new to forum

[youpey]

hey guys. i am new to the forum, but i have been playing the game for years. i had an awesome necromancer a few years back but my hard drive failed and i had to start over many times.

i recently started over with a necromancer again, and was trying to make one using skeletons and a golem, but i found it to be way too difficult. everything would die very quickly leaving me all alone. once i hit lvl 18, i got the bone spear, and i havent looked back. now i use a golem to walk with me and take all the initial brunt of the fight, and i sit back and tear it up with the bone spear.

currently my guy is only a lvl 21, but i did buy a nice wand, which had a +1 to bone spear. i also somehow found 2 rings, one with an attack rating +74 and the other with an attack rating of +79. i almost fell over when i found those.

also, i had a question on how you guys get such great combinations of armor and weapons and stuff. i just keep searching, but i dont typically find anything for the necromancer...since i am a necromancer. i dont use any editors or anything to create stuff, so whatever i find i use. do you guys use editors to get your cool stuff or do you just keep searching for good stuff

i only play local on my computer, no online play, so i dont know if that makes a difference.

one last thing, i love the iron maiden spell, the smith kicked his own butt. i just stood back and created a golem, once it died, i created one more and the smith killed himself by beating up the golem.

anyway, just wanted to say whats up

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

Welcome to the forums! We share an affection for golems, it seems :grin:

Using an editor on your own computer is your own choice, of course, but doing so means you won't be able to trade or multiplay with other forumites.

Random thoughts: Skeles become quite powerful with additional points place in Raise Skele and Skele Mastery. They really come into their own in time.

+AR rings etc are only of use if you are going to melee alongside your minions. You'll need some good items to keep that going in the harder difficulties.

Finding stuff is a matter of patience - monster drops, purchasing from vendors and gambling with certain vendors can net you some useful gear, but the godly gear only comes with time.

Good use of IM with the Smith, nice one :thumbsup: IM doesn't do much for you in Nightmare mode and even less in Hell mode, but it's fun in Normal.

Bone Spear/Spirit and the poison skills won't help you much later in the game unless you allocate most of your skill points to them - look through the stickies for ideas on how to build a skelemancer, a bonemancer, a poisonmancer or other less common build-types. It helps you to avoid mistakes in skill choices that mean your character won't cut it later in the game.

Enjoy the forums, there's good advice and some good banter that goes on here. Make sure you check out the Single Player Forum too, some good folks are there as well.

[youpey]

about what level points would i need in the RS and SM before they become useful

i have beaten the game on normal mode with just a bone spear, it is pretty easy to do it that way, and i never really went through on the other levels

the 2 rings i have with high levels of attack rating dont help with the bone spear? i didnt realize it was only with melee weapons, i will have to see what other ones i have then, because i never use any weapons, only magic

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

Hmmm - what seems to work is putting a point in each of your curses (some folks omit Attract/Confuse, it's a preference thing), a point each in CG/GM, a point in Summon Resist when it becomes available, a point in Skele Mastery (to start with) and the rest in Raise Skele.
Once you get past Diablo in Normal (the skelemancer's worst enemy), your skeles should be on top of everything, pretty much. As you level, your goal is to max RS and SM - +skills items for RS or the Summoning tree help greatly here.
My necros never really try to hit anything much after Act 1 Normal, they prefer to sit back and give orders after that. AR won't affect Bone Spear, I'm afraid.

[Ed from Russia]

Welcome to the Forums. You probably want to read a few guides in the stickies on top of the Necro forum. That might give you some tips and inspiration.

I can recommend creating a Skellymancer (Necro with Skeletons); it's one of the most fun build around, and quite easy. Look in the Stickies for the guide by Nightfish.

[Mikk0]

welcome to the forums!

just out of curiosity.. do you play lod? and do you play the latest version of the game?

playing online makes some thing alot more easyer :thumbsup:

[youpey]

i have played the LOD, but i loaned out my disks and surpringly i never got them back. i went out and bought the regular version, not the LOD and have just been playing that way.

i have gone through the stickies, and it looks like until you are very far into the game, the skeletons arent much help.

i have been trying to kill everything each time i play, even when i get what ever quest item i have been looking for, i make sure i clear the entire area for xp points. i have found quite a few gems this way. i just beat the fake sorcerer or what ever the name was on level 2, where the entire map is just platforms in the sky. where you have portals to jump everywhere. i beat the final person, but there is still one more area i have to go through to clear out the level.

also, is it possible to play my existing character online, or do i have to start over

[Kijya]

Actually it's possible to pretty much only kill one enemy, raise, and then let your skeletons do the rest. There are some situations they become quite crippled however, maggot lair and normal diablo being two places I rather have a team of other players with me while doing.

Their usefulness may be a bit dependant on what patch you are playing. Since you play offline classic it's hard to tell which one it is :azn:

You can play your SP (single player) characters online on open battle net, however thats a place where any type of player can visit, including those who have edited their characters with 3rd party programs. Better option is to head over to the SPF (http://forums.diabloii.net/forumdisplay.php?f=3) and see if you find a group of legit players that would like to play with you with TCP/IP.


There are tree reasons many players have great items without editors, one is experience. Many here have played for very long, and a lot, making it easier to know where to look for items and what characters can help them acquire them. Second one is trading, on SP while being totally offline you are limited to what you find yourself, online of on this forum you will find other players willing to trade with you allowing you both to get items that are of more use to you. Thirdly there is muling, aka moving one item from one of your character to another. ATMA (http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=532037) is the commonly used application for SP. Without muling you may find great items, but never get to use them because they're not the kind of items your character would use, but rather for some other build.

Before I joined this forum I played an assassin on SP, highest I got was lvl 5x something, though she was goodly with her 1 hit kills in act 5 normal, those where the days :cloud9: 20 claw mastery, 1x claw block, 20 burst of speed :laugh:

[GotFriana]

Hello, you mentioned in your posts you dont go beyond normal difficulty, that s ok normal has its charm too but the really good items dont drop in normal difficulty. There s a relation between items and monster levels as you advance in the game you find stronger higher level monsters that have the chance to drop better things.

[Morlen]

being a summon necro has its advantages, but u will need to put points into raise skeles and skele mastery to make them effective
later on(act5 normal and beyond) it is important to have points in summon resist
otherwise ur army will die fast on high elemental damaging bosses and packs

use amp damage for a common curse, u may want to put points into raise mages if u want, they can be very effective on normal, nightmare and hell, u will need alot more points + lower resist curse for them to be better

as a summon necro, u will want to surround urself with all +summon skill gear, to increase the effectiveness/number of ur bone army

try other things tho, and check out the different strats, play around with em all if u like, see what u find fun and effective

and they are right, u really wont find very good gear in normal, nightmare and hell u will
but keep at it, in time ull learn what works and what doesnt

Good Luck!!

[prion]

yeah, about your rings.

AR rings don't help your magic at all.

So you want to look for these mods:
+resist
+mana
+life
+fcr
damage reduction

if you get lucky you'll find a Stone of Jordan which gives +1 skills, very useful

make sure you look up the cube recipes, if for example you need lightning resist really bad, you can actually make a ring to give you that.
http://www.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/cube.shtml

[youpey]

i beat diablo in normal and now i am on the nightmare level. i have some cool stuff. i switched over to the bone spear as my primary magic, with the golem following around. on nightmare level i just finished act 1.

i have some pretty cool weapons now, i have a shield that has pretty good resists, i think in nightmare level, i am +76 on fire resist. my wand has a +3 to bone spear and +1 to bone wall
i also have a cool wand that is +1 to all necromancer skills, which i am not using yet, i am waiting until i hit level 20 on the bone spear to swich over
i have a cool helmet that is +1 to all necromancer skills. i have a cool shield also that i am not using yet because i dont have the strength, but it is defence of ~100 i think. it is a lot harder in nightmare mode, but since i just got to level 30, i think i will go through it one more time