Necromant vs Diablo

[Heresson]

Oh, forgot a thing that helped me a lot with diablo: I took all the items I could that gave me fire protection. I even bought a special armour, weaker than my original (161 to 131), but giving me 26% fire defense.

[The Mad Monk]

DON'T ignore your curses!

Amplify damage is a marvelous one point wonder that will make your minions far more effective. If you have access to decrepify, it will slow big D down AND reduce his physical damage, as well as increase your minions' damage.

What is you skeleton mastery?

Clay golems are useful even in high-level play.

Most players fall to D's fire attacks. What is your total fire resistance? It should be near or at 75% by now.

For that matter, what is your lightning resistance?

Put one point into your summons' resistance.

How well is your rogue equiped? You're giving her the best finds, right?

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Heresson
Oh, forgot a thing that helped me a lot with diablo: I took all the items I could that gave me fire protection. I even bought a special armour, weaker than my original (161 to 131), but giving me 26% fire defense.

An armor with 131 def isn't nec. "weaker" than another one with 161.
The defense (is that what it's called?) on a piece of armor is almost irrelevant for a necro.


You should focus on the bonuses granted by your equipment a lot more than on the base defense value.

[Felch]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
You should focus on the bonuses granted by your equipment a lot more than on the base defense value.

Agreed. Usually my top priority is getting poison resistance and reduced duration. Poison won't kill you directly, but it drags you down to one hit point faster than anything else.

Elemental resistance is next. A necromancer should have enough bodyguards to keep the physical damage to a minimum.

If all else fails, try the bone armor. It has synergy with bone wall and prison.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Heresson
Oh, forgot a thing that helped me a lot with diablo: I took all the items I could that gave me fire protection. I even bought a special armour, weaker than my original (161 to 131), but giving me 26% fire defense.

Since you're playing Diablo II I would recommend concentrating more on lightning resistance vs Diablo since his most damaging attack is a ranged attack that does half physical and half lightning damage and the lightning component alone does far more damage than any of diablos fire based attacks.

The attack I'm referring to has a red graphic so you may have assumed it was at least partly fire based.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
DON'T ignore your curses!

Amplify damage is a marvelous one point wonder that will make your minions far more effective. If you have access to decrepify, it will slow big D down AND reduce his physical damage, as well as increase your minions' damage.

What is you skeleton mastery?

Clay golems are useful even in high-level play.

Most players fall to D's fire attacks. What is your total fire resistance? It should be near or at 75% by now.

For that matter, what is your lightning resistance?

Put one point into your summons' resistance.

How well is your rogue equiped? You're giving her the best finds, right?

I've always had far more trouble vs the lightning "hose" attack even when my lightning resistance was maxed at 75% and my fire was only at 50%.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme


An armor with 131 def isn't nec. "weaker" than another one with 161.
The defense (is that what it's called?) on a piece of armor is almost irrelevant for a necro.


You should focus on the bonuses granted by your equipment a lot more than on the base defense value.

Why is it irrelevant for Necro?
Anyway, I have 3 armours now. One is 239 with some bonus, and I'm wearing it.
The second one is 231, and my hireling is wearing it.
The third is 139 or so, but grants 26% fire resistance, and I keep it in my vault.

I've had a hard time chosing between something else.
I've had a brilliant belt, which gave me 33 defense and 40% cold resistance, but I resigned of it (it's in my vault) to wear some belt which gives me 12 or so defense, some other tiny bonus, but has 2x more place for potions. It was a very hard choice, because I do need place for potions, but cold protection is a very good asset in the expansion.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Geronimo

Since you're playing Diablo II I would recommend concentrating more on lightning resistance vs Diablo since his most damaging attack is a ranged attack that does half physical and half lightning damage and the lightning component alone does far more damage than any of diablos fire based attacks.

The attack I'm referring to has a red graphic so you may have assumed it was at least partly fire based.

Well, I knew it's not fire, but I didn't know what it is. He does use "normal" fire, though, and that's what I wanted to be safe of.
When it comes to the red thing, I simply runned out of sight if he was using it

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Heresson


Why is it irrelevant for Necro?
Anyway, I have 3 armours now. One is 239 with some bonus, and I'm wearing it.
The second one is 231, and my hireling is wearing it.
The third is 139 or so, but grants 26% fire resistance, and I keep it in my vault.

I've had a hard time chosing between something else.
I've had a brilliant belt, which gave me 33 defense and 40% cold resistance, but I resigned of it (it's in my vault) to wear some belt which gives me 12 or so defense, some other tiny bonus, but has 2x more place for potions. It was a very hard choice, because I do need place for potions, but cold protection is a very good asset in the expansion.

Defense mostly reduces the chance to be hit by physical attack. While higher defense is of course better, you actually need huge amounts to make a difference, especially as you go up in level and, playing a summoning necro, you should be able to avoid most physical attacks in the first place. Hence, it's almost always a better tradeoff to consider mostly the bonuses.
Especially when you get to the higher difficulties (nightmare etc..)


Note that it's a good idea to keep some spare Res equipment in your Stash, as you seem to be doing.
I advise keeping mostly jewelry though as it takes less space.
A Cube recipe that is not bad is the 3 rings->amulet, 3 amulet-> ring one.
Everytime you have 3 you don't need of one, you change it to the other one. You'll get some ok stuff from time to time.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
DON'T ignore your curses!

Amplify damage is a marvelous one point wonder that will make your minions far more effective. If you have access to decrepify, it will slow big D down AND reduce his physical damage, as well as increase your minions' damage.

What is you skeleton mastery?

Clay golems are useful even in high-level play.

Most players fall to D's fire attacks. What is your total fire resistance? It should be near or at 75% by now.

For that matter, what is your lightning resistance?

Put one point into your summons' resistance.

How well is your rogue equiped? You're giving her the best finds, right?

Fire resistance is 32 with one armament set (without a shield), or 67 with the second armament set (weaker weapon, great shield). I can easily make it 75%.
Lightning resistance is 55%.
I have weak poison resistance, though.

My rogue is well-equipped, though I should find her a new bow.

How do I put one point into my summons' resistance?

[The Mad Monk]

Look at your Summons tree, there should be a skill called "summon resistance" or somesuch on the left. I believe it is level 12. Pop one, and only one, point in it.

If you are primarily a summoning necro, concentrate on raise skeleton and skeleton mastery. They will become totally badass in very short order, and you will be kicking yourself for even thinking about using any weapon besides a skill boosting wand and totem.

Put together your epuipment with an eye toward boosting resists and skills in that order. You should not be on the front lines yourself, don't worry about hitting things or getting hit.

Most important resist is actually Lightning, followed closely by fire, not so closely by poison, and cold well to the rear. The reason here is gloams' lightning bolts, which will slam right through your troops and fry you, and the rediculous number of lightning and fire enhanced bosses.

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Look at your Summons tree, there should be a skill called "summon resistance" or somesuch on the left. I believe it is level 12. Pop one, and only one, point in it.

If you are primarily a summoning necro, concentrate on raise skeleton and skeleton mastery. They will become totally badass in very short order, and you will be kicking yourself for even thinking about using any weapon besides a skill boosting wand and totem.

Put together your epuipment with an eye toward boosting resists and skills in that order. You should not be on the front lines yourself, don't worry about hitting things or getting hit.

Most important resist is actually Lightning, followed closely by fire, not so closely by poison, and cold well to the rear. The reason here is gloams' lightning bolts, which will slam right through your troops and fry you, and the rediculous number of lightning and fire enhanced bosses.

Good advice.
You should focus on Resists and Skills on equipment.
Magic find is also nice, and then mana and health.
Stats should be almost only vitality and energy.

A key curse against boss (like Diablo for example) is Decrepefy. If you can get a wand or something with +1 Decrepefy, that's nice to save you from investing in it.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme


Good advice.
You should focus on Resists and Skills on equipment.
Magic find is also nice, and then mana and health.
Stats should be almost only vitality and energy.

A key curse against boss (like Diablo for example) is Decrepefy. If you can get a wand or something with +1 Decrepefy, that's nice to save you from investing in it.

Max block is an excellent option for a necro. yes, when you get to level 99 200 dex is quite a lot but blocking 75% of all attacks will make a much bigger difference to survival than the 400 extra health that replacing 200 points of dex with vitality would offer.

for the record:

dex required to have max block (deflects 75% of all attacks) = 150*(your current level)/(amount of block shown on shield or severed head) + 15

On the other hand since Heresson appears to have no twinking options the blocking available from his gear might not be ideal, usually only about 30%. Using a 30% blocking shield (or necro head) at level 99 would require 510 dex which would be out of the question.

I would bet by the end of the game though Heresson would have little trouble finding a Shael rune and an eth rune and a 2 socket gray necro head in which to make the runeword Rhyme. That would keep the dex required for max blocking at level 99 well under 300 dex even using a crappy shield to make Rhyme in.

Rhyme gives the following bonus to a shield/voodoo head it's made in:

20% Increased Chance of Blocking
40% Faster Block Rate
All Resistances +25
Regenerate Mana 15%
Cannot Be Frozen
50% Extra Gold From Monsters
25% Better Chance Of Getting Magic Items

[The Mad Monk]

Of course, blocking only works for physical attacks, something I've wrestled with when running necros. I usually end up muddling somewhere between max dex and "throw every last point into vit".

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Of course, blocking only works for physical attacks, something I've wrestled with when running necros. I usually end up muddling somewhere between max dex and "throw every last point into vit".

it works for those annoying Stygian Fury magic star attacks too. check it out for yourself.

It only seems to fail against pure elemental and poison attacks.