A quick scan indicates that maybe maxing CE is a good idea after all. I haven't tried maxing it, so I can't speak from personal experience.

After there monsters with crushing blow? I thought that was only a player mod.

Extra points in Clay Golem is all about extra hp and more slow. Level 1 CG = 11% slow, while Level 10 CG = 51% slow. Monsters may get distracted when you recast, while ones already engaged with the golem will tend to stay engaged until something else happens (like it dies or moves).

Hmmm i'm getting seriously tempted to play D2-LOD again...with the Zy-El mod of course.

The 20 skeleton Lag-O-Mancer is (mostly) a thing of the past. You get 1 skeleton per skill point up to 3, then you get one new skeleton for every 3rd point afterwards (so 4th skelly at 6 points). They actually get buffs from the skill now, too.

Crushing Blow is on weapons and armours and the damage it deals is percent from the total hitpoints, so for bosses with lots of hps one hit will already remove ALOT of hp. With few of those belly things (giant like) you could easily toast baal and other bosses.

You get alot of +skill items, so even with one hard point in clay you have at least +5 to often +15 or more, at this range the slow effect gives +1 per skillpoint and the golem wont die at a boss anyway. I recast the golem for crowd control and scouting, often a life safer.
But more hard points in CE max the radius so you will hit and kill alot of enemies outside visible range.Very important in Act 5 hell.

My standard skills for endgame are:
Summoning: skells, skell mastery, mages 20, all other except fire golem 1
Curses: all 1, sometimes dec for longer (very seldom) and ad to match CE range
PnB: all prereqs and bone prison 1, CE as high as possible

I don't think those giant clubbing guys have crushing blow; CB isn't a monster mod at all. They are able to Stun, though.

Curiousity: How do you define "End Game" (what level range)? You've got 82 points accounted for with a level 1 CE. When do you look at advancing the various skills that get multiple points? I guess that would put you at level 73, if you've run Den of Evil and Izual quests in all three difficulties.

My 80-ish Necro is something like this (I don't remember exactly; I haven't looked at his base skills in a long time):
Summoning: Max RS and SM, 1-3 in RSM, GM, SR, maybe 15ish in Clay Golem
Curses: 1 in Lower Resist and all pre-reqs (nothing in the Dim Vision portion of the tree)
PnB: 1 in Teeth and CE

Well dang, learn something new every day! I just knew their hits hurt, and one should not try to tank lots of them at once. I haven't really looked at the specifics of most monster skills, beyond things like "Revives others, kill first. Shoots, avoid. Hurts when punches, avoid. MS/LE, rage quit."

I haven't had to use that branch with any of my summonmancers. Maybe my memory is distorted by some help from a friend to get my high level necro up there.

Godforsaken third world, technologically in the middle ages country, i live in... My connection is sh*t today, midday onward! So low and unstable that i cannot even stay online in a battlenet game, in a game 15 years old, which could be played from dial-up era!

Bah, there goes my farming session... Always disconnected before i can even complete ONE mausoleum run! Lagging so much when it does not disconnect, that i simply cannot risk dying. Had to ragequit temporarily, at least for today...

74 level and still rising, though... Hell throws in a bit of xp, to make up for the terrible drops chances...

But isn't it exactly why Diablo 2>>>Diablo 3, because you can play offline? Or do you prefer to play on closed battle.net mostly (I am not sure if closed/open thing still exists)?

Not even close... Diablo 2 >>>>> Diablo 3, because:

1) 3 wasn't made from Blizzard North.
2) 3 had a terrible artistic graphics approach, cartoonish looking w@nk.
3) 3 lacks HUGE content, item types, affixes and prefixes variety, complexity and gameplay elements, that 2 was swarmed with.
4) 3 has always online DRM, 2 is DRM free, even when you play online.
5) In 3 you cannot play lan or local bnet.
6) 3 had that horrible, outrageous, chinese farming, shameless, real money Auction House; removing it later doesn't abolish the horrible act...
7) Drop rates in 3 are ridiculously low, even after expansion and patches.
8) 3's endgame items both look and are ridiculous when compared to 2's.
9) 3 is consolized, oversimplified and lacks character control and modification, like stats for free distribution at level up.
10) In 3, not every character can wear any armor, if strength is enough. I like my mages with plate, thank you very much. D&D rules, looks, approach and wannabyism is fine, as long as it stays within D&D.

Other than that, i already explained i decided to beat through Battlenet, expansion character, ladder AND hardcore. For the insane challenge first and foremost and then for the exclusive runewords, items and content. And 3, like say, Diablo 3? This *thing* does not exist for me, or in my dictionary. Is it even edible!?

Didn't points in CE just increase the radius? Max seems a bit excessive..
I liked clay golem too. :)

EDIT: yes

You can craft flawless gems or perfect gems if you just farm Mephisto's lair and go fing one in a third chance a gem shrine, it's easier for you to find shrines there and if you just use the chat and make the input /players 8 you are more likely to find better loot at killing the wretches and Mephisto himself, sometimes even finding gems continuing this process, but be wary, using characters 8 is commendable to someone who isn't leveled up enough or doesn't have a strat to go through.

I have fucked around with this input in the chat to making it a run completely made out of this, even if I have slept and turned off the game, if you have the right strat with a character, with something like a summoner with transformation and summons with the right gear to compement that may earn you the entire game, I fighted my first time the V chapter of the game, recommendation? don't, it's a hassle to get through the final boss, since he destroys mana, in fact my fight with him lasted 6 hours, because I KEPT summoning my bear and was destroyed with two hits, I basically had to go "spoony against a headless" and use hit and run tactics, until I remembered the "bite" attack with green set items turn you basically invincible if you are a wolf, or with an Assasin with Martial Arts tree with Traps and you are already invincible with the shuriken throwing and mixing it with a drain ability and a normal one, or a Necromancer with Iron Maiden and Flesh Golem, or a Barbarian with auto when it comes to using the Roars and perma buffs you are carried through the entire game, but you can always find ways to do differently and somehow come with the same result, being a god murdering (insert class here), so this game it's already replayable as hell.

I recall there was a table about /playersN usefulness, compared to monster difficulty.
I think the best were the odd numbers (maybe 5 was optimal), but I'm not sure.

The experience vs the multiplier quickly drops down. At 16 multiplier you'd get x10 experience i think, and 127 players you'd get maybe 30x experience. But you're also getting increased item drops.

Of course i'm thinking Zy-El, exactly how D2 Vanilla does it i don't know...

You are both righ within this prospect, the issue in making the /playersN work varies from Patch to Patch