any advice for someone who just got to hc

[MapleBarb]

I've been playing this game for ages. But up to this past sunday I never played hc. Then east went down. And I tried asia and realized I had NO equip to loose lol. and even if i died I'd be back to the east in no time. so no major loss. OK here's my "problem" sorta speak. I REALLY enjoyed playing hc lol. So much so when I came back to the east coast I started a necro in hc as well. I am now in the process of maxing skellies. All I've done so far was put most points into vita and added 10 to strength. So, as mentioned, I would apreciate any advice on what I should do? Continue to add most points to vita as I've done so far?

Also: I have noticed they have a "loot body" option and was hoping you could explain to me a little bit more about it. Should I die do I wait until the other players take the stuff away? or I can just exit the game and the items my char have will fall to the ground?

Thanks in advance for replies :)

[BlueOctoberFan]

I'm not a fan of necro's so I have no advice there...

Loot body is that when you die, someone that you've allowed to loot you can grab what you're using at the time of death. If you leave, it's lost anyway, so you have to wait there on the death screen until they grab everything and your corpse dissappears. Anything that you had in the stash or just in your inventory is lost, however.

[Alaina]

Best thing to do is to do Trist runs till around lvl 15 ish. Then go into act 2 get murc and do Andy or sewer runs till 20 then cow runs till 26+. Find someone to rush you to act 5 and ancients then do Baal runs till 40.

I'll usually get vit to 30-40, then get STR to at least 50 or enough for what armor you have. Biggest thing to look out for are the tppkers.

I got to go, let me know how you’re doing.
~Chronus

[terrymanning]

I REALLY enjoyed playing hc lol. So much so when I came back to the east coast I started a necro in hc as well.

Welcome to the real game. Hardcore is much, much more fun than softcore.

I am now in the process of maxing skellies. All I've done so far was put most points into vita and added 10 to strength. So, as mentioned, I would apreciate any advice on what I should do? Continue to add most points to vita as I've done so far?

Only add to str. as your gear requires. Necros will never wear a Stormshield so you probably want to keep str. low. I usually put 3/1 into skellies/mastery until skellies are maxed and then max mastery. Only 1 in bone armor the synergy skill gives more absorb than actual points in armor. Amp is your friend. I never go for max block on summon necros, the skellies should be your shield. If you are taking enough damage that you need max block, you are probably playing the build a little more aggressively than most people.

Also: I have noticed they have a "loot body" option and was hoping you could explain to me a little bit more about it. Should I die do I wait until the other players take the stuff away? or I can just exit the game and the items my char have will fall to the ground?

Thanks in advance for replies :)

You have to wait in game until your corpse is looted. Only give loot rights to people you know and trust. Watch out for PKs and enjoy.

[Hp_Sauce]

Best thing to do is to do Trist runs till around lvl 15 ish. Then go into act 2 get murc and do Andy or sewer runs till 20 then cow runs till 26+. Find someone to rush you to act 5 and ancients then do Baal runs till 40.

This could actually be a bad way to start out your HC career. Soloing the game allows you to keep all the items that drop. If you power level so to speek you will very rarely pick up anything thats not Unique. You will find yourself in NM with poor gear, poor resists and little to trade. At this point you will ether:

a) Continue to solo in norm long after you should have started nm because you are searching for some items with resists, (boring!) or:
b) Give up your nm Hell Forge for a nm rush, at this point you will be out a possible decent rune, and you will promptly get TPPK'ed in a public nm baal game. (frustrating!)

Try and solo as much as you feel comfortable doing, by all means get some wp's for act 3 if you hate it, or act 2 if you hate it, but don't just skip the whole game. Get help with Norm Diablo, he will ROCK your skellies before you can say "oh crap!"

You're necro is on the right track so far. Vitality, Vitality, and more Vitality, no less important then Vitality is Resists, Resists, and Resists! Strength for gear is all you need. 80-100 since you don't know what you will find at this point (some would say even 80-100 is even too high).

As was said above already Amp Damage is your friend. Also don't forget about Dim Vision for stopping ranged attackers, Attract for croud control, terror for clearing out door ways (for those times when only one of your skelly's is attacking and its taking FOREVER for the monster to die). CE is usefull also, and Revives are later on. Don't forget a Might Merc when you get to nm act 2!

Clay Golum is the way to go. If you cast him next to a boss and then cast Decriptify the boss will be moving/attacking very slowly which means less dead minions, if you add some Cold Damage to that, and possibly a Slow Target weapon on your merc the boss will be useless

Good Luck and welcome to HC!
-hps

[Cleglaw_Himself]

Necros are great starting characters.
Every hc char I play - I put the first points into vitality until I get to 50 pts. Then I put pts into strength. I rarely lose a hc char except in duels or the rare tppk.

Max skeles and mastery. Put 1 into bone armour early, and keep it up at all times.
I use clay golem and 1 pt into decrep for reasons suggested by HpSauce. Works quite well on bosses, and decrep is awesome for slowing down fast moving packs.
Put your acct name here and I might donate you some early necro gear that I have lying around - Ume's lament etc e.g., if I ever see you on.

[MapleBarb]

I'm not a fan of necro's so I have no advice there...

Loot body is that when you die, someone that you've allowed to loot you can grab what you're using at the time of death. If you leave, it's lost anyway, so you have to wait there on the death screen until they grab everything and your corpse dissappears. Anything that you had in the stash or just in your inventory is lost, however.bad news is friend and I found that out the hard way. Good news was we found out lol. And now we're less afraid of trying to get nicer items because we know the other can loot and then return the items :D. and yes he's redoing his barb so all's well

I must confess I'm not the necro's biggest fan either. But seemed to be the most self sufficient type of char even without the best of equip.

Try and solo as much as you feel comfortable doing, by all means get some wp's for act 3 if you hate it, or act 2 if you hate it, but don't just skip the whole game. Get help with Norm Diablo, he will ROCK your skellies before you can say "oh crap!"I was planning on soloing it with friend (if there's such a thing lol) since this way we'd get some more stuff to equip our chars and maybe some ok stuff we could then trade. hopefuly lol.

[chaca]

you might just try playing a character which you know well. That is my advice. When I switched to HC i was convinced I needed to make a mf sorc. but I had rarely played them on SC. Can't tell you how many I killed before I got the hang of it.

[xeyloderixed]

ive done quite a few necs, most of them have been successful.

the best version for untwinked is probably the all-summon one, just because it requires very little to get started. my current one (not that i play as much as i did before, but he is still alive) has maxed skeletones (both types), mastery, corpse explosion, 1 in decrepify, 1 in revive, 1 in summon resist, and 1 in dim vision. he is very highly twinked, so you might want to put more in the one pointers because of gear constraints. highly durable, as long as you don't get too cocky and push too hard.

poison/summon is also good, but this build is a bit more gear-dependent. once you get into the later acts, you will absolutely possitively need +skill gear, because pnova requires 60 to be "decent", making your skeletons very very weak. skill gear helps out both of your trees.

i havent done a pure bone one this season, but if my guesses are correct, they are just too underpowered. losing 1k spear/spirit damage because of "that bug" is a bit too much for my liking; my bone necs werent killing fast before and they surely dont get any better nowadays.

bone/summon is unplayable right now, also because of "that bug".

i havent done as many experiments with necs this season, because frankly i got bored, but the ones i had in mind include all-mages/fire golem/lr, and all curse.

----------

regarding hc play, most chars do not need block to be successful (necs included), so just put points in str if you need gear upgrades, then rest vita. you really cant go wrong with more life. be wary of those gloams, found in a3-5 in certain places, because their lightning attack has pierce and will get through your meatshields. remember to cast dim vision early and always; it is the penultimate life saver for untwinked necs. cast your curses wisely: decrepify is almost always better than amplify damage (for untwinked), the aforementioned dim should be cast before entering crowded areas, etc.

other classes: ive only got guardian with 2 classes completely untwinked: nec and sin, the third having the unfortunate accident at hell lister (he was sooooooo close~!). trapper is second only to necs for safest untwinked: she doesnt really need that much to get deep into hell. all you would need is a really big damage merk polearm and 84969842769682 casts of cloak of shadows to finish hell.

EDIT: forgot the most important advice: DON'T DIE~

[terrymanning]

decrepify is almost always better than amplify damage (for untwinked),

I'm not sure I agree with this. I have always used the rule that if the skellies have the advantage I use amp, if the monsters have the advantage I use decrepify. I think you have to go on a fight-by-fight basis.

[xeyloderixed]

I'm not sure I agree with this. I have always used the rule that if the skellies have the advantage I use amp, if the monsters have the advantage I use decrepify. I think you have to go on a fight-by-fight basis.

almost always as a catch-all.

decrep is better if:
(1) extra fast
(2) extra strong
(3) might/fana
(4) high hp melee monsters (because they usually deal insane damage)

which is like, 80% of the monsters in hell? the only scenarios i think amp is better is melee monsters with low damage/hp: devilkin in a1 and flayers in a3.

[Cleglaw_Himself]

almost always as a catch-all.

decrep is better if:
(1) extra fast
(2) extra strong
(3) might/fana
(4) high hp melee monsters (because they usually deal insane damage)

which is like, 80% of the monsters in hell?

Untwinked, you have to get to hell first!
Amp for normal/nm, then use decrep more.

[terrymanning]

I probably should have added some context to my opinion. I agree with Xey on his listed examples.

[MapleBarb]

ive done quite a few necs, most of them have been successful.

the best version for untwinked is probably the all-summon one, just because it requires very little to get started. my current one (not that i play as much as i did before, but he is still alive) has maxed skeletones (both types), mastery, corpse explosion, 1 in decrepify, 1 in revive, 1 in summon resist, and 1 in dim vision. he is very highly twinked, so you might want to put more in the one pointers because of gear constraints. highly durable, as long as you don't get too cocky and push too hard.

poison/summon is also good, but this build is a bit more gear-dependent. once you get into the later acts, you will absolutely possitively need +skill gear, because pnova requires 60 to be "decent", making your skeletons very very weak. skill gear helps out both of your trees.

i havent done a pure bone one this season, but if my guesses are correct, they are just too underpowered. losing 1k spear/spirit damage because of "that bug" is a bit too much for my liking; my bone necs werent killing fast before and they surely dont get any better nowadays.

bone/summon is unplayable right now, also because of "that bug".

i havent done as many experiments with necs this season, because frankly i got bored, but the ones i had in mind include all-mages/fire golem/lr, and all curse.

----------

regarding hc play, most chars do not need block to be successful (necs included), so just put points in str if you need gear upgrades, then rest vita. you really cant go wrong with more life. be wary of those gloams, found in a3-5 in certain places, because their lightning attack has pierce and will get through your meatshields. remember to cast dim vision early and always; it is the penultimate life saver for untwinked necs. cast your curses wisely: decrepify is almost always better than amplify damage (for untwinked), the aforementioned dim should be cast before entering crowded areas, etc.

other classes: ive only got guardian with 2 classes completely untwinked: nec and sin, the third having the unfortunate accident at hell lister (he was sooooooo close~!). trapper is second only to necs for safest untwinked: she doesnt really need that much to get deep into hell. all you would need is a really big damage merk polearm and 84969842769682 casts of cloak of shadows to finish hell.

EDIT: forgot the most important advice: DON'T DIE~thanks for all your suggestions :). I'll be saving them and put my skills the way you suggest as I lvl up

Yesterday I actualy got lucky :D all because this barb decided to hostile the whole party as we got in act3. so this other player squelched him and gave us a new game name and then opened it. I went there. Amazingly enough no one else did. She then said she'd bring a higher char to give us travincal wp (by then I had a lil army going so I'd be ready for her). After I got the wp I told her I'd wait for her to change chars. To my surprise she said she had a friend giving her a rush later. this was a free rush :D. So I got all the way to act5 past ancients. And she was nice to help me with Anya as well as let me get some of the drops. So my necro now is wearing rares. and he's a nice lvl 22 (which I know is a laughable lvl for all of you. But I never expected to last past the first quill rat in act1 when i tried hc so this is 22 lvls above my predictions lol)

[Hp_Sauce]

So my necro now is wearing rares. and he's a nice lvl 22 (which I know is a laughable lvl for all of you. But I never expected to last past the first quill rat in act1 when i tried hc so this is 22 lvls above my predictions lol)

Congrats! Rares are nothing to complain over, some rares are better then uniques imho. You're right, 22 is low, but its not bad for a first character, so congrats again! Be carefull not to get to cocky though, and for god sakes watch out for TPPK's if you enter any public Baal games.

-hps

[Spellsinger]

thanks for all your suggestions :). I'll be saving them and put my skills the way you suggest as I lvl up

Yesterday I actualy got lucky :D all because this barb decided to hostile the whole party as we got in act3. so this other player squelched him and gave us a new game name and then opened it. I went there. Amazingly enough no one else did. She then said she'd bring a higher char to give us travincal wp (by then I had a lil army going so I'd be ready for her). After I got the wp I told her I'd wait for her to change chars. To my surprise she said she had a friend giving her a rush later. this was a free rush :D. So I got all the way to act5 past ancients. And she was nice to help me with Anya as well as let me get some of the drops. So my necro now is wearing rares. and he's a nice lvl 22 (which I know is a laughable lvl for all of you. But I never expected to last past the first quill rat in act1 when i tried hc so this is 22 lvls above my predictions lol)

Free help from nice players is all well and good, but this is exactaly the thing you need to be careful of. Be very wary of any high levs in your game unless you meet them here, or on chanel (op xbananax).. When I first started HC I was helped all the way through act 2, only to be tppked at Durial.

IMO, with this tppk hack any one could kill you at any time. You asked for advice on HC in your first post....my advice, dont play in public games.

[MapleBarb]

Free help from nice players is all well and good, but this is exactaly the thing you need to be careful of. Be very wary of any high levs in your game unless you meet them here, or on chanel (op xbananax).. When I first started HC I was helped all the way through act 2, only to be tppked at Durial.

IMO, with this tppk hack any one could kill you at any time. You asked for advice on HC in your first post....my advice, dont play in public games.I just read another note on tppked. that explains why no one else showed up at the game. I guess I'm too used to sc lol.

thanks for the channel name too :) if you dont mind I'll stop by when I play the necro

Be carefull not to get to cocky though, and for god sakes watch out for TPPK's if you enter any public Baal games. lol thats generaly me. my last words are "I CAN do it" followed by "D'OH!!!!!!!!!!!" and then I get my body and hope no one noticed how stupid I was lol