1.7 Necro Murder Machine (Insane) UPDATED

[Delmuir]

The ghoul-focused Necromancer is the most thematic build in my opinion, but also the most fun and a notable powerhouse, particularly late-game. The ultimate ghoul (pun intended) is to have a near-endless Putrescent Liquefaction and Corpse Explosion by way of Surge of Undeath.

Race: Higher is strongly preferred here for Highborn's Bloom. The drop off in value with other races is huge but you can justify a Cornac if you want that fifth Inscription plus a few more points to throw around (this is good if picking up the Dread category) or if playing in the Infinite Dungeon (then Cornac is best).

Stats: Magic, constitution, cunning, and then dexterity. There is no need to put any points into willpower or strength at all.

Items and Inscriptions:

Early game focus is +life and +mana and then movement speed (you are not a mobile class so you really want this early on), including a movement infusion and a wild with high resistance, and then confusion resistance. Search the shops before level 10 for a Shatter Afflictions rune. If you can get a shielding rune, go for it. Be sure to acquire some +willpower gear as well as some +lightning resistance. If you find Penitence, it can grant you some lightning affinity.

Mid game focus is silence resistance, +spellpower, +life, +movement speed, +darkness damage, and then +mana. You will need a shield rune at this point. You likely can be rid of your manasurge rune by Daikara.

End game (heading east) focus is spellpower, cooldown reduction, silence resistance (your saves will be so high that most status effects won't land), crit and crit multiplier, and finally +darkness damage. You no longer need movement speed or mana at all. Make sure you have Silence resistance even if not wearing it. Just have it around. You'll also want to consider a great Stormshield rune if you find one.

Pick up totem of healing (helps with escorts and your limited healing), a torque of psychoportation (mostly in case you run into a powerful antimagic enemy), a torque of clear mind, and one of mindblast (for the silence).

@@Note: Acquire gear with Willpower in order to have enough for the Lichform ceremony (only need 25 but you won't be putting any points in so you'll need to make it up with equipment).

Zone Order:

1. Start with Trollmire (or until level 6 or 7), then leave and make the rounds of towns and triggering events and new zones. Then enter and leave Celia's tomb, the Charred Scar, the Halfling's complex, before entering the Old Forest. If an escort triggers, good luck, but if not, go to Norgo's Lair (hopefully get a few more escorts). Try and finish it to trigger Lake of Nur at as low a level as possible, hopefully before level 14. Around level 10 or so, trigger the Maze and Sandworm lair but leave immediately.

2. Return to T1s until level 14 and trigger Urkis. Enter his area and immediately leave.

3. Now return to the remaining T1s and level up. Don't finish them... one or two more should be enough to get your level to 18 or so. Make your first attempt at Lake Nur. If you can defeat the Weirding Beast, great, but it's doubtful. Perhaps make some inroads into the Halfling complex, hopefully to level 4 to level-lock the boss.

Now you can poke around in the Charred Scar, hopefully getting to the second level, locking it at as low a level as possible. Leave immediately.

4. Return to the Maze and/or Sandworm lair to get your level near 23-24.

5. Now attempt to kill Urkis. It's tough but doable. If you succeed, it'll make Celia and the Weirding Beast much easier. Be VERY careful I'll note the strategy later). Even without Urkis, Celia and the Weirding Beast should be doable. If not, return to any easier area to level up. If you don't need to kill Urkis... don't bother until later.

At this point, you should still have a T1 or two remaining plus some or all of the Maze and Sandworm level. Use whatever remains to immediately get enough energy to perform the Lichform ceremony and link the Rod of Recall (you need 65 energy for both). You should be able to do it by level 25.

Do NOT do the Cultists zone unless you are feeling very lucky. Clean out the T2s and head for Daikara.

Then proceed at your leisure.


Talent Points

Mater of Bones: you'll be floating 4 points here until level 25. 4/0/0/0. Be careful of picking up an escort with a skill you have available (most likely Heightened Senses from a thief) because if you get it with the invested in the summon skill, it'll bug (as of 1.74) and only allow you to remove 3. The key here is to use a movement infusion before summoning to give them super speed. Once you have the Necrotic Aura up, use Wrath of the Highborn and then the movement infusion, in that order, to make them more resilient. If you still have a wild infusion, that goes in between.

Master of Flesh: Early on, this is 1/0/0/0 but you will ultimately get it to 5/4/4/1. Call of the Mausoleum provides you with a free ghoul (sometimes two) every time you enter combat. This means no soul cost. They are primarily meat-shields but they can do decent offensive damage so summon them liberally once you have Highborn's Bloom. Use Wrath of the Highborn before summoning once you can the Necrotic Aura to improve their durability.

Early on, Corpse Explosion and Putrescent Liquefaction aren't particularly useful and you won't really start using them until around Dreadfell or the Prides. Discarded Refuse is just a solid one-pointer early on but you can even skip it for a while if need be. Late game, all three of these skills come together in a horrifying synergy as every ghoul that dies explodes and/or feeds the Putrescence, thus extending its duration. No ghoul death is wasted. Corpse Explosion can absolutely demolish tough enemies, especially once they're alone.

Nightfall. This is a 1/1/1/0 immediately category. You can float a point in River of Souls if you need the damage or prefer the skill but I don't make much use of it because as of 1.74, Highborn's Bloom doesn't affect its soul consumption. Go 4/1/1/0 as you approach Daikara. Night Sphere is your standard opener against anything remotely difficult or all mobs. Just spam Invoke Darkness after that. As the game progresses, Night Sphere will be more useful than Invoke Darkness as other means of doing damage take over. I usually dump a few more points in here at the end of the game.

Animus. 1/1/3/0 immediately. With three points invested, Torture Souls hits up to four targets and is your bread and butter finisher. You don't ever really need more points in this category but 3/2/4/1 is fine late game.

Death. 1/1/1/0/ immediately. Eventually, 4/1/2/1 is about right.

First unlock? Master Necromancer. Start with 1/2/1/0 but eventually it'll be 2/4/1/2. This is for Insane. One Nightmare or below, you can afford to skip floating points in skeletons and thus, go with Age of Dusk at level 10. The key skill early on is the Necrotic Aura to help beef up your minions. Later in the game, Surge of Undeath becomes one of the most important talents in your repertoire.

Second Unlock? Age of Dusk: This is 3/1/0/0 immediately category but ultimately, 5/4/4/3 (assuming Adept prodigy). Dire Plague is amazing and a guaranteed status effect. It'll let you inflict Soul Leech on entire rooms of enemies which you can then clear immediately with Torture Souls. Some people prefer using River of Souls over Dire Plague but that requires more tracking and precision. It works but you really have to micromanage a bit. Late game, you'll have a Dire Plague potentially doing over 200/turn for 10 turns and Crepuscule doing over 500/turn for 10 as well, all automatically while you pile on additional damage.

Third Unlock? Eradication: This is 3/1/1/3 late game. Bone Yard is a silent killer against tough enemies. It weakens them and lengthens cooldowns and sometimes resurrects your ghouls. It also enables you to teleport an enemy to you with To the Grave. I don't use this much until after I get Adept but it's a staple against tougher opponents. One of the most useful ways to use it is to cast Bone Yard if a fight is a little tense and you think you might have to escape. If you use a torque of Psychoportation or a Teleport rune, you risk ending up somewhere dangerous. Thus, just cast To the Grave wherever you land and it'll send the enemies to the Bone Yard no matter how far. It can be a life-saver. Impending Doom is old reliable and Eternal Night is rock-solid, though the life steal feature isn't particularly useful. When it always drained life in the Beta, the Necro was way overpowered. Now it's situational and really just a means of get Across the Veil to Trigger when you're in a tough situation and can't spend a turn on a heal.

Your early game strategy is fairly straightforward. Just let your skeletons do the work while you assist. Mid-game, you'll transition to a Lich and start using ghouls. You'll have 5-7 levels of primarily being a caster. Once you get into your thirties, you'll get your Putrescence up and running and then you're golden. Once you get your second prodigy, you'll be an absolute killer.

A slightly more sophisticated strategy involves making sure you have tons of negative life from equipment. Then you can hover around 0 life, using Across the Veil to reduce cooldowns.

Late Game: as soon as you enter combat, using Highborn's Bloom, summon ghouls with CotM, then Putrescent Liquefaction, and then Corpse Explosion, then Surge of Undeath. It will extend the duration of everything while also reducing the time necessary to get another free ghoul. Every Ghoul that dies (from Discarded Refuse, Suffer for Me, Corpse Explosion, or enemy damage) will feed the Putrescence and increase its duration. Surge is a murderous skill with Ghouls.

You can open up the Eradication category if you prefer but I think the extra rune inscription is better, ultimately. If you pick up Eradication, go 1/1/2/2 and rely on Adept to pump it up. Late game only.

Optional: Dread... 1/1/1(or max)/2. Not useful until after Dreadfell. If you have the points, this is the place for them.

Generics:

Spectre is a 2/1/1/1 immediately category and never really justifies more than 3/1/1/1. Mobility is a problem for this class so don't skimp on those couple of extra points.

Necrosis is a 4/2/1/1 immediately category but you might eventually max it out. Spikes of Decrepitude is amazing but Across the Veil is equally impressive in support. If you let yourself go into negative life, it'll reduce a cooldown of a skill and if this happens early in your offensive fight, it will often reset a key skill like Surge or CotM. Very, very handy. Don't skimp on it. Eventually, 5/4/2/4 is justifiable here.

Higher Racial. This is a 1/1/3/1 category.

Lichform. 5/5/4/5 or so... amazing category. You can necessarily need the shadows so if you want to put points elsewhere, this is the place to subtract.

Escorts: If you can pick up Vitality from a warrior escort, do so immediately. Again, you really don't have a lot of heals and if you're maxing constitution, it's extremely effective. A defiler can get you Curse of Death which I strongly encourage getting. Those two are extremely helpful. If you can grab Foresight from a Temporal Explorer or Misdirection from a thief or Chant of Fortress from a Sun Paladin, do so. Otherwise, just grab useful stats, especially magic.

Prodigy... Lichform will take your first one, definitely. Worth it. Adept is a gimme on the second. I don't see any competitor. It will save you TONS of talent points and allow you to make the most of the one-point talents, of which there are many. Other builds can use other prodigies but for this build, it's Adept all the way.

Strategy... early on, use skeletons on Insane and ghouls on normal or nightmare. Skeletons will just do most of the work for you.

Ghouls are just meathshields while you pile on status effects and rely on Rigor Mortis and Torture Souls. Mid game, Dire Plague and Crepuscule get increasingly useful and you will rely on them more and more around Dreadfell until finally, around the prides (or Dreadfell on Insane), Surge of Undeath will enable you to unleash your Putrescence and the full power of the ghouls. By the end game, you can keep a Putrescence up for as long as you want (seriously, you can keep it up forever). The damage piles up impressively and you will absolutely chew up even the toughest enemies. It can be a visual nightmare that makes it hard to see but you can turn off some effects. Enemies will have a hard time targeting you, will be riddled with status effects, and will suffer damage from multiple sources every turn. Very, very, very little can hold up to it. Keep summoning ghouls to keep enemies from targeting you and use Torture Souls to recover those souls.

What to be aware of? Anything that can cast silence. Because you don't have any great escapes, silence can be a killer. Get gear that protects against it at all costs, especially by the time you head east. Antimagic can be a problem if the enemy is particularly strong, and any high level bosses or rare enemies with the ability to close and do high burst damage (beware greater weapon focus and similar) can surprise you.

All in all, this class has great saves and means of mitigating status effects, rock-solid defense, and great offense. The only problem is silence and a lack of escapes. If you get into trouble, the only way out is through it. Luckily, you're very good at that.

Bonus: The one talent you never want to see? Aether Beam. Anytime you seen a strong enemy with aether skills, be very careful not to waste your escape options.

Atamathon: No special strategy is required but a little extra cool-down reduction is immensely helpful. I took him down on Insane and it wasn't too tricky. Once your Putrescence is up, it's mostly a question of blasting it with spells and ghouls while occasionally running around trees.

[HSmage]

(insane) For any1 willing to give it a try: since getting to the actual steamroll-point is a bit hard, i'd suggest considering:
-if used under movement infusion, CoTM ghouls get the full benefit of bonus movement speed. Very usefull to swarm enemy and bind it to its on-sight initial position. +physical dmg is further buffing their dmg
-use consume soul(heal)after triggering Across the veil, which will also reduce the cd of said heal
-reaping is overrated a lot
-heroism infusion is extremly potent. Making a place for it proves difficult, as it requires a plethora of status immunities capped and +mana on gear, which, along with Highborn's bloom, should be enough to get rid of manasurge rune.
-untouchable fixedart(MVP), undeterred boots, quartz+life mod crafted rings and +life/die at -life everywhere.

Took me smth like 35h of goofing around to actually get to the lichform, usually dying to Urkis Celia. Gotta have that lightning+stun res, cold+darkness ress capped.

edit: died at high peak 8, one shotted on spot by ano wyrmic, but gosh the whole east was one hell of a breeze. Ghouls+untouchable makes up for so much taankiness. Had the lich staaff+ring, although was ready to swap it for some high crit multiplier roll (never happend), zemekys neck for cdr and one free turn of set-up. Dummy tests were interesting, showing darkness aat about 40%dmg, 10% blight and 40% physical from summons. Makes me wanna try full minion build