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NECROMANCER SKILLS THAT PAY THE BILLS

Best Diablo III Necromancer builds guide

and beginner's tips
The necromancer is the newest playable class in Diablo III, sold as the Rise of
the Necromancer DLC on Xbox One and PC.
PAUL ACEVEDO

7 Jul 2017 10

A returning class from Diablo II, the necromancer brings a

powerful array of undead magic and abilities to the game. Here
 are some suggested builds to help you make the most of this
commander of the dead.

 See Rise of the Necromancer on the Xbox Store

 See Diablo III: Eternal Collection on the Xbox Store

Necromancer primer

The necromancer is a dark priest that can summon undead

minions and draw power from blood and death. Although
necromancers were a playable class in Diablo II, they play a
bit differently in Diablo III. For instance, they now have more
active combat options that reduce the need to depend on
minions in battle.
Most of the necromancer's abilities rely on the class's primary
resource, "essence," which she draws from enemies.
Attacking with her primary attack (assigned to the A button by
default on Xbox One) replenishes essence. The maximum
storable quantity of this life-based resource is 200.

The necromancer has an even more unique secondary

resource, and that's corpses. Enemies she kills turn into dead
bodies that can be used for further means. With the right skills,
you can explode corpses like bombs, turn them into
projectiles, drain them for essence, and revive them as
minions.

Whichever way you want to play the necromancer, you'll be

safest doing so at a distance. This class relies on ranged
attacks and minions, so close combat can be extremely
dangerous for our dark priest.
 Some of these builds use two skills from the same category,
thus foregoing another skill category. To equip multiple skills
from the same category on the console version of Diablo III:

1. Select Options.
2. Head to Gameplay Options.
3. Enable Elective Mode.
4. Return to the game and access the Skills menu.
5. Select the button to which you'd like to assign a skill from a
duplicate category.
6. Scroll left or right until you reach the duplicate category and
choose the desired skill.
 Beginner build

For this build, we've chosen skills that become available at

early levels and remain worthwhile as you work your way up to
70.

This build uses Bone Spikes and Devour to keep the essence
coming in. Summon Skeletal Mages and use Command
Skeletons to provide yourself an army, augmenting your
attacks with the Frailty curse. When things get too hectic, use
Blood Rush to teleport away from the fray (at a small cost to
your health).

 Primary: Bone Spikes – Rune: Sudden Impact

 Secondary: Skeletal Mage – Rune:Singularity
 Corpses: Devour – Rune: Devouring Aura
 Reanimation: Command Skeletons – Rune: Frenzy
 Curses: Frailty – Rune: Scent of Blood
 Blood & Bone: Blood Rush – Rune:Potency
 Passive I: Extended Servitude
 Passive II: Overwhelming Essence
 Passive III: Spreading Malediction
 Passive IV: Fueled by Death

Bone Storm build

This build was created by Deadset, a professional Diablo III
player. You'll play with a melee style here, thanks to the Grim
Scythe ability. It's recommended that you use the Inarius
armor set for maximum effectiveness.

 Primary: Grim Scythe – Rune: Cursed Scythe

 Corpses: Corpse Lance – Rune: Brittle Touch
 Reanimation: Land of the Dead – Rune:Frozen Lands
 Curses: Decrepify – Rune: Dizzying Curse
 Blood & Bone: Blood Rush – Rune:Potency
 Blood & Bone: Blood Rush – Rune:Potency
 Passive I: Stand Alone
 Passive II: Spreading Malediction
 Passive III: Blood is Power
 Passive IV: Overwhelming Essence
 Corpse Explosion build

Another build intended for use with the Inarius armor set. This
build revolves around the Corse Explosion ability, allowing you
to take down living foes by blowing up the fallen ones. It's a
good solo build, but the limited mobility limits its effectiveness
for Bounties.

 Primary: Grim Scythe – Rune: Cursed Scythe

 Secondary: Death Nova – Rune: Blight
 Corpses: Corpse Explosion – Rune:Close Quarters
 Reanimation: Land of the Dead – Rune:Frozen Lands
 Blood & Bone: Blood Rush – Rune:Potency
 Blood & Bone: Blood Rush – Rune:Potency
 Passive I: Stand Alone
 Passive II: Spreading Malediction
 Passive III: Rigor Mortis
 Passive IV: Blood is Power

Corpse Lance build

This build focuses on getting the most from the Corpse Lance
ability. You'll use fallen enemies to generate projectiles,
hurling them at anyone who stands in your way. The armor set
that best complements this build is the Trag'Oul set.

 Corpses: Corpse Lance – Rune: Blood Lance

 Corpses: Devour – Rune: Cannibalize
 Reanimation: Command Golem – Rune:Flesh Golem
 Reanimation: Land of the Dead – Rune:Frozen Lands
 Curses: Decrepify – Rune: Dizzying Curse
 Blood & Bone: Blood Rush – Rune:Potency
 Stand Alone
 Passive II: Draw Life
 Passive III: Blood is Power
 Passive IV: Overwhelming Essence

Skeletal Mages build

For the player who likes to summon minions, this build focuses
on acquiring a hoard of Skeletal Mages and Skeletons and
keeping them around to fight in your place. You'll want to
equip the Rathma armor set and use the Jesseth Skullcythe
and Skullshield for your weapons.
 Primary: Bone Spikes – Rune: Sudden Impact
 Secondary: Skeletal Mage – Rune:Singularity
 Corpses: Devour – Rune: Cannibalize
 Reanimation: Command Skeletons – Rune: Dark Mending
 Curses: Decrepify – Rune: Wither
 Blood & Bone: Blood Rush – Rune:Potency
 Passive I: Extended Servitude
 Passive II: Overwhelming Essence
 Passive III: Spreading Malediction
 Passive IV: Swift Harvesting

The eternal battle

Diablo III is the largest and most popular loot-hunting action-
RPG on Xbox One and PC. On console, up to four players can
team up locally or online to battle the forces of Diablo. While
you'll find many Diablo-style games on Xbox One such
as Victor Vran and Marvel Heroes Omega, the original game
still has unmatched atmosphere, scale, and production values.

Here's The Most Broken Necromancer Build In 'Diablo 3' Right Now,
Inarius' Cursed Scythe
Paul TassiSenior Contributor
Games

News and opinion about video games, technology and the internet

Diablo 3BLIZZARD
A few days ago I published an article about a build I’d come up with in the first few days of the
Necromancer’s launch in Diablo 3 that I said “broke the game” for me. It was a pet-based
Rathma’s build that I managed to farm and conceive of entirely myself, meaning that I
immediately had dozens of people pointing out how badly optimized it was and which builds
were way better.
So I investigated. Two days was enough time to be creative on my own, so I turned to the
internet to hunt for the actual most broken Necromancer build on the internet, and I think I found
it.
Apparently almost all top 1,000 Necromancers in Diablo 3 right now are using some variation of
this set, the Inarius’ Cursed Scythe build. The long and short of it is that you use the set bonus of
Gift of Inarius to create a field around you that amplifies damage, then combine a bunch of other
skills and items for big damage boosts and a frankly ludicrous amount of damage mitigation, the
latter of which was the problem with my own custom pet build.
The result? A sort of plodding, but highly effective build that can take you to ultra-high level
Greater Rifts. With this build, all thirteen Torment levels are a joke, and with the right gear and
tactics, you should be able to run 80-100 Greater Rifts as well. I have no desire to get that high as
when the game grinds to a halt and I’m barely finishing rifts, that’s when the fun stops, but it’s
definitely possible, and this build even surpasses what I thought was my nearly perfect
Unhallowed Essence Demon Hunter build I spent a hundred hours making. It’s that effective.
Here’s the full build, which you should try out for yourself if you feel like grinding. It ain’t
flashy, but it works, and works so well it might end up getting nerfed, so have at it while you
can.

Diablo 3BLIZZARD
Skills
Grim Scythe (Cursed Scythe Rune) – This is a build that will mostly be you going around
hacking stuff down with your overpowered scythe that does loads of damage, applies every curse
and kills stuff in range of the massive damage boost of Inarius’ Bone Armor tornado bonus.
Corpse Lance (Brittle Touch Rune) – Good for burning down elites or bosses or anything still
standing after a few scythe hacks
Decrepify (Dizzying Curse Rune) – Yes, your scythe already applies this curse but you get a
damage reduction from your belt and a damage increase from one of your passives for every
enemy under the influence, so spam this everywhere as much as you can.
Bone Armor (Dislocation Rune) – The core skill of the build due to the Inarius bonus. Don’t
forget to activate it to do a surprisingly large amount of damage/stun everything around you for
damage reduction.
Blood Rush (Potency Rune) – Just for mobility/speedrunning with a little defensive boost from
the rune.
Land of the Dead (Frozen Lands Rune) – Stupidly good for defense in any hairy situation,
freezes everything from normal enemies to bosses solid, allows you to corpse lance non-stop for
good measure.
Passives
Blood is Power – Keeps the cooldown low on Bone Armor, Blood Rush and Land of the Dead
Stand Alone – Bonus armor for a pet-free build
Spreading Malediction – Bonus damage and why you spam Decrepify everywhere
Overwhelming Essence – This is for your weapon which will give you a big damage boost even
though this build uses no essence.

Diablo 3BLIZZARD
Gear Loadout
Set (Head/Chest/Shoulders/Arms/Legs/Pants/Boots) – Grace of Inarius – The set that makes
the magic happen. Boosts damage with a Bone Armor tornado and your scythe does the rest for
the most part.
Bracers – Ancient Parthan Defenders –Decrepify and Bone Armor both stun so these will
come in handy for constant damage reduction.
Belt – Dayntee’s Binding – More damage reduction.
Necklace – The Traveler’s Pledge – Even more damage reduction, plus a damage boost when
moving.
Rings – The Compass Rose/Unity – The other half of the necklace set, and Unity pairing with
an immortal follower flat out cuts remaining damage in half.
Weapon – Reilana’s Shadowhook – The big two-hander (it’s so ugly, please transmorg it) that
gives you a huge damage boost with a lot of essence. Find an ancient one ASAP.
Kanai’s Cube
Weapon – Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang – This is what makes your scythe godlike. The original
version of this build I saw had you actually carrying this with the Leger’s Disdain offhand, but
the two-hander is probably better.
Armor – Aquila Cuirass – Since you don’t use essence in this build, even more damage
reduction.
Ring – Krysbin’s Sentence – Big damage boost on all your stunned/slowed/frozen enemies.
This ring seems stupidly overpowered in general.
Gems
Bane of the Trapped – This is in like every melee range build ever made, so naturally it’s here
as well.
Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver – This is a surprise key component of this build because
the Bone Armor tornado actually procs it frequently for huge damage.
Pain Enhancer – Honestly I have no idea but I’m slave to conformity.
I’ve seen different builds of this sub in a few things here and there like the Wisdom of Kalan
necklace or even subbing out the weapon kit for Jesseth’s Scythe and Shield and adding
skeletons, but this is probably the version you’ll see running around the most. Again, I don’t
think it’s the most exciting build in the world (I prefer my pet menagerie), but you can’t argue
with results.
If you have the ability, give it a try yourself, if not, well now you have a goal to farm toward.
Hilariously, I’ve thrown away probably a hundred Traveler’s Pledge’s to date but now when I
need one, I have to resort using one with Strength on it until I find a replacement. Anyway, hope
this guide helped you out, happy hunting!
Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook. Pick up my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn
Trilogy, which is now in print, online and on audiobook.
I write about video games, television, movies and the internet.

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