07-28-2005, 05:33 PM
I had a venomancer on Europe HCL early this year, but the accounts are gone now. He got up to Act 3 Hell before I stopped playing, not because things got too hard but because my interest in the game generally had dropped dramatically.
A PN necro is very much viable. Properly synergized, the damage is pretty good (especially once you take into account Lower Resist and item boni to poison damage, e.g. from Trang Oul's gloves) and crowds are not a problem.
To me, only a Clay Golem (affectionately known as Mr Gumby) is a good golem, and he served me well enough. His slowing monsters and low-cost "recastability" came in handy.
As for crowd control, I might have used Bone Wall/Prison; I don't remember. I'm more of a fan of the various curses anyway, especially Dim Vision. However, Attract and Confuse have their places as well: in order to get the most out of PN or PE you will want big clusters of monsters, and these two curses produce these in a most excellent way.
At any rate, you won't have enough skill points to get the damage of Bone Spear to a decent level. I wouldn't bother; you can always rely on your merc as well as CE if you need non-poison damage.
In usual gameplay, Dim Vision, Lower Resist and Poison Nova are your friends. I generally used to blind everything first, then get closer and curse parts of the horde with LR, followed up by PN. Do keep in mind that the amount of poison damage a monster will actually take is determined when it's hit by the poison attack, i.e. cursing an already-poisoned monster with LR won't increase the damage it takes. This is not much of a problem with PN as its duration is very short, but if you feel like using PE or PD now and then it is worth remembering. As soon as you have produced some corpses, you can switch to CE and AD to blow the rest of the critters up.
Equipment-wise I remember he used TO gloves, shield and belt (to unlock the -25% enemy poison resistance bonus on the shield). His weapon was Blackbog's Sharp (he went for max block, so the Dex requirement was not an issue) and wore Naj's Light Plate. The rest of his equipment I can't quite remember, but I think there was a +3 P&B circlet involved and potentially a similar amulet. By no means was it an expensive set of items.
At any rate, I had a blast playing him. It's a little slow going until you assign a few points to both PN and LR, but from there on the killing speed steadily increases.
A PN necro is very much viable. Properly synergized, the damage is pretty good (especially once you take into account Lower Resist and item boni to poison damage, e.g. from Trang Oul's gloves) and crowds are not a problem.
To me, only a Clay Golem (affectionately known as Mr Gumby) is a good golem, and he served me well enough. His slowing monsters and low-cost "recastability" came in handy.
As for crowd control, I might have used Bone Wall/Prison; I don't remember. I'm more of a fan of the various curses anyway, especially Dim Vision. However, Attract and Confuse have their places as well: in order to get the most out of PN or PE you will want big clusters of monsters, and these two curses produce these in a most excellent way.
At any rate, you won't have enough skill points to get the damage of Bone Spear to a decent level. I wouldn't bother; you can always rely on your merc as well as CE if you need non-poison damage.
In usual gameplay, Dim Vision, Lower Resist and Poison Nova are your friends. I generally used to blind everything first, then get closer and curse parts of the horde with LR, followed up by PN. Do keep in mind that the amount of poison damage a monster will actually take is determined when it's hit by the poison attack, i.e. cursing an already-poisoned monster with LR won't increase the damage it takes. This is not much of a problem with PN as its duration is very short, but if you feel like using PE or PD now and then it is worth remembering. As soon as you have produced some corpses, you can switch to CE and AD to blow the rest of the critters up.
Equipment-wise I remember he used TO gloves, shield and belt (to unlock the -25% enemy poison resistance bonus on the shield). His weapon was Blackbog's Sharp (he went for max block, so the Dex requirement was not an issue) and wore Naj's Light Plate. The rest of his equipment I can't quite remember, but I think there was a +3 P&B circlet involved and potentially a similar amulet. By no means was it an expensive set of items.
At any rate, I had a blast playing him. It's a little slow going until you assign a few points to both PN and LR, but from there on the killing speed steadily increases.
And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
____________.Not shaking the grass.
-- Ezra Pound, "And the days are not full enough"
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
____________.Not shaking the grass.
-- Ezra Pound, "And the days are not full enough"