The Darkmage

[rickcarson]

Part One

A Darkmage is a Necromancer who uses Dim Vision (DV) as his primary curse.

From the Arreat Summit:
Damning an enemy to the darkness of their own evil, this curse surrounds the afflicted in a sphere of perfect darkness and silence, blinding them. This allows a Necromancer and his party to slip by unnoticed or maneuver close for a more effective attack.

Effect: Decreases radius of awareness.

Player vs Player: This curse will not work on other players.

This will not work on Super Unique Monsters and Bosses.

Dim Vision is useful against Ranged Attackers such as Dark Archers or spell casters with dangerous ranged spell attacks. Dim Vision will prevent monsters from seeing you which will allow you to attack them from a distance, but they will be unable to hit you back. It's also useful to cast on a monster to limit their ability to follow you so that you can escape.

Dim Vision will not overwrite a monster Cursed with Attract or Confuse (but can be overwritten by them).

Dim Vision will not prevent a monster from moving. If a Monster is blinded when moving it will continue on toward the spot where he last saw you. If you move, he won't be able to see where you went.

-------------

Motivation for this build: DV is one of the very best defensive skills in the game. It allows you to kill monsters without them even fighting back. If this were World of Warcraft, we'd all be banned for putting even a single point into it.

An extreme version of a Dark mage can be found in MongoJerrys tales from the 1.10 beta of a Pacifist Necromancer who would go through Hell without killing any monsters unless necessary to advance. He spent a lot of time herding and running away and herding some more. I'm not going to go into that, my focus with this build is to provide the most efficient killing build in the whole game.

Obviously, this depends on your definition of efficiency. I'm going to define it in one of the standard ways it would be defined in game design: as a ratio of damage dealt out versus damage taken. Hence, if we can take 0 damage, even if the damage we deal is small, our efficiency will be nearly infinite.

Our aim is to strike down our enemies, while they stand there helpless, doing nothing. Our primary means of offense will be things like missile attacks, so that we can strike from a distance.

In some respects, DV can replace the use of minions, since it performs the same *defensive* function that those minions would have performed. Against non-boss monsters, it is quite simply the best defense in the whole game.

Note also the difference between 'efficiency' and 'killing speed'. Most of the recognised builds in Diablo 2 focus on killing speed above all else. After all, the faster you kill, the more XP and treasure you get. In many other games you could have an alternate definition of efficiency that had to do with resources expended to achieve the desired goal. Diablo 2 is not however a game about managing resources (unless you count time as a resource).

For that reason, I would not define this as a Tier 1 or 'best build' or 'cookie cutter build'. Also, as noted it has no use in PvP, so this is not a PvP guide.

I think DV is an absolutely fantastic party support spell, you should be quite popular (unless the party contains another necro). Also, other players tend to be able to tackle bosses and champions (in isolation), but can begin having problems when the mobs get too large. DV is perfect for 'smoothing' things out for the other members of your party, and also greatly reduces the amount of random stray damage floating around, which can be a literal life saver for weaker 'hangers on'.

-------------

Skills:


Dim Vision - 20 points


Is it worth 20 points? I think so. With the different Darkmage builds I tried I had a deliberate strategy of alternating building up offense and defense. Every time I'd put another couple of points into DV I'd start wondering how on earth I ever got by with the smaller radius. Then I'd start to think how great the current radius is, maybe that is as much as I need. Then a while later I'd force myself to put in a couple more points, and again I'd wonder how I ever lived with the previous radius.

I'm going to do something a little different now. I'm going to start the skills discussion by talking about which skills do *not* work well with DV.

[rickcarson]

Part 2 Skill Discussion

The first, and most important, skill which does not work well with DV is one of the most popular Necromancer skills - Raise Skeleton. The problem is that the Skeletons will run right up to the monsters, and then the monsters will be able to attack them, defeating the whole purpose of the build.

Other curses will overwrite the DV, so are of limited use. However, because DV does not work on bosses or champions, you will probably want to have another curse for 'special occassions'. Decrepify is a popular 'one point wonder' for boss killing, but depending on the other aspects of your build you might want Amplify Damage, or Lower Resist.

Although Confuse and Attract also cannot be cast on bosses, they can be cast on the minions next to the bosses, and then the boss may be distracted by the new target rich environment. One suggestion is to cast lifeTap on the boss, and then confuse on the minions, so that they kill the boss without dying themselves. Innovative uses of those curses are discussed elsewhere on the Necromancer forum generally under the topic of 'Mojomancer' (or search for the curses by name).

While not technically a curse, Bone Prison is a great way to pen up the majority of those pesky bosses, so they can be dealt with safely. Bosses with ranged attacks will find them blocked by the prison, only those such as Council Members, which cast hydras, or bosses with area attack spells will still be able to attack. For suggestions about how to use Bone Prison, look for the Jailkeeper guide and other similar posts.

Some people prefer Bone Wall to Bone Prison. I find that with the Bone Wall the standard melee monsters will 'overflow' round the edges, which doesn't really solve the problem. What it does do very well apparently is to keep archers from hitting you. Ranged attacking monsters do not tend to move around much, so they do not have the same 'overflow' problems that the melee monsters do. However, DV will also prevent most ranged attacking monsters from firing at you, and can be safely spammed around (unlike Bone Wall). So in this build I suggest giving it a miss unless you want Bone Prison (in which case, put a single point into it), or alternatively if you want it for its synergy bonus to some other skill.

Bone Armour. We should not be getting hit, (or not much) but this still has its uses, just not as much as in a normal build.

Corpse Explosion. If you can persuade the monsters to bunch up then Corpse Explosion is a great cheap way to do lots of damage very quickly. You could for instance DV all the monsters, pick of one or two and then use Corpse Explosion to kill the rest very quickly and also safely (unlike most other classes, for whom killing speed is almost always at the expense of safety). Unfortunately, the monsters do not tend to bunch up under the influence of DV, but remain spread out in their original (quite dispersed) locations. You could solve this by putting more points into Corpse Explosion to increase the radius, or by using some of the other curses to get the monsters to bunch up prior to DVing them. Confusion has excellent pulling powers, and can create huge densely packed mobs just ripe for your DV.

Teeth, Bone Spear and Bone Spirit are all ranged attacks that work well with Bone Prison, so they should also work well with DV. Of course, Bone Prison has the benefit of synergising them, but if you want to use Marrowalks item based synergy bonus for the Bone Spells, then you would really need some other form of defense, for which DV excels.

However, for some reason I found that I got bored silly playing a Bone Spear + Bone Prison Necromancer. There was hardly any challenge, and as the game progresses it starts to take absolute ages to kill anything, even with skills in the 30s and lots of synergies. Everytime I play on of these, the one phrase I am reminded of is this: 'there is no problem that cannot be solved simply by throwing enough mana at it'.

Poison Dagger, Poison Explosion. For the discussion of Poison Explosion, see the notes about Corpse Explosion, but keep in mind that unlike Corpse Explosion since Poison Explosion's radius does not increase at higher levels it can not be made to solve 'the bunching problem' simply by dumping more points into it. Poison Dagger of course is a melee skill. Now while the main focus of this build is to avoid melee, Poison Dagger + DV allows us to 'hit and run'. Attack the monster, get in and out fast, and then let the Poison kill it while we are safely at a distance, or moving on to attack the next monster. For that reason, if we are committed to using Poison Dagger, DV is one of the best curses we could use.

Poison Nova. I find that when I use this skill normally, things are quite hectic. The monsters are charging towards you... you're dodging arrows, trying to find the ideal spot, oh heck oh heck argh look out, stuff it here we go. Hence because of the chaos of combat its not usually a 'good' cast, often getting fewer critters than could have been hit if things were a little less hectic. Also you do have to get relatively close to the monsters, easily close enough to attract their attention. For that reason I believe DV is an excellent curse to compliment Poison Nova, since it will 'calm things down', allowing you to find a good spot to sneak up on the monsters to cast from, assess the situation, wait for the first one to wear off and cast another, etc. A much more 'civilized' way of doing combat.

[rickcarson]

Part 3 should be the discussion of the summons tree, but I'm going to skip ahead to discuss different options.

Skill Progression:

I suggest having DV at 10+ points before entering Nightmare, and at 20+ points before entering Hell. That should allow you more than enough points to build up your primary offense.

While defined by the primary curse and defense, the question of offense is wide open. Fortunately there are lots of skill points left over, and many standard builds (with the obvious exception of the skellimancer) can be converted to use DV as their curse of choice.

Sample Builds:

Palamancer - take a leaf out of the Palazon book. A Palazon is a Tankazon (an Amazon who spends most of her points on developing a strong defense) who uses the runeword 'Passion' for the bonus it gives to Zeal (a Paladin combat skill). Unlike the Tankazon you cannot tank huge mobs... but you can stop them from becoming huge mobs in the first place. Instead of avoiding melee completely, you embrace it (so Bone Armour will be much better than for other Darkmages), just on a one-on-one basis, where you should have the edge.

Poison/DV hybrid. Uses the standard maxed Dagger/Explosion/Nova setup, but replaces the minions of the Poison/Summon hybrid with DV instead. Gear options as per a standard poisoner, eg a dagger of some kind till you can use a 'White' runeword, then Death's Web + Trangs when you can get them. I found that this worked much much better for me than other poison builds (especially anything using PDagger) that I've tried getting into in the past. Likewise I can't really compare how the Nova part of it compares with a normal Nova heavy build, because I haven't played one before which I liked.

Dark Lord of the Mages. Originally when I started writting up the LoM for 1.10, I thought that DV would be great, because I (and everyone else) thought at the time that defense was the biggest issue, that the monsters would continually overrun the Mages. Obviously, DV being a great defense which works best with ranged attacks, and Mages being ranged attackers, it is an ideal match. How wrong I was. DV and LoM isn't 'bad', its just not 'great'. The problem is that I have developed an understanding of the proper tactics to employ to not have the Mages get overrun. In fact, if properly played, a LoM (without DV) is one of the best defensive builds out there. I've now progressed back to the point where my emphasis with the LoM is not on defense (play style covers that), but offense, increasing the offensive capability is more important to me now. About the only remaining problem for the LoM which DV 'solves' is the standard one which everyone recommends DV for: shutting down those darned Black Souls.

[haTe™]

Nice..

I have standard Bonemancer with all skils leftover in DV..

DV is cast with huge radius almoust 2offscreens
sometimes it hapens to do whole baal run without being hit one time.
exept from baal offcourse.

[rickcarson]

Part the third.


The Summons Tree:

Skeletons. Avoid.

Mages work quite well on their own defensive merits, so do not need additional beefing up. Feel free to add them as a secondary attack capability if so desired, but be aware that there are other ways to do a Lord of Mages build, which will have similar defense, but better offense. Due to a lack of Lower Resist and also splitting points off to DV their damage will be lower and they will kill slower in Normal and Nightmare than a more offensively oriented LoM. Much to my surprise I also discovered that Mages do have a tendency to wander up next to the monsters after going through choke points which block line of sight (such as open doors). They are trying to rearrange themselves into a circle around you, and so end up in contact with the monsters that were in that room. As other people have noted once a Mage starts firing they don't stop to back off if a monster gets into melee range. Normally this is exactly what you want, however with this one build you'd like them to back off, if just a couple of steps.

Revives. For a number of reasons Revives are my current favourites in the summons tree. You could choose to focus on raising up ranged attacking Revives, so as to avoid the problem that Skeletons have with DV. However in Nightmare the ranged attackers are quite weak. Also, when playing with Revives the proper attitude is to not really care whether they live or die (and they can take far more of a beating than any of yuor other minions except maybe a maxed out gumby), so boosting their defense should not be a high priority. Once you get to Hell the ranged attacking Revives get a lot more hitting power, so they become a lot more attractive option than they were in Nightmare.

Golems. If anything, a Golem is even worse than a Skeleton. At least a Skeleton has the decency to muck around and when it has killed its target it will run and hide behind you for a while. Golems however get a speed boost with extra levels of mastery, and they are very aggressive and territorial, making a beeline for the bad guys.

So at this point you would be forgiven for thinking that all summons are useless for this build. Well, not so. You see someone or something still has to deal with all the end of act bosses, normal bosses, champions, oblivion knights and minions of destruction.

That is where gumby, your merc and possibly a backup curse come in. I've been fairly unpleasantly surprised by just how many monsters cannot be effected by DV. It feels like a lot more than I was expecting. Maybe that is just because the contrast is so large between a DVed monster and one that isn't DVed.

Its not that you have to have a 'backup' plan, its more like phase two of the plan, because fighting bosses and champions happens all the time.

[rickcarson]

Nice..

I have standard Bonemancer with all skils leftover in DV..

DV is cast with huge radius almoust 2offscreens
sometimes it hapens to do whole baal run without being hit one time.
exept from baal offcourse.

Cool!

Its good to know that works like it should.
How do you handle the bosses and the last waves of minions? Just pound them from offscreen?

Do you use gumby at all?

And of course the eternal question: Spear or Spirit?

Thanks.

[FrozenSolid]

For me the obvious choice is Spear. It has lower mana cost and can hit multiple monsters, thats more dmg right there. Only time when Spirit is better is against single monsters but cmon, how often do monsters attack alone?

[Myrakh-2]

how often do monsters attack alone?

Most of the act bosses do.

Besides --- there is nothing wrong with having BOTH spells available. They synergize each other.

[haTe™]

Cool!

Its good to know that works like it should.
How do you handle the bosses and the last waves of minions? Just pound them from offscreen?

Do you use gumby at all?

And of course the eternal question: Spear or Spirit?

Thanks.

Since Lister and his frends are imune to DV merc tanks them I kill them
cant pound them offscrean
and for boses pound them with spirit

no

Spitit for all exept act boses.

I made this char for pvp nooby me.. I thougt thet DV works in pvp :D

its great for pvm but I have 7k spirit dmg

[FrozenSolid]

Most of the act bosses do.

Besides --- there is nothing wrong with having BOTH spells available. They synergize each other.

Yeah but I meant "normal" monsters. They are more common than bosses... And of course both spells have their advatantages and if you have enough skill pts for both then by all means get them. My advice was for peeps who could obly spare pts enough for 1 of them.

[rickcarson]

its great for pvm but I have 7k spirit dmg

Are you playing a joke on us?

I just had a look at chippydips, and a fully synergised Spirit would need to be level 55 (ie +35 to skills!) to do 7k.

Lets see...
+11 from charms (including anni)
+3 p&b helm
+3 p&b amulet
+6 wand
+4 head (splendored)
+2 armor
+2 rings
+0 marrowalks
+0 gloves
+1 arachnid (belt)
----
adds up to... +32.

Which would be (barely) enough to do 7k Bone Spear, but not Spirit.

Is there a gear option I missed? You call yourself a n00b, but with gear like that I wonder what the definition of a 'pro' would be??!!
:surprise:

[rickcarson]

@Mad Mantis: looks like I stuffed up and the title got double pasted, are you able to fix that? Cheers!

:thumbsup:

[Mad Mantis]

Done.

(10 chars)

[FrozenSolid]

Are you playing a joke on us?

I just had a look at chippydips, and a fully synergised Spirit would need to be level 55 (ie +35 to skills!) to do 7k.

Lets see...
+11 from charms (including anni)
+3 p&b helm
+3 p&b amulet
+6 wand
+4 head (splendored)
+2 armor
+2 rings
+0 marrowalks
+0 gloves
+1 arachnid (belt)
----
adds up to... +32.

Which would be (barely) enough to do 7k Bone Spear, but not Spirit.

Is there a gear option I missed? You call yourself a n00b, but with gear like that I wonder what the definition of a 'pro' would be??!!
:surprise:

You forgot +1 from BO :p But that doesnt add up to 7k.
I do agree that its a small chance that hes got all those items... maybe another "1337" wannabe? I dont know ... it has happened b4, a guy claimed he had a rare circlet with +3 pnb skills/fcr/fhr etc. Said it was valued 40+ hrs on east *lol*

[Aron Figaro]

11 from charms
3 from helm
3 from amulet
6 from wand
6 from head!! (Golemlord's can spawn on a head, with +3 to Bone Spirit staffmod)
2 armour (Arkaines, for example)
2 rings (SoJ)
1 from Belt
1 from Battle Command (Call to Arms)
= +35 = level 45 Bone Spirit, which still doesn't make it. Still, that's a rather SICK amount of magic damage when you think about it.

BUT! What about a Pride polearm on your merc? It adds to Magic damage for Blessed Hammer so it should add to your Bone Spirit as well. That might be where the extra damage is coming from. Can anyone confirm?

(I'm curious. I've seen dozens of people claim gigantic numbers for Bone Spear, even 10k or more. I want to know if it's in any way possible, and if so how. I want to do ten thousand magic damage, lol, and I don't want it in spinning hammer form! :p)

[pikey]

What bout lvl 33 marrows synergy? Doesn't that give you a good k?

[rickcarson]

What bout lvl 33 marrows synergy? Doesn't that give you a good k?

We're including that.

Actually, I think the +6 head and maybe BO (after all, you could have it on weapon switch) would in fact put him at +35

@Aron Figaro: 20 + 35 = 55 :D

So its not a joke. Wow. 7k.. Juicy...

:impressed:

:not worthy:

:am scum:

[rickcarson]

Done.

(10 chars)

You sir, are a prince amongst men. Thank you.

[haTe™]

Its actualy

rare circlet with 2 nec slvl
3 p&b amy
white +6 bspirit
CoH
3p&b 3bs 2RS head (thets 6 to BS)
2sojs
arach
8p&b charms and anni
can add 2 more p&b charms to be 7k
if U would feel better...

thets 33 to Bspirit and dmg is 6514-6922 as you see
it was easier to write 7k..

[haTe™]

You call yourself a n00b, but with gear like that I wonder what the definition of a 'pro' would be??!!
:surprise:

my friedns stopd playing d2 all together in a same day..
I got all ther zods,chams,jahs and other stuff
I am a noob.. but I'm rich noob :lol:

[Moonflax]

Here's my version:

20 Bone Armor
20 Bone Wall
20 Bone Prison
20 Dim Vision
20 Confusion
7 Attract

Passion Caduceus
Eth Stormshield
Cta (Sw.)
Phoenix (Sw.)
BK's x2
Verdungo's
Crown of Ages
Gore Riders
Laying of Hands
Metalgrid Amulet

The switch is to boost my life and that of my merc with BO, as well as quick healing if there are corpses available.

A/R is a big issue.

I may work out the kinks a bit better in the future. I have about a 70% chance to hit right now, which isn't very good.

Basically it's your Palamancer Dark Mage suggestion, with the rest of the skill clicks allocated to further flesh out a focus on the theme of manipulating enemy bahavior.

Need to play a bit to iron out some kinks as well with the mercenary. I have a Pride act 2 freeze, but his "charge head on" behavior is not going well with my enemy manipulation tactics. I may switch to an act 1 and give her a Faith bow.

Edit: I find it's either/or with the DV or Confusion curses. It seems to me to be cooler to have all the monsters hitting each other than doing nothing at all. I'd like to continue to discover the pros and cons of each.

I imagine with things like Gloams, where the attacks "pierce" DV would be better.

I did switch to a Faith bow Merc. I keep seeing this "Lightning Hose" stuff posted about but I have yet to ever in all my days see a merc use this spell.

I don't seem to be using attract much. I'll post more later.

Edit again: I've decided "Spy" isn't fitting. Somehow something including "madness" or "insanity" or maybe just total chaos sounds more appropriate. I don't do a lot of melee damage, but the Faith Fanat fixed my AR problem, and the monsters seldom target me, always hitting each other instead. Haha. One bone armor lasts me a good long while. I should take screenshots of this mayhem. :evil:

At any rate, since I'm using confusion, I've lost interest in DV for this character. I mean this is a blast. He's become an entirely viable design for hell pvm.

I'll experiment later and figure out what kind of DV I like to play haha.

[rickcarson]

Here's my version:

20 Bone Armor
20 Bone Wall
20 Bone Prison
20 Dim Vision
20 Confusion
7 Attract

Passion Caduceus
Eth Stormshield
Cta (Sw.)
Phoenix (Sw.)
BK's x2
Verdungo's
Crown of Ages
Gore Riders
Laying of Hands
Metalgrid Amulet

The switch is to boost my life and that of my merc with BO, as well as quick healing if there are corpses available.

A/R is a big issue.

I may work out the kinks a bit better in the future. I have about a 70% chance to hit right now, which isn't very good.

Basically it's your Palamancer Dark Mage suggestion, with the rest of the skill clicks allocated to further flesh out a focus on the theme of manipulating enemy bahavior.

Need to play a bit to iron out some kinks as well with the mercenary. I have a Pride act 2 freeze, but his "charge head on" behavior is not going well with my enemy manipulation tactics. I may switch to an act 1 and give her a Faith bow.

Edit: I find it's either/or with the DV or Confusion curses. It seems to me to be cooler to have all the monsters hitting each other than doing nothing at all. I'd like to continue to discover the pros and cons of each.

I imagine with things like Gloams, where the attacks "pierce" DV would be better.

I did switch to a Faith bow Merc. I keep seeing this "Lightning Hose" stuff posted about but I have yet to ever in all my days see a merc use this spell.

I don't seem to be using attract much. I'll post more later.

Edit again: I've decided "Spy" isn't fitting. Somehow something including "madness" or "insanity" or maybe just total chaos sounds more appropriate. I don't do a lot of melee damage, but the Faith Fanat fixed my AR problem, and the monsters seldom target me, always hitting each other instead. Haha. One bone armor lasts me a good long while. I should take screenshots of this mayhem. :evil:

At any rate, since I'm using confusion, I've lost interest in DV for this character. I mean this is a blast. He's become an entirely viable design for hell pvm.

I'll experiment later and figure out what kind of DV I like to play haha.

Looks interesting. I've been searching for a reason to max out all three bone defence skills. I thought Iron Maiden plus tri-bone might have done the trick, but my testing while still inconclusive may indicate that monsters that hit you when you have bone armour on don't take damage from Iron Maiden.

Confusion is lots of fun. Even with an Iron Maiden build, where using the Attract + Iron Maiden combo, there are still times when technically Confusion is the better skill. Attract is okay for taking the heat off the merc. Occasionally with Confusion you may find that even though all the monsters are confused, they all pick on the Act 2 merc anyway. The problem then with Attract is if the merc beats up on the monster with Attract it dies too quickly and the heat goes back on the merc...

Lightning Hose doesn't work in patches higher than 1.09. Even in 1.09 it was of dubious benefit, since the Rogue tends to stop and fire from just outside of its range. So the monsters need to be closing with you, the terrain can't be broken, and it sucks against ranged attackers. From memory the last time I used it I'd decided that it was a coin toss between the Lightning Hose and a 4 socket bow with Perfect Emeralds in it. The poison damage was lower, but a lot more consistent, so they were roughly equivalent. I have no idea how it would have interacted with the more powerful 1.10 runewords if they had left it in.