As popularized by the legend Naecabon, I'm happy to present to you the Infinimist Necromancer. This Necro build combines the highest survivability rates, massive AoE Shadow Damage and even Critical Strike burst damage potential! The build excels at high Nightmare Dungeon pushing!
On its surface, this build just seems like any other Darkness build, spamming Corpse Explosion and relying on mediocre Lucky Hit procs for Crowd Control (CC). But prioritizing Lucky Hit starts to have interesting interactions when you're able to stack over 50% Lucky Hit Bonus. Decrepify allows us to almost immediately refresh all of our cooldowns and have... Infinite Blood Mist uptime. Now you get the build name!
The combination of DoT and high Critical Strike damage output means we consistently rip through content. With certain optimizations for clear speed and single target damage, the Infinimist Necromancer can even speed-farm and clear high level bosses more easily.
Infinimist Necromancer Standard Gear
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Sever Necromancer Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Necromancer play style, check out all of our Necromancer Guides.
DifficultyAverage
SpeedfarmingExcellent
NM DungeonsExcellent
BossingAverage
DefenseExcellent
Season 2 - Season of Blood
Completing the seasonal questline, partaking in the seasonal Blood Harvest event and collecting Potent Blood are the main ways of obtaining and empowering these abilities. Check out the full Season 2 Guide from Chewingnom to learn more! Helms & Boots can have up to 3 Pacts, Pants can have up to 4, Chests & Gloves can have up to 5 giving you 20 Pacts to empower.
Best-in-Slot Vampiric Powers
Anticipation(Minor) - Increases Bone Storm damage and up time.
Prey on the Weak (Minor) - Increases Vulnerable damage and applies that status when an enemy has a Vampiric Curse.
Domination (Minor) - Grants another damage multiplier.
Flowing Veins (Major) - Major DoT multiplier.
Metamorphosis(Major) - Grants Unstoppable when you Evade, deals damage and applies Vampiric Curse to enermies in your path.
Standard Vampire Powers
Alternative Vampiric Powers
Terror is swapped to when fighting Bosses to gain the 100% Critical Strike Chance once they are staggered.
Hemomancy is great for increasing your AoE damage output in the open world content.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
Reap allows us to generate Corpses on demand and increase our Damage reduction when needed. Used to initiate most fights, as well as increase Corpse production on Bosses.
Decrepify applies a powerful CC effect that also causes Lucky Hit procs to reduce Cooldowns on our Skills. Prioritize casting this on any new monsters, or when it runs out.
Blood Mist is the cornerstone of the build. This gives us full Immunity, triggers Corpse Explosion, makes Corpses, applies Shadow Damage and increases our movement speed.
Corpse Tendrils is an amazing CC tool and our Vulnerable applicator. We only put 1 Skill point in, and rely on +xx Ranks from gear.
Bone Storm: Damage, Survivability and Shadow Damage applicator. Just an amazing skill on any build.
And when all else fails, manually casting Corpse Explosion allows for stacking huge damage quickly and revving our Corpse generation engine to keep the death-machine rolling.
Infinimist Necromancer Standard Skill Tree
Shadowblight Key Passive is the true MVP of the build. Its proc is an instantaneous damage source that can Critically Strike. This adds so much damage to our kit and allows us to stack more damage stats on our gear for better output.
Hewed Flesh is the bread and butter of the build. It gives us an avenue for generating enough Corpses to sate all of our Corpse consumption needs. Stacking a ton of Lucky Hit Chance Bonus makes this passive efficient enough to not stall out on optimal gear.
Gloom and Terror help to add on damage, while Reaper's Pursuit speeds us up and Crippling Darkness helps to stagger bosses and CC enemies in a fight. The changes to Terror in Patch 1.2 make it a viable multiplier of all Shadow Damage sources.
Infinimist Necromancer Skill Showcase
Necromancer Specialization - Book of the Dead
There are 3 different Minion types you can choose to summon or sacrifice, located in the Book of the Dead. The Infinimist Necromancer doesn't have space on its Skill Bar for more abilities, so we choose to sacrifice all three Minion options for their valuable buffs. We prioritize Shadow Damage from Skeletal Warriors, Vulnerable Damage from Skeletal Mages and Critical Strike Damage from Golem.
Book of the Dead
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specialization in our full Book of the Dead Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Managing your Resources and Cooldowns is crucial to the success of this build.
Abhorrent Decrepify has the chance to trigger off of every damage instance from all of our overlapping Damage over Time (DoT) effects. It even triggers from monsters attacking you and the Thorns damage you may have on a Shield. This level of Cooldown management allows for realiably expecting for any and all Skills to be available when needed, even in crucial moments. BUT! It requires you to prioritize Lucky Hit Chance bonus and stacking damage instances, strategically. A minimum of 50% Lucky Hit Chance bonus is recommended to properly pilot the build.
The single point in Grim Harvest that we need to place, along with our natural Essence regeneration, means you never need to focus on managing your resource. Our resource to manage is the Corpse generation. The build lives and dies by how many procs of Hewed Flesh we can successfully trigger.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
← Scroll to Level →
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. Glyphs have a radius of 3 by default, this increases to 4 at Glyph level 15. Complete Nightmare Dungeons to obtain Glyph experience.
Note that there are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last two steps in the Paragon progression above for details. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
Darkness
Scourge
Territorial
Imbiber
Control
Essence AFTER you find X'Fal's Corroded Signet
Level 21
Darkness
Scourge
Territorial
Control
Imbiber
Essence AFTER you find X'Fal's Corroded Signet
Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Endgame Progression & Variants
When you start diving into the Endgame, you don't have all the tools available to achieve the final build versions. Let us guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. These are listed in priority order:
Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
Decay - Gamble Focus
A seemingly innocuous Aspect that drastically increases our Shadowblight damage output.
Shielding Storm - Gamble Pants
This is the most important defensive Aspect for the build. It continuously generates Barrier while in close combat. The more enemies, the faster the Barrier generation.
Explosive Mist - Gamble Boots
Automates our Corpse Explosion machine and helps to reduce Blood Mist's cooldown.
Blood-soaked - Gamble Focus
Turns Blood Mist into a Shadow Damage applying machine to proc Shadowblight as well as removes the movement speed penalty to turn the skill into a mobility tool.
Ultimate Shadow - Gamble Focus
Turns Bone Storminto a massive AoE Darkness skill that quickly applies tons of Shadow DoTs.
Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
Howl from Below these are effectively NEED to have gloves for the build until the very late-game. Even a low rolled Sacred version of these gloves out-performs high item power Legendary Gloves.
X'Fal's Corroded Signet drastically increases your AoE damage output, as well as your kill speed against Bosses. This procs continously from our multiple DoT effects. It's ability to Critically Strike allows it to benefit from more damage multipliers, that easily slot onto the build.
Lidless Wall adds a new way to drastically increase your Speedfarming potential but requiring constant enemy engagement to maintain its bonus Bone Storm. While increasing survivability from Barrier Generation and Damage Reduction, it also provides a significant boost to our Shadow Damage output and spreads our damage even further across a battlefield.
Greaves of the Empty Tomb are an interesting option for stacking even more Lucky Hit Chance and can help to offset the loss from not using a Wand. They also offer a unique Damage Reduction stat that can't normally be found on boots.
Black River great option for farming density, as well as clearing non-Boss Nightmare Dungeons. The DoT potential for this item is VERY high, while requiring the player to prioritize Corpse generation to a whole new level to get the most out of it.
Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul brings back a powerful Malignant Heart power from Season 1. The auto-casting skills needed to be equipped on your Skill Bar to function. This automates a lot of the build's primary gameplay loop to increase efficiency and damage output.
Tibault's Will adds an additional damage multiplier for "free" since you are Unstoppable once you enter Blood Mist. Great for Speed Farming and Bossing.
If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Uber Uniques, they're useful for the build.
Harlequin Crest does not fit well onto the Infinimist Necromancer unless you're using the Black River variant below, which cares about the +4 to Skill Ranks. But if you don't have a powerful Helm, absolutely use this until you find a perfect match for the variant you're playing. Replaces Aspect of Might.
Andariel's Visage fits easily onto the build and offers an interesting method for managing survivability. The DoT application also helps with Speed Farming. Replaces Aspect of Might.
Doombringer an incredible option for Tankiness and overall survivability that requires you to sacrifice damage output. Fits well onto the Black River variant inplace of the scythe. Replaces Aspect of Grasping Veins on the standard setup.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Steps
Follow the build's gearing progression from level 50 to 100, including the changes that need to be made as you obtain Legendary Aspects and Uniques.
Starter
Early Endgame
Late Endgame
Level 100 NM Dungeon Push
Speed Farming
Boss Killer
Abattoir of Zir
Black River
Mendeln
Once you have completed the leveling process to 50, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup, you can farm the Legendary Aspects and Unique items you need for the next progression point.
Gear
Starting off on this build can be rough, unless you're transitioning from another Darkness Endgame Guide like Sever or Blight. If you're starting fresh, prioritize these Codex of Power Aspects for early-game power and survivability:
When you find a decent weapon and offhand, make sure to upgrade them 2-3 times.
Ghostwalker Aspect on boots that already have Movement Speed and upgrade them 2-3 times.
Aspect of Disobedience on a Chest armor to easily stack survivability.
Blighted Aspect on your amulet, preferably with Movement Speed and upgraded 2-3 times.
The Super Rare Elite drop of Qin's Captivating Eye can be a powerful tool for early game progression and drops from Qiniel in Kehjistan. Rerolling the Chance to Slow at the Occultist for more Lucky Hit Chance is incredibly powerful early on.
Starter Gear
Gameplay
Piloting the build at this point is a little clunky, because your Lucky Hit Chance is not high enough to auto-reset all cooldowns for each fight. So you have to do more with less:
Make sure to initiate with Decrepify to start, so you don't miss any CD reduction procs. This also greatly reduces incoming damage and makes kiting monsters easier.
Either start with Blood Mist to generate corpses or Reap if you can safely be within melee range.
Corpse Tendrils all monsters into a single area, preferably on top of the aforementioned generated Corpses.
Manually cast Corpse Explosion and refresh Decrepify every few seconds. Hopefully there's enough targets to perpetually generate corpses until everyone's defeated.
For tankier fights and Bosses, include Bone Storm to up your crit chance on Shadowblight procs and increase your chance to survive while Blood Mist is on cooldown.
You don't always have your Cooldowns off, so keeping a close eye on when to recast Blood Mist, Bone Storm and Corpse Tendrils is your primary objective.
On Bosses as well, make sure to Reap in between other Skill uses every 4 seconds to keep up a steady stream of Corpses to target.
You can effectively "farm" smaller packs of monsters in between Elite packs to reduce your cooldowns further by using the same Decrepify loop. This build is a density farmer... farm that density!
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional Legendary Aspects are used to fill slots that may be replaced with Unique items later on.
Gear
At this point in your progression the build has fully come online. You can consistently rely on the Aspects and triggers of the build, but are still waiting to find Howl from Below. If you have an over abundance of materials, prioritize fully upgrading your Weapons - Boots - Jewelry in that order. Then Gloves and other armor pieces later.
Early Endgame Gear
Gameplay
Piloting the build at this point feels much better but you still cannot "carry" the Corpses with you since Howl from Below is our only method to do so. You need to stay over the Corpse piles and be more litigious with Corpse Tendrils to keep everything in place:
Make sure to initiate with Decrepify to start, so you don't miss any CD reduction procs. This also greatly reduces incoming damage and makes kiting monsters easier.
Start with Blood Mist to generate corpses and apply Shadow Damage to start stacking Shadowblight procs early. You can regularly fully reduce the CD with enough density.
Corpse Tendrils all monsters into a single area, preferably on top of the aforementioned generated Corpses. Re-engage with another cast of Decrepify then Blood Mist through the monster pack.
Manually cast Corpse Explosion and refresh Decrepify every few seconds. Hopefully there's enough targets to perpetually generate corpses until everyone's defeated.
Include Bone Storm for even more Shadow Damage procs and to up your crit chance on Shadowblight procs. The Barrier generation helps to make survivability a breeze.
You still don't always have your Cooldowns off, so keeping a close eye on when to recast Blood Mist, Bone Storm and Corpse Tendrils is your primary objective.
On Bosses as well, make sure to Reap in between other Skill uses every 5 seconds to keep up a steady stream of Corpses to target.
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to implement them. This setup easily excels at Helltide zones, Tree of Whispers, regular Dungeons, and Nightmare Dungeons without modification.
Gear
Acquiring Howl from Below can happen early on in your end-game progression, it's a fairly common drop. The Aspect we previously had on your Gloves as well as the gear Affixes were either very low value, or sufficiently replaced by the Affixes on Howl from Below.
Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul is easily farmed from Varshan and automates the majority of your Damage and Corpse generation engine so you can focus on optimizing your Skill rotations. This replaces Aspect of Decay.
X'Fal's Corroded Signet on the other hand, probably require you to target farm Duriel unless you get very lucky. This single ring has the potential to almost double our efficiency and damage output. You drop Aspect of Grasping Veins to gain this benefit.
Late Endgame Gear
Gameplay
This only thing that changes with the addition of Howl from Below is that Corpses are now mobile. Corpse Explosion can now reach more distant enemies than it could previously and we get a nice little boost to DPS.
When engaging onto the next pack of enemies, try casting Corpse Explosion on previous Corpses so that your fight begins with AoE damage ticks already happening.
When targeting Corpses, remember that Corpse Explosion cast on targets outside a Suppressor field cannot enter the Suppressor field.
For Bosses that are more agile and moved around the battlefield, don't forget when Corpses have been left behind. They're still great fuel for your DPS and Cooldown Reduction engines!
The Nightmare Dungeon Push setup optimizes damage and survivability to allow you to dive much deeper into Nightmare Dungeons where the difficulty increases significantly.
AVOID THESE Nightmare Dungeon Affixes
Before we go into what you should change on your build, take a look at Nightmare Dungeon Affixes that you need to avoid for a successful push:
Monster attacks from a distance reduce your Armor by 7% for 6 sec, stacking up to 35%.
Monsters take 40% less Shadow damage.
These Affixes are bad, but not unbeatable:
Monsters take 40% less damage from close targets.
Monsters take 60% less damage from Critical Strike.
Crowd Control durations vs monsters is reduced by 40%.
The duration of Vulnerable Effects vs monsters is reduced by 60%.
Monsters become Unstoppable when life drops below 30%.
Gear
To be able to push into more dangerous content, you need to stack more defensive Affixes onto your gear. Prioritize getting % Total Armor on the Helm, Chest and Pants. Damage Reduction or Total Armor on the Amulet, as well as Damage Reduction on the Off-Hand. This slot is often overlooked for this stat. Also make sure to cap your Resistances with up to two different rolls on your Boots.
The Lidless Wall or even a Legendary Shield with more defensive stats and Aspects can be used to further boost your survivability!
Pushing Gear
Vampiric Powers
Resilience is a great tool for survivability since it increases your Damage Reduction, the more damage you take. With nearly 50% DR gained when close to death.
Pushing Vampire Powers
Gameplay
The Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul helps to make sure monsters are fully CC'ed once you come out of Blood Mist by auto-casting Corpse Tendrils for you.
Always prioritize making room between you and the monsters instead of maximizing Close status for damage, when engaging particularly dangerous monsters.
Initiate every fight with Decrepify before anything else to minimize Cooldown lengths and the monster's damage output.
The Lidless Wall setup makes you more efficient in farming content where having a near permanent Barrier, Critical Strike Chance, and Damage Reduction excels!
Gear
The Lidless Wall offers a very special type of gameplay loop, where you are physically running through content as fast as physically possible to keep 100% uptime of Bone Storm. This requires you to be perpetually running forward and assuming your damage left behind is enough to kill the monsters. This is very powerful for speed leveling for Experience, speed-running Dungeons for Glyph XP, and farming for Legendaries and Uniques since you don't need to pick those up.
Legendary and Unique items are transferred to your stash if they're not picked up. Make sure to empty the delivered stash often, as there's a maximum number of items it can hold for you.
Speed Farming Gear
Vampiric Powers
Hemomancy helps to add an additional wave clearing proc every 4 seconds that clears trash faster so you have more Corpses at your disposal, quicker.
Speed Farming Vampire Powers
Gameplay
For this play style to work, the player must be continuously engaging the next enemy pack and successfully Lucky Hitting to create a new Bone Storm on top of those monsters.
As long as any Bone Storms remain on the ground or the Skill is active on the player, you can create a new Storm. You continue to generate Barrier from Aspect of Shielding Storm when it deals damage to an enemy, you keep the Critical Strike Chance and Damage Reduction as if the Skill was active on the character. This keeps us tanky as we mad-dash through content.
The enemy must be outside the range of an existing Storm to spawn a new one. Leaving behind DoT from Corpse Explosion is an easy way to accomplish this as well as engaging new enemies with Blood Mist if your personal Storm has ended.
The reason this is play style is distinctly different from Speedfarming, is because you normally cannot afford to go back to loot the items that drop from prior enemy packs. It's only when the Dungeon you're running tends to backtrack or loop that you can take the time to pick up items. Otherwise, the loss of efficiency nullifies the benefit of the play style.
You can also employ this gameplay loop for Helltides more effectively, since you often return to previous event locations to re-farm them. Pick up any Cinders and desired items left behind.
For a "normal" Speedfarming experience, use the increased damage area to double back on packs after leaving them inside a Storm and Explosion area. They are most likely close to death or already dead and you're able to pick up your loot while continuing to move onto the next area.
The Boss Killer setup for the Infinimist Necromancer adds on additional Critical Strike Chance to drastically increase the proc damage from X'Fal's Corroded Signet.
Gear
X'Fal's Corroded Signet has a massive Shadow Damage proc when trigger from our many Shadow DoTs that can Critically Strike and benefits from all of our multipliers and modifiers on gear. To maximize the damage output, remove Howl from Below to add on Aspect of Grasping Veins. Not only does this brings your Crit chance into the lows 80's normally, but also carries a huge multiplier when you successfully crit.
Tibault's Will adds a large multiplier whenever you Evade with Metamorphosis . Explosive Mist helps to automate Corpse Explosion.
Take note that Aspect of Decay returns to the build along with Blood-soaked to further increase our damage output.
The chance to apply Slow on your gloves helps to Stagger bosses more quickly, and is an easily overlooked optimization for the build.
Boss Killer Gear
Skill Tree
The addition of Blight adds a considerable boost to all of our damage. Much more importantly, it adds another high Lucky Hit Chance proc for X'Fal's Corroded Signet. At this point, you fully divest from Corpse Explosion to get the points you need.
The gameplay loop requires you to rely on Hewed Flesh procs from our overlapping DoT effects, for corpses.
Boss Killer Skill Tree
Vampiric Powers
The innovation that really brings this build online for boss killing is actually in the interaction between "Stagger" and Terror. When a boss becomes "Staggered" it gains every Crowd Control effect in the game. This applies the "Feared" status to them which triggers our Vampiric Power to cause every proc to automatically Crit! The damage output when you Stagger the Boss is truly a spectacle worth seeing!
Boss Killer Vampire Powers
The Abattoir of Zir Variant seeks to tackle the challenge of the new Endgame content in Season 2. This requires sacrificing mobility in pursuit of higher survivability and damage. The changes to the build go even further than the Level 100 NM Dungeon Push variant, since the challenges faced continue to increase as you reach higher tiers.
Gear
This Variant assumes you have leveled all of the required Glyphs for the Paragon Board and have the gear to support its play style!
Stacking Damage Reduction and Total Armor on as many gear pieces as possible is required to begin farming in the Abattoir. You must reach ~13,700 Armor with your Paragon and Gear to be able to use Tibault's Will instead of Legendary Pants with Disobedience to cap your Physical Damage reduction at Tier 25.
Prioritize reaching 70% Resistance cap for Elemental damage with a combination of Gems in your jewelry and affixes on your Boots/Helmet. You can easily accomplish this with Skeletal Warriors - Defenders sacrifice instead, so that gearing is easier.
Remember that Elixirs and Incenses are at your disposal to close any gaps in survivability your gear may leave. Use Iron Skin Elixir for Armor or Elixir of Magic Resist for Resistances. These are effectively interchangable since each one determine when Gems you can socket into Jewelry.
Abattoir of Zir Gear
Skill Tree
The addition of Blight adds a considerable boost to all of our damage. Much more importantly, it adds another high Lucky Hit Chance proc for X'Fal's Corroded Signet. At this point, you fully divest from Corpse Explosion to get the points you need.
The gameplay loop requires you to rely on Hewed Flesh procs from our overlapping DoT effects, for corpses.
Boss Killer Skill Tree
Paragon Board
← Scroll to Level →
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Vampiric Powers
Mainboard Resilience as an additional tool for stacking Damage Reduction. This is exceptionally helpful in situtations where you've taken damage and re-cast Bone Storm to begin stacking Barrier again. Giving you more time to safely heal, mid combat. While Prey on the Weak's damage modifier is up for debate, it still applies Vulnerable status for 20 seconds when applied via Metamorphosis , which is a strong enough reason to include it.
Abattoir of Zir Vampire Powers
The Black River Variant prioritizes Corpse Explosion damage while maintaining fast Cooldown Reduction for all of the Infinimist Necromancer's core Skills!
Gear
By adding Black River to your kit, you are able to generate significantly higher DoT via Corpse Explosion, while sacrificing more of your burst damage potential from Critical Strike sources. The benefit being the vast number of multipliers available for Corpse Explosion damage. Interestingly this requires you to remove Aspect of Explosive Mist and have the lowest roll possible on Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul Unique Aspect to give your engine enough time to generate Corpses for you to explode. REMEMBER! This weapon does NOT add any bonus damage unless you successfully explode >1 Corpse. So prioritizing Corpse generation just skyrocketed to an all-time high!
You also spend more time outside of Mist form, so we reprioritize for Lucky Hit with Barrier on our Amulet and Damage Reduction on our Off-Hand.
Black River Gear
Paragon Board
← Scroll to Level →
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
To maximize our damage output, swap Essence back to Imbiber and swap Territorial to Exhumation.
Vampiric Powers
Hemomancy to generate Corpses by killing off large packs of trash minions earlier in combat.
Black River Gear
Gameplay
The gameplay loop looks pretty similar to the base build's loop but you must make sure to generate more than one Corpse before using Corpse Explosion or before your ring casts it for you. So rather than permanently spamming the skill every chance you get, put a 1-2 second pause in between casts to get the minimum bonus from the weapon's Unique Aspect.
The Mendeln Summoner + Infinimist Endgame Variant seeks to maximize the damage potential of Ring of Mendeln by scaling the Necromancer's damage, while slightly reducing your AoE Shadow Damage. The payoff adds a lot of Single Target damage, while needing to invest slightly into the survivability of your new minions.
Gear
This Variant assumes you have leveled all of the required Glyphs for the Paragon Board and have the gear to support its play style!
The biggest departure for this Variant is addition of your Skeletal Minions. Since the Ring of Mendeln uses the Necromancer's damage and NOT your minion's, you're able to readjust how you scale the build's damage and functionality. This pairs incredibly well with X'Fal's Corroded Signet to add on even more consistent proc damage. You can swap X'Fal's for Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul to make the management of your Skeletons much easier.
With the changes since Patch 1.1.1, your Minions are able to survive high Nightmare Dungeon damage, including oppressive AoE damage, with much less investment. You can reroute a lot of those survivability stats back into the Necromancer.
Mendeln Summoner + Infinimist Gear
Skill Tree
You need to move some points out of Darkness Skill damage scaling and survivability to make room for the investment into your minions. We offset the loss with some important adjustments.
You no longer rely on Corpse Explosion for damage at all, to make room for the Blight skill on your bar.
Blight becomes your primary proccing skill for both rings since it deals instantaneous damage AND damage over time with every use. Your Blight pools stack and each apply their own lucky hit and damage.
Skeletal Mage Mastery and Skeletal Warrior Mastery help to keep your Minions alive, and we reallocate the skill points from Stand Alone + Memento Mori since they don't provide any benefit.
Reallocating points from Terror into Death's Embrace brings more survivability while dropping a nearly useless damage scaler.
Mendeln Summoner + Infinimist Skill Tree
Paragon Board
← Scroll to Level →
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Gameplay
The gameplay loop looks pretty similar to the base build's loop but gain awareness for the key differences below:
Spam Blight whenever you have Essence, and always make sure that there is at least one Blight pool under your target to benefit from the 15% damage multiplier.
Manually cast Reap to gain Damage Reduction and a Corpse, Corpse Tendrils to apply vulnerable and group up monsters, and Raise Skeleton as a Corpse consumption tool. This is your primary source of Essence generation, and maintains the majority of your buffs during fights.
Make sure to re-summon and heal your Minions with Raise Skeleton activations throughout a fight as well.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successful in this game mode:
Infinimist Necromancer is the epitome of Hardcore Viable right out of the box. For Speed Farming it's ok to prioritize additional Damage Affixes on gear like the Chest Armor and Rings, but for Nightmare Dungeon Pushing, always prioritize Armor, Maximum Life and Damage Reduction.
Using a Shield allows you to add even more Maximum Life with up to three additional Damage Reduction affixes. This requires you to move Blood-soaked Aspect from the Focus slot to Gloves instead of using Howl from Below. Because you also lose two sources of Lucky Hit Chance and Cooldown Reduction, it naturally slows down your kill speed and ability to speed farm.
Use Golems - Blood Sacrifice for even more Maximum Life, if needed.
Coming out of Blood Mist in a safe location becomes an art on this build. It's more important than ever since you need to spam Decrepify and Corpse Tendrils in between Mists to maintain your CC and Cooldown Reduction. While people like to think you're "Permanently Immune", that is woefully incorrect.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Learn about the important build scaling mechanics and stat weights.
Damage
Defense
Critical Strike Chance: Remember that the base 20% damage proc of Shadowblight can Crit AND Offensive Aspect of Decay eventually increases those procs to deal extra damage.
Vulnerable: We get Vulnerable procs from the Corpse Tendrils. You're able to near-permanently spam this while fighting and also apply it to Bosses, so it becomes an incredibly valuable status.
Crowd Controls: Since all of our damage occurs in an area, pixel pulls and grouping of monsters becomes a direct damage scaler. This also allows us to benefit from every "Damage to CC'ed Enemies" affix in the game when Decrepify, Corpse Tendrils or Crippling Darkness is applied.
Attack Speed: Increased Attack Speed increases the rate we can spam our skills. It decreases the length of time before Tendrils is on the field and how quickly we enter into Blood Mist. It's a high value stat.
Shadow Damage Over Time: Became much more important in Patch 1.2, since it multiplies your Shadowblight damage directly. This allows you to focus on your DoT damage and your direct damage sources.
Don't Get Hit: Make use of your range advantage and CC enemies from afar before re-engaging. By stutter stepping on the edge of your range, you can avoid most projectiles that come your way.
Armor: A great deal of defenses comes from your Armor. The Aspect of Disobedience can help to increase the effectiveness of it. Make sure to get as much Armor on your gear possible.
Unstoppable/Immune: Infinite Blood Mist means infinite Immunity. Cooldown Reduction helps to "scale" this defensive mechanic by making it available more often.
Damage Reduction from Shadow Damage over Time-Affected Enemies: This is the longest named defensive stat in the game, but it's incredibly valuable to us as another source of Damage Reduction we can always rely on.
Resistances: Prioritize reaching the 70% cap in World Tier 4 at a minimum for most content. Use Max Resistance effects from Elixirs and gear to reach 85% when farming certain bosses and endgame content.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense. Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities
Choosing the right stats for your gear can make or break your build. You won't always find perfect stats (also known as affixes) though and you may need to make a tough choice between two good pieces of equipment. Use the following list of priorities to compare your gear and pick the best.
Helm: Explosive Mist
% Total Armor
Maximum Life
Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier
Cooldown Reduction
Intelligence
All Stats
Chest Armor: Shielding Storm
Maximum Life
% Total Armor
Damage Reduction from Shadow Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies
Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
Damage Reduction
Gloves: Howl from Below Alternative:Aspect of Grasping Veins
Damage Reduction from Shadow Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies
Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
Damage Reduction
+xx Ranks to Corpse Explosion
Boots: Ghostwalker Mobility Aspect Alternative:Greaves of the Empty Tomb Implicit: + to Max Evade Charges
Movement Speed
+xx Ranks to Corpse Tendrils
Dodge Chance
xx Resistance (Needed To Cap Res)
Intelligence
All Stats
Amulet: Blighted
Movement Speed
Cooldown Reduction
+xx Ranks to Gloom Passive
Lucky Hit Chance With Barrier
% Total Armor
Damage Reduction from Shadow Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies
Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
Damage Reduction
Ring1: Decay Alternative:Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul
Lucky Hit Chance
Critical Strike Chance
Damage to Close Enemies
Maximum Life
Shadow Damage
Ring2: X'Fal's Corroded Signet
Unique Aspect Damage
Lucky Hit Chance
Cooldown Reduction
All Stats
Damage Over Time
Main Hand: Ultimate Shadow (Wand)
Damage to Close Enemies
Intelligence
All Stats
Damage to Affected by Shadow Damage Over Time Enemies
Vulnerable Damage
Off-Hand: Blood-soaked (Focus)
Lucky Hit Chance
Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier
Cooldown Reduction
Critical Strike Chance
Intelligence
All Stats
Put in the following Gems into your gear:
Helmet / Body Armor / Pants: Royal Ruby
Weapon / Off-Hand: Royal Amethyst OR Royal Emerald with X'Fal's Corroded Signet
Jewelry: 1 of each Gem Royal Ruby, Royal Topaz, Royal Emerald.
This build benefits the most from the following consumables:
Crafted Elixirs: Heady Precision Elixir or Elixir of Magic Resist
Dropped Elixirs: Elixir of Combatant Fortune for high Lucky Hit Chance bonus.
Type I Incense: Sage's Whisper
Type II Incense: Soothing Spices to cap Resistances or Reddamine Buzz for Maximum Life.
Type III Incense: Chorus of War
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
Why use Critical Strike Chance and Damage?
Shadowblight's damage component can Critically Strike and is a HUGE amount of our continuous damage output. Bone Storm also really loves Critically Striking for its primary damage component.
Mechanics
Learn about the mechanical details which makes the build tick.
Abhorrent Decrepify
While Abhorrent Decrepify is applied to a target, any and all damage you deal has a 15% Lucky Hit Chance (Multiplied by your Skill Lucky Hit and/or Bonus Lucky Hit) to reduce ALL skill's cooldowns by 1 second.
We can have 10 instances of AoE damage per tick (2 ticks per second) applying to every target affected by Abhorrent Decrepify simultaneously, meaning all Cooldowns can be completely reset every fight.
Corpse Explosion
Shadow Damage is calculated by dividing the total damage, ticks per second (2) then by seconds. Rank 1 deals 9.16% Weapon Damage per tick, for 12 ticks, to each target within its radius for each instance of Corpse Explosion on the ground.
If 5 Corpses are exploded on the same spot, each instance deals its damage every tick to every enemy. You can stack a total of 10 instances on any given target.
Damage over Time (DoTs) cannot Critically Strike, nor can they Overpower. BUT the proc of Shadowblight is not a DoT and can Crit.
Video Guide
Season 2 Update! Boss Killer Variant added
Summary
The Infinimist Necromancer quickly rose in popularity because it does the two things that Necros are typically bad at... surviving and moving fast. As innovations came, it became obvious that the build had potential for Tier 100 Nightmare clears and efficient Speed Farming. In Bocca al Lupo!
