Rating
+1

[Season 21] High GR 116+ zNecro for Rat Runs

Seasonal
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Skills

  • Frailty Aura of Frailty
  • Blood Rush Metabolism
  • Corpse Lance Brittle Touch
  • Command Skeletons Enforcer
  • Devour Cannibalize
  • Land of the Dead Frozen Lands
  • Blood is Power
  • Eternal Torment
  • Final Service
  • Life from Death

Items

More Details
  • Legendary Gems

    • Gogok of Swiftness
    • Iceblink
    • Gem of Efficacious Toxin

Kanai's Cube

  • Ahavarion, Spear of Lycander
  • Strongarm Bracers
  • Briggs' Wrath

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Paragon Priorities

Core

Movement Speed
Vitality
Primary Stat
Maximum Resource

Offense

Cooldown Reduction
Attack Speed
Critical Hit Chance
Critical Hit Damage

Defense

Life
Armor
Resist All
Life Regeneration

Utility

Resource Cost Reduction
Life on Hit
Gold Find
Area Damage

Build Guide

This build is for high paragon zNecros who want to be speedy and give their group all the buffs possible while still wearing Nemesis Bracers since the Barbarian tends to drag behind due to having to pick up globes. With this loadout you can easily be out of front, leading the group while providing them with max benefits.


As a zNecro you are the group leader and everyone follows you from one spot to the next. While you are primarily searching for elites/champions, pylons and exits, you shouldn't neglect high density trash spots.The entire teams utilizes Messerschmidt's Reaver and needs to make sure to kill enough monsters in order to proc it to keep their cooldowns low. More trash -> lower cooldown -> more simulacrum -> more damage -> more xp. While it's easy to be ahead of your group due to your super low cooldown and high move speed, you should make sure not to be too far ahead. Optimally you should be no more than .5 - 1 screen away. If you're getting to a pack really fast and are having to wait for your team to catch up that means your rats have less time to DPS the elites before Frozen Lands runs out. Remember: Unfrozen Elites means Dead Teammates! Also, the more your team stays together, the more globes they are able to collect/corpses they are able to devour. If your Rats are getting to a half frozen Elite Pack with no essence because you wanted to play Fast and the Furious: Necromancer they are not going to be happy and your GR times/levels will be much worse than they should be.


When you get to an elite pack you'll need to make sure to do a few things.

  • Spend 1-2 seconds spamming corpse lance on the elite mobs to "crit cap" them
  • Remember you're squishy and avoid damaging affixes
  • Once everything is crit capped move around and help pick up globes
  • Be aware of dangerous affixes and situations; if it gets too hot and it looks like your rats might die do not be afraid to move on and ping the map to let your team know to peace out. Dead rats will lower your run time more than skipping an electrified juggernaut monster.

In this build we're using Command Skeletons over other skills since casting it procs your Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac but does NOT cause you to stop moving like both Bone Spear and Death Nova do. Also, unlike Bone Spear and Death Nova, manually casting Corpse Lance (which you should always be doing on elites and champions) does not compete for priority, i.e. You can either cast Bone Spear/Death Nova OR Corpse Lance but you can cast Command Skeletons AND Corpse Lance at the same time. Since Corpse Lance does not proc Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac you want to maximize your proc reducing skills as much as possible.


You should also strive to have 22 Pick Up Radius as it benefits your team in 3 important ways.

  1. Increases your radius for Aura of Frailty so you're able to curse more things at once
  2. Increases the distance from which your Briggs Wrath proc will cyclone in enemies
  3. Increases the amount of globes your team picks up; The barbarian can't be everywhere at once so it really helps having 2 players with max radius

Some TL;DR Tips


DO:

  • Keep Land of the Dead up 100% of the time
  • Spam/Numlock Devour 100% of the time
  • Always target monsters with Command Skeletons as much as possible including while moving from pack to the next
  • Have as much Pickup Radius on your gear as possible

DON'T

  • Be more than a screen/half-screen away from your team when transitioning to the next pack
  • Numlock Corpse Lance and spam it on every monster you see; Ideally you should just be using it on elites
  • Sit still when you get to a pack
  • Skip valuable trash zones to get to the next Elite Pack

Warning: This build is *NOT* for beginners or low paragon zNecros. It is highly suggested to be nearly or fully augmented with 100+ str/dex gems before using this build. Like rats, you have virtually no built in damage reduction so high paragon + augs are the only thing that are keeping you alive. If you want a lazier build with more DR/tankiness this is not the build for you!


Edit: If you want to gain some survivability at the cost of movespeed you can use Dayntees Binding over Steurt's Greaves


Additionally, because you're using a very slow weapon and do not have In-Geom equipped you are heavily relying on Messerschmidt's Reaver procs to keep Land of the Dead up. If you are averaging runs that take longer than 2:30 than you will have moments where Land of the Dead is not active and your rats may die. Typically if my group is averaging slower than 2:00 I will drop the difficulty.