Diablo II: Lord of Destruction - Necromancer (Running Act 1)

[SkratMan]

bone wall is cool but too weak at low levels (if un-synergyzed) and would only be used at bosses i think? (also it makes a poor combination with teeth)

Depends how you use it; I think it attracts monsters so you could cast one while levelling and then kill all the monsters that approach it. Maybe. I'm sure all these clever players on this board can find some use for it.

Enter Corpse Explosion.  If you can funnel enemies into small spaces, Corpse Explosion will be godly.  If you're able to get a socketed weapon and/or shield that had some Tir's in them, the mana used to cast it would refill after felling a good sized mob.  I'm not thinking far enough ahead to tell you how, but getting more points into CE for the increased radius would be an incredible help.  It's unfortunate that the only act boss you can use CE against in Andy, but the fact that half of CE's damage is fire based it should be a good weapon against her.

My initial reaction is to think that CE should be your crowd killer.  It's mana intensive, but if three casts can wipe out an entire screen of enemies, that's a hell of a lot faster than some teeth.  That said, necros and I don't meet up too often, so...  grain of salt and all that.

[Zurreco]

Bone Wall will be a waste of a point.  The speed at which a nstantly-leveled Teeth kills through normal makes funneling useless.  Once a Clay Golem comes in to play, Teeth/Bone Spear will only really be needed to kill one enemy before Corpse Explosion takes out the rest of the crowd.

Suga, everything you have planned seems pretty spot on.  Your only hard part will be taking on Duriel, but by then your Teeth and BS will be strong enough to put up a fight.  I still suggest you contact Gorash for the run he did through Act 1, since it had some interesting ideas.

[bimanc]

Suga, i think you really should consider the use of more curses. They are like the auras for paladin. With confuse, you don't have to worry about traveling through crowded areas like CS, and amplify can help if you will use corps exp. I know your damage would be lower, but the listed teeth and spear damages would be more than enough for normal enemies, and you can always manipulate a skill shrine for later act bosses. Oh, and please use clay golem in the late game, too. The slowing effect will be useful.

[shoop]

I don't believe putting more points in CE is wise as teeth would do fine for mobs and it's a synergy for bone spear.
Bone wall: well the idea was to get it as a synergy of teeth, so it would not be a waste of a point, but the question is whether it is useful as a skill. I'm not sure - maybe not for funneling mobs, but would it not help in fighting bosses if you could lock them in place somewhere? Especially if you put around 5 points in bone wall instead of teeth, as suggested above.

curses: here I tend to agree, but which? Candidates are: amplify damage for CE, dim vision and perhaps confuse. But getting all three seems too expensive. I think confuse would be overkill. How do you guys feel about amp and/or dim vision?

[bimanc]

I would keep confuse, but it needs at least two points, and suga wants to skip izual. Dim vision is rather good too, basically, these two is for making the enemies not attack you, thus make the run easier. Amplify can speed up fights like the seal bosses in CS, combining the curse with corpse exp. Terror would be good, but too expensive. I say: either amplify, or amp with confuse/dim vision.

[shoop]

I would keep confuse, but it needs at least two points, and suga wants to skip izual. Dim vision is rather good too, basically, these two is for making the enemies not attack you, thus make the run easier. Amplify can speed up fights like the seal bosses in CS, combining the curse with corpse exp. Terror would be good, but too expensive. I say: either amplify, or amp with confuse/dim vision.

If you get all three skills instead of the last three points in teeth, bone spear damage is reduced from 245 to 220.  It would mean casting almost 10% more bone spears. The teeth themselves also become less powerful. Together, a substantial reduction in power. This would really cost a lot of time in the run. I think three points in curses really won't be worth it.

How about getting a +1 confuse on an item? And perhaps +1 amp on another item?

[bimanc]

A wand with those curses in the weapon switch can do it.

[suga]

Yes, it looks like it's wise to put more points into synergies than all into Teeth itself. On whether or not to put one point into Bone Armor, Pros are less hit recovery so you can tank more and less drinking potions, Cons are slightly less Bone Spear damage (97%) and every casting will add up time. Hmm, I'm leaning toward putting a point into it. I must do some testing before I decide.

Edit: Oops, I didn't know Bone Armor is preq for Bone Wall when I was writing this.

CE's radius growth is too small to put more than one point. They'll get deadly if you got many +skill/pnb, but not for this run. A monster pack will die at the same time with Teeth anyway.

I must look into curse usage. I know Dim Vision and Confuse are great for crowd-control but I think their radius and duration are too short at low level. I haven't tested it seriously yet so I have to do some testing in Chaos. They can be replaced by Cloak of Shadow though.
Amp might work greatly against Andy, this one needs testing too.

Thanks for all suggestions guys. I would contact Gorash but is he still somewhere?

[Zurreco]

Find him on the memberlist and PM him for links or something.

[suga]

Gorash
Last Active:     Never



I'll try sending a pm to him anyway.

[suga]

Drop rate for Preserved Head:
1 : 20   Rakanishu   Stony Field - {mlvl 8}

I think I'll do a segment for manipulating a +3 Teeth Head from him besides poison shrine segments, because doing both at the same time will be overkill.

[suga]

Btw does anyone know CE's damage is affected by an increase of hit points from monster's being champion or unique? Or does it just takes a monster's base hp? If it is affected, I should manipulate a boss packs in Andy's room.

[Zurreco]

CE is based on the HP of the target corpse and shouldn't have anything to do with the monster type/class. 

[suga]

Thanks. No monsters manipulation for Andy then.

And wow, I never knew this.

Pysical Damage Radius is estimated. Radius of Physical Damage is ~50% smaller than that of Fire Damage.

This means chances of getting Amp'd damage will be low.

I'm feeling IM will be used for Andy. I could still use some CE though.

I've done some testing with curses and found Dim Vision and Terror are useless because of their short radius and duration. Confuse on the other hand worked quite well. It's because even if only a single one of the monsters were affected by curse, then if he attacks the others, they become hostile to him. I never noticed this because one-point curses are all high level with gears when I'm playing necro for normal play. This will likely replace Nadir since I don't have to switch between +1 PnB circlet and Nadir helm, and I can cast as many as I like without caring about charges and cool-down. And top of that, less runes manipulations

It's getting more interesting from the original simple teeth + bs build with your suggestions. I must find some nice use of Bone Wall

[Nihilus]

CE's radius growth is too small to put more than one point.

Let's not forget our geometry now. The total area is pi times the radius squared, so while the numbers may seem small, the total area of effect actually increases by a much larger margin for each point than the point before it. Lack of boss killing except Andy is still its problem though, so a single point may be the way to go.