Need some dueling advice on 2 classes

[DevilsWrath]

Need some dueling advice on 2 classes

I have been dueling more with my necro and after studying the souless guide i have gotten a lot better. I still have problems in pubbys with those godly bone necros wearing super duped stuff. Whats the best strategy to duel other bone necros? And also, i have a problem with wind druids too, with all their minions out, my spirits track the animals, teeth doesn't do enough dmg, and I can never aim spear accurately, can you guys think of anything that would help? Thanks a ton.

 

[NecroManiac]

For necros:

Practice the namelocking spear trick that Pallidum's explain throughly in his guide. Most necros are idiots and will sit still for a bit too long and u should be able to namelock/tele and spear him to death.

For Druids:

Use Teeth to get rid of his minions and then practice ur aim with spear.

 

[Mehatesmaphack]

if you tele directly on top of a necro really fast you can get your golem to stack on top of you and taking hits for you if they just spear lock you they will have to kill the golem first and if your golem is pretty strong and yoru nec isn't too friggin friggin weak compared to the other necro's you'll probably kill him however from dueling good necros and aa necros i've figured that that technique can be countered. But it's rather hard to tele on top and spear them in time if they are one of those 9 fps necro who can't aim and tele away and spam all day. the bone mancer is the most overpowering build in the game and if you can't aim spear then you just need to practice. with spear you should name lock telers and slower runners and predict and shoot ahead of runners or force them to run into ur spears or just do really fast tele locks.

 

[Pallidum]

Ok, I will try to help with the best of my ability. First I'll make some equipment recommendations followed by some tactics.

Bone Necros

Here you will want the best combination of casting speed, fast hit recovery, life, damage, and mana. You should have the max casting speed (125%), decent fast hit recovery (56% or 86%), decent life (over 3k after bo), high damage (as high as possible), and sufficient mana (enough to suit your playing style).

Here is a nice setup I recently came up with

+8 spear white wand (20% fcr)
+2 nec circlet, 20% cast, 20% fast hit recovery, life
+2 nec ammy with 20% cast, life and mana
Enigma breastplate
+3 PnB Jahed darkforce (30% cast)
Magefists
10% fast cast ring with life and mana
5-10% fast cast caster belt with 24% fast hit recovery,life and mana
SoJ
Marrows
9 PnB charms with life, 1 PnB with 12 fhr. 9 small life/mana charms, and an anni.

With this setup, you will have 125-130% fast cast rate, 6.7k spear damage, 3.5k life after bo, 56% fast hit recovery, and enough mana to do what you need to do. You can make some adjustments according to your budget, so feel free to substitue any one of the above equiment as long as you keep those 5 important variable in mind.

Ok now that you have the weapons, herws how to use them. First of all, know the distance of your spells. Spear can travel roughly 2 full teleports away, so you can "snipe" at your opponent without ever being on his screen. Once you get good at it, you can actually kill people without them seeing you. I outlined how to do this in a guide I wrote earlier, so you can search this forum for it. Just use keywords like "Pallidum" or "snipe", and it should show up.

The second tactic you can use is the namelock teleport/spear method. I've also written about this, so you can search for that too. Use "namelock" as keyword to find it.

The last thing I'll say about necros is that they are the second hardest character to master well (the first being the hammerdin which needs to charge/teleport/aura switch/hammer). Necros also have a lot of different hotkeys (I use 13 on mine), and they need some practice with to get really good. But keep at it, as it is the best character to use on diablo 2. Ok enough being a nec fanboy zzzzz...I'll move on.


Wind druids

Here you will want to keep the same variables as before, but there's an additional one: damage reduction. If you have enough strength to wear a Ber stormshield, you will have over 50% damage reduction, which is the max, with enigma. Your casting speed needs to be at or above 125%, as always. Also make sure you reach the 56% fast hit recovery so you can get out of tornadoes. I recommend 86% fast hit recovery personally, but dont sacrifice too much to get it. Get as much life as you can with the above conditions fulfilled, and enough mana to do the job.

Here you will be using teeth primarily. As someone already mentioned, teeth away the minions and then spear them to death. However, spear sniping also works here if you can master it well. Usually when a druid loses all of his buddies (oak, wolves, bear, etc), he will run away like a scared lil ***** to cast some more. Here is you opportunity to finish him off. Chase him down, never give him a breathing room, and spear him to death before he can resummon and come after you. Hurricane is a joke if you have even decent cold resist, so don't be afraid of geting frozen. The advantage you have over druids is that you will ALWAYS cast faster than he can, and the fact that he needs to close in to kill you. Work on your spear aiming skills and druids should be more manageable. Although I have to admit that good druids are probably the hardest duel for a bone necro, they can be overcome if you play semi-defensively and choose offense when the opportunity presents itself.

So thats basically it and gl ^^.

 

[DevilsWrath]

wow pallidum, very nice advice, i hope it helps me a little. Do you know of any ways i can get better with spear? Any exercises or strategies i could try?

 

[Pallidum]

There are a couple actually. The first is to have a friend stand in one spot. Then teleport around him without being on the same screen. Now fire at him WITHOUT namelock, as doing so will defeat the purpose of bone sniping. Have him carry some rejuvs or healing potions so he can heal. Tele around him in circles, and fire, say, around 20 spears. After the 20th spear has been fired, ask him how many has actually hit him and dealt damage. You take the number of time he has been hit and divide that by 20. That will give you youe "sniping percentage." Keep doing this numerous times until you can reach a decent percentage, like 33% or 1 out of 3. Once you have reached that level of proficiency, have your friend move//tele around and practice that way.

The second methd is regarding namelock/teleport spear. You can actually practice with monsters. My favorite place to do this is with oblivion knights, but any moster will do. Keep practicing until the gap between the namelock teleport and the spear are practically nonexistent, and everything flows in one smooth motion.

Finally there is no better way to practice those methods than actual experience. Join some pub games and show them how good you are. ^^

 

[Mehatesmaphack]

wow pallidum, very nice advice, i hope it helps me a little. Do you know of any ways i can get better with spear? Any exercises or strategies i could try?

just try and catch people with spear locks by teleing onto or next to them and spear lock or try to predict their movment and spear them off screen. at first you might die a lot so trasnfer ur gold if you want. there's no better way than practicing in action.

 

[Velocifero]

how did u make that white wand with 8 spear on it???

 

[Pallidum]

You can buy a clean bone wand with +3 bone spear on it from act 2 normal. Just make sure it's a bone wand because yew wands can only be 1 os. It might take a couple of tries but eventually you will find one. Just be patient. After you have gotten one, socket it using the socket quest or the recipe. Then use Dol+Io to make a White. Now White comes with +3 to PnB skills and +2 to bone spears. When you add that to the +3 from the wand initially, you'll get a +8 spear wand.