golem-mancer?

[thamuzdevil]

Ok guys, sorry to post this if it has been covered (and if it has and you know where, please give me the link), but I would like to know if a golem-mancer is a viable build - and by that i mean, could I make a mancer based almost completely in the golem skill tree, with very little other tree usage (except perhaps CE)? Has anyone done it?

Reason I ask: I saw with synergies and maxed out and everything, clay golem has sick hp in hell difficulty. I know hes a magnet for monsters, so could you exploit clay/fire/iron golem? I would possibly max all of these, along with blood for more hp, and golem mastery for more everything.

What golem would I want to concentrate on using?

Can they do decent damage?

Im a HC player and about to play in a untwinked group from normal through hell (hopefully at least) and Id like to get a build fleshed out like this - I think clay golems ability to tank would kick, and if i got a nice tough merc maybe some killing could happen... Or I could even get some good weapons and join in the fray myself to do some killing.

Any suggestions? Im a necro-noob but I did the calculations and I think this would be a fun (hopefully viable) build ;)

[GenXCub]

There's been a lot of discussion about golemancers... and I do believe that every single one ended by saying "they really do blow."

Clay does get a heck of a lot of HP, but it does next to zero damage.

If you max Clay Golem, Fire Golem, and Golem Mastery, and have +15 summoning skills (i.e. 35 in each of those skills), you'd have a clay golem with over 28,500 hit points, doing a not-so-massive 42-98 damage in hell. I think fallen can regenerate faster than that....

A Fire golem at that level would be doing 900 - 1002 damage per hit. Not too bad, and he'd have about 8k hit points to help out. Maxing Golem Mastery really isn't necessary either, just thought I'd throw it in.

I really doubt you could make a good build around this guy, but there are skelemancers who are always looking for something to do with their extra skill points. A Level 20 FG is a neat novelty to have, and you could save the clay for doing bosses... just make sure you have the 390 mana it would take to cast him! :)

[thamuzdevil]

*sigh*

Thats the problem I had when I looked at the build I thought up.. The golems do crap damage really. Even fire golem doesnt do nice damage, and you need massive +skills to get it to do decent damage. Could a well equipped merc make up for this? I believe most enemies would ignore the merc and go for killing the clay golem... every time I had a necro and I cast clay golem, monsters went after him like crazy.

Could an iron golem do alright in the damage department?

Its a shame golems arent that great... I mean if a grizzly can do mad damage and have good hp, why cant a level 40 clay golem? heh..

More or less Im asking whether or not I could use a fully synergized clay golem as a tank for an 8-player hardcore team? We would more than likely have a BO barb (BO is god in HC) so the HP would be even more through the roof.

And whats the deal with clay golem? Why do monsters go after him so much? Do they get pissed off at the slow ability or something? ;)

Could I make a meleemancer/golemmancer hybrid maybe?

EDIT: Maybe even a poison nova/melee/clay golem (tank)/fire golem (finisher) mancer?

Sounds dumb, but something like... (level 86 necro)

20 PNova
20 Clay
20 Fire
20 Golem Mastery
10 CE (untwinked HC I wont have mad +skills)
1 in all prereqs
Possibility of putting 1 into curses for utility spells

Any good? I like the fact of the clay golem tanking and drawing attention I guess... would like to see it played out, even if I never use it after out group is done :D Im just asking the insight of necro-players by coming to this forum for advice.

And thanks for the reply ;)

[Mad Mantis]

Could a well equipped merc make up for this?

Getting a Merc to solo the game while the Golem tanks will be very hard to do. I guess with proper equipment and curses you can go a long way, but it will be very tricky.




Could an iron golem do alright in the damage department?

IG can get some usable damage if you use the correct Merc and a good weapon, but he has low AR and attacks about once every second. That just doesn’t cut it in Hell. He can be swarmed relatively easy and will have trouble with bosses.




More or less Im asking whether or not I could use a fully synergized clay golem as a tank for an 8-player hardcore team? We would more than likely have a BO barb (BO is god in HC) so the HP would be even more through the roof.

As a tank he will function marvellously. Even in 8 player games. Doubly so if you can get a high level BO. Just protect him with curses and recast him when he does die.




And whats the deal with clay golem? Why do monsters go after him so much? Do they get pissed off at the slow ability or something? ;)

It is the dirt. Every where he walks Clay leaves a lot of dirt. Monsters are notorious for wanting to have clean floors.




Could I make a meleemancer/golemmancer hybrid maybe?

Almost all Meleemancers use a Golem as a tank and diversionary tactic. Most of them however do not spend a lot of points in Clay.




Maybe even a poison nova/melee/clay golem (tank)/fire golem (finisher) mancer?

The Nova will need more synergies to actually do a bit of damage. If you are serious about going Melee you will need a good BA to survive.

[thamuzdevil]

Hmm... maybe since Im partying up I should go mojomancer/clay golem then... I dont look to be able to do much alone of course, but I think itd be a very fun build in an 8 player group (for those of you who arent familiar, KTAEast is the group I plan to play with, theyre notorious for untwinked HC groups that get reported on in the HC forum).

I could go with a relatively high amount of curses and a buff clay golem to draw fire. Potential build (Im thinking in terms of helping an 8 player group go through hell with NO DEATHS lol) -

10 Lower Res
20 Decrep
10 Dim Vision
1 in all other curse skills
20 Clay
20 Golem Mastery (5x More HP to Clay)
1 Summon Res
10 CE
1 in each PreReq

Ok, my golem-mancer will probably never happen (although last minute it might) but I think this build up here should do ok. Im looking to be the most beneficial to the party now that I know a golemmancer will be crap in the end.

Any suggestions on this? This build would be done at level 90, so I would only plan to get to 80 or so by the time were done... So I think end value for Decrepify will be 10 at level 80.

[Mad Mantis]

10 Lower Res
20 Decrep
10 Dim Vision
1 in all other curse skills
20 Clay
20 Golem Mastery (5x More HP to Clay)
1 Summon Res
10 CE
1 in each PreReq

You can make do with less in LR. Diminishing returns kick in hard after level 7. You can use this to boost your CE. This gives greater range and allows you to make good use of the corpses created by the rest of the squad.

[thamuzdevil]

I may even go 5 in it for that matter. Im sure Dim Vision will be of great use at level 10 - one of the KTA groups recently lost their BO barb (ow thats HARSH) to a big group of archers... DV would have solved their problems there.

Greater CE might be necessary... I may go strictly MojoMancer/CE with the necro if it turns out we dont need a high level golem. Ill keep you guys posted. The group probably wont start til January anyway, gotta let this one finish up first ;)

And who knows, I may go freeze arrow zon or a sorc (i have the most xp with sorcs) ;)

Thanks for the help :D

[Wambat]

Well, you can put one point on CG and GM and, with +skills, he will be able to absorb a lot of damage. If you intend to use the CG exclusively there really isn't too much advantage to maxing him, or GM, all you need to do is recast him when he dies, you will be recasting him to position him often enough anyway, and he doesn't cost much in mana. The only golem I could really see anyone building a character around is the IG, but for this to be viable in hell you have to use very specific, very expensive weapons, and a BA merc to help the IG's pitiful AR. Even then I doubt your IG would be more effective than the merc you hired to support him. It would also be quite devastating to lose you IG considering the value of the weapon it was based on.

[Salo]

In 109, no one had a cow killing pdagger necro to my knowledge besides me. Igolem, some CE, max pdagger, max golem, all out melee and big poison charms, created corpses fast (killed players, no defense vs that rate I had), got to level 95, played him for over a year, could kill baal solo (took a while but was a snooze)


Now, GOlemaster isnt impossible, just needs to be defined. The Boxer build was a great and unique one, I duno if anyone has it down, different approach, worked well. (bone walls and some other stuff)

Blood golem, something must be done with him!
or it

[rickcarson]

Hmm... maybe since Im partying up I should go mojomancer/clay golem then... I dont look to be able to do much alone of course, but I think itd be a very fun build in an 8 player group (for those of you who arent familiar, KTAEast is the group I plan to play with, theyre notorious for untwinked HC groups that get reported on in the HC forum).

I could go with a relatively high amount of curses and a buff clay golem to draw fire. Potential build (Im thinking in terms of helping an 8 player group go through hell with NO DEATHS lol) -

10 Lower Res
20 Decrep
10 Dim Vision
1 in all other curse skills
20 Clay
20 Golem Mastery (5x More HP to Clay)
1 Summon Res
10 CE
1 in each PreReq

Ok, my golem-mancer will probably never happen (although last minute it might) but I think this build up here should do ok. Im looking to be the most beneficial to the party now that I know a golemmancer will be crap in the end.

Any suggestions on this? This build would be done at level 90, so I would only plan to get to 80 or so by the time were done... So I think end value for Decrepify will be 10 at level 80.

You're almost there...

Take a look at what lvl 20+ Iron Maiden can do:

In Norm monsters kill themselves with about 3 hits, in Nightmare its about 6, and in Hell its about 16. As pointed out in another thread, some monsters take many more hits, but the ones used as examples in that thread all have crushing blow...

Level 15 Iron Maiden + Level ~10 Clay Golem (weapon switch +3 CG wand (shopped), and +3 CG head (found or gambled)) completely owns normal Baal's Minions.

Attract for some crowd control (plus you'd rather have the monsters beating on each other than you or your minions). Bonus points for actually having a build that makes sense to use a Prayer merc. :D

In NM I found that ranged attackers start becoming more annoying, and the main drawback of IM and Attract became clear, neither of them increases in radius with extra skill points, which is a shame, since you can't really 'spam' them off the screen while advancing. Dim Vision and Confusion do increase in radius, and they're both good at crowd control (in their own ways). Or maybe use Bonewalls as portable riot shields to advance into unknown territory?

You use Iron Maiden + Attract whenever you are outnumbered or outgunned. When you have a numerical advantage (eg against Diablo/Baal) you might want to switch to Amp Damage. Against ranged attackers or non-physical attackers, switch to your backup crowd control.

Q: Why not just always use Amp? Isn't it teh leetzorest curze?
A: Given the following scenario -

Iron Maiden for 1000% damage returned (ie 10x)
Your team: merc that does ~180 damage, golem that does ~20

The monster(s) would only need to do a base 20 points of physical damage with their attack for you to 'break even' compared to Amplify Damage. So if there are 4 monsters, they can each do 5 damage for Iron Maiden to break even. If there were say 10 Monsters, each doing 20 points of damage (on average), then Iron Maiden would be 10x better than Amplify Damage.

Q: Does that mean my Skellimancer should use Iron Maiden?
A: No. A skellimancer typically has a numerical and damage advantage over the monsters, plus factor in the effect on Might and Corpse Explosion, so Amp is always 'teh win' for a Skellimancer.

Q: But surely the Iron Maiden / Blood Golem bug doesn't work anymore?
A: I'm not using Blood Golem. Even if the bug still worked, the whole point of the bug was to have an unkillable minion, and I present you with... Gumby. Also if I'm using Attract I *want* the thing on the receiving end to die. :D

I'm currently rebuilding mine with a view to experimenting with adding Iron Golem (instead of Gumby) and Revives into the mix. Or maybe Revives + Thorns merc? In the past however I've found Thorns mercs to be very fragile and I have a lot of trouble keeping them alive, so that may be a dead end.

[Mad Mantis]

As pointed out in another thread, some monsters take many more hits, but the ones used as examples in that thread all have crushing blow...

It doesn’t really matter if a monster has CB or not. The damage caused by CB is not used in the IM damage return equation.

[rickcarson]

It doesn’t really matter if a monster has CB or not. The damage caused by CB is not used in the IM damage return equation.

I'm not suggesting that it would. After all, Crushing Blow isn't even effected by Amp or Deadly Strike, so why would you think I would think it would be effected by Iron Maiden?

However, putting that miscommunication aside, surely if they are attacking each other (Attract), then Crushing Blow will come into play?

Also the Frenzytaurs get some kind of speed up bonus, so they'll kill each other even faster.

And hence the 40+ attacks gets reduced for Crushing Blow, and for Frenzy, not to mention bonus elemental damage etc. (and of course if that damage was cold based, they'd slow down, increasing the time to kill each other, but then if they deal cold damage they're probably immune to it...). Also noone took into account in that thread that you might have some +skills gear, and hence actually do more than 675% return. 1000% return is level 33, and that would only be 27+ attacks (assuming the original estimate of 40+ was accurate), less crushing blow etc. Every other skill discussion is allowed to take into account +skills, why should Iron Maiden be any different? ;)

Still, in an 8 player game (8 x 27 = 216) its gonna be... slow...

If you have a three on one (one monster Attracted, the other three beating on it), and they do 50 damage each attack (500 returned) and have 10,000 hit points, then the three would kill themselves after 20 attacks each, leaving the 'victim' still with ~7,000 hp. Fortunately Gumby + Merc pretty much beats any monster one on one, so mopping up isn't a big issue.

The objection you should have raised is the monster regen in Hell. I don't know what the answer for that is (Poison?). The maths tells me the Iron Maiden Attract combo should work, but I wouldn't be the first to make a mistake with the maths in D2 (points at the Sorc forum and laughs maniacally) :lol

---

One of the things I managed to do at one point was to get the monsters to attack my Bonewall while Iron Maidened, but I couldn't reproduce that effect. Does anyone know how to do this reliably? If so that might make a viable alternative to the Golem/Attract part of the combo. But I guess I'm not talking about a Golemancer anymore, so I'll stop there.

[rickcarson]

Blood golem, something must be done with him!
or it

Does a Prayer mercs prayer aura work on the Blood Golem's healing link with the necro?

Eg Prayer heals you, Golem gets some extra, Prayer heals Golem, you get some extra.

I tried this out, and my normal rate of healing from the Prayer merc was I think 5hp every 2 seconds.

With the Blood Golem out and same Prayer merc I was still clearly healing in 5 point 'chunks', but I'm not sure if I was healing faster, eg every second instead of 2 seconds? That doesn't make sense to me though, since auras pulse on a set timer, and surely it wouldn't take that long to work its way through the list of allies.

*However* sometimes it seemed like there were 2 chunks very close to each other... maybe the Prayer effect pulses in an invisible nova (expanding ring) and travels outwards, hitting me and the Golem at different times?

This was single player, so I don't think it would have been lag that caused the observation.

---

I'm also interested in Life Tap as a party friendly skill, maybe some kind of Energiser bunny build... Use Life Tap, and a Prayer merc and Blood Golem and just keep going and going and going? Forget blocking, go for a big two handed weapon... ...Now where did I put that spare Bonesnap... :D

[Mad Mantis]

I'm not suggesting that it would. After all, Crushing Blow isn't even effected by Amp or Deadly Strike, so why would you think I would think it would be effected by Iron Maiden?

However, putting that miscommunication aside, surely if they are attacking each other (Attract), then Crushing Blow will come into play?

Well, the first few sentences spoke about how often a monster needs to hit something while under the influence of level 20+ IM. And then you implied that it would be faster with CB.

After reading your post again I see that you were referring to using Attract in combo with IM. That would make more sense. A bit of misunderstanding on my part. At least other posters won't make the same mistake. :xgrin: No harm done.

[rickcarson]

A bit of misunderstanding on my part. At least other posters won't make the same mistake. :xgrin: No harm done.

Queue the group hug. :xsmile4:

I hope its clear that it isn't a simple thing to figure out just how good or bad Iron Maiden is.

I am surprised that with all the mojomancer discussions noone else seems to have thought of the Iron Maiden + Attract combo. I seem to vaguely recall it used to be a fairly popular strategy several nerfs <coughs> I mean patches ago. But then I guess we had 1.09 for so long that as they say 'everything old is new again'.

In theory I should be able to crank up the /players setting in normal (if my 3:6:16 ratio was correct) to 5 or 6 to see what Hell would be like on /players 1. I just did the top level of the Maggot lair on /players 8 with about 450% damage return and it was really very slow going - a lot slower than the Arcane Sanctuary. But it was doable. And the pace picks up when you add Attract into the mix, since you can then open up a second 'front' when there is a corridor filled with monsters, only the first couple of which can swing at your minions.

With Attract and a level 25 IM (800% damage returned) I'd expect to get through it, but fairly slowly. As noted in my earlier post, Iron Maiden isn't that good when the ratio of attackers to things being attacked drops drops off (like in the Maggot Lair where everything is in single file), but then the problem with large open spaces is you get a lot of archers and re-animaters, which makes for a messy battleground.

I'm peering closely at the Iron Golem, but I can't tell if its Aura and the Iron Maiden are both going off when the monsters hit it. To tell I guess I should have left the Iron Maiden at 200%, so that the aura and Maiden would return about the same amount, and then experiment with some champions or something on a high /players setting to see if I could see the damage doubling when I add the Iron Maiden. Hmm... tricky...

[Mad Mantis]

I am surprised that with all the mojomancer discussions noone else seems to have thought of the Iron Maiden + Attract combo. I seem to vaguely recall it used to be a fairly popular strategy several nerfs <coughs> I mean patches ago. But then I guess we had 1.09 for so long that as they say 'everything old is new again'.

The problem with the Mojomancer is that you are left with ranged attackers and bosses. They are a real pain to kill.

Several posters have reported some success with the Attract + IM combo in creating some corpses for their armies. It will be a bit slow going but it works.

If you do decide to fool around with the combo, keep me posted.

[Pherdnut]

The annoying thing about the golems is that it's relatively easy to make them nigh indestructable but getting the damage up is a pain. Do all rune word mods carry over to Iron Golems? That might at least allow for the interesting possibility of having another aura carrier for your party, although even with damage bonuses wrought from the likes of BotD, it wouldn't be enough to make it a heavy hitter. I've tried to find a definitive Iron Golem guide with listings of what magic mods work and which ones don't, but I can't seem to find one. Maybe the IG is one of the last frontiers of Necromancy in 1.10?

Edit: Wait a minute. Do IGs get crushing blow and ias modifiers from items? A Beast IG would probably be pretty decent.

[Mad Mantis]

Maybe the IG is one of the last frontiers of Necromancy in 1.10?

Actually we lost our old IG FAQ in the most recent forum swipe. We still need to replace it. Things like auras and most of the other mods do transfer.




Edit: Wait a minute. Do IGs get crushing blow and ias modifiers from items? A Beast IG would probably be pretty decent.

CB gets transferred but the IAS doesn't. Most of the items with IAS do not have an effect on IG’s attack speed. We are conducting tests to see if we can get IG to attack faster using high amounts of IAS.

[rickcarson]

The problem with the Mojomancer is that you are left with ranged attackers and bosses. They are a real pain to kill.


Well, as I said, I've experienced that and its led me to do a rebuild.

I'm hoping that one of Confusion or Dim Vision with solve the problem for me. I'm trying Confusion, but it may be the wrong one, since Confused meleers clump together, but Confused archers have this AI thing which says not to stand too close to enemies, so they run around all over the place, causing all sorts of chaos. Bone Prison or Wall could be an answer, but I'm used to having a minion shield... so...

I'm going to add some Revives. I was surprised that 1pt in the skellie skills has been enough to get me to cruise to level 24. I have to keep recasting the skellies because they are very fragile. Listed damage: skellies 9-10, poison magi 10, cold 5-8, fire 10-14, lightning 5-19. So the Magi are doing more for me than the skellies, but of course nowhere near what I'm used to with a skellimancer/LoM, so its not something I'd recommend as a 'first necro'.

The previous time I Javelined my way to level 6 and then went with Gumby, ignoring the skellies entirely.

It was one of my secret criticisms of some of the 'Commandomancer-like' builds that they didn't put more than the bare minimum points into skellies at low levels, I guess I was wrong.

[thamuzdevil]

I made a Mojomancer before... Iron Maiden sucks, by the way. I had maxed it, had decent +skills, used Attract + Iron Maiden, and killing took FOREVER. Monster HP is so high that iron maiden is worthless. I recommend 1 pt for any mojomancer.

Just my opinion of course... ;)

[Wambat]

Post by Rickcarson
I'm peering closely at the Iron Golem, but I can't tell if its Aura and the Iron Maiden are both going off when the monsters hit it. To tell I guess I should have left the Iron Maiden at 200%, so that the aura and Maiden would return about the same amount, and then experiment with some champions or something on a high /players setting to see if I could see the damage doubling when I add the Iron Maiden. Hmm... tricky...

IM and the IG’s Thorns aura do stack; as does IM and any Thorns aura. I’m pretty sure the IG’s Thorns aura will stack with a regular Thorns aura as well, if not the higher damage aura will take precedence. The problem is, the low physical damage of monsters, together with their high health and 50% physical resistance, and the fact that health goes up with larger parties, while damage does not, makes these skills exceedingly impractical as primary attacks.

Another note, if I cannot deter you from this route: I have seen threads to the effect that, in order to get damage return from an IM/Thorns combo that was equivalent, or better, than that from an amp/Thorns combo, you have to get IM to ~slvl 68 (this is assuming the 50% PR in hell). So you will do better with a bramble armor and 1 point in amp than you can ever expect to do with the IM/Thorns idea.

[NecRouge]

Hey guys, long time player, new to this forum.

Just thought id add my two cents. I have been working on a type of golem mancer i call a NecRouge Mancer. Its a pretty simple build ive had great success with by useing a act 1 Rouge merc and a clay golem.

Skills look like this:

CG (10)
GM (10)
SR (6)
DC (7)
IM (20)

This build is obtained around level 60 and leavs a lot of room for customization. But let me run your through how it works.

Clay golem is an outstanding tank. With its slowing effect and natural healing ability its hard to kill to say the least. Add a decent level of summonresist and golem mastery and you may never have to reveive him after you start your game. Maxing it is kinda a waste of points cuz his damage never really amounts to much and its too easy to use a little mana to make another if he does go down. (emphasis on little when compared to the other golem types) The real damage comes from letting those pesky minons kill themselves by casting that high level IM. Its really only a matter of time before just about all monsters go down with this skill maxed, and very few seem to have the power needed to kill a high level clay golem before doing themseves in.

A huge part of this build is also decrepify. Decrepify when paired with clay golem makes single boss charachters almost helpless. They slow down so much they often cant finish a strike before getting interupted, and only a few have the might to kill a clay golem when you give him adequate summon resist. However, if your using decrepify then how does the big baddie go down you ask?

Enter your Rouge merc. Get a level one rouge with CA. Give her any bow with as many socets you can find and load her up on perfect emeralds. With a 6 socketed bow that comnes out to 600 poison over 7 seconds. Even with a high level of resist a boss is going to feel the sting of that one, as will any normal minons who happen to get hit. Her High AR lets her take aim and hit almost any monster with ease, and she stays out of the fight letting your golem take on all the baddies he can handle.

In concusion, you have a very powerful tank that soakes up tons of damage and kills anything that tryies to attack it for too long with IM. Tough enemies get the decrepify treatment and the poins touch as well as anything that decides not to use physical attacks to kill your golem.

Remeber this is a template so use those 30 or so extra skill points to custamize to your personal taste. Corpse exposion and dim visionb are popular choices since ranged enemies can be a prblem and the swarms of enemies around your golem can really feel the hurt when a couple of body bombs go off.

Ok, so my 2 cents was more like 2 bucks,

Enjoy
GAP

[Salo]

Hey guys, long time player, new to this forum.

Just thought id add my two cents. I have been working on a type of golem mancer i call a NecRouge Mancer. Its a pretty simple build ive had great success with by useing a act 1 Rouge merc and a clay golem.

Skills look like this:

CG (10)
GM (10)
SR (6)
DC (7)
IM (20)

This build is obtained around level 60 and leavs a lot of room for customization. But let me run your through how it works.

Clay golem is an outstanding tank. With its slowing effect and natural healing ability its hard to kill to say the least. Add a decent level of summonresist and golem mastery and you may never have to reveive him after you start your game. Maxing it is kinda a waste of points cuz his damage never really amounts to much and its too easy to use a little mana to make another if he does go down. (emphasis on little when compared to the other golem types) The real damage comes from letting those pesky minons kill themselves by casting that high level IM. Its really only a matter of time before just about all monsters go down with this skill maxed, and very few seem to have the power needed to kill a high level clay golem before doing themseves in.

A huge part of this build is also decrepify. Decrepify when paired with clay golem makes single boss charachters almost helpless. They slow down so much they often cant finish a strike before getting interupted, and only a few have the might to kill a clay golem when you give him adequate summon resist. However, if your using decrepify then how does the big baddie go down you ask?

Enter your Rouge merc. Get a level one rouge with CA. Give her any bow with as many socets you can find and load her up on perfect emeralds. With a 6 socketed bow that comnes out to 600 poison over 7 seconds. Even with a high level of resist a boss is going to feel the sting of that one, as will any normal minons who happen to get hit. Her High AR lets her take aim and hit almost any monster with ease, and she stays out of the fight letting your golem take on all the baddies he can handle.

In concusion, you have a very powerful tank that soakes up tons of damage and kills anything that tryies to attack it for too long with IM. Tough enemies get the decrepify treatment and the poins touch as well as anything that decides not to use physical attacks to kill your golem.

Remeber this is a template so use those 30 or so extra skill points to custamize to your personal taste. Corpse exposion and dim visionb are popular choices since ranged enemies can be a prblem and the swarms of enemies around your golem can really feel the hurt when a couple of body bombs go off.

Ok, so my 2 cents was more like 2 bucks,

Enjoy
GAP


This is good, this is real info, a real approach. My suggestion would be to add Crushing blow and Open wounds to your merc girl. Cblow takes off % of health, and open wounds stops hp regeneration. the Poison factor would then work dollar for dollar. I think the cold arrow is a good idea. I also think Fire golem and Imaiden is a good choice. The clay slows the monster down, that might be good, that might suck for how long it takes for them to swing themselves to death.

Whatever happened to Igolem vs bosses? I personally have never gotten it to work properly, I guess one needs an ancients pledge for that. I would LResist, and use that rogue merc idea. Very nice idea, btw :)

Nice idea's though, very workable. Hell baal, eh, probably not, but most my chars cant really swing that guy and his area well anyways.

[rickcarson]

Hey guys, long time player, new to this forum.

Skills look like this:

CG (10)
GM (10)


CG 12, GM 8 would be better.


A huge part of this build is also decrepify. Decrepify when paired with clay golem makes single boss charachters almost helpless.


Actually, I used to be a big fan of Decrepify, but I've found that Clay Golem is good enough stopping power on his own, without the Decrepify.

Decrepify doesn't really add anything. Amp is better for boosting the physical damage of your merc.

Amp + CG > Dec + CG


Enter your Rouge merc. Get a level one rouge with CA. Give her any bow with as many socets you can find and load her up on perfect emeralds. With a 6 socketed bow that comnes out to 600 poison over 7 seconds. Even with a high level of resist a boss is going to feel the sting of that one, as will any normal minons who happen to get hit. Her High AR lets her take aim and hit almost any monster with ease, and she stays out of the fight letting your golem take on all the baddies he can handle.


This worked even better back in 1.09, since skellies were tougher then, and you could have more of them for far fewer skill points. So the monsters would hardly ever break through the defensive line. I used Amp a lot. Not sure if Revives were better then, but I used them as well. For about 30 skill points and some P-Emeralds you could dominate the game. And everyone was whinging about how useless Necros were. *chuckles evilly*

[rickcarson]

... add Crushing blow and Open wounds to your merc girl. Cblow takes off % of health, and open wounds stops hp regeneration...


The Poison will stop the regen.
Open Wounds is good at high levels. But the 6PEmerald suggestion is mostly a low-mid level solution (ie cheap). Unless you can get a bunch of CB gear for the price of 6 PEmeralds?

I've also used 3 socket and 4 socket bows, and added a cold damage one, that worked fairly well too. Not sure if Tals give more damage per second, but I had more PEmeralds lying around then than Tals.


the Poison factor would then work dollar for dollar. I think the cold arrow is a good idea. I also think Fire golem and Imaiden is a good choice. The clay slows the monster down, that might be good, that might suck for how long it takes for them to swing themselves to death.

Whatever happened to Igolem vs bosses? I personally have never gotten it to work properly, I guess one needs an ancients pledge for that. I would LResist, and use that rogue merc idea. Very nice idea, btw :)

Nice idea's though, very workable. Hell baal, eh, probably not, but most my chars cant really swing that guy and his area well anyways.

I Patriarched back in 1.09 with this strategy, soloing* the whole game. (Most of the time I was playing in multi player games, but not in the same areas as everyone else). It was slow, but very steady, which was important to me when I was playing over a modem. Imagine spending 1 skill point and getting 10 Gumbys - that was how sturdy the skellies were back then.

In places like the Bloody Foothills, I had Barbs following me around trying to steal my drops. :rant:

[rickcarson]

IM and the IG’s Thorns aura do stack; as does IM and any Thorns aura. I’m pretty sure the IG’s Thorns aura will stack with a regular Thorns aura as well, if not the higher damage aura will take precedence. The problem is, the low physical damage of monsters, together with their high health and 50% physical resistance, and the fact that health goes up with larger parties, while damage does not, makes these skills exceedingly impractical as primary attacks.

Another note, if I cannot deter you from this route: I have seen threads to the effect that, in order to get damage return from an IM/Thorns combo that was equivalent, or better, than that from an amp/Thorns combo, you have to get IM to ~slvl 68 (this is assuming the 50% PR in hell). So you will do better with a bramble armor and 1 point in amp than you can ever expect to do with the IM/Thorns idea.

Just to point out that the global 50% physical resist was in 1.09, but removed from 1.10. Given that part of your information is quite out of date, may I ask what is your source for your statements about Thorns stacking with IM? I'm not being a prat, I honestly would like to know, since my (limited) observations have lead me to conclude that Thorns and IM (probably) do not stack.

Now as for Amp + Thorns vs Iron Maiden + Thorns
I've seen those threads as well, but Amp Damage + Thorns is vastly inferior in the scenario in question (the one I originally proposed), since the things that the monsters will be hitting will NOT have Thorns, since the whole point is that they are hitting each other. And... your Thorns will not transfer to the Confused or Attracted monsters. (cf Mindblast)

I've found that a gameplan which involves the monsters beating the pus out of you and your minions is a bad gameplan. Thats just me though, you may be getting a better result, I don't know. As for me and my mob, we'll be standing *way over here* while the monsters beat themselves up *way over there*. Cheers :D

The Thorns thing was just a very minor sideline, not the whole point of the build. I'm just wondering about tweaking the build, since the Clay Golem does insist on getting into combat. And when he does the monsters attack slower than the would have otherwise. Going with an Iron Golem would be a much much larger skill point commitment, but more in line of the original posters question, ie 'how do we make a good Golemmancer'.

Of course, if I mix in Revives, now the monsters will have something to beat on that will have Thorns, so the scenario would change, and you are right Amp might then become a better aura than Iron Maiden. I've not had much fun in the past trying to get Thorns mercs to stay alive, but now with the new cheap runeword with lvl 15 Thorns (ladder only), everything changes again, since I could put that on a Rogue... and let my Revives do the work.

Bramble was a bit expensive (I've never even seen a Sur rune), not really practical, but the new runewords might be the way to go. In any case, the 'pure' Mojomancer or 'pure' Golemmancer looks less and less powerful with every new runeword.

[Salo]

yeah well, you wont see one, unless it's duped.


but anyways, Poison damage is utterly wasted if not for prevent monster heal activated or open wounds. Poison does not stop regeneration, it acts as a -regeneration, like say, its -100 per second, if the monster gains 30 a second, you are wasting 30 of that just to get it back down again. Open wounds, not even a high level at all, will stop and reverse the healing for a short time, PMHeal works longer and triggers faster/easier, less useful in theory, more useful in reality.

If you stop healing dead, 3000 poison will do 3000 damage if at 0 resistance, something that a necro can achieve with a flash of a spell. You will truly see how strong poison loading up is when you do hit a PMHeal or OW roll as well.

[rickcarson]

yeah well, you wont see one, unless it's duped.


but anyways, Poison damage is utterly wasted if not for prevent monster heal activated or open wounds. Poison does not stop regeneration, it acts as a -regeneration, like say, its -100 per second, if the monster gains 30 a second, you are wasting 30 of that just to get it back down again. Open wounds, not even a high level at all, will stop and reverse the healing for a short time, PMHeal works longer and triggers faster/easier, less useful in theory, more useful in reality.

If you stop healing dead, 3000 poison will do 3000 damage if at 0 resistance, something that a necro can achieve with a flash of a spell. You will truly see how strong poison loading up is when you do hit a PMHeal or OW roll as well.

If you were correct, then Poison Mages couldn't kill in Hell. But they can, albeit very very slowly. Their damage per second is so low that the monsters regen would just shrug it off if it didn't also stop the regen.

But maybe you are right, and the Mages are somehow special and different from other sources of Poison damage?