This Tutorial is For North American Servers
Each Region has a different Challenge Rift each Week
This week we have the Necromancer
This build focuses on the Skeletal Mage with the Singularity Rune.
This skill consumes all essence to produce one powerful Skeletal Mage.
Every point of essence spent increases the mage’s damage by 3%.
In this build, we get more essence from Bone Spike, Health Globes, and Devour with Devouring Aura.
Supporting Skeletal Mage, this build is using the full 6-piece set bonus for Bones of Rathma.
All bonuses apply with the exception of the 2-piece item bonus, as this build is not using Army of the Dead.
The four-piece set bonus grants us 1% damage reduction when any one of our minions deals damage. This stacks up to 50 and in this build, we have a total of 17 minions, allowing for this stack to max out quickly for a semi-permanent damage reduction of 50 percent.
The six-piece bonus makes Skeletal Mage the focus of this build.
Each Skeletal mage increases minion damage by 625%, up to 2500%, so after 4 mages, we hit our max dmg buff. You are able to cast up to 10 skeletal mages at any given time, with new summons replacing the oldest generation. This means that we need to maintain 4-10 skeletal mages at all times.
This build features the bonuses from a second complete set – the two piece set bonus for “Endless Walk”. This makes it so that while you are moving, there is a 50 % dmg reduction, and while standing still damage is increased by 100%.
This is great as this means that once all the minions are summoned, this Necromancer should be vaguely immortal while moving. We cannot attack while moving, even though our skeletal mages can. Once we stop, all damage is increased by 100%
Our other non-set items include:
Krelm’s Buff belt, granting us additional movement speed – until attacked.
Reaper’s Wraps – a critical item which grants nearly a third of our total essence per Health Globe pickup.
And Krysbin’s Sentence -Granting 285% increased damage against frozen and stunned enemies.
Command Skeletons freeze the target of attack and Land of the Dead freezes enemies within its range, while Bone Spike stuns its target.
And as for the main hand and off hand- they have no powers that apply to this build
For the Powers we have:
Reilena’s Shadowhook – which buffs our primary essence generator ability.
Bone Spike – allowing it to capture an additional 5 essence per enemy hit.
Spamming Bone Spike in a dense group will grant essence quickly – allowing for another cast of Skeletal Mage.
Reilena’s Shadowhook also grants .5% increased damage for every point of essence in the build – we have 308 essence, which equates to 154% extra damage.
Next, we have Steuart’s Greaves, buffing Blood Rush – our traveling ability. This makes it so that after using blood rush, we have a 50% movement speed increase for 2 seconds
And Circle of Nailuj’s Evol – buffing Skeletal Mage, allowing for each mage to last an additional 4 seconds -for a 12 second total duration. This power also raises an extra Skeletal Mage with every cast. So instead of generating one powerful Skeletal Mage with all of your essence, you will create a pair of equally powerful Mages.
For the Legendary Gems we have:
Rank 35 Esoteric Alteration – granting us nearly 30 percent non-physical damage reduction, along with 75% increased resistances while under 50% life.
Rank 35 Enforcer, buffing all our pets for an additional 25.5% damage, and making our pets very durable with 90% dmg mitigation.
And a Rank 25 Bane of the Powerful, which buffs damage against elites and grants us an ongoing damage buff after killing elites.
On to the Passives we have:
Life from Death – This passive grants a 20% chance of spawning a health globe at consumption. Due to the high number of corpses, Health Globes will appear constantly
Next, we have Extended Servitude, extending the duration of our skeletal mages by 20% - When you take into consideration the 6 second default mage duration plus the 4 second increase from Circle of Nailuj’s Evol, and the 20 percent increase from extended servitude, our Skeletal Mages will last a total of 12 seconds.
Overwhelming Essence increases maximum Essence by 40 for a Mana pool of 308 total Essence.
Thanks to the power Reilena’s Shadowhook, every point of essence increases damage by .5% for a total of 154%.
And Final Service grants us a freebie death every 60 seconds. Making us immune to damage for 4 seconds after resurrection.
Things to keep in mind here-
The minions do most of the work – your job is to ensure that you have the maximum number of minions on the field.
We passively generate skeletons with Command Skeletons – for a total of 7
We actively cast Skeletal Mage up to a max of 10.
Skeletal Mages will use all our essence per cast, so for additional Essence we use Bone Spike, Health Globes, and Devouring Aura
Every three health globes, another Skeletal Mage may be cast.
Now, Land of the Dead has a two-minute cooldown and must be used at the right times for maximum efficiency. This will spawn numerous corpses and health globes, allowing for Skeletal Mage to be cast 5 times in 10 seconds – with each cast, creating a pair, adding up to our maximum 10 skeletal mages.
Only cast Skeletal Mage when Essence is full, as every point of essence spent in their creation buff their damage by 3%
So, there we have it – Skeletal Mage is the focus and key to success in this
Challenge Rift –
TLDR: Watch the Video
The video is way better than this written description of events.
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