Poison Nova Necro - Gear Discussion

Hi all,

I was so lucky to finally find a Death's Web enabling me to respec my Summon Necro to Poison Nova.

Now that I read some guides I am a little confused regarding gearing him.

From my perspective there are only 3 items that are fixed:

Chest: Enigma for obvious reasons
Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws for the +25% poison damage
Weapon: Death's Web for its uncompared damage component

The Boot Slot offers some flexibility. I tend towards using War Traveler for some additional mf.
But alternatives like Marrowwalk or Rare 3-Resistance Boots are also possible here.

The rest of the gear mainly evolves around the intended FCR breakpoint.
There are more or less 3 realistic scenarios:

48 FCR Breakpoint:

This enables to use the triple Trang Oul Combo:
Trang-Oul's Claws
Trang-Oul's Wing
Trang-Oul's Girth
This offers an additional -25% poison resistance.


I have a nice 2 Necro/20 FCR Coronet.
Together with a 10 FCR ring and the Trang-Oul's Claws the 48 FCR Breakpoint is reached.
Second ring would then be SoJ, Amulet something like Maras or a 2 Necro Skill rare/crafted amulet.

Pros:
- Additional -25% Resistance.
But I am not sure how relevant this really is, since with Death's Web, 2-3 Poison Facets and Lower Resistance Curse poison resistance is most likely capped on most monsters anyway.

- Style. I always liked the Trang Set and the shield fits the necro way better than a Spirit Monarch (see next 75 and 125 FCR setup).


75FCR Breakpoint:
For the 75 FCR Setup I would most likely use:
35 FCR Spirit
20 FCR Arachnid Mesh
20 FCR Trang Gloves

This frees up the ring slot for 2 SoJs and provides a little bit more resistances than the Trang Shield.

For the Helm slot I would use Harlequin's Crest for some additional MF/Life/Mana/DR.

125 FCR Breakpoint:
For the 125 FCR Setup I would most likely use:
35 FCR Spirit
20 FCR Arachnid Mesh
20 FCR Trang Gloves
20 FCR Coronet
20 FCR Amulet
10 FCR Ring

Second Ring would be SoJ. This setup is obiously highly centered around FCR and more or less all slots are dedicated to it.
Problem here is that my best Necro Craft Amulet has 8 FCR on it. On here i cannot even find a suitable amulet, and this slot will most likely be a little pricy.

I somehow tend to go with the 75 FCR setup since it is a good compromise between fast Teleport / cursing / corpse exploding and + Skills via Arachnid, 2 Sojs and some additional MF from Shako. Apart from that I will not have to buy a 20 FCR Necro amulet.

The 125 FCR breakpoint seems to be a little bit overkill for me. Sure for the Teleport speed this is really nice. But compared to e.g. a lightning sorc imho FCR is not as important for the poison necro gameplay itself.

However, I am not sure how much the loss of the -25% poison resistance from the 3-Trang combo weighs into the equation.

I am really not sure what the ideal setup would be and I would be glad to hear your opinions / experience.

Kind regards
Eldryndor

To explain Necrarch's point a bit more, Poison Nova has a 2 second poison duration no matter what.

Thus, there is no benefit to applying it more often than once every 2 seconds per monster. Poison Nova also has a very slow projectile speed. Between these two facts, super high fcr for Poison Nova itself is not very helpful, and many poison necromancers choose to emphasize poison damage via Trangs set rather than go max FCR. I personally would never consider Arachnid Mesh, Spirit, etc.

That said, you can hit the 75% FCR bp without losing Trang's set, which boosts Teleport and Corpse Explosion nicely without much opportunity cost.

20% from Trang-Oul's Claws
10% x 2 from rare rings
Any combination of Caster Amulet and Circlet that gives +35%, so a 2/20 circ and 15% amulet, or whatever.

You'd lose the SoJ with this arrangement, but the value of that depends on the difficulty you play at. At lower player levels, you don't need that many +skills to 1 shot everything on the map. Even at middle player counts, Corpse Explosion carries. So, it becomes a judgement call on your part whether you need more Nova damage or whether you want faster teles and CE.

yo ur 75 fcr is perfect ive tried tons of different setups on Poison Nova necro and its by far the most efficient. if u use lower res and Corpse Explosion can clear screens very quickly i only use 3 skillers and its more than enough dmg. on higher player counts u need to use Corpse Explosion more but still feels clean, and fun to play. only struggle it has is clearing bosses but just find a 5os Eth elite polearm w/ decent speed. roll Obedience in it and throw it on ur merc. decrep bosses and ur good to go

Thank you all for your replies.

I decided to go for 48 FCR setup until I happen to find a good Necro FCR amulet.

20 Circlet
20 Gloves
10 Ring

In addition I use the 3-piece TO Bonus.

To solve the Boss killing issues i decided to use a CB heavy setup on my A2 Merc.

Infinity / Obedience
Duress
Vamp Gaze for Life Leech

I read that it is not recommended to use Andy's Face on Merc since its Poison Nova will override the Necro's own Poison Nova.

So far the Char is quite a lot of fun. I use him to clear Cows which i basically could not efficiently with my FoH-/Hammer-Hybrid Pala.

Howver, defense-wise the Necro is so, so much more squishy. A lot less life (despite CTA) and no Max Block...

I realized that the Army helps a little bit to prevent damage from the Necro. However, with a PnB Setup I only have 6 Skeletons which die super fast with their ~360 life...

So it is pretty much a Glass Cannon compared to my pala which I have to get used to.

I play online and solo so talking about P1.

My summon-poison hybrid incredibly strong. DWeb with 3 piece Trang's, Shako, Mara's.

Full SM, SS, PN, PD, 1 point wonders and rest on PE.

1 corpse from poison, summons or merc and then everything blows. You can arrange a ratio for your skiller GCs and that's it.

Eldryndor wrote: 4 years ago

I realized that the Army helps a little bit to prevent damage from the Necro. However, with a PnB Setup I only have 6 Skeletons which die super fast with their ~360 life...

So it is pretty much a Glass Cannon compared to my pala which I have to get used to.

My poison Necro runs 20 hard points into Raise Skeleton plus 1 into each of the summon synergies and my Skellys are over 1000 life after CTA. I lose maybe 1 skelly every run depending what I'm doing. Oh, and 1 point into Bone Armor to soak the occasional odd arrow that gets through the lines. I never have survivability issues. So, If this becomes a problem for you, you might consider buffing your skelies a bit more. Without knowing what PnB setup you're doing, I'm not sure how many points you can spare, but their tankiness definitely goes up quick with some investment!

Necrarch wrote: 4 years ago

Winterkill wrote: 4 years ago

Eldryndor wrote: 4 years ago

I realized that the Army helps a little bit to prevent damage from the Necro. However, with a PnB Setup I only have 6 Skeletons which die super fast with their ~360 life...

So it is pretty much a Glass Cannon compared to my pala which I have to get used to.

My poison Necro runs 20 hard points into Raise Skeleton plus 1 into each of the summon synergies and my Skellys are over 1000 life after CTA. I lose maybe 1 skelly every run depending what I'm doing. Oh, and 1 point into Bone Armor to soak the occasional odd arrow that gets through the lines. I never have survivability issues. So, If this becomes a problem for you, you might consider buffing your skelies a bit more. Without knowing what PnB setup you're doing, I'm not sure how many points you can spare, but their tankiness definitely goes up quick with some investment!

I'll also add 1 point in Bone Wall as well, increases armor and can add another occasional layer of protection - especially considering that Poison Nova can leave you dangerously close to enemies. 1 point in Revive can also help a lot (Urdars are just so good !)

Ooh, interesting, I'm not sure I agree about Bone Wall. I guess it would depend on your playstyle. For me, Bone Wall and Bone Prison just provide opportunities to get accidentally cornered and murdered. Throw a bad wall, and only Teleport can save you, but if you have Teleport, you probably don't need the wall to begin with. Revives I agree though!