Iron golem survivability

Hi,

historically, I've been a Clay Golem guy, due to the convience and the slow. I don't really have any experience with the Iron Golem. I need to respec my necro (to Poison Nova) anyway and am considering to go for the Iron Golem instead. Mostly really, to free up Insight from my merc. Now I'm wondering: how often is the golem going to die in hell games? How much does putting points into the Iron Golem / mastery / resistance help? How many points would I have to reach for it to be reasonable? Are any enemies dangerous in particular for it?
I assume that I will end up with +8-10 in all skills from equipment. Probably no cta or Enigma. I'll be using revives as well, but teleporting will be sparse.

Thanks in advance

1 point to Iron Golem 1 point to resistance and 20 points to Golem Mastery. I give my Merc Pride and Iron Golem was build on Insight elite polearm. With all +skills my Iron Golem have about 8000 life (before CtA), only place where my Iron Golem die is Uber Tristram.

what weapon would u give the merc?
im also using Clay Golem...

For Poisonmancer, not sure that there are much better options than Insight.

Infinity is cool but does not help at all for Poison ( Conviction affects the 3 other res), even if diminished res and hits real hard. Pride gives Concentration so is nice for Summoner... but not really for Poison. Beast on your necro is usually better for Summoners anyway as Pride's damage sucks.

Last option, probably the best remaining is Obedience, as it helps against bosses with its Crushing Blow. But the gain compared to Insight is not THAT huge consequently, and you lose the slow and the 'I don't give a sh*t about losing my golem' side.

Finally Reaper's toll makes little sense as you can launch Decrep yourself and with Nova you prefer Lower Resist.
Have not tried Arioc's Needle, some like it.

Matter of preference !

The main AOE damage for any necro is Corpse Explosion.
This skills deals 50% Physical damage and 50% Fire damage.
You still want an Infinity merc to increase the Fire damage.

Ah, yes, I am not using a lot CE, forgot that one.

Thanks !

Raised an Iron Golem at lvl. 53 mastery - it has 12348 base life, moves fast, and looks not getting any scratches through my farms. It annoys me a bit replacing my curse to blind effect, and occasional shattering enemies, but overall, I benefit from it's conc aura. If it drops for whatever reason - I'll raise another one from Insight I prepared, or perhaps even find another Pride to forge a new one.

I mean...if you just want him to tank and live, go raise him from a 45 res Exile.
Not only does that give him (and you/your merc) a nifty Defiance aura, raising him from a shield also gives him block and raising him from a pally shield with res, combined with 1 pt in Summon Resist actually gives him >=100 (i.e. immunity) to all elements. At that point, they're really kinda hard to get killed.

Then again, if all you want is a tank..just stick with clay. Still superior in that regard.

Now if there was something IG-able with Holy Freeze and decent resistances..then we'd be talking! Sadly..no such thing :/

I got a really nice Metalgrid and wanted to play around with Iron Golem to get rid of some apparently non-tradeable elite uniques. They are not as tanky as I had hoped. I assume with an actual necromancer the situation is much better. I certainly lit a lot of Leviathan armors and claws on fire during play testing, though.

Yea this topic’s been brought up before:
forums/best-iron-golem-base-s-t1256025.html

It got a bit off topic but was one of my favourite threads

TLDR - Schnorki’s right, Clay Golem is the tank of the skill, but if you really wanted ig the highest survivability is a pally shield with max all res, then Stormshield, then any other shield with all res. If you want it to replace an Insight merc it just won’t survive higher player count games or a bad roll on unique monster stats unless your up in the higher 90s or have a means of teleporting it away from danger (often). Otherwise just expect it’ll die like every other game.

Thanks for the discussions and item suggestions, but I was more wondering about the skill point distribution
I guess I stick to Conspiritor's answer, since noone disagreed with him.

20 in Golem Mastery is an expensive investment just for extra golem survivability.

Kind of mixed feelings here on that.
Sure your golem will die less, but it's skills not used elsewhere. Depends a lot on where else you can use these.

There's a world between 1, a few and 20.

Death's Web has mana after each kill.
Isn't it enough to get mana back?

mockingbirdreal wrote: 3 years ago

Death's Web has mana after each kill.
Isn't it enough to get mana back?

It's not really the easiest / cheapest item to come by