Posion Necro. Is it a worth while idea?

[Drujan]

Im thinking of building a posion necro. but can seem to find any good guides to do this. First off is a posion necro worth while to play? if so whats a good way to build one.

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Drujan ;)

I've made quite a few Poison Necromancers. I used to like them better before the Expansion, when their damage could be spread over a minute (oh it was sooo cool seeing a whole screen of green critters drop one after another :D ), however I must admit that they *are* more effective now.

To make one, you'll need to focus on Poison Dagger (yes, Dagger - it doesn't work with other weapons), with a minor in your other Poison spells, and you simply MUST have Bone Spirit or Spear - both of these are equally good really, though for this build I would recommend Spear. Your equipment needs to be very poison orientated: every item you can get your hands on that adds to Poison Damage should be worn, and higher Poison Damage/Second and Longer Duration should be prized over other stats - that is why all of mine have worn pre-LoD Venom Wards, rather than better armour. You shall also want to look into Curses - check my Curse guide for more information on them. Summons...personally I do not, but a Golem is popular amongst some people.

For style, you'll want to play hit and run: poke 'em with your dagger, then run to your next opponent: never hit a green opponent, as you'll have wasted part of the damage your last attack would have delivered. Terror, Attract, Confuse and Lower Resistance are all excellent support :) Now, for stats, you'll not need a lot of Strength - just enough for Blackboggs - and you'll only need Dexterity to taste (again, minimum requirements with high Poison Dagger should see you pretty well right). You'll rip your mana early on, but in the later stage of the game you'll find yourself struggling to keep your Vitality high enough, so a nice balance of both here...until you no longer need more mana, then you can pump Vitality like there is no tomorrow :D

[Striker]

To expand a bit on what Elric said, I'll let you know what I did with mine. He retired in his mid-50s (like most of my chars), but was working fairly well.

What I did was I would hit a bunch of monsters with the poison dagger, and then cast Terror on them. It was pretty fun to watch them run away and drop while the poison did its thing. There aren't many monsters that are immune to poison. Most of the fleshy undead and the winged ones in the Chaos Sanctuary are the ones that come to mind. For them, I tried to find a good elemental weapon that was within my reqs to use it. I think I had a shocking dagger of some sort for it.

A good choice for a weapon could be Venom in a dagger. I couldn't find a Mal, so I don't know if it works with daggers. I would assume that it would. As for the shield, a decent Necro totem with resists and additional poison damage could be a huge plus.

Like Elric said, you'll be drinking blues somewhat frequently in the early stages, but after awhile, you'll have enough mana to handle your needs.

Check out the Tao of Poison for more info on poison damage and duration.

Good luck

[Elric of Grans]

[Archon_Wing]

I recomend a small bit of mana leech, and some bone armor for those awful moments of lag. Bone armor protects you from going into hit recovery, and going into hit recovery is very bad for this kind of build. I do not recomond blocking because block lock will slow you down and leave you vulearable.

You should max out poison dagger for the attack rating, because it's a pain to not be able to hit things. The Angelic Amulet+ Ring will help a bit there.

If you could find a Blackbog's sharp, that would be nice. It does some actual damage and poison damage, with bonuses to the poison skills. What else do you want?

And of course, lower resist.

Another idea is to use terror, because while they're dying of poison, you don't want them bothering you. Plus you can stick another curse (LR) while they're running away. You can accomplish this with Dim Vision too, but imo it's a bit less convient.

[Chaerophon]

An often overlooked curse with this build is Dim Vision. VERY effective.

[Striker]

Plus you can stick another curse (LR) while they're running away.

Are you sure about this? I always thought that (most) curses don't stack. I figured that a monster that is "terrored" becomes "unterrored" once another curse is put on it. Does the monster stop from going to it's intended destination while under the effects of LR?

Another question would be when does LR go into effect? Does it work right away, or does it go into effect after the duration is finished? For example, let's say we've got an attack that does 10 points of damage over 5 seconds. Does LR wait for the 5 seconds to finish, and then does its job, or does it work immediately?

(Can you tell I don't know much about necros, even after playing a few? :) )

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Striker,

Terror is a special curse: they'll continue to run from you even after you throw on something else. This is VERY handy at times, and something I use a lot with my Curse Necromancer. Only another AI Curse would remove this behaviour, and again this plays directly into my hands ;)

LR works immediately, so you stab, Terror, LR, they run, and take lots of damage, you get a drink, come back, remember you were still surrounded by critters, hit Esc, retrieve your corpse... ;)

[Striker]

Terror is a special curse: they'll continue to run from you even after you throw on something else. This is VERY handy at times, and something I use a lot with my Curse Necromancer. Only another AI Curse would remove this behaviour, and again this plays directly into my hands ;)

Hmmm. I wish I figured this stuff out when sending my necros through the wringer. I might break them out of retirement. After I finish my crusher assassin, that is. :)

remember you were still surrounded by critters, hit Esc, retrieve your corpse... ;)

How do you know my playing style? ;)

*waits patiently for an amazon-themed response* :)

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Striker,

"*waits patiently for an amazon-themed response*"

If you so desire (I was honestly not going to do this otherwise)...

"That's what happens for all Paladins: they cannot handle combat like an Amazon can!"

:lol:

[Logic_X]

If I'm not mistaken it's best to:

LR - STAB STAB STAB (that's for 3 monsters....add "STAB" as desired :P) - Terror

Another if I'm not mistaken : The LR's effect on damage is determined at the beginning of the poison damage, and that is when it determines the actual damage per bit/second/etc. - That's why LR - PN - Amp - CE is a whole hell of a lot faster than PN - Amp - CE. I find for summons - you either want a lot, or you want a BG or IG (BG + IM) or (IG + Amp) - get skilled with curses and the BG will keep your life full.

As for Weapons:
Jeweler's Cinquedeas/Fanged Knife of Pestilence is nice..... 3 sockets (put in PEmers or Tals for best effect) and innate poison damage.
(runeword) Venom Cinquedeas/Fanged Knife - ITD is indespensable here, has poison damage too which is nice.
Blackbog's Sharp - Slow is nice, high poison damage boost, very nice knife.

Those are your best 3 choices.

For Shield - Best bet is one of these:
Radament's Sphere - Poison damage....and nice def....good shield....very underrated
or
+skills necro head (poison damage on necro heads is too low to really help) - Homunculous is nice - best Would be a +3 P&B, +3PD, +3LR necro head w/ highest possible poison boost, and maybe a good second mod (since +3 pb can't spawn on rares).

Armor:
Venomward is nice for poison damage.
Skin of Vipermagi is good for resists and +skills
Shroud is good for +skill and cannot be frozen....the +replenish life is nice too.
Shaftstop is nice for 30% PDR.
If you're not curse dependent - Corpsemourn is the coolest armor for this type of necro imo (I have always been a fan of the Silks look :P)
And if you're rich: +2 necro Valor

Maybe I should set about writing my Black Plague Necro guide instead of the Glass Reaver Paladin guide I'm workin on now....

*shrug*
Hope that helps.

[Brista]

I've gone a rather different route


A decent Cruel & a Might merc

I keep PD on the right key and the mouse button held down to use the auto-target. When I meet a bunch of monsters I keep the click but change the hotkey to Amp until I hear or see it go off then hotkey back

It's actually pretty brutal, much much faster than relying on poison

poison DAGGER, not POISON dagger ;)

[the12wolf]

If you can get a good lvl on poisin nova when you get it it can do quit a bit of damage. I know I have a lvl 20 in single player and it does around 400 damage in 3 or 4 seconds.
Not to shabby