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

What flasks did you use?

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Aevaris wrote:

Why do you choose between shield charge or spectres? With a bit of finangling, you can get both in without much loss.

I do:
RRG - shield charge + fortify + desecrate (desecrate just cuz its gotta go somewhere)
BBBR - spectre + meat shield + minion life + blood magice
BBRR - flesh offering (high level) + spirit offering + cwdt + vulnerability (could also be enfeeble with BBBR)
BBB - Zombie + minion life + meat shield
6L skellies
BBRR - brutality, maim, carrion, feeding frenzy

You lose IC (more regular fortify feels worth to me versus the <1s IC), you lose faster casting (a bit of a loss but not terrible), and flame dash. I keep flame dash in the off chance i need to swap it in for some reason, but generally don't need it.

With this, you still get movement skill + defensive fortify (FA is lost, but meh).

I would put desecrate in an unset ring. There is so much space for mods in this build, that the faster shield charge is probably better than any ring implicit, except maybe the new %life ring

Hey, im having blast lvling with this build, although summoning skellies everytime gets pretty annoying. Would transfering this build to full phys spectres/zombies only work? Im lv 70 atm.

Is it correct to assume that if we don't intend to use Shield Charge that we literally don't need dexterity beyond potential gear requirements?

Awesome guide! I was wondering what flask setup you are using? :)

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DoomedNecromancer wrote:

Is it correct to assume that if we don't intend to use Shield Charge that we literally don't need dexterity beyond potential gear requirements?

You need 95 Dex for Desecrate other than that you won't need anymore.

Why nobody uses convocation in this build? I really need that in many situations. But im playing HC, maybe you dont need it for SC?

Example: Doors, incoming projectiles, etc. I want instant my zombies to be around me. I dropped faster casting for it...really dont need it.

Another Ascendancy option would be Commander of Darkness, I use Clarity which uses only a small amount of mana which also helps with mana recovery and MoM and the buffs from Commander of Darkness are really good.

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Ir4kandj7 wrote:

Why nobody uses convocation in this build? I really need that in many situations. But im playing HC, maybe you dont need it for SC?

Example: Doors, incoming projectiles, etc. I want instant my zombies to be around me. I dropped faster casting for it...really dont need it.

If you roll Minion Movement Speed on everything you can you don't need Convocation.

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Boltonsquads wrote:

Another Ascendancy option would be Commander of Darkness, I use Clarity which uses only a small amount of mana which also helps with mana recovery and MoM and the buffs from Commander of Darkness are really good.

TLDR: enabling the additional game mechanic of your offerings affecting you from MoS is worth way more than the resists, minion attack speed and damage from CoD that you can get elsewhere

I was running the same but eventually realized it's not better than Mistress of Sacrifice (MoS). Having the Flesh offering affect you increases movement speed and thus improves clear speed. The Spirit offering on CWDT is an additional layer of defense in a build that desperately needs burst damage mitigation.

On the other side of the equation with Commander of Darkness (CoD) you get 3% minion attack/cast speed per aura, but we're only running 1 or 2 auras max right? So even 6% attack speed for your skeletons is underwhelming compared to the massive attack speed boosts you get elsewhere on the passive tree.

The other two mods, 30% damage and 20% elemental resists do not stack per aura. Honestly the skeletons don't really lack for damage, especially with well-rolled convoking wands, charge-generating spectres, etc. And because this build is a pure rare gear build it should be pretty easy to max resists from gear alone.