Respect the AI Curses!

Respect the AI Curses!

Respect the AI Curses!

I'm getting pretty sick of seeing people time and time again skimping on Curses. About the most extreme case goes all the way to "1 Amp (that's all you'll ever use)" popping up in necro builds.

I feel it might be because everyone (especially non-necro or new necro players) have something against skills that don't do damage. Something like "if the number isn't big, it sucks" sorta credo.

I watch necro players IRL and online suck royally hard. They can only do one or two things and nothing else. When a Bonermancer is firing away at some Prisoned monsters and some Stygian Dolls jump him from behind, he starts *running away and some other convoluted tricks, when all he had to do was Terror the Dolls and continue firing.

My Poison/Summon necro had a rough time in the Chaos Sanctuary, especially against hell extra fast Infector of Souls (I find mass elemental damage screws skeles, like the Council). I don't think I could have beaten his pack without Dim Vision. Period.

I can't seem to attach the pic, but as a test I walked my Bowmancer into the middle of some NM Cows where he died in 4 hits. I tried again and used Confuse on all the Cows then started Poison Novas. Many blue potions and some CE's later they died. I think Cows are the ideal Confuse monsters, though Flayers enjoy it too.

You need your curses. Learn to use them.

 

A big "AMEN" to ya my brother!

 

I suppose this would be a proper thread, so here goes:

What curses are the most effecient?
So far all my bonemancer uses is lower resist, but I'm level 39 with only 2/3 of the avalible curses (all the ones as prereqs for lower resist)
What I'm really focusing on are the least used three, terror, confuse, and attract.

I know terror causes enemies to run away, but does it work on bosses and how long do the enemies run?

How often will confuse make the monster attack another monster? Does it attack players also? What are the fine details?

Doese attract have a radius? I'd like to be able to cast attract and maybe a prison or two and run past.

All of these emphasize a pasafistic (I KNOW i spelled that wrong, its late.) necro (anyone remember that, I think it was on diabloii.net) so I can run past without bothering to fight.


Also, to what point does lower resist affect bone spells? I've been told since the bone spells are 50/50 magic it only affects half the damage?

Thanks!

 

LR doesnt affect bone spells. it also doesnt reduce physical resists. attract has a radius of 4 yards but only affects one creature.

out of big area affect curses dim vision is a safer choice than confuse or terror. confused monsters can still attack you and terror'd monsters will run ahead of you.

more info is probably in stickys some place

 

Terror doesn?t work on Bosses

Forget confuse, because the monsters will just attack random.

Attract has always a radius of 6 yards

LR doesn?t lower magical immunity

From Necro King

 

Greetings Necro peeps.

First post on this forum but I thought I would share my experience on this.

As a Skellimancer I found you could float all the way through nightmare without ever doing any real crowd control or having to use the great "no damage curses". Through normal and nightmare all I did was amp damage, CE, rinse repeat.

However once I hit hell I was getting it handed to me in the pit at level 70 until I started implementing all these wonders. Dim Vision especially! It is amazing that we are able to get so much utility out of only one skill point (with +'s from EQ of course!).

A tip that the more experienced may already know. Use attract or Dim Vision on the annoying shamans that keep raising their fodder and slowing you down. Attract when they are surrounded by their own critters and dim when they are alone.


:buddies:

 

Where are these builds? I'll smite them now.

The only curse I do not use is Weaken. There is something wrong with that curses.

 

I'm sure they could have thought of a better curse, something like a mass prevent monster heal would be great, although PN kinda does that.

 

I'm fairly new to D2X, and currently on my first necro build. What I've found is that, due to the variety of curses on offer, it can be difficult for a relatively inexperiencd user (ie me) to use so many skills appropriately according to the situation they are - at least that was until I discovered hot keys. Previously I would just spam AD and let my skeles do the work as I run around collecting drops and, er, spamming AD some more. Now that I'm getting used to using the hot keys I'm exploring the delights of a bit of attract / AD followed by CE. Result = Carnage :yep: And I'm convinced this is only the beginning...

I really do think that mastering your hotkeys is the only way to use a necro effectively, particularly with regard to curses. If you have to click your right-hand control box, skim through your array of skills, select the one you are looking for, and only then execute it, there is no wonder that sticking to one main curse for the bulk of play is so appealing to so many.

While I'm sure this is elementary necro knowledge for the experienced players on the board, hopefully this will be helpful to some of the newer players reading. It certainly changed my gameplay for the better... :winner:

 

Try mapping your hot-keys so you can reach all of them with just one hand. It will really help you with cursing.

Last night I had to DV some archers, Attract a pack of Rot Walkers, Terror away some Abominables and Decrep a few Blood Lords and Frozen Terrors. Not possible without proper hot-key usage.

 

My necro has max weaken, it's the only skill he uses. :winner:

 

Well, I agree and not agree. It really depends of the curse and the built. You complain that peoples put only one point into amp damage. Well, at lvl 10, this curse have a radius of 8 yards and a duration of 35 sec. So I rather cast it twice and put precious points elsewere.

But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea to put more points in some curses. As a example, in my built ( http://www3.sympatico.ca/guillaumep/necro.txt ), I maxed dim vision because it's duration in hell is cut by 3/4. Large radius is also important. I also put only one point in amp damage but for a good reason. The tactic is to dim vision at the edge of the screen to blind most of the monsters and then to cast amp damage where's the fight. If I have a large radius amp damage, it will override blinded monsters more than I like to.

 

Don't make me Smite you.

Actually I don't have a Smiter. Damn. Are they fun?

No dawg, you misread that bit. He said that the only curse they put a point in is Amp. No other curses and no other points.

 

I took this as referring to builds that suggest one point in AD and nothing at all in any other curse. Could be wrong though...

 

I use amp damage MOST of the time.

Decrep when 2 or more groups come toward my minions. (Slows one groups arrival time down...fun)

Attract, A LOT, (it goes right over amp, so AMP+attract) are both active on the enemy

Just started using confuse/Life Tap(after a while your minions need refreshing)
And as for the AI curses?(enemies curses, Iron maiden only one i really care about.)

And again, all you really gotta do is get ONE enemy down, then it's CE them all to
]-[Ell

It also helps to have level 30+ skeleton and mastery.
Mine's at 40/35 (mast/warr)

 

Almost every build with a necro can use the AI curses. They are all great though I perfer the first and last (I use Attract in almost every encounter to keep the heat off).

-Starcrunch

 

Confuse is a great way to keep a merc alive. and almost mandatory for every battlemancer i ever tried.

 

Battlemancer? Sounds intriguing. Are we talking about similar/identical build to commando/melee-mancer?

 

I always put at least one point in every curse.

Getting good with curses requires a bit of tactical thinking. There's no one curse that applies to every situation, although generally speaking, any curse cast right away is generally better than taking time to pick the optimum one when things are hairy. People who are in the game to make things die and get the loot often don't have the mindset it takes to get good mileage out of curses.

For example, I find confuse to be very, very useful in act II. Why? Because there's nothing like it for clearing out those rooms and hallways full of beetles. Heave it through the door once, and you've divided the enemy in half, and each half is zapping the other half to death in the time it takes the curse to wear off, leaving a few to be mopped up.

The virtues of dim vision have already been lauded.

 

i aboslutely love dim vision. I love this skill so much that i will almost always spam it ahead of me...I'll use it on practically anything even if they are a melee type monster. I tend to think "decrepify slows them. but if they cant see me they wont attack me, so id rather have them just looking dumb"