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Kanai's Cube

• 

  • Reilena's Shadowhook

  

  Legendary Two-Handed Scythe

  • 1687.4 Damage Per Second
  • Primary Stats
  • • +946 - 1125 Intelligence
  • Secondary Stats
  • • Every point of Maximum Essence increases your damage by 0.5% and Bone Spikes generates 2 - 5 additional Essence for each enemy hit.
    • One of 7 Magic Properties (varies)

    • +(1439 - 1788) Physical Damage

    • +(1439 - 1788) Fire Damage

    • +(1439 - 1788) Lightning Damage

    • +(1439 - 1788) Cold Damage

    • +(1439 - 1788) Poison Damage

    • +(1439 - 1788) Arcane Damage

    • +(1439 - 1788) Holy Damage

  • + 3 Random Magic Properties
  Reilena's Shadowhook
• 

  • Dayntee's Binding

  

  Legendary Belt

  • 6 - 7 Armor
  • Primary Stats
  • • +416 - 500 Strength
    • +416 - 500 Dexterity
    • +416 - 500 Intelligence
  • Secondary Stats
  • • You gain an additional 40 - 50% damage reduction when there is an enemy afflicted by any of your curses.
  • + 4 Random Magic Properties
  Dayntee's Binding
• 

  • Convention of Elements

  

  Legendary Ring

  • Primary Stats
  • • +416 - 500 Strength
    • +416 - 500 Dexterity
    • +416 - 500 Intelligence
    • Critical Hit Chance Increased by 4.5 - 6%
    • Sockets (1)
  • Secondary Stats
  • • Gain 150 - 200% increased damage to a single element for 4 seconds. This effect rotates through the elements available to your class in the following order: Arcane, Cold, Fire, Holy, Lightning, Physical, Poison.
  • + 2 Random Magic Properties
  Convention of Elements

Note for Season 19:

While Lancer RGK is still viable, it is far outclassed by the new AoV Crusader build introduced in Season 19. You can check out my Crusader RGK guide for Season 19 here.

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Hey gang! Thank you so much for the positive feedback on my other Necromancer builds. Since those were well-received, I decided to share my "Lancer" RGK build as well. This build itself is pretty standard (there are limited variations, which I will discuss below) and is far from ground-breaking, so my goal here is to give some pointers on how to effectively play this role instead of just sharing the gear setup.

New to Meta groups? Start here.

Since this build is one of the roles required in so-called "meta" groups, let's briefly go over what a meta group actually is, and what each player's job is.

A meta group consists of a Star Pact "Bazooka" Wizard, a Pull Barb, a zMonk, and a Rift Guardian Killer, commonly called the "RGK," which is usually a Necro. (There was a time in season 16, with the free Ring of Royal Grandeur buff, that Impale Demon Hunters found their way into the meta as an RGK - it was a glorious time my friends, but we shan't dwell on the past.)

So, you've started a rift with your meta group. Whomever is assuming the leadership role in the group (most frequently the Wizard or Monk) will pick out a nice roomy spot and drop a marker there. This is where we're going to hang out for a while. The monk will drop Sanctuary in this spot, and you as the RGK want to stay inside of it. The Barb is running all around you, pulling all enemies in the vicinity towards the designated spot, and grouping them up as tightly as possible until there is a huge mob stacked on top of each other. During this, you're staying inside the Monk's Sanctuary, but hitting all the enemies around you with Grim Scythe, applying curses. The Wizard then pulls off a complicated rotation of skills, culminating in a big ass Meteor that annihilates the entire mob. Then your group scurries along, finds another roomy spot to hang out, and rinse/repeat. After a while, the Guardian spawns, and it's your job as RGK to dispose of him. We'll explain more in depth further down.

Lancer or Thorns?

Before we dive into the gear and the playstyle, let's address one of the most frequent questions I get about playing RGK: should I be playing Lancer or Thorns? Fortunately the answer here is pretty simple. Lancer is used for lower GRs (generally up to 144) and Thorns is used at the highest level of play (generally 145+). Since Thorns deals damage based on damage received, it performs well in the highest GRs, but isn't quite as effective in lower GRs. Thorns is also notoriously "fishy" - i.e. you need a favorable boss to spawn, because there are some bosses Thorns simply cannot kill (and some others that Thorns can kill laughably fast). Lancer is far more reliable in this regard, you'll be able to kill whatever boss spawns.

Gear & Stats

We need to go further in depth with the gearing requirements here, because there are some important things that need to happen.

Attack Speed:

Attack Speed is king for this build. We want our Attacks Per Second to hit the 2.00 breakpoint, but we need to do it in a specific way. We need Increased Attack Speed (IAS) on SIX pieces of gear, and we MUST roll the maximum attack speed (7%) on our weapon. Of the other 5 pieces, 4 of them must have the max IAS roll (7%), and 1 can have a 6% roll.

Let's math for a second boys, and see why these specifics matter. It's important to note that IAS is calculated differently on weapons than it is on all other gear. IAS on a weapon is multiplicative, while IAS on other gear is additive. So - if we correctly roll 7% IAS on our weapon, and 4 more 7% IAS rolls, and 1 last 6% IAS roll, we end up with 2.00304 attacks per second - just over our 2.00 APS breakpoint. However, say we roll 6% on our weapon, and 7% on all 5 of the other pieces. Our math then comes out to 1.9981 APS. This will still show up as 2.00 APS in-game due to rounding, but in reality we are below the breakpoint! And since Attack Speed operates by thresholds (hence all this talk about breakpoints), this 1.9981 APS actually does no more damage than having an attack speed of 1.715 (that's the other lower breakpoint by the way - attainable by rolling 7% IAS on weapon and 7% on two other pieces).

Pieces that can roll IAS are as follows: Weapon (necessary), Witching Hour belt, Gloves, Rings x2, Andariel's Visage helm, Amulet, and Lacuni Prowlers bracers. Ignoring your weapon, that's 7 possible items to fill your 5 needed IAS rolls. Note that Krysbin's ring commonly rolls with attack speed, so it is usually best (or at least easier) to wear Krysbin's and cube CoE (Stone of Jordan cannot be cubed and must be worn - so we use our best rolled Krysbin's or CoE and cube the other). Also note that Lacuni Prowlers are the only bracers that roll IAS (that's the whole point of including this item), so if your group wants you to run Nemesis Bracers, you may want to consider using Nems in the cube instead of Dayntee's if losing Lacuni will cause you to fall below your IAS breakpoint.

We are also going to use Skeletal Archer to further boost our attack speed, but we'll go over that more when we talk about skills.

Crit Damage and Crit Chance:

Don't worry folks, we aren't going to break out the calculator for this one. When you unleash your hailstorm of Corpse Lances, you're going to be landing so many hits that the RG is going to be crit capped (quickly) by the Brittle Touch rune on your Corpse Lance. In other words - don't bother rolling Crit Chance anywhere - you don't need it. Instead focus heavily on Crit Damage because this will be the meat of your damage.

Cold, Elite, and Corpse Lance Damage:

We want increases to our cold damage and to our damage vs. Elites wherever possible. We have a few slots that can roll bonus Corpse Lance damage as well.

We roll cold damage on: Andariel's Visage, Amulet, Bracers, Swamp Land Waders, Stone of Jordan, and from the legendary affix on our Frostburns. All together, this makes a possible max of +120% bonus damage with cold skills. Note that Andariel's Visage, Swamp Land Waders, and Stone of Jordan are the only helm/pants/ring respectively that will roll elemental damage, and that Swamp Lands only drop on Witch Doctors. (Let's pause for a sec. To get Swamp Lands as a non-Witch Doctor, gamble or craft level 70 yellow pants on any character, put them in your stash, start a level 1 Witch Doctor, and use him to upgrade those level 70 yellow pants using recipe 3 in the cube until you get a suitable pair of Swamp Lands.)

We roll elite damage (if possible) on: Weapon (hard to roll), Phylactery (hard to roll), and Stone of Jordan (always rolls).

We roll Corpse Lance damage on: shoulders, chest, and phylactery.

Essence:

With all this other stuff going on, let's not forget about Essence. Each point of Essence is giving us a damage boost from our cubed Reilena's Shadowhook, so we want to make sure we have max Essence rolled as our secondary stat on our weapon (20), phylactery(20), and on Stone of Jordan (18).

Legendary Affixes:

Last but certainly not least, it is very important to get high rolls on our legendary affixes. This will make a huge difference for our damage. Our targets are as follows: 30% Corpse Lance damage from Corpsewhisper Pauldrons stacks, 20% cold damage on Frostburns, 200% bonus Corpse Lance damage from Macabre stacks on The Johnstone, 100% bonus damage on Krysbin's, 200% bonus damage on CoE, and 200% bonus damage to cursed enemies on Trag'Oul's Scythe. A good roll close to 90% on Aquila Cuirass is nice for survivability as well, but with buffs from the Monk and Barb as well as our own Bone Armor, we're actually fairly tough, and should focus on damage output.

If your takeaway from this is that Lancer is a bitch to gear for - well, you're not wrong. To get a well-geared Lancer will take a lot of time and most likely some targeted re-rolls and rare upgrades. But the good news is that even with sub-par gear, you can still be effective - you may just have to start at lower GRs and work your way up. That's what we call progression boys! And it's kind of what this whole game is about. Hang in there!

Playstyle

The majority of the rift is pretty simple for us. We want to stand in the Monk's Sanctuary, and hit the Barb's groupings with Grim Scythe. We especially want to make sure we get a few hits on any nearby Elites, because we want them to have Frailty applied. As we move through the rift, we try to make sure we're staying close enough to the Barb and Monk to benefit from their survival buffs. We obviously want to stay alive so we can curse everything, but honestly, if we die during the rift it's not the end of the world. Hopefully you have numlocked your Bone Armor, and with these big groupings of enemies around you, your Bone Armor will actually give a pretty respectable survivability boost.

As you're nearing the end of the rift, you want to find an opportunity to cast Land of the Dead. When LotD expires, The Johnstone gives us 50 Macabre stacks which increase our Corpse Lance damage, and having those 50 stacks available for our first rotation on the Guardian will make a big difference. However, we don't want to interfere with the Barb's ability to form a good cluster of enemies by freezing ungrouped enemies. So ideally, we can cast LotD just before our Wizard drops a Meteor, when the grouping is already tight around us - otherwise, we may need to lag behind the group to cast LotD, but this presents a risk of us dying - at which point we lose our Macabre stacks and the whole thing was pointless.

Now let's get to the meat. The Guardian. Our time to shine. When the boss spawns, we're going to start slowly casting our Skeletal Mages, one at a time. We do not want to spam a bunch of mages - this will lead to the risk of the boss not being frozen the whole time during our LotD cycle - and we really need him to be frozen while we're lancing him (to keep him from moving and interrupting our cast, and to keep our Krysbin's multiplier). So when one mage expires, we cast another. When that one expires, we cast another. We're building up our stacks of increased attack speed every time the Skeletal Mage attacks the boss - you'll see right above your skill bar a Skeletal Mage icon with a stack counter. We want 10 stacks before we begin LotD, but the stacks expire quickly so we want to keep casting mages right up until the point when we cast LotD. We're also trying our best to hang out in the Monk's Sanctuary still, and we're spamming Grim Scythe on the boss in between Mage casts to build up our Stricken stacks.

Now we need to pay close attention to timing, and this may take some practice. Halfway through our poison CoE cycle, we want to hit Simulacrum, and then immediately before our cold cycle begins we hit LotD and hold down our right mouse button (or whatever button we have Corpse Lance assigned to). (Note: during your poison cycle, in addition to casting Simulacrum and LotD, you want to find an Oculus ring (or pink ring in Season 18) before your cold cycle hits and you start lancing. The damage bonus from these rings is significant.) It is very important to be specific with your Corpse Lance targeting - if your mouse isn't directly on the boss, the lances won't cast (again, this is one of the reasons we want to make sure he's frozen the whole time - you don't want him moving and interrupting your cast). You are going to keep Corpse Lance pressed for the duration of LotD (the biggest damage will be at the beginning during your cold cycle, and it will drop off after that but remember we are still building our Stricken stacks with each lance). Try to stop casting lances the slightest fraction of a second before LotD expires. This is because when it expires, we get our Macabre stacks, and we want to make sure we save them for our next cold cycle.

Now we're rinsing and repeating again. While our LotD and Simulacrum are on cooldown, we're going to stand in the Sanctuary, gradually cast mages, and spam Grim Scythe. At this point, it is very very important that you do not die! By now we have a ton of Stricken stacks, which will be a massive damage bonus to our next lancing cycle, but if we die, we lose our Stricken stacks. When everything is cooled down, and we have our 10 Mage stacks, we do another lancing cycle just like before. We can do more cycles if need be - the amount of cycles needed will depend on the GR level, the boss, and your damage output. It is not uncommon to need 2-3 cycles as we do higher GRs. When we get the boss to 15% health, we'll get the insta-kill thanks to the Frailty curse we applied with Grim Scythe. Congrats! You did it! You're a RGK pro now.

TLDR;

1) Stand in Sanctuary, hit everything (especially Elites) with Grim Scythe. Bone Armor can be numlocked.

2) Cast LotD near the end of the rift to get Macabre stacks in preparation for boss.

[Boss Spawns]

3) Cast Mages, 1 at a time. Spam Grim Scythe in between Mage casts.

4) Near end of poison CoE cycle, cast Simulacrum and LotD.

5) Hold down Corpse Lance button on boss until LotD ends.

6) Repeat from step 3 as necessary.

Alternatives

Honestly folks, there aren't a whole lot of alternatives here. The build is pretty well-defined with clear BiS gear and skills. Probably the most notable alternative is to switch out Bone Armor for Blood Rush, and if you do this you can also wear Steuart's Greaves if you feel so inclined. Personally, I haven't found that I need extra speed very often, and the defense from Bone Armor is always helpful. If you want to switch out a skill, it pretty much has to be Bone Armor. Every other skill is mandatory for this build to function properly.

***Some groups, especially as you reach higher GRs, may want the RGK to run Nemesis Bracers. Some folks are of the opinion that the RGK should ALWAYS wear Nems. In a perfect world, the RGK would indeed always wear Nems. In this best case scenario, you have rolled attack speed on 5 of the other 6 available IAS slots, and you can ditch wearing Lacuni while maintaining your 2.00 IAS breakpoint. However, it's more likely that your Lacunis are necessary to maintain your IAS breakpoint. In this case you may need to sacrifice attack speed in order to wear them, or sacrifice defense in order to cube them. In this situation I prefer to use the cube for Nems. The need to use Nems should really depend on the strength of you and your Wizard. If your Wiz is pumping out big DPS, and you are able to handle the RG without issue, then the Barb or Monk can give up the damage buff from Strongarms in order to wear Nems.

Note than any Phylactery is fine, it doesn't matter which one you use because we don't care about the legendary powers. Just use whatever Phylactery you have the best stats on (that's why we call it a Stat Stick - lol).

Conclusion

Alright guys, I think that about wraps it up. I hope this helps you out if you're interested in giving RGK a try. If I left out anything, or if you have any questions, please drop a comment or reach out to me. My goal is to help you have fun with this game.

If you're new to metas, it can be hard to "break in" and find a group to learn with. I know, because I went through it too. Hang in there! There are some helpful folks out there, and there are plenty of other folks who are new to metas and want to try them out and learn. Good luck and have fun!

(last updated 11/14/2019: updated for Season 19)

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