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Description
Preface.
It’s funny, I was experimenting with different set-ups to maximize merc DPS and stumbled back into one of my favorite build types: a ranged Necro.
After exploiting the airplane mode save glitch, high runes are no longer a limiting factor to my builds - probably the only reason i could even make this build viable, but if you’re rich online, you can make this work too.
Background.
Are you sick of Nova sorcs, hammerdins, javazons and Mosaic assassins? Love Necros but hate Corpse Explosion? Hate how every build wears either SOJ or FCR rings? Want your merc to use something other than Insight or Infinity? Do you want your main skill to be just … Um … attack? And do you dislike using mana in general? Do you hate how your stash is always full of high runes? Well then the Renegade Arbalist is for you!
Description.
The Renegade Arbalist (or RA for short) is a Necromancer that fully maximizes his merc’s damage output, in doing so he also maximzes his own. RA is a safe build, and can easily clear P8 content - admittedly not as fast as a Javazon or Nova Sorc, but I’d place him solidly in “A” Tier. He has an interesting play style, both offensive and defensive at the same time. It’s the most fun build I’ve played in a while. It’s just you, your merc, an Iron Golem and a Crossbow … you renegade.
So how does this work? Firstly you’ll need to be at least level 75. You’ll need an act 2 might merc, then you’ll need some expensive rune words… like all of them.
Gear.
We’ll start with you’re Merc’s gear. His weapon is Breath of the Dying - in an Eth Great Poleaxe (or probably a War Pike is fine too), high rolls preferred. You might think max damage needs a Pride, and you’re right, but we’ll address that later. On the head there’s an Andariel’s visage ideally with a 15ias/+ Fire Res jewel or maybe a Cham rune, and an Eth Fortitude armour.
Next is your gear.
Head: Giant Skull with 2 x +40%ed, could also go with +flat damage, no need to add ias, we’re already at our breakpoints. Could maybe put a Wisdom here… or a Gface, i just love that Giant Skull! And knock back is a Key component of the RA.
Chest:Enigma - fr/w, tele, + all skills, MF, etc. In a non-superior mageplate!
Weapon: Faith in a demon cross bow - you’ll want the level 15 Fanaticism aura, +skills doesn’t really matter (but it’s still nice), everything else about this bow is awesome, static damage, ITD, 300% bonus to AR, all res… no wonder it’s on like all Bowazons. I once though Brand was BiS for a ranged necro, while that is a Great Bow, when the RA has a Faith, he’s on another level.
Belt: razor tail - you need at least some piercing
Amulet, gloves, Boots - RA is a physical damage character so high lords, Laying of Hands, and gore riders
Rings: Ravenfrost and: Bul-Kathos’ wedding band (life is much better than mana)!, you could swap out the BK ring for a Wisp Projector, i just haven’t found one yet.
Charms: anni, torch, enough to get resistances respectable, a have a few summoning skillers and then like 10 x 4/20s. I put ident and tp scrolls in my Belt (which i almost never drink from). Can put a good number of MF charms here too
On switch I’ve got my CTA and Spirit - you could go with other options here, i forget to apply them fairly often and it’s not that biga deal.
Also: you need a Pride - again you want the highest possible Concentration aura.
So that a grand total of 9 high runes - sorry, but it’s worth it!
Skills.
Ok first things first - you’re going to have an Iron Golem, and it’s going to be from your Pride. The single most expensive item is you’re IG, so max out IG, Blood Golem and Golem Mastery. With all the extra +skills and BO, he’s actually pretty tanky. My IG has 8.6k life before the BO. I only need to keep an eye on his health in the moo moo farm or against a tough mob in the Chaos Sanctuary - but user beware: every now and then 2 or more elites get together for a party, one brings fanatasism, another one fast attack or spectral hit and the day sucks, but i digress.
The next skill to max out is Amplify Damage - this is your main/only skill.
After that: Bone armour i guess? Don’t get any Skellies - they just get in the way and slow down your merc, other curses aren’t needed, any poison novas would be overwritten by the ones coming from your merc’s kills, and you don’t have enough points left to make Teeth or Bone Spear/Spirit useful. You could put some into Corpse Explosion, but on higher player counts it starts to suck. But your spare points are yours to spend.
You sorta want to get this all right the first time though, if you need to respec you’ll drop your IG - maybe you could throw on a metal grid or Oath and he might stay… im too afraid to try.
Stats.
Strength enough to wear everything (remember to check your swap), i threw like 100 points into dex for some AR and a bit of extra damage. Everything else into vitality.
Play Style.
It’s pretty basic: Buff, amp damage, let the merc kill everything, and fire some Bolts if you want - you’ll find your merc kills stuff really fast, it’s crazy. You’ll see how you can kill stuff really well too, and the knock-back allows you to multitask and stops ranged badguys from firing. You sorta want to get yourself in there (walk into groups of enemies, I don’t recommend telestomping) to get your merc to commit, then disengage and line up the bad guys to be taken out with any Bolts that Pierce (enough do to make it satisfying).
The only thing that can slow you down are the physical immune Iron Skin elites, so usually i just skip them - they’re pretty rare though - you’ll know you’ve found one when your merc and IG are attacking the same creature for more than like 2 seconds. 99% of enemies can only take a single stab or maybe 2. The on-paper merc damage is ~13k, but amp damage realty kicks it up a notch. The IG does suprisingly decent damage from his Thorns, and while you’re damage should say between 1-3k on the lying character screen, you’ve got crushing blow, Critical Strike and the amp damage. The RA should be able to put down most monsters with ~6 Bolts or less.
The RA is almost never in direct danger, the knock back from the Giant Skull and life leach from BK ring are a great combo. And if you run out of ammo you’re not dead in the water like a bowazon, after a minute or so your merc will put some Bolts on the Ground for you!
One thing the RA is great for are those Terror zones no-one wants, the bloodmores, great marshes, glacial caverns, rivers of flame, ect. They’re all great for the RA. The really high density is more fun for the S tier builds. I’d stay away from cows - no point trying to complete with javazon/ Nova sorc. While you’d be able to handle a terrorized trav and WSK on P8, it’s still just risky enough to make me question it (I have done it though, both the IG and merc handled the Baal waves just fine). I’d stay clear of Nihlathak on P8 too.
I’ll be honest i did lose a Pride IG to an elite pack in cows once (that sucks let me tell you) - you sorta got to be on your game when you play as the RA. But once you get the play style you should find it to be rather safe. The risk is addicting - sorta like what i imagine it’s like to play on hardcore (but I’m too scared for that)
Once i find a Wisp Projector i’ll do a follow-up, but otherwise let me know if there’s anything that probably could be improved and please let me know if you try it or something like it! It’s way more fun than you’d think and totally worth it.
Description by Nate
It’s funny, I was experimenting with different set-ups to maximize merc DPS and stumbled back into one of my favorite build types: a ranged Necro.
After exploiting the airplane mode save glitch, high runes are no longer a limiting factor to my builds - probably the only reason i could even make this build viable, but if you’re rich online, you can make this work too.
Background.
Are you sick of Nova sorcs, hammerdins, javazons and Mosaic assassins? Love Necros but hate Corpse Explosion? Hate how every build wears either SOJ or FCR rings? Want your merc to use something other than Insight or Infinity? Do you want your main skill to be just … Um … attack? And do you dislike using mana in general? Do you hate how your stash is always full of high runes? Well then the Renegade Arbalist is for you!
Description.
The Renegade Arbalist (or RA for short) is a Necromancer that fully maximizes his merc’s damage output, in doing so he also maximzes his own. RA is a safe build, and can easily clear P8 content - admittedly not as fast as a Javazon or Nova Sorc, but I’d place him solidly in “A” Tier. He has an interesting play style, both offensive and defensive at the same time. It’s the most fun build I’ve played in a while. It’s just you, your merc, an Iron Golem and a Crossbow … you renegade.
So how does this work? Firstly you’ll need to be at least level 75. You’ll need an act 2 might merc, then you’ll need some expensive rune words… like all of them.
Gear.
We’ll start with you’re Merc’s gear. His weapon is Breath of the Dying - in an Eth Great Poleaxe (or probably a War Pike is fine too), high rolls preferred. You might think max damage needs a Pride, and you’re right, but we’ll address that later. On the head there’s an Andariel’s visage ideally with a 15ias/+ Fire Res jewel or maybe a Cham rune, and an Eth Fortitude armour.
Next is your gear.
Head: Giant Skull with 2 x +40%ed, could also go with +flat damage, no need to add ias, we’re already at our breakpoints. Could maybe put a Wisdom here… or a Gface, i just love that Giant Skull! And knock back is a Key component of the RA.
Chest:Enigma - fr/w, tele, + all skills, MF, etc. In a non-superior mageplate!
Weapon: Faith in a demon cross bow - you’ll want the level 15 Fanaticism aura, +skills doesn’t really matter (but it’s still nice), everything else about this bow is awesome, static damage, ITD, 300% bonus to AR, all res… no wonder it’s on like all Bowazons. I once though Brand was BiS for a ranged necro, while that is a Great Bow, when the RA has a Faith, he’s on another level.
Belt: razor tail - you need at least some piercing
Amulet, gloves, Boots - RA is a physical damage character so high lords, Laying of Hands, and gore riders
Rings: Ravenfrost and: Bul-Kathos’ wedding band (life is much better than mana)!, you could swap out the BK ring for a Wisp Projector, i just haven’t found one yet.
Charms: anni, torch, enough to get resistances respectable, a have a few summoning skillers and then like 10 x 4/20s. I put ident and tp scrolls in my Belt (which i almost never drink from). Can put a good number of MF charms here too
On switch I’ve got my CTA and Spirit - you could go with other options here, i forget to apply them fairly often and it’s not that biga deal.
Also: you need a Pride - again you want the highest possible Concentration aura.
So that a grand total of 9 high runes - sorry, but it’s worth it!
Skills.
Ok first things first - you’re going to have an Iron Golem, and it’s going to be from your Pride. The single most expensive item is you’re IG, so max out IG, Blood Golem and Golem Mastery. With all the extra +skills and BO, he’s actually pretty tanky. My IG has 8.6k life before the BO. I only need to keep an eye on his health in the moo moo farm or against a tough mob in the Chaos Sanctuary - but user beware: every now and then 2 or more elites get together for a party, one brings fanatasism, another one fast attack or spectral hit and the day sucks, but i digress.
The next skill to max out is Amplify Damage - this is your main/only skill.
After that: Bone armour i guess? Don’t get any Skellies - they just get in the way and slow down your merc, other curses aren’t needed, any poison novas would be overwritten by the ones coming from your merc’s kills, and you don’t have enough points left to make Teeth or Bone Spear/Spirit useful. You could put some into Corpse Explosion, but on higher player counts it starts to suck. But your spare points are yours to spend.
You sorta want to get this all right the first time though, if you need to respec you’ll drop your IG - maybe you could throw on a metal grid or Oath and he might stay… im too afraid to try.
Stats.
Strength enough to wear everything (remember to check your swap), i threw like 100 points into dex for some AR and a bit of extra damage. Everything else into vitality.
Play Style.
It’s pretty basic: Buff, amp damage, let the merc kill everything, and fire some Bolts if you want - you’ll find your merc kills stuff really fast, it’s crazy. You’ll see how you can kill stuff really well too, and the knock-back allows you to multitask and stops ranged badguys from firing. You sorta want to get yourself in there (walk into groups of enemies, I don’t recommend telestomping) to get your merc to commit, then disengage and line up the bad guys to be taken out with any Bolts that Pierce (enough do to make it satisfying).
The only thing that can slow you down are the physical immune Iron Skin elites, so usually i just skip them - they’re pretty rare though - you’ll know you’ve found one when your merc and IG are attacking the same creature for more than like 2 seconds. 99% of enemies can only take a single stab or maybe 2. The on-paper merc damage is ~13k, but amp damage realty kicks it up a notch. The IG does suprisingly decent damage from his Thorns, and while you’re damage should say between 1-3k on the lying character screen, you’ve got crushing blow, Critical Strike and the amp damage. The RA should be able to put down most monsters with ~6 Bolts or less.
The RA is almost never in direct danger, the knock back from the Giant Skull and life leach from BK ring are a great combo. And if you run out of ammo you’re not dead in the water like a bowazon, after a minute or so your merc will put some Bolts on the Ground for you!
One thing the RA is great for are those Terror zones no-one wants, the bloodmores, great marshes, glacial caverns, rivers of flame, ect. They’re all great for the RA. The really high density is more fun for the S tier builds. I’d stay away from cows - no point trying to complete with javazon/ Nova sorc. While you’d be able to handle a terrorized trav and WSK on P8, it’s still just risky enough to make me question it (I have done it though, both the IG and merc handled the Baal waves just fine). I’d stay clear of Nihlathak on P8 too.
I’ll be honest i did lose a Pride IG to an elite pack in cows once (that sucks let me tell you) - you sorta got to be on your game when you play as the RA. But once you get the play style you should find it to be rather safe. The risk is addicting - sorta like what i imagine it’s like to play on hardcore (but I’m too scared for that)
Once i find a Wisp Projector i’ll do a follow-up, but otherwise let me know if there’s anything that probably could be improved and please let me know if you try it or something like it! It’s way more fun than you’d think and totally worth it.
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Nate
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