Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation

The Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer can deal reasonably well with Greater Rift Speed Farming, with strong and reliable crowd control at his disposal and massive burst damage with some timing involved. 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.

During lower tier Greater Rift farming, the balance between defense, damage and utility can be shifted to favor the latter two aspects of character building.

Active Skills
Siphon Blood Power Shift Command Skeletons Frenzy 1 Bone Armor Dislocation 2 Army of the Dead Death Valley 3 Blood Rush Potency 4 Revive Personal Army
Passive Skills
Rathma's Shield Final Service Rigor Mortis Grisly Tribute

When you are Speed Farming Greater Rifts, your playstyle should at least partially reflect the circumstances by focusing on massive pulls, generic bonuses against enemies and chaining pylon effects.

Similarly to the base build, you should call upon your summons and maximize their numbers as soon as possible — all 7 Command Skeletons and the 10 Revives — so you get the most out of your Rathma set bonus and chunk the massive Army of the Dead cooldown. With proper Cooldown Reduction optimization, you should have two activations of Army of the Dead within a single Convention of Elements rotation. One of them needs to be during the Physical cycle in order to burst enemies down, while the other will be auxiliary damage, mopping up stragglers and setting up Oculus Ring spawns.

You will maintain a considerable distance from the enemy — letting the minions tank and distract your enemies, and biding your time for a Bone Armor Dislocation activation when the Physical CoE cycle comes around. Once you get a good hit on an densely packed monster pull, retreat to safety with Blood Rush to maximize your Zei's Stone of Vengeance bonus, which is based on distance. With both bonuses taken care of, you can unleash the Army of the Dead Death Valley nuke and enjoy the devastation.

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to burst down enemies quicker takes precedence.

• Army of the Dead is still the centerpiece of the build, and you should maintain its rune to the pulling effect of Death Valley for the excellent battlefield manipulation.
• Command Skeletons stays in the build as one half of the summoned army necessary for the Rathma set bonuses. The preferred rune continues to be Frenzy, for the hastened resets of Army of the Dead.
• Revive is also a mandatory inclusion in a Rathma build, and you should run the helpful damage reduction aspect of Personal Army.
• Bone Armor stays in the build for its damage reduction aspect. You should also keep the Dislocation rune to have a reliable Krysbin's Sentence proc under your control with its active stun effect.
• Blood Rush Potency remains in the build as a vital repositioning and movement tool throughout the Greater Rift.
• Siphon Blood stays in the build for the massive damage scaling against affected targets provided by the Cubed Funerary Pick.
• Your passive lineup will be spread evenly between sources of utility ( Rigor Mortis as a reliable source of crowd control, and Grisly Tribute for the pet-based life per hit bonuses) and defense (with the once-per-minute Rathma's Shield invulnerability procs, and Final Service for a cheat death failsafe).

The build remains firmly rooted in the combination of the Bones of Rathma set (5 pieces) and the craftable Cpt. Crimson set (2 pieces), their full set bonuses attained via a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. You will also maintain the weapon and offhand combo from the main build — the Jesseth Arms set, Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield. Generally, even the jewelry choices will remain the same — all out offensive powers with Squirt's Necklace, Krysbin's Sentence and Convention of Elements boosting your DPS.

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.

Both Bane of the Trapped and Zei's Stone of Vengeance remain valuable, independent damage multiplication gems for the setup. Your third legendary gem slot should be altered to Esoteric Alteration for the massive, unconditional defensive bulwark it provides.

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

The Funerary Pick, Fate's Vow and Ring of Royal Grandeur all remain cornerstone pieces of the build and are firmly fixed to your Cube setup. Funerary Pick provides incomparable damage scaling against targets affected by Siphon Blood. Fate's Vow brings a massive additive damage increase (hence the incentive to exclude skill damage rolls on gear, as it falls in the same category) to Army of the Dead, plus granting you the highest base damage rune, Unconventional Warfare, for free. Ring of Royal Grandeur grants you the full bonuses of the Rathma and Cpt. Crimson sets mixture.

In your 4th Kanai's Cube slot in Season 33, use Scythe of the Cycle for an additional damage multiplier, easily maintained with a frequent refresh of the Bone Armor duration.

The recommended follower for this build during GR speed farming 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.