Posion Necro build questions

[Dwade]

Was thinking of building a non cookie cutter character, and a posion necro seemed interesting. Im obviously maxing dagger, nova, and explosion, but im not sure where else to put the points.
Im definitely dropping a few into lower resist to counter any immunes, but how many points exactly should i spend?
Should I go with 1 point into bone armor, and rest into prison/wall, or a golem and golem mastery to tank?
Im mainly focused on the PvM aspect of the game, and any tips on gear and/or stat point allocation would be great too.

[Beltyn]

Used to have hybrid Summoner/Nova/CE/Curser Nec who functioned rather well.

Seriously put some into CE, i know its rather cookie cutter but it will seriously help you out in tight spots.

Was planning on trying using p.dagger with the diggler (unique dirk) thikn it has ITD on it and fast attack speed, seems better choice than unique kris if plan on using the skill.

High LR will make you lots of friends. I had a level 24 one and could hit pretty much every monster in CS with 4 castings, sorcs will love you, plus variety builds such as elemental paladins/zons will adore you :azn:

P. Nova isn't that great a killer, great through to about act 4 NM then you'll get problems so a tank or several are definately worth investing in.

I dont advocate wall/prison simply because i dont like them, if you're experience and feel they'll help you go for it :)


Let us know what you plan for him, just casual leveling, cows, cs? will help guide better with that in mind :cool:

[kamui]

items and skills depend on which kind of a poison-using necro you intend to play.
i make a difference between:
- meleemancer: attacks with poison dagger
- venomancer: attacks with poison nova

concerning the meleemancer, you might make use of this:

http://www.diabloii.net/strategy/d2guides/necro-salparadise.shtml

personally, i would max of course as you said the three poison skills, put lower resist up to 16 points (incl eq), clay golem and golem mastery and monster resist up to 1 and the rest of your skillpoints is for the revives. unfortunately, you cannot use bone armor.

i didnt test that but i imagine its very safe to play this way since you have got plenty of blocking allies around you which makes it a lot easier to attack unresisted. also, nearly all points are invested in vitality, and since your block rate is relatively high (-> twitch+shield), you wont die too often :grin:


/edit: just read what Beltyn posted: i fully agree to using this unique dirk (although it only works against normal monsters (no champions, uniques..)). my melee-sorc did that too :grin:
but just try out if there is more attack rating needed if you maxed poison dagger. in case it's not enough, use angelic amu + ring or singon helm + gloves.. at least against uniques since itd wont work

[Fearlessone]

There are 2 good discussions of this. First is the thread last month by Gnostosis, u can do a search under "poison" or just look back a page or two. Second is on the first page, a sticky near the top called "Classic build guides..". Look for my guide under "Fearlessone's Poison Nova Summoner", its very extensive.

Poison is really too slow for some monsters in late hell. Getting lower resist to around -50% is good. Actually some monsters, who have high poison and fire resist get better damaged with the physical dmg in CE, so LR them first and then amp cursing them just before using CE is best, trust me. You will prob be playing around some very good players, so to keep up with them, the guy above is right, get some CE (unless that violates the purity of this particular char build in your view). Its superior to bonewalls, which protect and herd, but dont kill. I use bprison alot, on pesky mobile monsters, but only 1-2 layers of it and dont spam, that only upsets other players. You can get a respectable # of summons and a good golem even with the 60 skill points dumped in poison. You can use several curses at once on different parts of the monster mob for different players in your party.

Some comments about other posts here: lvl 7 LR gives -51% pois res. Lvl 16 is -61%. This higher lvl will break a few more pois immunities but will still be a slowoooowww kill. Like I posted in the sticky build, most monsters in late game have 40-50% pois res, so this lvl of LR really does double your real damage. Its ur choice as to how far u need to go to kill off certain monsters. For monsters with unbreakable immunities or still have over 90% pois resist, I say blow them up!

The Golden Age of such chars here in Classic is between lvls 50-55 in late Nm, u will rule.