaman - revives give you crowd control.

They changed LR from impacting Magic in 1.10.

 

[JoeBruce]

I've got the wand and the revives.

Thanks, RobbyD; I had suspected this was changed in a patch, because I could have sworn that LR included magic resistance at some point in the past. Needed confirmation I'm not crazy

 

[NoisemakerArrow]

"since you are in HC lower resistance should help with ranged characters since it makes them blind"

That's Dim Vision.

 

[helvete]

Clay golem HP scales with difficulty, so I'm not surprised if he survives better in hell than in NM, provided same players setting. The cube weapon socket recipe is ral AMN pame, btw.

Reason most people go with a2 merc is insight, which makes spamming bone spells more convenient. CE/amp is the real killer, since bone spells are fairly weak after 1.11 fixed the charges bug.

 

[Zenigma]

I have a lot of experience playing bone necros, and it was my first SP patriarch. I did it untwinked, and without the runeword mod. I also used an act 5 merc for style points. So I hopefully have an idea of what I'm talking about...
I put every point I had into vitality. All the strength I needed I got from charms I found along the way. If I needed more mana, I chugged potions. I had two slots of my belt dedicated to mana potions, one for health pots, one for full juvs. And that was all fine.
If you were to respec, I would suggest putting nothing into bone spirit until bone spear, wall, and prison are maxed. Bone spear is way better in pvm than bone spirit is (it pierces and travels faster and is cheaper). The others increase your bone armor more than extra points in bone armor itself, which is a plus. All of them are damage synergies, as you know by looking at the skills. Three points should be invested in the summoning tree (clay golem, mastery, and resists), and you can get a cheap item switch that buffs your summon's level, as well. Dim vision is your friend in hard core, and one point into amp damage provides a sizable increase to your corpse explosion, which can suffice with one point, considering your + skills