A. Teeth B. Bone Armor C. Poison Dagger D. Corpse Explosion E. Bone Wall
F. Poison Explosion G. Bone Spear H. Bone Prison I. Poison Nova J. Bone Spirit
This tree contains the skills for direct damage and other combat-oriented effects for necromancers. For basic statistics and information on the skills in the Poison and Bone Tree, refer to the Chaos Sanctuary. My commentary will assume familiarity with the information presented therein.
Some spells in this tree deal purely magical damage, as opposed to elemental damage. Monsters have specific magic resistance values, which are listed in the Chaos Sanctuary. Players have a base resistance of 0% against magical damage, and this cannot be augmented by equipment. This resistance is modified by -20% for Nightmare and -50% for Hell, and is not displayed for players on their character screens.
Note that poison damage does not stack: when a monster is poisoned, poisoning it again simply resets the duration of the poison attack to that of the current attack, and the damage/second of the earlier poison attack is lost completely. Poison's only redeeming quality is that it negates monster regeneration for the duration of the poison, rather than the actual damage it inflicts over time. Hence, repeatedly poisoning the same monster(s) instead of using other skills to take advantage of poison duration is a wasted effort.
The usefulness of poison damage is limited in other ways. Unless there is someone in the monster's immediate surroundings (thus keeping the area active), poison damage is not applied to the monster. Hence, if a necro poisons a monster and returns to town, the monster is not taking damage from the poison while he is in town. Also, poison damage (and incidentally, monster regeneration) is only correctly displayed on a monster if it has not been moving, so they display incorrect amounts of life while actively fleeing or pursuing a target. Lastly, weapons with the of Vileness modifier (prevents monster heal) also prevents the affected monster from taking poison damage. Because of these constraints, in order to make poison effectively deal damage, a necro must poison the monster, not use a weapon with the of Vileness modifier against the afflicted monster, and stay near the monster for the entire duration of the poison without leaving the area, while remembering that additional poison attacks during this time will only restore the poison duration back to its full value.
Poison skills are not recommended for general use due to the buggy manner in which poison damage is currently calculated by the game. No commentary (e.g. "My Slant") will be made on their usefulness due to poison's current implementation. However, players in multiplayer games may still wish to use poison to counter the increased regeneration rate of monsters.
A. Teeth
Some necros make the mistake of comparing teeth with the sorceress' charged bolts, since they're both clvl 1 skills which increase both in number of projectiles and projectile strength by increasing slvls. This is a faulty comparison, however, because of the fundamental difference between these two skills: teeth is limited to crowd control since the target can only be hit by one projectile, while for charged bolt the target can be hit by all the bolts that strikes it. A more accurate comparison of teeth is against the amazon's multishot: considering that multishot scales up in damage considerably with stronger bows and can be used to replenish life/mana, whereas teeth has pitiful damage increase per bolt, and it's easy to see why teeth is generally considered a vastly inferior skill.
A warning against the idea of investing heavily into teeth to try to spray it machine-gun style against groups of creatures: not only does the damage increase much too slowly to be useful outside of anything other than normal, but the mana increase of the spell makes this strategy completely cost-prohibitive. This is easily illustrated by comparing the damage output per mana point of teeth to bone spear.
Teeth inflicts magical damage, and can be resisted by magic resistance.
My Slant: As a prerequisite, this skill is useful to inflict minimal damage in the beginning, but is made completely obsolete by bone spear as a means of direct damage to monster groups. For efficient play, no more than a single skill point should be invested here.
B. Bone Armor
Some necromancers dismiss bone armor's ability to absorb physical damage completely, since it does not allow them to tank indefinitely as mana shield did for sorcerers in the original Diablo. They are wrong: bone armor is one of the necromancer's most important defensive skills, simply because it allows them more room for error and can somewhat compensate for adverse lag situations. Unless using a playing style similar to a combat necro, the typical necromancer is likely to be fleeing after taking damage from the first one or two physical hits, and it is precisely the damage from these hits that bone armor is designed to negate, since it stays up indefinitely once cast until it has absorbed all it can.
Consider this: a slvl 1(+4) bone armor and a necromancer with 300 hp. If the necro takes 100 points of damage from 2 physical attacks before he retreats to safety, the bone armor has absorbed 60% (60 points) of the attack damage. If the necro retreats successfully after just one attack for 50 points, then the bone armor has absorbed 100% of the damage. Conversely, even in the unlikely occurance that the necro stands there and receives every single physical attack until he dies, the bone armor will still have effectively boosted his hp by 20% (absorb 60 points versus 300 hp). Compare these damage absorbed percentages against the damage converted to mana percentages for the sorceress' mana shield to gain a sense of how effective bone armor can be. A necro may wish to adjust the numbers in this example for his planned slvl of bone armor and his actual +skills, hp, and average monster damage to judge how effective bone armor would be in his situation.
Note that unlike mana shield, no mana is lost when the bone armor absorbs damage. A necromancer wearing items with the Vulpine modifier, or Infernal Cranium (cap), Nightsmoke (belt), and Howltusk (great helm) will gain mana equal to the percentage of damage absorbed by the bone armor, even though he will lose no life in the process.
Iron maiden will not return the damage absorbed by bone armor.
Bone armor absorbs damage after factoring in -damage modifiers (which only apply to physical damage), but before factoring in the 50% damage reduction in PvP. Hence, it will be much less effective against a player who has declared hostility against the necromancer. All overflow damage from a single attack is dealt to the necromancer, although whether or not this will stun the necro is based only on the overflow damage, and not the actual attack damage (negated plus absorbed plus overflow).
Bone armor is especially important for low or no-minion necros. It can also be a useful visual indicator to warn when damage is being taken, instead of automatically losing life from these hits.
Bone armor can be restored to full strength simply by recasting it, even if the necro is already under its effects.
My Slant: There's a transparent bias in favor of bone armor in my analysis above, but I did so on purpose to illustrate exactly why bone armor is effective. At slvl 1, it is -20 points of damage to each attack in the hands of a skilled necro in optimal conditions, and even more so depending on skill points invested and +skill items. Even in lag-heavy situations, reducing the damage of a small group of hits that connect by 50 or 60 points can be a lifesaver. I definitely recommend at least one point to give your necro some basic defense against melee and ranged attackers. Note that even though the amount absorbed by bone armor increases linearly, its actual effectiveness increases better than linearly per slvl for a couple of reasons: first, the damage absorbed to mana cost ratio improves; and second, having a stronger bone armor reduces the chance that a volley of physical attacks will deplete the entire armor to take off any hp before the necro has a chance to renew it. With a maxed bone armor, the skilled necromancer can escape most melee situations without taking any damage whatsoever, which is vastly superior to the effects of additional slvls into mana shield for the sorceress for the case of physical attacks. Low and no-minion necros especially should consider some investment into bone armor.
C. Poison Dagger
Poison dagger is unique in that it is the only poison skill a necro has whose damage/time ratio actually increases with additional slvls. However, it can be awkward to use because the damage must be delivered by melee combat, which is ill-suited to most necro playing styles.
Poison dagger's effectiveness in the higher difficulty levels is severely limited by being restricted to daggers. Since this skill can only be used with daggers and cannot be used in conjunction with weapons with the of Piercing modifier (only available on wands, staffs, and scepters), this forces the necros to invest heavily into dexterity and/or items with AR bonuses, since necros lack AR-enhancing or DR-reducing skills.
Certain items can be used effectively with poison dagger. These include Coif of Glory (helm), Iceblink (splint mail), Mask of Horrors (mask), Rattlecage (gothic plate), and daggers with the Howling modifier.
Bonuses to the poison dagger skill cannot appear on wands.
D. Corpse Explosion
Corpse explosion was dethroned from Uberskill status with the v1.03 nerf, which fixed the bug that allowed its damage to scale up with increasing monster hp in multiplayer games and reduced the rate of its radius increase with additional slvls. As it exists right now, however, corpse explosion remains one of the most powerful skills in the necromancer's repertoire.
A common complaint by necros who are used to the ridiculously overpowered pre-nerf corpse explosion is, "Corpse explosion is worthless in multiplayer!" This is utterly wrong. Consider this example: three maw fiends with 1300 hp are within range of another maw fiend corpse (also 1300 hp). The corpse is detonated with an slvl 6 corpse explosion (20 mana) for 80% damage to all 3 maw fiends, resulting in 3120 total damage. In comparison, it would require roughly 9.5 castings of an slvl 20 bone spirit to equal this damage output, which costs nearly 200 mana (10 times more!). In Hell difficulty, corpse explosion is simply the fastest, most damaging, and most mana-efficient direct damage spell available to the necromancer. The fact that it now works at a fraction of its former effectiveness in multiplayer games simply means that it deals damage in a way consistent with the vast majority of direct damage spells and skills in the game, and that necros who want to use corpse explosion heavily in multiplayer games will actually be forced to specialize in the skill to increase its radius in order to make full use of each corpse and to compensate for the more corpses it takes to kill each individual monster in multiplayer. The problem with low slvl corpse explosion in multiplayer games lies in its corpse inefficiency and not in its damage, and this is due to players not being willing to accept the high mana cost and skill point tradeoffs in specializing in this skill. Simply put, effective use of corpse explosion in multiplayer games after the v1.03 patch now requires specialization.
Physical resistance will reduce the damage from corpse explosion, and conversely amplify damage and decrepify increase damage from corpse explosion.
For a commentary on the usefulness of CE in multiplayer games, refer to the Appendix.
My Slant: Corpse explosion is the backbone of the Arty playing style, and necros devoting themselves to this path will want some heavy investments into this skill. For other necros, investment will vary by taste. Optimal investment into corpse explosion requires considering the tradeoffs between corpse efficiency, mana supply, skill point availability, other skills learned, and number of planned players per game, among other factors. As with many other skills, 1 point can be a good starting point to test the skills before deciding if your necro will continue farther down this path.
E. Bone Wall
Many necros are quick to dismiss bone wall as being worthless outside of Normal. This is because they are unaware that bone wall hp actually scales up by difficulty level. Bone walls have 19 hp base in Normal, 147 hp in Nightmare, and 431 hp in Hell. It is unknown exactly how hp increases by slvl are handled by difficulty, but my conjecture is that the hp increases also scale accordingly.
The individual "pieces" of the bone wall have their own hp (listed above), and each one is monitored and calculated independently. The first piece of the wall to "die" will cause all the other pieces of the same bone wall casting to crumble as well. Hence, a group of monsters will not collectively tear down a bone wall faster than a single monster automatically, since the hp of the wall is essentially the hp of its weakest piece: only when multiple monsters attack the same piece will the wall fail more quickly.
AI-modifying curses (such as terror) can be extremely useful to prevent monsters from attacking the same section of the wall. Monsters who do not automatically attack the wall may also have AI difficulties in navigating around them, depending on the terrain and positioning. Bone wall is also useful to reset the AI pathfinding and targetting algorithms on monsters when used in conjunction with curses like confuse and attract.
Shooting a bone spear through the bone walls at monsters will only damage the specific pieces of the wall that were pierced. Bone spirits ignores the wall entirely.
Bone wall can be used in allied play to give teammates a safe target from which to steal life and mana. The necromancer can also steal mana from his own bone walls using his weapon if he has mana steal items equipped.
As with golems and other minions, damage dealt to bone wall can be reflected by iron maiden. However, the necromancer receives no experience for monsters killed in this way.
Because of the hp scaling of the bone wall by difficulty levels, additional slvls into bone wall dramatically improves its hp/mana efficiency late in the game.
My Slant: Bone wall may replace golems entirely for low- or no-minion necros, depending on how well the necro in question is able to utilize this skill. The long span of the wall allows more consistent blocking of incoming monsters than a golem, and can even be used to corral monsters to make AoE (area of effect) spells such as corpse explosion more effective. A single point here is definitely recommended for those using playing styles outside of playing Summoners. For a truly mana-efficient hp/mana skill to invest in for the long term, it may be worthwhile to hold off heavy skill point expenditure until bone prison.
F. Poison Explosion
This skill effectively destroys a corpse for 8 mana, leaving the necromancer with cloud of poison that does a static 18.75 hp/sec of poison damage (regardless of slvl) to show for his efforts. Additional slvls simply increases the poison length. Please refer to my introduction comments to the Poison and Bone Tree for other comments.
G. Bone Spear
Bone spear's main strength is its early availability compared to bone spirit. Its arrival makes the underpowered teeth obsolete, and provides the necromancer with a consistent and useful source of direct damage to last him for the entirety of Normal difficulty.
Bone spear's piercing effect can be situationally useful, but the spell can be lacking in overall power and usefulness. Against multiple monsters, its ability to damage multiple enemies and its mana efficiency doesn't nearly compare to that of corpse explosion; against single monsters, it deals damage at only half the rate of a similar-level bone spirit. Hence, although bone spear does moderate damage to monsters and can be used in a mana-efficient way against multiple targets, it does neither particularly well compared to the other direct damage skills available to the necro.
Bone spear inflicts magical damage, and can be resisted by magic resistance.
My Slant: If your necro will not be venturing out of Normal difficulty, then bone spear is the perfect direct damage spell for your necro to specialize in, as it will be more mana efficient and effective than either corpse explosion or bone spirit (at the available slvl) against the weaker monsters in the game. However, bone spear becomes less and less effective as the difficulty increases, and necros who will be fighting in Hell are generally better off specializing in bone spirit instead since the early availability of bone spear becomes irrelevant past clvl 49. Bone spear simply cannot compete with wide effectiveness of corpse explosion or the high single-target damage and speed of bone spirit. For Arty necros, corpse explosion and bone spirit complement each other much better than do bone spear and bone spirit. Skill point expenditure here varies by playing style and by playing goals, as described above.
H. Bone Prison
Bone prison differs specifically from bone wall in a couple of notable ways. The most obvious one is in its shape, of course. Bone prison can temporarily incapacitate individual or even small groups of monsters at once. However, necros looking for a long-term "tanking" skill to invest in will find it in bone prison: even though its original mana cost is high, its decreasing cost per additional slvl allows for incredible hp/mana efficiency when the hp difficulty-scaling (identical to that of bone wall) is factored into account.
For more details, please refer to the analysis for bone wall: much of the information remains the same for bone prison.
Although bone prison requires a target to cast, it can be cast upon any existing section of a bone wall or another bone prison. It can also be cast upon a minion, once the necro has highlighted one using the unsummon skill.
My Slant: Although lacking the wide span of bone wall, bone prison's ability to automatically encompass and trap monsters proves invaluable in most combat situations, especially for Arty necros. Summoners might want to use this skill for particularly troublesome uniques as well. Due to its high mana cost at low slvls, it's not a good idea to automatically put a point into this skill if your necro will not be significantly developing it; in most cases it's better to simply stay with bone wall if saving skill points here is a major concern.
I. Poison Nova
This skill poisons surrounding targets radially for a static 15.6 hp/sec of poison damage (regardless of slvl). Additional slvls simply increases the poison length. This is the easiest method of apply poison damage to a group of creatures to prevent their regeneration. Please refer to my introduction to the Poison and Bone Tree for other comments.
J. Bone Spirit
The tracking of bone spirit is done based on its targeting. Simply targeting the monster means that the bone spirit will begin tracking it as soon as it has been cast. Targeting an empty spot on the floor will cause the bone spirit to travel there in a straight line, and then it will attempt to "find" a target once it has reached that point and track it in the same way as if had be fired from that spot in the manner described above. Aiming for targets around corners using the second method is an elementary way of augmenting the tactical effectiveness of bone spirit. This method will also allow the bone spirit to act as a scout to detect any enemies near the targeted location.
The main drawback to bone spirit is in its place on the Poison and Bone tree. Because its damage is almost unusable at the lowest slvls, necros who plan on specializing in this skill will need to find other ways of coping until bone spirit has developed enough to be used regularly. Once bone spirit has reached the highest levels, however, it becomes a devastating weapon.
The same outspoken necros who have wisely concluded that corpse explosion is useless in multiplayer games have also deemed bone spirit worthless in similar situations. The fundamental problem lies in their assumption that being able to solo in 8-player games with no additional difficulty is a god-given right as a necro, even though other classes have to deal with the problem of monster hp increasing proportionally as well. We only have the pre-nerf corpse explosion and the low-risk nature of revive and iron maiden to thank for this mentality.
Bone spirit inflicts magical damage, and can be resisted by magic resistance.
My Slant: Bone spirit gives the necro a very important form of direct damage, in a concentrated and precise mode of delivery. Unfortunately, this skill requires heavy skill point expenditure across many levels to be effective, since it is learned at such a late point in the game that it is not generally effective immediately when learned. For Summoners, bone spirit acts as a way to directly damage monsters when their other methods of fighting are indirect and inconsistent at times; with the other main playing style, bone spirit and corpse explosion work effectively together for the Arty. In general, this skill falls into the "all or none" category in terms of skill expenditure for almost all playing styles.
A. Amplify Damage B. Dim Vision C. Weaken D. Iron Maiden E. Terror
F. Confuse G. Life Tap H. Attract I. Decrepify J. Lower Resist
The Curses tree is an incredibly varied but poorly-understood tree, and learning to make full use of these spells (outside of only amplify damage and iron maiden) is the difference between a beginning necromancer and an experienced one. For basic statistics and information on the skills in the Curses Tree, refer to the Chaos Sanctuary. My commentary will assume familiarity with the information presented therein. Be sure to pay particular attention to the general information about curses, especially in that many of them do not work on uniques and champions, most do not stack together, and also that many curses last only one-half of their normal duration in Nightmare and one-quarter in Hell. Moving the cursor over a skill icon for a curse will display its correct duration for that difficulty level. More information on these restrictions is given in the specific spell listing in the Chaos Sanctuary, and the more relevant ones will be discussed below.
Curses in general have remarkably low obsolescence factors.
A. Amplify Damage
Many people mistaken believe that amplify damage doubles the amount of physical damage received by the accursed. They are right--in some cases. However, the general way that amplify damage works is to lower the afflicted target's effective physical (damage) resist by 100%. For a monster without physical resistances, this will indeed double the damage inflicted. However, the higher the monster's base physical resistance, the more effective amplify damage works: against a 50% physical resistant monster, amplify damage drops its resistance to -50% percent and thus triples the amount of physical damage it receives. Against a 90% physical monster, this curse drops the target's resistance down to -10% and thus multiplies physical damage by 11 times. Because of this, the primary use of amplify damage is against physical resistant monsters such as bug swarms and wraiths.
Amplify damage also works well with "swarm" tactics. If a necro's minions can inflict more damage with amplify damage compared to how much physical damage they can reflect with iron maiden, then it is to his advantage to use amplify damage instead of iron maiden in these situations. For example, amplify damage works much better against Izual than does iron maiden when used in conjunction with a large group of revives, as is the case against spellcasting monsters.
Amplify damage obviously works well for necros who spend a significant amount of time in melee combat, or if they have groupmates who do so, and in other similar situations where the emphasis is in dealing physical damage instead of reflecting physical damage for reasons of character safety. Amplify increases the physical portion of the damage from corpse explosion, although it will not increase the damage of other bone spells.
My Slant: Since this serves as the foundation for six other curses, at least one point here is required here as a prerequisite for significant development into this tree. Fortunately, this is one of the most useful prerequisite spells in the game. Because the damage bonus does not increase with additional slvls and because it has a low cost, there's very little reason to add more points beyond the first for a duration and radius increase instead of simply casting it more times. For almost all necromancers, a single skill point here is the optimum investment, especially considering +skills and +all skills items.
B. Dim Vision
The first of the AI-modifying curses, dim vision has many important tactical uses. Monsters afflicted by dim vision have their detection radius reduced to the area immediately adjacent to them, and they simply stand still for the duration of the curse once they have finished their current command (that is, the action they have engaged in). In most cases this means that when they'll hit, they will simply take another step or two and stand still while doing nothing as long as the curse lasts, even if hit by a ranged attack or spell from a distance. However, if they are already attacking or pursuing, they will continue to do so until they finish their current action (stop attacking or running). Also, the afflicted monster can still "see" targets next to them, and will attack as normal. Hence, dim vision is primarily used to temporarily disable ranged attackers, and to disable enough monsters to make a large group of them more manageable.
Another good use for dim vision is to separate approaching uniques from their pack of followers. Since uniques and champions are not affected by this curse, the unique in this case will continue forward while its minions simply stand there and wait.
Dim vision will not overwrite confuse or attract, but can be overridden by either spell. This can be handy for stopping an entire approaching pack to maintain a safe distance before using confuse or attract, or it can be used to force monsters to stand still and suffer damage from a confused or attracted monster's ranged attack. There are many other ways to combine dim vision with one of these two spells, typically by casting dim vision first.
My Slant: Even as a prerequisite for the highly useful confuse and attract, dim vision is worth a skill point even in its own right. This will be enough for most necros, but note its reduced duration in Nightmare and Hell. Curse-specialized necros and other necros who plan to make heavy use of dim vision in later difficulties might want to invest more points here for casting time, mana, and safety reasons, since having a monster unexpectedly "unfreeze" while one is engaged elsewhere can be dangerous.
C. Weaken
Weaken has possibly the most limited range of uses out of all the curses in this tree. The situations where weaken can be useful include when grouped with a sorceress or amazon, against a large group of ranged attackers, and to reduce the chance of one-hit kills from enemies such as the Smith and Hephasto. These uses are highly dependent on the playing style of all involved, but generally weaken finds its uses in situations where minions are not being employed.
The -33% damage from weaken is eclipsed by the -50% damage from decrepify, although it enjoys a longer duration and lower mana cost.
My Slant: Because of its limited usefulness, weaken should only be learned if you are also planning on learning terror, decrepify, or lower resist. Since its effectiveness doesn't increase by slvl (only its radius and duration does) and its weakening effect is less than that of decrepify, investing more than a single point here is less effective overall than investing into other skills.
D. Iron Maiden
This is one of the necro's two Uberspells--the other being revive--and these two work incredibly well together. Unlike many curses, iron maiden's effect becomes even stronger with each additional skill point, and this has naturally lead to massive pumping of this spell. The main reason why iron maiden is so much more effective than the paladin's thorns is simple: the necromancer has a much, much easier time acquiring minions to absorb the damage necessary to trigger the damage from this curse. Also, not only does iron maiden work well with golems, but its power is astronomically increased even higher by the absurd BG/IM "undocumented feature"/bug. These factors have combined to make iron maiden easily the most popular necro curse, and the only necro curse for many necros.
As if iron maiden even needed more power, it also stacks temporarily with either confuse or attract, for up to 2 seconds after the casting of the second curse. Although it will appear from the animation that the new curse has replaced the original curse, this is actually only a cosmetic effect and the monster in question is indeed affected by both curses. It does not matter whether iron maiden is cast first or last in this sequence.
Although iron maiden cannot be triggered by magical attacks or ranged physical attacks at a distance, it does get triggered by ranged physical attacks within melee range.
Even skeletons and clay golems can be useful late in the game using iron maiden. Regardless of the minion used to trigger the attack, iron maiden is the easiest way to dispatch of extremely strong melee monsters, such as Duriel and Hephasto.
Iron maiden does not return the same amount of damage if the target of their returned damage is a player. While it returns 200% + 25%/slvl against monsters, they return 1/10 of that amount against players. This is farther halved for PvP, for 1/20 total. The damage returned by iron maiden is considered physical damage, and will be modified by physical resistance.
Combat necros should choose a different curse for general use, especially in later difficulties.
For a commentary on the BG/IM bug, refer to the Appendix.
My Slant: Advising Summoners to eventually max this skill is the easiest recommendation I can give in this entire guide. Yes, this skill complements minions just that well--which is too well, unfortunately. This is not the only curse Summoners will find useful, however, and iron maiden is decidedly less useful to other playing styles covered in this guide. Definitely think twice before simply rushing to max this as soon as possible, however, since this easily reaches overkill in all but high-capacity multiplayer games at the higher levels. If minions are not your necro's specialty, it's likely he won't be investing too heavily here.
E. Terror
Terror is another useful AI-modifying curse. Monsters cursed with terror attempt to flee in the opposite direction from the caster for the duration of the curse, and will keep trying to flee even if they become stuck in a corner or some other terrain obstacle. Terror effectively stacks with any curse, however, since they will continue to flee for the entire duration of the spell, even after the terror animation has been overridden by another curse. Although terror may appear to be defensive in nature, there are a huge number of possible offensive tactics can arise from herding monsters in a certain direction, which renders an entire pack immobile once they become stuck. This works particularly well in party play with AoE spells such as blizzard and meteor, as well as massive volleys of ranged attacks such as multishot and strafe. This tactic is called "reverse kiting" among EverQuest players.
Similar to dim vision, terror can be effectively used to separate uniques from their followers, since uniques and champions are unaffected by this curse. Terror has many other defensive uses, such as in thinning overwhelming monster packs, but one of its most important uses occurs in multiplayer. Terror can immediately clear the area around a besieged groupmate in many cases, thus allowing for quick escape.
Unlike many other AI-modifying curses, terror's duration is not reduced in later difficulties.
Terror has other interesting features, which are described in the Chaos Sanctuary.
My Slant: A single point into terror can make a necro a literal lifesaver in party play, and this skill has enough general uses to warrant this investment for almost all necros. Additional points into terror isn't absolutely required, since its duration does not decrease by difficulty; however, since many tactics with terror are based on stacking spells during its duration, some skill investment into this curse will make these methods much more effective for tactical play.
F. Confuse
Confuse and attract are similar and complementary AI-modifying curses. Although a monster can only be affected by one of these two curses at a time, they work best in different situations. These two spells are poorly understood by many necromancers.
Confuse works by causing the afflicted monster(s) to attack the closest target, whether monster, minion, or player. The interesting quirk of this spell is that a confused monster will not attack another confused monster; this is important since confuse has a wide radius of effect which increases with slvls, thus making the spell somewhat tricky to use. For example, if all monsters are confused and there are no minions present, then they will all simply continue to attack the caster since there are no other valid targets.
Note that although confused monsters will not initially target each other, they may inadvertently hit each other (i.e. with ranged attacks or attacks with area effects) and retaliate accordingly, leading to battles among confused monsters. Whenever confused monsters have a chance to find a new target, however, they will attempt to choose a nearby non-confused monster as their target.
Monsters already engaged in the act of attacking or pursuing a character can be prompted to choose a new target by either interrupting their actions, allowing them to complete, or by running away far enough or getting them stuck in some way to disengage their current AI command. Their current pathfinding and targetting algorithm must be disrupted, which can be done by moving far enough away, erecting a bone wall or bone prison in its path, or by unsummoning a minion that it is currently fighting.
Using confuse in conjunction with terror will cause entire groups of monsters to disperse and cause the confused ones to hunt the non-confused ones down. Terror will have to be cast first in this case. There are many similar ways of using confuse against groups of monsters. Confuse also stacks temporarily for up to 2 seconds with iron maiden regardless of which was cast first, even though only the animation for the last curse cast will be displayed on the monster.
Confuse works especially well with unique packs: since uniques do not become affected by confuse, all of the confused followers will attack their unique leader if he's the only non-confused target nearby. Uniques with the "cursed" feature can heal another monster's confuse by cursing them with amplify damage as they fight each other.
The duration of confuse is reduced to 1/2 in Nightmare, and 1/4 in Hell. In addition to uniques and champions, oblivion knights are also immune to confuse. This makes them especially vulnerable to its effects when there are other nearby monsters.
My Slant: Confuse is one of the most useful and interesting curses available to the necro. Its increasing AoE is both a blessing and a curse, so point investment here will be highly personal. The usefulness of the increased duration compared to the radius increase and skill point expenditure is really for you to judge--if you're not sure, I would suggest putting a single point here and testing out exactly how much you need. This curse is useful for almost all necro playing styles.
G. Life Tap
Outside of keeping an iron golem alive, life tap is mainly used to help melee allies against monsters. Due to its high life steal percentage (50%), it works especially well for party play in conjunction multiple-hit melee attacks, such as whirlwind and zeal, to keep the attacker nearly invincible. Party members using bows, crossbows, and other ranged weapon attacks will also benefit from life tap, although the healing is usually much less needed in than it is for melee attackers. Combat necros may also find this curse useful to quickly regain lost life. Summoners will typically use other curses to increase damage dealt by minions instead of using life tap, since keeping minions alive is usually not a high priority.
Life tap can be used with certain melee attacks that would not otherwise steal life. Smite is an example of such an attack.
Life tap works especially well with iron golems.
My Slant: If your necro will be playing cooperative multiplayer, if his playing style makes this curse useful, and/or if you plan on having him learn lower resist, then a single point into life tap is recommended. Since life tap's effectiveness does not increase with increasing slvls, it's not necessary to invest additional skill points here. Note the low radius of life tap at lower slvls, but this is usually not a problem since the spell is most useful for melee, and a wide AoE with this curse usually isn't necessary to make it useful for close combat.
H. Attract
Attract and confuse are similar and complementary AI-modifying curses. Although a monster can only be affected by one of these two curses at a time, they work best in different situations. These two spells are poorly understood by many necromancers.
Attract works by causing the surrounding monster(s) to attack the afflicted monster, which causes the afflicted monster to immediately retaliate and defend itself. It does not affect the afflicted monster in any way, and it will not cause the afflicted monster to immediately stop attacking the necromancer himself. Attract simply marks the afflicted monster as a target of equal importance to all nearby monsters, and monsters will generally attack the closest target. Multiple attracted monsters in close proximity will freely attack each other, in a free-for-all style. The radius listed for the spell is useful only to allow the targeting of off-screen enemies, since attract only affects a single target. The afflicted monster is not considered "allied" with the necromancer in the sense that partied effects (such as auras and warcries) are not shared with it, unlike with the paladin's conversion. The necromancer is free to attack the attracted monster, and the attracted monster will also attack any minions or players nearby if it hasn't already engaged in combat. Comparisons of attract to a "long range conversion which never fails" can be helpful for newbies and are somewhat accurate, but fails to adequately describe the full range of advantages and drawbacks to attract.
In order for attract to work, the monster's current pathfinding and targetting algorithm must be disrupted. This can be done many ways, including by moving far enough away, erecting a bone wall or bone prison in its path, or by unsummoning a minion that it is currently fighting.
Monsters with reviving ability will not revive any corpses for the full duration of attract. Since they are high priority targets and are often surrounded by large groups of monsters they are able to revive, this makes attract especially useful against monsters with reviving ability.
Attract is extremely effective in generating corpses for corpse explosion and/or revive, especially at higher monster density, higher slvls, and lower difficulty levels. Many of the tactics which work with confuse will also work with attract. Attract also temporarily stacks for up to 2 seconds with iron maiden regardless of which was cast first, even though only the animation for the last curse casted will be displayed on the monster. In general, attract should be the last curse cast into a group of monsters, since it only affects a single target and will simply overwrite most other curses.
Uniques with the "cursed" feature can heal another monster's attract by cursing them with amplify damage when they fight each other.
The duration of attract is reduced to 1/2 in Nightmare, and 1/4 in Hell. In addition to uniques and champions, oblivion knights are also immune to attract.
My Slant: Attract is one of the best curses available to the necromancer, due to its extreme single-target precision in the hands of a skilled necro and its lack of drawbacks with increasing slvls, other than the lost skill points. Although less curse-dependent playing styles (such as Summoners) will find attract reasonably effective with only a single point expended, additional points help counter the duration reduction at higher difficulties to allow for fire-and-forget or fire-and-flee freedom in safely using attract. Attract also has the highest duration increase per slvl of all the curses (3.6 seconds per slvl), so additional slvls can be very helpful. I find this curse to be useful for virtually all playing styles, and at least one point here is highly recommended. Feel free to allocate more points into attract as you want or need.
I. Decrepify
Decrepify is interesting in that it combines the effects of two lesser curses, and adds a unique effect of its own. The stated effect of decrepify is that it slows the afflicted; this will also slow its attack speed. However, what is less well-known is that it also decreases physical (damage) resist by 50% (compared to the 100% decrease of amplify damage), and also decreases physical attack damage by 50% (compared to the 33% decrease of weaken). Decrepify's multiple effects make it a very useful curse due to the general inability for many curses to stack with each other.
Note that speed changes to decrepify take place only after the last command has been completed, whether for monsters or players. Thus, continuing to run without stopping at the instant when decrepify is cast allows the player to run at normal speed until he stops running, while he will need to stop running temporality in order to reset his speed once decrepify has worn off.
The main drawbacks to decrepify are its low radius and short duration. Although this is one of the most powerful curses available to necromancers due to its multiple effects, the low increase in radius and duration forces the necromancer to cast this curse many times to be effective, at all but the highest slvls. Fortunately, the duration of decrepify stays constant through all 3 difficulty levels.
My Slant: Investment into this curse will vary highly by personal taste. Some will need the additional skill points to use this effectively, while others will have no problems recasting when using it with only one point. As with most other curses, I suggest using just a single point to gauge its effectiveness before seriously investing into this spell. Low- and non-minion necros will find the slowing and damage reduction of this spell especially useful.
J. Lower Resist
Lower resist lowers the fire, cold, lightning, poison, and magic resistances of the afflicted by the displayed value for the spell's slvl. Since this is done by subtraction, negative values can result from this curse, which causes the afflicted to take additional damage from those elements. This damage is calculated before the maximum cap is taken into account: for example, a monster with 100% resist to cold will have its cold resistance subtracted from the full 100% value, instead of from the 75% cap for maximum resists on monsters and players. Players have 0% magic resistance which is not displayed on the character screen and cannot be augmented by equipment.
Monsters afflicted by lower resist will considerably more damage from many necro skills, including corpse explosion, bone spear, bone spirit, any poison skill, skeletal mages, and magic-using revives. In addition, lower resist is an excellent curse to use in conjunction with elemental-wielding party members, especially amazons and sorceresses.
Lower resist has the highest mana cost of all curses for a single cast, although it stays for a reasonable duration.
My Slant: Used properly, lower resist can be a devastating curse. For example, supporting a group of skeletal mages can greatly improve their effectiveness. This is an important curse for many playing styles, including for Arty necros. If your necro already has the prerequisites, it's definitely worth investing a point here, although you may think twice about acquiring all the necessary prerequisites for your necro if this is the only curse he will be heavily using.
A. Summoning Necro B. Arty Necro C. Combat Necro D. Cursing Necro E. Conclusions
A. Summoning Necro
Playing the Summoner is one of the easiest and most straightforward playing styles in all of Diablo 2, exceeded only by the WW barbarian and the "Hammerdin." The basic tactics are simple: IM everything that moves, and revive everything that dies. This explains its overwhelming popularity on Battle.net, and some less-educated necro players even consider all other styles of playing the necromancer as variants. The mana demands for revives and IM are low, thus allowing for virtually any attribute distribution to work; in fact, the stats of the actual necromancer under this playing style are almost completely irrelevant, thanks to the effectiveness of the two Uberskills working in combination. Even a moderately-skilled Summoner should be able to full clear Hell difficulty solo wearing nothing more than a shield. The newbie-forgiving factors of this playing style have caused the overall skill level of necro players to dilute noticeably, although not quite to barbarian levels yet. In multiplayer games, groupmates tend to heartily curse the traffic jams caused by the Summoner's minions (especially indoors), but invariably they take refuge behind the same minions without complaint whenever necessary.
Summoners obviously focus heavily upon revive and iron maiden, but other useful skills to invest into include bone spirit and attract.
B. Arty Necro
The other primary necro playing style fittingly sits on the other extreme of the "pump up minions at the cost of self" philosophy of the Summoner. Instead, the Arty focuses on using his own massive direct damage spells to quickly cut a path through all obstacles, similar to a sorceress. A properly-played Arty can clear Hell difficulty faster than any other playing style in single player. An energy-heavy attribute distribution and high mana bonuses from equipment combined with a large sum of casting speed bonuses is crucial for the Arty to be able to chain cast bone spirits to set up his massive corpse explosions. Since many skill points are being diverted into the bone skills, the Arty will have to skillfully use a golem, a handful of revives, bone wall/prison, or curses in order to keep monsters off his back. Many of the so-called low-summon or golem-only necros on B.net are in fact nothing more than Arty necros supplemented by the BG/IM bug. Arty necros in cooperative multiplayer tend to play a support role in quickly dispatching problematic targets and thinning out large crowds, although they can still wreak serious havoc when supplied with a steady supply of corpses by their groupmates.
Other than bone spirit and corpse explosion, the Arty may find bone armor and lower resist useful in conjunction with whatever method they've chosen as a means of monster distraction.
C. Combat Necro
This alternate playing style builds on the necromancer's capabilities as a melee fighter. By developing strength, dexterity, and vitality at the cost of mana, the combat necro attempts to mimic the fighting style of melee fighters while retaining the complex set of skills available to necromancers. They typically eschew wands in favor of combat weapons such as swords, and especially daggers for the poison dagger skill early on. In the later difficulties, a piercing weapon may be necessary to allow the necromancer to connect regularly with his attacks, although some combat necros evolve to adding bone spear and/or bone spirit as ranged attacks to complement their melee development. Using curses will be a key factor in surviving with the combat necro, and these curses will also help the group in multiplayer games.
Although combat necros are likely to focus on poison dagger and dim vision early, eventual development of bone armor and decrepify can be helpful along with some other methods of monster distraction.
D. Cursing Necro
An alternate playing style designed for maximum creativity and fun at the expense of time efficiency, cursing necros specialize in curses and indirect methods of attack to prolong battles and manipulate its outcomes. A wide variety of curses will typically be used by a cursing necro, but typically the AI-modifying curses will find the most use. The low mana cost of most curses allow for a broad and balanced attribute distribution, although perhaps strength and vitality may receive some emphasis to allow for more defensive mistakes to perform maneuvers with higher intrinsic risks. The main flaw in the planning of cursing necros tends to be insufficient preparation in dealing with a serious shortage of hotkeys. Cursing necros waste a disproportionate amount of time playing god with their victims, and are primarily of entertainment value in groups.
Among the wide range of possibilities for a cursing necro, one setup might emphasize terror and confuse, supplemented by bone wall and poison nova.
E. Conclusions
Although a few necromancer skills are strong (even overpoweredly-strong) enough to use on their own, a truly effectively-played necromancer combines careful strategic choices in attribute distribution, equipment selection, and skill point allocation with tactical finesse in execution by using the right combination of skills in the right situations. Even less obviously-powerful skills can be the most effective and perfect skill as the situation necessitates, and experienced variant players can do so even with (or perhaps because of) the addition of various creative rules and constraints. Therefore, understanding the full array of necromancer skills and learning to build a character around the intended skills selections are the key to becoming a better necromancer player, and also in having more fun while doing it from playing exactly the way you want to play. On that note, following someone else's instructions verbatim neither makes anyone the most effective nor the best player--the opposite tends to be true. Diablo 2 is easy enough so that neither completing the game at any difficulty nor achieving any ladder position is automatically a worthwhile accomplishment on its own (that is to say, without factoring in other constraints) for any truly accomplished player. Therefore, I say the following: do not be deluded into thinking that beating Diablo 2 automatically makes you (or anyone) a "good" player. True excellence comes from being a student of game, and I hope I've opened some doors into the game for my fellow player-students who are also interested in learning how to truly use the necromancer, with all of his various nuances.
It's been a privilege sharing this information with open and inquiring minds.
Let's forget CE before 1.02--it was obviously way too strong. Let's look at CE in 1.03: specifically, let's look at CE in multiplayer Hell in 1.03, since this is where the "CE is useless" people are coming from. Let's start with the math: in Hell, CE beats bone spirit in speed, damage, and mana efficiency. Those are given; we don't need to talk about it any farther. So let's look at the real problem with CE: corpses.
CE does 60-100% damage--we'll average to 80% for simplicity. Half of that is physical, and the other half is fire. Against a non-resistant monster, we need 1.25 CE's to kill a monster. Against a max resistant monster, this goes up to 2 full CE's. Against a non-resistant monster using amp dam, we need 5/6 of a CE. Now we can look at it from another angle: if we hit 2 monsters with 2 CE's and killed both of them, then we would break even in terms of corpses. In that case then, how many targets does each CE have to hit in order to "break even?" In single player, each CE needs to hit anywhere between 5/6 to 2 monsters to break even, with consideration to both resistances and amp dam. Is this doable with an slvl 1 CE? Definitely. So in single player, using CE is a given--it's going to work, and additional points into CE only makes this better.
Now for the other extreme: the 8-player game. Monster health is calculated by 8*n (and not by [1+2(n-1)/3]). In an 8 player game, CE would have to hit a staggering 6.7 to 16 monsters to break even--no way, right? Not if you only have 1 point into it. But given a range of 8.6 yards at slvl 20 (and higher than that with +skills items), can it hit 7 or more monsters? Definitely. Can it hit 16? Probably not. Does that mean that necros actually need to factor resistances into account in how they use their spells, just like sorceresses? Yep. So when used properly, can CE be useful even in 8-player games? Yep.
Now wait up here. 20 points into CE is 19 wasted points, right? Consider that CE is a direct damage spell. Direct damage spells need points to make them work, plain and simple. Can you imagine people complaining about how weak bone spirit, frozen orb, or firewall are because they only put 1 point into it? But now people feel it's okay to do the same with CE just because it used to not require heavy points for it to be effective! (Remember, we're ignoring the 1.02 CE here--that's a thing of the past.) Increasing the range of CE increases its total damage output, just like increasing the per-hit damage of other direct damage spells increases their total damage output as well. Unlike other direct damage spells though, the issue of total damage output is more crucial for CE, because it must break even in terms of corpses in order to justify its use--and the only way it can do that is by hitting enough targets, which in almost all cases is done by increasing its range. Thus, if you're running around in an 8-player game with only one point into CE, then expect it to be as useless as if you were running around with only one point into BS. CE is a direct damage spell, just like the others.
"But I have better things to do with that corpse!" you tell me. Fair enough. Outside of CE, necros only have one worthwhile use of corpses: revive. Skeletons and skeletal mages? Requires huge investments into skeletal mastery to be even somewhat effective (check out their stats), and if you're spending that many points into skeleton mastery then you don't have the points to spare for CE, period. This isn't even factoring in how underpowered they are in Hell-- for example, a lightning mage with a full slvl 20 mastery does 20-26 damage per shot, compared to the roughly one thousand points of damage per monster with a corpse explosion? Cold mage? If you're using IM, you're hurting yourself because slowing down the monsters' attack means less IM damage, and the possibility of losing that oh-so-precious corpse as well. Poison mage? Poison nova does the job better. Ditto for using poison explosion. But revives--there's no way a CE can compare to the damage of a revive, right? That's certainly true--given one CE vs one revive, just about everyone will take that revive. But given the difference between 15 and 16 revives vs thousands of total damage to a large number of on-screen monsters? Well, that certainly changes things. The bottom line is the revives do damage only when they're fighting or tanking, but the more revives a necro has, the less damage each revive actually does since they only get in each other's way after a certain number and because additional tanks doesn't increase the rate at which IM returns damage, especially when the tanks are standing around. And thus, CE actually returns more damage per corpse than revive when there are more revives than the terrain renders useful (think River of Flame!).
What's more important is this: the role of CE is misunderstood. That is, people expect CE to be the v1.02 magic bullet it was, and they can't seem to understand that CE is a support spell! CE is mean to be used in conjunction with revive and BS, to deliver quick bursts of damage in the proper situations--and there are many such situations! For example, everyone automatically assumes CE is useless because of fire resists in Act 4--many people factor in an "automatic" 75% fire resistance when looking at CE. But this is simply, completely wrong. Let's take the River of Flame as an example. Only Pit Lords are fully resistant to fire (i.e. 75% or more), and the average fire resistance is 27.7% (25% factoring in resistance cap). And this makes CE useless? The real problem is that people can't get over the idea of not being able to chain-cast CE, whereas a high-level CE works perfectly fine in multiplayer games as a supplemental source of damage. Is it an Uberskill like IM? No. But can it be used effectively even in a multiplayer situation? Absolutely--given proper investment. Am I telling people to not put points into IM or BS and sink them into CE instead? Of course not. But for those who have set aside enough points in their skill plans to allow for the effective use of CE (instead of, say, using skeletal mages), then why chastise them over a skill you've rendered useless through your own insufficient investment? Again, how useful is a one-point bone spirit in multiplayer Hell? Calling CE "useless" in here is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If using skillfully means not detonating a corpse in a crowd of Pit Lords, then perhaps I am expecting too much of people. But then again, given the utter banality of the revive/IM path the majority of necros have taken, why should I be surprised?
B. BG/IM: Bug or Feature?
Many people believe that life stealing is somehow a "part of" an attack. They are wrong. D2 calculates combat and its effects using a series of routines, which may or may not be linked as intended. For example, the paladin's smite does not steal life and mana even as a melee attack, simply because the damage routine it uses does not calculate life and mana steal as one of its results. Hence, it's obvious that life and mana steal are not "part" of an attack, but merely an after effect calculated separately. In fact, when damage is calculated, the actual steal amount isn't even calculated, but merely the steal% of the attacker is noted and stored (and used when the game actually applies the damage later). On an intuitive level then, the problem of how to judge BG/IM is more complicated than it appears at first glance.
First off, there are two BG/IM bugs. The first is the more familiar of the two--that is to say, the one that people are usually referring to when they say BG/IM. This refers to the returned damage by the blood golem triggering life steal, even though neither thorns nor IM will allow a player to use life stealing to heal themselves by being hit. In fact, nowhere else in the game does this effect occur: not only are players unable to heal themselves through thorns/IM, but neither can monsters with life steal abilities, nor the iron golem using its natural returned damage with life tap. Hence, the "obvious" BG/IM bug is how the triggered attack can actually steal life, which deviates from the consistency of the system for no justifiable reason and with no sign of intention.
The second bug is more insidious, and those who have identified it have called it the "max/min" bug (which you can see listed along with some of the other game bugs here). Why does BG steal a fraction of the target's max hp (completely independent of its actual damage, inflicted or reflected--again, showing that life steal is not "part of" the damage from the attack!) instead of stealing the damage it has inflicted or even reflected? It is clearly absurd for a blood golem to swing at a monster and deal 10 damage but steal 2000 life, but this is exactly what happens. Why? Some of the more programming-literate Lurkers have identified the potential cause. As most of us are well aware, one can only steal at most the life that one's target has remaining. That is to say, if a player with 10% life steal does 100 points of damage to a target with 1 hp, he will steal 1 hp, not 10 hp. Or to rephrase this in more technical terms, the attacker steals a percentage of the minimum between the damage he deals and the amount of hp the target has remaining. But what if the programmer were to make a mistake and have the attacker steal a percentage of the maximum of the two values instead? Then unless the target is almost dead, the attacker will steal life base on a percentage of the (huge) current life from the target--which is exactly what the blood golem does! (For information on how the blood golem's life stealing works, consult the Chaos Sanctuary.) This is why in Hell, any hit on the blood golem keeps both the golem and its necro fully healed. The fact that the blood golem's stealing doesn't come close to coinciding to its damage only shows how bugged the BG/IM combo truly is.
So what if it's a bug? Hey it's mentioned in the CS, so Blizzard is encouraging us to use it! Not quite. Keep in mind that using CE's multiplayer scalability was also originally encouraged by the CS, but the v1.03 patch declared this a "bug" that needed to be fixed. Why the discrepancy? As many of you are already aware, the Blizzard web team operates from Irvine (Southern California), whereas the actual D2 team at Blizzard North operates in the Bay Area (Northern California). In other words, the Blizzard programmers are not the ones writing the guide, so the information in the guide cannot be seen as a sign of programming intent (which is clearly illustrated by the handling of CE in v1.03). In fact, the bulk of the gameplay information since the opening of the Chaos Sanctuary has come from fans, which is easy to confirm by looking at the lengthy credits page on the CS. Notice that Jarulf and Trucidation are responsible for "Statistics and Detailed Diablo II information"--and neither one is affiliated with Blizzard or Blizzard North! So as you can see, the biggest source of input to the CS is from fans, and the site itself represents what fans (i.e. we the players) have found to be useful information. Listing the effectiveness (or bugged overeffectiveness) of this tactic simply reflects what players have been doing, and cannot be taken as an endorsement from Blizzard that "this is the right way to do it"--and if the past is any indication, it also does not guarantee that this will remain unchanged and unfixed in the future.
Speaking of Jarulf, this is what he has to say about the BG/IM bug:
I think there have been (possibly informal) mentioning from Blizzard that the BG/IM "feature" you mention was not really intentional but not unintentional either. They just didn't think of it as a "good" way for a Necromancer to gain life. You may call it cheesy as creating a BG and have monsters hammer on it to gain life is not what seems correct but as people used it as a tactic, Blizzard decided to not "fix" it.
Inconclusive? Yes. It smells like a bug, but Blizzard appears to be deftly turning it into a "feature." by using the pocket veto against the fix. So should you use this "bug" or what-have-you? The choice is yours. I don't think anyone can really disagree with the assertion that BG/IM does not work in the way it was originally intended to. Whether you want to call it a "bug" or not, it seems clear that most people will agree that it's quite "cheesy," especially considering how outrageously effective it works. It's up to you and your scruples. Play the game with the motto to use "any tool available" as long as it gives you the results you want, or evaluate our current understanding of this skill and abstain from it in good conscience. Whether you call it a bug or not, it remains one of the most spectacularly inconsistent and unrealistic (that is, unrealistic compared to the internal logical of the game) gameplay quirks in D2, and whether or not (and to what degree) you take advantage of this reflects much on your person, and your own attitude towards gaming as a whole. At least you can decide with an informed decision, and understand why people unabashedly refer to the BG/IM combo as a bug (when in fact it's actually two bugs).
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