Poisonmancer questions

[lumpor]

I'm making a pure poisonmancer, and I have some questions.

1. I've put a point each into clay golem, golem mastery and summon resist. In the guides it says that with only three points, I'll get a good tank. But he only has 120 HP. I saw someone say that his golem had 1300+ life with only those skills. Even if you have lots of +skill gear, how will he get that much more life?

2. Almost everyone says I should only put 1 point in lower resist and let +skills do the rest because of diminishing returns. But even with +skills it will only lower the enemies resist by about 50% which won't break that many immunities. Should I really not put any points into it?

3. After I've maxed the three poison skills, what should I do with my leftovers? I'm not going to get skeletons. Should I boost my golem or should I get bone armor or should I put more into lower resist or max corpse explosion?
Can't poison explosion replace corpse explosion, or corpse explosion too good since it increases in power when the monsters increase in power?

4. How many sockets does Larzuk put into a piece of equipment at every difficulty (I know it's 1-2 in normal)?

Thanks

[windwingwind]

1. Golem life adjusts according to difficulty. So it has more life in Hell. Check the pet calculator.

2. You use lower resist to, well, lower the resist of your foes, not just breaking immunities. Omit it and see how does that hurt your necro's efficiency.

3. PE << CE because of its range of effect. For left over pt you may consider bone armor and its synergies. Personally I think RS + SM are the best place to go but since you dont want let's dont discuss that.

4. How many sockets does Larzuk put into a piece of equipment depends not on the difficulty in which you use the quest but on the ilvl of the item. And ilvl depends on the difficulty and area where the item was found. Check this (http://www.diabloii.net/wiki/Sockets)out.

[Wizdomm]

For skill points options after maxing the poison synergies (and with out skels), you could try...

(1) 1 point bone armor, and then as much into Bone Wall and Prison as you can. With your plus skill items and PnB gear you will get a VERY nice bone armor. (I like this option)

(2) Max Golem Mastery and then create you an insight golem to help out with mana (great if you tele alot). And you still may have a nice number of points (15 or so) to put into Bone Wall for an OK bone armor (probably around 300 def, hey every little bit helps).

(3) Max Corpse Explosion. I don't like this option though. I don't think any poison or bone necro should be putting more than one point in CE. With the all the plus skills to PnB you will have, you will already have a killer CE radius with just one point.

[Jednowlosy]

1. I've put a point each into clay golem, golem mastery and summon resist. In the guides it says that with only three points, I'll get a good tank. But he only has 120 HP. I saw someone say that his golem had 1300+ life with only those skills. Even if you have lots of +skill gear, how will he get that much more life?

1. hell difficulty bonus
2. +all skills items
3. call to arms

Your golem ends with ~10 k hp and is totally immortal in normal game, he even stands a couple of seconds against uber mephisto. If you put a couple of points here, he will be even tougher, but you will only notice that against uber diablo/umeph/ubaal/lilith/uduriel/uizzy.


2. Almost everyone says I should only put 1 point in lower resist and let +skills do the rest because of diminishing returns. But even with +skills it will only lower the enemies resist by about 50% which won't break that many immunities. Should I really not put any points into it?

Again, items that give +all skills or +necro/+curse. They are easy to get, and if you play on single player, you can still use easy to find stuff like trang claws. When playing on bnet, you will have a decent LR. If you wish to make it stronger, a couple of points put there won't hurt. The main advantage of this skill is breaking immunities (with death's web, poison facets and trang set you will reduce every nonimmune monster to negative resistance anyway). TO break 110 resistant monsters, you need 55% lower resist. You can put a few spare points to make it 60% if extra -5% seems interesting to you.


3. After I've maxed the three poison skills, what should I do with my leftovers? I'm not going to get skeletons. Should I boost my golem or should I get bone armor or should I put more into lower resist or max corpse explosion?
Can't poison explosion replace corpse explosion, or corpse explosion too good since it increases in power when the monsters increase in power?

CE gives you another element (two, actually) that allows you to kill unbreakable poison immune monsters. With merc equipped with good stuff, you cast amplify damage, he claims the first kill, and you CE twice and the whole screen gets annihiliated no matter how strong/resistant they are, excluding rare cases of fire/physical immunes or fire immunes with stone skin. CE will deal lower damage on those guys even after amp.

Maxing CE is not necessary (you get +20-25 to poison bone skills with perf stuff), but it's fun to kill monsters in a even wider AoE. I prefer to keep it maxed just for joy ;)

[AnimeCraze]

Even if you are not going to get skeletons, get revive (again, 1 point). If you have more points after, get the AI curses, and max CE. (or if you want to play safe, get bone armor)

[lumpor]

Ok, I guess I'll spend 6 points just to get summons. But won't the army be weak if i rely only on +skill to make it good? And is it really better to use a clay golem instead of an iron golem made from a runeword with an aura (like the one that gives conviction aura)?

I think i'll put the rest into bone armor and its synergies

[Dirkw]

Revives only get better with skeleton mastery, not with more points in the skill itself. I've never tried revives with a low level skeleton mastery, but I'm guessing it can't be all that useful, because they are really crappy with no skeleton mastery at all.

I don't mean to offend you, but I can't see you risking ber/mal/ber/ist on an iron golem. You could however make insight with one.

I'm not really a big fan of clay golems, but they are useful on moderately equipped characters because of their high hp/survivability. Otherwise, an insight golem or just a fire golem is more worth it to me.

I've never built a poisonmancer before, but when I do, I will definitely max lower resist, if not only principally (the poison should be as strong as possible on this character, IMO) and leave CE at a low level. I would probably not put any points in bone armors and stuff because I've never felt I needed it.

[NumtyDoo]

Most people do not use revives as killers (there are a few monsters that are good, but most are blah) with the exception of urdars on bosses.

Revives/skellies are there as meat shields, against non poison immunes, they keep baddies off you while you spam a couple of novas. Poison is an awesome killer, but it takes time to kill, revives/skellies keep you safe during that duration. Against poison immunes, revives/skellies keep your merc from getting locked in hit recovery animation so that he can get a corpse down to start your CE chain. Skellies will add decent physical damage to your arsenal, but take 20 points in RS to be good. While revives in general will do less damage, they make good shields, and only require a single skill point.

In general people do not max lower resist, and for good reason. My guy has 1 point in LR, which after +skills gives -66%, 20 points would get me like -70%, imho -4% difference is not worth my 20 skill points. I would rather put those points in CE, and clear the whole screen of unbreakable poison immunes with a single click. Skellies/Bone armor/DV are better uses for those points as well. The only time I could see maxing LR is if your pure PvP.

I prefer clay golems over insight for a few reasons. Insight golems are good at lower lvls when you need the mana, but a lvl 90+ character with decent gear should be ok mana wise. To keep IG from croaking you need to boost golem mastery, those are points that could be better spent elsewhere, clay golem will have more life (after +skills) with a single point than IG will with maxed mastery. The slow effect is awesome against bosses, and since I don't have mana issues at lvl 90+, the medetation aura isn't really useful to me anyway.

I have a poison/summon at the minute, but after seeing what CE does with my fishy, my next 'for fun' necro will be ...

Maxed Poison skills and CE
1 pt in revives/good curses/clay golem
all the rest in either bone armor (1BA+synergies) or dim vision.

[onderduiker]

3. PE << CE because of its range of effect.
Both Corpse and Poison Explosion can be useful; unlike CE, PE's damage isn't dependent on the base hit points of the corpse it's cast upon. So let's say you're dealing with a Vile Mother: kill a Vile Child she spawns and cast PE on its corpse, poisoning the Mother; then once she succumbs, cast CE on her corpse to kill her remaining Children. :devil:

It's also possible to kill Diablo in Hell with a single PE, while it would take multiple CEs to do so.

[AnimeCraze]

Why cast PE when you can cast nova? They do the same amount of DPS, and nova does not depend on a corpse.

As for insight IG, don't forget that the ultimate weapon for a poison necro, dweb, has loads of mana per kill.

[onderduiker]

Why cast PE when you can cast nova? They do the same amount of DPS, and nova does not depend on a corpse.
Laziness, safety and variety. :smiley:

Poison Explosion and Nova may have similar poison damage rates, but PE has a much longer poison length; where circumstances permit it, wouldn't you rather cast one PE than multiple PNs? Admittedly, if your Necromancer is equipped with plentiful skill bonuses, +% to Poison Skill Damage and -% to Enemy Poison Resistance, then one PN may be all you need to cast against most targets...

However, against targets like Diablo who will take multiple PNs to kill, casting a single PE can allow you to run and take refuge around a corner; you'll be applying poison damage at a comparable rate to PN, but you aren't required to remain within retaliatory range to constantly reapply it, which is obviously safer.

Although PN is preferable in most circumstances due to its comparable damage rate and much wider radius (PE's is set at approximately 4 yards), there are situations where casting PE adds a bit of variety e.g. creating literal choke-points by exploding corpses in door- and hallways so that all monsters who move through them are poisoned as they pursue you.

[AnimeCraze]

I am quite safe around my wall of revives and skeles, thank you. I always do the venom lord pack last and get ~10 of them telestacked onto diablo (and baal).

[lumpor]

Ok thanks for the help. But i have a few more questions. I'm planning to make a mancer that uses poison dagger with blackbogs sharp on weapon switch. Is that a good idea? If i poison an enemy with poison dagger, and then switch to deaths web, will the damage from poison dagger be strengthened because of the - enemy resist from deaths web even though I didn't wear deaths web when i stabbed the enemy? And isn't poison dagger very good against bosses too? It has a very long duration and total damage, which is the most important thing against bosses. I'm planning to switch to call to arms manually every time i want to cast BO, and use treachery to activate venom and then switch to bramble to make my poison dagger very efficient. Is that a good strategy?

[Jednowlosy]

Ok thanks for the help. But i have a few more questions. I'm planning to make a mancer that uses poison dagger with blackbogs sharp on weapon switch. Is that a good idea?

Every idea is good, as long as it's meant to be a fun build. If you want fast killing, I wouldn't advise it.


If i poison an enemy with poison dagger, and then switch to deaths web, will the damage from poison dagger be strengthened because of the - enemy resist from deaths web even though I didn't wear deaths web when i stabbed the enemy?

no


And isn't poison dagger very good against bosses too?

Poison is slow in general vs. bosses, meleeing with your weak necro isn't the best idea too, if you really want a daggermancer why not to use fleshripper :rolleyes:


It has a very long duration and total damage, which is the most important thing against bosses.

It has two times lower DPS than poison nova, mind you. ANd why duration is so important vs. bosses? You can recast your nova every 2 secs. Insight grants you unlimited mana and is a decent merc weapon after all.


I'm planning to switch to call to arms manually every time i want to cast BO,

It's very annoying to do, trust me.

[lumpor]

Ok thanks. The reason I said that duration is important against bosses is that you can stab, and then run away and wait a minute or so (or even visit town and the poison will still be there). Poison nova needs to be recast over and over again which forces you to be close to the boss over a long period. But I guess you're right.

Oh and one more thing, are summons useful against non-PI's, like in the pit?

[Jednowlosy]

sure they are, albeit they feel a bit redundant if your build isn't focused around them. I would say a good poison necro doesn't need any summon except for a golem.

[onderduiker]

Poison Dagger suffers in comparison to both Poison Explosion and Nova because it can only be applied to one target at a time, and its own damage rate is significantly less. However, while nothing can be done about its single target, its damage rate can rival that of PE and PN if it's combined with Venom (the damage rates and lengths of Poison Dagger and Venom sum).

It's technically possible to kill Baal in a Hell Ladder game (493,701 base hit points and Poison Resist 50%) with a single stab (I've confirmed this in a single-player experiment), but doing so involves ideal equipment and switching that is too awkward for regular gameplay. However, a well-equipped Necromancer should be able to kill most monsters with a single envenomed stab; while it would be safer and more efficient to kill with PN (or even PE), PD can be fun.

In terms of survival, there's Bone Armour, Wall and Prison, Summoning (usually a Golem and Revives) and/or Curses, particularly AI (Dim Vision, Terror, Confuse and Attract). Note that like -% to Enemy Poison Resistance and +% to Poison Skill Damage, Lower Resist only has to be active when the poison is applied; this means it can be overwritten immediately afterwards e.g. you could cast Decrepify on a boss like Baal as you ran away, or use a Wailing dagger's Hit Causes Monster to Flee 100% to scatter monsters once they'd been stabbed (it's applied after the hit, so it doesn't overwrite LR until after the damage has been applied).


The reason I said that duration is important against bosses is that you can stab, and then run away and wait a minute or so (or even visit town and the poison will still be there).
If you leave the area, poison damage will stop being applied, so you would need to remain in the Worldstone Chamber with Baal while the poison ran its course. You could hide around a corner or behind a pillar, though.


Oh and one more thing, are summons useful against non-PI's, like in the pit?
There shouldn't be any monsters immune to poison in the Pit; at worst, Bone Warriors have PR 75% (Dark Archers have 25%, Dark Stalkers 20% and Devilkin and their Shamans 0%).

[galzohar]

Depending on your +skills, once you have 20/20/20 nova+synergies and 1 in all (or at least the useful) summons, it may help to beef up LR a little. As long as it gets >1% per level it helps, not to mention bigger raidus means you're less likely to need to cast it more than once per poison nova cast leaving more time for CE/running around/whatever. I would definitely not max it, but without extreme +all skill gear (which will especially happen if you max your damage/second by wearing a +3 circlet and a neck and are too poor to have a load of +all skills on top of that). Remember you have a lot of spare points since you don't need to pump the golem or any other summons (will be good enough in hell and can be recast anyway). Once LR has a big enough radius, go with CE. At lower levels mob will die too fast to nova to use CE but later on it gets useful in between novas once LR is already applied.

Forget about poison explosion/dagger, while they can kill things, they're inferior in almost every single way to poison nova/CE.

[Jednowlosy]

LR radious is sick anyway.

Circlets aren't just for the poor, +3 pnb/100life/2sox circlet is the best helmet you can wear imo.

Once you reach 14k dam poison nova with death's web and trang's shield/belt/gloves for the extra -25% pres, you can clear a whole screen of monsters with just one cast ^_^ There are a few that are unbreakable immunes but CE beats them anyway and a merc with:

BoTD eth warpike
Fortitude
Andy Visage

and your amp damage is a monster, so you'll get the first body to blow within miliseconds.

In other words, poisonmancer is one of the top PvM chars. Can't understand why he is so unpopular, but it's not bad, it makes his gear cheaper :)

[lumpor]

Isn't a merc with infinity better?

[Jednowlosy]

Not really. If you have good stuff, you don't need mana regen. Death's web adds 7-12 mana per kill, btw. Meaning 1 poison nova worth 20 mana returns 100-200 mana points on average ;)

Nova isn't a spell you need to spam in order to kill, you cast it once and everything is dead. Definitely less mana-intensive than blessed hammer, which quickly depletes your mana without insight (1 point redemption fixes it, though).

Even when I spam CS, I still swim in mana. Unless some monster burns my mana, I don't care for my blue globe. That's why i prefer botd for the merc.


For a cheaper necro build, insight is of course a better choice, since you will most likely have less mana and/or need some comfort against mana burning monsters.

[frooglemon]

I thought infinity didnt cut poison resistances? Or am i mistaken. I'm currently making my own pvp/pvm psn necro (lvl 37) and am still looking for merc gear.

[Mad Mantis]

Infinity doens't cut Poison Resistance.

[AnimeCraze]

Infinity increases CE damage, as well as skele hit chance if you decide to use them. Infinity also has crushing blow. I would take obedience if you think infinity is not necessary. BotD is a lot lower on the list.....

[accipite]

Infinity also can help a lot on fire wall If u r wearing Trangs set. that is a good skill to deal with Viper and Soul.

[galzohar]

If you need mana there's always mana pots. My necro had been fine with base energy and no specific mana gear beyond the default 3-piece trang-oul that I got lucky enough to find in single player. Just like you drink health pots when you lose life, you drink mana pots when you lose mana... It's not that big of a deal and you don't really end up going to towm more often than you normally would've.

[Jednowlosy]

For the gear I mentioned, all you'll ever drink are full rejuvs IF manaburned, which shouldn't happen that often. Ranged mana burn is weaker, melee mana burn is easy to avoid, Full rejuvs drop from nearly every unique monster/champion so you can drink them like crazy.

Infinity has its benefits for every player, melee or caster, that's true.

[lumpor]

Ok thanks. i guess I'll put a point in all summoning skills except fire golem (the guides say I should max raise skeleton though, should I?). I also won't use blackbogs sharp on weapon switch, but I will use it against bosses. I'll teleport to bloodmoor and equip treachery so i can activate venom, then I'll cast lower resist on the boss, then I'll equip a blackbogs sharp which I've stored in my cube and use poison dagger on the him,, then switch back to deaths web and cast decreptify, then I'll run to a corner and let my summons protect me until poison dagger's timer has run out. Anyway thanks for the help everyone, I think I'll continue with my lvl 23 (:P) poisonmancer now.

[Jednowlosy]

well, if you're low on good gear, you can try. It's all about fun, after all. ;)

But if you can afford good death's web, you can most likely afford better gear, and get a better build. No need to hide from act bosses, they are sissies ;)

[lumpor]

What do you mean low on gear? Do you mean those with good gear don't need any strategy against bosses since they're so easy? It's probably better to ignore poison dagger completely, but I really have to try it out before I ignore it (I owned duriel with it). I think my gear will be like this:
Helm: Circlet with +3 poison and bone
Amulet: +3 poison and bone or mara's or something, can't decide
Weapon: Deaths web (maybe blackbogs sharp too)
Switch: CtA
Armor: Bramble (and switch to treachery if I'm going to use poison dagger, then switch back to bramble)
Shield: Trangs
Rings: Double Soj
Belt: Trangs
Gloves: Trangs
Boots: No idea (I completely ignore frw since I can overcome that with patience). Probably some boots with big stat boosts like marrowwalk or war travelers

Oh also, is a clay golem really better than an aura golem? There really is no aura from a runeword that fits well with a poisonmancer, except resist auras or vigor (can iron golems be made from bows) or maybe defiance.

[galzohar]

If you say you can overcome slower run with patience, you can also overcome slower killing with patience, in which case you can just go untwinked with pure poison... if you want to kill fast, though, get boots with FRW and resists preferably. Running faster is also probably the #1 thing to keep you alive along with FCR, maybe even more than resistances and high damage.

Just ignore mana gear. If the skill gear gives you mana, great. If not, use potions. Never sacrifice +skills/+poison/-resist/life/resistances for mana.

Anyway you have pretty much everything (duped) you could wish for for a poison nova necro, you should have an extermely easy time killing everything with poison nova. Don't bother with dagger, honestly... It'll require you to swap pretty much ALL your gear (to get better block/resists/etc as well as massive AR required to hit champtions/minibosses/bosses), and will not really do you much good.

[Jednowlosy]

daggermancer is a char meant to be made for fun only.. definitively not for fast killing.

Albeit necro is a type of char that can fast kill with anything due to his amazing CE skill.