The Poison Nec

[AtTheGates]

having heard that the poison nec might not be the most efficient build around, i thought i could share my experiences with you and either spare you frustration or help you prepare for what awaits.
i'm also aware that there might be posts describing the poison nec way better and more efficient than i will do. i really just want to tell you my experiences, this is by no means a perfect poison necro build. enjoy!

my nec is currently lvl 80 and finished hell baal with some help (he can deal with baal on his own, just the way down is terrible.)

i'll add the boring statistics at the end, and give you my impressions now.

Lower Resist:
if you invest some points into lower resist the % lowered for every level gets very small eventually.
this tempts to add more points to the poison tree for synergies (if you have maxed out poison nova, which i am using mainly).
even though you might have a higher damage output, the new feature of lower resist (it can completely negate elemental immunities of monsters if the % is high enough) should not to be underestimated. the black souls in the worldstone keep 1 are still immune to poison when you use lower res with 53%, but will lose their poison immunity at around 54% lowered res which equals lvl 10 lower resist. a difference of 1 or 2% or 1 skillpoint can make them either completely immune to your poison or coughing up their guts! ok, so they are ghosts...well, coughing up dust :)

my necro in general in worldstone keep:i have to admit i'm having a very tough time. the black souls butcher me because i lack resistances (at least i got around 600 life) and it might have been a mistake not to invest into bone armor, even though most melee monsters are no threat to me because of the godly decrepify / frost aura merc combo (this also works very well on baal, he completely forgets that he has any spells and tries to hit my golem with melee attacks which don't scratch him at all).

i usually use decrepify instead of lower resist when the monsters are too fast or deal too much damage, leaving me no time to wait for the poison to work.
VS. poison immunes: best thing to do is let your merc + golem kill off one of them, then blast the rest with corpse explosion.

the only time my nec rocks in worldstone keep is when he's either confronted with scarabs, fire boars or those teleporting goblin-fireball-whatever guys...baal's minions aren't too hard to do too, except for the pit lords just before the minions of destruction, whose poison resistance i couldn't crack yet.

my nec works very well in act1 hell due to the low poison resistance of most enemies, and i highly suggest you try a poison nec if you want to do mf runs in the mausoleum, the pit and maybe the ancient tunnels in act2 (even though i haven't tried the latter yet).

good combos:
from time to time i play with a pally who either helps me out with resistances or uses conviction aura, together with lower res it can be quite devastating to most enemies :D it might not be easy finding a pally that specializes on that skill which is willing to play with you for a longer period.

if you plan on using poison dagger, don't mind repeatedly stabbing the same enemy as poison duration grows rather big on higher dagger levels. try going from enemy to enemy, picking out the ones that are easier targets to get a kill for corpse explosion. bone armor might be very important if you heavly use dagger too (something which i overlooked on my build, but i wanted death's web anyway :P).

maybe a final conclusion: my poison nec works very well on the first few acts of hell, but lacks major damage on worldstone keep due to very high poison resistances. this might be avoided by pumping up lower resist 10+, i have to try.
if you want to do mf runs in different acts than act5 the nec will be great, if you try playing act5, get someone to help you out and curse as much as you can.


the gear i'm using:

-blackbog's sharp* knife
-homunculus shrunken head
-naj's light plate² armor
-rare circlet with +2 curses
-sander's riprap³ shoes
-ravenfrost ring
-rare ring with faster cast and resistances
- amu +3 poison and bone
-gheed's fortune
-some minor resistance charms

*= i'm planning on getting Death's Web Unearthed Wand for the reduced enemy poison resistance, but this is rather utopic, with the wand being in a high treasure class
²= i'm not sure wheter naj's is the best choice, currently i don't have any other options though
³= i was planning to put on silkweave, but i am stuck with sander's because of the +10 dexterity bonus which i need for blackbog's.

as you can see, my equipment is far from perfect, especially lacking resistances (except cold).

my skills: ( ) indicate skill with item bonuses, only skills that i use are mentioned below
5(8) golem mastery
1(4) summon resist
20(23) fire golem (might not be the best choice, but the damage is pretty much OK)

20(31) poison dagger
13(23) poison exp (mainly for synergies, the damage is very nice though and i use it instead of corpse exp if enemies are fire / phys immune, whichi have to admit doesn't happen very often)
20(30) poison nova
1(7) corpse exp

1 decrepify
1 lower resist

damage as it appears on C- window:
poison dagger damage (together with blackbog's 500 poison dam. and ravenfrost cold damage etc.) 15k - 16k
duration 14 seconds
attack rating 4854
poison nova damage: 3863 - 4047
poison explosion: 14k - 17k (not even maxed out). duration 10,8 seconds
my fire golem on lvl 23 is doing 507 -585 dam. (nothing special, might have been a bad choice).

[Assur]

Hi

A. I assume you are not playing HC?

B. If you want a golem who distracts enemies instead of killing them use a an iron golem created from a 4-socket palashield with perfect diamonds, loads of resits.

C. Bone Armour can be areal saviour, don't neglect it!

good hunting

[ShadowHM]

I will confess that not only am I behind you in quests (clvl 80 and at the River of Flame Waypoint) but I have been blessed with better equipment than you (Trang's Full set was just completed and not only looks nifty but aids immensely for the PI/PI combinations that bite this build so much).

My necromancer uses Poison Dagger most of the time, Poison Explosion much of the time and Poison Nova some of the time (I have yet to max that one). When the monsters are Poison Immune he uses Fire Wall on them. He has pumped Bone Wall just to get his Bone Armour up, which now absorbs about 400 damage.

He uses a Holy Freeze mercenary.

He has a single point in all curses except: Confuse and Attract (zero) and Dim Vision (10 - to get the radius high enough). I have spent no points in the summoning tree.


The main M.O. is to cast Dim Vision ahead of him and then assess what sort of monster we have to deal with. After that, I find I usually cast Decrepify and scamper around the statue-like monsters, stabbing as many as possible, re-casting Decrepify often, before it wears off. Then I back off and keep the Decrepify up and let the merc jab them to death, and aid the process with Poison Explosions. Renewing the Dim Vision on the ranged attackers is sometimes needed too, as the poison damage takes so long to finish monsters off.

Sometimes the mercenary needs a bit of Life Tap to keep going and then I can switch back to Decrepify. Depending on how hard the monsters are hitting and where they are placed, the Poison Immunes get either Decrepify or Lower Resist cast on them and then I throw Fire Walls on them.

Of course, the presence of companions changes the M.O. A recent expedition with a Bone Spells only Necromancer had me casting Dim Vision almost exclusively so he could nail the blinded monsters with his incredibly high damage Bone Spears. Other expeditions with a WereBear mean it is pointless to bother stabbing the monsters because he will kill them so much faster than I can, so I stand back and just keep using Poison Explosion on the ones he does kill, and keep the right curses going.

When playing solo, this seems to be a fairly safe build that kills in the 'slow but sure' mode. Slvl 31 poison dagger and slvl 30 poison explosion have high damage over rather long periods of time.

On the other hand, I have yet to go visit Nihilathak in Hell with him, and that will be a difficult journey. There are a lot of PI/PI combinations in Act V overall that I have yet to have the fun of encountering. :rolleyes:

If nothing else, building this guy has given me a very healthy respect for the power of Dim Vision and Decrepify. Dim Vision makes almost any monster helpless (except Bosses and Oblivion Knights) and Decrepify breaks Physical Immunity AND slows down all monsters.

[AtTheGates]

Hi

A. I assume you are not playing HC?

B. If you want a golem who distracts enemies instead of killing them use a an iron golem created from a 4-socket palashield with perfect diamonds, loads of resits.

C. Bone Armour can be areal saviour, don't neglect it!

good hunting

hi assur,
A. no, softcore, i died so often meanwhile it would suffice for half the HC ladder :)
B. i never thought about it, sounds like a good idea and could save me a skillpoint in summon resist...
also, the thorns aura is nice, the only prob is ranged mobs..specially the archers on the top of foothills, man they can hurt!
C. yea i know =l i still got some levels to do left and will look up some table to see if it is still worth it :(

The main M.O. is to cast Dim Vision ahead of him and then assess what sort of monster we have to deal with. After that, I find I usually cast Decrepify and scamper around the statue-like monsters, stabbing as many as possible, re-casting Decrepify often, before it wears off. Then I back off and keep the Decrepify up and let the merc jab them to death, and aid the process with Poison Explosions. Renewing the Dim Vision on the ranged attackers is sometimes needed too, as the poison damage takes so long to finish monsters off.

hi shadowhm,
dim vision seems to be a good idea, this could definately help with uber ranged mobs..i gotta give it a try in my next build.
also i have to note that attract can be very very nice, although i used it back in 1.09 together with iron maiden and a summon / corpse exp mancer.

btw i forgot to mention
trang oul's gloves ( a necessity.)

and i tried the ancient tunnels this night, works rather good

[ShadowHM]

also i have to note that attract can be very very nice, although i used it back in 1.09 together with iron maiden and a summon / corpse exp mancer.

I have read cautionary tales about Attract. I gather it will bring monsters to those that have the curse on them from 3-4 screens away, including ranged attackers that transfer their attention to you and your companions.

For some builds this might be a bonus, but for my pasty little 98 pound weakling who depends on a slow damage spell it sounded like suicide, so I didn't bother with it.

[arrunique]

I just started hardcore and was debating on what kind of poor man's build to make and poison necro was on the list. I'm only planning to get through nightmare to do mf runs to build my wealth. I'm not too worried about poison immunes, I'm more worried about dying.

I'm going to only rely on gear I can buy, craft, or cheap (nightmare countess) runewords.

My tentative plan so far:

20 pdagger
20 pexplosion
20 pnova
20 dim vision
1 bone armor
1 teeth
1 corpse explosion
1 in decrep + prereqs
1 each summon
rest in lower

I'm thinking running under the constant cloak of dim vision would be safer than using lower even if my killing speed will be a slower. I'll use decrep for the bosses and ob knights.

I figure I can easily scrounge the following el-cheapo gear.

white wand with some useful skill, dim, ce, bone armor, clay golem, etc
necro shield with +1 skills or other useful skills and resists
lore hat +1 skills and lightning resists
stealth armor
necro amulet +1 skills
the rest of the gear will have + mana, life, and resists and eventually I hope to craft 2 rings, gloves, belt, boots, amulet

stats
77 str because that is the min for a 4 socket dusk shroud (thinking big) or goth plate which I'm going to topaz up so I can MF
base dex
energy ?
vit everything else

I've never played a poison necro so I don't know how much to put into energy. Poison doesn't seem to be a spam cast skill like bone spear so I can't imagine needing too much energy. I might even keep it at base and focus on life. Potions arent that expensive.

For my merc I want a rogue merc with a bow that causes monsters to flee. This will be another layer of defense to keep anyone away from me.

I know it won't be hell viable outside of a party but how do you guys think it will do for my stated goal of nightmare MF runs?

[vor_lord]

My experience (clvl 83 poison nec softcore ladder):

20 poison dagger
20 poison explosion
20 poison nova
1 in each curse except attract
around 16 with adders in Corpse explosion
around 21 with adders in bone prison

I have full Trang's set--the -25% enemy poison resistance on trang's wing is very important. Once your lower resist breaks the immunity, then this kicks in and helps your damage a lot. The firewall is also quite helpful vs those immunes that LR can't break.

In my experience with this set there are enough +skills that I have left all of the curses at 1pt + adders.

The skill points I saved there have gone into bone prison which I just love--this gives you complete freedom to let your poison work. There are no monsters capable of breaking down a prison of that level. The hardest thing to deal with are ghost-types that can ignore the prisons (doesn't help that gloams and the like are also highly dangerous).

My bone armor is extremely useful (the synergy points in bone prison have made it relatively strong).

I almost never use poison explosion or poison dagger--that is probably a mistake, but I usually use the corpses for explosion.

Overall, I find him to be a pretty effective character in most areas, especially in lower player count games. Most poison immunes can be broken with ~10 lower resist, and the full Trang's set gives other options. As you mentioned, the worldstone keep has a lot of poison immunes, even quite a few that I can't break with my level of lower resist.

He's retired to MF running Baal with a party of sorcs now, where his main role is to cast lower resist and bone prison. My damage output can't touch a sorcs, even with the relatively good gear I have. But without me, they do far less damage, and they die all the time. The bone prison makes all the difference. It's not party friendly if you have melee chars about, but for sorcs with teleport I can spam it pretty much at will when things get dangerous.

I would recommend investing some in bone prison. Less than I have would probably be fine (probably a few more points in lower resist or corpse explosion instead). I find with bone prison that I rarely use confuse or dim vision anymore.

[arrunique]

I find with bone prison that I rarely use confuse or dim vision anymore.

One of the reasons I want to go with dim instead of prison is because it neuters gloams and ghosties and the obnoxious act V piercing slingers.

[vor_lord]

One of the reasons I want to go with dim instead of prison is because it neuters gloams and ghosties and the obnoxious act V piercing slingers.

Well, that is certainly something to consider. At level 10, the radius is pretty decent though, which is totally feasible at 1+adders. Certainly this build has enough points to get a decent level in each of them.

I didn't have much luck using dim on gloams--teleportation AI doesn't stop immediately and then oops, you're in range. Maybe a bit of practice will help me figure out how to make that effective? Any tips?

I guess I've never liked Dim very much because it only works on ranged attackers. As a melee char, I always preferred confuse from my necro support. Dim makes 100% of ranged attackers ineffective (except for my trouble with teleporters... have to try that some more again), while confuse makes about 75% of all monsters ineffective as they get distracted.

I find that either confuse or dim has no trouble dealing with the slingers even at 1 + adders.

Neither dim vision nor confuse will help you with champ packs.

[arrunique]

I didn't have much luck using dim on gloams--teleportation AI doesn't stop immediately and then oops, you're in range. Maybe a bit of practice will help me figure out how to make that effective? Any tips?

If you dim a monster that is moving toward you they will keep moving toward you until either they are in melee range or something else gets in the way. Even if they get into range I've only seen them use the melee attack rather than the frightening lightning bolt. My thing with scary melee guys like frenzytaurs was to either blind them before they started moving or make sure there was some meat in between me and them.

Actually I'm talking out of my butt here because I've never used dim other than in act 1 normal, my experience comes from using cloak of shadows which I assume acts just like dim except you cant target it. If dim does act differently then I'll have to experiment with it.

The reason I want to max my dim is because I'm pretty sure I can affect ranged monsters off the screen before they "activate" thus saving me from the offscreen gloam beatdown.

[ShadowHM]

The reason I want to max my dim is because I'm pretty sure I can affect ranged monsters off the screen before they "activate" thus saving me from the offscreen gloam beatdown.

And the other bonus would be the increased duration if the slvl is in the higher 20's, allowing time for your poison to work on the batch of monsters you are dealing with at the time.

[DukeTrout]

The reason some people like to max Dim Vison is that at slvl 20 the radius is 15.3 yards, which is way, way off screen if you cast it at the edge of the screen in the direction you are travelling. Unlike Confuse and Attract, it doesn't "wake up" enemies that are affected by the curse and then have it wear off. It also doesn't draw enemies from 3 screens away like the other AI curses.

Standard procedure in dangerous areas (WSK with gloams, Halls of Vaught with Vipers) is to dim the edge of the screen, advance, deal with whatever is on-screen, dim the edge, advance, etc. This is the ultimate in battlefield control, as you can deal with enemies one-at-a-time, avoid ranged attacks (even piercers, which are a problem with Confuse/Attract/Bone Prison), and evaluate Champ and Bosses without the "noise" of all the normal monsters hanging around. See Mongo's write-up of Maldar the Pacifist Hero to see the ultimate use of DV.

Another nice technique is to Dim everything and then use low-level Amp or Decrepify on individuals one at a time. This is more of a tactic for a Summoner, but it will work for your Golem/Merc against PI/PIs.

[DukeTrout]

(snip)
I'm thinking running under the constant cloak of dim vision would be safer than using lower even if my killing speed will be a slower.  I'll use decrep for the bosses and ob knights.

I figure I can easily scrounge the following el-cheapo gear.

white wand with some useful skill, dim, ce, bone armor, clay golem, etc
necro shield with +1 skills or other useful skills and resists
lore hat +1 skills and lightning resists
stealth armor
necro amulet +1 skills
the rest of the gear will have + mana, life, and resists and eventually I hope to craft 2 rings, gloves, belt, boots, amulet

Wow, you pretty much described the gear of my scl Summoner to a "t." The funny thing is that he not only survives, but rocks in Hell. Unless you plan to run areas with a large number of small enemies (fallen/imps/flayers), you can level and MF and survive much much better with a Summoner than a Poison Necro.

If you do go with a Venomancer, get a decent mana pool and some fast cast. Chain casting Poison Nova is mana-intensive, but it is really effective against the little buggers.

[DukeTrout]

Sander's Boots are great for a Venomancer! The extra mobility of 40% faster run is very valuable to both a dagger-oriented build and a Nova-oriented build. Also, don't underestimate the STEALTH runeword for it's 25% raster run/faster cast/faster hit recovery, all of which are great for Venomancers.

Hit and Run!

Slow your enemies and speed yourself!

The best defense is a good offense!

[AtTheGates]

Sander's Boots are great for a Venomancer! The extra mobility of 40% faster run is very valuable to both a dagger-oriented build and a Nova-oriented build.
Slow your enemies and speed yourself!

back again after some time off, had to work for the university a bit.

you are completely right about sander's, the mobility saved my ass very often.
my nec is now lvl 82 and hopping from act to act clearing out alvl 87 places.
i just realized there are so many ways how to build a nec, i gotta try all of this
out sooner or later, especially dim vision and bone prison sound very nice, these 2 could solve my
problems in WSK once and for all :D

i realized now that getting death's web is next to impossible (TC 87) and i guess
i'm "stuck" with blackbog's (which is excellent, but i'd sacrifice those +5 to poison
in order to get the -40/50% poison res lowered from death's web anytime).
my frost aura merc is lvl 82 now with high resistances and around 1100 max damge,
without his help i would have severe problems with the most resistant enemies, but once
he and my fire golem kill the first one, corpse exp does the rest (this first kill is very time consuming
though without any bone spirit / spear / teeth support).
my gear hasn't changed yet, i keep gambling for a nice circlet with +2 nec skills, no luck so far.
after having played him to 82 i'd say:
- very good at most places, ok killing speed, xcept vs. high % poison immune, then he grows very slow
- sucks at WSK, mainly because of gloams (not really poison related, problem is their light damage,
possible solution: some points into dim vision)
- owns all bosses (decrepify makes them so dumb they forget about anything except their melee attack,
they only cast spells in very rare ocassions)
- i highly recommend at least 1 point in decrepify to deal with xtra fast enemies or when the #$%& hit the fan and
you have to escape, it also helps your merc if you have to fight high % poison immunes which do massive damage or
attack very fast
- fire golem is debatable, i maxed him out, only some points into mastery and 1 into resist, he does ok damage and survives
in most places though..it might be more wise to get revives, or maybe invest a lot into bone wall / prison?
- poison dagger is ok, the damage is not as high as it looks because of the long duration and sometimes it's better not to fiddle around on the front line :) death's web w. nova > blackbogs w. dagger


EDIT:
just hit 83, crossed my fingers and put 1 point into dim vision...you guys are right, dim is great! monsters around shenk and world stone keep are now WAY easier to tacke, it even helps with melee mobs, without lower res is takes longer kill them though (of course).