NECRO {Build] - Infinite Damage / Infernal Shade (230+ waves) [ Speed-Run & ARENA versions ]

Acolyte
1

Build Overview

2 versions of this build, one for SPEEDRUNS and another for the ARENA.

For speedrunning this might be the fastest necro build as it 1 shots everything and you can move super fast as you dont need a weapon for damage and you can use weapon uniques to increase your move speed + transplant skill every 2 seconds to teleport further and take shortcuts trough walls.

The arena version can probably be improved and i will be working to make it better changing some nodes and maybe 1 or 2 skills.

I am sure that a similar build for LICH should work too (for Speedrunning) as the necro Mastery only gives more health to us and the minions + resists.

It is my first build, and some things can surely be improved, but i hope you enjoy it.
(Any constructive critics about it and the video are VERY welcomed)

PROS
  • Super fast
  • Instant Boss Killer
  • Very good mobility
  • Good AOE and Single target
  • Infinite increasing area damage
  • Arena wave pusher (w236 in my 2nd try at lvl 97 with no experience at all in the arena)
CONS

No cons in MoF speedrunning.
Medium to long initial set-up to get the infernal shades running (due to a bug)
I.Shades transfer to another minion might be buged (no damage to the receiving minion) and therefore it might be fixed/changed in the future.

Video

The video is in spanish, but i created myself english subtitles (it took me for ever
) and you can see there how fast and easy this build kills and plays.
BELOW THE VIDEO is the whole guide in English.

How it works

The core of the build is to attach to 5 of our minions 5 “Infernal Shades” with the following 4 nodes:
“Devour in flames” → it will attach the flames to our minions
"Subjugation@ → Infernal Shades damage will increase over time as long as it is active
“Soulfire” → Infernal Shades damage will have infinite duration
“shifting doom” → when a minion carrying infernal shades die, the shades will transfer to another minion KEEPING ALL PREVIOUSLY ACCUMULATED INCREASED DAMAGE.

ARENA-RUN Set-up:

Preferably you will want to attach the flames to the 2 golems and 3 skeleton warriors as they are harder to kill. To do that you will FIRST summon the 2 golems and 3 skeletons and then 1 death knight. Then you will attach 1 flame to the death knight, it will die from the DoT and then it will transfer to the golems or warriors. When the shades are transfered to another minion they stop making DoT to the minion carring the shades :wink: Now rinse and repeat until you get 5 shades on the 2 golems and 3 skeleton warriors.
Now you are ready to summon the rest of the minions.
REMEMBER that it will take some time for the Infernal Shades to increase their damage and be able to 1 shot everything. The longer you play the more damage they will do. I killed all MoF Bosses in less thant 1 second :boom:

SPEED-RUN Set-up:

Same as the arena one, but you can put the shades on any minion as for MoF the minons will never damage your minions.

Notes: No damage increase/multipliers from gear/passives needed (all damage comes from “Infernal Shades”)

Ideal Gear/Idols/Blessings (Build Planner)

Below are 2 links to @Dammitt BUILD PLANNER with the SPEEDRUN and ARENA versions of this build. There you can find the passives, skills and the ideal items (gear + idols) to aim for with the exact tiers and rolls. (i was not lvl 100 nor had perfect items by any means when i recorded the video, so the build can be improved further).

LINK → Complete build on the Build Planner (SPEED-RUN version)
LINK → Complete build on the Build Planner (ARENA-RUN version)

Notes:
Other good weapon options until you get the Humming Bee are:

ARENA vs SPEEDRUN

Speedrunning:

  • Config here is a balanced one with full resists/crit avoidance and damage reduction from Bone Armor, but you can give some of it up if you are skilled enough and increase your and your minion’s move speed by using Eterra’s Path Boots and change the silver ring for another Arboreal Circuit Ring.

For Arena you want to change the following items:

  • Switch “Arboreal Circuit Ring”’ for another “silver or turquoise ring” with more minion stats + health.
  • WEAPON: get the Beast King’s Axe as it increases minions health and provides huge damage reduction for your minions and you.
  • the unique ring “Ribbons of Blood” for your minions survivility (they cant be crit)

Passives

Acolyte

Necromancer

Lich

NOTES

Here we aim for “INT” stat, mobility and all possible survivability passives for us and for the minions like defenses, armor, resistances, ward, vitality, max health, leech for minions, etc.

Skills

Transplant

Infernal Shade

Summon Skeleton

Summon Bone Golem

Summon Skeleton Mage

NOTES:
  • we use “Transplant” for mobility, to get “Bone Armor”, to fear enemies on depart and arrival’s location and to activate the passive “Veins of Malice” and give minions frenzy and haste.
  • summon skeleton mage: for speedrunning you can use mages, pyro mages, ice mages or death knights. This skill does not matter. You can also replace it for another one. For arena i like the death knights but i need deeper testing. I might change this skill for another one.
6 Likes
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Shouldn’t cons include “bug abuse, it’ll go away eventually?” :smiley: Since the Shades you transfer from your minions won’t hurt your minions at all but will ramp up the damage

1 Like
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i mentioned it in the video explicitly (forgot to mention it on this guide here, i will do now) )it was also already reported long ago and i even reported it again a few days ago (without answers from the devs).
But i already found a way to heal the summons in case they would lose life as easy as changing the summon skeleton mage skill (which is useless in this build as i mentioned) for “aura of decay” which has a node to heal you minions. I am actually playing the build with decay in the arena and it does wonders. But hey, thanks for the good vibes :smiley:

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Yeah i know it’s been reported before :slight_smile: Just figured maybe it’s definitely a con that it involves a bug. But very nice guide :slight_smile: Obviously did not watch the video since i don’t speak Spanish :smiley: Have you tried running pure hp build with maxed healing effectiveness?

5

yeah, i just added it to the cons. thanks.
Do you mean “pure hp build with maxed healing effectiveness” for the minions? I did not try going “full, full regen” as i dont have the right items for it (yet), but it would possibly work very well. Actually the minions do not really need such a big amount an HP as i have now. It is more about how to heal them (speaking about the arena).
At first i was struggling with having no regen for them, specially after waves 220, but now that i discovered that aura of decay can heal them i can have them fresh even in higher arenas. i am also thinking about running only the 2 golems and get another support skill like drad shades and use it to give the golems and me more armor or try the combo of aura of decay + soul feast to get tons of armor.
There are so many things to try!
PS: i created subtitles for the video. They are not perfect of course, but they are ok IMO.

6

why master necromancer instead lich? i dont see the point of having +1 skeleton and more minion damage if your main source of damage comes from a spell

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as i mention in the guide Lich should be as good as Necro for Speedrunning, but NOT for the Arena. Why?

  • we don’t need spell damage for this build. The damage from Infernal Shades is going to keep increasing over time the longer you play until you can 1 shot anything. Therefore Necro can do the speedrunning as fast as the Lich, but it will have a slower start than the Lich.

  • for the Arena this is another story, because the most important things we need there are more survivability and speed for the minions (specially) and then for us.
    Our minions must NEVER die, because if they do, there is a chance that the infernal shade it was carrying does NOT get transferred and thus losing all of the accumulated damage. A new Infernal Shade casted after waves 200 wont have enough damage to 1 shot all mobs as requiered to survive there.
    Therefore we need the necro passives to make the minions stronger (health + resistances + leech) and also very important “faster”. The last passive on the necro’s tree called “Veins of malice” will give our minions haste + frenzy for 5 seconds which is key to survive in the arena.

  • And finally we will also get a lot of resistances from the Necro tree which will free up many affixes’s slots on our gear that we can use to give more survivability to us and the minions.
    So instead of using affixes or passives to give you spell damage (like some of the Lich passives), we will get survivability :sunglasses:

8

Do I need to build something else first and then convert it to this or can I play this one from the get go ?

9

With lich and reaper form this build is insane, add elemental resistances and fire resistance to your golems and watch everything die

10

i did not play it from the get go to be honest, but i am quite sure it should work as long as you have at least some passives and gear affixes to provide some survivability to your minions (max HP + dodging) and some decent resists for your char. Enjoy it!

11

Thanks, I will give it a go. Just looks like too much fun to pass it up :slight_smile:

1 Like
12

How is the Humming Bee proccing you ward? Does it give ward per minion attack too? Even if it did, in the video you have like over 3,000 ward sustained
how are you doing that–did I miss something? ty

13

The chest & the boots both drain life & give you a % of your missing hp as ward (& they stack).

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Ya I was just able to obtain this info from a friendly guy in the Discord.
Now I’m off to acquire the boots!!

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what Llama said. i Have 4150 ward with mi build with NO perfect items. You can get to 5k with better items for sure. Good luck with the Boot’s hunt! I was lucky to get them at the first try hehe
PS: Humming bee gives us around 10% extra movement speed and elemental damage.

16

Something is missing with your acolyte points. YOu are showing 30, but really have 35 allocated.

17

That’s just how the devs want thebase class and non-mastered class level thing to work. It’s not “how many points have you put in that tree” it’s the level of the tree and they are capped at 30 (base class) and 25 (non-mastery tree). I have raised it with the devs, they disagree (I think they’re wrong)


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Necromancer tree seems to be wrong or am I just missing smth? 25 points is required for Tyrant and Frantic Summons but you have only 22.

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19

Freingard is correct, something was wrong in necro tree b/c at 22 pts I could not progress into tyrant which reqs. 25–so I put 3 into Blood Armor to get there.

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Question for you OP

Have you experienced some (usually 1 or 2) minions suddenly walking very slow, sometimes getting stuck in one place?