Act2 mercs bounce back and forth between their two auras of their type, IIRC. I ended up going with an Act 5 merc, myself, as he's a fair bit easier to keep alive.
As to necro, I have no idea, I've mostly only played summoners. I played a dentist once that was pretty good, but I can't remember if that was 1.09 or 1.10...
That'd make it Thorns then. I cannot say I've seem the damage return animation, but I wasn't really looking for it. I suppose I could change to an Offensive merc and get both Might and BA for him.
Iirc, life leech doesn't work on mercs so in 1.07 only the act5 merc is "good" due to his crazy life regen. But it won't be long until you prefer playing solo.
I only tried a necro to kill cows. It was funny for a while, but always very slow.
Thinking on it more deeply, I'm even more torn about warmth vs teleport, given that I'm pretty sure this character will almost entirely just be rushing and doing LK. Perhaps some boss running to fill out lower TC items.
Does anyone know what the WW breakpoints are for 1.07? The guide says they are the same as 1.09, but I haven't been able to find out what those are. The closest I got was some threads asking if they had changed with 1.10, and the responses didn't answer that question but just posted what the breakpoints are for 1.10+. I have no idea if they are the same as 1.09 though.
Another question I have concerns the socket limitations. I have RTB's socket list post:
I've been trying to compile the list of individual items with different (ie lower) max sockets than the above listed, and here is what I have so far, with sources:
Code:
Aegis, Monarch: 3 sockets (WoRG)
Pally Shields: 4 (WoRG)(only these gets 4sockets (WoRG))
Blade Barrier, Troll Nest: 0 (WoRG)
Body Armour = same as later patches (?)(WoRG)
All Claws: 2 (?)
The (?) denote categories were filled by off-hand memory, and are not confirmed-confirmed. Is anyone aware of any missing?
On to character update:
I spent the past couple days racking a Visceratuant for forwarding for eventual use.
Code:
Visceratuant
Defender
Defense: 90
Chance to Block: 55%
Smite Damage: 8 to 12
Durability: 42 of 68
Required Strength: 38
Required Level: 28
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 54
Fingerprint: 0x76d696b8
+80 to Life
+80% Enhanced Defense
+25% Increased Chance of Blocking
+2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
30% Faster Block Rate
Despite not having an immediate use for it, I mostly justified the time by running the super chests too, and walked away with a good amount of shinies for the effort.
Merc Helm Upgrades:
Code:
Demon Visage
Slayer Guard
Defense: 100
Durability: 40 of 55
(Barbarian Only)
Required Strength: 118
Required Level: 35
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 54
Fingerprint: 0x4ddbe00b
+39 to Life
+1 to Mana
Lightning Resist +22%
Cold Resist +9%
+3 to Light Radius
10% Faster Hit Recovery
Prefix 1007 Circlet of Quality
Defense: 20
Durability: 26 of 35
Required Level: 22
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 54
Fingerprint: 0x4a4570c7
+13 to Maximum Damage
All Resistances +24
Not sure which to use, but atm I'm using the Slayer Guard for the FHR/health/armour.
Character upgrades:
Code:
Bitter Buckle
Plated Belt
Defense: 19
Durability: 23 of 24
Required Strength: 60
Required Level: 21
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x2b04807d
+63% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +27%
Cold Resist +22%
24% Faster Hit Recovery
14% Chance to cast Level 5 Nova when struck
Havoc Flange
Ghost Armor
Defense: 109
Durability: 17 of 20
Required Strength: 38
Required Level: 22
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x6481aa0f
+20 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +27%
24% Faster Hit Recovery
14% Chance to cast Level 5 Nova when struck
Natalya's Soul (racked by accident)
Mesh Boots
Defense: 117
Durability: 66 of 66
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 25
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 54
Fingerprint: 0x350c8942
+75 Defense
Lightning Resist +15%
Cold Resist +15%
+50 Maximum Durability
40% Faster Run/Walk
Heal Stamina Plus 9% (0.25 per Character Level)
Very happy with those indeed. Enough so, that I think I might forgo trying for that skullder's for now and just move on to hell. I'm considering fishing out a decent 12%FHR charm to hit 8 frames, but it's likely unnecessary.
Other rewards included a good chunk of crafting runes, jewels, and gems (a particularly large contribution to my numbers of crafting jewels and PGems), a Lum. Skill circlet-types, amulets, and of course, lots of charms. Nothing truly great amongst the skill gear, but here's the highlights of the charms:
Code:
Prefix 1063 Small Charm of Inertia
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x7f474a26
Lightning Resist +12%
3% Faster Run/Walk
Prefix 996 [B]Large Charm[/B] of Life
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 9
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0xea7a86b
+6 to Life
All Resistances +13
Prefix 1054 Grand Charm of Quality
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 22
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x6dc2c938
+13 to Maximum Damage
Lightning Resist +23%
Prefix 906 Large Charm of Maiming
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 56
Fingerprint: 0x57fc07b4
+49 to Attack Rating
+10 to Maximum Damage
Prefix 1041 Small Charm of Quality
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 28
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x238d80e9
+4 to Maximum Damage
Fire Resist +5%
Small Charm of Inertia (many copies)
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 27
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0x2f127b91
3% Faster Run/Walk
I spent a lot of time and effort trying to Charsi vlld ethereal claws and any socketed ones I rolled only had the 1 os. (About half a dozen I believe from memory).
I ruled 2os out as possible at the stage and left it off my list of desired mods.
I stuck the prefix text into excel, and it looks like Jeweler's and Artificer's can't spawn on rares, only Mechanist's (1os). Crafts can get Jeweler's and Artificer's but there's a bug preventing most crafts from getting any sockets even when they do spawn the necessary affix.
Necro without summons is super weak. And I really dunno why not goin that way.
Any other option to deliver some dmg is use 2 or 5 act merc with some solid damage weapons (like blood craft or something unique) and curse everything with amplify damage. Other sources of good damage are only LOwer resist + Bone spirit / Corpse explosion.
But without summons bosses like Ancients or Baal at hell dificulty.. or crows - impossible to proceed so Fire golem and revive are a MUST.
1) claws in 1.07 get a max of two sockets, even in base types which can get three sockets in later versions. I realized this far too late after spending a lot of ingredients crafting some wonderful claws and finding that Larzuk would only punch two holes in them.
2) I'm not sure about naturally spawning rares and crafts getting sockets. It doesn't seem to happen too often, if at all, and I don't recall any naturally dropping ones with two sockets. But for crafts, not getting their own sockets is a good thing, because of the Larzuk reward giving three sockets (when possible) for crafts.
I've gotten a bunch of good crafted 1.07 items with three sockets over the years, for example many that I've used on various characters as well as ones that have been sitting around, like this one:
Code:
Hailstone Barb
Colossus Blade
One Hand Damage: 107 - 280
Two Hand Damage: 249 - 495
Indestructible
Required Level: 85
Required Strength: 189
Required Dexterity: 110
Fingerprint: 0x36733fe5
Item Level: 62
Version: Expansion
5% Chance to cast level 1 Amplify Damage on striking
+40% Increased Attack Speed
331% Enhanced Damage
4% Life stolen per hit
+18 to Life
3 Sockets (0 used)
I'm starting to see, Nulio, what you said about soon preferring to play solo. I'm at the beginning of ACT2 Hell, and my merc is dying left right and centre with shaftstop, and a decent resistance circlet (just with it was of amicae...). I had higher hopes as he survived Andariel just fine, but when he got killed in <5s by a leaper with only might, right out the gate, after two resurrections in the sewers, I'm about ready to give up on him entirely. An instagib from a MSLE Beetle I could understand... but really? A basic non-scary leaper? It's a shame, particularly as the merc makes positioning the funny 1.07 Frozen Orb much easier.
I might go back to NM Cows for a couple levels to make moving forward a bit easier, but we'll see.
In better news, I'm finding breaking Cold/Lightning immunities no problem so far. For Just Cold immunities I don't really notice a difference, but lightning immunes are a different story. Since they are lightning enchanted (and therefor dangerous) a lot of the time, the loss of kill speed from no static shock is quite noticeable, but I picked up a Lv1 Lower Resist Wand, and when I remember to use it's a big help. The real test will of course be later in the game when the monsters have a resistance much higher over cap, but so far the story is more hopeful than my merc's usefulness.
@Espr. Out of interest, what level is your sorc? Mine is clvl70 and is about to enter the Crystalline Passage. As for items, I have found one upgrade since mid-nightmare.
BTW I've got 2 LR charges daggers and a LR wand if you are interested.
I just leveled from 53-60 in NM Cows. The last two levels were the only really slow ones so it went by pretty quickly. And lots of gems/runes which is nice; also got a Guillame's Face for the future barb which is great.
Currently I've got a Lv1 Lower Resist Wand. I wasn't sure where to shop for the dagger version. Elsix tended to have a lot (and is nice and fast when the exit is by him), but in normal he's too low level of items, and in NM he tends to only sell daggers which require pumping dex (kris, I think), so I decided to just go with the wand that saved me stat points. I'm not sure how big of a difference the two extra levels really makes in practice, but if you've found it worth it I can see what I can find to offer you. Or, if wands can get the Lv3 charges (wiki wasn't clear), I can try shopping that.
You'll need all the energy for the great ones.
so Fire golem and revive are a MUST.