Gameplay
I believe this is not only one of the fastest leveling builds in the game, it’s also one of the safest. Your pets (namely Skeletons) murder everything as you run through the content and pick up the juicy loot. Once the regeneration from Blood of Dreeg and the Devotions is established, you rarely have to recast your pets except during tough boss fights. As with most pet builds, ground-based area-of-effect damage is the most dangerous and can quickly kill all of your little buddies, which is why resists are very important. The ground-based Aether damage from Ashes of Malmouth can be quite challenging, but once you get the pet Aether resistances up, they do very well. It’s also important to remember when you Raise Skeletons, it’s random if you get an archer, warrior or mage. Many players will recast skeletons to get a balanced collection of all three while others prefer pure warriors or archers; but this can be difficult to achieve with the random nature of the build.
For clarification, this build is GREAT for hardcore. If I were to start from scratch and wanted to pursue the level 100 Hardcore achievement, out of all the build guides I’ve done so far, I’d use this one.
The General Play Technique is to get all of your buffs up, cast your single pets, and then your army of skeletons. Once that’s done, ensure Blood of Dreeg is always up, and just run through the content while casting Curse of Frailty on the groups of mobs and stand back laughing as your little buddies murder everything. You can also activate Call of the Grave to give your pets a nice damage bonus. Always keep an eye on the count of your skeletons, and when you start to lose them, simply recast. Binding the right mouse button to Pet Attack is also very important because it serves not only as an attack order, but a “move to here” order. When fighting bosses that drop AoE (like Cronley) you can actually right-click on another part of the room and your pets will disengage and move away. This management can save your pets and helps mitigate damage you can anticipate.
Survival is dependent on your pets drawing aggro and surviving themselves. Only when your pets die do monsters generally come after you, but you’ll occasionally draw aggro. One great thing is in narrow corridors or doorways, you can actually use your pets to block a target from reaching you. It’s fun to use your movement Glyph to teleport to the other side of battle, behind your pets, only to watch the monsters struggle (and fail) to reach you while your army pounds them down. Always keep your enemies marked with Curse of Frailty and ensure Blood of Dreeg is up up and you’re set.
Rotation for Trash: Blood of Dreeg is up. Run through. Everything dies. That’s about it. Only once you get into end-game Ultimate do you have to be more cautious about trash – and at that point you just curse and let your pets rush in. Your pets aren’t just DPS, they are also your shield.
Rotation for Bosses: It’s really the same as fighting anything else, except you will be using your Pet Attack command to move your pets out of harms way when necessary. Always keep Blood of Dreeg up, Curse the boss, and use Call of the Grave when it’s on cooldown. Your pets will do the rest of the work.
Skills
Our goal is to get our Raise Skeletons up first. They’ll be a bit brittle until we get some defensive support, but the DPS will be rock solid for leveling. Once we do that, we move to Occultist and rush Blood of Dreeg and Manipulation for speed, etc. We touch up Necro, then work on quality of life and defensive support to bring it all together at level 100.
Phase 1
- Choose class
- 1 point into bar (Necromancer 1/50)
- 6 points into Raise Skeletons (6/16)
- 4 point into bar (Necromancer 5/50)
- 1 point into Spectral Binding (1/12)
- 5 point into bar (Necromancer 10/50)
- 6 points into Undead Legion (6/16)
- 10 points into Raise Skeletons (16/16)
- Choose class
- 1 point into bar (Occultist 1/50)
- 1 point into Curse of Frailty (1/10)
- 10 points into Undead Legion (16/16)
- 5 point into bar (Necromancer 15/50)
- 1 point into Summon Blight Fiend (1/16)
- 1 point into Spectral Wrath (1/10)
- 5 point into bar (Necromancer 20/50)
- 1 point into Will of the Crypt (1/12)
Phase 2
- 1 point into Summon Familiar (1/16)
- 9 points into bar (Occultist 10/50)
- 1 point into Vulnerability (1/10)
- 1 point into Summon Hellhound (1/12)
- 5 points into bar (Occultist 15/50)
- 1 point into Storm Spirit (1/12)
- 12 points into Blood of Dreeg (12/16)
- 17 points into bar (Occultist 32/50)
- 6 points into Hellfire (6/12)
- 1 point into Bonds of Bysmiel (1/12)
- 5 points into Aspect of the Guardian (5/12)
- 18 points into bar (Occultist 50/50)
- 12 points into Manipulation (12/12)
Phase 3
- 5 point into bar (Necromancer 25/50)
- 1 point into Rotting Fumes (1/12)
- 1 point into Call of the Grave (1/10)
- 15 point into bar (Necromancer 40/50)
- 1 point into Blight Burst (1/12)
- 10 point into bar (Necromancer 50/50)
- 6 points into Master of Death (6/12)
Phase 4
- 5 points into Curse of Frailty (6/10)
- 5 points into Vulnerability (6/10)
- 5 points into Aspect of the Guardian (10/12)
- 5 points into Storm Spirit (6/12)
- 5 points into Hellfire (11/12)
- 5 points into Spectral Wrath (6/10)
- 5 poitns into Bonds of Bysmiel (6/12)
Touch up the rest as you see fit!
Look at GrimTools for final build.