I did some testing with the new Corpse Explosion items and skill changes… oh boy. This is going to be some fun for this new season, and there is a LOD way to play it right away that is absolutely destroying mid-level GRs for speed gem-ups.
To set the scene, I’m playing seasonal on the PTR, and I have about 850 paragons, full ancient gear, with my LOD and Trapped at about 75 or so, gogok at like 27. In that setup, anywhere between 1-4 player difficulty, I can clear rift in about 3-4 minutes no problem. I have near constant uptime on LotD and never have problems with corpses. It is reminiscent of the Flashfire EB wizard farming build, with a twist of a Vyrchon with the Johnstone amulet - yes, that amulet which no one ever uses gets its day in the sun. It is an amazing speed build which changes things up from LoD mages if you’re wanting something new.
For some reason the forum isnt letting me post a link to D3 Planner, so I’ll list out the gear choices and cube:
- Leoric’s crown,
- skeleton king pauldrons,
- Aquila cuirass
- Nemesis bracers OR Parthians
- flavor of time,
- stone of jordan, krysbin’s sentence,
- grasps of essence
- steuart’s greaves
- vigilante belt
- Trag’oul’s corroded fang, any phylactery
Cube
Messerschmidt’s reaver
Dayntee’s binding
the Johnstone
Skills & Runes
- Frailty - aura
- Corpse explosion - close quarters
- Golem - flesh golem (for corpses outside LotD)
- Blood rush - metabolism
- Bone armor - Dislocation (stun procs Krysbins)
- Land of the dead - shallow graves (2 second increased duration helpful)
Passives
- Blood is power (CDR)
- Stand alone (see note below)
- Final service
- Dark reaping (helpful life regen w/ life per kill)
A quick overview of the skill and gear choices with a note on playstyle.
Gear & stats
- Area damage & CDR are immensely important, and we take Vigilante belt and Leoric’s crown with CDR and AD on every piece we can get - 190% AD and 60+% CDR are optimal.
- Shoulders and chest roll with CE skill damage % and on our phylactery, we want 45% total.
- The Stone of Jordan is totally to buff our elite damage and our poison skill damage, and only for the speed variant.
- There are a couple of must-have items for max damage and DR, including dayntee’s binding, trag’s wep, grasp of essence gloves, and more or less the Johnstone amulet (at least for speeds). I consider this a key part of the build, even though this amulet is usually a meme and needs serious improvements.
Skills and Runes
- As I mentioned, this build relies on nearly total uptime of LotD for the speed variant, which I am working on now. Combined with your flesh golem, you should never have a problem with corpses outside LotD, and with Messerschmidt’s you will refresh that CD quite easily.
- I take the stand alone passive even though I have a golem, which gives 90% armor for 1 minion up. Golemskin gives 30% DR when golem is up, and i get 100% armor when I explode him for corpses, so its not a huge tradeoff either way. I think this is a necessary toughness boost.
- You can trade cheat death passive for Rathma’s shield, you should have a decent invulnerability since you’ll proc land of the dead about every 10 seconds or so. This means 40% of the time you’ll be invincible, which is cool considering we aren’t using frozen lands rune. Another passive swap could be fueled by death, which you could trade for dark reaping if life isnt a problem, or take a hellfire instead of the flavor amulet to get a 5th passive.
Playstyle
- This build is similar to the Flashfire EB wizard, which means you will need close proximity to your monsters and be able to stand and dps - but dont worry, they wont last long at all.
- Generally I go into the first big pack at the beginning of a rift and pop LotD and start blasting, run around and get more packs and use up the whole cooldown. If I have corpses left after the duration of LotD expires, I continue to blow stuff up, which makes a chain reaction to get me enough kills to refresh LotD. If no corpses or a new pack, throw your flesh golem to make 5 corpses and start it up again. Either way, you are looking about 2-4 seconds of downtime assuming you have monster packs available to kill.
- Maximizing damage has three components: using johnstone stacks, cursing enemies for trag’s wep, and using bone armor to proc Krysbin’s. This is standard for necromancers, but I jump in the pack, cast bone armor and blast away. You’re looking at a ton of damage here.
- As I said, this build is sort of like Vyrchon in that, on higher rifts your first damage blast really isnt the most significant. Using the Johnstone amulet you are really waiting for your second LotD or at least exiting your first LotD to get max damage. Usually one Johnstone stack wil last through the next LotD duration, its a near overlap. This is why it is important to cast LotD in the first pack to get that damage steamroll going, and by then you’ll have gogok going so itll be smoother.
- One final note: in groups for GR farming, you’ll get enough kills where you don’t need gogok, so I recommend bane of the Stricken or Powerful gems instead.
Enjoy the hell out of this juicy explode-y mess of a build!
