omg, problem with normal baal

[Biff Loman]

omg, problem with normal baal

I've been playing SP, /players 8, including bosses. I might have to reduce the players for Baal, though, unless I get some good advice. I'd prefer to keep my pride! I never really played D2 much until now, and I forgot what Baal was all about.

Milwaukee is at lvl 45, with:

poison nova 12, working towards maxing it
poison explosion 1
poison dagger 2

Raise skelly 20
skel mastery 1
clay golem 1
golem mastery 1

1 pt in various curses


My army killed The Ancients on /players 8 while I watched, bored of casting curses. Baal's minions required me to raise my minions a couple times, but was otherwise OK. No biggie.

Baal evaporates my army and slaughters my merc in seconds. I was able to make some pathetic headway by casting Lower Resist and poisoning Baal. And again. And again. Hiding behind obstacles to avoid getting blasted, casting LR and nova-ing. Baal's health is down a hair! (or is it my imagination?)

In theory, I could kill Baal this way. Just me, and Gumby (for 0.25 seconds at a time). But no thanks.

Edit: And those damn tentacle thingies. Damn them.

Edit: I have no revives, because I'm going for a psn/skellie sort of idea, but could they tank while I sloooooowly poison Baal? I'd have to shop a wand.

 

[CoolDarkDragon]

I'd say find a way to cut him down to size and cut his speed up. Haven't tried it, but try using a clegaws pincers with a fast bow, this would probably help till you can up your own damage, and he's weird when you slow him down a lot.

Kelpies Snare FTW, too bad you can only get it in nm

Edit: oh yeah throw on decrep if you got it =D

 

[Biff Loman]

Yeah, I got decrep. I've been using it a lot to keep monsters off my azz if they creep up behind me.

No way I would have killed Diablo without it.

 

[nicro tower]

baal's hoarfrost is annoying, as it knocks your minions back. try setting up a tp right beside him, and reentering to gather all your slaves on him.
cheap mans teleport ftw!
oh ya and stack as much slow as you can(cold, slow items, gumby, decrep)

 

[zarirazz]

here are some improvements that i can think of..
shop a wand for a +revive mod. those things provide good distraction against baal.
equip merc with strength polearm/spear for a little cb.
buy lots of pots to keep summoning gumby, since he's the only source of slow you got.

 

[Forbiddian]

You should have put more points into skeleton mastery. It really helps out your skeletons a lot. Same with the one point in Summon Mage (for cold damage).

One trick is to summon up your army and drop a TP right next to him. Then keep popping in the TP to poke him and then leaving the TP and healing again. If your minions are strong enough to survive the one attack from Baal (although without summon resist and with only 21 total points invested in skeletons, I have slight doubts that they could), then you should be able to poke him to death.

Although you might have to grind out another level or two (or three). At least the one point in summon resist if your skeletons aren't surviving the first attack.

If they can survive the first attack, just keep going through your tp, hitting Amp Damage (or Decrep) and then punching out before Baal can kill any of your minions over and over again. It'll take a while, but with your stack of (albeit flimsy and low damage) minions, you should be able to get through it.


Or just bite the bullet, buy tons of pots, and just go to town on him with gumby.

 

[stephan]

With Clay Golem and Decrep you can completely lock up Baal. I can see why this would take very long, but not why it would be hard.

 

[BlargX]

Cast gumby in his face, don't let him walk up. That will get him using up some casting and movement options before your army gets there. Run away from the tentacles and as soon as you can see clear to cast gumby, do it. Your merc and most of your troops should miss his first attack or two. Once gumby slows him, the second attacks will be a longer time coming.

 

[bruticus]

cast Gumby and decrep right onto Baal, and use the TP trick as noted above to keep things going. with decrep on, he should effectively be slower, weaker - he likely won't raise those tentacles, nor create a clone.

if you don't have a teleport amulet or something, you can cast Gumby and Decrep before you turn the corner onto the platform where Baal is - when you get into the throne room, run down, and then towards Baal's platform; before you turn the last corner to let your skellies at him, you should be able to cast gumby and decrep from the other side of the pole. not sure if that's very clear. ;/

try to avoid casting Amp - you will lose the huge slow effect of the decrep.

did you have at least a point in Summon Resist? that'll help quite a bit as well.

g'luck!

 

[Biff Loman]

Oh yeah, I forgot in the OP: I have a point in Summon Resist.

I also have a +1 to summon skills wand, and a head with +1 to Skellie Mastery and +2 to Raise Seleton, which I use to summon my minions. So my army gets a boost this way.

Thanks for all the advice! I'm busy around the house this evening, so maybe tomorrow I'll try and finish off Baal.

 

[Eilo Rytyj]

Yeah, I would have gone with those skill points into Skeleton Mastery rather than Poison Nova. I personally don't hybrids like that, you don't have enough skill points to max out the Poison Nova synergies and Raise Skeleton/Mastery. I'd stick with the tried-and-true Summoner necro build, but that's me and not you.

In any case try and hoard as many +skills to boost your Skeletons and Mastery. Don't bother with Poison Nova, one little green Skeleton Mage is enough to slap him with a poison that lasts over a minute (purely to stop his regeneration), and like the others suggested, a blue Mage to wail on him with chilling cold damage. With a little luck, a combination of Decrepify, a cold Mage, and Clay Golem, as well as being surrounded by skeletons should be enough to pin him in place. All you gotta do then is wait it out until the Skellys do their thing...

 

[Biff Loman]

Yeah, I would have gone with those skill points into Skeleton Mastery rather than Poison Nova. I personally don't hybrids like that, you don't have enough skill points to max out the Poison Nova synergies and Raise Skeleton/Mastery.

I read the poisonmancer/skeleton build in the Mouldy Tome sticky, and it sounded fun. :smiley: I'm a newb - what do I know?

Anyways, thanks for all the advice! Milwaukee is henceforth known as slayer Milwaukee, after casting decrepify about a thousand times, periodically poking Baal with a poison dagger. Poison nova was taking too many pots. (Does Baal regenerate? I wasn't going to take chances with that.) I slipped up once; Baal was un-decrepified for about 1 second and hoarfrosted everybody. I TP'ed and gathered a new army and didn't screw up again.

But I'm beginning to swing to Eilo's perspective. I think I might want to make a summoner and try to reach Hell with him. I use ATMA to mule my stuff, so he can lend Milwaukee some good gear at some point.

 

[rickcarson]

I read the poisonmancer/skeleton build in the Mouldy Tome sticky, and it sounded fun. :smiley: I'm a newb - what do I know?

Do you have access to +20 skills, a Death's Web and Trang Oul's?

If not, good luck past Normal.

I personally think that the poison/summon build would work better with Revives than skellies, but I'm not in the super-rich category, and to be fair, with +20 skills (or more) the skellies are pretty scary. And without Enigma or a massive engine of mana having 20+ revives probably seems like a waste.

I tried the various poison based builds ages ago, but ran into problems with immunities and undead (with their built in resistance to poison) and got told that I was wasting my time without a Death's Web.

 

[Biff Loman]

Do you have access to +20 skills, a Death's Web and Trang Oul's?

If not, good luck past Normal.

That sucks.

I think I'll make a summoner.