Diablo 3 Season 28 Inarius Scythe Necromancer Guide

Introduction

Grace of Inarius Grim Scythe Solo Push
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Welcome to the Grace of Inarius Grim Scythe Necromancer! This is a budget version of the LoD Poison Scythe build but still brings a gigantic amount of damage and survivability in both solo and group play.

In the early days, shortly after Necromancer's release in Season 11, the set was used with a broken interaction between the (6) Bonus Bone Storm and Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver that caused the gem to proc at ridiculous rates and destroy everything on its own without the need to do much. This was quickly nerfed and left Inarius unused for a long time, as typically Legacy of Dreams-based setups tended to perform better on the Necromancer. It was later buffed with bigger numbers to its current form.

Even though Grace of Inarius is not part of any META setup right now and is slightly dragging behind another build using the same set - Inarius Corpse Explosion - it sees use especially for solo pushing on the Inarius solo leaderboards. Grim Scythe is an iconic Necromancer skill and makes you feel like a true Reaper of Souls as you swing your weapon against the demons of Hell!

Simple Rotation ✔
Great AoE Damage ✔
No Cooldown required ✔
Rewards Good Positioning✔

❌ Lacks Speed
❌ Positioning is Critical
❌ Low Single Target Damage
❌ Simulacrums do all Damage

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

Grace of Inarius grants our Bone Armor 1000% damage as well as granting our character 6% damage reduction (instead of 3%) per enemy hit. The (6) Bonus makes enemies take 10,000% increased damage from the Necromancer while under the effect and for 3 seconds afterwards.
Wisdom of Kalan improves this damage reduction effect by quadrupling our toughness (10 x 6% = 60% reduction --> 15 x 6% = 90% reduction).
Haunted Visions allows Simulacrum to cast Grim Scythe and last forever.
Nayr's Black Death for up to 500% increased damage to our Poison Grim Scythe.
Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang for a 200% separate damage multiplier and to apply Curses.
Dayntee's Binding provides us with 50% damage reduction when an enemy is affected by a Curse.
Krysbin's Sentence for the 300% damage to stunned enemies, coming from Bone Armor Dislocation.
Convention of Elements for 200% damage during our Poison cycle.
Depth Diggers for 100% damage to Grim Scythe.
Leger's Disdain for 80% damage increase per point of Essence restored.

Season 28 Altar of Rites

Season 28 brings a brand new progression feature called the Altar of Rites that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you unbelievable Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops, 3 Potion Super Powers, and the juicy Wings of Terror. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic Season!

Note: The suggested path assumes you are playing Solo and used the Challenge Rift Cache to help you level up.

Optimal Path

Node 2: Choose Anointed to gain a full set of 70 yellows from level 18-70!

Node 6: Rush to gain double Bounties to help unlock other Nodes in the Altar.

Nodes 7-14: These are the last Nodes you can gain until the Challenge Rift resets. Take at least 1 Node at the bottom of each path to unlock all 3 Potion Super Powers. Pick up the Mirror Node at the top for a colossal 41% extra XP all season. Remember to unlock Father once you clear GR70 solo and have your first Primal!

Nodes 15-26: Pick up the final Quality of Life, Damage, and Defense Nodes (in that order) to finish the Altar.

Potion Super Powers: Take Father first, then Mother, and finally Mortal.

Disclaimer: The Mortal and Mother Potions require you to salvage 2 and 3 Primals respectively. Unlock them as soon as you have those materials as they don't cost a point!

Recommended Altar Path
Use the Scroll Bar to see Altar Progression

In general, not much changes for this build aside from various damage, toughness and utility buffs such as Omen and Revelation which make your life easier and enable a push setup without Blood Rush.

Global Stat Priorities

Our offensive priorities are: Area Damage > Poison Damage > Critical Hit Chance/Critical Hit Damage, along with as much Grim Scythe damage as possible. Attack Speed is helpful, especially for stacking Bane of the Stricken in solo, but you don't need to aim for any specific breakpoint. No cooldown is needed for this build as you will only cast Simulacrum at the beginning of a rift and if they die along the way.

Assembling the Build

1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cube Legendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!

2. Gather the full Grace of Inarius set. Each piece can be gambled from Kadala for Bloodshards. Do not salvage any duplicate pieces you find! Instead convert them to another part of the set with Recipe 4 in Kanai's Cube. If you have extra materials you can use Recipe 3 to craft the remaining pieces, but this is expensive and not recommended for new players.

3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:

Leger's Disdain
The full Grace of Inarius set
Goldwrap and Dayntee's Binding
Ice Climbers
Steuart's Greaves
Depth Diggers
Krysbin's Sentence and Convention of Elements
Nemesis Bracers

4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:

2-Handed Scythes to get Nayr's Black Death
Scythes to get Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang
Amulets to get Haunted Visions, Wisdom of Kalan and The Flavor of Time
Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired

5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:

Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur
Act 2: Gloves of Worship
Act 3: Avarice Band
Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Captain Crimson's Trimmings, Cain's Destiny and Sage's Journey (for your follower)

6. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:

Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang
Krysbin's Sentence
Leger's Disdain

Item Stat Priorities

SLOT	ITEM	STAT PRIORITY
Main-Hand	Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang Nayr's Black Death (Cubed)	1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Area Damage 4. Damage % 5. Attack Speed
Off-Hand	Leger's Disdain	1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Grim Scythe Damage 3. Area Damage 4. Intelligence
Helm	Inarius's Understanding	1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Intelligence 3. Socket Flawless Royal Amethyst 4. Vitality
Gloves	Inarius's Will	1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Critical Hit Damage 3. Area Damage 4. Attack Speed 5. Intelligence
Shoulders	Inarius's Martyrdom	1. Area Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Vitality 4. Armor
Chest	Inarius's Conviction	1. Intelligence 2. Sockets Flawless Royal Amethyst 3. Vitality 4. Armor 5. Elite-Damage Reduction
Pants	Inarius's Reticence Depth Diggers	1. Grim Scythe Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Vitality 4. Sockets Flawless Royal Amethyst 5. Armor
Boots	Inarius's Perseverance Steuart's Greaves	1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. All Resistance 4. Armor
Ring 1	Krysbin's Sentence Ring of Royal Grandeur (A1 Bounties, Cubed)	1. Socket 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Attack Speed
Ring 2	Convention of Elements	1. Socket 2. Area Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance
Bracers	Ancient Parthan Defenders Krelm's Buff Bracers Nemesis Bracers Warzechian Armguards (Cubed)	1. Poison Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Intelligence 4. Vitality
Amulet	Haunted Visions Wisdom of Kalan	1. Socket 2. Poison Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance
Belt	Dayntee's Binding Goldwrap	1. Grim Scythe Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Vitality 4. Armor
Potion	Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered	To avoid Crowd Control effects during your DPS phases

Gems

Simplicity's Strength provides us with a colossal 100% separate damage multiplier and 4% life steal on our primary attacks, making it mandatory for all variants of the build.
Bane of the Trapped is a default inclusion for this build since it provides 60% increased damage.
Bane of the Stricken will be taken for solo pushing to kill the Rift Guardian.
Boon of the Hoarder is used for the T16 build as it grants us a 30% Movement Speed bonus and lots of extra gold.
Pain Enhancer will be used in high Tiers in groups to boost Attack Speed and increase overall DPS in high monster density.

Skills

Grim Scythe Cursed Scythe is our damage dealer that applies Curses for our Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang and Dayntee's Binding bonuses.
Simulacrum Blood and Bone summons 2 Simulacrums that duplicate our swings thanks to Haunted Visions.
Bone Armor Dislocation provides 30% damage reduction and activates our Krysbin's Sentence on our Poison Convention of Elements cycle.
Blood Rush will be used with either Potency or Metabolism for mobility and proper positioning.
The last 2 skill slots vary from version to version. For more damage you'll want more Poison skills to activate Nayr's Black Death, take any of the following: Bone Spear Blighted Marrow, Death Nova Blight and Skeletal Mage Contamination.
In T16, Devour Devouring Aura and Frailty Aura of Frailty are used for synergy with Fueled by Death and to activate Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang before you swing for the first time.

Passives

Spreading Malediction is a nice additive damage buff.
Eternal Torment is great to keep our curses active.
Swift Harvesting provides a nice Attack Speed boost.
Stand Alone gives a significant armor boost.
Final Service can be used to cheat death.
For speed content Fueled by Death is great when paired with Devour Devouring Aura.

Paragon Points

Core	Offensive	Defensive	Utility
1. Movement Speed	1. Critical Hit Damage	1. Armor	1. Area Damage
2. Intelligence	2. Critical Hit Chance	2. Life %	2. Life per Hit
3. Vitality¹	3. Attack Speed	3. All Resistance	3. Resource Cost Reduction
~~4. Maximum Essence~~²	4. Cooldown Reduction	4. Life Regeneration	4. Pickup Radius

¹ Add a bit of Vitality if you feel too squishy (a total of 750,000 Life is recommended).
² You do not need Maximum Essence because Simulacrums ignores Essence generated for Leger's Disdain.

Follower

Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:

The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
Guardian's Jeopardy (2) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
With Enforcer equipped on the player it's much easier to keep followers alive even without an immortality relic. The 90% damage reduction counts for them, too.
Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.

Select Follower

Gameplay

To survive, always make sure that Bone Armor is fully stacked. The combination of Grace of Inarius and Wisdom of Kalan gives you a massive total of 90% damage reduction! Also, summon your Simulacrum right at the start of every run.

While the rotation is fairly easy to perform with practice, it requires you to understand the multipliers in play. First with Nayr's Black Death in the Cube, we need to rotate our Poison skills before the Poison Convention of Elements cycle arrives. Then use Bone Armor Dislocation to activate your Krysbin's Sentence before swinging Grim Scythe.

When you are not dealing damage, use Bone Spear Blighted Marrow to lure more enemies to you. Gather them up and repeat when you have enough. Be aware that your own swings will barely deal any damage and instead almost all of it will come from Simulacrum. The reason for this is that they ignore the Maximum Essence cap for the damage calculation of Leger's Disdain which multiplies their output way beyond what you could achieve. This is also why you don't try to spend any resources before swinging - you'd just fill up entirely with a single attack anyway.

The most important optimization for your DPS is the positioning of your Simulacrum. Keep an eye on them and make them run or teleport to you before you want to DPS. It's no use to swing your scythe in the middle of the pull if they are hidden in some corner. In some cases, it might be useful to stop attacking for a little bit to allow them to catch up. The more enemies you hit with their attacks, the better, because this is the only way to deal significant damage with this build.

Finally, even when you are quite tanky yourself, your Simulacrum can die quite easily from hard-hitting single attacks like Grotesque explosions, so try to position them away from these attacks to avoid re-summoning them as the Cooldown is very long.

Hardcore

This build has good survivability and can hold up in hardcore, especially while using Final Service as a back up plan. The main way to become tankier for hardcore is to put more paragon points into Vitality.

Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

Nephalem Rifts

T16 Keys

Concept
For speed content we're pumping up our movement speed with Steuart's Greaves, Warzechian Armguards, Blood Rush Metabolism, Devour Devouring Aura and Fueled by Death. The combination of Goldwrap + Avarice Band + Boon of the Hoarder will make us invincible once we kill an enemy and pick up some gold.

Gameplay
For speed content this build is easy to play as we don't have to time anything with Convention of Elements. Summon your Simulacrum Blood and Bone at the start, use Blood Rush Metabolism to move and finally use Bone Armor Dislocation when encountering elites to activate Krysbin's Sentence before cutting them down.

Setups
In groups, swap Warzechian Armguards with Nemesis Bracers and Stone of Jordan with Avarice Band.

GR Solo Push

Solo Push

Concept
Compared to most other builds in Season 28, this doesn't have a special Empowered Shrine version. The only change you can make for high-end pushing is dropping Blood Rush for another Poison skill to boost Nayr's Black Death further.

This is the standard setup we covered above. Bane of the Stricken is needed as the third gem to kill the Rift Guardian. In solo it's all about getting as many enemies together as you can so you can do insane damage during your Poison cycle on Convention of Elements.

Gameplay
As usual in solo we have to pull everything, stay alive, and kill everything all on our own. Your Simulacrum will move with you, so position them well so they don't die and can do maximum damage. If they die you can re-summon them, but your damage will drop significantly if they die again before the cooldown is back up. Cast each Poison skill once every 15 seconds to build your Nayr's Black Death up, and use Bone Armor Dislocation on your Poison cycle of Convention of Elements. Make sure to save a pylon for the boss so you can use Nemesis Bracers after stacking Bane of the Stricken for a minute or two to have extra targets for Area Damage and Leger's Disdain.

Setups
At high Paragon (4000+) it makes sense to run Flawless Royal Ruby in your armor sockets if you can compensate the lost Vitality. At that point you can also consider dropping Wisdom of Kalan + Ancient Parthan Defenders for Ring of Royal Grandeur + Aughild's Authority.

GR Group Trash Killer

Group Trash Clearer

Concept
In groups we can be far more offensive with our itemization because we have supports keeping us alive. Since someone else will kill the boss for us, we will take Pain Enhancer as the third gem.

Gameplay
Similar to the solo version, except we don't have to gather the monsters and staying alive is much easier thanks to the zBarb's pulling/stomping. Just move to the zBarb's Ground Stomp and cut everything down. If there is an Oculus Ring nearby, stand in it for 85% increased damage.

Setups
At high Paragon (4000+) it can make sense to run Flawless Royal Ruby in your armor sockets if you can compensate the lost Vitality there. For an extra greedy version, you could switch Wisdom of Kalan to Ring of Royal Grandeur to equip Illusory Boots and drop Blood Rush for another Poison skill.

Video Guide

Mechanics

Simulacrum

Haunted Visions will make this skill drain 1% of your maximum life every second. If you are unable to pay this cost (i.e. you are below 1% HP when the cost is applied), the Simulacrums will despawn. In case you are running Final Service, this means you will very rarely have the event where your cheat death did not proc but you lost your Simulacrum and it will be on cooldown.
Simulacrums will cast your Secondary Skills and Grim Scythe when you do.
Simulacrums positioning is critical for this build! They move close to you whenever you are not casting an ability they can cast and warp to you if you are moving too far.
Simulacrums can proc area Damage but do not benefit from Pet Damage.
In combination with Leger's Disdain, Simulacrums do not care about your Essence generated, always getting the full benefit of the 12 Essence per enemy hit for the stacking 80% separate damage multiplier.
Extra curses can be applied from their Cursed Scythe, helping you to get all three of them on all targets.
When hitting enemies affected by Leech, your Simulacrums will also heal you. This provides insane recovery with some density.
Your Simulacrums scale with your character's toughness and can die from monster damage when it's too low. Especially large bursts of damage (e.g. Grotesque explosions) can rip them apart easily even when you could survive that damage yourself, so be mindful about such situations as the cooldown to resummon them is very long.

Leger's Disdain

Simulacrum ignore how much current and maximum Essence you have. This is fantastic news because they will always get the full benefit of Leger's Disdain. That's why it's better to simply swing again at full essence (having 2 Simulacrums attacking at full power) than to waste time trying to dump essence to increase your own damage.
All three swings happen at the same time and deal full damage even if one swing is enough to kill some of the monsters.

Nayr's Black Death

Each stack of this item has its own duration (15 seconds).
As this is just slightly longer than the Necromancer's Convention of Elements rotation of 12 seconds, you want to make sure to activate all of your Poison skills at least once every cycle.
The stacks add up as one combined multiplier (100% per Poison skill used).

Summary

Put together the core items and acquire the full Grace of Inarius set.
Learn to position your Simulacrum Blood and Bone in density, activate your Poison skills in order, and stun with Bone Armor Dislocation on your Poison Convention of Elements cycle to activate Krysbin's Sentence.
Gather large groups of enemies with Bone Spear Blighted Marrow to slash them down with Area Damage.
Keep your Bone Armor stacks high and stay within the enemies to get the most of your damage reduction from Grace of Inarius.