A few months ago, I read the D2 Ironman rules and fooled around with a few ideas and HC chars. That grew into a necro character on US West that is a lot of fun (every good party has someone asking "Wtf is THAT curse??"). The D2 Ironman rules have since disappeared (dead link), so this is from memory.
My experience tells me that that a 2 character team has a pretty easy way with Ironman by using a little known skill. The necro's Dim Vision skill is simply awesome in Normal difficulty. Only Uniques and Champs are unaffected. How good is DV? I'm still able to use skeletal mages in Hell difficulty, since only rarely are they rushed. The monsters simply stand around until a ranged attacker kills them or my golum shows up (or bone spear/spirit). The minions, and most importantly _me_, are never caught in a crowd, at most it's a one on one duel. The US West char has never added to vitality (but loves +life items ;) and has only died from overconfidence (and than only in Act3 NM and beyond). The initial build plan was so successful that only now in Hell difficulty am I considering a rebuild (I had 6 speedzons in Normal before I was happy).
Uniques and champs are handled with space, since this team can easily do full clears (and should do so for the experience and drops), there is always empty space for retreat while whittling down the pack.
Necro Char plan: simply add to energy, pump DV up to > 10 seconds duration (but not much more), ignore the other curses due to overwrite. Regen items are excellent, otherwise not much is needed. I have only a single point in each of the Summoning Tree skills with +2 skills in the normal character and have done fine (Hell difficulty requires more investment however).
For a partner, I'd use a Static Field sorc, probably with Fire. It's clear that a blind monster losing 25% life per cast will be mopped up by the golum or the ranged attackers. The sorc is free to roam very close to the Dimmed monsters, so low level SF is very useful. For the champ packs gathered around the golum, it's time to play with fire(wall). A strafzon might be a second choice....
There is no need for NPCs (all magic and ranged attacks), mana potions & regen simply control how fast the game can be played, very few items are worth picking up, it's easy to delay the reward quests until the last minute, etc. I would imbue boots, as increased speed helps to drag the minions to a desired spot and avoid magical ranged attackers (as I recall, Ob Knights are immune to DV).
I'm writing this to see if anyone is interested in giving it a try, or to find out if I've overlooked something. Send an email to [email protected] if interested, I rather do it HC and have a fast connection to be on any realm (given a quick run thru outside of USWest).
Posted on Aug 5, 2001, 2:50 PM from IP address 64.42.29.14
