08-03-2003, 01:07 PM
Diablo2 Lord of Destruction (patch 1.09)
Necromancer Zookeeper Guide
Date: March 29 2003
Version: 1.00 (First GameFaqs Release)
Author: NecromancerLord
Email: [email protected]
Aim: NecroLord
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Stat Point Allocation
III. Skill Point Allocation
A. Summoning Tree
B. Poison/Bone Tree
C. Curses Tree
IV. Skill Comparison
A. Iron vs Fire Golem
B. Corpse Explosion (Amp or Lower Res)
C. Iron Maiden vs Amp (in Hell diff)
V. Mercenary Selection
VI. Equipment
A. Trang's Set vs Uniques
B. Act2 Merc Equip
C. Iron Golem Item
VII. Various Zookeeper Builds
A. The General
B. The Damage Returner
C. The Lord of Mages
VIII.Questing Guide
I. Introduction
The zookeeper is one of the most common Necromancer builds as of the time this
guide was written, and is also one of the oldest Necromancer builds out there.
Over time, though, the best way to make a zookeeper has changed multiple times
with patches and with the release of LoD. This guide is here to discuss how to
make a zookeeper Necromancer that can be used solo all the way though hell
difficulty in LoD (patch 1.09), with the long term in mind, eg high levels and
hell diff.
I will start here with basic questions about the zookeeper class:
1) What is a zookeeper?
A zookeeper is a Necromancer that uses his minions as the main method of
killing, generally with the aid of curses. Most zookeepers won't just focus on
a single minion, but rather rely on many different minions, such as a golem,
revives, skeleton mages, and a mercenary.
2) What about the lag?
To be completely honest necros don't lag as bad as everyone assumes. From my
own personal experience with about 15-20 minions, the zookeeper actually doesn't
lag as bad as a javazon does fighting large mobs of monsters. Every class has
some skill that is "laggy". Some examples are: barb's warcries, zon's
lightning fury on large mobs, sorc's frozen orb and hydra, the list goes on and
on...
3) I heard necros can't kill monsters in hell, is this true?
The necro is actually a very effective killer, able to even compete with the
often overplayed zons and sorcs against large mobs, although it is true necros
have a harder time against high hp single targets usually (such as act bosses).
Anyone that has seen corpse explosion in action should know that a necro works
wonders on mobs.
4) Then why aren't there more necros out there?
A couple of reasons here: Firstly, necros take a lot more planning to be
effective than most other classes, there are many things you can do wrong with
planning your skills and stats that will drastically reduce your necro's
effectiveness. Secondly, just mention the word necro anywhere on bnet and you
will get many bad comments, mostly from people that didn't plan their necro's
well enough.
With those questions answered, lets go see what you should do if you want to
make a powerful zookeeper of your own.
II. Stat Point Allocation
First, lets look at stat point placement.
For strength, you will only need enough to use your equipment, and most good
equipment for a Necromancer requires very little strength, so the absolute most
strength you will need is 80. And that is only if you plan on using trang-oul's
set, if you use other equipment you can get by with even less, I suggest putting
around 60 in str.
There are 2 possibilities for dexterity, you can leave it at the base if you
don't want shield blocking or you can add points to it to increase your
blocking. I personally think that vitality is much more important than blocking
in pvm, because blocking only helps against physical attacks, while vitality
helps everywhere.
For vitality, this is what will keep you alive if stray monsters get though your
minions, or if you don't have any minions yet. This is especially useful if you
use iron golem because when you die, the iron golem dies, and you lose the item
you make it from. Since staying alive is a very important thing, I would suggest
putting a large number of stat points here, as many as 300, depending on how
much energy you get.
And lastly, but not least, energy. Energy is needed for summoning minions, and
casting spells yourself to kill monsters, since many spells require large
amounts of mana, I suggest getting at least 150 energy, more if you use bone
spirit or corpse explosion heavily. If you happen to be muling from other
characters (tsk tsk), then you can get by with less than 150 energy though.
III. Skill Point Allocation
III.A. Summoning Tree
This of course will be the tree you use the most, since a zookeeper uses minions
to do everything. And thus, it should be no surprise that you will put 1 point
in every skill in this tree (except maybe fire golem). Lets look at the skills
here that might take more points, or might not be worth additional points.
Raise skeleton
This is the first skill many Necromancers will put one point in, but I would
suggest ONLY one point, because skeletons have a very bad chance to hit, so low
that not even blessed aim can help, and thus in hell diff they are really only
useful as mobile walls, and they don't even do that very well.
Skeleton mastery
This skill is very useful if you want your minions to do more damage, and thus
you will want to max this skill unless you are going to use a thorns merc. It
also adds life to your fighter skeletons and revives which helps them stay alive
longer.
Golem Mastery
This skill is very useful for keeping your golem alive, if you have high levels
in this skill your golem will be able to stay alive more than 2 seconds against
a boss, and plus if you use iron golem it is even more essential because when
the iron golem dies you lose the item you made it with forever.
Clay Golem
This is the very first golem you get access to, it has rather low hp, but has
the highest life regen of any golem. The way the hp is calculated on this golem
can be confusing, when you have this skill and golem mastery. Golem mastery adds
to the hp the golem has at skill level one, putting more points in clay golem
will not change how much hp golem mastery adds to it, thus it can't get as much
hp as it would appear.
Blood Golem
This golem has one very nice property, if you have damage return (such as iron
maiden or thorns) the golem gains life when hit by a physical hit, which means
it can be virtually invincible in areas with just melee monsters, the problem is
damage return doesn't do much damage in hell diff because of the 50% physical
resistance. But beware if you use this golem, if the enemy does enough physical
damage to kill it in one hit, the golem will still die, and you will will
receive significant damage in the process, possibly even ruducing you to 1 hp.
Also, if you rely on bg+im heavily you will have many problems against
ranged/magic casting monsters. Because of those many problems I can't reccomend
using the blood golem in most situations.
Iron Golem
This is a very powerful golem, because it has the nice thorns property, which
becomes even stronger if you use amp damage, and it is stronger if you make it
from a better item, although it works perfectly well even if you don't make it
from a good item. Putting additional points here will increase the thorns
damage, and in turn help it stay alive better because monsters will beat
themselves up on it faster, and thus hit it less. Also, this golem has the 2nd
highest hp of all golems if you have max golem mastery, it is very close to the
hp of the fire golem. There is more info about this golem in following
sections, such as what item to make it from, and whether this golem or fire
golem is better, see below.
Summon Resist
This skill is very good for keeping your minions alive against a magic damage
dealing monster, I would strongly recomend putting 1 point here for any
zookeeper, but since it has diminishing returns 1 should be enough if you have
some +skill items.
Fire Golem
This golem is a good choice if you use a thorns mercenary, since the iron
golem's thorns doesn't stack with the thorn's mercenary's Thorns. Putting more
points in this skill will increase the radius of the holy fire, and thus attract
more monsters, which can be nice if you use Corpse Explosion, since there will
be more monsters to damage with each Corpse Explosion. Also, this is the golem
that has the most hp of all if you have a high level golem mastery. One bit of
info, if you use summon resist your fire golem will not absorb as much hp from
fire attacks because the resists are calculated before absorb.
Skeleton mages
This skill will only need 1-10 points if you have +skill items normally, and
also if you are going to use skeleton mages you should definitely max skeleton
mastery so that the damage will be high enough. With very high skeleton mastery,
fairly large numbers of mages (10-20 or more), and lower resist, mages can
actually damage quite well, not as much as revives, but it is still a good
consideration for helping with phys immune monsters, there is a variant of the
zookeeper called the LoM (Lord of Mages) that uses skeleton mages as the main
method of killing, so this is a skill worth looking into.
Revive
This skill really only deserves 1-10 points if you have +skill items, but it
deserves special mention here like skeleton mages. Revives are by far the most
powerful summonable minion skill a Necromancer has. Revives have more hp and
more damage than skeletons, but unfortunately they also die after 3 minutes,
which means that more than 12 or 13 points in this skill is normally a waste
since you can't maintain many more than that.
III.B. Poison/Bone Tree
The main purpose of this tree is so you can do damage yourself, also the skills
here are what you will have to rely on when you meet a phys immune monster. Also
worth noting is bone armor, which WILL save your life many times. Of the skills
listed below, you should pick bone armor, corpse explosion, and at least one
more spell to do damage with.
Teeth
Do NOT put any more than 1 point in this skill, it is VERY weak.
Bone Armor
I can't emphasize enough how important this is for a Necromancer, with 1 point
and then some +skill items it can it can easily absorb over 100 physical damage
before going down, then it can be easily recast to absorb another 100 damage.
Additional points will let it take more damage before going down, and thus some
Necromancers put more points here to keep them alive (very useful for hardcore).
If you play softcore, 1 point is enough to get the job done.
Bone Wall
This skill is actually quite annoying for a zookeeper, mainly because your
minions will attack the bone walls, but bone walls do seem to attract monsters
amazingly well, so either 0 or 1 points will work here.
Bone Prison
This skill is just like bone wall except it surrounds the target, I would not
suggest any points here.
Corpse Explosion
What is so nice about this spell is you can kill whole herds of monsters with
just a few bodies. This spell is a must if you plan on playing in the cow level
or other crowded areas of the game. Additional points in this skill increase the
radius which is very small at low levels. This spell does 60%-100% of the base
hp of the body you cast it on, by base hp I mean the hp that the monster would
have had in a 1 player game, thus it doesn't scale up in 8 player games. The
damage is 50% physical and 50% fire, thus if you use amp damage, it will become
even more powerful, lower resist will increase the damage as well, but not as
much as amp damage, if you want proof on that fact I will show the proof in the
skill comparison section below.
Bone spear
This spell is nice because it hits multiple enemies on a line, and can be cast
faster than the other direct-damage spells below, the disadvantage is that it
does very weak damage.
Bone spirit
This is probably the most popular direct-damage spell for Necromancers. The nice
properties of it are it does nice damage, and it seeks out the nearest target
(like the Amazon skill Guided Arrow). The bad part is it only damages one
monster each cast, so it isn't the best spell for herds. Also, it costs lots of
mana at high levels.
Poison Dagger
This skill is a no-no for a zookeeper, it does very low damage and you would
have to get in melee to use it.
Poison Explosion
This skill can do somewhat good damage, but either corpse explosion or poison
nova would be better for almost any situation.
Poison Nova
This is very commonly overlooked by Necromancers, while it is probably the best
PvM spell a Necromancer has available. What is so nice about this spell is it
hits everything on your screen, and does very high damage, even more than bone
spirit, while it doesn't cost as much mana at high levels. The disadvantage is
you have to wait 2 seconds between castings because recasting it before it runs
out only resets the duration, and most undead have high poison resist. This
spell starts to become a bit obselete in hell diff unless it is very high level
(frankly so does bone spirit), but it works wonders in nightmare. I have heard
reports of this skill wreaking havoc in hell cows at level 50, but of course it
is extremely difficult to get it that high even if you are an artillery necro.
III.C. Curses Tree
This tree is a very good addition to any Necromancer build, although this tree
is pointless by itself, for every situation there is a curse that will help.
Even though, most curses are only worth 1 skill point because normally they
don't become any more powerful with more points. I'll go though all the curses
here and what they are good for.
Amplify damage
This has to be the most powerful skill any character class can get at level 1,
you put one point in and the monster's physical resist is reduced 100% on
casting. This curse benefits many Necromancer skills, some examples are: corpse
explosion, melee revives, fighter skeletons, thorns damage, and even the damage
done by other characters in the area such as barbs, bowazons, etc... You will
probably find yourself using this curse more than any other.
Dim Vision
This is the first of the AI affecting curses a Necromancer has. This curse can
be very useful against ranged attackers, such as archers, or mages. Many
Necromancers swear by this curse, although if you have large numbers of minions
this curse won't have much benefit.
Weaken
The name says it all, it weakens the monsters, this curse really is only useful
as a prerequisite for other more useful curses.
Iron Maiden
Before LoD this used to be the best curse to use, but in LoD with the 50%
physical resist in hell diff, this curse isn't as useful as it used to be. Some
people still use this curse in lod successfully in cow runs, but using a thorns
merc with amp damage is a more effective method of damage return than any other
combo, so if you want to have damage return that is what I would recommend. This
curse does have a few uses though, if you have no damage return at all (such as
a thorns merc or an iron golem), then you might want to use this curse on the
ancients and other heavy hitting monsters. And of course this curse can work
well in pvp vs barbs if they don't use leap attack or bezerk. I would only
reccomend 1 point here even though more points raises the damage return because
it is the least effective method of damage return for a necro (proof below).
Terror
This is the 2nd AI affecting curse, at times this curse can be a real lifesaver.
If you or a teammate is swarmed by monsters then 1 cast of this spell will get
the monsters away and save the person's life.
Confuse
This curse can be nice in boss packs of monsters, you cast confuse on all the
minions and they will start attacking the boss, damaging it before they go down.
Confused monsters will attack anything that isn't confused, normally picking the
closest possible target. What this means is if you have minions fighting the
confused monster, the confused monster will probably just keep attacking your
minions, and thus this curse is more useful when you are low on minions than
not.
Life Tap
This is another useful curse, it is like giving everyone 50% life leech against
the cursed monsters. Very useful if you have a barb in your party about to die,
or to keep your mercenary alive.
Attract
This curse is useful for taking out a single target when there are lots of
monsters around it. Unfortunately, this cannot be cast on uniques, so it isn't
as useful as it could be, the main strategy with this curse is to cast iron
maiden on a group of monsters, then cast attract on one of them, and the
monsters will beat themselves up on the one with attract. This is also very
useful on monsters that revive other monsters such as fallen shamen.
Decrepify
This curse has very nice stats, unfortunately it has a very very small radius.
It is like a small version of weaken, amp damage, and cold damage all in one. It
decreases the damage the cursed monsters do 50%, it increases the damage taken
50%, and it slows them 50%, but after the radius was reduced in LoD it isn't as
practical as it once was in pvm, it is most often used in pvp now.
Lower Resist
This curse does what it says, it lowers the resistances of the cursed monsters,
it lowers 5 of the 6 resistances a monster has. Those resistances are: fire,
cold, lightning, poison, and magic. The one it doesn't decrease is physical.
This curse is very useful when you are dealing magic damage of some sort. It
benefits lots of Necromancer skills including bone spear, bone sprit, poison
nova, corpse explosion (although amp damage works better), and skeleton mages,
and even improves the damage of other classes such as Sorceresses and Javazons.
This is probably the 2nd most commonly used curse by Necromancers, amp damage
being first.
IV. Skill Comparison
I decided to add this section for comparing skills commonly asked about.
IV.A. Iron vs Fire Golem
This is one of the older debates since the release of lod, I'll list the major
benefits of each here:
Iron Golem
Thorns Damage: Actually very powerful at high levels of ig.
Customizable: If you are willing to sacrifice items to make the ig stronger it
will help definately.
Looks Cool: Make an iron golem from an ethereal item sometime
Con: IG's thorns does not stack with the thorns aura from a pally/act2 merc.
Fire Golem
Absorbs Fire: This may seem very appealing, but if you think about it, there
aren't many monsters that use fire, so this mod is wasted in most cases, the
major exception being diablo.
Cast Anywhere: Unlike the iron golem you can make a fire golem pretty well
anywhere at a moments notice
Attracts Monsters: The holy fire aura helps draw monsters to the fire golem,
potentially saving weak minions such as skeletons, and helpful with corpse
explosion.
Con: Very high mana cost (especially if maxed).
IV.B. Corpse Explosion (Amp or Lower Res)
Another question that comes up frequently, the answer is as long as the monster
isn't phys immune amp is better, but if you want to see the math then I'll show
it to you:
Corpse Explosion does 60%-100% of corpse hp, half fire, half physical as
mentioned before. Amp lowers a monster's physical res 100%, lower res will
lower the fire res about 60% (depending on skill level). I will do the
calculations assuming no immunities because it is obvious amp is better for fire
immune, and lower res is better for phys immune.
Damage without curse:
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%))
Damage with amp:
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-((physical res - 100%)/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%))
After some math...
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%)) +
(30%-50% of corpse hp)
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%))
Which simplifies to...
Damage without curse + (30%-50% of corpse hp)
Damage with lower res (60%):
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-((fire res-60%)/100%))
After some math...
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%)) + 0.6*(30%-50% of corpse hp)
Which simplifies to...
Damage without curse + 0.6*(30%-50% of corpse hp)
So as you can see, with amp more damage is dealt ALWAYS as long as the monster
isn't phys immune.
IV.C. Iron Maiden vs Amp (in Hell diff)
Despite my information that iron maiden is not a good option for damage return,
there are still people that include it in Zookeeper builds, so to emphasise how
bad it is I'm including this comparison section, I'll compare im to amp in 2
cases, 1 is with iron golem, the other is with a thorns merc and revives. With
both iron golem and iron maiden I will use the formula for damage with skill
level 17 and above since you will obviously want a high skill level if you are
going to use those. Also, for simplification I will assume 50% physical resist
on monsters and revives.
Iron Golem:
Damage with Iron maiden:
((120%+15%*(ig level))+(175%+25%*(im level)))*1/2=147.5%+7.5%*(ig level) +
12.5%*(im level)
Damage with Amp:
(120%+15%*(ig level))*1.5=180%+22.5%*(ig level)
With those formulas you can see that amp will be better if:
180%+22.5%*(ig level) > 147.5%+7.5%*(ig level)+12.5%*(im level)
32.5%+15%*(ig level) > 12.5%*(im level)
2.6+1.2*(ig level) > im level
So just for an example, with level 30 iron golem amp is best if you have an iron
maiden below level 39, which makes it quite obvious that amp will be better
there in almost all cases.
Revives and Thorns Merc (level 17 thorns assumed):
Damage with Amp:
890%*1.5*0.5=667.5%
Damage with Iron Maiden:
(890%+175%+25%*(im level))*0.5*0.5=266.25%+6.25%*(im level)
With those formulas you can see that amp will be better if:
667.5% > 266.25%+6.25%*(im level)
401.25% > 6.25%*(im level)
65 > im level
And since there is no legit way to get level 65 iron maiden, in this example amp
is definately better.
V. Mercenary Selection
Now, lets look at the mercenary. If chosen wisely, the mercenary can be the most
powerful and useful minion a Necromancer has, and there are lots to choose from,
lets look at the pluses and minuses of each type of mercenary to try to
determine which would work best for your zookeeper.
Act1 Rogue mercenary
The benefit of this mercenary is it has a fairly powerful ranged attack, as of
patch 1.09 there is a bug with the act1 mercenary where it will get a powerful
lightning attack if you give it +3 to its skills from equipment. The lightning
attack is very strong, and similar to the one Diablo uses. Also, the act1
mercenary has a fairly good AI, it tends to keep away from the monsters you are
fighting. The downsides of this mercenary is, it has rather low hp and it
doesn't make your other minions any better.
Act2 mercenary
For most Necromancers, this is the most useful type because the aura this
mercenary uses benefits all of your minions, and the mercenary has a fairly
strong attack. The most popular ones are the prayer, thorns, and might
mercenaries. Defiance isn't very useful because it adds a % to defense and
minions have such terribly low defense off the start it won't make much of a
difference. You also really don't need blessed aim because mages always hit, and
revives have good enough attack rating already where they don't need a boost.
Holy freeze is bad because there is a chance of bodies shattering, and the
zookeeper needs lots of bodies to work with. Now that you see why the other 3
aren't as useful, lets look at prayer, thorns, and might, to try to decide which
would be best for your Necromancer.
The prayer can be handy to keep your minions alive, if for example you use
skeletons which have very low hp, although if you use revives this mercenary
isn't as useful as the other 2.
The thorns mercenary is good for increasing your damage output by quite a large
amount in nightmare diff if you use amp damage, the problem is in hell diff that
strategy becomes much weaker because thorns is physical damage, and thus is
affected by the 50% physical resist in hell diff, plus in hell diff revives will
have 50% physical resist, which means they will take less damage, and thus less
damage will get reflected back. If you decide to use this mercenary, be warned
that thorns does not stack with the thorns an iron golem has, and although it
does stack with iron maiden, using amp will actually result in a greater damage
return.
The might mercenary is very powerful in both nightmare and hell difficulties,
because it will increase the damage of your revives by quite a large amount.
Also, there is currently a bug with it where it gets a more powerful aura than
the other mercenaries, although this may be changed in patch 1.10 when/if it
comes out. Also, the might mercenary has very large damage itself, especially if
you give it a good weapon, like a cruel war pike. If you choose to use the might
mercenary, amp damage will complement it well, increasing the damage output of
your minions even more.
The main disadvantage of act2 mercenaries is that they love getting in the
middle of a huge pack of monsters, and so many times you will have to change
curses to keep the mercenary alive. It isn't as bad as it sounds though for a
couple reasons. Many times your revives and golem will be able to help you keep
it alive, and plus the act2 mercenary tends to stay closer to you than other
minions. So if the mercenary is going too close to the monsters, then you can
back off just a little to make the mercenary come towards you, yet your other
minions will still be engaged with the enemy in combat.
Act3 mercenary
The act3 mercenaries have a few benefits. First, they are ranged like the act1
mercenaries. Also, they use elemental damage which is increased if you use lower
resist as your main curse. And a mixed curse/blessing is the cold mercenary, it
slows enemies which is good, but it also shatters bodies, which is bad. The main
disadvantage of the act3 mercenary is it doesn't do enough damage to kill
anything in hell diff, and only the cold one benefits your other minions.
Act5 mercenary
These mercenaries main role are tanking, they have more hp than any other
mercenary, and they do pretty good damage with the right weapon. Plus they
attack faster than the act2 merc, and with bash/stun they can potentially make
even fewer enemies get through to you. But since they have to get in the fray to
do thier duty, they tend to die fairly often.
IMO, the most useful merc for a zookeeper will be an act2 one, since they damage
quite well, and benefit your minions a ton.
VI. Equipment
The most common debate at high levels on equip is trang's vs uniques, so I will
do a complete analysis of the 2 at 99 to help clear up the mystery:
VI.A. Trang's Set vs Uniques
I'll start here with a full listing of all the mods on each...
Full Trangs:
Str Required 106
1543-1743 defense
+100 defense vs missle
+5 to all skills
60% faster mana regen
+275-300 mana
+15 life regen
88-95% fire resist
80% cold resist
50% lightning resist
130% poison resist
20% faster cast rate
+66 life
+15 dex
+25 strength
60% chance to block
Cannot be frozen
+30 stamina
24% fhr
Attacker takes damage of 20
30% faster run/walk and 10% faster stamina drain (including heavy armor penalty)
Uniques:
(Unique Shako, Vipermagi, Homunculus, Frostburns, Gloomstrap)
Str Required 60
692.7-785.1 defense
+5 to all skills
+2 to curses
48% faster mana regen
+1.5 mana/lvl
+22 energy
+55% mana
All Resists +60-75
30% faster cast rate
+1.5 life/lvl
+17 vitality
+2 strength
+2 dex
72% chance to block
30% faster block rate
10% damage reduce
50% magic find
Magic damage reduced by 9-13
+5 mana/kill
5% enhanced damage
1-6 cold duration, 2 second duration
5% mana steal
-3 light radius
At level 99, picking max for each value, removing useless mods,
and some combination:
Trangs:
81 base str required
+5 to all skills
60% faster mana regen
+300 mana
95% fire resist
80% cold resist
50% lightning resist
130% poison resist
20% faster cast rate
+66 life
Cannot be frozen
30% faster run/walk and 10% faster stamina drain
Uniques:
58 base strength required
+5 to all skills
48% faster mana regen
+192 mana
+55% mana
All Resists +75
30% faster cast rate
+182 life
10% damage reduce
Magic damage reduced by 13
+5 mana/kill
Now for a complete comparison, I'll add some items for the other item slots, and
compile the useful mods of them:
(Mara's, Blackhand Key, 2 sojs, Silkweave)
Str Required 65
+6 to all skills
+30 res all
+50 mana
+60 life
+5 str
30% faster cast rate
37% fire resist
+60% mana
30% faster run/walk
+5 mana/kill
Adding those mods on to the previous tally for each:
Trangs:
76 base str required
+11 to all skills
+60% faster mana regen
+350 mana
+60% mana
162% fire resist
110% cold resist
80% lightning resist
160% poison resist
50% faster cast rate
+126 life
Cannot be frozen
60% faster run/walk and 10% faster stamina drain
+5 mana/kill
Uniques:
58 base str required
+11 to all skills
+48% faster mana regen
+242 mana
+115% mana
142% fire resist
105% cold resist
105% lightning resist
105% poison resist
60% faster cast rate
+242 life
10% damage reduce
Magic damage reduced by 13
+10 mana/kill
30% faster run/walk
With all that behind us, lets compare the mods on each:
Required str: Trang's is 18 higher
+skills: equal
Resists: Trang's is higher on everything except lightning,
the most important one.
Faster cast rate: The uniques are 10% higher
Life: The uniques are 116 higher!!!
Faster run/walk: Trangs has 30% more, but also has more stamina drain.
+mana/kill: Uniques are twice trang's here
Trang's also has cannot be frozen which the uniques don't have
The uniques have 10% dr, and 13 mdr which Trang's doesn't have
I saved mana for last because there are lengthy calculations here
Mana: Trang's has (base +350)*(1.6)=1.6*base+560
The uniques have (base+242)*(2.15)=2.15*base+520.3
where base is your mana with only charms on.
So if base is below 72 then trang's is better on mana,
but it just so happens that at level 99 with BASE energy you would have 221 mana
WITHOUT charms, so the uniques are obviously better.
Mana regen: Trang's has (1.6*base+560)*(1.6)/120=(2.56*base+896)/120
The uniques have (2.15*base+520.3)*(1.48)/120 =
(3.182*base+770.044)/120
So if base is below 203 then trang's would be better on mana regen, but see the
comment above, at level 99 the uniques would be better even with base energy
without charms.
So, after this long description, the only areas where trang's can beat the
uniques are in fire, cold, and poison resists, run/walk, and cannot be frozen,
on EVERYTHING else the uniques are equal or far superior.
VI.B. Act2 Merc Equip
Act2 Merc Weapon: Ideally a Cruel War Pike or Polearm with shaels/amn runes, a
runeworded ethereal, or just any high damage you can find.
Act2 Merc Armor: Ideally an Ethereal Shaftstop with um, or any high defense +hp
and resist all armor you can get if you can't afford it.
Act2 Merc Helmet: Ideally an Ethereal Vampire Gaze with um, or Tal's Mask, or
any +hp resist all helm like a circlet with good mods.
VI.C. Iron Golem Item
It may seem odd listing this with equipment, but the iron golem essentially
equips what you make it from, thus I include this section here. I have not
deduced all of the mods that do or do not effect the iron golem yet, but the
indestructable mod has NO effect on the iron golem, and I have found some that
work very well which I will mention:
Chance to cast when struck: It should be very obvious why this is useful, the
purpose of a golem is to tank, thus it gets struck very frequently, making it
cast the spell very often. One good item to look out for is hwanin's armor
which has a chance to cast static field when struck 8)
High res-all item: It just so happens that the iron golem does not have a cap
on resists, so if you make it from an item with 100% res all for example it will
be immune to fire, cold, lightning, and poison, very useful for a tank eh?
1-h Damage: The 1-h damage of weapons is added to the iron golem's own damage,
so if you make it from a high damage weapon it can actually do some melee
damage, but I find the other 2 suggestions more useful personally.
VII. Various Zookeeper Builds
This section will list some of the more powerful zookeeper builds available in
case you can't decide how to make one of your own. The skills will be listed in
the order of maxing. I will assume you get the skills that I strongly recomended
for any zookeeper above such as bone armor and summon resist. And it is assumed
you will get the prereqs as they become available.
VII.A. The General
Might Merc (Act2 Nightmare Offensive)
1 Amp Damage and Lower resist.
Max Skeleton Mastery
1 Revive (with +10 or more to all)
Max Poison Nova or Bone Spirit
Max Golem Mastery
Max Iron Golem
All remaining points in Corpse Explosion
The general is a heavy hitting minion build, you will be pumping up the physical
damage of your minions to insane levels, and so if you keep more than 10
revives, the army that you command will rip through all in your path, you will
mostly just get to sit back and cast amplify damage, and maintain the army. When
you run into a phys immune monster you will need to rely on skeleton mages and
your poison nova or bone spirit to kill them (with lower resist of course). From
my experience there is no better way to make a necro for killing smaller groups
of monsters such as bosses, at high levels this build can take out hell diablo
very easily just with some venom lord revives (the right seal), so its best to
save that seal for last, so you can have fresh revives for diablo. The beauty
of this build is the stronger the monsters, the stronger you are. Since the
whole purpose of this setup is enhancing physical damage dealt by your revives
it is best to look for revives that deal decent damage fairly quickly. Some
good revives in this case would be: corrupted rogues in act1, buzzard-type
monsters and the monsters with whips in act2, flayers and buzzard-type monsters
in act3, most anything in act4 except for corpse eaters and leapers, and moon
lords in act5, and of course cows from the secret cow level work very well too.
VII.B. The Damage Returner
Thorns Merc (Act2 Nightmare Combat)
1 Amp Damage and Lower Resist
(optional) Max Skeleton Mastery
1 Blood Golem and Fire Golem
Max Golem Mastery
1 Revive (with +10 or more to all)
Max Poison Nova and/or Bone Spirit
Max Corpse Explosion
(optional) Max Fire Golem for greater holy fire radius
This build is not too unlike the general, the difference is it doesn't matter
how hard your minions hit, all they will be doing is sitting there getting hit,
and the thorns will do the damage for you, amp damage increases the return of
thorns, so make sure to keep casting it. You will be killing insanely fast in
nightmare difficulty. You will notice a large drop in killing speed in hell diff
, though, because of the 50% physical resist your revives and the monsters will
have. This build works very well on large mobs of melee monsters (eg the secret
cow level), as long as you keep your merc alive. And also, like the general,
the stronger the monsters, the stronger you become usually. But ranged/magic
casting enemies can be harder. For revives you just want punching bags here,
anything that will get right up in the monster's face in a hurry and has decent
hp will work.
VII.C. The Lord of Mages
Prayer Merc (Act2 Normal Combat)
1 Lower Resist (with 7 or more +skills)
Max Skeleton Mastery
Max Skeleton Mages
1 Fire Golem
1 or more in Raise Skeleton and Revive
Max Bone Spirit
Max Golem Mastery
The name says it all about the lord of mages, you will be relying on a large
number of skeleton mages to do your damage, with lower resist and massive
+skills this build can kill very well through normal and nightmare, but in hell
diff there will be a slowdown in killing speed since you max out your killing
speed in nightmare most likely.
VIII.Questing Guide
I don't want to tell you how to play the whole game, but I'll give a few small
pointers here in case you are having a hard time.
Act1 Norm
Try to get a wand with large plusses to raise skeleton and skeleton mastery,
since you won't be wanting to put many points in raise skeleton. Another option
is to go melee through the early parts of the game, since it doesn't take too
much to kill the early monsters. For andariel, use a golem and iron maiden if
you are high enough level, or go melee with poison length reduced gear and
poison resist gear, a good level to try her is 12-18 depending on your personal
skill level.
Act2 Norm
If you can, upgrade your wand to one that also has a big bonus to raise skeletal
mage, and get a prayer merc to help carry you through to nightmare, equip it
well and act2 will be easy. Against duriel just make sure to have lots of
minions, and possibly use iron maiden, level 18-21 should be good for duriel.
Act3 Norm
Once again, keep your merc equipped well and this shouldn't be too hard, make
sure to use life tap when it is low on hp. Mephisto on the other hand could
prove tricky, being the first major spellcaster in the game, level 24-26 or so
should be something to shoot for, in norm he uses melee a lot with a golem right
in front of him so you could try golem+iron maiden once again, and if your merc
is well equipped it will probably help greatly.
Act4 Norm
This will be the hardest part for most builds because the monsters are getting
harder and you aren't level 30 yet, so you don't have your major killing skills
yet, just try to keep your skeletons and mages up, and your merc should still be
doing fairly well. Try to get to level 30 or higher before diablo so you will
have something useful to attack him with.
Act5 Norm
By now you will hopefully be level 30-something, so you can start putting points
in your major destructive spells, and you should be able to use some fairly good
+skills equipment by now, so this act will be a joke. When you are getting ready
for baal, go revive some frenzy monsters, or get a fully army of mages in the
lom case, and hopefully you willl weaken him down a lot before he takes down
your minions, then use your lower resist and bone spirit or poison nova to
finish the job, you should be able to kill him at level 40.
Nightmare
This should be very easy for you, just keep putting points in your skills and
keep looking for better items. When you get to act2 get the better merc if you
are following the general or damage returner builds, your killing will speed up
significantly, you might want to level up to level 50-60 before going to hell
diff.
Hell
By here you will have most of your most useful skills maxed out and the monsters
shouldn't pose too much of a problem. The lom might start noticing a slow-down
in killing speed though, just make sure to have something tanking for your
mages, and use your bone spirit or poison nova to speed up the killing.
The (not so) Secret Cow Level
I hate how this has become nothing but an exp farm now, but by popular demand I
will include a section on this here. It is actually quite simple for a necro,
herd up the cows in a large mob, kill about 3 (on players 8), cast amp damage on
the mob, then use corpse explosion. And please don't ask how to kill 1, it
should be obvious, revives work wonders, so does a merc. The higher level your
corpse explosion the faster you can take down huge mobs (more than 1 full
screen).
Special Thanks To:
Gamefaqs for hosting this guide
www.diabloii.net for various info used in this guide
www.battle.net/diablo2exp for info as well
Lord Scimitar on gamefaqs for some ideas of sections to add to the guide
And of course myself
Necromancer Zookeeper Guide
Date: March 29 2003
Version: 1.00 (First GameFaqs Release)
Author: NecromancerLord
Email: [email protected]
Aim: NecroLord
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Stat Point Allocation
III. Skill Point Allocation
A. Summoning Tree
B. Poison/Bone Tree
C. Curses Tree
IV. Skill Comparison
A. Iron vs Fire Golem
B. Corpse Explosion (Amp or Lower Res)
C. Iron Maiden vs Amp (in Hell diff)
V. Mercenary Selection
VI. Equipment
A. Trang's Set vs Uniques
B. Act2 Merc Equip
C. Iron Golem Item
VII. Various Zookeeper Builds
A. The General
B. The Damage Returner
C. The Lord of Mages
VIII.Questing Guide
I. Introduction
The zookeeper is one of the most common Necromancer builds as of the time this
guide was written, and is also one of the oldest Necromancer builds out there.
Over time, though, the best way to make a zookeeper has changed multiple times
with patches and with the release of LoD. This guide is here to discuss how to
make a zookeeper Necromancer that can be used solo all the way though hell
difficulty in LoD (patch 1.09), with the long term in mind, eg high levels and
hell diff.
I will start here with basic questions about the zookeeper class:
1) What is a zookeeper?
A zookeeper is a Necromancer that uses his minions as the main method of
killing, generally with the aid of curses. Most zookeepers won't just focus on
a single minion, but rather rely on many different minions, such as a golem,
revives, skeleton mages, and a mercenary.
2) What about the lag?
To be completely honest necros don't lag as bad as everyone assumes. From my
own personal experience with about 15-20 minions, the zookeeper actually doesn't
lag as bad as a javazon does fighting large mobs of monsters. Every class has
some skill that is "laggy". Some examples are: barb's warcries, zon's
lightning fury on large mobs, sorc's frozen orb and hydra, the list goes on and
on...
3) I heard necros can't kill monsters in hell, is this true?
The necro is actually a very effective killer, able to even compete with the
often overplayed zons and sorcs against large mobs, although it is true necros
have a harder time against high hp single targets usually (such as act bosses).
Anyone that has seen corpse explosion in action should know that a necro works
wonders on mobs.
4) Then why aren't there more necros out there?
A couple of reasons here: Firstly, necros take a lot more planning to be
effective than most other classes, there are many things you can do wrong with
planning your skills and stats that will drastically reduce your necro's
effectiveness. Secondly, just mention the word necro anywhere on bnet and you
will get many bad comments, mostly from people that didn't plan their necro's
well enough.
With those questions answered, lets go see what you should do if you want to
make a powerful zookeeper of your own.
II. Stat Point Allocation
First, lets look at stat point placement.
For strength, you will only need enough to use your equipment, and most good
equipment for a Necromancer requires very little strength, so the absolute most
strength you will need is 80. And that is only if you plan on using trang-oul's
set, if you use other equipment you can get by with even less, I suggest putting
around 60 in str.
There are 2 possibilities for dexterity, you can leave it at the base if you
don't want shield blocking or you can add points to it to increase your
blocking. I personally think that vitality is much more important than blocking
in pvm, because blocking only helps against physical attacks, while vitality
helps everywhere.
For vitality, this is what will keep you alive if stray monsters get though your
minions, or if you don't have any minions yet. This is especially useful if you
use iron golem because when you die, the iron golem dies, and you lose the item
you make it from. Since staying alive is a very important thing, I would suggest
putting a large number of stat points here, as many as 300, depending on how
much energy you get.
And lastly, but not least, energy. Energy is needed for summoning minions, and
casting spells yourself to kill monsters, since many spells require large
amounts of mana, I suggest getting at least 150 energy, more if you use bone
spirit or corpse explosion heavily. If you happen to be muling from other
characters (tsk tsk), then you can get by with less than 150 energy though.
III. Skill Point Allocation
III.A. Summoning Tree
This of course will be the tree you use the most, since a zookeeper uses minions
to do everything. And thus, it should be no surprise that you will put 1 point
in every skill in this tree (except maybe fire golem). Lets look at the skills
here that might take more points, or might not be worth additional points.
Raise skeleton
This is the first skill many Necromancers will put one point in, but I would
suggest ONLY one point, because skeletons have a very bad chance to hit, so low
that not even blessed aim can help, and thus in hell diff they are really only
useful as mobile walls, and they don't even do that very well.
Skeleton mastery
This skill is very useful if you want your minions to do more damage, and thus
you will want to max this skill unless you are going to use a thorns merc. It
also adds life to your fighter skeletons and revives which helps them stay alive
longer.
Golem Mastery
This skill is very useful for keeping your golem alive, if you have high levels
in this skill your golem will be able to stay alive more than 2 seconds against
a boss, and plus if you use iron golem it is even more essential because when
the iron golem dies you lose the item you made it with forever.
Clay Golem
This is the very first golem you get access to, it has rather low hp, but has
the highest life regen of any golem. The way the hp is calculated on this golem
can be confusing, when you have this skill and golem mastery. Golem mastery adds
to the hp the golem has at skill level one, putting more points in clay golem
will not change how much hp golem mastery adds to it, thus it can't get as much
hp as it would appear.
Blood Golem
This golem has one very nice property, if you have damage return (such as iron
maiden or thorns) the golem gains life when hit by a physical hit, which means
it can be virtually invincible in areas with just melee monsters, the problem is
damage return doesn't do much damage in hell diff because of the 50% physical
resistance. But beware if you use this golem, if the enemy does enough physical
damage to kill it in one hit, the golem will still die, and you will will
receive significant damage in the process, possibly even ruducing you to 1 hp.
Also, if you rely on bg+im heavily you will have many problems against
ranged/magic casting monsters. Because of those many problems I can't reccomend
using the blood golem in most situations.
Iron Golem
This is a very powerful golem, because it has the nice thorns property, which
becomes even stronger if you use amp damage, and it is stronger if you make it
from a better item, although it works perfectly well even if you don't make it
from a good item. Putting additional points here will increase the thorns
damage, and in turn help it stay alive better because monsters will beat
themselves up on it faster, and thus hit it less. Also, this golem has the 2nd
highest hp of all golems if you have max golem mastery, it is very close to the
hp of the fire golem. There is more info about this golem in following
sections, such as what item to make it from, and whether this golem or fire
golem is better, see below.
Summon Resist
This skill is very good for keeping your minions alive against a magic damage
dealing monster, I would strongly recomend putting 1 point here for any
zookeeper, but since it has diminishing returns 1 should be enough if you have
some +skill items.
Fire Golem
This golem is a good choice if you use a thorns mercenary, since the iron
golem's thorns doesn't stack with the thorn's mercenary's Thorns. Putting more
points in this skill will increase the radius of the holy fire, and thus attract
more monsters, which can be nice if you use Corpse Explosion, since there will
be more monsters to damage with each Corpse Explosion. Also, this is the golem
that has the most hp of all if you have a high level golem mastery. One bit of
info, if you use summon resist your fire golem will not absorb as much hp from
fire attacks because the resists are calculated before absorb.
Skeleton mages
This skill will only need 1-10 points if you have +skill items normally, and
also if you are going to use skeleton mages you should definitely max skeleton
mastery so that the damage will be high enough. With very high skeleton mastery,
fairly large numbers of mages (10-20 or more), and lower resist, mages can
actually damage quite well, not as much as revives, but it is still a good
consideration for helping with phys immune monsters, there is a variant of the
zookeeper called the LoM (Lord of Mages) that uses skeleton mages as the main
method of killing, so this is a skill worth looking into.
Revive
This skill really only deserves 1-10 points if you have +skill items, but it
deserves special mention here like skeleton mages. Revives are by far the most
powerful summonable minion skill a Necromancer has. Revives have more hp and
more damage than skeletons, but unfortunately they also die after 3 minutes,
which means that more than 12 or 13 points in this skill is normally a waste
since you can't maintain many more than that.
III.B. Poison/Bone Tree
The main purpose of this tree is so you can do damage yourself, also the skills
here are what you will have to rely on when you meet a phys immune monster. Also
worth noting is bone armor, which WILL save your life many times. Of the skills
listed below, you should pick bone armor, corpse explosion, and at least one
more spell to do damage with.
Teeth
Do NOT put any more than 1 point in this skill, it is VERY weak.
Bone Armor
I can't emphasize enough how important this is for a Necromancer, with 1 point
and then some +skill items it can it can easily absorb over 100 physical damage
before going down, then it can be easily recast to absorb another 100 damage.
Additional points will let it take more damage before going down, and thus some
Necromancers put more points here to keep them alive (very useful for hardcore).
If you play softcore, 1 point is enough to get the job done.
Bone Wall
This skill is actually quite annoying for a zookeeper, mainly because your
minions will attack the bone walls, but bone walls do seem to attract monsters
amazingly well, so either 0 or 1 points will work here.
Bone Prison
This skill is just like bone wall except it surrounds the target, I would not
suggest any points here.
Corpse Explosion
What is so nice about this spell is you can kill whole herds of monsters with
just a few bodies. This spell is a must if you plan on playing in the cow level
or other crowded areas of the game. Additional points in this skill increase the
radius which is very small at low levels. This spell does 60%-100% of the base
hp of the body you cast it on, by base hp I mean the hp that the monster would
have had in a 1 player game, thus it doesn't scale up in 8 player games. The
damage is 50% physical and 50% fire, thus if you use amp damage, it will become
even more powerful, lower resist will increase the damage as well, but not as
much as amp damage, if you want proof on that fact I will show the proof in the
skill comparison section below.
Bone spear
This spell is nice because it hits multiple enemies on a line, and can be cast
faster than the other direct-damage spells below, the disadvantage is that it
does very weak damage.
Bone spirit
This is probably the most popular direct-damage spell for Necromancers. The nice
properties of it are it does nice damage, and it seeks out the nearest target
(like the Amazon skill Guided Arrow). The bad part is it only damages one
monster each cast, so it isn't the best spell for herds. Also, it costs lots of
mana at high levels.
Poison Dagger
This skill is a no-no for a zookeeper, it does very low damage and you would
have to get in melee to use it.
Poison Explosion
This skill can do somewhat good damage, but either corpse explosion or poison
nova would be better for almost any situation.
Poison Nova
This is very commonly overlooked by Necromancers, while it is probably the best
PvM spell a Necromancer has available. What is so nice about this spell is it
hits everything on your screen, and does very high damage, even more than bone
spirit, while it doesn't cost as much mana at high levels. The disadvantage is
you have to wait 2 seconds between castings because recasting it before it runs
out only resets the duration, and most undead have high poison resist. This
spell starts to become a bit obselete in hell diff unless it is very high level
(frankly so does bone spirit), but it works wonders in nightmare. I have heard
reports of this skill wreaking havoc in hell cows at level 50, but of course it
is extremely difficult to get it that high even if you are an artillery necro.
III.C. Curses Tree
This tree is a very good addition to any Necromancer build, although this tree
is pointless by itself, for every situation there is a curse that will help.
Even though, most curses are only worth 1 skill point because normally they
don't become any more powerful with more points. I'll go though all the curses
here and what they are good for.
Amplify damage
This has to be the most powerful skill any character class can get at level 1,
you put one point in and the monster's physical resist is reduced 100% on
casting. This curse benefits many Necromancer skills, some examples are: corpse
explosion, melee revives, fighter skeletons, thorns damage, and even the damage
done by other characters in the area such as barbs, bowazons, etc... You will
probably find yourself using this curse more than any other.
Dim Vision
This is the first of the AI affecting curses a Necromancer has. This curse can
be very useful against ranged attackers, such as archers, or mages. Many
Necromancers swear by this curse, although if you have large numbers of minions
this curse won't have much benefit.
Weaken
The name says it all, it weakens the monsters, this curse really is only useful
as a prerequisite for other more useful curses.
Iron Maiden
Before LoD this used to be the best curse to use, but in LoD with the 50%
physical resist in hell diff, this curse isn't as useful as it used to be. Some
people still use this curse in lod successfully in cow runs, but using a thorns
merc with amp damage is a more effective method of damage return than any other
combo, so if you want to have damage return that is what I would recommend. This
curse does have a few uses though, if you have no damage return at all (such as
a thorns merc or an iron golem), then you might want to use this curse on the
ancients and other heavy hitting monsters. And of course this curse can work
well in pvp vs barbs if they don't use leap attack or bezerk. I would only
reccomend 1 point here even though more points raises the damage return because
it is the least effective method of damage return for a necro (proof below).
Terror
This is the 2nd AI affecting curse, at times this curse can be a real lifesaver.
If you or a teammate is swarmed by monsters then 1 cast of this spell will get
the monsters away and save the person's life.
Confuse
This curse can be nice in boss packs of monsters, you cast confuse on all the
minions and they will start attacking the boss, damaging it before they go down.
Confused monsters will attack anything that isn't confused, normally picking the
closest possible target. What this means is if you have minions fighting the
confused monster, the confused monster will probably just keep attacking your
minions, and thus this curse is more useful when you are low on minions than
not.
Life Tap
This is another useful curse, it is like giving everyone 50% life leech against
the cursed monsters. Very useful if you have a barb in your party about to die,
or to keep your mercenary alive.
Attract
This curse is useful for taking out a single target when there are lots of
monsters around it. Unfortunately, this cannot be cast on uniques, so it isn't
as useful as it could be, the main strategy with this curse is to cast iron
maiden on a group of monsters, then cast attract on one of them, and the
monsters will beat themselves up on the one with attract. This is also very
useful on monsters that revive other monsters such as fallen shamen.
Decrepify
This curse has very nice stats, unfortunately it has a very very small radius.
It is like a small version of weaken, amp damage, and cold damage all in one. It
decreases the damage the cursed monsters do 50%, it increases the damage taken
50%, and it slows them 50%, but after the radius was reduced in LoD it isn't as
practical as it once was in pvm, it is most often used in pvp now.
Lower Resist
This curse does what it says, it lowers the resistances of the cursed monsters,
it lowers 5 of the 6 resistances a monster has. Those resistances are: fire,
cold, lightning, poison, and magic. The one it doesn't decrease is physical.
This curse is very useful when you are dealing magic damage of some sort. It
benefits lots of Necromancer skills including bone spear, bone sprit, poison
nova, corpse explosion (although amp damage works better), and skeleton mages,
and even improves the damage of other classes such as Sorceresses and Javazons.
This is probably the 2nd most commonly used curse by Necromancers, amp damage
being first.
IV. Skill Comparison
I decided to add this section for comparing skills commonly asked about.
IV.A. Iron vs Fire Golem
This is one of the older debates since the release of lod, I'll list the major
benefits of each here:
Iron Golem
Thorns Damage: Actually very powerful at high levels of ig.
Customizable: If you are willing to sacrifice items to make the ig stronger it
will help definately.
Looks Cool: Make an iron golem from an ethereal item sometime
Con: IG's thorns does not stack with the thorns aura from a pally/act2 merc.
Fire Golem
Absorbs Fire: This may seem very appealing, but if you think about it, there
aren't many monsters that use fire, so this mod is wasted in most cases, the
major exception being diablo.
Cast Anywhere: Unlike the iron golem you can make a fire golem pretty well
anywhere at a moments notice
Attracts Monsters: The holy fire aura helps draw monsters to the fire golem,
potentially saving weak minions such as skeletons, and helpful with corpse
explosion.
Con: Very high mana cost (especially if maxed).
IV.B. Corpse Explosion (Amp or Lower Res)
Another question that comes up frequently, the answer is as long as the monster
isn't phys immune amp is better, but if you want to see the math then I'll show
it to you:
Corpse Explosion does 60%-100% of corpse hp, half fire, half physical as
mentioned before. Amp lowers a monster's physical res 100%, lower res will
lower the fire res about 60% (depending on skill level). I will do the
calculations assuming no immunities because it is obvious amp is better for fire
immune, and lower res is better for phys immune.
Damage without curse:
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%))
Damage with amp:
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-((physical res - 100%)/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%))
After some math...
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%)) +
(30%-50% of corpse hp)
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%))
Which simplifies to...
Damage without curse + (30%-50% of corpse hp)
Damage with lower res (60%):
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-((fire res-60%)/100%))
After some math...
Physical: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(physical res/100%))
Fire: (30%-50% of corpse hp)*(1-(fire res/100%)) + 0.6*(30%-50% of corpse hp)
Which simplifies to...
Damage without curse + 0.6*(30%-50% of corpse hp)
So as you can see, with amp more damage is dealt ALWAYS as long as the monster
isn't phys immune.
IV.C. Iron Maiden vs Amp (in Hell diff)
Despite my information that iron maiden is not a good option for damage return,
there are still people that include it in Zookeeper builds, so to emphasise how
bad it is I'm including this comparison section, I'll compare im to amp in 2
cases, 1 is with iron golem, the other is with a thorns merc and revives. With
both iron golem and iron maiden I will use the formula for damage with skill
level 17 and above since you will obviously want a high skill level if you are
going to use those. Also, for simplification I will assume 50% physical resist
on monsters and revives.
Iron Golem:
Damage with Iron maiden:
((120%+15%*(ig level))+(175%+25%*(im level)))*1/2=147.5%+7.5%*(ig level) +
12.5%*(im level)
Damage with Amp:
(120%+15%*(ig level))*1.5=180%+22.5%*(ig level)
With those formulas you can see that amp will be better if:
180%+22.5%*(ig level) > 147.5%+7.5%*(ig level)+12.5%*(im level)
32.5%+15%*(ig level) > 12.5%*(im level)
2.6+1.2*(ig level) > im level
So just for an example, with level 30 iron golem amp is best if you have an iron
maiden below level 39, which makes it quite obvious that amp will be better
there in almost all cases.
Revives and Thorns Merc (level 17 thorns assumed):
Damage with Amp:
890%*1.5*0.5=667.5%
Damage with Iron Maiden:
(890%+175%+25%*(im level))*0.5*0.5=266.25%+6.25%*(im level)
With those formulas you can see that amp will be better if:
667.5% > 266.25%+6.25%*(im level)
401.25% > 6.25%*(im level)
65 > im level
And since there is no legit way to get level 65 iron maiden, in this example amp
is definately better.
V. Mercenary Selection
Now, lets look at the mercenary. If chosen wisely, the mercenary can be the most
powerful and useful minion a Necromancer has, and there are lots to choose from,
lets look at the pluses and minuses of each type of mercenary to try to
determine which would work best for your zookeeper.
Act1 Rogue mercenary
The benefit of this mercenary is it has a fairly powerful ranged attack, as of
patch 1.09 there is a bug with the act1 mercenary where it will get a powerful
lightning attack if you give it +3 to its skills from equipment. The lightning
attack is very strong, and similar to the one Diablo uses. Also, the act1
mercenary has a fairly good AI, it tends to keep away from the monsters you are
fighting. The downsides of this mercenary is, it has rather low hp and it
doesn't make your other minions any better.
Act2 mercenary
For most Necromancers, this is the most useful type because the aura this
mercenary uses benefits all of your minions, and the mercenary has a fairly
strong attack. The most popular ones are the prayer, thorns, and might
mercenaries. Defiance isn't very useful because it adds a % to defense and
minions have such terribly low defense off the start it won't make much of a
difference. You also really don't need blessed aim because mages always hit, and
revives have good enough attack rating already where they don't need a boost.
Holy freeze is bad because there is a chance of bodies shattering, and the
zookeeper needs lots of bodies to work with. Now that you see why the other 3
aren't as useful, lets look at prayer, thorns, and might, to try to decide which
would be best for your Necromancer.
The prayer can be handy to keep your minions alive, if for example you use
skeletons which have very low hp, although if you use revives this mercenary
isn't as useful as the other 2.
The thorns mercenary is good for increasing your damage output by quite a large
amount in nightmare diff if you use amp damage, the problem is in hell diff that
strategy becomes much weaker because thorns is physical damage, and thus is
affected by the 50% physical resist in hell diff, plus in hell diff revives will
have 50% physical resist, which means they will take less damage, and thus less
damage will get reflected back. If you decide to use this mercenary, be warned
that thorns does not stack with the thorns an iron golem has, and although it
does stack with iron maiden, using amp will actually result in a greater damage
return.
The might mercenary is very powerful in both nightmare and hell difficulties,
because it will increase the damage of your revives by quite a large amount.
Also, there is currently a bug with it where it gets a more powerful aura than
the other mercenaries, although this may be changed in patch 1.10 when/if it
comes out. Also, the might mercenary has very large damage itself, especially if
you give it a good weapon, like a cruel war pike. If you choose to use the might
mercenary, amp damage will complement it well, increasing the damage output of
your minions even more.
The main disadvantage of act2 mercenaries is that they love getting in the
middle of a huge pack of monsters, and so many times you will have to change
curses to keep the mercenary alive. It isn't as bad as it sounds though for a
couple reasons. Many times your revives and golem will be able to help you keep
it alive, and plus the act2 mercenary tends to stay closer to you than other
minions. So if the mercenary is going too close to the monsters, then you can
back off just a little to make the mercenary come towards you, yet your other
minions will still be engaged with the enemy in combat.
Act3 mercenary
The act3 mercenaries have a few benefits. First, they are ranged like the act1
mercenaries. Also, they use elemental damage which is increased if you use lower
resist as your main curse. And a mixed curse/blessing is the cold mercenary, it
slows enemies which is good, but it also shatters bodies, which is bad. The main
disadvantage of the act3 mercenary is it doesn't do enough damage to kill
anything in hell diff, and only the cold one benefits your other minions.
Act5 mercenary
These mercenaries main role are tanking, they have more hp than any other
mercenary, and they do pretty good damage with the right weapon. Plus they
attack faster than the act2 merc, and with bash/stun they can potentially make
even fewer enemies get through to you. But since they have to get in the fray to
do thier duty, they tend to die fairly often.
IMO, the most useful merc for a zookeeper will be an act2 one, since they damage
quite well, and benefit your minions a ton.
VI. Equipment
The most common debate at high levels on equip is trang's vs uniques, so I will
do a complete analysis of the 2 at 99 to help clear up the mystery:
VI.A. Trang's Set vs Uniques
I'll start here with a full listing of all the mods on each...
Full Trangs:
Str Required 106
1543-1743 defense
+100 defense vs missle
+5 to all skills
60% faster mana regen
+275-300 mana
+15 life regen
88-95% fire resist
80% cold resist
50% lightning resist
130% poison resist
20% faster cast rate
+66 life
+15 dex
+25 strength
60% chance to block
Cannot be frozen
+30 stamina
24% fhr
Attacker takes damage of 20
30% faster run/walk and 10% faster stamina drain (including heavy armor penalty)
Uniques:
(Unique Shako, Vipermagi, Homunculus, Frostburns, Gloomstrap)
Str Required 60
692.7-785.1 defense
+5 to all skills
+2 to curses
48% faster mana regen
+1.5 mana/lvl
+22 energy
+55% mana
All Resists +60-75
30% faster cast rate
+1.5 life/lvl
+17 vitality
+2 strength
+2 dex
72% chance to block
30% faster block rate
10% damage reduce
50% magic find
Magic damage reduced by 9-13
+5 mana/kill
5% enhanced damage
1-6 cold duration, 2 second duration
5% mana steal
-3 light radius
At level 99, picking max for each value, removing useless mods,
and some combination:
Trangs:
81 base str required
+5 to all skills
60% faster mana regen
+300 mana
95% fire resist
80% cold resist
50% lightning resist
130% poison resist
20% faster cast rate
+66 life
Cannot be frozen
30% faster run/walk and 10% faster stamina drain
Uniques:
58 base strength required
+5 to all skills
48% faster mana regen
+192 mana
+55% mana
All Resists +75
30% faster cast rate
+182 life
10% damage reduce
Magic damage reduced by 13
+5 mana/kill
Now for a complete comparison, I'll add some items for the other item slots, and
compile the useful mods of them:
(Mara's, Blackhand Key, 2 sojs, Silkweave)
Str Required 65
+6 to all skills
+30 res all
+50 mana
+60 life
+5 str
30% faster cast rate
37% fire resist
+60% mana
30% faster run/walk
+5 mana/kill
Adding those mods on to the previous tally for each:
Trangs:
76 base str required
+11 to all skills
+60% faster mana regen
+350 mana
+60% mana
162% fire resist
110% cold resist
80% lightning resist
160% poison resist
50% faster cast rate
+126 life
Cannot be frozen
60% faster run/walk and 10% faster stamina drain
+5 mana/kill
Uniques:
58 base str required
+11 to all skills
+48% faster mana regen
+242 mana
+115% mana
142% fire resist
105% cold resist
105% lightning resist
105% poison resist
60% faster cast rate
+242 life
10% damage reduce
Magic damage reduced by 13
+10 mana/kill
30% faster run/walk
With all that behind us, lets compare the mods on each:
Required str: Trang's is 18 higher
+skills: equal
Resists: Trang's is higher on everything except lightning,
the most important one.
Faster cast rate: The uniques are 10% higher
Life: The uniques are 116 higher!!!
Faster run/walk: Trangs has 30% more, but also has more stamina drain.
+mana/kill: Uniques are twice trang's here
Trang's also has cannot be frozen which the uniques don't have
The uniques have 10% dr, and 13 mdr which Trang's doesn't have
I saved mana for last because there are lengthy calculations here
Mana: Trang's has (base +350)*(1.6)=1.6*base+560
The uniques have (base+242)*(2.15)=2.15*base+520.3
where base is your mana with only charms on.
So if base is below 72 then trang's is better on mana,
but it just so happens that at level 99 with BASE energy you would have 221 mana
WITHOUT charms, so the uniques are obviously better.
Mana regen: Trang's has (1.6*base+560)*(1.6)/120=(2.56*base+896)/120
The uniques have (2.15*base+520.3)*(1.48)/120 =
(3.182*base+770.044)/120
So if base is below 203 then trang's would be better on mana regen, but see the
comment above, at level 99 the uniques would be better even with base energy
without charms.
So, after this long description, the only areas where trang's can beat the
uniques are in fire, cold, and poison resists, run/walk, and cannot be frozen,
on EVERYTHING else the uniques are equal or far superior.
VI.B. Act2 Merc Equip
Act2 Merc Weapon: Ideally a Cruel War Pike or Polearm with shaels/amn runes, a
runeworded ethereal, or just any high damage you can find.
Act2 Merc Armor: Ideally an Ethereal Shaftstop with um, or any high defense +hp
and resist all armor you can get if you can't afford it.
Act2 Merc Helmet: Ideally an Ethereal Vampire Gaze with um, or Tal's Mask, or
any +hp resist all helm like a circlet with good mods.
VI.C. Iron Golem Item
It may seem odd listing this with equipment, but the iron golem essentially
equips what you make it from, thus I include this section here. I have not
deduced all of the mods that do or do not effect the iron golem yet, but the
indestructable mod has NO effect on the iron golem, and I have found some that
work very well which I will mention:
Chance to cast when struck: It should be very obvious why this is useful, the
purpose of a golem is to tank, thus it gets struck very frequently, making it
cast the spell very often. One good item to look out for is hwanin's armor
which has a chance to cast static field when struck 8)
High res-all item: It just so happens that the iron golem does not have a cap
on resists, so if you make it from an item with 100% res all for example it will
be immune to fire, cold, lightning, and poison, very useful for a tank eh?
1-h Damage: The 1-h damage of weapons is added to the iron golem's own damage,
so if you make it from a high damage weapon it can actually do some melee
damage, but I find the other 2 suggestions more useful personally.
VII. Various Zookeeper Builds
This section will list some of the more powerful zookeeper builds available in
case you can't decide how to make one of your own. The skills will be listed in
the order of maxing. I will assume you get the skills that I strongly recomended
for any zookeeper above such as bone armor and summon resist. And it is assumed
you will get the prereqs as they become available.
VII.A. The General
Might Merc (Act2 Nightmare Offensive)
1 Amp Damage and Lower resist.
Max Skeleton Mastery
1 Revive (with +10 or more to all)
Max Poison Nova or Bone Spirit
Max Golem Mastery
Max Iron Golem
All remaining points in Corpse Explosion
The general is a heavy hitting minion build, you will be pumping up the physical
damage of your minions to insane levels, and so if you keep more than 10
revives, the army that you command will rip through all in your path, you will
mostly just get to sit back and cast amplify damage, and maintain the army. When
you run into a phys immune monster you will need to rely on skeleton mages and
your poison nova or bone spirit to kill them (with lower resist of course). From
my experience there is no better way to make a necro for killing smaller groups
of monsters such as bosses, at high levels this build can take out hell diablo
very easily just with some venom lord revives (the right seal), so its best to
save that seal for last, so you can have fresh revives for diablo. The beauty
of this build is the stronger the monsters, the stronger you are. Since the
whole purpose of this setup is enhancing physical damage dealt by your revives
it is best to look for revives that deal decent damage fairly quickly. Some
good revives in this case would be: corrupted rogues in act1, buzzard-type
monsters and the monsters with whips in act2, flayers and buzzard-type monsters
in act3, most anything in act4 except for corpse eaters and leapers, and moon
lords in act5, and of course cows from the secret cow level work very well too.
VII.B. The Damage Returner
Thorns Merc (Act2 Nightmare Combat)
1 Amp Damage and Lower Resist
(optional) Max Skeleton Mastery
1 Blood Golem and Fire Golem
Max Golem Mastery
1 Revive (with +10 or more to all)
Max Poison Nova and/or Bone Spirit
Max Corpse Explosion
(optional) Max Fire Golem for greater holy fire radius
This build is not too unlike the general, the difference is it doesn't matter
how hard your minions hit, all they will be doing is sitting there getting hit,
and the thorns will do the damage for you, amp damage increases the return of
thorns, so make sure to keep casting it. You will be killing insanely fast in
nightmare difficulty. You will notice a large drop in killing speed in hell diff
, though, because of the 50% physical resist your revives and the monsters will
have. This build works very well on large mobs of melee monsters (eg the secret
cow level), as long as you keep your merc alive. And also, like the general,
the stronger the monsters, the stronger you become usually. But ranged/magic
casting enemies can be harder. For revives you just want punching bags here,
anything that will get right up in the monster's face in a hurry and has decent
hp will work.
VII.C. The Lord of Mages
Prayer Merc (Act2 Normal Combat)
1 Lower Resist (with 7 or more +skills)
Max Skeleton Mastery
Max Skeleton Mages
1 Fire Golem
1 or more in Raise Skeleton and Revive
Max Bone Spirit
Max Golem Mastery
The name says it all about the lord of mages, you will be relying on a large
number of skeleton mages to do your damage, with lower resist and massive
+skills this build can kill very well through normal and nightmare, but in hell
diff there will be a slowdown in killing speed since you max out your killing
speed in nightmare most likely.
VIII.Questing Guide
I don't want to tell you how to play the whole game, but I'll give a few small
pointers here in case you are having a hard time.
Act1 Norm
Try to get a wand with large plusses to raise skeleton and skeleton mastery,
since you won't be wanting to put many points in raise skeleton. Another option
is to go melee through the early parts of the game, since it doesn't take too
much to kill the early monsters. For andariel, use a golem and iron maiden if
you are high enough level, or go melee with poison length reduced gear and
poison resist gear, a good level to try her is 12-18 depending on your personal
skill level.
Act2 Norm
If you can, upgrade your wand to one that also has a big bonus to raise skeletal
mage, and get a prayer merc to help carry you through to nightmare, equip it
well and act2 will be easy. Against duriel just make sure to have lots of
minions, and possibly use iron maiden, level 18-21 should be good for duriel.
Act3 Norm
Once again, keep your merc equipped well and this shouldn't be too hard, make
sure to use life tap when it is low on hp. Mephisto on the other hand could
prove tricky, being the first major spellcaster in the game, level 24-26 or so
should be something to shoot for, in norm he uses melee a lot with a golem right
in front of him so you could try golem+iron maiden once again, and if your merc
is well equipped it will probably help greatly.
Act4 Norm
This will be the hardest part for most builds because the monsters are getting
harder and you aren't level 30 yet, so you don't have your major killing skills
yet, just try to keep your skeletons and mages up, and your merc should still be
doing fairly well. Try to get to level 30 or higher before diablo so you will
have something useful to attack him with.
Act5 Norm
By now you will hopefully be level 30-something, so you can start putting points
in your major destructive spells, and you should be able to use some fairly good
+skills equipment by now, so this act will be a joke. When you are getting ready
for baal, go revive some frenzy monsters, or get a fully army of mages in the
lom case, and hopefully you willl weaken him down a lot before he takes down
your minions, then use your lower resist and bone spirit or poison nova to
finish the job, you should be able to kill him at level 40.
Nightmare
This should be very easy for you, just keep putting points in your skills and
keep looking for better items. When you get to act2 get the better merc if you
are following the general or damage returner builds, your killing will speed up
significantly, you might want to level up to level 50-60 before going to hell
diff.
Hell
By here you will have most of your most useful skills maxed out and the monsters
shouldn't pose too much of a problem. The lom might start noticing a slow-down
in killing speed though, just make sure to have something tanking for your
mages, and use your bone spirit or poison nova to speed up the killing.
The (not so) Secret Cow Level
I hate how this has become nothing but an exp farm now, but by popular demand I
will include a section on this here. It is actually quite simple for a necro,
herd up the cows in a large mob, kill about 3 (on players 8), cast amp damage on
the mob, then use corpse explosion. And please don't ask how to kill 1, it
should be obvious, revives work wonders, so does a merc. The higher level your
corpse explosion the faster you can take down huge mobs (more than 1 full
screen).
Special Thanks To:
Gamefaqs for hosting this guide
www.diabloii.net for various info used in this guide
www.battle.net/diablo2exp for info as well
Lord Scimitar on gamefaqs for some ideas of sections to add to the guide
And of course myself
