LoD Singularity Necromancer Skills and Runes
On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing LoD Singularity Necromancer in Diablo 3. Updated for patch 2.6.10 and Season 22.
Active Skills |
---|
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Passive Skills |
Rotation
The build begins its runs by activating Bone Armor, both for its
protective value as well as the damage buff from
Scythe of the Cycle. Note
its duration consumption from your regular summons, and recast it as needed. Keep
up the
Devour casts throughout the rift to replenish Essence consistently,
and fuel its Corpse needs with
Land of the Dead on cooldown. Ideally, you
will be casting
Simulacrum in sync with your
Land of the Dead
resource spikes, since the
Reservoir rune will greatly empower the
following summons. To that end, make sure to summon your
Skeletal Mage
Life Support at or as close to full Essence as you can,
since the spell depletes your entire current reserve (due to the free
Singularity from the worn
Razeth's Volition), and scales its
damage based off the consumption accordingly. Depending on your purpose (high
end GR pushing or lower tier speeds) you will either be cursing the enemy packs
ahead with
Frailty
Scent of Blood, or
Blood Rushing to reposition
throughout the Rift.
Skills and Runes
Your main damage-dealing skill is Skeletal Mage, greatly empowered by
synergistic items such as
Scythe of the Cycle,
Circle of Nailuj's Evol
and
Razeth's Volition. The latter will provide the strongest damage dealing
rune
Singularity for free; its unique property consumes your entire
resource reserve for 3% extra damage per Essence spent. This results in 1860%
extra damage per full resource dump on a reasonably equipped character. With the
strongest rune added for free, we recommend taking
Life Support as the
rune on your bar, since it is more forgiving with its extra duration. Note that
your
Skeletal Mages will match your target (whatever you are currently
attacking or mousing over), so make sure to position and pick priority targets
accordingly.
When starting out with this build — or depending on your preferences for
mobility in general — our basic recommendation is to take Blood Rush.
The solitary movement skill of the Necromancer gains some extra resource
generation utility with the rune
Molting, which grants an extra Corpse
at your original location — but still well enough into the range of
Devour. You have other viable options for the slot; you can alternate the
rune (either to the safer
Potency or the all-out double charges of
Metabolism), or switch the skill entirely to a curse in high-end GR
progression, i.e.
Frailty
Scent of Blood. Taking a curse into the build
will allow you the safety of
Dayntee's Binding, at the expense of greater
mobility options (see this build's gear page
for more information).
In order to take advantage of the massive Scythe of the Cycle bonuses,
you will need to take
Bone Armor into the build. Besides its base damage
reduction bonuses, we recommend that you take the rune
Dislocation for
its two-second stun, which provides an additional, consistent way to proc
Krysbin's Sentence in every battle. You can viably alternate this rune to
Harvest of Anguish to improve mobility throughout the Rift.
In order to fuel the constant Essence demand of your main damage dealer, you will construct the majority of your remaining skillset to replenish resources and empower your build.
Your Essence restoration hinges on a core Necromancer mechanic: consuming
Corpses, which are a unique Necromancer resource that is generated largely
through combat. You will be using Devour with the
Cannibalize
rune to double dip on bonuses, Essence restoration and Health restoration, and
their interaction with the
Requiem Cereplate bonus will result in an even
greater, snowballing effect. Note that due to the skill's lack of casting
animation, you are free to spam as much as you need.
A major source of Essence generation depends on Devour, but empowers
it greatly.
Land of the Dead supplies you with an infinite amount of Corpses
throughout its short duration, allowing you to replenish Health and Essence
almost instantaneously. During its uptime, you will be able to get the maximum
number of
Skeletal Mages, all at their maximum power, for a great
boost of damage. Note
Land of the Dead's massive cooldown and try to time it
with advantageous situations, like engagements with multiple Elites or the Rift
Guardian. The rune
Frozen Lands will ensure the powerful
Krysbin's Sentence proc on all enemies on the screen for an even better
damage output.
Your final skill slot will be used for Simulacrum
Reservoir, another
one of the Necromancer's longest cooldowns — thankfully now made permanent
with the revised powers of
Haunted Visions. The
Simulacrum summon
will mimic your secondary skill (
Skeletal Mage, in this case), and will
double your Essence reserve through the
Reservoir rune—an immensely
powerful effect with the
Singularity rune in mind.
This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.
Passives
Similarly to the reasoning behind Simulacrum
Reservoir, you will be
taking the flat Essence increase of
Overwhelming Essence—all to
empower the
Singularity mages.
To play to the strengths of your equipped Reaper's Wraps and the
constant spam of
Devour,
Life from Death will provide you with a
consistent supply of Health Globes. This will greatly improve both the rate and
the average power of your
Singularity summons.
Blood is Power is the Necromancer's take on passives such as
Evocation and
Beacon of Ytar—along with the significant
drawback of needing to lose your health reserve equivalent to trigger it.
Since it counts off pre-mitigation values however, this passive will trigger
from the very flow of gameplay (constant, high damage hits) in any meaningful
Greater Rift progression difficulty. With an overarching goal of reducing
Land of the Dead and
Simulacrum downtimes,
Blood is Power
finds a deserving place in your passive selection.
You have some freedom in your final passive slot. Our basic recommendation is
Final Service, the Necromancer's cheat death, a chance to evade a
lethal outcome once every 60 seconds, along with a 10% healing proc per minion
currently active. If you prefer utility over excessive safety, you can
also try
Fueled by Death in the same slot, or if you went with a curse in
your active skill selection, you can increase damage via
Spreading Malediction.
Changelog
- 19 Nov. 2020: Revision of skill, rune, and passive recommendations.
- 02 Jul. 2020: Revised the build to account for Razeth's Volition changes.
- 12 Mar. 2020: Revised priority recommendations for gear to better reflect the meta for high-end runs.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Skill page reviewed and approved for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2018: Skills were reviewed and approved for Season 18.
- 17 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 17 Apr. 2019: Guide added.
More Necromancer Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
- The New Battle.net Is Almost Here, Going Live in NA
- The Darkening of Tristram Returns January 3
- All Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction Cinematics in 8K and 60 FPS
- Diablo Immortal Alpha Gameplay and a Detailed Review/Look at the Systems
- Merry Christmas from the Icy Veins Team!
- Blizzard Sending Out New Surveys About "Classic" Version of The Burning Crusade
- Activision Blizzard's Stock Reached All-Time Highs
- Diablo Immortal's Monetization Model Revealed