Rathma Bone Spirit Necromancer Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

The Rathma Bone Spirit Necromancer can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, with reliable AoE damage and great mobility offered by the combination of Blood Rush and cooldown resetting items. 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
Land of the Dead Frozen Lands Bone Spirit Unfinished Business 1 Command Skeletons Enforcer 2 Devour Voracious 3 Blood Rush Metabolism 4 Revive Oblation
Passive Skills
Final Service Blood is Power Fueled by Death Serration

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

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. You should continue to spam both Devour (once the minions are up!) for Bone Spirit charge resets, as well as Command Skeletons (for Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac procs, Land of the Dead resets and Jesseth set bonus upkeep). You will be using various sources of massive cooldown reduction (most notably, Messerschmidt's Reaver) to get as close to permanent Land of the Dead uptime as you can, allowing you a constant streak of Bone Spirit Unfinished Business destruction. Forward momentum is of utmost importance in this speed farming build, as well as upkeep of your Squirt's Necklace bonus with careful movement and dodging with Blood Rush.

Most of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, with minor adaptations to accommodate the purposes of a Physical damage-centric build.

• Bone Spirit is still the main damage dealer of the build, but you should alter the single target-oriented and more measured in its use Astral Projection from the solo progression build to the large AoE effect of Unfinished Business.
• Land of the Dead stays in the build; with the plethora of reliable cooldown reduction sources during speedfarm, you will be able to chain its activations and enjoy massive streaks of Bone Spirit resets.
• Command Skeletons stays in the build as one half of the summoned army necessary for the Rathma set bonuses, as well as a resource spender for the needs of Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. Stick to the rune Enforcer to keep the costs of its spam more manageable.
• Revive is also a mandatory inclusion in a Rathma build, and you should maintain the Oblation rune from the progression build in order to trigger the cooldown reset bonus of Blood is Power.
• Devour Voracious stays in the build for the Corpse consumption which resets charges on Bone Spirit, as well as for the damage reduction aspect via its interaction with the worn Cpt. Crimson set.
• Blood Rush Metabolism remains in the build as a vital repositioning and movement tool throughout the rift, as well as another proc for Blood is Power.
• Your passives lineup should stay mostly the same as the progression build, with Serration for the damage amplification of Bone Spirit, Blood is Power feeding into your cooldown resets, and Final Service as a cheat death failsafe. Add Fueled by Death to the lineup to enjoy additional speed and convenience during speed farming.

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 and Krysbin's Sentence, and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac for the cooldown resetting powers.

Note that while you might have Nemesis Bracers on your follower and attain their powers from the Emanate mechanics in solo play, you might want to have them on your character during group play, and allow yourself space for Steuart's Greaves for additional speed to keep up with the faster classes in your party. In order to accommodate all of that, equip Nemesis Bracers as your bracer and wear Defiler Cuisses on your character, which frees up a slot to cube Steuart's Greaves (or vice versa). Of course, this means that you drop the Cpt. Crimson set.

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.

Keep Bane of the Trapped for its valuable damage multiplication powers, and Gogok of Swiftness for its indispensable cooldown reduction properties. Finish the legendary gem setup with Boon of the Hoarder, which — in conjunction with Avarice Band (either worn on the follower and Emanated, or by yourself in Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac's place), and potentially Goldwrap as well — will keep your pockets full and your speed boosted as you clear the rift.

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

Both Defiler Cuisses and Ring of Royal Grandeur remain cornerstone pieces of the build and are firmly affixed to your Cube setup. Defiler Cuisses bring a massive damage multiplier to Bone Spirit plus a utility-laden freezing effect on impact. Ring of Royal Grandeur grants you the full bonuses of the Rathma and Cpt. Crimson sets mixture.

For Standard (T16) Rift Speed Farming, few other items bring as much value as the cooldown reduction staples in the game. Place Messerschmidt's Reaver in the weapon Cube slot to enjoy a snowballing effect as you mow down monsters around you, feeding into the lightning-fast resets of the Land of the Dead cooldown.

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 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.

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.