so i haven’t been able to really get into my necromancer since getting to the end of the current campaign due to it dying instantly in monolith to anything that deals any amount of damage and dodging hasn’t been effective as i had the brilliant idea to set all my skeletons on fire, making my game run at a consistent 5fps.
so today i was looking into other options for necromancer builds that would still allow me to run maximum minions, and what i’ve found is a severe lack of elemental synergy outside of fire.
to elaborate:
Minions with fire options:
Skeleton fire archers
Pyromancers
Pyre Golems
Flame Wraiths (chance)
minions with cold options
Skeleton ice archer
Cryomancers
Minions with poison options
Skeletal mages (locks out pyromancers and cryomancers)
Wraiths (Technically all, with a chance to summon a putrid wraith)
Minions with physical options:
Skeleton Rogues
Blood Golems
Technically base wraiths and skeletons
Minions with necrotic options:
Death knights (mages)
Wraiths (kind of?)
Other:
Spectral golem
Tank golem/ skeleton warrior builds
so aside from fire, our minions can’t really be aligned under a single element, and the most versatile minion is mages, but i got thinking: does the element really matter?
the only minion damage stats are general damage/ survivability with the singular exception being physical damage, which isn’t particularly useful to the necromancer on the grounds that are mages (arguably our most powerful minion) can’t deal physical damage.
You can make a poison build as well. Skeletons, mages and wraiths (on top putrid wraith) can be specced to apply poison. Golem can as well but I don’t use it for endgame, atm.
You are right, the only element you can build on with some synergies is fire. It is slightly better than cold. But it doesn’t really feel like you do a “fire build”. There are no real synergies with elemental damage in the passive tree as well.
The new necro set is nice. It adds elemental damage of the one type you have the lowest resistance rating. But it doesn’t have that impressive stats that you would house it in lvl 90 I think. But for the story and mid endgame it is viable, imho.
On the other side I do not have a damage problem. The with good aggro management (transplant is mandatory for endgame builds imho) you can get some monolith runs going. Arena is a lot harder. At some point your skeletons die fast and you can only kite by casting wraiths and transplant and run for your life. Then you know you have reached the end of the ladder.
For survivability I have stacked hp and dodge and am currently working on CA and GB. Resistances are very low. I had some items stored for my aura of decay Lich with hp and regen. When I started to die a lot and did not have that nice gear I used these items. I am not tanky in any kind but the relatively high hp pool in combination with regen let’s me survive longer than my minions.
What would help, I think, would be something (skills, passives, procs,…) to help my minions survive and get aggro (like bear companion generating aggro).
well i think the devs want us to use golems and their increased aggro talent for that purpose, but at that point we’re basically being told how to play
I don’t feel that the golem has a huge impact on aggro management. Even with skilling the “generates more threat” node there are many enemies directly going for me.
Walking in front of my army and transplanting behind them on enemy contact works really well.
But I will also give the golem another try with my next build change.
Golem didn’t do much for me in terms of keeping aggro. Would love an idol that has minions taunt enemies, similar to PoE jewels. But it’s not there, and golems don’t do the job either, so i got rid of them and went skellies.
I respecced yesterday an are running now with skellies, mages, golem an wraiths. Just wanted to give it a try because I deleted my golem from the skill bar very early.
I can’t see any difference in getting aggro. Still have to run around like a chicken.
