You're so skinny, you're not even skin and bones anymore, you're just bones!
As the name might suggest, you put nothing into vitality at all. Being a singleplayer, noncheater, I have no idea how people get several 100's in mana from nowhere - or do they gulp potions like mad? Or both?!
Rules:
* Only magic bone spells:
Teeth
Bone armor
Bone wall
Bone prison
Bone spear
Bone spirit
* Just enough strength to wear the equipment needed, the rest goes into energy.
* No resist or defence equipment either.
* No twinking
* No mercenary
Your bones are your defence, and your "tank". First bone armor, then bone wall, then the most amazing one of them all: bone prison.
It seems like when you stack bone prison, they all act as one entity. So even if you have only a 100hp wall, if you spam it 10 times, then it'll turn into a 1000hp one.
Bone prison works even on Diablo, although, certainly, he invented the thing! You'll catch him off-guard, he'll be thinking "hmm, how many times should I make my slow melee attack on this white, dull, strange... thing?".
I'd recommend putting many points in Teeth in the beginning, and when you've reached higher levels, you can use the act I reward to redistribute to the higher spells.
Bone spear works fine on its own, but if you're lazy - or partially blind, bone spirit is the way to go - although you'll only use it when fighting a single enemy. It'd be better to max out prison and wall first before putting points into spirit - that way your bone armor gets stronger.
Your best defence, except spells, is Reduced damage. These synergize somehow with bone armor, making it last much longer.
I started this build, boring as I am, with corpse explosion, and an army. At act 3, I stopped using corpse explosion, and made use of the /players8 trick - to get more of a challenge. Then I was reading around - remember, I haven't played *any* computer game for 15 years - and found the hero editor. I only use it to exchange equipment and gems/runes between characters, and of course - the most fun - to reset my stats and skills every so often!
Something I don't understand, is all these people saying "what equipment should I twink to my new character?". And then all they do is infinite boss runs anyway. Those aren't challenging, and they're downright dull. They destroy the entire essence of the game.
Which gets me to my next point. I was using /players8 early on. But, damnit, 50 magic find on /players1 gives you better loot! And fighting huge hp monsters with my bone spear, gives *nothing*, absolutely nothing, compared to raiding bosses. It was so depressing, I had probably taken 10000 items back to town, to identify and sell and to assess their quality - and I never got any necro-friendly equipment. No large +mana, no good +skill wands or heads, no faster cast rate, nor improved run speed.
So I don't really understand, how an offline player, that has no internet connection, and just plays the game through, has *ever* managed to advance far in it. For any player, you get basically no - or negative - resistances, a little defence and block rate yes, no faster attack speed, no run speed, no cast rate - no nothing. Until you start raiding bosses, and the uniques flow like mad.
It's really sad, that a game which takes pride in its incredibly adventitious system on all planes, ends up rolling so terrible equipment - that I just don't picking up magic items anymore. And rares - why do I really, honestly, bother? Even with my necro at level 52, I have been unable to find something beyond +10 faster cast rate on rings as the best attribute. Which, by the way, I got from transmuting 3 amulets. It seems faster cast rate is so low in drops, that even act 1 blood moor beasts won't give them to you. But when I get those slaps in the face when wasting huge amounts of cash on gambling rings and amulets for many many Ks or even millions, I at least have my faster cast rate.
I'd also like to call my necro the bulimic vacuum cleaner. I grabbed basically *everything* I could find, and poured them out in the shops. Even bolts and potions. And yes, I did manage to find some good wands from the shopkeepers, eventually. Right now I'm waiting for the White runeword to be put into practice - but I'm not finding any good 2 socket wands.
And, yes, gamling is another big slap in the face. I tried gambling on shoes and gloves, thinking naively enough I'd get a unique. But a couple of minutes of a chaos sanctuary run gives a unique - or several - every time! While if I amass several 100 000's of gold, and invest them all in the aforementioned potential items, I'm just left with things like +5 life, and magic damage reduced by 1, if I'm lucky...
Starting from act I nightmare, things got very interesting. I reset my stats and skillpoints again, and made a completely dedicated anoretic necro. I eventually got tired of it, and went back to a summoner / bone build. But it was fun while it lasted! Sneaking around corners, having bone prison on your trigger finger. Assessing the potential damage of the enemies. Yes, it was actually scary, and exciting!
I tried building up my resistances - no, I didn't have any magic find equipment, I had dirt! But still, the results were the same, if I were to encounter an extra fast / cursed / lightning- or cold enchanted beast, I'd still be dead in a blink of an eye anyway, if they got their hands on me... (Or if I trapped myself together with them in a bone prison
)
For fun, approximate Bone Spear damage:
level 20 + 0 synergies: 200
level 20 + 20 synergies: 450
level 20 + 40 synergies: 750
level 20 + 60 synergies: 1000
level 20 + 80 synergies: 1300
level 20 + 80 synergies & +5 skills: 1800
level 20 + 80 synergies & +10 skills: 2500
level 20 + 80 synergies & +15 skills: 3300
level 20 + 80 synergies & +20 skills: 4100
level 20 + 80 synergies & +25 skills: 4900
level 20 + 80 synergies & +30 skills: 5800
level 20 + 80 synergies & +35 skills: 6666
level 20 + 80 synergies & +40 skills: 7400
Of note is I saw a discussion of a level 99 PvP barb, who had around 7500hp. If you could truly max out your +skills (absolutely highest possible is +41 skills, I think?) you could, if you rolled the max damage on the spear, butcher him in 1 shot!
A screenie from a rare ring I just got this morning, level 54, act II nightmare, /players8, ~30 magic find. Dear god, I think I'll do Normal CS runs again. It's just a damn joke. Although, after reading around, I've realized that the drops are the same as using /players1. Still, it's fun to level up faster and the increased challenge (monsters do 50% more damage!), but I think I'll edit the TXTs to give me 8 player drops.
https://ibb.co/Z8FCTsM
By the way, I *swear* bone armour has a running speed penatly?
[Update]
I'm still in act II nightmare. At level 56. Have been doing a lot of CS runs. Got myself tons of items. But it just sucked the fun out of the game. Didn't want to play for several days. I wondered why my other lower level characters weren't enjoyable to play - because i couldn't do zero challenge boss runs, that's why!
I've started modding the game a bit, but the task is just humungous. And it'd be better if I just balanced the overpowered skills as they were. Started a Dragon Talon assassin, I've been kicking everyone's ass so far, in act III.
The necro I reverted back to a bone prison / bone spear one.
My mercenary kept dying, and I kept getting tired of resurrecting him. Thought I had some good gear on him, but no no... And I've reverted back to using /players1 there. This is where the challenge starts! To think I have more than half the game in front of me, still... I also changed it around to using almost all my points in vitality, but I still die so easily. I hate zombies! They probably take a 100 hits with my bone spear at 1000 damage! And they regen hitpoints like mad, no way could it be 1.2hp per second! Might change to using bone spirit instead, it's got a 25% damage bonus over bone spear, and I'm killing monsters one by one anyway...
I tried changing my prayer merc to holy freeze one instead. But he still got donked in a few secs when he met a lightning enchanted beast.
Some music recommendations:
* The Quake I soundtrack. Gloomy like all hell. And a pure classic.
* Anything in the WitchHouse genre, fits perfectly for a Necromancer. VALHALLs new album Grimoire is the beacon here.
* For a long, long time I've been listening to Space Ambient, also known as Sotz. There's for example "cryo sleep - zero beat guaranteed" both as a shoutcast stream, and a youtube playlist. Calms the nerves. The biggest shining star here is Carbon Based Lifeforms, their Derelics album is an incredible piece of electronica. There's also Burial, awhile ago he released his greatest hits album. And not to forget Steve Roach's 1980's masterpiece Structures from Silence.
* Anything by Velvet Acid Christ. Real demented stuff... But real well-made too.
* Red Alert soundtrack - is available on Spotify, even. Klepacki is king! An incredible piece of engineering. If you still have the game on CD, it's possible to extract more songs from the game, compared to which are available on the soundtrack.
* Monstercat releases. A huge archive is for free on youtube, and on Bandcamp you can get the songs in FLAC. Like VAC they blend every electronic genre under the sun - it's called dreamstep / glitchhop, but it's a lighter type, although they've gotten rougher lately.
* Yugen Blakrok. Metaphysical south-african emceeing. Nothing like her out there.
* Darkhalo. He's got a lot of music under his belt. A legend. On Scene.org is his mod archive (search for "dh-"), which I consider his best work. Just real chilly ambient and/or fast DnB, or its mix - Liquid DnB. Not to be confused with A Dark Halo, the metalhead copycats.
Otherwise I'd recommend just about any music, actually. Playing computer-games makes me more alert, but not like before when I got annoyed by everything. I hear every instrument and voice much clearer. Diablo II has made me fall in love with my record collection again!
As the name might suggest, you put nothing into vitality at all. Being a singleplayer, noncheater, I have no idea how people get several 100's in mana from nowhere - or do they gulp potions like mad? Or both?!
Rules:
* Only magic bone spells:
Teeth
Bone armor
Bone wall
Bone prison
Bone spear
Bone spirit
* Just enough strength to wear the equipment needed, the rest goes into energy.
* No resist or defence equipment either.
* No twinking
* No mercenary
Your bones are your defence, and your "tank". First bone armor, then bone wall, then the most amazing one of them all: bone prison.
It seems like when you stack bone prison, they all act as one entity. So even if you have only a 100hp wall, if you spam it 10 times, then it'll turn into a 1000hp one.
Bone prison works even on Diablo, although, certainly, he invented the thing! You'll catch him off-guard, he'll be thinking "hmm, how many times should I make my slow melee attack on this white, dull, strange... thing?".
I'd recommend putting many points in Teeth in the beginning, and when you've reached higher levels, you can use the act I reward to redistribute to the higher spells.
Bone spear works fine on its own, but if you're lazy - or partially blind, bone spirit is the way to go - although you'll only use it when fighting a single enemy. It'd be better to max out prison and wall first before putting points into spirit - that way your bone armor gets stronger.
Your best defence, except spells, is Reduced damage. These synergize somehow with bone armor, making it last much longer.
I started this build, boring as I am, with corpse explosion, and an army. At act 3, I stopped using corpse explosion, and made use of the /players8 trick - to get more of a challenge. Then I was reading around - remember, I haven't played *any* computer game for 15 years - and found the hero editor. I only use it to exchange equipment and gems/runes between characters, and of course - the most fun - to reset my stats and skills every so often!
Something I don't understand, is all these people saying "what equipment should I twink to my new character?". And then all they do is infinite boss runs anyway. Those aren't challenging, and they're downright dull. They destroy the entire essence of the game.
Which gets me to my next point. I was using /players8 early on. But, damnit, 50 magic find on /players1 gives you better loot! And fighting huge hp monsters with my bone spear, gives *nothing*, absolutely nothing, compared to raiding bosses. It was so depressing, I had probably taken 10000 items back to town, to identify and sell and to assess their quality - and I never got any necro-friendly equipment. No large +mana, no good +skill wands or heads, no faster cast rate, nor improved run speed.
So I don't really understand, how an offline player, that has no internet connection, and just plays the game through, has *ever* managed to advance far in it. For any player, you get basically no - or negative - resistances, a little defence and block rate yes, no faster attack speed, no run speed, no cast rate - no nothing. Until you start raiding bosses, and the uniques flow like mad.
It's really sad, that a game which takes pride in its incredibly adventitious system on all planes, ends up rolling so terrible equipment - that I just don't picking up magic items anymore. And rares - why do I really, honestly, bother? Even with my necro at level 52, I have been unable to find something beyond +10 faster cast rate on rings as the best attribute. Which, by the way, I got from transmuting 3 amulets. It seems faster cast rate is so low in drops, that even act 1 blood moor beasts won't give them to you. But when I get those slaps in the face when wasting huge amounts of cash on gambling rings and amulets for many many Ks or even millions, I at least have my faster cast rate.
I'd also like to call my necro the bulimic vacuum cleaner. I grabbed basically *everything* I could find, and poured them out in the shops. Even bolts and potions. And yes, I did manage to find some good wands from the shopkeepers, eventually. Right now I'm waiting for the White runeword to be put into practice - but I'm not finding any good 2 socket wands.
And, yes, gamling is another big slap in the face. I tried gambling on shoes and gloves, thinking naively enough I'd get a unique. But a couple of minutes of a chaos sanctuary run gives a unique - or several - every time! While if I amass several 100 000's of gold, and invest them all in the aforementioned potential items, I'm just left with things like +5 life, and magic damage reduced by 1, if I'm lucky...
Starting from act I nightmare, things got very interesting. I reset my stats and skillpoints again, and made a completely dedicated anoretic necro. I eventually got tired of it, and went back to a summoner / bone build. But it was fun while it lasted! Sneaking around corners, having bone prison on your trigger finger. Assessing the potential damage of the enemies. Yes, it was actually scary, and exciting!
I tried building up my resistances - no, I didn't have any magic find equipment, I had dirt! But still, the results were the same, if I were to encounter an extra fast / cursed / lightning- or cold enchanted beast, I'd still be dead in a blink of an eye anyway, if they got their hands on me... (Or if I trapped myself together with them in a bone prison
)For fun, approximate Bone Spear damage:
level 20 + 0 synergies: 200
level 20 + 20 synergies: 450
level 20 + 40 synergies: 750
level 20 + 60 synergies: 1000
level 20 + 80 synergies: 1300
level 20 + 80 synergies & +5 skills: 1800
level 20 + 80 synergies & +10 skills: 2500
level 20 + 80 synergies & +15 skills: 3300
level 20 + 80 synergies & +20 skills: 4100
level 20 + 80 synergies & +25 skills: 4900
level 20 + 80 synergies & +30 skills: 5800
level 20 + 80 synergies & +35 skills: 6666
level 20 + 80 synergies & +40 skills: 7400
Of note is I saw a discussion of a level 99 PvP barb, who had around 7500hp. If you could truly max out your +skills (absolutely highest possible is +41 skills, I think?) you could, if you rolled the max damage on the spear, butcher him in 1 shot!
A screenie from a rare ring I just got this morning, level 54, act II nightmare, /players8, ~30 magic find. Dear god, I think I'll do Normal CS runs again. It's just a damn joke. Although, after reading around, I've realized that the drops are the same as using /players1. Still, it's fun to level up faster and the increased challenge (monsters do 50% more damage!), but I think I'll edit the TXTs to give me 8 player drops.
https://ibb.co/Z8FCTsM
By the way, I *swear* bone armour has a running speed penatly?
[Update]
I'm still in act II nightmare. At level 56. Have been doing a lot of CS runs. Got myself tons of items. But it just sucked the fun out of the game. Didn't want to play for several days. I wondered why my other lower level characters weren't enjoyable to play - because i couldn't do zero challenge boss runs, that's why!
I've started modding the game a bit, but the task is just humungous. And it'd be better if I just balanced the overpowered skills as they were. Started a Dragon Talon assassin, I've been kicking everyone's ass so far, in act III.
The necro I reverted back to a bone prison / bone spear one.
My mercenary kept dying, and I kept getting tired of resurrecting him. Thought I had some good gear on him, but no no... And I've reverted back to using /players1 there. This is where the challenge starts! To think I have more than half the game in front of me, still... I also changed it around to using almost all my points in vitality, but I still die so easily. I hate zombies! They probably take a 100 hits with my bone spear at 1000 damage! And they regen hitpoints like mad, no way could it be 1.2hp per second! Might change to using bone spirit instead, it's got a 25% damage bonus over bone spear, and I'm killing monsters one by one anyway...I tried changing my prayer merc to holy freeze one instead. But he still got donked in a few secs when he met a lightning enchanted beast.
Some music recommendations:
* The Quake I soundtrack. Gloomy like all hell. And a pure classic.
* Anything in the WitchHouse genre, fits perfectly for a Necromancer. VALHALLs new album Grimoire is the beacon here.
* For a long, long time I've been listening to Space Ambient, also known as Sotz. There's for example "cryo sleep - zero beat guaranteed" both as a shoutcast stream, and a youtube playlist. Calms the nerves. The biggest shining star here is Carbon Based Lifeforms, their Derelics album is an incredible piece of electronica. There's also Burial, awhile ago he released his greatest hits album. And not to forget Steve Roach's 1980's masterpiece Structures from Silence.
* Anything by Velvet Acid Christ. Real demented stuff... But real well-made too.
* Red Alert soundtrack - is available on Spotify, even. Klepacki is king! An incredible piece of engineering. If you still have the game on CD, it's possible to extract more songs from the game, compared to which are available on the soundtrack.
* Monstercat releases. A huge archive is for free on youtube, and on Bandcamp you can get the songs in FLAC. Like VAC they blend every electronic genre under the sun - it's called dreamstep / glitchhop, but it's a lighter type, although they've gotten rougher lately.
* Yugen Blakrok. Metaphysical south-african emceeing. Nothing like her out there.
* Darkhalo. He's got a lot of music under his belt. A legend. On Scene.org is his mod archive (search for "dh-"), which I consider his best work. Just real chilly ambient and/or fast DnB, or its mix - Liquid DnB. Not to be confused with A Dark Halo, the metalhead copycats.
Otherwise I'd recommend just about any music, actually. Playing computer-games makes me more alert, but not like before when I got annoyed by everything. I hear every instrument and voice much clearer. Diablo II has made me fall in love with my record collection again!