Character Builds

[Rhonlore]

Ok so the deal with this one... he croaked because of Baal. The summons which he relied upon were completely useless. Vengeful spirit helped, and so did bone shards. But when it all came down to it, the health did not last ( I nearly had 300 hp !! But that's beside the point.. maybe I have horrible luck ) I hope whoever tries this has better luck then I do.

Name: Sandro

Build 1: Confusing Summons
STATUS : DECEASED
Current Level: 30
Skills:
Curses:
Flaying: 1
Aura of Insanity: 4
Poison and Bone:
Circle of Bones: 1
Bone Prison: 1
Bone Wall: 1
Ether Orb: 1
Vengeful Spectre: 1
Shards of Bone: 3
Summons:
Animate Zombie: 1
Summon Soul Harvester: 1
Summon Shadow: 1
Animate Skeleton Warrior: 8
Reanimation Mastery: 6
Summon Shadow - Ether: 1
Animate Skeleton Mage: 3
Instructions:
Simply run into a batch of enemies and sit there with Aura of Insanity activated. Have all your summons (Including the familiar) and a Mercenary (With a decent bow, preferably [Get a 3 socket one and throw some chippies in there]) Keep Circle of Bones activated and you should be OK! GET VENGEFUL SPIRIT AND BONE SHARDS!! THEY ARE THERE FOR BOSS OWNAGE.
Extra Notes:
Skills are placed (mostly) in the order they should be gained. Think before you act!

Ethereal Bones Build Coming Next!
(Add your own builds!!!)

[Adhin]

Hmmm Necro builds eh? lets see...

Well I really love the Grave Shadow so I guess you could call this one Shadow master =)

Max Summon Shadow Grave, or Ether (all on what ya like best really)
Embalming to keep his arse alive as long as possible
max out Harvester and Wraiths (cuz there spiffy)
and ehh... Doom


or you could just play god and amass a massive army of rotting flesh =)
whatever floats your boat

[Rhonlore]

Ok this necro rocks absolute butt!!!! Get to the Cold Enchant (My hated enemy) in the Cathedral and take him and all his little minion friends on /players 8. Hit Level 18 and never go back, Vengeful Spectre is amazing. (I have 87 energy and 281 mana by the time the delay is over from one, you can cast another and lose very little mana!)

Name: Enoryt

Build 2: Ethereal Bones
STATUS : Act 2, Quest 2
Current Level: 19
Skills: (Unused: 5)
Curses:
None
Poison and Bone:
Ethereal Orb: 1
Circle of Bone: 5
Bone Prison: 1
Bone Wall: 1
Vengeful Spectre: 2
Summons:
Harvester of Souls: 5
Instructions:
Currently, beating on enemies is a good idea, your circle of bones will keep you alive. Get a merc, again put some chippies (blue, red, yellow) and let her tank a bit. Use familiar all the time!!
Extra Notes:
YOU WILL NEED + # replenish life items! Civerbs amulet is good (+4 Health, 40% mana) So is a Circlet of Regrowth (+7) Go for these!

Ok something else I just remembered: Pskulls + 3 Socket Helms and 4 Armor will be YOUR BEST FRIENDS!!! Collect em! (Practically immune to the effects of Harvester)

[Scarecrow]

I had a lot of trouble in the Tomb of Tal Rasha(getting to Duriel), due to the number of enemies/Unraveller's ranged magic attack. But eventually got to the end after dying several times & reverting to /players 1, and Duriel was very easy thanks to Doom.

Name: Scarecrow(so I have no originality, ok?)

Build 1: Bane & Bale.
STATUS : Act III
Current Level: 24
Skills:(Unspent: 6)
Curses:
Blade of Blight: 1
Flaying: 1
Aura of Insanity: 1
Terror: 1
Ether Enchant: 6
Malice: 1
Vampiric Aura: 6
Ghoul's Frenzy: 1
Doom: 1
Poison and Bone:
Circle of Bones: 2(from wand in alternate weapon setup)
Summons:
None
Instructions:
Make sure you always have good armour & a decent weapon, Flaying or Doom helps a lot with your damage output.
An act II defensive mercenary is best, for the defiance aura.
Extra Notes:
Life leech equipment would probably be useful early on, until you reach Vampiric Aura. Mana leech & +attack rating equipment will help as you'll be using Ether Enchant as your main attack, although EE's attack rating bonus lessens the need for other forms of +attack rating slightly.

[Fatecaller]

Forgive me if I giggle like a girl scout, I've been playing AR and Middle Earth, but Blackened is already shaping up to be my favorite. It's mm, mm good.

My necro, Fatecaller (clvl18), is similar to Rhonlore's second build (the ethereal arty thingamajig), except I put the leftover points into skeletons, shadows, and chaos orb (mmm...area effect). It's almost pathetic how easy it is to break mobs up- well, not really all that pathetic, but it is kinda sick how much I own. The only thing I'd griping about is the low ar/dr on the skel tanks. I have slvl 3 (1 + 2 wand), 1 in mastery, and they don't seem to be as reliable as I'd hope a level 12 skill would be. VSpectre and Chaos definately make up for this though. Throw down a VS, launch 4 orbs during the delay, pop a second VS, rinse, repeat as needed. Just remember to place the VS so it has good lanes of fire on the bulk of the critters you're wantin' to fry. Also, you can get a slight crossfire going.

Harvester reminds me of the EverQuest Necro's Pact line of spells (hp:mana conversion), and it made my mouth water. That spell combined with even lowly chipped skulls made short work of Andy and Rad. I'm not sure I used a mana potion in either fight. Maybe one afterwards cos I thought tradition needed to be preserved.

If the druid ends up being half this cool...hehehehehehehehehehehehe.

[Adhin]

Heh I should probly increase there defence - ill have to do a little more testing on that. I think the reason there probly dying off so much is probly cuz they no longer block! haha seeing as i took that little ability away. hmm, ill look into it

[LordTemjin]

Well, my motto is strength in numbers, and with my plans you could see exactly that!

Currently my necro MinionX is level 19.

What I do right now is what I call Minion Overwhelm. Quite bluntly, I go for quantity instead of quality.

You do have to sacrifice ALL of your stat points to mana though. You will find yourself summoning on the go constantly, however you live alot longer.

The way I see it is: Lets take the first shadow and the second one. You can summon 3 of the first one, and 2 of the second. Now while the 2nd has more life and damage, your multiplying the 1st one times 3. lower mana cost too, and plus they can fend off more targets than 2.

As for spells, pump any good attacking skills (I use orb of chaos for RADIUS) and bone shield.

I was a HUGE fan of the old skelly and IM combo. Necromancer is also my favorite class ever, since I love making mini armies.

[Fatecaller]

Why would a summoner need to put alot of points into energy? Fatecaller is now a clvl 24 Arty Summoner and he is never running out of mana. Granted, he only goes with the Fam, 1 Wraith, 1 EShadow, 3 Skels, 1 Mage, but he also fires off VS and spam casts Shards. When mana gets a lil low, I cast Harvester and there's full mana. With Angelic Halo and 5 Skulls in my Helm and Armor, he bounces back to full hp (my 23 full rejuv potions in the stash will testify to this). Please don't get me wrong, I'm in no way saying you're doing anything wrong, just that I don't think a summoner would need to pump energy when there are skills like Harvester available (500% mana regen is mighty fine).

[LordTemjin]

because with this you want to summon as much as possible. summons cost alot more mana then spells, so youll need much more mana to dole out the minions.

[MarkMega]

ok ive created a up to now really strong necro:

Status:Act3 No Quest

Level:25

Special:ive everytime played in player 8

Skills:

Curses:
None

Poison and Bone:
Ether Orb:1
Circle of Bones:2(1 per item)
Chaos Orb:6
Vengencefull Spirit:2
Bone Prison:1
Bone Wall:1
Bone Shards:1

Summons:
Animate Zombie:2(1 per item)
Harvester of Souls:1
Shadow:3
Shadow-Ether:2
Animate Skeleton Warrior:2
Summoning Master:1
Wraith:1
Summon Skeleton Mage:4(4 per item)

Note:
Duriel ive beaten very easy....i only casted bone prison on him and attacked him with bone shards and with my creatures and i not even lost life or an creature
i was very lucky to find some time before 2 nice items:a wand and a necro shield and both gave +2 to skeletal mage

[Adhin]

Alrighty ive just been messing around with my latest Fix in Beta 2 and I have a revised Shadow Master to toss your way. Temjin im sure this is gonna make your little minion build go insane....

my plan so far is maxing out all 3 Shadows (now you can have all summons up at once, hehehe).
about 5-6 points in Vamp aura and Doom, point or two in undead resilience (next fix is gonna enable that to work with shadows).
Definitly need some in Harvester cause them shadows cost a-{filtered}-load just to cast, let alone keep up if any of em die.

heh, the idea behind this is pretty simple - Army of shadows, combined with leeching power and cursing them with doom (Aura and Curses stack). Plus your shadows have a tendancy to raise up Lesser shadows from corpses of stuff they kill.

few things to keep in mind...
the lvl 6 Shadow summon is the main counter for your Ether and Grave shadows SKILL level - thats there secondary attack (the shade lash and shade rot spells they use). Ether improves the Defence of all other Shadows (but not self), and Grave improves dmg of all others (but again - not self, doesnt matter though he does insane dmg anyways).

[Rhonlore]

Build Name: Buff-oon
Class: Sorceress

Beginning notes: DO NOT PLAY THIS CHARACTER SOLO UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO TAKE FOREVER, THANK YOU.

Level: 29

Summoning And Alteration Spells:
Mage Armor: 6
Summon Goblin: 1
Bulls Strength: 6
Summon Troll: 1
Mass Haste: 6
Planar Binding: 4
Summon Minotaur 4

Misc. And Passive Skills
Meditation: 1
Mirror Image: 1
Dimensional Door: 2

Notes: Please use dimensional door to its fullest!!! (use it with your minions and you'll see what I mean) Enjoy.

[rameyaj]

on druid can you have wolfs and bears out at the same time? or is it one or the other?

[Adhin]

Its one or the other, but you can have Wolf + bear leader if you want, though you would be better off matching your wolves with there own leader sense leaders only improve there own type.

[rameyaj]

ok then i must ask is it worth learning bears for the bonus thay give to wolf?

oh and just a idea i know it says it gets a bonus from this and this but i dose not say what the bonus is per level so its kind of hard do deside if i want to kill points on it or not and was woundering if there is a way to make it so you can see all the bonuses do for it

thanks

[Adhin]

That depends which bonus your talking about.. As far as bears giving dmg to wolfs/beetles and whatnot, they DO show how much they give on the skill its self. just like it is in un-modded, the bear has a % dmg under all its little stats, thats how much it gives to ALL summons (excepte ravens and the Sword). Now as far as the bonus the Leaders give to there respective animal type - it doesnt matter. All you need to know is if you go Wolves, and Bear lead - your going to be worse off then if you went with the Wolf Lead. That and theres no real reliable way for me to add that onto the description heh.

[rameyaj]

if i am maxing wolfs and have no points on bears it is not telling me how much bears will add bonus to wolf any where
it only tell me what bonus wolf gets once i have already added to bear i want to know how much "per level" bonus is added like the rest of the skills befor i spend points on it
where it should be in green at the bottom of the skill insted of saying receives bonus from summon bear i would like it to say receives +% damage from summon bear

sorry... i mostly mad at blizzard thay should have fixed this when thay added the rest of the synergies

thanks for hearing me

[Adhin]

Heh its not exactly Synergy, and really they work diffirently. See a the little green bonus crap at the buttom, and the REASON i only have it say it only receives bonuses from the said skill and not direct % is because its not just a set % per lvl. Its a base % plus a smaller % per lvl. You can't do that with the little green bonus section. And as i said befor it SHOWS YOU on the other skills. at the very bottum (above the green), For bears it says 'Damage: %', for Wolves it has Attack Rating, and for Beetles its Defence. THATS how much all the others get. So it does tell you... and i put mastery in there so you wouldn't feel like you needed to max out all 3 of them to make your favority good.

[grey_wolf_bg]

First lets say that Blackend is the greatest mod I ever played. For 1 month I experimented with mods - and Blackend is the mod I like the most

Now I playing with sorceress, and my question is - Is the hibrid sorcs good in NM, Hell? My sorc is now 12 level, and I planing to max (or close to max) folowing skills
- Frenzytaurs - forgot the name
- Bull strength
- Fire mastery
- Meteor swarm - latest fire skill

is this build good or ? Any suggestions ?

P.S. -sorry for my bad english, I hope people understand me.

[Adhin]

I think you will find that build to do quite well in Hell - more so if you use Teleport with all of it. However im not sure how well it will do in Beta 2. As of beta 3 ive removed the cast delay on Meteor Swarms (as spam casting it doesnt really 'do' anything, just resets its 4 second timer). Plus i increased the damage radius of MS so you WILL always hit something multipul times with it, and that also means you can use it with Teleport much, MUCH easier. Which i might point out is really the best way to use your Minotaurs, with buffs + teleport (take out the annoying stuff first quickly )

Now ehh, only other advice i got is - also max out Mages Armor. You got enough skill points to do it later on so id go ahead and do that when your maxed out on Minos and Meteor Swarm/Fire Mastery.

[Ulthrion]

I've been playing a beetle druid for a time now (since I haven't seen anyone play it )

Build Name: BeetleJuice
Character Name: Beasty_Boy
Current Level: 27
Current Location: Act 5 (just killed Diablo)

Skills:
Beetle Shape: 1
Barbed Impale: 10

Summon Raven: 1
Summon Beetle: 12
Summon Wolf: 1
Summon Bear: 1
Summon Bear - Ancient: 1
Timeless Body: 1
Colar Creeper: 1
Blade of Moonlight: 1

The idea is simple, just get all you summons out (6 beetles, ancient bear, solar creeper, and raven or blade), get an act2 merc, and transform in a beetle yourself. Since none of the supporting spells can be cast in beetle shape, I have none of those.

Most of the time, enemies just get stopped right in their track by the high defence beetles, while my Druid, with Barbed Impale, and the merc deal the damage. You do need a high durability, low repair cost weapon with barbed impale though, but the open wounds in awesome at the low levels, and continues to be a good bonus thoughout the game. Self-repair in 33 seconds will not keep up with the damaging that Barbed Impale does though.

The coolest thing of this build is the way the beetles look under the aura of the merc. Prayer looks cooler than defiance, but the last one is simply better.

Only at the chaos sanctuary did I get a little more trouble. The undead mages with lower resistance, coupled with the inferno-casting venom lords toasted my beetles too quickly. Diablo's mass destruction spells were also too hard for the little buggers.

once I hit level 30 I plan to get summon focus and shape focus (although only 1 point here, as the bonusses aren't too big). I have no idea if this build will last throughout hell. The beetle shape is pretty strong, but the summoned beetles might lack the life to survive... we'll see then .

Farseer *Ulthrion

[LordTemjin]

Just checkin back, I see you've buffed my necro build

Adhin, great mod man.

[Fatecaller]

geez, I've been gone way too long...forget how rad this mod was.

Been playin' with a druid summoner, but I can't keep my Dire Wolves from disappearing. Not sure how they do it, but the buggers keep vanishing (mostly in non-com situations).

Skels on the necro are still a bit weenie...

[Adhin]

Heh yeah but in B3 you can get 16 (and 20 if you hit skill level 25). Which means you got some major army power going on there. The problem is DruidWolf ai has a very odd teleporting behavoir, basicly it just doesnt teleport often and I have yet to figure out why. But then you don't need corpses to keep casting and seeing as they CAN get powerful enough to where you don't NEED anything else its not high on my to-do list to fix. Just recasting em (sure its annoying but oh well, they still kick ass).

I may just give up and turn them into the DruidBear AI and give them some sort of rage attack but I dunno, guess we'll just see when i get around to it.

[Rhonlore]

Name: Sandro
Class: Necromancer
Build 3:
STATUS : Act 3, Beginning
Current Level: 27
Skills:
Curses:
Flaying: 1
Aura of Insanity: 1
Vampiric Aura: 1
Miasmatic Blight: 10
Ether Enchant: 1
Ghouls Frenzy: 2
Poison and Bone:
Orb Of Chaos: 1
Vengeful Spectre: 1
Summons:
Harvester of Souls: 1
Summon Shadow: 5
Summon Shadow - Ether: 4
Instructions:
Simple yet complex build all at the same time. This Necromancer benefits from having high(er) strength than normal and a decent weapon. Once you get Vampiric Aura and Ether Enchant together you wont lose Health, and I suggest picking up two of the 'Sigil of Erinyes' rings that the Countess drops to offset mana costs.
Orb of Chaos and Miasmatic blight are going to be your best friend for most of the beginning due to the rediculous damage it causes (Orb of Chaos uses its damage and whatever you have for melee, including Mana and Health leech.)
Extra Notes:
Concentrate on Miasmatic at first, I may reconsider the shadows at a later point, but they should be with you for backup anyway.