Basically the idea was I would hit bosses with Spirit Plague and dodge their attacks while my minions dealt damage.
From there, it made sense to focus on necrotic damage: all necrotic spells and necrotic minions (wraiths can deal a little necrotic damage).
Well, that works fine, but now I’m getting one-shot killed by regular rare enemies. But changing my skills or passives won’t change that, so I don’t know what to do.
I know my resists are too high, so it would be nice to get some dodge or endurance, but I am at the mercy of the loot that drops.
I think it wise to get some golems to taunt mobs off of you would be a good start Imho and the more minions you have as a Necromancer the better, if you’re going for a zoo build ofc. Summon skeletons are ok too and Volatile Zombies. Basically the buffs you get as a Necromancer are largely being ignored in your build. Your minions do 50% extra damage and you get an extra skeleton, so you want to lean into this as much as you can. You’re not gaining much by casting spells. I’m not saying that your build isn’t fun though but, if you want more damage as a Necromancer you’ll need to play it as a Necromancer. There are other builds ofc such as Wraihlord which I hear does a lot of damage! I’ve not played it though as I tend to steer away from broken builds and abilities and I hear it was pretty nuts on dps. It may (if not already) have been fixed? Can anyone clarify this?
Edit: I know you’re asking about improving your defensives but if the mobs are blocked and hitting your minions, they aren’t hitting you.
Since you chose necromancer I would recommend putting a golem and dread shade to get the most out of the mastery. Dread Shade is going to immensely boost your minion’s damage with an additional 12 flat necrotic damage as well as a 30% increased attack/cast speed.
Golem has a few functions like hunger which grant you some leeched life and they can also pull aggro which is going to make your runs feel a lot smoother.
Switch Cling to Life to Tyrant, that should help you start get build up your HP.
Skeletal Mage doesn’t need Leech Life as the mages will sustain themselves off of critical strikes via River of Bones/Grey Merchant. Moonlight Pyre will give an additional 10 flat necrotic damage. You are severely lacking in flat damage and once you get more you’ll notice a big boost in clear speed.
EDIT: Ribbons of Blood might be very useful since you’re running mainly melee minions.
Necrotic Penetration won’t shine if your base damage is lacking.
Your defenses are lacking as well. Capping your resistances is a bare minimum and entering Empowered Monos means that you’re going to want at minimum 2k hp. You are getting one-shotted because you have very low EHP. If you’re going HP route than you’ll need to get some more armor. Capped Critical avoidance is going to prevent a lot of oneshots as well.
You can also go low-life route and build ward which is something Necromancers do very well and there are lots of different passives nodes that help build ward. I find it’s way easier to build for ward than HP for necromancers.
