Bonemancers?

[SnakeEye85]

Bonemancers?

I know someone made a untwinked bonemancer some time ago and managed to get to gaurdian. So i guess they are decent in 1.10?

i looked in the necro forum but no stickied guides.

I´d like to have some suggestions on what skills to max and how to place the stats.

I will probarbly start a bonemancer on the SC ladder so it will be pretty much untwinked. Though i might find some of the easier stuff like frosties and such with my other ladder chars.

 

[Dinnin Darkblade]

I know someone made a untwinked bonemancer some time ago and managed to get to gaurdian. So i guess they are decent in 1.10?

i looked in the necro forum but no stickied guides.

I´d like to have some suggestions on what skills to max and how to place the stats.

I will probarbly start a bonemancer on the SC ladder so it will be pretty much untwinked. Though i might find some of the easier stuff like frosties and such with my other ladder chars.

Ahh Necromancers.. I love them :xmad:

Boner (bone tree using necro, no not an intended pun)

Str 100 - 125
Dex Max block or Base
Vit Everything Else
Nrg base - 75 (depending on end game gear)

Skills

Teeth 20
Corpse Explosion 1
Bone Spear 20
Bone Spirit 20
Bone Armor 1
Bone Wall 20
Bone Prision 0 or 20*

Dim Vision 1+
Confusion 1
Attract 1+

Clay Golem 1(optional)

*Bone Prision is dependent on weather or not you plan on using or trying to use the unique Marrow Walk boots and thier respective bug/feature/thingie they give. If you don't know what this is let me know I'll post what it does.

Dimvision and Attract will become your main curses. They will allow for crowd control. Drop as many points as you can spare with out sacrificing your killing power. +Skills should get them to usable levels for normal and nightmare.

Clay Golem is an optional point for use against bosses for the minor slowing effect. If you want you can invest one point each in Golem Mastery and Summon Resist to allow for better survivability of the Golem.

Max Spear or Spirit first, depending on your prefered mode of attack, then the Secondary attack, Wall/Prision (depending on MarrowWalk question), and Teeth last.

Hope this helps out SnakeEye!

 

[SnakeEye85]

thanks Dinnin Darkblade :thumbsup:

yes i know abot the marrowwalk bug but i will not use it since im playing untwinked and i don´t like using a bug.

i always thought teeth would be the first to max?

i will probarbly go with a bit higher energy ( ? ) since im untwinked and won´t get soj´s and stuff like that.

"Ahh Necromancers.. I love them "

you are not alone

 

[Dinnin Darkblade]

thanks Dinnin Darkblade :thumbsup:

yes i know abot the marrowwalk bug but i will not use it since im playing untwinked and i don´t like using a bug.

i always thought teeth would be the first to max?

i will probarbly go with a bit higher energy ( ? ) since im untwinked and won´t get soj´s and stuff like that.

"Ahh Necromancers.. I love them "

you are not alone

Actually the bug/feature bit was being discussed on the necro forum. Ya see, the thing is if it was a bug why would they mention the effect in the patch readme file? Something along the lines of "Charged items will recive synergies but not benifit from skill points placed in that skill" So it says that charged items skills will recive synergy bonus. Can't very well be a bug since its said its supposed to happen. :xtongue:

 

[Indemaijinj]

Well, the Boneslinger is probably one of the (literally) most boneheaded, but yet effective builds.


Almost all the bone-tree skills give synergies to each other so there is a good point in maxing them all.

A pure Boneslinger (nothing besides bone) would do following.

Teeth: 20
Bone Armor: 1
Corpse Explosion: 1
Bone Wall: 20
Bone Spear: 20 (your main attack)
Bone Prison: 20
Bone Spirit: 20 (boss killer).

If you want spells besides Bone (which you probably want) you could shave some points off Teeth, but get it to at least level 9 as it will be your primary mode of attack in the start. Teeth is also an excellent skill when you are being swarmed.

The non-bone skills you most probably want to mess with are:

Decrepify: Slows monsters making it easier to maintain a comfortable distance as well as reducing their damage output.

Attract: Not only diverts the monsters' attention but also makes them huddle together for easier spearing.

Dim Vision: Makes pesky archer and mage-type foes stop bombarding you.

Clay Golem: Can divert boss monsters' attention and slow them.

With +skills gear which you will probably accumulate something of during your career none of these skills need more than their initial point.



Now, why do I onlu put one point in Bone Armor?: This is because this skill get so strong due to the Bone Wall and Bone Prison synergies that extra points are barely needed. Actually putting a point into Bone Wall/Prison makes your Bone Armor stronger than putting points into itself.


Now there are a problem a solo Boneslinger might face: Magic Immunes. With no way to break their immunity they present a serious obstacle. You might whip out your low-level Corpse Explosion. Another solution could be to cast Decrepify, grab a big melee weapon and rush in and whack them with your mercenary.


Statswise there are a few choices:

Strength should be set after the biggest end gear you plan on using. If you have no plans just boost it up to something 100-ish and leave a few points unassigned in case something shows up.

Dexterity is a question whether you want max block or not. If not leave it at base. If you want whack it up to 150 (as far as I know).

Vitality is where you put the majority of your points like all your fellow Diablo players.

Energy is probably the most contested stat in this build. If you have access to a lot of good +mana gear you can leave this at base, but for the poor or untwinked this can be pure torture as you will be using mana constantly.
Some say you should only get it up to 50. Others say an extreme 150.
Personally I would say that 70-80 is a comfortable value for the non-twinked.


Regarding your gear you want stuff that give +skills, either generally, +bone, +curse or to specific skills you use a lot (most importantly Bone Spear).

You also want a solid Faster Cast Rate and some Mana Regen. Getting some good +mana stuff is of course also a priority.


You dream item is, though not exactly low-level, rather achievable. It is the White runeword. It can be made in a two-socketed non-magical wand. The things you should look for in a wand to make "White" is + to skills you use a lot. Most importantly Bone Spear. Other skills to look for are Bone Spirit, Bone Wall, Bone Prison, Teeth and perhaps Decrepify.

 

[SnakeEye85]

Thanks alot for the detailed info!!

about the magic imune, guess mercs would deal with these badies.

i have always wanted to have a act1 merc but never played a build were the act2 mercs wasn´t just to good, or even required. Though i guess i could finaly use that act1 merc now?

 

[Vex_Nemox]

I guardianed an untwinked HC Bonecaster in the SPHCL. I posted the news here but that was some time ago and the crash ate it. Porius Pat'ed a Bone Mage (his term) and had a guide here, but I think that was lost too. Here is a quick build rundown for HC (from what I did):

20 Bone Spear
20 Bone Spirit
20 Bone Wall
20 Bone Prison (this is untwinked, no Marrowalks, I had 18pts in it at 84)
1 Bone Armor (unbelievably powerful once synergies are high enough)
1 Clay Golem
1 Golem Mastery (he is cheap and a quick cast so don't waste points in SResist)

1 in all curses, even lower resist, since Hell WSK Taurs are FI it helps with CE
1-5 Corpse Explosion (I had 3, at 88 would have been 5)

The way I played I never used Bone Prison seriously since I had the Golem. I used Bone Wall in 2 places: Baal's Throne Room to block the waves and soak up Lightning, the Golem was cast on Baal's side to play with everyone. Used on the Arreat Summit, mainly to slow the initial charge of the Ancients. I always used the Clay Golem and Corpse Explosion, Bone Spear (along the best axis to hit as many monsters as possible) and Bone Spirit (when I just needed that corpse for CE). I would start a swarm off in Decrep if they were very fast or problematically chewing through my Clay Golem. I would go to Amp Damage and Corpse Explosion once the time seemed right. I used a Fire Rogue merc, if you go with the non-summoning version I recommend an A2 Merc so you have a tank when you reach Hell Ancients (Korlic and Talic can not be kept in a Bone Prison). I used Attract alot. When Attract was less useful (spread out archers) I used dim vision on pockets (still level 1 curse).

Porius (recalling from memory) used Bone Prison and Bone Wall, no Golem or summons. He was playing SC. Perhaps he can dig up his guide.

 

[SnakeEye85]

About that clay golem...
my skellymancer currently have a lvl1 claygolem and even if there´s so many tanks (skellies+act2merc) he dies constantly and i have to recast him as soon as i se new enemyes.
How do you keep him alive long enough to even help you at all?

well i have to say i was impressed when i saw you pated him and i wanna do the same ( in SC )

think i will be starting this guy tomorrow

just curious, what items were you using on him when you completed the game?

 

[jrichard]

If, as you're playing him you want a quick reference type of thing to look at, I'd suggest checking out beatboxer's necro encyclopedia. It's stickied on the necro forum. It covers quite a bit more than just bone slingers, but is a nice read.

jrichard

 

[Vex_Nemox]

About that clay golem...
my skellymancer currently have a lvl1 claygolem and even if there´s so many tanks (skellies+act2merc) he dies constantly and i have to recast him as soon as i se new enemyes.
How do you keep him alive long enough to even help you at all?

well i have to say i was impressed when i saw you pated him and i wanna do the same ( in SC )

think i will be starting this guy tomorrow

just curious, what items were you using on him when you completed the game?

Well I used a "White" wand with +3 Bone Spear and +3 Clay Golem (this gave a healthy +5 to Bone spells, so Bone Spear was +8 from the wand alone). I got the wand by shopping Normal Drognan. Get a map with the town exit beside Drognan. Be careful with the wand you buy, you want white or 2 socket, and some wand types can only get 1 socket. Sorry I don't have the list available. Anyways have alot of gold, you want the +3 Bone Spear and hopefully a +3 Bone Spirit and/or Armor, Dim Vision, etc. Then use the socket recipe. The Runes are Dol + Io for White. I forget the socket recipe runes.

I think my golem was about a level 8 by the time Vwx was level 84, with bonuses to Golem Mastery totalling around 5. With Decrepify he makes a very good tank. He is cheap and recastable. You can use Attract with him to help keep him around longer in nasty fights, or skip the Golem build completely and go for Attract and Bone Prison.

Most of Vwx's gear was pure junky rares with good resists. His armor was a 4 socket Wire Fleece (I think) with 1 of each resist rune (+30 resist all). I didn't farm Meph much so I never got a Goldskin or Vipermagi. He did find a Harlequin Crest in the Mausoleum (which is very good to run when you first get to Hell, a bit slower and safer than the Pit). He wore resist rings and amulet and boots. I forget what belt he wore, probably a rare Sharkskin with resists (IIRC). Since he was untwinked I started having mana problems in late Hell. Initially my plan was 150 Energy, but the last level or two I started pumping it to get to 170. You can really do well with Vipermagi and Magefist.

What should you wear optimally?

Rings:
SoJ, Ravenfrost, BK, maybe Dwarf Star for A3 (lots of Fire)

Amulet:
Mara's Kaleidescope, Crafted Safety with res all and 10% block

Gloves:
Trang's Claws, Frostburns, Magefist, Rares with resists

Armor:
Vipermagi or Goldskin or Que Hagen's Wisdom (w/res all or um), homemade res all

Helm:
Harlequin Crest (PTopaz, Um, Res All, etc.), have a Blackhorn's for Dark Souls

Boots:
Waterwalks, Silks, Rare multi res and FRW, Nat's Soul

Shield:
Homonculous w/PDiamond or Um, Rhyme Grim Shield, Moser's w/2PDiamonds, Ancient's Pledge

Wand:
White Runeword w/+3 Bone Spear and as many other mods for a Bonecaster as possible

 

[Vajar]

I prefer to max bone spirit last (if you don't use the marrowwalks bug for bone prison). The reason why, is that, because of the synergies being 7% instead of 6%, at high levels, it does just about the same damage as bone spirit for about 2/5ths of the mana cost.

First of all, with decrepify and a good ethereal weapon, my mercenary (might) can take out bosses very fast (except for act bosses). They generally do more damage than I do. I only deal with act bosses very little (15 of them in the entire game), so I don't care much about how fast I can kill them, just as long as I can kill them safely.

Containing and dealing with bosses (even act bosses) is a breeze thanks to clay golem and decrepify, as well as bone wall/prison - so I can spend all day killing a boss thats difficult to kill (dont' run into them too often).

I put points in teeth and pumped energy and used lots of +skeleton warrior skills (head + wand) to get myself through the early levels until I got bone spear. Then I max'd bone spear, and then max'd bone wall. After that I max'd teeth and then finally max'd bone prison. I'm working on maxing bone spirit now.

Hopefully by now, you've seen why bone spirit is max'd last - its not really needed unless you plan on doing pvp, and even then, its a tad too slow against good players.

I strongly suggest maxing bone spirit last - as having a strong teeth can really make massive group killing a breeze (like flayers, carvers, imps, witches) and bone spear doesn't do much less damage for about half the mana cost.

I also don't suggest max blocking. You should be using your curses and bone wall/prisons to avoid getting hit physically. High vitality is much better, as is a good amount in energy. I recommend at least 100 in energy. It will give you a nice starting mana pool to use when taking out baddies before you find good gear. Get your points into energy early.

Hope that helps!

 

[Porius]

I used the term Bone Mage for the simple reason that I hate having every necromancer build end in "mancer".

I have to find my guide to repost it, but here's a synopsis:

There are several different ways of playing this build, but I'll give some basics:

For crowd control you have many different methods at your disposal. I made use of Bone Prison, as I was going to max it anyway, it did a great job not only of keeping me safe from monsters but from secondary attacks (lightning enchantment, for example), and it has a low mana cost at high levels. I don't recommend this method if you are going to use the AI curses. I used Decreptify as pretty much my only curse, so I could pump my primary attack synergies.

As Vex already said, you can use a golem for tanking (along with a merc). He is pretty durable with some +skills. I would also use AI curses with this option, but it is an option.

The other is to not use any summons and use the AI curses as your crowd control. If this is more your style, I would recommend using Bone Wall to section off enemies (like ranged attackers, lightning enchanted bosses, etc.), so they have access to each other for damage. An advantage of this method is that the monsters hurt themselves, giving an easier time for dealing with magic immunes.

For a Merc, I would go with a Rogue for this build, excepting perhaps if you are going with a Golem tank and no AI curses, in which case you might look into a defiance merc. The reason for going with a Rogue merc is that you will be using Wall/Prison to section off the enemies to prevent them from hurting you. This also means that the enemies will be sectioned off from your merc as well, making a ranged attacker much more able to deal damage.

Magic immunes can be dealt with in several different ways. One way is corpse explosion, which can be limited. Others are:

1) AI curses (Attract is a wonderful thing)
2) Merc (very easily done)
3) Iron Maiden+Bone Wall/Prison (slow)
4) Physical ranged attack on switch (I don't like this option, but others might)
5) Poison Nova items (head/wand with +Poison Nova skills) on switch (which I used to some extent)

There aren't a lot of magic immunes, so I would recommend using either the AI curses, merc, or both.

For equipment your looking for resists, +skills, faster cast, resists, increased mana recovery, and resists. Caster gear is pretty nice all the way around.

Once I get my guide back, I'll repost it. Hope that this helps.

Porius

 

[SnakeEye85]

what lvl do you have to be to shop those wands in act2 vex?

and i think i will go with the golem build cause i just like having that little guy around.

I could probarbly get some stuff like frosties/vipermagi/harle etc since i have a skellymancer that just started doing pit runs on the ladder. But i would like to try to keep this guy completly untwinked as far as possible, and then when it gets to hard i might go mf some with my skellymancer.

Decided to start Borgas today instead of waiting and he is now lvl 12, kinda leeched in a ladder mp game (thanks to those who helped )
so soon it´s time for bone spear.

What player settings did you use?


and i think i will do as you suggested vajar and not going for block. Usually i prefer max block with all my chars but now i won´t have to care about the %block on my sheild. Instead i can just take any sheild with nice mods, and i get lots of free stat points....


Thanks again for all the good information :thumbsup:

edit: would love to read that guide porius

 

[Porius]

Just as an aside, Bone Spirit does about 2 times the damage as Bone Spear per casting if they each hit a single monster at the same skill level. However, Bone Spear pierces, meaning you can hit multiple monsters, multiplying your damage by the number of critters you hit. You do need to aim, though.

I would personally max my primary attack skill, my primary wall skill, my secondary wall skill, then my secondary attack skill. So there, we are in agreement, since you said maxing Spirit last. I personally would max spirit first, then prison, wall, and finally spear. But, that's primarily because I like not having to aim. I would not max teeth, or wait until last.

Porius

 

[Porius]

Just some notes on untwinked gear:

Higher levels are better for shopping, as far as I know (which isn't much). However, remember that magic (blue) items cannot get runewords.

Yew Wands and Wands can only get 1 socket. You need a bone wand or above to get 2 sockets.

I would go with a Rhyme head with +3 to my primary attack power. Rhyme keeps the +skills on the item. It gives a lot of very nice bonuses (boni?).

If you can't find Harley, a lore helm is fairly affordable, gets a +1 to all skills as well as 30% lightning resist and some other modifiers. Not a bad option, IMO.

If you are going for White wands, you are going for Bone Spear, in my mind. This isn't a bad idea, mind you, but there are better options if you are planning on Bone Spirit as your primary attack.

Look at using some caster boots. They give +% to mana, FCR, and increase mana recovery, which is nice.

I got mine through the game untwinked and with minimal item/level runs. Also, unlike some builds, this guy will rule the Maggot Lair. Straight paths with lots of baddies all lined up. Spear will rip them to pieces. Prepare to be amazed.

Oh, and get prison before Duriel. With Bone Prison, I never took any damage from him.

Good Luck!

Porius

 

[Vex_Nemox]

I am not sure of what level you should be, all I know is you want 200k+ gold in case you get a super slick wand that costs a bundle. There is no "I'll be back" for that. My Necro was somewhere in mid-late Normal, probably deep into A3 or A4, when I had the spare coin to go back and shop. If you are playing untwinked you will probably be into Gambling for gloves anb boots and stuff so it can be a bit of a while to get the coin up. You can probably get by with some cheap +2 Necro Skills wand or +3 Bone Spells or even just Spear for most of Normal and Nightmare. That is what I did, cause I could NOT get the countess to drop an Io rune. I was already in A1 Hell before I had enough Dol runes to cube an Io! 6 Dols +1 Hel + 1 Chipped Diamond +1 Chipped Emerald, then another Dol rune for the final pair. It was a royal pain. I had done over 300 Countess runs and never got an Io rune.

 

[Vajar]

Just as an aside, Bone Spirit does about 2 times the damage as Bone Spear per casting if they each hit a single monster at the same skill level. However, Bone Spear pierces, meaning you can hit multiple monsters, multiplying your damage by the number of critters you hit. You do need to aim, though.

At high levels, Bone Spear can actually exceed Bone Spirit damage. With a typical good setup and a white wand (+2 bone spear) Bone Spear usually does about 250 less damage than Bone Spirit for still double+ the mana cost (2568 vs. 2810 w/+9 skills and +3 bone spirit/spear). I strongly suggest against Bone Spirit unless you REALLY can't aim. A spell with 30 mana cost is hard to spam, even with damage at around 3000 and only able to kill one target. Even sorceresses have a hard time keeping up a 6000 dmg fireball @ 20 mana and they regen mana much faster than necros.

 

[SnakeEye85]

i think i have decided to use spear as main attack skill combined with wall as main wall skill, i think ?

so i guess i will be maxing (in order)

spear
wall
prison
spirit

will i be able to handle bosses with that before i start with spirit?

vex - you said fire rogue merc. Cause of the higher dmg? Wouldn´t cold do better? cold + decrap + clay golem on bosses would be slow..

and also, what player settings did you use?

again, thanks for all the good information :thumbsup:

 

[Vex_Nemox]

vex - you said fire rogue merc. Cause of the higher dmg? Wouldn´t cold do better? cold + decrap + clay golem on bosses would be slow..

and also, what player settings did you use?

Cold types always turn me off when I want to use CE, popped corpses don't help. Also the Fire Rogue's Fire Arrow type attack has that stun to it. Lastly, unless they changed the 2 Rogues, a high level Fire Rogue does more damage than Cold. But in the end it really is up to you, but if you want Cold for control you might be better off with an A3 and their Glacial Spike. They can actually freeze packs while the Rogue will only fire at one monster at a time. I really only took the Rogue cause I didn't see the use in a Tank merc getting killed in late hell whenever the Golem died (which tends to be often). She also typically stands to the rear of your Necro, providing back cover for strays that wander up. The A3 merc can do that too, but I am not a fan of those guys.

Someone above mentioned a +2 Bone Spear wand, not sure why they mention it when you can get a +3.

 

[SnakeEye85]

Cold types always turn me off when I want to use CE, popped corpses don't help. Also the Fire Rogue's Fire Arrow type attack has that stun to it. Lastly, unless they changed the 2 Rogues, a high level Fire Rogue does more damage than Cold. But in the end it really is up to you, but if you want Cold for control you might be better off with an A3 and their Glacial Spike. They can actually freeze packs while the Rogue will only fire at one monster at a time. I really only took the Rogue cause I didn't see the use in a Tank merc getting killed in late hell whenever the Golem died (which tends to be often). She also typically stands to the rear of your Necro, providing back cover for strays that wander up. The A3 merc can do that too, but I am not a fan of those guys.

Someone above mentioned a +2 Bone Spear wand, not sure why they mention it when you can get a +3.

i like the rogue mercs and i will stick to either my cold or change to a fire. Don´t like those act3 guys that much either.
And what about the player settings? Since you played HC, did you chose to go low all the way or how did you do it?