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Necromancer Overview

Last Updated: March 2nd 2024

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The Necromancer is known for his knowledge of corpses. Using dark magic, he can summon Skeletons, Golems, and even Revive the dead to fight by his side. But bones won't only be used for Skeletons, other offensive and defensive abilities use them too. What would be the master of death without waves of Poison and Curses? These are of course also in his wheelhouse.

Corpse Explosion is the ultimate Area of Effect (AOE) clearing ability, basically being used in every build available. After initial targets are killed, this Skill starts a domino effect of explosions, blowing up screen-worth of monsters in no time.

The best early game option is Bone Spear in combination with Corpse Explosion. Due to the Runeword White, up to +8 to Bone Spear is possible, creating a powerful Magic Damage sniping ability. After a few monsters have been killed, it is time to let Corpse Explosion unleash its destructive power.

With medium to high end gear, the Summon Necromancer's army becomes a scary sight for your enemies. Its power spike comes with the inclusion of Enigma, granting the ability to teleport the whole army on top of an enemy. Early on his army feels extremely weak, especially when facing Act bosses.

Poison Nova is a powerful AOE-clear ability, commonly used in combination with Corpse Explosion. While powerful in the end game, this combination is not recommended for the early to mid game.

Due to the lack of a native mobility Skill, the Necromancer is rather slow compared to other Characters until he gains access to Teleport through items such as Enigma. His great Cast Rate allows him to make up some ground when teleporting around.

Attributes

Every Character has the Attributes Strength, Dexterity, Vitality and Energy. At maximum Level, a Character has access to 505 Stat Points which can be allocated into the Attributes. While Vitality only affects the Life pool and Energy only affects the Mana pool of your Character, Strength and Dexterity have additional uses:

Strength:
Generally, Stat Points are only allocated to this Attribute to wear your gear, however, Strength has an additional use: it increases the Physical Damage portion of melee attacks.

Dexterity:
Generally, Stat Points are only allocated to this Attribute to wear your gear, however, Dexterity has 4 additional uses:

  • It increases the % Chance to Block up to 75 while using a Shield.
  • The Attack Rating of every attack is increased, improving the Chance to hit your target.
  • Every 4th Stat Point into Dexterity increases the base Defense of the Character by 1.
  • On ranged builds, Dexterity increased the Physical Damage portion of your attacks.

Starting Attributes of the Necromancer

StrengthDexterityVitalityEnergy
15251525
Baseper Levelper Stat Point
Life45+1.5+2 per Vitality
Stamina79+1+1 per Vitality
Mana25+2+2 per Energy

Breakpoints

Breakpoints are an integral way to improve your Character's performance. For in-depth explanations on them, please check out our article on Breakpoints.

Attack Rate

Block Rate

Cast Rate

Hit Recovery Rate

Skill Trees

Structure
Every Character has 3 Skill Trees to allocate their Skill Points into. Each Skill Tree consists of a total of 10 Skills, and you can assign a maximum of 20 points per Skill. These Skills are placed into 6 rows, which represent the 6 Skill tiers. While tier 1 is available at Character Level (clvl) 1, the other tiers become available at clvl 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30.

Skill Points
Every Character gains access to 110 Skill Points (98 from Levels and 12 from quests).

Prerequisites
Not every Skill is available right away. The arrows on the Skill Tree show the prerequisites needed to obtain skills further down the Tree.
Example: You have to put a Skill Point into Clay Golem and Golem Mastery to gain access to Summon Resist.

Synergies
A lot of Skills have Synergies, which are Skills that passively boost the strength of another Skill. The main Skill shows how much a Synergy increases its power per Skill Point allocated into it.
Example: The base Magic Damage of Bone Spear is increased by a summed up multiplier which increases by 7% for each Skill Point allocated into Teeth, Bone Wall, Bone Prison, and Bone Spirit.

Build Guides

The Necromancer has a variety of builds to choose from:

Trang-Oul's Avatar
Trang-Oul's Avatar

Trang-Oul's Avatar is the Elite Set, which was exclusively designed for the Necromancer. Giving the Necromancer the ability to transform into a Vampire, this Set aims to add primary Fire Skills they use to his arsenal. Long term, this Set gets out scaled by setups that focus on a combination of Uniques and Runewords.

Character Specific Gear

Every Character has exclusive items that only it can use. For the Necromancer, these are Voodoo Head Shields. They can spawn with 0-3 "Staff mods" with the range of +1-3 to the Skills added by the Staff mods. In addition to the Voodoo Heads, the Necromancer benefits from Staff mods on the non Character specific Weapon type "Wand".

Base Items

Set and Unique Items

Lore & In-Game dialogue

In this section you will find the lore of the Necromancers as well as the in-game dialogue he uses while travelling through Sanctuary.

Lore

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Credits

Written by Teo1904
Reviewed by Facefoot

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