Single Player Mojomancer Attempt

E

Elsairon

New member
Single Player Mojomancer Attempt

After taking a few years off d2 I have started playing again.

I have played a couple focused nec builds including a golemancer, dentist, and skelemancer. I found the skelemancer to be fastest by far of all nec types I have played, but It wasn't reallly a challange. I generally play my characters through SP normal and then retire(delete) them. I am known to level five or more characters to five or six and delete them one after the other, as I quickly come up with new ideas. The other class I have played alot is a Zealot Paladin type build. I currently have another level 25 IIRC Fire druid. (longing for the D1 sorcerer and not feeling satified with little miss static)

I decided to go for a mojo attempt using Vanilla 1.11, no twinks. I hope to take this guy all the way through hell baal wthout dying once... probably won't make it but I would not even be interested in playing if I didn't go hard core.

First I snagged a 2os shortsword and gemmed it up, which brought me through the first few quests.

After obtaining my sidekick (she really hates walls for some reason) my strat changed to more of a support role.

I bought her a superior 3s hunters bow and gemmed it for my rogue. I also grabbed a 2s helm and popped in a couple damage jewels I found for her.

I am now using her old 2s gemmed shortbow and sold the sword.

After steamrolling through into the Jail area in A1 I decided to up the anty and set players 8 (I also want to level to 18 and get confuse/lifetap before hitting A2)

I'm mainly using dv, with terror when/if I get hard pressed by melee mobs when I'm low on mana (I get only about 4 casts of DV before needing to refill). Finally, when/if I can remember in the helter-skelter I amp the uniques/champs. I'm planning to take it slow and get confuse before reaching Andy and taking her down by using all her own minions against her.

Considering my future build I am reluctant to put any points in trees other than curses. I have really gotten bored with the undead army strategy, and I want a challange. However I forsee falling to the dark side and popping some points in bone armor and synergies if I go the melee-mancer route, and I'll probably be forced to use a golem to have any efficiency at all with the bosses.

I don't know if decrep and cold could keep a boss slow enough for melee to be viable, any meleemancers have experiences to share? I'd be forced to use a holy freeze merc as normal cold damage doesn't slow bosses much, IIRC.
 
Well I got down to Andy and ran around gathering up a large mob, upon which I spammed confusion.

Only a handful attacked Andariel, about 3 maybe. These she mostly ignored.

I tried another time, dv-ing a huge cluster of mobs, then moving out of sight range and casting confusion on the edge of the vision radius. This seemed to work much better, although I wasn't able to get close enough to see the results of my attempt until after it wore off.

Update:

Well, I was able to observe a few of my so-called minions and Andariel fighting, so it would be possible to win, by confusing the fallen attackers, who would be resurrected by thier shamans once Andariel killed them. She was able to make quick work of them however, as I did not have her tapped in time.

As I was manuvering around gathering up another group of the fallen I was trapped and killed.

Conclusion:

I'm not twitchy enough yet to pull off such a mojo-feat yet, I'll have to practice some more. I can see from my use of the curses and dv especially that it greatly increases the life expectancy of my nec. If/when I do this again I will probably do a golemancer/mojo hybrid without revives or skelies.
 
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Sorry to see your first attempt not succeeding. :undecided:

I have no experiences with the Mojomancer, so I can't be much of help to you, I'm afraid. The only thing I know is that maxed Dim Vision can be very good...
 
Yeah. I found dim vision made the majority of fights easy, once I broke down and pumped it past 10.

The main problem with mojo is no skill based form of attack (no bone, poison, or minions)

This means totally relying on the merc to do everything, unless one hybrids (which kind of defeats the purpose)

I think is the only viable option now is going [melee|/bow] mancer, if one is going to support the merc. The only other option is to find some kind of equipment based attacks, but that is highly unlikely playing untwinked vanilla in single player.

I think a cold attack merc might be able to tank most of the bosses if they were kept on decrep, but I don't have enough experience to know.
 
First of all, my congratulations for going 100% curse-tree :) I recommend you to do it on players 8 all of the time, make full map clears and take screenies ^^

I believe you should be able to beat hell baal with this build. Physical immunes shouldn't be a problem. Just terrorize/DV/attract crowds and swap merc's weapons for a buzzing pike or something like that :)
 
sequoia said:
you can always add a golem, which really doesn't add ANY killing power but can help loads
Click to expand...


QFT :hide: :wink3:

EDIT: Spam avoidance - IM on a Clay Golem can help against Duriel in Normal mode. We'll see how well it works in Nightmare soon ...



 
I thought the same thing... putting any points into summons would be adding yes more ease and relaxation to the mojos build.

It's probably the only same way to do it, but.. who said mojo was sane?

I am thinking of using a blessed aim merc with a ranger style mojo next.. players 8 of course, and why not full clears with screenies to boot?

I have heard over and over that a mojo is not viable... and I don't believe that.

I simply think most people aren't even willing to try.

I will give it a go, sp mojo vanilla untwinked full clears players 8.

I'll start tonight, and this time I'll lean more on my merc for the bosses.

Wish me luck!
 
putting any points into summons would be adding yes more ease and relaxation to the mojos build.
Click to expand...

It ain't a mojo with summons... only a fraud :>

Glad to hear that your going mojo-style :> and gl
 
Mojomancer 2nd attempt

(My second Mojomancer, 'Mojo', is off to a good start.)

Mojo started out in the blood moor, smashing down quill rats and fallen with his soon to be discarded wand. Things sped up once he got Amp. Somewhere along the line Mojo snagged a shortbow and a couple quivers of arrows.

After completing Blood Moor, he headed down into the Den of Evil, and began the cleanse. By this time he had burned through more than a quiver of arrows, and things were starting to feel pretty grueling. Those gargantuan beasts were pincushions with over 15 to 20 shots even with Amp to take them down.

Many monsters were healing even as Mojo fought them (and this is only Act 1 Normal)

Mojo finally found a rare hand axe with +1 cold damage and poison, which he immediatly equipped and has been using since.

Things sped up again once Mojo mastered the Dim Vision curse.

After clearing the Den of Evil he set off into the Cold Plains, on the lookout for those so called corrupted rogues Flavie warned him about. Around this time he started practicing a devious technique.

Gathering up large groups of fallen and rogues, blinding them, and tossing bottles of vile poisonous fumes into thier midst, killing them by the score!!!

Eventually he had cleared the Plains, and headed down into the caves, looking to clean out any remaining demons hiding below the earth. Here was where Mojo found his biggest challange yet. 2 unique zombies, a unique archer rogue, and a unique fallen shaman, with all thier minions and a couple more regular fallen shamans and packs of zombies thrown in.

He almost died several times, and popped at least 2 rejuves and several belt fulls of reds. The harried mojomancer had to port back to town twice to secure additional supplies. (Mojo's Dim Vision was only level 3 or so at the time, and he was having to constantly spam it around). Soaking up cursed arrows, Mojo bashed the monsters down. He was only able to survive by utilizing the Dim Vision curse liberally.

(Finally! This was so much more challanging and fulfilling than running behind an army of skeletons grabbing loot)

Eventually Mojo cleaned up the first level of the caves and went down mopped up the second level.

The Blood Moor Bandit then went into the Burial Grounds, and took down the undead in the perimiter around the fence outside. Throwing knives at the undead inside for a while proved useful. This tactic was followed by spamming Dim Vision and throwing poison potions at Blood Raven. It took about 23 poision postions to take her down. Due to her rapid and erratic movement Mojo sometimes threw down 2 or 3 in strategic locations where she might be willing to travel, and was finally rewarded when she succumed to the toxins coursing through her viens.

Mojo picked up a Rogue in town, and made her a gift of a 3 slot hunters bow, gemmed with a chipped sapphire and topaz. (Mojo has yet to find any emeralds, which is what he is waiting for the 3rd slot, unless he stumbles upon a nice jewel for her). Mojo's clearing speed jumped up dramatically once she joined. They mopped up the crypt and mausoleum. (I decided to call that enough for one night.)

(I ran through into the Stony Field and ignored all the monsters, guzzling stamina potions to find the wp, where I will start my next session.)

Thoughts

I am not repeating areas, and I'm not spending much time shopping in town. I have bought potions, scrolls, tomes, and the socketed bow for my rogue, and I paid Char for fixing up my axe when it finally broke.

I will equip with in game drops rather than buying any equipment, except for pots, scrolls, and non-magic socketed items (if I need one and have not found any that will work).

I have pumped quite a few points into Vit, as I have found myself having to tank quite a bit since I don't have a golem. This is going to be interesting. I am thinking that Life Tap may get some use in the near future, and may even be required to survive.

I am enjoying the game much more this time around going full bore with players 8 and full clears. I feel a much stronger sense of accomlishment.

Note: I took a few screen shots but I'm not sure where/when I will put them up (game is on another station offline) I will probably post them later when I find a decent free image host.

'Mojo' Level 12 Mojomancer, Players 8, Act 1 Normal, Stony Field
 
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Mojo's Mojomancer Challange Rules

A recap of the rules I'm playing by:

1. Single Player, Vanilla 1.11 LoD

2. Players 8 at all times.

3. No twinks, including no ATMA.

4. No buying anything except repairs, pots, scrolls, tomes, and non-magic weapons & armor.

5. Pure Mojomancer (only skill points allowed are in the curses tree).

6. May use necro +skills items but may still only use necro skills provided by the curses tree.

7. Can use caster items with charges, if he finds any he can use (including necro skill charges outside the curses line)

8. Full clears of each area, including underground caves and all levels of each cave.

9. No repeating areas (has to go straight to Nightmare after completing Normal, if possible.)

10. Hardcore. If he dies... the game is over.
 
If you were to go naked, I'd say you're crazier than superdave.

As it is, though, I think the challenge of this is on par with superdave's endeavor. Don't die now >: I
 
Mojo the Mojomancer: Day 2

Responses:

@Bliphgar: I probably will die soon! But lets hope not. I have rarely played any characters into nightmare. This challange gives me a good reason to keep going.

@LozHinge: Thanks! Your commentary in the Golemancer attempt was one of my inspirations to report this here. I don't think I'll have quite as much of a 'story', but I plan to learn alot about what exacty curses can and can't do for a necromancer :)

@sirwhere: I have 26 free points at the moment. I popped 2 into str to equip something, the rest into vit. If I beat hell ball with this guy I think I'll retire from D2!!

---

Finished everything up to but not including Outer Cloister. This took several hours of hacking and many quivers of arrows. Things were noticably slower. Mojo has yet to find anything better than a 3 slot shortbow, which he has gemmed, and the rare hand axe. Blaise usually takes down 6 to 8 demons by the time Mojo has downed 1.

After miles of treking across the demon strewn landscape, they finally found a few chipped emeralds. Both Mojo and Blaise now benefit from the poision on thier arrows.

Mojo finally found a +3% MF ring, which he has worn.

Finally a drop worth mentioning. A poor mans DR, potentially a lifesaver.. Infernal Cranium (+20% damage taken to mana.) This is probably the best item Mojo has found yet. It was one of the last things to drop in the second level of the Pit.

Thoughts

This is taking alot longer than a normal game. Melee and Shooting/Throwing with an untwinked necro is just slow. My only hope is to get a lucky drop and then hope I have found enough gear to use it. Otherwise I may end up wearing gemmed armor to boost my stats.

Currently both Mojo and Blaise are wearing 2 socket leather armor with dual chipped rubies for the +20 Life. I found a small charm +10 life, and one rare jewel. Sadly the jewel was +3-4 damage and a miniscule resistance bonus. I sold it.

I forsee problems in the future especially during boss battles where I may need to spend loads of cash on potions and resurrecting my merc. However I am not taking the time to sell everything. This may come back later to haunt me.

I may need to revise my strategy for not repeating areas. Not that I need to revise them, but some of the way points are in heavily conjested areas. This makes it a major concern scheduling the amount of time it takes to play and trying to plan out a good stopping point. There may be some marathon gaming sessions required to get though this.

As it is now I have an inventory mostly packed with small rejuves, 4 or 5 charms, and a tome of town portal. As of now I usually pick up only jewlery, jewels, gems, and potions if I need them.

Guess what the Countess dropped? 1 El rune.

Mojo's Dim Vision is over 11 now. This is the curse I use almost exclusively. Except for Amping the uniques and champions.

The biggest challange I had was Tristram, with 2 unique shaman and a pack of 4 champions, I burned though about 5 potions for that battle, otherwise it was smooth (if slow) sailing all the way through the Monastery Gate.

'Mojo' Level 17 Mojomancer -- Players 8 -- Act 1 Normal -- Outer Cloister
 
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hum.. you never played beyond nightmare? Well, nightmare monsters aren't too scary, but in hell they hit HARD. Very hard :)

If I were in your place, I'd try and get an act 2 freeze merc. Freeze + decrepified monsters = GOOD :)

Hope you can find a lum rune. A smoke armor would come very handy in hell :)

I'm pretty sure an untwinked mojo can beat hell. It's just a matter of patience and being careful.. a test of character, more than skill, I believe. Back in D2C, I did something similar: I beat nightmare diablo with a martyr paladin using a rare swort sword. Hardcore, of course :) Got like 2 close calls, but other than that it wasn't too difficult.
 
Is a mojomancer really doable single-player? I never played one but play with them now and then. But seriously - how do you kill beyond lvl 30?
 
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