Support zNecromancer Guide

Last Updated: 21 May 2023

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Introduction

Rat zNec
View all variants

The zNecromancer (usually called the zNecro because they do "zero" damage) is one of the strongest supports in the game. Flying through rifts while freezing entire screens of enemies is their specialty, all while providing incredible offensive buffs for your party members. It’s most commonly used in “Rat Run” groups, which one of the predominant ways to grind experience consisting of 2x LoD Rat Necromancers and one zBarb.

The main culprit of zNec is its significant investment into Cooldown Reduction due to its requirement to keep up Land of the Dead Frozen Lands at all times. While In-geom as well as Messerschmidt’s Reaver help out significantly on this end, it’s still not easy to gear from the get-go and it takes a decent amount of time and resource investment to build.

Additionally, while support classes generally speaking are tanky, zNec in its final iteration just isn’t. Shock Towers, the Fire Chains as well as Electrified Affixes will hurt you throughout any stage; playing a more tanky setup might increase your Quality of Life, which, however, comes at the cost of overall group efficiency. That trade-off shouldn’t be taken lightly, since a lot of public party players will disagree and call you out on your “comfort choices”.

In summary, zNec is not easy to execute. It’s not tanky. And it’s choices in gearing heavily influence the overall group efficiency. Making the appropriate choices for the tier you are aiming to play is a key aspect of mastering zNec. The guide at hand will provide you a general overview, but be prepared to make certain adjustments if a specific group asks for them.

Unique Playstyle ✔
Extremely Fast Paced ✔
Rewards Excellent Gameplay ✔
Many Variants Increasing in Difficulty ✔

❌ Requires Spamming
❌ Squishy on High End
❌ Positioning is Very Important
Works Best in Specific Groups

Core Setup

Core Item Build

Items

  • Pestilence Master's Shroud (2) Bonus fires a Corpse Lance Brittle Touch every time we consume a corpse, allowing us to increase the monsters chance to be critically hit by 5% for each lance.
  • Leoric's Crown, Messerschmidt's Reaver and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac provide massive Cooldown Reduction necessary to achieve 100% Frozen Lands uptime.
  • Oculus Ring gives 85% damage to your party.
  • Brigg's Wrath pulls monsters together and applies Strongarm Bracers.
  • Nemesis Bracers spawn and extra elite pack from each pylon, which helps you get to 100% progression faster.
  • Rondal's Locket possesses a secondary affix of up to +6 Yards to Pickup Radius which increases the size of Frailty Aura of Frailty and helps a lot for picking up Health Globes.




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 toughness and utility buffs such as Omen and Revelation which make your life easier.

In addition, Leech Blood Flask can be used to reduce the Health Potion cooldown massively for more buffs from the season theme and the High GR versions can benefit from Dayntee's Binding by dropping Illusory Boots, which are no longer needed.

Global Stat Priorities

Since we are a support class, we don't need any offensive stats like Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage, Area Damage, or Elemental Damage. We especially need to avoid Area Damage as it will lag the game for no benefit. Instead we will gather as much Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed and Defensive Stats as possible. Cooldown is needed to keep Land of the Dead Frozen Lands up all the time, which will keep the monsters perpetually frozen and allow us to spam Devour Cannibalize which heals us.

Attack Speed lets you Blood Rush Metabolism and fire Corpse Lance faster, allowing you to your job better. For defense prioritize % Life > Vitality > All Resistance > Armor. Finally, try to get as much Pickup Radius on your gear as possible as it will increase the radius of your Frailty Aura of Frailty which will let you pull monsters further with Briggs' Wrath.

Assembling the Build

Item Stat Priorities

Gems

Skills

Passives

Paragon Points

Gameplay

Hardcore

Variants

Rats Low Paragon
Rats High Paragon
High GRs
Echoing Nightmare
High Paragon Rat zNec

Concept
This is the support build for the infamous "Rat Runs", which also involve 2x LoD Skeletal Mage Necros and a Support zBarb. It's designed to be fast, tanky, and have insane cooldown so you can lead the way for your team. This is the maximum efficiency setup that ditches all the toughness for maximum Cooldown Reduction and Movement Speed. High Paragon and/or augments become necessary to survive.

Gameplay
The gameplay is exactly the same as we discussed above. At high enough Paragon, you still shouldn't die to anything but a massive attack. Remember that if you die it leaves your teammates vulnerable as the monsters won't be frozen from Land of the Dead Frozen Lands.

Setups
If your runs are going very smoothly and you never have downtime on your Land of the Dead, you can switch Blood is Power for Fueled by Death to get that extra bit of Movement Speed.

You can freely choose between Steuart's Greaves and Illusory Boots in your feet slot. The latter make it easier to click pylons but you need to be on point with your Blood Rushes as you no longer have the Movement Speed.

If you don't like having to constantly hover mobs and spam Command Skeletons button, you can use another spender (Death Nova Blight or Bone Spear Crystallization) in its place. While you have to stop to cast these two skills, it's still possible to reset your cooldowns and be fast enough. The advantage here is the ability to quickly break doors and less headache with the Shock Towers.

Video Guide

Guide Video

Mechanics

Pestilence Master's Shroud + Devour

Land of the Dead Frozen Lands

Life from Death

Ahavarion, Spear of Lycander

Summary

  • Put together the low paragon build first and focus on Cooldown, Attack Speed, and Defense rolls on your gear.
  • Keep your Land of the Dead up at all times while spamming Devour and Command Skeletons.
  • Practice staying 1 screen ahead of your party at all times, unless you are stopping to kill an elite.
  • Manually fire Corpse Lance Brittle Touch on yellows and Rift Guardians.
  • Dodge major attacks and stay alive so your teammates survive as well.
  • Credits to Kikaha for pointing out several issues with an earlier version of this guide.

Credits

Written by Northwar.
Contributions from Raxxanterax, sVr & Rob.
Updated by wudijo.

Changelog

  • 15 February 2023
    Updated for Season 28 / Patch 2.7.5.
  • 18 August 2022
    Updated for Season 27 / Patch 2.7.4.
  • 22 March 2022
    Updated for Season 26 / Patch 2.7.3.

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