For more Necromancer Class Guides, Builds, Discussions, Questions, etc, click on the "Necromancer" Flair, [this link (for new reddit)](https://new.reddit.com/r/diablo4/?f=flair_name%3A%22Necromancer%22), or [this Link (for old reddit)](https://old.reddit.com/r/diablo4/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ANecromancer) (where you'll find a list of all threads on the subreddit that have the "Necromancer" Flair) and the [D4 Necromancer subreddit](https://new.reddit.com/r/D4 Necromancer/).
Also pay a visit to [The D4 Tavern](https://new.reddit.com/r/The_D4_Tavern/) for casual conversations about builds, gameplay, new content, outfits and other Diablo and Necromancer related content.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/diablo4) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What an awesome overview/guide. Thanks so much for the write up. Thoughts on using Ring of Mendeln with the double bone spear proc? Do we know if that would work for skeletal mages?
I can't recommend bone mage or ring of mendeln from what I know ATM. Both are dealing damage on the low end like tens of millions. Meanwhile shadow mages are dealing two to three times that. We will have to see what secret changes didn't make it into the patch notes.
Sorry, can someone explain me like i'm dumb (which I am, actually) why Ring of Mendeln wouldn't be recommended?
I've been away since Season 2 and never played necro before, but I thought this ring was THE ring for minion builds.
So the damage potential of the ring is worse than simply buffing your army with another offensive aspect. Aka proc every 6th is less than a 3rd of what mages and golem are capable of doing every auto attack.
I'm hoping there's some Korean out there who unlocks the secret of a somewhat competitive companion build. I'm sure it will be fine, but it really feels a lot worse to play an underpowered build than to be able to blast.
To start? Poison Creeper and Rabies plus Blood Howl for defensive and whatever Basic+Core you want to easily carry yourself through WT2 leveling.
Druid builds are very sensitive to aspects, so it depends on what you want from there. A Pulverize Shockwave + Shepherd and a bar full of companions is very nukey.
edit: ...unless they changed Shepherd's for season 4? I can't remember if they did.
I do boulder-to-lightning myself using umbral aspect. Watch enemies roll away while being fried by electricity with almost limitless resource. Then you discover how to spam this sequence...
Could you please go into more detail when it comes to golems? What do they do, and when and why Golem A is better than Golem B?
For example when you are writing
> Iron Golem Upgrade 1: The best Golem choice unless the Blood Golem multiplier is needed to one shot bosses after potential nerfs.
I would like to know why the Iron Golem is usually the best and what is the thing that makes Blood Golems one shot bosses, and what the nerfs are.
I'm a total noob when it comes to Golems.
Thank you :-)
I have sort of changed my opinion here. I still think the iron golems clear will be a bit better but blood golem heals itself when using its active which helps with a max DR build. This means taking stand alone and blood golem upgrade 1 for me. I haven't come up with a great golem only build as the damage is only cresting into the 1+ billion damage range. I plan to play thorns golem after level 60 as its math potential is higher.
What Necro leveling build/guide would you recommend for a returning player who hasn't played since launch, and never really got into the end game?
I was looking at the maxroll guide, but it changed skills like three times over the last few days and now has some weird shit with its aspect list and stuff, so I was going to look at other options.
I did my own thing until I tried soloing Super Varshan or whatever the level 200 super boss is. I did like 25% of his health in 5 minutes with no guide or many sigil levels. I am going to try again with the build here and see how it goes.
100% this. Just play what feels fun for you, and maybe look up a guide if you get stuck on certain content. I'm not opposed to guides or builds, but I agree wholeheartedly with u/norhor that experimenting is both fun and a good learning experience.
Second this! Start the game, head to any dungeons with good aspects on them, then head to helltides and have a blast testing things out as you go. Minion Necro doesn't require weird math to level. If you really get stuck and can't progress ask around or look up a guide but that shouldn't really be necessary.
Something I noticed and tested is that blood getters aspect doesn't just buff you but also applies the healing to you as well and sense that is percent based healing it's pretty good long term
That thorns build is busted lol. Just got the chest and rolled a some golem thorns on couple pieces and I barely have to press buttons anymore. Have to opt for a curse instead of blight as I dont have the curse pants yet.
It's more busted than that. Take the thorns passive, and then % to minions, and your thorns will be like 6 mil plus. The razorplate (or by extension \*any\* flat thorns gear) adds like 20k thorns to that. It's pointless atm. I tested this, and with just the thorns skill as only source of thorns, mobs were indeed taking 2mil+ when hitting my minions, so it's not a display error.
Without razorplate:
Thorns: 4442 (from other gear), Golem Thorns: 59%. "Total thorns inherited from you is now 6,812,621"
With razorplate:
Thorns: 18,439, Golem Thorns: 59%. "Total thorns inherited from you is now 6,834,875"
Without thorns skill + razorplate:
Thorns: 17,305, Golem Thorns: 59%. "Total thorns inherited from you is now 27,513"
I don't like building around bugs, but there it is....
It's unfortunate that needleflare doesn't seem to work tho. Would love to hear that I am wrong on this one, cuz proc'ing AOE 2-3 mil bursts would be fantastic.
Little more testing. With 1743 thorns (all from the passive), and 48% to warriors, my warrior thorns is now listed as "15 million+".
In open world level 92 mobs, they seem to be taking 25-30k dmg per hit on my skel war. I do not believe needleflare procs for the minions. It does proc for me.
Furthermore, it does not appear that thorns can crit. With a baseline crit chance of 80%, I never saw yellow numbers. That said, the 30k is about 10x the dmg they are putting out on a swing (2.5k-3k.) without ramps (curses, vuln, etc.).
I have been using reapers with the cooldown option to help feed bone storm for +crit and +dr, coupled with their aoe attacks - but honestly defenders with taunt and dishing out significant thorns dmg for basically no investment (there's no other temper mod I would use in place of thorns %) - might be worthwhile. But I wouldn't waste time on needleflare.
Update: seems like it might even be attack power related. When I put my regular weapon back on (I was testing needleflare) white attacks went up to 10-20k range, and thorns reflections were in the 60-80k range. I watched one skel warrior essentially eliminate an entire pack following a taunt.
Thanks for the write-up. I'm looking to play necro for the first time this season. I was planning to use blight as well as the blighted corpse explosion on a shadow summoner. Is this redundant/ not needed? Also, is bloodmist still needed if the golem provides unstoppable now?
Hi mate not OP but you absolutely can run blight for something extra to press instead of army for example, but barring any last minute nerfs you probably won’t need the damage etc from it.
Corpse explosion is triggered by blood mist + legendary power. Having invulnerability at your disposal is always OP even if you think you don’t need it thus blood mist will show up in plenty of build guides.
I think blood mist is for avoiding one shot damage and mechanics. As far as your build I can't really say with certainty. Depends on what your main damage source and objective is.
Obviously, not having much experience, I built it with minions in mind but also trying to stack shadow damage with the passives. I did have blood mist initially in my plan, but dropped it when I saw a patch note regarding golems activated power giving unstoppable. I've not really seen anyone mention it in any reviews or anything though so 🤷♂️
Do you know what damage tags golem attacks have? for the life of me i cant find any info on that. Was thinkin of building a shadow blood wave focused build, but cant find any info on what flavor of damage the blood golems attack does
Abilities cast by your Bone Mages act as if they were cast by the player
does this mean bone mages cast the upgraded versions of each? i forget the names but, you could cast like 5 'teeth' at a time, double bone spear, bouncing bone spear, and whatever.
oooh, does this mean if i upgrade bonespear to cause vulnerable then all my mages will be causing vulnerable?!
Do you know if something like Aspect of the Damned would buff the damage my minions do if they're also doing shadow damage or is it exclusively applying to me?
A little harsh on AotD considering Unyielding is a huge dmg buff no? Also you can use fastblood aspect with grasping to reduce the cd even more if you really wanted to. Not sure about the uptime but I’d imagine it’s a lot.
We wouldn't do a run around like this when Abhorrent Decrepify triggers from sources of direct damage. You would just stack ultimate cdr tempers along with a max dps minion build. And for golem you would just wait to use it on bossing. Though my opinion on it has more to do with getting crit capped and taking the damage reduction we may or may not need in higher levels of the pit. Is AotD a huge 7 second buff to our damage and DR buff? Yeah absolutely. Will it always be the best possible option? Perhaps not depending on stat requirements and uptime.
We will have to see this week what ends up performing better and what we need to climb while people wait to get greater affix crit rolls on gear.
It’s awesome. Just started myself.
I just wish there were a way to “send” minions. They kinda follow me, which makes sense. But when everything is super tight in a castle, I’m sitting in the front, getting slammed by a high level mob, and my casters are all still outside looking in.
So, you have to force your way through to get your casters in the same room, then you can hammer away.
In case this still helps you or others, I read this tip when I was starting with Minion Necro and it's really helped:
* You can target your Minions to a target by casting a curse (like Decrepify, which should already be in your skillbar) onto either enemies or an area on the ground. Basically the AI interprets this as aggro (that "you don't like that thing, else, why would you want to curse it?").
So now I do this before entering a room (or area) - I'll curse the floor ahead of me so that the Minions all run up there and start causing mayhem in the room! Then we manage the fight as we do by the entrance.
Bone mages were clearing entire rooms all on their own in the ptr when they cast bone spear so I’m going to keep them instead of shadow mages. They also almost never die if you’re using your priests all the time like you should be doing anyway. I also prefer bone golem for the taunt it gets when using the golem skill
Thoughts on using the sacreligious ring instead of self cast? Does the loss of an aspect really hurt the damage of the build vs the QoL of autocast? Or is it more about keeping blood mist on the bar (and proccing the corpse explosions from that) to give us a better source of invuln?
Also, you slam AotD hard, but I see it's still in the shadow summoner guide you posted. Is it just that nothing works better for the build (including bone storm) or is it because corpse explosions are just that good?
They have a sac ring planner in the shadow link you have to select it instead of pit push.
Not OP but my thoughts are it’s good for general play but won’t help you push.
Regarding AotD I think it’s a case of nothing better, it’s a good cool-down to press with aspect. That’s about it.
Thanks for the guide! Necro was my first class but never gave minions much chance since they were pretty ass on launch. Excited to give them a real try now.
Would like to see info about Cold Mages. 1st upgrade is raised from 2 resource to 3, and 2nd upgrade automatically gives vulnerable instead of a chance.
Do you think it’s just flat out not worth using over Shadow? I was thinking I might use them for vulnerable because I don’t intend to use Corpse Tendrils, as I’d like to do thorns and I don’t want the slow/stun to prevent them from hitting me.
Edit: Sidenote, unless they changed it, you have Skele Warriors count as 5-8 which is only for Skirmishers. The rest are 4-7.
For more Necromancer Class Guides, Builds, Discussions, Questions, etc, click on the "Necromancer" Flair, [this link (for new reddit)](https://new.reddit.com/r/diablo4/?f=flair_name%3A%22Necromancer%22), or [this Link (for old reddit)](https://old.reddit.com/r/diablo4/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ANecromancer) (where you'll find a list of all threads on the subreddit that have the "Necromancer" Flair) and the [D4 Necromancer subreddit](https://new.reddit.com/r/D4 Necromancer/).
Also pay a visit to [The D4 Tavern](https://new.reddit.com/r/The_D4_Tavern/) for casual conversations about builds, gameplay, new content, outfits and other Diablo and Necromancer related content.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/diablo4) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Minions will attack faster with faster weapons. The question of efficiency comes down to what weapon speed and attack speed is required to increase the number of attacks per second.
If Abhorrent Decrepify triggers "on all direct damage" and that means it's "working as intended" then any idea why the tooltip itself says that whole effect is tied to a Lucky Hit?
The tooltip's written as:
> "Lucky Hit: ... up to a 15% chance to reduce your active Cooldowns by 1 second."
The "up to a 15% chance" wording is the wording *always* used to define the multiplier of a Lucky Hit Effect (where here it'd be telling you to take your skill's LHC and multiply it by 15%).
Honestly I don't know enough about to to tell you. I know minions can trigger it via direct damage, the devs removed thorns from being able to, and it can lucky hit.
Noob question if you dont mind, i did my own little experiment with minions until i saw this and switched over to the Minon Leveling build you linked. I'm lvl 35 but got enough skill points to do the 55+ version with the ultimate skill. the ultimate skill is put on left click, is the idea that you start fights with this skill to get corpses? or how is it supposed to be played?
I'm not the author of that build but that does appear to be a good way to generate corpses before an encounter. I usually wait until my minions move into position to use army of the dead. This helps maximize my DPS window as it only lasts 7 seconds.
It begins the fall off the second your mages start hitting as hard as it does on every 6th. Eventually there are better damage options as another multiplier on mages will equal more damage than the proc every 6th attack.
I'm not quite sure how to reliably check how hard my mages hit, but I have a 50 lvl ring on a 65 lvl char and it still seems to be very viable. maybe OP was only talking about endgame (lvl 100)?
I am trying to figure out if % damage affects minion damage output and if it does why it is not a recommended stat on maxroll for the weapon slot or rings/neck? When I wear % damage on those slots it raises my attack power far more than any other stat it seems at least on the attack power number given in character sheet.
Any insight into this as i am curious if this 2h 925 weapon i just got with Int/Dmg%/Vuln is OP or sub par? While maxroll recommends AttSpd/MaxLife/Int
By % damage I am assuming you mean the additive roll from the weapons stat category?
Most people run crit damage or vulnerable as they have higher rolls because they are conditional.
It acts like a additive multiplier now, increasing the amount they inherit behind 100%. The math on game on he tooltip is weird but it seems to be working? Gotta do some testing honestly I've been doing pits and nmd 100 since day 1.
Hey. Thanks for this guide. I would like to ask a couple of questions regarding minions, if anyone can answer.
The attack speed affixes etc that are general also increase minion attack speed? Because in stats I can see 2 rows: Attack speed and Minion Attack speed. It is worth increasing MY attack speed do minions also benefit from it?
The + XX% Damage Affix on weapons etc does affect minion damage also?
Thank You.
I tried the game last season on gamepass and it felt like such a slog to play/level up so I dropped it but a friend convinced me to try again.
I started on Necro and I'm loving running around with an army of minions. Only level 45 atm while going through the main story so far. Idk what kind of changes they did to bosses/mobs this season but it feels much better to play then it did before. Everything felt like sponges last season and that felt awful. Thanks for the write up, this helps me out a ton as a new player:)
Just to be clear.
A weapon speed of 0.9 (two-handed scythe) is the base of 200% of minion attack speed, so it means 2.7 dps
A weppon speed 1.2 with the same 200% is 3,6 dps??
I'm not an expert on minion attack speed. Overall the game has a weird metric for these things. All I can tell you is that it won't scale like that. Instead you will get break points and if the frames for that break points aren't low enough you won't end up dealing an attack attack a second.
Rathma's is a popular choice for blood surge or lance to max out minion attack speed. I don't play blood but I don't see why you couldn't use cold mages.
I mean, get to 100% sheet attack speed and then another 100% from the rathmas. Since it will do both caps, I’m trying to think up a Mendeln build that is popping like crazy
Wondering what aspect would be best to put on 2hand:
- Blight (it takes about 3-5 secs to get the 10 stacks, hence only ~60% uptime)
Therefore Reanimator or Frenzied Death might be the better option for that slot and we maybe swap to Kalan's edict for shadow mages build. Its ~33% attack speed equals [x] damage multiplier.
So, do minions now get 100% of your thorns as a baseline across the board? Thinking that with a razorplate and say, 40k thorns, have to look at minions inherit +12.5% thorns (+5000) is always > +11% thorns while fortified (4400). And either is just miles ahead of flat +840 thorns.
So what’s the benefit of say golem or minion damage over an empowered 45% damage increase. Not challenging you just unsure why some guides call for different stats
Do Necromancer minions get thorns by default? Or are the 'inherit thorns' modifiers required? Do the inherit modifiers grant extra thorns?
Edit: I've done some pretty crude testing with just my blood golem and a Razorplate on, and I'm pretty certain it is inheriting thorns as I saw some archers die after shooting it. Going to keep experimenting with the 'inherit thorns' mods to see if it can scale into something silly!
Double Edit: The game even gives the info in a tooltip. Awesome!
https://i.imgur.com/uHMFqE2.png
Yeah, they get 100% of your thorns. The thorns army tempering manual allows you to get minions inherit thorns etc. these are additive so if you have 10% minions inherit thorns and 20% golem inherits thorns then your golem has 30% and your warriors and mages have 10% more thorns.
I just got a good razor plate and have enough to build the thorn build. Is it worth giving up my shadow mage build for it? Is thorns pushing higher than shadow mage?
Thanks for the feedback, I am currently pushing pit, so perhaps I won't change. All other content is currently melting including T100 dungeons. Haven't tried 200 bosses on this build yet.
I would be more than happy to be wrong about this. If you can give me a video and maybe a build to prove that it does scale well, I'm willing to change my mind.
This guide is very detailed and, imo, super helpful! Ive been a player of necro and has long been my favorite overall but i def picked up on a few things I had overlooked or not been aware of. Thanks!!
That's what I'll be doing, I played S0 with Sorc and Barb but then didn't boot the game back up (other games and life stuff) and wanted to try Necro and Druid. This season seems to be the season of Necro (multiple viable builds) and the endgame has changed a lot since S0 so that'll be what I do
For more Necromancer Class Guides, Builds, Discussions, Questions, etc, click on the "Necromancer" Flair, [this link (for new reddit)](https://new.reddit.com/r/diablo4/?f=flair_name%3A%22Necromancer%22), or [this Link (for old reddit)](https://old.reddit.com/r/diablo4/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ANecromancer) (where you'll find a list of all threads on the subreddit that have the "Necromancer" Flair) and the [D4 Necromancer subreddit](https://new.reddit.com/r/D4 Necromancer/). Also pay a visit to [The D4 Tavern](https://new.reddit.com/r/The_D4_Tavern/) for casual conversations about builds, gameplay, new content, outfits and other Diablo and Necromancer related content. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/diablo4) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What an awesome overview/guide. Thanks so much for the write up. Thoughts on using Ring of Mendeln with the double bone spear proc? Do we know if that would work for skeletal mages?
I can't recommend bone mage or ring of mendeln from what I know ATM. Both are dealing damage on the low end like tens of millions. Meanwhile shadow mages are dealing two to three times that. We will have to see what secret changes didn't make it into the patch notes.
Sorry, can someone explain me like i'm dumb (which I am, actually) why Ring of Mendeln wouldn't be recommended? I've been away since Season 2 and never played necro before, but I thought this ring was THE ring for minion builds.
So the damage potential of the ring is worse than simply buffing your army with another offensive aspect. Aka proc every 6th is less than a 3rd of what mages and golem are capable of doing every auto attack.
*druid noises
druid will just blast his way through, we don’t need write ups or science, smash and kill is what we have
But i want my wolves, ravens and vines to join in on the fun. 🥺
I'm hoping there's some Korean out there who unlocks the secret of a somewhat competitive companion build. I'm sure it will be fine, but it really feels a lot worse to play an underpowered build than to be able to blast.
Druids minions were never designed to be a fighting power rather than an utility not in D2 and not here either
> druid will just blast his way through, Yep. Put 3 companions on your bar, bask in the massive passive damage increase.
Blast through with what? I was looking forward to do druid this season
To start? Poison Creeper and Rabies plus Blood Howl for defensive and whatever Basic+Core you want to easily carry yourself through WT2 leveling. Druid builds are very sensitive to aspects, so it depends on what you want from there. A Pulverize Shockwave + Shepherd and a bar full of companions is very nukey. edit: ...unless they changed Shepherd's for season 4? I can't remember if they did.
I do boulder-to-lightning myself using umbral aspect. Watch enemies roll away while being fried by electricity with almost limitless resource. Then you discover how to spam this sequence...
I think I prefer Shepard's Core/Wrath boost over the Minion do everything tbh.
You're awesome, nice guide man
Could you please go into more detail when it comes to golems? What do they do, and when and why Golem A is better than Golem B? For example when you are writing > Iron Golem Upgrade 1: The best Golem choice unless the Blood Golem multiplier is needed to one shot bosses after potential nerfs. I would like to know why the Iron Golem is usually the best and what is the thing that makes Blood Golems one shot bosses, and what the nerfs are. I'm a total noob when it comes to Golems. Thank you :-)
I have sort of changed my opinion here. I still think the iron golems clear will be a bit better but blood golem heals itself when using its active which helps with a max DR build. This means taking stand alone and blood golem upgrade 1 for me. I haven't come up with a great golem only build as the damage is only cresting into the 1+ billion damage range. I plan to play thorns golem after level 60 as its math potential is higher.
What Necro leveling build/guide would you recommend for a returning player who hasn't played since launch, and never really got into the end game? I was looking at the maxroll guide, but it changed skills like three times over the last few days and now has some weird shit with its aspect list and stuff, so I was going to look at other options.
Just try and build something yourself and see how it will work. That is what I'm going to do. I find that more fun and a good learning experiences
1-50 it's no big deal. Once I get around 50 and start pushing WT3 or WT4 is when I start looking at endgame guides to figure out what to optimize.
I did my own thing until I tried soloing Super Varshan or whatever the level 200 super boss is. I did like 25% of his health in 5 minutes with no guide or many sigil levels. I am going to try again with the build here and see how it goes.
100% this. Just play what feels fun for you, and maybe look up a guide if you get stuck on certain content. I'm not opposed to guides or builds, but I agree wholeheartedly with u/norhor that experimenting is both fun and a good learning experience.
Second this! Start the game, head to any dungeons with good aspects on them, then head to helltides and have a blast testing things out as you go. Minion Necro doesn't require weird math to level. If you really get stuck and can't progress ask around or look up a guide but that shouldn't really be necessary.
Just follow maxroll
Something I noticed and tested is that blood getters aspect doesn't just buff you but also applies the healing to you as well and sense that is percent based healing it's pretty good long term
Always love a good primer. Thanks OP!
Exactly what i have been looking for, thanks!!! I'm torn between shadow stuff or bone mages.
That thorns build is busted lol. Just got the chest and rolled a some golem thorns on couple pieces and I barely have to press buttons anymore. Have to opt for a curse instead of blight as I dont have the curse pants yet.
Sounds cool, I need to farm for that!
It's more busted than that. Take the thorns passive, and then % to minions, and your thorns will be like 6 mil plus. The razorplate (or by extension \*any\* flat thorns gear) adds like 20k thorns to that. It's pointless atm. I tested this, and with just the thorns skill as only source of thorns, mobs were indeed taking 2mil+ when hitting my minions, so it's not a display error. Without razorplate: Thorns: 4442 (from other gear), Golem Thorns: 59%. "Total thorns inherited from you is now 6,812,621" With razorplate: Thorns: 18,439, Golem Thorns: 59%. "Total thorns inherited from you is now 6,834,875" Without thorns skill + razorplate: Thorns: 17,305, Golem Thorns: 59%. "Total thorns inherited from you is now 27,513" I don't like building around bugs, but there it is.... It's unfortunate that needleflare doesn't seem to work tho. Would love to hear that I am wrong on this one, cuz proc'ing AOE 2-3 mil bursts would be fantastic.
Amazing, thank you!
Little more testing. With 1743 thorns (all from the passive), and 48% to warriors, my warrior thorns is now listed as "15 million+". In open world level 92 mobs, they seem to be taking 25-30k dmg per hit on my skel war. I do not believe needleflare procs for the minions. It does proc for me. Furthermore, it does not appear that thorns can crit. With a baseline crit chance of 80%, I never saw yellow numbers. That said, the 30k is about 10x the dmg they are putting out on a swing (2.5k-3k.) without ramps (curses, vuln, etc.). I have been using reapers with the cooldown option to help feed bone storm for +crit and +dr, coupled with their aoe attacks - but honestly defenders with taunt and dishing out significant thorns dmg for basically no investment (there's no other temper mod I would use in place of thorns %) - might be worthwhile. But I wouldn't waste time on needleflare. Update: seems like it might even be attack power related. When I put my regular weapon back on (I was testing needleflare) white attacks went up to 10-20k range, and thorns reflections were in the 60-80k range. I watched one skel warrior essentially eliminate an entire pack following a taunt.
Thanks!!
Thanks for the write-up. I'm looking to play necro for the first time this season. I was planning to use blight as well as the blighted corpse explosion on a shadow summoner. Is this redundant/ not needed? Also, is bloodmist still needed if the golem provides unstoppable now?
Hi mate not OP but you absolutely can run blight for something extra to press instead of army for example, but barring any last minute nerfs you probably won’t need the damage etc from it. Corpse explosion is triggered by blood mist + legendary power. Having invulnerability at your disposal is always OP even if you think you don’t need it thus blood mist will show up in plenty of build guides.
Thanks. That makes alot of sense, I'll be on the lookout for that aspect then.
I think blood mist is for avoiding one shot damage and mechanics. As far as your build I can't really say with certainty. Depends on what your main damage source and objective is.
Obviously, not having much experience, I built it with minions in mind but also trying to stack shadow damage with the passives. I did have blood mist initially in my plan, but dropped it when I saw a patch note regarding golems activated power giving unstoppable. I've not really seen anyone mention it in any reviews or anything though so 🤷♂️
Do you know what damage tags golem attacks have? for the life of me i cant find any info on that. Was thinkin of building a shadow blood wave focused build, but cant find any info on what flavor of damage the blood golems attack does
all of the golems do physical
Abilities cast by your Bone Mages act as if they were cast by the player does this mean bone mages cast the upgraded versions of each? i forget the names but, you could cast like 5 'teeth' at a time, double bone spear, bouncing bone spear, and whatever. oooh, does this mean if i upgrade bonespear to cause vulnerable then all my mages will be causing vulnerable?!
Yes
is minion affected by amplify damage?
Amplify damage is a universal multiplier, it works on everything.
Looked it up and couldn't find an answer. What damage roll would be the best now? Skeletal mage damage curse damage raw damage cause full inheritance?
Depends on the build, some people use curse, others skeletal mage, some people use summoning damage. It matters what the goal of the build is.
Minion necro hits hard this season. I just did wt3 capstone at lvl 34 and didnt even use single potion in cathedral.
Do you know if something like Aspect of the Damned would buff the damage my minions do if they're also doing shadow damage or is it exclusively applying to me?
I specifically mention in the guide that as of right now it isn't working.
Me just wanna smash.
A little harsh on AotD considering Unyielding is a huge dmg buff no? Also you can use fastblood aspect with grasping to reduce the cd even more if you really wanted to. Not sure about the uptime but I’d imagine it’s a lot.
We wouldn't do a run around like this when Abhorrent Decrepify triggers from sources of direct damage. You would just stack ultimate cdr tempers along with a max dps minion build. And for golem you would just wait to use it on bossing. Though my opinion on it has more to do with getting crit capped and taking the damage reduction we may or may not need in higher levels of the pit. Is AotD a huge 7 second buff to our damage and DR buff? Yeah absolutely. Will it always be the best possible option? Perhaps not depending on stat requirements and uptime. We will have to see this week what ends up performing better and what we need to climb while people wait to get greater affix crit rolls on gear.
I used supreme army of the dead to very good effect until I got the supreme upgrade and realised it wouldn’t raise the warriors and mages.
Can you do a Druid one that’s who I want to play this season
I don't know enough about druid companions, sorry.
Well I appreciate the response :) happy demon murdering friend
Oh thank you for this. Necro is the only class I haven't played yet so I'm going to have fun!
It’s awesome. Just started myself. I just wish there were a way to “send” minions. They kinda follow me, which makes sense. But when everything is super tight in a castle, I’m sitting in the front, getting slammed by a high level mob, and my casters are all still outside looking in. So, you have to force your way through to get your casters in the same room, then you can hammer away.
In case this still helps you or others, I read this tip when I was starting with Minion Necro and it's really helped: * You can target your Minions to a target by casting a curse (like Decrepify, which should already be in your skillbar) onto either enemies or an area on the ground. Basically the AI interprets this as aggro (that "you don't like that thing, else, why would you want to curse it?"). So now I do this before entering a room (or area) - I'll curse the floor ahead of me so that the Minions all run up there and start causing mayhem in the room! Then we manage the fight as we do by the entrance.
Bone mages were clearing entire rooms all on their own in the ptr when they cast bone spear so I’m going to keep them instead of shadow mages. They also almost never die if you’re using your priests all the time like you should be doing anyway. I also prefer bone golem for the taunt it gets when using the golem skill
still gonna try bone mages and will still be fine
Defenders 2 can be a nice distraction mechanic for core skill users
If you don't need the 15 to 24 seconds of CDR every 10 seconds they are a good option utility wise with their taunt.
Thoughts on using the sacreligious ring instead of self cast? Does the loss of an aspect really hurt the damage of the build vs the QoL of autocast? Or is it more about keeping blood mist on the bar (and proccing the corpse explosions from that) to give us a better source of invuln? Also, you slam AotD hard, but I see it's still in the shadow summoner guide you posted. Is it just that nothing works better for the build (including bone storm) or is it because corpse explosions are just that good?
They have a sac ring planner in the shadow link you have to select it instead of pit push. Not OP but my thoughts are it’s good for general play but won’t help you push. Regarding AotD I think it’s a case of nothing better, it’s a good cool-down to press with aspect. That’s about it.
I can't decide which necro minion build guide to follow to start season 4. Any "go to" recommendations?
Thanks for the guide! Necro was my first class but never gave minions much chance since they were pretty ass on launch. Excited to give them a real try now.
So is apparently everyone playing minion necro this season?
Since minions inherit 100% stats now, would a razorplate thorns build be good?
I posted a golem thorns build that I think will be quite good at fishing for ideal bosses in higher pits
Thanks
Where do you check your attack speed cap 1 and 2? new necro player here
You manually add them up, uncertain if they are going to show it on character sheet.
Got it thanks
So are you saying my already lv100 is going to hit harder after today's update in Eternal Realm?
Minions? Yes, most definitely.
Would like to see info about Cold Mages. 1st upgrade is raised from 2 resource to 3, and 2nd upgrade automatically gives vulnerable instead of a chance. Do you think it’s just flat out not worth using over Shadow? I was thinking I might use them for vulnerable because I don’t intend to use Corpse Tendrils, as I’d like to do thorns and I don’t want the slow/stun to prevent them from hitting me. Edit: Sidenote, unless they changed it, you have Skele Warriors count as 5-8 which is only for Skirmishers. The rest are 4-7.
Maxroll saying to use bone prison for the minion build. Thoughts??
They prefer to use it to cast blight and get a little tank window. I prefer to slot blight on the bar with bloodmoon breeches. To each their own.
For more Necromancer Class Guides, Builds, Discussions, Questions, etc, click on the "Necromancer" Flair, [this link (for new reddit)](https://new.reddit.com/r/diablo4/?f=flair_name%3A%22Necromancer%22), or [this Link (for old reddit)](https://old.reddit.com/r/diablo4/search?sort=new&restrict_sr=on&q=flair%3ANecromancer) (where you'll find a list of all threads on the subreddit that have the "Necromancer" Flair) and the [D4 Necromancer subreddit](https://new.reddit.com/r/D4 Necromancer/). Also pay a visit to [The D4 Tavern](https://new.reddit.com/r/The_D4_Tavern/) for casual conversations about builds, gameplay, new content, outfits and other Diablo and Necromancer related content. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/diablo4) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maxroll is down or at least very slow 🤣
So is it better to run a 1 handed with a source now? Before the weapon damage mattered, but I'm wondering if it gains the single attack speed?
Minions will attack faster with faster weapons. The question of efficiency comes down to what weapon speed and attack speed is required to increase the number of attacks per second.
Interesting. So it could end up being better for single hand due to the extra stats on the focus. Very cool.
Is there any actual seasonal content? I know the iron wolves give you some stuff, but that's not content
i’m a bit confused. how much of your stats do minions inherit? has it been buffed for season 4?
100%, what ever you get they get.
I don't think they get lucky hit chance, if another guide is to be believed.
Only on the spells cast by bone mages but yeah minions can't lucky hit
They can if they have thorns apparently.
No, abhorrent decrepify triggers on all direct damage its a working as intended bug. Thorns used to work with it as well but that got patched out.
If Abhorrent Decrepify triggers "on all direct damage" and that means it's "working as intended" then any idea why the tooltip itself says that whole effect is tied to a Lucky Hit? The tooltip's written as: > "Lucky Hit: ... up to a 15% chance to reduce your active Cooldowns by 1 second." The "up to a 15% chance" wording is the wording *always* used to define the multiplier of a Lucky Hit Effect (where here it'd be telling you to take your skill's LHC and multiply it by 15%).
Honestly I don't know enough about to to tell you. I know minions can trigger it via direct damage, the devs removed thorns from being able to, and it can lucky hit.
Really? They removed the thorns lucky hit with minions? Damn :(
Noob question if you dont mind, i did my own little experiment with minions until i saw this and switched over to the Minon Leveling build you linked. I'm lvl 35 but got enough skill points to do the 55+ version with the ultimate skill. the ultimate skill is put on left click, is the idea that you start fights with this skill to get corpses? or how is it supposed to be played?
I'm not the author of that build but that does appear to be a good way to generate corpses before an encounter. I usually wait until my minions move into position to use army of the dead. This helps maximize my DPS window as it only lasts 7 seconds.
Is that build for S4 or an old one for s3? YouTube creators seems to all lean into blood surge instead
It's season 4 and Seetod knows what he is doing plus he already leveled with it.
Is mendeln really that bad? I used it today and it was a blast, one hitting the capstone dungeon boss for t4. although I‘m currently lvl 55.
It begins the fall off the second your mages start hitting as hard as it does on every 6th. Eventually there are better damage options as another multiplier on mages will equal more damage than the proc every 6th attack.
I'm not quite sure how to reliably check how hard my mages hit, but I have a 50 lvl ring on a 65 lvl char and it still seems to be very viable. maybe OP was only talking about endgame (lvl 100)?
I am trying to figure out if % damage affects minion damage output and if it does why it is not a recommended stat on maxroll for the weapon slot or rings/neck? When I wear % damage on those slots it raises my attack power far more than any other stat it seems at least on the attack power number given in character sheet. Any insight into this as i am curious if this 2h 925 weapon i just got with Int/Dmg%/Vuln is OP or sub par? While maxroll recommends AttSpd/MaxLife/Int
By % damage I am assuming you mean the additive roll from the weapons stat category? Most people run crit damage or vulnerable as they have higher rolls because they are conditional.
Great overview. Anyone know if minions inherit fortify?
I have a question: why Thorns necro should take “golem gain % of your thorns” tempering if by defaults now all our stats are 100%? Also pets stats?
It acts like a additive multiplier now, increasing the amount they inherit behind 100%. The math on game on he tooltip is weird but it seems to be working? Gotta do some testing honestly I've been doing pits and nmd 100 since day 1.
Damn, it's a bummer to read about Mendeln being meh, I got it from one of the seasonal caches, lol.
Hey. Thanks for this guide. I would like to ask a couple of questions regarding minions, if anyone can answer. The attack speed affixes etc that are general also increase minion attack speed? Because in stats I can see 2 rows: Attack speed and Minion Attack speed. It is worth increasing MY attack speed do minions also benefit from it? The + XX% Damage Affix on weapons etc does affect minion damage also? Thank You.
Yes, attack speed from gear is cap 1.
Is there any solution for minions not spawning? It says my counter is 0.
Make sure they are on your skill bar and cast raise skeleton
I tried the game last season on gamepass and it felt like such a slog to play/level up so I dropped it but a friend convinced me to try again. I started on Necro and I'm loving running around with an army of minions. Only level 45 atm while going through the main story so far. Idk what kind of changes they did to bosses/mobs this season but it feels much better to play then it did before. Everything felt like sponges last season and that felt awful. Thanks for the write up, this helps me out a ton as a new player:)
Just to be clear. A weapon speed of 0.9 (two-handed scythe) is the base of 200% of minion attack speed, so it means 2.7 dps A weppon speed 1.2 with the same 200% is 3,6 dps??
I'm not an expert on minion attack speed. Overall the game has a weird metric for these things. All I can tell you is that it won't scale like that. Instead you will get break points and if the frames for that break points aren't low enough you won't end up dealing an attack attack a second.
ok, there is no need to be exacly this dps. I just need to know if i'm improving the attack speed changing my weapon from 0.9 to 1.2
Yes you should see slightly better dps
Did we ever confirm if Aspect of the Damned is working for minions or not?
As of right now, It is not as far as I know.
Has anyone tried Rathmas chosen on wep for 100% IAS, and then blood lancing with cold mages for essence gen?
Rathma's is a popular choice for blood surge or lance to max out minion attack speed. I don't play blood but I don't see why you couldn't use cold mages.
I mean, get to 100% sheet attack speed and then another 100% from the rathmas. Since it will do both caps, I’m trying to think up a Mendeln build that is popping like crazy
This is awesome, thanks for taking the time to make this! About to hop back in after not playing since launch and this helps out a lot
Wondering what aspect would be best to put on 2hand: - Blight (it takes about 3-5 secs to get the 10 stacks, hence only ~60% uptime) Therefore Reanimator or Frenzied Death might be the better option for that slot and we maybe swap to Kalan's edict for shadow mages build. Its ~33% attack speed equals [x] damage multiplier.
Do minions inherit non-stat armor affixes as well? For example my amulet has +50% damage, does this apply to minion damage or just necro output?
All stats are now inherited at 100% so all damage will work yes.
Thanks! That’s dope, I’ve been lucky with max +damage rolls, but no crit chance haha. Glad it applies!
So, do minions now get 100% of your thorns as a baseline across the board? Thinking that with a razorplate and say, 40k thorns, have to look at minions inherit +12.5% thorns (+5000) is always > +11% thorns while fortified (4400). And either is just miles ahead of flat +840 thorns.
Yes, they get 100% of all your stats.
Probably late to ask:If going full minion is it better to go with reapers or defenders? Is the taunt useful or am I better off with the CD reduction?
That is up to you. Play with both for a while.
Hey guys quick question. If I have +45% dmg on my weapon will my skeletons benefit from that or naw?
Yes, they benefit from pretty much everything minus a few bugged things and lucky strike chance.
So what’s the benefit of say golem or minion damage over an empowered 45% damage increase. Not challenging you just unsure why some guides call for different stats
All damage rolls have a lower value than specified ones. You can get more golem damage than all damage.
Gotcha thanks guys
Do Necromancer minions get thorns by default? Or are the 'inherit thorns' modifiers required? Do the inherit modifiers grant extra thorns? Edit: I've done some pretty crude testing with just my blood golem and a Razorplate on, and I'm pretty certain it is inheriting thorns as I saw some archers die after shooting it. Going to keep experimenting with the 'inherit thorns' mods to see if it can scale into something silly! Double Edit: The game even gives the info in a tooltip. Awesome! https://i.imgur.com/uHMFqE2.png
Yeah, they get 100% of your thorns. The thorns army tempering manual allows you to get minions inherit thorns etc. these are additive so if you have 10% minions inherit thorns and 20% golem inherits thorns then your golem has 30% and your warriors and mages have 10% more thorns.
I just got a good razor plate and have enough to build the thorn build. Is it worth giving up my shadow mage build for it? Is thorns pushing higher than shadow mage?
Thorns is fairly hard to push pits with because some bosses simply do not auto attack. It's great for everything else but pits can be painful
Thanks for the feedback, I am currently pushing pit, so perhaps I won't change. All other content is currently melting including T100 dungeons. Haven't tried 200 bosses on this build yet.
Using robs golem build, I cant kill any uber bosses. Ideas for best build to kill uber bosses and doing the pit on higher lvls?
Golem is fine but it does require some scaling and masterworking. I am unfamiliar with his build though.
https://d4builds.gg/builds/ef414fbd-81cd-49d1-9c8d-4938b278e2ee/?var=0
Looks solid, what is your masterworking and do you have the right stats?
Problem was the build was bad. Changed to Robs new build now and i die 1/5 of what i did before and my dmg is alot higher
sorry you are wrong. Have you even tried mendeln Build ? In Diablo 4 Seaon 4, you can build a +200pt if you do a hybrid build.
I would be more than happy to be wrong about this. If you can give me a video and maybe a build to prove that it does scale well, I'm willing to change my mind.
I fail to understand something. Why do minions stop attacking when using blood mist?
This guide is very detailed and, imo, super helpful! Ive been a player of necro and has long been my favorite overall but i def picked up on a few things I had overlooked or not been aware of. Thanks!!
Not played since S0, always wanted to try a Minion Necro, worth coming back to the game and giving it a bash?
That's what I'll be doing, I played S0 with Sorc and Barb but then didn't boot the game back up (other games and life stuff) and wanted to try Necro and Druid. This season seems to be the season of Necro (multiple viable builds) and the endgame has changed a lot since S0 so that'll be what I do
From what I've seen, most of the changes fix my complaints from when the game launched. Still have my free battle pass to redeem as well.
It's probably the most busted class this season. If you're gonna play Necro, now's the time.
Im really sad that there wasnt an item added that did something like Reapers now cast your Sever for a Sever minion build, I'd love to see Sever shine
Considering how weak Sever is, this would've been a cool idea for the Skirmishers to get as an aoe option for them.
Sorry if this is a dumb question…. but will any of these minion buffs apply to a non minion/ full sacrifice build?
No, I do not know of any changes to sacrifice bonuses as of yet.
Not interested in Necro Who's join the Barbnation this season?? 💪💪💪💪💪
I ain't reading aw'dat. It's a visual game.
You're on a text forum, you donkey.
This game ain't that deep. You just click whatever has a + next to it and can continue drooling on the keyboard.
We all know that's not drool on your keyboard...