Done leveling your Necro to its Fresh Level 70? You wonderin’ what to do next? Well… Look no further. You’ve found “it”. Builds, items to look for, and all sorts of advice to get past the early game lull and transition smoothly into the endgame! (Not 70? Necro leveling guide)

If you’re curious we’re going for spicy
SIPHON BLOOD DEATH NOVA build(s)

In Season 27, the Necromancer free set is: Bones of Rathma.

D3 Season 27 Lights Calling and YOU. How does it affect?

S27’s unique mechanic is the Angelic Crucible. Here’s how it works.

A seasonal random consumable item (Angelic Crucible) has a chance to drop anywhere – kind of like a ramaladni’s gift. You can then use this item on a legendary to give it various boosts.

Here’s what sanctifying an item does to it:
– Can only be used on any legendary item (set or non set).
– Retains all of its old powers (and gains a new sanctified power – more on this later).
– Gets rerolled.
– UPGRADES the stats to primal ancient tier (perfect rolls, ancient level stats)
– Adds a SANCTIFIED POWER to any existing powers it has.

Each class has three possible sanctified powers. For Necro:
– Your Golem picks up corpses within 20y for you to use.
– You passively attack enemies within 50y with Army of the Dead – Unconventional Warfare.
– Hitting enemies with Death Nova five consecutive times adds a spirit that afflicts an enemy every fifth cast of Death Nova. Up to three spirits can be sent at a time.

For this guide we have a few couple overarching steps that dictate our plan.
– Gear up LoD Death Nova.
– Smash seasonal journey during this process, but the free set isn’t relevant for us.
– Transition to a more late-game viable TragOul Death Nova build.
– Feel free to either refine your builds, make speed and tryhard variants, or explore new builds! Farming will be easy once youre setup.

Early game Necro Sanctified powers – a heads up

Every time you get an angelic crucible to sanctify an item, you’re gonna want to use it ASAP to boost your power levels.

What item do I sanctify? If you can, use it on a main-hand weapon. Ideally, in your case, a Funerary Pick. Sanctifying makes into a primal ancient tier weapon – a huge increase in DPS.

While the sanctified power you want is Death Nova. Army of the Dead is an amazing early game filler! The golem one is uhh… well… lol.

Step 1) Initial Build & Getting Legacy of Dreams

Don’t get stressed out, yes, LoD builds might seem a little daunting but let me tell you that it’s a fun and exciting process. Ultimately you need two things right now: The actual LoD gem, and a basic build to get you going.

Generic Starter build (slightly related to our ‘final build’)

Necromancer Fresh 70 No Set Build
Skill & Rune
Siphon Blood
Drain Life (Any)
Death Nova
Unstable Compound (Any)
Blood Rush Potency
Devour Devouring Aura
Frailty Aura of Frailty
Bone Armor Dislocation
Passives
Stand Alone Dark Reaping
Life from Death
(OPEN) Fueled by Death

The above build is meant to be in the middle of two things: Easy to edit – that hopefully game-changing legendaries can fit in no matter what. Related to our ‘final build’ – it’s a rough basic version of our “goal”, so it feels more natural as you transition towards it. Have a look down there for the final build preview to see what we’re going for.

Getting Legacy of Dreams ASAP

The first three gems will always be Bane of the Powerful, Legacy of Dreams, and one random one. So thankfully, there’s no RNG there.

Get 3 rift keys → Run 3 rifts → Wear three gemstones on your gear. That’s about as simple as it gets. DO NOT try to “tryhard” the nephs and GR’s. SPEED is the key here. Get your keys on Easy if you must!

Step 2) Easy power-ups. Huge gains for little effort.

You can go all of these things “simultaneously”, basically small tasks here and there that you should keep in mind right now that will greatly increase your power for little to no effort.

Make a Reaper’s Wraps: Speaking of no effort to big returns… Make this ASAP. Plans drop from any Torment Malthael. Essence can be a little tight early on. Topaz on Helmet helps with early game resource issues as well.

What three Legendary gems?

Your next goal should be getting at least L25 on your three most important gems. Just get rift keys and spam GR’s until you get them, and do the absolute minimum level you need to level them up. Get them and level them quickly – do not feel pressured to “maximize” your rift keys by inflating the difficulty.

Legacy of Dreams is mandatory, as mentioned in the basics segment! Level this up as much as you can.

Bane of the Powerful is great early on.

A defensive gem early on will greatly help you (double if you need it). Esoteric Alteration > Gizzard / Moratorium are your choices.

INVIGORATING GEMSTONE is legit if you don’t want to be CC’d. Lol. It has its uses if you’re all-in on Funerary Pick / Iron Rose / Siphon Blood shenanigans.

TAEGUK is godly once you’re in “channeling mode”, as your build matures.

Can’t ever go wrong with leveling up a Boon of the Hoarder for speedfarming.

Legendary Items in ALL SLOTS

LoD gets stronger with each legendary item you have equipped – so get to it! You should aim to get this done “passively” by natural item drops, but you can also craft items if you’re desperate.

Spending Blood Shards is “OK”, but only use Death’s Breath to fill up the slots if you’re absolutely desperate. You’ll get an item for each slot in no time (you can even craft them). Save your resources for finding SPECIFIC items that will greatly boost your power. We talk more about this in the next segment, refinement.

Ancients DOUBLE this bonus, and they’re a welcome boost to consider.

Defense Type & Gems

Wizards / WD’s / Necros are INTELLIGENCE classes (they get free ALLRES from INT). So, in the face of all this free allres, your prime defensive stats are ARMOR > VIT. So try to reroll Armor on your gear if you need defense – it’s your best defensive stat by FAR.

So your gemming strategy (body and legs) should be slotting your best Rubies or Emeralds, as they give Armor.

Basic Rerolls

Since legendaries are a little expensive to reroll EARLY ON, try to make the most by REMOVING GARBAGE STATS, and getting anything “remotely usable”.

INT VIT and Armor are your best stats and are welcome on any item.

Life per Hit is great early on. You can adjust your build to add the Grisly Tribute and Skeletons, if you’re desperate for Self-healing. But, a decent LpH roll early on is fine.

Death Nova% is found in Helm and Boots.

The Element% you want is Poison or Physical, found typically in Bracers and Amulet. Poison for speedfarming, Physical for tryharding (the latter matters more for Tragoul variant)

Remove useless stats

  • Life Regeneration – garbage for any build.
  • Attack Speed – it usually an endgame tune-up stat.
  • Excess Resource Cost Reduction – Is a crutch, and only niche builds need it.
  • Excess Cooldown Reduction – Only useful for an endgame “need”.
  • Unused skill% – literally USELESS.
  • All Resists – Useless for us, take Armor and VIT instead.

Take better stats

  • INT VIT– can’t go wrong with these. Your core stats!
  • ALLRES/ARMOR Life% Great defensive stats.
  • Sockets are essentially MANDATORY.
  • Life per Hit – Great early game sustainability.
  • CRIT Stats (CHC / CHD) – More for endgame, but I’d take this over garbage stats.
  • Skill and Elemental% – that you use.

FOLLOWER GEAR!

Do not forget to fully equip your follower for farming. You can start by crafting Sage or Cain’s NOW and worry about the rest later.

Step 3) Refining, Using Resources -> ‘Full Build’

So you can easily see what items you’ll need, and you can get an idea of what we’re trying to do here. If you haven’t made it by now, please craft a Reaper’s Wraps! Topaz on helmet if you’re struggling with resource.

As you get your core items, you will turn into a channeling build!

Full Build Preview: LoD Siphon Death Nova

This is how its gonna look like as it approaches completion. A well-rounded defensive version of the build to help you speedfarm a bit. Get CC immunity and Steuarts Greaves in the build if you can.

S27 Fresh 70 Necro: Early game LoD Death Nova Siphon
Head Leoric’s Crown Skill Rune
Shoulder
Mantle of Channeling
 Siphon Blood Drain Life (Any)
Chest
Requiem Cereplate / Aquilla
 Death Nova
Unstable Concoction (Any)
Arms Stone Gauntlets Blood Rush Potency
Legs Blackthorne / Golemskin Devour Devouring Aura
Boots Ice Climbers Frailty Aura of Frailty
Belt
Dayntee’s Binding
 Bone Armor Dislocation
Bracer Reaper / Krelm Passives
Amulet Hellfire / Squirts Stand Alone
Ring
Krysbin’s Sentence
 Swift Harvesting
Ring Unity Fueled by Death (Open)
Weapon Funerary Pick Dark Reaping (Open)
Offhand Iron Rose —
Kanai’s Cube Legendary Gems
Bloodtide Blade Legacy of Dreams
Steuarts / Krelm / Aquilla / Any Taeguk / Trapped
CoE / Lornelle’s Sunstone Invigorating / Powerful

A super flexible build that you can change in many ways. With Steuarts in the cube, this is an uber speedy uber tanky build.

Invigorating Gemstone is CC immunity which really helps. Krelms bracer is an acceptable substitution if you want another gemstone.

Full Build Preview: TraGoul Siphon Death Nova

S27 Fresh 70 Necro: Midgame TragOul Death Nova Siphon
Head TragOul set Skill Rune
Shoulder Mantle of Channeling Siphon Blood Power Shift
Chest TragOul set Death Nova Blood Nova
Arms TragOul set Blood Rush Potency / All
Legs TragOul set Devour (Open) Devouring Aura
Boots TragOul set Frailty / Decrepify Aura of Frailty
Belt Guardian set Bone Armor Dislocation
Bracer Guardian set Passives
Amulet Traveler’s Pledge Stand Alone
Ring Compass Rose Swift Harvesting
Ring Krysbin’s Sentence Dark Reaping (Open)
Weapon Funerary Pick Final Service (Open)
Offhand Iron Rose —
Kanai’s Cube Legendary Gems
Bloodtide Blade Taeguk
Dayntee’s Binding Bane of the Trapped
Ring of Royal Grandeur Invigorating Gemstone / Any

Don’t be fooled, in terms of offensive power – the nonLoD TragOul variant packs a vastly more powerful punch. You DO LOSE A LOT OF DEFENSE AND UTILITY, so beware. RoRG is needed to fit Guardian 3, TragOul 6 and a Mantle.

Invigorating Gemstone is CC immunity which really helps. There’s really no other option if you’re soloing, as Krelms can’t easily fit in the build unless you drop mantle…

You can adjust either build to be
speedier, more defensive or tryhardier.

S27 ONLY: A note on Necro SANCTIFIED POWERS

You’re obviously chasing for the Death Nova sanctification. Furthermore, you really really want to sanctify a main-hand weapon since you’re it upgrades into a primal ancient tier item. In this case, Funerary Pick is your best bet.

As for the other powers, like I mentioned before, they’re just fillers for when your build still isn’t up. Pretty much irrelevant after you get your first Death Nova based item.

Get CORE ITEMS asap. The heart of your build

The absolute core of your build are these: Funerary Pick – 1h Scythe, Iron Rose – Phylactery. I suppose Taeguk and a CC immunity option like Krelm or Invigorating are part of this.

The supporting cast would be Bloodtide Blade – 2h Scythe, and some defenses like Dayntee and Stone Gauntlets+Ice Climbers.

Spending Blood Shards and Death’s Breath

Blood ShardsDeaths BreathRings, amulets

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

Iron Rose – Phylactery: is your most important Blood Shard investment for OFFENSE. It’s obviously powerful, but needs support to be maximized.

Dayntee’s Binding – Belt: is your most important Blood Shard investment for DEFENSES. You’re gonna need defense soon, trust me. Goldwraps here too.

Krelms Buff and Nemesis – Bracer: Great bracers. One to help you get CC immune, and one to give your follower for better rifting.

Mantle of Channeling – Shoulder: A great offensive and defensive boost once your build is comfortable channeling it up.

The rest is really just “supporting cast”, thats great for the LoD build but not really important for the TragOul build.

Ice Climbers + Stone Gauntlets: The 1-2 punch. Don’t use the gloves without the boots!

Requiem Cereplate / Aquilla Cuirass – Chest: Added defenses from Cuirass, or Resource and healing from Requiem.

Leoric’s Crown – Helm: For more RCR or Life. Semi-filler.

Golemskin Breeches / Blackthornes – Legs: Almost filler tier items for either more DPS or defenses.

Steuarts Greaves – Boots: The best necro speed item.

You’ll find TragOul pieces while doing this!
Fill up legendary slots for Legacy of Dreams early on w/ Blood Shards

Here’s advice on how to get your weapons from Deaths Breath rare item upgrades (Kanai’s Cube Recipe: 25x Deaths Breath convert a rare into random legendary of same type), roughly in order of importance:

2h Scythe for Bloodtide Blade, it provides the most effect early on. Great for speedfarming and groups.

Phylactery for Iron Rose you can also use Blood Shards to search for this, but it’s an option to use DB’s if you’re desperate. This is important.

1h Scythe for Funerary Pick is powerful. It doesn’t really do much on its own, so I list it “last”.

Nothing else is really WORTH spending DB’s for, and would rather spend to try and get jewelry you might not have yet.

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 these currencies – and you haven’t got your core accessories, it’s a viable way to spend them. Typically you’ll just find these as you grind – then use currency if you’re desperate. Anyway, if I had to rank the importance of your rings and ammys…

Krysbyns Sentence is a brainless dps boost.

Unity is a decent defensive option, but you need the follower immortality relic, and another Unity for the follower! It’s difficult to set this up early on.

Lornelles Sunstone isn’t a bad option if you can’t unity.

Compass Rose + Traveler’s Pledge for your TragOul variant.

As an aside – Ring of Royal Grandeur and Avarice Band are BOUNTY ONLY rings (respectively ACT I and III), which DO NOT APPEAR FROM any other source. They, like any other bounty item, DO NOT DROP from monsters, gambling, upgrades or any other source outside of their respective BOUNTY CACHE.

Follower Gear odds and ends

More of a reminder than anything, once you start farming you will be running into those little bonuses for your follower farming build. Keep an eye out!

Summary & Outro

Welp, that’s about it. I’m liking these seasonal bonuses that remove the augmentation grind – makes the game a lot more humane. From here, you can easily do the Seasonal Journey if that’s your thing, or transition into literally any other build you like – the it’s exactly what the S27 fresh 70 LoD builds for each class are made for.

GL out there and check out our D3 Guide Directory if you need anything else!

33 COMMENTS

  2. Hi, i wanna ask, on the guide it says to get % army fo the dead on shoulders/chests, but its actually impossible to get that affix right now, i double checked with d3planner

  3. Hi, I know the comment thread is pretty old, but I have a quick (and hopefully) easy question.

    I’ve used this guide from level 1 to 70 (w/ +60 paragon) and it worked beautifully!, Thanks very much!

    Throughout this page (Necromancer fresh level 70 guide), the Land of Dead runes listed actually belong to the Army of the Dead spell. Did I miss something, or is this page referring to an earlier patch?

    Thanks again for the awesome guide and I’m loving my 6-piece Rathma set.

  4. What would you recommend for off hand after getting the amulet if the main weapon is 1h Scythe of the Cycle? since there is no bone armor (cold rune).

  5. Thank you for this clear and very well laid out guide. Aside from the LoN/LoD confusion (which a quick google search resolved) I was able to start my journey towards building the masquerade set in a fun and enjoyable way.

  7. HI

    i am still farily new – but there doesnt seem to be a legacy of nightmare gem but that is a set right ?
    do I get that or do i get the lehacy of dreams gem ?

    • Oh boy… HC is a different animal… I hate that your main enemy is against the server. Basically I would add more defense than I would usually – and add the free death passive.

      The main advice? If your free death is down, play safe or GTFO.

      IDK, the topic of HC is a complex one…

  9. 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?

  10. 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.

  11. 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!

  12. 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!!!

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. 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!

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