So GR 45 is doable, even without full items
Still missing the curse scythe and 1 defensive item (The curse belt).
Did anyone ACTUALLY tried staking both LoD and LoN or does everyone just assume it doesn’t work?
Second question, are the Regen boots really worth it? I have a feeling that they are better boots I could use.
Any extra tips?
What makes you think it would work?
LoD’s description clearly states it only works while no set bonuses are active.
LoN… is a set bonus.
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Because, even if it is written, maybe it was poorly made.
LoN : While this is your only Item Set bonus.
Maybe they coded as “Ignore “Legacy of Nightmares” Bonus” when the game check to give you the bonus, which would be easier for the Engine instead of listing all the sets bonuses one by one.
LoD: no set bonuses are active.
Copy paste for lazyness and the “Ignore “Legacy of Nightmares” Bonus” was not removed due to oversight.
It is not* a solid argument but that is the reason why I want to know if someone tried. Video or something.
I actually have a lot of tips for this particular build concept, because I have been trying to make it work for 5 seasons. I have found a way to get the build to be T16 viable in theorycraft, but to do so makes it simultaneously the hardest build in the game to properly gear and the most annoying to play correctly. I’ve only successfully gotten this build to be T13 viable in actual play, but I’ve made several improvements to the theory since then. That said, season 20 might be the best season to try this due to the season buff.
So first things first I’ll start by explaining the mechanics of Death’s Bargain:
- The damage dealt by Death’s Bargain is not affected by your weapon damage or your main stat. It is however considered a DoT effect by the game and is therefore affected by your attack speed, critical hit chance, and critical hit damage.
- Your attack speed does not alter how often the damage is dealt, instead it acts as an independent multiplier on the tick damage. One important thing to keep in mind about attack speed is that the multiplier used to determine tick damage is snapshotted, it only updates when you change gear or transition between areas.
- Death’s Bargain cannot actually crit, but your critical hit stats are used to create another independent multiplier on the damage dealt by each tick. The exact multiplier is: (CHC/100) * (1+(CHD/100)) Unlike attack speed, this multiplier does not seem to snapshot and instead uses your sheet critical stats on each tick.
- Death’s Bargain’s damage does not count as an attack and can not trigger any effects that are tied to hits, attacks, or proc chances.
- Death’s Bargain’s damage is always physical damage and is affected by your physical damage modifiers.
- Death’s Bargain’s damage is otherwise a simple multiplier of your life per second stat. Like your critical hit stats, this does not appear to be snapshotted, and instead updates dynamically. Any effect that increases your life per second increases the damage of Death’s Bargain.
Now that I’ve gone through the mechanics of Death’s Bargain, let me present to you the build that I have devised to maximize both the damage output and toughness of this build concept.
First and foremost, this build only works on a Necromancer. There are simply too many tools in the Necromancer’s arsenal that cannot be replicated by any other class.
The skills you want to use for this build are:
- Bone Armor: Thy Flesh Sustained
- Simulacrum: Reservoir
- Frailty: Aura of Frailty
- Blood Rush: Potency
- Grim Scythe: Dual Scythes
- Leech: Osmosis
With the passives:
- Overwhelming Essence
- Draw Life
- Blood Is Power
- Stand Alone
The items you must use are:
- Andariel’s Visage - life per second, physical skill damage, socket, attack speed
- Haunted Visions - socket, life per second, critical hit damage, physical skill damage
- Shi Mizu’s Haori - life per second, vitality, life %, sockets(3)
- Strongarm Bracers - life per second, physical skill damage, vitality, intelligence
- Stone Gauntlets - life per second, critical hit damage, cooldown reduction, attack speed
- Dayntee’s Binding - life per second, vitality, life %, intelligence
- Death’s Bargain - life per second, vitality, armor, sockets(2)
- Boots Of Disregard - life per second, vitality, armor, intelligence/movement speed
- Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang - cooldown reduction, max essence, vitality, intelligence, socket
- Lidless Wall - life per second, physical skill damage, max essence, cooldown reduction, vitality
You can choose which shoulder item to use, but I recommend Spaulders Of Zakara with life per second, cooldown reduction, vitality, and life %.
You will need to put Reilena’s Shadowhook and Wisdom Of Kalan in the cube.
You will also need the three following rings, wear your two best rolled ones and cube the third. (this is why season 20 is helpful)
- Krysbin’s Sentence - socket, life per second, critical hit damage, attack speed
- Lornelle’s Sunstone - socket, life per second, critical hit damage, attack speed
- Rogar’s Huge Stone - socket, life per second, critical hit damage, attack speed
Additionally, you must ensure that none of your equipment has any of the following affixes:
- Life on Hit
- Life on Kill
- Increased Health Globe Healing
- Pickup Radius
When allocating your paragon points, never put points in Life on Hit. On your Core stats, max your movement speed and max essence, then put all remaining points in vitality.
You should have a Diamond in your helm, Amethysts in your chest and legs, and an Emerald in your weapon.
The three legendary gems you want to use are:
- Legacy of Dreams
- Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard
- Bane of the Trapped
The way to play this build is:
- keep your bone armor stacks at 15
- use simulacrum and blood rush to keep your hp as low as possible (<5% max health)
- avoid health globes (this and the constant low health warning are why this build is annoying to play)
- stand still when fighting
- use leech to curse the enemies near you
- spam grim scythe to cause knockbacks
Why all this works:
- Being at low health is critical for this build. Shi Mizu’s Haori sets your sheet CHC to 100% when at low health, giving you your full critical hit damage as a damage multiplier to every tick. Lornelle’s Sunstone gives you up to ~93% damage reduction if your health is low enough. Rogar’s Huge Stone nearly doubles your base life per second if your health is low enough. Normally, this wouldn’t make up for the imminent death you would suffer, but the key to making this work is the shielding effect of the Molten Wildebeest’s Gizzard gem. All of your damage reduction applies to damage dealt to your shield, and because you have maxed out your life per second, you should be sitting on about 1.5 million shield capacity that refreshes when not being damaged. Fully geared, you can easily reach 99% damage reduction enabling you to tank nearly 150 million damage between refreshes of your shield without dying.
- Combining Reilena’s Shadowhook with constant Simulacrum: Reservoir gives a >300% damage modifier
- The Frailty: Aura of Frailty combines with Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang to provide another ~200% multiplier. It also adds damage reduction via Dayntee’s Binding.
- Because the attack speed multiplier snapshots, the attack speed reduction from Stone Gauntlets doesn’t reduce your damage, but the stacking bonus armor further improves your toughness.
- Andariel’s Visage and Lidless Wall simply serve to provide additional physical damage modifiers in slots that are otherwise lacking useful legendary effects.
- Grim Scythe: Dual Scythes count as applying knockback effects every swing, and therefore trigger the bonus damage multipliers from both Krysbin’s Sentence and Strongarm Bracers.
- Because you are benefiting from Stone Gauntlets, your movement speed drops enormously while fighting, so utilizing Boots of Disregard for an additional 40k life per second boost by standing still is the best option available in the feet slot.
Hopefully this helps you optimize your attempts to build around Death’s Bargain. I will be posting a list of ideas I have to help improve Necromancers in season 21 soon, and among them are some ideas to further enhance this particular build. I wish you the best of luck with this!
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Dude,
You gotta use the planner ==> https://ptr.d3planner.com/408940682
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Thanks, I actually do use the planner myself, but I never bothered to figure out how to link to builds. It certainly makes things easier to look at though. Thanks for creating it!
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Those sounds like good ideas, I didn’t know about CHC and CHD being considered with Death Bargain. Thank you for your help.
This looks interesting! One problem i noticed is that you have haunted visions as the ammy, but you mention 15 bone armor stacks which suggests wisdom of kalan, which amulet are you wearing?
In season 20, you could get away with this by having 2 pieces of jewelry in the cube. Because attack speed is less desirable of a stat on an amulet, I wore Haunted Visions and cubed Wisdom of Kalan. When doing this build without the seasonal buff, you have to choose between the two. With the upcoming change to Haunted Visions, I think Wisdom of Kalan is the better choice. (100% uptime of simulacrum is nice, but the 5% health loss was what helped you stay at low life. And you have to stack as much life per second as possible in this build, so the three rings are still mandatory.)