starting necro

I dont compare the speed but for me physic summonec is faster than totem cuz the minions has res. Totem is great for clearing map but may get some trouble with act bosses cuz no res, ofc you can re summon them but it hurts your mana pool.

For me Pestilence/Rotting Flesh sucks hard. Those skills doesnt deserved to stay in necro skills tab.

idk about nm or hell. but for norm i haven't had an issuee so far with totemnec up to mephy. . . . . just 1 fireheart, and 2 frostclaws's. summon totem, teleport them all in front, and walk backwards. totems do all the work . . . . . i abuse the fact that they have a healthpool early on to do most the tanking for me so far.

edit: keeping frostclaw maxed seems to be what does this though, that one totem massacre's bosses. . . . alongside life on kill, i can just run up through several mobs, summon 1 totem and teleport to it. it waveclears everything for me

as for pesti, if it could be used during Deathlord (cast inside not cast then deathlord) i could see it having some viability as a farming build for speedclear content. i figured even without it may be decent for clearing. as necro seems to be relatively slow reaching bosses to kill. that summon totem > blink, and needing pax mystica to tele over walls seems to be somewhat problematic on traversing stuff quickly without the 3 second teleport charm that doesn't rely on totem and can go through a wall.

It's the reason i considered pesti or rotting flesh . . . . they can screenclear without needing 2-3 buttons and then time for the spell effects to go off from totems, or summons to reach the target. Which when farming your first TU set, can be a pretty big thing since you're repeat killing the same boss numerous times.

More fragile in hell but totem nec is still great for leveling. I did compare about summon and totem who is faster for leveling. But well not really needed.

Totem is almost shit for some early ubers tho and really frustrating later if you dont make good positions.

Pinball wrote:More fragile in hell but totem nec is still great for leveling. I did compare about summon and totem who is faster for leveling. But well not really needed.

Totem is almost shit for some early ubers tho and really frustrating later if you dont make good positions.

ya i'd expect to spec out of totem for ubers entirely, but strictly for leveling it seems rather effecient. . . . it looks like a farm build good for trash waves, but not that good at single bosses . . . . . though i could see a frost totem build being useful on some bosses if the totems didn't have a health pool, and are prone to just getting instakilled (which is what i've read being an issue on labrynth later floors)

is xbow a decent option starting at lvl 40? when you can spam farm mephy for a full TU set? or best to wait till later.

Tried my best with Frostclaw. My char did has 3k2 frostclaw but it is still shit. The problem is boss teleports too often. Frostclaw is multi-hit with low dmg but when the frost projectile reachs boss, they tele away. If the boss stay for few secs he will get massive dmg but well most of end game bosses in sigma is teleport-on-damaged boss.

Fireheart is your best boss killer: good range, good dmg and can get 2 extra Fireheart via Smokeless Fire.

Melee necro is also great for leveling and doing charm with cheap gear. And forget about xbow it sucks hard.

The game is hard. Its harder if you start with xbow.

i seem to see xbow being what people use to kill a lot of stuff with, at least some of the video's i've seen of it look promising.

the one thing that has me offput about it, is the 80% magic dmg conversion, which kind of crushes life leech (and likely the intent)

i guess what has me put off on melee necro atm is the lack of AoE. carnage is such a small area, and you only wanna put 1 point into parasite. so it has very few targets. and lacking a quick gapclose or teleport as well (before you can get the 130 charm, as Angel of Death is excruciatingly slow . . . . says warp strike, it's more like . . . . lets sit here and take a nap, maybe grab a snack while taking a slow motion jump to the target)

the list of TU's i have atm for melee are

Weapon - Talon's Reach
Chest - Werecat
belt - wormtongue | Dragon Tail
helm - Topspin
gloves - Featherclaw
boots - Zealot rush

idk if it hits breakpoints or not, not sure.

edit: it works fine, no issues. keeping at tu2 till nihlathak for upgrades . . . . . I put 5 points base into parasite for personal comfort when leveling, idk if i'll add more to it, but it feels like 5 for a 9 hit parasite is plenty.

cyborgtemplar wrote:i guess what has me put off on melee necro atm is the lack of AoE. carnage is such a small area, and you only wanna put 1 point into parasite. so it has very few targets. and lacking a quick gapclose or teleport as well (before you can get the 130 charm, as Angel of Death is excruciatingly slow . . . . says warp strike, it's more like . . . . lets sit here and take a nap, maybe grab a snack while taking a slow motion jump to the target)

You want to max parasite for farming purposes. Parasite rekts slain souls and necromorbs in duncraig and it's also great in fauztinville and teganze. It is bit clumsy in the early game, I personally went with only carnage until k3kba during first time playing melee necro, but parasite gets really good during mid game. It hits multiple targets and often outside of screen bouncing off walls and enemies, so you might not see all the damage it does. Definitely one of the best AoE skills in the game, maybe the best AoE skill for melee characters.