[3.11]QUEEN OF NECROMANCY - STRONGEST ZOMBIES EVER? 55M+ DPS 7K+ LIFE MAX BLOCK 90% CHAOS RES

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BL1TZau wrote:

If you farm tabula early league, would you use it for your cyclone or zombies? Or is tab not worth at all

I would Use it for Zombois or Skellies.

I switched to CWC at level 89 or so, once my gear was assembled and ready. skellies and vaal skellies are you backbone for leveling and atlas progression I would say.

If you have the gear tho, CWC is smoother to play, but hasn't the OP Vaal Skellies which annihilate Bosses and similar encounters. Blightmechanic with Skellies was super easy. you're just not as tanky, and need to adjust the playstyle, be a true summoner and stay back.


I personally think,t hat getting a Tabula is fine, but two 4L one for skells and one for the bois will be enough up to yellow maps. 5L ups that to red maps eaaasy. And Two 6 Links are overkill. At some Point in Blight I used the Tabula to get a 2nd 6L (had 6L Queens Decree, still have tho).

I switched to CWC once my Saqawal's Nest was 6 linked. Then the Bois dealt enough dps to deal with every thing and I was over 1k strengh for all Baron benefits.

So as conclusion I would say, If you have a Baron and above 1k str, you're ready for CWC.

Thats my thought tho. Thta doesn't mean you can't use it earlier tho.

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BL1TZau wrote:

If you farm tabula early league, would you use it for your cyclone or zombies? Or is tab not worth at all

i wouldn't bother farming a tabula, as the build does more than good enough on 5 links, so pushing maps would be more efficient. Especially if you have Vaal skellies. I'd recommend pushing for the uniques required in the build early on instead.

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Qlidascope wrote:

Added the impale calculations from Jlh into the guide!

Oh my, now I have to go back and double check for any stupid math errors I’m prone to. I personally think it would be better to just replace the whole section with an impale calculator. That post was meant to determine if impale should be used, weighing both banners, additional potential support gems, and lab enchants.

I’ll try to come up with a solid spreadsheet calculator on Google Docs. I’m not sure if the one someone else did was made public to edit saved drafts or updated to properly reflect effect scaling. I had only given it a cursory glance.

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I too wouldn’t try farming for a Tabula. Zombies will be more than sufficient in a 4-5L early on, and Cyclone setup will probably still be optimal as a 4L, especially if you can land a Shaper’s Touch. A lot of it depends on where and how the nerfs occur. I expect a medium-heavy nerf in zombie level scaling and/or a slight nerf to The Baron.

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I’ve decided to try for an Awakener kill in SSFHC. I have zero chance at the race and won’t even attempt it. If I die (likely will in Acts), I’m dropping out. It’s very unlikely I will succeed, but I do want the challenge. I just hope the delay doesn’t cause me to miss out on hitting 36 achievements.

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Qlidascope wrote:

Added the impale calculations from Jlh into the guide!

Oh my, now I have to go back and double check for any stupid math errors I’m prone to. I personally think it would be better to just replace the whole section with an impale calculator. That post was meant to determine if impale should be used, weighing both banners, additional potential support gems, and lab enchants.

I’ll try to come up with a solid spreadsheet calculator on Google Docs. I’m not sure if the one someone else did was made public to edit saved drafts or updated to properly reflect effect scaling. I had only given it a cursory glance.

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I too wouldn’t try farming for a Tabula. Zombies will be more than sufficient in a 4-5L early on, and Cyclone setup will probably still be optimal as a 4L, especially if you can land a Shaper’s Touch. A lot of it depends on where and how the nerfs occur. I expect a medium-heavy nerf in zombie level scaling and/or a slight nerf to The Baron.

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I’ve decided to try for an Awakener kill in SSFHC. I have zero chance at the race and won’t even attempt it. If I die (likely will in Acts), I’m dropping out. It’s very unlikely I will succeed, but I do want the challenge. I just hope the delay doesn’t cause me to miss out on hitting 36 achievements.

Let me know if you find any mistakes in it, i'll edit them into it ^^

Pls no nerfs other than numerical dps nerfs. But yeah leveling needs a nerf for sure.

I'll wish you the best fellow exile, just don't die :D

It just occurred to me how easy it will be to test Awakener mechanics on standard. Characters already leveled and geared, and by converting maps we should be able to summon him instantly.

The 3.9 Balance Manifesto has been published.

I would say the build has largely survived. Relevant changes:

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Minion Movement Speed increases on the passive tree and Necromancer have been lowered.

Hard to say what that means, we will learn where the patch rolls out. Nerf. How big? That might hit the build the most as damage was through the roof and minions were immortal anyway, but clear speed doesn't really have a limit.

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Both the damage and the buff from the Feeding Frenzy support have had their values lowered, as the support was providing too much damage; Even if a player didn't want Aggressive minions, the support was too powerful not to use.

This will probably still want to use the Feeding Frenzy as it changes the behaviour of the zombos, let's see how big this change will be. One way or another, it is just a damage cut. Meh.

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Raise Zombies had too much damage and life for a small investment. They've been lowered in power slightly in several ways: lower base damage, lower area on their Slam, no life multiplier per gem level and a longer Slam cooldown.

Again, hard to say what that means but they mention "small investment" and "slightly". This build i not "small" investment. Qlida made it work in previous leagues. You didn't need all the stuff he wrote up here to destroy Blight. Maybe you will need it again.

Keep in mind the "no life multiplier per gem level" is about the line "minions have (0-38)% more life". Zombies will still gain base life with gem level. I guess it's weird how it works internally but it literally means we are not getting one 40% more life multiplier, and that's it. They should still be fine.

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We felt Raise Spectre was too easy to get a third Spectre at gem level 21, especially with Necromancer’s Unnatural Strength passive. The third Spectre is now granted at gem level 25, giving a more challenging threshold for characters to strive for.

Now, that's interesting. This build does use spectres as auxiliary minions so it's relevant. Most of people here have the +2 minion gems node and have spectres in their Baron, and also have Death Attunement, what currently gives 4 spectres with a gem of a level at least 17. When the patch rolls in we will need the gem level 21. Such gems exist so you will just need to use up more currency to get the fourth spectre. If it's worth it for this build is another question.

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The "Can have multiple crafted modifiers" mod has been changed, now granting "Can have up to 3 Crafted Modifiers". Multi-mod crafting an item was proving too powerful for too low a cost compared with rolling an item of relative power. We'll be keeping an eye on the modifier to see if further changes are required.

I wonder if the craft itself is included in the limit. If yes, that means we can only craft two things. Would probably mean +2 support gems and minions have increased attack/cast speed, as there aren't that many modifiers to this and damage is high anyway. but maybe not. Maybe the hybrid life/damage is what is going to be the most important.

This change hurts this build in a weird way, as they say "Multi-mod crafting an item was proving too powerful for too low a cost compared with rolling an item of relative power." The problem is, we were crafting items you literally cannot roll. The minion modifiers on 2-h maces don't exist. +2 support gems rolling naturally doesn't exists. Maybe the new 4 influences will have these?

The next step would be actual patch notes. I think the build is still very strong. The Balance Manifesto should be mostly an indicator of what wasn't nerfed, because we never know how much the things that were nerfed were nerfed just basing on that.

Anything else you've noticed?

Looks like the build is getting a ~60-70% straight up damage nerf. Minions are alive but now noncompetitive just like when they changed HoA. Since they massively buff their preferred meta each season there's no way zombies are top tier anymore. It's to be expected but a little sad.

I really don't get GGG's hate boner for 2 handers.

Are zombies dead? (no pun intended)

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Msciwoj wrote:

Anything else you've noticed?

You forget the "socketed gems are supported by this and that" are out of the mod pool so that's a big chunk of damage out of the equation.

Are Skeletons a viable alternative? Post-Zombie nerf