Help! The Skeleton King

[blaqkmagick]

Hi all,
So I got a beta key today and was playing around in the game and I just got to the Skeleton King which, if I have heard correctly, is the last boss of the beta. I'm playing a Witch doctor and I'm level 8 with the level 7 templar in my group. The problem is I can't even come close to killing the boss. Any tips? I'm using scatter dart and the eel aoe snare spell. The boss kills my dogs in one hit and pretty much kills the templar in 3. I could easily run around and just shoot darts but he summons a crap load of adds.

Am I doing something wrong? Am I too low level? I'm not an experienced Diablo player but I do well enough.
So yeah, bring on the flaming lol

[Clessalvein17]

WD was the hardest class to kill him with, at least for me. I actually died!
I ended up using Spiders and when the adds spawned,rounding them up and taking them out quick with firebats.

[blaqkmagick]

WD was the hardest class to kill him with, at least for me. I actually died!
I ended up using Spiders and when the adds spawned,rounding them up and taking them out quick with firebats.

Do you know what level you were?

[Clessalvein17]

8 I believe. Poison dart is probably better than spiders,but it was just fun tossing those around everywhere. :P

[Strah]

haunt-haunt-haunt-haunt-dartx1000-hauntx4-dartx1000
done.

[Vongimi]

Yeah i had the triple dart rune for Poison darts, and would use Grasp of the dead (extra damage rune) whenever he spawned adds. It is enough to 1 shot the adds giving you much more room as well as health orbs. Just run around using poison darts on the boss and grasp of the dead on the adds. I was level 8 and downed it fairly easily, but I also had a bit of crafted gear since I knew what I wanted since i've played through the beta like 10 times.

@Strah: Haunt is not available at level 8 (atleast not anymore, its like level 12 now)

EDIT: Yes, he one shot my dogs and I didnt use the templar (I dont really like followers to much its easy enough without them, anything hard I would play with other players anyways).

[Strah]

Too bad, i didn't play @ patch 15 yet.
what about zombie charger/firebats then?

[blaqkmagick]

Ok well I guess I'm just not very good at this game lol. I'll try to drop the grasp on the adds and hopefully they'll go down easy.

[mtawney1313]

EDIT: (I dont really like followers to much its easy enough without them, anything hard I would play with other players anyways).

Monsters and bosses get tougher the more players there are.

Edit: Unless you bring a higher level player to carry you

[Alcsaar]

I've never had an issue killing him. Level 7/8 seems a tad to low for skeleton king though...I think I was usually 9 or 10 by the time I got to him.

[reckoner04]

While we're at it: I just beat the Skeleton King in the original Diablo, but I can't figure out how I'm supposed to kill the Butcher. I'm a level 7 (I think) sorceror and the rare items I wear are the crown from the Skeleton King and a chest piece with +7 Magic. Am I supposed to level up more? Or am I maybe doing something very wrong? He kills me in very few hits, and his hits make me stay in place for a moment so he often gets off another hit after that.

Also, how am I supposed to deal with low mana? I always buy up all/most of the rejuvenating potions, but I still end up out of mana quite quickly (and there are only very few town portals dropping, so I have to walk quite a lot). I usually try to hit lower monsters with my staff while I reserve my mana for tougher enemies. The spells I use are mostly Fireball for single enemies and Fire Wall if there's lots of enemies.

Hopefully there's someone here who can answer me these questions .

[vindicatorx]

they must have buffed him since I last played cause the whole thing was a breeze about a month ago I have beat it with all classes

[Shuckless]

WD is hands down the hardest class to play of them all.

Here was my strategy at Lv9.

Dogs are completely useless.. Don't even need them. They are taking up to much bar space.

Left Click - CS - Leaping Spiders rune
Right Click - GotD - Grasping Eels rune
1 - Dire Bats
2 - Soul Harvest

Here is what I do.. If you are full on mana, keep GotD under him at all times unless he is in a group of adds. When he spawns both groups, get them together, SH, then SK will teleport to you/the group, run away real quick and Firebats with the SH buffs for MASSIVE damage.. Then you can lay GotD if it isn't on cooldown. Anytime your not running or casting Firebats/GotD you should be holding down Left-Click on SK..
If you AREN'T full on mana, just get a good distance, spam CS and use GotD to keep SK at bay while you keep spamming CS till your full on mana again. It's more of a rinse and repeat kinda thing with SK.

they must have buffed him since I last played cause the whole thing was a breeze about a month ago I have beat it with all classes

And oh yeah they definitely did. All monsters got a huge health buff and damage buff. And the AI seems a lot more improved.. Some of the monsters now will go insane mode to kill you.. At Lv9, one of SK's swings does approx 25-35% of my HP.

[Duncanîdaho]

they must have buffed him since I last played cause the whole thing was a breeze about a month ago I have beat it with all classes

Indeed I was laughing at how easy it was before because there was 0 threat of death, and kind of got bored so I didn't play for a couple weeks. Started a wizard and got to 8 I think by the time our grp of three got to him the other night. Mind you I didn't buy any gear, just grabbed what dropped. I walked up to the SK to do some close casting spells and he one shotted me in the face with a huge wind up swing. My guy's corpse just flew across the room and slammed against a wall. I was laughing my ass off and actually got to see what someone rezing me looks like.

The games going to be so much fun. Especially on the later difficulties.

But yah OT, try crafting some gear if you haven't already or checking out the vendors. It makes a big difference to get blue gear instead of white, might help.

[Blitzdoctor]

Also don't ignore the adds. The skeletons have quite a chance to drop a health orb on death, so use that to get yourself healed.

[Nikkaszal]

SK also doesn't actually dish out much damage unless he's doing his big one-two-three cleaving advance thingy. You know, where he goes all transparent and marches forward and smashes your face in.

The trick is to recognise what the boss "emotes" (ie, what he looks like) when he's doing each move. Once you recognise that he's spawning skeletons, you have enough time to get in a good spot and ensure you have enough resource to burn them all fast. When you can see he's about to do his big slams, you have enough time to run the hell away and wait for him to finish it.

As far as I can remember (I haven't played in about 2 weeks) - when he sort of rears up and lifts his mace to the sky and it flashes green, he's summoning skellies. He'll teleport soon after, that's the cue for the second set of skellies. When he roars and swings his hammer back and flickers a bit, he's about to charge.

[Chronius]

It's all about your weapon/weapons. By the time you reach the king you should have easily accumulated enough gold to buy some 15+dps weapons.

[Blackdecker]

The only time that my life drop 50% or more is when i did the achievement.

[shadowkras]

While we're at it: I just beat the Skeleton King in the original Diablo, but I can't figure out how I'm supposed to kill the Butcher. I'm a level 7 (I think) sorceror

Buy firewall scrolls (if you dont have the spell yet), clear the map, find a cellar-like room with a door. Pull the boss, run to that room, close the door and use the firewalls through the cell bars, he will die in about 6 or 7 firewalls. Dont waste mana on any other spell.
This is the easiest way to kill him and works for all 3 classes, as long as they have enough int to use firewall.

[BenBos]

Hi all,
So I got a beta key today and was playing around in the game and I just got to the Skeleton King which, if I have heard correctly, is the last boss of the beta. I'm playing a Witch doctor and I'm level 8 with the level 7 templar in my group. The problem is I can't even come close to killing the boss. Any tips? I'm using scatter dart and the eel aoe snare spell. The boss kills my dogs in one hit and pretty much kills the templar in 3. I could easily run around and just shoot darts but he summons a crap load of adds.

I just killed him with my demon hunter. After 5 trials. Great experience and I think Diablo 3 could complement Wow : solo dungeon crawling with a challenge and without the need of random moaning players.

Just keep practicing.