The new runewords: Any of them good for us Necros?

[treldonis]

Stuck at work and cannot surf for them on battle.net(site is blocked at work). Any of them have the potential to boost a particular build?

[Tengu]

So far only one, Spirit. You can follow the progress in the statistics forum or here (http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=290158).

[Necrochild313]

NC sez: Time to get back to ladder!

Spirit can be made in a shield too! :eek:

[Death on Dark Wings]

I swear that's sickly overpowered. Looks like the 'goal' FHR now on ANY nec would be at LEAST 86% fhr with this new installation. I'm going to collect some ethereal 4 socketed crystal swords on Ladder Season 2 and make Spirits to prepare for the dropping of the season. It'd replace the HOTO I'm using and I shall use arachnid mesh again to replace my FHR belt. Excellent! Any possible max block builds available with this in a shield? Or should we go semi-block (50%) now?

[prion]

try that meditation staff on your necro, solve all your mana problems...
some of these are just sick
i gotta get my ladder chars leveled

[GenXCub]

trel, they only have the stats for 2 of them, the rest are "mysteries."

I think it's funny that one of them has 3 Jah runes in the weapon... 3X Ignores Target Defense!!! :)

The problem with Spirit (Tal Thul Ort Amn) is that it's great for a caster, and it can go in swords and shields, but you'd have to blow at least 156 strength to get a shield with 4 sockets.

[Necrochild313]

try that meditation staff on your necro, solve all your mana problems...
some of these are just sick
i gotta get my ladder chars leveled

Screw the staff, you can make it out of a polarm and give it to your merc!

God, most of the high runewords suck from what i've seen, and the low runewords are awesome! NC is really, really really really gonna make alot of spirits. Why the hell would anyone need darkforce anymore???? I'll sac +1 to all for 55% fhr and up to 5% more cast rate!!!! Not to mention resists too!

Thul Tal Ort Amn

I can imagine that the barbs in act 5 are going to be rescued far more frequently now.

I predict a price drop in hotos and darkforce spawns very soon, probably not as much so as hotos, because your sacrificing more for that 55% fhr with a hoto than you are with a dforce.

[Mad Mantis]

Some of those words are ridiculous. If the others are equally powerful, then you can say goodbye to a lot of the current standard gear.

[Necrochild313]

Yeah! :eek: Imagine a cleric using Insight (meditation aura) while using cleansing as his active aura, it'd be like having your prayer on twice!

[Mad Mantis]

You can even get level 17 Might on a weapon. Have you seen all those procing mods? Zerkers and other fast hitters will have a field day. Now I need to restrain myself when playing this game.

I wonder if the remaining words are even more powerful. Although I would feel better if these words were backed up by screenies.

Also Blizz mentioned something about secret bonuses. I wonder what that can be.

EDIT: Have you guys seen Faith? All Skelliemancers will be carrying a Faith instead of a Beast.

[Griffin]

Many of the new runewords are extremely good, and often very cheap. Interesting, a lot of the really expensive ones (like that one with 3 Jahs) really aren't all that good. Spirit is insane, Oath is great, Obedience is too, and all are cheap. One thing to note though, that's very important...Spirit is considerably better in a shield than in a weapon. In a weapon, it doesn't give resists...just a little bit of elemental damage. Way weaker, HOTO still beats it. In a shield though...awesome.

[prion]

Also Blizz mentioned something about secret bonuses. I wonder what that can be.


I think that just refers to the fact that they haven't posted the stats on AS yet. But we should know them all by the end of the night now that they've released the combinations.

I was pretty sure that no one would discover these runewords until BLizzard "leaked" them but I was kinda hoping they would do it more gradually and discreetly...oh well, they couldn't reasonably expect that people would go around experimenting with 3 Jahs in a weapon.

[Mad Mantis]

I think that just refers to the fact that they haven't posted the stats on AS yet. But we should know them all by the end of the night now that they've released the combinations.

That seems to be the case. Almost all runewords are now posted. Mercs get some great weapons and Zons and Pallies got a fantastic set of runewords.

[treldonis]

My head is swimming in the possiblilties for my Commandomancer. So many auras that you can have depending on the runeword. Gonna hold out a bit before I settle on a few.

I wonder what the maximum auras are with the right equipment.

That EDGE runeword will an act one merc useful now with that built-in thorns aura.

[TheKbob]

:eek:

Who wants to help Kbob Finance a new Commando so I can test all this?????!!!??!?!?!?!?


PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEEEASSE!!!!! :eek: x273712365897263457

~Kbob

[soulesschild]

bah 156 str on a sorc/necro is NT.

though on a weapon...hrm...interesting choice. Blizzard is really just making me go :O, though in my eyes, not alot of this stuff would be great for a bonemancer cept maybe spirit if you want to get 156 STR

[winnAr]

spirit is gg, look at those stats for the cheap runes. must go on ladder to get.

that as a pally shield is insane. at max stats, 35% fcr/122 mana with 2 skills and 55% fhr!?!?!?

thats like the beta cta with +16 bo

[bill_n_opus]

EDIT: Have you guys seen Faith? All Skelliemancers will be carrying a Faith instead of a Beast.

I'm not sure about that. I'm comparing the two ...

Faith

4 Socket Missile Weapons

Ohm + Jah + Lem + Eld

Level 12-15 Fanaticism Aura When Equipped (varies)
+1-2 To All Stats (varies)
+330% Enhanced Damage
Ignore Target's Defense
300% Bonus To Attack Rating
+75% Damage To Undead
+50 To Attack Rating Against Undead
All Resistances +15
10% Reanimate As: Returned
75% Extra Gold From Monsters

Beast

5 Socket Axes/Scepters/Hammers

Ber + Tir + Um + Mal + Lum

Level 9 Fanaticism Aura When Equipped
+40% Increased Attack Speed
+240-270% Enhanced Damage (varies)
20% Chance of Crushing Blow
25% Chance of Open Wounds
+3 To Werebear
+3 To Lycanthropy
Prevent Monster Heal
+25-40 To Strength (varies)
+10 To Energy
+2 To Mana After Each Kill
Level 13 Summon Grizzly (5 Charges)

Really, it would seem to me that they don't really overlap because:

- it's an personal issue between 1h vs 2handed. Shield or no shield. Block or no block. If you go Faith then you also have to be prepared to go without a Homo or Spirit etc as well. I mean, the Homo with a Pdiamond/Um offers huge resists, block, +skills and curses and regen mana etc ... something you are sacrificing for a ranged attack.

- there are other stats that lend to Beast over Faith and vice versa. You have some CB with Beast just in case you want to melee and the missile weapon has ITD ...

- Faith has no IAS whereas Beast has 40% ...

and so forth.

[Myrakh-2]

How does "level 12-15 fanatism" compare to lets say lvl 20 might? After all, you could give the bow to an A1 merc...

EDIT: yes, of course, if YOU use the bow you can have both auras; I know that :-)

[Mad Mantis]

- it's an personal issue between 1h vs 2handed. Shield or no shield. Block or no block. If you go Faith then you also have to be prepared to go without a Homo or Spirit etc as well. I mean, the Homo with a Pdiamond/Um offers huge resists, block, +skills and curses and regen mana etc ... something you are sacrificing for a ranged attack.

Block is a non-issue for a Skelliemancer. They can survive real easy without block. The resists are a thing that you will miss, but you can work around that.




- there are other stats that lend to Beast over Faith and vice versa. You have some CB with Beast just in case you want to melee and the missile weapon has ITD ...

Most Skelliemancers do not melee since their equipment doesn't allow them to hit things. If you were to build you Skelliemancer to be able to melee then I think something like a Blade Bow will serve you very well. Just equip another piece of kit to get the CB.




- Faith has no IAS whereas Beast has 40% ...

Faith has higher Fanaticism and thus a higher attack speed, benefiting not only you, but your minions as well.

What it comes down to is do you want level 9 Fanat or level 15?

[Necrochild313]

Faith has ITD and 300% bonus to AR as well, making it wonderful for a skellimancer. I suppose there will soon be two variants of commando soon.

[OldSkoolGamer]

Am I the only one who is disappointed by the lack of new Class Specific runewords?
Why are The Paladin and the Assassin are the only characters that enjoy this?

None of the new runewords are even two-rune runewords. Because of this, none of them can go into shrunken heads. I fail to see why they couldn't have given us runewords for every class.



I would have loved to have a runeword Necro head with

25% Chance to Reanimate as: Balrog, Pit Lord, Venom Lord

or

25% Chance to Reanimate as: Doom Knight, Abyss Knight, Oblivion Knight

or even

25% Chance to Reanimate as: Vampire, Banished, Ghoul Lord, Night Lord, Dark Lord, Blood Lord


Imagine the army you could make!

[Shandrakor Deathstalker]

OldSkoolGamer, I also am disappointed in the lack of new runewords. Especially for us Necros. However...don't you reckon that Blizzard is saving something for the next ladder season? And the Next? And the Next?

Maddening-enticing thought, isn't it.

[Patsy]

Dear OldSkoolGamer,

I think that the reason why they didn't create/issue out any new two-rune runewords is that they already have, such as 'Rhyme', 'Stealth', 'Smoke', and so forth.

What I particularly like is the armour/shield options for several of these runewords, because I've often thought that the two serve similar functions (outside of the Paladin pervue of 'smite', of course).

What I particularly DISlike about these new runewords is the incredibly high average level of the runes used! As prion stated, it would be incredibly bad planning to expect someone to experiment with not just one, or two, but THREE 'Jah' runes! :xeek:

Eh, I'll just chalk all of this latest bit of runeword additions as something to 'season the pot' of Diablo II and to try and keep it 'fresh'.

Personally, what I would expect of Blizzard (AHAHAHAHAAaaa... yes, I know.. :xmad: ) would be of them to encode a greater chance of runes being dropped in *order* to conduct experimentations and so forth for these new runewords.

Silly, I know, it's a failing of mine to expect 'sensible and reasonable' in a world that has resolutely obstained from such actions.

-Patsy
"You have to have faith for this to work on me!" (http://www.georgemichael.com/lyrics/faithf.html)

[Pherdnut]

Quit your grumping. These words do plenty for all the casting classes and many of them are quite reasonable even though they use more than two runes.

I just love that spirit gives me something nice, cheap, and kickass to make while waiting to get my hands on a homonc.

Obedience is a sick little number for Mercs.

I'm not seeing why people are bagging on Last Wish. 10% chance to life tap, prevents healing, level 17 might aura, up to 375% damage, 60-70% crushing blow? Yeah, that sucks. With all these Necro curses turning into proc mods, I think our role as "curse beotch" has been reduced even further.

Nice to see all the new bow words. All the old ones sucked. These could be a much needed incentive to bring more amazons back to the game.

Wish they'd put out some more wand Rune Words. Could you imagine something as insane as white wand but specifically for poison or summoners?

I'm also really glad they haven't succumbed to temptation and made a word that causes corpse exposions upon enemy death.


Edit: Oh oh... and I love how insight completely removes the need to put points into energy for any class... ever.

[Salo]

I always thought ladder was a waste of time.

Now i know it is.

Try dueling on it with those moronic runewords. If ladder only words come to NL after it's done, I will be done with d2.

NL is now the difficult place and the place for dueling. This is rediculous.

5 aura pally's, never die ES sorcs, and, well, a lot more than just those obvious ones.

I will keep on working my new necro NL :D
People think that NL is the dead one, actually, nicer people on it, better trading, no rat race, build exploring, all levels of play.

When Sol makes a great runeword, its time to consider Blizzard trying to collapse the game: Allow no hacks, and make hacks so its boring.

[prion]

yeah that's a good point, and it's somewhat odd. no need for any tradeoff...but then, so few people were putting points in energy anyway.

casual gamers are big winners with spirit and insight runewords.

I really like spirit, i've been getting bored with having an ancients pledge starting all my chars

[leddan]

The line between open bnet/mods & closed bnet gets even thinner each time they make runewords more powerful like this.

[beeble]

a new weapon for the poisonmancers' mercs

edit: sorry, misread something -_-'

[Necrochild313]

I People think that NL is the dead one, actually, nicer people on it, better trading, no rat race, build exploring, all levels of play.

I'll have to completely disagree with you there, alot of people play nonlad because they don't like not having their "UBER LEETS!!1!1", and from what I've seen there is no rat race because there is no ROOM for a rat race. It is impossible to get ahead on nonlad if your a bit behind, with the dupe economy that it has. And with the niceness issue, I enjoy seeing the bone necro without an enigma in duel games every so often, reminding me of my days of ladder dueling when I was a po' lil bastard. Havens forbid his vipermagi not be upped. He gets ragged on by mhers to no end, I generally party with that char and help him if anything to get them off their back (I play both lad and nonlad). On ladder seeing a char with less than "standard" equipment in duel games doesn't result in "OMFG REMAKE GTFO NUB!".

[beeble]

grief maybe?
(for your merc)

[SinRomanDragon]

Looking at the new runewords, I got a funny idea... A jailkeeperthat max out the bone spear sinergies BUT with only one point at the spear and use the Brand bow to use it without mana/AR/Block problems (you won't use shield, so no crazy dex to max block, put that on vita), it would be maxed at lvl 70 (82 skill), letting a few skills points to get some curse/summon.

Not a uber killer, but a fun build!!!