Talk:Bonemancer

Though well written, this Bonemancer page is lacking in that it encompasses nearly everything and tells us almost nothing. The equipment selection is so vague I don't see why the author bothers making any suggestions at all (like wasting 4 points to get Revive when you could just use a wand or head mod). Moreover, the "build" doesn't come close to maximizing Bone spell damage, so how is it a "Bonemancer"? The synergy bonuses for Bone Spear and its ability to be cast repeatedly make it FAR stronger than Bone Spirit, if one can achieve the proper balance between skiller (this includes Fungal charms) and FCR equipment. The page instructs us to distribute all points into Bone Spells and then leaves everything else open. The skill-tree tells us that much! I understand that we don't want to crwod Wikia with monotonous D2 builds, but the page does not illustrate a build - it is a very generalized attempt at addressing a few VERY different builds. A build is a well thought out design where specific equipment and skills achieve balance with each other.

This is my page (unformatted) that keeps getting deleted:

This build maxes out the unavoidable magic damage Bone Spear (or any Necro-Bone spell) can deal per second while providing substantially strong Revives that benefit from the Amplify Damage curse, as well as the Might, Concentration, and Thorns auras. This build also utilizes the high-level Bone Wall and Bone Prison spells by combining them with Iron Maiden and Thorns. A Clay Golem is employed to attract enemies and to slow them down. Though simple, this build is both effective and versatile.

Skill Point Allocation and Hot Keys

Teeth (20) Corpse Explosion (1) [C] Bone Spear (20) [Permanent Left Mouse] Bone Spirit (20) Bone Shield (1) [A] Bone Wall (20) [F] Bone Prison (20) [D] Amplify Damage (1) [X] Iron Maiden (1) [V] Clay Golem (1) [Mouse Scroll Down] Golem Mastery (1) Summon Resist (1) Summon Skeleton (1) [E] Skeleton Mastery (2) Revive (item granted) [W] Teleport (item granted) [Mouse Scroll Up] Hydra (item granted) [R] Unsummon [T] Town Portal [Z] Stand Still [S] (beneficial with left-click Bone Spear builds) Use Belt [Q] [Shift] [Caps] [Tab] [~ as secondary Shift] View Items [Alt] Inventory [Space]

Tips: Button progression for Bone Spear>Amplify Damage>Corpse Explosion: [X+S (hold S)]>[RightMouse]>[C+LeftMouse (hold LM until corpses are available)]>[RightMouse]

Teleport close to an opponent then take a few steps away, placing your minion(s) between you; commence button progression.

Corpse Explosion [C ] can usually be removed from the progression in PVP.

Bone Wall can be used strategically with terrain, or can be recast quickly to barricade the entire screen. Bone Prison can trap an enemy or group with a single cast, but an enemy must be present to cast it, so cannot be used preemptively. Iron Maiden [V] is effective with both skills, so should usually replace Amplify Damage [X] in the button progression when using them.

Clay Golem instantly attracts monsters, even at higher levels, so it is a good idea to always have one.

Some PVPers and teamsters may wish to replace Revive and Skeleton Mastery wand mods with Lower Resistance and Decrepify while allotting skill points into Blood Golem and Iron Golem rather than Skeleton Mastery and Raise Skeleton. Contrarily (and this changes the entire build), if one would rather rely on Revives more than Bone Spear: let Bone Spirit replace Bone Spear as left mouse attack and take its wand modifier slot; replace all Fungal charm mods with Graverobbers'; allocate 18 of the skill points from Bone Spear into maxing Skeleton Mastery, and one more point from Bone Spear into either Raise Skeleton or Blood Golem.

Stat Point Allocation

Strength: Place no points here; use a belt, amulet, and rings to boost strength at onset of each game then switch back to usual gear once benefiting from Enigma's strength bonus Dexterity: If you take melee damage often, place some points here Vitality: Everything (except that placed in dexterity) Energy: Place no points here; equipment will compensate

Equipment

Wand (3 Bone Spear, 3 Skeleton Mastery, 1-3 Revive) with White runeword Archon Plate with Enigma runeword Darkforce Spawn with Ber or Zod if ethereal Harlequin Crest with Ber Magefists (upgraded to Crusader Gauntlets) Arachnid Mesh (80% FCR total! Skill bonuses sacrificed to drop another frame would diminish DPS) Marrowwalks Mara's Kaleidoscope 2 Stones of Jordan Inventory: Hellfire Torch; Annihilus; 6 Fungal Charms of Vita; 3 Fungal Charms of Balance; 6 Small Serpent's Charms of Vita; 3 Small Shimmering Charms of Vita; 1 Small Shimmering Charm of Balance (must achieve 39% FHR total)

Mercenary

Mercenary aura should be Might. Mercenary equipment should consist of: Archon Plate with Bramble runeword, Harlequin Crest with Ber, and a War Pike with Pride runeword, preferably all ethereal.

First of all, sign your posts. Second of all, Spearmancer hasn't been deleted, and any conversation as to the build was meant to happen on its talk page rather than this one. Third of all, IMO, a build article should not be too rigid and leave some room for experimentation. The Bonemancer and your build still gravitate towards bone spells, so at most, all I can see is elements of this being incorporated noting that it is possible to focus entirely on bone spells rather than spreading out skill points. Fourth of all, the Bonemancer article is much more readable, whereas every edit you've made has just been a wall of text.

It was agreed that "Ultimate Necromancer" didn't justify a build article, and right now, all I can see is elements of this being noted in the Bonemancer article. You're free to try and convince me or the other users otherwise.--Hawki (talk) 23:20, September 2, 2014 (UTC)

My $0.02. If it's not a Bonemancer page, it's because you can't read.

I suspect what you have listed here is a set of d2jsp crib notes or a shopping list for an item site. I think you also PvP extensively which is why you have so much focus on equipment. It's "vague" because there is a lot of flexibility to a Bonemancer and will be a success with general advice unless you take PvP VERY seriously. I'll give that the article could use some editing, outside of telling people what to bind their keys to. I can't see any reason a build should rely on setting key bindings to be a success. (EDIT:Now that my temper has cooled off, I'll give you a leve-headed suggestion.  Put a section in the main article called Max Damage Bonemancer.  I think that would have been fine and the mod staff would likely be fine with letting you have a section with all this info) Breywood (talk) 23:25, September 2, 2014 (UTC)

I suppose it is my misconception. I thought a build was supposed to maximize a character's effectiveness by establishing which equipment their skill-path will benefit the most from. Like solving a puzzle. That's why I thought the Bonemancer page was so vague. It basically just lists out a bunch of equipment that might work well on a Necro and tells us to sink points in Bone skills. Couldn't I just look at the skill-tree for that? Or the Arreat Summit's necromancer skills page?

Fizzle Sherbert (talk) 06:35, September 3, 2014 (UTC)

First off, I did say that it was okay to edit or to create a sub-article like with the Dragoon where I made a sub-article to make best use of the Immortal King set with that build, and I'm sure that none of the mods would have done much outside clean up the formatting if you made a max damage build section in the main article. Second, how would someone fail at building a Bonemancer if they followed the suggestions in the article? Third, couldn't someone go over to diablo.incgamers or Amazon Basin (or shadier sites) to get the info you listed, if you didn't just copy it from there? Breywood (talk) 10:52, September 3, 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry if it seems like I keep attacking your page; I respect why you left it so open, and may take you up on your suggestion to include a section within it. Like I said: I suppose it is my misconception. I think my misunderstanding was due to the fact that all the other necro-builds have a very specific list of equipment that's organized according to skill-path, along with the fact that all my own builds (unpublished) are also planned in this way (equipment all balanced). I didn't realize the purpose of these build pages was only to give a general understanding of a skill-path, but now I do, and understand why. Perhaps Necromancer builds should have only three pages: Bonemancer, Poisonmancer, and Summoner. To answer your next question: it isn't that one would fail to build a Bonemancer, only that one might fail to build an effective one, if equipment is randomly assembled from the list provided. The answer to your final query is yes and no. One could go to these sites to get the information about each necro-skill and piece of equipment in the game, but it takes a fair amount of research and experience to put together a specific and well-balanced build. While it does make sense to condense and generlize build pages, I think if readers wanted to do the research they wouldn't be at a build page in the first place.

Fizzle Sherbert (talk) 09:13, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and included the Spearmancer in your page, but it adds so many chapters I doubt anyone will like the layout.

Fizzle Sherbert (talk) 10:37, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

In response to your previous comment, I've built a Summoner every ladder reset and I've walked him solo past Baal with what you might consider total garbage. I never build perfect characters and plenty of them have Matriarch/Patriarch as their titles even if I never had what many consider "effective" gear for them (which is usually a default "suggestion" of enigmashakomaras). I can tell you that even if I haven't played a Bonemancer yet that missing a single FCR breakpoint, 50 defense or five skill points won't make him ineffective unless someone is taking PvP too seriously. Skin of the Vipermagi, Wizardspike and a Homonculus are still suitable items for this build even if they aren't "ultimate."

For your hireling, I'd take Duress or Treachery over Bramble. The damage vs life ratio makes the Thorns aura very ineffective in Hell plus the others give a decent FHR or were you aiming for a breakpoint there? Helmet. Why not Guillaume's Face or Nightwing's Veil? And weapon. Wasn't an ethereal Breath of the Dying Warpike the penultimate, but with Fortitude or CoH for armor. Breywood (talk) 11:01, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

I hear you. Beating the game is a piece of cake once higher levels are achieved, regardless of equipment. But if careful attention isn't given to equipment selection, a player will get destroyed by a well-planned build in PVP, and a good build can make uber bosses uber-easy. The point of the merc equipment is to maximize the benefits revives and Bone Wall/Prison receive from the merc. Bramble provides the Thorns aura (which works fine in Hell, depending on what type of damage a monster or opponent is dealing; it's just great watching a monster kill its self fighting your minions or Bone Wall), while Pride provides the Concentration aura; Harlequin Crest contributes to might (as well as Jab). Many of the other mods are also very beneficial, but I don't really see any reason to go into it here.

Fizzle Sherbert (talk) 11:58, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for fixing the layout of the Spearmancer section. I don't mind if you want to rename the section or edit the text, or make further suggestions concerning the actual build (the helm suggestions are good; the +2 to Might, though distributed across the entire army, is less beneficial than Crushing Blow in many scenarios). Also, if everyone decides specific builds are unnecessary, I won't be too upset if it's taken down. Thanks again.

Fizzle Sherbert (talk) 14:06, September 4, 2014 (UTC)

◄► Tephra ◄► 18:08, September 4, 2014 (UTC)
 * Specific builds are only unnecessary if they do not serve a purpose beyond wasting space. If the point of your build is to maximize it in some respect, then it is serving a purpose. However, keep in mind that Diablo is quite variable and certain equipment/tactics that some would consider the best, others might consider second behind some other thing. So the concept of "best" is an opinion and that should never be forgotten. I think it is quite acceptable to have a build article with generic guidelines followed by a highly focused variant. I personally prefer the generic builds in my gameplay, as just copying a very specific checklist is not what I consider to be fun, but I do realize there are people who only care about being as powerful as possible. I say this to point out that both sections have a purpose, and should not infringe upon each other; i.e. one be 500 times bigger than the other. Build articles need to get to the point without any flowery discourse - all facts, no fat. So go ahead and add your build variants, but make sure they exist for a reason and keep them as orderly and condensed as you can.

My little brother just told me about this - I believe I'm the original author of this guide, although I'm not credited anywhere. It's been 10 years so no big surprise there, things fall through the cracks, just wanted to mention. At this point it's somewhat longer than I remember it anyway, so a true community effort! As for the vagueness of it, my bonemancer was my go-to character, and the guide was written from a PVE/ladder perspective. I did not, at the time of writing, expect anybody with a full stash of perfect items to look to the wiki for help. Moreso, the guide gives an idea which items to shoot for, and which can get you by until you get there - Although if you wanted a max damage bonemancer, the original guide was written with the "best" item listed on top (few slots like amulets got swapped over the years). I thank my whiteknights for defending this article from angry pvp'ers loaded with forumgold. Writing this as I redownload. - Mortent