Finally got your Necromancer to 70? It is time to get your FREE SET. In this guide, you’ll learn exactly what to do for each step, ultimately leading to the end-game as your Fresh 70 Necromancer.
In Season 19 Necro free set is Bones of Rathma.
Fresh 70 Necromancer:
Getting the Free Set | Free Set 70 | Gaining Power | Bridging to the End-game
Necro Leveling Guide | D3 Directory Guide
Fresh 70 Necromancer: Getting the Free Set!
Click below to reveal the instructions you need for each step:
Fresh 70 Necromancer: 6 piece Free Set Build
| Season 19 Bones of Rathma Fresh 70 Set Build | |
| Skill & Rune | |
| Bone Spikes | Blood Spikes |
| Skeletal Mage | Life Support |
| Command Skeletons | Dark Mending |
| Blood Rush | Potency (Open) |
| Frailty (Open) | Scent of Blood |
| Army of the Dead (Open) | Dead Storm (Open) |
| Passives | |
| Grisly Tribute | Extended Servitude |
| Fueled by Death (Blood is Power) | Spreading Malediction |
A quick review before proceeding…
FROM HERE OUR GOAL IS TO GAIN POWER FAST. The next logical steps are Legendary Gems, and being mindful of the Chase Items you need to find.
Keep these important things in mind as you progress!
Gaining Power!
Now we have to gain as much power, as quickly as possible.
Legendary Gems
This is the easiest way to gain power simply because acquiring them has little to no RNG. Getting 3 of your best gems will increase your power dramatically in a short time span.
Click on the tabs to see Bones of Rathma’s “Big 3” gems and “others”.
Get these three to L25 ASAP:
Bane of the Powerful is a great gem to 25 asap. It helps out with elites, both offensively and defensively. It also “maxes out” at 25 so it’s a great gem to upgrade first.
Enforcer is a painfully obvious choice. A brainless increase to pet damage is welcome. This is better than Trapped in all respects when compared side by side.
As for the third gem, I would personally recommend Moratorium. Defense isn’t easy to come by this early on a L25 Moratorium will go FAR! Once you feel like you’ve outgrown it, simply use it to augment!
For a more permanent defensive gem, you can try to work on Esoteric Alteration early.
Any other gems worth it?
Bane of the Trapped is the next best thing for DPS. It’s a bit tricky to trigger, but there’s always simply standing next to them (the L25 bonus).
Bane of the Stricken is absolutely necessary in the LATE GAME for almost any build.
Esoteric Alteration is the late game defensive gem of choice. This can replace Moratorium later on.
Boon of the Hoarder: A great gem to have for speedfarming.
(See: D3 Speedfarming, Necro Speedfarming General, Necro Best Speedfarm)
Just get them asap while slowly climbing the GR’s you’re allowed to do. Do neph/GR/neph/GR etc until you get the big 3. Don’t overdo the level, just go for efficient farming and cheap empowering. GR 34 is enough to 25 a gem.
With 3 of your best gems at L25 – try much higher Torment levels. So now the real farming begins… and likely the defense problems begin, too.
Playing the Build & Adjustments
Now that you have the base “power level” of your 6 set and gems, let’s take a short time to review How to Play the Build. Here’s some basic tips for playing Rathma’s 6.
Also, as you progress and get items, your build may have a weak point here and there that you can patch up given the simple skill, rune, and passive changes listed below.
Here we discuss Playstyle Notes and build Build Adjustments.
“Four Skeletal Mages – that’s it”.
Your 6 piece bonus caps at 4 Skeletal Mages, and you should be hovering around that number at all times. Keep in mind you can only have a maximum of 10. Of course “the more the better”, but we’re limited by our essence.
Your 4pc isn’t always on. Give it time to ramp up when bumping into a dangerous situation.
As early as now, practice aiming and tagging elites with Command Skeleton. heh.
Army of the Dead is a strange skill. It’s almost useless in “speedfarming” so it can become an open slot. It’s better in tougher GRift levels. So keep in mind that it CAN BE an open slot.
Curse as many guys as you can for deez sweet Spreading Malediction gains.
Ultimately, there isn’t much nuance in Rathma 6 play right now in the early game. I guess that’s the whole point: LEAVE IT TO YOUR MINIONS!
Offense is usually categorized in Damage or, indirectly, Resource Gain.
Strangely, I chose to add almost a practical max of offense in our default build. I guess I felt it’s better to “adjust your defenses”…
Skeletal Mage-Singularity is the prime offensive evolution for your build. It requires quite a bit of setup to get this to work, but best be aware of it. The main problem? Essence.
Spreading Malediction is a godlike DPS tool mentioned in the default build. But oddly, a lot of the content you’re going to run RIGHT NOWÂ ISN’T SUITABLE FOR YOU TO ABUSE IT. If enemies die instantly, this passive loses a lot of value! So do curses! So putting this in and out of your build is something you should note.
Speaking of Essence Generation…
Dark Reaping is great for any type of content you face roll. Free essence and life as you roll through things is good, I hear.
Devour-Devouring Aura is a mega tool you should always be aware of. It can COMPLETELY REPLACE YOUR GENERATOR as long as you have a constant stream of BODIES. Of course, the harder the content, the less value this is.
Overwhelming Essence is a great tool to abuse when you have many max essence related tools like Reilena’s Shadowhook and Skeletal Mage-Singularity.
Aside from the two above, most other essence generation alternatives are a bit narrow.
Defense is primarily thought of as self-healing and damage reduction.
Grisly Tribute + Life per Hit rolls, which we already recommend, is your main source of lolworthy brainless passive facerollery healing. It’s DAMN good early on!
Command Skeletons-Dark Mending : It’s a great choice for a default rune for obvious reasons. Changing to a DPS oriented rune such as Frenzy has minimal gains.
Decrepify is a MASSIVE defensive boost. Enfeeblement is actually a great rune choice, especially for those skitting enemy types. This is likely the go-to defensive evolution for your default built.
Bone Armor, if you can find the space for it. Every rune has a use except for Vengeful Armaments, lol.
Since we’re using Rathma, we aren’t really “open” in skills since we’re forced to use pet related stuff. There isn’t much else we can do to improve defense.
Fueled by Death is the best “easy to slot in” mobility change for Necro.
Decrepify-Opportunist is GREAT FOR BOUNTIES, but not much else as I think you lose the bonus when they die. Just curse guys and run!
Any other changes for speed at this point is too greedy, and I can’t recommend it.
(See: D3 Speedfarming, Necro Speedfarming General, Necro Best Speedfarm)
Items to look for
Now that legendary gems are wrapped up (the easy part…), it’s time for the ENDLESS grind for the perfect items!
Reaper’s Wraps – craft this once you get the plan from Malthael (Act IV). It helps you to transition to your best rune which is Singularity. Hate to remind you again, haha.
Gloves to get Tasker and Theo this is undoubtedly the best value per shard spent. +50% attack speed on minions is huge. Sadly, the other possible gloves you get aren’t too hot. While this may or may not end up in your final build it’s damn useful RIGHT NOW. It’s a titanic DPS increase for a SINGLE ITEM.
To be honest, Bones of Rathma doesn’t have that many legit fillers.
Belts for Dayntee’s Binding is OK, and gives you a huge defensive boost when you need it most (since damage isn’t a problem right now). Goldwrap serves this purpose, too. You also get Witching Hour here and String of Ears – some decent stuff.
Bracer for Nemesis to improve your farming speed. You also have some niche role players here like Strongarm Bracers and Ancient Parthan Defenders.
Golemskin Breeches is hard to fit into the build but worth mentioning… I wouldn’t try too hard for these.
SHIELDS FOR JESSETH SKULLSHIELD: This is A SHIELD not a PHYLACTERY. It’s hard to snag this off blood shards but what else are you gonna do with ’em?
After that, we’re pretty much it for the “25 bucks” tier. Rings are up next:
There are a lot of great rings. but Circle of Nailuj’s Evol is the jackpot here, SERIOUSLY. You can even make a case for farming this right after Tasker and Theo… Doubling up on mages and increasing their duration is just GODLIKE.
Given 2 rings slots plus the cube – don’t worry. There are many other usable rings. Unity… Krysbin’s… Lornelle’s…
Again reminding you of the bounty rings:
– Ring of Royal Grandeur: Act I bounties, to fit random filler items.
– Avarice Band: Act III bounties, for speedfarming.
It’s a pretty close race between 1H and 2H Scythes, but 1H pulls ahead!
Up next is 1H Scythes for Jesseth Skullscythe, for obvious minion reasons. Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang is a GODLIKE one, too (you don’t need to use the Scythe Skill for it to work – any curse will do). These two scythes will serve you for a long, long time.
SHIELD (Not Phylactery!!!!) for the other half of the set, Jesseth Skullshield.
Everything else aside from those three are pretty optional.
2H Scythes for Reilenna’s Shadowhook is what you want here for good ‘ol passive bonuses. Shadowhook is probably the most godly thing you can put in the cube, along with corroded fang.
Ring of Royal Grandeur – You can get this form Act I bounties. Use it to break your set for a temporary filler item!
Convention of Elements – A generic DPS ring that’s amazing paired with other cooldowns. Most builds can get a kick out of this.
Unity – Put it on your undying Follower and yourself for 50% DR. Value.
Accessory Sets: Bastions of Will and Endless Walk will always be a consideration for a grand majority of characters – you’re no exception.
Reaper’s Wraps: this isn’t so bad to have early on since this would greatly help with our Essence regen. You’ll get the recipe from Malthael.
Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac:Â a must have for those long ass cooldown skills!
Goldwrap + Avarice Band + Boon of the Hoarder:Â Don’t be sick of me reminding you.
(See: D3 Speedfarming, Necro Speedfarming General, Necro Best Speedfarm)
Bridging to the End-game
So you skipped a whole chunk of the powering up phase with the free set. Now what? Like I always say, “Speedfarming first before pushing GR’s”. So, convert what you have NOW to be as speedfarmy as possible, first.
- Necromancer Speedfarming Builds & Primer
- D3 Speedfarming with any Class!
- Necromancer Best Speedfarming Build
Other Necromancer Guides:
- Necromancer Leveling
- Necromancer Fresh Level 70
- Bone of Rathma |Â Rathma Set Dungeon
- Grace of Inarius | Inarius Set Dungeon
- Pestilence Master’s Shroud | Pestilence Set Dungeon
- Trag’Oul’s Avatar | Trag’Oul’s Set Dungeon
Check out our D3 Guide Directory for other resources.
Fresh 70 Necromancer: Free set available!
Getting the Free Set | Free Set 70 | Gaining Power! | Bridging to the End-game
Rathma is a pretty good set to start out with. Brainless farming is good! You can easily transition to any set you like once you can speedfarm 8/10 and beyond efficiently.
what would you recommend for kunai’s cubes slots?
any items under the items to look for section in the guide is a good start. Nailuj, tasker n theo, dayntee’s….
TeamBRG, TeamBRG… jus’ wanna shout out for an excellent guide.
I jumped into the season waaaaay late and Rhykker pointed me towards your build guides. I used it along wit a couple others for reference, but once I hit 70 & started amassin’ the starter set, I found your guide the best of the bunch. And while I had crafted Reapers & cubed the RoRG I got, it was the closin’ remarks of the “Necro Fresh 70 Rathma 4 piece GR 20” section that spurred me on to some of the most fun I’ve had in DIII. Period. As Craig once posited, “…but peer pressure is a MF’er.”
So, some 8 gameplay hours after dingin’ 70, seven (7) GRifts, countless deaths and a whole lotta learnin’ ’bout DIII & the class lata, my Necro has claimed the 6-pc Rathma’s.
And how was the diligence to finish it “raw” rewarded? A legendary version of the chest dropped on the killin’ blow AND I got regular versions of the iconic Jesseth set along the way.
Thanks for the guide… thanks for the motivation… but most of all thanks for the great fun I’m havin’ in DIII as a result.
Wow, thanks for the very kind words MrXzavy! Helpin’ people out is our goal, after all!
On a side note “completing it raw” has been a point of pride for me and princess. It has been done for every class, and ever set, even when the community at large said it was impossible. Peer pressure is a MF’er indeed!
Maybe a stupid question. But how would you recommend to geht rid of the corpses? In the full set build there is no corpse consuming skill.
Since Frailty is an open skill, you can put in Devour instead.
Thank you for the guide, it helped me, and not only to follow the prescribed steps, but to start figuring out some bits for myself. I’m a casual player, my non-seasonal paragon is only 123 or so.
I have two questions.
How high my thorns amount must be for starting out with 4-piece set, striving for 6? I have 12350 now, is that ok to start with and what’s an okay amount to have in the process?
About trag’oul – I got myself a surprisingly nice pieces of free set, I mean, a lot with armor, which is good for trag’oul, one piece has death nova percent… but how should I reroll the secondaries on it? Should I eliminate all the resistances it has? Should I roll for sockets? Thorns? etc.
Thanks again
try upping your thorns (at least while you’re completing the free set) to around 50k minimum. Get them for your secondary stats for now… Sockets for head (to put in yellow gem for more thorns) and weapon for that added armor.
I want to tell the story of how it was for me after all. Didn’t want to reroll for Thorns on my trag’oul pieces having a little experience on which stats will I use/need after the season.
After all, starting from TI-II it wasn’t easy in terms of dmg. I haven’t got a lot of great legendaries to cube/use on char and materials to upgrade rares (and I have an issues with disconnects, so that is really not helping to do challenges). No Reilena’s, no Bloodtide, no Trag’oul’s fang – I had no dmg. I ended up not using much Thorns and not adjusting my build for them, but I had Heart of Iron which raised its number to ~21k I think, which is near to the number you have in the guide, and I couldn’t see how raising it can improve my speed with Golem I used for corpses tanking the mobs a lot. After all, relaying on thorns dmg takes more time (for mobs to hit you) I think, and time is luxury in GR.
I had a lot of armor and previously cubed Aquila cuirass and Lornelle’s sunstone, which gave me the ability to survive anything pretty easy – as you’ve said in your guide, it was really a defense overkill. But I had no dmg = no speed for pushing GRs. Of course, there’s Spreading malediction + frailty, but it wasn’t enough and it’s useless against standalone bosses like rift guardians, which can just ruin GR run in the end because of the time you’ll need to wipe RG in the end. And I had to come up with something else.
So when I found Thunderfury, it was at least something – I cubed it immediately which helped me with packs and speed. I had Lost Time in off-hand, and Devil’s tongue (leg wit no special effect on it but good stats), on which I rerolled AD% to socket and inserted highest emerald which gave me an additional 90-100k dmg which was a real save there.
And after that I found Oculus ring – chance to create an area of power on monster kill which raises dmg by 73% while standing in it. I already had better jewelry, but thankfully I figured out that it works on follower too, so I gave it to Kormack. It was a final stroke to my improvised build 🙂 Imagine what was like playing it 🙂 I doubt that all that jumping would go well without blood rush.
So thank you again, your guide inspired me to go for it and search for resolving seasonal goals with what I had in hands, almost literally 🙂 Got my 6 piece, wings and frame.
Hi
Thanks alot for the starter build, I used 2 guides before this one to get the pieces I needed, got them after a bit of struggle but this helped a great and awesome deal for starting Grifts. And ofc speedfarming, and not to mention the guides for the set dungeons, you guys are truly awesome!!! Thanks a bunch the Grace of Inasrius set was exactly like stated brainless. The demonhunter one was challenging but still got it thanks to the awesome guides and maps with routes provided!!!
we’re so glad we were able to help you out!
Thanks for work you do, thanks to your guides my wife and I have noth been able to get our season sets and have ideas on where to go next. Keep up the great work!
It took me forever to find you guys have a DFans build for a gearless 70 necro. Please update this page with a secondary gearless guide like you have for the other classes for other people to have an easier time. Otherwise your guides have been pretty great so far, more fun builds than icy-veins.
In the setting up portion you first say allres is useless so get armor but then a few paragraphs down you say the opposite. So which is it?
sorry about this… Armor is what you need. fixing this. Thanks!