Doesn't take a genius to figure this out. Part of this has to do with a major flaw on the Diablo II servers. The bots on Diablo II are using injection codes on a outdated version of Diablo II. They take advantage of the ZoneID 3 after you click the battle.net button in Diablo II ZoneID 3 is the version check for battle.net from what I understand.
Draws lines on Diablo II window which points to warp objects (see next section) - Writes serverip - Xp Counter - Has chicken (Set chicken% in Settings.ini) - Logs ingame messages in a seperate file 'Messages', and notifies you if something happens ingame, and your Diablo II isn't active. Diablo 2 Lod 1.13 D Maphack (Updated). Unsubscribe from John Midzen?
D2 Etal, D2BS, and Kulton I am pretty sure we have heard of these they are the top bots on Diablo II at the moment. These bots use 1.13d a out dated version of the game which has been slight modified for the use of bots. Game.exe is the main files they modified for there code injections.
I went ahead and downloaded each of these bots to try and understand how they work. I noticed that each bot has a current game.exe 1.14d version somewhere for there bot to use. Unless if blizzard decides to do a game changing plan here and now there well be no way to patch the bots. Now I am going to explain this the best I can.
When the bots start the game up it starts up as 1.13d. When the bot clicks battle.net button it sends the game.exe 1.14d client version credentials. This then tricks the servers into thinking 1.13d is now 1.14d bypassing the updates In order for blizzard to break these bots they are going to have to take a huge risk.
They are going to have to change the maps around. Way-Points well have to be moved. Stash well have to be moved.
Towns well have to be increased in size. Caves, Stairs, Holes, Dungeons you name it they well have to be moved to a different location there map size well have to be increased as well. Put a no teleport zone on certain maps kinda like what they did with Duriel where you couldn't teleport over the wall. Mpq files well have to be updated to where the outdated version can no longer read them up. The size of the next client update would have to be at least 300mb in order to break the bots hacks and spammers you name it.
The reason for this is so the binaries off sets in the mpq files would match that of blizzards most recent mpq version structer and the game would have to be told how to read the mpq files up. This way the out dated Diablo II wont be able to read the up dated mpq files. Howdy Cyber, Appreciate your passion and desire to help. As you've probably noticed, we've taken steps to slow or create work for the botters and dupers. It's a bit of an arms race when it comes to hacking. We develop countermeasures to their methods and vice versa. We're actively hiring anti-cheat engineers to combat the ails within our beloved universes.
We will get better at maintaining a fair environment to play in. The level of effort to create and test what you've described would be colossal, and change D2. We're here to curate, not reimagine. We'll get the right folks in place, and turn the tables this year.
Stick with us through this hard part, and we'll make it worth your while. Again, appreciate you and people like you that want to play nice; play fair. Cheers, Classic. There is very little point at changing the maps (stash location, town size, etc). Bot authors would just update their code and that takes A LOT less time than it takes for Blizzard to change all that stuff. One thing however, would make botting significantly harder: nerf teleport.
Fanmade mod called Hell Unleashed changed the teleport in such way, that it cannot be used to teleport through walls. It's somewhat clumsier to use and it would hurt legit players as well, but that could be countered with buffed drops from mobs. Botters however, would be very troubled as they would be limited to a very few unique mobs that don't need teleport to reach. Scripting a bot that teleports to every door to get to the other side of the wall would be very time consuming and difficult. LOL it seems You ppl dont know why was, is and will be always ton of bots in this sick game - CUZ OF CRAP DROP RATIOS! Blizz never destory bots, only one they can is minimalize bots role.
Solution to minimalize bots is 10x better drop or even 100x cuz drop rates generally are bad, very oudated and for some rarest items are incredible low if even I would play 24/7 is not quaratee to find some items in 6 mounth ladder, thats why bots still running. With good drop ratios every decent player will get decent items without 24/7.
Ppl will stop mass boting cuz of no longer big profits from selling items, they probably will pay more $ for running their pc's 24/7 than by selling items which nobody wants.but items stories owners never want this so nothing will be changed cuz it seems this game is for item stories, greedy botters, fg owners. But not for fair players;). 02:07 PMPosted by LOL it seems You ppl dont know why was, is and will be always ton of bots in this sick game - CUZ OF CRAP DROP RATIOS!
Blizz never destory bots, only one they can is minimalize bots role. Solution to minimalize bots is 10x better drop or even 100x cuz drop rates generally are bad, very oudated and for some rarest items are incredible low if even I would play 24/7 is not quaratee to find some items in 6 mounth ladder, thats why bots still running. With good drop ratios every decent player will get decent items without 24/7. Ppl will stop mass boting cuz of no longer big profits from selling items, they probably will pay more $ for running their pc's 24/7 than by selling items which nobody wants.but items stories owners never want this so nothing will be changed cuz it seems this game is for item stories, greedy botters, fg owners. But not for fair players;) I do have to agree with you on this the least they could do for now is release another patch with increased drop rate. Hell i just made a MFbarb on single player to test the build out for a ladder build for some strange reason the skill find item threw a sol rune at me and was the best item that dropped in hell mode. 02:07 PMPosted by LOL it seems You ppl dont know why was, is and will be always ton of bots in this sick game - CUZ OF CRAP DROP RATIOS!
Blizz never destory bots, only one they can is minimalize bots role. Solution to minimalize bots is 10x better drop or even 100x cuz drop rates generally are bad, very oudated and for some rarest items are incredible low if even I would play 24/7 is not quaratee to find some items in 6 mounth ladder, thats why bots still running. With good drop ratios every decent player will get decent items without 24/7. Ppl will stop mass boting cuz of no longer big profits from selling items, they probably will pay more $ for running their pc's 24/7 than by selling items which nobody wants.but items stories owners never want this so nothing will be changed cuz it seems this game is for item stories, greedy botters, fg owners.
But not for fair players;) thats right 100% better crash the spambots. 02:07 PMPosted by LOL it seems You ppl dont know why was, is and will be always ton of bots in this sick game - CUZ OF CRAP DROP RATIOS!
Blizz never destory bots, only one they can is minimalize bots role. Solution to minimalize bots is 10x better drop or even 100x cuz drop rates generally are bad, very oudated and for some rarest items are incredible low if even I would play 24/7 is not quaratee to find some items in 6 mounth ladder, thats why bots still running. With good drop ratios every decent player will get decent items without 24/7.
Ppl will stop mass boting cuz of no longer big profits from selling items, they probably will pay more $ for running their pc's 24/7 than by selling items which nobody wants.but items stories owners never want this so nothing will be changed cuz it seems this game is for item stories, greedy botters, fg owners. But not for fair players;) Dumbass. If the drop chances were high, the value of these items would be much lower and the thrill of finding these items would be nonexistent.
Ten years ago, there were millions of players. Trading was a huge part of the game.
Because there were so many players, these items were being found consistently enough. The game is dead now BECAUSE of the bots. The bots ruined this game. Players quit because they can't compete with the bots.
Trading with other honest players is pointless now because the bots have them all. Idiots like you are what ruin this game. 02:07 PMPosted by LOL it seems You ppl dont know why was, is and will be always ton of bots in this sick game - CUZ OF CRAP DROP RATIOS! Blizz never destory bots, only one they can is minimalize bots role. Solution to minimalize bots is 10x better drop or even 100x cuz drop rates generally are bad, very oudated and for some rarest items are incredible low if even I would play 24/7 is not quaratee to find some items in 6 mounth ladder, thats why bots still running. With good drop ratios every decent player will get decent items without 24/7.
Ppl will stop mass boting cuz of no longer big profits from selling items, they probably will pay more $ for running their pc's 24/7 than by selling items which nobody wants.but items stories owners never want this so nothing will be changed cuz it seems this game is for item stories, greedy botters, fg owners. But not for fair players;) Dumbass. If the drop chances were high, the value of these items would be much lower and the thrill of finding these items would be nonexistent. Ten years ago, there were millions of players. Trading was a huge part of the game. Because there were so many players, these items were being found consistently enough.
The game is dead now BECAUSE of the bots. The bots ruined this game. Players quit because they can't compete with the bots. Trading with other honest players is pointless now because the bots have them all. Idiots like you are what ruin this game.
You are completely right. The thrill of finally finding something very rare (back in 1.09) such as Windforce/Cranium basher/Arkaine's Valor was beyond great even after over a year of playing. I had the urge to play D2 again recently after 6+ years of being away, but all of these bots/spammers just make it unbearable to spend any time grinding for gear. D2 would still be a great game to play (after all this time) if we could just weed out the bots/spammers. 11:53 AMPosted by Howdy Cyber, Appreciate your passion and desire to help. As you've probably noticed, we've taken steps to slow or create work for the botters and dupers. It's a bit of an arms race when it comes to hacking.
We develop countermeasures to their methods and vice versa. We're actively hiring anti-cheat engineers to combat the ails within our beloved universes.
We will get better at maintaining a fair environment to play in. The level of effort to create and test what you've described would be colossal, and change D2.
We're here to curate, not reimagine. We'll get the right folks in place, and turn the tables this year. Stick with us through this hard part, and we'll make it worth your while. Again, appreciate you and people like you that want to play nice; play fair. Cheers, Classic CAN YOU JUST ADD A!@#$IGN CAPTCHA TO THE GAME???
Takes a few working days for the average developer. 11:53 AMPosted by Howdy Cyber, Appreciate your passion and desire to help.
As you've probably noticed, we've taken steps to slow or create work for the botters and dupers. It's a bit of an arms race when it comes to hacking. We develop countermeasures to their methods and vice versa. We're actively hiring anti-cheat engineers to combat the ails within our beloved universes. We will get better at maintaining a fair environment to play in. The level of effort to create and test what you've described would be colossal, and change D2. We're here to curate, not reimagine.
We'll get the right folks in place, and turn the tables this year. Stick with us through this hard part, and we'll make it worth your while. Again, appreciate you and people like you that want to play nice; play fair. Cheers, Classic Seeing a blue post at least mention they're hiring guys makes me happy.
I'm so freaking sick and tired of duelers in games auto aim and auto teleport stomp every public duel game because they are low lifes trying to validate their life. Good to at least see attempts being made, which I am on board with. We all know it's impossible to 100% kill off hacking, but the work against it should still be relentless.
Fishymancer - Final Version (updated for 1.13) Fishymancer - Final Version 0. Introduction 1.
The Build 2.a) Stat Points - Target Values 2.b) Stat Points - Progression 3.a) Skill Points - Target Values 3.b) Skill Points - Progression 3.c) Skill Points - Analysis 3.d) Skill Points - Comparison of Curses 4.a) Gear - Untwinked 4.b) Gear - Twinked 5.a) Hireling - Choice & Gear 5.b) Hireling - Comparison of available Mercs 6. Tactics for specific Monsters and Areas & frequent problems 8. Teleport Appendices: A.
Magic Finding and Boss Running B. NF's Crushing Blow Setup (tm) D.
Multi Player Games E. Where to post your questions / comments F. Help, normal Diablo is kicking my.! Introduction: This is a rather minor update, to accomodate some of the changes that have been made to the game since 1.10 was new and also to iron out a few kinks and streamline the guide as a whole. I cut a few things that I felt were not really helpful that I just put in to placate people. I don't feel like placating anyone anymore so they're gone now.
(The extra things in the guide, not the people) Oh yea, and I used the 'highlight' thing to make it a little easier on the eyes, maybe? So, in case you haven't read this previously, what is a Fishymancer?
Basically this necro relies on plain skeletons and corpse explosion to kill things. This is probably the safest and least item dependant build in the current patch and it is probably capable of beating hardcore without using any items at all. (feel free to use items, though. Most people do. Items are cool) Aside from being easily capable of beating the game with no specific gear this guy also makes an excellent MF character. Not so much for mephisto where sorcs still reign supreme (not to say he can't kill meph, sorcs are just faster), his domain are the alvl 85 areas like the WS K and the Pit.
He has no problems running Hell WS K and Baal with lots of MF on him while nearly maintaining his original killing speed. Why is it called a Fishymancer? Well, originally I just called it a Skelliemancer, but a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. No, actually right here in the forum, Gohanman started calling it a Fishymancer and the term sorta stuck. If you are looking for something in particular, I'd suggest using crtl+f to bring up the search function and enter what you are looking for there. (for example if you are having trouble with duriel, enter 'duriel' and run the search) Disclaimer: When I say 'put no points in skill X' or if I don't mention skill Y, then that's because they are not needed for this particular build, not because those skills 'suck' for every Necromancer build.
The Build: I'll try to sum up in a few words what you can expect from your Fishymancer. He is very well up to beating Hardcore untwinked (the definition of untwinked varies from player to player, I take it to mean, 'Using only items he finds himself.” (Some people call this 'pure'.). Apart from that, he is also very handy as an MF char, but more on that later.
This build is probably the safest character you can play in 1.10+, especially if you don't have any gear at all. He is very strong in the field of crowd control. Between his AI curses and the army of undead he is rarely in any real danger. Since I've seen a couple people say stuff like 'I'd like to play a skelliemancer but I have no beast runeword', let me say it once again: You need no items.
If you're into stuff like that you can beat the game naked. And not using items on your necromancer as well.:badteeth: 2.a) Stat Points - Target Values: Here, I'll only provide a rough guideline, as you may need more or less points in certain stats depending on your gear. You will also notice that you don't really need stat points with this build, so it's not really a big deal if you waste a few. Strength (Str): Strength lets you wear equipment. How much you need depends strongly on available gear. A good value to aim for is 100, but the Necromancer might be able to get away with as little as 60. Dexterity (Dex): Here you will want enough for blocking, so around 200 by the time you beat Hell.
This assumes a good shield, of course, don't aim for 75% chance to block with a shield that has 30% base chance to block. Simple: More points in Dex mean less in Vit, and thus, less life.
Up to a certain point, that's a sacrfice we don't mind making. Now, why is it a good idea for a Necro to sacrifice Vit for dex?
The Necro receives only 2 Hit points (HP) per point in Vit. This is the low end of what chars get, meaning that he loses less life than other classes that get 3 or 4 points life per point in Vit. Good shields for this build are the Homunculus (72% chance to block), a rhyme (runeword) Tower Shield or Sigon's Guard (64%). Don't try to reach max blocking with a shield that has a lower base chance to block than Sigon's, and even in the case of Sigon's I'd craft an ammy to help with blocking. (More on that later).
Bottom line is that you will need around 200 Points of Dex at level 92 (trust me, in 1.10+ you won't get a lot higher than that anytime soon.). There is a formula to calculate the needed dex at a certain level but I think it's easier to just hover your mouse button over your defence value (this shows you your chance to block) and see if you reached 75% blocking yet.
This is one of the few things in the Character Screen that actually work correctly so let's use that, shall we? Vitality (Vit): All the rest. Not much more to say here. Everything you don't need otherwise goes here.
Energy (En): Personally I never put points here anymore. You might want to get a few here in normal and respec later to put them elsewhere. This build doesn't require a lot of mana and usually I don't even put insight on my merc because I can get a long just fine with mana per kill items and blue potions. 2.b) Stat Points - Progression: There's not much to say here. At low levels I'd work on strength, then on vitality. Most likely you won't need blocking in normal at all, nor will you have a shield that blocks well, so I'd not worry about dex until later. Blocking gets important in Hell, so be sure you've got enough points saved to add them as needed.
Don't be afraid to keep stat points saved if you don't want to spend them, there's nothing wrong with that. I've seen a lot of people beat the game with a few hundred points to spare. (I did that, too). In 1.13 you can of course just put them whereever and resepc later.
Back in my day we didn't do that. We put our points in a stat and they stayed there and we were thankful for that. 3.a) Skills - Target Values: Updated this section with a 'core build' and several possiblities what to do with points gained beyong that. Core Build: Summoning: 20 Raise Skeleton (RS) 20 Skeleton Mastery (SM) 1 Raise Mage 1 Clay Golem 1 Blood Golem 1 Iron Golem 1 Fire Golem 1+ Revive 1+ Golem Mastery 1+ Summon Resist (SR) Poison & Bone: 1 Teeth 20 Corpse Explosion (CE) Curses: 1+ Amplify Damage (Amp) 1 Dim Vison (DV) 1 Attract 1 Decrepify (Decrep) The core build can be completed with only 76 Skill points. Skills that are marked with a '+' are likely candidates for further skill points.
I suggest reading what I have to say in the skill analysis before adding a lot of points to any of those, though. Note: If you have spare skill points, the damage your skellies deal is displayed as lower than it should be. I do no know if the bug is in the display only and your minions to the right damage in game or if they actually deal less damage. At any rate, the difference is not large but it deserves mentioning. Remaining Skill Points: If you plan on doing a lot of runs with your necro you can probably get him into his mid ninties sooner or later.
So, if you go with just the minimum values on your core build you can save up enough skill points to max another skill. This will usually mean that you need a decent amount of +skills or you will find your curses' radius (amp damage, mainly) so small that your overall efficiency will suffer. You don't really need anything specific, whatever you decide to do with your points will most likely just have a very minor impact. With respecs you can go ahead and experiment until you find something you like.
Personally I found either of the following two things useful: 1) All-round Approach: Put some in Amplifiy Damage, some in Golem Mastery, some in Dim Vision, buff up all your favorite skills. 2) Golem Mastery: This is what I do when I intend to use an Iron Golem made out of a half-decent weapon. 300+ Average Damage, ideally with crushing blow and stuff like that. Personally I favor this approach. 3.b) Skills - Progression: Basically this is very simple, you will want to max your three main skills in this order: - Raise Skeleton - Skeleton Mastery - Corpse Explosion Put the very first skill point you get in amplify damage and make sure you get 1 in Skeleton Mastery pretty early, too.
One point early on in corpse explosion might be useful for clearing the maggot lair and the arcane sanctum. Make sure you get decrepifiy before fighting Duriel and get summon resist (and as a consequence clay golem and the mastery) before fighting diablo. You don't really need the other golems, curses or revives before you enter hell. And that's basically it. Simple as that.
Deviate from the suggested skill progression at your own risk. I wish I had a nickel for every person that complained about getting his. kicked by diablo after spending skill points randomly. Yes, the final result is the same but your journey until level 70 might look differently. 3.c) Skills - Analysis: The whole purpose of this section is to explain why I used the skills I used and why I spent as many points on them as I did.
There are also a few hints on how to use the skills here. Seasoned players may want to skip this. 1) RS and Mastery: Not much to say here. More points mean more skellies and more damage for the skellies and your revives. Skellies will start having trouble with hard enemies in Act 4 Hell and beyond. If you have enough + skills items you will most likely be able to beat the game using only skellies and your merc. Points added to RS increase damage a lot more than points added to mastery.
Note about summoned creatures: If your skill level changes, your skellies retain the level they were summoned at. So, if you have 20 RS and are under the effect of a shrine (+2 to all skills) you will summon at skill level (slvl) 22 and those skellies will remain at slvl 22 even after the effect of the shrine wears off. You can use this to your advantage by having a lot of + skills gear on switch. Note that this works the other way around, too: If you put more points into RS you will need to resummon your skellies for them to be at your new slvl. 2) Raise Mage: Mages are not useful for this build as it is geared towards physical damage. The merc and main curse (amp damage) don't aid the mages at all. For this skelliemancer, mages do more harm than good.
Especially in tight areas like the maggot lair or the arcane sanctuary where they will block your skellies' path. They also like to block doorways. I heard that some people like using cold mages against act bosses, but personally I never needed them and resummoning mages until you get enough cold ones is tedious.
Still, if you have problems with an act boss it might be worth a try to summon as many mages as your slvl 1 with + skills allows. 3) Clay Golem: The slow effect makes the clay golem useful against single enemies like act bosses but not so useful that I'd want to spend more than 1 pt. The extra points don't do much for him anyway.
Usually you will have 8-10 skellies, your merc and 4-10 (or more) revives. You don't need another tank.
4) Blood Golem: Don't bother casting this one. He does nothing for you the Clay or Iron Golems don't do better. 5) Iron Golem: Interesting if you have access to a steady supply of high-end items. Using the IK Maul to create Iron Golems worked fine for me when I was running Baal. (IK Maul has 40% Crushing Blow and is very easy to find.
At any rate, I found them faster than my golem used them up) 6) Fire Golem:: This is the most useful golem for questing, especially in HC. It's Holy Fire aura draws enemies to him and away from you. Don't expect him to cause damage, that's not what the golem is there for. It's only there to gather enemies and keep them from bothering your necro. 7.1) Revive: Despite the (relatively) poor AI revives are far from useless.
Especially since you can only have a limited number of skellies adding a few revives can be a great help. Just pick your revives carefully. In general it's a good idea to revive fast monsters or monsters that are dangerous to you and deal physical damage. More on that later, in the section about revives. 7.2) Strategy for using Revives: Having an item with Teleport helps a lot. Enigma would be ideal but something with charges works, too. (An Amulet for example) Use that to gather your forces (teleporting next to Baal, Diablo, or into Coldworms chamber).
Move a bit after you teleported as sometimes your monsters don't move if you're standing right on top of them. 8) Corpse Explosion: As you will most likely play normal and nightmare on players 8 almost exclusively I'd suggest not investing more than 1 pt here until later in the game.
Once you reach hell and switch to players 1 it is extremely useful if you want to kill in a hurry. You don't have to have it, but if you intend for your char to be used for MF you will probably want it. Well, and it's not like there was anything better you could do with 20 skill points.
Trust me, max this skill. Yes, it does seem that additional points don't do that much for CE but that is not true at all. The area your CE covers increases by a larger amount for each skill point you add (Remember geometry in school? If you do you can calculate by how much it goes up. In your face everybody who said maths was useless! ) At any rate, I can't stress enough how useful this is for clearing areas. If you're running the pit or the WS K you will wan this.
Especially in the WS K where you can kill gloams from far away it's very handy. Remember that CE is 50% fire and 50% physical.
So, amp damage or lower resist can increase the damage it does. On a side note, CE is not useless on players 8, don't let the fact that it doesn't scale blind you to that.
It does not get a bigger penalty than any other skill. (the only spell that is stronger on p8 is static field, everything else gets the same 'penalty') Monsters on players 8 have 450% life. Assuming an amp'd monster with no resistances, CE does so much damage that 3-4 casts would still be enough to kill it. 9) Amp Damage: The most often used curse. Lowers physical resistance by 100%, which doubles the damage your skellies deal and increases the damage you do with CE by 50%. It also breaks nearly every Physical Immunity you will encounter in the game. I like having more than 1 point here because it lets me amplify whole crowds in a hurry and I can get back to doing other things, like casting attract or CE.
You'll be pretty slow if you need to cast Amp 4-5 times before you've got every monster. Time is money. 10) Decrepify: Another great curse. Monsters are slowed by 50%, their damage is reduced by 50% and their physical resistance is lowered by 50%. This is extremely handy against act bosses but is not recommended against normal enemies.
At first glance it might seem that it does more than Amp but if none of your skellies die why would you need stuff to be slowed and weakened? That's right, you don't need that.
Do not forget to cast this curse against act bosses, though. You will notice a huge difference in your troops' performance. But even against act bosses you can probably make do without it once your clay golem starts working on the bad guy. Then you might want to overwrite your decrep with amp for another 50% more damage.
11) Dim Vision: Handy to use at the start of a battle or to stop ranged attackers. It also keeps reviving monsters from raising their dead, as they can't see them anymore. It’s also great to stop Gloams from frying you. I almost never used this curse, though. Using Attract in combination with Amp is far, far superior to using DV.
The only real use I have for this is to blind ranged attackers if there's a really big horde of them. A lot of people swear by this, but personally I very rarely use that. But still, you have the skill as a prerequisite, so why not use it? 12) Attract: The crowd control curse. This one really rules. Cast it on a monster and all the other monsters start attacking it. This curse cannot be overridden by other curses.
(Meaning if you cast amp damage on top of it, the attract curse stays active.) What makes this curse so useful is that a) Monsters stop attacking your troops and b) you can cast amp damage on all the other monsters that are currently attacking the victim of this curse. This gives you crowd control and more damage. (Remember, if you cast amp damage on top of dim vision the dim vision curse is gone). When facing a boss pack, cast the curse on a minion, not the boss as it doesn't work when cast on bosses. By the way: You do not cast attract on the monster to kill it. You're casting it to keep several enemies busy. I'm stating that because some people asked why to bother with this curse, as it doesn't really kill the monster.
I find this curse most useful when I either face very strong enemies (or just lots of them) or when I have no skellies because I'm just starting to play. Once you have your army you don't really need it too much anymore. 13) Lower Resist: This curse has one situation where it is handy, if you have points to spare you might want to consider putting 1 point here at most. There are some enemies in the game that have more than 120% physical resistance. This means that they will stay PI, even after you cast amp on them. This only applies to a few choice bosses and you can kill them without LR, but LR makes it a just a bit faster.
There will be more on that later, in the section about Physical Immunes. 14) Iron Maiden: Only as a prereq if you want LR. Monsters deal pitiful damage compared to the huge amounts of life they have, thus having them kill themselves with return damage isn't really gonna work well. Plus, only works against melee enemies which is probably less than half of 'em. 15) Life Tap: This curse returns 50% of the damage your troops deal as life.
At first glance this sounds like a very good thing but life tap is still not very useful for this build. Once your merc gets any leech at all he will easily leech back the life he loses. My skellies rarely died, too, so I prefer to keep my enemies amp'd rather than life tap'd. Might be useful for the early stages when your merc has no life leech of his own or if you are in an MP game and have some fragile chars along. 16) Bone Armour: This skill might be have been half-decent in HC back in 1.10 when charges on items could count for synergies.
These days I wouldn't spare it a second look. 3.d) Skill Points - Comparison of Curses: There are several curses that have somewhat similar effects. The trick here is to figure out which of these are the best pick for you for a given situation. Note that the answer to these questions is not 'always use curse 1 and never curse 2' but rather 'use curse 1 here and use curse 2 there'.
1) Decrepify vs. Amp Damage: Quite often people have asked, which of these two was the better curse, so I thought I'd add a small paragraph about that. Some people argue that the -50% speed and damage decrep provides make it the better curse, but actually you won't need those things very often. Remember, the -50% damage and -50% speed don't do anything for you if you don't take any losses without them. So long as your army doesn't take heavy losses, there is no reason to use decrep, especially since it takes a while to affect larger crowds with this curse. In most cases, amp is the better choice. Decrep enters the scene when you come up against single, tough enemies.
Either Act Bosses, or regular boss packs with nasty mods (extra strong, fanaticism or might aura). Lister is a good example here. If he is extra strong and fanatic I usually use decrep instead of amp. 2) Dim Vision vs. Attract Another argument I've frequently seen is which of these crowd control curses to use. I've already brushed this argument when I talked about the individual curses, but I think this deserves it's own paragraph as it's being brought up that often.
All of these curses serve when it comes to stopping monsters from hurting you, no argument here. The key factor is that you cannot override attract with another curse (attract on the other hand, can override other curses) which allows you to keep a group of monsters busy and under the effect of amp damage. None of the other curses can do that for you. Confuse does make all the monsters attack each other, but as the damage they deal is so small compared to their life it's not really a valid alternative to attract. There is one situation where I'd cast dim vision rather than attract. When you're dealing with very dangerous ranged attackers and can't take the time to aim attracts but just want to fling a curse in the general direction of the monsters.
Like Gloams that are shooting at you from off-screen for example. I'd dim vision those, then teleport up close and amp & attract them. Against regular archers I still prefer using only attract as it works just fine here. You will probably notice that it's not necessary to cast attract all the time. In most battles your forces will do just fine without it (or another crowd control curse).
But don't forget that you have those crowd control curses. They'll be helpful to you at the start of a session when you have only your merc and nothing else. 4.a) Gear - Untwinked: The first thing you need to know about this build is that it can basically beat the game 'naked', which makes it perfect for playing untwinked.
(To me, untwinked means that you start with nothing and do little to no boss runs and thus you'll never have a lot of godly items) I'd suggest always picking up flawless gems and cubing them to perfect. There are a lot of things you can do with them that will help you survive. You might want to have a few of every gem of every quality, just in case you want to upgrade some runes. What we're looking for in equipment are the following things: MF, Resistance to Lightning, + skills and to a lesser extent: resistance to all elements. Now I'll cover some of the 'cheap' choices, slot by slot. The following items are some examples, there are dozens of possible choices for each slot, especially if you enter the world of crafting and gambling rares.
Weapon: - Wand with + 3 RS and good other mods. Ideally something with + X to summoning tree and +3 to SM.
Those can best be found in act 1 normal up to the cloister and are endgame-worthy. Helm: - 3 Socketed Crown (or other headgear) with Ral/Thul/Ort Runes or Perfect Topazes (PTopaz), depending on your needs. Re: Fishymancer - Final Version (updated for 1.13) hi NF, sorry for troubling you.
I am gonna start again by taking your skill stats. I just need one help from you. Level wise skills i use. Put the very first skill point you get in amplify damage and make sure you get 1 in Skeleton Mastery pretty early, too. One point early on in corpse explosion might be useful for clearing the maggot lair means at lvl30 this will be my build.
RS(18),SM(2),CLGOLEM(1),GM(1),TEETH(1),CE(1),AMP(1),WEAKEN(1),TERROR(1),DECRYP(1),SUMMONRESIST(1) This is when i will hit with diablo. Am i in the right build now? I told you i am total novice. Caus its been many years i am even back to diablo. Was playing A3.
Click to expand.Yes, that should be fine. (I think you didn't add the quest rewards from Radament and Akara, but that's one reason why I didn't want to give a detailed progression.
Also, I found this easier to memorise.). Usually you will have some bonuses from items as well. For example, if you have a Wand that gives +1 Decrep you do not need to have a 'hard' point in it (a point that you actually spent). You can then wait to spend points there until you are done with RS and SM if you want. Being a point or two away from 'perfect' is barely noticable, but you should see a huge difference between 8 RS you had previously and 20 RS you'll have now. What you can do right now to salvage the necro you got is go back to Act 1 and talk to Akara and ask her to return all your stat and skill points and then you can put them in the proper places (assuming you did not use this quest reward yet). Re: Fishymancer - Final Version (updated for 1.13) I couldn't figure out how you could say it is easy to take out Andariel on normal and I was about to give up on this build.
In my case, the difficulty was due to not using amplify damage. I hadn't needed it prior to Andariel and I thought it was too dangerous to cast it on her. Once you cleared that up, I tried it and she went down pretty quickly. Thank you for taking the time to create and update this build and answer all these questions. This build has enabled me to enjoy and appreciate this game. Re: Fishymancer - Final Version (updated for 1.13) Oh, you should always use Amp Damage.
On everything. It doubles your army's damage output.:badteeth: Once you get to lvl 24 and have decrepify, use that on act bosses. That makes them a lot less dangerous, especially combined with clay golem. It's not dangerous to cast it, don't worry You're not playing hardcore so dying is just part of the learning process for you. As it should be.
I died a lot back when I started D2. The assassin class will probably never forgive me my first character. Click to expand.Can't say I agree with this completely: -In a fight (let's say a 'start') I can choose 2 things: either make the body a revive or let it explode. Exploding always provides me X extra damage, independent of the player number. Reviving however DOES become 'better' if the player settings is higher: the fight takes longer, so the revive does more damage.
MANY skills do become 'better' with more players, and especially with the necromancer I experienced that with 8 players it's often better to revive than to CE bodies. Yet with 1 players CE 'pops' everyone and revives would simply slow me down. Re: Fishymancer - Final Version (updated for 1.13) Needs more Prayer merc tbqh.:whistling: I'm playing two of these buggers at the moment, one of them naked, both HC. I might finally discover how potent CE actually is (my first attempt at a summoner, long before I read this guide, didn't use it, and my only ever Guardian deliberately didn't use it because he was themed to summon as many critters as humanly possible). I might even try Fire Golem this time.
I've always loved Gumby because he is such an awesome tank and he slows everything, and didn't see the point in using one of the others when he is so useful. Re: Fishymancer - Final Version (updated for 1.13) Two questions for the great Nightfish if I may: 1) How much crushing blow on your merc do you need to be effective? I currently have Hone Sundan, Guillaume's Face socketed with an ED jewel, and eth Shaftstop socketed with any Um on him. I want to switch to an Obedience for the extra damage and resists, but then I would have to switch helms to get life leech and lose out on the CB from Guillaume's Face. Am I going to miss that extra CB? I guess another option would be to make a CoH and get life leech there, but I feel like that's a waste of a Ber I'd rather save for Infinity. 2) Do you recommend clay golem or iron golem for WSK/Baal running?
How important is it to have the slowing ability on clay golem? I'm a big fan of your guides.
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