Diablo II

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I killed Diablo and am in Act V!

Got him without dying once, but had town portal back twice to raise my hire and heal up some.

I used a weak mace, but it has knockback and 33% chance of a crushing blow.
I saved it just for boss battles as my regular scepter gives +3 to Holy Freeze and 5% drain life and is much higher up in damage.

The knockback and crushing blow really seem to mess up the bosses.


I just went toe to toe with him (Thorns) and when he fired the that red bolt I just circled him and drank a potion then went back to work when it ran out.

During the circling sometimes my archer would follow me and get too close and die hence the two times I had to return.

 

That is correct. There are differences in strategy based on which character you are playing at any given time, and I want to see them all in action...

 

I usually do Mephisto runs before tackling Act IV. With enough MF, Meph drops some interesting loot, and he's fairly easy to kill.

 

I was going to do a Necro next.

Any ideas about a good build?

Can I use an orb in each hand or just one and a shield?

Are there armor limits?

How much should I sink into energy (mana) as I did nothing for my Paladin?

 

@Aces,

The easiest necro build is probably the one referred to as "The Summoner". One point in Amplify Damage, Max Skeletons, Skeleton Mastery, and Corpse Explosion. You cast Amplify Damage on everything so they take tons of extra physical damage from your skeletons, and as soon as the first enemy of a pack dies, you start blowing up corpses with Corpse Explosion. Very good build for first time players, as it is effective even without any equipment.

Necromancers use rods, not orbs. Orbs are sorceress class specific weapons. But no, you cannot dual wield anything. There are only two characters that can do that - barbarian and assassin.

There are maximum values for an individual type of armor - like you'll never find a piece of leather armor with 200 defense, but the only practical limit to how much armor you can amass is what you find - and what you are strong enough to wear. The heaviest armor in the game has a strength requirement of 230 - a total you are unlikely to reach.

One more thing on armor - once you get into hell difficulty, if you armor rating isn't several thousand, then it doesn't really matter what it is. The monsters in hell difficulty have attack ratings in the thousands, and so it makes little difference if you defense is 1000 or 2000 - you'll get hit by everything and will rely heavily on your blocking skill (which is why I recommended sinking quite a bit into dexterity to keep your block rate high).

As I detailed in the last page, you should sink absolutely nothing into energy as a paladin. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Find a mana leech ring, amulet, weapon, or + mana after kill item and go with that. Or fill one row of your belt up with mana potions - anything - just don't waste points in energy.

 

What I do with my necro is put a few points into Teeth, Corpse Explosion and Bone Spear so that I have some offense of my own, A little bit of Amplify Damage and Iron Maiden, but mostly into Summoning as Aldeth discussed.

I put a few points into Skeleton and Skeleton Mage, more points into Mastery. I put token points into Golems and more into Mastery. I'd also pay into Summon Resist. I'm also looking at what the effects putting points points into Golems you won't use will have on the Golem you do choose...

 

lol

Don't you blow up your own guys too then?

Yeah. Nothing for a Paladin, but still nothing for a Necro?

 

dangit you guys are making me miss diablo now i'm gonna have to go to best buy & get the battle pack!! Thats what i get for giving away my copy.

 

That's EXACTLY what I play - very effective indeed, even more so for experienced players. I prsonally invested more than one point in Amplify damage, just to get the extra radius and focused more on skeleton mastery than summon skeleton, quality rather than quantity.

And no, corpse explosion does not affect your own summons nor does it affect the merc.

 

Agreed. I just did one point early on. In the beginning I work on Skeletons, but eventually, I max out both skeletons and skeleton mastery. I don't dig the mages though - sometime I don't even invest a point. I agree that having more than one point into amplify damage is nice to cut down on the number of times you have to cast it. Additional points add to radius and duration.

And it scales up nicely with more points spent in it. More points = more better.

However, I was just playing my summoner last night, and I tried fighting D2, and got owned. He killed all my summons in seconds, and I know it's possible to take him down, and yet, he made short work of my summons, and my merc. Maybe I need to get a big ass maul or something and just go toe-to-toe with him.

DotW - did you use Decrepify or Amp Damage on Big D?

I don't spend points on energy for my necro. Mana is a little tight in the early going. I could see getting your energy up to say, 50 tops. You get a few points of mana every level up, and I usually get another 30-40 points of mana (or energy) from my equipment, which is usually sufficient. My necro is around level 30 now, I've never spent a point in energy, and mana is rarely an issue (so I'm glad I didn't put any points into it.

As a caveat though - I don't like spending points on energy on ANY of my builds. I've made sorceresses and spent nothing on energy, which most people think is insane. Mana regenerates, and mana potions are cheap and plentiful. My thinking is if I run out of mana I retreat, while if I run out of life I die, so I always invest in vitality over energy.

 

@Aces

Dont waste points in energy, more than 1 point is a waste. Also, try to focus on a few select skills and level them up, it leads to a more powerful character (unfortunately necessary for hell difficulty).

Also, rune words will not work in magic or better items. They only work in normal or superior socketed items with exactly the right number of sockets, no more or less. Also, runewords for shields dont work in paladin shields or necro heads.

 

That is not true. My frost zealot is equipped with a zakarum shield with the runeword "Sanctuary" in it. I have never tried making a runeword in a necromancer shield, so I cannot verify that, but you can definitely do runewords in paladin shields. In fact, given that paladin shields come with built-in resistances or attack rating boosts (which remain after the runeword is created) there's absolutely no reason why you wouldn't want to take advantage of using the class specific shields.

 

I seem to remember using Iron Maiden when I took my Necro against Diablo when I beat him years ago (and 2 computers as well). Ultimately only the Golem (maybe the Merc) can withstand more than one shot from the Big D.

 

Exile is a runeword that only works in paladin shields.
So says the chart.

About halfway through the final act.
Shocking that the "Angel" the fool in jail gave the soulstone to wasn't whom he appeared to be eariler.

I wonder what the final ending will bring.
All the other cut-scenes were so gloomy...


I started my necro and got him up to level 6.
Basicly he does nothing and his skeletons and clay golem and the merc do all the work.
I sort of like to smash the monsters myself....

 

I put at least a few points in Skeleton Mages - Frost mages are handy to have. Their freeze attack usually ends up with the monster shattering on death, and while it's one less corpse to explode, it's one less corpse that can be raised (by shamans, Flayer shamans, hat kind of annoyance), which is handy when running out of mana, for example.

Amp Damage. Big D has so much HPs that the 100% extra damage amp grants is far from being a luxury.

As for golems, I always prefered Blood golems to other type of golems, if only because they leech life and share it with you. Decently built, a Blood golem will hold it's own quite well in combat.

 

I don't think I ever made exile - but that is another excellent example - runewords definitely work in Paladin shields, so I certainly see no reason why they wouldn't work in necro heads.

Without some good starting gear, it's hard for a necro to tank. Given that you are playing on single player, you cannot transfer equipment. I typically play on battlenet. That allows me to transfer gear between characters. If you are playing single player and you find a great piece of equipment, but it's for a class other than the one you are playing, it's pretty much useless to you. Playing online allows you to hold onto that piece of equipment and give it to that appropriate character type some time later.

For general game play - no doubt that amp damage is the better curse. I'm just thinking that for bosses, decripify might be more effective. Decrepify has the effect of reducing damage by half, and reducing speed by half (which should theoretically reduce attacks by half) causing only 1/4 damage output. I was wondering if it's better to have Big D do less damage but take longer to kill him, or just try to kill him as fast as possible with him doing full damage.

A those were my least favorite. I was of the impression that because they share life with you, that you also take damage when they take damage. I like iron golems - especially when you make one from an ethereal weapon and they are see-through!

 

Hmmm.... you know, I was looking for an excuse to start a new D2 Necro run... I'll definitively give Decrepify a shot.

 

Agreed. True, you lose HP when the Blood Golem does, but that's what potions are for. Besides, if you're careful enough with the Golem (and have skeletons around to help) you can ensure your necro never gets hit himself, so your losing life isn't much of a problem. If the Golem does get killed you're in trouble as your necro ends up with very little life. However being able to heal him means he very rarely dies anyway.

 

Sitting at level 37 and about to face the Ancient Barbarians.
The final battle before heading off to see Baal.

Any pointers?

 

Tal says I can reply to my own posts after 24 hours.

OK...

Two final questions!

To finish the game I have to kill Baal before I can make the cow level appear back in Act I correct?

Story wise that's all I have left to do.

When starting a game in Nightmare do I get to keep all my equipment including the stuff in my stash and my money?