Melee Necromancer help

Hi. I'm wondering how to progress with my melee necromancer. Pestilence seems weak this patch, and I'm unsure if Howling Totem even works as it should - do I get the crushing blows that it promises? I dunno really where to put my remaining points after maxing Death Ward and embalming.

I can somewhat do torajan jungles at level 111, but with 150k def I feel a bit squishy. Does anyone have any pointers on a melee necro?

Cheers

Max those skills:
Deathlord, parasite, famine, dragonfire oil, embleming, put rest points in talon's hold. Other skills are 1-pionters

What about Death Ward for huge def bonus, shouldnt i max that?

Famine is 1 pointer lol use that points in death ward fore sure.

smartasss wrote:Famine is 1 pointer lol use that points in death ward fore sure.

And would you also max parasite? I'm having trouble deciding on the damn skills.

Its a farming skill but maxing it is not needed. U need endgame gear to use parasite for real.

smartasss wrote:Its a farming skill but maxing it is not needed. U need endgame gear to use parasite for real.

So right now carnage is the skill to use?

Rly Deathlord should be maxed ? Always it was 1point

Muranty wrote:Rly Deathlord should be maxed ? Always it was 1point

They have taken the cap off the combined defense given from str + dex that Deathlord provides (although the tooltip still says 32k max) so supermaxing Deathlord now has increasing returns the more points you put into it especially for melee necros which will be focusing either str or dex anyway, it has made it very easy to get over 400k defense and definitely one of the strongest defensive skills in the game.

"DEATHLORD: No longer capped at 32 000 defense" As taken from the patch notes

So, good plan is:
Max - Deathlord, dragonfire oil, embleming, death ward, parasite
Other skills are 1-pionters
Put rest points in talon's hold / famine or max talon's hold and put rest in parasite / famine.

There are a lot of combinations but which is the best