Corpse Lance Necromancer Group Progression Variation

In groups, the Pestilence Corpse Lance build assumes the role of an elite hunting, Rift Guardian killing menace. Note that this variation of the build is strictly meant to be played with Support teammates and an accompanying AoE DPS player. This variation is no longer the preferred Rift Guardian Killer for groups, but we leave this page up for archival purposes.

Active Skills
Grim Scythe Cursed Scythe Command Skeletons Enforcer 1 Devour Voracious 2 Corpse Lance Brittle Touch 3 Blood Rush Potency 4 Land of the Dead Frozen Lands
Passive Skills
Swift Harvesting Final Service Blood is Power Eternal Torment

In this group variant you will be scaling off Curse application instead of the solo progression's Essence scaling. Thus, you should drop Simulacrum from the soloing build, and use Grim Scythe Cursed Scythe in its stead. This alteration will allow you to more easily stack Bane of the Stricken, while simultaneously enjoying the benefits of the base effects of all three curses: Decrepify, Leech and Frailty.

Since you will not need the sustain from Dark Mending due to the presence of Support teammates, you should alter your Command Skeletons rune to the cheaper Enforcer. The same logic applies to your Blood Rush rune; you will no longer need the emergency Corpses of Molting, so you can alter to the added safety of Potency.

Final Service and Blood is Power remain just as useful as they are for soloing Lance builds. Swift Harvesting should replace the solo-oriented Fueled by Death, as faster Grim Scythe attacks will stack Bane of the Stricken faster. Since you alter your damage scaling from Essence-based to Curse-based, will should alternate Overwhelming Essence from the soloing build into Eternal Torment, turning your 30 second curses into an indefinite debuff on affected enemies.

Taking the easily stacking Crit Chance of the Brittle Touch rune one step further from the following spec, the group variation eschews all Crit Chance from gear in favor of full investement in Crit Damage, Cooldown Reduction and Increased Attack Speed.

Slot	Pieces	Stat Priority
Head	Pestilence Mask	Intelligence Socket Vitality Life %
Shoulders	Pestilence Defense	Intelligence Corpse Lance % Cooldown Reduction Vitality
Torso	Pestilence Robe	Intelligence 3 Sockets Vitality Corpse Lance % Armor
Wrists	Lacuni Prowlers	Intelligence Cold Damage Vitality Armor
Hands	Pestilence Gloves	Intelligence Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Increased Attack Speed Vitality
Waist	Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle	Intelligence Vitality Armor Life %
Legs	Captain Crimson's Thrust	Intelligence 2 Sockets Vitality Armor
Feet	Pestilence Battle Boots	Intelligence Vitality Armor All Resistance Movement Speed
Amulet	Squirt's Necklace	Socket Critical Hit Damage Cold Damage Attack Speed Intelligence
Ring #1	Krysbin's Sentence	Socket Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Average Damage Increased Attack Speed
Ring #2	Convention of Elements	Socket Critical Hit Damage Cooldown Reduction Average Damage Increased Attack Speed
Weapon	Jesseth Skullscythe	High Damage Range Intelligence Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift) Cooldown Reduction Max Essence (Secondary Stat) % Weapon Damage
Off-hand	Jesseth Skullshield	Intelligence Cooldown Reduction Max Essence (Secondary Stat) Increased Damage vs. Elites

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two very useful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide to help you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear and a Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

Season 29 introduces a season-specific cap to stat benefits from Paragon levels, all while updating how Paragon point distribution is handled. For the duration of this Season, you can only assign 800 Paragon stat points to your character, removing the long-standing practice of main-stat stacking (with some gearing implications — see below) after you reach Paragon 800.

On top of that, you could only allocate 50 Paragon stat points to each of the four stats in a given Paragon category (Core, Offense, Defense, and Utility). In Season 29, you can allocate up to the full 200 points per category into any attribute, allowing you to more easily reach necessary build breakpoints (as outlined in the Gear page of the guide) for Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction, etc.

With the changes to Paragon in mind, we recommend using the following Paragon distribution for this build:

• Core: Max Essence: 200 points.
• Offense: Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage: Allocate points so they are as close to the desirable 1:10 ratio between the two stats, as displayed in your Character Details sheet. For weapon-and-offhand builds, this is usually achieved with the full 200 points spent into Critical Hit Damage.
• Defense: Life and All Resistance: Allocate points to maximize survivability; for Necromancers, this is usually achieved by evenly splitting 100 points into Life (directly increasing your Health pool) and Armor (to complement the naturally high All Resistance stat of Intelligence-based characters).
• Utility: Area Damage: 200 points.

In terms of gear, keeping the Paragon cap in mind is paramount, as it stymies the traditional endless supply of main stat after Paragon 800. This means re-rolling mainstat off your gear is no longer desirable, and full equipment augmentation with your main stat is even more critical. Additionally, you should take a careful look at your build and consider if you can fit the following changes to strengthen your damage and survivability:

• Guardian's Jeopardy: This is a craftable armor set, and the recipe for its creation drops from Bounty farming. Guardian's 2-piece provides a decent damage reduction bonus, but the true powerhouse of the set is the 3-piece bonus, which nets you an additional 100% of your main stats from equipped items. This is a tremendous benefit in an 800 Paragon capped Season. If the Guardian set can fit into the build with minimal sacrifices (other craftable sets, tertiary damage multipliers, etc.), consider its implementation. The available pieces are Guardian's Aversion (Wrists), Guardian's Case (Waist), and Guardian's Gaze (Head). Of course, you can wear 2 pieces of the set and complete the full 3-piece bonus with a Ring of Royal Grandeur (found from Act I bounty caches).
• Endless Walk:This is a jewelry set consisting of The Traveler's Pledge (Amulet) and The Compass Rose (Ring), and is randomly found through farming, gambling Blood Shards, and/or Kanai's Cube recipes. The Endless Walk set is a nice compromise between damage bonuses (building up while stationary) and defensive bonuses (building up while moving). It can replace glass cannon choices like the Bastions of Will set ( Focus and Restraint) and Squirt's Necklace with acceptable losses to DPS.
• Unity: A character wearing this ring, along with another Unity on their follower plus an immortality relic for them (i.e., Enchanting Favor), will reduce their damage taken by 50%. Unity can roll excellent offense-oriented stats and has an innate Extra Damage to Elites roll, which somewhat offsets losing all-out offense jewelry.

Relying entirely on Support teammates for his health sustain, the group variant of the Pestilence Lancer spec uses Bane of the Stricken in place of Gogok of Swiftness. The former is a staple for builds that specialize in taking down the Rift Guardian in groups, which is your exact role in this setup.

Slot	Gems
Jewelry	Zei's Stone of Vengeance Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Stricken
Helm	Flawless Royal Diamond (Cooldown Reduction)
Torso and Pants	Flawless Royal Topaz (Damage)
Weapon	Flawless Royal Emerald

For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.

You will introduce Curse-based damage amplification via Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang, as well as maintain Corpsewhisper Pauldrons as a Corpse Lance-dedicated legendary, and a Ring of Royal Grandeur to tie the bonuses of Pestilence and Cpt. Crimson sets together.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Necromancers (due to Intelligence scaling Resistances) for optimal survivability.