12-10-2005, 08:10 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-10-2005, 08:11 AM by the Langolier.)
I'll give you some of what I have based on my time playing Single Player necros. I was just an average character; never went for uber builds to fly through hell, and never really cared about maximizing my killing rate, meaning: I had no act 2 merc with aura, no +1,000,000 to all skills (or is +1.5 million about average now?). Oh, FYI the last time I played was 1.09, and by that time it was sparce.
My strategy was just to get a nice group of my summons and a nice group of enemies together and grab some popcorn. My role was simply to avoid getting targeted by monsters. At this time, I was using revives because skeletons sucked and reviving is fun. I have heard its very much different in 1.10 so I'll leave that up to you. Revives are very entertaining to me though. It is very neat to be able to raise different enemy types. There's also the fact that an enemy v. it's own revived = even strength, except your minion has more life, does more damage and benefits from your curses = revive is winner. But there are a few things important to this play style:
1) Curses: really no reason not to get some. I would pick one main curse for battle, then maybe a few 1-5 point curses like life tap or attract. I rarely used dim vision, because well, I liked to watch a battle! Remember your soldiers are crowd control.
2) Golems: suck. As does blizzard. I think it is just GREAT that a druid bear never costs above 25 mana, but a maxed fire golem is like 400 per cast. Furthermore, a bear does MUCH more damage with the same number of skill points invested. I used a skill intensive and expensive fire golem - the poor thing could hardly kill even just one enemy by itself in Hell. If at all. But all is not lost! They will live a long time and the golem mastery adds a healthy 20% life each level. I recommend putting 75% of your golem points into the mastery, and less than ten into your golem of choice. I like iron golem. It really doesn't matter because all a golem really is is just one more icon at the top of your screen. (BTW, I would never cast an iron golem from a shield socketed with FOUR perfect diamonds. When the golem dies, you don't get the item back. I don't care how much that POS golem can resist, he still can't kill #$%&!)
3) Other summons: you are the general, you pick your soldiers. 1.09 and back, skeletons were basically worthless, as were mages. Revives were fun and worked. 40 soldiers is really not necessary. I went more for quality than quantity. I pretty much matched the average mob I might come across, so normally I had 10-15.
4) Bone skills - Get CE. I really didnt find any other skills here usefull. When you are fighting a mob, sometimes you will . A couple CE's can really turn the tide to your favor. It just fits perfectly. Your minions keep enemies in one spot, there's bodies all over around the front lines, and it packs a punch. I put 5 points into this skill. Can you honestly not afford 5 points?
Sure you get hit regularly, but enemies should never be swarming or chasing you. If they are you need to manage the summons better. For that reason, I didn't find vitality or control skills like terror all that usefull. The soldiers do all the work, but you will be busy avoiding the enemy or two that may slip through, refreshing your curse and minions, exploding large corpses, and picking up treasures.
Have fun, and don't take it too seriously, after all, generals aren't power gamer players.
My strategy was just to get a nice group of my summons and a nice group of enemies together and grab some popcorn. My role was simply to avoid getting targeted by monsters. At this time, I was using revives because skeletons sucked and reviving is fun. I have heard its very much different in 1.10 so I'll leave that up to you. Revives are very entertaining to me though. It is very neat to be able to raise different enemy types. There's also the fact that an enemy v. it's own revived = even strength, except your minion has more life, does more damage and benefits from your curses = revive is winner. But there are a few things important to this play style:
1) Curses: really no reason not to get some. I would pick one main curse for battle, then maybe a few 1-5 point curses like life tap or attract. I rarely used dim vision, because well, I liked to watch a battle! Remember your soldiers are crowd control.
2) Golems: suck. As does blizzard. I think it is just GREAT that a druid bear never costs above 25 mana, but a maxed fire golem is like 400 per cast. Furthermore, a bear does MUCH more damage with the same number of skill points invested. I used a skill intensive and expensive fire golem - the poor thing could hardly kill even just one enemy by itself in Hell. If at all. But all is not lost! They will live a long time and the golem mastery adds a healthy 20% life each level. I recommend putting 75% of your golem points into the mastery, and less than ten into your golem of choice. I like iron golem. It really doesn't matter because all a golem really is is just one more icon at the top of your screen. (BTW, I would never cast an iron golem from a shield socketed with FOUR perfect diamonds. When the golem dies, you don't get the item back. I don't care how much that POS golem can resist, he still can't kill #$%&!)
3) Other summons: you are the general, you pick your soldiers. 1.09 and back, skeletons were basically worthless, as were mages. Revives were fun and worked. 40 soldiers is really not necessary. I went more for quality than quantity. I pretty much matched the average mob I might come across, so normally I had 10-15.
4) Bone skills - Get CE. I really didnt find any other skills here usefull. When you are fighting a mob, sometimes you will . A couple CE's can really turn the tide to your favor. It just fits perfectly. Your minions keep enemies in one spot, there's bodies all over around the front lines, and it packs a punch. I put 5 points into this skill. Can you honestly not afford 5 points?
Sure you get hit regularly, but enemies should never be swarming or chasing you. If they are you need to manage the summons better. For that reason, I didn't find vitality or control skills like terror all that usefull. The soldiers do all the work, but you will be busy avoiding the enemy or two that may slip through, refreshing your curse and minions, exploding large corpses, and picking up treasures.
Have fun, and don't take it too seriously, after all, generals aren't power gamer players.