P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

[Geirr]

P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

So I just came back to Diablo II: LoD two days ago after a 3 year hiatus.

I've played just about everything you can play. However, this time around; I built my first Javazon - It was fun..but wore out fast.

So then yesterday I put together a MF and eventual Chaos running Windy Druid, and that's fun...but it's just not enough.

I can't stand smite or hammerdins...I've played them too many times. Alongside the barbarian, which I just generally don't enjoy.

Then I got to thinking is a P&B Necro good at anything in particular?

I intend to G-rush him to about 75, so the 'problems' associated with lower levels wont really be a problem. Right now I'm thinking about going Poison w/ dabble in either skelles or golem (which is better?)

 

[kavlor]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

You've got a Merc,Lower resist and corpse explosion for dealing with immunes.

 

[Cheeseflys]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Poison is great for PvM, you just need some slight twinking to be effective. Depending on your build, that is.

Most Poisonmancers invest into some Skeles with spare points, and they pretty much help with killing and tanking, of course. Bone fails in PvM for untwinked considering the bone skills take alot of points to be effective without high-end gear. Unless you go bone-summon, that is. Even then, the Skeles will probally out due your bone.

I assume you're untwinked, as you haven't played for 3 years.

 

[Geirr]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

How does the Peanut Butter Necro compare to a Plague javver?

 

[sequoia]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Both are rather unimpressive for PVM. I don't have experience so I can't say which would be better.

 

[jimmah]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

IMO you don't need summons for pvm bone necro. I use bone prison instead. No baddies can hurt you.

I played a untwinked bone necro in pvm and it worked just fine! bone prison + bone armour helps with survival.

Be sure to get a Insight (runeword: http://battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords-110.shtml) polearm for your act 2 merc. Will solve all your mana problems!

Also another tip is to shop drognan in normal act 2 for a 2 socket +3 bone spear wand (only look at the "bone wands", the other wands like yew wand can't get 2 sockets), then make White runeword in it (http://battle.net/diablo2exp/items/runewords-original.shtml). It will give you +8 to bone spear! If you find a bone wand with +3 bone spear but no sockets you can socket it with Larzuk quest in act 5, it will give it 2 soc.

Skills
20 bone spear
20 spirit
20 bone prison
20 bone wall
1 bone armour
20 teeth (max this last!)
put a point in Decriphy if you want
and 1 point in clay golem + 1 golem mastery + 1 summon resist are also good

 

[Ed from Russia]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Poisonmancers are pretty strong in PvM. I had one without summons but with Teleport and Dim Vision, and it was a lot of fun. In PvP they can do pretty well as long as people don't wear gear that reduces poison duration. Most players don't have this in their stash so most of the time you can give them a hard time.

Bonemancers are poor in PvM. Teeth doesn't do enough damage, and PSpear and PSpirit don't damage multiple monsters (I believe this is a requirement for PvM casters). It can work in combination with Corpse Explosion but there are many better characters. Bone Prison/Wall will give you crowd control but you still need to cast one spear/spirit per monster so it takes too long. In PvP a well-equipped bonemancer is hard to beat. His attacks are unblockable and unresistable, and necromancers can teleport quite fast.

 

[jimmah]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Ummm... you do know that Bone spear has 100% piercing?

 

[brunopeppers]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

bonemancer aren't poor in pvm... bonespear in most of cases do the job, against strong uniques and bosses, bone prision + bonespirit do it fine; the only problem are the these magic imunes, like the ones that ressurrect undeads, in this case decripify + mercenary

 

[Ed from Russia]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Ummm... you do know that Bone spear has 100% piercing?

Right, so if you ask all monsters to line up nicely you can kill several of them at once.

 

[jimmah]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Have you even tried playing?

I have no problems hitting multiple monsters/clearing mobs in pvm with bone spear. Usually they all come running towards you (hello piercing!) and since bone spear has a small effective "area of effect" (it damages monsters slightly outside the animation) you usually get most of the group at the same time. Also add to the equation that you are spamming spears all over them. Then you just pick the left overs.

Also if you like there's nothing stopping you from micro manage your character by moving him slightly to optimze spear trajectory. But I guess that's too much work...

 

[Ed from Russia]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

I have built a 2 PvM bonemancers last season. The first was with the Trang set, which gave me problems with FCR (a bug that I was unaware of), and the 2nd with standard caster equipment. I used a White wand so focused mainly on Bone Spear.

Obviously finishing the game with a bonemancer is easy enough; very few monsters are resistant to magic, and Bone Spear will kill quite quickly. But when I say it's not a great build I compare it with other casting characters: meteorbs, lightning sorcs, poisonmancers, Wind Druids, Hammerdins, Fire Druids... I have made all these characters, most of them several times.

IMO the Bonemancer is right at the bottom of this list in terms of effectiveness, and it doesn't make up for this in terms of survivability.

 

[theredpredator]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

PvP can be godly 2 for pvm!

Merc with insight and good eq dr etc max resist u can run anything. As said earlier dont use skeletons, use prison. They tend to attack the prison instead of you. U might however focus on some revives for the sexyness factor. Nothing more fun then having vipers spear with you.

Shoot 1-3 down, amp whatever, Press CE around 10 times, area cleared. Easy to run Baal this way. (if get eni etc life will be much easeir.

When u get to baal just decripify, clay golem and he will not even flinch.

 

[assimilateur]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

When u get to baal just decripify, clay golem and he will not even flinch.

Either this is a common (I've read this many times) misconception, or I'm doing something wrong, because my Baal does flinch. He even fires off the occasional fire nova or inferno, or whatever that is. And obviously I'm slowing him by more than 100% when I use decrep + clay golem. Hell, my merc even wears that mask that slows enemies down by 20%, which would bring us to a solid 120%+.

It's a shame you can't like really slow bosses down, to the brink of paralysis. The way it is they can still kill a bunch of skeleton mages, sometimes even warriors, when I run them.

 

[AnimeCraze]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Either this is a common (I've read this many times) misconception, or I'm doing something wrong, because my Baal does flinch. He even fires off the occasional fire nova or inferno, or whatever that is.

I think they mean by he won't clone, teleport, or use that ice thing. As far as I know, Baal haven't been killing my warriors or mages. Diablo on the other hand might occasionally do something. But maybe that's because I stack venom lord revives vs the two of them.

 

[DH Amazon]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Either this is a common (I've read this many times) misconception, or I'm doing something wrong, because my Baal does flinch. He even fires off the occasional fire nova or inferno, or whatever that is. And obviously I'm slowing him by more than 100% when I use decrep + clay golem. Hell, my merc even wears that mask that slows enemies down by 20%, which would bring us to a solid 120%+.

It's a shame you can't like really slow bosses down, to the brink of paralysis. The way it is they can still kill a bunch of skeleton mages, sometimes even warriors, when I run them.

I think both clay and that 20slow from helmet are same type of slow, so only one is effective there. So when merc hits Baal, it replaces Clays better slow. So take that helmet off, or replace with other. Or add Kelpie to merc and kill clay before Baal.

Try to get cold damage for you merc, Gaze, Duress etc... to add little more slow.

 

[PrimeEvil]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

Decrep + clay golem will not stop a boss from attacking, it just slows the boss by a great deal. Do not think decrep + clay golem stops bosses, it just severely slows the boss down-increasing your survivability. I know this since I've taken my fishymancer to hell and Diablo still loved to throw out those lightning hoses everytime even if he was decrep'd and slow'd.

 

[shuy]

Re: P&B Necro, are they good at anything?

What are you talking about?

Compare to another casters:
Hammer - the best dmg, great life, def, no immunes etc, but hammer moves so weird that some people (including me) hate this char.
Sorc - great dmg, but fire, light, cold immunes monsters apears much more often then magic immunes. Especially when you have mixed group of monsters fire and cold immune and you must switch skills all the time. Moreover 1 hireling is not enough to cover your arse for example vs group archers leaded by boss with fanatism.
Ele Druid - immunes are so common that stop him in many locations, btw minions keep monsters far from you.

Jimmah gave you build for best PvM char.
Place pts in bone wall and prison ofc (synergies) but instead using walls invest in "white" wand +revieve. They keep your opponents far from you much better then prison or walls. BS damage is not impressive but vs groups of monstes you need kill 1 or 2 monster, corpse expl do the rest. Vs bosses you have 3 minutes (revieve life lenght) to kill them. I had no problem to kill Uber Izual, sometimes killed Duriel, but to be honest I was not able to kill Lilith.
Moreover I like bone necrto very much because of few skills used. I used 2 courses - Amp Dmg to increase CE dmg and Life Tap, when merc life was low.
If you invest in equip you have 600-700 Hp bone armor, 5-6K life clay golem, 10-15 revieves protecting you and over 4K magic dmg with BS (100% piercing what can give 40K dmg in Horazon sanctuary or maggot lair). Damage is stable +- 300 points not like sorc light damage 1-20K. Anyway my bone necro kill Baal faster then Summoner and his 14 skelies and 14 mages.