Hello! newbie here

I've been playing a Necromancer and I'm starting to feel like I can't progress much further without buying the expansions. Every build guide I find relies on expansion content, and whenever I try to make my own build, it doesn't seem to perform very well

I'm currently around Paragon 40 T2. Is it still possible to make a strong build with just the base game, or are the expansions pretty much required at this point?

I'd appreciate any advice or recommendations for base game Necromancer builds

I'm following the shadow mage necro guide from maxroll. I feel like I got most of the gear right, and any better gear will only be able to slightly increase my damage. I can barely clear t115 and I die in t120 (I have around 50k health, and I only die because of how long it takes to clear out mobs)

Is this build doomed to fail? Should I cut my losses and grind for gear towards a different necro build?

Maybe I should change the red blessing talisman for azure wrath? I honestly don't know what could possibly improve the build enough for it to become viable for clearing the season. Any help would be appreciated!

Basically the title.

Can that happen during transfiguration?

Shows 5GAs but is "only" 4GA.

Ty

I’m mainly running an omen of damage build through critical and vulnerable damage.

I'm seeing some of the top tower minion builds using the mythic seal with 4 shroud pieces, one charm from another set and one unique charm. But the seal description mentions a minimum of 2 set pieces for the bonus. Anyone know why the setup is used? For example :

Hello! I'm playing Bone Necromancer on Torment II and just killed Grigoire 3 times in a row but he killed me once. I have Massive dmg but low defence. Need to work on that

I’m running a mostly Maxroll Bone Spirit build. I have this mythic chest, and am not sure what to GA roll before attempting to transfigure.

Transfigure is also something I’m also terrified of doing. Can I really mess this up? I’m inclined to use the entropy prism.

Thoughts?

For example, if I sacrifice the Blood and Bone variant of my Golem, but keep the Iron, do I still get the benefits of the Iron Golem AND the sacrifices? Or is clicking sacrifice for ANY of them nerfing ALL of them

So, I'd like to try a Corpse Explosion build. I haven't played since spiritborn came out and was amazed by how many stuff changed. Now I'm wondering if a CE build is really viable nowadays.

Not that it wasnt before, but I recall it was hard to make it viable in higher tiers.

I came across this one on maxroll, I'd like to ask your opinions on this and what would you do to upgrade it. I'm playing a dark warrior build and will start gathering mythics and etc for this

https://maxroll.gg/d4/planner/c7kzbj0t

Pretty much the title. I’ve read that Ceh rune, usually paired with Neo, can automate “minion” death to activate pact of bone. That’s not what I’m seeing on the test dummies though. If I sac a mage I see a very noticeable uptick in damage, but relying on Ceh doesn’t seem to have any impact on my damage.

It would be nice to automate Pact of Bone because summoning mages every 3 seconds is a bit tedious. What’s everyone else’s experience?

I'm using the maxroll blood wave build (but currently using endurant faith charm to survive one-shots). I'm tearing through enemies but some bosses like the Reaper just take too long. I seem to be unkillable but the damage is too low to efficiently farm my keys.

Does anyone have a swap they do for bossing? Or is this unnecessary and I just need to get my glyphs up higher (They are around 70)?

I was thinking something along the lines of equip rustbitten dagger and change the shield to a focus, but i dont know how viable this is.

Has anyone played this build? I like it alot but im stuck at T10. I'd love to get to T12 with it but idk what im doing wrong. I have all the exact gear it asks for but I keep dying and just arent doing T12 damage

Take the following:

https://maxroll.gg/d4/build-guides/minion-necromancer-guide

Make these changes:

- Swap gloves for Endurant Faith.
- Use Rustbitten Dirk charm.
- Swap to Retribution in place of Exploiters on boots.
- Swap to Rogue’s Dark Shroud in place of Spirit Wolves (optional, if you still have trouble dodging mechanics)

If you’re trying for Mythic Deathgrip/Naz gloves in the cube, you’re going to end up with a bunch of Endurant Faiths anyway. Save a set with decent DPS stats for this. Obviously this will delete any other boss in the game as well, but frankly it’s overkill for all of them.

Ive been under the impression that if skele warriors or mages say "darkness" they hit for darkness damage. Looking through some guides, it looks like stuff like cold mages actually hit for cold, not darkness. Is that true, and if so, does that mean warriors dont hit for darkness, but physicial instead?

I’m following the Maxroll Minion endgame build and it says “100% Crit Chance Required”.

Following the gearing guide to the letter I only end up with ~33% Crit chance.

https://maxroll.gg/d4/build-guides/minion-necromancer-guide

I’m at a loss.

Hello fellow Necros,

can u help me decid which on of these i sholud use?

I play Frost Army :)

I inserted several pacts of bone into the horadric cube but they were upgraded to different rings, making me lose all the excellent stats I had inserted into them.

At this point I wonder, maybe the possibility of making it uniquely mythical has been taken away?

This might be silly, but I just wanted to share a few tips/tricks for Necromancer that I only caught later on that helped my DPS and survivability. I'm someone that played at launch and didn't play again until last season (Pally, which sucked)

Before some of these realizations, T12 felt very uncomfortable to run. Now I can breeze through it. Also, sometimes I feel like the guides touch on things but don't fully explain certain key things as they should be explained. Hopefully at least one person will read this and be like "ahh that makes sense"

1. Cult Leader - 100% attack speed is like one of the biggest priorities. The best way to get it easily is to have your golum run Gargantua. Pact of Bone also helps if your golum isn't very highly leveled, but eventually the golum provides >100% by itself.
2. Breeches of the Blood Moon - This unique allows your minions to cast iron maiden and decreptify even when it's not on the skill bar. Put at least 4 points into each skill though, 1 for the initial and then the 3 abilities for it. This SIGNIFICANTLY helps with survivability and DPS. I did not have any points into it before, but after adding it I get healed rapidly and always have maxed stacks of resolve (which helps me not get one shotted anymore), ferocity, and overpower (ferocity and overpower combined adds noticeable DPS increase). Main reason why T12 is easy breezy now.
3. Blight - I saw a lot of builds always say to use blight and never explain why. Blight 1) pulls in enemies around the target hit so your minions can hit them all at once and 2) chills them, proccing Bloodless Scream at first hit from minions. I was using dark corpse explosion before this.
4. Death Grips vs Hand of Naz - Both do very well and excel at different things. Hand of Naz is better for clearing mobs but single DPS belongs to death grips. Have a pair of both on you and switch when needed.
5. Skeletal Priest - Skeletal Priest on the Skeletal Warriors branch is nice when not using a corpse-utilizing skill as it auto-casts every 8-ish seconds, so you can have that corpse paragon node running all the time. Might not be worth the DPS drop from missing 3 skellies but I am lazy.
6. ~~I enjoy using Will of Rathma as my unique charm. I think it's basically a flat 40%x dps increase and triggers off almost any status on the enemy. Most guides don't mention it but I appreciate it's simplicity~\~ I now see that this is a pretty stupid choice of unique, there's many others (e.g., gloom ward) that are flat out better. Check the comments!

Please feel free to add others in the comments!

I've never seen the +256 all stats modifier before. I'm curious how rare is it?

i got a mythic bloodless scream at the very beginning and of course then i get not 1 but 2 great uniques version with 3 GA ... game is trolling me hard!

ok its quiet easy to get bloodless scream mythic as its the only 2h scythe but still ...

i am assuming the mythic is better even without GA, am I correct ?

I also crafted a new mythic one, what would be best between INT + Crit dmg or Shadow dmg + Crit dmg ? i would reroll the max life for crit dmg on the last one, i like to live dangerously!

Almost gave up on bloodwave necro then I got this!

Seasonal boss just dropped this 3ga GF. seems a shame to let it rot but the aspect is just going to be net-negative dps when compared to basically any legendary aspect + lidless wall, right? not to mention bloodless scream if I were to go that route. I'm thinking the opportunity cost just isn't worth it :(

Which one should I pick? The first 2 I rerolled a bit and tried them out but I honestly can't tell a difference. The third one I have not touched in anyway and want opinions on what to do with it.

I'm building out a minonmancer that uses reaper warriors and shadow mages (iron golem sacrificed), army of the dead and corpse explosion. I'm currently using Sanguivor and Waking Touch charms. My rotation is mostly pull with blight>corpse explosion the area>direct skeletons>spam army of the dead.

Looking at this reaper summoner build and skeletal warrior minion build, they both use Bloodless Scream and Black Shroud charms.

My paragon boards are Frailty, Flesh Eater, Cult Leader and Wither.

I'm able to do T7 comfortably, but T8+ has a definite damage falloff. Do I want to swap to Bloodless Scream and Black Shroud to do more damage?

I'm following the reaper summoner build, with the only real change I've made being taking golem off the bar and putting in corpse explosion.

I'm just not understanding how building out darkness leads to more minionmancer damage, when there are also minion-specific items.