Disclaimer: This guide is no longer updated because in the current state of the game, better versions of this playstyle exist. Instead, check out ourLoD Poison Scythe Necromancer Guide.
Welcome to the Grace of InariusGrim 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 cooldownrequired ✔ Rewards good positioning✔
❌ Lacks clear 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 19,000% 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 PoisonGrim 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 30 Soul Shards
Soul Shards are powerful socketable items that initially dropped during Season 25 but they are returning for Season 30! There are 4 available for Weapons based on the Lesser Evils, with another 3 for Helmets based on the Prime Evils. They drop at Rank 0 and be upgraded three times with the brand new Hellforge Embers to unlock additional powers, or be used in the Kanai's Cube as Augments. Here's how they progress:
Rank 0: Soul Shards begin with a unique static Legendary Power. Creates a Rank 50 Augment.
Rank 1: Gives all powers from the normal gems. Creates a Rank 75 Augment.
Rank 2: Grants one additional powerful stat. Creates a Rank 100 Augment.
Rank 3: Unlocks 1 of 3 bonus Legendary Powers unique to that Soul Shard. Creates a Rank 125 Augment.
Warning: Leoric's Crown and Broken Crown do not work with Soul Shards!
Read our Soul Shards Guide written by Chewingnom for full details on how they work. What you should prioritize on them for Solo Pushing is the following:
The Correct Soul Shard& Rank 3 Power The best shards for Solo Pushing are:
Helmets: We want to use Sliver of Terror for the massive damage buff from our abilities on cooldown. For the Rank 3 power take the Ring of Fire to unleash a devastating AoE blast for big leaderboard pushes!
On the higher end when time-attacking GR150, you can use Shard of Hatred for the massive 50% damage buff when surrounded by a lot of monsters. For the Rank 3 power, take the additional damage per stack for a tremendous 100% damage buff in density!
Weapons: We want to use Remnant of Pain for the 100% Critical Hit Chance to incapacitated enemies. For the Rank 3 power take the additional Attack Speed to further power up your character!
The Rank 2 Stat The stats that come from the second upgrade are not equal. Here's what we're looking for on them:
Helmets: We want either Main Stat for damage or Melee/Ranged Damage Reduction to survive. Avoid Armor and All Resistance as their stat ranges are far too low compared to the others options.
Weapons: We want Poison Damage to boost our character's power the furthest. Avoid Damage %, Attack Speed and Critical Hit Chance as their stat ranges are too low compared to the others.
The Stat Ranges on the Rank 1 and 2 Powers This is just icing on the cake because the ranges will not make or break your build. Still, look for the Soul Shards with the best stat ranges, especially on the offensive stats.
For the other game modes, other Soul Shards can be used. Check the Variants below to see what's used there.
What about extra Soul Shards? Either salvage them for gems, or upgrade and use them in Kanai's Cube for Augments.
Global Stat Priorities
Our offensive priorities are: Poison Damage > Critical Hit Chance/Critical Hit Damage > Area 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 cubeLegendary 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.
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
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 PoisonConvention of Elements cycle.
Frailty Early Grave is used to execute low HP elites and bosses.
For more mobility, Blood Rush can be used instead 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 Essence2
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.
Altar of Rites
The Altar of Rites is a tree 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 extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!
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
Notable Build Changes
Compared to the nonseason version of the build, you no longer need Blood Rush to move around and avoid getting stuck. This allows to either include Frailty or another Poison skill to boost Nayr's Black Death for more damage.
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
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.
GR Pushing Templar
For Greater Rift pushing we recommend this Templar setup for the sustain from Heal, 10% increased damage from Onslaught, and the very powerful cheat death mechanic from Guardian. This is the only follower build that stacks Cooldown Reduction because it works with Heal. Since we take the immortality relic, we do not need any survivability stats. Stat Priorities:Since we have the immortality relic, we do not need to stack survivability on our Templar. Strength > Cooldown Reduction > 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 Captain Crimson's Trimmings: For more Cooldown Reduction on Heal.
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!
Variants
Nephalem Rifts
GR Solo Push
GR Group Trash Killer
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.
Solo Push
Concept 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 + Krelm's Buff Bracers for Ring of Royal Grandeur + Aughild's Authority.
Inarius Grim Scythe Trash Killer
Concept In groups, we have supporters to do most of the job for us. We just need to make sure to curse everything, position our Simulacrum well and swipe at the right moment.
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 and stomping and the zDH's buffs (or zMonk if you have one). Just move to the zBarb's Ground Stomp and cut everything down.
Make sure that your first swing in Poison has every buff up (using Bone Armor last for the stun) and correct positioning as all the little trash will die instantly, costing us Area Damage on successive swings. In other words, don't swing your scythe randomly, swing with purpose! If there is an Oculus Ring nearby, stand in it for 85% increased damage.
Setups You can take Blood Rush instead of Death Nova for speed farming in groups.
If you feel too squishy, you can replace Ring of Royal Grandeur + Aughild's Authority with Wisdom of Kalan, Ancient Parthan Defenders and a 6th set piece.
Video Guide
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.
Town Is Lava!
Credits
Original guide by Raxxanterax Rework & updates by wudijo
