Toughness Question LoD Scythe

Hi all,
I’m having some issues dying suddenly with my scythe necro while pushing and wondering if I’m doing anything wrong.

I generally feel quite tanky, and I can tank 98% of the time no problem. However certain mobs, more specifically the Dune Dervish when they start spinning as well as Shock Towers, I seem to take huge spikes of damage.

Also, is it normal for this build to take 4 minutes to kill bosses @GR128? Those that move around are such a huge pain…

Thanks so much!

dune dervishes reflect your damage back at you so that will leave a mark

Getting hit with large attacks such as chargers, certain RG attacks, or shock tower without stone gauntlets stacks will kill you. This is normal.

Dune dervish and sand dweller reflect projectiles. Bone spear and the seasonal bonus lightning proc count. For bone spear, you can either choose a different skill or don’t cast when they are around.

4.5-6 minute RG kill times are normal without pylon support. This is partly because stricken’s ICD is desynced with our main attack due to swift harvesting. From what I understand, this means we typically stack stricken only once every other attack. EDIT: As shown below, this is not true, however, we still have a hard time killing RGs without additional support from Leger’s Disdain and density.

However, stricken is still the better choice since we can scale our damage with density. Unless of course, you opt for a seasonal bonus RG kill… This config requires hundreds upon hundreds of keys typically though.

On your higher pushes, you will indeed require RGs that spawn adds or pylon(s) that can give some extra mobs via nemesis bracer. On the absolute highest pushes you might even need some combination of both.

Elite affixes that spawn from the end pylon even can help or ruin your run: illusionist and horde are amazing, but wormhole, Frozen, knock back, Vortex, and nightmarish can be bad.

RGs that move around too much or Teleport regularly are worse in general.

I have found 4stack Nayr’s with Blood rush, FoT, Stewart’s, amazing help in allowing more situations to work out (limits RNG).

However Unity can also be a really good choice this season because you can Tank those 5+ elite stacks more easily, allowing more devastating use of the seasonal bonus in tight areas against them.

Edit: one thing to note here is that a lot of what is considered tanky with LoD Poison Scythe is actually just high recovery. Leech scales it’s returns based on Simulacrums health, not player health. And your own leech attacks only return 1%, not 2%. This is why you usually won’t survive without the sims. It also means that if you aren’t consistently applying and hitting enemies with leech, you may die.

Guide: https://youtu.be/CJlIESvVj-A
Leech mechanics: https://youtu.be/NNRXoug-lL8

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And beware

  • Less than 90% Essence with Aquila
  • 100% essence with Razeth’s Volition

It’s easy to lose 50% or 100% of damage reduction

Thanks all for taking the time to reply

Cratic, I must have watched your Youtube videos more than a few times and you’re my necro god :crazy_face: I try my best to copy your build as closely as possible

How does LoD Corpse Explosion compare to LoD Scythe currently? I hardly find anyone playing the build on leaderboards

Glad to help. I feel I can be overbearing at times. Hope that’s not the case now.


Good question with Corpse Explosion. I think because of the Leech interaction, it’s especially useful at sub 3k paragons (lower toughness values) to have the Haunted Visions and Simulacrum in the build, which is a tradeoff of an jewelry slot and skill slot, a pretty large damage loss for LoD CE, but something which LoD Scythe can easily fit in.

As a player, It’s much harder to progress with LoD CE vs. LoD Scythe for this reason, and CE is a cooldown based rotation, meaning there’s a lot of waiting involved. I can see why most players opt for LoD Scythe instead.

This goes back to something I mentioned in the Leech mechanics - that it feels like the Leech interaction needs to be fixed (without destroying recovery values too much) so that player returns can still benefit equally from Leech as compared to simulacrum returns. Note: Equal in value, not in number of instances of recovery occurring.

Opting simulacrum should always allow MORE Leech recovery instances, because you’re dedicating space for them in the build; but it shouldn’t feel so bad to go without, recovery-wise.

This would allow non-simulacrum based builds to be more desirable from a recovery standpoint.

Are you sure about this? BotS ICD should take AS multiplier like Swift Harvesting into account. For example that’s how Barb’s HotA works with Bracers of the First Men.

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I have not verified the desync as yet, no. I assumed as such - perhaps I’m wrong, but it definitely feels like it stacks extremely slow. Confirmation bias on my part?

In the least: Swift Harvesting is still worthwhile for the rift portion, even if it hypothetically does end up causing a desync.

Hi HunterKiller; You are correct! The attack speed multiplier of Swift harvesting is included, and therefore Stricken does not desync. Testing below:


Simulacrum damage without stricken:
333548

Equipped stricken and Cast Poison Scythe 3 times (1.43 AS sheet), resulting damage values:
340819
348090
358915

Actual: 340819 / 333548 = ~1.02179
Expected: 2.18% * 1 = 1.0218

Actual: 348090 / 333548 = ~1.04359
Expected: 2.18% * 2 = 1.0436

Actual: 358915 / 333548 = ~1.07605
Expected: 2.18% * 3 = 1.0654

I’m not sure why the last hit was 1.065% higher than expected, and it does make me interested to test further… but in the very least, stricken is applying with each scythe damage instance from the necromancer.

EDIT: Tested a second time with a different weapon (pig sticker to give higher AS without the CHC in testing - ~1.77 AS this time.), this time the values were more in line with the expected:

272415
278354
284292
290231

Actual: 278354 / 272415= ~1.02180
Expected: 2.18% * 1 = 1.0218

Actual: 284292 / 272415= ~1.04359
Expected: 2.18% * 2 = 1.0436

Actual: 290231 / 272415= ~1.06540
Expected: 2.18% * 3 = 1.0654


Thanks for the help!

Cool, I’m glad you could verify it.

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