meleemancers guides

[fredsta54]

intersted in makin 1, perhaps with maxed dim vision and then amping/decripping/lifetapiong with sinbgle targets

zeal is an option, but i dont know how to make one, can any1 help me? perhaps oath and bone armour for the fun of it but itd be ***

help plz







Fred

[Wizdomm]

Would be cool if anyone had some guides to share. I have actually been working on a purely melee necro (no offensive skills like skels/revives or poison) the last week. Currently at lvl 85. I maxed Bone Armor, Bone Wall, and Bone Prison for nice armor. I also maxed CE and then put 1 pt in all cures minus Confuse and Attract, and 1 point in Golem Mastery and Summon Resist, and about 5 points in Clay Golem.

I slapped alot high-end melee-oriented gear on him: Famine Beserker, CoA, Fortitude, Phoenix, Metalgrid, Drac's, BKs times 2, Verdungos, CTA/Spirit switch etc... Doing solo baal is actually pretty easy. I haven't tried soling in a 8ppl game but I imagine it would be bad.

I decided to use the Famine Zerk for all the extra elemental dmg that's on this weapon because if I were to ever run into a phys immune, I would be toast. For the merc, I'm using a Might merc with Infinity (already had it, and helps the elemental dmg and CE). Not sure if my gear or the merc is the best but I'm digging it so far.

For charms I used a bunch of plus to curses grand charms, since ppl tend to get rid of them for cheap...and I really didn't need PnB gcs (bone armor and CE are already quite powerful).

Again, would love to hear some others that have melee'd their necros.

[omgwtfbbqpwned]

I've tried out several variations of pure Meleemancers, so here's my advice coming from my own experience.

Core Build:
16 DV
8 Attract or 20 CE
10 Amp or 10 Decrep
1 Life Tap

1 Golem Mastery
1 Summon Resistance
1 Clay Golem

1 Bone Armor
The rest into BA's synergies.

Most of the time, you'll be using Amp/Decrep as your main curse. I'd pick one to place points into, not both. DV is used to stop range attackers (Mostly Gloams and Burning Archers that easily ezpk you), and when crowds get overwhelming. Life Tap is for when you're fighting Undead and when you need a quick restoration... usually, you'll just want to cast LT really quick, hit once, and Amp/Decrep again, as one hit is really all that's needed.

As for Attract vs CE... I personally dislike CE, as I think it ruins the idea of the Meleemancer, but they both serve the same purpose. Both arefor overwhelming melee crowds that are bulkier (ie Urdars, Moon Lords, etc). Attract easily cuts the amount of monsters on you by 1/4, while CE lets you kill one and easily demolish the rest.

Sorry I can't help you out with your Zealermancer as I've never tried it, but here's my set-up if it helps:

Guillame's Face (94 AR/13 Max Dam)
Treachery
Nosferatu's Coil
Aldur's Advance
Steelrend
Highlord's Wrath
Raven Frost
Crafted Ring (117 AR/19 STR/6 NRG/11 All Res/3% LL/18 Life)
Obediance Giant Thresher

I originally had CoA/Fortitude/Baranar's Star/Homun/Angelic Halo + Ring/RF/20 IAS gloves with CB/Gore Rider, but in the end, my damage really sucked (even with Fortitude and Might), and having Fortitude and Bone Armor cancel each other out was really a hassle. I threw those out the window, and rebuilt.

I really enjoy my current set-up, because I can actually kill FAST (1.5k-3.5k physical damage aided by high % CB and DS, 300 poison damage per second, 100 Fire Damage amplified by -Fire Res), 7k AR, BA lasts the full duration, 85% CB and 40% DS is extremely sweet... it chips down bosses really fast. IMO, a two-hander is the way to go. The damage gain is just amazing.

@Wizdomm: I'm curious as to how you did with your build, especially since one of my biggest issues initially was Fortitude overiding my Bone Armor and the lack of AR. Some questions: Wouldn't Dracul's just override your curses? Do you still hit well without the Infinity (judging by looks, your build has... 3k AR? Less?) How did you manage without any CBF? What's your one-hander damage like?

[Wizdomm]

@Wizdomm: I'm curious as to how you did with your build, especially since one of my biggest issues initially was Fortitude overiding my Bone Armor and the lack of AR. Some questions: Wouldn't Dracul's just override your curses? Do you still hit well without the Infinity (judging by looks, your build has... 3k AR? Less?) How did you manage without any CBF? What's your one-hander damage like?

Great questions...and some of these may lead to do a rebuild in the future. I have just recently hit lvl 86 after building this guy for 3 days...so I haven't had all this high-end gear on him long. Here's my observations so far.

Fortitude's overriding your Bone Armor with Chilling Armor does suck. Most of the time I cast Bone Armor before entering into combat with a group of monsters. The Bone Armor is usually overridden sometime during this combat but it doesn't matter as long as I'm hitting monsters...as I have alot of life leech. After I'm through with that pack of monsters I recast Bone Armor and start again.

The lack of AR may end up being a problem. I have only around 2K right now.

Dracul's has some nice life leech and the only downside is that 5% chance to cast Life Tap on striking. But 5% chance is low and when it happens, it's not like it really hurts you.

I don't have any crushing blow and I manage just fine for now. As I said, soloing Hell Baal is not hard with my current build.

The Famine Zerker is doing 1868-4722 (keep in mind most of this dmg is physical but some if magic, posion, cold, fire, and lightning). The damage is pretty good. With might, amp, and conviction most enemies in Solo hell die within a couple hits.

A couple other notes about the equipment I'm using. The repair costs are enormous on some of this equipment (Fortitude is the worst). After a solo Baal run you may have 300K-400K in repair needed. Also, I maxed CE and it comes in handy alot. But the Phoenix shield and its Redemption aura eats up alot of corpses. If I am fighting several monsters and want to kill one and CE the rest, I have to be quick to CE or the Redemption will claim it.

Also, with the equipment I'm using you will end up with your resistances maxed as follows: 85 lite, 85 fire, 75 cold, and 75 poision. You will also have some nice fire absorb. Defense ends up around 3,126. Life tops out around 950...BO able to about 1450.

[Wizdomm]

OK...a fchange I decided to make after the last couple hours of gameplay. I ditched the Fortitude. The chilling armor overriding the bone armor just wasn't working. I put 60 skill points into getting a very nice bone armor so I would like to actually use it. I replaced it with an ethereal Arkaine's (zod'd) that I had on another char: plus 2 to skills, 2175 def, damage reduced, 30% fhr, a nice vitality boost, and indestructible! (eliminating those crazy high repair costs)

The only downside is a reduction in damage from 1868-4722 to 1520-3690. With might and amp this is still fine soloing (still haven't tried soloing in multiplayer). Also a loss of 30 res all with the armor switch and a loss of 5 max lite res...but those are easily replaced.

[HarbingersOfSkulls]

Would be cool if anyone had some guides to share. I have actually been working on a purely melee necro (no offensive skills like skels/revives or poison) the last week. Currently at lvl 85. I maxed Bone Armor, Bone Wall, and Bone Prison for nice armor. I also maxed CE and then put 1 pt in all cures minus Confuse and Attract, and 1 point in Golem Mastery and Summon Resist, and about 5 points in Clay Golem.

I slapped alot high-end melee-oriented gear on him: Famine Beserker, CoA, Fortitude, Phoenix, Metalgrid, Drac's, BKs times 2, Verdungos, CTA/Spirit switch etc... Doing solo baal is actually pretty easy. I haven't tried soling in a 8ppl game but I imagine it would be bad.

I decided to use the Famine Zerk for all the extra elemental dmg that's on this weapon because if I were to ever run into a phys immune, I would be toast. For the merc, I'm using a Might merc with Infinity (already had it, and helps the elemental dmg and CE). Not sure if my gear or the merc is the best but I'm digging it so far.

For charms I used a bunch of plus to curses grand charms, since ppl tend to get rid of them for cheap...and I really didn't need PnB gcs (bone armor and CE are already quite powerful).

Again, would love to hear some others that have melee'd their necros.


Here's a guide that MM made a while back:

http://forums.diabloii.net/showthread.php?t=214163

HoS

[Mad Mantis]

Not to mention the posts by SSoG on the subject. There are some really great threads on this subject out there. Use the search feature, it can be your friend.