The Pyromancer

[osiriswing]

The Pyromancer

I've given this some thought, and still maintain that i'd like to build something around the Trang Set. Anyway, I present to you my findings and a build I plan on following:

-The Pyromancer-

Intro: This Necromancer build revolves around Trang's Set, with additional assistance from lower resistance and skeletal mages (!!!) with revives.

Skill Points:

Summoning:
20 Skeleton Mastery
1 Skeleton
20 Skeleton Magi
1 Clay Golem
1 Iron Golem
1 Golem Mastery
1 Blood Golem
1 Revive
4 Summon Resist

Curses:
1 Amp Damage
1 Weaken
1 Terror
1 Decrepify
1 Iron Maiden
1 Life Tap
5 Lower Resist
1 Dim Vision
1 Confuse
20 Attract

Total Skill Points: 83

Strategy: You're main concern will be keeping your skeleton mage army alive. This is where attract comes in. You curse one enemy of the enemy mob causing the other enemies to attack said victim relentlessly. You then proceed by cursing the mob with lower resist (as attract cannot be over ridden). Finally, you throw in some fire damage from Trang's Set.

Bosses will prove to be a whole 'nother problem, as there are rarely mobs and I you cannot curse bosses with attract. Using Revive, you proceed to revive ELEMENTAL damage monsters, such as vampires, council members and the like. Curse the boss with lower resist, and follow the above procedure.

Since you're not investing in any one golem, the question arises as to what golem to choose. Optimally, go for a high elemental damage iron golem to benefit from lower resist.

Alternatively, one could choose fire golem if so inclined, but due to the high mana cost and low damage out put I advise against it.

Gear:
Obviously, the only essential gear is Trang's Set. Leaving you the two ring slots, the amulet slot, the weapon and the boots slot open.

Rings: Optimally The Stone of Jordan rings, but obviously we can't all dig into our pockets and pull one out. Resistance rings are an obvious choice here, but Nature's Peace should be avoided (for the corpses rest in peace mod).

Amulet: Maras, any +2 to Necromancer amulet or +3 to summoning.

Weapon: Arm of Leoric, Beast (for Fantacism Aura), Call to Arms (For war cries).

Boots: Marrow Walks for the bone branch of this build, otherwise any will suffice.

Post Build: After mastering the main build, points can be poured into either lower resist/revive or bone armor/wall using the marrow walk bug. Corpse explosion is also, as always an option.

The popular Might Mercenary would obviously not be an option with this build, but if the act 5 mercenary could use axes, the beast runeword could be an opton (as fanatacism does aid in the attacking speed of mages).

Otherwise, a Act 2 Defensive Merc would suffice.

I plan to test this build and notify everyone of my progress.

NOTE: Obviously this build won't tear through the game as a twinked amp damage/might/skeleton summoner will. That's not the point of this build. Rather, it is intended to use Trang-Oul's set and make elemental damage viable.

Constructive Comments Appreciated

 

[jgreg7]

Alternatively, one could choose fire golem if so inclined, but due to the high mana cost and low damage out put I advise against it.

The popular Might Mercenary would obviously not be an option with this build, but if the act 5 mercenary could use axes, the beast runeword could be an opton (as fanatacism does aid in the attacking speed of mages).

C'mon, if you call the build the "The Pyromancer", you have to have fire golem and an Act I fire rogue merc! In all seriousness, the fire rogue does work quite well with Mages.

For bosses, my Lord of Mages strategy has been to decrepify the pack, then follow with confuse. The boss remains ineffective, while most of his minions will attack him.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Even in Hell Attract doesn’t need 20 points. You could use those points to get yourself a decent BW or BP. These barriers will keep your Mages safe and they have the added benefit of working on Bosses.

 

[osiriswing]

I just figured that Attract could use 20 points as basically you'll be using lr over it and don't want to be switching back and forth. However, those points could go to bone prison or bone wall. As you said. Basically it boils down to playing preference.

As for the build name, i just figured pyromancer because of the heavy reliance on Trangs. As for using the fire golem and an act 1 fire merc (or act 3 fire merc), those would work great with this build for the theme factor, but probably would not be as effective as an iron golem. Just my thoughts though.

The problem with bosses is that often do not have many minions around. Andarial does, Duriel does not, Mephisto does, Diablo probably does not (as you destroy the seals and don't want to worry about enemies) and Baal does not (don't think you can confuse the tentacles).

Basically, you have to avoid killing them, and lure them to the boss. An interesting strategy, but you really can't control your mages.

 

[osiriswing]

Ok. I've Revamped my Build as I was working on it:

Summon:
Max Skeleton Mastery
Max Skeletal Mages
1 Point in prereqs up to revive
1 point in resist

Bone:
1 in teeth
20 corpse explosion

If using marrowalks
20 bone wall
1 in Bone Armor

Curses:
1 in all curses, except for lower resist, which deserves 4 points

As for gear, again you should be wearing full trang's. The amulet should be +2 to all skills (or necro skills), with optimally two sojs or bks. If we use HOTO flail, that's another 3 to all skills.

Finally, you're left with 12 to all you're skill trees from your gear.

Lower Resist only increases by 1% every point you invest up to 16 points, after which it takes several more points to increase it even by 1%. 4 is optimal with plus gear boosts.

Merc: Act 3 Lightning Merc. This is sure to raise a couple of eye brows. You're act 3 merc can wear much more variety weapons than any other merc. Should you choose, he could wield mf gear and have the most mf of any mercs. Otherwise, you should equip him with the santuary aura imbuing sword (azure wrath).

Confuse mobs, dim vision ranged enemies, then lower resist the remainders and let you're fire damage, you're merc's lightning bolts and charged bolts and you're skeletons clean up the rest.

 

[lextalionis]

An alternate configuration might include points in Poison Nova. Since that damage can be cast, then you can spam fire damage. It would give you two elements so you don't have to rely on your Lightning, Poison, and Cold Mages to kill Fire immune creatures. Also notice the immense poison bonuses in Trang's Set.

For non-immunes it will help on damage and prevent monster heal. I'm just not sure how synergized you can get it, since you'll be spending so many points in Skeletal Mages.

 

[osiriswing]

I considered Poison Damage too. The problem is that to be truly viable one needs to invest in all the synergies, with poison nova coming out to be ~2000 damage, counting solely synergies. Poison Explosion is provides more damage, but I'd rather go for nova. Thing is that nova becomes a main killing strategy usually once you equip bramble and other poison damage increasing items (facets).

On the otherhand, my Javazon does 10K+ damage with poison and plague javalin, for only 40 synergy points. I just don't think it's a worthy trade off, but I will definitely reconsider this build.

Basically for more poison damage, you would be sacrificing the whole summoning aspect of the tree. THe problem I find, is that the revives and magi provide fodder as you pelt them with your spells. Otherwise, enemies just rush into you while you run hoping they're not poison immune.

Assuming you invest in all the synergies that poison offers, then into the curses up to lower resist, pouring 4 points into lower resist. One could then max skeleton mastery and put one point into revive.

Basically, this boils down into whether poison or magi are a better investment. The Poison Damage on my Zon is high, but still not as effective as direct damage dealing elements cold/fire/lightning. Basically almost everything has poison resistance, with many being poison immune.

Difficult to say. I'm not a huge fan of poison damage, so I am wearing about making another poison damage character. My necro is only level 14 or so, so I might remake him after my finals (College, Unrelenting!).

Poison seems to dominate in a few select areas such as The Pits, but shows no long-term use in later hell levels, especially with more players. I find that magi would simply be a better investment.

Just my 2 Cents though.

EDIT: In reading some posts, I noticed that Peacrusher (all credit goes to him naturally) proposes the following build:

Fast killing venommancer:
Poison synergies maxed (nova primary skill)
raise skellies maxed
1 pt in CG, GM, SR,
1pt in curses
5-10 pts in SM.

GEAR
Full Trangs (+psn dmg, -Psn Resist.)
War trav's.
Venomous amulet,
BK rings x2
Death's web wand 2/2/45+(2/2/50 is perf)

Interestingly, it is very simialar to my build, with the focus being on physical summon damage as suppose to elemental.

Whatever floats your boat I suppose.

 

[Salo]

Well, variations when put to their limits, make for a good build.

I like the idea of using trang set for its fire attributes. Mages enjoy a nice does of LR, with the fire set and say, hm, 2-3 fire facets, this could be rather devastating, much more than one would think. mages always fight things that have 30-70+ fire resistance in hell, or more, but with some facets and LR, trangs could support a group of mages well.

I would never use revived, the AI curses do better at shielding than revived do.

I guess a defiance merc wouldnt be bad, tradition has a Prayer merc going. I figure a +4 Arioc's needles, Shako (nonlad for me), and ethereal pally armour would get that overall life regen pouring in decently, as the mages already have their own life regeneration.

I am considering a build like this, a Lord of Mages type, didnt consider trangs fire elements to it though... a very workable idea.

Bone walls and prisons would work as well, its hard to pick from so many goodies!

 

[Mad Mantis]

The Prayer Merc isn’t as good as a Merc with extra damage or crowd control. The Prayer aura won’t do your Mages that much good since they have their own regen. The monsters shouldn’t be touching your Mages that much and Mages can take a beating. When a Mage does die you can easily and quickly summon a fresh one.

 

[Salo]

ahh.... disagree.

most monsters in the game do not do enough damage to outright kill a mage in 1 shot. However, 2-3 shots is definite doom. Bosses, like diablo, dont kill (besides lightning hose) in one shot. However, the next round, the fire ring does them in. The slight regen of the mages isnt enough to keep them alive after 2 hits on them, but combined with say, 30 life every other second, might decently shine.

I was told long ago that a mage is more resistant to its own element, but i think this is a myth ??

 

[Mad Mantis]

The slight regen of the mages isnt enough to keep them alive after 2 hits on them, but combined with say, 30 life every other second, might decently shine.

But if the boss was slowed to a crawl thanks to HF, he probably couldn't even launch the Fire Ring.

This can go on and on. Everybody will have to make a decision based on their own playstyle and preferences.

I was told long ago that a mage is more resistant to its own element, but i think this is a myth ??

From what I know it is a myth.

 

[osiriswing]

Well, I basically don't really consider facets because I find they are fairly expensive and I don't think I will ever get enough of them to make much of a difference.

I am currently tossing around the following:

Put a point in all curses, with 4 in lower resist
Max Poison Synergies
Max Skeleton mastery, 1 point in reqs up to revive.

Basically, lower resist, nova, then add fire damage. Xplode corpses and make revives.

I like having the lightning merc as a merc, just to differentiate myself from the tied and true Act 2 Mercs. With this set, one has 3 elemental damage types (poison/lightning/fire). I don't really like revives that much, but they're worth it for seeing a council member fry mephisto with hydra. The Joy!

I find that the prayer aura is a bit too slow myself, but certainly viable. Defiance might be a good choice too.

EDIT: I've done some fooling around with skills and noticed some interesting things. The only thing that increases Skeletal Mage Damage is Skeleton Mastery. Adding points to mage only adds to the number of mages one can have, and about 10 def to them per level. At high levels the def doesn't get any higher (in hell or nm I mean), so I don't really think that investing into skeletal mages is as beneficial as investing into swarriors.
Also, it really isn't worth investing 4 points into lower resist, as it only adds 1% per level. I think
1 point into all curses would suffice.
60 into poison synergies (+2 pre reqs),
1 bone armor and rest into skeleton mastery
and points up to revive comes out to: (10+62+1+20+8)= 101 points. so the build could be done by level 89 (still pretty high).