Tomb vipers in Act5

Hi all, I was playing Act5 nm with my lvl 59 summon necro, entered Halls of Vaught and there was a pack of Tomb vipers, killed my chars in seconds.



It has been easy to play with my nec since I usually stay behind my army but this was fast wipe because my summons wasn't ready when I entered. I have yet to experience such big pack at any entrance at this high lvl, not fair Is this uncommon? I mean what does it matter if I got 40+ summons if this happens altho my poison res was like 5-10. It really was a surprise and I didn't have time to react, not fun |||Large packs at entrances are uncommon, but they aren't rare. Any time you go down stairs/wp/portal/etc you need to have fingers on juvs and be ready to fight or flight as it can definitely happen.

That said, since you mention your low poison resists can I assume that you died in poison clouds and not by charge? The poison clouds from vipers are bugged; every time you move in them you take a pretty hefty chunk of physical damage. Since the game runs on a 25fps clock that means if you move around in a cloud for 1 second it's like taking 25 hits from a viper. If you're moving in some stacked clouds it's pretty much instant death. Alternatives are:

-Stack physical damage reduction (the kind that reduces by a number of points, not the % kind). This is common for characters doing dkey runs in hell.

-Don't move in clouds/teleport charges on switch; standing in a cloud will result in you being poisoned, but as long as you aren't about to get charged it's better than running around in the cloud. If you are about to get charged, IMO summon necros should be playing with teleport charges anyways, so you can port out of it.

-Don't go down there. Sucks, but they're bugged, and they're particularly hard for a summon necro (without enigma) to deal with as you can't stack PDR on your minions or tell them to stop running around. If you must have the quest, be prepared to try a few times until you get a level with relatively few snakes.

Sorry if you know all this but your story doesn't give much information on what killed you.|||Right, next time I have rejuv pots ready



Well it wasn't the poison or charge, it was missiles, dunno if they are shooting with poison damage but it was fast. Really imba mobs they usually kill my assa merc in seconds.



Anyway thanks for the tips.|||I think his point (partly) was that this happened in Nightmare difficulty mode, as opposed to Hell.

Especially if you are a starting or untwinked character who is trying to honestly complete all the quests in each difficulty level, I can see how getting killed under that set of circumstances could be thought of as really unfair.

Granted, you expect to run into a few dangerous things in Nightmare (e.g. Gloams, dolls etc.) but being one-hitted by monsters whose attack can only be mitigated by one thing - e.g., PDR gear - that is of little use against every other kind of monster (some specialized builds, excepted)? Seems unfair to me. I don't go down to the Halls of Vaught for precisely this reason, and because even if you DO have PDR gear, all it takes is a little lag...

Does anyone know if the bugged Tomb Viper damage has been toned down at all, in 1.13b?

Mr. Bill|||Some tips for entering dungeons:

In the few seconds that the game takes to load the dungeon on user side, the game will continue server side. In those few seconds you won't be able to do anything but your merc/minions and the monsters will. The monsters will attack in the patern the AI has for them, your minions will also follow the AI. Looking at it that way this is a MvM battle...

In general this is what you need to do when going down (in this order):

1. Take the necessary precautions (summon minions, get skills off or on).

2. Avoid getting aggro from monsters yourself

3. Try to actively get monsters to target your merc/minions

4. use your crowd control skills once your merc/minions have monster aggro

Here are some practical tips:



Necro:

- Use fire golem(aura starts working immediately, all monsters will target him). Same can be done with an Iron golem and the right gear (aura), he tends not to die as much

- Get some mages too, they'll attack instantanious so they will also draw monster aggro. Skellies will also attack immediately if they're in melee range.

- Try to get revived with AoE attacks or ranged attacks

Assassin:

- Cast a shadow warrior before going down, and change left and right click to CoS, shadow will cast it upon entering the lvl. The same can be done with mindblast.

- Don't use Cloud of Blades, it will get aggro on you

- Cast fade

Sorceress:

-Frozen armour is nice (will freeze enemies as soon as they hit you)

-Energy shield offers the best defense in the game against hard hitters if done right

-No thunderstorm (it goes off when you enter and gets you agro)

Barbarian:

-Ready the stun or flee warcries, spam on entering.

Paladin (and other aura using chars):

-don't have Holy fire/freeze/shock, sanctuary or Conviction active. They'll aggro everything in radius

Druid:

- cast a poison creeper (gets lots of aggro), ravens (blind)

- don't have armageddon or hurricane on, they'll draw aggro

- spam shockwave

Amazon:

-cast valk, but that's kind of obvious, no smart tricks afaik, no big nono's either

merc tips:

- Get your merc an aggro drawing aura: (holy freeze/shock/fire, conviction)

- A3 cold merc (will freeze with AoE spells AND freezing armour)

- weapons that curse or have a chance to cast on attack will make your merc draw more aggro, same goes for pierce and fires exploding arrows on bows



So lay low yourself (no agression/movement) while the game loads, merc and minions ACTIVELY get the attention of the monsters (auras/AoE attacks and effects), then you start whatever crowd control you use. Ofcourse vast amounts of life and defence will do wonders too.|||Nice tips kardinaal, problem was I didn't have to time to prepare, as the summons was all packed when I entered the mobs hit me instead, I think I had like 23 summons and merc, the mob group was camping entrance. I usually play safe behind army but in this case it wouldn't matter how many summons I had.|||Who knows, maybe bugged vipers was one of the small fixes implemented for 1.13c? |||Quote:




Amazon:

-cast valk, but that's kind of obvious, no smart tricks afaik, no big nono's either




you forgot Pola--- I mean decoy