- Jan 24, 2008
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Have we started the fire?
Yes. The fire rises.
My new Bone Necro has done a full clear of Act I at players 7.
... and good riddance! This play through was the most troublesome of my four tournament characters. My Sorceress had Static Field. My Assassin had Fire Blast. My Barbarian is a big brute and doesn't mind normal attacking his way through things. And my Bone Necro ... my Bone Necro didn't have much of anything.
With only the Poison and Bone tree at my disposal choices were rather limited. Teeth is a fun skill but sure gets mana intensive fast. Corpse Explosion, also a good skill, but again, starts mana intensive, and only gets more so ... So, what to do? After sitting on skill points for quite some time I decided I'd try something new and put early points into Corpse Explosion. It of course doesn't synergize with Bone Spear but I figured as I'm playing untwinked I'd need to put some skill points in it at some point ... why not now? I can't say I'm sold on that decision ... but it's 1.11b, so the decision's made, and I'm moving on. I put 10 points into Corpse Explosion to get the radius from 2.6 to 5.6 yards. That also took the mana cost from an unsustainable 15 to an unbearable 24 . However, if I just put points into Teeth, it'd cost 9.5 mana per shot ... and it would take many shots to get things done on players 7 ... so that wouldn't have been great either.
So mostly what I ended up doing was 'tanking' by refreshing my one point Bone Armor ... while the hired help wandered around . <Sigh.> We were like the worst pick up group in an MMORPG. The merc was the DPS ... that had garbage gear. The Necro was invited into the group for crowd control and debuffing ... but then declared: No, no, no, I don't have points in any of those skills. I'm a DPS! ... A DPS that doesn't have enough mana to use it's DPS skills ... Yeah. Anyhow, we were quite the team.
At clvl 18 things got much better. Bone Spear immediately does enough damage to be worth using. And at a mana cost of only 7, it seemed like a deal! And at a mana increase of only .2 per level ... while the damage ceiling becomes the damage floor with each point added, the future is looking bright!
I'm also excited about hiring a better partner. You know, one that will tank instead of wandering in circles ... and attack enemies instead of door frames and walls ... Yeah. Good riddance to that Rogue merc and all of Act I!
Drops. Drops weren't making things better. I increased mf whenever possible but it didn't do much good.
Here's the complete list of set/uniques that resulted from a players 7 full clear of Act I:
I ended with 81 mf (+45 mf if the merc kills).
Infernal Cranium, Cap (Cave Level 1) <-- Coldcrow
Greyform, Quilted Armor (Barracks) <-- The Smith
Arctic Binding, Light Belt (Catacombs Level 4) <-- Poppable
There you go. If you blinked, you might have missed them .
The Greyform actually turned out to be kind of interesting:
Greyform
Quilted Armor
Defense: 35
Durability: 11 of 11
Required Strength: 2
Required Level: 7
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0xc9b1db0e
+10 to Dexterity
+20 Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Fire Resist +20%
Cold Resist +20%
5% Life stolen per hit
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)
Life leech on an eth armor always gets me thinking about future merc use. It's a shame the defense is + defense not % defense but it could still be handy in NM if upped. For now though, I'll be sticking with mf gear on the merc. Apparently, I need all the mf help I can get!
Up next: Act II! Glorious, wonderful, exciting Act II. Oh desert merc, how I've loved you since before we ever met. Also, using and putting points into Bone Spear is going to nice!
Yes. The fire rises.
My new Bone Necro has done a full clear of Act I at players 7.
... and good riddance! This play through was the most troublesome of my four tournament characters. My Sorceress had Static Field. My Assassin had Fire Blast. My Barbarian is a big brute and doesn't mind normal attacking his way through things. And my Bone Necro ... my Bone Necro didn't have much of anything.
With only the Poison and Bone tree at my disposal choices were rather limited. Teeth is a fun skill but sure gets mana intensive fast. Corpse Explosion, also a good skill, but again, starts mana intensive, and only gets more so ... So, what to do? After sitting on skill points for quite some time I decided I'd try something new and put early points into Corpse Explosion. It of course doesn't synergize with Bone Spear but I figured as I'm playing untwinked I'd need to put some skill points in it at some point ... why not now? I can't say I'm sold on that decision ... but it's 1.11b, so the decision's made, and I'm moving on. I put 10 points into Corpse Explosion to get the radius from 2.6 to 5.6 yards. That also took the mana cost from an unsustainable 15 to an unbearable 24 . However, if I just put points into Teeth, it'd cost 9.5 mana per shot ... and it would take many shots to get things done on players 7 ... so that wouldn't have been great either.
So mostly what I ended up doing was 'tanking' by refreshing my one point Bone Armor ... while the hired help wandered around . <Sigh.> We were like the worst pick up group in an MMORPG. The merc was the DPS ... that had garbage gear. The Necro was invited into the group for crowd control and debuffing ... but then declared: No, no, no, I don't have points in any of those skills. I'm a DPS! ... A DPS that doesn't have enough mana to use it's DPS skills ... Yeah. Anyhow, we were quite the team.
At clvl 18 things got much better. Bone Spear immediately does enough damage to be worth using. And at a mana cost of only 7, it seemed like a deal! And at a mana increase of only .2 per level ... while the damage ceiling becomes the damage floor with each point added, the future is looking bright!
I'm also excited about hiring a better partner. You know, one that will tank instead of wandering in circles ... and attack enemies instead of door frames and walls ... Yeah. Good riddance to that Rogue merc and all of Act I!
Drops. Drops weren't making things better. I increased mf whenever possible but it didn't do much good.
Here's the complete list of set/uniques that resulted from a players 7 full clear of Act I:
I ended with 81 mf (+45 mf if the merc kills).
Infernal Cranium, Cap (Cave Level 1) <-- Coldcrow
Greyform, Quilted Armor (Barracks) <-- The Smith
Arctic Binding, Light Belt (Catacombs Level 4) <-- Poppable
There you go. If you blinked, you might have missed them .
The Greyform actually turned out to be kind of interesting:
Greyform
Quilted Armor
Defense: 35
Durability: 11 of 11
Required Strength: 2
Required Level: 7
Item Version: 1.10+ Expansion
Item Level: 13
Fingerprint: 0xc9b1db0e
+10 to Dexterity
+20 Defense
Magic Damage Reduced by 3
Fire Resist +20%
Cold Resist +20%
5% Life stolen per hit
Ethereal (Cannot be Repaired)
Life leech on an eth armor always gets me thinking about future merc use. It's a shame the defense is + defense not % defense but it could still be handy in NM if upped. For now though, I'll be sticking with mf gear on the merc. Apparently, I need all the mf help I can get!
Code:
SP Forum Name Characters Level Furthest WP Points
-- ----------------- ---------------- ------ ---------------------- -------
Y Hanshotfirst Sorc/Sin 88/87 Guardian x2 200
N Booble Sorc/Druid 54/65 (H) Rouge Encampment 124
N PhineasB Necro/Druid 73/74 (H) Rogue Encampment 124
N Crudesash68 Zon/Paladin 46/49 (N) Jail Level 1 67
Y skoolbus Druid/Sorc 48/49 (N) Dark Wood 60
Y Gynli Zon/Necro 32/48 (N) Rogue Encampment 51
N Swamigoon Sin/Druid 34/31 Harrogath 39
Y Pb_pal Sorc/Zon 33/29 Pandemonium Fortress 39
N DariusTriplet Sorc/Zon 31/24 River of Flame 32
Y Hanshotfirst Barb/Necro 28/20 Kurast Docks 18
Y Vildecor Zon/Sorc 21/20 Lut Gholein 12
Y Maltatai Druid/Druid 21/15 Lut Gholein Sewers 9
N CaseyJones Sorc/Druid 15/23 Lut Gholein 9
Y b1ur Paladin/Druid 20/1 Lut Gholein 6
Up next: Act II! Glorious, wonderful, exciting Act II. Oh desert merc, how I've loved you since before we ever met. Also, using and putting points into Bone Spear is going to nice!