Variant idea

[Ferengi]

how can a character who kills nothing at all get enough XP to level up to their summonables?

Necros start with a +1 RS wand. It's a piece of cake for me. Just has a slow start and then it rolls and rolls to hell.

[Ferengi]

But ..... can a lvl 1 character even buy a thorns belt?

he picks up a chipped skull and puts it in a socketed shield

[Ferengi]

OK, here is a quick start for a summoner necro.

--Run to Cold Plains waypoint, get it and quit game.

--WP to Cold Plains, head back to Flavi and attract a fallen to her, make a skeleton. Stay away from zombies and make new skeletons from the quill rats and fallens as required. You can get almost to clvl 3 in the Blood Moor with a full clear. Put earned skill points into RS until is is slvl 3, then add to SM and keep RS=SM+2 from then on. Collect gold and items and watch for a wand with +3 RS, +3 SM and Amp Damage. Check all heads for similar skills.

Make 2 chipped topaz headgear and 3 chipped topaz armor, sacrifice many chickens to bring favor into your drops. Get the clay golem, get the basic curses and whichever AI curse you prefer. You'll need at least 60 str for awhile, then it's vitality only...maybe a few points into energy. You don't really need Bone Armor, but since you will have excess skill points, you might be tempted. But you can get more out the summoning tree by maxing golem mastery (while keeping clay at 1 to minimize mana cost) or maybe getting a zillion revives.

It's pretty much, curse and wait for skeletons to finish. You need retreating skills and patience.

Loss of curses would just slow me down, but no stop me. The bone armor is immaterial. Trying to nerf it by saying skeletons only just increases the time required to take down a boss pack, the skeletons are the killers, everything else just makes them time efficient. Once you get a merc, you always have a first kill source that is fast, otherwise you cast a lot of golems to get that first corpse. Even in Hell in big player games, once I get 3 skeletons, I will get the rest.

If you take the skeletons away, but leave everything else as proposed, then it is difficult to impossible.

[Ferengi]

A summoning necromancer would probably be the easiest choice. If he is careful about how he plays the first 6 levels (until he gets a golem) he could very easily finish hell.

A golem, nah, not nearly as important as getting Maldar's Dim Vision or simply hiring a Rogue. In a HC experiment in Europe, I didn't get a clay golem until somewhere around clvl 12-14.

Frankly this idea looks very hard for most characters and pretty easy for a skilled necro player. Singer barb experts might not be troubled, but thorns palys will be bored with endless head banging. For most of the characters, it is pretty much merc management to succeed.

[Caaroid]

My (currently lev 66) summoner killed one quill rat when he was lev1. Nothing since then. No point really.

I believe a skellymancer would not really be a 'son of Maldar', since in essence you just destroy everything in the game without running around blinded monsters and killing only a select few. The fact that you never killed anything yourself does not mean more than a 2-minute extra walk from the camp to Flavie.

[MongoJerry]

It is strange to me that you can't find a role for an assassin in a party like this.... when she is the most likely candidate for this type of play. She has the ability to gain resistance and PDR from skill, can reduce monster defense and change their behavior with cloak of shadows, can take dangerous enemies out of action with psychic hammer, and able to deal with packs using mind blast. C'mon, conversion, stun, damage from one skill, what do you need?

What about Blade Shield? "Hey, come on! It's not my fault you keep coming too close!"

[Brimstone]

Like I said...the other variant scum will come to my rescue!

If this party ever was to "come to be," I'd be honored to be a part of it!

Edit: One too few dots in my ellipsis. Darn!

[Brimstone]

i'm sorry, re-reading my post I can see that I wasn't very clear in what I meant. Aside from Necro and Druid, who get summonables early, the other characters get their summonables much later in life, which will be a looong haul solo, with only a thorns belt and a couple of passive-aggressive skills to do damage. Seems like it would usually wind up being a lesson in Merc Management, which I am no real fan (or student) of.

(And how did I forget Assas' Shadow Master? God, I gotta PLAY more!)

[alex_reno]

I've played a bit with all thorns and VIT no-attack paladins. (See post here for the gory details.)

I attacked the monsters for the first 6 levels, but not afterwards, and eventually made it into hell difficulty, which is where I stopped. Hell was just too tough for the poor fellow. I took him out for a brief spin after 1.10 came out and he couldn't really kill anything past the blood moor.

People on Bnet always thought I was lagging because I'd run up to the monsters and then just stand there.

All in all, a fun build, but very slow. But that's kind of the point, right?

[AtomicKitKat]

I've built one like that before. Mine used Smite and Holy Shield though. BackOff never really played anything much past Act 5 Normal. I took full advantage of his ease of being hit by equipping everything with chance to cast when struck. Very colourful fellow. I also ran about a lot to increase the number of hits I got. Sucky versus OKs and most ranged attackers, and he pretty much died to Diablo, but regular cannon fodder died pretty well.

Edit: New info just struck me. Below.

Prayer has a synergy with Cleansing. What does this mean? When you have Cleansing, you get the benefit of a prayer, WITHOUT THE MANA DRAIN. Or at least, I didn't see any drain. Maximum Prayer/Thorns, 1 point in Cleansing. Cleanse yourself of the filth between fights.

[Obi2Kenobi]

Prayer has a synergy with Cleansing. What does this mean? When you have Cleansing, you get the benefit of a prayer, WITHOUT THE MANA DRAIN. Or at least, I didn't see any drain.

Yep. The unfortunate thing is that prayer drains your mana even when it doesn't heal. :(

[AtomicKitKat]

I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Maybe your merc or someone in the party was a little short of maximum hp?

[Obi2Kenobi]

I was alone in town when I discovered this (right after clicking on the healer).

[Mournblade]

Cool idea. Gonna give it a try with an amazon. I did something similar in 1.09. Used a weapon until I got to level 30 and could get valkyrie. I then went empty handed, only a shield, from thereon. Did not attack at all. I left the killing to my thorns merc, valkyrie, and decoy. Put a ton of points in vitality. Worked out ok.

Obviously, this is a little different, with no killing from the get-go. Not sure if I will be able to successfully tank for the merc until level 24 (decoy), but we shall see.

Does a rogue's fire and/or cold arrow require AR? Just wondering if Inner Sight is worth multiple points.

Build idea
Decoy 20
Valkyrie 20
Dodge 6
Avoid 7
Evade 6
Critical Strike 7 (for valkyrie)
Penetrate 1
Slow Missile 4
Inner Sight 1 as prereq. level 20 valk shouldn't need more AR, right; more here may help merc.


Note/Question about Assasin skills: Shouldn't she be able to put points in any skills, so a shadow warrior could use them, right? If so, you could decide what skills are being used to the best advantage of the situation. Ofcourse the assasin wouldn't use the direct damage skills herself. :D

[AtomicKitKat]

Would be tricky, but you could socket chipped skulls in a buckler for "thorns" effect until you got the decoy. Do decoys reflect Thorns? Also, I foresee one MAJOR problem right here. You're gonna have trouble casting the valk with base energy. Unless they toned the costs down a lot since the last time I checked. Would be nice if you had enough mana to recast the valk everytime she died, so that she could be the thorns dummy. Failing which, if decoy transmits Thorns damage, there's your answer.

[Mournblade]

More specifically, the character would never kill anything on their own. It is possible to have other things in the game making the kill besides your own character. Mercenaries are the obvious way, but also permitted would be having Flavie make the kill, strategic use of poison and fire shrines, summonable minions, and side-effect deaths that come from killing certain bosses. Passive damage skills may or may not be used depending on how strict the variant is.

You do not get any experience for Flavie kills. Poison and fire shrines are the way to go, until you get your merc, assuming you don't have any early summons(ravens/skeletons).

[Mournblade]

Would be tricky, but you could socket chipped skulls in a buckler for "thorns" effect until you got the decoy. Do decoys reflect Thorns? Also, I foresee one MAJOR problem right here. You're gonna have trouble casting the valk with base energy. Unless they toned the costs down a lot since the last time I checked. Would be nice if you had enough mana to recast the valk everytime she died, so that she could be the thorns dummy. Failing which, if decoy transmits Thorns damage, there's your answer.

Good idea. Haven't had a chipped skull drop yet, but plan to use it when it does. I think someone mentioned using chipped skulls in a shield earlier in this post.

Decoy does reflect thorns. I don't think I have tried it in 1.10, but it worked in 1.09 and I don't see why they would have changed it.

At level 50, I should be able to cast 2 level20 valkyries with base mana. Almost 3 at level 70, and with mana pots available, it shouldn't be a problem. From the sounds of things, a level 20 valkyrie doesn't die very often.

[AtomicKitKat]

She might if she keeps getting hit for Thorns, especially if she's poisoned.