«

[Blood-Pigggy]

Uh no, you don't max out revive, you only put one point in it.
And the thing is, the minions NEVER die.

You get an Act 2 combat merc, have him boot up prayer, and your maxed out skeletons and Iron Golem are practically invulnerable, and since by the time you can have them maxed out, your combat merc will be so strong that prayer as well will be maxed for him, meaning you gain health at a constant rate of around 50 health per 7 seconds.
And Summon Resist makes your monsters practically immune to most bosses, since you have so many summons, bosses will be trying to wail on your skeletons while they absorb all the elemental attacks. Trust me, the resist demultiplier is much weaker for minions than it is for you, with synergies, by the time you've maxed out all the requisite skills (Golem Mastery and such) your army will have so much health and damage, dueling players is a breeze as well.

[troop18546]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Blood-Pigggy @ Aug 15 2006, 09:37 PM) [snapback]248762[/snapback]</div>

Uh no, you don't max out revive, you only put one point in it.
And the thing is, the minions NEVER die.

You get an Act 2 combat merc, have him boot up prayer, and your maxed out skeletons and Iron Golem are practically invulnerable, and since by the time you can have them maxed out, your combat merc will be so strong that prayer as well will be maxed for him, meaning you gain health at a constant rate of around 50 health per 7 seconds.
And Summon Resist makes your monsters practically immune to most bosses, since you have so many summons, bosses will be trying to wail on your skeletons while they absorb all the elemental attacks. Trust me, the resist demultiplier is much weaker for minions than it is for you, with synergies, by the time you've maxed out all the requisite skills (Golem Mastery and such) your army will have so much health and damage, dueling players is a breeze as well.
[/b]

Cool. My necro is now in hell with lvl62, I am hoping to use my Nord's Tenderizer or Razor's Edge for melee battles and my Bone Spirit for anything else. Golem is a lvl14 I think, so he is still a major pain for most enemies (he's hard to kill, plus I kill the enemies while they are attracted to the golem like flies). But I have to say, that NM was hard enough, but hell is too damned tough. Luckily, I can rely on rushes and other players in MP .

[Blood-Pigggy]

If you wanna check the build out, and maybe try making him yourself, here's the guide :P

http://www.diabloii.net/strategy/x-guides/...ontrooper.shtml

[troop18546]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Blood-Pigggy @ Aug 16 2006, 12:08 AM) [snapback]248788[/snapback]</div>

If you wanna check the build out, and maybe try making him yourself, here's the guide :P

http://www.diabloii.net/strategy/x-guides/...ontrooper.shtml
[/b]

Well, the recasts would annoy me very much and any lag would just bother me with so many minions. When I get my Bone Skills maxed out (later on), they will do me good. This build is kinda nice, what with all the minions and having company, but the very begining sounds tiresome - I have my own strategy btw .
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________
A very good build (mine, I like it, and it's insanely easy):

Troop's very own "Vivisectioner" .

Buil up your Clay Golem and Golem Mastery (the point distribution is first on the Golem, then on mastery or evenly; as a note: the Mastery gives the Golem his life and defense and the points on the Golem give him his attack (which is not much, but he's not the wrecking machine - you will be )).

Second, when your Golem is powerful enough (with atleast 1K HP), you start building your bone spear, then teeth (these should build themselves when you get the wand "White") and then bone spirit (as a note: you can choose which first from teeth and bone spirit; but till bone spear is atleast lvl10).

Curses are only good for one thing - the Iron Maiden and Decrepify, along with an alternate or trio with Confuse. They can make your Golem and you breathe easy in a big fight, you just reacst them on enemies and they either kill each other or die by trying to kill your Ultra Golem (as a note: minions will rarely go after you, unless you are alone or scouting by yourself). The decrepify works like a charm and makes any monster slow-mo'ed and weak - it's great. Along with your Clay Golem, they will almost be frozen, you shall have to kill them yourself (either with bone skills or melee or ranged attacks; I will tell in the end). Iron Maiden can be useful in boss fights, cause even in normal - the bosses will want to attack you with all they got.
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________
Gear:

1) As a weapon - you should consider the best melee weapon u cna find, trade or buy. Ranged works too, but it can be bothersome to buy new bolts or arrows each time you run out. There is a sollution to this: A throwing axe with knockback and replenishing quantity - it got me through act2 nicely.
2) Armor - also best you can find. Trang-Oul's would be good for your golem, but any with room for perfect skulls will be nice.
3) Gloves should be Death's Hand for resistance (thnx BP ) and the boots should be Vidala's, because of the running (since you shall be a bit in trouble in the beggining, so running away is an option).
4) Hats: anything.
5) The best set till the end of normal difficulty should be Death's Disguise - for a few reasons:
Health Steal, resistances, cannot be frozen etc.
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________
Character point distribution:

Strenght: much, atleast as much as to hold a good weapon to fight with.
Dexterity: since you are going to go melee much in normal (till you're weak anyway), put in atleast till 60-80.
Vitality: much, most monsters can try to attack you and you may die in many places.
Mana: evenly distribute this with vitality, but try maxing out when your str is huge, vit is huge.
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________
Pros: CG requires little mana resources to be summoned and he dies only when being mauled by over 20 enemies from all directions - there are two ways to prevent this sh1t from happening:
1) Recast.
2) Place a curse: either confuse on enemies or decrepify. Also Iron Maiden if you want the enemies to die by themselves.

Cons: BSpear requires much mana for every attack, so you will have to restack if you lose much mana.
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________
As a note: this is my very own Cursing-ClayGolem-Bone-Melee-Necro. A very versatile guy, not depending on many minions - he's got one . He can solo without the Golem in Normal, halway through NM and is very good at kicking a55 with the golem at NM Baal. In hell - a bit weak, but I'm just lvl62 and only BoneSpear is maxed; wait till my BSpirit is maxed out with teeth .

P.S. For the best results - just get the runes Dol+Io and make "White" and also get some + skills items and stuff. BTW, this guy is mostly for PvM, not a PvP, although I'm sure I could kick a55 with this build too.
__________________________________________________ _____________________________________

[Scatty]

Well, this kind of necromancer should be able to kill, very slow, but kill, in hell. However you won't kill anything if in parties, the melee damage you would want to do with your weapon would be too low for hell's monsters, and the bone spear will be also too weak for hell's monsters. This build lacks one deciding point - the synergies for the bonespear aren't maxed as much as possible.

As a good example I can take my necromancer. He has the best items, true, but even without them he can kill decent and fast enough. All synergies for the bone spear are maxed, he summons only revives that serve him as a living shield while he's teleporting (Enigma armor), and he has an Iron Golem cast over Kelpie Snare that slows even better than a Clay Golem with decent points put into skill does. Of course I have one point put into Skeleton Mastery for Revives and 1 point into Golem Mastery, both have in the end +24 (Skeleton Mastery) and +19 (Golem Mastery) to skills through the items and that is great enough for Hell. This Iron Golem has good life in hell + the life-giving shouts from Call to Arms so he survives pretty much anything Hell has to offer. And with the bonespear my necromancer is doing 5235-5528 damage + I use Corpse Explosion and this kills well and fast even in party of 7 additional people in Baalruns.
That's how a deadly Necromancer that can survive is skilled to be Hell-able. Good items are requirement, though.

[Blood-Pigggy]

Meh, the Overlord build is probably the one that's the easiest to survive with, and kill monsters easily with. You can easily kill Diablo with around only 2 armies.

[troop18546]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Scatty @ Aug 16 2006, 10:02 PM) [snapback]249022[/snapback]</div>

Well, this kind of necromancer should be able to kill, very slow, but kill, in hell. However you won't kill anything if in parties, the melee damage you would want to do with your weapon would be too low for hell's monsters, and the bone spear will be also too weak for hell's monsters. This build lacks one deciding point - the synergies for the bonespear aren't maxed as much as possible.

As a good example I can take my necromancer. He has the best items, true, but even without them he can kill decent and fast enough. All synergies for the bone spear are maxed, he summons only revives that serve him as a living shield while he's teleporting (Enigma armor), and he has an Iron Golem cast over Kelpie Snare that slows even better than a Clay Golem with decent points put into skill does. Of course I have one point put into Skeleton Mastery for Revives and 1 point into Golem Mastery, both have in the end +24 (Skeleton Mastery) and +19 (Golem Mastery) to skills through the items and that is great enough for Hell. This Iron Golem has good life in hell + the life-giving shouts from Call to Arms so he survives pretty much anything Hell has to offer. And with the bonespear my necromancer is doing 5235-5528 damage + I use Corpse Explosion and this kills well and fast even in party of 7 additional people in Baalruns.
That's how a deadly Necromancer that can survive is skilled to be Hell-able. Good items are requirement, though.
[/b]

Also take note that my Necro ain't finished leveling and doesn't have all the best stuff on him. True, I can kill in Hell, slow - but that's the best I can do for now.

P.S. Are you playing with a low patch or smth? Cause my BSpear is lvl29 with items (without them, all skill lvls stop at lvl20) and the spear does max damage of 800. I just don't get it - you'd have to get atleast 80 skill points only in BSpear to have over 5K damage, just doean't make sense - maybe you rely on bugs or smth? :blink: I mean - if I did damage like that, anything anywhere would drop like flies.
P.S.2: Clay Golem is the best, I tell you. Most importantly - Iron Golem requires an item each time you make one and Clay Golem beats him in mana cost each time he spawns. That's it.

[Blood-Pigggy]

In hell mode, EVERYTHING has a base magic resistance of around 50, that means every single monster, including Fallen from Act One.
Unless your bonespear does 43234123 damage, you'll be only doing half what you're doing now, and that's not enough in hell mode.

Nah Troop, that's a lie. I can beat Diablo with one Iron Golem simply by buying a lightning resist item at town, and there's no hassle in having to find an item, it's Nightmare mode dude, the Iron Golem has more health, damage, and included it has thorns, and a base resist to everything. The Clay Golem is just a starter golem, it gets beaten out by all the other golems down the line, both in health, resist, and damage.

And I don't see any difficulty in having to find an item, in fact, that only makes Iron Golem a thousand times better, because you can get resistances, and etc added to your golem by buying certain items, it makes bosses 500 times easier, and he's good in PVP too, because a level 20 Iron Golem usually means instant death, even if there's only one hit.

PS - Anyone who is still bothering about "Mana cost" in Nightmare mode has one bad character.

[Scatty]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(troop18546 @ Aug 16 2006, 11:02 PM) [snapback]249039[/snapback]</div>

P.S. Are you playing with a low patch or smth? Cause my BSpear is lvl29 with items (without them, all skill lvls stop at lvl20) and the spear does max damage of 800. I just don't get it - you'd have to get atleast 80 skill points only in BSpear to have over 5K damage, just doean't make sense - maybe you rely on bugs or smth? :blink: I mean - if I did damage like that, anything anywhere would drop like flies.
P.S.2: Clay Golem is the best, I tell you. Most importantly - Iron Golem requires an item each time you make one and Clay Golem beats him in mana cost each time he spawns. That's it.
[/b]

You would be surprised how much the synergies of a skill increase it's damage. If it's lvl 29 Bone Spear with 800 damage, how much would 7% of one skill point additionally be? Exactly, 56 points additionally. Now take 20 points in a synergy skill, let's say Teeth and count how many %'s that would be. 140%, and 140% additionally to 800 damage would be 1920 damage of Bone Spear. And that's only one synergy skill, but there are more for Bone Spear. And don't forget the skillers in the inventory of which I have 7, plus good items that give a bonus to all skills, should be somewhere around +16 to all skills altogether, not counting the single skill bonuses of White. Go figure

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(troop18546 @ Aug 16 2006, 11:02 PM) [snapback]249039[/snapback]</div>

P.S.2: Clay Golem is the best, I tell you. Most importantly - Iron Golem requires an item each time you make one and Clay Golem beats him in mana cost each time he spawns. That's it.
[/b]

You need to make only one Iron Golem and be careful enough that he doesn't die, and you don't ever need to summon another one again. He won't die too as I wrote above as he has much life + much life from Call to Arms, unless he's created from a strong weapon and gets the Iron Maiden curse cast upon him, in which case one hit he does should tear him apart. But for that case I have 2 Kelpie Snares lying around to create another one. Iron Golem is much better than the Clay Golem k:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Blood-Pigggy @ Aug 16 2006, 11:54 PM) [snapback]249048[/snapback]</div>

In hell mode, EVERYTHING has a base magic resistance of around 50, that means every single monster, including Fallen from Act One.
Unless your bonespear does 43234123 damage, you'll be only doing half what you're doing now, and that's not enough in hell mode.
[/b]

You're wrong Blood-Piggy, the magic resistance varies for all monsters in Hell, some are less resistant, and some like undead are immune to magic. As for not enough in Hell difficulty, I can assure you my damage is more than enough, I kill most monsters in act 4 oder 5 in 2-3 hits in a game alone without additional players. One good point about the magic damage that Blessed Hammer from Paladin and Bone Spear and Bone Spirit from Necromancer do is that only very few monsters in the game are immune to it, and others are less resistant to it than they are to the elemental damage of Fire, Cold and Lightning and the poison damage. With attacks that do magic damage you are stronger and more independant than all these Sorceresses and Druids that have to deal with immunities on Hell difficulty.
If someone would do the damage you mention btw., even Baal would die in one hit. That's not realistical

[Blood-Pigggy]

That was a random number dude.