XBOW Necro (1.1)

Quash
Stone Warrior
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How is this build and xbow necro in general looking with the... What seems to me like a gigantic nerf to Widowmaker in 1.1?
iMule
Skeleton
2 | 0
Thank you for this detailed guide. I really liked the concept of it and was really hyped to try it out as a season starter.

However I am sad to say I had a bad time with this play style. Since I have no grounds for comparison between pre and post-nerf Windowmaker, I can't quite put my finger on whether it was the seemingly low overall damage or just the clunky skill mechanic that put me off. Compared to the totem/summon necro I meddled around with in the last couple of days of last season, I dare say I had a breeze playing the latter, but not so much or as a matter of fact at all with this new toon.

Hopefully Widowmaker is not dead post-nerf since there are clearly people who like the play style. I honestly think it is quite cool as a concept, but in my experience found it lacking in performance simply due to Diablo II being a nearly two-decades-old game with limited capabilities to accommodate such a play style. Quite possibly even more so with the fresh nerf.

Cheers to the OP and thanks for the read! O-)
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adamo68
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Any plans to update this post for 1.1.3? :)
Omesh
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Yeah, anyone can tell me how is it after nerfs to both widowmaker and vizharan?
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Crash
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Omesh wrote:Yeah, anyone can tell me how is it after nerfs to both widowmaker and vizharan?


Vizharan's nerfs happened before this guide was written.
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Jampula
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Was the Widowmaker actually nerfed? I don't remember the exact numbers and never quite understood where in the dmg calculation that "bonus phys dmg" belonged, weapon dmg was still increased.

But Xbow necro has been "uber" strong (see what I did there?) always thanks to off-screen killing and RC, much before the whole including of phys/magic dmg.
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Crash
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Jampula wrote:Was the Widowmaker actually nerfed? I don't remember the exact numbers and never quite understood where in the dmg calculation that "bonus phys dmg" belonged, weapon dmg was still increased.

But Xbow necro has been "uber" strong (see what I did there?) always thanks to off-screen killing and RC, much before the whole including of phys/magic dmg.


Widowmaker reduced (or removed?) the bonus physical damage to the base weapon. Other than that, I think it had number of arrowsnerfed slightly, but its still plenty strong.
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Jampula
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L H wrote:Widowmaker reduced (or removed?) the bonus physical damage to the base weapon. Other than that, I think it had number of arrowsnerfed slightly, but its still plenty strong.

Yeah but I never understood where in the dmg calculation it belonged. It couldn't be that if xbows base dmg was 50 and Widowmaker added 30, it made BASE dmg 80...
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Crash
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Jampula wrote:
L H wrote:Widowmaker reduced (or removed?) the bonus physical damage to the base weapon. Other than that, I think it had number of arrowsnerfed slightly, but its still plenty strong.

Yeah but I never understood where in the dmg calculation it belonged. It couldn't be that if xbows base dmg was 50 and Widowmaker added 30, it made BASE dmg 80...


I'm not really sure. It must be similar to Thorn Strike on TW since that also grants phys damage. I'm confused as you are how it calculates though.
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Jampula
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L H wrote:I'm not really sure. It must be similar to Thorn Strike on TW since that also grants phys damage. I'm confused as you are how it calculates though.

Pretty annoying usually how similiar affixes there are... +Ed +Ewd +Min-max dmg +Phys dmg% +Phys dmg +who knows what. Just trial and error I quess.