06-14-2008, 12:06 PM
Heiho,
I always was shy to give such recommendations, and since I'm fairly out of game by now even more so ;-)
Reason is also, since LoD release items became more and more important with every patch. So nowadays you may build, with lots of efforts and virtual goodies, a Golemancer who is at least viable in Nightmare. But put the same effort into any slightly-more-mainstream-build and you'll get a killer.
So you'll find technical values in this thread to compare effectiveness on your own.
Continue if you still want to read a personal-IMHO-YMMV-statement of _my_ own ...
Basic principle of the game is to kill your enemies. Relying mainly on your golems to achieve that goal means relying on their damage output, both in terms of punching damage and in terms of secondary damage achievable via supporting skills.
The punching damage of _all_ golems is neglectable, and they're all far too slow. Forget Clay and Blood completely here. Yes, this statement includes support via AD.
In terms of items you may gain some extra bang by summoning Iron from a worthy weapon. Nowadays indeed you may read some stuff about summoning Iron from a Faith runeword weapon. Which is crazy, since you may even loose him in some dungeon corner without enemy contact. Add some situations when actually enemy contact will kill your golem and you'll see you're forced to have an assortment of Faith weapons in stash just to keep your build at the core of its idea. Faith is an extraordinary example, but the idea's main flaw stays same when building a Golemancer with Iron focussed on other goodies inherited from the iron-summoning item, like Crushing Blow, other damage modifiers and actually any other property.
Now there's thorns damage, too. Well, firstly thorns damage works only when the golem is bullied in melee, with physical damage. It's completely worthless against ranged and/or elemental attacks. Iron's thorns state doesn't add with a Thorns aura, so it's only way of enhancement lies in support via Iron Maiden or Amplify Damage. Still no means against ranged/elemental attackers. Sadly, later on even a significant part of your enemies' melee damage will be elemental, too, and quite a bunch of enemies is also physical immune, so blast it.
Plus the disadvantage of needing an (identified metallic) item on the ground to resummon a new Iron Golem if the former has deceased.
The highest punching damage is achievable by the Fire Golem. As you can derive on your own the values are still pathetique compared to even a bare-handed hireling. The cap on the native HFi aura is no nice touch, too, so even a high score in summoning skill points from equip doesn't give proper benefit.
Might aura does near to nothing, since the main punching damage is fire.
Using a Thorns aura with any but the Iron Golem, plus adding a Spirit of Barbs, plus amplify cursing still has the same disadvantage as listed with Iron Golem, except that you can resummon the other golems at your ease. Still ranged /elemental foes will cause trouble. Lots of.
As you may see, I'm not exactly in favor of a golemancer build.
So what's the use of golems, anyway?
They're supporting minions in all the term's truth. Each golem is capable of bringing down your first corpses in areas much below your actual level, so your LoM/Overlord build can gain some first corpses to build his army (which is still of some importance in Classic with no hireling around, with a hireling at your side this one will work much faster and is not forced to visiting Blood Moor when your actual playing ground is Act4).
The Clay Golem is the most versatile of all Golems. He gains tons of hitpoints even on sLvl1 with skill-adders from equip, he slows down your enemies, he's cheap to be resummoned. Actually he should be used like an eleventh curse. You don't use him like a Valkyrie, always toddling around your character. You summon him most frequently again and again where he's urgently needed, on top of your enemy's head, at an uncovered flank which sprouts surprisingly enemies you haven't expected, as a scout forward into unknown territory, whereever.
The Blood Golem has almost no use nowadays, since thorns damage doesn't make him and you almost invulnerable anymore. He may still be of use to gain some Hitpoints back, but since red and even purple flacons are so common and their effect so much faster you actually don't need him and his special ability anymore. He may be ok in low-mid cLvl, if Clay doesn't last long enough against nasty bosses and Prime Evils, but of course he's more risky there because of the two-ways-health-connection.
The Iron Golem is the coolest Golem ever. Disadvantages are listed above, but I think usage of Iron gives you extra style credit. That said and done he's too weak in boss battles and due to the need of an iron item on the ground you'll fall back to summoning another golem very quickly in emergency cases.
The Fire Golem would need some redesign to actually gain the glory he promises. Plus he costs an awful amount of mana to resummon, so compared to Clay you can't spawn him as frequently. But as a Valkyrie-alike compagnon he's just too weak. Even as a monster magnet he is surplussed by any Attract'd / Confuse'd monster or just a simple Bone Wall.
So the most effective way of playing a Golemancer is to avoid it. You'll end in nursing your hireling to bring down some corpses and then CE-chainblowing stuff away, and the golem will be a graphical show-off of wasted skillpoints. Just because anything a golem is specially capable of is already available and viable with sLvl1 + equip.
Again speaking of equip, especially LoD/1.1x-wise, you may achieve upt o fifty-something points in a summoning skill. About forty or so will come as allskill or allsummoningskill then. Now do some math and compare the punching damage output of any golem with the punching damage of a single Skeleton with RSk and SkM at about sLvl40. Having those Skellies maxed doesn't mean you have to run around with full army all the time. Indeed if you want to try some unique build you've never seen on bnet max out the Skels, but use only one of them all the time plus any golem you like. This is a build which seems very similar to a Golemancer with the advantage of a minion who can actually beat something. Plus the fallback safety of summoning more Skels if things become a hairy mess.
Means
Summoning:
RS 20 (but summon just one at a time)
SkM 20
GM 1
SR 1
CG 1
BG 1
IG 1
FG 20 (example, this is maybe ok against occasional PIs)
RSM 1 (opt, opt more, summon just one)
Rev 1 (opt)
P&B:
Teeth 1
CE 20 (opt, but in terms of efficiency nothing beats a maxed CE)
BA 1
BW 1 (opt more)
BP 1 (opt more)
Curses:
AD 1 (+equip, without equip adders set to five for easier targetting)
all other curses 1 (opt to taste)
Dec 1 (safety)
LR 1 (more than 11 including equip is basically pointless)
Might hireling.
Quote:Can you boil all those numbers down to some player's advice? Which golems are most effective in which situations and which one's aren't? What's the most effective way to play a pure golemmancer?
I always was shy to give such recommendations, and since I'm fairly out of game by now even more so ;-)
Reason is also, since LoD release items became more and more important with every patch. So nowadays you may build, with lots of efforts and virtual goodies, a Golemancer who is at least viable in Nightmare. But put the same effort into any slightly-more-mainstream-build and you'll get a killer.
So you'll find technical values in this thread to compare effectiveness on your own.
Continue if you still want to read a personal-IMHO-YMMV-statement of _my_ own ...
Basic principle of the game is to kill your enemies. Relying mainly on your golems to achieve that goal means relying on their damage output, both in terms of punching damage and in terms of secondary damage achievable via supporting skills.
The punching damage of _all_ golems is neglectable, and they're all far too slow. Forget Clay and Blood completely here. Yes, this statement includes support via AD.
In terms of items you may gain some extra bang by summoning Iron from a worthy weapon. Nowadays indeed you may read some stuff about summoning Iron from a Faith runeword weapon. Which is crazy, since you may even loose him in some dungeon corner without enemy contact. Add some situations when actually enemy contact will kill your golem and you'll see you're forced to have an assortment of Faith weapons in stash just to keep your build at the core of its idea. Faith is an extraordinary example, but the idea's main flaw stays same when building a Golemancer with Iron focussed on other goodies inherited from the iron-summoning item, like Crushing Blow, other damage modifiers and actually any other property.
Now there's thorns damage, too. Well, firstly thorns damage works only when the golem is bullied in melee, with physical damage. It's completely worthless against ranged and/or elemental attacks. Iron's thorns state doesn't add with a Thorns aura, so it's only way of enhancement lies in support via Iron Maiden or Amplify Damage. Still no means against ranged/elemental attackers. Sadly, later on even a significant part of your enemies' melee damage will be elemental, too, and quite a bunch of enemies is also physical immune, so blast it.
Plus the disadvantage of needing an (identified metallic) item on the ground to resummon a new Iron Golem if the former has deceased.
The highest punching damage is achievable by the Fire Golem. As you can derive on your own the values are still pathetique compared to even a bare-handed hireling. The cap on the native HFi aura is no nice touch, too, so even a high score in summoning skill points from equip doesn't give proper benefit.
Might aura does near to nothing, since the main punching damage is fire.
Using a Thorns aura with any but the Iron Golem, plus adding a Spirit of Barbs, plus amplify cursing still has the same disadvantage as listed with Iron Golem, except that you can resummon the other golems at your ease. Still ranged /elemental foes will cause trouble. Lots of.
As you may see, I'm not exactly in favor of a golemancer build.
So what's the use of golems, anyway?
They're supporting minions in all the term's truth. Each golem is capable of bringing down your first corpses in areas much below your actual level, so your LoM/Overlord build can gain some first corpses to build his army (which is still of some importance in Classic with no hireling around, with a hireling at your side this one will work much faster and is not forced to visiting Blood Moor when your actual playing ground is Act4).
The Clay Golem is the most versatile of all Golems. He gains tons of hitpoints even on sLvl1 with skill-adders from equip, he slows down your enemies, he's cheap to be resummoned. Actually he should be used like an eleventh curse. You don't use him like a Valkyrie, always toddling around your character. You summon him most frequently again and again where he's urgently needed, on top of your enemy's head, at an uncovered flank which sprouts surprisingly enemies you haven't expected, as a scout forward into unknown territory, whereever.
The Blood Golem has almost no use nowadays, since thorns damage doesn't make him and you almost invulnerable anymore. He may still be of use to gain some Hitpoints back, but since red and even purple flacons are so common and their effect so much faster you actually don't need him and his special ability anymore. He may be ok in low-mid cLvl, if Clay doesn't last long enough against nasty bosses and Prime Evils, but of course he's more risky there because of the two-ways-health-connection.
The Iron Golem is the coolest Golem ever. Disadvantages are listed above, but I think usage of Iron gives you extra style credit. That said and done he's too weak in boss battles and due to the need of an iron item on the ground you'll fall back to summoning another golem very quickly in emergency cases.
The Fire Golem would need some redesign to actually gain the glory he promises. Plus he costs an awful amount of mana to resummon, so compared to Clay you can't spawn him as frequently. But as a Valkyrie-alike compagnon he's just too weak. Even as a monster magnet he is surplussed by any Attract'd / Confuse'd monster or just a simple Bone Wall.
So the most effective way of playing a Golemancer is to avoid it. You'll end in nursing your hireling to bring down some corpses and then CE-chainblowing stuff away, and the golem will be a graphical show-off of wasted skillpoints. Just because anything a golem is specially capable of is already available and viable with sLvl1 + equip.
Again speaking of equip, especially LoD/1.1x-wise, you may achieve upt o fifty-something points in a summoning skill. About forty or so will come as allskill or allsummoningskill then. Now do some math and compare the punching damage output of any golem with the punching damage of a single Skeleton with RSk and SkM at about sLvl40. Having those Skellies maxed doesn't mean you have to run around with full army all the time. Indeed if you want to try some unique build you've never seen on bnet max out the Skels, but use only one of them all the time plus any golem you like. This is a build which seems very similar to a Golemancer with the advantage of a minion who can actually beat something. Plus the fallback safety of summoning more Skels if things become a hairy mess.
Means
Summoning:
RS 20 (but summon just one at a time)
SkM 20
GM 1
SR 1
CG 1
BG 1
IG 1
FG 20 (example, this is maybe ok against occasional PIs)
RSM 1 (opt, opt more, summon just one)
Rev 1 (opt)
P&B:
Teeth 1
CE 20 (opt, but in terms of efficiency nothing beats a maxed CE)
BA 1
BW 1 (opt more)
BP 1 (opt more)
Curses:
AD 1 (+equip, without equip adders set to five for easier targetting)
all other curses 1 (opt to taste)
Dec 1 (safety)
LR 1 (more than 11 including equip is basically pointless)
Might hireling.