D3 S28 Necromancer Fresh Level 70 Guide | 2.7.5

Your very first 25 Death’s Breaths should be used to upgrade a 2H Scythe.
Any result you get will vastly improve your build!

• Reilenna’s Shadowhook: No change in base build.
• Maltorious’ Petrified Spike: No change in base build (Use Bone Spear – Shatter).

The above two are both needed in the final build (Shadowhook can be changed to something like Corroded Fang, but that’s beside the point). Again, I stress that resources (Essence) can be a pain so please remember Topaz and Reaper’s.

• Bloodtide Blade: Use Death Nova – Unstable Compound.
• Nayr’s Black Death: Use Death Nova – Unstable Compound, and change Bone Spikes rune to Bone Pillars.

Drag Templar along with you. You can benefit from the healing and resource generation he provides.

Use blood shards and random drops to fill up the rest of your “blank spots”. Of which the highest impact item you can get is Gelmindor’s Marrow Guards. That’s final true core item. Aside from that, there are a few useful ones you should be happy to get.

Should you use Death’s Breath to complete your random pile for LoN? Hmm… I’d guess not. Unless there’s a certain slot you REALLY can’t get thru pure bad RNG, I’d avoid it.

I would prefer you use excess DB’s to upgrade Amulets to get Haunted Visions.

Here’s the build you should be using for this transition phase, only changing it once you hit the transition phase. With ONLY Haunted Visions, this build becomes power so whether you’re at 0, 2, or 4pc Masquerade – this is the build you want.

Topaz on helm, and use whatever fillers you gained in the process. You lose Bone Armor in this build so be a little careful. Stack defense if you need to.

Again, you don’t need to update your build at all if you don’t want to (if you were unlucky and spent a long time powering up). But if you DO have Haunted Visions, adding Simulacrum and Grim Scythe into your build is a good idea no matter what.

Press Shift+J to open up your Seasonal Journey tab and fulfill them as needed.

Again, if you feel powerful enough (some people will spend differing amounts of time powering up before getting Haunted Visions), you don’t even need to change your “temp build”.

Get the 2pc (1st Haedrig’s Gift): EZ. The build works well for 0pc. This might as well be done without you even trying.

Get the 4pc (2nd Haedrig’s Gift): EZ. Once you have the 2pc, you gain all runes of Simulacrum which is crazy. Blast through this.

Get the 6pc (3rd Haedrig’s Gift): Haunted Visions, Grim Scythe, and Simulacrum should be able to carry you. It’s up to you whether you need to update your build to use the 4pc, or stick to your temp LoN build. It should be easy, either way. If you got Haunted Visions really early, and you’re a little weak, you can easily gauge your power once you hit the Torment IV entries.

You shouldn’t have any trouble here as we assume you do have Haunted Visions.
It’s powerful enough to carry with the LoN raw build, or with the 4pc set.

Bane of the Powerful is a cheap AF gem that only really needs L25 to be useful. It’s a great temp gem that gives DPS and defense that will last a long time.

From here, I like 2x Defensive Gems!
It’s hard to increase toughness this early on.

Moratorium is the best early defensive gem. You have lots of random self-healing in your build due to your Simulacrum runes, and a bit of LpH.

Esoteric Alteration is a great defensive late-game gem, but I don’t really like the other early-game defensive options so you can rush straight into this one.

-Want more DPS?-

Bane of the Trapped eventually replaces one of the defensive gems, or Powerful depending on what you need. But defense will be an issue for a long time, and you need a highly leveled Trapped for it to be worth it. Stricken is up next…

You can use these temp gems to augment, anyway, so don’t worry about it.

Bane of the Stricken – is the go to LATE GAME DPS Gem of choice. Its main use is shortening your Rift Guardian time (and helping out vs yellow elites).

Esoteric Alteration – is probably the best defensive gem in the game, and is worth having a strong one around.

Boon of the Hoarder – is used in many speedfarming builds alongside Avarice Band.

Here’s advice on how to spend your blood shards with Kadala, roughly in order of importance.

Belt – Dayntee’s Binding: is an EXTREME defensive item. Since your Simulacrum applies ALL CURSES at once, the combination of this plus Decrepify is an astounding amount of both direct and indirect defense. This is amazing and if you want survivability this is first.

Bracer – Gelmindor’s Marrow Guard: is a titanic DPS boost. Up to 4x damage for one item – “We take those”. In this pile, you also get the much welcome Nemesis for speedfarming.

There’s nothing else you want or even remotely close to “core”. There’s fillers here and there, though like Requiem Cereplate, Leoric’s Crown (+Topaz)…

Here’s advice on how to get your weapons from Death’s Breath rare item upgrades, roughly in order of importance.

If, for some god forsaken reason, you’re here without getting a Haunted Visions yet, use DB’s to upgrade Amulets to get one.

2H Scythe for Maltorius’ Petrified Spike. The Essence cost increase hurts, but it is what it is. It’s 700% damage. 7x. That’s huge. You can also get another possible late game contender in Reilena’s Shadowhook.

1H Scythe for Scythe of the Cycle or Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang. Either of these, IMO, is better than Shadowhook. Scythe of the Cycle is obviously the more powerful variant, but requires Bone Armor to be squeezed into the build (not really a bad thing).

Scythe of the Cycle requires QUITE A BIT OF BUILD PLANNING for it to work out completely. RCR, a good way to spread curses… I’m not entirely sure it’s easy for a midgame build to utilize this without huge sacrifices.

As long as you have Maltorius Petrified Spike, you can experiment with whatever “other weapon” you want. Each one has its ups and downs. But in terms of actual raw damage, Cycle > Fang > Shadowhook. Ease of use? Shadowhook > Fang > Cycle.

Rings and Amulets are tough to get from either BS or DB’s (due to the large amount of possible outcomes), but if you’re done getting your core items from them – and you haven’t got your core accessories, it’s a viable way to spend them.

Ring of Royal Grandeur (obtained from Act I bounty caches) is a “semi non-RNG’ way to vastly power up your build. This allows you to wear 2 pieces Captain Crimson (crafted gear) in order to activate it’s 3 set piece power. This gives RCR, CDR, Toughness, and Damage. It’s literally everything you need.

Unity. Look, I don’t want to get into calculations, but just having Unity in your build reduces damage taken by around (by my rough calc) 92.7% with just 2x Simulacrums, your 4pc set bonus, and Unity. That’s insane. However, you will need another Unity for your follower, plus the Immortality relic.

Krysbin’s Sentence is your DPS ring of choice. There are many ways to trigger the “triple damage” clause, but even without it – the “slowed” DPS bonus is huge enough. Do not even think of CoE this early on, as Krysbin’s vastly outperforms it. You’d only want CoE in place of Unity if you’re an absolute mad man.

You don’t want ANY of the accesory sets. FnR or Endless Walk are junk for this build simply because you need too many accessories, or too many accessories far outperform them.

Haunted Visions if you’re reading up to this point and you still don’t have it… I don’t know what to say. Always remember that I love you.

Typically you’ll just find these as you grind, as they can be difficult to obtain with currency…

This is just a list of your “all-around” items that may or may not be mentioned previously. While I do not take set-specifics in this tab, it serves as a seasonal reminder (and helpful general list for newbies) on what’s “generally good”.

Reaper’s Wraps: A Crafted legendary whose plans drop from any Torment Malthael (and is oft mentioned in our Fresh 70 guides), any NON-RNG boost to power (in this case, resource generation) is welcome. MOST builds can benefit from an early Reaper’s.

Nemesis Bracers: An absolute monster for increasing rift clear speed (and a little extra death’s breaths!), newer players might not value this as highly – try it out and you’ll be surprised.

Unity: Used alongside another Unity on your follower (plus their unique “Cannot Die” relic) essentially halving all damage you take for one ring slot, that’s usable for any character. Not bad.

Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac: Core on many builds, but usable for any build that spends resource. It’s a unique source of “in-combat” CDR that would give you 100% uptime on skills you couldn’t otherwise achieve. It’s pretty crazy.

Focus+Restraint: If you can trigger both halves of the set bonus, and don’t mind losing defenses from rings – this is will “more than double” your DPS.

Traveler’s Pledge + Compass Rose: Another accessory set, this one is more suited for “elite killer” builds that like to travel in between packs, and face-tanking builds that tend to stay still while DPSing. It’s not very universal, but it can reasonably benefit any character.

Convention of Elements: Literally, any character can use this ring. It’s a titanic boost in DPS (especially for builds that have tons of short-duration buffs… LINE THEM UP!).

Ring of Royal Grandeur: -1 set item requirements to help you fit random core or filler legendaries to help your build out. While absolutely necessary on some builds, most builds can benefit from this using “generic” legendaries for a temporary power boost (IE Aquila Cuirass).

Avarice Band + Boon of the Hoarder (+Goldwrap): the gold farming speedy holy trinity. While you don’t really need all three all the time, this combo allows you to speed through and survive ANY difficulty (careful, this doesn’t improve DPS!).