The Call from the Fire Golem

[Cerebron]

The Call from the Fire Golem

After v1.10 Fire Golem has been the bottom decoration of the summoning tree. All Necros start to love the Glay Golem because it slows down the enemy. It really does. However, do you agree with the following "First Law of Summoning Necromancy?"

"Every skill or strategy should go towards the attack/damage of your minions but not their defense."

The point of slowing down the enemy is to protect your minions from being attacked too quickly. But, that's not the point. First, the skeles are really though. Second, if they die just summon again! This is why we use the Might Merc but not Prayer and Defiance.

So the question comes back to the Golem Choice. Everybody knows the Fire Golem attracts monsters by Hold Fire Aura, but I never noticed how it actually did it. I'm also wondering if the Fire Golem should help the Corpse Explosion by gathering the monsters together.

Is it the time to switch your favorite Golem? I don't know. Let's talk about it.

 

[ender11782]

A fire golem might be the best choice for going up against typical monster mobs, for the reasons you mentioned. But typically I've not had any trouble against them with summoners. My problems always come against single bosses. It's against these folks that the clay golem gives your minions time to defeat them without forcing you to run and resummon your army (which is a pain). Were the argument whether to slow the enemy to half speed or double your killing power, it would be a wash. However, I doubt the fire golem doubles your killing speed against bosses, so the win goes to the clay golem. It might be useful for some people against more typical monsters, but I've no need to attract more monsters into packs. My CE has an 8yd radius anyway, so that's not a big problem.

 

[Cerebron]

For boss, absolutely Clay. I agree with you 150%.

 

[ender11782]

Incidentally, I do usually keep the clay golem around even in non-boss situations, unless he's being killed too quickly. But that's only so that I don't have to remember to cast him when I do hit a boss. I should start putting post-it notes on my monitor or something...

 

[TCO]

Fire Golem could be used for PI.. But the fire damage .. is very.. very low.. :grrr:

 

[Lyrs]

different golems for different situations, i would say. and since most ppl are getting revives, it's only 1 more point. like clay, i think base lvl 1 fire golem will do well. all you need is to draw mosnters, so you can just let items increase FG's fire radius.

 

[Lyrs]

Fire Golem could be used for PI.. But the fire damage .. is very.. very low.. :grrr:

remember, both amp and decrepify remove Physical Immunities. No trouble at all.

 

[TCO]

remember, both amp and decrepify remove Physical Immunities. No trouble at all.

Yes i know.. But against PI [ amped ] the kill is very slow with your skells.. So if the Fire Golem could be a bit more powerful.. he could be a nice boost..

For example a Fire Golem lvl 20 that deals 2000-3000 fire damage :buddies:
Plus a 500 with Holy Fire.. :flip:

Unfortunately.. this is impossible.. :hanky:

 

[ender11782]

Yes i know.. But against PI [ amped ] the kill is very slow with your skells.. So if the Fire Golem could be a bit more powerful.. he could be a nice boost..

For example a Fire Golem lvl 20 that deals 2000-3000 fire damage :buddies:
Plus a 500 with Holy Fire.. :flip:

Unfortunately.. this is impossible.. :hanky:

I use mainly skeleton mages against PIs. I was sour on them at first, but now that I've maxed them (around L26 after +skills) they seem to do decent damage. Not generally as good as warriors + amp, but in certain situations they help out, such as against extremely phys resistant enemies, or against foes I can't reach (water watchers). I prefer them to fire golem b/c they do four different types of damage, chill and poison, and have range. Plus they're decent back-row tanks for my necro, while all the warriors are up at the front, in cases where monsters sneak around and try to hit my backdoor.

 

[Sniper_Ryan]

Fire Golem

I guess I'm in the minority of Necro players who uses FG, but that's probably because I'm a necro player from back in the D2Classic days (I remember when Ume's Lament rocked all). Anyway, I use it and I like it a lot. I guess my justification is this: I use my necro for MFing in the pit and throughout Act3. In the Pit, especially on lvl2, your skels can get stuck in the stairwells by enemies coming up, so instead of waiting while the one skeleton beats on the devilkin for 5 minutes, I cast FG behind the devilkins near their shaman and they go towards him, opening the door for my merc and skels to pour down the stairs to surround 'em and get that first corpse for CE. In addition, any hits the golem takes are replenished by the fire balls the shaman throws. A similar principle applies to flayers and their shamans. I like it, and I'll stick with it.

Special Bonus: For a few laughs (for instance, while waiting in a normal trading game for someone to arrive) cast a fire golem and go for a run around any area in Act1 and watch the holy fire take out every creature on your screen. I haven't come up with a practical use for this yet, but I'm working on it :thumbsup:

 

[Abroz]

Special Bonus: For a few laughs (for instance, while waiting in a normal trading game for someone to arrive) cast a fire golem and go for a run around any area in Act1 and watch the holy fire take out every creature on your screen. I haven't come up with a practical use for this yet, but I'm working on it :thumbsup:

I have heard of people doing this with a Paladin using Holy Fire to basically run around, kill everything and farm for chipped gems for cubing, a Chipperdin I believe is what it was called.

 

[Fearoth]

Well a lvl 40 or so fire golem does about 1100 fire damage which is not too shabby at all-only downside is that it costs around 410 mana to cast some summoners wouldnt even have that much

 

[Beatboxer]

I'd use Fire Golem, again, (1.09 I used em) if he had more life and didn't cost so much dern mana.

 

[Krollin]

"Every skill or strategy should go towards the attack/damage of your minions but not their defense."

Not true, there are times when defending your minions is more important than buffing them up, this is why Gumby is so useful when attacking Bosses.
Some boss pack aura combinations and the dreaded IM in Chaos Sanctuary or Worldstone Keep will cause your minions to be shredded in no time flat. Defending with FG, Decripify, DV, Attract or TPing out ensure that you kill your targets albeit slower than normal. The most important thing is that they die and you and your minions do not.

First, the skeles are really tough. Second, if they die just summon again! This is why we use the Might Merc but not Prayer and Defiance.

Skeletons should not be treated as an easily recyclabe resource. It is often the case that there are no corpses for you to turn into new skeles when they die, look at Baal for instance.
The "if it dies, recast it" applies only to Golems.
We use Might Mercs because the greatly increased dmg Might allows makes this build survivable in Hell. Try it out without it and see just how much longer it takes to kill.

So the question comes back to the Golem Choice. Everybody knows the Fire Golem attracts monsters by Hold Fire Aura, but I never noticed how it actually did it. I'm also wondering if the Fire Golem should help the Corpse Explosion by gathering the monsters together.

Is it the time to switch your favorite Golem? I don't know. Let's talk about it.

There are 3 attributes of the Fire Golem that make it attractive to use in certain circumstances.

1- This is not the most useful but it works, Holy Fire aura can attract monsters to it. This is a weak form of crowd control. Attract works much better at grouping monsters for CE. If you have maxed CE then anything on screen is getting torched basically.

2- When your Fire Golem dies, he explodes with small radius of fire damage. This is only really useful if you use Lower Resist and your Fire Golem is of a reasonable level. At low levels in Hell this mini CE won't even warm up your enemies let alone kill them.

3- This the most useful one, Fire Golems get healed by Fire Damage. So in combat with monsters that use fire a lot, Travincal Town Council for instance, your Fire Golem will be a tough proposition for your targets because their principal weapon, hydra, firewall, fireball, actually heals the thing instead of damaging it. Careful positioning of your Fire Golem, in the middle of a Hydra for instance, can divert fire from the really dangerous minions, namely your skeleton.

I won't even talk about the minimal additional fire damage awarded to minions in range of the Fire Golem, it is pants except at high Golem levels.

Apart from 2, the attributes of a Fire Golem only improve the defences of your Skeletons, through its crowd control and as a diversion. The dying fire burst and additional fire damage do not really improve the offensive capability of your minions.

 

[patheticloser]

If you want to farm for chips, or rush your friends in normal games a fire golumn and PN will rock. My first 1.10 necro (a bone necro before I figured out how synergies worked) had a single point in PN an FG, with plus skills all I had to do was run and spam PN. My noobie friend was amazed at the path of distruction. He could get in my little skelton pack and run behind me completly protected from anything that I might have missed.

Of course this strategy sucks in anything above NM act 3. But it is fun as hell in A1 normal!

 

[Cerebron]

Not true, there are times when defending your minions is more important than buffing them up, this is why Gumby is so useful when attacking Bosses.
Some boss pack aura combinations and the dreaded IM in Chaos Sanctuary or Worldstone Keep will cause your minions to be shredded in no time flat. Defending with FG, Decripify, DV, Attract or TPing out ensure that you kill your targets albeit slower than normal. The most important thing is that they die and you and your minions do not.

Skeletons should not be treated as an easily recyclabe resource. It is often the case that there are no corpses for you to turn into new skeles when they die, look at Baal for instance.
The "if it dies, recast it" applies only to Golems.
We use Might Mercs because the greatly increased dmg Might allows makes this build survivable in Hell. Try it out without it and see just how much longer it takes to kill.
There are 3 attributes of the Fire Golem that make it attractive to use in certain circumstances.

1- This is not the most useful but it works, Holy Fire aura can attract monsters to it. This is a weak form of crowd control. Attract works much better at grouping monsters for CE. If you have maxed CE then anything on screen is getting torched basically.

2- When your Fire Golem dies, he explodes with small radius of fire damage. This is only really useful if you use Lower Resist and your Fire Golem is of a reasonable level. At low levels in Hell this mini CE won't even warm up your enemies let alone kill them.

3- This the most useful one, Fire Golems get healed by Fire Damage. So in combat with monsters that use fire a lot, Travincal Town Council for instance, your Fire Golem will be a tough proposition for your targets because their principal weapon, hydra, firewall, fireball, actually heals the thing instead of damaging it. Careful positioning of your Fire Golem, in the middle of a Hydra for instance, can divert fire from the really dangerous minions, namely your skeleton.

I won't even talk about the minimal additional fire damage awarded to minions in range of the Fire Golem, it is pants except at high Golem levels.

Apart from 2, the attributes of a Fire Golem only improve the defences of your Skeletons, through its crowd control and as a diversion. The dying fire burst and additional fire damage do not really improve the offensive capability of your minions.

With high skeleton mastery and raise skeleton, I never see any of my skeletons die when killing Hell Baal in a 1-player game. None of them die either when dealing with Hell Diablo. The only place where my skeletons die like Hell is Chaos OK's Iron Maiden curse. And for IM, my Merc is almost guaranteed death.

 

[Cerebron]

Yes i know.. But against PI [ amped ] the kill is very slow with your skells.. So if the Fire Golem could be a bit more powerful.. he could be a nice boost..

For example a Fire Golem lvl 20 that deals 2000-3000 fire damage :buddies:
Plus a 500 with Holy Fire.. :flip:

Unfortunately.. this is impossible.. :hanky:

2000-3000? Where does that come from? Does fire damage mean the damage by blowing up your Fire Golem?

 

[Ifrit18]

Yeah blizz should of make the fire golem much more effective. make golem mastery AND fire golem increase attack dmg much higher. And say at slvl 40, a fire golem would do 10k+ fire dmg every time it would blow up :teeth:. Its a ton of mana but you get results quickly.

 

[Vizier]

"Every skill or strategy should go towards the attack/damage of your minions but not their defense."

:scratch:

:idea:

Actually, a clay golem does meet this. I've noticed that (especially when monsters get cornered and only a few skeles can hack at them) the monster's attacks on the skeles interrupt the skeles' attacks. If you can slow the target down, he interferes less with you skele's attacks, thereby fulfilling this rule: the skeles are able to get more completed attacks off over time.

 

[Sniper_Ryan]

I have heard of people doing this with a Paladin using Holy Fire to basically run around, kill everything and farm for chipped gems for cubing, a Chipperdin I believe is what it was called.

Okay, being very bored and tired of MFing all day, I actually gave this a whirl. Ran through all Act 1 areas with my fire golem on (no skels or mages) up to the Stony Tomb in Act 2, which is where the Holy Fire started taking two or three pulses to outright kill an enemy.

Totals:
Act 1
Flawed Skull
Chipped Skull
Chipped Sapphire x2
Chipped Topaz x2
Chipped Emerald
Chipped Diamond

Act 2 (Out of gate, to uber-chest at stony tomb)
Chipped Emer x2
Chipped Diamond
Chipped Topaz

Seems to me the better bet is to get a lvl 70 or so bowazon and do act I-II in NM diff. to find the flawlesses.