The Masquerade of the Burning Carnival was first introduced in Season 21. Despite its initial outrageous (6) Bonus, it didn't see a lot of play back then due to being overshadowed by other Necromancer builds.
Season 22 buffed the build by adding Gelmindor's Marrow Guards. This was enough to make it the strongest Necromancer build in Diablo III, able to clear all the way up to GR150 in solo while being the Trash Killer of choice and having a spot in Greater Rift Speeds.
After overperforming heavily for two seasons in a row, it has been brought back in line in Season 24 with a heavy nerf to the (6) Bonus removing the triple damage bonus for Simulacrum and reduced the overall damage multiplier. In Season 28, that same bonus has been added again and the original multiplier almost restored, bringing the build back to its former glory!
Unlike many other Necromancer builds, Bone Spear doesn't hide any nasty surprises like having to wait a minute for a crucial cooldown. It is a fairly simple but fun and powerful build with a very active, fast-paced playstyle.
For solo pushing, there are several variations, each with their own pros and cons. Most high-end clears are done with Aughild's Authority which is described in the main sections of the guide. This is especially recommended after Paragon 2,500 as Elites and Rift Guardians die much more easily. Before that, Guardian's Jeopardy is a better choice for more damage and toughness. A more mobile version is the Captain Crimson's Trimmings setup, which is overall more consistent at lower tiers. You can also play around Briggs' Wrath to pixelpull enemies, creating a unique and challenging playstyle.
Easy to gear ✔ Active playstyle ✔ Great AoE damage ✔ No cooldown dependency ✔
❌ Relies on Sims ❌ Hard to master ❌ Positioning is critical ❌ Low single target damage
Core Setup
Core Item Build
Items
Masquerade of the Burning Carnival is the centerpiece of this build. It effectively provides you with 83% damage reduction while Simulacrum is active and 5,500% increased Bone Spear damage for you and triple that your Simulacrums.
Haunted Visions makes Simulacrum last forever.
Maltorius' Petrified Spike doubles Bone Spear cost to give it 700% increased damage.
Scythe of the Cycle for 400% increased damage to Bone Spear as long as Bone Armor is active.
Krysbin's Sentence gives 300% damage to enemies affected by hard Crowd Control (e.g. stun from Bone Armor Dislocation) and 100% bonus against slowed enemies.
Gelmindor's Marrow Guards gives 400% increased damage to Bone Spears fired by your Simulacrums.
Typically all of this will be combined with either Captain Crimson's Trimmings or Aughild's Authority to gain more damage and defense. The former also improves mobility and damage against trash monsters while the latter has a greater emphasis on fighting elites and makes pulling easier.
Global Stat Priorities
Our offensive priorities are: Poison Damage > Critical Hit Chance/Critical Hit Damage > Area Damage > Attack Speed, along with as much Bone Spear damage as possible (on Boots, Helm and Off-Hand). Generally, no Cooldown Reduction is needed for this build as you only cast Simulacrum at the beginning of a rift, but especially in Nephalem Rifts or for the Captain Crimson's Trimmings variation that stat becomes more valuable to spam Blood Rush and Bone Armor and gain extra damage.
Assembling the Build
1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cubeLegendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!
2. Gather the full Masquerade of the Burning Carnival 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.
2-Handed Scythes to get Maltorius' Petrified Spike
1-Handed Scythes to get Scythe of the Cycle
Rings to get Convention of Elements and Krysbin's Sentence
Amulets to get Haunted Visions and Squirt's Necklace
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, Aughild's Authority, Guardian's Jeopardy, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny
6. There is one final required piece that is difficult to acquire, Haunted Visions. With amulets being so expensive to gamble and craft, we'll have to search for it to drop in Nephalem and Greater Rifts. While you can craft it via Upgrade Rare in the Cube, the best way to acquire one is to party up with other Necromancers and kindly ask them to drop any duplicates they find.
7. 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:
Scythe of the Cycle
Krysbin's Sentence
Convention of Elements
Item Stat Priorities
SLOT
ITEM
STAT PRIORITY
Main-Hand
Scythe of the Cycle In-geom Maltorius' Petrified Spike (Cubed)
1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Area Damage 4. Attack Speed 5. Damage %
Off-Hand
Lost Time Any Legendary Phylactery
1. Critical Hit Chance 2. Bone Spear Damage 3. Area Damage 4. Intelligence
For breaking walls to pull enemies and increase DPS
Gems
Zei's Stone of Vengeance provides up to 80% increased damage when we are 40 yards away from enemies (which is about half a screen away).
Bane of the Trapped gives 60% increased damage to slowed enemies.
Bane of the Stricken increases each attack made on the same enemy. This is used for killing Rift Guardians in solo pushes.
Esoteric Alteration provides 60% non-physical damage reduction if you're taking too much damage.
Bane of the Powerful is useful for 15% bonus against elites and 20% overall damage increase along with some damage reduction when either Bane of the Stricken or Esoteric Alteration are unnecessary.
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard is used in Squirt's Necklace setups in combination with Draw Life for a massive shield.
Skills
Bone Spear is our main source of damage in this build and gains massive buffs from our Masquerade of the Burning Carnival (6) Bonus, Simulacrum, Maltorius' Petrified Spike and Gelmindor's Marrow Guards.
Simulacrum can use any rune since we have all of them from ourMasquerade of the Burning Carnival (2) Bonus. From this we gain Cursed Form, Blood Debt, Blood and Bone, Reservoir and Self Sacrifice.
Grim Scythe Frost Scythe is our essence generator and increases our Attack Speed, which greatly helps out with Bane of the Stricken on the Rift Guardian and allows us to cast more Bone Spears in our PoisonConvention of Elements cycle.
Bone Armor Dislocation provides 30% damage reduction and activates our Scythe of the Cycle and Krysbin's Sentence on our PoisonConvention of Elements cycle.
Blood Rush Metabolism is used for mobility as well as its defensive buff.
Your last skill is a curse. Since Simulacrum Cursed Form always gives you the base effect of all of them, you can choose which one to give a special effect to. The best option here is typically Decrepify with the following runes: Wither for the Aughild's Authority version, Enfeeblement for the Briggs' Wrath version and Borrowed Time for Captain Crimson's Trimmings. In groups, you generally want to go with Frailty Early Grave unless you are running Captain Crimson's Trimmings.
Passives
Bone Prison gives you extra stuns to proc Krysbin's Sentence.
Serration synergizes with Zei's Stone of Vengeance to give us even more ranged damage.
Stand Alone doubles our Armor, which is very beneficial for Intelligence classes.
Spreading Malediction is another great DPS passive that can be used especially in groups when we apply curses to big groups of enemies. Final Service allows us to cheat death and is a good substitution for Serration when playing solo.
Paragon Points
Core
Offensive
Defensive
Utility
1. Movement Speed
1. Attack Speed
1. Armor
1. Area Damage
2. Maximum Essence
2. Critical Hit Damage
2. Life %
2. Resource Cost Reduction
3. Intelligence
3. Critical Hit Chance
3. All Resistance
3. Life per Hit
4. Vitality1
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).
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 mainstat (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.
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.
Our Follower also benefits from our War Cry that is further increased by Horde of the Ninety Savages(2) Bonus for decent survivability even without damage immunity follower items
Select Follower
T16 Enchantress
T16 Enchantress
For T16 we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is T16 content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death. Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress.
Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed.
Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For extra Elites, Death’s Breaths and In-geom procs.
Avarice Band: For the insane pickup radius.
Ring of Royal Grandeur: To complete our sets.
Gloves of Worship: For 10 Minute Shrine Buffs.
Sage’s Journey: For double Death’s Breaths.
Cain’s Destiny: For 25% more Greater Rift Keystones.
Speed GR Enchantress
For speed Greater Rifts we recommend this Enchantress setup because she is the only follower that gives Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to spam your abilities more. Since this is speed content, she’ll stay alive with Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard and use Hand of the Prophet to gain all skills. This will give us Cooldown Reduction, Elemental Damage, Reduced Damage from Ranged Attacks, Armor, Attack Speed, and a Cheat Death. Stat Priorities:Since we do not have the immortality focus, we need to stack survivability on our Enchantress. Intelligence > Vitality > Life % > Armor > All Resistance > Life Per Hit > Attack Speed. Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Hellfire Ring, Leoric's Crown and Cain's Destiny: For more Experience and Attack Speed.
GR Pushing Scoundrel
For Greater Rift Pushing we recommend this Scoundrel setup for the Critical Hit Chance from Anatomy, 10% increased damage from Piercing Shot, and the insane Critical Hit Chance cloud from Night’s Veil. Don't choose either of the first skill options as they apply crowd controls that we want to avoid. If you accidentally select one, you'll either have to live with it or make a new character to fix it as there is no way to de-select a follower skill :(. Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality token, we do not need to stack survivability on our Scoundrel. Dexterity > Attack Speed. Key Items:
The Flavor of Time: For double duration on Pylons.
Nemesis Bracers: For more progression from Elites.
Oculus Ring: For 85% increased damage.
Unity: For 50% damage reduction if you're also wearing one.
Ice Climbers: To make your follower immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects.
Leoric's Crown and Cain's Destiny: For more Experience and Attack Speed.
Gameplay
The first thing to do is cast your Simulacrum. They will last forever (unless you die) and cannot take damage. The entire concept of this build revolves around three things:
Stay mobile and try to group up as many enemies as possible before your Poison cycle on your Convention of Elements is ready. Try to gather them up in a thing line so you can maximize the amount of targets hit.
Position yourself and your Simulacrum to damage as many enemies as possible in a straight line. Keep in mind that when you cast Bone Spear or Grim Scythe your Simulacrums will mimic that attack, and unlike yourself they must always complete the entire animation. Due to this your Simulacrums can sometimes fail to follow you after you teleport with Blood Rush and start attacking immediately. To fix that you just need to spend half a second doing nothing and then your Simulacrums will catch up or teleport to you.
Cast Bone Armor right at the start of your Poison cycle to maximize your damage bonus from Krysbin's Sentence. Then unleash a barrage of Bone Spears to tear down your enemies! To maximize your DPS, you can run/stutter-step/teleport away right as you cast your stun to increase the damage bonuses from Zei's Stone of Vengeance and Serration.
When you are not dealing damage, use Bone Spear Blighted Marrow to attract enemies from far away, and use Blood Rush for mobility.
Hardcore
This build already holds up well defensively. Flawless Royal Topaz are often used in softcore, changing these out to Flawless Royal Amethyst will provide a noticeable toughness boost. Another great way to get more defensive without changing the core build is to put more Paragon points into Vitality. Despite being relatively tanky we can find other ways to increase our defenses. Using the legendary gem Esoteric Alteration would be highly recommended for hardcore play.
Important: When fighting Dune Dervishes (spinners) or Sand Dwellers you can easily oneshot and kill yourself from your own projectiles. There is absolutely no way to survive an incoming reflected hit from your own attacks when these monster types use their abilities, so always keep an eye out for them. The first type can spawn as minions from Nemesis Bracers, so you will encounter them very frequently.
Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
GR Solo Speeds
GR Solo Push
GR Group Speeds
Group TK
T16 Nephalem Rifts
Concept For speed content we want to go as fast as possible and can sacrifice a lot of damage to do it. You can play around with your favorite rune for Bone Spear as many of them can work and have different playstyles. Here we're showcasing Bone Spear Teeth to bring back memories of the good ol' Diablo 2 days. Just make sure the rune you take aligns with the elemental damage rolls on your character and set up your follower with the right items for Nephalem Rifts: Avarice Band, Nemesis Bracers, Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny.
Gameplay In speeds this build is easy to play as we don't have to time anything and just blast. Summon your Simulacrums at the start, keep Bone Armor active, use Blood Rush Metabolism to move and cast Bone Spear Teeth everywhere.
Setups When playing in groups, you should have Nemesis Bracers ready to swap in your inventory or cube them over Steuart's Greaves. Also replace Rechel's Ring of Larceny with Avarice Band. If you feel like your damage is way higher than it has to be, In-geom is great for for faster cooldowns on Bloodrush to keep us flying.
Solo XP
Concept This is similar to the Solo Push setup, except we're trying to clear everything quickly and won't have any trouble dispatching the Rift Guardian. The differences are we'll take Devour instead of Grim Scythe as we want to be constantly moving, and we'll cube Steuart's Greaves to fly after using Blood Rush.
Gameplay The gameplay here feels similar to T16, we're flying forward trying to destroy Greater Rifts as fast as possible. Use your curse for pixeling monsters via Briggs' Wrath, while Devour give us Essence back to cast more Bone Spears. Once you've got a nice pixel, hit them with Bone Armor and destroy them with Bone Spear.
Pay extra attention to your Essence. You only have Devour to regain it, so you need to be constantly killing stuff and not waste your precious resources on nothing, especially when you are fighting Waller or Juggernaut elites. Don't hesitate to skip them when you are low on Essence. In case that you do run out, you have 3 options:
Recasting Simulacrum will double your current Essence. You can get up to half of your total essence back if you use it right. However, you have to foresee that you will be running out of Essence soon, because if you use it when you're already dry it will do nothing.
You can try using Bottomless Potion of Rejuvenation, but you need to lose more than 50% of your life for it to work, which can be tricky to do without dying.
If all else fails and your Simulacrum cooldown is long, then you can just die intentionally and you will respawn with full Essence and Simulacrum ready.
Setups You can also try other runes of Bone Spear like Teeth for larger Area of Effect or Crystallization for more attack speed if Bone Spear Shatter doesn't fit your playstyle.
Aughild's Authority Solo Push
Concept This is the version described in the main section of the guide. The extra elite damage helps a great deal to ensure fast boss kills and finish off elites that would otherwise be almost unkillable.
Gameplay Instead of surrounding elites with trash and trying to kill them with Area Damage, we let them sit outside the pull and shoot them from the opposite side of it. This way we maximize Blighted Marrow, Zei's Stone of Vengeance and Serration damage bonuses on the elites and the trash will die fairly fast anyway even without pixels and big Area Damage procs. Make sure to stun with Bone Armor Dislocation on your Poison Convention of Elements cycle to activate Krysbin's Sentence. Try to be as mobile as possible between your Convention of Elements cycles and use your Bone Spear to aggro enemies from a distance.
During the Rift Guardian fight, stay in melee and attack the boss with your Grim Scythe to replenish your Essence and to stack Bane of the Stricken. One second before Convention of Elements Poison cycle, activate Bone Armor and Blood Rush far away to maximize Zei's Stone of Vengeance (and possibly Serration) bonuses. Hold down Bone Spear until your Poison cycle is over, then return back to the boss.
Setups For extra toughness, you can slot in Esoteric Alteration instead of Zei's Stone of Vengeance or add more Vitality either through Paragons or by stacking Flawless Royal Amethyst in your armor sockets. If you want to have a cheat death passive, remove Serration.
Below 2000 Paragon, you can also play this setup with Guardian's Jeopardy instead of Aughild's Authority.
4man Speed GRs
Concept This build is utilizing both Squirt's Necklace and Captain Crimson's Trimmings at the same time for the highest possible consistent damage output. We drop Convention of Elements because in speedruns we don't have time to wait for the right element to come up. This setup also has more Cooldown Reduction and Resource Cost Reduction, which help out immensely by letting us spam Bone Spear, Bone Armor and Blood Rush more.
Gameplay The gameplay is quite similar regardless of your group composition. You rush forward through the rift and shoot Bone Spears at everything, preferably staying at a distance to maximize the bonuses from Serration and Zei's Stone of Vengeance.
Pay extra attention to your Bone Armor: make sure to only use it when there's at least 1 monster in range. Missing it will completely stop your damage for a few seconds, which is a big loss in a run that lasts only 2 or 3 minutes. This is especially important in Bat Runs, because LoD Rat Necro'sSkeletal Mages have a tendency to snatch your Bone Armor targets from right under your nose.
Another thing you have to pay attention to is your Essence. You only have Devour to regain it, so you need to be constantly killing stuff. This is especially problematic with Juggernauts, which require plenty of Bone Spears to kill, but still leave behind only one corpse. Don't hesitate to skip them, when you are low on Essence. In case that you do run out, you have 4 options:
Recasting Simulacrum will double your current Essence. You can get up to half of your total essence back if you use it right. However you have to foresee that you will be running out of Essence soon, because if you use it when you're already dry it will do nothing.
Land of the Dead Invigoration will let you spam Bone Spear for its entire duration and leave you with full Essence afterwards. In triple support runs you need to make sure to have it up for the Rift Guardian fight.
You can try using Bottomless Potion of Rejuvenation, but you need to lose more than 50% of your life for it to work, which can be tricky to do without dying.
If all else fails and your cooldowns are long, then you can just die intentionally and you will respawn with full Essence and Simulacrum ready.
Setups You can choose between Blighted Marrow and Shatter runes on your Bone Spear. The former has the highest damage potential, while the latter is more convenient to use and produces more consistent results. Try them out and see which you like best.
When playing in a triple support group, you can drop Captain Crimson's Trimmings for either Dayntee's Binding or The Witching Hour and Convention of Elements. This will let you drop Land of the Dead for Aura of Frailty (which works a lot better in speedruns than The Executioner), although you will have to be even more careful with your Essence. To kill the Rift Guardian without Land of the Dead you need to only attack when your Convention of Elements is active. If the Rift Guardian is still alive after 2 rotations, you are going too high and you should lower the tier!
4man Trash Killer
Concept Trash Killer's (TK) job is to kill all the small monsters and sometimes also elites to bring the progress bar to 100%. To give the best chances at finishing elites, this variant used Aughild's Authority because at some point killing just trash will not be a huge issue if the group plays the setup properly. In groups the Support Barbarian will pixel and stun the monsters for us, so our job is to just perform the DPS rotation correctly for maximum damage.
Gameplay The gameplay here is slightly different than the other set ups. We will run around swinging Grim Scythe and cursing mobs until just before our PoisonConvention of Elements cycle comes up. Couple of seconds before it hits we'll throw a few Bone Spears to try and spawn an Oculus Ring. One second before Poison, refresh Bone Armor, then Blood Rush to the furthest Oculus Ring to take advantage of Serration and Zei's Stone of Vengeance. Finally throw as many spears as possible at the center of the mobs and watch them fall to pieces!
Setups If you're having trouble staying alive, you can run with Esoteric Alteration instead of Bane of the Powerful. If you're playing a triple support setup, the zMonk will provide you with shields, allowing you to run with Squirt's Necklace cubed instead of the Aughild's Authority setup. In that case your third gem has to be Bane of the Stricken so you can kill the boss.
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, the Simulacrums will despawn. If that happens, you will die immediately after, because you have less than 1% health and also lose 83% damage reduction. This can sometimes make it seem like your Self Sacrifice doesn't work.
Simulacrums will move with you after you've traveled a short distance.
If you're using Blood Rush the sims will follow you to your location.
Simulacrum cast their Bone Spear in the direction of your mouse cursor, so positioning is critical!
When Simulacrums mimic one of your attacks, they must always complete the entire animation before they can run after you or teleport on you. If you keep constantly casting Bone Spear while stutter stepping and teleporting forward, your Simulacrums may stay far behind!
Brigg's Wrath
This pixelpull completely ignores monster hitboxes and can also pulls Elites.
Will pixel the monsters together where we cast Frailty. It's critical we choose the right place and time to cast this so we're ready to deal maximum damage.
Pixelpulling allows for crazy Area Damage scaling.
Enemies will lose all curses if they leave combat (even with Eternal Torment equipped). This will always happen if you go to town, and depending on monster type and rarity can also happen if you go to a different floor or just move far enough away (2-3 screens for most enemies). This can be used to repixel the mobs without waiting 30 seconds for the curse to time out.
Lost Time
Gives you up to 50% Movement Speed above the 25% Movement Speed cap from Paragon and Gear.
Some Necromancer builds do not require a specific Off-Hand and can use this one instead of a random one.
If your build has no source of Cold damage, you can give a Weapon with a Cold damage roll to your follower which will then proc it for you.
Bone Spear Blighted Marrow
This rune increases Bone Spear damage by 15% for each target hit. The bonus is additive with itself and multiplicative with all other damage bonuses.
The increased damage is calculated for each enemy separately, meaning that the furthest away from you enemies take the most damage.
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard + Draw Life
Draw Life increases your Life Per Second (LPS) by 10% for each enemy within 20 yards.
This bonus is capped to 50 enemies for a total of 500% increased LPS.
This bonus stacks additively with Bone Armor Thy Flesh Sustained which can provide another 100% LPS.
Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard gives you a shield equal to double your LPS.
The LPS is snapshotted at the moment your shield is refreshed.
The shield is only refreshed if you haven't taken any hits in the last 4 second. Absorbing hits with a shield (even a different shield, say from Mantra of Healing) still counts as taking a hit. This makes it quite tricky to maximize the shielding with Draw Life passive, because you need to dodge all attacks while still staying close to enemies.
Summary
Put together the core items and acquire the full Masquerade of the Burning Carnival set.
Position your Simulacrum and control where they are to maximize your damage.
Stun monsters with Bone Armor Dislocation on your Poison Convention of Elements cycle to activate Krysbin's Sentence.
Stay mobile, survive, and burn down large packs of enemies with Area Damage.
Credits
Written by Northwar & wudijo Contributions by Raxxanterax, Rob & sVr Updated by wudijo
