LoD Singularity Necromancer Key Farming Variation

Last updated on Oct 22, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 30 comments
1.

Regular Rift Key Farming

The LoD Singularity Necromancer deals with Normal Rift farming excellently, making it one of the preferable builds for the purpose. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

2.

Adapting Skills

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Bone Armor Icon Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish Harvest of Anguish Right Mouse Button Skeletal Mage Icon Skeletal Mage Life Support Life Support 1 Blood Rush Icon Blood Rush Metabolism Metabolism 2 Devour Icon Devour Devouring Aura Devouring Aura 3 Land of the Dead Icon Land of the Dead Frozen Lands Frozen Lands 4 Simulacrum Icon Simulacrum Reservoir Reservoir
Passive Skills

A large part of your skill selection from the solo build will still make sense during GR XP farming. The basis of your damage still lies in the synergy between the (free) Skeletal Mage Skeletal Mage Singularity Singularity and the near-instantaneous Essence refills provided by Devour Devour (aura-like for convenience, in this case) during Land of the Dead Land of the Dead uptime, coupled with the extension of your overall Essence pool reserve via Overwhelming Essence Overwhelming Essence and Simulacrum Simulacrum Reservoir Reservoir. All the alterations made to skills will be made in service of speed and convenience, namely:

  • For maximum convenience, you can swap the Devour Devour rune to Devouring Aura Devouring Aura, which automates the consumption effect and synergizes nicely with the worn Avarice Band Avarice Band. That being said, you can keep an active rune like Satiated Satiated, which provides a bigger overall benefit.
  • With the revised powers of Haunted Visions Haunted Visions, there is no reason not to keep Simulacrum Simulacrums on the bar, since you will get the permanent benefit of the Reservoir Reservoir rune.
  • Land of the Dead Land of the Dead will stay on the hard CC effect of Frozen Lands Frozen Lands, ideally overlapping with the strong cooldown reduction-oriented choices in your gearing.
  • Bone Armor Bone Armor will be taken with the farming-oriented Harvest of Anguish Harvest of Anguish due to the movement speed buff.
  • For maximum mobility, Blood Rush Blood Rush will be taken with the doubled charges of Metabolism Metabolism.

Most of your passive selection from the GR specs will be retained, with Final Service Final Service (cheat death), Overwhelming Essence Overwhelming Essence (extra Essence for DPS) and Extended Servitude Extended Servitude (longer lasting Mages) still providing tremendous value. We also recommend adding Dark Reaping Dark Reaping for a steady source of Life and Essence with the lightning-quick kill speeds during farming.

3.

Adapting Gear

From the Devour Devour-related items, Requiem Cereplate Requiem Cereplate retains its value for the snowballing effect in a speed run, and Razeth's Volition Razeth's Volition remains vital with the free Singularity Singularity and Gift of Death Gift of Death effects it provides.

From the "generic" legendaries, keep Leoric's Crown Leoric's Crown as your helm (CDR trumps the potential damage gain from Andariel's Visage Andariel's Visage here), as well as Reaper's Wraps Reaper's Wraps — they remain a cornerstone item in the build for their resource regeneration.

The damage-increasing legendaries are highly desirable in speeds, so you will maintain Tasker and Theo Tasker and Theo for the pet attack speed, Haunted Visions Haunted Visions for the damage buff from the Reservoir Reservoir summons, and take Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan due to its combination of a damage increase plus resource generation enhancement.

Since speed is essential in XP runs, you will be wearing Steuart's Greaves Steuart's Greaves over the progression-oriented Ice Climbers Ice Climbers, and will be slotting Blood Rush Blood Rush Metabolism Metabolism in your active skills accordingly (see above).

When it comes to jewelry, our basic recommendation is to keep Circle of Nailuj's Evol Circle of Nailuj's Evol for the ease of Skeletal Mage Skeletal Mage Singularity Singularity army maintenance, and add the Act III bounty cache legendary Avarice Band Avarice Band for its tremendous speed farming utility. The combined power of the latter when socketed with a Boon of the Hoarder Boon of the Hoarder and paired with Goldwrap Goldwrap will both greatly speed you up and render you near-invulnerable in standard rift farming. The third suggested ring is Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence for the damage amplification; pick your stronger two to wear and Cube the third. A notable alteration you can make is to drop Krysbin from the setup when you grow very confident of your damage, and take Rechel's Ring of Larceny Rechel's Ring of Larceny for the movement speed proc (it has to be worn in order to proc itself with its guaranteed Fear on Hit secondary stat).

The weapon and offhand are, as always, Scythe of the Cycle Scythe of the Cycle, plus your best rolled phylactery with appropriate stats.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Intelligence
  2. Socket
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Skeletal Mage Damage %
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Intelligence
  2. Cooldown Reduction
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. Intelligence
  2. 3 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Physical Damage %
  4. Vitality
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Intelligence (replaced by Cooldown Reduction at High Paragons)
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Attack Speed
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. Life %
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Intelligence
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Intelligence
  2. Skeletal Mage Damage %
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Physical Damage %
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Weapon
  1. High Weapon Damage
  2. Intelligence
  3. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Damage %
  6. Max Essence (Important Secondary stat)
Off-hand
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Cooldown Reduction
  4. Skeletal Mage %
  5. Max Essence (Important Secondary Stat)

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.

3.1.

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).

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.

4.

Adapting Gems

You will maintain Enforcer Enforcer and Legacy of Dreams Legacy of Dreams as crucial legendary gems for the build, but should replace Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped for Boon of the Hoarder Boon of the Hoarder for the Avarice Band Avarice Band-Goldwrap Goldwrap synergy during farming runs.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

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

5.

Adapting Kanai's Cube

For your weapon slot, you can run either Messerschmidt's Reaver Messerschmidt's Reaver (solo normal rift farming) or In-geom In-geom (group normal rift farming) as your cooldown reduction powerhouse; both will work exceptionally well with the build.

To further the speed of your clears, slot Nemesis Bracers Nemesis Bracers in your armor Cube slot for the additional elite spawns.

In the jewelry slot, you should slot your weakest rolled ring between the ones outlined above: Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence, Circle of Nailuj's Evol Circle of Nailuj's Evol, or Avarice Band Avarice Band.

During Season 33, you have an extra 4th Cube slot to re-introduce the massive damage amplification of Reilena's Shadowhook Reilena's Shadowhook with; this way you do not have to sacrifice the strength of the progression items for the convenience of farming staples.

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.

6.

Follower

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

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.

7.

Legendary Potion

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower 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.

8.

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: Guide reviewed for Season 31.
  • 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: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 01 Apr. 2021: Added follower recommendation.
  • 19 Nov. 2020: Revision of item, skill, and passive recommendations, alongside advice for Season 22 changes.
  • 02 Jul. 2020: Revised the build to account for Razeth's Volition changes.
  • 12 Mar. 2020: Page added.
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