Thinking about taking the dive...

[Fragbait]

Hm...

Undead Stygian Doll damage: 61-98 (79.5 avg) hit points: 2901-6249 (4575 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 57.55

Let's see if that figure can be beaten!


Stygian Doll damage: 56-89 (72.5 avg) hit points: 2455-4761 (3608 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 49.77

Rat Man damage: 48-76 (62 avg) hit points: 1933-3749 (2841 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 45.82

Foul Crow damage: 54-85 (69.5 avg) hit points: 634-1902 (1268 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 18.24

Cloud Stalker damage: 63-100 (81.5 avg) hit points: 823-2471 (1647 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 20.21

Bone Warrior damage: 37-98 (attack #2) (67.5 avg) hit points: 3124-5952 (4538 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 67.23

Death Clan damage: 60-104 (82 avg) hit points: 3343-5794 (4568.5 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 55.71

Steel Scarab damage: 50-100 (75 avg) hit points: 2883-6041 (4462 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 59.49

Winged Nightmare damage: 74-102 (88 avg) hit points: 2575-5149 (3862 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 43.89

Temple Guard damage: 46-120 (83 avg) hit points: 3862-7724 (5793 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 69.80

Spikefist damage: 84-150 (117 avg) hit points: 8645-10465 (9555 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 81.67

Sucker damage: 45-86 (65.5 avg) hit points: 823-5492 (3157.5 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 48.21

Doom Knight damage: 65-139 (102 avg) hit points: 5253-8755 (7004 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 68.67

Enslaved damage: 63-104 (attack #2) (83.5 avg) hit points: 4119-6865 (5492 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 65.77

Rot Walker damage: 65-102 (83.5 avg) hit points: 4721-7724 (6222.5 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 74.52

Rot Walker (charging half of the time: ~3*damage*1/2) damage: 97.5-153 (125.25 avg) hit points: 4721-7724 (6222.5 avg)
=> hit points / damage: 49.68


I won't name more, especially not the guest monsters in act 5. But some of them got a pretty nice beef damage-wise and may not have been beefed equally life-wise, so there are some possible IM targets there.

The monster that stands out is the (pretty harmless) bloodhawk family. These little hawks don't even resist physical damage in hell (like most of the other listed monsters do more or less), and are therefore the perfect target for IM, and will fall quickly.

Generally I think that if the ratio hit points / damage drops below ~75 and the monster has a not to high physical resistance (<< 50%, the goatmen family for example has 50% pdr), IM should work fine.

Phew. Guess I had to find that out.


Greetings, Fragbait

[Yehoodi]

Lord_Ungar is a CE, AD, IM necro so far, and I really haven't noticed anything different with the saving of skill points for this build. It seems that this build still requires the saving of points and synergies won't do much for it. I have one question, though. Has anyone tried what I have deemed a "fatal attraction" version of this build? Instead of using IM or AD to get your first corpse, use Attract, then when he's dead, cast AD, then CE? Would this be a viable option if IM starts to not work? I haven't decided yet if I want to get Lower Resist.

...

I've pretty much been saving everything for when I hit lvl30 since that's what I'm used to doing. If this is not the way to play this build, just let me know...I am seriously considering doing the "fatal attraction" variant to see how it works.

I actually use a variation of this technique with my Zookeeper Necro. DV, Attract a monster right next to the Boss (if one's there), drop a corpse, AD, CE and bingo... no crowd (and often no Boss).

The DV and Attract tend to keep the monsters busy messing with each other or just standing around waiting to get pasted. It also tends to keep the merc, skellies and Gumby (CG) healthier. I use CG a lot as an Amazon would use her Decoy. It's a different style of play though, more battlefield management instead of "Whack A Mole". I like wading in and mixing it up too which I do a lot with my melee characters.

I finished off Normal with my Act 1 Rogue equipped with an Edge runeword bow. She started with chippies in a 3os Bow. I haven't seen a need to switch yet to a different Merc, we'll see how NM goes.

Good hunting and have fun, that's the most important thing.

[pakman]

Well, I pounded the Council into the ground yesterday after fighting a champion pack that kept healing each other (damn, that was annoying). Too bad the coucil dropped diddly-squat. I'll give them a run again, but D2 may have to take a break for a week cause I've decided to do some redecorating in my bedroom, aka painting. I've been finding some pretty useful necro items that give +'s to skills that I used regularly. One skill that I never really used to like before is now showing how great it is when you put some points into it. The skill of shich I speak is BSpear. I put one point into it on my way to BSpirit, and I have enough +skills to get the BSpear level to 7, and I have to say, when coupled with LR, it's great when you line yourself up with a group of baddies that are pounding your golem and let loose with BSpear, you get quite a few bodies to start the chain reaction.

[Fragbait]

I put one point into it on my way to BSpirit, and I have enough +skills to get the BSpear level to 7, and I have to say, when coupled with LR, it's great when you line yourself up with a group of baddies that are pounding your golem and let loose with BSpear, you get quite a few bodies to start the chain reaction.

Hi,

If by LR you mean Lower Resist, then let me quote from the Arreat Summit:

Lower Resist [...] lowers Poison, Fire, Lightning, and Cold Resistances. It does not lower Physical Resistance.

So, I'm pretty sure that LR doesn't help your bone spells do more damage, since they are entirely magical. That's not too bad since there are only a few monsters that do greatly resist magical attacks (especially greater mummies).

But it's kind of a shame that the one damage source the necro himself really can dish out isn't enhanced by his curses: LR only lowers the elemental resists, AD only lowers physical resistance. Ah well. I guess it's balanced in that 'magical damage' (like magical resistance) is the least common damage (resistance) in the game. I mean, the dispersion is like

~80% of all monsters do mostly physical damage
~10% do fire damage
~6% do lightning damage
~3% do cold damage
~1% (if actually) do magical damage.

, or what?


Greetings, Fragbait

[pakman]

That's a damn shame.:(It will be a one point wonder now since I don't have any mages doing elemental attacks. I guess I'm going to be sticking with IM and AD. The only reason I could see putting more points into Lower Resist is to deal with Physical Immunes while using Corpse Explosion to lower the fire resistance. If the baddie is PI and FI, however, I'm screwed.

[Fragbait]

The only reason I could see putting more points into Lower Resist is to deal with Physical Immunes while using Corpse Explosion to lower the fire resistance.

Hi,

Now, I don't want to bug you, but couldn't you use AD just for this purpose, fighting PIs? It'd break their immunity, and make them susceptible for your CE...

[EDIT - new info about breaking immunities taken into consideration]

monster example #1:
HP: 5000
fire resist: 50%
physical resist: 100%
corpse explosion damage: 60-100% of corpse hit points, the damage is 50% physical and 50% fire.
hit points of the corpse: 5000 (same monster type).
skill level AD/LR: 5

if you apply a lvl 5 LR, the monster has:
fire resist: 3%
physical resist: 100%
It will loose 1455-2425 hit points (1940 avg).

if you apply a lvl 5 AD, the monster has:
fire resist 50%
physical resist 80%
It will loose 1050-1750 hit points (1400 avg).

monster example #2:
HP: 5000
fire resist: 66%
physical resist: 66%

if you apply a lvl 5 LR, the monster has:
fire resist: 19%
physical resist: 66%
It will loose 1725-2875 hit points (2300 avg).

if you apply a lvl 5 AD, the monster has:
fire resist 66%
physical resist -34%
It will loose 2520-4200 hit points (3360 avg).

monster example #3:
HP: 5000
fire resist: 75%
physical resist: 33%

if you apply a lvl 5 LR, the monster has:
fire resist: 28%
physical resist: 33%
It will loose 2085-3475 hit points (2780 avg).

if you apply a lvl 5 AD, the monster has:
fire resist 75%
physical resist -67%
It will loose 2880-4800 hit points (3840 avg).

monster example #4:
HP: 5000
fire resist: 100%
physical resist: 25%

if you apply a lvl 5 LR, the monster has:
fire resist: 91% (like 1/5 of 47% is 9.4%, which gets rounded to 9%, right?)
physical resist: 25%
It will loose 1260-2100 hit points (1680 avg).

if you apply a lvl 5 AD, the monster has:
fire resist 100%
physical resist -75%
It will loose 2625-4375 hit points (3500 avg).


So...
Actually, you're better of with AD if the monster has less physical resistance than 100%.

[/EDIT]

Greetings, Fragbait

[pakman]

I was under the impression that PIs were unaffected by AD. When I was in A2, I ran into a PI wraith, cast AD, and my merc seemed to be doing absolutely nothing. I'll have to look it up.

[gekko]

I was under the impression that PIs were unaffected by AD. When I was in A2, I ran into a PI wraith, cast AD, and my merc seemed to be doing absolutely nothing. I'll have to look it up.

Physical Immunity can be broken by AD or decrepify, but only to a point. AD and decrep affect PI's at 20% efficiency. So as long as the monster has less than 120% physical resistance, amp will break it and allow at least a very small percantage of physical damage.

The same principle controls lower resistance and elemental immunities, as well.

gekko

[Fragbait]

Physical Immunity can be broken by AD or decrepify, but only to a point. AD and decrep affect PI's at 20% efficiency. So as long as the monster has less than 120% physical resistance, amp will break it and allow at least a very small percantage of physical damage.

The same principle controls lower resistance and elemental immunities, as well.

gekko

Hi,


I was under the impression that that's only true for the skill Lower Resist:

This curse, when breaking an immunity, will function at 1/5 effectiveness.

- from the Arreat Summit, about Lower Resist

Amplify Damage lowers monster Physical Resistances by 100%. It will also remove the Immune to Physical on Monsters.

- from the Arreat Summit, about Amplify Damage


I'm pretty sure that AD works well against PIs. It's my necro's main source of damage (apart from BS) against those foes (my mighty merc fighting them, that is), and I tested it countless times versus a Fire Golem with Lower Resist on the wraiths. My merc just kills 'em faster than my goly, which I think he couldn't if these wraiths only took 1/5th of the damage he dishes out!

Also, I don't think a necro wand with charges of AD on it would be such a viable option for melee characters on the switch as a solution for PIs, if it worked like LR and would only function at 20% efficiency against immune monsters. Feel free to correct me, though.


Greetings, Fragbait

[EDIT]
Alright, could be that you are right about AD. I found this:

For Physical Immunes, both work at 1/5 effectiveness. In other words, against a PI monster, Amp will reduce their physical resistance by 20%, and Decrep 10%. If that is enough to bring their resist below 100%, then the immunity is broken. Obviously, Amp is better at this.

- Teodomiro of the Amazon Basin in this thread, which basically seconds your statement, gekko.

I do think however that there are no monsters that are more than 100% physical resistant (like wraiths are).
[EDIT2]I forgot the unique monster bonus stoneskin. Now that one really cries for a different curse than AD if combined with a highly physical resistant monster.[/EDIT2]
That means, with AD, your merc / your skellies will at least do 20% of their damage with AD. Now that would shed some new light on the debate AD/LR with CE... Obviously then, LR is superior to AD when the foe is physical immune (=100% resistant), but not fire immune.

Why did I feel like AD was still better? It was probably due to my fire golem dishing out far less damage far slower. Also, leeching of 20% damage dealt is still better than leeching of 0% damage dealt, so that may be why AD worked better for me (and my hireling).
I'm going to test it out nevertheless.
CU
[/EDIT]

[EDIT3]
Ok, I tested it.
My Merc does a damage of 809-2884 (1846.5 avg).
A standard wraith (specter) has hitpoints of 2677-4942 (3809.5 avg).

He needed 7,9,8,10,6,9,8,7,9,11,8,9,7,8 attacks to kill the first fourteen specters with AD. That's an average of 8.29 attacks.
On these 8.29 attacks, he should have done about 8.29*1846.5=15307 damage.

Now, that means that he did to the specters at least about 3809.5/15307=24.89% damage. The percentage is rather a bit higher, since he didn't deal them the exactly lethal damage, but a bit more. So probably only about 14800-15200 were enough to kill the specters. Now 3809.5/15000=25.40%, So I would say that 25% of the damage got through.
Because I know that only 1/5 of the damage should get through, I probably got lucky on the side of his damage, or on the side of low hitpoints of the wraiths.

It is however now assured that AD works at diminished efficiency when breaking immunes.

Greetings
[/EDIT3]

[Yogi_Baar]

Also, I don't think a necro wand with charges of AD on it would be such a viable option for melee characters on the switch as a solution for PIs, if it worked like LR and would only function at 20% efficiency against immune monsters. Feel free to correct me, though.

As your test indicated, it does function at only 20% efficiency against PIs. The other, or, indeed, main reason why melee characters don't get such wands, is that they don't in fact exist. IIRC, charges of AD only exist on some (and precious few) unique items, like the Gavel of Pain.

Because I know that only 1/5 of the damage should get through, I probably got lucky on the side of his damage, or on the side of low hitpoints of the wraiths.

Another explanation is that he used Jab. They have a two-hit Jab skill, IIRC. I'd check the AB mercenary resource to be sure but the site is down at the moment.

[Fragbait]

Another explanation is that he used Jab. They have a two-hit Jab skill, IIRC. I'd check the AB mercenary resource to be sure but the site is down at the moment.

Hi,

Now this got me curious.
This resource tells me a lvl 79 act 2 hireling has a lvl 23 jab.
I'm assuming that this is the same jab skill as the jab of the amazon, only with 2 attacks.
Jab at slvl 23 would do +51% damage, according to this resource.

I'm already foreseeing that this goes over the top, but let's see nevertheless:

1846.5 avg.dam. * 1.51 = 2788.22 avg.dam.

2788.22 * 8.29 = 23114.3 damage. I think it's save to say that this was more than enough to kill the specter, so let's shoot with around 22800 damage.

Now, 3809.5 / 22800 = 16.71%. That would mean I wasn't lucky, I had bad luck even. Then again, I have not figured in monster regeneration yet.
I can't seem to find a resource that has real figures for that at the moment, but maybe someone can spring to help.
I'll just assume that monsters regenerate 0.1% of their hp each frame for 2.5% each second (maybe that's a bit much - I don't know). I don't know how fast my merc was attacking, but I'd guess it was at least a 17 frame attack. Okay - I might enter the world of speculation, I see. But just for the fun of it:

8.29 attacks * 17 frames = 140.93 frames.
With my guessed regeneration rate, the specter will regenerate an average 3809.5 * 0.1% * 140.93 = 536.9 hp.
Thus my hireling would be fighting a 4346.4 hp monster.

Now, 4346.4 / 22800 = 19.06%

I'm still not really getting to the 20%, although I think did all the calculations rather in favor of a higher number. So now it seems that if my hireling uses a slvl 23 jab, I got rather unlucky with the series of specters, or maybe (no, it can't be, can it?), the damage the specters receive is reduced to below 20%, AD maybe not working as it is supposed to...
I mean, I don't think monsters do regenerate faster than that, do they? That would mean a regeneration of about 350 hp for a hell blood lord per second... Not bad.
And my hireling might have attacked a couple of frames faster. Could be. This would again turn the percentage lower than 19, possibly below 18.5% with 14 frame and 23000 damage dealt.
I don't quite understand this. :ph34r:


Greetings, Fragbait

[Fragbait]

The other, or, indeed, main reason why melee characters don't get such wands, is that they don't in fact exist.

Hi,

Are you a 100 % sure about that? Because many guides for melee fighters out there list them as a PI option. Examples: #1, #2.

If that's true, some authors need to come up with other PI solutions...
I must admit that I can't remember having seen such a wand drop or be sold, though. Just bought a wand with Life Tap charges a few hours ago. I would like to think that if they enable wands with Life Tap, they could as well enable wands with Amplify Damage, since it's a lvl 1 skill compared to a lvl 18 skill. :mellow:
But oh well. Just checking back for a confirmation.


Greetings, Fragbait

[Zyr]

Are you a 100 % sure about that? Because many guides for melee fighters out there list them as a PI option. Examples: #1, #2.

If that's true, some authors need to come up with other PI solutions...
I must admit that I can't remember having seen such a wand drop or be sold, though. Just bought a wand with Life Tap charges a few hours ago. I would like to think that if they enable wands with Life Tap, they could as well enable wands with Amplify Damage, since it's a lvl 1 skill compared to a lvl 18 skill. :mellow:

Yogi is correct; charges of Amp Damage cannot occur. It is possible to obtain magic and rare weapons with CtC Amp, which can be effective in breaking PIs with a fast attack such as Dtalon, Strafe, Zeal, etc.

[Merlinios]

All of this immunity bidniss seems a tad off. I don't recall my source on this one, but I believe the 20% effectiveness when breaking immunity only applies when you are actually...breaking the immunity. Yeah, that makes sense, dunnit? Examples, ho!

Monster A has 110% physical resistance (and is immune, obviously). Amplify damage should lower him to 50% physical resistance (10% over 100 * 5 = 50%, 100% - 50% = 50%). Too many fifties in that one.

Monster B has 105% physical resistance. Amplify damage should lower him to 25% physical resistance. (5% * 5 = 25%. 100% - 75% = 25%)

Monster C has 120% physical resistance. You can't break his immunity with Amplify Damage.


Seems a bit counterintuitive, so if anyone wants to dispute me here, I'll try to dig up that source (or maybe just concede the point out of laziness).

--me

[Fragbait]

All of this immunity bidniss seems a tad off. I don't recall my source on this one, but I believe the 20% effectiveness when breaking immunity only applies when you are actually...breaking the immunity. Yeah, that makes sense, dunnit? Examples, ho!

Monster A has 110% physical resistance (and is immune, obviously). Amplify damage should lower him to 50% physical resistance (10% over 100 * 5 = 50%, 100% - 50% = 50%). Too many fifties in that one.

Monster B has 105% physical resistance. Amplify damage should lower him to 25% physical resistance. (5% * 5 = 25%. 100% - 75% = 25%)

Monster C has 120% physical resistance. You can't break his immunity with Amplify Damage.
Seems a bit counterintuitive, so if anyone wants to dispute me here, I'll try to dig up that source (or maybe just concede the point out of laziness).

--me

Hi,

I don't think that's how it works.
From what I've heard (and what my testing shows), it's more like this:

Monster A has 110% physical resistance. Amplify damage lowers the resistance to 90% (110% -100%*0.2)

If an immunity is tried to be broken (which is the case when the monster has >= 100% resistance), then AD as well as LR (and perhaps Conviction - I don't know) are only working at 20% effectiveness, which in case of AD equals only a by 20% lowered physical resistance of the targeted monster.

Monster B has 105% physical resistance, which gets lowered to 85% (105% - 100%*0.2).
Monster C has 120% physical resistance, which gets lowered to 100%, and is still immune.

That's what I think. Feel free to correct me, though.
Greetings, Fragbait

[adeyke]

That's correct. All four of the resistance-reducing skills (amp, decrepify, LR, and conviction) have the 1/5 penalty. If the monster is immune, the reduction is 1/5 the normal value, rounded down. If the monster isn't immune, there is no reduction. With LR and conviction, each resistance is checked individually (so a cold immune monster get only 1/5 the cold resistance reduction, but the other resistances would get the full reduction).

So a 100% physical resistant monster hit by amp would go down to 80%, while a 99% resistant one would go down to -1%.

[Fragbait]

[...] With LR and conviction [...]

Hi,
One question:

How do LR and Conviction interact? That is, do they stack?

What I mean is, if a monster has 100% fire resist and gets cursed by LR and after that gets under the sphere of influence of Conviction, does it have

1. 100% - LR%*0.2 - Conv% (since the immunity has already been broken by LR)<>
   
2. 100% - LR%*0.2 - Conv%*0.2 (if they are "applied at the same time")<>
   [st]
   As an example, if the monster has 100% fire resist, the lvl of LR is 14 (-60%) and the lvl of Conviction is 15 (-100%), does it have
   
   1. 100% - 12% - 100% = -12%<>
      
   2. 100% - 12% - 20% = 68%<>
      [st]
      It doesn't matter for this question whether LR or Conviction is applied first, I think.
      Are they calculated together or one after the other has already broken the monster's immunity?
      Or is the calculation done completely different?
      
      
      Greetings, Fragbait

[Merlinios]

Looked up my source regarding the immunity-breaking, and it turns out my source was even more dubious than I originally thought. Several more trustworthy agree with you folks (although it's always inferred, not said right out). Please disregard my earlier post.

--me

[Paradox9O]

Got a couple of questions answered myself, thanks!