Need advice on melee necro

Hi, I'm playing a meelee necro, currently at act3 on Destruction and I'm trying farming Kurast and Thran Atula. So far it's a complete disaster. I struggle so hard on each totem and die quite often, while also getting wiped in Thran Atula, can't even approach Fauzt.

My build, I think, is the usual one - Deathlord, Parasite, Famine, Dragonfire Oil, Deathward and Embalming.

I've put 170 to dex and the rest to strength. My gear is as follows:

► Show Spoiler

I hope you can give me an advice on how to proceed. Any ideas that will get me out of my miserable situation are most helpful!

Here: viewtopic.php?f=40&t=554&p=22110#p22110

Very enlightening, thank you so much!

evergrey wrote:Very enlightening, thank you so much!

You're welcome. You can ask your questions in there as well and we can help you.

First finish brc if it is not complete yet.
Can show my setup that i used and what allowed me to farm k3k ta even with just sur rw weapon and tu6 all other items but since you upgraded your gear to high rws i will recommend to actually find sacred ancient armor and remake nih rw in it, witchhunters set cap ( cheap and very very usefull ), tu 6 chain gloves because of speeds bonuces low lvl req AR/Dex until you find actually something more better with Crush Blow str% skills like Facebreaker ssu chain gloves or something more better, nih rw boots in sacred greaves that you already have, sur rw weapon that have too and ofc keep deadfall belt because ctc SOR is godly and it will be not easy to find something better.

Rings and amulet: since i'm not a big fun of random rings or Xoring King rings i suggest you to roll a rare rings with 1 all skill ~- 20 enemy fire res and something more and 3 all skill amulet with Nightmare/Lightning Arena and ~-30 enemy fire res and you need to upgrade amulet for 2 more skills with lucky upgrade for 5 totall skills from amulet. Better to use dragon reroll with d2clicker or with reneval pots from merchants. Mo them with - fire/poison enemy res. So in totall with all your gear you better to have -100 fire/-100 poison enemy res. But -150 for each will be perfect but why you need that is an other story.

Also make a Necr stave with 12 necro skills. Find any, better with yellow name, necr stave ( tier 1-6 or sacred )anyuwhere on Destr and roll it until 12 necro skills. You will use it for prebuff to your Deathlord and Graveyard. Also create a Kra in necromant's wand rw for Hounfor oskill. It gives a circle that inside it give 10 all skills more. And make 15 all skill potions with 500 Craft points by using Perfect Sapphire + Scroll of Town Portal. So together you have +37 necro skills for a much much better prebuff for your Deathlord and Graveyard.
Dont forget that Deathlord gives 10 Str/Dex for each soft point of it so always max. So you don't need to focus much on moing weapon for more AR. Also make better craft jewels with as min 2% life leech, 2% str any xx% of AR and + life will be perfect.

Now what you do wrong - you ignore your brc skill. You dont need to max it 1 point will be enough. It will give you a great advantage and will proc Sur weapon ctc more. And can 1shot kill any non poison immune mob and even heroics.

@vadust, I've followed your guidance on the items although I still have to invest some time in rolling those rings and amulet. So my amulet is not that good then? I can't find info on the damage of the nova bomb proc, but I guess Nigthmare/Lightning Arena are stronger? For the weapons on switch, I have the Vizharan wand that I see is recommended as well. I admit that + 12 is also quite a buff. If I activate the buffs and remove the wand for the + 12 staff will that work? I also have the belt from the summoning necro set and it gives + 3 to skills but I guess Deadfall is way better for the proc.

I have so disregarded the graveyard skill indeed....right you are

It really rocks!

Nightmare ammu is helpful against Jitan or Terul sometimes but in all other terms it's kinda useless, because Nighmare oskill > Community set belt > nightmare amulet.

Lightning Arena can be helpful in Fauztinville (espec. in BRC) if you see that you die a lot there. when you get midgame gear Lightning Arena become useless (coz it's a choice for ranged WDM/caster build or squishy builds like nagisin but not for tanky melee builds who tend to move out of the Lightn. arena).

Nova bomb as any spell damage spell require a lot of stacked spell dmg and energy bonus from high energy + high energy factor. Without them dmg output will be low. Klaatu good for unholy melee ot FoN treewarden/ww(mb, since never tried ww ).

Point of Lightning arena in it circle stun. Yes it can be useless late but at mid part can save sometimes. But i never use it on any char even squishy since i dislike it but i saw a lot of ppl that are great fans of it.

Nightmare in taking damage is really good curse, it can not only slow it also add some chance to miss on attacks agains you but i have no idea is that a true and what it's real % and all known ability to stop heal from buffs, like it was mention about Jitan so his healing buff will not heal him under that curse. Terul have regeniration that can be stoped with Open Wounds. Also since i haven't checked Yshari long time ago and when i did that last time mb patch ago Andariel boss cast healing spell too so it is great way to stop her heal too.

For any active buff not a passive or not a stance items switching will not lower bonus. Also you can use Hounfor for Tained Blood better bonus ( 150 tcd why not ).

Personaly i stack high % cb ( >> 50% ) only in tiers, but later if you play at players 1 ( like 95% ppl do ) there will be no need to stack it because charms + morphs flat str multiplied with str% bonus from gear/charms will give such high EWD bonus so you will kill in 2 hits and with ctcs group or even screen in few hits. Especially if you play on server and plan to make XisSur version.

I just wanted to say that thanks to you guys I am happily farming Tran Athulua and Kurast collecting sacred uniques and sets. And I was wondering if these two items are worth considering:
[item]Goredrill[/item] - ethereal and [item]Huo Zhi Wang[/item][item]Huo Zhi Wang[/item]. Are fire splash and blood splash worthy in the late game + inner fire charges?

Goredrill is useful to have on your A2 Shapeshifter merc; the armor has nice fire spell damage and Inner Fire charges - Bloodzon will benefit a lot from this armor.