02-25-2004, 01:27 AM
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).
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).