Sorry, a complete noob to necro here, so I just had two quick questions:
I’ve been playing with the Singularity builds (LoD/Rathma), and I noticed a lot of people drop Bone Spikes for Simulacrum. Now, I understand the logic of it - getting 4 mages for the price of one is great especially at the start of a rift. That said, if I end up in a dead end on the map and have to backtrack, or even if I just hit a long corridor in the sewers with nothing to kill, by the time I make it to the next mobs, my mages are gone and if LotD is on cooldown, I have no way to get my essence back up and am a complete sitting duck. Is it just that people fish for rifts more when running the Simulacrum variant of the build and if this happens, they wait for LotD to come off the cooldown, or am I missing something obvious?
Second question is, does IAS on weapon help with the mages’ attack speed, and is it worth it? I got lucky and found a primal Scythe of the Cycle with Int, +%dmg and +IAS, so I’m wondering if I should re-roll IAS or Int to CDR.
I would roll your Int to CDR, make sure you have +ESSENCE in the secondary. That would be the best Scythe of the Cycle you could every have for the build then. If you are lower paragon, you may want to keep the Int for now, as that will be a good boost to damage. Consider rolling main stat off closer to 2k.
As far as attack speed goes, you mages will not attack faster, but will scale with your sheet damage, thus more attack speed is good. The only thing that will increase the mages APS is Tasker and Theo. You pretty much want AS and CDR where you can get them. There is one break point, I think 1.61 aps, and that is for your casting animation of the mages, not their APS.
Not only does Simulacrum cast your extra mages, it also double your essence pool with the Reservoir rune, effectively doubling the power of your cast mages. Thus you can cast more mages that are more powerful.
I’ve never run a generator in LoD mages and have been fine. I don’t even run Extended Servitude passive, I use Blood is Power for more CDR, and keep 10 mages up fine. Most of the time I will alternate Sim and LotD rotation. With Sim, you have double power mages, and the after that is expired, you have infinite mages with LotD. But if there are tons of mobs and elites I may cast Sim and LotD at the same time. But my paragon is high and pretty well geared, so take that for what is worth. Just play a difficulty that allows you to kill fast and keep moving through the rift collecting globes and gaining essence.
Thanks KrugKahr. I’m only at 600 or so paragon (in season), so I’ll keep main-stat on the scythe for a while longer. It, thankfully, does have the +essence…
And thanks for pointing out the double essence in Sim - Reservoir - I did not realize that. I also have Extended Servitude rather than Blood is Power, so I’ll try switching.
Honestly, the biggest issue that I have is that I get one-shot all too easily by just about anything already at around GR85 or so. DPS is not an issue, RG still goes down in a few seconds, but one wrong step anywhere in the rift, and I’m toast. That said, most of my gear is crap, so hopefully things will feel more solid once I have full ancient. Maybe I should try taking the Skeleton King Pauldrons instead of Razeth’s and String of Ears instead of Witching Hour for the time being too to get at least some toughness…
While I haven’t played Necro in a few seasons, isn’t this the niche that Blood Rush: Molting fills in the build. With high CDR it’s nearly 10 essence/second passively with frequent chances to pop a health globe too.
Can’t help with your one-shot problem though, it’s the reason I gave up on necro!