Novamancer

The Novamancer is a Necromancer build which should be able to wipe out a fairly large group of enemies with a combination of Lower Resist and Poison Nova.

The Novamancer focuses on a balanced build with high poison damage with the Poison and Bone Spells skill tree.

This build gives the ability to inflict high damage with the poison skills AND also allows you to have some "distractions" so to speak so that you won't be the one taking all the damage. While your Golem is standing between you and your enemies, you're free to unleash some high poison damage.

How to effectively use a Novamancer

1. While you're in town, summon your Golem of choice. Using a Clay Golem is highly recommended.
2. When you walk into the battlefield, get your Golem of choice (Clay Golem is widely used due to the 10,000+ life opportunity in Hell mode and its ability to slow enemies) to stand between you and your opponents while you cast Lower Resist and Poison Nova to kill them.
3. Once you have killed a bunch of enemies, you'll have the opportunity to take advantage of those bodies for Corpse Explosion or Revive.
4. To kill bosses, you have 3 methods. Two of which will depend on what gear you have.
   1. Non-Gear dependent option. Have the boss turn its attention to your minions, then cast Lower Resist followed by Poison Explosion (if possible), or Poison Nova.
   2. Gear dependent option. If you have gear that adds quite a few points to your skills, then cast a few Bone Prisons on the boss as opposed to a minion, then follow the same process as above. It should also be noted that if you have an enemy that chases you, try to "Bone Prison" it around a bunch of bodies, as Poison Explosion does more damage than Poison Nova and also costs less mana to cast.
   3. Mercenary. Equip your mercenary with gear that focuses on Crushing Blow and attackspeed, while keeping him alive with Life Tap and halting enemy regeneration with Poison Nova. This option will often severely outspeed your own damage output in single player games.
5. For those who are Immune to Poison, well, that's simple. Cast Lower Resist on them, which will remove their immunity in most cases. Although they are no longer Immune, they will still have a fairly good resistance to poison, so perhaps it'd be wise to use Corpse Explosion instead, as this does 70-120% of corpse life regardless of the level and it also deals half Physical and half Fire damage. A strong mercenary can be of tremendous help against immune enemies.

Skill Points

• 20 into Poison Dagger
• 20 into Poison Explosion
• 20 into Poison Nova
• In the Summoning Spells skill tree, unlock Clay Golem, Summon Resist and Golem Mastery. Unlock Revive, if you feel like you need additional blockers.
• 1 point into each skill in the Curses skill tree
• In the Poison and Bone Spells skill tree, choose to either maximize your Corpse Explosion, or to maximize Bone Wall and Bone Prison to bolster up your Bone Armor.
• Lower Resist until you reach level 16 with your items. Additional points will not change your damage output in significant ways.

Stat points

• Strength Enough to wear gear
• Dexterity Enough to wear gear
• Vitality The rest of your points
• Energy About 100-150

Gear

• Weapon: Death's Web socketed with a Rainbow Facet Poison/Die. Faster Caste Rate does not benefit our damage and nothing comes close to beating up to -50% to enemy poison resistances. Use Blackbog's Sharp if you are not able to acquire a Death's Web.
• Body Armour: Enigma. For the Teleportation it gives, if you want uitlity. However, it is very hard to pass up on the raw +50% poison damage that Bramble can provide here.
• Shield: Homunculus (Unique Hierophant Trophy). When you can, use the socket quest you get from Larzuk in act V and insert an Um rune into it for resistances or a Rainbow Facet Poison/Die for more poison damage.
• Helmet: Harlequin Crest (Unique Shako). Also when you can, get this socketed by Larzuk and insert an Um rune into this as well for resistances. Or a rare circlet with 2 Rainbow Facets Poison/Die.
• Gloves: Trang-Oul's Claws (Gloves from Trang-Oul's Avatar set). This will help with +2 to Curses and +25% to poison damage.
• Belt: Arachnid Mesh (Unique Spiderweb Sash). This gives +1 to all skills.
• Boots: Rare boots that provide high resistances and running speed.
• Rings: 2x Stone of Jordan (Unique). These will give you +1 to all skills each, and for the large amount of mana these items give you.
• Amulet: Mara's Kaleidoscope (Unique). This will give you +2 To all skills and added resistances.