07-04-2006, 01:57 AM
Quote:Skeletons are pretty much the strongest build in the game. And Iron Maiden wont even beat regen any more no matter what level you pump it to. Just hire a thorns merc or get a rogue with an Edge bow to provide thorns aura, then amp.
Yes, there are monsters that will heal faster than the damage they take from iron maiden. A pack of frenzied moon lords for example, heal even faster while frenzied. Iron maiden wont even make them pause for a second. And considering they can have life in the tens of thousands, they won't be going down any time soon. Iron maiden is pretty much worthless.
Skeletons, backed by dim vision, decrep, amp, a bit of confuse, attract, and mages backed with lower resist can safely solo any area in the game. Add a little corpse explosion here and there to keep from snoozing at the keyboard.
Seriously though. All of the worst hitters in the game are ranged... Iron Maiden is a total and complete waste of skill points. Raising it beyond one point will drastically decrease your future potential killing power.
Here's something to consider... A hell Fallen has over 2000 life. And will regen about 200 hit points a second. Iron Maiden is a mere tickle. A single skeleton can whack said Fallen and kill it in a hit or two. Amp and CE. Or lower resist and CE. All monsters now gone. Yes, there are times when lower resist is the better curse for ce.
Have fun.
Doc, do you have any experience with which you are talking about? Because I've had both a high level zoo keepers and a CE/IM/IG/AMP necromancer, and my experience has defied everything you've said in this post.
Zoo keepers are strong, relatively speaking. Especially with top end items granted you the ability to teleport :wacko: And they certainly are a very viable build. But they are very slow killers later on, and in my opinion a bore to play. And it seems I'm not alone in this sentiment, for as Pakman has stated a number of times, the zoo keeper kind of play isn't what he is interested in.
Like I've suggested before in the post, I think experience is a huge help in deciding what works for you, and urge you to try an editor to test out builds like the Zoo Keeper.
As far as UDIE II working for 1.11, I wish I could tell you. Since my HD is kaputz, there is no way of me loading up the ol' DII. I'm uncertain if the desktop I was playing on was upgraded to 1.11, or if it was still in 1.10. I feel like it was 1.11, but booting up UDIE II won't do any harm, provided you make a backup (literally as simple as copy and pasting the entire save/maps folder, and reloading the files if needed).
Cheers,
Munk