Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Jolt the noobish Necro was about to begin his skill training. He considered the options typical for most necros: amplified physical damage, poison damage, magic damage, and CE. The truth was, none of those powers interested him. What he really admired were the pure elemental abilities; fire, cold, and lightning. He desperately wanted to learn skills such as Blizzard, LF, Vengeance, and Fissure. Seeking help, he begged other classes for training, but was rejected. They laughed at him, pelted him with fruit pies, etc... until he seemingly gave up.

In reality, he was more determined than ever. However, he accepted that he was limited to necro skills and item charges. His mission: complete Norm and NM (p8) in standard necro fashion, with maximized MF, while building up the appropriate skills for a Hell assault. The goal for Hell would be to maximize fire/cold/lightning damage, and minimize any physical damage. Jolt's future buddies would include skeletal mages, a fire golem, and an Iron Wolf.

Guidelines: HC, vanilla, solo, untwinked, single-pass, full clears. GoMule allowed as an extended stash. No ESC to escape death.

-----------------------------------

Jolt reluctantly placed his first skill point in Amp Damage. Although distasteful, he knew this would be his default skill through Norm and NM, while he built up a wealth of resources. With a singular focus on MF gear, Jolt guided his Act 2 merc to score all the kills. He nailed Diablo with a Fire Shrine, a tantalizing sample of the type of elemental power he sought! Baal's drop was interesting, a Ribcracker in Normal! But Jolt had no taste for such a brutal physical weapon.

Throughout Nightmare, Jolt continued to build his MF. With armors/helms (for both him and the Might merc) filling with PTopaz, Jolt also equipped a Poor Man's Gull, and found a nice merc polearm. The fire golem was strengthening, tanking well, and scoffing at Diablo's firestorm. The mages, too, were growing in number and power. Although, at p8, the merc still scored almost all the kills, as I'd hoped.

Incredibly, Act 5 Nightmare provided a real honest-to-goodness Gull! How bizarre to find one at that stage, a little late but I'll gladly use it for now. In addition, I improved my MF rings with a couple decent rerolls (I never found any Nagels :tongue. With the rest of my MF gear, I was scoring ~600% full-time MF for merc kills.
The number of S/Us was incredible, mostly crap (e.g. 9 Cathan's Seals), but I did find some useful stuff, and banked millions of gold for gambling. Baal's drop was wonderful: I got a nice Act 3 mage sword (which I'd often gambled for unsuccessfully). A happy end to NM! Jolt retired from the MF business, sent his Might merc packing, hired a Lightning mage, and prepared for his assault on Hell.

I tested the mages' power in the Blood Moor, with weak skeletons/Clay Golem for tanking. The first pack of quill rats was dead before the golem could settle in! Not bad! Now for a real test: a nasty zombie boss pack. Jolt hit 'em with some Lower Resist, and surprisingly the mages did a good job! Not uber, not cookie-cutter, but definitely respectable. Wow, I was really pumped up about Jolt's potential! Time to add a Fire Golem to the mix.

I've had very few problems throughout the first half of Act 1. The worst so far was the crypt/mausoleum, against all the lightning immunes. My strongest element is lightning. I recast my minions to get more fire mages, problem solved! We cleared the Underground Passage, Dark Woods, and rescued Cain (Griswold lasted about 20 seconds). Lastly, the Countess provided her customary El rune. Jolt's adventure is now fully underway!

Next post: stats/gear/skills...

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Stats:
Level: 77
Str 100, Dex 35, Vitality 314 (1003 life), Energy 37 (201 mana)
Resists: 25/26/68/-46
Chance to block: 3%

Skills:
20 (+12) Skeleton Mastery
1 (+12) Raise Skeleton. I raise skeletons for anti-resurrection corpse disposal (all too common in Act 1), and as temporary tanks against strong packs and potential stair traps. Their damage is pretty weak.
1 (+12) Clay Golem. Very rarely used, but allowed when I need an uber-tank or slowing. Its physical damage is negligible.
20 (+12) Golem Mastery
20 (+12) Raise Skeletal Mage. 12 mages. The heart and soul of this build.
1 (+12) Blood Golem, Iron Golem (banned)
13 (+16) (cast in town) Fire Golem. 706-792 fire damage, 7546 life. I plan to max this skill, if all goes well.

1 (+4) Amp Damage (banned in Hell)
1 (+4) Weaken, IM, Life Tap (never used)
1 (+4) Terror, Decrep (occasional use)
1 (+5) Lower Resist. Jolt's favorite curse, he loves to spam it.

Poison/Bone Skills: banned

Gear:
Golemlord's Burnt Wand of Enchantment. +3 to Summoning, +1 to Lower Resist, Level 1 Enchant (11/11 Charges ). Nice shop. I really like that extra point in Lower Resist.
rare Fetish Trophy. A surprising gift from NM Anya, socketed with PDiamond: +2 necro skills, 34% resist-all, +8 Str, MDR 2.
Golemlord's Coronet of Measure. +3 Summoning, useless suffix, socketed with Ort, Larzuk only gave me 1 socket. I gambled this surprisingly early.
Silks of the Victor Ancient Armor. +1 skills. I found neither the Skin of the Vipermagi, nor the common Spirit Shroud. I need +skills, therefore I went with Silks (which I found twice). Unfortunately I had to pump up Str for this.
Plated Belt of the Whale. +99 life. Hopefully I can do better...
rare Leather Gloves. 9% fire resist, 23% lightning resist, 8% MF.
rare Mesh Boots. 34% fire resist, 30% cold resist.
Golemlord's Amulet. +3 Summoning. This is where I spent ~8 million gold, which I'd been saving throughout late NM. (This explains the unimpressive belt/gloves/boots). I scored numerous +3 tree amulets before I finally got it.
Cobalt Ring of the Sentinel. 29% cold resist, MDR 2.
rare Ring. 30% lightning resist, +12 Energy, +2 Dex, Replenish Life +4.

Weapon Switch:
War Staff of Teleportation. Level 3 Teleport, 41 charges. Absolutely critical for efficient placement of mages, I use it very often.

Flux, the Lightning Mage:
Culwen's Point War Sword. +1 skills, 20% FHR.
Wall of the Eyeless Bone Shield. 20% FCR. I found it twice.
rare Circlet. 20% FCR, 14% fire resist, +9 life
Stealth Quilted Armor. 25% FCR, FHR, FRW. Excellent mage armor.

Helpful town items:
Golemlord's Grim Wand. +3 to Summoning Skills, +3 to Fire Golem.
Magefist Light Gauntlets. +1 to Fire Skills. Yep, this works for Fire Golems! :thumbsup:
2 Bahamut's Rings. Without these, I couldn't cast the fire golem.

Additional Assets:
76 PGems. I plan to reroll GCs for resistances or skillers.
6 PSkulls. Possible rare item reroll.
170 chippies. Maybe I can roll another Golemlord's wand, and use the sockets.
Runes: Amn x3, Sol x6, Hel x2, Dol, Io, Fal, Lem
~2 million gold

Comments/suggestions welcome! Plenty more to come; updates, finds, screenshots...

**this build is partly inspired by Guardian Freddie, jiansonz's Lord of Mages in the "Rare Pleasure" tournament. I knew I'd try something similar, eventually.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Well done so far. :thumbsup:
Looks like fun gameplay. OK, wrong, I know it´s often fun gameplay!

Culwen´s point is what we non-RWMers get for merc weapon. Quite a bit weaker than Spirit, eh?

"Hmm", I thought: "Why so much Strength? Maybe he´s using some weird Ancient Armor or something..." :grin:

I had to laugh at the Bahamut´s rings!
Can someone explain why high-level Fire Golem is so outrageously expensive? It´s not like it´s going to RULE or anything. They should make Blessed Hammer cost 200+ mana per casting, if anything...

Quite possible, but only with Unearthed Wands.

Yes, but the builds are indeed quite different. Freddie had Thorns merc + golem + Amp + CE doing most of the damage, at least in the late game.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

That's rather impressive. I'm sure he will make it easy. Comparing with your naked build, this is not as insane, right?

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Wow! Great fun read! I liked the screenies :thumbsup:

I, too, had to laugh at the Bahamut's rings...that's just ridiculous...

oh, I almost forgot: nice job:thumbsup:

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Ah so this is where you have been....i'll take it Pepper is sitting on the side lines as Jolt's journey continues?

Anyway very well done so far Wayne, nice write-ups and awesome screenshots :highfive:.

This isn't the craziest build you have done but it is unique and looks fun.

I say you have got it in the bag given your skill :grin:.

PS. New smilies....nice .

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Some data about my mages:
Each mage has 1148 life.
Not counting Lower Resist:
Fire mages do 283-287 damage.
Cold mages do 161-164 damage.
Lightning mages do 47-448 damage.
Poison mages do pathetic damage, but the duration is 480 seconds! Having one of these guys is handy for halting monster life regen.

I'll get 13 mages if I can muster up another skill point.

That's a good question for the "explain Diablo" contest. At this rate, I'll need 400 mana to cast an endgame Fire Golem!

Yes, Pepper was playing out a little too similar to Selena the No-Vit Blizz sorc. But I'll get back to her.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Yeh i was kind of shocked when you went with another single tree sorc right after Selena.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Here's some more screens I put together. Some highlights (and lowlights) of Jolt's career so far:

A couple elite S/Us found early in Hell.

Items with truly awesome names.

Absurd Cow King drop.

I chased down a cowardly bat as it fled deep into a corner, and was rewarded.

Submissions for Durf's rare crap page, witness the shame.

Additional interesting finds:
Bane Ash
Earthshaker
Goldstrike Arch
Witchwild String
Vidala's Ambush
Jeweler's Full Plate Mail of Life
Crimson Jewel of Bliss (+15 to Minimum Damage)
4 Envy Jewels

Barb helm with +Berserk?

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Congrats for what you have done so far, looks like a lot of fun!

Quick question, what do you do with all the s/u that you find? Do you sell them for gold or do you have a grail going on the side? Would be interesting to know what sort of percentage you are at as you seem to find lots of nice items and we know you won't twink them on!

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

When I started reading this, I thought it was going to be something like a Vengeance Necro or something similar. Despite the fact that you would have to be absurdly lucky to get the items for Kingslayer untwinked.

Looking good so far, keep it up! I particularly like the Demon Hide Demonhide armour :grin:

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

This looks awesome. I've been planning to make a similar character for a long time myself (but I'm a coward, I'll be doing it SC RWM twinked), except my plan is to wear three pieces of Trang-Oul's set and as much +skills, +fire skills, and +fireball/firewall gear as possible, then shoot fireballs and firewalls alongside my mages and golem...

Looking good. Your accomplishments certainly impress me, and it's encouraging for when I get around to making my own...

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Looks like you're getting your info from battle.net

FWIW I did some testing in Hell and became convinced that battle.net is lying about the Poison Mages' damage.

If the Battle.net numbers were correct, then Poison Mages could not kill in Hell in a timely fashion, but they can, so battle.net must be lying (either by ignorance, omission, or commission).

If you're not playing this one hardcore I'd recommend giving it a go yourself to test it out as it is always nice to have one's results independently confirmed.

Something I saw a while back which might be part of it is that when you apply poison to an already poisoned monster then it takes a frames worth of damage straight up*. But the battle.net info would have the damage per frame so ridiculously low that this shouldn't mean anything. Moreover, since there is usually lots of rounding, I'd expect the Poison Mages damage to be rounded into oblivion, and that clearly wasn't happening either.

*NB: this may be something that only applies to missiles not melee(?)

It would be nice if someone like RTB could have a look at what is happening there, but I haven't seen him post in ages.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

It's taken from the necromancer pet calculator which RTB will point you to when asked about necromancer pets

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Quick question, does the fire golem do advertised damage? I have a FG/cold mage/LR necro parked in act 5 normal because progress is slow as molasses and got the feeling that actual golem damage was half what's listed.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

I kept my options open, there's still a chance Jolt will do some fighting. I have a weapon I was hoping to carry on the switch: a rare scepter with ITD (crucial), plus 24-50 Fire Damage and 1-130 Lightning Damage. Not much but it fits the theme. However I really need my teleport, and it's already occupying my switch. If only I can get another means of teleport (Golemlord's ammy/Circlet of Teleportation )...

Yes, it's my favorite find so far.

I used the Necro Pet Calculator (same link Corrupted provided). They seem to agree, except on the poison mage. Battle.net claims more poison damage, or interprets the data differently? In either case, the numbers are low considering the looong duration, but I'll keep an eye out in case they're incorrect.

I sell the majority of S/Us I find because they are repeats. For example, Jolt has completed several sets (including Hwanin's, and Sigon's twice). If the item is very rare (elite S/U) I might mule it off to my trophy stash. If I pooled all the elite items I've found questing, I'd score some good points in one of the MFO contests, but certainly not win. Probably my rarest find is Cranium Basher, and a bunch of stuff in that range. And Ber.

Good question. The pet calculator lists my FG damage as 565-622, which is less then the LCS (706-792). I'm not sure which is correct. I knew I wouldn't be tackling Norm/NM at p8 with my current crew, so I didn't worry about it. In Hell at p1, he takes off decent chunks of life per hit, and has no problem hitting. The mages outdo him by far. I can imagine how your cold mage/FG combo would suffer, what other skills do you use?

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

I did some Grand Charm rerolls with my 76 PGems, using charms from late Act 3 Nightmare. Jolt's fantasy was to score a nice necro skiller. In reality I was hoping for some nice resistances at the very least. Well, lo and behold, I did get a +summoning skiller! For a freakin DRUID! From joy to despair in half a second! Bah... that's the second time I was burned by druid gear. (One of my first +3 skill circlets was a Keeper's +3 summoning druid. :tongue

The rest of my rerolls did not go well. I added nothing to my current charm stash. Jolt's equipped charms are not that great, but there's some decent +lifers, along with so-so resistances.

Jolt's best charms are the type he'll never use.

edit: @Cygnus-- I got 2 skillers from the rerolls, the others from questing.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Just Lower Resist This was the golemmancer tournament, the idea being to get around with just a golem.

You didn't get those four skillers just from 76 PGem rerolls, did you? That's a very impressive charm collection you have there.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

I used my Norm/NM imbues, on a pair of necro heads. Both rolled an impressive number of staffmods, but neither came close to replacing my +2 all head from Anya.

I do have another shield option. Throughout the game I've been repairing crude heads with the chip-El recipe. Each attempt was a free reroll of low-level staffmods. My best result had +3 skeleton mastery, to which I added 2 sockets with the cube. It became a Rhyme. In the future I might reset it into a Splendor. With +3 mastery and +1 all, it has potential to produce the best mages, but that will depend on my other +skills. Plus, I need to find a Lum.

 

Re: Conqueror Jolt, the Elemental Necro, HC vanilla untwinked single-pass

Fascinating reading, Wayne. Really enjoying your write-up. Thank you. :thumbup: