necro newbie intro

[ChaoticTwitch]

necro newbie intro

hey all :howdy: , i just got myself a copy of diablo 2 lod and downloaed the 1.10 patch about 3 months ago. Its good to see that this gem of a relic still holds the playing power from the first time i played it way back when it first came out. Havn a blast with both my overlord-necro and rabies/fury-dru. They both just made it through nightmaire. Does anyone know the best MF run would be, Meph?. thnx

 

[Gaza0469]

hey all :howdy: , i just got myself a copy of diablo 2 lod and downloaed the 1.10 patch about 3 months ago. Its good to see that this gem of a relic still holds the playing power from the first time i played it way back when it first came out. Havn a blast with both my overlord-necro and rabies/fury-dru. They both just made it through nightmaire. Does anyone know the best MF run would be, Meph?. thnx

Meph purely for speed - he can be found and killed fairly easily. I would also do the council on you way down at the travi.

For your overlord necro - use decreptify on bosses, it helps heaps.

Just some quick notes on builds :

For your summoner - use a might merc - this will give your skellies extra damage, he can be hired in NM , act 2.

I have never used a rabies druid, but Im guessing that a NM Act2 Defiance merc would be the most beneficial for a bit of crowd control.

I would tend to farm NM Mephi and council until you have semi decent gear, and till you level up.

Then perhaps throw in the odd Baal run to break it up.

Once you get to hell, the usual level 85 areas are popular, along with Andy, Mephi and Baal.

 

[ChaoticTwitch]

thnx. I was using a heal hireling before but now i think i should opt for the might. would ironmaiden do a lot of harm to them with the +damage from might? i found some of trangs set, just the gloves thought, will help with the decrepify curse that i should put more point into. Should i go with Arm of King Leoric? or is there something better out there. thnx again for the help im off to MF runs till my limbs r numb....

 

[Shogakusha]

thnx. I was using a heal hireling before but now i think i should opt for the might. would ironmaiden do a lot of harm to them with the +damage from might? i found some of trangs set, just the gloves thought, will help with the decrepify curse that i should put more point into. Should i go with Arm of King Leoric? or is there something better out there. thnx again for the help im off to MF runs till my limbs r numb....

arm is still best unique wand for a pure summoner, if you can stand the chance to cast bonecage *shudder*. Trang gloves, are, imho, the only gloves any necro should wear. IM hurts your summons even if they don't have might, I'd rather they have might and be killing the rest of the time. If you are a summoner necro though, and your merc is any lvl at all, at the first sound of IM you throw up a tp and jump through it to save your 50,000 gold, so it's kind of a non issue, healing merc does so little good it's not even funny, there are really only 3 choices, defiance, might, and holy freeze, and might makes you kill faster. Decrepify shouldn't have many points in it(I'd say no more than one, ever), you will only use decrep on bosses really, and all that adding points will do is increase the duration, which will still be crappy even if you max it out, so don't bother, if you must spend extra points somewhere in the curse tree, dont. Might want to check out this: http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=509 although he reccomends putting a few points more in amp dmg than I would(I say after + from trang gloves and any other +all/necro skills you have, one point is enough in any curse).

Also, you might want to consider the option of going hybrid if you haven't put any points in bone prison yet. If you choose to use the marrowwalk synergy, you can get pretty good dmg out of the bonetree with out too many points invested, and since any good summoner will be wearing marrows for the +2 to skel mastery already it's a valid option.

 

[ChaoticTwitch]

thnx Shogakusha the info will help me out briliantly. I got the might merc and now my hord is killing badies left and right withought re-cast. I only put one point into decrepify, with the pesant crown +1 skill its enouph, plus trang's gloves. I havnt found Arm of KL, or marrowalks yet so its anyhing that has +skills that i can get till i find them. I may opt for the hybrid later on, but im putting all of my points right now into the summon tree, i like being lazzy and just having to cast a curse and run around till they all die, lol. Do you know were the most likely place to font AoKL would be? Thnx again

 

[Elgar]

arm is still best unique wand for a pure summoner, if you can stand the chance to cast bonecage *shudder*. Trang gloves, are, imho, the only gloves any necro should wear. IM hurts your summons even if they don't have might, I'd rather they have might and be killing the rest of the time. If you are a summoner necro though, and your merc is any lvl at all, at the first sound of IM you throw up a tp and jump through it to save your 50,000 gold, so it's kind of a non issue, healing merc does so little good it's not even funny, there are really only 3 choices, defiance, might, and holy freeze, and might makes you kill faster. Decrepify shouldn't have many points in it(I'd say no more than one, ever), you will only use decrep on bosses really, and all that adding points will do is increase the duration, which will still be crappy even if you max it out, so don't bother, if you must spend extra points somewhere in the curse tree, dont. Might want to check out this: http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=509 although he reccomends putting a few points more in amp dmg than I would(I say after + from trang gloves and any other +all/necro skills you have, one point is enough in any curse).

Also, you might want to consider the option of going hybrid if you haven't put any points in bone prison yet. If you choose to use the marrowwalk synergy, you can get pretty good dmg out of the bonetree with out too many points invested, and since any good summoner will be wearing marrows for the +2 to skel mastery already it's a valid option.

where do you put points after RS, skel mastery, and 1 pointers? I tend to have a lot of extra points with my skelli, even with maxing amp damage and putting a few extra in decrep for duration. Do you max mages? revives?

 

[Shogakusha]

where do you put points after RS, skel mastery, and 1 pointers? I tend to have a lot of extra points with my skelli, even with maxing amp damage and putting a few extra in decrep for duration. Do you max mages? revives?

It's a personal choice really, but I don't max amp dmg, go for maxed corpse explosion instead(you are already using amp dmg which increases the dmg from it and I like softening up everything on screen, lots of people agree with me, lots of people don't) and after that I go for mages. The reason for mages instead of revives is simple, unless you have an enigma to keep the dumb things with you, revives suck, except for tanking bosses, and then you just summon them up right near the boss from whatever other crap is ahead of him. Some people don't like mages though, so like I said, personal choice. I always put one point in every golem, for the bonus they give to clay boy, plus I like having a fire golem to help take down physical immunes, I find with lower resists, fire golem, and mages, physical immunes are no problem at all. My summoner basically gets his army, amp damages packs, fires off a couple corpse explosions, walks forward and repeats.

As for finding an Arm of King Leoric, no idea, but if you are playing multiplayer, they are very, very cheap to trade for, and so are low stat marrowwalks(as long as it has +2 to skeleton mastery, a few dexterity or str points aren't going to hurt you that much) You are looking at maybe 20 pgems for both of them, 10 each. Otherwise, just keep playing through nightmare and hell difficulty and hope one drops, it's not uncommon so you may find one.

 

[Elgar]

It's a personal choice really, but I don't max amp dmg, go for maxed corpse explosion instead(you are already using amp dmg which increases the dmg from it and I like softening up everything on screen, lots of people agree with me, lots of people don't) and after that I go for mages. The reason for mages instead of revives is simple, unless you have an enigma to keep the dumb things with you, revives suck, except for tanking bosses, and then you just summon them up right near the boss from whatever other crap is ahead of him. Some people don't like mages though, so like I said, personal choice. I always put one point in every golem, for the bonus they give to clay boy, plus I like having a fire golem to help take down physical immunes, I find with lower resists, fire golem, and mages, physical immunes are no problem at all. My summoner basically gets his army, amp damages packs, fires off a couple corpse explosions, walks forward and repeats.

As for finding an Arm of King Leoric, no idea, but if you are playing multiplayer, they are very, very cheap to trade for, and so are low stat marrowwalks(as long as it has +2 to skeleton mastery, a few dexterity or str points aren't going to hurt you that much) You are looking at maybe 20 pgems for both of them, 10 each. Otherwise, just keep playing through nightmare and hell difficulty and hope one drops, it's not uncommon so you may find one.

Forgot to put max CE in there , it is a neccesity IMO for a skellimancer, one thing falls then everything else follows with 1 explosion. Its why i like high amp dam as well, as with one curse i know ive got most of the monsters on the screen, as well as its a good feeler for offscreen. Im not a huge fan of mages so thats where we differ. i have 1 hard point in revive and mage, the +skills from everything else gives me enough (7 mages and 10+ revives) I dont use the marrowalk thing either, though ive been thinking about using it for the bone armor synergy, hes wearing eth war travellers right now.

 

[FreezerBurn]

In my opinion, maxing any curse is a waste. With end game gear, you should have at least +10 skill points anyway, enough to cover about a quarter of the screen. If I were you, I'd get a of marrowwalks and build a hybrid sommon/bone. The synergy bug gives a ton of extra killing power to bone spirit. And the bone armor gets a big boost too.

 

[cotton]

Meph is the standard, and can drop very useful stuff in NM, but don't forget about Baal and his minions. If you make a NM game titled "NM Baal Runs" or something similar, you will inevitable attract a party, which means more drops and more exp. You can also throw in Pindle and Shenk to mix things up.

 

[jiansonz]

In my opinion, maxing any curse is a waste. With end game gear, you should have at least +10 skill points anyway, enough to cover about a quarter of the screen.

I mostly agree, but there are some specific builds that want to max (or at least have very high level) Dim Vision or Iron Maiden. Back in 1.09, I have even maxed Decrepify once (for my really wacky curses-only necro that had his fire rogue kill everything.).

 

[ChaoticTwitch]

Thnx everyone for their advice and oppinions, really helpfull. Personaly i like the magi instead of revive, the revives dont seem to have the greatest AI (run around then attack a bit, then run around). I dont like to max curses, by the time the curse runs out anyway my minions have already killed them, or dam close. And for the area of effect of the high slvl curses, just cast two insted, the mana cost should be like pocket lint, and w/e if you miss one or two, just curse them to lol. thnx again everyone...

 

[rubberband shooter]

Thnx everyone for their advice and oppinions, really helpfull. Personaly i like the magi instead of revive, the revives dont seem to have the greatest AI (run around then attack a bit, then run around). I dont like to max curses, by the time the curse runs out anyway my minions have already killed them, or dam close. And for the area of effect of the high slvl curses, just cast two insted, the mana cost should be like pocket lint, and w/e if you miss one or two, just curse them to lol. thnx again everyone...

Mostly true regarding maxing of curses, but some curses like dim vision can be are very useful when maxed because of the increased range. This is because the increased range enable you to hit things off screen, disabling monsters before they can see you.

 

[jiansonz]

There are only two curses where the actual effect is boosted with more points (not just radius and duration): Lower Resist and Iron Maiden.