LoD Corpse Lance Necromancer Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Corpse Lance Brittle Touch Blood Rush Molting 1 Simulacrum Reservoir 2 Land of the Dead Frozen Lands 3 Decrepify Borrowed Time 4 Devour Satiated
Passive Skills
Overwhelming Essence Blood is Power Spreading Malediction Stand Alone

The playstyle of a LoN Corpse Lance build largely mimics that of its set-based counterparts; you spend most of your time scouting around and building up density with Blood Rush, and making use of your powerful cooldowns in one massive activation chain. Simultaneous use of Simulacrum and Land of the Dead results in the signature power spike of the build, making your Corpse Lance use unlimited and extremely powerful for a 10-second window, as your Devours grant you near-invulnerability from the free Corpse consumption. To lower those massive cooldowns as well as lower incoming damage through item interactions, you will be using Decrepify Borrowed Time liberally, spreading it over any pack of enemies you see.

Corpse Lance is the main damage dealing skill of the build; a powerful homing projectile of bone that consumes a Corpse upon use. Corpses are the Necromancer's secondary "resource", generated from killed monsters, as well as a limited array of skills discussed further in the guide. You have some freedom in your rune choice; in mid-to-high GR tier content, you can make use of the faster clears coming from Ricochet, but for high-end GR pushing, the crit-scaling Brittle Touch reigns supreme. The damage of this skill will be amplified through your itemization, most notably the dedicated Corpsewhisper Pauldrons, as well as generic damage scaling items like Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang and Reilena's Shadowhook (see this build's gear page for more information).

The duo of massive cooldowns discussed above, Land of the Dead and Simulacrum, are used simultaneously in your rotation, and only against large packs of enemies — all to make the best use of their matching lengths and downtime. Land of the Dead will grant you the single most important source of Corpses in the build during GR progression, as you gain unlimited use of your Corpse-related skills during its uptime, in turn allowing you massive spam of Corpse Lance and producing the build's signature burst. The recommended rune is Frozen Lands, as it grants reliable crowd control — useful both for your survivability, as well as proccing the full bonus of Krysbin's Sentence. Simulacrum acts strictly as a damage buff, as the rune Reservoir doubles your Essence pool temporarily and feeds into the bonuses of Reilena's Shadowhook.

The second pair of skills forms your utility pool, with the restorative effects of Devour and the protective properties of Decrepify. While Devour clashes for Corpse consumption with Corpse Lance, in practice your meaningful bursts of damage come during Land of the Dead, when you can liberally spam both skills without worry. Thus, for most of the Rift you will be spamming Devour to get the maximum restoration possible from nearby corpses; rune-wise, you can opt for the stronger healing of Cannibalize , or strategically building up a health buffer in between fights with Satiated. The latter seems preferable during high GR progression. On the other hand, Decrepify will align with the cubed Dayntee's Binding for a massive damage reduction bonus total, as well as bring vital cooldown reduction from the rune Borrowed Time.

Last but not least, Blood Rush brings mobility to the build — which is vital, since you spend the vast majority of your time in the rift drawing monster attention, evading dangerous affixes and projectiles, and building up the next clump to unleash your cooldowns on. You have some freedom in your rune choice; the default recommendation is Molting for the extra Corpse, but you can also opt for the extra defence of Potency, or the double charges of Metabolism.

With the steep Cooldown Reduction requirements of the build, the inclusion of Blood is Power is all but mandatory. This passive demands that you lose your entire health reserve equivalent to obtain its cooldown reduction bonus, but due to the pre-mitigation calculation of its trigger, you gain its benefits naturally from the way high GRs play out.

This is a no-summons Necromancer build, which makes great use of the Stand Alone passive and its humongous Armor bonuses.

Earlier on, your third passive slot can be dedicated to a safe choice like Draw Life, which works well with the monster-grouping tendencies of the build. As you level your Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard to high levels, amass Paragons and get used to the playstyle of the build, you should transition this slot into Spreading Malediction for its additive damage increase against Curse-afflicted monsters — a bonus you will easily attain through Decrepify.

Your fourth and final passive slot can be dedicated to increasing your damage via Overwhelming Essence, which feeds into tour Reilena's Shadowhook Essence-based damage amplification. Alternatively, you can slot the Necromancer's cheat death Final Service with minimal losses to your overall performance, and added safety to your runs.