Looking for a build that's so low-maintenance, it practically plays itself? Meet the Minion Necromancer - your personal army of undead minions will pamper you like royalty, defending you from danger and carrying you through the deepest, darkest levels of The Pit. Say goodbye to the days of your undead friends ditching you mid-battle because now your Minions are so tanky, they start worrying about you dieing all the time instead.
This Necromancer build is a pure summoner which relies almost exclusively on the damage of its Minions, fulfilling the ultimate undead army commander fantasy.
Your undead army will consist of Skeletal Warriors - Reapers, Skeletal Mages - Shadow and Golems - Blood, while your Golems - Blood will be the star of the show.
Army of the Dead grants you the ability to instantly raise all your undead friends and provides an incredible damage boost during its duration.
This build guide assumesyou have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Minion Necromancer Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Necromancer playstyle, check out all of our Necromancer Guides.
DifficultyVery Easy
SpeedfarmingWeak
PitExcellent
BossingExcellent
DefenseStrong
Season 5 - Infernal Hordes
In Season 5, the Season Theme brings your hero back into the bowels of Hell, in the Infernal Hordes endgame activity. You're first introduced to Hellbreach Dungeons, miniature Horde-like micro-dungeons that teach you the new mechanics and rewards systems. As you slay more powerful Demons and Bosses, you're rewarded with the new Reputation progression that comes with amazing rewards. These include Crafting Materials, unlocking Season's Journey tiers and even the coveted Resplendent Spark, needed to craft a mythic unique.
Follow the seasonal questline until you unlock the Reputation system, check which rewards suit you most and then follow your regular leveling path. To learn more, check out our full Season 5 guide for more information.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
- Reap and Decompose are not part of the build but the Skill Tree requires you to invest 2 Skill Points in the Basic Skill section to further advance down the Skill Tree.
- Raise Skeleton consumes a Corpse to always maintain your maximum number of Minions. While you are at the maximum number of Minions, use this skill to buff your minions' damage by 30% for 8 seconds and instantly heal them for 40% of their Maximum Life. After acquiring Blood Getter's the damages bonus increases to a whopping 51%. This also applies Flesh-eater.
- Golem not only provides powerful on use abilities depending on which type of Golem you are using, but also makes you Unstoppable.
- Decrepify applies a powerful CC effect that also causes Lucky Hit procs to reduce Cooldowns on your Skills, which can also be triggered by your Minions. Prioritize casting this on any new monsters, or when it runs out. This also greatly reduces incoming damage and makes kiting monsters easier.
- Corpse Tendrils is the best CC option in the game. This does not consume a Corpse and should therefore be used before you consume the last available corpse.
- Army of the Dead instantly summons all of your Minions except your Golem while also providing a huge damage boost as soon as you are using Unyielding Commander's on your gear.
- Hellbent Commander boosts the offensive power of all of your Minions tremendously.
- Use Corpse Tendrils often to CC all Monsters caught in it.
- Hewed Flesh gives you an avenue for generating enough Corpses to sate all of your Corpse consumption needs while Necrotic Carapace generates Fortify in the meantime.
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 Minion Necromancer chooses to utilize Skeletal Warriors - Reapers for more Corpse generation, Skeletal Mages - Shadow and Golems - Blood as your main source of damage.
IMPORTANT:
Your Minions gain 100% of any Stats, Buffs or bonuses the Necromancer gains for itself and 100% of Minion specific stats.
Learn more details about this class specialization in our full Book of the Dead Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Decrepify has the chance to trigger off of every damage instance including all of your overlapping Damage over Time (DoT) effects. It even triggers from monsters attacking you and the Thorns damage you may have.
Grim Harvest fuels the low Essence cost of Decrepify. Grim Harvest refills your Essence when you consume a Corpse via Raise Skeleton which means you never have to worry about your Essence generation.
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!
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
You need to level up your Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with the 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.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Golem
- Corporeal
- Exploit
- NOTE: The three Glyphs above need to be leveled to 15 to be functional and are your priority while progressing in WT3 and WT4.
- Essence
- Deadraiser
- Amplify
- Control
Level 21
- Golem
- Essence
- Exploit
- Control
- Deadraiser
- Corporeal
- Amplify
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 Minion Necromancer you don't have all the tools available to achieve the Best in Slot versions. In this section, we guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Many of your Skill choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. While everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the progression might be different for everyone!
- Unlock the following Aspects in your Codex of Power:
- Reanimation in Aldurwood (Scosglen)
- Grasping Veins in Corrupted Grotto (Kehjistan)
- Unyielding Commander's in Faceless Shrine (Hawezar)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Frenzied Dead - Gamble Offhand.
- Occult Dominion - Gamble Boots.
- Blood Getter's - Gamble Boots.
- Hardened Bones - Gamble Pants.
- Aphotic - Gamble Boots.
- Metamorphosis - Gamble Boots.
- If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Mythic Uniques, they're useful for the build:
- Harlequin Crest - Check the "Endgame & The Pit" variant for how to fit this item into the build.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
Starter
Leveling
to 100
Endgame
& The Pit
Speedfarming
Once you have completed the Leveling Guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup you can farm the Legendary Aspects you need for the next progression point.
Gear
- Focus on acquiring as much Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance and Intelligence stats on your gear as possible, while constantly upgrading your weapon for the highest DPS weapon you can find.
- Disobedience provides necessary Armor throughout the early stages of the leveling experience.
Skills
- You will be able to set and forget your Skill Tree for the Minion Necromancer at Level 50, since there are no changes going forward.
- Necrotic Carapace allows you to gain Fortify by killing Monsters.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional drop-only Legendary Aspects are used to fill all slots.
Gear
- You now have access to Tempers, which increase your build's overall strength tremendously by acquiring accesss to more survivability, utility and damage.
- Blood Getter's now provides a 51% damage multiplier to your Minions during the Skeletal Priest buff and requires you to keep it active constantly from now on throughout every fight.
- Hardened Bones makes you and your Minions a lot tankier than before.
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency.
Gear
- As you continue your character's journey, you now start to focus on acquiring the correct Greater Affixes and correct Masterworking crits on your gear.
- Focus on reaching all necessary caps and breakpoints detailled in the "Stat Priorities" section below.
Note: There are no changes in optimal Skills, Paragon, and Gameplay between the "Leveling to 100" and the "Endgame & The Pit" variants for the Minion Necromancer.
Gear with Mythic Uniques
- If you are lucky enough to acquire a Harlequin Crest, you drop Hardened Bones.
Note: There are no changes in optimal Skills, Paragon, and Gameplay between the "Leveling to 100" and the "Ubers" variants for the Minion Necromancer.
The Minion Necromancer already permanently moves a maximum Movement Speed and therefore only has minor changes in the Speedfarming variant.
Gear
- Change the Royal Ruby over to Royal Topaz to maximize damage in trivial content.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successfully navigate the Minion Necromancer through potentially dangerous situations:
- Find a Shield with a Greater Affix Damage Reduction roll, Masterwork crit that roll three times for up to 18.5% additional Damage Reduction and place Hulking on it.
- Swap Golems - Blood Upgrade 2 for Golems - Blood Upgrade 1 to maximize your tankiness.
Check out our dedicated in-depth guide to learn more survival tricks in Hardcore.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Learn about the important build scaling mechanics and stat weights.
Damage
Defense
- Critical Strike Chance: Stacking Critical Strike Chance helps your Minions deal a lot more damage. A critical strike have a 50% damage multiplier baked into them. Getting more than 100% total Critical Strike Chance does not benefit this build.
- Vulnerable: Minions gain 100% of your Vulnerable damage bonus. This makes it an incredibly important stat for your damage sources.
- Crowd Control: Decrepify helps you out with Crowd Control by giving you a big slow and a chance to stun.
- Attack Speed: Increased Attack Speed increases the rate you cast all of your Skills. It decreases the length of time before Tendrils is on the field and how quickly you can cycle through your Skill Rotation. It's a high value stat and a direct boost to damage through Cult Leader.
- Don't Get Hit: Make use of your range advantage and hit enemies from afar whenever you are in dangerous situations. 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. Disobedience will help you reach the cap of 9230 in the early part of your progression.
- Resistances: As an Intelligence main stat class, the Necromancer naturally accrues a lot of Elemental Resistances. Make sure to reach the 70% cap in World Tier 4, and use Maximum Resistance buffs against particularly deadly enemies and content.
- Unstoppable: You only have Golem to gain Unstoppable. Cooldown Reduction helps making this defensive mechanic available more often.
- Fortify: Necrotic Carapace allows you to gain Fortify through generating Corpses with Hewed Flesh and by killing Monsters.
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
To enable your build to perform optimally, you need to reach certain Stat "Breakpoints". Some examples are reaching 100% to Critically Strike, or or 100% Attack Speed. Since there are many values of these stats on different pieces of gear, read the checklist below and refer to the recommended Tempered Affixes and Masterwork Crits ↑. Desirable Greater Affixes will always be the top three recommended Affixes.
Damage Scaling
- 100% Critical Strike Chance during Grasping Veins + Inspiring Leader (18%).
- > 40% Attack Speed on gear
- > 40% Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Defense and Utility
- > 25,000 Maximum Life
- Armor Capped: 9,230
- Resistance Capped: 70%
- 100% Corpse Tendrils Size
- 100% Curse Size
- 40% additional Movement Speed
- Helm: Hardened Bones
- Cooldown Reduction ↑
- Maximum Life ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Corpse Tendrils Size
- Chest: Occult Dominion
- Ranks to Golem Mastery ↑
- Essence per Second ↑
- Maximum Life
- Intelligence
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Corpse Tendrils Size
- Gloves: Reanimation
- Ranks to Skeletal Mage Mastery
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Attack Speed ↑
- Intelligence
- Critical Strike Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️ Curse Size
- Pants: Blood Getter's
- Ranks to Skeletal Mage Mastery
- Armor
- Intelligence ↑
- Maximum Life ↑
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Curse Size
- Boots: Aphotic
- Movement Speed ↑
- Intelligence ↑
- Maximum Life
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️ Movement Speed
- ⚒️ Chance to Freeze for 2 Seconds
- Weapon: Unyielding Commander's (2h-Scythe)
- Intelligence
- Maximum Life
- Critical Strike Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
- ⚒️ Chance for Skeletal Mage Attack to Cast Twice ↑
- ⚒️ Critical Strike Damage
- Amulet: Great Feast
- Ranks to Hellbent Commander ↑
- Critical Strike Chance
- Cooldown Reduction
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️ Critical Strike Damage
- Ring 1: Grasping Veins
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Attack Speed
- Intelligence
- Critical Strike Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Golem Active Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️ Critical Strike Damage
- Ring 2: Frenzied Dead
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Attack Speed
- Intelligence
- Critical Strike Damage
- Vulnerable Damage
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️ Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️ Critical Strike Damage
This build benefits the most from the following consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Precision, Elixir of Fortitude
- Type I Incense: Sage's Whisper
- Type II Incense: Soothing Spices to cap Resistances, Reddamine Buzz
- 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.
Can Minions clear Endgame Content?
What Stats improve Minions?
Why no Ring of Mendeln?
Video Guide
Summary
- Lead your undead army on the frontlines to make the most of Hellbent Commander.
- Decrepify is vital for your build. Use it on as many enemies as possible to lower the cooldowns of all your other essential Skills. Your Minions proc this too!
- Use Corpse Tendrils every time it comes off cooldown to CC all Monsters caught in it and create time to breath.
- Happy blasting 🚀!
Credits
Written by Chronikz
Reviewed by MacroBioBoi
