Maldar, the Magnificent

[Crystalion]

An excellent report as usual. Here are some comments on theoretical points that might be of help...

tactical point: in indoor areas, it's best to keep the bone prisons to a minimum.

...in narrow spaces or worse in dead ends and I found myself trapped with no place to go

I love "free" spamable Bone Prison (I made a whole necro around it long ago) but in many cases, especially now that v1.10beta has different logic relating to it, you're better off with bone wall. If you made the mental shift that firewall sorcs must (e.g. sideways walls in parallel to your line of travel) then you will begin to see the light... instead of magical bone springing out of nowhere that impede the monsters *and* you, you can create bone lined corridors of travel, personal expressways, and spot sealants with bone wall (this works because you have so many points that the walls have some durability--most players never got these insights with necros because the early bone wall/prisons in normal crumble when the monsters just glare at them, and, of course, because the necro has such an array of other powerful techniques).

ghosts fly right through bone prisons and walls without hindrance.  So if you run into a champion ghost pack or the worst, an extra fast ghost boss pack, you're pretty much hosed because you can't Dim Vision them and you can't imprison them.

Well, not quite.  True, you can decrepify them and try to out run them, but that's tough.

One of the many reasons (boss/champ immunity) that knockback and stun effects are so useful, even though curses are usually uber. This would be one of the cases where a Barb build (using Leap) with your restrictions might have an easier time of it. Clearly you are restraining yourself from using teleport very much (and I know it can be rather dangerous in tight/unknown territory) but in open terrain with a little maneuvering room you could lure the ghosts one way, decrep, then burst away a bit by teleport. Vs. just a boss (not a champ pack) it is a pity you have no knockback skill (ala ring of telekinesis) due to your restrictions. It is quite an amazing (standard) assassin trick to Psychic Hammer a boss away, to infinity and beyond. Hasta La Vista, Baby. (PH gets bonuses to knockback special monsters beyond what normal knockback/telekinesis would roll, fyi).

However, there's one more cute trick that I found by accident.  If you cast several bone prisons in a room with the ghosts and then tp to town, the ghosts will switch to attacking the bone prison.  When you come back through the townportal, they'll keep attacking the prison and you can then book it out of there.

Ah. I was a bit puzzled by your earlier post alluding to this. I've said it before: Town Portal is the most powerful spell in the game. One could write a very long post detailing uses of this simple spell. In your case here, like knockback/HR and obstacles (bone wall/prison, for monsters that can't pass through them), you're basically just utilizing the fact that TP is on the roster of ways to reset monsters current AI goal. As such it is worth noting that Dim Vision can also work more smoothly for you if you warp out and it is a great way to get confuse/attract up to potential (not for Maldar, though). IIRC a few of the AI programs are "smarter" and will not be fooled by the presence of minions (decoys?!) etc., resetting their pursuit of you relentlessly. I don't have a good feel for which monsters exhibit this in practice, so I can't look into your future to flag danger. Fingers crossed for Maldar.

Dim Vision is that it works through walls and doors -- kind of like an amazon's Slow Missiles.  Before opening a door, you can cast Dim Vision in front of it and the effect will spread out into the next room.  That way, all the monsters will already be blinded and you can run past them.  If you don't do that, then the monsters will see you and start rushing you.

Excellent point. People in general should not misread/misperceive this, however--don't fall into the the "monsters will see you" or not way of thinking... Most doors are at least partly porous to "vision" and many monsters don't need "vision" at all to activate and want to pursue you. Fortunately not many monsters can open doors, so we can generally think of doors in a "before, and after we open them" manner, but this is a technical mistake. Because the monsters can't get to you, they are resetting their behavior frequently. This would be typically be the reason that blinding them before vs. after opening the door works better, not some notion of whether they "see you". Monsters "cheat". And given the way attacks are working (easily) through walls these days, one nasty way to "see" this is to spend some time in dumgeons always hugging walls and doorways. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Of course the flip side of this is that my Shadow Master will often Dragon Flight and cast traps through solid walls (which is a difficult trick to manage, as a player), so I'm not complaining too loudly (man oh man can she stir up trouble).

For style points you might thumb your nose at the monsters occasionally by casting Terror on them while they are imprisoned (lasts better in v1.10 than it used to), so they fully appreciate how Magnificent you are. :D