Diablo II Single Player Thread - 2

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OK, I also finished my sin and started my sorceress. It sounds like you had a much easier go of it that I did. The Ancients were extremely challenging - they beat me twice. (The first time I should have just respawned them - the second time, I cannot believe I killed the first two and died to the third one - stupic Talic.) Lister's pack was also tough. They managed to kill my merc, and I had to do a divide and conquer strategy. My shadow and I were able to engage no more than two at any given time if we wanted to ensure reasonable safety.

Baal dropped crap, but one of the regular monsters on the way dropped a JAH!!! I'm now really close to a lot of rune words. If I get a Ber, I can make either Enigma or Chains of Honor - a very difficult decision. An additional Jah or Cham will also give me a Zod if I so desire (to Jahs make a Cham and two Chams make a Zod). However, the only runeword for that is Breath of the Dying, and while fantastic, the only thing I can possibly consider making a BotD in would be an elite ethereal weapon, and given that I'd need one with 6 sockets - which I don't have - I'm not exactly getting the feeling I'm on the verge of making one.

To give the final verdict on the assassin - very good but not great. By the time you get to hell difficulty, you are extremely reliant on traps. Not that that is bad necessarily, although it does get a little dicey when you run into lightning immunes. DS can still take them out nicely once the bodies start dropping, but it takes significantly longer to get those bodies dropping. More fun than the necro and conc barb, less fun than the WWS amazon, and less fun than the shapeshifter druid I made prior to switching to single player.

As for a suggestion for CJ - yes, while I love Concentrate Barbarians and I'd think they'd make a fine choice for a first character to start building some wealth, I cannot deny that a skellimancer will be a far more versatile and rounded character.

Here's the one pro as I see it to playing a concentrate barbarian - it's by far the easiest class to finish the game in Normal difficulty. Since you're starting with nothing, there is a decent chance that a skellimancer will run into some trouble in normal difficulty. Namely, Duriel can be a problem, and Diablo will kick your ass. If you don't mind slogging it through those battles, then sure, it can be done, and it gets dramatically easier after that. If you're interested in a barbarian - whether concentrate or otherwise, I'll give you some tips.

Another class that is also very easy to get you started are the paladins. An elemental zealot is also not particularly gear dependent, is very sturdy, and doesn't really start to get challenging until you hit hell. These are also pretty straight forward and easy characters to play. The only decision is whether you want a frost zealot - a bit more defensive because your pulse aura slows all enemies - or a shock zealot (sometimes called a tesladin) - which packs more of an offensive punch but doesn't slow stuff down.

I would steer clear from sorceresses, amazons, assassins, and druids for a first character. All have viable builds, even for the newbie, but in terms of topping out with a hell viable character, all will require some equipment, which you are unlikely to find immediately.

 

Well, the Necro has been started and is going well so far. Downed Blood Raven with relative ease. Not sure if I should pour points into Skelly Summoning, Mastery, or try to keep them roughly level.

 

In the early going, you're much better off pumping Raise Skeleton than Skeleton Mastery. In the guides I've read the best means of optimizing skeleton effectiveness is maintaining between a 3:1 and 4:1 ratio between Raise Skeleton and the Mastery. So you'll max Raise Skeleton far earlier than the Mastery, although those two should be the first skills that you max.

Remember to pick up one point in each curse and each golem as you level up, and also get one point in Corpse Explosion fairly early. Other than that though, all of your points should go into making more powerful skeletons, and you won't finish maxing those two skills until you're in nightmare difficulty.

 

For future reference, i've never toally understood Runes. Which ones are worth keeping?

 

Here is some information if you're interested (very informative, perhaps spoilerish):

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords.shtml

 

All of them. For the first nine, three of a rune inserted into the Horardic Cube gives you a rune of the next higher value. For example, if you stick 3 Ral runes into the Cube, and hit the transmute button, you get an Ort rune.

Once you reach Thul, the recipe requires a gem in addition to the three runes for the upgrade. Example: 3 Thuls + 1 chipped topaz = 1 Amn.

The order always goes topaz, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, ruby, diamond. First it cycles through the chipped gems for runes Thul-Hel. Then for the next six (Io-Lem) is requires flawed gems instead of chipped, but maintains the same order. Example 3 Fals + flawed emerald = 1 Lem.

The third time through it uses regular gems, and requires only two runes for Pul-Vex. Example: 2 Ums + regular Amethyst = 1 Mal.

Finally, the fourth time through it still requires 2 runes along with a flawless gem. Example: 2 Jahs + Flawless Ruby = 1 Cham.

 

...Yes.

My brain hurts.

 

There is a ton of information out there. I'd recommend the actual blizzard site - the Arreat Summit - for all your questions. Feel free to ask them here as well, but if you feel confused by our answers you can get complete (and probably better information) from the Blizzard site.

Over the past few days I've got my sorceress to Act III in normal - about level 28 or so - so she's still pretty wimpy. I currently have her wielding a mace with high elemental damage. (I guess technically it's not a mace, it's the exceptional version of the mace.) With well over 100 points of elemental damage she's definitely holding her own. I'm using my one hard point in Glacial Spike to free creatures to make whacking easier.

The good news is I'm getting really close to the launch point with the build, which occurs exactly at level 30. At that point, I'll get my first point in Frozen Orb and Cold Mastery, and since I have a +2 to cold skill amulet usable at that level, along with a SoJ, and Tarnhelm, they will immediately be at level 5. So that's decent damage with -40% cold resistance on normal, when pretty much nothing has any immunity to cold except the act Bosses. It should be a screen-clearer, even on p8.

 

LAUNCH!

Finished Act III last night, and I have reached the launch point upon reaching level 30, as expected. My gear includes +4 to Cold Skills, so as soon as I reached level 30, I had a Level 5 Frozen Orb and Level 5 Cold Mastery. (I actually have +5 to Fire Skills with my "Leaf" runeword on switch, but I haven't really developed any fire skills yet.) The plan worked pretty well. My merc, in combination with my sorceress wielding a high elemental damage weapon, with just one point in all requisite skills, was able to reach level 30 without much difficulty.

Glacial Spike froze the enemies long enough to get 2-3 whacks in with the mace, which usually was enough to kill them before they unfroze on p8. GS also has an area of effect (it's small, but a single GS will freeze a tightly packed group), so it was also useful when you were fighting groups - a single casting would shut them all down, although it had to be recast pretty much every time after you killed a monster, as you don't have enough time to take out more than one before they unfreeze.

I was also happy with the one point I spent in Enchant, which I always have active on both me and my merc. The increased fire damage isn't huge (but it does add even more elemental damage to my melee attack), but what I really like is the significant boost it gives your attack rating - something that quickly becomes problematic for a sorceress. The one point Frozen Armor and later Shiver Armor is also helpful in the early stages, and seeing as how I have points to burn, why the heck not?

Now, with Frozen Orb, it's the only spell I use. I'm actually level 31 now, so both FO and CM are at level 6. Level 6 CM lowers enemy cold resistance by 45%. So FO is pretty much a screen clearer. Uniques (like the council members) do take 2-3 castings to kill, but I'm not having any issues with mana. I do have her equipped with a manald heal right now, so that definitely helps.

So far, I've spent my skill points as follows:

Lightning Tree: One point each in Charged Bolt, Lightning, Static Field, Telekinesis, Teleport and Lightning Mastery, and I'm not planning on spending another point in that tree.

Fire Tree: One point in Enchant, Warmth, Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, and Fire Mastery. I'm definitely not spending any more on Enchant or Warmth, but I do plan on eventually maxing Fire Bolt and Fire Ball. I'm not sure with the Mastery - I am undecided once my build is done if I want to work on some additional cold damage or fire damage. It's really going to be a call I make once I see the build's performance in hell difficulty.

Cold Tree: One point each in Ice Bolt, Ice Blast, Glacial Spike, Frost Nova, Blizzard, Frozen Armor and Shiver Armor, all of which are either one-point wonders or prerequisites. I currently have two hard points in Frozen Orb and Cold Mastery.

I have saved enough points to invest points in both FO and CM at each level up, and I plan on doing so until I get FO and CM with 7 hard points in each, at level 36. I'll then max FO, followed by Fireball and Firebolt. Then at level 70ish, I'll need to decide between Fire Mastery or Ice Bolt, or perhaps split the difference.

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EDIT: CJ, here's the complete rune upgrade table:

Level 1:
3 Els = 1 Eld
3 Elds = 1 Tir
3 Tirs = 1 Nef
3 Nefs = 1 Eth
3 Eths = 1 Ith
3 Iths = 1 Tal
3 Tals = 1 Ral
3 Rals = 1 Ort
3 Orts = 1 Thul

Level2:
3 Thuls + 1 chipped topaz = 1 Amn
3 Amns + 1 chipped amethyst = 1 Sol
3 Sols + 1 chipped sapphire = 1 Shael
3 Shaels + 1 chipped ruby = 1 Dol
3 Dols + 1 chipped emerald = 1 Hel
3 Hels + 1 chipped diamond = 1 Io

Level 3:
3 Ios + 1 flawed topaz = 1 Lum
3 Lums + 1 flawed amethyst = 1 Ko
3 Kos + 1 flawed sapphire = 1 Fal
3 Fals + 1 flawed ruby = 1 Lem
3 Lems + 1 flawed emerald = 1 Pul
2 Puls (yes, two from here on out, not three) + 1 flawed diamond = Um

Level 4:
2 Ums + 1 topaz = 1 Mal
2 Mals + 1 amethyst = 1 Ist
2 Ists + 1 sapphire = 1 Gul
2 Guls + 1 ruby = 1 Vex
2 Vex + 1 emerald = 1 Ohm
2 Ohms + 1 diamond = 1 Lo

Level 5:
2 Los + 1 flawless topaz = 1 Sur
2 Surs + 1 flawless amethyst = 1 Ber
2 Bers + 1 flawless sapphire = 1 Jah
2 Jahs + 1 flawless ruby = 1 Cham
2 Chams + 1 flawless emerald = 1 Zod

All runewords have level requirements. To figure out the level requirement, take the highest numbered rune (runes are numbered from 1-33 in the order presented here), double it, and add three.

Example: "Leaf Runeword" Tir-Ral. Ral is the highest rune, #8. So the level requirement is 8*2+3 = 19.

Here are a few other useful formulae for the cube that will turn your decent low level equipment into equipment suitable for nightmare and hell difficulties:

Ral + Sol + Perfect Emerald + Normal Unique Weapon (of any kind) = Exceptional Unique Weapon of that type. You keep all the same mods on the weapon, but it ups the base damage of the weapon.

Ort + Amn + Perfect Sapphire + Normal Rare Weapon (of any kind) = Exceptional Rare Weapon of that type. Exactly the same but for rares - same mods, more base damage.

Lum + Pul + Perfect Emerald + Exceptional Unique Weapon = Elite Unique Weapon of that type. Same mods, ups base damage even further, and yes, you can start with a normal unique, up it to the exceptional, and then up it again to elite.

Fal + Um + Perfect Sapphire + Exceptional Rare Weapon = Elite Rare Weapon of that type. Same recipe for rares.

Tal + Shael + Perfect Diamond + Normal Unique Armor = Exceptional Unique Armor of that type. Same mods, but higher base defense. Works on all armor types. Not just body armor, but also shields, gloves, boots, and belts.

Ral + Thul + Perfect Amethyst + Normal Rare Armor = Exceptional Rare Armor of that type. Rare version of recipe.

Ko + Lem + Perfect Diamond + Exceptional Unique Armor = Elite Unique Armor of that type. Even more defense, same mods, any armor piece.

Ko + Pul + Perfect Amethyst + Exceptional Rare Armor = Elite Rare Armor of that type. Same recipe, but for rares.

3 rejuvenation potions = 1 full rejuvenation potion

There's also crafting, which I have to look up...

 

True, these are a couple of tougher fights in normal mode. Here are a few tips:

Duriel - Enter with your forces at full strength. As soon as you get into his lair, open a town portal. You want to keep Duriel frozen and slowed. I would suggest a cold arrow rogue cohort for this fight, and some cold based skeleton mages. Try to keep him focused on your clay golem, and assist your crew with whatever damage/bone spell you're using at that point (bring lots of mana and healing potions). If your summons get wiped out, run through the portal before you get taken down. Regain your full strength, and repeat the above steps until he goes down.

Diablo - your cohort and skellis are going to die immediately to Diablo's Firestorm spell, so don't even bother with them after they are killed at the start of the fight. The trick here is to keep summoning your Golem to slow and occupy Diablo while you fire damaging spells from the side of the screen. If you see firestorm coming at you, get out of the way! Keep a town portal relatively close by so you can replenish your mana, potions, etc, when needed. It can be a little tedious, I won't lie, but Diablo will go down.

 

I definitely agree that you want to try to keep both Duriel and Diablo moving slowly, if for no other reason than to reduce their number of attacks. Creatures moving at half speed only attack half as frequently per unit time. It is for this reason that I usually wait until I'm at least level 24 before fighting Duriel, because that's when Decrepify becomes available.

Duriel, Diablo, and Baal are the three fights in the game where I consistently prefer Decrepify over Amplify Damage. I do not know why, but it seems if you can slow them down to a point, they will only use thier melee attacks. Decrepify slows them 50% right off the bat, and depending on what skill level your clay golem is, they'll be slowed even futher.

There is one other piece of advice I can offer for Diablo. There's a several seconds break between defeating the last seal boss and his appearance. There's enough time to run from the last seal all the way to the pentagram before he appears. (You don't have any time to waste, but it is possible to get there a couple of seconds before he appears, with your army in tow. I find it is easiest to get there from the Oblivion Knight seal boss, Lord de Seis, and therefore do that seal last.) If you hit him with Decrepify the second he appears, you can sometimes get your army to engage him before he wipes them all out. He also seems to like to attack your clay golem, and so as long as you keep re-summoning him as soon as his life bar drops to red, you can keep him slowed. The downside to this strategy is it requires you to get up close and personal to him - in order to get your army to immediately engage, you'll be standing inside the pentagram as well.

I did the entirety of Act IV last night in about half and hour - on p8 of course. Frozen Orb is a weapon of mass destruction. I cannot say I did a full clear of every area, but I did do a clean sweep of everything from the first waypoint onward. (You pretty much have to, if you want to complete the Hephasto quest.) Since I'm spending a point in both Frozen Orb and Cold Mastery for levels 30-36 (I'm currenly level 34), I seeing a great increase in Frozen Orb damage with every level up. Not only is there a decent percentage increase in the Orb damage itself, but the enemy resistance to cold is reduced by an additional 5%.

Note: For all resistance reducing spells, be it Cold Mastery, Conviction, Amp Damage, etc., 0% resistance is NOT the floor. You and the enemies you fight can have resistances all the way down to -100%. Cold Mastery won't break a monster's cold immunity, but provided it's not immune, you can drop any monster into negative resistances.

That's why I picked level 7 hard points for my target level for Cold Mastery. I will have a total of +10 to my cold skills, meaning it will effectively be at level 17. That gives -100% enemy cold resistance. If I go beyond level 17, I'll keep getting another -5% enemy resistance for each level, but that's not going to do too much for me. Monsters that are immune to cold won't take any damage no matter how high I jack up Cold Mastery, and monsters that have no resistance to cold won't drop below -100%. So going beyond level 17 in CM is only useful when fighting creatures that have a resistance, but not an immunity, to cold.

Since I'm only sinking 7 hard points into Cold Mastery, I'm actually going to have left over points when I hit level 36 and "finish" CM. So I'll dump all the excess into Fire Ball, although I won't go back and max that out until after I finish maxing Frozen Orb first, which won't happen until level 49. I'm planning on staying in Normal difficulty until I hit level 52. At which point I'll be able to equip Oculus (level 42) and my upped Moser's Blessed Circle (level 52).

(Running normal Baal on p8 offers excellent experience points with each run up until this point. That's why I don't worry about full clearing everything in normal. The amount of XPs I get from an extra run or two of Baal makes up for all the XPs I "skipped" on the way to getting to him. On p8, you get over a level's worth of experience per run up until about level 45, and little less than a level's worth up to level 50, and about a level every two runs up to level 55. Baal's minions and Baal himself offer so much more XPs that all the monsters on the level, that I only fight my way to the throne room and do those fights - I never so to the side chambers. Efficiency is key.)

One of the things I like about moving to SP is how many socket quests I have saved up. I'll bank another one with this character. You can only socket body armor, weapons, shields, and helms. Since I'm using runeword armor (already socketed) and Moser's comes with 2 sockets and cannot be further socketed, that only leaves my helm and weapon, so I'll have a spare socket quest here as well. I'll socket HQ with a perfect Topaz to up the mf further, and I think I will socket Oculus with a resist all jewel (I know I have a few +1X% resist all jewel in the stash somewhere).

 

I had another thought on this character for a skill I never have used but that seems to be worthy of some consideration with this character: Hydra.

When you cast Hydra, each of the three heads of the fire creature fires 8 times, about once per second. In addition to being useful as a scout, the damage isn't half bad. The only reason I'm considering this is I already have all the prequisites I need for it (the prerequisites are Fire Bolt, Fire Ball, Warmth, and Enchant). So it's only a single skill point.

Counting my +skills, I'll generate a Hydra that does about 70 fire damage per bolt. Each of the heads fire simultaneously though, so it's really three bolts, so that takes us to 210. I'll get a 100% damage boost from Fire Mastery, so we're at 420 per volley. Then, since I'll eventually max both Fire Ball and Fire Bolt, I'll get a 3% damage synergy from each, adding another 120% damage, taking the damage from a single fire volley of the hydra up to 672. That's per second, for eight seconds, and you can have more than one hydra active at any given time. (With the cool down timer of hydra, it looks like you can get four active at any time.)

Now, I'll be the first to admit that 672 damage per second in hell difficulty isn't a ton. However, that's way more than I'll get in damage output than any single additional point I can place in a synergy or a mastery to any other spell, making it appear to be a point well spent. There's also the "fire and forget" aspect of the spell. You cast it, and it does 5,000+ damage over the next eight seconds even if you're not standing anywhere near it.

 

OK, I have made significant progress over the weekend. I'm currently in Act II Nightmare difficulty, and everything is still going smoothly. The goal for me in Nightmare is to progress through it as quickly as possible - the same with dmc. I complete all the quests to get the rewards, but I'm hardly doing full clears on anything. The only reason I'm still using the players8 difficulty setting is because it makes no difference in killing speed. A well-placed Frozen Orb that passes directly over a creature still kills it.

I did advance to level 52 before proceeding into nightmare, so I have a little more than half of my end-game gear equipped. Still to go: my helm (Harlequin Crest, at level 62), my armor ("Enlightenment" runeword, at level 63), my amulet (Tal Rasha's Adjudication, at level 65) and my belt (Credendum*, also at level 65). The only downside to leveling in normal to level 52 is that the XPs at the start of nightmare are pitiful. I've only gained two levels since entering NM, and I'm already halfway through Act II. With some equipment modification, I may be able to max my resists in hell without using Credendum. If so, I will instead use String of Ears.

I have also implemented my Hydra plan, and it's a mixed bag. Hydra is great when you can hold monsters in a specific area, or when you know a group of monsters will be spawned in a specific area. So it's great for things like Baal's minions that always spawn at the foot of the altar, or seal boss packs that also spawn at known locations. You drop down two or three Hydras before they get there, and you have instant artillery support. But that's about the extent of it's usefulness. Against anything that moves around a lot, Hydras are far less effective. They are near-uselss against things like the Ancients that won't stand still, and against most other creatures in the game. Still, for a one-point investment, I guess I cannot complain.

 

As with all characters, having a backup attack is only really necessary in hell. If the goal is to progress through normal and nightmare as quickly as possible, then perhaps concentrating on a single damage type would be the way to go.

I have been considering a bone and poison necro myself for a while. Some early research has yielded the following insights: Bone spells do magic damage, so it isn't necessary to amp everything like you did with a summons necro.

On the poison and bone tree, the top tier bone spells are Bone Spear and Bone Spirit. Bone Spirit does considerably more damage and costs considerably more mana, but Bone Spear is typically the primary attack spell, because it pierces enemies. Essenetially, you use Spirit for bosses and other difficult targets, and Spear for regular monsters. Spirit also is a homing projectile, so it cannot miss. They synergize each other, so there is certainly no harm in maxing both of those skills.

Both Spirit and Spear also share a lot of other synergies - Teeth, Bone Wall, and Bone Prison. All of the synergies to Spear give a 7% damage bonus, and all of the synergies to Spirit give a 6% synergy bonus. In theory, you could dump all of your remaining points into these skills. There's only two prerequisites (Bone Armor and Corpse Explosion) necessary to get these skills, so for 102 skill points, you can max Spirit, Spear, and all of their synergies.

As for a secondary attack, you are going to have a point in Corpse Explosion, and of course you'll have some +skills. As you are well aware, CE is functional even with a modest skill level - the damage is the same, and the radius - if you can get it to level 6ish or so (I'm assuming you're going to be equipped with at least +5 bone and poison skills), is certainly workable when dealing with mobs. Of course, it DOES require you to get the initial kill, so you're going to have to rely on your merc for magic immunes. (Note that it isn't nearly the problem of blessed hammer against things like the second wave of Baal's minions, as you can kill the skeletons first, and explose them.)

That said, there are probably a few things you want to divert some points into. But it's a balancing act. Every point you spend on something other than your bone skills and their synergies makes you two primary attack skills somewhat less powerful. Let's look at a couple of options:

Poison: There are only three poison skills - Poison Dagger, Poison Explosion, and Poison Nova. Of the three, we can immediately eliminate Poison Explosion as a possibility. It needs a corpse, just like Corpse Explosion, and seeing as how you are looking for something that takes out magic immunes, if you already have a corpse, you can just use CE on it instead. Poison Dagger does give a significant boost to AR, so you'll actually be able to hit with it, and Poison Nova does poison damage to everything around you. The problem is that neither of these spells do particularly large amounts of damage unless you invest heavily into them, something that you really cannot do.

Summons: You can spend a few points in the summons tree. Five to be exact. A point each in Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery, Skeletal Mage, Clay Golem and Golem Mastery (all much higher with +skills). Along with your merc, and a single point in Amp Damage, that may be good enough to get you that first corpse against magic immunes. (OK, so technically six points if you count Amp.) IMO, this is a much better outlay of six points than what you could get with six skill points in the poison skills, especially since you can use CE as the kicker after that first coprse. Heck, you can even carry a +3 summoning skills wand on switch, just for this purpose.

Of the curses, I think Amp Damage is a worthy expenditure of a point. I'd also consider is Life Tap, as it could help your merc against the aforementioned magic immunes, which would also require a point in Iron Maiden, which wouldn't be wasted (see below). I love Dim Vision for things like Gloams and really any missile-using enemy, and with no prequisites, that's an easy point too.

The other bone spells also have some use. You'll probably want to have bone armor active at all times, even though you'll only invest a single point in it. Rather oddly, after the initial point, additional points in Bone Armor increase the amount of damage it can absorb by 10. However, points in Bone Wall and Bone Prison give a synergy of 15 more damage absorbed. Additionally, points in Bone Wall and Bone Prison synergize with both Spirit and Spear, while Bone Armor doesn't, so there's never a reason to spend more than one point in Bone Armor. Bone Wall is also a very useful defensive spell. Your Spears have a piercing attack, so you can throw up a wall and shoot THROUGH it with impunity. If you're feeling particularly sadistic, you can curse the monsters trying to beat their way through the bone wall with Iron Maiden, and sometimes they can kill themselves in the process (assuming their attacks are physical of course).

The one final point I'd like to bring out is equipment - it's a mana hungry build. If you don't want to spend points in Energy (and you don't), you may need an Insight merc. The only other option is gearing your equipment to give bonuses to mana and mana recovery. A Manald Heal - or even two - is excellent early on to aid in mana recovery. While you wouldn't want a crafted caster weapon or caster armor under any circumstances, and you'd probably have much better options available than a caster mask and caster shield, a caster belt, boots, and/or gloves can all potentially be better than what you have in your stash. All the caster items give a bonus to mana (up to +20) and %mana recovery (10%). Additionally, the boots give a 2%-5% bonus to max mana, the gloves give +3 mana per kill, and the belt gives 10% FCR - so all have helpful mods, and you get up to four more randomly selected ones.

Of special note is the runeword "White" - Dol-Io. +3 Poison and Bone Skills, along with an additioanl +3 to Bone Armor, +2 to Bone Spear, and +4 to Skeleton mastery. Also gives a bonus to vitality, mana, and 20% FCR. None of the unique wands give a +3 bonus to the poison and bone skills, and this one has a level requirement of just 35. Any pre-existing +skills present on the wand will be retained, so if you can find a 2-socket wand that has bonus to Bone Spear or Spirit (or heck, even Corpse Explosion), you would retain those on the runeword.

The Infernal set is excellent for starting out, and Sander's isn't bad either - it gives big melee bonuses, and so in the early levels if you want to mix it up a bit it can be useful.

Homunculus is probably the best choice of shield (although Trang-Oul's shield also gives +2 to Bone and Poison skills and has a lower level requirement, so maybe that will be a temporary shield). If you're going max block, it's really the only choice. If you're not going for max block, Darkforce Spawn and Boneflame can get up to +3 necro skill levels (as opposed to +2 on Homunculus), but both have level requirements in the 60s, so Homunculus will be used at least for some time.

So my thinking on this build would be:

Curses (all one point, and you'll use all of them):

Amp Damage
Dim Vision
Iron Maiden
Life Tap

Summons (also all one point):

Raise Skeleton
Skeleton Mastery
Skeletal Mage
Clay Golem
Golem Mastery

So just 9 points outside of the Bone and Poison tree. In the P&B Tree, there's a few one point wonders:

Bone Armor
Corpse Explosion

Max Bone Spear
Max Bone Spirit
Max Bone Wall (much more useful than Bone Prison)
Work on Bone Prison last (will have points to develop, but not max this skill, unless you get into the high 90s in level).

 

Lacking a Homunculous leaves you in the un-enviable position of trying to decide between max block or using a necro shield. Hmmm... Unless you happen to have a rare necro head with at least +2 to the P&B Tree that also has the "of deflecting" suffix for the enhanced block rate. I don't know if you have any of the other unique necro heads (all give bonuses to skills, but none have enhanced blocking percentages). As I said, Trang Oul's Shield does give a nice +2 to P&B skills, and it has a fairly low level requirement, but no enhanced blocking there either.

If you think you don't need no stinkin skellies, it's great if you can manage. Like I said, every point saved is an extra point to put to synergies. I was thinking of making use of the +4 skeleton mastery on the White runeword, and having things for magic immunes to attack instead of you. I was not suggesting you actually carry around an army of skeletons at all times.

I'd highly recommend spending one point in Dim Vision. I'm telling you - it's a life saver against anything that shoots projectiles. Most notably gloams, but really anything that shoots gets shut down. Also very usefull for the blow dart flayers and skeleton archers. Don't love it until you try it. You could also get Iron Maiden for just one more point, although you might think it's cheesy having monsters kill themselves attacking your bone wall, and I tend to agree. (Not in using the walls as a divide and conquer strategy - that's not cheese - using bone walls in conjunction with Iron Maiden is.)

I agree with shying away from Poison. Most poison necros max all three poison skills along with corpse explosion, and so right there, you're comitting to 80 skill points, meaning you cannot really be both a poison and bone necro. The reason you max two different corpse exploding skills is because of synergies. All three poison skills give a substantial synergy bonus to the other two. Specifically Poison Dagger receives a whopping 20% damage synergy from the other two, and Poison Nova receives a 10% damage synergy from the other two. So you'd never actually use the skill Poison Explosion over Corpse Explosion - it strictly a synergy. But poison is an all or nothing deal.

Are you starting out with the Infernal Set? That seems to be the easiest way to get +2 to all of your skills. What's the rest of your projected equipment? The Infernal Set will serve you well in Act I, but it is quickly surpassed by wands like Ume's Lament and Gravenspine, both of which are available fairly early (I think the clvl requirements on both are in the 20s).

I have no idea what kind of wands you have, but I'm thinking that unless you have some uber rare +3 P&B skill that has additional +skills to other stuff, you won't do much better than "White".

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On your lightning sorceress - there are two ways to go with that, depending on whether or not you want balance, or if you want to maximize lightning. If you're going for lightning and cold balance, then the most common build is the Thunderstorm/Frozen Orb combo. The reason for this is that TS has no synergies (other than Lightning Mastery) but deals considerable damage. You max TS, LM, FO and invest heavily (although usually don't max) CM - along with all the prerequisites. That's the balance route.

If you're looking to max lightning damage, then Chain Lightning is your skill of choice, as that skill gets synergies from just about everything. You'd max (at a minimum) CL, LM, and lightning bolt for starters. Nova is also usually invested in, not only as an additional synergy, but also because of its high minimum damage component. Once a monster is reduced to lowish life, you can usually finish it off more quickly by using Nova, than CL because of a guaranteed higher minimum damage output.

Two other points of emphasis. If you go the CL route, while you can combine that with FO, most lightning based builds don't. The reason for this is because in order for FO to be effective, you need to devote skill points to both FO and CM, and that lowers your maximum lightning damage. The preferred backup skill to CL is Fire Wall, because Fire Walls can be stacked on top of each other, meaning a few skill points go a long way. If you go the Fire Wall route, many sorceress who have a good number of +skills (say around 10) put one point each into Warmth, Firewall, and Fire Mastery (+2 prerequisites) and just stack the hell out of the Fire Walls. Some even have a weapon switch just for casting the Fire Wall (Spirit Shield + Hexfire is popular). It's a five skill point investment versus a 20+ skill point investment for FO as a backup.

Secondly, CL is not a timered skill - it's spammable. As a result, while +skills are still important to you, FCR is also very important. You will reach a point where additional FCR will deal more damage per unit time than adding another skill point or two. FCR for a non-timered skill sorceress is what IAS is to a melee character, and the exact same principle is at work. Just like a WW barbarian will deal more damage by hitting the last breakpoint for WW than he will by squeezing another point or two out of his WW skill with less IAS, you'd rather have 70 FCR and +5 lightning skills than you would +8 lightning skills and no FCR. (Note that the last break point for CL requires 105 FCR and is probably not attainable without significant equipment sacrifices, and most sorceress shoot for the FCR that gets them past the one at 65 FCR.)

 

You can do that, or you can shop one at a vendor near you - with your current character. Drognan in normal difficulty will offer an assortment of wands, including regular white wands and socketed versions. With your higher level characters all wands offered at shops will be of magical variety, so it's actually a low level character that you want to use for this purpose.

Akara is not a good source, as in normal she won't offer any wands with a skill beyond those usable at level 12. Drognan offers wands with skills up to those usable at level 18 most notably Bone Spear. Once you hit Ormus, the ilvl of the equipment he sells is high enough that you probably won't be able to get a non-magic wand from his choices. For now, I'd just buy the first 2-socket wand you see, irrespective of the other skills or even if it doesn't have other skills. You're after the +3 to bone skills, and another +2 on top of that to Bone Spear and Bone Armor.

I completely forgot about Boneshade, and yes, it is far and away the best choice for your character's endgame wand. It's clvl requirement is really high though - don't remember exactly but I think it is around 75. Maybe higher. The highest rune "White" uses is Io - #16 - meaning the clvl requirement is just 35.

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Why do I do it? Why?!?!? You suggest making a lightning sorceress, I recommend TS, and instantly realize I can have a tri-elementalist with my current sorceress.

Tri-elementalist went the way of the dodo once synergies entered the scene in patch 1.10.

*sigh* OK work with me here. I have +9 to fire and lightning, +10 to cold on my base gear, and I'll have +11 fire and lightning, +12 cold on my switch. (Hell, this is what respecs are for I guess...) And I don't even have to respec to do it - I can continue on as planned and just distribute points into stuff I don't have as I level up. The respec is if it doesn't work.

Base build:

Fire:
Max Fire Bolt/Ball - 40 points
One point each in Warmth, Enchant, Hydra, Fire Mastery - 4 points
subtotal - 44 points, none of which are wasted - every one is either directly used or is a synergy.

Cold:
Max Frozen Orb - 20 points
Cold Mastery - 7 points
1-pters: Ice Bolt, Frozen Armor, Ice Blast*, Frost Nova*, Shiver Armor, Glacial Spike*, Blizzard* - 7 points. * = pre-req, not used directly or as a synergy.
subtotal - 34 points

Lightning:
One in everything except energy shield - Charged Bolt*, Static Field, Telekinesis, Nova*, Lightning, Chain Lightning, Teleport, Thunder Storm, Lightning Mastery - 9 points. * = pre-req. subtotal - 9 points

I'll have TS active all the time - it's about 360 pulse damage per second and lasts for about 2 minutes at that skill level, and the Lightning skill will also be used against dual immunes. (FYI on your sorceress - assuming you have Lightning and Chain Lightning at the same level, Lightning actually does more damage against a single target, when there are no other targets for CL to bounce around to.)

Total points - Just freakin 87. I'll have that by the time I start hell difficulty. Level 80 with all skill quests done in Normal and Nightmare. That leaves a good 10 or so points as left overs that can go into Cold Mastery, Ice Bolt, or Fire Mastery, or some combination.

I'm not sure which one. Fire Mastery seems most obvious - it's 7% per level, which is a bigger bonus than either of the other two.