[3.9] Pure Phys Skeletons & Friends Necromancer — Beginner/SSF/Budget Build

Didn’t get a good cheap 6l body armour with an open prefix, but after updating a bunch of my other gear (+3 minion bone helmet, good life and res on gloves and belt, good res on rings from trying to craft minion movespeed) I’m now just wearing a +1 skelly amulet I found in a summoner items delve very early on.
Elder amulet with +1 skelly and minion movespeed from a bound fossil seems like it would be a decent higher-budget option combined with a high-survivability unique body armour, instead of needing Alberon’s Warpath.

Just how necessary is Necromantic Aegis with Victario's Charity?

I play HC and I'm scared of losing my shield bonuses. I dropped below 5k life at level 84 to respec into it and now I feel that, despite I'll get these life nodes back in a few level, and that I should get over 5.2k by level 90, I'm a bit afraid.

How strong is the bonus, really?

Very strong. The whole point is to let your minions generate charges.

Hello, leveling this build is great! and also a ton of fun! However, i was curious if id be able to use 2 dead reckoning jewels to use skele mages? i know nothing about summoner skills though! i know id have to switch up the links in the gear but would it work? thank you in advance!

Hey Viper,

Thanks for the guide! What would you recommend to be the leveling treshold to switch away from SRS? Is there a certain level / keystone / asc when SRS is not required anymore?

Boergen

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Melvar wrote:

Didn’t get a good cheap 6l body armour with an open prefix, but after updating a bunch of my other gear (+3 minion bone helmet, good life and res on gloves and belt, good res on rings from trying to craft minion movespeed) I’m now just wearing a +1 skelly amulet I found in a summoner items delve very early on.
Elder amulet with +1 skelly and minion movespeed from a bound fossil seems like it would be a decent higher-budget option combined with a high-survivability unique body armour, instead of needing Alberon’s Warpath.

That's a great point! Thanks for the tip and I agree getting a +1 ammy would increase your chest piece options significantly. You could either get a cheaper 6l with better life/resists (since you're not looking for one with an open prefix) or run a unique like Belly of the Beast or Cloak of Defiance! Great idea.

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tomeravla wrote:

tried the build, the damage is obsurd, but im really squishy.
followed the tree, im currently at lvl 79(yes i know im not that high lvled).
my gear is fairly similar to yours, i've invested quite a bit into it, but im just dying too quickly.resistances are capped, just not alot of armour or evasion. i don't see where i am able to get those from, because my gear is fairly similar to yours... ty for helpers

Maker your profile public so we can see your character (click on your account name on the top left of the screen, then Privacy Settings, and make sure nothing is checked). Also when you're asking for character specific help be sure to mention your character name.

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JobyMalone wrote:

Hello, leveling this build is great! and also a ton of fun! However, i was curious if id be able to use 2 dead reckoning jewels to use skele mages? i know nothing about summoner skills though! i know id have to switch up the links in the gear but would it work? thank you in advance!

The problem with skele mages in this build is that all of your support gems are for physical melee damage. Since mages are elemental ranged damage they wouldn't get the benefits from the support gems that make the normal skeles so powerful. Since they won't do much damage (at all) they aren't worth the passives. And with the current tree I'm not sure where you'd get the jewel slots without replacing Violent Dead, which are super helpful.

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Boergen wrote:

Hey Viper,

Thanks for the guide! What would you recommend to be the leveling treshold to switch away from SRS? Is there a certain level / keystone / asc when SRS is not required anymore?

Boergen

Once you do cruel lab and can summon 3 skeletons at a time you should switch.

Honestly you could level using skeletons all along, it would just be much slower than SRS without twinked gear.

skill tree is empty check pls.

been playing this build and loving it, i've done 3 of the guardians.
im having a bit of survivability issues, can anyone help pls?
i can do tiers 13 deathless, but when i killed the guardins i just used all of the portals, i got to the guardins without dying, but when i got to the guardin itself, i dodged as much of the abilities as i could but my survivability is not really high...
ty helpers

btw, i wouldn't mind wasting a bit of currency if it can be fixed, i have alot.

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timtom1241 wrote:

been playing this build and loving it, i've done 3 of the guardians.
im having a bit of survivability issues, can anyone help pls?
i can do tiers 13 deathless, but when i killed the guardins i just used all of the portals, i got to the guardins without dying, but when i got to the guardin itself, i dodged as much of the abilities as i could but my survivability is not really high...
ty helpers

btw, i wouldn't mind wasting a bit of currency if it can be fixed, i have alot.

A couple things jumped out at me.

One, you have "+1 skeletons" on both your amulet and your chest piece. So you can swap one of those for something with more life. I'd swap the amulet since you're missing 70-90 life in that slot. Or you can grab a chest with % life on top of high flat life.

Two, you have low life rolls on your rings. So you're missing 20 and 30 life (50 total) between the two rings.

As an aside, you should be aiming for 6k+ life and 2600 unreserved mana by level 90-92.

Three, I'm not sure what's going on with your skill gem setup. Since you have minion damage on your helm, use an Empower level 3 or 4, not a Culling Strike. And I assume that your boot setup is Vulnerability + Cast on Hit + Ball Lightning + Culling Strike? Right now there are some empty slots.

Four, looking at your passive tree, you're missing a fair amount of added damage for your minions. Remember that the faster they kill stuff the less you have to survive. The big one is you don't have Necromatic Aegis, which is important as it gives your minions power and frenzy charges, both of which increase their damage substantially.

Also your Violent Dead jewels aren't max damage (15% is max), so you can pick up an additional 4% on each of those cheaply. And if you have the currency you can buy ones with a corruption implicit for another 5% minion damage per jewel. Here's an example:



And you can drop the five nodes past Warrior's Blood and pick up the Devotion set of life nodes instead for a small bump.

Lastly, there are a couple survival mechanics I strongly suggest that aren't simple life or minion damage. As the main build suggests, get an Abyss jewel with life and minion taunt. This will work on almost all the bosses except for Shaper, Elder, etc. So it'll keep the damage off you.

As an additional defensive layer, I run a Cast When Damage Taken + Phase Run (you could use Immortal Call for 0.4 second invulnerability if you'd prefer). By getting a socketed ring (or an amulet that grants clarity) you should have enough skill gem slots.

Looking at your flasks, I'm not sure if you run those normally, but you should definitely not be using mana flasks except in maps with no regen. You want a basalt, silver and quicksilver flask, all at 20% quality with "reduced charges used" and some immunity (curses, bleed, freeze, shock, etc.) and you want to have those up at all times. See the build videos for an example of flask management.

And lastly, I am a huge fan of Shaper gloves with Blind on them. If you put your Ball Lightning setup in them you can apply Vulnerability, Blind, and Cull low monsters all with the same cast. It's super effective. Here's my current setup:


Do all this and get your skill gems to level 20/20 quality and you should be able to take down anything short of Uber Elder.