Diablo II

Remove all ads!

The Cow level is optional, and it is a brutal fight.

You put Wirt's leg and a tome of town portal in the Horadric Cube and transmute. That opens the portal.

When you go to Nightmare you do keep your gold and equipment, but you lose a little experience when you die...

 

The Cow Level is freaking hard on Hell, but the loot!

 

OK I got my Necro in Act II.

The merc archer from Act I was great for a Melee Paladin 'cause she would clean up those little fast guys zooming around and I wouldn't have to chase after them and I kept her the whole game.

However with my Necro who keeps his distance most of the time she just stands behind him and doesn't get close enough to get in the fighting. My poor skeletons do all the work.

I'm gonna change to a paladin merc.
Just wondering what you experts think is the best one from your Necro experiences?

Combat (Normal): Prayer
Defense (Normal): Defiance
Offense (Normal): Blessed Aim


I would think the healing one would be good because it heals the summoned skeletons too (right?).
Then again defiance sounds nice too.

 

I would probably go for defiance myself. I dont think Prayer heals quickly enough to be useful, and I'm not sure it works on skellingtons.

When you get to nightmare difficulty, the mercs can get holy freeze and might auras (not on the same merc though!). And some items grant you auras when you equip them.

 

Hey my thread got moved!

Is this Blizzard forum new?
I don't remember it being here when I strated this thread.

 

It is new.

To answer Aces question from a few posts back, I agree that on normal difficulty you may as well go with a defiance mercenary. However, once you get to Nightmare difficulty, the choice of auras on the paladin mercenaries change, so I'd go with a might merc (offensive) from nightmare as the best choice once you get to that point.

 

Aldeth, I whipped out an old Necro and got Decrepify. Good stuff... I overlooked this curse because of it's requirements (terror, dim vision, etc), and I see now it wasn't a very good move. Now my army of summons can pound the s*** out of weaked, slowed monsters. I can't wait to try it on Big M and Big D.

Mercs? I have the merc with the aura that cranks up defense. Works for me, though what would be the best merc for a Necro?

 

Finishing up Act II.
Almost to level 24 and can't wait to try out the Iron Golem.

Any pointers as to some of the better items to use to transform an Iron Golem?

 

Ethereal items makes for good iron golems if you have any such items to spare. Plus, the resulting golem will be partly transparent.

 

Does it have to be a weapon or can you use a helmet or armor?

And if the item has magic offensive or defense bonuses does the golem get it?

Like:
Drain HP
Fire/ice/etc... damage
Bonuses to damage or hit %
Res to magic
etc...

 

No matter, as long as it's metallic. And yes, the golem gets the attributes of the item.

 

DotW - In my experience Decripify is only really good against single, powerful bosses, like act bosses, or things like Lister and other uniques when they spawn with something like fanaticism/might/extra fast. Amplify damage is still my spell of choice when I'm up against a pack of monsters. With a hoard of skeletons, a golem, and a mercenary to help out (and a revive or two fro flavor), it's usually better to double the damage they deal rather than reduce the amount of damage the enemy is dealing out.

As for a choice of mercenary, I'd definitely go with the might merc, as that effectively increases the damage of your skeletons by another 50%. From my expereince, the hardest part is getting your army together. It can be tricky getting the first couple of corpses to make skeletons. Once your army is assembled, even without the enhanced defense, the skeletons don't die all that often. Your army is so massive that they kill things pretty quickly, and since the skeletons heal just like your merc, you won't have to recast them all too often. (And when you do have to replace, it's usually only one or two - it's not like you have to reassemble the entire army.) The point is this: If your summons and merc are not dying, then you really don't need the mercenary that enhances defense. You want the mercenary that enhances damage to kill your enemies that much quicker, and further reduce the time they have to kill off your summons.

 

That definitively makes sense, Aldeth. I usually took the defense merc because the defense bonus makes my summons last longer (or so I thought) but I see now that an offense merc + Amp would definitively be a solid combo... and I need all the help I can get since I always set the number of players to 8 (more XP, more loot).

Tell you what, I think I'll start a new Necro run tonight (I have the necessary supplies for a lenghty D2 run on hand), I'll pick up Decripify and an offensive merc and give my thoughts.

 

Let me know how it goes. From my experience, I don't have a lot of summons die on me, and the only reason you would need the defensive merc is to have them live longer. But that's not a problem. Against a pack of enemies (after my army is assembled), I usually cast amp damage, and as soon as the first one drops, I cast corpse explosion, which is usually enough to kill another couple members of the pack.

And remember - all of your summons heal, so it doesn't matter if they get hit a couple of times. Since the skeletons are always moving around, and changing positions, if one or two are hurt it is unlikely that the next group of enemies you run into will specifically target the hurt one. More likely than not, a non-damaged skeleton will be at the front of the pack to take on the enemy.

Here's one other idea for a merc, although I must admit that I have not tried this, so I don't know how effective it will be. What about a thorns merc? It won't help your necro out, as the plan is not to get him hit, but thorns should effect your summons just like all the other auras.

I love the battle against Nihlathak when you're both trying to use the corpses on the ground to kill each other.

 

I had a problem killing Duriel recently. I'm a necro using skeletal summons, and no golem.

Eventually I had to use a clay golem, and to keep on resummoning him as he died. The thing is, Duriel would one shot my skellies, and kill my merc soon afterwards. having no directly offensive spells myself, I could do nothing but run.

So I'm thinking of using golems instead of skellies, or perhaps a bit of both (although I would think I would get better results investing in one of the two, not both).

 

Two recommendation on Duriel - get to level 24 and get decripify. Use a clay golem.

Decripify makes Duriel move at half speed, and the clay golem slows him by another 25% on top of that. Duriel moves at 1/4 speed. It's so slow you can almost walk away when he starts his swing and he'll miss you because you're no longer there when he completes his swing. The idea though is once you have decripify and a clay golem working on him, you want him to attack YOU. Assuming he cannot one hit kill you, he's moving so slow that you can keep drinking red potions (not purple - you want the reds that fill you bulb slowly) and keep you alive. I beat Duriel on my first try, my merc didn't die, and all it cost me was a 3 out of my 4 rows of potions in my belt. Diablo is much harder beceause if he does the lightning hose, he can literally kill off your entire army in seconds, and it's not like you can just stand there and take the lightning hose for everyone else - you HAVE TO MOVE out of the way.

 

My necro got to level 24 and I put a point in bone prison.
Stopped Duriel in his tracks and added decrepify on top of it.

My merc and iron golem and skeletons 2 fighters; 2 mages were able to wear him down to 1/4 HP before I had to teleport back.

Had to raise my merc (I stepped through the TP just as he got wacked), make a new iron golem, and raise my skeletons before going back and finishing him.

My merc has a weapon that prevents monster heal so he didn't get any HP back during my short absence.


My necro just stands back and watches.
never gets his hands dirty...

 

Just finished Act 1 of my D2 run. Not going as fast as I like it, though... I've gotten an offense merc, and my summons pounded the living crap out of Radament. Decripify is slowly coming - Duriel's gonna get destroyed, and hopefully drop me a couple of uniques in the process.

 

I'm pushing act 3 nightmare with my pure lightning sorcerers. I mean to run Mephisto for some exceptional uniques before I push my Hammerdin on to Hell.

 

As far as I know, none of the Act end bosses regenerate to keep them from being too difficult.