Masquerade Bone Spear Necromancer Key Farming Variation

The Masquerade Bone Spear Necromancer deals with Normal Rift quite well, making the build well suited for the purposes of key farming. 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.

Active Skills
Grim Scythe Frost Scythe Bone Spear Teeth 1 Devour Devouring Aura 2 Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish 3 Blood Rush Metabolism 4 Simulacrum Reservoir
Passive Skills
Stand Alone Bone Prison Final Service Fueled by Death

• Bone Spear will still be the main damage dealer, but you should swap the precise, progression-oriented Blighted Marrow rune for the AoE convenience of Teeth, and adjust elemental rolls on gear to Physical accordingly.
• Simulacrum is still an integral part of the build, and all of its runes will be provided by the Masquerade set bonus.
• For maximum convenience, you should add Devour to the build along with Devouring Aura, which automates the consumption effect and synergizes nicely with the worn Avarice Band.
• As a backup whenever you run out of Corpses to Devour, you should still keep Grim Scythe around — along with the IAS-oriented Frost Scythe rune to speed up the resource restoration process.
• Bone Armor will be taken with the farming-oriented Harvest of Anguish due to the movement speed buff.
• For maximum mobility, Blood Rush will be taken with the doubled charges of Metabolism.

Some of your passive selection from the GR specs will be retained, with Stand Alone (massive armor bonus for non- and low-summoning builds) and Bone Prison (crowd control for Bone Spear) still providing tremendous value. Add to them Final Service (for the cheat death preventing the occasional mishap) and Fueled by Death (to further your mobility during standard rift farming.)

You will keep most of the items from the progression-oriented setup, with the majority of the Masquerade set remaining in place, but run a 5-piece setup with a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube to attain the 6-piece bonus. You should make the following gear alterations:

• Drop the Extravagant Shoes from the worn gear and replace them with Steuart's Greaves for the additional mobility after using Blood Rush.
• Replace the curse-dependent protection of Dayntee's Binding with Goldwrap, as the gold synergy outlined below will provide you with all the protection you might need in farming runs.
• Replace the progression-oriented Convention of Elements for the speed farming-appropriate Avarice Band. This Act III bounty cache legendary ring will greatly increase your pickup radius as you gain gold, forming a solid triumvirate of powers with the worn Goldwrap and socketed Boon of the Hoarder. Complete the worn jewelry with the usual Haunted Visions and Krysbin's Sentence.

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.

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.

You will maintain Zei's Stone of Vengeance as a universally useful damage multiplication gem in the build, but should replace Bane of the Trapped for Boon of the Hoarder for the Avarice Band- Goldwrap synergy during farming runs, and drop the Greater Rift Guardian-oriented Bane of the Stricken for the generic damage increase of Bane of the Powerful.

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

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

Tucked away in the Cube, Krelm's Buff Belt will provide you with a considerable and consistent speed boost throughout your runs.

In the base suggested setup above, you will have to slot the Ring of Royal Grandeur in order to maintain the 6-piece Masquerade bonus while enjoying extra utility legendary powers.

During Season 33, you are also able to include Maltorius' Petrified Spike from the progression version of the build, and enjoy its damage bonuses without losing the utility of cooldown-related weapon powers.

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 standard T16 rifts farming is the Enchantress due to her vast array of bonuses that complement this build; most notably, Prophetic Harmony for the Cooldown Reduction and Amplification for the elemental damage increase, both of which you can attain by using a Hand of the Prophet.

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.