Is it possible to make a golem that can actually kill things in Hell?

[TheMightyGoat]

I see golems mostly used as fodder. "Ah, why not throw one point in it and throw it up to add to the crowd," sort of thing. Most people seem to use Clay Golem because it slows things. I don't really care for that. I can control the crowd fine with curses.

Can a golem actually kill things in Hell? I hate having to rely solely on my mercenary to get an army started. Maxed Fire Golem? Iron Golem? I have plenty of extra skill points...

[MalVeauX]

Heya,

Kill monsters in hell? Well, that depends on how patient you are. The golems with mastery are very tough and will last forever, since you recast (exception: iron golem). So look at this:

Hell mode, Clay Golem: Damage 22-53 @ level 20.
Hell mode, Blood Golem: Damage 76-206 @ level 20.
Hell mode, Iron Golem: Damage 12-33 @ level 20.
Hell mode, Fire Golem: Damage 18-47, Fire Damage 401-449 @ level 20.

Each displayed with FULL synergy above.

So you can see, the Fire Golem does the most damage on his own. Even then, think about how slow he attacks, and how pathetic 400ish damage is per swing in Hell mode. Plus, immunities to fire are ... everywhere. His HolyFire aura does damage in the 30's.

None of them frankly can kill anything in hell on their own.

Then there's the iron golem. There's one way he can kill things, and that's by summoning him out of an item with crushing blow on it. Mean while, you have to keep him alive. You lose the item to give him that.

In general, you simply can't deal damage via the golems. We used to be able to with the Blood Golem + Iron Maiden trick, but that got nerfed ages ago. Golems are now just tanks, nothing but tanks. Good cheap tanks. But they deal no damage and they're not very smart.

If you want to deal damage, couple a golem with a Merc.

Cheers,

[HarbingersOfSkulls]

My favorite golem to use was the rustbucket for my main damage dealer along with my Waheed merc. And it was solely a Golemancer...no mages/revives or skeletons...when I retired he was in act2 of hell.

Now...I do't know how your build is setup or even if your going with a pure golemancer build...but I went with maxxing out golem mastery and rustbucket first (and also added 1 point into summon resist to start with)...then gumby and split points between blood and fire golems.

I didn't use curses because I had the ones I needed on a wand.

+skills is the key to a golemancer and at the time I had I believe a level 43 or 45 for golem skills with a level 16 or 18 for the curses on my wand.

I only had help with like killing diablo in norm...ancients and later on baal and same with in nm only with the anya quest thrown in. I would do baalruns to quicken the leveling time for myself...and allowing for a strong rustbucket when it came to nm. In nm I went with the rouge merc until I was able to fight my way into act2 where I would get a might waheed to finish the game with.

HoS

[FoxyG]

iron golem can kill enemies with his thorns - iron maiden speeds up the process. if you get his life and resists to max using synergies he will last for a long time. he makes a good companion for a bonemancer, since while diablo is whacking your lump of metal around (dealing damage to himself) you can spam spirits at him

[sequoia]

IG can be pretty decent in Hell, if you make him out of a sweet runeworded item. Giving it a runeword with high damage (I'd say Grief or Last Wish for the CB) and adding aura help, in the forms of concentration/beast/etc. would help a bit. It'd be pretty sturdy with a good point investment, but don't expect something as easy to use as a valkyrie.

[factotum]

That 400-odd damage for Fire Golem seems low--sure I read about someone who got around 2000 damage out of one; needed a lot of +skills to manage it, though! Combined with Lower Resist and a load of maxed Skeleton Mages he could kill stuff in Hell, albeit somewhat slowly compared to your average cookie cutter.

[FoxyG]

unless you're extremely rich, you'd want max IG with max synergies and lots of prebuffing +skills if you're making a golem out of Beast or Last Wish etc.

[balkan]

I don't understand why this is an issue though. Not everything in the game is meant to be able to kill every monster in sight. I think of golems as utility, like Amazon's Slow Missiles and stuff like that.
Necromancers got plenty of God-awesome killing skills like skeletons, poison and CE. Giving them anymore would be just outright crazy. However, this does create a couple of wasted skill points :-\ I have yet to find any use for a blood or fire golem.

[Arek]

^^^ i agree very much

otherwise:
fire golem + lower resist
iron golem out of bonesnap or other crushing blow item (ribcracker, guilomes face, not many items available, but most of them cheap)

[Anathema]

IG can be pretty decent in Hell, if you make him out of a sweet runeworded item. Giving it a runeword with high damage (I'd say Grief or Last Wish for the CB) and adding aura help, in the forms of concentration/beast/etc. would help a bit. It'd be pretty sturdy with a good point investment, but don't expect something as easy to use as a valkyrie.

Don't encourage people to do this. The IK Maul is as high as you need to go. Do not make Golems out of runes that it took you 3 weeks to aquire. Just don't do it.

Do golems even stick with you between games? and if they do.. what about a lag spike? I know the Necro is the most lag resistant of the classes, but.. what if? There goes the sweet HotO you got drunk and turned into a golem.

EDIT- Don't forget about bonesnap. its the poor mans IK maul.. or rather, the weapon I used to level my IK barb.

[deadbeater]

^^^ i agree very much

otherwise:
fire golem + lower resist
iron golem out of bonesnap or other crushing blow item (ribcracker, guilomes face, not many items available, but most of them cheap)

I don't recall Ribcracker being made of metal. IK maul or Windhammer will have to do.

Wait, here's a great el cheapo: Rixot's Keen!

Also, is the golem's ias affected by the base ias of the weapon golemized? Or it uses just the object's ias?

[sequoia]

Don't encourage people to do this. The IK Maul is as high as you need to go. Do not make Golems out of runes that it took you 3 weeks to aquire. Just don't do it.Uh... I really doubt anyone who takes 3 weeks to get 3 high runes is just going to blow them on a golem.
Do golems even stick with you between games? and if they do.. what about a lag spike? I know the Necro is the most lag resistant of the classes, but.. what if? There goes the sweet HotO you got drunk and turned into a golem.They definitely stick with you between games, hence the point of using them out of Pride, Infinity, or Insight. I don't see the point of Hoto though...

[Mad Mantis]

Also, is the golem's ias affected by the base ias of the weapon golemized? Or it uses just the object's ias?

Base IAS doesn't affect the Golem. Only extra IAS on the object.

[Damric]

bonesnap is arguably the best item for a killing iron golem, due to crushing blow, and fire/cold res. With descent level of summon resist it would be near impervious to elemental attacks.

[reciprocate]

If the item was socketed, would the bonus from the gem/rune/jewel apply also to the golem? I figure it would. And one of the best items may probably the expensive windhammer or Cranium Basher. Wind got 50 crushing blow and 60% IAS. Basher on the other hand has 75% cb, 20% ias, 25 to all resists. This also makes me wonder if Basher's
4% Chance To Cast Level 1 Amplify Damage On Striking also works on the golem.

[sequoia]

That would be better for bosses, but I imagine an ebotd elite weapon would be ideal if you were trying to quest with the IG.

[deadbeater]

botd Golems doesn't kill on its own in hell.