Diablo 2 Questions

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A summoner can solo Diablo in Hell. I've done it numerous times and I play exclusively hardcore. Check out The Amazon Basin for builds or the ubiquitous 'fishymancer' guide. Heaps of people have soloed hell with a summoner. Either it is doable or I'm a liar - and they're all liars too. You pick, *shrug.

[ June 15, 2006, 02:38: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

@Laches,

I'm impressed. Getting your life up to over 1000 with a summoner - that alone is a feat. Do you carry a lot of +life charms? As I have said I do not typically player necromancers, but if my memory serves, they only get +1.5 life per level, and +1.5 life per point spent in vitality, so that's a lot of levels and a lot of points sunk into vitality. I'm currently level 80 and my paladin has just under 1000 life. To me, 1000 seems to be the magic number on hell difficulty. No matter what you do, you're going to get hit sometimes, and walking around with 500 or so life just isn't going to cut it, as many monsters on hell difficulty can inflict that with one hit.

I do have one question for you though. How do you deal with Big D's Pink Lightning Bolt of Death? That does half physical and half lightning damage, and I imagine it would pretty much clear the battle field of your summons every time he uses it. With a small mana pool (and I imagine your mana leech is negligible since you're relying on summons) how do you maintain your minions' numbers against bosses?

I haven't played much more lately. I've only done the first quest on Act III Hell, and I'm still level 80. I've hit the point in the game where leveling starts to get very painful, especially with the new rules implemented in 1.10 that remain in 1.11. In case you're unaware, everything proceeds pretty smoothly until you hit level 80. Starting with level 80 there is a 5% cumulative XP penalty per level applied to all of your kills. So not only is there a huge amount of XP required to go to the next level (typically about 1/3 of your total XPs is required to move up to the next level), but the monsters aren't worth as much in XPs, which is kind of dumb. Why is the exact same monster worth 5% fewer XPs every time I level up?

Level 80 itself isn't too bad, because monsters still give 95% of the XPs that they would normally give. However, with the penalty being cumulative, I don't see how people get characters in the high 90s. To take it to the extreme, a character attempting to go from level 98 to level 99 is only earning 5% of the listed XPs from monsters. When you then factor in that his XP requirements to level have been increasing exponentially since level 80, I have to wonder how long that takes. I've never had a character even get to level 90 (although I still have two saved characters in the 80s) but I imagine your XPs must be measured in the tens of trillions, if not the hundreds of trilliions. My 80th level paladin already has a few hundred billion XPs, but that represents less than 1% of what is required for me to reach level 99.

 

With a Necromancer you get 2 life per point in vitality if I recall correctly. I try to have around 1000 life or more in hell. That allows you to escape a screw up. Also, a summoner has a lot of flexibility beyond maxing RS/SM. He could, if he chose, have a pretty hefty bone armor which is life that doesn't show up on your red ball. Relying on just plus skills may give you a bone armor that adds 100 or more virtual life. Basically, if you only put some points into strength and leave dex and energy at base levels you can get around 800 life while naked at about level 80. I use charms and equipment to get the rest.

I also am a sucker for max resists.

I think a summoner needs to get some pluses to summons. To do this mostly takes some time looking for the right wand, charms, shields, etc. however you get there. I like to have around 12 skelletons. The difference between 9 skelletons ant 12 is pretty significant.

To deal with Diablo I use decrepify and my clay golem and sometimes teleport in nightmare or hell. Decrepify slows him down a lot. When he hits the clay golem he slows down to molasses. For some reason Diablo almost always(and other bosses) focuses on your clay golem rather than your skelletons or merc. Use that to your advantage by basically dirt bombing him like was popular in older versions (this isn't really dirt bombing him like in the past but it is similar.) You approach Diablo from one side with your summons (teleport if you want) after you've hit him with decrepify. Then quickly cast clay golem on the other side of Diablo. Diablo will turn around and attack/blast your clay golem with his lightning attack while your skelletons/merc on on his other side so they aren't affected. Your clay golem, of course, is immediately destroyed so quickly summon another one in his place to keep Diablo's attention. Rinse and repeat until he is dead. You do need summon resist of course. And, his room has dead bodies so if you start losing too many folks teleport away, replenish your army, and finish the job.

Hell diablo has around 37,000 life. If you have a might merc (most common merc for summoner)and around 12 skelletons (around +10 summons) you can do around 1000 damage per hit when combined with your curses (less with decrepify than amp.) If you get all 12 skelletons to gang up on Diablo (teleport is particularly effective here) then he'll go down while he is distracted with the clay golem even with the end boss adjustments.

 

Me too. And it's killing me (well, not literally, as my character doesn't die much) that my current level 80 paladin doesn't have his resists maxed. I'm STILL looking for a 4-socketed paladin shield that would max out all my resistances. I've been waiting on one of them since late nightmare, when I knew my resistances were going to take a beating in hell difficulty.

I feel that having high resistances is a prerequisite for playing on hell difficulty. Not only are elemental attacks far more difficult to avoid, but cold, fire, and electricity enchanted creatures abound on hell difficulty, and with low resistances, you asking for insta-death.

What I've done is settle for maxing out fire and electricity for now, as those are the worst of the elementals. However, it ticks me off that my cold resistance is in the 40s, when I have 20 points invested in Resist Cold to maximize my Holy Freeze attack. One of the side benefits of Resist Cold is that every point you spend raises you max cold resist by 1/2%. So theoretically, my cold resist could be 85%. My poison resist is horrific - it's in the 20%, but poison doesn't kill you, so you can always TP out of a battle if you're taking heavy poison damage.

I'm also not thrilled with my current armor. The two pieces of equipment that would greatly improve the durability and overall effectiveness of my character would be a four-socketed paladin shield of any variety (I don't care what armor protection it provides), and I'd really like Guardian Angel as my dream armor, although I'd gladly settle for Gladiator's Bane for its huge damage reduction. Of course, it's much easier to get a Guardian Angel (Armor TC 54) vs. Gladiator's Bane (Armor TC 84).

 

What about the the Poison/Bone skills tree? Bone Spirit comes to mind, and Bone Spear/Poison Nova, etc.
It will take much longer for the Necromancer to kill the end bosses, but he can indeed manage. After all, you have 90% of the ACT you are in to prepare for it.

 

I don't know about that Scythesong. I've never had much success with necros, and I always thought that was because I liked to concentrate on the bone/poison tree, with a couple of curses sprinkled in. The micromanagement of a group of summons never worked well for me, but I was under the impression that's what most successful necros do. Like I said though, my skill in this game are with paladins, barbarians, and amazons, and with druids and sorceresses to a lesser degree. I'm practically amaturish when it comes to necros and assassins, so I stand to be corrected.

 

Oh, those. Those were pretty good before v1.10 came in and eliminated the possibility for "cookie-cutter" tactics. Now, to make these direct-damage spells effective, you have to spend a lot of points on other skills in the same tree. Which, of course, a dedicated summoner can't do.

@ Laches

Sounds like a very risky tactic that relies more on poor AI than skill. Even though the golem will keep him busy, it's still only one blast to clear out the summons and that can happen real easy. And do not forget the Diablo also has that 'ring of fire' -spell he likes to use very often.

Plus, he is only one of the bosses. What about the rest? What do you do when Memphisto makes a duplicate-image of himself? Nothing like having 2x insta-gib lightning blasts coming at your summons. And what about the Hell Smith; he has stone-skin, ridicilous amounts of HP, and causes a lot of physical damage every hit. How do you deal with him without losing your summons?

Or if you lose them, how do you get new ones in a field where there are no corpses? Leave out to hunt new ones? If so, how many hours did you exactly spend repeating this? I'm not saying it is impossible, but I do claim that to solo through the whole game as a summoner does require more patience than it is worth.

 

The tactic isn't risky and I don't see how it is cheesy - it isn't anything like using the morrowalk bug and people have been dirtbombing or firebombing enemies since the game first came out.

Soloing with a necromancer is certainly going to be easier if you're no-twink than most any other class (any class in my opinion - and before you tell me to go and play other classes - I have been playing the game regularly for 5 plus years and I've played just about every variation there is.) But, don't take my word for it. Go and ask at the Lurker Lounge, Amazon Basin, or even diabloii.net if you want. Tons and tons of people solo with summoners. Because you have found it difficult doesn't mean others have.

 

Laches is exactly right, hell there are even people who soloed a meleemancer who only uses daggers and throwing daggers.

 

Shure, it is possible to walk through the game upside down, but that's not exactly what tons and tons of people would do. But liked said: congrats of the feat. Perhaps, next time, you can answer to the questions I have, since those sites did not have them or were outdated. How does a lone summon-necromancer survive from the bosses (Diablo, Memphisto, Ancients, Baal, etc) and how does he keep his summons alive against uniques/Glooms/Doom Knights at the hardest difficulty? Without spending more than 30 minutes per boss, mind, or resorting to importing über-stuff from other players. I really can't think of any way this could be possible (even with the best equipment available).

 

@Wordplay - while I cannot answer how a summoner necromancer would do this, I can answer how other melee based characters do this. For any melee character, all you need to survive on hell difficulty is:

1. Max block
2. Lots of skill points spent in an attribute that greatly reduces hit frequency. (For barbs, that's things like shout and iron skin. For pallies, that's holy shield with the defiance synergy. For zons, that's dodge/evade.
3. Spend half of your ability points on vitality to give yourself a life pool of around 1000.
4. Take a definance merc along to maximize your defense.

Like I said, with my solo barb, he didn't deal out loads of damage - he just didn't get hit much. Taking a while to kill an opponent is no big deal when they can't hit you.

Also, I question some of the strategy guides that you are relying on. For example, in the one you posted, the guide said that barbs should completely ignore the warcry tree. That's just a crazy suggestion, because no matter what type of barb you're making, you're going to sink 20 points into battle orders, which is a warcry. Battle orders at level 1 increases your vitality, mana and stamina by 35%, and you get a bonus of 10 seconds duration and an addition +3% for every point spent beyond the first. That means at level 20, you are getting +92% life, mana, and stamina. And that's assuming you don't have any items that add to your skills. At the very least you should have two howling weapons on your weapons switch, upping you to +110%, or in the case of my barb whose BO went off at level 33, +131%. I also like the skill shout so much I put 20 points in that as well. So when you add in one-point wonders like taunt, find item, find potion, and all the associated prerequisites, about half of my level 85 barb's skill points went into warcries.

 

@Wordplay:

Those sites all have the information/suggestions for the current patch available. The guides talk about tactics for the questions you have. Again, just google 'fishymancer' (although I don't entirely agree with that guide) or better yet look at the Amazon Basin guides that are pinned in the Necromancer forums room (Duke Trout's in particular.)

When you google 'fishymancer' you get the 15 plus page thread with a bunch of answers to questions like yours.

Basically, Ancients have always been relatively easy with me as a summoner. Ditto for Baal and Mephisto. Duriel is only hard in normal if you haven't concentrated your skill points in my opinion. Diablo is the most difficult (in normal) but if you have sunk a point into summon resist and use your clay golem and decrep it isn't too bad.

My guess is that if you're having a great deal of trouble you've not spent your skill points optimally, you aren't making full use of the skills you have available to you (i.e. your curses , golems, etc.) or you are advancing beyond the monster curve too quickly (which is more of a problem if you use a might merc and not a thorns or blessed aim merc.)

Personally, I think Duke Trout has the best summoner Necromancer guid out there though most of the public gamers on B-net are more likely to have heard of the fishymancer guide. YMMV.

And I'm not a very good Barbarian player (I do remember quite fondly though my staff barb back when those were doable) but I agree with Aldeth - I think it would be nuts to not invest in the warcry branch for a barbarian. Battlecry, Warcry, Battle Orders are easy to use and great skills. I play with folks who use Grim Ward to great effect but it has always been tricky for me.

 

My guess is that they are throw barbs. A well-placed Grim Ward can effectively trap a group of monsters in a corner, unable to move. Then you use missile weapons to kill them from a distance. Kinda cheesy, but I must admit, it's immensely effective. The other great use for it is to throw up a grim ward when you're fighting a pack with a unique or champions in it. Champions and uniques ignore the ward, while everything else runs away. Great for singling out the toughest creature so you can concentrate your attacks on him exclusively.

Another under-utilized war cry is Taunt. Definitely a great one-point wonder skill. I love this skill for archery units. Taunt forces the creature to walk towards you and attack. Since archer units run away when you approach them, it essesntially forces them to stop attacking until they walk up to you.

And Find Item is IMO, the second most over-powered skill in the game (Battle Orders is the most over-powered - you can't argue with doubling the life, mana and stamina of you and eveyone else in your party). My barb's find item goes off at level 10 (I only actually spent two points in FI, the rest is from the two howling weapons on switch, and my helmet which, among other things, gives +2 to all warcries). It really increases your chances of getting good items, as it forces the corpse to make a second drop. It's especially satisfying when you kill a unique, he drops some crap item, and you FI on him and he drops a unique. (This is why I view the barbs as the best MF characters in the game - with find item, you simply get much more stuff from the bosses.)

 

I don't have patience to read through 15+ pages for the answers I'm looking for. Since you know them out of hand, why can't you just (briefly) explain it here? I did google for it, but after the initial 30+ minutes all I got was this:

"Not a problem." Unless, of course, you are saying that clay golem + Amp.damage is the magical combination to deal with all bosses?

 

The reason I've stopped going into detail is because I get the impression you don't genuinely want to know because you're interested in building a character but instead I get the impression you don't like that a couple of folks disagreed with you so you're arguing.

Look on the Amazon Basin's post 1.10 guides that are posted in their forum for strategy sections. Then, search their forums, the Lurker Lounge forums, and diabloii.net forums.

If you want to build a summoner you will. If you want to argue, maybe you won't. It's up to you.

ASIDE - if folks like the game you may check out the Seven Lances mod (sevenlances.com.) Some friends created it and I used to play it some. I haven't played it in some time but it was when it created some really interesting new challenges for the game.

 

You know this argument is easily solved by playing together you know. Start a new game and show how it's done with the character you like.

 

Wrong. I really wanted to know, so you dodging the question is kinda annoying. But whatever; I'll dig up the info once I have enough interest to play D2 again.

** Below **

What, just an hour?

[ June 24, 2006, 14:14: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

Geez Wordplay, he gave you the link to where you could read up on the strategy guides. I understand that 15 pages is pretty long, but heck, you should be able to read through that many pages in under an hour. Given that it will take dozens of hours to get a character all the way through to hell Baal, I think it's a pretty small investment of additional time.

 

So.... anyone keen for a game then?

 

I honestly haven't played D2 in a few weeks now, and I doubt I'll have time in the immediate future.