Newbie takes on D2 for the first time

[haphazard1]

I have started a necromancer, trying a completely different style of play. Since many have indicated that D2 is balanced for having support (a merc tank or summons or whatever), I thought it would be good to try an approach with lots of minions. I am focusing on summoning and some curse support so far, but may add some bone skills.

Having some idea of what I am doing in Act 1 makes a huge difference. The first several areas have gone much more quickly, and the Den of Evil and Blood Raven were handled easily. Cold Crow in the Caves was actually more trouble; my skellies got wiped out and I had to retreat and gather some more minions.

Adding a clay golem to my ranks, along with the quest reward rogue archer, has given me a nice squad of minions. Need some more levels before I can raise skeleton mages to grow my little army larger.

Staying in the background while my minions do the work is a very different game than playing with my sorceress. So far it feels much easier, although I am not sure how much of that is due to knowing more of what I am doing and how much is actual difference in difficulty.

[T-hawk]

You gave up on the sorceress because of Duriel?

Difficulty in D2 is almost entirely a function of your distance from monsters.  But staying away doesn't require lots of minions.  Just one sturdy and recastable one plus a mercenary is mostly enough.  If you want the feel of a sorceress with a summonable minion, a trapper assassin is the way to do it.  Another way is a bone-skills necromancer, just the clay golem is usually enough to hide behind, plus bone walls.  An amazon with elemental arrow skills is also along the same lines.

For bone skills to do enough damage, you really need to focus, just 1 point in each curse and Clay Golem, and everything else all-in on Bone Spear and its synergies.  Corpse Explosion is the one necro damage skill that doesn't require synergy points... but it tends to be win-more, works when you already have a lot of corpses and minions, doesn't help in the hard cases like Duriel.

I'm recommending against an all-summoning necromancer for the long run, mostly because I think you'll get bored of that character even faster. But I love the bonemancer style. You can respec from summoning to bone sometime, maybe after Duriel. (The key to beating Duriel will be stacking up multiple slowing effects from the Clay Golem's hit, Decrepify curse, and cold skeleton mages.)

[Boro]

Or using iron maiden + golems or bonewall.

Edge runeword's Thorns + Decoy/Valkyrie maybe as well

[superdeath]

As others have mentioned.. Summoner necro is the easiest archtype to beat the game with. There are 2 places you will have any trouble, and even then it can be cheesed thru.

Maggot lair, and Ancients in act 5.

Sorc just needs an act 2 merc and with heal potions and some gear on that merc, u can tank his hp down in 1-3 trips to the town. He is a monster for a reason.

IMO, if you just run in with any merc that can take the first hit, and Static field a couple times b4 dying, Duriel should fall pretty quickly.

[haphazard1]

He is a monster for a reason.

As an act final boss, certainly Duriel should be very tough. But it seems like a lot of opinions are that he is the toughest fight in the entire game. What is the hardest fight of the game doing at the end of act 2, rather than at the end of the game?

[superdeath]

The main reason why he is so tough at this stage is that, unless you are prepared he is a nightmare. Most class archtypes dont really get their "power" skills till mid act 3, which makes killing duriel all that much harder. The fact that he slows you, and its a tight area means you have to change up the way you might have been doing things before this. Basically, how you did Maggot Lair, is how you should deal with Duriel. Minus getting hit of course. OR grind till you get a couple more levels. ( id say just get a good act 2 merc, give him some gear and go go )


Skellymancer is fun, but it does get boring really quick. Really depends on how much "danger" you want to potentially be in.

[haphazard1]

Basically, how you did Maggot Lair, is how you should deal with Duriel.

Hmmm, not really seeing the connection with the Maggot Lair? Lots of narrow corridors + lightning bolt blasting through lines of enemies made for a pretty easy area, mostly. Cold Worm was a bit tricky just because so much stuff kept spawning, but it was the same idea: my sorceress stood in the corridor outside the big room and fired lightning bolts through all the enemies trying to reach her and into the big room, hitting Cold Worm from a distance. (She was just barely in view.) Eventually there was a big death explosion, but my sorceress was well out of range for it. I had a lot more trouble with the Claw Viper Temple and Fangskin.

[T-hawk]

Remember the principle: distance is safety.  Duriel allows you very little, where every other act boss has space to let you run offscreen to compose yourself.

That said, he wasn't really designed to be hardest, he ended up that way thanks to all the bugs and rebalancing that drastically screwed the player for melee.  And yeah, it's more that characters mostly don't yet have their power skills (particularly sturdy summonable minions) and stats (vitality) and equipment (weapon damage, skills, +life) by then.

He meant comparing the maggot lair to Duriel for the summoner necro, somewhat similar in managing minions in a tight space.  But they're not really the same thing, they're different in general and very different for the sorceress in that the maggot lair allows distance for retreating.

[KingOfPain]

what is enchant's %attack rating bonus here? the calculator says +191% at slvl 20, and +254% at slvl 27 (leaf staff + lore helm), resulting in a total attack rating of 3801.96

unless that attack rating already has enchant factord in. never mind that is without any buffs.

Of course, one can't rely on Ignore Target Defense alone, since it doesn't work on Super Unique monsters such as Shenk. These reading are taking against Shenk, according to the Lying Screen
Current AR is ~4000
DR ~11000
Will Hit 80%
Be Hit 26%
Block 75%
If we ignore his resistance in the calculation, he can take 3-4 hits from McTyraelGirl.

[Boro]

at any rate, here's Duriel after I got off my bum and did him.