A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

@Darkstar - You don't have to max out CE immediately though, if you choose that road. Have you decided on a good build? There are several listed in the necromancer forum, as well as here (in the guides stickie on the top of the page). Usually, Str and Dex are a matter of discussion. Most seem to state that you should pick an armor you'd like to have (unique) and then work your str up to it's required lvl. However, untwinked it may be wise to invest a bit more so you have some options open! Dex is easy. Either base or enough for max block most of the time. If you decide to melee yourself, you might want to pump it for some AR (you're gonna need it).

Depending on what skill you are going to use, you'll probably leave that energy at base. However, if you intend to do a lot of cursing and such, one or two stats invested in energy (10 points or so) doesn't hurt! Besides, the necromancer gets much more return value for mana then for vitality. So it might be more efficient to create the base mana pool you need by pumping some stats into energy, and then only focus on +vit items and stuff while you progress through the acts...

Iron Golem has always been a fascinating skill for me (I have played few necro's though, so I rarely got to experiment with the skill). A suggestion, if you go this way, is to make an insight weapon (You need the RWM mod installed to use it though), and then turn it into a Iron Golem. I think several people on this forum used it with satisfying results...
IM? Hmm, not sure about that one. I think it's use has been diminished in one of the patches, due to the massive difference between dam dealt(relatively low) and life points(quite high) for most mobs. Great curses can be Attract, Confuse ea. Especially Attract, since the grouped mobs are quite vulnerable to the CE that way :P
Dim Vision is a very safe and popular choice as well. Best crowd control in the game (with CoS from Assassin) IMHO.

What is your idea for a future build? Want to melee yourself? Or use CE to clear up after your golem and merc?

@Serdash - Impressive progress... I suppose a flawed sapphire is better then a chipped one, but the damage output for blues is quite pathetic... it's just the freezing effect that is useful. Not sure if the length improves with higher gem quality though (always assumed it didn't matter). Good luck on the S/U front!

@Heskla - So funny... :P Naah, seriously, if you think that might be an issue, by all means, cut it off and toss it away! What use is that thing for a necromancer anyways... What woman would want to start a family with ole pastyface?
 
Doubtful. All a succubi would want is to suck him dry and then toss him away. Of course, financially speaking, the same COULD be said about some women today...
 
Merlin The Wizzard said:
Doubtful. All a succubi would want is to suck him dry and then toss him away. Of course, financially speaking, the same COULD be said about some women today...
Click to expand...

HAHA!

We're living in a world of succubis!:hanky:



EDIT: Sorry for the hi-jacking.

I'd like to make some totaly crazy build. I mean extremely crazy. Just like without ambitions at all. I'll think about it until tomorrow. Pacifistmancer or something....


 
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Merlin The Wizzard said:
@Serdash - Impressive progress... I suppose a flawed sapphire is better then a chipped one, but the damage output for blues is quite pathetic... it's just the freezing effect that is useful. Not sure if the length improves with higher gem quality though (always assumed it didn't matter). Good luck on the S/U front!
Click to expand...

Well, the only reason it's in there at all is because I need the merc to have cold damage. Otherwise I'd be using this baby that I made with the Staff+Kris+Belt+Diamond recipie.

Savage Poleaxe
Two-Hand Damage: 32 to 70
Durability: 43 of 65
Required Strength: 62
Required Level: 19
Polearm Class - Slow Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 50
Fingerprint: 0x52693b3d
+80% Enhanced Damage

If only I had a circlet with cold damage. :\



 
I think i might join this one when i get a power cable for my monitor...stupid moving...so what is the verdict on revives I didn't see that in the original post? also what about those exploding things in act 3?
 
@raishi - So many cat avatars here... and I like them a lot. I must be growing soft at my old age, those avatars are so cute... Of course, I like AJK (I think his nick is) as well, the cat-abuse :P

Meh. Revives, you can't get those, since you cannot put points into either skeleton or skeleton mage. Or skeleton mastery. I suppose you could get them with a +to revive item, so let's just plain out forbid that. Corpses are there for removal, not revival, purposes. :P

As for the exploding dolls... Good point. You aren't allowed to melee those as well. Of course, I wonder what character would WANT to melee those little bonewrapped fantasy variants of claymore mines anyways....
Hope Serdash didn't yet engage them, if so, my bad and just continue. GOTTA learn to think about all aspects for once...

And welcome to the tourney!
 
Code: 
Make no bones about it
Forum Name    Character Name    Level     Waypoint/Location    Best Drop            

sveinbjorn      Elric             22          Far Oasis        Tal Rune
Bali            DrGuillotin       16          Dark Woods       Ith Rune 
Merlin          Bonophobic        15          Black Marsh      Death's Guard   
TheReadMenace   Spineless_Toxin    6          Cold Plains      Chipped Sapphire
Serdash         SneezyBones       30          Kurast Bazaar        Rare Boots
DarkStarHero    Ironist           16          Inner Cloister   Unique Sword - Rixot's Keen
Well, I got through the jungles at the very least. I was cruising a long with little to no extra space in my inventory, lucky for me the Lower Kurast WP was very close to the entrance, which allowed me a quick stop without fighting any enemies in that area and the ability to mule and continue without having to partially re-clear an area. The Kurast Bazaar was the same way and to be honest it was enough playing for the night just clearing out those damned dungeons. ;P

As usual, my best drops thus far have been gambled items. So I suppose really my best drop is gold since it's benefitting me very well.

Doom Shank
Boots
Defense: 2
Durability: 12 of 12
Kick Damage: 3 to 8
Required Level: 19
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 31
Fingerprint: 0x87273910
Heal Stamina Plus 25%
Fire Resist +30%
Lightning Resist +21%
70% Extra Gold from Monsters
14% Chance to cast Level 5 Charged Bolt when struck
Repairs 1 durability in 33 seconds

I get the feeling I'll be needing those in the CS when Act 4 rolls around, although I'll switch back to my newest MF boots just before killing Diablo...

Emerald Boots of Luck
Defense: 3
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Level: 19
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0xed488068
Poison Resist +35%
35% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Thanks to a new circlet, my merc is able to use his Savage Poleaxe at the cost of a little less MF, but it's worth it in the end for his upgrade in damage.


Overall progress is moderate. I can do full clears in normal, but repeating full clears for nightmare and hell might get to me. Although depending on what I find, that could change.

Also, if we're allowed to re-run areas twice, does that mean -any- area? As in, could I take my necromancer, after finishing normal, and go wipe out the entire game all over again just for drops? And then repeat for the bosses one more time? Not that there's anything too useful to find out of normal, but you know :P





















Am I the only one doing anything in this tournament? ;P
 
MY little bonehater has been parked for a while. Since I participate in both Skunks tourney and in the MF tourney for the ladder (both have time limits) I am kinda swamped, D2 time wise... I am hoping to come back here once the MFO tourney is over (or my barb there dies)
 
Code: 
Make no bones about it
Forum Name    Character Name    Level     Waypoint/Location    Best Drop            

sveinbjorn      Elric             22          Far Oasis        Tal Rune
Bali            DrGuillotin       16          Dark Woods       Ith Rune 
Merlin          Bonophobic        15          Black Marsh      Death's Guard   
TheReadMenace   Spineless_Toxin    6          Cold Plains      Chipped Sapphire
Serdash         SneezyBones       35          Harrogath        Sander's Paragon
DarkStarHero    Ironist           16          Inner Cloister   Unique Sword - Rixot's Keen
Holy hell.

Well I'm in act 5 finally. The start of Act 4 had me a bit worried, mostly because I was relying on the same old tricks, but monster HP skyrockets a bit in A4, so I had to switch up my hotkeys and use attract quite a bit more. Further, I found that certain packs were quite resistant to poison(most things are poison immune in A4H IIRC) and that just made things even more complicated. I could've used Lower Resist, but that would've removed decrepify from the things swatting at my merc, then he would have died and I would've been swarmed.

Strangely enough I didn't think of, nor did I really need to use Terror to get monsters away from me. Mostly because I hate chasing them down and finding them with a bigger pack of monsters. Either way, Decrepify and Attract did the job well, although with my loaded down set of MF gear I don't have anything that boosts my mana, so spamming curses every 4 or 12 seconds eats at my piddly 97 mana fairly quickly.

Izual was a bit of a bore. Cast decrepify, smack him with a PDagger, refresh decrep after 4 seconds, stab with PDagger 1.4 seconds after a decrep refresh, watch his life slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, ohmygodwhyisthisgoingsoslowwhyingodsnamedoesthisbastardhavemoreHPthandiablo, dwindle to nothing. GG 2 skill points into PDagger.

Also, on the way to Izual, I found a new toy. Sander's Paragon. The 35% MF on it was 5% better than my current circlet, so I equipped it, and it's quite gg. A gem shrine in the plains also caught me my first perfect topaz.

River of Flame was fairly boring. The merc almost died a couple of times because I wasn't using many tricks against Udars. I finally started using attract and decrep on them as I did with everything else, and it was pretty gg. Hellforge dropped Ral and a load of crap.

When it came to the River of Flame WP, I had some things to mule off and on just to get things going and getting ready. Read my previous post about the gg boots I had for Diablo.

Well, I got half of it right at least. Forgot to mule stuff on, so I was going into the Chaos Sanctuary with 45/25/45/20 resists. GG? Notrly.

Oblivion Knights were handled by luring out everything around them way back as far as possible, killing them off, and then going after the OKs themselves. Only one merc death to IM, and that was the very first one, in fact. Pretty good luck with it, really.

Took down Infector of Souls first. Took a few trips to town to keep the merc from getting smacked around by ridiculously overpowered Inferno blasts. Otherwise not much of a problem.

Lord De Seis was next. GG. No problems. In fact, I was able to even use poison explosion on the pack to get rid of them.

Grand Vizier of Chaos was just as without problems as the other two. In fact probably the easiest of all, but that's usually the case.

One trip to town to realize I forgot my boots, a bit of cursing, and then saying, "Screw it, I've gone too far.". I popped the last seal.

My gold before fighting diablo was somewhere around 175k. Maybe a little more.

My necromancer now has ~5,000 gold in his stash. I had to resurrect the merc a good 5 bajillion times. Over and over and over. I got clipped by a Lightning Hose and it took a bit of a chunk out of my life, so I decided to only run in and throw a nice PDagger when everything was going smoothly.

Sometimes I would have a golem in his face, him decrep'd, poisoned, and bleeding out horribly from my Merc's weapon. Sometimes he would **** the golem, lightning hose poor Zanarhi, and then look at me with that "YOU GUNNA GIT RAEPD!" look.

Wait, bleeding out from my merc weapon? Oh yeah. I forgot to mention, before heading to the Chaos Sanctuary, I took a 3os Pike I found and tossed 'Malice' into it. The damage is pretty puny, but the 100% open wounds and -%target defense made sure that the merc hit quite often.

After the long and (horribly) drawn out battle, Diablo stuck his wang in my face again by dropping nothing but a Sigon's Visor.

Well, gg I suppose. I didn't die and I'm one act further along. Hopefully drops will be much better for me and I can get a good collection of PTopazes going so I can get my MF a bit higher.

Not to mention getting some better shield items to boost resists for when Nightmare runs around.

Stats on SneezyBones Thus Far
Code: 
Level 35
Strength: 70(74)
Dexterity: 60(94)
Vitality: 100
Energy: 25

Chance To Block: 62%
Attack Rating(PDagger): 1364

Life: 363
Mana: 97

Resists: 45/35/25/42

Poison Dagger: 10
Poison Explosion: 7
Poison Nova: 6
Corpse Explosion: 1

Clay Golem: 1
Golem Mastery: 1
Summon Resist: 1

All Curses: 1

Magic Find: 186%
Magic Find(Merc Kill): 225%
 
Bah, had a whole reply worked out, then I forget to hit Submit :P
Sigh. Oh well, what I wanted to say in a nutshell
1) envy at Sander's PAragon (grailer 4 me).
2) Great writeup!
3) Hate big D only slightly less then his little brother in Act II. Always have to remmeber to run, to avoid his nasty Bone Prison
4) Izzy. Hate the HP, love the reward.
5) Venom Lords. Went in one patch from beaking the weakest enemy in the game (approximately) to being absolutely kickass, with the Infector being one of the top three of my most feared unique heropacks in the game. Insane upgrade by Blizzard.

GG!
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

I've decided to see how far I can get with a Necromancer who is afraid of bones. It'll be a slow start, as I've decided I want to make a golemancer using Rusty, so the merc will have to do all the work until around the time that Duriel will fall. I'll focus my attention on his/her killing power. I have no idea how far this idea will go, but the concept will be to maximize golem skills, the obligatory CE (which should help speed the pace a bit), and AI curses. Never used those at all.

The three friends have already started, and got to level 14 just in time to save Cain from Tristram. Thus begins Moe's journey.
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

I can't play D2 for now, but I will post an update this weekend or next week. :wink3:
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Hello all. Hope you don't mind "Stumpy McStump" joining in; this sounds like a fun and challenging little tourney. Good rules for role playing.

Code: 
Make no bones about it
Forum Name    Character Name    Level     Waypoint/Location    Best Drop            

sveinbjorn      Elric             22          Far Oasis        Tal Rune
Bali            DrGuillotin       16          Dark Woods       Ith Rune 
Merlin          Bonophobic        15          Black Marsh      Death's Guard   
TheReadMenace   Spineless_Toxin    6          Cold Plains      Chipped Sapphire
Serdash         SneezyBones       35          Harrogath        Sander's Paragon
DarkStarHero    Ironist           16          Inner Cloister   Unique Sword - Rixot's Keen
Chaogasm        Stumpy_McStump     1          Rogue Camp       None
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Chaogasm, Oldsoldier... Good luck! Give it another 10 days, and I will be free to work on Bono again. Poor guy, feeling left out at the rogue camp... No doubt being forced to listen to the fantasy variant of U2.... Imagine his pain, horror and suffering!
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Stumpy has done rather well so far, getting to Act 4 with "/players 8" active and doing full clearances all the way.

I don't think I've ever seen a character go so long in Act 1 without seeing a single chipped saphire drop. It was incredibly irritating for Stumpy, not being able to do anything about those nasty skellies, since he could also not find any ranged weapon with cold damage, as required by his charge of bone shattering.

It was when he reached the Black Marsh that he realised, to his great irritation, that his Teeth spell was not as repellent to his bone-phobia as he had thought... blast. And shortly after he found two saphires. Double blast. At least he was now able to assist his mercenary rogue in despatching those skeletal horrors.

When he learned Poison Explosion, Stumpy found matters much easier. A very impressive skill for dropping hordes of icky Act 2 skellies. He decided to go for a full poison dagger focused strategy, with the Attract and Lower Resist curses in support. No golems.

He had two near death scares. One in a false Tal Rasha's tomb, where he found himself between a mass of shocking beetles and that nasty unique lightening enchanted Unraveller. The other was fighting Mephisto. Perhaps leaving it on /p8 for that fight was a tad impetuous. Nethertheless, Stumpy prevailed.

No great items found yet. Oh, except loads of tasty rares which could have come in very handy - had they not had anything to do with bone... argh!

Code: 
Make no bones about it
Forum Name    Character Name    Level     Waypoint/Location    Best Drop            

sveinbjorn      Elric             22          Far Oasis        Tal Rune
Bali            DrGuillotin       16          Dark Woods       Ith Rune 
Merlin          Bonophobic        15          Black Marsh      Death's Guard   
TheReadMenace   Spineless_Toxin    6          Cold Plains      Chipped Sapphire
Serdash         SneezyBones       35          Harrogath        Sander's Paragon
DarkStarHero    Ironist           16          Inner Cloister   Unique Sword - Rixot's Keen
Chaogasm        Stumpy_McStump    32          Act 4            Sander's Superstition
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Well with the Diverse tournament over for me it was time to put some effort into Moe, Gumby and Gwinni (soon to be replaced mid-season by Moe, Rusty and Gaile). Gaile is a fire rogue with a sapphire in her bow, which is more effective.

I reran countess three times per the rules to get some good runes, and can now make a stealth or a malice, but I'm just waiting on the items to show up. I've also tracked down a +3 CG wand and a +2 CG preserved head for my clay golem prebuff. I'll assume that using a preserved head or a zombie head is within the rules since they weren't banned specifically (the preserved head is certainly OK since the head is actually encased in glass) but will modify my play if that is not the case.

After killing Andariel three times to get the best possible gems (I got one topaz) I moved forward to the sewers of Lut Gholein. Radament was easy, as by the time I killed him I had three points in confuse, and that spell just creates mass chaos for the enemy. It is also a great way to keep skeletons off of me, as they stop and attack each other. I took a screenshot of this but I'll have to get it later. Confuse is like the bone spells; when cast it tends to draw monsters from far away, clumping them together. A high level CE (currently at only 1 point) will do wonders in later areas.

Moe stopped when he hit the cellar level 1 WP and got to level 24. He put his first effort into learning how to summon an Iron Golem, as well as decrepify and summon resist. So far, so good!

Code: 
Make no bones about it
Forum Name    Character Name    Level     Waypoint/Location    Best Drop            

sveinbjorn      Elric             22          Far Oasis        Tal Rune
Bali            DrGuillotin       16          Dark Woods       Ith Rune 
Merlin          Bonophobic        15          Black Marsh      Death's Guard   
TheReadMenace   Spineless_Toxin    6          Cold Plains      Chipped Sapphire
Serdash         SneezyBones       35          Harrogath        Sander's Paragon
DarkStarHero    Ironist           16          Inner Cloister   Unique Sword - Rixot's Keen
Chaogasm        Stumpy_McStump    32          Act 4            Sander's Superstition 
OldSoldier      Moe               24          Palace Cellars   Cold Charm
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

@chaogasm - Nice going! Yeah, not very lucky indeed if the rares are all 'bone' related, but I am sure your luck will change. Just be glad I didn't rule out 'Corpse' either :P
Mephy can be quite dreadful with low resists. Especially on p8 (my preferred setting these days). And as for the Tombs... Well, there is a reason many players choose to skip them (me not included btw. :P)

@Oldsoldier - As expected, a very thorough setup. You are gearing up to go the distance, eh? Good luck to you! I read up on Golemmancers, and it seems they start to suffer in hell difficulty. If I were you, I'd focus on rusty indeed. I thought that was the coolest skill in the game, when I first read about it... Actually using up items to create a golem with the same mods... Leetness!
As far as the head question goes, well, the instructions on what items can and cannot be worn are mentioned on page 1. The preserved head, and its nightmare variant, can be worn. None of the elite versiosn can, though!.
 
Re: A new tournament: "Make no bones about it"

Moe has moved forward a bit. It'll be a short update today. Duriel killed Rusty pretty darn quickly, but he hurt himself greatly in the process (level 1 IG is all I plan on doing) and Gumby held Duriel off long enough for Gaile to finish him off. Right now she's doing all the work, so I'll continue to keep the rogue around for a while.

Lots of useless rares are dropping, and some of them deal good damage, so they get made into a Rusty. Somewhere in the jungles of Kurast an ethereal 3 os pike dropped, so I did an experiment and put Malice into it. That thing really makes the golem sing, so hopefully I can get his HP pretty high with golem mastery before I fight Mephisto. His life doesn't drain to nothingness, so it works out. The MO right now is to confuse everything on the screen (level 7 is good for now) so nothing focuses on the golem, and whichever enemy that Gaile is shooting at gets a level 1 amp damage curse to finish the job more quickly.

I gambled a sweet pair of gloves 30% LR and 25% MF, found a nagelring (18%) and generally have MF everywhere but the belt. So far I've gotten an angelic ring and Milabrega's shield out of it, and a rare long battle bow with a nice socket (which went a sapphire) for a big boost in damage for Gaile. Moe is at 184% MF for all kills, with another 52% for Gaile.

The only problem I see so far is when mobile enemies show up. When confused they tend to run all over the place, and sometimes hit Moe. Moe deals out the damage, he rarely receives it. I have to work on that.

He made it to the Travincal WP last night. Mephisto is next. The only deadly part so far was a stair trap fighting against Sarina's pack. In later difficulties this kind of situation will be very bad, but he got space casting terror a few times and ran into the side room (filled with spiders and beasts), took a TP and fought room-to-room to get the book.
 
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