Why does my poison necro suck so bad?

[GovernerOfCali]

Well, I built a poison necro with the intent of ruling the pits. And I find him not very fun to play with. He dies too easily. His setup is not perfect, but it's not trash either... but a few hits... and he's dead quick. I did (of course) the whole poison tree... and am using the marrowwalk thingy and doing bonespear... with a clay golem as a meatshield. I'm looking for 3 arreas for suggestions.... my gear, my skill points, and my style for playing this guy...

Gear:
Helm - Wormskull (I will put a shako on him one day when I find one)
Ammy - +3PnB skills
Weapon - Blackbogs sharp (deathsweb would be nice... but it seems impossible to get on ladder)
Shield - I've switched between sigons for plus skills and Radaments.... can't say i'm impressed with either. My plan is to get the Trangs head for the added poison damage... but maybe the homo would be better?
Gloves - Trangs of course
Boots - Marrowalks
Belt - IK to help with resistances and str for my boots (eventually will 'hopefully' get the Trangs belt)
Armor - Tried trangs... wasn't impressed... now trying skin of the vipermagi (I don't see Enigma or Brambles in my near future)
Rings - Raven Frost and one that adds +108 to mana... as I seem to have mana problems.
..... so some gear I don't see myself getting anytime soon.... Deathsweb wand and Enigma are two things that seem to add a lot to this build... but unfortunately I can't get stuff like that... is this build really so gear dependent that without these things he will continue to suck?

Skill points:
Maxed the poison tree
1 pointers = curses down to lower resist, bonearmor, CE, clay golem (will add 1 pt to mastery and resists for golem shortly)
currently working on my bone spear.
I am going for Max Blocking... so I have a few points to Dex... and a few waiting to be spend.... don't wanna put the points there until I decide on Homo or Trangs head and see what they need for max blocking.
maybe it's too late... but i'm feeling that doing skellies instead of bonespear would have made this easier.... giving me some meat shields... or is bonespear a good choice for PvM?

Playing Style:
My first priority is living.... it doesn't take many hits to kill my guy. So, I run a lot.... unfortunately, I have to stop running to do a Nova... and if I wanna hit them first with Lower Resist... that makes it really tough... esp if archers are hitting me... so I cast my bone armor and golem in town... and RUNNNNN to the pits as fast I can. From there... I walk slowly... and the first sign of movement I throw out a poison nova. If they are skellies, I have to curse them first... or the nova doesn't do to much... but for the little demons... they die fast. Archers are a problem for me... their range is further then mine... and that sucks. My golem dies quickly too (not suprising)... so I spend a lot of time recasting golems, bone armors, nova's, and drinking blues. One thing I just started trying was bonewall. When I cast it, it draws their attention to it... and it seems quite strong. I tried to IM them, but when they hit bonewall, I don't think IM works? Is this the strategy I should use? Throw up a bonewall at sight of any monster to buy me time while I curse and nova them? I usually die several times doing a pit run.... i'm just totally unhappy with this guy... the ONLY place i've found where he is really impressive.... is in cow games. He's quicker then my blizzard sorc friend hands down. Nice, but I was really hoping this guy would be a pit runner. Anyone got suggestions for improvement...

... and lastly... does this build really depend so heavily on one specific wand and specific armor to do well? With what I have... he is terrible... not to mention his negative resistances in Hell.

[Myrakh-2]

maybe it's too late... but i'm feeling that doing skellies instead of bonespear would have made this easier.... giving me some meat shields...

I can't comment on the build as I have no experience with poison necros (to quote a famous ogre: "it's not mine to do"), but the general rule with skellies is that you can get very far with very little :-)

I'm looking at this from a Skelemancer's perspective, rather than a hybrid build, but ...

Well, hopefully the guys with the stinking green rotting necros will be able to five you some advice on your actual build :-)

[EuroJamie]

The cheapest way to improve your effectiveness would be to get 3-part trangs set. You already have the gloves, giving you +25 poison skill damage. If you add the shield and any other item to the set you will gain -25 to enemy poison resists, which should improve your killing speed. I'd suggest the belt for your extra item, as it is the least useful of your remaining slots, freeing up armour and helm for +resist items, etc. Also, remember that every Trang item you get adds 15% to your mana regen speed. You may even want to look at full trangs, as the overall set boni are pretty tasty.

As far as skill points goes, I'm wouldn't have gone for bone skills. Without synergies (which you can't afford), your Bone Spear is going to be pretty weak - imo skellies would have been a better investment. I'd suggest you start putting some points into Corpse Explosion. This will give you a blanket offensive skill for finishing off any monsters you have weakened with your PNovas.

Hope this helps,
EJ

[GovernerOfCali]

Yeah, I think the bonespear was a bad move too.... I got the build from a guide..... and now that I think of my own playing exp and what I know... skellies would help me a lot more then bonespear does..... but as unhappy as I currently am with him... if I can't fix him up.... i'm not trying another poison necro.

[Necrochild313]

A rule of thumb:

-resist is the most important thing for a poison necro, then +% dmg, and THEN +skills, your problem seems to be that your focusing on +skills.

I have a venomancer with -79% enemy poison resist in gear, and when paired up with lower resistance he runs the pits faster than a hammerdin could hope to.

This, in turn, highlights the venomancer's weakness, he is high maintanience. He's hardly as effective without good gear, moreso than other builds.

[Myrakh-2]

Just out of curiosity, at this point... do you encounter "a lot" of poison immunes that you can't hurt?

[GovernerOfCali]

In the pits... none of course.... but I can't even do solo baal runs in a normal game with my lvl 71 poison necro.... some of his minions that spawn are immune.... sure, I can try to lure them away.... but you would think that any decent build could easily handle a normal game baal run when they are lvl 70+.... He's good at certain things.... but definitely could not survive on his own.

[Necrochild313]

Lower resistance takes care of most poison immunes. I always use 3 piece trang for the +/-% psn and the lovely +firewall that is a great free backup skill (that kills those nonremovables)

Dont' forget that if you can break the immunity on monsters with LR -resist effects on your gear are NOT effected by the 1/5 penalty!

[JoJeck]

Well, I built a poison necro with the intent of ruling the pits. And I find him not very fun to play with. He dies too easily. His setup is not perfect, but it's not trash either... but a few hits... and he's dead quick. I did (of course) the whole poison tree... and am using the marrowwalk thingy and doing bonespear... with a clay golem as a meatshield. I'm looking for 3 arreas for suggestions.... my gear, my skill points, and my style for playing this guy...

.... snip....

... and lastly... does this build really depend so heavily on one specific wand and specific armor to do well? With what I have... he is terrible... not to mention his negative resistances in Hell.Your problem of dying too much is due to a lack of ways to control the monsters, even the weak ones in the Pit. Necros have several ways to make monsters do what the necro wants them to do and not what the monsters want to do. Curses, Minions and Bone walls can hold off and control monsters long enough for Poison to work. This is where you seem to be having most problems. Let's examine each of these ways in a bit more detail.

You don't say what level you are but I guess in the late 70's from the skill points you mention and that is actually a tough time for any Necro in Hell without good gear. Remember the monsters in the Pit are level 85, 87 and 88 and have good hit points and hit hard for their type.


Curses: these are a very good way to control monsters... don't just spam LR and hope to kill the monster with poison before they beat your brains out. Use Attract or Dim Vision to control them at least long enough to get a few PN off. Without LR it will take twice as long to kill them but they won't be hitting you ... Even Decrepify will slow monsters and weaken their blows so you, your Merc and Golem last longer and poison can do its job and it will help the CE that you use to finish a group off.

Minions: A single Clay Golem is not really enough to hold off more than 2 or 3 monsters. You are right that skellies would have been an ideal complement to Poison Nova and they not only give control but also an alternative form of damage to deal with poison immunes. However, if I'm right in assuming you are in the late 70's it is too late to build up a decent number of skellies that are sufficiently strong. You have, in my opinion, over-specialised in poison damage and some of those points invested in a Synergy for PN would be better placed in Summons ... but unfortunately it is too late now to do much about that :(

You don't mention a Merc. A Holy Freeze is good with a Poison Necro and he is excellent for giving better control once you learn how to look after him with curses and bone wall - otherwise he'll be dying as much as you are now :surprise:

Revives are a good way to provide some extra meatshield and maybe even a little alternative damage without costing too much. It would cost you 5 skill points to get 1 in Revive and that might be worth it. But at present using BlackBogs means you have very few + skills for summons ... So I suggest you get yourself a magical wand with +2 Necro skills and at least +2 Revive. That will give you a much better set of minions and improved curses at the cost of maybe 2 plusses to PN. A wand like that can be bought from a Vendor in Hell if you are patient. Alternatively, you might find a Necro Head with + Revive skills.

Bone Walls: I am not very familiar with using these but some Poison Necros use them as the main method of control. Since you have Marrowwalks your walls will be tough and you should experiment with using these to block off parts of the battlefield to stop monster packs charging you and to block archers shooting.

Poison: With Blackbogs and fully synergised PN you should be killing anything in the Pit. But if you go almost anywhere else in Hell you'll be meeting Poison Immunes and you don't seem to have a way to deal with them apart from LR and that only breaks maybe 50% of immunes in Late Hell.

Equipment. You say you have problems with resists.

Wormskull, is not a very good helm for a Necro in Hell it only gives you +1 skills and nothing else worthwhile, try replacing with a Lore helm. Lore gives +1, 30% resist Lightning, 10 Energy, 7 damage reduction per hit and +2 mana per kill (i.e say 6 mana per PN) ... probably the best helm a Poison Necro can have short of a Shako.

Sheild, if resist are bad use a 3 socket shield with 3 diamonds. Losing one + skill is better than losing your life. If you get a Trang Oul Wing then it will give good blocking and some resists (socket Perf Diamond) as well as improving poison damage against monsters with high resistance.

Armour, if you do decide on Revives or weak skellies then using Trangs might be better than Vipermagi. If you get the Trang Wing then it would be the 3rd part of the set.

Overall, it seems that you have concentrated too much on killing the monsters fast and that works easilly in Normal and Nightmare. But when you venture into Hell you need to have several means of controlling the monsters at least long enough for the poison to do its evil work.

Anyway, good luck and keep trying. You can do this and with a bit of effort and careful planning you can save this character.

[Hypnectic]

I have recently made a Venomancer.
For pvm and Mf purposes.
One very important thing when considering building this character is block rate. Remember you have to be relatively close to a monster to nova them.
Thus leaving yourself open to melee attacks. Get your block as high as possible. I'm at around 65% block with a Homonculus( w/ eld rune) and 1 raven frost for dex.
And for merc choice I went with an Act1 normal Rogue. I suggest all IAS gear, 60% armor, and 45% helm, with a WF if you have an xtra kicking around. Also Skystrike seems to work well, the %chance to cast meteor helps a bit with your LR curse. She stays back and lets my golem do the tanking. 1 point into Clay and golem mastery. with +14 skills, he rarely ever dies. Especially if you have CTA.
In the pits, you need to make the monster move where you want them too. Obviously this wont always work, but using certain curses, and utilizing bone wall, you shouldn't die very often. The only instances where I have died with my Venomancer, is where I teleport into a flock of Poison immunes. And honestly I dont really tele unless I'm cornered. In the pits, I find that killing all the monsters in Pit lvl 1 is almost more rewarding than lvl 2. LOTS AND LOTS OF SUPER UNIQUES. hiyo!

well thats all i can think of atm.

HYP.
:stoned:

[BottledViolence]

I think that the venomancer is one of the best overall characters in the game, mine rarely dies with His uber resists, and with a golem and a barb as a tank i have enough time to kill every mosnter within radius

[GovernerOfCali]

Well, thank you everyone who suggested things... there were some good suggestions. My biggest problem was crowd control as many of you said. I put a point into Dim Vision... and working my way to Attract which I think will help a lot. I also added 1 pt into skellies (with +4 skills) as meat shields... they die too fast... but oh well... 1 pt won't kill me and they DO provide some fodder for that initial contact... giving me enough time to use my main crown control.... BONE WALL. I sometimes use the dim vision on the archers now... it seems OK too. I also got Full Trangs now with Max Blocking... not the super Uber setup... but still... full trangs works great too for this build if your not Uber rich. I'm still using Blackbogs... I think Deathweb is gonna be impossible for a long time... I can't even find ANYBODY who has one to trade. I had a guy quit who gave me a lot of his stuff.... so, I will be replacing my +3 P&B ammy with a low mara's (22%). I also realized I had not done the Anya quest in normal or nightmare.... schwing!.... do I did those, put a PDiamond in the Trangs shield... and will soon add the mara's... my resists should finally be at an acceptable level (although not maxed). I threw a PTopaz in the Trangs armor... and can now run pits without dying... but I sure don't find much with 24% MF :) It's OK though... i'm still happy just not to die with him.... I'll put a topaz in his helm and get a couple Nagels.... get his MF up to 100ish.... then figure out later where to bump it up another 100... 200 is a fine number with me... anyway... he doesn't die much anymore in the pits unless I play carelessly... so thank you to all that helped... it's always nice to know that your suggestions were used and they worked!