Edit: This still works for 1.7.2, less powerful but still very strong
The new necromancer has many, many, powerful tools for surviving any randboss, and has an enormous damage output both single target and AOE. The idea of this build is to leverage rigor mortis to deal absurd damage numbers, easily getting over 6k damage, and to utilize grim shadow, lich form, and golden age of necromancy to drastically reduce the damage you take. After recently winning my first insane game in this beta patch I thought I would make a guide, which hopefully stays up to date for the stable release.
What Race to Pick?
1. Highborn
2. Shalore
3. Skeleton
Race for lich seems pretty easy, higher has everything you could want out of a class. Damage mod, all res, and highborn bloom allow you to use your soul hungry ability without care. Other possible options are shalore for reasons everyone knows, and skeleton for that sweet sweet bone shield, extra life, and effect reduction. Although do keep in mind skeleton will LOCK you out of lich form, one of your strongest abilities, so not particularly advised.
How do you itemize?
Start of Game:
One of the key aspects of this build is always having a torque of clear mind on hand, you will die to silence otherwise and until you hit 100% silence immunity this will probably be your biggest killer inside and outside of t2.
1. Health Items, negative health preferred
2. Darkness +damage mod
3. Torque of clear mind *IMPORTANT*
Pre Lich Form:
1. Stun/Freeze immunity
2. Health
3. Darkness +damage mod/ respen
4. Spellpower
5. Spell crit/crit mod
6. Mana regen
Post Lich Form:
1. Silence immunity
2. Darkness +damage mod / respen
3. Spellpower / spellcrit / crit mod
4. Spell CD reduction
5. Confusion Immunity
6. On Spell hit effects
Stats:
In order of priority/maxing - Mag, Cun, Con, Dex
Gameplay Loop
The basic murder loop is pretty simple, as there is no big brain rotations here. What you want to do is highborn's bloom, dire plague, either crepuscule, river of souls, or night sphere, repeat previous until all on cd, then rigor mortis whatever is left. If it's still alive teleport around it, casting invoke darkness and invoke souls until its dead
Soul management is probably the most difficult aspect of gameplay, making sure that you have enough souls for reaping to be active and making sure that you are close to max souls at the end of the fight can be very hard to do. A very useful tip is the training dummy WILL give you souls if you use torture souls on it, so if you find yourself in need of souls, port out and feed on the dummy.
Prodigies
Your first prodigy should always be Lich Form, which I will elaborate on how to get later, however you get lich form for a couple of reasons. You lose out on movement infusion, which is sad, however you gain immunity to stuns, cuts, poison, disease, gain 60% crit shrug, and get 7!!! mana regen. However, this isn't all, as you get what is probably one of the best abilities in the game, Frightening Presence. This is almost always a flat -25% damage reduction and a 30% ms reduction for anything in range 9. Doesn't get much better than that, oh wait you also get a SELF RESURRECTION SKILL. Not as good as it seems, as its a blood of lifestyle resurrection, but still pretty good.
Next prodigy you have a choice of several, my recommendation being Armour of Shadows. Gives you armor, evasion, and unlights tiles. Combined with grim shadows I was having over 100 armor late game and didn't give a sh*t about any melee boss.
Other choices would be, in order of my personal recommendation, would be Eye of the Tiger, Ethereal form, Cauterize, and Adept.
Runes/Infusions
I took this with a fairly nontraditional early game. I decided to rune double shatter afflictions with a shielding rune as my initial rune set. This saved my life so many times it is hard to count, until you get your lich form online you are likely to be swimming in statuses, so the second shatter will often clear enough for you to either keep killing whatever is attacking you, or to GTFO using ghost walk.
I even kept my 2nd shatter rune right until the fight with master in dreadfall, as I thought it was too important to lose.
Late game your set up should look something like this
Dissipation, Shielding, Blink, Shatter Afflictions, and either a 2nd shield or lightning.
Cat Points
Age of Dusk, inscription, Eradication, inscription
Darkness Undying Buld
Class Points
Master of Bones - 0/0/0/0
Not a minion based build, you could splash a 4/0/0/0 or something similar if wanted
Master of Flesh - 0/0/0/0
Same as above
Nightfall - Immediate 4/1/1/4 - Late game 5/x/1/5
Invoke darkness is your bread and butter, something that you are spamming more or less off CD and is the first thing you want to shove points into, and possibly max as you as necro don't have many repeatable damage options. River of Souls is incredible, makes so many fights trival and deals some enmourus damage output. River is what makes necromancer what it is so maxing it should be a pretty quick of a priority, although be careful of soul consumption.
Dreadmaster - 0/0/0/0
Seems pretty sh*t
Grave - 0/0/0/0
More for minion based builds, which we aren't
Glacial Waste Immediate 5/0/0/0 - Late game 5/1/1/5
Another staple of necro, Lategame this is a permanent 500ish damage shield that takes 25% less damage. This keeps you alive and you will feel it when its down. If Hiemal shield is down against a dangerous enemy don't be afraid to GTFO.
Animus - Immediate 2/1/1/3 - Late game X/1/X/X
One thing to note is that you can dump points into almost any skill and see a good benefit, points to taste in anything if you want too
Soul Leach - Soul leach is necessary to dump some points into to keep reaping all res active as you get more soul hungry sustains, do so gradually, and in general I liked to stay ~11 max souls.
Consume Soul - The other MVPs of necro are also featured here, one point of consume soul does absolute wonders, lategame I would be healing from -200 to positive 1100+ with consume soul and other passive healing. Plus the mana it gives you can be very useful after being mana clashed by a AM.
Torture Souls - Great skill, does high damage, gives souls, super useful although often fights when end before the rotation reached it.
Reaping - Reaping is another skill that allows for necromancer to be unkillable. I find 3 points is a nice breakpoint as it gives 8% all res and a fair amount of spellpower/ mana regen.
Death Immediate 2/0/0/0 - Late game 4+/1/3/0
Rigor Mortis - This is truly what powers this build. Rigor mortis can absolutely cripple bosses and dangerous rares. It deals huge damage, it slows, and it only costs 10 mana and a soul. Put points into this for increased damage and try abusing the training the dummy for some DUMMY thiqq damage.
Drawn to Death - Ok, rarely used but is an ok emergency teleport.
Grim Shadow - Gives armor, knockback, dark res, and defense. What more can you want? points to taste, I found 3 as a nice breakpoint in range
Utterly Destroyed - Never had mana issues although the speed might have been nice. Try putting a point into to it if you have some to spare.
Master Necromancer 0/0/0/0
Not for us
Age of Dusk Immediate 3/1/1/4 - Late Game 4/4/1/4
A powerhouse of a tree, you come in flor Golden Age and you stay for plague and capsules. Very good
Plague - Another bread and butter skill, I found that I would use this more often then invoke darkness in the late game, just plauge, and torture souls to wipe the screen. The main reason you get this is to have both some large passive heals, a heavy damage dot, get some souls, but mainly set up for a huge rigor mortis
Crepuscule -A sleeper of a skill, I would say wait until you have at least 2 points into highborn's bloom before using this regularly. It can deal with some really high damage and acts as a way to keep the damage up in between CDs of more damaging skills
The End of All Hope - Not sure if this works, I put 3 points into this for my winning build and didn't notice plauge spreading once. So pretty sure it doesn't work 1 point tax
Golden Age of Necromancy - Amazing skill, gives you a huge bonus to saves oh and makes you - invincible for a turn. Get it, never die
Rim Wraith 0/0/0/0
lmao
Eradication 1/1/1/5
Boneyard - point tax
To The Grave - point tax
Impending Doom - pretty good skill, use against a rand that's a heavy healer, useful to rigor mortis people for more damage
Eternal Night - what we come here for. My god is this incredible. Extra damage mod, extra res pen, AND healing. Late game I would be healing for anywhere between 300-1500 a turn. Makes you neigh unkillable with Golden Age giving you a turn to heal back to full.
Generic Points
Higher - 1//5/2
Easy rational, more damage, and 2 points in bloom is a good breakpoint. Put points into born into magic over time, prioritize other things first
Combat training 5/1-3/0/0/0
Max thick skin, like in every build, and armor training to taste
Survival - 1/1/1/0
If you get track by escort ignore this tree, just get track
Necrosis - Immediate X/1/X/1
Blurred Mortality and Runeskin are the only things worth investing more the one point in this tree. Blurred mortality is going to give you ~500-600 negative life late game, so keep that in mind.. You get runeskin to increase spell crit
Specter - Immediate 3/0/0/0 - Late Game 3/1/X/0
Ghost walk - I find 8 tiles is a good breakpoint, not much value in getting 1 or two more tiles.
Spectral Sight - Tracks better
Intangibility - dump extra generic points in here if you have, pretty good
Path to the beyond - didn't seem useful, a point in here might be pretty good
LICHFORM - 3/5/1/X OR X/5/0/0
Neverending Unlife - Pretty good, but not great. Your sustains are turned off on restriction, and anything that killed you through your sustains can almost certainly kill you without them. I had 3 points in here as I had some generics to spare and 100 turns seemed okish. Never used it in the main campaign.
Frightening Presence - One of the best skills in the game, -25% damage and -35% ms aura. So good, max ASAP.
Doomed for Enternity - Ok, seemed more harmful than good. Possibly just turn off
Commander of Death - I maxed this in my win, as +50 saves, and spell power seemed pretty good. This is an all or nothing type deal, so 0 or 5 points.
BIG ISSUES
Weirdling Beast:
One thing I like to do is try to stair dance wierdly beast. If he claps me in the first couple rounds I just dip out on the stairs and come back in a level or two. You should try to take him out early then most guides recommend, on my win, I first tried immediately after OF and then succeeded after daik.
Melinda:
She is a TOTAL bitch. On my win she killed me and I only kept going due to blood of life. Possibly do Urkis first to get dissipation as that makes the fight much easier. Use River of Souls and Rigor Mortis to try and clap her.
First guide so feedback welcome!
