Yes, on many of my characters, Jarulf the Cold Iron Wolf, has been useful for me. I like Iron Wolves due to their ability to carry a shield and a one handed weapon. But, alas, just as it seems the *real* world Jarulf is not interested in Hell difficulty, neither was mine. Way too many cold immunes, so he retired in Act II Hell and hangs out in Atma's chilling our Ale.
Our maggot lair toast; *For all you do, this bug's for you!*
I have a level 60 Bonemancer on the ladder realm, who parties with a Cold Sorceress. I chose to go minionless (but, I did put 1 pt in skeleton, and 1 pt in mastery to help me along in the beginning). I'm nearing the end of Nightmare difficulty, and only have Baal remaining. So far I have found, gambled, or bought gear that adds +5 to all necro skills. I have a pt in CE, and 4 pts in Bone Armor. I focused on Bone Spear (20), Bone Wall(5), Bone Spirit (4), and then maxed Bone Prison(20). I did still invest one point in most of the curses to get Lower resistance which I intend to push up as high as I can now. I have a collection of wands that allow me to use revives, push up Bone skills, or summon different golems. I have zero points in golems, but again that was just a choice I made. I have a wand that adds +2 to Fire Golem, allowing me to cast a weak one which I use tactically. First I build a bone wall funnel (fortress for me as well), which automatically attracts half the map. Then as the number of the hordes diminishes I summon the fire golem as far out as I can which attracts the remaining half of the map. The cold sorceress and our mercs usually can demolish everything in the funnel with bone spears, and ice storms. I tend to the defenses as needed. So far, to level 60 I died once due to my own stupidity in bone prisoning myself in with Duriel (but, I must admit to almost dying to NM Diablo, and Ancients -- in the end I focused on immobilizing them while the sorceress applied the damage). Beyond bone spirit, and CE I hot key between different curses all the time. Amplify Damage, Lower Resistance, Decrepify, Dim Vision, Confuse, Life Tap all are useful in different situations. It's just that it can be tough in the heat of combat trying to remember which hot key is which (many times I just end up defaulting to old reliable Amp Damage).
As far as I can tell, the maximum Strength one might need for a Necro specific item is 106, so I stopped there for now. Dex is irrelavant (and it probably is with most necros unless you actually want to try to fight ) as I try to always keep a layer or two or three of bone armor, bone wall or bone prison between me and the bad guys. I stopped Dex at 45 I think. All the rest of my points were split between Life and Mana. Faster Cast gear and Mana gear is useful if you are a bone spearer, and CE'er like me. I'm getting by yet on a two socket "Stealth" rune word breast plate armor for the mana regeneration. Some set items (Arcanna's Sign, Civerbs Icon) offer good mana boosts. Rares are much improved in 1.10 so gamble for gloves, boots and belts to get good dual resist items.
Hope that helps with that type of a build.
Our maggot lair toast; *For all you do, this bug's for you!*
I have a level 60 Bonemancer on the ladder realm, who parties with a Cold Sorceress. I chose to go minionless (but, I did put 1 pt in skeleton, and 1 pt in mastery to help me along in the beginning). I'm nearing the end of Nightmare difficulty, and only have Baal remaining. So far I have found, gambled, or bought gear that adds +5 to all necro skills. I have a pt in CE, and 4 pts in Bone Armor. I focused on Bone Spear (20), Bone Wall(5), Bone Spirit (4), and then maxed Bone Prison(20). I did still invest one point in most of the curses to get Lower resistance which I intend to push up as high as I can now. I have a collection of wands that allow me to use revives, push up Bone skills, or summon different golems. I have zero points in golems, but again that was just a choice I made. I have a wand that adds +2 to Fire Golem, allowing me to cast a weak one which I use tactically. First I build a bone wall funnel (fortress for me as well), which automatically attracts half the map. Then as the number of the hordes diminishes I summon the fire golem as far out as I can which attracts the remaining half of the map. The cold sorceress and our mercs usually can demolish everything in the funnel with bone spears, and ice storms. I tend to the defenses as needed. So far, to level 60 I died once due to my own stupidity in bone prisoning myself in with Duriel (but, I must admit to almost dying to NM Diablo, and Ancients -- in the end I focused on immobilizing them while the sorceress applied the damage). Beyond bone spirit, and CE I hot key between different curses all the time. Amplify Damage, Lower Resistance, Decrepify, Dim Vision, Confuse, Life Tap all are useful in different situations. It's just that it can be tough in the heat of combat trying to remember which hot key is which (many times I just end up defaulting to old reliable Amp Damage).
As far as I can tell, the maximum Strength one might need for a Necro specific item is 106, so I stopped there for now. Dex is irrelavant (and it probably is with most necros unless you actually want to try to fight ) as I try to always keep a layer or two or three of bone armor, bone wall or bone prison between me and the bad guys. I stopped Dex at 45 I think. All the rest of my points were split between Life and Mana. Faster Cast gear and Mana gear is useful if you are a bone spearer, and CE'er like me. I'm getting by yet on a two socket "Stealth" rune word breast plate armor for the mana regeneration. Some set items (Arcanna's Sign, Civerbs Icon) offer good mana boosts. Rares are much improved in 1.10 so gamble for gloves, boots and belts to get good dual resist items.
Hope that helps with that type of a build.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.
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