Matriarch/Patriarch/Guardian Archive Thread

Originally posted by SiTro on Oct 26, 2007:

Patriarch Noise_Pollution: Single tree Necro

Haven't posted a thread like this in a while. Been working on this character for a while, nice to see it completed.

Noise_Pollution

Age: 10 months (Started sometime in January)
Song Playing on Baal's Death: Propagandhi - Bringer of Greater Things

Stats

Level: 80

Strength: 56 (58)
Dexterity: 170 (200)
Vitality: 234 (236)
Energy: 25 (37)

Life: 907
Mana: 747

Skills

Bone Spear: 20 (29)
Bone Spirit: 20 (29)

Bone Prison: 20 (29)
Bone Wall: 20 (29)
Teeth: 7 (16)
Bone Armour: 1 (10)
Corpse Explosion: 1 (10)

Equipment

Code:
Harlequin Crest
Shako
Defense: 112
Durability: 7 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xcd44a739
+2 to Strength
+2 to Energy
+2 to Dexterity
+2 to Vitality
Damage Reduced by 10%
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to All Skill Levels
+120 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+120 to Mana (Based on Character Leve

Wraith Eye
Amulet
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 64
Fingerprint: 0x405b2fc
+9 to Dexterity
+34 to Life
+10 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 8%
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
6% Faster Cast Rate

Wizardspike
Bone Knife
One-Hand Damage: 23 to 49
Required Dexterity: 75
Required Strength: 38
Required Level: 61
Dagger Class - Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe5dc8974
Regenerate Mana 15%
All Resistances +75
Increase Maximum Mana 15%
50% Faster Cast Rate
Indestructible
+160 to Mana (Based on Character Level)

Skin of the Vipermagi
Serpentskin Armor
Defense: 279
Durability: 13 of 24
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe4454b4f
+120% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 9
All Resistances +34
30% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels

Lidless Wall
Grim Shield
Defense: 341
Chance to Block:  40%
Durability: 61 of 70
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0xfd6c781d
+10 to Energy
+126% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
+1 to Light Radius
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
+3 to Mana After Each Kill

Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 68
Durability: 11 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x410fdaa2
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Curses (Necromancer Only)
+25% to Poison Skill Damage

Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 134
Durability: 7 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 80
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x3cada4f3
+113% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Slows Target by 10%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

Dread Stalker
Light Plated Boots
Defense: 15
Durability: 13 of 18
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 18
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 79
Fingerprint: 0x1c1a924a
+3 to Dexterity
+26% Enhanced Defense
Lightning Resist +40%
Cold Resist +38%

Raven Frost
Ring
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x861d4c08
+16 to Dexterity
+40 to Mana
+197 to Attack Rating
Adds 15-45 cold damage over 4 seconds
20% Cold Absorb
Cannot Be Frozen

Bahamut's Ring
Required Level: 37
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 45
Fingerprint: 0x205b7f04
+108 to Mana

Charms: 4x Fungal GCs, GC of vita (+39), GC of balance (12%), assorted SCs

Muppet: Kasim

Act 2 Holy Freeze mercenary. Chosen for his ability to grind both monsters and his own AI to a halt. I admit, until the Throne of Destruction he wielded an Insight weapon. The times he got caught in one of my bone prisons were times of great celebration - I could kill his new friend in front of him and move on, confident he wouldn't feel like taking on the entire area at once.

Code:
Vampire Gaze
Grim Helm
Defense: 252
Durability: 31 of 40
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x7b8d32e1
+100% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 11
Damage Reduced by 15%
Adds 6-22 cold damage over 4 seconds
6% Life stolen per hit
8% Mana stolen per hit
15% Slower Stamina Drain

Husoldal Evo
Bec-de-Corbin
Two-Hand Damage: 58 to 281
Durability: 44 of 55
Required Dexterity: 91
Required Strength: 133
Required Level: 44
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x3a18d101
+194% Enhanced Damage
+224 to Attack Rating
+20 to Minimum Damage
+32 to Maximum Damage
Replenish Life +20
20% Increased Attack Speed
Prevent Monster Heal

Duriel's Shell
Cuirass
Defense: 654
Durability: 39 of 150
Required Strength: 65
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0xe45ecdf0
+15 to Strength
+173% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +20%
Cold Resist +50%
Poison Resist +20%
+100 Maximum Durability
Cannot Be Frozen
+100 to Defense (Based on Character Level)
+80 to Life (Based on Character Level)

---Stats over---

I enjoyed this character. No points outside of the P&B tree, but for the most part I didn't miss them. Perhaps a point in clay golem for a distraction sometimes, or Amplify Damage so Kasim could do damage a little bit quicker when I needed him. All in all though, magic damage will take you a long way in this - but I get the impression a hammerdin does this better.

Slow going in the early levels though, and bone spear really eats mana when you first get it. It does get better, but there's still quite a bit of intense mana gear in what I'm wearing.

This character didn't really worry me too much until Hell Act 2, when the first scary immunes could crop up in the form of the greater mummies towards the end of the act. Thankfully I had lucky rolls with the monster generation. There weren't any in the viper temple, and I decided not to push my luck so ended that session at the Canyon of the Magi waypoint. The next time I played, it turned out that I got a good selection of monsters in the True Tomb as well, so I didn't really worry too much about getting through the rest of the game.

The end of Act 5 was a pain though. I reached the WSK a few weeks ago (and found a Widowmaker! Sweet!), and pushed through to Baal where I ran into problems against Achmel the Cursed and his buddies. So I tried again this evening, getting past WSK levels of gloams and clearing the entire Throne so there'd be room for a good scrap.

And Baal didn't play ball. He just sat there decrepifying me occasionally and chuckling at what a good game this was.

So I restarted and tried again. This time he was up for a fight, and Colenzo the Destroyer went down without incident. Achmel & Co. were tag-teamed in and I got rid of the skeletons first, CE'ing their corpses as each one fell. Then it was a case of gradually luring one of the mummies away from the pack and taking a portal back to town. This was the time to unleash the secret weapon: Kasim good as new having swapped out his Insight pole for the Husoldal Evo. Gradually each fell until there was just Achmel and a friend left. Achmel proved to strong even for the merc, so I parked him in one of the far corners and returned to the main chamber. The last mummy fell and I felt a lot more optimistic. Whatever happened, with no immunes left and a cleared path back to the throne of destruction I felt confident I was now on the home stretch.

The next three waves weren't a problem. I used the same strategy for most of the more numerous packs of monsters in the game: spam bone prisons until no monster has much room to move, then send spears through the bone field until nothing's left alive. What can I say? It works.

Baal was more of a long fight than a tough one. I kept up the bone prisons to restrict his movement but between his teleporting and the fact that most of his attacks aren't affected by them, they were of less use. I changed from using bone spears to bone spirits for the fight. I knew I would be namelocking Baal, and I wanted to do my best to make sure that every attack hit.

Baal's drop:

Code:
Tearhaunch
Greaves
Defense: 62
Durability: 13 of 24
Required Strength: 70
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xa412c83b
+5 to Strength
+5 to Dexterity
+72% Enhanced Defense
+35 Defense
All Resistances +10
20% Faster Run/Walk
+2 to Vigor (Paladin Only)

Razortine
Trident
Two-Hand Damage: 11 to 19
Durability: 22 of 35
Required Dexterity: 24
Required Strength: 38
Required Level: 12
Spear Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0xc0daa1fc
+15 to Strength
+8 to Dexterity
+31% Enhanced Damage
30% Increased Attack Speed
-50% Target Defense
Slows Target by 25%

Doom Fletch
Repeating Crossbow
Two-Hand Damage: 28 to 66
Required Dexterity: 50
Required Strength: 40
Required Level: 48
Crossbow Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Unidentified
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x7d9e9a05
+9 to Dexterity
[b]+367% Enhanced Damage[/b]
+143 to Attack Rating
+10 to Maximum Damage
Poison Resist +10%

And some small change.

Future plans: This character'll be used for PvP now. In fact he's already made his debut - a 0-5 pasting in Zhao's tourney the other weekend. Must try harder.

As for myself, I really need to finish some of my other characters. However with this one finished I'll be quite tempted to start a new one. I tend to play a few caster or more passive characters, so maybe next time I'll dive into the fray with a melee weapon. I'm still hoping to collect a sept with one of every title possible, but with a little less strict rules now as it just wasn't fun for me.
 
Originally posted by smilts on Nov 22, 2007:

Patriarch Mendeln

Kalan formerly Mendeln, Sensed the evil and new it was stronger than ever before and he new it was time. His powers stronger than ever before. especially the power to Psn the air. And with the magical set of armor made from Trang Oul's scales, helm, belt, shield, and gloves to match. He had been granted mastery over Dragon fire. With these tools and a will for revenge he was ready, in the name of his brother he would take his former name. Hell fire brimstone and the demons legions nothing would stop him.

Well Mendeln is a rebuild Tas my original venomancer had problems and I wanted a build specifically for the Trang Oul's set so this is it.

Mendeln
LVL: 86
PSN tree 60
BW, Tth, CE, BA 4
Curses 7
CG, GM, SR 3
Skeleton Mastery 7
Skeletons 1
Skeleton mages 12

spare points 4


Gear:
Full trangs set 2x fire facet 5/4 and a 5/5
boots sandstorm treks Vit and FHR was my thoughts there
Rings: 2xsoj sometimes raven or dwarf star on one hand
Amulet: mara's
Switch weapon :Naj's Puzzler
Main weapon: HOTO

Forgot to get a merc so no gear


Game Play
Well I twinked heavily between that and CE normal was easy. As soon as I could I put on a rhyme shield wich helped as it had the same block rate as my trang wing, so no wasted points in dex maintaining max block. Nm was easy I pushed for those few extra lvls so I could be fully end game equipped entering hell. I took a little time off from playing to get my butt kicked in PVP. Because of that Everything in hell took a beating A-1 was cake thnx to Fire wall A-2 was no problem 3 and 4 went fast I played through A-5 then met up in a mp game and did some baal runs to get to 86 then beat the crap out of the minions and baal. I never once used CE after the begining of Normal untill the 4th wave of baal the unique in that wave (whatever his name is) was fire/Psn immune Ce took him. baal didnt take long and Cows were moowed down fast.


Some damage readouts
Psn Nova with 2Xsoj and 5 skillers 6132-6347 can be boosted but i lose FRW and FHR
Fire wall 2542-2589 per second
Fire ball 548-611
Skeleton mages 20 or so combined

Str 110 with gear
Dex 230 with ger
Vit 227 with gear
741 with oak sage charges 1060

Thats mendeln he will be running hell cows and countess mostly
 
Originally posted by smilts on Aug 30, 2007:

Patriarch Steel

Finally finished a pat for my second pvp entry. He is not totally complete as he needs a few lvls but he is a patriarch and a strong one at that. His damage output reads kinda low, but that doesnt seem to slow him down any. Hes running with 85% f r/w has 93% fhr and cast with 110% fcr
his stats without gear / with gear
strength 90 106
dexterity 75 114
vitality 284 336 life 900
energy 25 50 mana 393

His gear
Weapon HOTO/ White with +3 bone spear
shield Homunculus
Armor 28 res skin of the viper magi
Belt Verdungo's
gloves Mage fist
boots Sand storm treks
rings ravens (but will most likly be switched later) and SOJ
Amulet 27 res Mara's
Helm
Hailstone Horn
Circlet
'Shael'
Defense: 26
Durability: 35 of 35
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x3b87093d
All Resistances +12
30% Faster Run/Walk
20% Faster Hit Recovery
20% Faster Cast Rate
Repairs 1 durability in 20 seconds
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Damage
bone spirit bone spear
main weapons back up main wep back up
2891-3096 2891-3096 2464-2602 3130-3296

An easy pat he stomped the enemy into the ground then carelessly ran past.
Really the stratagy was simple let merc and clay golem tank a bit while I threw spears thru everything in and off screen. If it got to hot for them to tank I used prisons to seperate groups of baddys and to stop incoming missiles. Pat at lvl 81
 
Originally posted by Smips on Jun 13, 2009:

Patriarch Death - The Trang-Oul's Poisonmancer

Patriarch Death - Level 79
Perhaps Pestilence would have been a better name...:scratchchin:
LCS

Stats:
Code:
Name:       Death
Class:      Necromancer
Experience: 671269744
Level:      79

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   81/106
Dexterity:  172/218
Vitality:   192/192
Energy:     25/25
HP:         516/701
Mana:       181/573
Stamina:    334/404
Defense:    43/1876
AR:         815/815

Resistances:
Code:
Fire:       197/157/97
Cold:       202/162/102
Lightning:  192/152/92
Poison:     223/183/123

Misc:
Rich (BB code):
Block:      75%
FR/W:       60%
FHR:        37%
FCR:        80%
NM HF: Um
Hell HF: Fal

Gear:
Code:
Full Trang's with +4/-5, +5/-4, and +4/-3 Facets
+38 Res all HotO
+54 Life Waterwalks

Havoc Collar
Amulet
Required Level: 33
Fingerprint: 0x407db9a6
Item Level: 81
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
Damage Reduced by 3
74% Extra Gold from Monsters
+1 to Necromancer Skill Levels
+12 Damage Taken Goes To Mana
8% Chance to cast level 5 Chain Lightning on attack
All Resistances +11

Eagle Grasp
Ring
Required Level: 15
Fingerprint: 0x8b2b4d61
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+29 to Mana
+82 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 1
10% Faster Cast Rate

Eagle Gyre
Ring
Required Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0xa07cd978
Item Level: 21
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Properties:
+69 to Attack Rating
Damage Reduced by 2
Fire Resist +28%
Poison Resist +21%
10% Faster Cast Rate

7 Poison and Bone Skillers

Skills:
Code:
Poison Dagger: 20/36
Poison Explosion: 20/36
Poison Nova: 20/36
Bone Wall and Bone Prison: 1/17
Glay Golem, Golem Mastery, Summon Resist: 1/10
All curses except Confuse and Attract: 1/10
All Prereqs: 1
13 Unspent - Possibly CE? Suggestions welcome.

Poison Nova Damage: 6770-7007

Merc:
Code:
Act 2 Holy Freeze - Level 79
Gear:
Obedience Cryptic Axe
Duress eth Kraken Shell
Vamp Gaze

Normal:
Like all my characters, there isn't much to say about all of Normal. I twinked the hell out of him with Envy gear, then at level 15, a 1.09 Ravenclaw.

Nightmare:
Up until Act 3 of Nightmare, I was thoroughly unimpressed by this build and actually was doubting his survivability in Hell. My plan in Nightmare was to wait until I could equip most of the Trang-Oul's set before putting any of it on. Right at the end of Act 2, I hit level 54 and equiped the Necro head, gloves, and armor. My poison damage jumped up by more than 1000 and he basically turned into a killing machine. The rest of Nightmare was a complete cakewalk. I didn't even use Lower Resist for most of it, other than on bosses and the Ancients. I also began using Bone Prison in Nightmare, which with only one point invested was surprisingly effective. It didn't hold up well with bosses, but it held up great against normal monsters and boss packs. I finished Nightmare at level 70, ran Baal until 72, then moved on to Hell. At this point, I had full Trang's equipped and my Poison Nova damage was around 6k.

Hell:
To begin Hell, I threw the Poison Facets into my gear and headed out. I steam rolled through Acts 1 and two with absolutely no resistance. By this point, I had reached the poison damage you see in the LCS. With full Trang's equipped and all of the Poison and Bone skillers, the one point investment into Bone Prison was wonderful. Both Andariel and Duriel remained trapped inside bone prison for the entire battle with no need to refresh.
Acts 3 and 4 were slightly more difficult, but that was simply because of some poison immunities. Lower Resist broke all of them up to this point except for Stygan Dolls in the Durance of Hate. As with Andariel and Duriel, Mephisto and Big D remained trapped in Bone Prison with no problems.
Act 5 started out the same as Acts 3 and 4. A few immunities here and there and a few were unbreakable. It really wasn't a problem since with full Trang's you move so quickly. I got to the Ancient's and they went down very quickly. Up to this point, I had no deaths with this character, which was a first. I figured that I'd probably finish without any deaths on this character, which would have been quite an achievement in my book. Level one of the WSK was easy. No unbreakable immunities, no Souls, ect. Went down to level 2 and found the waypoint at the end of the first path I took. I went back to the entrance of level 2 and turned down another hall way. There I was greeted with two boss packs of Souls and died instantly. Thinking I could recover my body, I went back in and quickly got killed. I S&Eed and then reloaded. The level spawned with the same monsters as before. So, I slowly made my way around the level using Dim Vision and by casting my Golem ahead of me. After fighting off 4 boss packs of Souls, I made it to level 3. Level 3 was much easier and I found the throne room in no time. The throne was covered in Burning Souls, which are unbreakable PIs. In order to deal with this, I cast Dim Vision nonstop until my merc cleared the entire room. After that, everything was a cake walk. To deal with the Venom Lord wave, I once again cast Dim Vision until my merc took everything out. Baal went down pretty easily, but it took much longer than the other Prime Evils.

Thoughts:
My original plan for this build was to wait until I found a Death's Web because I thought that was the only way Poisonmancers were really effective. Since I got sick of waiting for Pindle to drop one, I decided to give it a try anyways. I'm very glad Once I had full Trang's equipped, I quickly saw that DWeb is by no means a requirement for this build. Now, I understand my gear isn't exactly cheap, but even without a HotO or all the Poison and Bone skillers this build would have been Hell viable.

Things I enjoyed about this build:
Insane FRW
Walking and running is the same speed in Vampire form
Insane poison damage
Killing packs of monsters take the same amount of time as killing one monster
Insane mana pool

Things I didn't enjoy about this build:
Merc always disappears because of insane FRW
Vampire form is ugly.
Fire skills granted by full Trang's are pretty much useless(at least I feel they are)
Lower FCR in Vampire form causes you to get locked in hit recovery

The only negative side of the build that made a difference was the lower FCR. If you got surrounded by monsters, you can't get Poison Nova off before getting hit. However, the high FRW makes it easy to get out of a pack of monsters and reposition yourself.

Future:
I want to get 1 more Poison and Bone Skiller, a +2 skills ammy, a 2 Stones of Jordan on him. With that set up, I think I can hit 8k poison damage. I'd love to try a DWeb on him, but I doubt I'll even find one. I don't think I'm going to retire him yet, simply because he's so much fun to play. I can easily see him rivaling a sorceress in area running if you had an Enigma.

Edit: In case anyone is wondering, the LCS Poison Nova damage is different than the final Poison Nova damage because I received a Poison and Bone skiller right after killing Baal. I'll probably update this again if I get him better gear to update his max damage.

Thanks for reading and a hope you enjoyed the write up!
 
Originally posted by Stony on Sep 26, 2009:

Patriarch Varnae

Dear diary,

Our ascent of the slopes continues. My man Khaleel began the morning by dying very suddenly, soon after we set out, presciently announcing that this day was to be similar to those that came before: a tedious morass of minor inconveniences, punctuated by monetary losses. Minor inconveniences? I died 5 times up there. *****.
Fortunately, gold is as plentiful as our foes. Our enemy's strategy is simple and brutal: attrition, through the application of massive numbers of expendable troops. The best comparison would be to the sand under a grinding wheel. Fortunately, my kind are made of sterner stuff than most, and Baal's efforts have only served to polish my skill and my resolve. Unless it's immune to poison. Then he runs screaming like a girl. *****.

My own ways of war are, of course, more varied than either the enemy's or that of any mere soldier they may have encountered. When it suits, I will stride as purposefully into danger's maw as any of the stout footmen the highlands have produced in such abundance, my dagger making a sterner argument than any mere axe or bludgeon could. Unless it's immune to poison. THEN HE RUNS SCREAMING LIKE A GIRL.
At other times, a less direct approach is required, which I alone am able to undertake. The smaller demons, quick as swarming flies, call for fumigation rather than confrontation. A quick summoning of poisonous vapoursHeh heh heh Fartomancer ha ha soon clears them from my path. Sadly, many of Destruction's agents are highly resistant to toxins. Even my extensive knowledge of curses and hexes will fail, on occasion, and my sorcerous companion's more brutish skills must come to the fore. Prisons of bone keep the enemy in place, of course; dear Khaleel's aim is not the best.

OK, *****, it's on now. First, me dying because you ran screaming like a girl AGAIN is not a "minor inconvenience" or a "monetary loss". Second, quit catching me in those stupid prisons of yours. You lock me in there with the monster, I die, you start *****ing again. Third, LEARN ANOTHER SPELL. Or learn that resistance lowering one better, you still keep mispronouncing it sometimes. We barely made it through Hell, Baal isn't gonna let us fart him to death. *****.

Once again, it seems my hireling has chosen to try my already-thin patience with critical marginalia in my private journal. Though I am sure he sees it differently, his many deaths really are little more than a slight monetary loss for me. Granted, I could be a bit quicker teleporting him away from a danger he ought to know better than to face. I should not need to. I am a warrior, not a baby-minder, as he should well appreciate. As for any deficiencies in the breadth of my knowledge, no mere Vizjeri has any right to offer up criticisms on that score. When I see him cast a lightning bolt, I will bow to his greater aptitude.

Yeah, I'm a cold guy. The Iron Wolves have a system. I freeze 'em, they blast 'em, bad guys stop being a problem. It's called teamwork. Teamwork means not locking me in a bone cage with a damn Frenzytaur. AGAIN. *****.

The prophecy has been fulfilled... a tedious morass of minor annoyances. In the time to come, I am sure my biographer will wisely remove these dreary exchanges from the official history, they serve no greater purpose. Our ascent of Mount Arreat continues unabated, though legions block the way. My eventual triumph will be well earned.

Mini-capsule review: Infernal Tools
Three items out of legend, forming a set rumoured to be of demoniacal origin. Finding a use for them is a hellish enough task, certainly. In its entirety, the set provides +2 to a Necromancer's skills, a bit of poison, and a few other bonuses, but nothing worth considering. A summoner might make use of this set, when he is very young (level 5) and can do no better. Even so, the headgear is a crime against good taste, and it would be best not to be seen in public with it.

Mini-capsule review: Isenhart's Armory
Was Isenhart one man, or a nation, her soldiers all thusly equipped? If so, it is with good cause that the nation of Isenhart has faded so completely from memory. Ah, I exaggerate; those of warlike mien will find these items perfectly useable at level 8. The blade is notably reliable, and quick enough for most. On the whole, this set will provide for most of a warrior's basic needs. Only those wishing to eschew a shield, or possessing any sense of aesthetics, have reason to frown upon it.


Patriarch Varnae, level 87 Necromancer
STR 95 (128)
DEX 218 (233)
VIT 187
ENG 25

Poison Dagger 20 (33)
Poison Explosion 20 (32)
Poison Nova 20 (33)
Bone Armor 1(9)
Bone Prison 20 (28)
Bone Wall 3, for synergies
1 in all curses. No summoning.

Life: 752
Mana: 260
AR: 9601
DR: 1468
Poison Dagger damage: 29k - 30k
Poison Nova damage: 7175-7481
Resists: 75/80/75/75

Equipment:
Weapon of choice: Blackbog's Sharp, with a +5%/-4% poison Rainbow Facet
Weapon of second choice: Fleshripper. A good physical damage blade.
Head: Rare circlet with life, resistances, Damage reduced by 2
Body: "Bramble" Archon Plate. +5% max Cold resistance, +48% poison damage. Nice.
Shield: Trang-Oul's Wing, with p. diamond. +2 to Poison/Bone, -25% poison resistance.
Belt: Trang-Oul's Girth. Resistances, Cannot Be Frozen, and set bonuses.
Hands: Trang-Oul's Claws. +25% poison damage, faster cast, set bonuses.
Feet: Rare boots with resistances, Faster Run/Walk, and a bit of magic find.
Neck: Rare amulet with resistances, charges of Teleport. Proved very handy for getting the merc out of my bone prisons or other difficulties.
Fingers: Two rare rings with resistances, stats, other random stuff.
Charms: skillers, life/mana, some lightning damage

Mercenary: Khaleel, level 87 cold Iron Wolf
Weapon: Culwen's Point.
Head: Crown with 3 perfect rubies.
Body: Skin of the Vipermagi
Shield: Sigon's Guard

Strategy:
Upon entering a new area, my first task was to corral my dear Khaleel, who would often become excited and dash right up to any monster close at hand. The curses of Confusion or Attraction proved an excellent first step many times; the power to cloud the enemies' minds is a valuable one, particularly the often-lethal archers and spear-throwers who populated the slopes of Mount Arreat. Once the enemy is suitably distracted, imprisoned, or confused, employ Lower Resistance and start to work. The dagger is the best choice for slow or dull-witted opponents, as one thrust is often sufficient to end their wasted lives. Slow enemies with unbeatable poison immunity could be dispatched - slowly - with Fleshripper.

The quicker sorts Baal held close to himself were best blasted away with poisonous vapour, as proved true of Baal himself. On our first encounter, Destruction apparently became confused after sending forth but one wave of minions to oppose me. Nothing could pull a response from him, save laughter and the occasional Decrepification hex. Even a hand waved directly before his face brought no further action. Eventually, we gave up and went home. Baal had recovered by the next day, and met his death with the lack of dignity that he is so well known for.

In conclusion, it is a wise student who studies the abstruse ways of poison. Diversity of skill is strongly recommended, however, as poison immunity is frightfully common and often unbreakable. Also, choose your mercenary wisely. Immunity to Poison and Cold seems to be the most common dual immunity. Should you wish to make use of Corpse Explosion, you have further reason to avoid the cold Iron Wolf, or even opt for the more conventional Desert Eagle. Finally, for the sake of posterity, find a journal equipped with a lock. Future generations will be forever grateful.

Screw the Eagles, Iron Wolves are the way to go! Keep a curse ***** around, but don't let him dress you up or anything. Stand in the front and keep casting, no matter what. He's gotta learn that he's the support guy. Now, I'm gonna go get drunk and play video games. Team Fortress 2 rocks!
 
Originally posted by Swiller on Aug 4, 2008:

Patriarch Basilisk - Annoyingmancer

Well, I'm glad that's over with. :xxx:

I've heard a lot of people talk about poisonmancers and their fun factor, but frankly, I wasn't feeling it. I liked him a lot through Nightmare and early Hell, but then I lost interest, and by the time I killed Baal I hated him.

Why? For one, my lightning resistance was pretty low, and so was my life. Gloams killed me fairly easily. Actually, just about everything killed me without much trouble. This character just wasn't as durable as I expected, even wearing full Trang's set. I also got annoyed with the buggy vampire form. Oh yeah, and just about every "random" monster spawn wound up being an unbreakable Poison Immune.

Anyway.


STATS

Strength: 81 (116)
Dexterity: 205 (220)
Vitality: 194 (214)
Energy: 25 (26)


SKILLS

Clay Golem: 5 (11)

Poison Dagger: 20 (37)
Poison Explosion: 20 (37)
Poison Nova: 20 (40)

Lower Resist: 13 (19)

All others: 1


GEAR
  • Trang-Oul's Guiase (perfect topaz)
  • Trang-Oul's Scales (perfect topaz)
  • Blood Heart Amulet
    Blood Heart
    Amulet
    Required Level: 30
    Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
    Item Level: 88
    Fingerprint: 0xdb984f67
    +1 to Energy
    +17 to Mana
    Replenish Life +3
    19% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
    +2 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)​
  • Trang-Oul's Wing (perfect diamond)
  • 'White'
    Basilisk's Lich Wand
    'DolIo'
    One-Hand Damage: 10 to 31
    Durability: 17 of 17
    Required Strength: 25
    Required Level: 56
    Staff Class - Fast Attack Speed
    Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
    Item Level: 83
    Fingerprint: 0xfd4028f5
    +10 to Vitality
    +13 to Mana
    Magic Damage Reduced by 4
    20% Faster Cast Rate
    +3 to Bone Armor (Necromancer Only)
    +1 to Iron Maiden (Necromancer Only)
    +2 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
    +3 to Poison Nova (Necromancer Only)
    +4 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
    Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
    150% Damage to Undead
    +3 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
    Socketed (2: 2 used)​
  • Trang-Oul's Claws
  • Trang-Oul's Girth
  • War Travelers
  • Nagelring
  • The Stone of Jordan
  • Switch - Naj's Puzzler
  • Inventory consisted of six fungal skillers, Gheeds, and small MF charms


MERCENARY

Gulzar, the Act II Prayer merc.
  • 'Insight'
    Colossus Voulge
    'RalTirTalSol'
    Two-Hand Damage: 90 to 807
    Durability: 26 of 26
    Required Dexterity: 45
    Required Strength: 200
    Required Level: 48
    Polearm Class - Slow Attack Speed
    Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
    Item Level: 82
    Fingerprint: 0xc41a6fb8
    +5 to Strength
    +5 to Energy
    +5 to Dexterity
    +5 to Vitality
    +227% Enhanced Damage
    +9 to Minimum Damage
    Adds 5-30 fire damage
    +75 poison damage over 5 seconds
    23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
    +3 to Critical Strike
    35% Faster Cast Rate
    190% Bonus to Attack Rating
    +2 to Mana After Each Kill
    Level 17 Meditation Aura When Equipped
    Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (4: 4 used)​
  • Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
  • Leviathan


ANALYSIS

As I said, I expected to like this build a lot more than I actually did. For one thing, Trang-Oul's set has more bugs than a rainforest. Block animation acts like hit recovery, and for whatever reason I was quite easily forced into hit recovery lock. Kicking animation was so freaking slow that I just quit kicking the urns and barrels, and of course we all know about the cast rate thing. This text display was another buggy item.

I guess some of my troubles can be blamed on myself. For one thing, I didn't invest in gumby enough, and as a result he was as durable as a wet noodle. Furthermore, I put way too many points into Lower Resist until I realized how horrible the diminishing returns were. Finally, you'll notice my lack of meat shields. I didn't want to use skeletons (as I've already played a Fishymancer) and just stuck with a couple revives. That didn't really work well, considering I was too lazy or picky about revives to actually use them very often. Oh yeah, and their AI is almost as bad as my mercenary's.

However, having roughly 200% through Nightmare and Hell netted some nice finds, most notably an Arachnid Mesh upon Baal's demise.

I also spotted a few shrines that I don't see too often, like this one. And I like all the pretty lights, too.

That's a wrap, folks. Thanks for reading. 👋
 
Originally posted by @T72on1 on Jan 15, 2019:

Patriarch OnlyZodCounts - 'inspired by a very lucky RFL 2018 round 1' Venomancer

Title says it all really. After the huge luck I had with my former Venomancer, the Necro in my oskill Sept which I turned into a poison loving pale guy, in the MooMoo farm and the fact that he killed the Cow king at some point, I knew for sure I wanted to have another Venomancer to relive the immense fun I had back then. And hopefully also the luck I had, but that remains to be seen ;). I postponed creating him, because I was too busy with my 99er Sorc and some other characters, but when that +2/-50 DWeb dropped in the CS, I just knew it was a sign. Still took me a while to get OnlyZodCounts going, but eventually I did.

I'm always terrible at coming up with names, and this time was no different. Since my first Venomancer found a Zod in the RFL (Amazon found another Zod in that same round, but since I had mainly been doing runs with my Venomancer and he found loads of good runes, while the Amazon found nothing but the Zod, for me it always feels like the Venomancer found 2 Zods :p), and as a consequence I have a bit of a reputation to hold high, I just named him 'OnlyZodCounts', because, let's face it, finding anything other than a Zod will have people laugh at me ;).

Playthrough was very straightforward. Put two MPK rings and whatever other gear I had on him, pump Teeth until level 18, then Bone Spear, and at level 30 respec to Poison Nova. Especially after reaching level 30 both progression and xp gain went very fast. A Venomancer must be one of the easiest characters to level up quickly if you have gear, since you can kill a lot of monsters and at the same time keep on moving at a high pace. After OnlyZodCounts attained Enigma, things obviously went even faster, as I hardly stopped except to complete quests, and leveling a bit at Hell Eldritch and Pindle for a bit.

I didn't plan to take any screens, as nobody is waiting for that 1000th screenshot of a character killing Hell Andariel or something similar. But near the end I got a few good drops, so here are some pics anyway:

1586640074790.png

This one probably won't see much use in the end, but I really like the peculiar yet useful mix of stats.

1586640054113.png

Rather common item, terrific stats though !!

1586640036221.png

Found in WSK iirc. Definitely a fitting drop for this character !!! It replaced a plain skiller OnlyZodCounts was using at the time.

This is the full character dump.

Code:
Name:       OnlyZodCounts
Class:      Necromancer
Experience: 786095505
Level:      81

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   96/163
Dexterity:  38/45
Vitality:   336/365
Energy:     25/32
HP:         867/1185
Mana:       185/429
Stamina:    480/530
Defense:    9/1628
AR:         145/180

Fire:       66/26/-34
Cold:       145/105/45
Lightning:  117/77/17
Poison:     92/52/-8

MF:         195       Block:      7
GF:         137       FR/W:       92
FHR:        60       IAS:        0
FCR:        75

Amplify Damage: 1/16
Dim Vision: 1/16
Weaken: 1/16
Iron Maiden: 1/16
Terror: 1/16
Confuse: 1/16
Life Tap: 1/16
Attract: 1/16
Decrepify: 1/16
Lower Resist: 2/17

Teeth: 1/23
Bone Armor: 0/0
Poison Dagger: 20/42
Corpse Explosion: 1/23
Bone Wall: 0/0
Poison Explosion: 20/42
Bone Spear: 0/0
Bone Prison: 0/0
Poison Nova: 20/42
Bone Spirit: 0/0

Skeleton Mastery: 0/0
Raise Skeleton: 0/0
Clay Golem: 0/0
Golem Mastery: 0/0
Raise Skeletal Mage: 0/0
Blood Golem: 0/0
Summon Resist: 0/0
Iron Golem: 0/0
Fire Golem: 0/0
Revive: 0/0

Fungal Grand Charm of Vita
Grand Charm
Required Level: 69
Fingerprint: 0x2f6806f
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+37 to Life

Fungal Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x2ad20bb3
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x4ef8c6f0
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xe68720aa
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xa1501428
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xfd905e8c
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x474f33f6
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x644aeebb
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xa52a5f97
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0xb94f67a1
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Small Charm of Vita
Small Charm
Required Level: 39
Fingerprint: 0x63aedc9d
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+20 to Life

Fungal Grand Charm of the Glacier
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0x4ffa649a
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
Adds 3 - 7 Cold Damage Over 1 Secs (25 Frames)

Harlequin Crest
Shako
Defense: 120
Durability: 5 of 12
Required Level: 62
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0xf28458d6
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
All Stats +2
+121 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+121 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Damage Reduced by 10%
75% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Ist Rune

Mara's Kaleidoscope
Amulet
Required Level: 67
Fingerprint: 0xcbf6314c
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
All Stats +5
All Resistances +27

Enigma
Mage Plate
JahIthBer
Defense: 992
Durability: 23 of 60
Required Level: 65
Required Strength: 55
Fingerprint: 0x81689074
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+45% Faster Run/Walk
+1 to Teleport
+751 Defense
+60 to Strength (Based on Character Level)
Increase Maximum Life 5%
Damage Reduced by 8%
+14 Life after each Kill
15% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
81% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)
3 Sockets (3 used)
Socketed: Jah Rune
Socketed: Ith Rune
Socketed: Ber Rune

Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band
Ring
Required Level: 58
Fingerprint: 0xda923239
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
5% Life stolen per hit
+40 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+50 Maximum Stamina

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0x44b5d971
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
Adds 1 - 12 Lightning Damage
+20 to Mana
Increase Maximum Mana 25%

Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 70
Durability: 8 of 16
Required Level: 45
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0x87ac6811
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to Curses (Necromancer only)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+25% to Poison Skill Damage
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%


Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 131
Durability: 7 of 12
Required Level: 80
Required Strength: 50
Fingerprint: 0x142bf94
Item Level: 88
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+20% Faster Cast Rate
Slows Target by 10%
+108% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

Gheed's Fortune
Grand Charm
Required Level: 62
Fingerprint: 0x93e928bc
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
137% Extra Gold from Monsters
Reduces all Vendor Prices 12%
39% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Garnet Small Charm of Balance
Small Charm
Required Level: 29
Fingerprint: 0x3ffda72c
Item Level: 80
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+5% Faster Hit Recovery
Fire Resist +9%

Fungal Grand Charm of Inertia
Grand Charm
Required Level: 42
Fingerprint: 0xa5bc7023
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+7% Faster Run/Walk

Call to Arms
Flail
AmnRalMalIstOhm
One Hand Damage: 3 - 88
Durability: 30 of 30
Required Level: 57
Required Strength: 41
Required Dexterity: 35
Fingerprint: 0x479c37ac
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+40% Increased Attack Speed
269% Enhanced Damage
+150% Damage to Undead
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Prevent Monster Heal
+5 to Battle Command
+4 to Battle Orders
+4 to Battle Cry
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
5 Sockets (5 used)
Socketed: Amn Rune
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Mal Rune
Socketed: Ist Rune
Socketed: Ohm Rune

Splendor
Superior Zombie Head
EthLum
Defense: 13
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 23 of 23
Required Level: 37
Required Strength: 14
Fingerprint: 0xae659ea4
Item Level: 86
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+1 to All Skills
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+20% Faster Block Rate
Adds 13 - 28 Poison Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
+1 to Bone Spirit (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Iron Golem (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Decrepify (Necromancer Only)
+91% Enhanced Defense
+10 to Energy
Regenerate Mana 15%
50% Extra Gold from Monsters
20% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+3 to Light Radius
Increase Maximum Durability 15%
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Eth Rune
Socketed: Lum Rune

Death's Web
Unearthed Wand
One Hand Damage: 22 - 28
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Level: 66
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0x88ceec90
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 23 Venom when you Level-Up
+2 to All Skills
+2 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
Adds 37 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
-55% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+4% to Poison Skill Damage
+9 to Mana after each Kill
+11 Life after each Kill
1 Sockets (1 used)
Socketed: Rainbow Facet

Rainbow Facet
Jewel
Required Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x7afa9e62
Item Level: 95
Version: Expansion 1.10+
100% Chance to cast level 23 Venom when you Level-Up
Adds 37 Poison Damage Over 2 Secs (50 Frames)
-5% to Enemy Poison Resistance
+4% to Poison Skill Damage

Spirit
Monarch
TalThulOrtAmn
Defense: 139
Chance to Block: 0
Durability: 62 of 86
Required Level: 54
Required Strength: 156
Fingerprint: 0xe0d60444
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+2 to All Skills
+35% Faster Cast Rate
+55% Faster Hit Recovery
+250 Defense vs. Missile
+22 to Vitality
+103 to Mana
Cold Resist +35%
Lightning Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
+7 Magic Absorb
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Thul Rune
Socketed: Ort Rune
Socketed: Amn Rune

Natalya's Soul
Mesh Boots
Defense: 152
Durability: 47 of 116
Required Level: 25
Required Strength: 65
Fingerprint: 0xa7e55ae1
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+40% Faster Run/Walk
+113 Defense
Heal Stamina Plus (Based on Character Level) +18%
Cold Resist +23%
Lightning Resist +25%
+50 Maximum Durability


Mercenary:

Name:       Vikhyat
Race:       Desert Mercenary
Type:       Off-Nightmare
Experience: 64574274
Level:      81
Dead?:      false

            Naked/Gear
Strength:   179/184
Dexterity:  144/149
HP:         1607/1708
Defense:    1189/4573
AR:         1865/339430

Fire:       171/131/71
Cold:       171/131/71
Lightning:  171/131/71
Poison:    171/131/71

Vampire Gaze
Grim Helm
Defense: 252
Durability: 21 of 40
Required Level: 41
Required Strength: 58
Fingerprint: 0xc742c1f3
Item Level: 82
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Adds 6 - 22 Cold Damage Over 4 Secs (100 Frames)
6% Mana stolen per hit
8% Life stolen per hit
+100% Enhanced Defense
15% Slower Stamina Drain
Damage Reduced by 19%
Magic Damage Reduced by 13


Fortitude
Balrog Skin
ElSolDolLo
Defense: 3132
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Level: 59
Required Strength: 155
Fingerprint: 0x3e6d842b
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
20% Chance to cast level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+25% Faster Cast Rate
300% Enhanced Damage
+200% Enhanced Defense
+15 Defense
+101 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Replenish Life +7
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
All Resistances +26
Damage Reduced by 7
12% Damage Taken Goes To Mana
+1 to Light Radius
Ethereal
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: El Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune
Socketed: Dol Rune
Socketed: Lo Rune

Insight
Superior Thresher
RalTirTalSol
Two Hand Damage: 48 - 459
Durability: 72 of 72
Required Level: 53
Required Strength: 152
Required Dexterity: 118
Fingerprint: 0x174f19b7
Item Level: 79
Version: Expansion 1.10+
Level 13 Meditation Aura When Equipped
+35% Faster Cast Rate
226% Enhanced Damage
+9 to Minimum Damage
181% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 5 - 30 Fire Damage
Adds 75 Poison Damage Over 5 Secs (125 Frames)
+1 to Critical Strike
All Stats +5
+2 to Mana after each Kill
23% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
Increase Maximum Durability 12%
4 Sockets (4 used)
Socketed: Ral Rune
Socketed: Tir Rune
Socketed: Tal Rune
Socketed: Sol Rune

Since getting to pat status I have been doing some Pit and Cow runs, so OnlyZodCounts currently is level 85. I'll post a video at some point about my cow runs, because I want to check if it's a good map or not, what I can improve to get more efficient, ...

And now let's hope this character lives up to his name, and makes for a very memorable RFL cow round again !!!
 
Originally posted by @TheNix on May 16, 2018:

1.14 – 4 of 7: Patriarch StymiedAgain, the single-tree Bonemancer

Patriarch StymiedAgain, Bonemancer

Level: 85

St – 77 (97)
Dx – 191 (193)
Vt – 222 (232)
En – 25 (45)

HP: 813
Mana: 651

Damage:

Bone Spear: 3485 – 3670
Bone Spirit: 3209 – 3438

Resists:

Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Ltning: 75
Poison: 75



Skills:

Bone Spear: 20/38
Bone Spirit: 20/33
Bone Wall: 20/33
Bone Prison: 20/33
Teeth: 14/27
Bone Armour: 1/17
Corpse Exp: 1/16

Equipment:

Weapon 1:

“White” Bone Wand

White
Bone Wand
Dol-Io
One Hand Damage: 3 - 7
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 35
Fingerprint: 0x449f5f9b
Item Level: 20
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+4 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Bone Armor (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Raise Skeletal Mage (Necromancer Only)
+2 to Corpse Explosion (Necromancer Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
+10 to Vitality
+13 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 4

Pdiamond Homunculus


Weapon 2:

Demon Machine (worse than useless for the Magic Immune!)


Rare Tiara (+2 Skills, Strength, Mana)
”Bone” Dusk Shroud
Magefist
Rare Demonhide boots (FRW/FHR, Resists)
Arachnid Mesh
Rare ammy (+2 P&B, Life)
SoJ & 1.07 MPK ring with FCR

Merc (Act 2 – Prayer)

Rockstopper
“Duress” Scarab Husk
“Insight” Cryptic Axe


Random musings:

I have made single tree bonemancers before, but I have usually had a wand or head on swap with a few handy curses on them. On this occasion I went the whole hog and did it without curses and, other than very early in Act 1 normal, summoned deadies. As smooth as the build was, curses would have made it better; damn my vanity!

I started off with Teeth as my major attack, but as things progressed I used BSpear more (as you would expect!) until it became my primary attack. In the end I hardly used BSpirit at all, but Teeth still had a few moments of usefulness. As good as BWall and BPrison where, I could not really get the hang of them. The number of times I blocked my escape with a badly placed wall or trapped myself (or my merc) in a prison with the enemy was disappointing.

Up until early Hell, I made do with my Insight merc but impatience got the better of me and I brought a MPK ring into 1.14. Talking about my merc, I must have hired the dumbest one ever; it was constantly being distracted by things and wandering off. Once I put an enemy in a prison it would lose interest – “but there’s a door over there that needs to be broken!”

I only had two deaths the whole game; one of them being to an extremely well endowed Hell Lord in Hell Ancient’s Way that was able to hit me from within a prison and the other to a wall is Gloam fire as I entered Hell Throne of Destruction level (there was no going back for that body I tell you!).

So that’s four down and three to go in my 1.14 Sept. For the moment I’ll need to MF for a while to collect the equipment I need to finish the last three off. I think I’ll go for a Burizazon, a hybrid trapper and perhaps a charger/smiter to complete the set, but I’ll see what the gods of MF hand me before I make a final decision.
 
Originally posted by @Xios on Dec 10, 2016:

Patriarch Squid - Zisla Cultist Novamancer

I thought I'd make a thread as a nice little wrap up for this character. The Squid was part of the Old Gods of Chaos tournament, which has its own rules in the thread but I'll outline the ones that applied to this character specifically. It was a self-found / purist playthrough. Although played in Softcore the character was to retire upon death as per tournament rules, which thankfully never happened.

Basic Rules:
  1. Hardcore or Softcore, but moved to Legacy retirement on first death. Softcore should be used (see Legacy below).

  2. Retirement is possible (if you want to reroll or for whatever reason). Also moved to Legacy on retirement.

  3. RWM/RRM may be used.

  4. Diablo version is up to you. Use whatever you want, make sure to tell us. Some version may be interesting for specific Gods.

  5. Stats. There is no rule regarding stats allocations unless specified otherwise by a God.

  6. Multiplayer permitted. Characters of different allegiance may duel. Characters of the same allegiance may trade.

  7. Player settings can be modified to suit your needs (/p).

  8. Buying/Gambling permitted en encouraged.

  9. Replays are allowed (and even encouraged) but not of act bosses. Any other area is fair game.

  10. Muling is permitted but some rules needs to respected (see Legacy below).

  11. Respec is not allowed

All characters: Cultists

Skills:


+ Cultist may put points into any of their passives & synergies of their class.
(Synergies can't be used themselves if not permitted by their God & talents).
+ Cultists may use any skills permitted by their God & talents, either from their skill-tree, charges or gained from items.

Basic equipment:

+ All cultists may begin with muled in items from their Legacy*. This also includes The Horadric Cube. Of course the first character of each player will start with nothing muled in.

Items:
+ That can be used by all:
  • All consumable potions.
  • All scrolls, keys.
  • All gems, runes and jewels.
  • All quest items.
  • Any normal (white, no sockets): Cap, Quilted Armor, Leather Gloves, Boots, Sash.
  • Shrines (not items but usable by all)
+ For the rest, only items permitted by your cultist's God & talents may be used.

Mercenaries:

+ Any is permitted, but they follow the same rules for items & skills and only use what you can use.
+ Rogue mercenaries can be used by everyone regardless of their cold/fire arrow skill usage.

I chose to be a Cultist of Zisla, which has these additional rules:

Cultist of Zisla may use any Exotic items.
What are exotic items?:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ Weird items*.
+ Any1.07 Runewords (be careful with these).
+ High Runewords (with 2+ runes Mal and up).

*Obviously the definition of a weird and exotic item is somewhat loose. Here's some examples:
Ultimately it comes down to you and your judgment. If you strongly feel that the item is exotic, use it and also present it since it should be quite interesting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Favored weapons: Daggers, Swords, Wands.
A cultist can use any Normal (white, no sockets) version of these weapons.

Skills:
  • Poison Dagger, Poison Nova
  • Venom
  • Blizzard, Chilling Armor, Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, Thunder Storm
  • Cyclone Armor, Hurricane, Tornado, Twister
Equipment:
  • Items with Gold Find.
  • Any Kraken Shell armor.
  • Any item with the word “Squid, Whale”.
  • Rain, Rift runeword.

And finally, you get to spend points on Talents which unlock further items/abilities. I selected the following:

Boon
  • Any skill that gives you a temporary “buff”. (ex: Fade, Chilling armour)
  • Items with “Magic damage reduced”

Specialist

  • You may use any item that boosts an entire usable skill-tree (for example, if you have access to all curses, then a +1 to curses charm is usable).
  • You may use any item that boosts a skill that you can use. (+ skill)
Charm Expert
  • May use any charm.
Maleficium
  • All Curses (skills)
  • Items with the word “Dark”.

A lot to pore over, but I suppose I can make a summary. What were some of the key differences between what this character could use and a standard Novamancer?
  • I didn't have access to Poison/Corpse Explosion, or any of the PnB skills except Dagger, Poison Nova, and Bone Armor.
  • The entire Summoning Tree was off limits
  • Any gear I could use often needed to have either Magic Damage Reduced (which made Safety Items very popular) or Gold Find.
  • Many of the typical Poison Necro items would have been unavailable to me by item restrictions. If I had found one however, I would have tried to bypass this by Personalizing the item to put "Squid" in the name, thus activating it by Zisla's rule. Despite the cheeky idea, it was never implemented.
  • The only Mercenary I could use was a Rogue Archer. There were very few weapons I could give her since few bows have the modifiers allowed. I usually bypassed this by socketing in a Jewel of Avarice among other gems/runes.
Here's the end game statistics of the character:

(X/Y Represents Naked/Geared values)

Level: 87
Strength: 70/75
Dexterity: 45/45
Vitality: 385/396
Energy: 25/60

[Note: Why 45 Dexterity? Early in his career he needed to use a Dagger for Poison Dagger, and there's no respecs in the tournament. In hindsight I should have just stuck to a regular dagger, it's not like the Physical Damage was important]

Defense: 1066
Life: 1147

Final Resists [Hell]: 75/75/63/54

Summoning Tree:
None

Curses:
All Prerequisites to Lower Resist: 1/8
Lower Resist: 20/27

Poison and Bone:
Teeth and Corpse Explosion: 1/9 (Prerequisites, Could Not Use)
Poison Dagger, Poison Explosion, Poison Nova: 20/28
Bone Armor: 1/15
Bone Wall: 9/17 (Synergy, Could Not Use)

Poison Nova Damage: 3593-3796
Lower Resist: -65%
Bone Armor Absorb: 295

Note: Some useless modifiers omitted..

Rare Coronet: +1 Necro , +15 All , MDR 2, 44%ED
Safety Amulet: +1 Necro, +40 Mana, 35 Cold Resist, 1 PDR, 1 MDR, +1 Block
White [Runeword] Wand in a +3 Bone Armor Bone Wand
Que-Hegan's Wisdom (152%ED, 6MDR)
Homunculus (184%ED)
Safety Gauntlets: 6 Cold Res, 15 Fire Res, PDR 1, MDR 2
Rare Ring: 28 Lightning Res, 20 Fire Res, 7 Poison Res, PDR2, MDR 2
Safety Spiderweb Sash: 24 FHR, 22 Fire Resist, 5 Poison Resist, PDR 4, MDR 1, 80 GF
Safety Ring: 3 Min Damage, 5 Str, 1 Vit, 27 Cold Resist, PDR3, MDR4
Safety Greaves: 30% FRW, 6 Fire Res, 21 MF, PDR1, MDR2

Safety equipment was critical towards making sure I could equip items, as MDR seemed to be the easier modifier to unlock equipment.

Charms:
For certain boss fights I sometimes fully filled my inventory with charms (usually just +Life Small Charms), but for regular adventuring, these were my charms.

Grand Charms:
+23 Life / +13 All Resist
+24 Lightning Resist
+27 Life / +30 Poison Resist

Large Charms:
+5 FRW / +10 Cold Resist
+13 Fire Resist
+30 Life
+8 All Resist

Small Charms:
+7 Fire Resist
+17 Life
+5 Lightning Resist
+20 Life
+17 Life
+17 Life / +7 Poison Resist
+9 Cold Resist / +3% MF

Free Space: Tended to be a 4x3 area, after Charms and Books were loaded in.

Belt: Was 4x4, usually 1 column Full Rejuv, 2 Column Healing, 1 Column Mana

Ended up with the following equipment:

Passion in a Great Bow (166%ED, 57%AR)

Treachery in an Ethereal Dusk Shroud

Hwanin's Splendor

Life: 1470
Resists (Hell): 44/75/44/44
Listed Damage: 218-606

In the parent thread for this character I describe his adventures more in detail, but some closing thoughts:

The build up to 30 was very discouraging. Running around with a white Kris trying to stab through swarms of enemies with Poison Dagger does not make for happy times. Even in Normal there's plenty of enemies resistant to Poison. I ended up killing the Council of all things multiple times on P8 to level up to 30 before proceeding. I felt slightly less helpless at this point. Regular characters of course would simply rely on Summons or Corpse Explosion to get them to this point, so it was a fairly niche problem.

Poison Nova is actually a pretty fun ability, and since I was maxing Lower Resist aiming curses wasn't a problem, so you really could focus on positioning and running away. I had a Stealth that lasted me all the way into Hell that definitely kept me alive on more than one occasion.

From Act 4 NM onwards, my lack of a well geared Mercenary was obvious. It was slow going to grind through Poison Immunes with a Rogue Archer using an Ort Socketed Bow (and a Jewel of Avarice burning one slot). I had to be patient and creative with how I killed certain bosses. If you're going to go Mono-Element (which you probably shouldn't) you should at least have a good Mercenary, hah. Another problem that Corpse Explosion or Summons could have resolved.

My closest call was probably the stair trap in Hell Ruined Temple, I had a few close calls and S&E's this playthrough as I'd often try to just sprint past Poison Immunes in Hell with mixed results. Still, I managed to avoid death and finished every Quest to maximize points for the tournament.

My most reckless moment was probably when I tried to kill Hell Nihlathak. To get through the front door I had to Terror Pindle's squad and simply run through them. I'm fairly certain two charges would have just killed me-- I was hit once.

My highest Rune drop was a Vex, found in the Tower Cellar, although it was dropped by a random Devilkin.

The most dramatic fight probably goes to the final Throne Room battle in Hell. Achmel was Stone Skin and Cold Enchanted (he's already mega-Poison Immune) and so I had to dance around him to position my mercenary to kill him. I eventually ended up terroring all the Skeletons and Burning Souls out of the throne room to stop him from reviving them. The entire Act 4 wave needed to be parked in a corner of the map.

I was pretty impressed with my end resists, given the item restrictions. I owe a lot of this to having charms (and finding quite a few good ones). I'm sure not having to hunt after FCR on my gear might have helped as well.

If I had the Runes, I would have finished with a Delirium on the Mercenary. She was already throwing out all sorts of status effects. If I wasn't a Necro who wanted to have a Curse on enemies already, I might have appreciated it more.

Poison Nova Necros make for very amusing Cow Killers. Despite this, I was never able to find a base Wand with +3 Poison Nova that I was then able to get two sockets in to make a White.

Doors, Walls and Barricades were the most depressing enemy to fight.

-

That's everything that comes to mind. Overall it was a very fun, challenging and rewarding playthrough and I highly recommend the Old Gods of Chaos tournament. :)
 
Originally posted by zaphodbrx on Jan 18, 2013:

Patriarch Fang- Trang Oul's daggermancer

I blame these guys

Obligatory stats, skills, items

LCS

Poison dagger: slvl 29
Psn explosion and nova: 20 pts ( synergy )
Bone wall : 20 pts for synergy to bone armor
1 pt in amp, decrep lifetap, etc.

max block

Items

Ghostflame ( shael )
Trang oul's helm, armor, gloves, belt, shield
Rare rings
Highlord's wrath
Gore riders
CtA+spirit ( switch )
Fleshripper ( in stash )

Readouts

Code:
Trang-Oul's Guise
Bone Visage
'Shael'
Defense: 184
Durability: 40 of 40
Required Strength: 106
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x14ae60b5
+150 to Mana
+84 Defense
Replenish Life +5
Attacker Takes Damage of 20
45% Faster Hit Recovery
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xbb02c976
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
31% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)

Trang-Oul's Scales
Chaos Armor
'Shael'
Defense: 857
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Strength: 84
Required Level: 49
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x6776714b
+150% Enhanced Defense
+100 Defense vs. Missile
Poison Resist +40%
Requirements -40%
40% Faster Run/Walk
20% Faster Hit Recovery
+2 to Summoning Skills (Necromancer Only)

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
Lightning Resist +50%
Damage Reduced by 25%
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (1: 1 used)

Doom Spiral
Ring
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x7720f653
+35 to Life
+5 to Mana
Poison Resist +8%
7% Life stolen per hit
10% Faster Cast Rate

Beast Master
Ring
Required Level: 13
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 94
Fingerprint: 0x216c3f1e
+4 to Energy
Fire Resist +5%
Lightning Resist +28%
Poison Resist +24%
10% Faster Cast Rate

Trang-Oul's Girth
Troll Belt
Defense: 164
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 91
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x39990133
+66 to Life
+49 to Mana
+30 to Maximum Stamina
+100 Defense
Replenish Life +5
Requirements -40%
Cannot Be Frozen

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
Cold Resist +40%
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Gore Rider
War Boots
Defense: 140
Durability: 34 of 34
Required Strength: 94
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xc370b47a
+20 to Maximum Stamina
+160% Enhanced Defense
+10 Maximum Durability
Requirements -25%
30% Faster Run/Walk
10% Chance of Open Wounds
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
15% Deadly Strike

Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 70
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x49c76cc2
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Curses (Necromancer Only)
+25% to Poison Skill Damage

Trang-Oul's Wing
Cantor Trophy
Defense: 188
Chance to Block:  60%
Durability: 20 of 20
(Necromancer Only)
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x8d1773bf
+25 to Strength
+15 to Dexterity
+30% Increased Chance of Blocking
+125 Defense
Fire Resist +45%
Poison Resist +40%
15% Increased Attack Speed
+2 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

***Partial Set Item Bonuses***
-25% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Replenish Life +15
***Partial Set Item Bonuses***

Socketed (1: 1 used)

Jewel of Fervor
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x6598d620
15% Increased Attack Speed

Fang's Ghostflame
Legend Spike
'Shael'
One-Hand Damage: 143 to 219
Required Dexterity: 57
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Dagger Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Indestructible
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xc11d6496
+213% Enhanced Damage
+108 magic damage
12% Mana stolen per hit
+2 to Light Radius
20% Increased Attack Speed
Ignore Target Defense
Indestructible
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (1: 1 used)

Call to Arms
Double Axe
'AmnRalMalIstOhm'
One-Hand Damage: 19 to 49
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 57
Axe Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xb007b9e
+281% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Increased Attack Speed
+6 to Battle Orders
+1 to Battle Cry
+5 to Battle Command
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Spirit
Monarch
'TalThulOrtAmn'
Defense: 142
Chance to Block:  42%
Durability: 86 of 86
Required Strength: 156
Required Level: 54
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x8ba24782
+22 to Vitality
+101 to Mana
+250 Defense vs. Missile
Lightning Resist +35%
Cold Resist +35%
Poison Resist +35%
Attacker Takes Damage of 14
55% Faster Hit Recovery
30% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to All Skill Levels
+7 Magic Absorb
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Fleshripper
Fanged Knife
'Shael'
One-Hand Damage: 58 to 222
Durability: 36 of 36
Required Dexterity: 86
Required Strength: 42
Required Level: 68
Dagger Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x65ce5846
+291% Enhanced Damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
-50% Target Defense
Prevent Monster Heal
50% Chance of Open Wounds
25% Chance of Crushing Blow
33% Deadly Strike
Slows Target by 20%
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Merc: A2 might

Code:
1: Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Death Mask
Defense: 126
Durability: 17 of 20
Required Strength: 55
Required Level: 66
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xce76739b
+60 to Life
+30 to Mana
+45 Defense
All Resistances +15
10% Life stolen per hit
10% Mana stolen per hit

2: Duress
Boneweave
'ShaelUmThul'
Defense: 2737
Durability: 23 of 23
Required Strength: 148
Required Level: 47
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x8866b07a
+162% Enhanced Defense
+20% Enhanced Damage
Fire Resist +15%
Lightning Resist +15%
Cold Resist +45%
Poison Resist +15%
Adds 37-133 cold damage over 2 seconds
40% Faster Hit Recovery
33% Chance of Open Wounds
15% Chance of Crushing Blow
-20% Slower Stamina Drain
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (3: 3 used)

3: Doom
Great Poleaxe
'HelOhmUmLoCham'
Two-Hand Damage: 211 to 584
Durability: 46 of 55
Required Dexterity: 79
Required Strength: 143
Required Level: 67
Polearm Class - Fastest Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xda3c7954
+360% Enhanced Damage
Requirements -20%
45% Increased Attack Speed
Prevent Monster Heal
+2 to All Skill Levels
Freezes Target +3
25% Chance of Open Wounds
20% Deadly Strike
Level 12 Holy Freeze Aura When Equipped
5% Chance to cast Level 18 Volcano on striking
-50% to Enemy Cold Resistance
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Thoughts

Since I had already completed a meleemancer before, I wasn't scared of making a daggermancer, but it turns out this is a completely different beast. First, daggers have pathetic range, meaning that bonewall tactics are simply not viable at all, and second poison dagger has low damage. My idea for this guy was that I would slow everything down by using holy freeze, decrep, clay golem, kelpie snare, blackbogs etc. and everything would be slowed and poisoned to death.

Well, that didn't work out. Turns out poison dagger for all its impressive lcs has a rather low rate of damage. Procing venom helps a bit, as well as stacking some +skills but ultimately it isn't much, not unlike the proc'ed poison novas from botd. The majority of the damage needs to be physical, so I switched my equipment around a bit, using ghostflame and fleshripper. Fleshripper was used against bosses mainly, and it has a faster attack and deadly strike making it surprisingly equal to the ghostflame even generally, but I wanted to use ghostflame so that was used against most of the monsters. It had ITD and manaleech as well and poison dagger has an unusually high mana consumption for a melee skill.

I started out with a pride+holy freeze merc, which was good but the hit blinds target kept overriding amp/decrep and it was quite annoying so in mid A1 I switched to might merc+ doom. This resulted in more damage for the merc (hmm.. ), less damage for me (boo) but atleast I got rid of the hit blinds target. Decrep, clay and holy freeze had the combined effect of bringing the hordes of hell to a standstill, so the crowd control aspect was really good. Max block helped too. If only the damage was good..

Normal and nightmare were beaten with poison nova and CE, but I didn't use these skills in hell, nor any skeletons/revives.

What else? Not much really. Daggers don't really match up to a powerhouse like Botd at all. Slow plodding through hell at p5/p3/p3/p1/p1. The merc did more damage than me most of the time so this character exhibited a lot of what I call the mercmancer syndrome ( the notion that all necromancer builds come down to merc+CE ). But sometimes it was funny to see monsters like leapers, temple guards, etc. run off and then die offscreen to poison.

Screenshots

Oh yea, some screenshots

Lolz AT map
Stair trap
CE/LE Bremm
Halls of vaught- Tomb Vipers, Night marauders (PI/PoI), wraiths (PI/PoI) <-- GAWD
Unbreakable PI <- hah, poison
Ancients - beaten at first try
Four boss packs
The end

Finds: Ist at hellforge, that's about it

Deaths: one, to a conviction pack of beetles ( ouch lightning bolts )

Trang's set

In theory, Trang's daggermancer should be an okay build, it has 20% lifeleech, big resist,stats,skill boost, +/- psn damage, an open slot for the weapon, high frw and even inbuilt CBF. In practice, it sucks. Not only because poison dagger is a weak skill ( which it is, seriously bad ), but also because it turns you into the vampire form which means that your fcr, block rate, ias, etc. are all SCREWED, and you have to really account for that and get some decent bps. So if you want to make this build? well, don't. I'm not playing melee necromancers any more.
 
Originally posted by zaphodbrx on Feb 25, 2012:

Patriarch Dracula, Trang-oul's poison necromancer

Dracula is my fifteenth patriarch and second necromancer. He is named thus because the necromancer transforms into a vampire when wearing the trang oul set. This was my first character based on poison as a main skill ( rather than a backup like my LF/PJ zon ), but I liked it very much.

Stats

Level: 85

Life: 1111
Mana: 598

Blocking 50%
Resists 75 all ( a little overstacked )
FHR: 50 ( 8 frame recovery, doubles as block rate )
FCR: 50
Defense: 1735

Skills

1(9) Amplify damage <-- misclick
1(9) Dim vision <-- useless
0(10) Lower Resist <-- from 'white'
0(9) Decrepify <-- from 'white'

20(33) Poison dagger
20(33) Poison explosion
20(33) Poison nova
1(14) Corpse explosion
1(17) Bone armor
3 Bone wall <- remaining points go here
0(14) Bone prison <-- from 'white'

20(28) Raise skeleton
1(13) Skeleton mastery
1 clay golem, revive, summon resist, prereqs

Gear

Trang-Oul's Guise ( Shael )
Trang-Oul's wing ( Eld )
Trang-oul's scales
Trang-Oul's girth
Trang-Oul's claws
Mara's Kaleidoscope
The Stone of Jordan
Death circle ( 10 fcr )
Dracula's Doom Shank boots
'White' Grave wand - +2 LR, +1 decrep, +1 bone prison

Switch: Naj's puzzler

Additional: 'Strength' legend spike, used to CB down bosses with dagger.

Code:
Dracula's Doom Shank
Demonhide Boots
Defense: 34
Durability: 11 of 12
Required Level: 38
Required Strength: 20
Fingerprint: 0xd0379e85
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+30% Faster Run/Walk
+8 to Dexterity
+28 Maximum Stamina
Lightning Resist +19%
Fire Resist +35%

Death Circle
Ring
Required Level: 18
Fingerprint: 0x9c00ac59
Item Level: 75
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+10% Faster Cast Rate
+56 to Attack Rating
+5 to Dexterity
+9 to Life
+33 to Mana

White
Grave Wand
DolIo
One Hand Damage: 13 - 29
Durability: 15 of 15
Required Level: 35
Required Strength: 25
Fingerprint: 0xf61a0a82
Item Level: 85
Version: Expansion 1.10+
+3 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
+20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to Decrepify (Necromancer Only)
+1 to Bone Prison (Necromancer Only)
+2 to Lower Resist (Necromancer Only)
+3 to Bone Armor (Necromancer Only)
+4 to Skeleton Mastery (Necromancer Only)
+2 to Bone Spear (Necromancer Only)
Hit Causes Monster to Flee 25%
+10 to Vitality
+13 to Mana
Magic Damage Reduced by 4
2 Sockets (2 used)
Socketed: Dol Rune
Socketed: Io Rune

Charms

2x Fungal GCs
Life, mana GCs and scs

Mercenary

Devak, Act 3 cold merc

Merc gear:

Nightwing's Veil ( pamethyst)
Skin of the Vipermagi ( pamethyst )
'Spirit' monarch
'Voice of Reason' crystal sword

Charms

2x Fungal GCs
Life, mana GCs and scs

Playthrough

I enjoyed this character very much. I wasn't sure that poison skills would do enough damage, but it turns out they do. Poison nova that is. The other two are trash. The cool thing about him is that he takes exactly the same amount of time to kill a huge bunch of monsters as to kill a single monster. That means he can clear out trash mobs- even at players 8, very quickly ( especially with CE ), but single strong monsters like venom lords are tough.

Poison immunes can be a bit of a problem, even with LR they still have considerable resistance. So I used firewall on them, mostly, and with the merc throwing ice on them they went down without a problem mainly, also CE was used. Also, lots of unbreakable immunes. The trang's firewall is the only fire skill worth using, and gets much better with +all skills from mara and SOJ. The venom lords in wave 4 of Baal gave me a lot of trouble even on p1, they killed all my skeletons by the time firewall and CE worked their thing, but I still had bonewall/prison.

Speaking of which, man, bone prison is amazing for this build. I even got it for free from my wand and tried it out. It blocks out all arrows and locks them in. It also draws monsters from across the screen so that I can then entrap them too and they bunch up very nicely for poison nova/firewall/CE to blast them down. I got some points in bonewall to synergize it and my bone armor, which is at a respectable 225 absorb.

Being a vampire was nice. He moves at amazing speed. Too bad the cast points and FHR are messed up, but it's still cool as hell.

Skeletons in this build are basically punching bags. They do no damage without enough points in SM, might, amp. Same thing with revives. I did put a point in amp but that was a misclick. Dim vision was useless. One point with +skills isn't enough to boost it to a respectable duration or AOE, and the stuff I wanted to use it against ( tomb vipers and gloams ) were poison immune without using LR. In the end I just boneprisoned them and roasted them with LR and firewall.

The merc was very good. More on him later.
Only one death in hell, to Nihilithak. I got so weary after dealing with tomb vipers killing my army constantly that I underestimated Nil's CE and died to that.

I think this screenshot captures everything



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Another screenshot, fighting with ancients.
They were quite easy.

Finds

Sur rune pits
Trang-Oul's guise ( LOL. I had to trade for this one and then found one on this guy)
2x Fungal's GC, harpoonist GC, Fletcher's GC and other good stuff
Lem at forge

Act 3 merc notes

Well I had to use the act 3 merc sometime, and I thought this character was perfect for it. He benefits from LR, and the minions take the heat off him. I know some people use them just for the freeze, or to carry lawbringer, and that's perfectly fine, but I wanted him to do damage. Thus I did a lot of research and calculations.

The choice of merc wasn't really a contest. The cold merc does three times that of the lightning , and fire is even worse. Partly this is because they simply use the sorceress skills, and sorc fire and lite skills are designed to be used with masteries that boost their dmg a lot, while cold are higher damage to begin with and use mastery to lower resistance. There isn't any item that can give masteries to a merc, while cold mastery could be 'simulated' through LR and VOR -resist.

In addition, fire and lite mercs use inferno and charged bolt half the time which are useless. Cold merc uses ice blast and glacial spike which are both good, and chilling armor to boost his defense nicely. The freeze wasn't very good for a necromancer ( corpses shattering ), but I got over it.

As for the items: NV and SOVM are pretty self explanatory and he needed two PAms to equip spirit at level 84. I did some numbers and VOR is more damaging than 'spirit', plus the CBF sealed the deal for me.

The act 3 merc doesn't have an LCS, but I calculated his dps to be about 3000 on a 0 resist target. In game, he does about the same dps as the firewall, whose dps I calculate to be about the same with LR. It doesn't match poison nova of course, which is at about 5000 dps but with a huge AOE.

I expected to use insight iron golems to keep my mana up, but it turns out it is totally not necessary with Trang's huge mana bonuses, so I went with clay. I used prayer/insight for normal and most of nightmare , but Hell was totally done with this guy.

The merc triggered frozen orb striking with his sword exactly once in the whole game.

Comparisons to summon nerco and some rants
This guy totally outclasses my summon necro in every way and makes him obsolete.
The problem with necros is that any effective build will be reduced to X + corpse explosion.
In high psettings, CE is doing 40-50% of the damage, the only question is where is the remaining coming from.

Poison nova solves that problem easily by doing tons of damage on its own.
Skeletons even maxed out with Beast ( fanaticism ), might and amp, and tons of +skills, prebuff with AoKL, still take a long time to work through monsters, making it slow. I try to help by attacking with beast, but it's still slow. Nowhere as smooth as compared to this dude.

I could just throw MF on him and run him at p1 where CE does 90% of the damage but that's just boring, plus my Tal's sorc does that about 10 times more effectively without any dependency on minions or corpses.

I still have no idea why people max CE. I have level 14 CE on Dracula and level 27 on the summon dude. And to be honest, I don't see a difference. CE works as a 1 point wonder.

Maybe I will try out even more massed +skills and skiller charms and then the skellies will do something but dunno. I think the summon/CE build is more of a untwinked/HC build and doesn't really match up to poisonmancers in twinked/SC. So I'm considering retooling him to pure bone.

Plans

Well he's going to be my primary pit runner, as he excels at taking out trash mobs and that's what pits are full off. Pits at p8 are a walk in the park for him, almost. I will probably keep the act 3 merc, as he's pretty good and I don't desperately need insight or anything. I guess if I get Dweb and enigma he could be improved.

Well, thanks for reading!
 
Originally posted by zerth on Jan 25, 2009:

Champion Marvel: Poisonmancer extraordinaire

Marvel


I always wanted to make a poison necro. Poison nova is too cool a skill to ignore it. I think the decider was a video posted by Corrupted that proved poisonmancers can do /p7 pit runs comfortably. Factoring in that my hammerdin is approaching 95 and will move on to Baal... Marvel* was born. He was into poison since level 1. He stuffed all his (and his merc's) equipment with envy jewels and everything was fun until level 20. Then things started moving a bit slower until on level 27 he gave his merc an Insight polearm. Then he watched his merc kill until 30, when he got access to poison nova. Rest of normal and nightmare was a breeze. He reached Hell pits at clvl 62 I believe and he has spent the last 30 levels there (OK, he weant up to the crystalline passage to get some extra resists and skill points). As usual ancients are saved in order to help me hit 95 or 96, hence the 'champion'. Hellforge was Ist (first hell forge better than Mal in 9 SP chars).

A big thanks to Cygnus for trading me a DWeb, it sped up my runs by a good 30 seconds (hoto was used instead until then). I ended up socketing the Hellforge Ist into it, to make room for another Fungal charm maintaining 300 MF.

Screens: LCS and Inventory, Merc

Stuff not visible in the LCS

Curses: 1 to Lower resist and all prereqs
PnB: 20 Poison Dagger, 20 Poison Explosion, 20 Poison Nova, 20 Corpse Explosion, 1 prereqs
Summon: 1 Summon resist, 1 Iron Golem, 11 Golem Mastery, 1 prereqs

Rest skill points go to Golem Mastery. +skills are: +21 PnB skills, +18 curses, +14 summon (including BC)

Insight Iron Golem has 6634 hp after BO, is immune to poison and lightning and has 62 resists in fire and cold. The bugger still dies occasionally, but is very cheap to recast.

Observations

Lower resist has incredible radius, more points into it are sort of a waste, there are better things to pump, +skills will do the trick nicely. Corpse explosion at slvl 41 covers (as far as I can tell) most of the screen. The listed radius is 16 yards and if the 13.3 x 18 yards screen size for 800 x 600 resolution is correct, apparently the CE's 16 yards is not the radius, but the diameter of the blast. Still, it's worth every single point. Poison nova is insanely powerfull and combined with a strong merc and CE does wonders. It basically softens the merc's first target to the point that he drops fast and in the meantime it has softened everything else so that a CE chain reaction can start.

Resists are not required on the pits. The most important is cold resistance for the cold nova uniques cast upon death. Luckily TO's gloves add +30 to this. Max block is a must, so Homunculus all the way. I only hit the 48 fcr bp, and it is fine, 75 would be nice as well, but do not lose sleep over it :) Life and mana per kill from Enigma and DWeb is awesome. I have 21 life per kill total and 12 mana per kill total and I suspect I wouldn't be able to play so aggressively without it. Really gg.

Lastly, I made a small vid to show a bit of the gameplay. Did I mention the necro is as fast as the hammerdin? Oh, yes, he is! He also kills a higher percentage monsters due to the fact Poison Nova and CE are area of effect.

Equipment

Code:
Harlequin Crest
Shako
Defense: 102
Durability: 10 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x7cd7f42c
+2 to Strength
+2 to Energy
+2 to Dexterity
+2 to Vitality
Damage Reduced by 10%
74% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to All Skill Levels
+138 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+138 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Raven Torc
Amulet
Required Level: 89
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 93
Fingerprint: 0xe3ca909b
+20 to Mana
Regenerate Mana 5%
Fire Resist +4%
Lightning Resist +4%
Cold Resist +39%
Poison Resist +4%
+2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
10% Faster Cast Rate
Poison Length Reduced by 25%

Enigma
Superior Light Plate
'JahIthBer'
Defense: 874
Durability: 53 of 60
Required Strength: 41
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xd63ed9c9
+15% Enhanced Defense
+750 Defense
Damage Reduced by 8%
Increase Maximum Life 5%
+14 Life after each Kill
45% Faster Run/Walk
+1 to Teleport
15% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
+2 to All Skill Levels
+69 to Strength (Based on Character Level)
92% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items (Based on Character Level)

Death's Web
Unearthed Wand
'Ist'
One-Hand Damage: 22 to 28
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 66
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xd9a34f8f
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+7 Life after each Kill
150% Damage to Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
+12 to Mana After Each Kill
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
-50% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Homunculus
Hierophant Trophy
Defense: 178
Chance to Block:  72%
Durability: 11 of 20
(Necromancer Only)
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xc9887dd5
+20 to Energy
+151% Enhanced Defense
+40% Increased Chance of Blocking
Regenerate Mana 33%
All Resistances +59
+2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
30% Faster Block Rate
+5 to Mana After Each Kill
+2 to Curses (Necromancer Only)
Socketed (1: 1 used)
Socketed (3: 3 used)

The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0xb7029e5e
+20 to Mana
Adds 1-12 lightning damage
Increase Maximum Mana 25%
+1 to All Skill Levels

Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band
Ring
Required Level: 58
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x4f87daae
+50 to Maximum Stamina
4% Life stolen per hit
+1 to All Skill Levels
+46 to Life (Based on Character Level)

Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 132
Durability: 9 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 80
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xf078748f
+111% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Slows Target by 10%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 136
Durability: 46 of 48
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xd47ca376
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+184% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Minimum Damage
+25 to Maximum Damage
+30 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 8
50% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
25% Faster Run/Walk
40% Slower Stamina Drain

Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 73
Durability: 13 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x95fb2e29
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Curses (Necromancer Only)
+25% to Poison Skill Damage

[b]Switch[/b]

Call to Arms
Superior Crystal Sword
'AmnRalMalIstOhm'
One-Hand Damage: 18 to 56
Durability: 22 of 22
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 57
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 88
Fingerprint: 0x727e710a
+221% Enhanced Damage
+57% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +12
Increase Maximum Durability 12%
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Increased Attack Speed
+3 to Battle Command
+3 to Battle Cry
+5 to Battle Orders
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Lidless Wall
Grim Shield
Defense: 297
Chance to Block:  40%
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x25924cd3
+10 to Energy
+97% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
+1 to Light Radius
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
+5 to Mana After Each Kill

[b]Charms[/b]


Fungal Grand Charm of Sustenance
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x887f97ce
+29 to Life
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 69
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x4f934ff
+40 to Life
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm of Incineration
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xe5fa0ad7
Adds 4-9 fire damage
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xd796c682
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xafeb8ba2
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm of Dexterity
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x683b734
+3 to Dexterity
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xac1fbd1e
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xa8b5d7ee
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Stalwart Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x8ad46904
+23 Defense
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x12fd8da3
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc8a1af34
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x6c17c26e
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xc6fad991
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 81
Fingerprint: 0xc5cac0db
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

[b]Mercenary[/b]

Fortitude
Superior Archon Plate
'ElSolDolLo'
Defense: 1668
Durability: 60 of 60
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 63
Item Version: Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x4d526fa7
+200% Enhanced Defense
+15% Enhanced Defense
+300% Enhanced Damage
+15 Defense
Damage Reduced by 7
Fire Resist +25%
Lightning Resist +25%
+5% to Maximum Lightning Resist
Cold Resist +25%
Poison Resist +25%
Replenish Life +7
+1 to Light Radius
25% Faster Cast Rate
12% Damage Taken Goes to Mana
20% Chance to cast Level 15 Chilling Armor when struck
+126 to Life (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Andariel's Visage
Demonhead
'Ral'
Defense: 368
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 102
Required Level: 83
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xc62a0fe2
+25 to Strength
+138% Enhanced Defense
Fire Resist +0%
Poison Resist +70%
+10% to Maximum Poison Resist
8% Life stolen per hit
20% Increased Attack Speed
+2 to All Skill Levels
15% Chance to cast Level 15 Poison Nova when struck
Level 3 Venom (20/20 Charges)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Obedience
Thresher
'HelKoThulEthFal'
Two-Hand Damage: 84 to 991
Durability: 33 of 33
Required Dexterity: 84
Required Strength: 112
Required Level: 53
Polearm Class - Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xfa82d9fb
+10 to Strength
+10 to Dexterity
+370% Enhanced Damage
+293 Defense
All Resistances +26
Adds 3-14 cold damage over 3 seconds
Requirements -20%
40% Faster Hit Recovery
-25% Target Defense
40% Chance of Crushing Blow
30% Chance to cast Level 21 Enchant When You Kill an Enemy
-25% to Enemy Fire Resistance
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired), Socketed (5: 5 used)

*The name is a tribute to forum member that is known for his stamina. Also it is a cool name
 
Originally posted by aman on Jul 29, 2006:

Patriarch Ryu

Name - Ryu
Class - Necromancer
Type - Poison/Summon - Level 85

Stats

Str - 109
Dex - 207
Vita - 225
Energy - 32

Life - 1039
Mana - 367

Resists 75/75/75/55

Damage - 7k poison nova with 12 skeletons and a golem

Skills

20 poison nova
20 poison explosion
20 poison dagger
20 summon skeleton
1 skeleton mastery
1 all curses

Items

Deaths web
Shako
3 part trangs
2 x bk
maras
Aldurs boots

8 x poison and bone skillers with cube + tomb of tp and rest were + light resi small charms.

With arm of king leroic on swith with Homunculus for skele pre buff

Might merc with insight/duriels armour and tals helm

Nornmal and nightmare was very easy once i got to hell things started to slow down(At this point i didn't have deaths web) I got him to act 3 and left him for a while. I then got a Deaths web from Deathmage and with some tweaks in my gear i decided to play him again. With the gear tweaks hell went really fast and was very safe. The ancients fell very quickly which i was quite surprised at. wsk was also very easy as was Baals throne room. Baal didn't give me any problems apart from the actual killing was a bit slow but with some merc gear changes that shouldn't be a problem. Since i had quite alot of + skill items i used corpse explosion alot which helped when alot of immunes were around.

At the momment i really like this character and im going to continue playing him and try to level him up some more and get a few last things for his gear.

No real good finds along the way apart from aldurs armour from hell diablo and a lum from hell hf.
 
Originally posted by Aylear on Jul 7, 2009:

Patriarch Mandragoran - Poison/Skellie Hybrid

Introduction:


Perfection is never easily attainable, but the gap widens further when even the imperfect alternatives elude you. Limited by lesser gear and struggling with skill choice directions, Mandragoran worked hard to make some measure of perfection approachable, inasmuch as his equipment would allow. Still, I was optimistic regarding my upcoming endeavour, picking the class and typing in his name with no apprehension. He would do well enough.

Boy, would he.


Summary:

Mandragoran is a fairly straightforward Poison/Skellie hybrid built around the notion of never acquiring the best uber gear, ever. Besides his Gheed's Fortune and stunning David Carradine looks, he still carries the half dozen Vita charms he picked up along the way that I simply haven't found replacements for, being that I have multiple spare skill charms for every class in the game except Necromancers. Still, the life charms were useful when teleporting into lairs to set off Poison Novas, and the David Carradine look was useful when posing for screenshots.

Maxed PN and its synergies. 20 Raise Skeleton, 3 Skeleton Mastery, 1 Clay Golem, 1 Golem Mastery and 1 Summon Resist. 1 Bone Armor, 1 Bone Wall, and the regular one-point wonders.


Experiences:

Normal and Nightmare was a breeze on /p8 with few occurrences of downtime. Raise Skeleton got bumped up to 14 where it would remain until everything else was maxed -- enough points to pull everything under the marching heels of his monstrous regiment of polished bone until Poison Nova could take over. The only noticeable downtime was between levels 25-35, where the weaker skeletons got progressively worse and Poison Nova didn't quite have the desired damage output yet. The only other slowdown was Normal Diablo (who took a while to bring down because of porting and raising new skeletons a few times), but every other act boss was bullied into tears of despair.

Mandragoran remained completely untwinked until well into Nightmare, not even donning a spare pair of Trang-Oul's Claws. I eventually transferred them to him, along with some basic mid-level gear; Peasant Crown, Arm of King Leoric, Skin of the Vipermagi, Silkweave, Stone of Jordan. He went from dealing with everything solo to dealing with everything solo while singing sea shanties. I don't know; maybe he was inspired by the seas of blood.

Act I of Hell was played almost wholly on /p7, but it was adjusted down to /p5, 3 and occasionally 1 for most of Acts II-V (poison immunes suck). The first Pit run was done on /p7 while passing by, and despite his lower level and weaker gear, he was more than capable of playing the part of chthonian exterminator. I decided to Pat him instead of remaining at the pits, so he forged on, cruising over every laughable minion and lowly act boss, and emerging victorious through some tougher battles. The Frozen River, for instance, saw Succubi and ranged attackers galore, and Mandragoran's poor skeletons whittled away while he Dimmed what he could, only to have the whole of Frozen River's denizens drop by to see what all the commotion was about. Mandragoran persevered and battled through, and upon emerging victorious from the war he cast the body of the last Succubus down upon the frozen river like a discarded withered flower. He then coolly walked up to a disbelieving, blankly staring Frozenstein and snapped his neck. I use his spine as a belt.

No Tomb Vipers in the Halls of Vaught? Acceptable.

It wasn't until he reached the Ancients and they spawned with ridiculous mods five times in a row that the steamroller came to a grinding halt. The first roll sent two cursed axes flying into his chest; I was caught unaware, and my entire life bar disappeared before my eyes. Gaping at the utter absence of any noticeable red liquid and the equal absence of a death screen, I rejuv'd, teleported, and got the heck out of there. My half dozen life charms: I thank you.

Rolls two through five saw me become increasingly bored. I knew he'd steamroll them if only they'd stop being so fanatically cursed. In the end, Mandragoran packed his bags made of undead flesh and headed for the pits, where he stoically remained - with few noteworthy excursions - until level 88.

* * *

While all this was going on, my Meteorb Sorceress was on Magic Find duties. This venture was... well documented. All she needed to find was two more Trang's to complete the set, a Homunculus, and an Arachnid Mesh. One or all.

She found nothing. Oh sure, she filled mules with items I've never even had before, including some useful tools, but even Mandragoran had more luck: He found two Eaglehorns randomly while questing. But truthfully, it's a well known fact that doing MF runs for a specific item is the most unrewarding thing you can do in Diablo II. You invariably never find exactly what you're looking for, even when you statistically should.

And then I went and broke the rule.

Asdasfasdgfs.

Well. This changes things.

Code:
Death's Web
Unearthed Wand
One-Hand Damage: 22 to 28
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 66
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xe204cf5b
+7 Life after each Kill
150% Damage to Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
+12 to Mana After Each Kill
+2 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
-45% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Socketed (1: 0 used)

Okay then. Back to Mandragoran.

* * *

-45% to Enemy Poison Resistance, +2 Skills, +2 PnB and +12 to Mana After Each kill helps bring the speed and efficiency up a little, it should be said. After doing the Pits a few more times, finding nothing of any real value, it was time to Pat him - for real this time.

Act V, /players 3. Ancients fell. Worldstone Keep level 1 was a breeze. WSK 2 saw more Burning Souls than he could shake an ethereal wand at, and after luckily finding the waypoint close to the stairs I decided to re-roll a couple of times. Reason: A massive Burning Soul boss pack right on the bridge leading down to the third level. I might have teleported past, but chose not to risk it; I hadn't died once yet and wasn't about to let user stupidity be the cause of my first death. Third time's the charm; Burning Soul boss packs were gone, and WSK 3 and Throne awaits.

Minions I through III were straightforward and easy. As expected, IV took a bit longer and my skeleton army had to be resurrected, but they fell like the rest.

Lister was pitiful. The Minions fell so quickly and convincingly that Baal forgot to laugh for a moment after it was all over. When the laugh finally came, it sounded forced, lacking the usual mirth associated with Baal's gleeful personae. Cramming his body through the portal, he laughed again, exaggeratedly, as if to chase his fears away.

Baal must have known what was coming, because I swear he tossed all the good items down the elevator shaft and resigned himself to dying, refusing to even move. He collapsed like a flan in a cupboard, dropping absolutely nothing. I tried to remind him that I wasn't on my MF Sorceress and so he might as well actually drop something, but to no avail; the items were smashed against the bottom of the pit. Tyrael descended and told me to GTFO.

Mandragoran's a Patriarch.


Character stats:

Name: Mandragoran
Level: 89

Strength: 70/105
Dexterity: 160/162
Vitality: 250/262
Energy: 25/27
* Not allocated: 30

Life: 1024
Mana: 425

Fire Resistance: 28
Cold Resistance: 68
Lightning Resistance: 54
Poison Resistance: 54


Gear:

Mandragoran:
Harlequin Crest, Ptopaz
Skin of the Vipermagi, Wyrmhide 5/4 Pfacet
Death's Web, -45% +2 PnB +12 MAEK +7 LAEK
Moser's Blessed Circle, 2 Pdiamonds
Trang-Oul's Claws
Rare Demonhide Sash, +18 Str - Lit Res +29% - Pois Res 29% - FHR
Highlord's Wrath / Amulet of Teleportation
Stone of Jordan
Nagelring
Silkweave / War Traveler
- Gheed's Fortune, 34% MF
- 6x Charms of Vita

Merc:
Shaftstop
Hone Sundan / Bonehew
Guillaume's Face / Vampire Gaze

ATMA readout:

Code:
Death's Web
Unearthed Wand
One-Hand Damage: 22 to 28
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 66
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xe204cf5b
+7 Life after each Kill
150% Damage to Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
+12 to Mana After Each Kill
+2 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
-45% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Socketed (1: 0 used)


Harlequin Crest
Shako
Defense: 104
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x5a85a7b9
+2 to Strength
+2 to Energy
+2 to Dexterity
+2 to Vitality
Damage Reduced by 10%
74% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to All Skill Levels
+133 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+133 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)


Skin of the Vipermagi
Wyrmhide
Defense: 924
Durability: 24 of 24
Required Strength: 84
Required Level: 57
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 48
Fingerprint: 0xb7b4583f
+120% Enhanced Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 11
All Resistances +32
+36 poison damage over 2 seconds
Required Level +7
30% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
100% Chance to cast Level 23 Venom When You Level Up
+5% to Poison Skill Damage
-4% to Enemy Poison Resistance
Socketed (1: 1 used)


Moser's Blessed Circle
Round Shield
Defense: 173
Chance to Block:  57%
Durability: 64 of 64
Required Strength: 53
Required Level: 31
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 60
Fingerprint: 0xd8d2d622
+210% Enhanced Defense
+25% Increased Chance of Blocking
All Resistances +63
30% Faster Block Rate
Socketed (2: 2 used)


Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 72
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 59
Fingerprint: 0x6e42dba2
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Curses (Necromancer Only)
+25% to Poison Skill Damage


War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 131
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 55
Fingerprint: 0xf50d28c4
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+173% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Minimum Damage
+25 to Maximum Damage
+30 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 9
38% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
25% Faster Run/Walk
40% Slower Stamina Drain


Dire Cord
Demonhide Sash
Defense: 76
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 20
Required Level: 50
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0x5b96723a
+18 to Strength
Lightning Resist +29%
Poison Resist +29%
Attacker Takes Damage of 1
10% Faster Hit Recovery
+44 to Defense (Based on Character Level)


Highlord's Wrath
Amulet
Required Level: 65
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x9a01c2db
Lightning Resist +35%
Adds 1-30 lightning damage
20% Increased Attack Speed
+1 to All Skill Levels
Attacker Takes Lightning Damage of 15
33% Deadly Strike (Based on Character Level)


The Stone of Jordan
Ring
Required Level: 29
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x91d77cdd
+20 to Mana
Adds 1-12 lightning damage
Increase Maximum Mana 25%
+1 to All Skill Levels


Nagelring
Ring
Required Level: 7
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 49
Fingerprint: 0x4c520787
+62 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Attacker Takes Damage of 3
22% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items


Finds:

Eaglehorn
Eaglehorn
Vex rune
Mal rune


Conclusion:

Mandragoran is proof that a Poisonmancer is an absolutely viable build even without the uber gear advocated by every build guide. Obviously, Death's Web made things go more smoothly, but I was running /p7 pits before I found that bright, white wand -- and I have no skillers, no three-piece Trang-Oul's, no Homunculus or Arachnid Mesh, and few Poison Facets to speak of. I could achieve the same killing speeds I have now with DW by just wearing Trang's and getting a few skillers. Death's Web is a wonderful weapon, but it's far from being game-breakingly vital. It's just plain awesome.

Mostly, though, this character is just so much fun to play with, the most fun I've had in Diablo II since beta by far. There are some skill allocations that I wonder at in hindsight, and my next Necro will experiment with a few of these -- but not for a while yet. Mandragoran has a few pit runs to go through before then.


Final thoughts & Request for advice/opinions

The build, designed as a non-uber Poison/Skellie hybrid, was an overall success. In hindsight, however, I wonder at my 20RS/3SM allocation over, say, 10RS/5SM (backed up by skills) with more points going to Corpse Explosion. The more I play, the more I find myself becoming a proponent of maxing or upping CE enough that it covers everything you want it to. I considered it a 1-point wonder when I started this build; now, I'm not so sure. I feel like I want more. It's likely that my remaining skill points will all go to CE instead of SM. I expect to finish this build (complete with skillers and Arach/Homu or full Trang's for its +skills and FRW) giving me a 16-17 level one-point wonder CE eventually, but most likely I'll always want that little bit extra.

The reason I decided to max RS for this build and put the leftover points into SM was simple: I didn't expect to find any uber gear, and in making a non-uber Poisonmancer, it seemed the logical backup: They'd keep me alive while my poison took its time to work. I simply wanted some survivability while I soloed through Hell or ran the Pits at as many players as I could. I knew Skellie damage would amount to nothing when I started this build, but it didn't matter; Poison Nova was always going to be the main damage dealer, with the Merc taking down amped PI monsters in preparation for a CE chain. I would wear Teleport on ammy or switch, giving me excellent minion control. Such was the plan.

The plan itself worked; I'm a Patriarch who's never died and who clears the pits at /p7. The skeletons work really well; they fan out, some times wandering and attracting more monsters off-screen to bring into the impending CE chain reaction. Teleporting into a nest and positioning properly sees the skellies spreading out around you, leaving you practically immune to cast LR, PN, refresh the Armor or cast Bone Wall, Amp and CE. The skellies' survivability is more than sufficient; by the time the army has incurred any real losses, there's ten times that number of bodies on the ground just waiting to be raised as a Champion of Awesome.

But 20RS/3SM might have been a little excessive. Chances are I could have stayed at 14/1 and instead pumped CE once my build was complete.

This alternative, should I decide I wanted more meatshields, could also open up the possibility of getting 1-point mages and revives, reinforced with skills and a nice pre-buff switch or Call to Arms (which I'll be getting after 1.13). With this setup I'd have more meatshields, but they'd be weaker and might not last very long, especially where it counts - such as against the Act IV minions or Lister & Co. I might run out of bodies to make more.


So, to those who know these things better than me:

Is a maxed or 10-15 point CE of great enough value to warrant doing so, even if you have enough +skills to bring a one-point wonder CE up to level 16-18?

Would a 10RS/5SM, 14RS/1SM or equivalent skellie army be sufficient to remain safe and lock down any problems, or is a 20RS/10SM necessary to prosper in the more profitable areas of the game?

If only a one-point wonder in CE is necessary, should I up Clay Golem and Golem Mastery instead of putting more into RS/SM in order to get a wonderful slowing effect and added Golem survivability?

Etcetera, etcetera. In short, I'm looking to optimize and would like to hear peoples' experiences. If you've even read this long.



P.S.: I was laughing like The Joker for 10 minutes after finding Death's Web. Because that's how I roll.

P.P.S.: tl;dr
 
Originally posted by Cygnus on Feb 2, 2008:

Patriarch Dante, poison necro (Trang-Oul's set)

Twinking is fun when you can REALLY twink 😁 This is the standard Trang-Oul's vampire form Necromancer, with maxed mages for support. He uses a rather nice wand :)

The vampire form of the necro is identical to the monster of the same type. It has some nice advantages. First, walk speed is same as run, so you can walk and don't have to suffer the block/defence penalty. There is also a constant life regeneration. While it is not as effective as a prayer aura, it helps keep the red bulb topped off. No quaffing healers to get the last 50 hit points.

Dante, Poison necromancer, assisted by mages

Stats

Level: 80
Life: 1103
Mana: 535
Resists: 75 all

Strength: 106
Dexterity: 53
Vitality: 364
Energy: 25

Defence: 1683
Block: 14%
Block rate: 10 frames (30% fast block, hit recovery animation is used)
Cast rate: 20 frames (20% fast cast)
Hit recovery: 10 frames (25% FHR)
Faster walk: 40%
Magic Find: 125%

Skills

Poison Nova: 20 (29)
Corpse Explosion: 1 (10)
Raise Skeleton Mage: 20 (30)
Skeleton Mastery: 20 (30)
Clay Golem: 1 (11)
Golem Mastery: 1 (11)
Summon Resist: 1 (11)
Poison Dagger: 16
Fire Wall: 16 (oskill)
Fire Ball: 21 (oskill)
Fire Mastery: 6 (oskill)

Curses: 1 each, except Confuse and Attract
Dim Vision: 6.2 seconds
Decrepify: 9.4 seconds
Lower Resist: -55% to all resists

Damage Numbers

Poison Nova: 2277-2393 over 2 seconds
Fire Wall: 1469-1508
Fire Ball: 352-398
Mages: calculate it yourself 👅

Equipment

Full Trang-Oul's set (topazes in the sockets)
Death's Web ("only" -40% poison resist)
The Eye of Etlich
Nagelring
rare ring (mana, MF)
rare boots (MF, fire+lightning resists)
2 summoning charms
1 curses charm
life/resist charms

Gumby, the primary tank

3960 life
53% slow
+59% to all resists

Durga, the dual aura mercenary

Holy Freeze aura
Meditation aura
730-1316 damage
75% resists

Ethereal Insight Partizan
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest
Ethereal Duriel's Shell

Finds

His was a fruitful quest ..

* Cow King's Hooves (Normal cow king)
* Fal rune (Nightmare Flayer Jungle)
* Ko rune (Nightmare forge)
* Cow King's Hide (Nightmare cow king)
* Jalal's Mane (Hell Cold Plains)
* Amber (11) SC of Balance
* Nature's Peace (somewhere in act 2 hell)
* Thunderstroke (Hell Kurast Causeway)
* Mal rune (Hell forge)
* Bonehew (Hell Arreat Plateau)

I was hoping for a hat from the cow king in hell :rolleyes:

* * * * * * * * * *

Very easy, and very fun. The poison aspect of this build comprehensively outshone the mages and the fire parts, which is why I'm calling this a poison necro rather than a poison/mages/fire hybrid. The mages were useful -- they could kill quickly if they focussed on a monster -- but most of the time they simply weren't needed. The -poison resist of Death's Web and the set are what makes this build shine. Together with a high level lower resist curse, this broke the poison immunity of all monsters with 110% or less resistance. Which is most of time, as it turned out.

Early questing was fairly easy. I built up poison dagger to a respectable level and let the merc take most of the kills. Once poison nova was built up, things were a breeze, right up to the end of Hell. All items were equipped by the end of nightmare, which meant he could play through the whole of hell at full power.

Game play in hell was something like this:
- blind everything in sight
- if there's a boss or champ pack, decrepify the boss and blind the rest
- cast poison nova until they are all dead
- move on to the next pack

With the occasional poison immune pack, I had to use lower resist instead of dim vision. Chaos! And if they are unbreakable PoIs, dim vision again and use fire wall and the merc to kill them. This was actually safer than letting archers/slingers/etc. shoot at me.

No deaths in Hell, but there were a couple of embarrassing deaths to normal Diablo. I cast decrepify and gumby and charged ahead. Diablo responded with the LBoD. The LBoD won. After the second time that happened, I realised that "tactics" were called for.

One major NDE in hell. I kicked an evil urn and got mobbed by poison immune snakes. Terror didn't work because it was in a corner and there were walls, more snakes or my own troops (thanks for the help, guys!) that prevented the snakes from fleeing. Fortunately the immunity could be broken. I hit potions regularly and waited for poison to kill off the minions. Freedom came when there was less than half the life bulb and a single super healer remaining. I could have unsummoned some of the mages and then used terror, but I remembered that after I got out :rolleyes:

Boss fights and the ancients were easy, but HF/gumby/decrepify didn't completely shut them down. Diablo caused a scare by vapourizing the merc and placing me in a cage (unbreakable poison immune!) and Baal cloned himself three times but they all went down fairly quickly.
 
Originally posted by Enrico on Nov 16, 2008:

Patriarch Andreich - Poison/Summon necro

Since I have had Death's Web in my stash about 1 year, I think it was time to finally build poison necro. Lately I have run Lower Kurast to boredom so it was time to play game through again.

Andreich, level 85 Poison/Summon necro

Stats:


Strength: 90(142)
Dexterity: 25(27)
Vitality: 375(387)
Energy: 25(47)

Resist:
Fire: 75
Cold: 75
Lightning: 75
Poison: 74

Life: 1837 Mana: 569 after BO
207% MF 18%DR

Poison Nova damage: 4021-4176

Skills:

Clay Golem, Golem Mastery, Summon Resist: 1(12)
Skeleton Mastery, Raise Skeleton: 20(31)
Teeth, Corpse Explosion: 1(15)
Poison Dagger: 6(20) rest points will go there
Poison Explosion, Poison Nova: 20(34)
Amplify Damage, Dim Vision, Weaken, Terror, Decrepify: 1(15)

Gear:

Helm: Shako with perf topaz
Armour: CoH AP
Weapon1: Death's Web, Homunculus with perf diamond
Weapon2: CtA Crystal Sword, Lidless Wall
Amulet: Rare +1 Necro amulet
Rings: 2xNagelrings
Belt: Arachnich Mesh
Gloves: Trang's
Boots: War Traveler
Charms: 3xfungal, 1 graverobber, +more

Gear readout:
Code:
Shako
Defense: 116
Durability: 11 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 62
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 75
Fingerprint: 0x6aebd967
+2 to Strength
+2 to Energy
+2 to Dexterity
+2 to Vitality
Damage Reduced by 10%
74% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
+2 to All Skill Levels
+127 to Life (Based on Character Level)
+127 to Mana (Based on Character Level)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Chains of Honor
Archon Plate
'DolUmBerIst'
Defense: 804
Durability: 59 of 60
Required Strength: 103
Required Level: 63
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x4ae3c18f
+20 to Strength
+70% Enhanced Defense
Damage Reduced by 8%
All Resistances +65
8% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +7
25% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
200% Damage to Demons
100% Damage to Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (4: 4 used)

Death's Web
Unearthed Wand
One-Hand Damage: 22 to 28
Durability: 18 of 18
Required Strength: 25
Required Level: 66
Staff Class - Normal Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 86
Fingerprint: 0xa6f81ad3
+9 Life after each Kill
150% Damage to Undead
+2 to All Skill Levels
+10 to Mana After Each Kill
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)
-41% to Enemy Poison Resistance

Homunculus
Hierophant Trophy
Defense: 178
Chance to Block:  72%
Durability: 20 of 20
(Necromancer Only)
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xd2acee6
+20 to Energy
+152% Enhanced Defense
+40% Increased Chance of Blocking
Regenerate Mana 33%
All Resistances +59
+2 to Necromancer Skill Levels
30% Faster Block Rate
+5 to Mana After Each Kill
+2 to Curses (Necromancer Only)
Socketed (1: 1 used)

Call to Arms
Crystal Sword
'AmnRalMalIstOhm'
One-Hand Damage: 17 to 52
Durability: 20 of 20
Required Strength: 43
Required Level: 57
Sword Class - Very Fast Attack Speed
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0x154c36b
+253% Enhanced Damage
Adds 5-30 fire damage
7% Life stolen per hit
Replenish Life +12
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
40% Increased Attack Speed
+6 to Battle Orders
+2 to Battle Cry
+3 to Battle Command
Prevent Monster Heal
+1 to All Skill Levels
Socketed (5: 5 used)

Lidless Wall
Grim Shield
Defense: 271
Chance to Block:  40%
Durability: 70 of 70
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 41
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0x4bef1f5c
+10 to Energy
+80% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 10%
+1 to Light Radius
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
+5 to Mana After Each Kill

Entropy Collar
Amulet
Required Level: 51
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x7e03717d
+20 to Strength
+6 to Minimum Damage
Fire Resist +20%
Lightning Resist +36%
Cold Resist +20%
Poison Resist +20%
+1 to Necromancer Skill Levels

Nagelring
Ring
Required Level: 7
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 87
Fingerprint: 0xe7b47a0f
+53 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Attacker Takes Damage of 3
28% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Nagelring
Ring
Required Level: 7
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 19
Fingerprint: 0x449018c3
+70 to Attack Rating
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Attacker Takes Damage of 3
30% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Arachnid Mesh
Spiderweb Sash
Defense: 119
Durability: 12 of 12
Required Strength: 50
Required Level: 80
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 99
Fingerprint: 0x1c891974
+90% Enhanced Defense
Increase Maximum Mana 5%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+1 to All Skill Levels
Slows Target by 10%
Level 3 Venom (11/11 Charges)

Trang-Oul's Claws
Heavy Bracers
Defense: 74
Durability: 16 of 16
Required Strength: 58
Required Level: 45
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 52
Fingerprint: 0x5042e8d
+30 Defense
Cold Resist +30%
20% Faster Cast Rate
+2 to Curses (Necromancer Only)
+25% to Poison Skill Damage

War Traveler
Battle Boots
Defense: 126
Durability: 48 of 48
Required Strength: 95
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xa052ec19
+10 to Strength
+10 to Vitality
+164% Enhanced Defense
+15 to Minimum Damage
+25 to Maximum Damage
+30 Maximum Durability
Attacker Takes Damage of 6
34% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items
25% Faster Run/Walk
40% Slower Stamina Drain

Graverobber's Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x602d2116
+1 to Summoning Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 76
Fingerprint: 0x68645e9a
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 83
Fingerprint: 0x3d14c9d6
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Fungal Grand Charm of the Glacier
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 42
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xba27f1ee
Adds 3-7 cold damage over 1 seconds
+1 to Poison and Bone Skills (Necromancer Only)

Ruby Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 39
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x59da20a
+17 to Life
Fire Resist +10%

Serpent's Small Charm of Fortune
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xa056b93b
+16 to Mana
3% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Serpent's Small Charm of Vita
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 40
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0xf2a39d9b
+18 to Life
+17 to Mana

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 80
Fingerprint: 0x9085490
6% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Small Charm of Good Luck
Keep in Inventory to Gain Bonus
Required Level: 33
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 85
Fingerprint: 0xc73f62ac
7% Better Chance of Getting Magic Items

Mercenary:

Act 2 might with Insight Great Poleaxe, Duriell's Shell, Tal's mask

Some thoughts:

Eventhough I have 200 mf, there weren't any special finds. Hell forge drops were poor: NM, ko, Hell, hell :( . I could've possibly switched CoH for Skullder's to have even more mf. I first put points to RS and SM, pump them to 20. Played normal and nightmare p3 playing like basic summoner. Went hell level 68 and played Pits p8 till level 80 so I could equip Arachnid. Hell was played p3 mostly, some boring spots like Maggot lair was played p1.

Poison Nova started to do actual damage about level 76 or so, some times PN feels like it only does minor damage, there are situations which it shines, especially if there are many monster in screen, it will kill all annoying small monster which aren't poison immune quite fast. As you may notice, I don't have single point in lower resist. Reason is, I only use three curses, Amplify Damage, Dim Vision and Decrepify. Basically Amplify Damage is on all time except some tough situations.

I pundered long time would I use normal skeletons or mages. Don't know if mages would have been better, I doubt. Poison Nova kinda synergises nice with skeletons because they don't kill superfast so Nova takes enemies damage off with some time isn' much problem. I can clear Pits p8 pretty fast, haven't yet tried how fast i can clear Throne Room p8, I don't think it will be fast enough. Even though I use Poison Nova all time, in some situations it's still faster to use Corpse Explosion, even at p8 CE deals huge damage.

This is propably the safest character I've ever played. One reason it shines is Call to Arms: it really takes skeleton army to next level and makes them almost unkillable. Even some Cursed, Extra Strong, Extra Fast, Fanatism packs can't kill them. Plus my necro has 1800 life with 18%DR, only 1 NDE when I got hit recovery animation when 3 trees hit me. Ancients were easiest ever, about 30 seconds and they were dead. Some improvements I could think of is teleport, sometimes army is so stupid I must use poor man's teleport AKA tele to town and back. I'm still on verge how good this character is: it propably isn't most fast superkiller, but it can propably clear hole game with p8 without much trouble, eventhough I think summoner with Beast would propably be faster. I could've taked other route and have mages and went with Lower Resist, it might have been faster, but that's another story.

What's next: will play this character to level 90 or so in Pits, after that he will propably retire. Problem is my Blizzballer can clear things so much faster. Been running Lower Kurast for a while, now about 2500 runs p8 with Vex, Ist, Mal, 2xPul + lot of skillers. Big picture is to get 2xBers for Infinity, won't propably take long enough :rolleyes:. Don't know which my next character will be, Nat's martial arts assassin sounds tempting, but I wan't to see how strong she would be with merc having Infinity.

Some screens:

Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
Act 4
Act 5
 
Originally posted by @Kitteh on Mar 5, 2012:

Guardian FredOfErik the Summoner/Poison Hybrid

1z19y0p.jpg


Stats:
Name: FredOfErik
Class: Necromancer
Experience: 1048543990
Level: 84

Naked/Gear
Strength: 91/107
Dexterity: 25/26
Vitality: 364/386
Energy: 25/38
HP: 906/966
Mana: 190/328
Stamina: 508/508
Defense: 6/301
AR: 80/158

Fire: 214/174/114
Cold: 137/97/37
Lightning: 185/145/85
Poison: 204/164/104

MF: 114 Block: 3
GF: 99
FR/W: 20
FHR: 87
IAS: 0
FCR: 37


Skills:
Amplify Damage: 1/3
Dim Vision: 1/3
Weaken: 1/3
Iron Maiden: 0/0
Terror: 1/3
Confuse: 0/0
Life Tap: 0/0
Attract: 0/0
Decrepify: 1/3
Lower Resist: 0/0

Teeth: 1/3
Bone Armor: 0/0
Poison Dagger: 1/3
Corpse Explosion: 20/22
Bone Wall: 0/0
Poison Explosion: 1/3
Bone Spear: 0/0
Bone Prison: 0/0
Poison Nova: 20/22
Bone Spirit: 0/0

Skeleton Mastery: 20/22
Raise Skeleton: 20/22
Clay Golem: 1/3
Golem Mastery: 1/3
Raise Skeletal Mage: 1/3
Blood Golem: 1/3
Summon Resist: 1/3
Iron Golem: 1/3
Fire Golem: 0/0
Revive: 1/3


Helm: Topazed mask
Body: Smoke PM
Belt/Boots/Gloves: various resists/mf
Weapon: Spirit
Sheild: Rhyme
Resist rings

This amulet was a handy find...

+2 to Martial Art Skills (Assassin Only)
+13 to Strength
All Resistances +16
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Level 1 Teleport (12/22 Charges)


Normal/nm were at players8, and a breeze obviously.
In Hell, I felt DV would take away the only dangers in Hell, so I went hybrid instead. Poison Nova was actually quite useful :)

Baal dropped all magics, git...
 
Originally posted by Low Key on Aug 23, 2008:

Short Pat - Karrn, Poison/Summoner

Although I spent alot of time and resources on this character, I'm not entirely pleased with him and I intend to keep this short. I'll be remaking another poisonmancer some time in the future.

Stats

Level: 85
Str: 95 (133)
Dex: 195 (227)
Vit: 200 (202)
Ene: 25 (32)

Life: 591 (842)
Mana: 193 (502)

75/75/75/75 resistances.

Skills

Poison Nova 20 (40)
Poison Explosion 20 (40)
Poison Dagger 20 (40)

Lower Resist 1 (12)

Raise Skeleton 20 (36)
Skeleton Mastery 4 (20)
Clay Golem, Golem Mastery, Summon Resist 1 (14)

Items

Death's Web (Poison Facet)
On switch AoKL, Homunculus
Trang-Oul's Wing (Pdiamond), Claw and Scales (Poison Facet)
Harlequin Crest (Um)
Mara's Kaleidoscope
Arachnid Mesh
Stone of Jordan x2
Rare boots with frw, dexterity, cold res, lightning res.

x8 Fungal skillers, including ones with +6 Str, +17 life, +43 life.
x6 Shimmering Small Charms with various suffixes.
x2 Ruby small charms.

Merc: NM Act 2 might merc.

Eth 1.07 Cryptic Axe Insight
Eth Vampire Gaze with 15 all res jewel.
Fortitude Archon Plate

Thoughts

Pros:


- Well, Poison Nova is a pretty big pro. 7631-7858 poison damage coupled with -80% to enemy poison resistance and a -57% Lower Resist. This will absolutely kill most things in the game, even at players 8. Most poison immunes can be broken, except for maybe for 3-4 monster types in act 5 Hell. The radius is very nice, it hit nearly anything on the screen, though with a little risk.

- Level 21 Corpse Explosion, Thanks to a huge amount of +skills, this is the best 1p wonder ever. Most fights went Lower Resist, Nova, CE, Nova, CE, Nova, etc.

- Firewall from Trang's was pretty handy at times.

- Curses give nice utility in most situtations.

Cons:

- The summons proved to be complete, utter waste of time and resources. At best, they proved to be a decent, if a little unpredictable Bone Wall that hits back, at worst they crippled my damage output by blocking the mercs way to the unbreakable Poison Immune enemies. Without a fully maxed Skeleton Mastery and use of Amplify damage, their damage simply cant keep up with the P8 killing power of Poison Nova. As an end result, I made my life way too difficult by trying to keep up a good level of the summoning skills, while still trying to max resistances and Nova Damage. See equipment choices like Trang's armour instead of the belt, etc.

- Not only that, I made the huge mistake of maxing Raise Skeleton first, then Nova and synergies, thanks to that, late Normal and most of Nightmare my damage output was ridicilously low, making plying painfully slow.

- Boss killing was pretty slow, had to drop the players setting quite a bit for each boss. Decrepify was usually needed to keep the bosses from slaughtering the skeletal morons, thus lessening my Poison Nova damage.

- Going fo max block out of Trang's Wing = bad idea. Requires too much dexterity to be viable and lacks faster block rate, making the animation painfully slow. That combined with my equipment having no FHR whatsoever made getting hit very dangerous. Died only once, though. I supposed that should go to Pros.

- Also had some resistance problems, had to use rare boots and a huge amount of resistance charms.

- Act 5 doors, walls, towers and other buildings were all poison immune, with huge hp and no curses available. Level 13 Firewall and couple of skeletons wont do much on p8. Ended up taking ages to progress the outdoors areas in act 5.

- Not really a con, but I had no open inventory slots out of choice. I was origianlly planning on getting 6 or so skillers, ended up with 11. So I put most of them to use and had 8 skillers, cube and tomes in my inventory. It was worth it, really. All good drops went in to the cube manually, with little trouble.

Finds

- Forges were Lem/Ist, very nice.
- Bane Ash in act 2 normal
- Hell Baal dropped a Spike Thorn, probably one of my best questing drops ever.
- Alot of low end uniques kept dropping. Must be the 50% MF from the Shako.

Thanks

Special thanks to RibGriller for donating skillers to the project, including the +43 vita one.

And thanks for everyone else I traded with for this project. You are many, and I can't possibly remember you all.

Next up, something else. Rebuild later when I know what to do with the remaining points after P. Nova and synergies. Thanks for reading. 👍
 
Originally posted by maxgerin on Oct 7, 2005:

Class-specific Set Pat/Mat Countdown: 4 out of 7

Finally, after several months from starting it, I've finished him...

My Trang's Poison Summoner

Stats so far...

Character name: Patriarch Jobim
Character type : Necromancer
Character level : 87
Character exp : 1341903298

Hardpoints...
Strength : 90
Energy : 25
Dexterity : 195
Vitality : 215
Stat Points Rem : 0
Skill Points Rem: 2

Life : 758 / 634
Mana : 815 / 197
Stamina : 400 / 365

Hell Resists
Fire: 72
Cold: 75
Lightning: 75
Poison: 75

Skills (screenshot with equipment, posted here are hardpoints only):

Poison and Bone Skills
20 Poison Dagger
20 Poison Explosion
20 Poison Nova
1 Teeth
1 Corpse Explosion
1 Bone Armor

Summoning Skills
20 Raise Skeleton
1 Skeleton Mastery
1 Clay Golem
1 Golem Mastery
1 Summon Resist

Curses
19 (1 in all, except Attract)

Jobim's Gears:

Helm: Trang-Oul's Guise (with open socket)
Armor: Trang-Oul's Scales (with Perfect Level-up Poison Facet)
Weapon: Eth Death's Web (with Perfect Die Poison Facet) base: +2PnB -46%PResist
Shield: Trang-Oul's Wing (with Perfect Diamond)
Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws
Belt: Trang-Oul's Girth
Boots: Marrowwalk (+2 Skeleton Mastery)
Ring: The Stone of Jordan
Ring: The Stone of Jordan
Ammy: Mara's Kaleidoscope (+28 Resist All)

Backpack: 7x PnB skillers

Merc Fazel's (Might, level 87) Gears:
Helm--perfect Vampire's Gaze
Armor--Eth Shaftstop
Weapon--upped Ethereal Kelpie Snare


Hum... what can I say about the build...
It is the only character I played (so far as I can remember) which completed the entire game at /p8 setting, and that for me is a very good achievement. :D
One of the hardest part of the game was finishing Ventar's pack (Baal's brute minions with wings). Even with slvl12 Lower Resist, they're still immune to poison so I just settled with Decrepify, at least that broke their physical immunity.
Another hard part was Lister. I settled with Decrepify to slow them and PNova without Lower Resist, so the killing was slow.
There were several deaths along the way. As usual, because of my carelessness with charging packs rather than killing from afar... which the character is highly efficient with if only I went with that strategy.

Hell Hellforge gave me a Mal, which is quite decent enough for me. :)

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Just post them. ;)

It might be awhile for me to dish out another pat or mat. I'm getting a bit tired with the game. Just a bit. :lol:

--maxgerin
 
Originally posted by Milamber on Aug 11, 2004:

Patriarch Murmandamus

The beam of light soared skyward, a pure and blistering signal to the defeat of darkness. Reaching the high winds of the heavens the light spread itself like a soft blanket from horizon to horizon, until a final nova of light caused the lands of Sanctuary to sink back into the shadows...

In the worldstone chamber, Murmandamus stood slightly blistered from the exploding energies from Baal's corpse, before finally slumping to the earth. Around him only the shuffling drone from his unearthed minions could be heard

He looked up at the approach of Razan, and took the offered waterskin, drinking deeply - his soul scorched from the stuggle.

"It is done, master" came the deep voice of the desert warrior.

Murmandamus looked into the grizzled face of the mercenary, and stared into the tortured eyes of a man who's soul had been cheated from death on the journey from Lut Golein. Yet, within the suffering the small ebb of fulfillment could be seen.

"You like to serve?" Asked Murmandamus.

"I live to serve" came Razan's reply.

"To Die?"

"Death comes to everything eventually, master"
___________________________________

Murmandamus
Clvl: 86

Skills:

SM: 20
RS: 20
CE: 20
Bone Spirit: 20

Items:

Harlequin Crest
Mara's
AoKL/Ali Baba
Enigma - borrowed from my Hammerdin (ugly!)
Homunculus
Chanceguards
Goldwrap
Nagel x 2
War Travs

He was Pat'd late, stopping off in the Pit and Pindle along the way. Now he will be used to run Pindle (surprisingly quick) and the WSK.
 
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