LoD Corpse Explosion Necromancer Key Farming Variation

Last updated on Sep 13, 2023 at 09:00 by Deadset 25 comments
Build Variations Updated for Season 29, Patch 2.7.6 Main Build Solo Greater Rift Progression Nephalem Rift Farming
1.

Regular Rift Key Farming

The LoD Corpse Explosion Necromancer deals with Normal Rift farming excellently, making it one of the preferable builds for the purpose. We have solo speed GR rankings and solo speed T16 rankings if you want to know more about which builds are best for speed farming.

Within the limited scope of regular difficulties, the necessary damage and toughness to triumph over the enemy is significantly smaller. Thus, your best course of action is to improve utility and speed.

2.

Adapting Skills

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Frailty Icon Frailty Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty Right Mouse Button Blood Rush Icon Blood Rush Metabolism Metabolism 1 Land of the Dead Icon Land of the Dead Frozen Lands Frozen Lands 2 Corpse Explosion Icon Corpse Explosion Final Embrace Final Embrace 3 Decrepify Icon Decrepify Borrowed Time Borrowed Time 4 Bone Armor Icon Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish Harvest of Anguish
Passive Skills

Parts of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, but others will have to change according to the task at hand. Ability to cross over great distances faster and more efficiently take precedence.

  • Of course, Corpse Explosion Corpse Explosion is still the main damage dealer of the build. You can experiment with the rune, since Nayr stack buildup is not something you particularly care for in standard rifts. Options like Bloody Mess Bloody Mess or Final Embrace Final Embrace are completely viable here.
  • If the cooldown reduction equipment you wear does not manage to get you to Land of the Dead Land of the Dead overlap, you have a failsafe in the face of Decrepify Decrepify Borrowed Time Borrowed Time, which you can simply spread around upcoming fights at your convenience.
  • For maximum convenience, you will be using the Frailty Frailty curse with the automated radius of Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty; its culling effect is a nice bonus, but the real benefit lies in its pulling synergy with the worn (or cubed) Briggs' Wrath Briggs' Wrath.
  • Land of the Dead Land of the Dead will stay on the hard CC effect of Frozen Lands Frozen Lands, ideally overlapping with the strong cooldown reduction-oriented choices in your gearing.
  • Bone Armor Bone Armor will be taken with the farming-oriented Harvest of Anguish Harvest of Anguish due to the movement speed buff.
  • For maximum mobility, Blood Rush Blood Rush will be taken with the doubled charges of Metabolism Metabolism.

Some of your progression passives will still make sense during speed farming, i.e. Spreading Malediction Spreading Malediction (extra damage based on cursed enemies) and Blood is Power Blood is Power (extra CDR) are still quite valuable. We also recommend adding Final Service Final Service for the cheat death, as it will prevent the occasional mishap and death-related slowdown, as well as Fueled by Death Fueled by Death to further your mobility during standard rift farming.

3.

Adapting Gear

You will no longer need the damage amplification of Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang in standard rifts, and will make much better use of the cooldown-resetting powers of In-geom In-geom.

Since speed is essential in XP runs, you will be wearing Steuart's Greaves Steuart's Greaves over the progression-oriented Ice Climbers Ice Climbers, and will be slotting Blood Rush Blood Rush Metabolism Metabolism in your active skills accordingly (see above).

When it comes to jewelry, our basic recommendation is to keep Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence for the invaluable damage multiplication bonuses, and add the Act III bounty cache legendary Avarice Band Avarice Band for its tremendous speed farming utility. The combined power of the latter when socketed with a Boon of the Hoarder Boon of the Hoarder and paired with Goldwrap Goldwrap will both greatly speed you up and render you near-invulnerable in standard rift farming. The third suggested ring is Briggs' Wrath Briggs' Wrath for the pulling effect on enemies as your curse aura affects them, bringing them right into the devastation of your Corpse Explosion Corpse Explosions. Distribute these three recommended rings according to your best rolls, wearing your two best and cubing the third.

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

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.

3.1.

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: Cooldown Reduction: 200 points.
  • 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.
3.1.1.

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.
4.

Adapting Gems

You will maintain Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped and Legacy of Dreams Legacy of Dreams as crucial legendary gems for the build, but should replace Bane of the Stricken Bane of the Stricken for Boon of the Hoarder Boon of the Hoarder for the Avarice Band Avarice Band-Goldwrap Goldwrap synergy during farming runs.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

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

5.

Adapting Kanai's Cube

For your weapon slot, you should run Messerschmidt's Reaver Messerschmidt's Reaver as your second cooldown reduction powerhouse, paired with your equipped In-geom In-geom; both will work exceptionally well with this LotD-dependent build.

To further the speed of your clears, slot Warzechian Armguards Warzechian Armguards in your armor slot for the environment destruction-fueled speed ups — quite easy to achieve with the Corpse Explosion Corpse Explosion devastation.

In the jewelry slot, you should slot your weakest rolled ring between the ones outlined above: Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence, Briggs' Wrath Briggs' Wrath, or Avarice Band Avarice Band.

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.

6.

Follower

The recommended follower for this build during standard T16 rifts farming is the Enchantress due to her vast array of bonuses that complement this build; most notably, Prophetic Harmony Prophetic Harmony for the Cooldown Reduction and Amplification Amplification for the elemental damage increase, both of which you can attain by using a Hand of the Prophet Hand of the Prophet.

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.

7.

Legendary Potion

The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid (allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede your positioning) and Bottomless Potion of the Tower Bottomless Potion of the Tower (whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Necromancers). Pick whichever you feel helps you out the most.

8.

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.
  • 01 Feb. 2022: Altered the helm and off-hand recommendations to better fit the S25 meta.
  • 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 adjustments and added a follower recommendation.
  • 19 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
  • 02 Jul. 2020: Guide added.
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