Build Questions

[Blackfalcon]

Build Questions

Well I already made a concentrate barb and a fishymancer so I figured I should try to make an original build. So being me I need someone to make my original build for me. :lol:


SOooooooo onto the question part:


1)Is there anyway to make a character look like death/grim reaper/any other name you want to call him?
2)Would that equipment be able to make a viable fire druid? If not, other suggestions?
3)If I could make a fire druid, which move do you think would look the coolest?
4)If none of the above works and I'm not too deprssed , what other builds would you suggest? I've never even used it sadly, but would an Iron Maiden build be viable?


Thanks.



(..........a fire druid death would be so cool.......)

 

[Dodgydave]

1) A Thresher/Giant Thresher looks rally cool and like Death's Scythe on any character - big style points there. Also there are a few black armours out there. Nats armour and Steel Carapace spring to mind, personally I love the look of Steel Carapace.

2) It would be difficult to make a fire druid with a big polearm, though I'm sure it's not impossible.

3) I've always liked the look of firestorm graphically.

4) Unfortunately with the high monster life and comparably low damage IM is not very effective against monsters. A fanatic zealot would be quite cool with a reapers toll if you wanted to go for an original weapon.

 

[#endgame]

1)Is there anyway to make a character look like death/grim reaper/any other name you want to call him?

Scythe polearms & Bone helm?

2)Would that equipment be able to make a viable fire druid? If not, other suggestions?

Dunno. Insight polearms wouldn't be THAT useful, since none of the spells are spammable. Besides, if you're posting in this forum, I don't think you can make insight.

3)If I could make a fire druid, which move do you think would look the coolest?

Armageddon, Boulder or Fissure. Probably Boulder. Alternatively, go melee and armageddon, but you'd have to avoid shapeshifting to preserve the image of the build.

4)If none of the above works and I'm not too deprssed , what other builds would you suggest? I've never even used it sadly, but would an Iron Maiden build be viable?

Never played a returnomancer. But if you're doing the whole death thing, aren't you losing 2 useful sources of +skills by going scythes?

 

[Kool69]

Fire doo-dad eh? AlterEgo's Fire Druid Guide

 

[Vargas]

1)Is there anyway to make a character look like death/grim reaper/any other name you want to call him?
2)Would that equipment be able to make a viable fire druid? If not, other suggestions?
3)If I could make a fire druid, which move do you think would look the coolest?

(..........a fire druid death would be so cool.......)

For the poor man (sure, there are better choicer for equip, but my sugestion is for style points, and is viable, I think...) Athenas Wrath for weapon (+3 to druid skills) and a Lore runeword (ort + sol) in a bone helm would do the trick.
I personally like Geddon and Fissure skills, they pass a... hummm... apocalypse impression.

 

[Gohanman]

A fanatic zealot with a Reaper's is a very strong character.

You could build a fire druid with this, but many other gear setups would be superior.

Damage return (Iron Maiden, Thorns, et al) flat out sucks. Monster in Hell have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more life than damage. You probably can't even get enough damage to offset life regen.

Boulder is a really annoying skill to work with, just because it's so slow. Fissure is probably the best skill available to a fire druid, and armageddeon isn't worth all the extra pre-reqs (IMO).

 

[Liliel]

Necromancer with Vamp Gaze and Reaper's Toll or a runeword Giant Thresher (Passion?), with wyrmhide armour or any other armour that gets rid of the red pants. Closest thing there is to a grim reaper look.

 

[Blackfalcon]

Thanks. I'll try the zealot and the fire druid versions. Couldn't hurt to have 2. And about the necro items, I might use them with my fishymancer. This is what happens when I have too much time on my hands. Too bad about Iron Maiden. I guess thats why none of the guides I've read really mentioned it much.


EDIT: I looked around and couldn't find a guide for the fanatic zealot. If someone has a link it would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Hrus]

Sorceress using Giant Tresher and Enchant (see Executress guide in sorceress forum) could be viable and fun.

 

[Gohanman]

Max Zeal, Sacrifice, Fanat. Since you don't have a Shield, no sense maxing Holy Shield. Do whatever the heck you want with the other points. I put mine in Blessed Aim for the passive AR bonus.

 

[Dodgydave]

You could also sink some points into Vengance to deal with PI that isn't broken by decripify. (Assuming you use a Reapers Toll.)

 

[RevenantThePaladin]

EDIT: I looked around and couldn't find a guide for the fanatic zealot. If someone has a link it would be appreciated. Thanks.

See Paladin Forum/Guides sticky/Zealot guide by Cyrus
It's a great guide really, not bnet oriented, but it lacks some info on beating physical immune I think (it has info only about vengeance)

 

[jiansonz]

4)...I've never even used it sadly, but would an Iron Maiden build be viable?

Iron Maiden has its uses, but you can no longer build a character around it. Main reason is (like others have said) that monster life regeneration is too high in most cases, but also that archers are no longer affected by it. In 1.09, the archers that shot physical arrows (not Horror Archers, Burning Dead Archers etc.) took damage from IM at melee range.

If you want your necromancer to return damage, a Thorns merc is the way to go. It saves 19 points (in IM) and you get a better effect. This merc´s Thorns aura maxes out at Thorns level 15. That returns 810% damage (compared to 675% that lvl 20 IM has) and you can still use another curse (like Amplify Damage) on the monsters.

Another good source of Thorns is a maxed Iron Golem.

Yesterday, I made my Lord of Mages Guardian. He had a Thorns merc, and the damage returning sure helped a lot in many cases. The monsters need to have the regeneration stopped for it to work well, and my poison mages took care of that.


Returning damage is useful in these situations:
* against hard-hitting melee foes (vultures, snakes, Frenzytaurs, bone fetish)
* Any melee Cursed/Extra Strong/Might/Fanaticism packs. The harder they hit, the faster they fall. Be ready to recast the golem a lot, though.
* Act bosses. Golem + Iron Maiden works surprisingly well, actually.
* Hell Ancients (except Madawc), especially if they are Extra Strong and spawn with powerful weapons.


One thing that Thorns did was to soften up a pack so at least one monster died or almost died to a Corpse Explosion (Amped monsters, on /players 3), allowing me to wipe out the entire pack with the Following CEs.

 

[Porius]

Welll.....

On the Necromancer forum they had a build called King Leoric, which was basically a skelemancer with a big sword. You could do the same thing with a scythe. Grim's Burning Dead even gives +3 to Necromancer skills, and a decent amount of fire damage (although there are probably better choices than that). You really wouldn't need to use the Reaper's with that build, since you can do Decreptify all by yourself...

Porius

 

[asdfgah]

steel carpace/ natalyas helm/ reapers toll

looks really cool

 

[Blackfalcon]

Max Zeal, Sacrifice, Fanat. Since you don't have a Shield, no sense maxing Holy Shield. Do whatever the heck you want with the other points. I put mine in Blessed Aim for the passive AR bonus.

I'll go try that now. It feels kind of nice knowing that you have 50 points to do whatever you want with, without screwing up.

 

[cft]

Iron Maiden will be be a really really really BORING build.

You will be frustratingly slow at killing monsters, and some monsters will be almost impossible to kill, cause when they are hurt, they run away instead of attacking (spiders, ghoul lords)

Long ago, during D2 classic, I had a Blood golem/IM necro, back when blood golem was healed by the IM effect, making it effectively invulnerable (except to ranged attacks). It worked, and I made Baron (the old Patriarch title) with it.

But it was slow. Every other character could kill monsters lots faster than me. Tankazons could kill stuff faster than my IM necro.

Anyways, the bad parts about IM are:
1) You only do damage based on how hard the monsters hit, and generally the monsters have a lot of life compared to how hard they hit, meaning that it takes a long time for them to kill themselves.

2) The monsters regenerate. Unless you have a way to stop them, it does no good to do low damage to several monsters; as they will probably regenerate it all back.

3) you need something for the monsters to beat on. The blood golem trick was nerfed long ago, so you need something else to take the beating. bone walls, bone prisons, skeletons, golems all work, so that isn't too bad

4) Physical immunes will be impossible for you, at least without some kind of backup atk.

5) Act Bosses will be really hard. Especially Diablo and Baal, they will generally destroy you army/walls with their spells. Spells aren't affected by IM, so they won't get hurt by this. You will either need amazing patience, or you need a backup atk.

Even when the BG/IM combo worked, my necro needed a backup atk of Bone Spirit to get past the act bosses.

Anyways, thats my personal opinion on IM / Thorns / Spirit of Barbs. None of them are really that useful, considering how well the monsters regenerate. There are much better skills out there

 

[water_moon]

There's also the early hewbrew version of death. He holds a sword with a drop of gall on it and throws the gall in your mouth to kill you when you scream at seeing him. (posioned sword) Don't know if this woul work better for a firedruid than a pole arm, but it's an option, too. And easier to come by.

 

[Porius]

Just to make it even worse, cft, using walls and prisons for IM don't give experience. You'd have to look at the skeletons to do any good...

Porius