Bone Storm Necromancer

[Valks 2,375]

This thread is for comments and feedback about our Bone Storm Necromancer build guide.

[DeadOfKnight 0]

Wouldn't Frostburn be BiS for season 16?  Seems like it would synergize better with cold damage, more procs of Krysbin's Sentence and Ancient Parthan Defenders, and making frost scythe the better rune.

Edited January 20, 2019 by DeadOfKnight

[Guest UndeathMetal]

Why use reliana's shadowhook equipped? Corroded Fang and literally any offhand with good stats is superior damage and stats, and if you use Lost Time you get a free speed boost to boot.

[DeadOfKnight 0]

On 1/18/2019 at 3:29 PM, Guest UndeathMetal said:

Why use reliana's shadowhook equipped? Corroded Fang and literally any offhand with good stats is superior damage and stats, and if you use Lost Time you get a free speed boost to boot.

Reilena's shadowhook is more damage.  Everything scales off of weapon damage.  It's the base of what gets multiplied, and it's easier to get perfect rolls on both with corroded fang cubed.  However, it's still a good setup the other way around due to more CDR, toughness, critical hit chance, and cold damage.

Edited January 20, 2019 by DeadOfKnight

[Guest D of demagogue]

So given that most of the damage of the build comes from  the bone armor: dislocation and the set dependent bone storm, as well as cursed scythe, rather than choosing the cold elemental buff for the relatively underpowered corpse lance, to me it makes more sense to prioritize poison damage over cold damage, since both dislocation and cursed scythe are poison damage.  I also chose a different rune for the corpse lance, both shredding splinters and ricochet are poison damage, the former seems to be better for single targets, so that's what I went with.

So, poison damage instead of cold on the bracers and amulet (actually my amulet has no elemental damage as it naaturally rolled near perfect for chc and chd, socket and intelligence, and I've been loath to change it, as it gets expensive in gems very quickly), still using land of the dead and bone armor: dislocation to proc ancient parthan defenders and Krysbins sentence, still spamming curses (I've been using leech) to proc dayntees belt for damage reduction as well as the cubed corroded fang for increased damage output has led to more damage and greater survivability in GR progression for me personally.  I progressed 7 more GR levels so far,not quite at the limit and if I can find a better compass rose and some more ancients, at present only my boots, helm and weapon are ancient.

 

For season 16, I favor the maneuverability of steuart's greaves myself, though I've been considering wearing an Aquila cuirass so I can then cube the nemesis bracers, but I've yet to find a well rolled  Aquila cuirass.   

[Guest D of demagogue]

Addendum to above- it's not that corpse lance is inherently underpowered,  quite the opposite really, its only that the inarius set doesn't directly buff long range attacks, but rather attacks within striking range of the rotating bone storm ONLY.  Corpse lance works great on targets already affected by the inarius bone storm, but on targets further away, it really loses its punch by about GR 65, if not earlier.

So... I chose to buff the attacks I can use regularly, and reliably, the attacks that contribute to building up a stockpile of corpses, the attacks that my defensive and offensive proc rely upon,  namely bone armor: dislocation and cursed scythe.   And with that corpse pile I mercilessly spam corpse lance at targets that are right next to me, preferably while they are stunned AND slowed to trigger the highest Krysbins proc. 

Naurally, this is merely my experience,  and I welcome any constructive criticism.  

 

[DeadOfKnight 0]

On 2/1/2019 at 5:28 PM, Guest D of demagogue said:

Addendum to above- it's not that corpse lance is inherently underpowered,  quite the opposite really, its only that the inarius set doesn't directly buff long range attacks, but rather attacks within striking range of the rotating bone storm ONLY.  Corpse lance works great on targets already affected by the inarius bone storm, but on targets further away, it really loses its punch by about GR 65, if not earlier.

So... I chose to buff the attacks I can use regularly, and reliably, the attacks that contribute to building up a stockpile of corpses, the attacks that my defensive and offensive proc rely upon,  namely bone armor: dislocation and cursed scythe.   And with that corpse pile I mercilessly spam corpse lance at targets that are right next to me, preferably while they are stunned AND slowed to trigger the highest Krysbins proc. 

Naurally, this is merely my experience,  and I welcome any constructive criticism.  

 

Your setup gives more elemental damage, which might feel consistently stronger in lower levels if you use Ricochet to clear trash, but it does not scale well.  In fact, LoN builds with +120% fire damage are really only gaining about 3 GR levels of power over the normal 40%.  Most of your damage actually doesn't come from Bone Armor or Grim Scythe.  It might feel that way when you stun enemies, but that's because it is triggering the 4x damage bonus from Krysbin's. A good portion of your damage actually comes from your gems.  Pain Enhancer procs apply bleed damage over time.  This only happens on crit, and bleed is affected by Krysbin's.

The build as shown is designed to maximize the increase in damage from Krysbin's and toughness from Ancient Parthan Defenders by stunning and freezing enemies as much as possible.  I think he chooses +% cold to strengthen Corpse Lance, which is primarily used in combination with Land of the Dead to kill the Rift Guardian.  At higher levels they cannot be face tanked, and the cold rune increases crit chance for more Pain Enhancer procs.  I would argue that cold on amulet and bracers might not be the best choice, but not because the skills are poison.  You might benefit more from  +% physical for more damage from Pain Enhancer.

You really need optimized stats to see this build shine though.  High level gems, high critical hit chance to proc Pain Enhancer, and even chance to CC on hit secondary stats if you can get them.  If you don't have great gear, and have a low crit chance, then rolling poison might not be a bad idea.  However, the only other thing I would swap out is one of your gems for Gem of Efficacious Toxin since it applies on hit instead of crit.  Even then, I think I'd swap out Mirinae and keep Pain Enhancer unless I was at like paragon level zero.  Since damage is spread over different elements, it really doesn't matter.  20% poison/20% physical would be good.

Edited February 8, 2019 by DeadOfKnight

[Guest D of demagogue]

Hey DeadofKnight, thanks a lot for your input, cogent, detailed and polite replies are uncommon on the internet, so it's much appreciated. 

Because I was having such a hard time getting this build to work well I admit I spread my efforts out rather than focusing in on optimizing this build.  I really want to actually finish the seasonal journey, but I only play solo so I admit the conquests have been giving me trouble, last season I was just one conquest away from getting that extra stash tab!  Anyway, at present my bone storm build has 50% area damage, 51.5% critical hit chance, 367 critical hit damage, 27% cooldown reduction, 20% poison damage and 14% corpse lance damage.  There is definitely room to increase chd, but I would need a better Krysbins and compass for that, and good jewelry is hard to roll.  My paragon is 709.  My gems are all at level 67, though i have recently built a meteor wizard (tal rasha varient), that should let me level them up to 74 at least.   I still only have the 3 ancients, and the only slot I can roll secondary cc is my pants, for a chance at 5% chance to slow on hit, which is superfluous with the bane of the trapped above lvl 25, no?

This build currently can't get past GR 79.  Also I did find an ancient Aquila cuirass, but I'm having a hard time dropping my primal (!) Steuart's greaves, especially since I can only really do much damage in close range, and that 100% speed boost is incredibly helpful in jumping in and out of the fray.     As far as I can tell,  I can only increase my crit chance by another 2%, since that's what I'm lacking on my rings, one is 5.5% the other is 4.5%.  I can certainly try the gem of efficacious toxin in lieu of the starweaver.  I'll try that and report back, see if there is any improvement.  

[Guest Balrog]

Any plans to revisit this with the buff to the inarus set for season 17?

[Arkpit 101]

15 hours ago, Guest Balrog said:

Any plans to revisit this with the buff to the inarus set for season 17?

This will absolutely be viable in S17, I will most definitly try both the LoN version and the set one!
The lazymancer speedfarm is going to be so chill in S17.

[Elekim 4]

Some minor notes:

!) In the Introduction page "Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver" is still a recommended gem, while it should be Gem of Efficacious Toxin...

2) In the speed farming variation page, why "Elemental Damage %" is not among the recommended stat priorities for bracers and amulet? Almost every other build on this website has the stat as a priority...

3) Shouldn't "Corpse Lance %" be a recommended stat for Lost Time (which also has only 3 primary recommended stats...)?

4) Which are the recommended Follower and Potion for this build?

[Guest Yaravia]

Shadowhook might look like higher damage upfront, but fails to account for the offhand coming with it's own added damage roll, stats, and extra 10% crit chance (which helps proc your bleed gem much more often). I know corpse lance adds crit to the target but it's a single target ability, limiting it's use to elites or bosses. This build doesn't shine on bosses or high-end Grift elites, I've gotten to spots where I had to cast LotD at least 3 times just to kill some elite packs because I was focusing all my crit into corpse lances and waiting around for LotD while my gems did most of the work but weren't as effective as if I had focused my damage there.

Result: This build is really fun for clearing trash and med-grifts, for farming. If you are pushing, I'd seriously recommend playing in a group until Blizzard gives us class bracers that are somehow game-changing.

[Guest Enonocker]

Hey guys might be a dumb question but how does corpsewhisper pauldrons proc with this build? From what I can see there is no way to currently devour corpses, am I missing something?

[Yolo 40]

On 7/8/2019 at 7:48 PM, Guest Enonocker said:

Hey guys might be a dumb question but how does corpsewhisper pauldrons proc with this build? From what I can see there is no way to currently devour corpses, am I missing something?

It procs when you consume a corpse, not specifically Devouring it, and Corpse Lance consumes a corpse when casted manually. 

[Guest Irritates]

I don't own a necromancer but I was reading the build for a friend who just started season 17. My understanding on the cubed neck (Wisdom of Kalan), is that it provides 5 more stacks of bone armor providing an additional 25% DR but no additional damage. If that's the case I would think Unity would be the better option when soloing and even something like Mara's Kaleidoscope when group pushing. I would recommend to my friend to use WoK for group farming of bounties or regular nephs.

If the 5 extra stacks provides some damage incentive please let me know so I can pass it along to my friend. Please forgive my ignorance of your class, just trying to get my friend and I a more complete understanding of the build since it's the S17 journey set. Thanks

[Valks 2,375]

1 hour ago, Guest Irritates said:

I don't own a necromancer but I was reading the build for a friend who just started season 17. My understanding on the cubed neck (Wisdom of Kalan), is that it provides 5 more stacks of bone armor providing an additional 25% DR but no additional damage. If that's the case I would think Unity would be the better option when soloing and even something like Mara's Kaleidoscope when group pushing. I would recommend to my friend to use WoK for group farming of bounties or regular nephs.

If the 5 extra stacks provides some damage incentive please let me know so I can pass it along to my friend. Please forgive my ignorance of your class, just trying to get my friend and I a more complete understanding of the build since it's the S17 journey set. Thanks

Unity is recommended in the guide for solo play already.

For group play, elemental amulets are always prone to just straight up RNG. Wisdom is damage reduction no matter the scenario, whereas you could go through full rifts and, just through RNG, never have that amulet do anything because the affix didn't appear.

[Irritates 0]

On 7/11/2019 at 7:47 AM, Blainie said:

Unity is recommended in the guide for solo play already.

For group play, elemental amulets are always prone to just straight up RNG. Wisdom is damage reduction no matter the scenario, whereas you could go through full rifts and, just through RNG, never have that amulet do anything because the affix didn't appear.

Thanks Blainie, I must have missed that in my reading. Also appreciate the advice.

[roweboy 0]

Why is Frailty on button 1 when it's an aura and does not even need to be activated? Why not put it on button 4?

[Guest Kefka]

For season 22 I have Nayr's Black Death in the new slot for the cube. With Bone Armor, Grim Scythe, and changing Corpse lance to one of the two runes (I use Ricochet) that make it poison damage you're getting an extra 300% damage increase to all of your damage output, not just 50% to elites only.