tl;dr

Recommend me a build that doesn't tank, handles immunities, and handles bosses. Please give advice on equipment/merc/etc. as well.

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I generally do not post questions like "what character/build do you recommend," but I honestly could not find a good resource on various HU builds and their strengths/weaknesses/equipment. I apologize in advance for cluttering the boards and posting this wall of text.

Due to a variety of reasons, I will be playing in single player mode. I first need to identify the potential builds I should attempt first, followed by some recommended equipment/merc/etc. (there are so many minute differences from vanilla that every little bit of advice helps).

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Criteria
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1) Character does not Tank

It doesn't necessarily have to be a glass cannon, but I prefer controlling the battlefield (positioning, crowd control) and preventing attacks from hitting me altogether. Melee is fine if I can avoid attacks without relying on block/defense/resist/etc.

2) Can Handle Immunities

I'm playing in single player, so I need to be able to handle immunities. In vanilla, Physical, Magical, and Lightning were the easiest immunities to break. I am unsure how the enemies in HU handle this, so I don't even know which damage types I should be looking at. For adding a Merc, I'm also unsure whether or not it's more important to get a secondary damage type on them or use them to boost my primary attacks (Holy/Conviction auras and CtC Amp/Decrep/LR).

3) Can Handle Bosses

From what I've read, bosses are now substantially more difficult. I need to be able to do decently against bosses then. Since I'm not tanking, that means I'll need some form of boss control, like summoning minions with low cooldown timers.

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Possible Builds
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Currently, I'm leaning towards Necro as he seems to be an all around noob-friendly character. Breaks immunities, has spammable summons that works on bosses, great at trash killing with CE, amazing crowd control, and so on. Since this is 1.10, I'd like to use the Marrowalk glitch for a beefy Bone Wall if possible as part of the build. Between Bone/Poison/Summon/Golem, I'm leaning towards Poison as it feels less mana intensive than Bone and is decent at Boss killing (unlike summons). Not having the A3 Necro's aura does kinda suck though.

Psychic Assassins seem hella fun. Crowd control with dual summons, stun, conversion, and knockback. This is completely different from vanilla, so I'm not sure how to even start with it aside from getting +Shadow skillers. What Merc should I even be getting? Is it mana intensive enough to warrant sticking an Insight on an A2 merc? Or is an A1/A3 merc better for a ranged damage type? Do her main damage skills stun Bosses at all, and if so, is it enough to make her viable against them? Is getting 1 point in WoF warranted for stun effects?

On another forum, I heard Blade Assassins mentioned. I'm assuming this involves Blade Sentinel, Blade fury, Blade Shield, and Venom. How viable is this type of Assassin? How would I even build this?

Poison Amazons seem interesting. I like Decoys and I've never tried poison javelins before. No clue on how to handle immunities (A3 Necro merc would seem the logical choice for the aura, but his magic damage is supposedly weak). How does she handle against bosses? Does the Decoy last long enough so we can spam it and keep him occupied?

I'm interested in an Ice Amazon. From vanilla, if I got enough cold charms, it was the only Ice skill that could consistently freeze enemies in Hell for an extended period of time. I loved the crowd control it offered. In vanilla, I experienced several enemies with both Cold and Physical immunities. As a result, I went for Lightning Fury (isn't that reliant on synergies) as a backup, but that was hell on my equipment. Are they viable? If so, how do I build them for HU? How would they handle bosses?

There's the good old Bowazon. Multishot + knockback for crowds and Guided for bosses. The question remains, does decoy last long enough for a recast against bosses? Or maybe a melee Merc?

Are singer Barbs viable whatsoever? Grim Ward?

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Thanks for your help!

tl;dr

Recommend me a build that doesn't tank, handles immunities, and handles bosses. Please give advice on equipment/merc/etc. as well.

Poison necro with spirit blades and strong curses. Use trang's set or anything that boost poison damage.

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

Thanks for the suggestion! A few questions though if you don't mind.

Maxing all poison and spirit blade is 80 skills. After that, is it better to put points into CE or LR?

What about stat points?

The largest Strength requirement for Trang's is 91. The armor gives +10 Strength. Can I safely get, say, 60-70 Strength and let the rest of the equipment get me to 91?

Is it worth getting Dex up for blocking? Or just pump Vitality?

Is it worth putting any points into Energy for this build?

1st of all: dont max blades. 1 pt is nuff.
max golem mastery instead.

2nd: 40 pts in str is more than nuff
. Rest from charms, tysts in equip, fal runes, etc, etc...

pump vitality.

1 pt into energy. maybe 0.

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"I am who I am. Your approval isn't needed"

do max blades, you willbe playing solo, and they have the best tanking to cd ratio in the game. 1 pt golem mastery on the other hand IS enoug, since they are only good for trash anyways.

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“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”

Yes, Zikur is right. even in multi blades are the best for tanking and bosses, golems simply die too fast (even if maxed) and the cooldown is way too long. In single you'll kill bosses with blades mostly (if don't have direct damage spells), and even in multi max blades are great.

Since you'll take poison skills I don't see much point in CE, maybe you're better off with an extremly strong LR + as much passive pierce as you can get.

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

lr, like all curses suffers from terrible deminishing returns, just looking at amp, at level 20 you have 80% amp, you need 40 more levels to get another 10%, its just not worth it.

I find my golemancers golems tank very nicely atm. Waiting till he gets construct forge on etc before i pass judgement, but at level 70 atm his force golem has 13k life in nm, before buffs, iron golem is just behind at around 12k. Blades are kinda boring to me, better to spice things up with some golem love, if only for the coolness factor

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I have a summoner and a poison necro, one of which has 20 in Spirit Blades and the other has 1. I personally see no difference on bosses, aside from a considerable difference in mana cost, as they still die incredibly fast. The reasoning behind Spirit Blades on bosses is to keep the boss's attention away from you and to keep it from regenerating to max health. Go 1 in Spirit Blade--20 is a waste of your mana. 20 in Golem Mastery is my preference, as it will keep your various golems in-tact for many other situations. 20 in Spirit Blades and 1 in Golem Mastery, along with 1 in each golem, can limit your playability incredibly versus many elemental based bosses.

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

Opinions are divided between Blades and Golems. It's probably since SP is easier, but 1pt GM was tanking bosses in Act 1, somewhat in Act 2. I'm not sure what to decide on. X_X

I plan on getting Marrowwalks even if it takes me forever to run it. If I rely on its Bone Prison charges to boost Bone Wall as a summon, do I even need more than 1 point in Blades or Golem? Will it attract boss attacks?

How much should I dump into Curses or CE or summons after poison? Curses do have diminishing returns, so should I just rely on +skills if I can find them? Also, is it better to have a slightly lower CE with beefier tanks in HU?

Also, quick noob question instead of making another topic. I've been storing various small items; Adamant Hammers, Mithril Hammers, Adamant Glyphs, Adamant Hammers, Socket (quad to single), Gems, Runes, Scrolls of TP (can't buy them), Rejuv Pots, and other various equipment. It's taking a lot of space (charms don't help either). What should I prioritize in storing? Is it worth using any of these items early on? Should I just sell some for gold?

Thanks for the help! I'm enjoying it so far. Some of the places are HUGE and I get lost easily.

1 point in blades&golems, max golem mastery, a few points in each curse, rest into the dmg dealing skill of your choice.

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Roses are red, violets are blue
This poem should rhyme, but it doesn't.

Generally poison necromancers are completely based on +skills. You will most likely only be putting 1 into almost all of your abilities. Here's what my build consists of at 100:
20 Poison Strike
20 Poison Explosion
20 Poison Nova
20 Golem Mastery
1 Skele Mastery
1 Death Knight
1 Spirit Blades
1 all Golems
1 Lower Resist
14 Corpse Explosion (worked on very last)
1 in all prereqs

I can solo just about anything I want--the +skills play a huge factor in this build though. I imagine you're prepared to farm a lot anyway, if you're going the poison necro route.

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

sell your hammers and glyphs for now, they aint much use unless you are gonna craft or reroll an eth rare, by the time you need to do that you can just sell a few pgems to buy all the hammers you need

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Normal Meph was destroying me. I got lucky in that he stayed behind a wall without following me, allowing me to safely spam blades and occasionally run in for a poison strike before retreating to pot. Unfortunately, all he dropped was his soulstone.

The thing is, the fight would've been much easier if I had kept certain items. I just...don't have the inventory space and have been cutting items as a result. For both myself and my A1 merc, I had a group of equipment for trash killing (MF with some kill speed) and another for boss killing (pure damage equipment), but no survivability. Survivability wasn't an issue until Meph as normal monsters die in 1-2 attack volleys while the other bosses I could just pot my way through.

In the future (while keeping in mind my level), what should I prioritize for basic equipment and charms? Resists? MF? Kill power? Life? Stats?

What about for strength? I'm at 40 str, which is too low for my needs, and I'm temporarily using Tancred's chest to compensate. How much higher can I go with Strength without hurting my Necro in the long run?

For my A1 merc, what about damage vs ias vs pierce vs deadly strike?

I also picked up a magic ring with +1 paladin skills. I'm pretty sure this was impossible in vanilla. Furthermore, I found some rare bows with piercing on them, which I think is impossible in vanilla as well. Is there anywhere I could see a list of possible magic/rare modifiers for HU? In particular, I'd like to see the piercing modifier as the hidden pierce % on rares makes it difficult to decide which bow to use.

Thanks for the help! It gets a bit frustrating when I spend a ton of time managing items due to limited inventory instead of finding new ones.

a1 mercs get critical strike and pierce as passive abilities so dont worry too much about those. Instead of using tancreds armour, use amethysts in armour/helms to compensate for now. Rings with +str are really handy too.

Priotitise damage since you can hit and run around while still dealing damage.

A quick strategy on surviving boss fights on a psn nec.

Cast decrepify as soon as you see them, then cast a clay golem on them to slow them even more. Now cast lower res, use poison strike, then cast decrep again. The poison will work asif the boss still has lower res on him even if you use another curse. Keep casting blades and clay golem and switch to lr just before you strike then back to decrepify. You should have a much easier time of things doing that

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Resists, life, MDR, and absorbs should be your priority until you can use Trang-Oul's set--necromancer is incredibly squishy. You could focus on damage via Elemental-crafted items (rings, boots, etc.) along with this. Since you're always behind a group of tanks, you shouldn't be getting hit much at all unless you are fighting a boss; because of this, defense isn't too big of an issue. I would recommend keeping at least 1 Shock Absorber, Raven Frost, and Dwarf Star on you once you find them, and try to get a 3+ socket shield for a Topaz + Ruby + Sapphire combination. Weaken is a wonderful curse.

Your strength won't need to go too high really; Trang-Oul's only requires 80 strength to wear, and that's going to be your best bet for resists, life, skills, and poison damage. Depending on what boots you decide to use, you may want more strength though (Marrowwalks are 120, and help your survival on hordes of trash very well). I would personally recommend your boss-killing boots to be Elemental-crafted Wyrmhide Boots for the low strength requirement. Also, don't forget to factor in Annihilus here if you're going to bother with saving 20-30 strength--that's really up to you; 20-30 vitality won't mean too much on a necromancer. Don't forget about Amethysts and strength charms.

As for A1 mercenary, you should go for damage. The best thing about going for high damage over speed is that you will have much less counters on bosses (assuming that you can keep her alive), and your Amplify Damage benefits it even more as her damage rises.

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

I kicked myself when I realized how ridiculous Ancient's Pledge is early game. +1 skill, 53 resists for Light/Fire/Poison, 33 resist for Cold. Meph would've been much easier if I had this thing on. 75 resists are easy in normal.

I don't think I've seen any % based MDR; I tend to ignore the integer based ones. I've seen some absorbs (no unique rings) that I tossed due to their low % as well. I'll keep an eye out for these though.

No perfects to try crafting elemental boots yet.

I got rid of some equipment based on the suggestions, but I'm still not sure on charms. I've gotten rid of my gold charms (I loved when I got 75k in a single drop, but I have too much gold for my inventory now). I have life, resist, and strength charms now, but I'm not sure which ones are "good enough" to keep at my level. Like, is a small charm 4% fire resist worth keeping? What about 7%? How about for life? Is a 7 life small charm worth keeping? Etc.

Thanks for your help! I'm currently holding out for a nice eth heavy crossbow for my merc. Crossing my fingers. Actually, I just need decent gear for her (+min/max damage, resists, and life are what I'm prioritizing for her now). It's a lot easier to find good equipment for my necro.

flat MDR and PDR are very powerfull. As an example, I have a frost nova sorc with diamonds in her equip, all together she has 130 MDR and PDR, with that much I was able to tank nm diablo with 2.5k life without taking any damage from his flamewave etc. The only think that was hurting was the meteor impacts since its a single big hit. Most damage is rather small but there are many hits. Ie. vs trash, if you have about 60PDR/MDR you will take next to no damage through normal. The only exception to this rule is vs the ancients etc as they deal big single hits in general. Most other attacks are based on alot of small hits very close together. Ie. diablos flame wave is 25 hits a sec for maybe 50 damage each hit. absorbs% is more important against big single hits, so dr% is more potent against the ancients than flad PDR is.

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After reading this thread, I decided to try my hand at a poison necro, and the advice here is pretty solid. As for % based MDR, the Diamond Star unique circlet has 10% magic resist. The shock absorber, dwarf star, and raven frost rings all grant excellent elemental absorbtion bonuses in light, fire, and frost respectively.

But since the necromancer is so squishy before you can get trang-oul's or some other decent higher level armor (which will be quite a while), is it worthwhile to put points into bone armor for some extra defence early in the game? I haven't noticed anyone mentioning that at all.

For crafting, I found it helpful to buy flawless gems (as I presume you are in act IV now), and cube them up to perfects, especially if you are running around with a lot of excess gold. In terms of charms to keep/throw away, my personal preference (not expert opinion) is to hold onto resist and/or life charms until I get something better (i.e. with higher resists and life), then replace the original. I avoid charms with increased gold find, as I make enough money by picking up and selling heavy armor and original class weapons with +skills (i.e. wands, staves, sceptres). Depending on the mods, these items can sell for the max amount of gold.

SelfPossessed, I am curious though what you did against poison immune enemies before you got lower resist e.g. the giant burrowing worm in the Maggot Lair). For some reason, that boss seems to be immune to curses, probably because it is a stationary enemy like the fire towers. I had to spam spirit blades and a weak bone spear to finally take it down.

Two quick questions though for anyone: almost every bosses seem to have this strange mark above their head that looks a little like a 3-D asterisk. What does that indicate? Also what does the mod "xx% damage goes to mana" entail? That has puzzled me since I started playing this game. Does it work similar to energy shield?

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It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
-William Ernest Henley

Bone Armor is a 1 point wonder--it's defense bonus isn't too reliable, and it's only good for a short damage absorb, and also has no cooldown timer. If you want the defense bonus to mean anything, try walking 100% of the time (lame for hit and run tactics). If you can, try to get a pair of Marrowwalks when you hit hell. I'm unsure how well known it is, but Bone Armor gets bugged from the synergy on the boots (only works if you don't put any points in the synergies for Bone Armor).


This is the main bright side of having a mercenary that does different damage than you--many bosses and trash (in hell anyway) are immune to poison along with this curse-immune bastard.


No clue what you are seeing as some kind of 3-D asterisk...
xx% Damage goes to Mana = xx% damage you take recovers your mana, something like that--it helps your mana recovery, and doesn't mitigate damage taken.. quite opposite of energy shield

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

I think you are both confusing MDR with % absorbs. Magic absorb works only against damage like teeth and bone spear. MDR works against elements also. Most elemental damage is dealt in small numbers each frame, ie. 25 times a second. MDR reduces each of those 25 hits by the number of MDR you have. That means you can negate all incoming damage with MDR, it also works with every element at the same time so you are never weaker against any given element. %absorb, magic resist and MDR are not the same thing.

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I totally didn't know that flat MDR worked on all elements. I'm totally socketing everything I can on my necro with Diamonds later. Also, I have Nagelrings and Nokozan's Relic, which both have a tiny bit of PDR and MDR.

I'm using the Decay runeword (real cheap), which offers 3 to Bone Armor, so I didn't put any points into the skill yet. Good old cheap runewords.

For crafting boots, I don't think I have the resources or the level yet for it to be worthwhile. I'll probably wait on that until I can actually craft end game equipment.

For charms, my problem is figuring out how good of a charm is worth keeping. Say I have a 9 life small charm and I found a 10 life small charm. Do I throw out the 9 one?

For the worm, my act1 physical merc still does more damage than me. I just sat back and let her kill the worm, spamming blades and dumping pots on her as necessary. Against poison immunes, since I lack -poison resist equipment, even if LR breaks, poison will do almost no damage.

You may want to consider making a topaz crafted armour and socketing it with 4 flawless or perf diamonds for act 4 onwards, at least until you find some skills armours you want to switch too. I personally find the passive pierce extremely helpfull. Spend your spare gold buying topaz's to craft some boots too for the added damage. With any luck you will find naj's circlet in the river of flame and you can add 3 perf/flawless diamonds to it. That should make you near immune to any attacks until chargers and the ancients. Summons will help alot for that quest so you may want to add a point to raise skeleton and skeleton mastery if you haven't already by that point.

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Dumb question. Does poison damage from gear (not +poison skill) get added to poison skills? What about another skill like Venom?

I'm terrible at using my A1 merc. She's usually either way too far back and out of position to attack (or she'll shoot the wall). Moving forward tends to get her to move too far forward and into harms way. At first I relied on Amp + CE and then later Poison Nova instead of repositioning her when she got stuck. With the monsters substantially stronger in Act 4 and destroying my summons far too quickly with AoE spells, I ended up adapting by running into the middle of the enemies, tossing a Poison Nova, running away, and then running back. It would weaken the enemies so that my summons could survive and ensure that my merc was in a good position (no stuck around a corner). It was slower, but it worked. Any other tips on how to position properly without Teleport would be appreciated.

I'm loving MDR. I'm prioritizing it, along with resists, on my A1 merc on anything other than her weapon now. Ranged magical attacks are what usually hits her anyways. Nagelrings, Nokozan Relic, Nightsmoke, Arcanna's Flesh (chest), and Wormskull (I regret tossing Isenhart helm) totals 40 flat MDR.

It was funny. Against one of the bosses in the Chaos Sanctuary, it countered my merc with Teleport right after killing my last sword before I could respawn it. I summoned another sword and tried running far away to get her to follow. She refused to move. I then ran past the boss again in the opposite direction, waited, and she still refused to move. I ran back to the boss, found her still alive and tanking the damn thing. She eventually died when the boss decided to go melee happy (reviving her caused her to be perpetually blue, weird glitch), but I was surprised at how long she lasted.

Diablo was another story. That guy is a monster. I didn't use socketed Diamonds as I liked my Tarnhelm and Heavenly Guard far too much. That red lightning did a ridiculous amount of damage. My merc and minions dropped in seconds. I ended up beating him without the merc using Decrep, summoning swords in the opposite direction to get his attention, running behind him for a Poison Strike, and most importantly dodging all of his attacks.

Now, I can see why it's so powerful at lower and mid levels, but is it worth getting MDR later on in the game? How useful is it in Hell? Between Diamonds and Rainbow Facets, which would you prefer socketing? If Rainbow Facets/other jewels/runes, should I hold out for them later on?

I also have far too many items that are "maybe useful" in my stash and cube. Decisions decisions. Hrmm.

Again, thanks for the help so far!

I haven't had a chance to test a pure MDR/PDR setup in hell yet, i can say that 4 ms diamonds in a helm and armour will make you untouchable through all of nm pretty much. Reamins to be seen how it works in late hell though. Im gonna go 8 uber diamonds in helm and armour and see how that works oiut for her tanking ability in hell.
That should give her 210 PDR and about 220 MDR with warmth too. Hopefully that will be enough, I highly doubt any basic trash deals more than 200 a hit and im fairly sure the bosses elemental damages will not be doing more than that per frame. I have high hopes for it.
Poison mechanics can be odd and most of it is jumbled up in my head since I have not played around with poison for a while since they became the FOTM on the realm. If you google LOD 1.10 poison mechanics im sure you will find what you need though. I wouldn't want to advise on it since im rather rusty on poison atm.

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I find Diablo to be the hands-down easiest boss for a necromancer because of Weaken. Instead of the usual LR > strike > decrep > repeat tactic, just use Weaken instead of Decrepify. It reduces all of his magical damage more than Decrepify ever will. Since you can continually run around him to avoid the high damaging attacks he uses, you don't actually need any tanks to hide behind. You have plenty of space to run around him while taking minimal magical damage, even less damage if you stacked up MDR and some fire absorbs if you have it. Don't be afraid to experiment with different strategies!

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

Found the answer to the poison question. Source http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Guide:Cal ... nderduiker

Most skills are treated as separate sources of poison damage whose rates (and accompanying lengths) compete with those of other skills and items. However, Poison Dagger and the javelins (but not the clouds) of Poison and Plague Javelins combine the skill's rate with any item rates. Length is calculated by summing skill and item lengths and dividing by the number of items.

+poison damage for bosses here I come. I'll probably keep an eye out for high rate small poison charms now.

About Weaken vs Decrep. According to the description, Decrep "curses a group of monsters to be slowed, weakened, and amplified damage by 33%." Weaken reduces Physical by 50% and Fire/Light/Cold by 25%. So, how much does Decrep actually reduce damage by? 33% Physical/Fire/Light/Cold? Or 16.6% Physical and 8.3% Fire/Light/Cold? Or is the weaken not actually a Weaken? The description is why I used Decrep instead of Weaken.

To be honest, I'm not really sure how the weaken effect on Decrepify actually works on Hell Unleashed, as it seems to have been tampered with from vanilla. From experience, I've had much better results versus elemental attacks with the -25% from Weaken than I've had from whatever the -% is from Decrepify... I'd go so far to say that Decrepify's physical damage is -33% and the cold/fire/lightning being 2/3 of -25% (-16.6%), but I'm not too certain. Let's hope someone with some real proof can enlighten us...

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

it works as it is described, 33% all round. Its easiest to test against diablo for the ele damage and ancients for the phys damage

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So Decrep would be substantially better than Weaken in every situation? It reduces elemental far more and offers slow for the physical.

I'm really loving the poison necro as he fits my preferred playstyle probably better than any other build. A melee who doesn't tank (poison duration makes it possible) and supports really well from afar with amazing crowd control.

However, I would like a change of pace and being the center of the offense in a second playthrough using range and crowd control, preferably with a build I haven't done in vanilla and relying on a merc other than the act 2 one (I got tired of them). I'm leaning towards fire zon with act 5 merc since I love decoy (a summon that I can actually control without Teleport!), I love pierce, and the only two zon builds I haven't played before are fire and poison.

I'm asking this now since I want to start saving items that will help the Amazon during my Necro playthrough. I plan on using the udietoo editor to export the items I find so they won't take up space. What should I be looking for?

Early to mid game bows are easier to decide (Hellclap, Blastbark, then Kuko). Not sure about end game gear. I have read that late game, HoJ and Medusa's are great on the merc. Maybe even Carrion Wind to synergize Rabies against dual immunes. I'm not sure on anything else though.

Thanks again for the help!

kuko is one of the best bows for you since it has 50% piercing attack and -10% enemy fire res. Phys damage dont matter so much since you are geared towards fire damage.

Carrion will not synergise rabies anymore and charges dont synergise skills for mercs anyway.

things like infernostrides, lavagouts, ele craft circlets with bow skills, eyes of flame rings.+ skills armours etc. will be what you want for that build.

Decrep I find is all round better due to the slow more than anything else. 33% slow is reducing attacks by alot and makes it alot easier to avoid being hit, especialy coupled with slow from clay golem. Once the reduced damage kicks in you are pretty much set. I used decrep on my golem nec when my all quest in order duo/trio done norm sammy right after baal. at level 63/64 on a zon and nec with a very low level bo from the barb that joined us that is very risky so i decided on decrep. We were able to take him down with a combination of decrep and clay golem spam with very little life.

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Hrmm. There are lots of +fire equipment for the mid game. I'll just mix in resist/MDR equipment where I can't find fire equip for.

What about late game though? What should I be aiming for?

How should I be getting mana with a fire zon? +mana after kill? Leech? Mana regen?

According to the item guide, Carrion has +20 to Poison Creeper (OSKILL). I can see the OSKILL preventing charge synergies for the Druid, but wouldn't the OSKILL itself synergize for the merc?

no, it wont synergise.

a little mana leech and mana per kill will help you alot

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Quick question. Where/what are these purification glyphs? I haven't found one yet. Did I miss something?

EDIT: When looking for the ancients, I stumbled upon some place that lead to the Vault of the Damned or something, which lead to the Abyss, and so on. I'm still trying to kill the bosses. Are there more of these areas that I missed, perhaps in earlier acts? I tend to go along the main paths and ignore side areas if they don't get me to the main quest.

EDIT2: Well, I can't enter the portal to the Throne of the Dead. Google says that there's a quest flag for this area and the Land of Shadows. That was a LOT of monsters I went through too. Ah well. How many of these special areas are there, and where are they located?

Check out the FAQ at blue.arimyth.com

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

Thanks for the link. It explains the cursed items and the Land of Shadows. However, my question about other portals, like the unmentioned Throne of the Dead, still stands. How many other special areas are there and where are they located?

EDIT:

The difficulty spiked exponentially as I got closer to Baal. Wow. I had to play hit and run a lot even against the NORMAL monsters, each of whom seemed as strong as a unique monster. Baal's minions...I'm going to have nightmares of them (they one hit me so many times...it involved a lot of luck and a lot of running around). I managed to slowly poison my way to Baal himself, downing a ridiculous amount of potions, before I had to give up. He refused to move from the bridge. Minions die instantly. The tentacle hero is poison immune. So, I charged in hoping that the tentacle wouldn't kill me that quickly and...promptly fell over. Then, there was no way to reach my corpse without dying. Sigh.

So, it seems like I'm going to have to start using diamonds to have any chance here whatsoever. I'm just taking way too much damage on that narrow bridge guarded by a poison immune hero and I can't afford to save the diamonds for later. Ah well.

In Act 5 there are some new challenging zones called Andariel's Hell, Duriell's Hell, Mephisto's Hell, etc. that I assume you noticed on your grind to Baal. Other than that, I believe there are a few other zones that are okay to explore while you are grinding, but there aren't any other epic/rewarding zones similar to Samhain's, other than SCL and LoS. (I'd like to see Act 4 revamped to have 10 WPs and more bosses!)

You can get Baal to leave his bridge--you just need a shitload of patience. Run around the outskirts of his view (1-2 screens away), and he'll eventually come for you.

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-ISO- Moonstone Rubies, +6/-6 Psn/Lite Facets,
Hearts (pal/nec/dru/zon), Braaaains

Since you're playing single player, you may want to consider the PlugY mod (http://diablorealm.net/index.php?showto ... e=threaded). This is, in my limited experience with it, a phenomenal way to self-mule.

The mod installs easily (requires you to use the -direct -txt switches on your D2 shortcut) and provides each character with a near-limitless personal stash as well as access to a near-limitless shared stash.

What I have done so far is create a page in the shared stash for each character or item type (i.e. a page just for Barb helms, page for Necro heads, page for Set items, etc). It really helped when I was in the dilemma you're in - "I'm a single player character, my cube and stash are full but I REALLY want to hold onto that item!"

And since you're presently using Udietoo to export items, I presume you're not against using additional tools/mods. Let me know what you think of it if you try it (I'm not the creator or anything, I'm just curious).

I'll definitely look into PlugY. Thanks! Exporting works fine but I can't easily tell if I have a better/worse version of an item already.

I finally killed Baal. Though time consuming, his minions were easier since I knew what to expect and dodged behind the terrain properly. Getting Baal off of the bridge was strange. If I waited outside long enough, he'd come to the end of the bridge but would not move out. When I charged in that position, he teleported out and I could finally fight him. His AoE attacks were far too powerful and wide-reaching for my merc though, even with a good chunk of MDR on her. When I did get her in a decent position, Baal would just teleport away and my positioning would be meaningless. I ended up soloing him like I do every major boss.

Is there any way I can keep her alive against bosses with huge AoEs without Teleport? Better gear?

I hired my NM rogue and am currently leveling her in Act 5 Normal. Considering how absurdly hard the last area of Act 5 Normal was, I'm curious what Nightmare will be like.

Appart of the extra difficulty, you will find out that the "unique" monsters such as Berserkers from act1, Wyrms from act2... etc... can be champion type and "elite named" type in nightmare ( and hell, ofc ). Wyrms will probably be a pain . In fact, all whole act2 from sanctuary till dury is going to be a pain. Good Luck !

( if you manage to go a5 nm in single player... I'll be so impressed ! )



-better gear
-warpspear , unique gothic staff w/ teleport oskill.... and tele around.
- run
- nothing else, lol =)

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"I am who I am. Your approval isn't needed"

I can't get in the Throne of Souls. I think I'm misunderstanding the quest flag requirement. I have done all quests on Normal except for actually using the imbue/socket/inscribe rewards, but it still won't let me in. I wanted that experience charm. Must I have beaten the game on Hell first?

Weird thing too. Akara addressed my Necro as a Sorceress in text, though she was speaking as a Necromancer.

Akara thinks everyone is a sorceress, the alzheimers kicking in I guess...

You need to complete the anya quest, including naming a item.

you need to personalise an item

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Samhain was a pain. I learned quickly that he kills swords far too quickly for them to get a hit in, so he'd heal while I was looking for an opening. I adapted with Poison Nova between my curses and sword spam. I actually nearly killed him twice before I ran out of rejuv potions (just one more Poison Strike) and start all over again. The damage was just too much if he focused on me while I was running in, probably because I swapped Decrep for LR just before the attack.

I also couldn't figure out how to dodge his instant mana burn attacks. Once he hit me, it was me spamming potions and swords, hoping he'd focus on the swords long enough so that I could escape and reset the situation. I'm assuming that it's psychic hammer. Does he continually cast it on one target, or in a general area? I suppose that when I face him again in later difficulties, I could try to watch when he turns around to face me instead of the swords and try to run behind cover provided he doesn't name lock. Any tips on fighting him?

Nightmare has been cakewalk so far, in part due to the Bone Runeword (25% chance to cast lvl 20 Bone Armor when struck, though mine didn't spawn with enhanced defense or lvl 16 Bone Wall charges ) with Spellsteal (teleport charges) on switch. I can literally run past enemies, using Terror/Nova/Teleport as necessary. NM Bosses are a joke so far compared to the Act 5 Normal ones, though I expect NM Mephisto to change that.

For MDR, is it worthwhile to use it on mercs? Assuming Boss damage against minions counts as a XvX penalty, it is calculated before the MDR check, so MDR shouldn't be able to cover for them. If this is the case, should I focus on % based stuff instead?

About merc synergies. Do they not gain synergy bonuses from charges because the skills they are aren't the same as the player version? Or do they not gain synergy bonuses because it's never checked for them? I'm asking since if it is the former, I would like to put the Bone Runeword and MarrowWalks on a tanking Merc with good FHR.

So you know, and since it looks like nobody has pointed this out, you can use d2loader with the singleplayer version and host/join tcp/ip games over your own internet.

I found this is the best way to mule...I just keep several characters that are only for keeping items.

well.. plugY has stat and skill reassign options + advanced stats screens. plus its all on one shared stash! so you don't need to keep switching characters. main probably is u have to use d2 cd with it.