Possible New Legit Necro Build? The MageWarden!

[compubuy]

Hi! I don't know if anyone's ever tried this, but it looks like it might be fun. I've never seen this build anywhere, but if someone's already posted it, I apologize in advance for my ignorance.

First of all, this necro is Legit, meaning he does NOT use the marrowalk bug. Any necro that uses that bug is illegitimate IMO :D

The MageWarden uses Skeleton Mages, Bone Prison, and Poison Nova to kill. (In some situations skeletons might be summoned for damage/tanking, but they are not in the spirit of this build).

Skills:

20 into Skeleton Mastery
20 into Skeleton Mages

20 into Poison Dagger
20 into Poison Explosion
20 into Poison Nova

1 point into Clay Golem, Mastery, Summon Resist

1 point in Bone Prison
Rest into Prerequitsite skills (He's finished at level 99 :eek: )

But he can be very strong way before if you max Poison dagger, Skeleton Mastery, or even Mages last (or some combination of those that achieves a nice balance between reasonably strong mages/poison nova).

Nothing into curses! :eek:

Gear:

1) Death's Web

2) Plus 2 necro head that has plus to Lower Resist on it (better if it also has plus to revive). Make a rhyme rune head if possible. (Can also use Trang--see below).

3) Shako (or Trang), Mara, 2X Soj (1 raven), Arachnid (or Trang), Marrowalk, Enigma (or Trang), Trang gloves.

4) CTA/ Lidless on Switch

Another possibility for your switch is to wear Trangs complete set and gain the needed Lower Resist skill from your switch (but it gets a little tiresome constantly switching back and forth to cast lower resist).

Merc would use Infinity, of course. A good aura might be thorns, defiance, or holy freeze. Or just use Act 1 Rogue with Edge rune word if you don't have infinity. She can shoot through walls/prisons.

Gameplay: cast Boneprison, or golem, or bonewall to capture or block; cast Lower resist; cast Poison Nova. Monsters can't hit your mages, so they can be their skinny little selves. Poison nova goes through prisons/walls.

All comments/suggestions are truly appreciated!

Thank you! :)

[Mad Mantis]

Hi! I don't know if anyone's ever tried this, but it looks like it might be fun. I've never seen this build anywhere, but if someone's already posted it, I apologize in advance for my ignorance.

A Poison/Summon hybrid with Mages instead of Skellies. There are a few threads on this build out there. I think you can find them with the search (http://forums.diabloii.net/search.php?) feature.

You planned a lot of skill points. It will be almost impossible to get that high. The Infinity you have planned will take care of a lot of immunities. However Poison Immunity will not be broken by the Conviction aura.

[compubuy]

Thanks for the response! I've never seen one developed quite this way with nothing into curses, but I could be wrong.

Attaining level 99 is a goal, not actually required in this build. (Although getting to level 95 plus is actually not the "impossible dream" as it may seem to be.)

Lower resist will break many poison immunes. Infinity plus lower resist will beef up mage damage quite a bit (especially lightning ones). Nothing is immune to lightning, cold, fire, AND poison.

Also, for those monsters that can't be blocked/imprisoned. Skeletons/revives can always make an appearance (dealing physical damage -- CE works well with LR) while the mages pelt them from the back flanks.

[Mad Mantis]

Lower resist will break many poison immunes. Infinity plus lower resist will beef up mage damage quite a bit (especially lightning ones). Nothing is immune to lightning, cold, fire, AND poison.

Somehow I missed the part where you mentioned the Necro head with LR. I don't know if you considered Three part Trang for the build. Most people like it as soon as they hit Hell in addition to DWeb.

[compubuy]

Plus 2 tree skill, plus X to LR Necro head, or really any head that gives plus to LR. Is plus 2 to curses, plus 3 to LR the only option here? I'm not certain. Could a head spawn with Plus 2 to a tree, plus X to LR, plus X to PN, plus X to revive?

Trang is nice, just make sure you have items on switch to give yourself the lower resist spell. Best would be a plus 5 LR wand and a plus 5 LR necro head?

Or you could use a plus PN, LR, Revive, White wand. Of course you lose some negative enemy poison resistance, but then again Trang makes up 25%, which along with LR may be more than enough to break most immunes.

So Trang's complete set with a White wand (plus LR at minimum, but plus to revive even better) is an excellent outfit for this build.

Another option might be a white necro head, spawned with LR, PN, and Revive if possible, in which you can make rhyme. This would fit nicely into the build (as would the above White wand) since it would give you access to skills you can't achieve without spending a lot of "dead hard points." Therefore indirectly the shield boosts other skills by a total of 10 skill points.

I'm not sure if rare or white necro heads can spawn with plus 2 to necromancer/or tree skills, plus X to LR and/or revive. I suppose if they could they might be even better for this build.

For example, a plus 2 necromancer skill rare head, with plus X to LR and plus X to revive might be perfect, but again I don't know if it's even possible for that to spawn.

The point is that for this build we need to at least 1 point into LR (and, in the best case, revive as well) without spending any hard points. This can be achieved in 3 ways:

1) On switch (this would be the obvious choice if you simply MUST have Death web plus Trang belt/gloves/head combo).

2) On Necro shield (white rhyme or rare?)

3) On Necro weapon (White runeword)


Which option is best I'm still trying to figure out. It largely depends upon what can spawn on white and rare necro heads, and what trees and plus skills can mix together (again, something I'm not certain about).

[Feetstench]

Some suggestions.

Don't use BPrison, use the Marrows and Bonewall.

Don't invest in Poison Nova or Poison Exp. use Blackbogs for the charge synergies. Damage is slightly less but it frees up 40 skill points. You could add Skells or Max both BShield and Bone Wall giving you a great rating for Bone Shield. Or even juice up Gumby.

I really like how you made the theme work.

[compubuy]

Thanks for the response, but this is a legitimate necro build (one that doesn't rely on bugs, and let's face it: Marrowalks is bugged and BM IMO unless you put at least one hard point into Bone Prison :D ).

Bone prison is necessary to capture the creatures so the mages can destroy them at will without risking their own selves.

Keep in mind that Mages, Bone prison, Lower resist, and Poison Nova are integral to this build.

Skeletons, Bone armor/Bonewall/marrowalk bug, Amplify damge, and Bone spear all belong in another build.

[Feetstench]

Think I am getting my items mixed up again.

Blackbogs doesn't have the charges. I can't remember what item that was.

[batuchka]

Why not a build with :

20 Raise Magi
20 Skeleton Mastery
20 Raise Skeleton
20 Fire Golem
10 Golem Mastery
1 summon resist
1 revive
1 CE
1 Lower Resist
1 prereqs

I would use full trangs to take full advantage of the lowered resistance since you're using infinity:

Slvl 10 Lower Resist : -55 resist all
Slvl 12 Conviction : -85 resist all (except poison)
Total: : -140 resist all (except poison)
Immunes : 80% penalty, so immunes with 100+ 140/5= 128 resist are unbreakable (to that element)

Few monsters have over 128 resistance to an element and in any case mages do assorted elemental damage and i had earlier wrote findings of fire spell dmg output from a poorman's fire trang summoner:

http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=350357

Basically your fire dmg ramps up seriously and these are the end results, with the gear stated in my guide:

Fireball (lvl 22): 750max
With slvl 10 LR+ slvl12 conviction: 750*2.4 = 1800max

Firewall (lvl 17) : 1741/s over 3.6s
With slvl 10 LR+ slvl12 conviction: 1741*2.4 = 4178/s over 3.6s

Meteor (lvl 14) : 1120max, 334/s
With slvl 10 LR + slvl12 conviction: 1120*2.4max, 334*2.4 = 2688max, 801/s

With +13 to summon skills :

lvl 33FG/lvl 23 GM :
Fire Golem life (hell) : 5723
Fire Golem Dmg : 678
Holy fire pulse : 45
Factor in LR+Conviction: 1627 fire dmg/108 pulse dmg

lvl 33 RS/SM
Skelly Dmg : 390, 13 skellies
Total dmg output : 390*13 = 5070

lvl 33 RM/SM
Ave elemental mage dmg : 185 (fire/psn/cold/lightning), 13 mages
Total dmg output : 185*13 = 2405
Factor in LR+Conviction = 5772

Infinity 50% ctc lvl 20 Chain Lightning : 1-281 lightning dmg
Factor in LR+Conviction+(-55 light res in r/w) :2.95-829 lightning dmg (hits 9 targets)

Optional merc helm : Dream in bone visage/tiara
Lvl 15 holyhock aura
Lightning dmg to attack : 1-648
Pulse dmg : 1-108
Factor in LR+Conviction+(-55 light res from Infinity)
Lightning dmg to attack : 2.95-1912
Pulse dmg : : 2.95-319

In summary this build will be churning out physical dmg (skellies+merc), fire dmg (trang+fire golem) and assorted elemental dmg (mages/merc). Revives for addtional support/dmg hehe.Conviction also lowers monsters defense so skellies/revives will have awesome chance to hit too. If you find a high dmg weapon the maxed FG will add lots of dmg in case you want to summon an IG and that 10 GM should beef up its life plus you have CTA as well :D A good sheild on switch would be a 'Splendour' with +fg/ig/rs/sm/rm. Another option is to use a 'Beast' in war axe/double axe/war scepter and further increase physical dmg output from skellies/merc :P FG and army are better than walls/prisons IMO as they are a mobile 'wall' plus do damage and you could cast attract and lower resist on mobs to clump them up an make them more prone to all your elemental/fire dmg hehe. This tactic also is a step to prevent monsters from smacking your mages. The poison nova route wouldn't fully make use of stacked lowered fire/cold/lightning resists from LR+Conviction combo and it costs 60 skill points :( Lastly if u want to specialise in fireball then trang gloves+belt gives it and you could wear hoto+enigma+shako+ anni and have nice fcr, lvl 28 fireball (but no fire mastery) and have a tele minion blob lol

[batuchka]

Edit:

Lvl 33/23 FG/GM
--> Add slvl 23 enchant from demonlimb as prebuff with slvl 7 fire mastery from full trangs +spirit broad+seraphs's

Duration: 672 Seconds
Attack Rating: +218%
Fire damage: 163 - 208 (ø185.5)
So FG dmg = 678 + 208 = 886 (max)
Factor in LR + Conviction = 2126
Not sure about pulse dmg and if fire mastery works to summon a higher dmg fire golem - consulting sorc forumites hehe

An example would be Hell Memphisto
Fire Resist in Hell : 75%
Effects of LR+Conviction : 75 - (140) = -65 fire resists
FG dmg = 886 * 1.65 = 1462
Also i normally revive those ghoul lords/council members who cast fireballs, meteors and hydras but i have no reliable data regarding their fire dmg but LR + Conviction should nicely boost it i would think hehe Baal and Diablo only have 50% fire resist but more physical damage resist :P

[Liliel]

I forsee a small problem with this build...

A well equipped Necro with fully synergised PNova, Trang gloves, Trang head, Death's Web and Lower Resist will wipe out scores of enemies before your skeleton magi get a chance to do anything.

[Mad Mantis]

Think I am getting my items mixed up again.

Blackbogs doesn't have the charges. I can't remember what item that was.

That would be a Venom dagger.