Looking for a build that's so low-maintenance, it practically plays itself? Meet the Minion Necromancer - your personal army of undead minions will pamper you like royalty, defending you from danger and carrying you through the deepest, darkest levels of The Pit with more style and power than any other build! Season 4 changes drastically increase the Minion Necromancer's minions survivability making them tankier than the player. Say goodbye to the days of your undead friends ditching you mid-battle because now your Minions are so tanky, they start worrying about you dieing all the time instead.
This Necromancer build is a pure summoner which relies almost exclusively on the damage of its Minions, fulfilling the ultimate undead army commander fantasy.
Your undead army will consist of Skeletal Warriors - Reapers, Skeletal Mages - Cold and Golems - Blood, while your Golems - Blood will be the star of the show.
Army of the Dead grants you the ability to instantly raise all your undead friends and provides an incredible damage boost during its duration.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Minion Necromancer Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Necromancer playstyle, check out all of our Necromancer Guides.
Season 4 - Loot Reborn
Skill Tree & Gameplay
- Raise Skeleton consumes a Corpse to always maintain your maximum number of Minions. While you are at the maximum number of Minions, use this skill to buff your minions' damage by 30% for 8 seconds and instantly heal them for 40% of their Maximum Life. After acquiring Blood Getter's the damages bonus increases to a whopping 51%.
- Golem not only provides powerful on use abilities depending on which type of Golem you are using, but also makes you Unstoppable.
- Decrepify applies a powerful CC effect that also causes Lucky Hit procs to reduce Cooldowns on your Skills, which can also be triggered by your Minions. Prioritize casting this on any new monsters, or when it runs out. This also greatly reduces incoming damage and makes kiting monsters easier.
- Corpse Tendrils is the best CC option in the game. This does not consume a Corpse and should therefore be used before you consume the last available corpse.
- Blight provides a big damage multiplier and an additional source of Shadow Damage over Time, activating Reaper's Pursuit. NOTE: Do not spam Blight! Use it sparingly on Elites and Bosses.
- Army of the Dead is going to instantly summon all of your Minions except your Golem while also providing a huge damage boost as soon as you are using Unyielding Commander's on your gear.
DO NOT SPAM Blight! Use it sparingly on Elites and Bosses.
- Hellbent Commander boosts the offensive power of all of your Minions tremendously, as long as you are close to your Minions.
- Use Corpse Tendrils often to CC all Monsters caught in it.
- Hewed Flesh gives you an avenue for generating enough Corpses to sate all of your Corpse consumption needs while Necrotic Carapace generates Fortify in the meantime.
Book of the Dead
There are 3 different Minion types you can choose to summon or sacrifice, located in the Book of the Dead. The Minion Necromancer chooses to utilize Skeletal Warriors - Reapers for more cooldown reduction, Skeletal Mages - Cold for additional Vulnerable generation and Golems - Blood as your main source of damage.
IMPORTANT:
Learn more details about this class specialization in our full Book of the Dead Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Paragon Board
Glyphs
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Golem
- Corporeal
- Exploit
- Territorial
- NOTE: The four Glyphs above need to be leveled to 15 to be functional and are your priority while progressing in WT3 and WT4.
- Essence
- Deadraiser
- Amplify
Level 21
- Golem
- Essence
- Territorial
- Exploit
- Deadraiser
- Corporeal
- Amplify
Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Endgame Progression & Variants
Progression Goals
- Unlock the following Aspects in your Codex of Power:
- Reanimation in Aldurwood (Scosglen)
- Grasping Veins in Corrupted Grotto (Kehjistan)
- Unyielding Commander's in Faceless Shrine (Hawezar)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Frenzied Dead - Gamble Offhand.
- Occult Dominion - Gamble Boots.
- Blood Getter's - Gamble Boots.
- Hardened Bones - Gamble Pants.
- Metamorphosis - Gamble Boots.
- Slaughter - Gamble Boots.
- If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Uber Uniques, they're useful for the build:
- Harlequin Crest - Check the "Endgame & The Pit" variant for how to fit this item into the build.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
to 100
& The Pit
Once you have completed the Leveling Guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup you can farm the Legendary Aspects you need for the next progression point.
Gear
- Focus on acquiring as much Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance and Intelligence stats on your gear as possible, while constantly upgrading your weapon for the highest DPS weapon you can find.
- Disobedience provides necessary Armor throughout the early stages of the leveling experience.
Skills
- You will be able to set and forget your Skill Tree for the Minion Necromancer at Level 50, since there are no changes going forward.
- Necrotic Carapace allows you to gain Fortify through generating Corpses with Hewed Flesh and by killing Monsters.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional drop-only Legendary Aspects are used to fill all slots.
Gear
- You now have access to Tempers, which increase your build's overall strength tremendously by acquiring accesss to more survivability, utility and damage.
- Blood Getter's now provides a 51% damage multiplier to your Minions during the Skeletal Priest buff and requires you to keep it active constantly from now on throughout every fight.
- Hardened Bones makes you and your Minions a lot tankier than before.
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency.
Gear
- As you continue your character's journey, you now start to focus on acquiring the correct Greater Affixes and correct Masterworking crits on your gear.
- Focus on reaching all necessary caps and breakpoints detailled in the "Stat Priorities" section below.
Note: There are no changes in optimal Skills, Paragon, and Gameplay between the "Leveling to 100" and the "Endgame & The Pit" variants for the Minion Necromancer.
Gear with Uber Uniques
- If you are lucky enough to acquire a Harlequin Crest, you drop Metamorphosis and change the Aspects around accordingly.
Note: There are no changes in optimal Skills, Paragon, and Gameplay between the "Leveling to 100" and the "Ubers" variants for the Minion Necromancer.
The Minion Necromancer already permanently moves a maximum Movement Speed and therefore only has minor changes in the Speedfarming variant.
Gear
- Swap Metamorphosis for Slaughter.
- Change the Royal Ruby over to Royal Topaz to maximize damage in trivial content.
Hardcore Adjustments
- Find a Shield with a Greater Affix Damage Reduction roll, Masterwork crit that roll three times for up to 18.5% additional Damage Reduction and place Hulking on it.
- Swap Golems - Blood for Golems - Blood to maximize your tankiness.
Check out our dedicated in-depth guide to learn more survival tricks in Hardcore.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
- Critical Strike Chance: Stacking Critical Strike Chance helps your Minions deal a lot more damage. A critical strike have a 50% damage multiplier baked into them. Getting more than 100% total Critical Strike Chance does not benefit this build.
- Vulnerable: Minions gain 100% of your Vulnerable damage bonus. This makes it an incredibly important stat for your damage sources.
- Crowd Control: Decrepify helps you out with Crowd Control by giving you a big slow and a chance to stun.
- Attack Speed: Increased Attack Speed increases the rate you cast all of your Skills. It decreases the length of time before Tendrils is on the field and how quickly you can cycle through your Skill Rotation. It's a high value stat and a direct boost to damage through Cult Leader.
- Don't Get Hit: Make use of your range advantage and hit enemies from afar whenever you are in dangerous situations. By stutter stepping on the edge of your range, you can avoid most projectiles that come your way.
- Armor: A great deal of defenses comes from your Armor. Disobedience will help you reach the cap of 9230 in the early part of your progression.
- Resistances: As an Intelligence main stat class, the Necromancer naturally accrues a lot of Elemental Resistances. Make sure to reach the 70% cap in World Tier 4, and use Maximum Resistance buffs against particularly deadly enemies and content.
- Unstoppable: You only have Golem to gain Unstoppable. Cooldown Reduction helps making this defensive mechanic available more often.
- Fortify: Necrotic Carapace allows you to gain Fortify through generating Corpses with Hewed Flesh and by killing Monsters.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities
Damage Scaling
- 100% Critical Strike Chance during Grasping Veins, with Inspiring Leader (18%).
- > 90% total Attack Speed (Minion specific + Attack Speed on Gear + Kalan's Edict, without counting Frenzied Dead)
Defense and Utility
- > 25,000 Maximum Life
- Armor Capped: 9,230
- Resistance Capped: 70%
- 100% Corpse Tendrils Size
- 100% Decrepify Size
- > 50% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
- 100% additional Movement Speed
- Helm: Hulking
- Cooldown Reduction ↑
- Maximum Life ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Corpse Tendrils Size
- Chest: Occult Dominion
- Ranks to Golem Mastery ↑
- Armor
- Maximum Life ↑
- Intelligence
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Corpse Tendrils Size
- Gloves: Reanimation
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Attack Speed ↑
- Intelligence
- Critical Strike Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Golem Damage
- ⚒️ Decrepify Size
- Pants: Blood Getter's
- Armor
- Maximum Life ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Decrepify Size
- Boots: Metamorphosis
- Movement Speed ↑
- Maximum Life ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Movement Speed
- ⚒️ Chance to Freeze for 2 Seconds
- Weapon: Frenzied Dead (2h-Sword)
- Maximum Life
- Intelligence
- Critical Strike Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
- ⚒️ Minion Attack Speed
- ⚒️ Golem Damage ↑
- Amulet: Hardened Bones
- Ranks to Hellbent Commander ↑
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Cooldown Reduction ↑
- % Intelligence
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️ Golem Damage
- Ring 1: Grasping Veins
- Critical Strike Chance
- Maximum Life
- Critical Strike Damage
- Intelligence
- Vulnerable Damage
- ⚒️ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️ Golem Damage ↑
- Ring 2: Unyielding Commander's
- Critical Strike Chance
- Maximum Life
- Critical Strike Damage
- Intelligence
- Vulnerable Damage
- ⚒️ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction ↑
- ⚒️ Golem Damage ↑
- Elixirs: Elixir of Precision, Elixir of Fortitude
- Type I Incense: Sage's Whisper
- Type II Incense: Soothing Spices to cap Resistances, Reddamine Buzz
- Type III Incense: Chorus of War
FAQ & Mechanics
Can Minions clear Endgame Content?
What Stats improve Minions?
Why no Ring of Mendeln?
Video Guide
Summary
- Lead your undead army on the frontlines to make the most of Hellbent Commander.
- Decrepify is vital for your build. Use it on as many enemies as possible to lower the cooldowns of all your other essential Skills. Your Minions proc this too!
- Use Corpse Tendrils every time it comes off cooldown to CC all Monsters caught in it and create time to breath.
- Happy blasting 🚀!