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Build Guide

"BLOODCRAWLER"

(Cleared GR70, no Caldesann's Despair, and forgot to optimize several pieces of equipment prior to entering, Season 11, Paragon: 600)

[SKILL] - Corpse Explosion (Final Embrace) causes the corpses you target, to grow legs and race to the nearest enemy before exploding in a shower of gore. This skill requires some of your Life to use, thus gains the 3300% damage bonus provided by the Trag'Oul's Set. This skill will be the core of your damage.

This build is quite tanky for what it does, so I would say that it is Hardcore friendly build, for those of you who would like to try it out.

Here are some of it's tanky features:

[GEAR] - Dayntee's Binding: Provides 50% damage mitigation, while (at least) 1 enemy is cursed with Decrepify. Plus Decerpify's base -30% damage dealt to those enemies cursed with Decrepify leads to a lot of mitigation. This curse also slows enemies which triggers the damage bonus provided by Bane of the Trapped & Krysbin's Sentence.

[GEAR] - Trag'Oul (4-set Bonus): Your Life pool will be doubled at the full 100 stacks of Engorged. Previously, I was using Devour (Cannibalize) to accomplish this, but I found it to be completely unnecessary, given that the full 100 stacks can easily be attained simply by Blood Rush'ing through clusters of monsters. Because Trag'Oul's 2-set bonus allows Blood Rush to benefit from every rune; Blood Rush no longer cost blood, and in-fact, it restores 2% health per enemy you teleport through. This percentage of life is added to the "Engorged" stacks of the Trag'Oul 4-set bonus.

I have a base life of 1.1 million. So, when at 100 stacks of engorged, my life total becomes 2.2 million. [I use a Amethyst in my helm]

[SKILL] - Blood Rush: Even this skill itself provides extra "tankyness." With every rune benefiting this skill (as provided by the Trag'Oul 2-set bonus), this is a general breakdown of your new-and-improved Blood Rush skill:

- Provides 100% Armor buff for 2 seconds after teleporting.

- Restores 2% Life per enemy teleported-through.

- Has 2 charges, for extra mobility

- Leaves a corpse at your original location (useful for Corpse Explosion: Final Embrace)

[SKILL] - Bone Armor (Thy Flesh Sustained): This skill requires 20% of you Life to cast. But no worries there, because the extra Life Per Second provided by the skill quickly makes up for it. You wont even feel the sting!

[Side Note] : Because this happens to be a blood-tapping oriented skill, the damage of the skill's activation also receives the 3300% damage bonus provided by the Trag'Oul's 6-set bonus. But we aren't necessarily using it for damage. Primarily we want that extra Life per Second!

You see, the core problem with Trag'Oul is the Health Cost required to utilize those hard hitting 3300% +damage skills. So, I sought a way to make the health requirement negligible. And that method was by ramping up the Necromancer's Life Per Second. We are going to be launching a huge amount of these skittering corpses at our foes, and the last thing we want to worry about is 'managing our health.'

With Bone Armor (Thy Flesh Sustained) combined with the Wisdom of Kalan amulet, we can bring our Bone Armor stacks up to 15. Which means, that our Life Per Second will be boosted by 150%. Now combine that with a Molted Wildebeest Legendary Gem, and you're looking at a lot of Life regen! I've experimented with Rogar's Huge Stone (ring) and had a lot of success with it. Which is why I mentioned it in the gear options. With Rogar's; as your life decreases, your Life Per Second increases up to 100% when you're at half life. But towards later GR's 65-70, I switched out to the Lornelle's Sunstone for straight damage mitigation instead. I'll have to experiment some more and see if Rogar's can preform as well under such intense fire.

Here is a run-down of my Life Per Second; utilizing various aspects of my current build.

Standing idle in town; I have 105,000 Life Per Second.

- This is with a Rank 60 Wildebeest Gizzard gem (70,000 LPS)

- Paragon Points full into Life Per Second

- Multiple pieces of gear that have the Life Per Second stat

After obtaining the full 15 stack of Bone Armor (with Wisdom of Kalan amulet); my Life Per Second becomes 260,000

This number can be pushed even higher with Rogar's Huge Stone, instead of using Lornelle's Sunstone. But it might be overkill? The point is to mitigate the self-inflicted damage for each time you cast Final Embrace & Thy Flesh Sustained. Worth experimenting with, I suppose.

[GEM] - Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard (gem): This gem provides the primary source of Life Per Second required to sustain in combat & while casting your skittering Bloodcrawlers of terror & mayhem! *cough* But additionally, it also provides a heavy shield! After my LPS becomes 260,000 (when Bone Armor has reached 15 stacks. The gem provided a shield that is equal to 200% for your current LPS when you haven't taken damage in 4 seconds. My shield was always topped off at 520,000 worth of damage!

So, after being fully Engorges (100 stacks of Trag'Oul's bonus); my life was 2.2 million. Plus add in my shield of 520,000; that is: 2,700,000 worth of damage I can take before I become a corpse for some other Necromancer to wander by and use! ^_~ That's pretty tanky.

Actually, on the subject of Toughness; I wrote down some numbers while testing out the build:

Standing Idle in town;

- TOUGHNESS = 38 Million

After 100 stacks of Engorged & 15 Stacks of Bone Armor;

- TOUGHNESS = 141 Million

After adding the Decrepify Curse to 1 nearby enemy;

- TOUGHNESS = 280 Million

After this, I ran around in combat, casting my Final Embrace and taking punches here & there;

- TOUGHNESS = 280 Million ~ 500 Million (as I lost & regained life, this is due to Lornelle's Sunstone I'm assuming)

I didn't happen to pay attention to the 100% Armor for 2 seconds provided by Blood Rush (but perhaps the ~500 Million TOUGHNESS was incorporating that as well?). I forgot to test it by itself.

[GEAR] - Lornelle's Sunstone: I was fortunate to find a very well rolled Lornelle; at 0.94% ...nearly perfect. But as far as defense goes, this ring fits perfectly into any Trag'Oul build, really. Because you're always going to loose life, either though combat, or through self-inflicted damage. No matter the source, as your life decreases you damage mitigation increases. This ring will prevent you from proc'ing your Final Service passive as often as you otherwise might, in the event the battle takes an unexpected turn. And the Life Per Second built into this build will bring you right back up to a healthy state.

[GEAR] - Wisdom of Kalan provides an extra 5 stacks of Bone Armor, which translates to an additional 15% damage mitigation from Bone Armor. Bringing Bone Armor total damage mitigation up to 45%. I prefer this amulet over the Johnstone, because of the damage mitigation + the extra 50% Life Per Second from the 'Thy Flesh Sustained' rune. While the Johnstone provides a lot of additional damage to your Corpse Explosion while outside the 10 second window of Land of the Dead, I find that all of my stacks are very quickly 'used-up' and the amulet is doing me no good for next minute & a half.

[PASSIVE] - Stand Alone provides 90% additional armor with your Flesh Golem out.

[PASSIVE] - Dark Reaping gives you 2% Life per monster you kill, helping to sustain you in combat & while casting your skittering death-corpses-of-insanity. Additionally (and this is very important), Dark Reaping also provides 2% Essence per kill and is your only source of Essence generation. It sounds risky, but I assure you, it's not. The only Essence-required skills that you use are: Bone Armor (for 10 Essence) and Decrepify (for 10 Essence). But Bone Armor lasts 60 seconds. And Decrepify lasts 30 seconds and only needs to be cast a couple times here & there to saturate the battlefield with your curse. And since we are running a high-essence build with Overwhelming Essence & extra essence in the weapon/off-hand slot to help benefit the damage bonus provided from the Reilena's Shadowhook legendary affix, we will have plenty of essence to spare. So much, in fact, that I've even toyed with the idea of using Aquila Cuirass in the cube, instead of Grasp of Essence. In the end, the damage was preferable over the toughness. This build has plenty.

[THAT CONCLUDES THE 'TANKY' PORTION OF THE GUIDE]

Now for the rest....

[SKILL] - Command Golem (Flesh Golem) is taken to provide you with a readily available pile of skittering death-corpses, placed conveniently wherever it pleases you.

[SKILL] - Land of the Dead (Frozen Lands): This skill is actually interchangeable with whatever you want. Being able to constantly spam Final Embrace corpses helps to kill those annoying packs of "Juggernaut" affix elites and the Rift Guardian at higher GR tiers. The 300% damage bonus of Krysbin's Sentence will proc to any enemies (not Juggernauts) that happen to get frozen while in Land of the Dead.

[GEAR] - Moribund Gauntlets provides a constant and reliable source of corpses, in situations where rotting flesh-piles are in short supply

[GEAR] - Grasp of Essence (placed in the cube for the full damage affix bonus) boosts the damage of your Corpse Explosion (Final Embrace) up to 500% (5 stacks max, at 100% damage per stack).

[GEAR] - Reilena's Shadowhook (in the cube) provides extra damage per max Essence. So you'll want Essence on your Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang & Lidless Wall, as well as taking the passive Overwhelming Essence.

[GEAR] - Krysbin's Sentence applies a 100% damage boost to slowed enemy's. This will be all enemies you fight, due to the slow provided from the Decrepify curse. As well as Bane of the Trapped, if enemies happen to get that close to you. Additionally, the Dizzying Curse rune from Decrepify provides a 10% change to stun enemies hit. Which would proc the 300% damage bonus from Krysbin's. Likewise, the Zei's Stone of Vengeance (gem) has a 20% chance to stun as well, to gain the 300% damage bonus.

[GEAR] - Nemesis Bracers simply because I couldn't really think of a better option & because it really helps speed up farming both regular Rifts and Greater Rifts. Try to get Physical Damage 20% for your skittering-flesh-runners.

[PASSIVE] - Final Embrace is our "oh-crap-what-just-happened-I-almost-died" life saver. When things go wrong, they usually go wrong very unexpectedly and quickly. This passive should pull you out the fire and help you regroup. But to be honest, similar to Land of the Dead, this is an interchangeable option with whatever else you would prefer. I've ran Spreading Malediction for more damage. I've ran Draw Life for more Life Per Second. But with both of these (I would like to point out), there comes a time when their usefulness suffers. Namely, the Rift Guardian. Spreading Malediction is great when you have a group to curse, but so so poor when only the Rift Guardian is cursed. Same deal with Draw Life. Great with a group, sad when alone with the Rift Guardian.

[GEM] - Zei's Stone of Vengeance has an interesting interaction with the Corpse Explosion (Final Embrace), because you don't have to 'aim' your Corpse Explosion. The corpses literally pick themselves up and run to the nearest monster. Which means, that you can stand waaaaaay back, and the corpses will rundown some enemies that are even off your screen! Blowing up for the full damage provided from the gem. Not to mention, if the hit is a stun as well, then Krysbin's Sentence procs for 300% damage.

[GEM] - Bane of the Trapped is best-est-es! The synergy fits perfect with everything a Necromancer does. Might as well pop an eye out and replace it with this gem, because you'll always want it nearby.

[GEAR] - Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang is going to be providing a reliable 200% damage bonus, because you want/need everything cursed anyhow. You need them cursed for your Dayntee's Binding, cursed for Bane of the Trapped, cursed for Krysbin's Sentence, and now cursed for Fang's 200% damage.

[GEAR] - Lidless Wall is taken for the extra Essence, the 20% Physical damage bonus, extra armor & because there isn't anything else really helpful for this slot, in this build.

[GEAR] - Royal Ring of Grandeur is cubed usually because the stats are sub-par and we need it to maintain the 6-set bonus of Trag'Oul's Avatar, since the glove slot is going to the Moribund Gauntlets.

SPECIAL NOTE -

The most 'precarious' point of any Rift (with this build) is the very beginning. You need to get your defenses in place (i.e.; 100 stacks of Engorged, 15 stacks of Bone Armor).

What I prefer to do, is;

- Inch slowly into the Rift until we encounter the first bunch of badies. Curse them right away to get Dayntee's damage mitigation rolling.

- Blood Rush right through the largest group (gaining blood-stacks).

- Slam them with Bone Armor (gaining bone-stacks & amping up LPS).

- Then Blood Rush right back to where we were (where the Golem likely is).

- The Golem will have been plopping corpses down for us, so we're free to start spamming Corpse Explosion (Final Embrace) to blow up the area and give us some breathing room.

- After this, you should have enough damage mitigation to freely wander and fill out the rest of you Engorged & Bone Armor stacks at will.

Well! That's the build. Lots of fun! If you try it out, I hope you enjoy it!

~ HalosLight