Noob pnb Necro looking for advice on PvM build

[AceOfJacks]

Well, for solo games, and only for standard key running, my 25xx bone spear is absolutely fine. Only person that takes time to kill in my "mf" runs is Mephisto. I generally kill Nith, Countess, Andariel, Summoner, Meph, in that order. Merc uses Insight, Eth Andy's Visage, eth Stone 2xxx defense.

Throw up a Bone Wall as I approach Nith's minons, amp everything, bone Spear whatever my merc is attacking, then hold down the CE button until I'm certain the idiot is dead.
Countess is simple, tele to the corner of the room, let the merc pull mobs, amp, bone spear until one of them dies, then hold down CE.
Andy takes 20 more seconds to kill, plus 25 more seconds to kill the minions around her. Once I get to Cata 4, I kill the mob on the right side with the Shaman. I walk to the middle where the door is, kill whatever's there. Walk to the left side, then tele up, triggering the mob with the shaman on the left. Andy gets pulled, I amp and CE until mobs are dead. If she's still alive, I pull her to the corpses that I first killed on the right with the shaman. Usually those kill her. If not, then I Spear her between her ... bust ...
Summoner is a joke. Just walk up to him and smack him in the face.
Meph is the only one that takes me time, since there aren't a lot of mobs in the area. I just let the merc and the Clay Golem pound away while he's amped and I spear at him until he dies. Takes a while though.

[magicrectangle]

I think this falls under the "you're doing it wrong" heading. Necros are terrible boss runners. (45 seconds on andariel? A crap-geared blizz sorc kills her in ~5 seconds, and meph in ~10)

Necros (all necros, bone, summon, poison) are great at zone clearing but balls at boss running. Play to your strengths. Run the pit, or chaos, or WSK. Sure you can killl diablo/baal when you get to the end of chaos/WSK if you want to, but they are an afterthought, not the purpose of the run.

Also keep an obedience in your cube and swap your merc to it for the actual boss fight. Even as a bone necro your merc will do more damage than you do. He'll crush his way through the first 90-95% of the health, and you'll bone spear through the rest.

[zrk]

oh come on thats a bit unfair.. blizz sorcs re the best boss killers in the game..

[magicrectangle]

oh come on thats a bit unfair.. blizz sorcs re the best boss killers in the game..

Unfair? You're right, a blizz sorc is one of the best boss killers in the game, and a necro (any necro) is one of the worst. That is precisely why andy and meph are bad things to run as a necro. If you're good at math and bad at writing you don't become an historian - you become an engineer. So too, if you're a necromancer, you do zone clearing - not boss running.

[AceOfJacks]

Do take into consideration I refer to myself as a noob in the title of this thread.

Also, consider, I'm a noob.

Additionally, I have to inform you, I R NOOB.

Lastly, the only reason why I ran Andariel and Mephisto is because I didn't want to drop for doing too many games too quickly. Other than keyrunning, I figured it was something worthwhile that would kill a little bit of time and something I could do while watching TV. If you have alternative suggestions as to what I can do while running keys, I'm all ears.

[magicrectangle]

As I said, the pit, chaos, or worldstone (or all of the above) are good things to farm. Anywhere that is a level 85 zone and has lots of monsters. Preferably tightly packed monsters.

Stuff like andy and meph gets you uniques, almost all of which have little or no trade value past the first few weeks of ladder (plus as I mentioned, necros suck at boss running). Clearing level 85 zones, however, gets you socketables, runes, rare and magic items. So long as you know what is valuable and what isn't, you will generate far more wealth that way.

[fizzili]

This is not true, necros arent that bad at bosses, not once you gear out better. Atleast for summoner necros. Mine takes about 5seconds to kill diablo and 30seconds for baal, meph drops like a fly too. But i agree about area clearing being more important, socketables sell for more than most uniques anyway.

A good and semi-cheap gear for merc for boss killing is Obedience+andy visage+ treachery, socket andy with IAS(+fire res) jewel and you can hit the 5,5fpa attack on merc (depending on the obdience base weapon ofc). Better to use insight as an IG, its wasted on a merc.

[magicrectangle]

This is not true, necros arent that bad at bosses, not once you gear out better. Atleast for summoner necros. Mine takes about 5seconds to kill diablo and 30seconds for baal, meph drops like a fly too.

At high enough gear levels you can pop bosses quick with pretty much any build, but the OP clearly isn't at that kind of gear level. (And if you are at that gear level, that's all the more reason boss running for crappy uniques is useless to you)

A good and semi-cheap gear for merc for boss killing is Obedience+andy visage+ treachery, socket andy with IAS(+fire res) jewel and you can hit the 5,5fpa attack on merc (depending on the obdience base weapon ofc). Better to use insight as an IG, its wasted on a merc.

I agree with this for the most part, but I don't recommend going insight IG until you're comfortable enough with your run that you aren't dying at all. Also make sure you have teleport on something so you can save your IG from himself when he runs stupidly into scary stuff.

[theredpredator]

Another option is maxing corpse explosion. I know this might sound funny, but it does not have diminishing returns, so with high +skills gear and 20 points into ce, you will manage to explode monsters outside your screen.

[Batates]

actually it doesn't take much time to kill bosses on a bone necro, i am a lvl 90 necro myself untwinked and the hell baal run takes me 5-10 mins tops

bonewall and stand behind it decrep creatures and bone spear them until one drops and then CE starts
and baal the obedience on merc for CB and clay golem and decrep and he is harmless