A Couple Questions Regarding the Necromancer

[Eph]

Hello. First of all I would like to thank Violos for this awesome mod, Playing it at the moment with Lilith and I have to say that , together, it really captures the feeling of Diablo, not only in ambience but also the joy of creating some wacky classes out of the the skill trees( the hybrids in this mod really makes me think of the creative bending of the classes in Diablo 2 via the power words).

Currently I'm trying to do a Necro pet master, and would like to ask a couple of questions, those being:

- Do the Necromancer's Stats (agi, int, str) in any way affect the stats of the summoned pets?

- Do the Barbarian cries or the Paladin auras affect the Necromancer's pets?

- I thought that offensive ability didn't affect ranged attacks, but seeing it in Blessed Aim aura made me wonder if either I was wrong in respect to that, or if it was changed its properties in this mod. Could someone clarify me in this respect?

- What is the main source of damage from skeletons , be it just plain ones or mage ones? what about Golems?

- Is there any way I predict which skeletal mage will spawn? do they spawn in a fixed order, for example?

[jaelrin]

Hi
Paladin auras affect pets, I haven't tried Barbarian shouts, but I think they do. But such combination will have only Staff-attack or normal attack to use, no offensive skills. So you'll just have to re-summon pets and use Curses.

Blessed Aura - I guess it has such mixed effects to be attractive to both melee and ranged characters. Melee get damage, OA and pierce ratio if using sword/spear, while ranged get damage, projectile speed and pierce ration with bow/javelin.

[Eph]

I see. It was actually that kind of gameplay I had in mind, to just debuff around while my pets do the dirty work, provided it is possible.
Do you know if in lategame its sustainable to trust in skeletons and golem to tank? or do they start to become unable to deal with the damage of mobs from later stages of the game?

[flix]

In my experience, by Act III Normal the Necromancer's skeletons fall apart after 1-2 hits, even after I reallocated all my points and maxed them out to test. A Steel Golem might last a bit longer, but not by a lot. Compared to D2, the pets in D2I make abysmal tanks and/or cannon fodder and you will have to be much more active than just casting curses.

My experience as a Necromancer, even with pets, was that I had to use a constant stream of spell-casting, using everything at my disposal just to survive.

However, I only used the "true Necromancer" skill trees. Using Paladin auras may add a whole new dimension to it.

[Violos]

You should collect Horus relics in Act 2, in order to buff your pets for the second half of each difficulty. Those greatly increase the survivability, even of the "disposable" warriors.

I did a lot to make pets scale better all around, but with Normal spanning across 40+ levels there are limits.
Still, they do pretty well with the right gear and support.




About things affecting your Summons:

What is the main source of damage from skeletons, be it just plain ones or mage ones?

All visible summons in D2I (except Bone Spirits) are considered pets, and follow their usual rules.

Consequently, the Warriors profit greatly form pet jewellery (especially physical), while the damage of Mages (and Assassin traps, except Death Sentry) only benefits from the % bonuses. In turn, the latter get the Mastery skill that increases their damage/intelligence.

As for the Golems: Earth and Iron do physical damage, Blood does some physical and magical.

Do the Necromancer's Stats (agi, int, str) in any way affect the stats of the summoned pets?

No. Though higer intelligence allows you to carry staves with better affixes.

Do the Barbarian cries or the Paladin auras affect the Necromancer's pets?

Buffs like Paladin aruas and Barb shouts affect all allies. That includes pets, other players and even converted monsters. Only "pet effects" are limited to actual pets.

And yes, the respective hybrids are very dependant on their pets - though a "Voice Of Doom" with Staff Mastery is far from defenseless in melee. You can see me play one here at ~8 minutes (though in that party, I did mostly limit myself to buffing and commanding).

I thought that offensive ability didn't affect ranged attacks

True - just like in the normal game. It is like Jaelrin said.

Is there any way I predict which skeletal mage will spawn?

No. They are random - which is actually one of the achievements of D2I, because the summoning skills in TQ do not offer any option for this.

You do, however, have the option to unsummon (right-click and dismiss) the ones you do not want, in order to build a custom army in situations where you deem it worth the effort.




P.S.
When playing a pet Necro, I recommend that you rebind your pet keys - especially "select all", so you can quickly send them around, and pull them away from enemy AoE attacks.

Alternatively, try the "One click pet control".

[Eph]

I see, I reckon that will do for all the questions I had. Thank you all for the enlightening feedback!

[Nightmare14]

why doesn't iron maiden work with bone wall or bone prison, i've tried casting it in an area then put a wall or prison on top of it but no dmage has been reflected then i've tried putting a prison on top of enemies then cast the iron maiden yet still no damage gets reflected

i know it's bit of a thread necro but figured it's better then making a new thread

[Violos]

You figured right. No point in making more threads on an ongoing topic, especially when this is a FAQ archive.
(Also, it makes for a good pun. )


As for your question, the straightforward answer would be that those walls are "barrier" type entities, which are basically obejcts and do not benefit from any buffs.

From a gameplay perspective, doing it any other way would just make things too easy. Especially because they attract monsters in their vincinity, to make up for the fact that IT does not really support path-blocking walls made of non-map objects.

[Nightmare14]

lolol true true

ah ok
wouldn't something like the ensnare template have worked better or even the template that you used for nembuks bone prison?