[3.14] Gryph's Thirsty Archmage Cremation Necromancer
 Hi Everyone! I'd like to introduce my league starter from 3.11 The Thirsty Cremation Archmage Necromancer!!!
Spoiler
3.14 Update
" Big oof! Espececially for the crit based variants that really relied on the raw power of this node to keep good regen. Overall a balanced nerf that we'll feel but considering the non-crit version of this build could reach upwards of 10k mana regen per second, I don't see it as big deal in the end. " Well, for us the trigger craft is to maintain Bone offering primarily. And that has a base duration of 6-10 seconds depending on corpses consumed. So with our inherent 50% skill effect duration it's always going to last longer that the 8s cooldown. Tempest shield is the same--lasts longer than the cooldown. IF you opt to NOT use Kitava's helmet and used trigger for wave of conviction and/or curse it's a bit annoying. Makes Kitava's a much more appealing option for true endgame. :D " It's a damage nerf that affects everyone. No biggie. Could even drop it entirely for a different source of exposure to save a socket. Build still looks rock solid for the new league and especially for the new mechanic. Arena style battles with increasing rewards and difficulty? Yeah sign me up for that. " WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH This change makes running Labs on this build(very easy to do btw) potentially insanely profitable and makes getting our own singular best lab enchant soooo much easier. This a massive buff to this build for the availability it provides for the +1 Cremation Geyser enchant. Massive.
Gameplay Videos
Uber Elder Deathless. Easy Mode Minotaur Run. Build Game Play Demo A game play video of Minotaur but with the end game setup. Awakener Level 8 Sirus Died once because I didn't have corrupted blood immunity on a jewel yet. (lol whoops) Shaper Run T10 Redeemer. Low tier gear.
POBS
Make sure you are using teh POB Community Fork Find that here. 3.13 ready: https://pastebin.com/AU5artqm
old pobs
This is the min-maxed end game "pretty close to the best you can expect" POB original theorycraft:
https://pastebin.com/bbV03kqa This is the "I'm still level 88 on league starter gear" POB: https://pastebin.com/xCxnCFwY This is the "I'm 94 and I've got good gear but still not min-maxed" POB https://pastebin.com/geTUeSiE This is the "I've done basically all of the end game" level 95 POB https://pastebin.com/b2CfYNQr Min-maxing still happening.
Mechanical Mumbo Jumbo (WITH PICTURES!)
Below are some of the mechanics/keystones/interactions that we'll be taking advantage of. I don't feel like explaining it too much at the moment (I will as I evolve the guide) but BASICALLY:  This+Massive Mana Regen=massive life sustain. Like almost 2k per second life recovery. Makes Lab Traps pretty trivial. Also allows for sustaining Righteous Fire.  Big mana? Make it work FOR YOU! MoM is not hard to explain.  8% over 2 seconds amounts to 4% per second. This counts as REGENERATION. For mana regen, 4% is HUGE. Cloak of Defiance gives 1%. Let that sink in. This is just one way the Necro outperforms Mr. Heiro.  +  A really nice boost. We get to take advantage of our massive mana pool for offense AND defense here AND we get the added benefit of recovering 20% of our max mana after we consume most of it to Cloak. Excellent synergy.
How She Works
The simple explanation is that we use Desecrate to spawn corpses. We cast Cremation on a corpse--which triggers our helmet, let it kill everything in sight and move on. It feels a lot like Vortex/Coldsnap in a lot of ways.
I like to use this helmet to spam debuffing spells. In particular: Wave of Conviction Blade Blast (Unnerves) Elemental Weakness Increased Critical Strikes Support (for consistent Elemental Overload up-time) OR Chaos Golem for extra Phys Mitigation And that's it, as we cast Cremation we'll trigger the spells in our helmet for maximum convenience.
Gear
Required Gear
These items aren't REQUIRED but are more or less BIS outside of disgusting rares.
The Helmet
As noted above: This is core to the build. If for some reason you don't want to use this piece, the next best option would be:
Helmet Enchant
"Cremation can have up to 1 additional geyser" is the best possible helmet enchant we can get. It is however somewhat difficult to get these on unique helmets. So if there are none on the market one option you have is to get it on a plain Zealot Helmet (buy or enchanted fossil spam) and then chance it into Kitava's.
Gloves
Gloves are the best place to get a good chunk of Dexterity that we need. Rares with Life+Mana+Dex+Res.
Boots
As it turns out, the best boot option IMO are Skyforth's. Brine King Pantheon is not enough stun resistance for me. If you don't have these you will get stunned every 2 seconds from blocking/taking hits and your casts will routinely get interrupted...so...Yeah get these if you can. Otherwise a rare will suffice. If you go this route I would highly suggest spending 5 points for Unwavering stance or getting other means of stun immunity *Note: You can get Synthesis Boots with the Unwavering Stance Keystone as an implicit. This can be done over Skyforth's if you want more life+resists from your boot slot.
Spoiler
 Life+Mana+Movement Speed+Resists Enchant: 70% increased mana regeneration rate if you've cast a spell recently.
Rings
Life+Mana+Mana Regeneration Rate+Resists. Cerulean or Unset bases are best. Can also use Essence Worm with Wrath if you need more damage. Though I would move to eventually replace this with a rare once you've gotten to a comfortable damage point.
Belt
Something similar to this. Life, Mana, Mana Recovery Rate, and resists. Bonus: You can make a belt with Mana Recovery Rate and Life recovery rate (multiplies The Agnostic recovery). Stygian bases will be best but obviously very expensive. Leather belts work otherwise.
Weapon
You guessed it...MANA, MANA REGEN, and some damage mods if you can get them. Mana is damage so get as much as possible. Open Suffix for Trigger craft also highly recommended.
Shield
Life+Mana and then fill out what you need from there. Spell Block is next highest priority, but this is also a great place to get some resists if you need them. For you fancy folks, you can do something like the Chimeric Watch one above. Can also go for the defensive shield with minimum endurance charges instead of frenzy charges.
Jewels
Spoiler
 This jewel gives 14% mana recovery rate when placed in this spot. If you upgrade it to Transcendent Mind you'll get 19% mana recovery rate (obviously better). The int node in red is worth 5% mana recovery rate with Transcendent Mind if you want to spend the 2 points on it but probably not worth. Use this if you feel your mana regen is not enough or you don't have a Watcher's Eye. Eventually you'll drop it but for the 1c price tag it's a pretty nice boost.
Spoiler
 Unnatural Instinct is best here, giving us the surrounding mana, AOE, cast speed, and duration nodes. If you cannot afford it yet, Might of the Meek is also quite good: It uses 2 more points for the mana nodes. Also loses access to Ash, Frost, and Storm and Shaper notables in its radius. Still great for the life+mana. Use this if you do not have a Clarity Watcher's Eye yet. For a Watcher's Eye you want:  This adds a TON of eHP to the build. For example, if you have 4,000 Life with Cloak of Defiance, you're eHP with 40% of damage taken from mana before life is 6,666. If you add another 10% with the watcher's eye mom you go up to 8,000 eHP. That's 1,334 more effective health. That's *massive*
Spoiler
Put Healthy Mind here:
 You may want to wait on this until you've got some decent life gear as you will miss out on a big chunk of life. That said, if you want more damage+mana this is definitely the way to do it. This was a 23% more damage upgrade for me at the cost of 600 life. Ultimately you will drop this once your damage is high enough.
Gems and Links
6L in chest: If you don't like the intensity mechanic you can use Lightning Penetration and Controlled Destruction instead of Pinpoint and Intensify 4 triggered gems in helmet: Chaos Golem is the flex slot. You can use whatever you like there 3L Trigger Weapon: Void Sphere is very strong with cremation and looks especially good in Ultimatum League to suck in all the enemies onto our Cremation Geysers. This is the flex slot. 4L 4L Movement: 2L Desecrate Random Sockets, good for Unsets or empty slots. Also if you do not have a Clarity Watcher's Eye, it's not even needed as it doesn't provide a substantial amount of regen.
Leveling
Leveling with this build is fairly simple. Leveling 1-28: DO WHAT YOU WANT :D Stormblast Mines+Orb of Storms is pretty good. At level 28 you can start using Cremation. This skill is powerful enough in its own right to carry you the rest of the way. Start using archmage after normal lab (Essence Glutton) and it should be pretty smooth sailing from there. You may also choose to use Uleash+Archmage+Detonate Dead+Spell Cascade 4L to help with clearing faster. Up to you though.
Bandits, Pantheon, Ascendancies
Bandits: Kill All. Pantheon: Soul of the Brine King to help with stuns if you do not have Skyforth's yet. Soul of Arakaali for extra resistance to dots/chaos and reduced effect of shock For small pantheon, I use Shakari for chaos/poison mitigation. Ascendancies: Essence Glutton -> Plaguebringer -> Corpse Pact -> Mistress of Sacrifice In that order.
Map Mods
There are a few map mods to avoid or be careful about. The obvious ones to avoid are: No Life/Mana Regen and Elemental Reflect. The less obvious ones that you want to pay attention to are: Physical Reflect. We cast leveled Wave of Conviction and Blade Blast that do decent damage. You can definitely one-shot yourself with this. Easy fix is to swap it for a level 1 gem for these maps. Reduced Block Chance. Mostly just a bit of a nuisance as it guts one of our primary defense mechanics. You can still run them of course, just try not to tank mobs while doing so. :P
What if I want to go crit?
Yes, you can go crit with this build. Very doable, but also very expensive. Generally speaking you will need a rare chest with spell crit, a bottled faith, and rare wand/shield with crit stats on them. Can add more to this if there is interest. This is a work in progress but I think I've ironed out the theorycraft pretty well so far. Will put more work into the guide as I have time. Last edited by Gryphenprey#0653 on May 25, 2021, 7:26:31 PM Last bumped on Jun 19, 2021, 12:10:16 PM
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I like it, I'm gonna try it now and tell you how it goes. Btw for early leveling you used whatever spells?? Cause i'm guessing this build is more of a mid/start mapping kind of build ?
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" Oh yeah, I would 100% level with spellslinger from 24 until you get merc lab done. |
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Why merc lab done specifically ?
And related question : What are the order of the nodes you would take for ascendancy ? Also, i've noticed that in the lvl 88 POB you don't allocate those nodes on the passive tree :  Is there a reason ?? Does the Jewel works with the notables around even tho you don't put a point in them ? Last edited by Manu_333#7751 on Jun 23, 2020, 1:04:28 AM
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" POB doesn't currently support the new Fevered mind gem. So I manually added the stats it provides to the fevered mind and just unallocated the point in the tree. You'll notice I'm technically 4 points short as a result. Yes, you will take those points in reality :D As for Ascendancy order, I'd probably go:  I didn't level as exactly this build so I can't quite give testement to what feels best, but taking EG for mana early feels really good. Given that Cremation doesn't need a lot of cast speed to be good I think taking Corpse Pact last is fine, that way you can make sure you have better early defenses (Bone Offering+Mistress of Sacrifice) I say Merc Lab specifically just because it really is incredibly easy to get all the way to Kitava on a spellslinger setup. Be that an Arc+Ball Lightning or VD+Desecrate one. |
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Hi there Gryphenprey,
I just arrived from your Brand new VD ;) Since I haven't payed cremation yet, I got a question: I was wondering, if there's any way to get more than 3 cremations going. If not, do we really need the spell cascade on Desecrate? Last edited by Silenc42#7988 on Jun 23, 2020, 9:03:36 AM
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I think I'm about to switch over to this build, how do you think it will progress to end game?
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" I think it'll work very well into end game. I'm up to around 170k per hit now and that'll scale to upwards of 700k with minmaxed gear. And aside from damage, the defenses are fantastic already so that's not an issue either. " There is a helmet enchant for +1 Geyser. It's effectively 33% more damage. As for spell cascade, yes we want to maximize the count per cast even if it's capped at 10. We consume corpses via Kitava's Teachings Small Cluster Jewel (1 per second) and Bone Offering will consume corpses as well. |
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So i'm around lvl 57, leveling as a VD-DD spellslinger, it goes smoothly for now.
As i'm coming close to the end of the story line, i'm wondering at what time do you suggest I could change it to this build. I'm not that rich I got like 60 chaos remaining now. I've already bought an Fevered mind jewel, a Pure Talent jewel and a Kitava's Thirst helm, because they were cheap, but that's about it. The other stuff, like the amulet goes for 30 chaos, and Kitava's Teaching is like 100C. The armor isnt cheap too as only a 5 link is like 60c and a 6 link is in exalted+ and finally the Algor gloves is 60c too. So first i'm wondering : Would it be better to wait for the lvl 19 Desecrate (and for more currency) so that my helm will help me procs ? Will I even be able to use archmage without those pricy items, my mana will probably hurt, no ? I don't know to be honest haha :P If you say I should be good with only mana/mana regen rares for a while, with like maybe a Atziri amulet or something, i might change it to it, but i'm not sure. What would be my next upgrade as in items for this build ? The amulet or the armor i'm guessing ? |
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