starting necro

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Curious what a good starting necro for a season would be. With a new season in probably a month, I'd like to take my time this month getting down a solid build. My current experience is limited to mostly melee sorc up to about 128ish, and melee sin that seems to have relatively high item thresholds (lacking a skill like fussilade + firedance for bosses does seem to be problematic, and innate tankyness is through dodge/avoid/block so when you do get nicked it really really hurts)

It doesn't need to be something perfect, just able to do likely 110-115 charms (120's if possible but I can deal with respeccing at that point of needed). . . if it's able to farm something like duncraig as well at a "reasonable" pace that's pretty solid too.

I've seen a fair bit on bow nec which would be extremely good, but seems to struggle heavily in the earlier levels. though that 80% physical dmg to magic modifier feels like it would dramatically hinder your ability to life steal and sustain, not too far off of melee sorc using a similar mechanic but potentially higher defense and max block?

Summon nec i'm trying atm, and controlling the summons to actually engage the enemy with any level of speed tends to get me into trouble atm. (maybe once i get jitans gate or the paladin teleport later that's remedied. otherwise it's a summon red skeleton > teleport > let them spread out as i now take the numerous AoE aimed at the summoned skele.

Totems seem to also be a good option, but i'd likely need to build a fair bit of resistances as well to survive that initial teleport in (though that's easily remedied by just casting fire-heart at range). . . though idk how this would work in the uber fights with squishy totems.

idk if theirs a totem + summon spec with like fireheart, and blood skeletons as they take very different itemization

Pesti nec looks like a great option for speed clearing farm content, but maybe not a good option for bosses.

I wouldn't mind something like rotting flesh as i'm very used to poison necro in old d2, and it feels similar. but feels like bosses would eat it alive

idk about melee nec. that's likely something i'll need to try next. I'm used to melee mechanics already, but it doesn't look like an ability like fusilade or even broadside exists for melee to deal with bosses that aren't melee friendly. though a combination of Deathlord, parasite/carnage, famine, death ward, death pact, and embalming sounds relatively tanky.
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Pinball
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Melee is easiest to start. Next is summonec. Totem belongs the 3rd. Malice and xbow are shit to start.
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atm i'm trying a hybrid build just for leveling.

I"m going with blood skele/a2 merc/iron golem and rotting flesh till meph. at that point i could potentially swap to any build after farming the TU. . . it plays simialr to how my summon nec does. but with rotting flesh to just screen clear as i power through a lot of norm with it quickly. . . with an early pax mystica it just soars through the early parts. . . i'm going to see how well it deals with mephisto (durial and andarial were easy, iron golem basically solo's the bosses

I'm guessing for melee nec, it's a dagger dex build with parasite? AoE on leveling is soooo valuable.
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cyborgtemplar wrote:atm i'm trying a hybrid build just for leveling.

I"m going with blood skele/a2 merc/iron golem and rotting flesh till meph. at that point i could potentially swap to any build after farming the TU. . . it plays simialr to how my summon nec does. but with rotting flesh to just screen clear as i power through a lot of norm with it quickly. . . with an early pax mystica it just soars through the early parts. . . i'm going to see how well it deals with mephisto (durial and andarial were easy, iron golem basically solo's the bosses

I'm guessing for melee nec, it's a dagger dex build with parasite? AoE on leveling is soooo valuable.


Don't even think about using a dagger, not before lvl120 at least. You lose a LOT of dmg if you use a dagger for pretty much no benefit of a shield (which is block).
sebneo
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According to istaryu

For farming and leveling 2 hand melee is quite better/ faster

Dext is better for high rift because of block chance
Ingkells
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I started 2h melee Nec recently, this char is rly nice in terms of farming/bossing except some retarded ubers like Giyua or Dul'Mephistos. Character is rly tanky thanks to avoid and life leech, places like Teganze/Vizjun etc are fairly easy once you get your gear going. Bartuc's Eye made my game much more easier and its not that hard to farm 6x Ea at Teganze. Sadly you cant make it Eth :( still i was pretty surprised that this char managed to do Quov Tsin (without res and - dmg gear), Kabraxis (like 2 minutes kill) or Xazax (5 minutes).
If you are looking for good farmer/bosser give it a go.
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Stereox
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Melee necro is very good and very easy to play. Great damage vs bosses and can farm dimensional lab later on

The thing is carnage skill is very small, it shits on crowded ranged areas like TA, Vizjun, cows, fauzt etc. Otherwise it's pretty good well rounded build.
Get a raptor scythe, even white T1 can carry you until Nightmare mephisto
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Carnage is really great already. If it has large AOE range then it's OP and no one cares about Parasite lmao.

Bonesplitter > Raptor Scythe base btw
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Stereox
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Pinball wrote:Bonesplitter > Raptor Scythe base btw

The thing is Charsi only sells Raptor Scythe, later on transition into sacred Bonesplitter one
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so this is my assumption of skill plan judging by what i see here (idk how many skills can be viably smax'd, i'm assuming 4, maybe 5).

Carnage - 7
Death Ward - smax
Death Lord - smax
embalming - smax
death pact - split rest
famine - split rest
1 in the remainder of pre-reqs

as a melee, i'll likely pick up a3 merc for the heal to help out a little. and pile in some high socket gear and ort runes (+light spell dmg) early on before actually gearing it.