LoD Corpse Explosion Necromancer Key Farming Variation

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.

Active Skills
Frailty Aura of Frailty Blood Rush Metabolism 1 Land of the Dead Frozen Lands 2 Corpse Explosion Final Embrace 3 Decrepify Borrowed Time 4 Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish
Passive Skills
Fueled by Death Blood is Power Spreading Malediction Final Service

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 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 or Final Embrace are completely viable here.
• If the cooldown reduction equipment you wear does not manage to get you to Land of the Dead overlap, you have a failsafe in the face of Decrepify Borrowed Time, which you can simply spread around upcoming fights at your convenience.
• For maximum convenience, you will be using the Frailty curse with the automated radius of 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.
• Land of the Dead will stay on the hard CC effect of Frozen Lands, ideally overlapping with the strong cooldown reduction-oriented choices in your gearing.
• Bone Armor will be taken with the farming-oriented Harvest of Anguish due to the movement speed buff.
• For maximum mobility, Blood Rush will be taken with the doubled charges of Metabolism.

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

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

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

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

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.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised and re-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — For virtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual to advanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the path outlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of life first, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive and edge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary Potion Powers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separate resource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Set items of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, and in the order shown below (courtesy of Caleko's Altar of Rites planner).

You can read more on the Altar of Rites, Seals and Legendary Potion Powers in our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

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

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

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

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

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

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 for the Cooldown Reduction and Amplification for the elemental damage increase, both of which you can attain by using a 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.

The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid (allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede your positioning) and 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.

This Season revives the Pandemonium Kill Streak buff from Season 19. Each stack grants a bonus to movement speed and damage, capping at +50% movement speed and +100% damage at 1000 kills. Hitting specific kill thresholds unleashes powerful effects. Read more in our dedicated Season of the Eternal Conflict Mechanics Guide!

While speedfarming sees limited use from this theme, Greater Rift pushing benefits significantly. Effects like Geysers (150), Meteors (400), and Angels (500) can clear elites and Rift Guardians instantly. Players may reset streaks after 150 kills to repeatedly trigger Geysers or push for 500+ kills near boss fights, often using Nemesis Bracers to spawn extra enemies.

Because the most potent effects (Geysers, Meteors, Angels) can obliterate Rift Guardians instantly up to GR150, players can retool builds for efficiency and comfort. Here’s how:

Since you can rely on killstreak procs to clear the Rift Guardian, Bane of the Stricken can be safely omitted in favor of:

• Another generic damage-scaling legendary gem ( Bane of the Trapped for builds with any form of crowd control and/or melee range, Zei's Stone of Vengeance for far ranged builds, Taeguk for channeling builds, Simplicity's Strength for primary attack-focused builds, Enforcer for pet-oriented builds, etc.)
• A survivability-oriented legendary gem ( Esoteric Alteration, Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard), or additional utility ( Gogok of Swiftness for CDR-reliant builds, Pain Enhancer for attack speed-heavy builds, or Wreath of Lightning for extra movement speed).

Adjust your equipment to items that favor durability, health sustain, and ease of movement. Consider adjusting non-essential skills for the build to ones that pull, reposition, or otherwise displace enemies to facilitate large pulls of enemy packs. In more concrete terms, this means:

• For class-specific items, Necromancers should consider Dayntee's Binding if it's absent from the build; this is a powerful damage reduction item that incentivizes you to be mindful of utility skills by spreading curses on as large of an enemy pull as possible (especially in conjunction with popular Necro passives such as Spreading Malediction). This synergizes well with the killstreak theme.
• For additional options that balance between defense and offense, the class-specific amulet Wisdom of Kalan extends the Bone Armor stack maximum and can fit into several builds, while other helpful cross-class jewelry includes Unity (combined with the same ring on the follower plus a follower immortality token), and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose).
• Situational items that can bolster your defenses include Stone Gauntlets, the drawbacks of which are negated via CC-immunity effects like Ice Climbers, or the Altar of Rites CC-immunity node. The class-specific Razeth's Volition and the class-agnostic Aquila Cuirass are powerful and popular choices for low Essence-spending builds, especially ones built around generators like LoD Poison Scythe. A final niche consideration is Mantle of Channeling, which balances between defense and offense for channeling builds, often built around Iron Rose.
• Utility items like Nemesis Bracers are essential as more elites mean more killstreak maintenance and faster progression. When soloing, they should be equipped by your follower; in groups, at least one party member should commit to wearing them. When focusing strictly on speed, Steuart's Greaves can be a powerful inclusion for scouting, but builds that are locked into other items for the slot can turn to niche options like Warzechian Armguards or Krelm's Buff Belt. To facilitate large pulls, consider using a Follower equipped with The Ess of Johan, a proc-based analogue to an enemy-pulling skill (albeit outside your control).
• Skill-wise, make sure to include at least one movement skill tool like Blood Rush. While Necromancers lack an easily available enemy-pulling tool (Rathma Necros build around Army of the Dead Death Valley, but are an exception), a stunning skill like Bone Armor Dislocation can help manage large packs of enemies and doubles as a Krysbin's Sentence proc. Take a look if you can include passives like Final Service (for a cheat-death) or Fueled by Death (for extra movement speed).