I just want a competitive minion build that doesn’t use corpse tendrils

Necromancer
1

Tendrils feel awful on a controller, and minions feel very mediocre in general even with a bunch of affixes buffing them. If I had this many affixes for a pulverize Druid I’d be breezing through WT3. Before you link a video of your great minion build doing tier 20 nightmare dungeons slow as molasses don’t bother. The bone spear Necro finished several higher tier dungeons in the time it takes your fully invested minion build to chip through a lower key.

2

I could share what I’m using. A bit similar to what many others do with some differences, I think.
(d4builds.gg/builds/da29b170-1dd8-4495-b57c-a49bd839ba5e/

I’d like to say i have no proper issues for higher tiers like 60. Unless there’s a supressor…

1 Like
3

I would suggest looking into a heavy pet build with a sub into shadow. Kalan’s edict is trash in the current state, which means the only key-passive that is viable for pet builds is Shadowblight. I have had success with:

  1. Blight
  2. Corpse Explosion (Miasma)
  3. Skeletons (reapers for corpses, Shadow mages with extra attack every 5th)
  4. Decrepify (with CDR on lucky hit)
  5. Golem (Bone with taunt and extra health/thorns - use some emeralds, thorns actually help quite a bit I have found…)
  6. Army of the dead (make sure you have the army of the dead legendary that gives big haste)

There are 2 legendaries that make shadowblight increase it’s damage and then give flat damage bonus - those really open this up and let it push pretty hard. Clear T3 capstone at level 58 and doing nightmare keys ~19 at that level. (I’ve since moved to a shadow blood wave with triple cast and went more into shadow, but I still have heavy pet reliance)

But to your point, if we want a pure summoner build that is pacifist mainly doing curses and watching pets mow things down - the game just doesn’t support that in the current iteration sadly.

1 Like
4

Thanks folks! I’ve been too timid to try running a build without an essence generator. Time for that to change.

Edit: also, doesn’t need to be pacifist. I love getting my hands dirty.

5

Hemorrhage trumps Decompose as an essence builder and has the bonus of healing too.