[3.10] Gryph's Volatile Dead Necromancer || Fun, Medium Budget, Tanky, Millions of DPS

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Vheha wrote:

Wow, thank you very much for a fast reply!

I will try this as my second character once I make some money with my starter.
This looks insanely fun + I recently upgraded my desktop so it should be fine xD

Thankfully it's not expensive to get going. Just getting the unique you need to make it tick is somewhat rare early on.

Upgraded desktop bout to get destroyed! XD

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Gryphenprey wrote:

That said: I added some stuff to the "League Starting as VD" section of the guide that I hope you all who ask about leveling tricks for this build will find useful. Mostly things I've already said in the comments. If I missed something, let me know.

I saw that, very helpful! I was planning to do this build as a starter, then got scared off when I thought CwC mod was dead. Was debating a Storm Burst Trickster instead. Now it seems like CwC is safe. I did play some self-cast VD last league as Necro and it's not bad. Should not be too hard to deal with until I can grab a Scold's.

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Gryphenprey wrote:

I would recommend faster casting on your desecrate. I started leveling one in ssf yesterday (to 17 only bc time constraints) and I had some of these issues. Casting desecrate is usually where I have problems like you mention. Faster casting support and keeping Arcane Surge buff up should help with this. It may also be correct to path through the faster cast rate nodes at the switch start to help make things smoother.

I do suggest leveling with whatever methods you prefer. The tree should generically be fine for most spells.

After first lab mana is a non-issue thankfully but I spam mana flasks on this a lot.

Basically do what you need to do to make the leveling best for you.

Everyone should try to get 2x BBG 3L wands in act 1 and use the vendor recipe for added fire damage to spells.

Blue wand + Ruby Ring(make at least blue) + Orb of Alteration.

VD has a 120% added damage effectiveness so any form of added damage is a significant boost to dps.

VD - Conc Effect - Combustion/Spell Cascade (decide for yourselves what you prefer)
Desecrate - spell Cascade - Faster Casting

Wave of Conviction can be used to apply exposure to tougher mobs.

Hey, just wanted to let you know that I tried some of these things and a few others. I got the self-cast leveling version to an ok state, definitely playable. First lab easily solved all mana issues. Found a few items, including 4-links, that solved damage issues. Still haven't been able to solve the survivability/stun problems though. A lot of that is probably just down to the self-cast VD/desecrate playstyle that has a relatively big delay before you actually start being able to do damage.

I'm hoping to be able to level with VD, but minions are looking a lot easier to me so depending on my item drops while leveling I may still just go with that roughly using your leveling trees and (with a few extra minion nodes sprinkled in) then just switch to VD when respeccing to the final tree.

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malarix1222 wrote:

Hey, just wanted to let you know that I tried some of these things and a few others. I got the self-cast leveling version to an ok state, definitely playable. First lab easily solved all mana issues. Found a few items, including 4-links, that solved damage issues. Still haven't been able to solve the survivability/stun problems though. A lot of that is probably just down to the self-cast VD/desecrate playstyle that has a relatively big delay before you actually start being able to do damage.

I'm hoping to be able to level with VD, but minions are looking a lot easier to me so depending on my item drops while leveling I may still just go with that roughly using your leveling trees and (with a few extra minion nodes sprinkled in) then just switch to VD when respeccing to the final tree.

I am not very familiar with minions in general so I tend to stay away from them. I do tend to use SRS to get through Act 1 though as the single target damage is nice.

I also think pathing through the cast speed nodes instead of the spell damage nodes would help make everything feel smoother. Possibly pick up the Mental Rapidity cluster as well (next to EO).

I find myself using Wave of Conviction to clear dense packs of mobs as I'm running through zones. Like, cast desecrate (for mana regen) Wave itself usually 1-shots everything anyways. Drop a couple VDs to clean up remains and stuff that is off screen etc...because yeah, that delay is brutal. Though with a 4L and adding spell cascade to VD it feels pretty good.

Oh also, Flamethrower Trap is a huge single target dps boost. 100% recommend grabbing it in act 3.

Edit: yeah on the note of cast speed nodes. I highly recommend grabbing Dark Arts and mental rapidity. makes the desecrate+VD casting very smooth and feels great. Flamethrower trap also benefits a lot from cast speed for single target.

Adding a leveling tree that should make leveling smoother, but requires a bigger investment in respeccing to Crit later on.

https://pastebin.com/KAE4pUfQ

With this progression you would need 26 Refund Points at level 82. You can, of course, do this sooner and in smaller increments. I will be following this progression.

You mention several times on the recent leveling discussion that you would sometime take out spell cascade to one shot more reliably packs, or that without spell cascade the gameplay is not "too bad".

I imagine once I will have played the build i'll understand what you mean, but can you expand on how taking out spell cascade can be helpful to one shot packs?

Edit, the quote I'm refering too:
- Without spell Cascade it's actually not TOO bad. Which is why I originally went with that method.
-I also keep finding myself dropping spell cascade from VD for a while so that I can 1-shot packs reliably.

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Rootsmann wrote:

Excuse me for not quoting exactly what you said earlier, I'm on the phone and not so good at editing here.

You mention several times on the recent leveling discussion that you would sometime take out spell cascade to one shot more reliably packs, or that without spell cascade the gameplay is not "too bad".

I imagine once I will have played the build i'll understand what you mean, but can you expand on how taking out spell cascade can be helpful to one shot packs?

Spell cascade has a less damage multiplier and replacing it with a different support with a More multiplier will make each individual ball deal nearly double the damage per ball. So they explode and packs actually die properly.

I still add cascade as the 4th link though as by that point your damage is quite good. Probably.

How do you feel about starting with cwc from the get go instead of transitioning into it later on?

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Gryphenprey wrote:

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Rootsmann wrote:

Excuse me for not quoting exactly what you said earlier, I'm on the phone and not so good at editing here.

You mention several times on the recent leveling discussion that you would sometime take out spell cascade to one shot more reliably packs, or that without spell cascade the gameplay is not "too bad".

I imagine once I will have played the build i'll understand what you mean, but can you expand on how taking out spell cascade can be helpful to one shot packs?

Spell cascade has a less damage multiplier and replacing it with a different support with a More multiplier will make each individual ball deal nearly double the damage per ball. So they explode and packs actually die properly.

I still add cascade as the 4th link though as by that point your damage is quite good. Probably.

Ok so just a raw number problem. I was figuring something more complex with the way corpse are being consumed in a cascade or something along those lines.. Sorry for the basic question then :D

Edit: I'm so excited to level up this build tonight!!! A sadist Necro that blow things up by "accident" while walking. So badass.

What mods would the perfect staff have for you? I was thinking about something like ...

- (Prefix) Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Cast While Channelling
- (Prefix) (84–87)% increased Spell Damage + Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Power Charge On Critical Strike
- (Aetheric Fossil Prefix) +3 to Level of all Fire Spell Skill Gems
- (Suffix) (100–109)% increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells
- (Suffix) (20–21)% increased Attack Speed + 20% chance to deal Double Damage
- (Crafted Suffix) (8–10)% chance to deal Double Damage

More realistic for the new league would be something multi modded probably with alt spamming for:
- (Prefix) Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Cast While Channelling
- (Prefix) (84–87)% increased Spell Damage + Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Power Charge On Critical Strike
Then Imprint + Regal to hit something usefull (Spell Damage, Spell Crit, Double Damage) and Multi Mod 2 other things.

As to people who wanna start with CWC, I tested it the other day and it's not that bad.
The obvious downside is that you're devoting 4 links to non damage support gems cyclone, cwc, desecrate and vd (i guess cwc gives a little) but for me personally it still didn't feel to bad with self found gear, i did have quite a bit of added fire damage on my gear tho, so maybe I was just lucky or maybe my standards for damage aren#t too high.
I feel like damage is only secondary here tho for leveling and CWC just gives you so muich mobility and since you're not using Doedre's yet the mana cost is also super low for cyclone.
Two ways to vastly improve your damage is either to somehow get super lucky and get a 6 socketed (only 4 links necessary) whispering ice staff (pretty unlikely) or, more likely to find a way to add chaos or phys damage to your spells (herald of purity is a guaranteed way), now you can apply poison with herald of agony and going minion nodes is very easy early acts.