Any cursemancers left?

[TerrorClown]

I was hoping to get some more info about how to play a cursemancer correct in v1.10. I read the guide from a guy named erik (if i,m correct) but i cant find the link to his page anymore. Anyway is a pure cursemacer with merc still vaible in v1.10? Or is i just a waste of time to build one. And if it is vaible what should be the best merc to use with it? Hope to get some response soon.

[Mad Mantis]

I was hoping to get some more info about how to play a cursemancer correct in v1.10. I read the guide from a guy named erik (if i,m correct) but i cant find the link to his page anymore. Anyway is a pure cursemacer with merc still vaible in v1.10? Or is i just a waste of time to build one. And if it is vaible what should be the best merc to use with it? Hope to get some response soon.


A pure Mojomancer is not a very viable concept in 1.10. You can do some good damage with a maxed IM against non-ranged melee attackers, but everything else will give you a lot of problems and will be near impossible to defeat with a pure Mojomancer.

As I said in this thread (http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=318335), you should take a look at this thread (http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=309204). It contains several links to Mojomancer concept threads.

[Subpoena]

I hate to say it and welcome anyone with more knowledge to argue otherwise, but I don't believe that a pure curse-mancer with only a merc as support is not a viable option. While admittedly very challenging, such a character woud be incredibly difficult from the start.

I guess the issue is really what "viable" means to you. If you were to always play with a party, then the character would be a viable support player, but playing solo would be like going up against Duriel with a cracked club. Curses are a great compliment to an army, but a sole merc to take the heat will result in a stone cold merc and a stone cold you, again and again.

With VERY good equipment, you might go a great distance, but that goes back to what "viable" means to you.

All the same, happy hunting!

[TerrorClown]

I hate to say it and welcome anyone with more knowledge to argue otherwise, but I don't believe that a pure curse-mancer with only a merc as support is not a viable option. While admittedly very challenging, such a character woud be incredibly difficult from the start.

I guess the issue is really what "viable" means to you. If you were to always play with a party, then the character would be a viable support player, but playing solo would be like going up against Duriel with a cracked club. Curses are a great compliment to an army, but a sole merc to take the heat will result in a stone cold merc and a stone cold you, again and again.

With VERY good equipment, you might go a great distance, but that goes back to what "viable" means to you.

All the same, happy hunting!

I will not only have a merc i will make great use of Attract and confuse.
I will only have the merc for killing the last beast.
I think max Amp dmg will be very usefull for a lv.80 merc with botd lance or something like that. I dont think i will ever get my hands on a weapon like that anyway but its just to get a idea of how usefull the merc could be.
I,m also new with curse necro,s but it just looks funny to me.

I got one more question will beast/demons that are cursed with Attract have the might aura from the might/blessed aim merc on them ? Just like the skellys or revives from a sumoner.

[Subpoena]

I don't believe that attract or confuse transfers auras to the affected monsters. While a monster converted by a Pally or an assasin's mindblast takes on the aura, the confuse and attract curses merely misdirects the monster, it doesn't alter its alignment.

Also, something to keep in mind, monsters fighting under the auspices of attract, even with amp which can carry over, don't kill one another very fast and you need to make sure you don't override the AI curse if you're too close.

Finally, don't forget that the AI curses will have no effect on Andy, Duriel, Meph, Diablo and Baal, but your merc's damage is halved while he takes quadruple damage. That is, perhaps, the biggest Achilles' heel of a curse-only necro.

[TerrorClown]

K Thx for the fast response.

Just one more question. Would a merc using eth botd warpike / 120-45 helm / and coh be able to kill duriel on hell after i casted amp dmg on duriel ?

[KamikazeJustice]

I don't know much at all about necros that just use/mostly use curses. I've thought about making a melee necro at one time using high level curses. I quickly dismissed the idea, since casters rule now. It would've been an interesting build... or maybe a disappointing build.

On open bnet, I did hack a necro so well, for meleeing, that I used him for dueling. He did win most duels and made some hacked barbs very embarrassed.

[Subpoena]

Well, I've never put together a BOTD or a COH, so I don't know if a merc's limitations could be countered with that gear for Durial, BUT I would recommend Decrepify instead of Amplify Damage because slowing down Durial is going to be far more helpful than the extra 50% from amp, in my humble opinion.

[rickcarson]

As someone earlier in the thread said, it depends on what you mean by 'viable'.

For some people, beating normal is enough.
For others, unless they can beat all the best PvP builds, it is not 'viable'.

Obviously those represent extreme viewpoints.

PvP

Please do note that the AI curses do not work in PvP. That pretty much leaves only Iron Maiden, Decrep, Amp, Life Tap or Lower Resist. And if you don't have any minions, you have to go toe to toe with the other player yourself.

On paper Iron Maiden looks like the best bet, however every melee build has ways of dealing with it, thanks to our friendly neighbourhood oblivion knights. About the only people who wouldn't know what to do would be those who were completely rushed through the game. Plus it has a massive PvP penalty anyway.

So pretty much you'd end up either trying to be a meleemancer, or a Poisonmancer. You might get away with the poison side of things by putting 20 points into PD and then using the Venom Runeword (for massive cheap synergies), Marrows + Bone Armour of course, and all the other standard PvP stuff. That way you'd still have lots of points left for doing the PvM AI curses.

PvM

Attract + Iron Maiden works much much better than Attract + Amp.
But you have to put at least 10 points into Attract, and will want to Max Iron Maiden.

The biggest problem with those two is that neither of them has an expanding radius.

So to deal with that you might want to use either Dim Vision (especially good to shut down the archer types). Or Confuse. Why Confuse? Because it has excellent 'mob pulling' power. The monsters will cluster together, and you will then Attract and then Iron Maiden. A three curse combo.

------

I don't think its necessary to fixate on only using curses. Its a bit like playing a one tree sorceress.... you still want to put a point into Warmth, or a point into Static and get Teleport. Or a Summon necro with no curses? Or a Warcry barb with no masteries?

Anyway - it should be possible to call yourself a mojomancer and still use a merc, and maybe even a golem. AI curses don't work on the last wave of Baals minions, but Iron Maiden + Gumby kills them really fast. Maybe consider an Act 1 merc (stays (mostly) out of combat - good against ranged attackers that run away) or an Act 5 merc (burly enough to get into a hotspot) instead of a Might merc. The whole point of a might merc is to buff your minions, and you don't have any except him (and a golem?).

If you do use a decent duration Attract + a high level Iron Maiden, often the last monster left will be the one Attracted. Now, you can try to herd them towards the next bunch of monsters, or you can have merc + gumby finish them off (my preferred option). Attract won't be overriden by Amp.

Note that Clay Golem is fantastic against Bosses. Note also that Bosses are immune to AI curses, and often encountered away from any other monsters (Andariel and Mephisto being the obvious exceptions).

If you really want to have a good showing against Bosses (eg Baal) then Revive (with Crushing Blow) + Gumby + Amp is the way to go. Be careful though, you may find the use of Revives to be addicting :D With Revive speed is of the essence, since their timer is running down, so Amp is much better than Decrep. Ultra-purists may feel that running around with Revives disqualifies you as a Mojomancer.

For killing speed Attract + Iron Maiden is good, however most of the monsters tend to fall over dead at about the same time, or to be on only a small amount of HP anyway... so Corpse Explosion isn't that good an option. However, lets say you've got a merc which does decent damage who gets involved. Now he or she kills their target, while all the rest are still on say half their life... perfect opportunity for a couple of Corpse Explosions and you have 'teh win'.

Note that normally the reason to use Corpse Explosion is that the damage is spread unevenly. For instance with a Skellimancer you have monsters that three skellies and your merc are beating up on, and you have some other monsters that the Gumby is hitting (and not even scratching their paint). When the first monster is killed you have to repeat the performance again and again and again. Corpse Explosion greatly accelerates the killing speed. It won't change the result - if you were going to get beat up on, you'll probably still get beat up on, if you were going to win, you still win - just a bit faster.

However as stated above the Attract + Iron Maiden combo tends to wipe out the monsters all at about the same time. Consider this: in Hell Act 1 an average 'skeleton monster' might take 12 hits of (level 25+) Iron Maiden to kil itself. Now if you are thinking in traditional terms that sounds slow.

Why? Because you think, oh great its like having to hit the monsters 12 times each - 'teh suxzors!'

But if there are 12 Iron Maidened monsters, and say 2 Attracted monsters, then what you have is 12 monsters that hit 12 times and then they all fall over dead - it is as though you had gone around all twelve and inflicted a one hit KO (in Hell). (As above, note the usefulness of CE for mopping up the two remaining with Attract on them)

Actually I think most of the mobs you run into in the game are only half a dozen monsters, so its not quite as juicy as the above makes it sound. Which is where you might want to consider using Confuse to pull the mobs, create a big melee (20-30 monsters... better hope it doesn't get out of control... not for the faint of heart!), and then start the Attract + Iron Maiden combo. (Of course if you're going to go to the trouble of creating that big mob... might as well use CE... once the first couple start dropping (also the reason why you might want to use the Rogue over the other mercs, since hopefully she won't try to hack and slash her way through to the middle Conan style).

In any case, people who have cheated by using a character editor in solo or open bnet say that even with ultra top gear, it is slow going in Hell.

Variants

For a 'turbo' version of the Attract + Iron Maiden (TurboMojoMancer?) combo, consider the Corrupted mancer version as outlined in a certain thread... although other people had picked up on the usefulness of Thorns much much earlier than I did, it was directly as a result of playing a Mojomancer that I realised the potential of that build (but which then morphed slightly away, since with Thorns+Amp you want them to attack you (well, your minions - and preferably not the merc thanks very much, and hence the emphasis on fairly robust minions (revivezorz!), whereas with Iron Maiden you really want them to attack each other))). In some respects the Corrupted mancer plays like a Mojomancer (eg you still have issues with ranged attackers), in others it plays like a Jailkeeper (excessive use of CE - especially if you use the Insight runeword for infinite free mana), and in others it plays like a Skellimancer on speed (all those revives + boss = dead boss).

Note: both those runewords are currently ladder only.

-----

The 'Classic' Mojomancer.

Ah Classic. No runes, no charms, no elite gear (ie no decent uniques), no act 5, and best of all, no Druids! (Just kidding - lots of 'doggy style love' (actual quote from Druid forum) to all my furry buddies).

The question which comes up is can a Classic Mojomancer kill in the one place you'll spend most of your time - the Chaos Sanctuary?

I am convinced that the answer is 'yes'. Everyone else seems to think the answer is 'no'. Why do I think yes? Well, partly because I soloed through the Chaos Sanctuary in the Expansion with a variety of untwinked Mojomancers, so I don't see what the problem is. The only proviso is that I have been distracted with the dozen or so other builds I'm trying to do, so I haven't gotten around to trying it on Hell difficulty.

Confuse in the Chaos Sanctuary can be very very very dangerous. You pull a huge mob, and then some %^&$^&%^& $%6$56&&^ $#%@#@ Oblivion Knight (pardon my punctuation) casts something like Weaken or Lower Resist on the lot of them, overriding the Confuse and now all of a sudden they all want to be your very 'special friend'. Ouch.

On the other hand, Iron Maiden + Attract still works fine, because Attract cannot be overridden by other curses.

But that leaves the monsters which cannot be AI cursed, and also attack at range - the Oblivion Knights. You are probably going to have to take them out yourself. Oh, you might get lucky and they and an Attracted monster start attacking each other, and you might get lucky and they chase you onto a pile of dead things for your CE to sort them out, but you can't count on it.

Now in the xpac, your merc plays a fairly large part in tidying the ObKs up, but of course in Classic not only can you not give your merc gear, they *also* do not follow you from act to act, and there are also no mercs for hire in Act 4. Ouch.

In Nightmare they have approx 1700 hp (average), in Hell it goes up to over 7k (average), presumably a lot more if you run into an ObK boss and his pack (ummm.... Ouch.)

In Hell they have the following resistances:
Physical 33%
Magic 25%
Fire 60%
Cold 180% (very immune)
Lightning 60%
Poison 75%

So physical damage looks like the best option... unless they Iron Maiden you of course... Magic damage is better, but if you had the points to spend on pumping the Bone skills, you wouldn't have any points for being a Mojomancer (nb: no Marrowalks in Classic).

If playing as part of a party they will be less of a problem (unless they IM the meleers and kill them all causing them to log out - a relatively common problem in xpac chaos sanctuary) - if so a point in Life Tap might be a good start to keeping your party alive.

[Mad Mantis]

I've thought about making a melee necro at one time using high level curses. I quickly dismissed the idea, since casters rule now.

I made a guide for a Meleemancer. Not everything has to be über in order to be fun.




Ultra-purists may feel that running around with Revives disqualifies you as a Mojomancer.

Maybe the word Ultra-purist is wrong. Ultra-purists feel that a Mojomancer shouldn't put points in any tree besides the curse tree.
Most Mojomancers feel that a point in a Golem and a nice Merc will serve you well and should be allowed. I am one of the latter group.
However once you start to add CE and Revives then you aren't a pure Mojomancer anymore. You are a curse-heavy hybrid. It is just a different label and will probably not matter to most people.

I must say that this thread, and your guide thread, have gotten me interested in the Mojomancer. Once I have some more free time on my hands I'll have to build one again.

[TerrorClown]

Oke then i go put 1 skill in bone armor 1 in clay golem 1 in golem mastery and 1 in sumon resist. Then i will have my golem as slower and meat shield and my merc as a killer. Then i can cast all my curces save distance. 8)
I already like the idea so the build most be awsome. 8)

[rickcarson]

Maybe the word Ultra-purist is wrong. Ultra-purists feel that a Mojomancer shouldn't put points in any tree besides the curse tree.


I guess they feel that way because pre 1.10 things were easier, and maybe they wanted to have a challenge - but I still think its a bizarre concept. I mean its even more restrictive than the Fallen Paladin (ie no auras) who (depending on your interpretation) might still be able to put points into auras for synergies - or alternatively can use auras from gear.

It is a well established tradition that its fine to have a themed build, and yet still put points into the 'one point wonders'. Why should the Mojomancer be any different?

Some people say that the Mojomancers aren't viable because you can't make one that is any good unless you spend a piddly few points outside the Curse tree is bizarre. It would be like saying that Football isn't a viable sport because you can't play it if your feet are taped together.

And look at Sorcs there are lots of 'one tree' sorcs who feel quite happy to put points into the one point wonders outside their own tree.

Heck, we don't even have to stray that far from home - how many Summoners (ie a 'one tree' Necro) do you see that never put any points outside their base tree? Precious few... there is always that temptation to put at least a point into Amp?

Saying that Mojomancers have to not spend points outside of the curse tree is a silly and bizarre restriction.


Most Mojomancers feel that a point in a Golem and a nice Merc will serve you well and should be allowed. I am one of the latter group.
However once you start to add CE and Revives then you aren't a pure Mojomancer anymore. You are a curse-heavy hybrid. It is just a different label and will probably not matter to most people.


(NB: I'm not talking here about the Corrupted build - which is definitely a heavy hybrid, quite an extreme hybrid actually because it violates all the accepted wisdom by taking most of the one point wonders and dumping a half a dozen to a dozen points in each of them)

Fooie. Adding one point wonders doesn't make you a hybrid on any other forum, or for any other Necro build.

Apparently it does matter, because people read that 'Mojomancers are fun', they think to themselves, "Self, I'd like to try that", they come onto the board and everytime someone pops up with a Mojo build, someone always pops out and says 'oh, thats not a *real* Mojomancer build'. Labelling it a hybrid just means that those questions will keep coming up again and again, as people keep looking for 'the real' Mojomancer, and then going away unsatisfied because they couldn't find a 'real' Mojomancers.

Actually, now that I reflect on it, I'm wrong, its not just the Mojomancer, I think the 'Golemancer' suffers exactly the same problems. I mean, lets say someone comes up with something they want to call a Golemancer.

Well, if the Golem is going to do semi-decent damage, then it'll probably have to be a Fire Golem, and so you're going to naturally want to put some points into Lower Resist... but wait! Oh no! Alas alack! Lower Resist is not a Golem skill, so you're not a 'real' Golemancer anymore.

So either you can't do any damage, or you're not a 'real' Golemancer. (If anything it might be slightly worse for the Golemancer, because if you get a halfway decent merc then there's the suspicion that maybe its the Merc doing the work, not the Golem)

Another example of how silly it is would be telling a Bow based Zon that they weren't a 'real' BowZon because they dared to put points into Pierce.


I must say that this thread, and your guide thread, have gotten me interested in the Mojomancer. Once I have some more free time on my hands I'll have to build one again.

The Lower Resist mojomancer (Dark Elemancer) looks interesting too. Sadly, thats not a 'real' Mojomancer either, because he puts a massive three points outside the curse tree. Quickly now! Revoke the heretics licence to curse!

[Classics]

I had a Mojomancer back in 1.09(expired). Anyway, I did the old IM Attact and Confuse. Worked quite well... But as you people seem to be saying he wasn't a 'real' Mojomancer. I pumped 20 points into Bone Spirit for support and 1 into Blood Golem(was an easy way to heal with IM)/Clay Golem. I used Dim Vision a surprising amount, so I wouldn't leave that skill untouched... VERY useful.

For bosses... Life became difficult. It took a long time for BS to slowly ware down their life- even with LR.

Anyway, I wouldn't know a lot about a 1.10 Mojomancer. Some advice I can give you though: Know your Radius, know your duration, and practice. This build took a surprising amount of skill... Also, I wouldn't be plagued with that "real mojomancer" BS(not bonespirit hehe)- I'd invest 40 in the bone tree for extra support (Spear/Spirit) as that's invaluble (or since you're going Elemental, i'd go Poison). Golems play an important role in protecting you- invest!

Have fun if you come through with making this build. It's fun to make, play and fool around with- even if people are always LMFAO at you. (trust me, it will happen)

[Mad Mantis]

I guess they feel that way because pre 1.10 things were easier, and maybe they wanted to have a challenge - but I still think its a bizarre concept.

Before 1.10 the monsters were more capable of killing themselves. Nowadays placing just Attract on a group of Archers means that these monsters will take a long time to kill themselves if the group isn't very large. Before 1.10 the Archers had an easier time killing themselves even if the group was small. The restriction was much more natural than it sounds.




Saying that Mojomancers have to not spend points outside of the curse tree is a silly and bizarre restriction.

In your eyes it is. Other people find it to be a very natural restriction. For me placing points in just the Curse tree leads to an ineffective build. That is why I add a Golem and a Merc. They are used as support.




Fooie. Adding one point wonders doesn't make you a hybrid on any other forum, or for any other Necro build.

When it comes to Mojomancers I use a basic rule to determine whether or not I'm making a hybrid. For me it depends what you want to do with those one-point wonders. Every Mojomancers kills with his curses or with his Merc if his curses can't kill that particular monster. Every skill you take that is not located in the Curse tree should be a support for your curses. Things like a Golem and BA don't kill on their own, but offer great support. If you start to add skills that kill on their own quite easily then you are making a hybrid.

The term hybrid only refers to skills in my book. That is why I don't see the addition of a Merc as straying from the main build.




Well, if the Golem is going to do semi-decent damage, then it'll probably have to be a Fire Golem, and so you're going to naturally want to put some points into Lower Resist... but wait! Oh no! Alas alack! Lower Resist is not a Golem skill, so you're not a 'real' Golemancer anymore.


If we apply my definition of what makes a hybrid Mojomancer to the Golemancer the addition of LR would make perfect sense. LR on its own can't kill and it is supportive of the main way of killing.




The Lower Resist mojomancer (Dark Elemancer) looks interesting too. Sadly, thats not a 'real' Mojomancer either, because he puts a massive three points outside the curse tree. Quickly now! Revoke the heretics licence to curse!


After quickly scanning through the thread I must say that his build is a real Mojomancer. The only points he places outside the Curse tree are used to support his curses and not to kill on their own.