Rathma Skeletal Mages Necromancer

[Damien 1,514]

This thread is for comments about our Rathma Skeletal Mages Necromancer Build Guide.

[Guest Rai]

During the beta I had a similar build but with more pets (28 when all active) and a 3 point synergy between the belt, bracers, and the passive that spawns health globes.

https://www.d3planner.com/840278481

Was hoping for any potential advice or any thoughts about the current build

[Guest Jawn]

This is very similar to the Rathma build that I had the most success with on Beta, with a few changes. I got to around GR 85 without any augments, so I imagine 90 would be possible. 

https://www.d3planner.com/784213949

This build pushes most of your damage away from your skeletons/Revives and into your mages. This frees up Command Skeleton to use the Dark Mending rune for survivability rather than using Frenzy for Damage,

Simulacrum-Reservior doubles your essence and pops out 4 mages rather than 2, doubling the value of not only Reilena's and quadrupling the value of Singularity. This combo melts elites and rift guardians alike.

Fraility-Scent of Blood is a ton of raw damage, however, this may be swapped for Blood Rush for mobility, or Bone Armor for survivability.

Krysbin's Sentence should be mathematically superior to CoE in every situation that I can think of with a build that uses frequent stuns+BoT perma-slow, which in turn makes Decrepify-Dizzying Curse the rune of choice.  

Reilena's Shadowhook is the cubed Weapon for both extra mage damage and greatly increased Essence regeneration, leading to more singularity mages. For the 3rd ring, the choice comes down to Unity/Lornelle's for survivability and CoE for damage. At any rate, CoE+Krysbin's is significantly more damage than CoE+Endless Walk set, while freeing up the amulet slot to boot.

A variety of choices are available for the amulet slot. Dovu for increased uptime on Krysbin's 300% damage buff, Haunted Vision's for double Simulacrum uptime allowing for incredible damage. For the amulet, Hellfire allows you to fit both Spreading Malediction and Endless Service into the build, however, Dovu's, Haunted Vision, Wisdom of Kalan, and any immunity amulet could all be used as well.

[Guest StoneH]

Why would you use COE when Krysbin is clearly better?
And why take blood rush when you can take bone armor? (which gives DR that the necro really needs)
And why not Trag'Oul's corroded fang if you have decrepify? The effect will be better than the shadowhook.

[Guest StoneH]

Also forgot one thing,singularity is the worst rune you could pick up for Rathma. Did you read the 6 pieces bonus?

[Arkpit 101]

8 hours ago, Guest StoneH said:

Also forgot one thing,singularity is the worst rune you could pick up for Rathma. Did you read the 6 pieces bonus?

This is probably because 1, not using the Army of the Dead skill and secondly, a full essence singularity mage alone is close to 1000% damage increase on it. If you spam mages in a fight you might have 3 out which buffs skeletons by 750% which will barely hurt a boss combined compared to the damage output of 1 singularity mage.

Jesseth + Singularity mage will get the job done quicker than spamming any other mage to buff skeletons.

What I found more curious was that the guide doesn't fit Army of the Dead which seem to be a thing in the set.

[Guest StoneH]

1 hour ago, Arkpit said:

This is probably because 1, not using the Army of the Dead skill and secondly, a full essence singularity mage alone is close to 1000% damage increase on it. If you spam mages in a fight you might have 3 out which buffs skeletons by 750% which will barely hurt a boss combined compared to the damage output of 1 singularity mage.

Jesseth + Singularity mage will get the job done quicker than spamming any other mage to buff skeletons.

What I found more curious was that the guide doesn't fit Army of the Dead which seem to be a thing in the set.

You clearly didn't test the set and the skeletons to say that.
We are speaking buffing the skeletons between your 750% and the 2400% if you have all ten out,not even mentioning the 15% atk spd buff from the archer (since you take archer when you don't take singularity.)
Add to that that each skeletons is buffed by this 2400%. Singularity is just bad for Rathma.

 

[Guest StoneH]

Oh,and that's because army of the dead is useless. Too long of a cd to be really efficient,even with the cd red from the set.
That's probably the only correct option in this guide btw.

[Kol4 0]

I have a question : Is there a way to play a tragoul version of skeletal mages with the sacrifice  life rune ? And the 6 piece bonus ? Will it work or just be weak ?

[Kaelos 74]

Isn't it better to have as many mages as possible for 6p bonus? The Singularity rune seems like being against it

Edited June 29, 2017 by Kaelos

[Guest Necro]

I would like to hear Deadset comment on 6p bonus and Singularity too...

[Guest Tuna]

What everyone isn't realizing is that you don't have to cast singularity mage at full essence. It still does 400% weapon damage by default, empowered by 3% per essence spent. At the base cost of 40 essence you're pumping out a 520% mage. Even at half essence you've got  760%. You can combo Devour with Life from Death passive (20% chance for healing globes on corpse consume), along with Reaper's Wraps (as there really aren't a whole lot of bracer choices for the build), and have more than enough essences to keep up 10 singularities at low to mid essence.

[Guest Bodach]

15 hours ago, Kaelos said:

Isn't it better to have as many mages as possible for 6p bonus? The Singularity rune seems like being against it

I'd love an answer to this too

[Guest MipMip]

Suggestion:

If you are using the frailty aura instead of decrepify, I think it would be ideel to switch Dayntee's Binding (belt) with Hunter's Wrath. This other belt increases attack speed of primary skills by 30 %. This should signifigantly boost essence generation  and thereby also damage.

This setup works for me since I already have the Unity ring to protect me.

[Guest MipMip]

1 hour ago, Guest MipMip said:

Suggestion:

If you are using the frailty aura instead of decrepify, I think it would be ideel to switch Dayntee's Binding (belt) with Hunter's Wrath. This other belt increases attack speed of primary skills by 30 %. This should signifigantly boost essence generation  and thereby also damage.

This setup works for me since I already have the Unity ring to protect me.

I did some research and I am sorry for getting your hopes up.  It turns out that Hunter's wrath only works for Demon Hunters.
However, belts like Sash of Knives (for offence) and String of Ears (for defence) are still available.

[Guest Tuna]

3 hours ago, Guest Bodach said:

I'd love an answer to this too

Yes you do want to max out your mages to 10 as often as possible. Singularity is fine as it is; you don't need to summon max essence mages all the time.

[Guest StoneH]

9 hours ago, Guest Tuna said:

What everyone isn't realizing is that you don't have to cast singularity mage at full essence. It still does 400% weapon damage by default, empowered by 3% per essence spent. At the base cost of 40 essence you're pumping out a 520% mage. Even at half essence you've got  760%. You can combo Devour with Life from Death passive (20% chance for healing globes on corpse consume), along with Reaper's Wraps (as there really aren't a whole lot of bracer choices for the build), and have more than enough essences to keep up 10 singularities at low to mid essence.

Good luck surviving a gr 80 with that setup(which is supposedly what you can do according to this guide). The mobs will kill you just by looking at you actually.
Also trying to defend this build while he uses coe instead of krysbin,reilena instead of trag'oul and blood rush instead of bone armor,wither rune instead of the stun one (10%dr to lose the slow is so not worthy) ,lacuni prowlers instead of,well,a lot of thing could go there and be more useful,I'm doubting this build had even been tested.

 

[Crimzen 1]

I am working on a Skeleton/Corpse Explosion build.  May or may not end up working, right now I just hit 70 so, no gear to speak of.  im just wondering once I get full Rathma/Jesseth and the other pieces I need if this will improve single target damage or not.

1:  Grim Scythe (Cursed Scythe)  OR Bone Spikes (Blood Spikes) - Cant quite figure out which one I am wanting to use.

2: Corpse Explosion (Bloody Mess)

3: Command Skeletons (Dark Mending)

4: Command golem (Flesh Golem)

5: Skeletal Mage (Gift of death)

6: Army of the Dead (Death Valley)

 

Idea is to buff the pets as best I can, then use command golem to drop an immediate 8 corpses and then start corpse exploding.  Then once the mages die off, re-summon and blow up their corpses.  It works, but I struggle with champions/elites/bosses.  I think its probably just my lack of gear being a fresh 70, but I wanted to get others input.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Crimzen
spelling

[Guest Skan]

Okay, I just cleared t80 with my COMPLETELY Different Skelemage build.  I personally feel my build is signifigantly better because #1 it doesn't use skelemages #2 I have 200 million toughness while using it.

 

Heres the build https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Skan-1473/hero/90288414

Primary: Bone Spikes

Secondary: Skelemage Gift of Death

1 Decrepfy Enfeeblement

2 Bone Armor Dislocaiton (Might look at changing this)

3. Command Skeleton Dark Mending

4. Devour Devouring Aura (helps feed you essense and one less thing to keep track of)

 

ITEMS:

RINGS: Covention of Elements & Circle of Nailjul

Amulet: Im currently using Eye of Etlitch because I have one 10% crit 100% crit dmg.. but probably bone armor is best.

Bracelet: Ancient Patheon defenders ( I get stun from both bone armor and left click.. more survivability)

Rathmas Full set

Jesseth Full set

Cube: Sycthe of the Circle ( BECAUSE OF BONE ARMOR +300% DPS WAY BETTER THAN THE OTHER SCYCLE THAT ONLY GIVES YOU 150% IF YOU ARE FULL MANA)

Armor: Tasker and Theo

Ring : Krysbins (BOTH BONE ARMOR AND CURSE WILL TRIGGER THIS BECAUSE OF ENFEEBLEMENT=ROOT NOT SLOW)

JUSTIFICATIONS:

I already explained the cube stuff but why not travelers ?!?!?! Because convention gives me 100% dmg, each skelemage gives me 250% dmg (so extra 250% every right click instead of 100% when standing still) 

 

Bone armor gives you more defense, devouring aura gives you enough essence to keep up 10 mages at once constantly.  Gift of death is a double bonus on the mages because #1 I get more essence from when they die, and #2 I can roll % physical and have it boost my mages, my skeletons, and my spikes.

I didn't like blood rush because I feel as a mage blinking into the unknown is generally a bad idea, though its sad I don't have it to get out of jailer or walls sometimes, but I have so much toughness it usually doesnt matter.

 

GOOD LUCK, HOPE YOU ENJOY.

[Skan1473 0]

13 hours ago, Guest StoneH said:

 

Couldn't agree more though I use scythe of the circle with bone armor, check out my build. I legit cleared T80 https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Skan-1473/hero/90288414

[Guest Nice to use]

23 hours ago, Guest StoneH said:

Well, i actually tested this build so far, and managed to run a 80 Grift successfully in ~11 minutes. I really like this build, it has some potential. Alternately you can swap the convention of elements for an Unity if you've some surviving problems, it does still enough damage.

 

[Hotpants 5]

still no answer why CoE over Krysbin? one more thing, skan, you don't need corpses to keep your skelemages up? they only cost essence?

Edited July 2, 2017 by Hotpants

[Guest Tuna]

On 6/30/2017 at 4:03 AM, Guest StoneH said:

Good luck surviving a gr 80 with that setup(which is supposedly what you can do according to this guide). The mobs will kill you just by looking at you actually.
Also trying to defend this build while he uses coe instead of krysbin,reilena instead of trag'oul and blood rush instead of bone armor,wither rune instead of the stun one (10%dr to lose the slow is so not worthy) ,lacuni prowlers instead of,well,a lot of thing could go there and be more useful,I'm doubting this build had even been tested.

You have completely misunderstood my post well done.

I'm going to clarify, once again, that you do not need to use singularity mages at full essence 100% of the time.

That is literally all I am saying here. 10 singularity mages at 40 essence are vastly more powerful than 10 archers, even with the 10 attack speed buff. Plus, they get even stronger.

[Skan1473 0]

8 hours ago, Hotpants said:

still no answer why CoE over Krysbin? one more thing, skan, you don't need corpses to keep your skelemages up? they only cost essence?

You take devour aura to give you essence from the corpses the mages drop.

[Mikios 0]

Cool build, But I prefer aura rune on devour over cannibalize.