Generator Necromancer BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points

Last updated on Sep 13, 2023 at 09:00 by Deadset 45 comments

Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Generator Necromancer in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.6 and Season 29.

1.

Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives

The build equips all six available pieces of the Grace of Inarius set, leaving your jewelry slots for pieces that bring more utility and damage to the setup. Rolls-wise, this primary attack-reliant build makes good use of skill damage, attack speed and area damage across gear. Your ability damage focus will be spent entirely on Grim Scythe Grim Scythe, so try to roll a % increase to its damage on your pants and belt (discussed below). Inarius's Conviction Inarius's Conviction and Inarius's Perseverance Inarius's Perseverance can be dedicated entirely to toughness rolls, while Inarius's Understanding Inarius's Understanding needs to include a Crit Chance roll alongside the high main stats. Area Damage will be sought on both Inarius's Martyrdom Inarius's Martyrdom and Inarius's Will Inarius's Will, with cooldown reduction accompanying it on the former and double crit stats on the latter.

Your jewelry will be mostly dedicated to offense, with some room for personal preference. As your amulet,Haunted Visions Haunted Visions offers a build-defining legendary power that makes your Simulacrum Simulacrum summons last forever at the cost of a negligible life drain effect. It also allows them to duplicate Grim Scythe Grim Scythe instead of Skeletal Mage Skeletal Mage, shifting the focus of Simulacrum Simulacrums from Secondary to Primary skills and allowing this build to thrive. Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence doubles your damage against targets affected by a Slow. This bonus is virtually permanent due to the level 25 property of Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped, which creates a slowing field in your melee range, where you naturally fight with the Inarius set. It also triples the bonus if you affect enemies with any other form of CC — a mighty effect that you will trigger with a combination of Bone Armor Bone Armor Dislocation Dislocation activations, as well as hard CC (Freeze, Stun, Blind) secondary stats on your gear, and the occasional stuns provided by the follower. Your final ring can vary according to your confidence in survival; your optimal damage choice would be Convention of Elements Convention of Elements, which provides a massive elemental damage increase for this build during the Poison cycle, with extra value due to Necromancers having the smallest (3-element) rotation on the ring. Alternatively, you can wear Unity Unity for the 50% damage reduction when paired with another on the follower, along with an immortality relic for them (i.e. Enchanting Favor Enchanting Favor.)

Dayntee's Binding Dayntee's Binding is the solitary Necromancer-specific belt, which compensates its lack of flashy offensive powers with a mighty defensive bulwark — 50% extra damage reduction as long as there is an enemy afflicted by your curses (see this build's skills page for more information).

Due to the lack of dedicated or necessary bracers in this setup, your best choice for the slot becomes Krelm's Buff Bracers Krelm's Buff Bracers, which make you immune to Knockback and Stun effects. The former favorites for the slot, Nemesis Bracers Nemesis Bracers, can now be equipped on the follower and their power transferred to you via the Emanate mechanic.

Your weapon and offhand best-in-slots are locked down by the necessities of the build. Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang is a dedicated Grim Scythe Grim Scythe Cursed Scythe Cursed Scythe legendary item that guarantees the curse application of your primary attack, and greatly amplifies your damage against afflicted targets. Leger's Disdain Leger's Disdain is a phylactery that dictates the entire dynamic of the build, providing a substantial damage increase for every point of Essence restored by Grim Scythe Grim Scythe. While it might seem counter-intuitive at first — after all, in a (mostly) generator-spamming spec, you will be at or near max Essence at all times — it has been tested and proven that while your character might miss out on that benefit at times, your Simulacrum Simulacrums will constantly benefit from it.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Vitality
  4. Attack Speed
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Intelligence
  2. Area Damage
  3. Armor
  4. Vitality
  5. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. Intelligence
  2. 3 Sockets
  3. Armor
  4. Elite Damage Reduction
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Poison Damage %
  4. Vitality
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Critical Hit Damage
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Area Damage
  4. Intelligence (or Attack Speed at high Paragon)
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Intelligence
  2. Grim Scythe %
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Freeze on Hit % (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Intelligence
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Grim Scythe %
  4. Armor
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. All Resistance
  5. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Poison Damage %
  5. Cooldown Reduction
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Area Damage or Attack Speed
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Area Damage or Attack Speed
Weapon
  1. High Damage Range
  2. Intelligence
  3. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  4. Area Damage
  5. Attack Speed
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Off-hand
  1. High Damage Range
  2. Intelligence
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Grim Scythe %
  5. Area Damage

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.

2.

Paragon Points

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally, this is done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as you comfortably can into Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking in toughness. Investing points into Maximum Essence is not necessary in this build.

In the Offense section, max out Crit Chance, Crit Damage, Attack Speed and CDR in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Resource Cost Reduction and Globe Radius.

Slot Paragon Points
Core
  1. Movement Speed up to 25% cap
  2. Intelligence
  3. Vitality
  4. Maximum Essence
Offense
  1. Critical Hit Damage
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Attack Speed
  4. Cooldown Reduction
Defense
  1. Armor
  2. Life %
  3. All Resistance
  4. Life Regeneration
Utility
  1. Area Damage
  2. Life on Hit
  3. Resource Cost Reduction
  4. Globe Radius
2.1.

Season 29: Paragon Cap

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: Movement Speed: 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.
2.1.1.

Season 29: Gearing Considerations

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 Guardian's Aversion (Wrists), Guardian's Case Guardian's Case (Waist), and Guardian's Gaze 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 Ring of Royal Grandeur (found from Act I bounty caches).
  • Endless Walk:This is a jewelry set consisting of The Traveler's Pledge The Traveler's Pledge (Amulet) and The Compass Rose 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 Focus and Restraint Restraint) and Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace with acceptable losses to DPS.
  • Unity Unity: A character wearing this ring, along with another Unity Unity on their follower plus an immortality relic for them (i.e., Enchanting Favor Enchanting Favor), will reduce their damage taken by 50%. Unity Unity can roll excellent offense-oriented stats and has an innate Extra Damage to Elites roll, which somewhat offsets losing all-out offense jewelry.
3.

Gems

Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. The gem procs itself with its level 25 property when in melee range, synergizing with the close-and-personal range of Inarius Necromancer builds.

Simplicity's Strength Simplicity's Strength is one of the best DPS gems you can take for the build, as it was changed into a separate damage multiplication source to primary skills in Patch 2.4.1. Upgrading with a steady pace of half a percent per gem level, it quickly becomes a priority and a fixture in your gem choices. Its buffed healing secondary effect is just icing on the cake.

Bane of the Stricken Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final jewelry socket in GRs. Building up your damage multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in their struggle against single-target, high-HP enemies.

When it comes to gear gems, you will start out progression by slotting the highest available level of Topazes in the chest and pants sockets. Ideally, these will all be Flawless Royal Topaz Flawless Royal Topazes as soon as possible. As you grow in Paragon (bulking up Intelligence in the Core section) and aim for higher tier and more dangerous GRs, you will transition those gems into the defensive Flawless Royal Ruby Flawless Royal Ruby, scaling the lacking Armor of an Intelligence-based character (Intelligence scales Resistances). There is no specific breakpoint where you do that; the rule of thumb is to make the change as soon as you feel the lack of toughness impede your progress. This is a fairly cooldown- and resource independent build, so you will use a Flawless Royal Amethyst Flawless Royal Amethyst in the helm for the extra health. In your weapon, use a Flawless Royal Emerald Flawless Royal Emerald for the Crit Damage boost.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

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

4.

Kanai's Cube

Stored in the Weapon slot of Kanai's Cube, Nayr's Black Death Nayr's Black Death is the damage amplification source of choice for this strictly poison-oriented build. Maximized via the Cube to its 100% value per skill added, this scythe results in an impressive 500% multiplication total in this build setup.

Depth Diggers Depth Diggers are a natural inclusion in this build, since they net you a 100% damage increase to your primary skills.

Wisdom of Kalan Wisdom of Kalan will increase your maximum Bone Armor Bone Armor stacks to 5, quadrupling your toughness to the whopping 90% at the maximum 15.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Please refer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

5.

Follower

For Greater Rift progression with this build, we recommend the Templar for his essential heal and cheat death abilities. The Templar is a preferable choice due to the lacking sustain and survivability in this build.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our Follower Guide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear of your follower.

6.

Legendary Potion

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower 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.

7.

Changelog

  • 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 08 Dec. 2021: Minor gear and skill revision; added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 01 Apr. 2021: Minor gear revision and added a follower recommendation.
  • 19 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
  • 08 Jul. 2020: Overhauled the guide to include item recommendations based on the revised powers of Haunted Visions and Razeth's Volition.
  • 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 23 Aug. 2019: Reviewed for Season 18.
  • 12 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
  • 18 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
  • 27 Mar. 2018: Added the guide.
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