Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer Guide

Corpse Explosion* is your Primary Damage Skill. It consumes a monster corpse to produce an Area of Effect (AoE) explosion, dealing 70-120% of the original monster's health as a 50/50 mix of Fire and Physical Damage to enemies in range. Its explosion radius increases with Skill Level.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)

Amplify Damage* is a Curse that lowers enemies' Resistance to Physical Damage by 100%. Casting this Curse on monsters prior to casting Corpse Explosion greatly increases the Physical portion of Corpse Explosion's damage. This Curse also breaks Physical Immunity in most cases. Its effective radius increases with Skill Level.

Iron Golem* is a Golem Summon created from a Metallic Item. It consumes the Metallic Item in the process, taking on its properties. Summon an Iron Golem out of an Insight to gain the Mana Regeneration from  Meditation on the Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer.
Note: If your Iron Golem dies you need to remake it out of a new item!

Golem Mastery* increases the Maximum Life of your Iron Golem.

Raise Skeleton* is a Supplementary Damage Skill. Consumes monster corpses to create Skeleton Warriors that deal Physical Damage for you based on Skill Level. They primarily function as meat shields on this build.

Skeleton Mastery* increases the survivability of your Raise Skeletons and Revives.

Summon Resist* greatly increases your Summons' ability to tank Elemental Damage.

Revive* resurrects a monster corpse as an allied minion to tank and deal damage for you. Along with + to Skills from your gear you can summon enough Revives allocating only 1 Skill Point.

Bone Armor* negates a set amount of Physical Damage before expiring. Recast Bone Armor to refresh it. Putting Skill Points into its Bone Prison Synergy increases its strength just as much as putting Skill Points into Bone Armor itself.

Bone Prison* traps its target in an impenetrable circle of bone. Can situationally be used as an effective means of Crowd Control. Its Life increases with Skill Level.

* Faster Cast Rate Skills (FCR)
* Skills that do NOT utilize either FCR or IAS

While every Stat in the Desirable Stats column is useful for this build, we highlighted the Priority Stats in Teal so you can easily identify the Most Important Stats on them.

Hover over any Item to see a pop-out with the full Item description.

The areas below are efficient farming locations that make use of the build’s strengths. Other farming spots might not be as effective due to Immunities or bad layouts.

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Act 4

Act 5

Your Mercenary serves an incredibly important role to the overall success of your build. They can be a front line tank, provide a pivotal Aura, and/or deal Physical Damage to kill enemies with Immunity to your Skill set.

Act 2 Desert Mercenary

Breath of the Dying, Might

Use a Desert Mercenary with Might Aura to significantly boost his Physical Damage. Equip him with Breath of the Dying for the highest damage possible.

Alternatively, you can equip him with high Magic Find gear such as Tomb Reaver, Stealskull, and Skullder's Ire for crazy high total Magic Find on kill.

Mercenary Gear Options

Your Mercenary needs maximum Resistances, Life Leech, a high damage Weapon, and high Defense and/or Damage Reduction to stay alive reliably. Cannot Be Frozen is also a great stat for maintaining Mercenary DPS and leech. Ethereal gear is preferred since it doesn't lose durability. Gear Options at each Gear Level perform equally well in different situations; choose based on Farming Spots and/or personal preference.

The Mercenary is hard to keep alive until you have the minimum gear recommended in this guide. Remember you can drag Healing Potions onto the portrait, or shift + 1/2/3/4 to directly feed them a Healing Potion from your Belt. The Mercenary also gains bonus Resistances from Thawing Potions and Antidote Potions.

If your Mercenary dies in battle, you can revive them from any of the Mercenary NPCs in each Act. This does come with an increasing cost, capping at 50,000 Gold. Keep that in mind and decide if the Mercenary is currently worth the cost.

General

• An Insight Iron Golem, while not required, provides the Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer with incredible quality of life. Create an Insight (Weapon Base doesn't matter) in town, throw it on the ground, and cast Iron Golem on it to create an Iron Golem with Meditation Aura. So long as neither you nor the Iron Golem dies, you do not need to repeat this (Iron Golem persists between games).
• Before each Magic Find/Experience run, first cast Battle Command 2 times and then Battle Orders once using Call to Arms. Then cast Bone Armor on your Weapon-Swap with more + to Skills. Refresh Battle Command and Battle Orders as soon as they expire (every 2-3 minutes). Refresh Bone Armor when you notice that it is completely gone and when encountering dangerous Physical Damage enemies (Dark Archers, Undead Stygian Dolls, Death Lords, etc.).
• Find easy-to-kill monsters (such as Devilkin camps in the Tamoe Highlands) and cast Raise Skeleton and/or Revive on their corpses to acquire meat shields.
• Upon encountering an Elite Pack (Champions, Uniques, Super Uniques) in a Farming Spot, first cast Amplify Damage. Then cast Teleport (using Enigma) directly on top of the pack, preferably landing right inside of it.
• As soon as your Mercenary and your supporting Summons (Raise Skeletons and/or Revive[d2planner-skill]s) produce a monster corpse, cast [d2planner-skill]Corpse Explosion to consume it. Cast Corpse Explosion additional times if necessary to clear out any surrounding Elites and their minions. Skip regular monsters.
• After you have flattened nearby mobs, you can cast Raise Skeleton or Revive on monster corpses as needed to replenish your ranks. Then proceed to seek out additional Elite Packs.
• You can use Bone Prison for Crowd Control against dangerous mobs as needed.

For Diablo Clone:

• Find and kill Urdar-type monsters elsewhere in the game (most often found in Durance of Hate, Palace Cellar, and River of Flame) and Revive 10-15 of them. Then apply Amplify Damage to Diablo Clone, "Telestomp" him, and walk away a few steps. The Urdars' Crushing Blow stat does most of the work while equipping Duress on the Mercenary prevents him from healing with its Open Wounds stat.

Immunities

• Bone Break sets all Immune to Physical monsters to 95% Physical Resistance, allowing any sources of -x% to Enemy Physical Resistance (i.e. Amplify Damage) to take full effect.
• Amplify Damage breaks the Physical Immunity of most monsters by itself. Since Corpse Explosion deals 50% Physical Damage and the Mercenary deals nearly 100% Physical Damage with Jab, this greatly increases your damage against them.
• If a Unique mob is still Physical Immune even under the influence of Amplify Damage, you can use Corpse Explosion on surrounding corpses to kill it with its 50% Fire Damage. You can also choose to skip said mob, especially if there are no surrounding corpses.

Optimal Loot/Experience Farming Strategies

• The Pit Solo or /Players1-3 on Single Player - This Max Area Level Farming Spot with low Life monsters, many Elite Packs, and zero Physical Immunes is perfect for this build. This is arguably the Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer's best Farming Spot.
• Max Level Areas - Virtually all Level 85 Farming Spots such as Ancient Tunnels, Arachnid Lair, Stony Tomb, and Worldstone Keep are strong on this build playing Solo or /Players1-3 on Single Player. This includes Terror Zones.

Breakpoints in Diablo 2 are the minimum values required to reduce the frames of an action. Below are the important breakpoints considered for this build. For more information on the mechanics involved, check out our in-depth Resource: Breakpoints.

Faster Cast Rate (FCR)

Faster Cast Rate speeds up your casting animation for spells. Aim for either the 75% FCR or 125% FCR Breakpoint. Note: FCR only controls the animation speed of the Character, and not any internal Cooldowns spells have.

Faster Hit Recovery (FHR)

Faster Hit Recovery is not required for survivability on this build, but Breakpoints up to 56% FHR can be utilized.

For all Hardcore gameplay, your primary focus is increasing your Resistances, Damage Reduction, Chance to Block and Maximum Life. This can mean sacrificing overall power level for a more secure playstyle.

The Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer can become Hardcore viable with key changes to Gear, Stat Point allocation, and Skills. Review the changes below before building this character in Hardcore, as some of these changes differ significantly from the Standard Build.

Gear Changes

• Damage Reduction: There are several gear options/setups for achieving a high amount of % Damage Reduction on a Hardcore Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer. A setup using Crown of Ages socketed with 2x Ber Runes and Enigma achieves 39% Damage Reduction, maintains high Magic Find, and reaches the 75% Faster Cast Rate Breakpoint. A setup using Harlequin Crest socketed with a Ber Rune, Homunculus socketed with the same, and Enigma only reaches 34% Damage Reduction, but has more Mana, Life, and Magic Find. The pairing of Stormshield socketed with a Ber Rune and Enigma achieves the 50% Damage Reduction maximum, opening up other options for Magic Find.
• Stacking Resistances: Stack your Fire/Lightning/Cold Resistances beyond the default maximum values of 75 each (175 total in Hell). Stacking 85 additional Resistances in Hell completely negates the Conviction Aura of any Elite Boss or the Oblivion Knight's Lower Resist Curse. Beware of encountering both at the same time! Consider the primary damage type(s) of the monsters in the area you want to farm. Crown of Ages is the best Helmet option for stacking Resistances on this build. Jewelry and Charms are also ideal sources of Resistances.
• Faster Hit Recovery: Achieve at least the 26% Faster Hit Recovery Breakpoint with either Crown of Ages or a combination of Boots and Charms. Faster Hit Recovery is not as important when going for maximum Chance to Block (75%). You mainly rely on the Faster Block Rate Breakpoints attained by Homunculus socketed with a Shael Rune (32%) or Stormshield socketed with the same (52%).
• Lightning Absorb: Equip Thundergod's Vigor when farming or Teleporting through an area where Burning Souls are able to spawn such as Worldstone Keep/Throne of Destruction.

Stat Point Changes

• Allocate enough Stat Points into Strength to wear all of your gear. Either Crown of Ages or Stormshield requires the most Strength on a Hardcore setup.
• Allocate enough Stat Points into Dexterity to achieve maximum Chance to Block (75%) while having either Homunculus or Stormshield equipped.
• Put all remaining Stat Points into Vitality.

Skill Point Changes

• There are no required Skill Point changes for a Hardcore Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer. However, allocating additional Skill Points into Bone Armor improves your ability to tank Physical Damage. Skill Points can be relocated from Golem Mastery on the Standard Build.
  
  See the "Hardcore" Build Variant below for additional suggestions and visuals.

• Teleport instantly moves you to a selected square on the visible screen in which you can stand. The game tries to to place you within a small radius around your cursor even if it would be impeded normally.
• Teleport is not obstructed by walls or other impediments but can fail if your cursor is not completely passed those impediments when cast. Your Mercenary, Iron Golem, and Revives travel with you.
• Revives in large quantities can become “stuck” in position after Teleporting. Move/walk away from that position to give them the chance to spread out.
• You can “extend” the visible screen by opening UI-windows like the Inventory or the Character screen. Continuously cast Teleport and drag your mouse to the edge of your screen.
• The Mana cost of Teleport decreases with additional Skill Levels down to 1 Mana per cast.
• You can use “ESC” to open the menu in Single Player to pause the game after a Teleport to determine if you are safe.
• Teleport casting speed is affected by the Faster Cast Rate Breakpoint that you achieve with your gear.

• Corpse Explosion can only be cast while your cursor is hovering near an "undefiled" monster corpse. It consumes a corpse, triggering a mixed 50/50 Fire-Physical damage explosion in a radius based on its Level. The explosion deals damage to surrounding mobs based on the monster corpse's average maximum Life (70-120% of the monster's average maximum Life). More monster Life = more damage when its corpse is exploded.
• Damage is calculated using the base Monster type's average maximum Life. This means Player Count and Champion/Unique/Super Unique monster status does not increase the damage dealt.
• Act Bosses such as Baal and Quest Monsters such as Nihlathak do not leave "explodable" corpses; neither do expired or dead Revives. Corpse Explosion can be cast on virtually every other corpse.
• Certain item stats or Skills can interfere with your ability to use corpses for Corpse Explosion. They may "defile" them, destroy them on kill, or otherwise compete for their use. These stats/Skills include Slain Monsters Rest in Peace, any Cold or Freeze effect, Redemption, Find Item, Summoning Skills such as Revive, along with several others.
• Since 50% of Corpse Explosion's damage is Physical Damage, the Amplify Damage Curse greatly boosts the Damage of Corpse Explosion because it decreases monster Physical Resistance by a full 100%.
• Each Skill Point in Corpse Explosion increases the radius, with the Fire Damage having a slightly larger radius than the Physical Damage.
• This damage is not blocked by physical obstacles.
• If the Character's Level (cLVL) is less than the Monster's level (mLVL) of a targeted corpse, then the damage dealt is multiplied by a variable (cLVL/mLVL) which reduces the total damage dealt.
• Corpse Explosion is considered a Fire Skill for items which give + to Fire Skills, but not for items which give +% Fire Skill Damage or Fire Mastery.
• Corpse Explosion cast speed is affected by Faster Cast Rate (FCR). Aim for either the 75 or 125% FCR Breakpoints on this build for faster Corpse Explosion chains.

• The speed of this Skill is based on Cast Rate.
• Affected monsters have their "Physical Resistance" reduced by 100% at all Skill Levels (slvl). This effect is reduced to 1/5 on monsters that are Immune to Physical.
• Amplify Damage affects Undead type monsters before Sanctuary.
• Can be overwritten by any other Curse.

Scaling:
Amplify Damage affects a circular shaped area around the cursor. The radius scales with the Skill Level (slvl).

The affect duration scales with the Skill Level (slvl).
Example shown use slvl = 12:

• Raise Skeleton Stats increase in accordance with the Difficulty of the game the Player is in.
  • Base Life of the Skeletons increases by 9 in Nightmare, and by 21 in Hell. (21 -> 30 -> 42)
  • Base Defense Rating increases by 1 in Hell. (5 -> 6)
  • Base Attack Rating actually decreases by 1 in Nightmare, but then increase by 1 in Hell. (5 -> 4 -> 6)
• Raise Skeleton Stats are also calculated at the time of casting. If your Character received + Skills from a buff, the Skeletons they summon will have increased Stats even after the buff has run out. Furthermore, Skeletons can be buffed after they're summoned for even higher Stats.
• Skeletons can be summoned even if you are at the maximum cap for total Skeletons. This will replace the oldest summoned Skeleton in chronological order. They can also be Unsummoned using the Unsummon Skill.
• Skeletons have a % Chance to Block depending on a random number generation when the Skeleton is summoned. Although there is a Skeleton model that has a Shield, that is not an indicator that the Skeleton itself is actually "equipped" with a shield.
• Skeletons cannot be raised from Blood Hawk Nest, Gargoyle Trap, or Tentacle Beast corpses.
• "Uber" Bosses (Act Bosses and Ubers) deal massively increased damage versus Summons. Skeletons rarely survive concentrated damage from these monster types.

• Revive can be cast while your cursor is hovering near a viable, "undefiled" monster corpse. It summons a monster ally in a gray likeness of the fallen monster with 200% more Life than it had while it was alive. Revive's Skill Level determines the maximum number of revived monsters that can be fielded simultaneously. A monster resurrected by Revive has a 3 minute maximum lifespan.
• 1 Skill Point into Skeleton Mastery grants Revives massive damage and Life buffs.
• A Revive fights using the original monster's native abilities. In practice, Revives tend to not deal significant Damage. This is especially when compared to fully synergized Skeletons using a maxed out Raise Skeleton. These resurrected monsters are extremely tanky, however. For the Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer, Revives are mostly used for absorbing damage, distracting, and, in general, shielding your Character, Mercenary, and Iron Golem from incoming attacks.
• Certain item stats or Skills can interfere with your ability to use corpses for Revive. These stats/Skills include Slain Monsters Rest in Peace, Corpse Explosion, any Cold or Freeze effect, Redemption, Find Item, Summoning Skills such as Raise Skeleton, along with several others.
• When facing Act Bosses, Diablo Clone and Uber Bosses (such as Uber Mephisto), Revive Urdar-type monsters including Blunderbores (Act 2 Palace Cellar), Maulers (Act 3 Durance of Hate), and Urdars (Act 4 River of Flame) for their Crushing Blow stat. With about 10-15 of these Revives you can quickly train down any Boss.
• Elite Monsters cannot be Revive'd; this limitation applies to Boss/Quest monsters as well. This is different from Corpse Explosion which can consume Elite corpses. Most other minion and regular monsters can join the ranks of your army.
• Revive can be summoned even if you are at the maximum cap for total Revives. This will replace the oldest summoned Revive in chronological order. They can be Unsummoned using the Unsummon Skill.
• Revive Stats are negatively affected if the Character's level (cLVL) is less than the Monster's level (mLVL) of a targeted corpse. The Revive 's mLVL is calculated based on cLVL instead of the mLVL and their Maximum Life is multiplied by cLVL/mLVL. This will decrease their Chance to Hit, their damage, and increase their Chance to be Hit.
• "Uber" Bosses (Act Bosses and Ubers) deal massively increased damage versus Summons. Revives don't receive the bonus % Resistance from Summon Resist but their base and bonus defensives give them better survivability than other Summons.

• The speed of this Skill is based on Cast Rate.
• While active, this Skill will grand a "shield" which absorbs a set amount of Physical Damage. The absorb is applied before any Damage Reductions.
  • If a hit exceeds the absorb value, the remaining damage is applied after damage reductions.
  • If Physical Damage < Absorb value, the total absorb value is decreased by the damage. Bone Armor stays active with the remaining absorb value.
  • The absorb value can be reset by casting Bone Armor again.
• Stackable with Cyclone Armor and Blade Shield.
• Frozen Armor, Shiver Armor, and Chilling Armor can't be active at the same time. Between these and Bone Armor only the most recently cast Skill is applied.

Scaling:
Mana Cost:
The Mana Cost increases with each Skill Level:

Mana Cost = slvl + 10

Example slvl = 20:
Mana Cost = 20 + 10
Mana Cost = 30

Base Absorb:
The formula for the Physical Damage Absorbed is calculated using this formula:

Physical Damage Absorbed = 10 * slvl + 10

Example slvl = 20:
Physical Damage Absorbed = 10 * 20 + 10
Physical Damage Absorbed = 210

Synergies:
Synergies increase the Physical Damage Absorbed by 15 per Base Level (blvl). They work additive to the Base Absorb.
Note: Skilling the Synergies over the Skill itself adds more Physical Damage Absorbed!

Physical Damage Absorbed = 15 * (Bone Wall.blvl + Bone Prison.blvl)

Example, assuming all Synergies have a blvl = 5:
Physical Damage Absorbed = 15 * (5 + 5)
Physical Damage Absorbed = 150

Total Absorb:
As mentioned above, the Physical Damage Absorbed from Synergies is simply added to the Base Absorb. Taking the values from above we have 210 Physical Damage Absorbed from Bone Armor and 150 from Synergies.

Total Physical Damage Absorbed = 210 + 150
Total Physical Damage Absorbed = 360

Conclusion:
Our slvl 20 Bone Armor with 10 Skill Points in Synergies absorbs 360 Physical Damage in total. Each cast costs 30 Mana.

• Iron Golem is a Golem Summon that can only be created from a "Metallic Item". An Iron Golem takes on the properties of the item it is created from, including several important stats such as Defense, Weapon Damage, Crushing Blow, Deadly Strike, and Life Leech.
• If an Iron Golem is created from an Aura-granting Runeword, the Iron Golem uses that Aura. As it applies to the Mercenary Corpse Explosion Necromancer, an Iron Golem created from an Insight uses its Meditation Aura.
• If an Iron Golem is made from an Ethereal item, it becomes see through just like the Ethereal item itself. This purely "cool" visual effect has no impact on the Golem's survivability or otherwise.
• Iron Golem persists through leaving and creating games. It is saved data on your Character file.
• An Iron Golem's Defense and Thorns damage is based on its Level. However, Skill Points into Golem Mastery and Summon Resist are much more impactful for the Iron Golem's survivability.
• If either your Character or Iron Golem Dies, your Iron Golem needs to be recreated using a new item. Keep both your Character and Iron Golem alive if you don't want to lose your Iron Golem (and, essentially, the item it was made from).
• It is possible to run too far ahead of your Iron Golem and delete it off-screen. For this reason, it is recommended to keep your Iron Golem close using Enigma Teleport.
• An Iron Golem can be recreated by recasting the Skill over a new Metallic Item. Important: You can only have 1 Golem of any kind at any given time. If you have already created a Golem (such as an Iron Golem) and use any Golem Skill to create a new one, it overwrites your previous golem. Avoid using key bindings for any Golem Skills while using an Iron Golem to prevent accidently overwriting it.