Corpse Lance Necromancer BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

The build incorporates the complete Pestilence Master's Shroud set bonuses, taking five of the six available Pestilence set pieces, and then adding two pieces of the craftable Captain Crimson's Trimmings set — Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle and one more of your choosing, according to your weakest Pestilence set roll (either Captain Crimson's Thrust or Captain Crimson's Waders). This set provides CDR as well as RCR bonuses, and then scales your damage dealt and damage reduced according to both stats, respectively — bringing a massive boon to the build. You will attain the complete set bonuses of this two-set amalgamation via Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. Rolls-wise, this is a Corpse Lance and Cooldown-centric build, making good use of both rolls across gear. Corpse Lance % damage is a possible roll on Pestilence Robe and Pestilence Defense, and Cooldown Reduction — on the Pestilence Defense and Pestilence Gloves. The remainder of your set armor slots ( Pestilence Mask, Pestilence Incantations and Pestilence Battle Boots) can be dedicated entirely to toughness rolls. While Crit stats that are fixed on your gear due to circumstance are not necessarily lost (they still augment your initial burst as you stack), their value is greatly diminished.

When talking about Corpse Lance builds, the topic of balancing Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction cannot be ignored. For the sake of simplicity, you will be trying to strike a good balance between the two stats, one that will lead to the highest Land of the Dead uptime (affected by CDR) to Corpses consumed for Lance shots (affected by IAS) ratio. A split with proven top tier results is reaching the 65%+ CDR breakpoint (with Cpt. Crimson bonuses factored in) and then picking the highest possible IAS range possible with your gear between (1.5 to 1.71), (1.72 to 2.0), and (2.0 to 2.4). Note that while a Trag'Oul build has to be a lot more careful with that balance in order not to sacrifice too many other valuable stats (Crit and Elemental DPS), a Pestilence build can sacrifice many (if not all) Crit Chance rolls due to the Brittle Touch stacking mechanic. The rune is able to take you to the Crit Chance cap in mere seconds.

The cubed RoRG leaves space for a potent combo in the jewelry: Convention of Elements and Krysbin's Sentence. Convention of Elements will provide a massive damage increase during the Cold cycle of its rotation, with an improved uptime compared to other classes due to the Necromancer's three element rotation. Krysbin's Sentence is a Necromancer-specific item that amplifies damage as long as you have a hard crowd control active; it is a major driving force behind the inclusion of Land of the Dead Frozen Lands. Finish off the jewelry with Squirt's Necklace; rewarding high-range and evasive builds that demolish their enemies from afar, this legendary piece greatly amplifies both damage dealt and damage taken.

The build has no particular bracer to occupy the wrist slot, so you can use the additive damage increase from Strongarm Bracers; note that you have to roll Chance to Knockback in their secondary stats, as you have no other feasible way of proccing their bonus. The previous favorite for the slot, Nemesis Bracers, are still useful to the build — but can now be equipped on the follower and their power transferred to you via the Emanate mechanic.

The preferred weapon and offhand combination for the build is the Jesseth set, Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield. The set's revised powers now amplify your overall damage while Command Skeletons are attacking a target. Note the ability of Jesseth Skullscythe to roll a bonus to maximum Essence in its secondary stats, and strive to obtain it to gain the most from Reilena's Shadowhook.

* — Crit Chance is denoted with "lower priority" due to Brittle Touch stacking. Read gearing section above.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

This Season comes with the theme of Angelic Crucibles — consumable items that empower Legendary items with perfected Ancient-level stats, as well as infuse them with one of three unique, powerful, class-specific abilities at random.

Unlike their LoD counterpart, set-based Corpse Lance builds do not have a great way of utilizing the three Sanctification powers during Greater Rift solo pushing — owing to an imperative skill selection that pretty much locks down your entire skill line-up. Thus, you should simply use Angelic Crucibles on an item that crosses over most (if not all) variants of a build, and is also an item that is relatively harder to perfect than other slots (since sanctifying an item maximizes its stats). The Sanctification power outcome does not matter. In the case of this build, a good candidate for Sanctification are your weapon, Jesseth Skullscythe, or a jewelry piece like Krysbin's Sentence.

You can read more on Angelic Crucibles and the sanctification process in our dedicated Angelic Crucible Mechanics guide.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

Gogok of Swiftness indirectly provides you with more damage and survivability by increasing Cooldown Reduction for Land of the Dead, Attack Speed for faster Corpse Lance output, as well as scaling Dodge chance.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You will be proccing this gem whenever the Frozen Lands stun is up (your major damage burst cycle).

Zei's Stone of Vengeance is another independent multiplier, whose range-dependent amplification can be easily maxed out by the long reach of Corpse Lance. The level 25 property will add some minor control and safety to the build, as well as another proc for Bane of the Trapped.

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

Your weapon slot in Kanai's Cube should be taken by the two-handed scythe Reilena's Shadowhook, whose power scales your damage multiplicatively based on your maximum Essence. This places a strong emphasis on expanding your resource pool via Simulacrum Reservoir and Overwhelming Essence, maxing resource in Paragons and attaining a high max Essence in the weapon and offhand's secondary stats.

With the strong emphasis on Corpse Lance damage, it is only natural to include Corpsewhisper Pauldrons in the armor Cube slot. These shoulders scale Corpse Lance damage per Corpse consumed, a bonus you easily max out during Land of the Dead.

In the Pestilence / Captain Crimson mixture, you will need a Ring of Royal Grandeur: a cache legendary ring from Act I bounties, to tie the two sets together. The ability to run with one full 6-piece set bonus and an additional 3-piece bonus, dodging the undesirable guaranteed stats on the Grandeur by cubing its power, is a tremendous boost to the build.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the Enchantress, due to her increased attack speed bonuses (helpful for the attack speed breakpoint-reliant methods of dealing damage in this build) via Focused Mind, as well as the cooldown reduction bonus from Prophetic Harmony and damage reduction from Powered Shield.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered, which renders you immune to Crowd Control effects for a brief time after consuming it — valuable bonus to a build that lacks means to break away from CC outside of straight up evasion via Blood Rush.