Infinimist Necromancer Endgame Guide

Last Updated: December 4th 2023

Season 2 - Blood

Share on Social

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!

This build is surprisingly easy to respec into if you're coming from the Sever Necromancer Leveling Guide or Sever Necromancer Endgame Guide. It uses many of the same Aspects, including powerful options from the Codex of Power!

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

  1. Anticipation (Minor) - Increases Bone Storm damage and up time.
  2. Prey on the Weak (Minor) - Increases Vulnerable damage and applies that status when an enemy has a Vampiric Curse.
  3. Domination (Minor) - Grants another damage multiplier.
  4. Flowing Veins (Major) - Major DoT multiplier.
  5. Metamorphosis (Major) - Grants Unstoppable when you Evade, deals damage and applies Vampiric Curse to enermies in your path.
Standard Vampire Powers

Alternative Vampiric Powers

  1. Terror is swapped to when fighting Bosses to gain the 100% Critical Strike Chance once they are staggered.
  2. 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

  1. Darkness
  2. Scourge
  3. Territorial
  4. Imbiber
  5. Control
  6. Essence AFTER you find X'Fal's Corroded Signet

Level 21

  1. Darkness
  2. Scourge
  3. Territorial
  4. Control
  5. Imbiber
  6. 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:

  1. Unlock the following Aspects from Dungeons:
  2. 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 Storm into a massive AoE Darkness skill that quickly applies tons of Shadow DoTs.
  3. 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.
  4. 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!

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.

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
    1. % Total Armor
    2. Maximum Life
    3. Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier
    4. Cooldown Reduction
    5. Intelligence
    6. All Stats
  • Chest Armor: Shielding Storm
    1. Maximum Life
    2. % Total Armor
    3. Damage Reduction from Shadow
      Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies
    4. Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
    5. Damage Reduction
  • Gloves: Howl from Below
    Alternative: Aspect of Grasping Veins
    1. Lucky Hit Chance
    2. Critical Strike Chance
    3. Attack Speed
    4. Lucky Hit: Chance to Apply Slow
    5. Shadow Damage over Time
    6. Intelligence
  • Pants: Disobedience
    Implicit: Potion Grants Barrier
    1. Maximum Life
    1. % Total Armor
    2. Damage Reduction from Shadow
      Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies
    3. Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
    4. Damage Reduction
    5. +xx Ranks to Corpse Explosion
  • Boots: Ghostwalker Mobility Aspect
    Alternative: Greaves of the Empty Tomb
    Implicit: + to Max Evade Charges
    1. Movement Speed
    2. +xx Ranks to Corpse Tendrils
    3. Dodge Chance
    4. xx Resistance (Needed To Cap Res)
    5. Intelligence
    6. All Stats
  • Amulet: Blighted
    1. Movement Speed
    2. Cooldown Reduction
    3. +xx Ranks to Gloom Passive
    4. Lucky Hit Chance With Barrier
    5. % Total Armor
    6. Damage Reduction from Shadow
      Damage Over Time-Affected Enemies
    7. Damage Reduction from Close Enemies
    8. Damage Reduction
  • Ring 1: Decay
    Alternative: Ring of the Sacrilegious Soul
    1. Lucky Hit Chance
    2. Critical Strike Chance
    3. Damage to Close Enemies
    4. Maximum Life
    5. Shadow Damage
  • Ring 2: X'Fal's Corroded Signet
    1. Unique Aspect Damage
    2. Lucky Hit Chance
    3. Cooldown Reduction
    4. All Stats
    5. Damage Over Time
  • Main Hand: Ultimate Shadow (Wand)
    1. Damage to Close Enemies
    2. Intelligence
    3. All Stats
    4. Damage to Affected by Shadow
      Damage Over Time Enemies
    5. Vulnerable Damage
  • Off-Hand: Blood-soaked (Focus)
    1. Lucky Hit Chance
    2. Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier
    3. Cooldown Reduction
    4. Critical Strike Chance
    5. Intelligence
    6. 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?

Mechanics

Learn about the mechanical details which makes the build tick.

Abhorrent Decrepify

Corpse Explosion

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!

Hungry for more Guides?

Credits

Written by MacroBioBoi

Reviewed by Echohack

© 2023 Maxroll Media Group, All Rights Reserved