different Builds - three Sisters introduce themselves
Up to now I have played three Poisonzons.
Engel_Macherin, Lucretia_Borgia and Gorgon_Zola.
Engel_Macherin
She was my first Poisonzon. With her I decided on LF as second skill. I wanted to have a second ranged attack with AoE damage. Speaking also for LF is that it needs only 20 additional skill points, has autohit and needs no IAS to deliver good damage. As long as one uses LF only for mobs with high poison resistance or PoisI, really large mob herds or dangerous mobs, the Mana consumption can be satisfied by drinking pots. Because of LF I put a point into pierce. Thanks to +6 skills I have over 63% chance to pierce. As already mentioned the herding for LF and for the Poison Skills differs fundamentally from each another. I predominantly herd for the use of Poison Skills and don't go for herding anew to get a good piercing line. Therefore my change to pierce is sufficient. Additionally I wanted to test the Skills Dodge, Avoid and Evade. So I put 4/1/3 points into them. I had to notice that 1 point in each is altogether sufficient for the Poisonzon. Those other points would rather have been spent in Decoy. In order to ease playing Norm and NM I invested one point into Jab.
Engel_Macherin keeps a Fire Rouge in her payment. She offers a further source for physical damage and adds another kind of elemental damage. At a push I am prepared to use LR charges against PoisI + LI mobs or attack with a dagger from the second slot. The Rogue profits from herding mobs and therefore is going to reposition less often. Originally I planed on giving Kuko to the Rogue. Since no ExA is used, I equipped her with Slow and OW instead.
Single opponents with big life pools or PoisI sometimes seem to take forever. Against Baal I tried using LiB, since it was useful with the Ghost in the Forgotten Tower. Against Ball it isn't. Baal was the reason for putting points in ChS. Some cold damage and the chance to cast Frost Nova via equip round off the setting.
Order of Skill Point Allocation
This is a Poisonzon. So I finished LF at last. The first Point went into Jab. I activated any new skill as soon as it was available. If points couldn't be placed immediately, I saved them. 10 Points went into PoisJ. PlJ was maxed first of all.
- - at Level 50: PlJ max, PoisJ at 15, Valk at 3, LF at 2 and the Evasives at 2/1/2
- - at Level 75: also PoisJ max, Valk at 10, Decoy at 5, LF at 12 and the Evasives at 4/1/3
- - at Level 85: Valk at 18, Decoy at 5, LF at 18 and the Evasives at 4/1/3
- - at Level 92: also Valk and LF max, Decoy at 5, ChS at 2, the Evasives at 4/1/3; it would have been better if I had left the Evasives at 1 and spent those 5 points in ChS instead.
Order of Status Point Allocation at level 92:
| Strength | Dexterity | Vitality | Life | Energy | Mana | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with |
| Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | ||||||
| 75 | 150 | 170 | 196 | 280 | 300 | 1072 | 1219 | 15 | 19 | 151 | 232 |
With Charms and Equip Resis are at 60/27/85/63.
By now Engel's equipment contains: Titis, Rhyme - Grim Shield, a rare +2 Skills circlet with 20% FR, Mana and 2 MDR, upgraded Vipermagi with a resist-jewel, magic +3 Java gloves, rare boots with 30% FR and resists, TG belt, a +1Skill amu with str, resists and 4 DR, rare rings with Maek, resists, str and 2 MDR. On her second weapon slot she now has equipped a recently found Demon's Arch and Tiamats for Jabbing LIs. She prefers the +3 Java gloves over TO gloves, so LF and ChS also get profit. TG is used for the same reason. Additionally TG gives the 10% enhanced lightning resist and some lightning absorb, which is nice against LIs.
Engel didn't own Titis, Vipermagi, TG and the boots until Act 5 Hell. She previously wore a +3 Java Javelin, a Smoke-armour, a rare resist belt and Natalya's boots. Most of the time she used Tiamats and a rare throwing knife with LR charges and some ele dam on her second weapon slot. The Rogue also changed during Act 5 Hell into her slowing gear consisting of Riphook, Blackhorn's Face and Duriel's Shell. Previously she had some low stuff like Skystrike, Naj's Circlet and Boneflesh. While levelling further I upgraded Riphook. It made only little difference and isn't really worth it. Only improvement was to socket the hat and armour and putting IAS-Jewels into them, so the Rouge speeds up to 10 frames.
Thanks to LF Engel had no problems in Act 2. All in all Engel is very easy to play. Only act end bosses take some time. The combination PoisI + LI is far rarer than PoisI + PI. With dual immunes one immunity is always pierceable with LR. For this reason I had LR charges in second slot most of the time. Since I found the Demon's Arch I prefer Jab usage with the second slot.
Lucretia_Borgia
This is the name of my next toxic Fairy. With her I wanted to see how far I get with only Poison and what stronger Passives may be good for. Hence max Valk and max Decoy were a given. Moreover I wanted to test the RWs 'Edge' (TirTalAmn) and 'Harmony' (TirIthSolKo). So I took a Rogue again, but this time a Cold one. With Edge I expected a faster levelling until Hell. At beginning of Hell I wanted to change onto Harmony. The Vigor aura should help to get Valk faster to the enemies. This didn't work out as planned. In most Hell areas Edge was more efficient than Harmony, because of Thorns and max Decoy.
In Act 2 hell I finally couldn't go on with 'poison only' and had to decide on a second slot weapon and a second attack. I don't like the Zon's animation with a twohanded axe or sword. Mauls and hammers need way to much strength. So I was looking for a nice onehanded weapon with standard attack or a twohanded Spear with Jab. Being loath to choose between the possibilities I kept the decision open as long as I could.
In Hell Act 2 I tried both Lycander's Flank and Stoneraven. In Act 5 I found Lacerator which I also tried. I fought again complete Act 2 and Act 5 with all three weapons. All in all the Lacerator with its AD is best. Between Lycander's and Stoneraven there are only little differences. Thanks to resists and magical damage I prefer Stoneraven.
Order of Skill Point Allocation
Here I raised the blockers faster, especially Decoy. I activated any prerequired skill as soon as it was available. If points couldn't be placed immediately, I saved them.
At first I put a point into Jab and then 10 points into PoisJ. Up until Decoy was sLvl 13 I skilled Decoy and PlJ alternately. Then I maxed PlJ. In between Valk received 2 points. The following points went at a ratio of 2:1 into PoisJ and Valk. After that I finished Decoy and then Valk. Any further points went into Pene and CS (for the 50% chance). After I found the Lacerator I put a point into Pierce.
- - at Level 50: PlJ at 19, PoisJ at 10, Decoy at 13 and Valk at 2
- - at Level 75: PlJ, PoisJ and Decoy max, Valk at 13
- - at Level 85: Valk also max, CS at 4, Pene at 4 and Pierce at 1
- - at Level 91: CS at 4, Pene at 10 and Pierce at 1
The allocation of points between CS, Pene and Jab depend largely on the weapon used.
Order of Status Point Allocation at level 91:
| Strength | Dexterity | Vitality | Life | Energy | Mana | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with |
| Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | ||||||
| 25 Points spare | |||||||||||
| 97 | 158 | 139 | 165 | 269 | 291 | 1033 | 1236 | 15 | 15 | 147 | 246 |
Including Charms and Equip Resists are at 72/75/75/69, in second slot at 75/71/72/60. This is more than enough. If I needed space I could skip some poison resist charms.
By now Luci's equipment consists of: Titis, Spirit - monarch, a magic +2 Skills circlet with 22 Dex and resist jewels with strength, upgraded Duriel's with another resist jewel. She has also +3 Java gloves with 20% IAS and rare boots with 30% FR, resist and 10 FHR. Her rare belt has more resist and strength, her amu +2 Skills, strength and some poison resists and her rings have Maek, ML, LL, AR, fire resist and poison length reduce. On her second weapon slot Luci uses Shael'd Stoneraven. She decided on the +3 Java gloves, since jab profits by that ones, too. Luci has the luxury of four Java Skill charms and thusly reaches castLvl 37 PoisJ and PlJ. I'll only change the gloves if TO gloves provide me a higher total damage and not just a higher damage per second. I need two more + skills for that. Beside the Edge bow the Rogue wears a Stealskull and a Crow Craw, so she reaches 10 frames attack speed. Socketing min/max dam jewels would improve her power a bit more.
At the beginning of Hell Luci had besides the Duriel's and the Spirit Monarch - both presents from Engel - only rare low level stuff. In Hell act 1 Duriels was upgraded and + 3 Java gloves bought. In Act 2 Luci exchanged her second slot elemental Javelins and Tiamats for Stoneraven. In Act 5 Luci found the resist jewels, better rings, belt and boots. The +3 Java Javelin was replaced by another Titan's. The +1 skill/resist amu and the +1 skill circlet got displaced by the +2 skill amu and circlet. The Rogue wore until Act 4 Hell an ethereal Iceblink and a resist helm with max Dam.
Luci is similar to a physical Speary. Her behaviour comes quite close to the one described under Game Play. Jabbing with Lycander's, Stoneraven or throwing with Lacerator provite a more fluent game play. Only Baal still stays problematical, since I didn't opt for a slowing weapon. Without slow even a level 88+ Zon hits only rarly. So Baal was defeated by the ranged attack LiB in between poisoning.
Gorgon_Zola
She is the third sister. Besides the Poison Skills she focuses on the Bow Skills Strafe as way to transfer effects influencing enemy movement or to trigger special effects like Open Wounds, Flee or Blind, FA as stopper and GA as bosskiller. Those effects have preference to skills and damage. This build is very item dependant.
In order to enhance her Chance to Hit Gorgon is accompanied by a BlA merc. His endweapon is an Obedience - Giant Thresher 'HelKoThulEthFal'. His helm is Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest for leech and his top is something ethereal with 4 sockets for IAS and fire damage.
Primary use of Strafe is to trigger effects. Damage is only secondary. Therefore I made some compromises regarding IAS, CtH, Pierce, Dex and ED. The Strafe speed is only 13/3. Without a bow skill charm I would have settled on 5 minimal arrows.
Along with the BlA merc at my side I won't invest into Pene. Due to a bug Zon's Pene is ignored under influence of a Blessed Aim aura. IS isn't suited to enhance the CtH. Poison doesn't need a CtH, Strafe is used offscreen and GA always hits.
With 250+ Dex and some Charms I get about 2453 AR. The CtH variies between 60 and 75%. The merc's aura increases that to a span of 68 to 88%. Strafe still hits often enough to quickly trigger or renew effects. Chance for Pierce is 49%. Higher Pierce doesn't yield overmuch, the effects are already applied often enough with normal hits. In addition the damage with Strafe is too low to justify a further investment.
Due to Gorgon_Zola's low life pool her Decoy is less stable. I still consider to invest here further. Then maybe some points go into CS to push Valk. Or into Evade.
Order of Skill Point Allocation
Prerequired skills were activated as soon as they were available. If points couldn't be placed immediately, I saved them. For researching purposes I pushed Strafe up to 3 minimal arrows at first. I raised Decoy to 11 and Valk to 9 before investing into the poison skills. When I found a bow with +Bow Skills I raised Strafe up to 4 minimal arrows. After maxing PlJ and PoisJ I decided to give a point into FA as stopper. Then I pushed Decoy and Valk up to 16 and CS up to 4. A further point went into Avoid, because I can't move while strafening. After I found a Bow Skill charm I bestowed another 2 points onto Strafe to get 6 minimal arrows.
- - at Level 50: PlJ at 16, PoisJ at 1, Decoy at 11, Valk at 9, Pierce at 1 and Strafe at 4
- - at Level 75: PlJ and PoisJ max, Decoy and Valk at 11, FA at 1 and Strafe at 5
- - at Level 85: Decoy and Valk at 16, CS at 4, Evade at 2, FA at 1 and Strafe at 5
- - at Level 90: Decoy at 16, Valk at 17, CS at 4, Evade at 2, FA at 1 and Strafe at 7
For now I have 2 points spare.
Order of Status Point Allocation at level 90:
| Strength | Dexterity | Vitality | Life | Energy | Mana | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with | without | with |
| Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | Equip | ||||||
| 5 Points spare | |||||||||||
| 95 | 100 | 255 | 272 | 170 | 180 | 738 | 806 | 15 | 15 | 148 | 166 |
With Charms and Equip Resis are at 75/60/75/41 in Javelin slot and 69/41/72/22 in Bow slot. This is quite ok.
Strength is 95 because I needed that for an armour at one time. Dex was planned with 200, and rest in vit. When I realised that 800 life is enough for me I spend the remaining points into dex. With more MDR and a more defensive playing style you may get along with less life.
Noteworthy equip are the three RWs Delirium (LemIstIo), Duress (ShaelUmThul) and Harmony (TirIthSolKo), as well as some Hit Power crafted gloves with +2 Bow Skills. For style points I put Delirium into a Diadem, whoever has no taste may choose something else. With Duress I decided for a Dusk Shroud because of its low strength requirement. With the item for harmony I just happened to be lucky. If you don't get a Matriarchal Bow with + skills a Blade Bow will do. With FA a longer freeze length from additionally cold damage coming from equipment is more important than +Skills.
Delirium gives an 11% Chance to cast Confuse on Striking. Confuse has two effects. Confused mobs are busy attacking every one in their direct vicinity. Confused mobs are a magnet for other mobs from further behind, so one gets quite a large crowd on the same spot. Herding more easy isn't possible.
Attract has the same effect of generating crowds. But it is only possible as charges. A further plus of Delirium are the two +Skills. Major drawbacks are the price (it's my most expensive Item due to the Ist) and the chance to morph into a Bone Fetish when struck.
Besides resists and FHR Duress offers Crushing Blow, some cold damage and the additional damage of Open Wounds.
Harmony has several advantages. It has good physical damage and a whole lot of elemental damage. This covers several kinds of damage. Manareg and MaeK help with Mana cost of Bow skills, so ML is somewhat unimportant. The Vigor aura speeds up our Fairy's Evasive animation. For special situations one has the option to use the Revives charges, something I never found necessary.
The gloves' most important attribute is the Knockback effect. In my dreams gloves would have +2 Java-Skills, 20 IAS and good resists :). If you prefer Slow, vulgo use Riphook, Cleglaw's Pincers are the better choice.
Gorgon's amu has +1 skill and 7 resist all. :(
Belt, rings and boots main purpose is giving resists. For boots she wears Natalya's. The rare belt has some Poison Length Reduce and three single resists. Only seldom items are so excellent that I allow Anya to personalize them. Gorgon owes rare rings with 3 ML and 6 LL.
In the poison slot she uses rare +2Java- +2Ama skill javelins and a Sigon's shield with PD. The Poison Skills have castLvl 28. With prebuffing her Valk reaches castLvl 28. Until end of NM she wore Howltusk, rare resist-IAS gloves and Kuko. Boneflesh was exchanged in Act 3 Hell with Duress.
Gorgon_Zola is by far easier to handle than Luci, but sometimes a bit more difficult than Engel. Since I used Strafe and GA at first I went faster through Norm and NM than it was possible with the other two chars. At the beginning I had not enough Mana, so I got Decoy really quick to sLvl 11. I rather should have activated FA before End of Alp.
Playing with Confuse needs a bit of accustoming. The mobs movement routines are affected quite strongly by the magnetizing effect of the curse. So I was really astonished at the Catacombs, when Andy stood directly behind the door. Confuse is an AoE spell reaching through doors and walls. So while attacking mobs in the first and second room of the level 4 Catacombs some mobs at the door to Andy's room got confused. Attracted by them other mobs went to the door and became Confused too when another CtC went off. Thereby finally Andy is drawn and stands near the door when it is opened. With other act end bosses this behaviour is less noticeable, since most of the other mobs are killed before the act end boss is reached. Generally you should keep an eye on all of the screen and not only concentrate on the mobs you are attacking. Depending on how many mobs are drawn it is easy to loose survey. And be sure whether Decoy is still standing. Stable blockers are extremely important.
By and large Engel is best suited for act end bosses thanks to ChS. Followed by Gorgon_Zola with GA and at the end of that row is Luci with Jab and LiB.
Other possibilities of influencing mob movement I tried are Blind, Flee and Slow. Those Effects are primarily triggered by weapons. They are also effective with a Strafe-Poisonzon, if combined with Knockback and OW. The opportunity of herding with Confuse was my reason to stay with Delirium.
For questions, suggestions or criticism about this topic you may reach me anytime via E-Mail.
