poison necro opinion

Hustle is only to buff the merc.

i know poison dmg will be interrupted by Holy Fire, prly not that bad if the aura pulses every 2s.. but doesn't bring anything either

vued wrote: 2 days ago

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

how about Insight + Cure + Prayer a2 merc & Hustle Iron Golem? (budget version)

or double Grief a5 merc + Beast Iron Golem (non budget version).

cast amp dmg or Decrepify and let the two handle Baal or Herald, everything else should be handled by poison (and Thorns)

a3 fire merc and Fire Golem probably won't work under any circumstances will they?

What do you need Hustle for? Faster attack speed just removes your poison damage more often.

The only reason to use a3 fire merc is to Enchant your Skeleton army.

Fire Golem is still subpar and it's bad for a poisonmancer since his Holy Fire aura stops your poison damage on the whole screen. That's ~1/3 of your damage gone (iirc).

mixed feelings on Poison Nova so far.. respecced at lvl 42. progress through nightmare seemed quicker and lazier than with Bone Spear. but meph fight took like 3 mins, ran around him and cast the Nova. and couldn't kill diablo at all (after a long and painful struggle with the Venom lords. so maybe better to respec in endgame only after 75 (sunder) or in early 60s (trang, Bramble, then dweb)

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

mixed feelings on Poison Nova so far.. respecced at lvl 42. progress through nightmare seemed quicker and lazier than with Bone Spear. but meph fight took like 3 mins, ran around him and cast the Nova. and couldn't kill diablo at all (after a long and painful struggle with the Venom lords. so maybe better to respec in endgame only after 75 (sunder) or in early 60s (trang, Bramble, then dweb)

Lower Resist ? Clay Golem ? honestly, while bosses can be really a pain in the butt, i was able to finish hell - just had to respec at the end of normal though, i am not brave enough to start with Poison Dagger lol. also, the Bone runeword works much better for a poison necro than others, due to not needing much FCR.

Valnerios wrote: 2 days ago

ganseng wrote: 2 days ago

mixed feelings on Poison Nova so far.. respecced at lvl 42. progress through nightmare seemed quicker and lazier than with Bone Spear. but meph fight took like 3 mins, ran around him and cast the Nova. and couldn't kill diablo at all (after a long and painful struggle with the Venom lords. so maybe better to respec in endgame only after 75 (sunder) or in early 60s (trang, Bramble, then dweb)

Lower Resist ? Clay Golem ? honestly, while bosses can be really a pain in the butt, i was able to finish hell - just had to respec at the end of normal though, i am not brave enough to start with Poison Dagger lol. also, the Bone runeword works much better for a poison necro than others, due to not needing much FCR.

I went through hell with poinsonmancer in SSF HC, i.e. without sunder and without any high-end (or even mid-tier) gear.
For act bosses, you use Clay Golem, Decrepify and cold from your merc (e.g. A1 cold), they basically stop moving. 1pt in revives, that gives you some blundergores to help out with crushing blow.

And yes, I even poinson-daggered through normal. Possible, but slow and not fun.

richhtx wrote: 2 days ago

sunder trang aracnid mesh Bramble and dweb are essential

I did it without any of them. The best item I have is a low rolled viper skin. White in +3 Nova base and you are basically ready to go.

huge respect to all who managed hell with poison necro, especially with non-optimal gear. but to be honest the described boss killing doesn't sound like fun, nor is it poison-related. so i asked for help to kill nm Baal too. for now i'm working with a Blood Golem (he is a nice and smiley fella), and working my way towards the godly gear levels.
interesting if a5 with double Grief and Fortitude will start to kill bosses on his own at lvl 59?
as for Iron Golem, i wouldn't start investing expensive items until lvl 80+, and some 15 hard points + 15 gear points spent on the golem and the synergies

ganseng wrote: 1 day ago

huge respect to all who managed hell with poison necro, especially with non-optimal gear. but to be honest the described boss killing doesn't sound like fun, nor is it poison-related. so i asked for help to kill nm Baal too. for now i'm working with a Blood Golem (he is a nice and smiley fella), and working my way towards the godly gear levels.
interesting if a5 with double Grief and Fortitude will start to kill bosses on his own at lvl 59?
as for Iron Golem, i wouldn't start investing expensive items until lvl 80+, and some 15 hard points + 15 gear points spent on the golem and the synergies

honestly, while i do use Iron Golem in other builds, for Poison Nova, i think the best is Clay Golem. the slow is just too good. i think i have like 4 hard points for it. really helps the merc stay alive as the slow is just ridiculous. and if they're still getting hammered I'll just cast Decrepify.

yeah Iron Golem is just something i stubbornly pursue

and of course the merc is short at least 4 dex points to equip the Grief swords at lvl 59, even when wearing Arreat's Face and Twitchthroe. truly, this game was made by sadists

ouch died like 4 times in a row to the poison immune Skeleton archers in the a2 palace cellar. don't remember having such a hard time with the bastards on any other char, Plague Javelin zon included

and question on the a5 merc - what are the best weapons? Grief, Death, Last Wish, something else, some combination of the above?

in the late game, his only goal is to kill bosses & heralds, everything else will melt to Nova. assuming Beast Iron Golem at some point

Grief is quick and deadly. Death is nice, relatively affordable and provides a high crushing blow chance. Last Wish provides even higher crushing blow chance, more dmg, survivability, but will override Decrepify/ Amplify Damage, and is expensive af

i'm Confuse d with the Frenzy a5 barb..

first the dmg, Grief vs Death

Grief 375 base dmg x 8.5 (skill + str + Fortitude + Fanaticism) = 3.2k per hit. 5 hits per s = 16k dps

Death 145 base dmg x 8.5 = 1.2k dmg. 5 hits per s = 6.2k dps.

crushing blow is 100% chance with 2x Death? then against a 200k health target it's 12.5k dmg per hit, or 62.5k dps extra on average?

hence, Death wins easily vs heralds & bosses?

second, attack speed. Grief will reach 10 fpa (per 2 hits per action, 5 per second?) without any ias, provided lvl 9 Fanaticism is on, correct?

and Death will need 30 ias.. e.g. Andariel's Visage + a 15 ias Stone.. but then either no Fortitude or no Protector's Stone. considering Decrepify or amplify dmg will be on, we can live without the Stone. or just live with 11 fpa.

and last but not least, he'll have enough dex to wield Phase Blade s without Arreat's Face only from lvl 87 on

so, conclusion, Death is bis for the purpose in endgame?

that i wasn't sure about, thanks. but even with 50% chance it's over 20k dps vs diablo (113k life), and over 60k dps vs Baal (370k life).. too good to be true?

and I'm still confused with ias, the table is inconclusive somehow. if he wields double Death Phase Blade with Frenzy and Fanaticism, does he need any ias to reach best fpa value?

varangium wrote: 9 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 10 hours ago

i'm Confuse d with the Frenzy a5 barb..

first the dmg, Grief vs Death

Grief 375 base dmg x 8.5 (skill + str + Fortitude + Fanaticism) = 3.2k per hit. 5 hits per s = 16k dps

Death 145 base dmg x 8.5 = 1.2k dmg. 5 hits per s = 6.2k dps.

crushing blow is 100% chance with 2x Death? then against a 200k health target it's 12.5k dmg per hit, or 62.5k dps extra on average?

hence, Death wins easily vs heralds & bosses?

second, attack speed. Grief will reach 10 fpa (per 2 hits per action, 5 per second?) without any ias, provided lvl 9 Fanaticism is on, correct?

and Death will need 30 ias.. e.g. Andariel's Visage + a 15 ias Stone.. but then either no Fortitude or no Protector's Stone. considering Decrepify or amplify dmg will be on, we can live without the Stone. or just live with 11 fpa.

and last but not least, he'll have enough dex to wield Phase Blade s without Arreat's Face only from lvl 87 on

so, conclusion, Death is bis for the purpose in endgame?

I don’t think the crushing blow or deadly strike from each weapon stacks. It only applies to the weapon swinging

the a5 merc is interesting. I'm kinda stalling out with interest in my poison necro because heralds are such a pain. I basically terrorize every act and then play an a1-a5 clear. and I love the Nova/CE gameplay on p5, but man without Death's Web it's tough.

I'm considering trying Bramble instead of Enigma just for a change. I'm currently using trangs, Shako, Heart of the Oak, renewed poison sunder and Mara's Kaleidoscope.
I still haven't gotten a poison jewel from ubers. The poison damage is okay on p5 but the bosses and heralds are so annoyingly time-consuming. I'm currently using a might a2 merc with Infinity for the bonus Corpse Explosion damage.

was considering rerolling him to a Bone Spear necro, but may try act 5 merc. I have 2 Grief's on single player and arreats/Fortitude i could throw on him. I bet with amp damage he'd do good work.
@vued what do you think? You always have fun ideas for this. Is Bramble just so incredibly slow or do you enjoy it?

my necro is up to 90 or 91 now.

Spectie wrote: 33 minutes ago

the a5 merc is interesting. I'm kinda stalling out with interest in my poison necro because heralds are such a pain. I basically terrorize every act and then play an a1-a5 clear. and I love the Nova/CE gameplay on p5, but man without Death's Web it's tough.

I'm considering trying Bramble instead of Enigma just for a change. I'm currently using trangs, Shako, Heart of the Oak, renewed poison sunder and Mara's Kaleidoscope.
I still haven't gotten a poison jewel from ubers. The poison damage is okay on p5 but the bosses and heralds are so annoyingly time-consuming. I'm currently using a might a2 merc with Infinity for the bonus Corpse Explosion damage.

was considering rerolling him to a Bone Spear necro, but may try act 5 merc. I have 2 Grief's on single player and arreats/Fortitude i could throw on him. I bet with amp damage he'd do good work.
@vued what do you think? You always have fun ideas for this. Is Bramble just so incredibly slow or do you enjoy it?

my necro is up to 90 or 91 now.

I optimized my poison necro for running cows online on P1 and only played him before heralds. For this scenario, Bramble worked well. I preferred more damage over teleportation O-Skill. I didn't even need CE. However, without any teleportation and A1 Merc, it's very hard to keep your IG alive. Having charges on amu or Circlet definitely helps.

So if you want to run Heralds on P5, I think Enigma is kind of mandatory. Probably Clay Golem and Insight on Merc (A1 or A2) is the better setup. My preference would be an Ice Pixie. I don't know about an A5. Feels not the best match for a poison necro but I never tried one.

Vs. Heralds I'd use decreptify and maybe Bone walls/prison.

varangium wrote: 41 minutes ago

Correction: merc damage is 1/4 vs bosses. However, crushing blow remains at 12.5%, taking only the standard 50% CB penalty vs bosses.

well then it's even more dramatically in favor of double Death .. othe rpoints you mentioned I considered. will give it a try then

i may have to go Insight merc on an a2 merc. my Iron Golem dies a lot, even with summons out and a lot of points in Golem Mastery.
ive never used Bone Prison/wall on my poison build. i did it a bit on Bone Spear, but that's a good idea for heralds.