Generator Necromancer BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Generator Necromancer in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.8 and Season 33.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
The build equips all six available pieces of the Grace of Inarius set, leaving your jewelry slots for pieces that bring more utility and damage to the setup. Rolls-wise, this primary attack-reliant build makes good use of skill damage, attack speed and area damage across gear. Your ability damage focus will be spent entirely on Grim Scythe, so try to roll a % increase to its damage on your pants and belt (discussed below). Inarius's Conviction and Inarius's Perseverance can be dedicated entirely to toughness rolls, while Inarius's Understanding needs to include a Crit Chance roll alongside the high main stats. Area Damage will be sought on both Inarius's Martyrdom and Inarius's Will, with cooldown reduction accompanying it on the former and double crit stats on the latter.
Your jewelry will be mostly dedicated to offense, with some room for personal preference. As your amulet, Haunted Visions offers a build-defining legendary power that makes your Simulacrum summons last forever at the cost of a negligible life drain effect. It also allows them to duplicate Grim Scythe instead of Skeletal Mage, shifting the focus of Simulacrums from Secondary to Primary skills and allowing this build to thrive. Krysbin's Sentence doubles your damage against targets affected by a Slow. This bonus is virtually permanent due to the level 25 property of Bane of the Trapped, which creates a slowing field in your melee range, where you naturally fight with the Inarius set. It also triples the bonus if you affect enemies with any other form of CC — a mighty effect that you will trigger with a combination of Bone Armor Dislocation activations, as well as hard CC (Freeze, Stun, Blind) secondary stats on your gear, and the occasional stuns provided by the follower. Your final ring can vary according to your confidence in survival; your optimal damage choice would be Convention of Elements, which provides a massive elemental damage increase for this build during the Poison cycle, with extra value due to Necromancers having the smallest (3-element) rotation on the ring. Alternatively, you can wear Unity for the 50% damage reduction when paired with another on the follower, along with an immortality relic for them (i.e. Enchanting Favor.)
Dayntee's Binding is the solitary Necromancer-specific belt, which compensates its lack of flashy offensive powers with a mighty defensive bulwark — 50% extra damage reduction as long as there is an enemy afflicted by your curses (see this build's skills page for more information).
Due to the lack of dedicated or necessary bracers in this setup, your best choice for the slot becomes Krelm's Buff Bracers, which make you immune to Knockback and Stun effects. The former favorites for the slot, Nemesis Bracers, can now be equipped on the follower and their power transferred to you via the Emanate mechanic.
Your weapon and offhand best-in-slots are locked down by the necessities of the build. Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang is a dedicated Grim Scythe Cursed Scythe legendary item that guarantees the curse application of your primary attack, and greatly amplifies your damage against afflicted targets. Leger's Disdain is a phylactery that dictates the entire dynamic of the build, providing a substantial damage increase for every point of Essence restored by Grim Scythe. While it might seem counter-intuitive at first — after all, in a (mostly) generator-spamming spec, you will be at or near max Essence at all times — it has been tested and proven that while your character might miss out on that benefit at times, your Simulacrums will constantly benefit from it.
Season 33 Modification
Due to the 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 33 and the ability to include an extra damage multiplier in the form of Reilena's Shadowhook, you will focus on expanding your Essence reserve alongside the usual recommendations for this build. Gear-wise, this means aiming for Maximum Essence in the secondary stats of your weapon and offhand, as well as maxing the stat out with priority in Paragons.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
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Head |
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Shoulders |
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Torso |
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Wrists |
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Hands |
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Waist |
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Legs |
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Feet |
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Amulet |
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Ring #1 |
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Ring #2 |
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Weapon |
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Off-hand |
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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.
Altar of Rites
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.
Paragon Points
In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally, this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as you comfortably can into Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness. Investing points into Maximum Essence is not necessary in this build.
In the Offense section, max out Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Attack Speed and CDR in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Resource Cost Reduction and Globe Radius.
Slot | Paragon Points |
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Core |
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Offense |
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Defense |
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Utility |
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Gems
Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property when in melee range, synergizing with the close-and-personal range of Inarius Necromancer builds.
Simplicity's Strength is one of the best DPS gems you can take for the build, as it was changed into a separate damage multiplication source to primary skills in Patch 2.4.1. Upgrading with a steady pace of half a percent per gem level, it quickly becomes a priority and a fixture in your gem choices. Its buffed healing secondary effect is just icing on the cake.
Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final jewelry socket in GRs. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single-target, high-HP enemies.
When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Topazes in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Topazes as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Intelligence in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Ruby, scaling the lacking Armor of an Intelligence-based character (Intelligence scales Resistances). There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. This is a fairly cooldown- and resource independent build, so you will use a Flawless Royal Amethyst in the helm for the extra health. In your weapon, use a Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.
Slot | Gems |
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Jewelry | |
Helm |
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Torso and Pants |
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Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
Stored in the Weapon slot of Kanai's Cube, Nayr's Black Death is the damage amplification source of choice for this strictly poison-oriented build. Maximized via the Cube to its 100% value per skill added, this scythe results in an impressive 500% multiplication total in this build setup.
Depth Diggers are a natural inclusion in this build, since they net you a 100% damage increase to your primary skills.
Wisdom of Kalan will increase your maximum Bone Armor stacks to 5, quadrupling your toughness to the whopping 90% at the maximum 15.
During Season 33, you are also able to include Reilena's Shadowhook; its power scales your damage multiplicatively based on your maximum Essence. This places a strong emphasis on expanding your resource pool via Overwhelming Essence, maxing resource in Paragons and attaining a high max Essence in the secondary stats of your weapons.
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.
Follower
For Greater Rift progression with this build, we recommend the Templar for his essential heal and cheat death abilities. The Templar is a preferable choice due to the lacking sustain and survivability in this build.
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.
Legendary Potion
Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Necromancers (due to Intelligence scaling Resistances) for optimal survivability.
Changelog
- 22 Oct. 2024: Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 10 Jul. 2024: Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 10 Apr. 2024: Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
- 10 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 08 Dec. 2021: Minor gear and skill revision; added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 01 Apr. 2021: Minor gear revision and added a follower recommendation.
- 19 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 08 Jul. 2020: Overhauled the guide to include item recommendations based on the revised powers of Haunted Visions and Razeth's Volition.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
- 12 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 18 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
- 27 Mar. 2018: Added the guide.
More Necromancer Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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