Disclaimer: Right now this build is outclassed by the Legacy of Dreams Poison Scythe Necromancer.
Introduction
Welcome to the Grace of Inarius Grim 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. Come see how we can utilize a classic set to be one of top performing builds in the game!
Simple Rotation ✔
Great AOE Damage ✔
No Cooldown Required ✔
We Have A Bone Hurricane! ✔
❌ Lacks Speed
❌ Positioning Is Important
❌ Low Single Target Damage
❌ Simulacrum's Do Our Damage
Core Setup
Items
This build is based around the Grace of Inarius set as well as many core items that allow us to deliver massive damage with our Grim Scythe.
- Grace of Inarius grants our Bone Armor 1000% damage as well as granting our character 3% damage reduction per enemy hit. The 6 piece bonus which makes enemies take 10,000% increased damage from the Necromancer.
- Haunted Visions to allow Simulacrum to cast Grim Scythe.
- Nayr's Black Death for up to 500% increased damage to our Poison Grim Scythe.
- Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang for 200% damage and to apply Curses for Dayntee's Binding.
- 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, for a total of 960% damage increase per enemy hit by your Grim Scythe.
Global Stat Priorities
Our offensive priorities are: Area Damage > Poison Damage > Critical Hit Chance/Critical Hit 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.
Item Stat Priorities
| SLOT | ITEM | STAT PRIORITY |
| Main-Hand | Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang Nayr's Black Death (Cubed) Reilena's Shadowhook (Cubed) | 1. Damage Range 2. Socket Ramaladni's Gift 3. Area Damage 4. Damage % 5. Attack Speed |
| Off-Hand | Leger's Disdain | 1. Area Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Grim Scythe 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. Area Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Attack Speed |
| Shoulders | Inarius's Martyrdom | 1. Area Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Armor 4. Vitality |
| Chest | Inarius's Conviction | 1. Intelligence 2. Sockets Flawless Royal Ruby 3. Armor 4. Reduced Elite Damage |
| Pants | Inarius's Reticence Depth Diggers | 1. Grim Scythe Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Armor 4. Sockets Flawless Royal Ruby |
| Boots | Inarius's Perseverance Steuart's Greaves Illusory Boots (A2 Bounties) (Cubed) | 1. Intelligence 2. Vitality 3. All Resistance 4. Armor |
| Ring 1 | Krysbin's Sentence Ring of Royal Grandeur (A1 Bounties) (Cubed) | 1. Socket 2. Area Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Attack Speed |
| Ring 2 | Convention of Elements | 1. Socket 2. Area Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance |
| Bracers | Nemesis Bracers Warzechian Armguards (Cubed) | 1. Poison Damage 2. Critical Hit Chance 3. Intelligence 4. Armor |
| Amulet | Haunted Visions Squirt's Necklace (Cubed) | 1. Socket 2. Poison Damage 3. Critical Hit Damage 4. Critical Hit Chance |
| Belt | Dayntee's Binding | 1. Grim Scythe Damage 2. Intelligence 3. Armor 4. Vitality |
Gems
- Simplicity's Strength provides a colossal 100% increased damage and 4% life steal on our primary attacks, making it mandatory for all variants of the build.
- Bane of the Trapped is core for this build since it provides 60% increased damage.
- Bane of the Stricken will be taken for solo pushing to kill the Rift Guardian.
- Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard can be used in group play to protect your Squirt's Necklace.
- Boon of the Hoarder is used for the T16/Speed build as it grants us a 30% movement speed bonus.
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 sims that duplicate our swings thanks to Haunted Visions.
- Bone Armor Dislocation provides 30% damage reduction and activates our Krysbin's Sentence on our Poison Convention of Elements cycle.
- The last 3 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 Siphon Blood Power Shift.
- Blood Rush Metabolism can be taken for mobility in T16.
- Frailty Early Grave is also often utilized in group play if you're the only Necromancer in the party.
Passives
- Spreading Malediction is a gigantic damage increase.
- Swift Harvesting provides a nice attack speed boost.
- Stand Alone gives a significant armor boost
- Final Service allows us to cheat death.
- For speed content you can drop Final Service for Fueled by Death.
- Overwhelming Essence gives us more value out of our Reilena's Shadowhook.
Paragon Points
| Core | Offensive | Defensive | Utility |
| 1. Movement Speed | 1. Critical Hit Damage | 1. Armor | 1. Area Damage |
| 2. Vitality (to 750k health) | 2. Critical Hit Chance | 2. Life % | 2. Life per Hit |
| 3. Intelligence | 3. Attack Speed | 3. All Resistance | 3. Resource Cost Reduction |
| 4. Cooldown Reduction | 4. Life Regeneration | 4. Pickup Radius |
¹ You do not need Maximum Essence because Simulacrum ignores maximum essence and essence generated.
Follower
The Templar is recommended for this build due to his melee range and aggressive AI. When there's a monster in range he will always stand still and fight it, making him very predictable and easy to play around.
For the Skills pick Heal, Loyalty, Onslaught and Inspire. All the alternatives, except Intimidate, include AoE hard-CC, which makes mobs harder to manipulate.
Follower's damage is completely irrelevant, so we stack Attack Speed for more on-hit procs and Cooldown Reduction for more Heals. The Items are:
- Enchanting Favor to make follower immortal
- Oculus Ring for 85% multiplicative damage boost
- Unity for 50% damage reduction
- Hellfire Ring for 0.9% XP boost
- The Ess of Johan to pull mobs together
- Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker for the Attack Speed slow
- Freeze of Deflection for extra survivability from the freezes.
Gameplay
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 the group. When playing in a group as the trash clearer, try to position your Simulacrum in the center of the Barbarian's Ground Stomp for maximum damage. Finally, your Simulacrum can die from things 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. One final option is to take Blood Rush Potency for extra armor.
Variants
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, cast Bone Spear Blighted Marrow once every 15 seconds, and finally use Bone Armor Dislocation when encountering elites to activate Krysbin's Sentence before cutting them down.
Setups
The changes to turn this build into a "speed" build are very common across many classes and can be altered in some ways depending on play style, however this build is about as fast as we can make it as is.
Concept
This is the standard set up we covered above. Bane of the Stricken is needed as the third gem to kill the Rift Guardian, and we will use Illusory Boots as our way of moving between enemies and preventing getting stuck. 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. Try to save a pylon for the boss so you can use Nemesis Bracers to proc Area Damage.
Setups
You can drop a Poison skill for Frailty Early Grave if you have the damage to kill enemies without the extra Nayr's stack and want to play for a conduit.
Concept
In groups we can be far more offensive with our itemization because we have supports keeping us alive. The primary change here is grabbing Squirt's Necklace instead of Ring of Royal Grandeur for 100% increased damage. We move our Depth Digger's to the cube and finally we'll take Ancient Parthan Defenders instead of Nemesis Bracers so we can keep our Squirt's Necklace buff up easier.
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/stomping and the zMonk's healing. Just move to the zBarb's Ground Stomp and cut everything down. If there is an Oculus Ring nearby, stand in it for 85% increased damage.
Setups
Similar to the solo version, using as many Poison skills as possible to get the most from our Nayr's Black Death, however some groups may as you to drop a Poison skill for Frailty Early Grave to buff conduit pylons and help the Rift Guardian Killer (RGK) kill the boss easier.
Video Guide
Mechanics
Simulacrum
- Will move with you after you've traveled a short distance. Use this to position them out of gigantic attacks like Grotesque explosions. If you're using Blood Rush the sims will follow you to your location.
- Duplicated attacks proc Area Damage.
- Do not benefit from Pet damage.
Nayr's Black Death
- Will give you a 100% damage bonus for each Poison skill you've used in the last 15 seconds. Each skill has its own timer, meaning you have to hit each Poison skill once every 15 seconds to keep maximum stacks.
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 sims 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.
Summary
- 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 the Inarius Set.
Town Is Lava!
-Raxxanterax
