LoD Skeletal Mage “Rat” Necromancer Guide

1. Do the Challenge Rift for the materials to cube Legendary Powers. You can complete this once a week for additional resources and we always update the guide for you!

2. This is a Legacy of Dreams build whose success is heavily dependent on this gem's rank. The first order of business is to equip a Legendary or Set item in every slot to take advantage of its power. Make sure to not have any Set Bonuses equipped or the gem will be nullified and you will deal no damage! Farm speed Greater Rifts (in under 5 minute clears) to find the items and get this gem as high as possible. Above Rank 25 ancient pieces of gear will give you even greater power.

3. Gamble from Kadala in this order:

1. Create a level 1 Necromancer and gamble for Circle of Nailuj's Evol
2. Goldwrap
3. Tasker and Theo
4. Steuart's Greaves
5. Requiem Cereplate
6. Razeth's Volition
7. Nemesis Bracers and Warzechian Armguards
8. Any Legendary Phylactery, preferably Lost Time
9. Krysbin's Sentence and Circle of Nailuj's Evol
10. Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan
11. Leoric's Crown and Andariel's Visage

4. Craft using Recipe 3 in Kanai's Cube in this order:

1. Scythes to get Scythe of the Cycle and Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang
2. Two-Handed Scythes to get Reilena's Shadowhook
3. Amulets to get Haunted Visions and Squirt's Necklace
4. Create a level 1 Demon Hunter and upgrade Swords to get In-Geom
5. Two-Handed Axes to get Messerschmidt's Reaver
6. Anything from the Gamble list in Step 3 that you haven't already acquired

5. Do Bounties to acquire several important items for this build:

• Act 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur (for your follower)
• Act 2: Gloves of Worship
• Act 3: Avarice Band
• Act 4: Can drop any bounty item from any act
• Bounty Turn In: Recipes for Sage's Journey and Cain's Destiny (for your follower)
• Kill Malthael to acquire the Reaper's Wraps crafting recipe

6. At this point you can somewhat comfortably farm Nephalem or Speed Greater Rifts where you can find all the remaining items you need for different variants of the build. Spend your materials getting items with better rolls and/or ancient quality.

7. Use Primordial Ashes in Kanai's Cube with the new Curiosity of Lorath Nahr recipe to obtain a free Crafted Primal Ancient. Since you can only equip one of them, choosing the right item to focus matters! Great candidates are Weapons, Offhands, Jewelry or any item with an important multiplier. With that in mind, we recommend getting one of the following items:

• Scythe of the Cycle
• Haunted Visions
• Krysbin's Sentence

• Legacy of Dreams is the basis of the build and should be leveled to 99 immediately for a ridiculous 9,750% damage increase and 52% reduced damage taken with full ancient gear.
• Bane of the Trapped for 60% increased damage.
• Enforcer for 60% increased damage.
• Boon of the Hoarder for gold and movement speed in T16 farming.

• Skeletal Mage Life Support is our main damage dealer. We already get the Singularity rune from Razeth's Volition, which is the basis of the build. We take the Life Support rune for the extra duration on the mages.
• Simulacrum Reservoir duplicates our Skeletal Mage, doubles our Maximum Essence and therefore grants us a significant damage boost from Reilena's Shadowhook.
• Land of the Dead lets us Devour infinitely for its duration.
• Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish gives us a nice defensive buff and makes us run faster. It also activates our Scythe of the Cycle damage bonus.
• Blood Rush Metabolism lets us move through the rifts quickly.
• Devour Satiated refills Essence and increases our Toughness.

• Overwhelming Essence gives 40 more Essence to further buff Reilena's Shadowhook.
• Dark Reaping gives us 2% essence and life on kill to summon more mages and stay alive.
• Final Service allows us to cheat death.
• Extended Servitude increases the duration of our Skeletal Mage.
• Depending on content, a few other passives are useful:
  • Fueled by Death increases Movement Speed.
  • Blood is Power reduces our cooldowns by 20% after we've lost 100% of our life.
  • Life from Death can spawn Health Globes.

The Altar of Rites is a tree that grants tremendous powers to your entire account in exchange for sacrifices. It requires you to farm Bounties, kill the Ubers, craft the Staff of Herding, and more. Completing all 26 of these tasks, along with sacrificing 6 Primal Ancients grants you extra Damage, Defense, Quality of Life, Increased Drops and 3 Potion Super Powers. Read the full guides on Unlocking the Altar and the Altar Mechanics by Raxxanterax and Chewingnom to learn everything about this fantastic mechanic!

Optimal Path

Patch 2.7.0 revamped the follower system giving all 3 hirelings new powers and the emanate system. The first thing you should do is read our complete follower guide and remember the key takeaways:

1. The emanation system allows followers to share certain legendary and set powers with you. The most important ones are: The Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers, Avarice Band, Sage’s Journey and Cain’s Destiny. Click the guide above for the full list.
2. Follower’s powers are based on their main stat (maxed at 25,000, but they have a 2.5x multiplier so you only need 10,000). This means we stack Intelligence on the Enchantress, Dexterity on the Scoundrel and Strength on the Templar.
3. Guardian's Jeopardy (2) Bonus works for followers by improving their inherent stat multiplier from x2.5 to x3.5, making it slightly easier to hit the 25,000 main stat threshold if needed.
4. Followers share 20% of their Experience, Magic and Gold Find stats with you.
5. Legendary gems do not work on followers, except Esoteric Alteration and Mutilation Guard.
6. With Enforcer equipped on the player it's much easier to keep followers alive even without an immortality relic. The 90% damage reduction counts for them, too.
7. Cooldown Reduction does not work for any follower skill except the Templar’s Heal.
8. Followers never deal significant damage; you’re on your own to clear the content.

Select Follower

The Rat Necromancer has some of the fastest-paced gameplay around. The main concept is to keep 10 Skeletal Mages up at all times while dodging any dangerous affixes and attacks along the way. To give them maximum power you'll want to summon them every time your Essence is full because of the Singularity rune from Razeth's Volition. The rotation is:

1. Spam Devour at all times (can be done during other animations).
2. Summon your Simulacrum at the start. You shouldn't have to recast them unless you die because you're more fragile than they are.
3. Activate Land of the Dead to max out your Essence during downphases.
4. Run close to enemies and activate your Bone Armor for a defensive, movement speed, and damage buff from Scythe of the Cycle. Refresh this several times during the rift by running up to enemies and activating it.
5. Cast Skeletal Mage every time your Essence is full. The mages will attack whoever you put your mouse cursor over as you summon them, so always try to aim them at elites.
6. Use Blood Rush as needed to move around the map and keep up with your team.

Do not play this build in hardcore unless you have experience with it and are confident in what you are doing. No matter what this is a complete glass cannon and the chances of you losing your character are extremely high. If you're still going to play it, place more Paragon points into Vitality, and take the Potency rune on Blood Rush.

Check out our dedicated Hardcore Survival Guide to learn more about how to succeed in this game mode!

• Haunted Visions makes this skill drain 1% of your maximum life every second. If you are unable to pay this cost (i.e. you are below 1% HP when the cost is applied), the Simulacrums despawn.
• Simulacrums cast your Secondary Skills (Skeletal Mage) when you do, unless you equip Haunted Visions.
• Your Simulacrums scale with your character's toughness and can die from monster damage when it's too low. Especially large bursts of damage (e.g. Grotesque explosions) can rip them apart easily even when you could survive that damage yourself, so be mindful about such situations as the cooldown to resummon them is very long.

• Skeletal Mages spawned by this effect benefit from all the same damage modifiers as your normal summons.
• However, these additional mages cannot trigger Area Damage.

• These shoulders give us the Singularity rune for Skeletal Mage, which is the basis of the build. When we use the Life Support rune, every mage cast will continue to drain all of our essence to power up the mages.

• Pulses twice a second, applying a 10 second freeze to all enemies in line of sight within 60 yards range. This means that when you teleport forward, monsters can have up to 0.5 seconds to attack or use an ability.
• Because Frozen Lands applies a 10 seconds freeze, frozen enemies instantly cap out at 95% crowd control resistance and become completely immune to all other form of Crowd Control, making it impossible to pull them after they have already been frozen.