Masquerade Bone Spear Necromancer Key Farming Variation

The Masquerade Bone Spear Necromancer deals with Normal Rift quite well, making the build well suited for the purposes of key farming. 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
Grim Scythe Frost Scythe Bone Spear Teeth 1 Devour Devouring Aura 2 Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish 3 Blood Rush Metabolism 4 Simulacrum Reservoir
Passive Skills
Stand Alone Bone Prison Final Service Fueled by Death

• Bone Spear will still be the main damage dealer, but you should swap the precise, progression-oriented Blighted Marrow rune for the AoE convenience of Teeth, and adjust elemental rolls on gear to Physical accordingly.
• Simulacrum is still an integral part of the build, and all of its runes will be provided by the Masquerade set bonus.
• For maximum convenience, you should add Devour to the build along with Devouring Aura, which automates the consumption effect and synergizes nicely with the worn Avarice Band.
• As a backup whenever you run out of Corpses to Devour, you should still keep Grim Scythe around — along with the IAS-oriented Frost Scythe rune to speed up the resource restoration process.
• 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 passive selection from the GR specs will be retained, with Stand Alone (massive armor bonus for non- and low-summoning builds) and Bone Prison (crowd control for Bone Spear) still providing tremendous value. Add to them Final Service (for the cheat death preventing the occasional mishap) and Fueled by Death (to further your mobility during standard rift farming.)

You will keep most of the items from the progression-oriented setup, with the majority of the Masquerade set remaining in place, but run a 5-piece setup with a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube to attain the 6-piece bonus. You should make the following gear alterations:

• Drop the Extravagant Shoes from the worn gear and replace them with Steuart's Greaves for the additional mobility after using Blood Rush.
• Replace the curse-dependent protection of Dayntee's Binding with Goldwrap, as the gold synergy outlined below will provide you with all the protection you might need in farming runs.
• Replace the progression-oriented Convention of Elements for the speed farming-appropriate Avarice Band. This Act III bounty cache legendary ring will greatly increase your pickup radius as you gain gold, forming a solid triumvirate of powers with the worn Goldwrap and socketed Boon of the Hoarder. Complete the worn jewelry with the usual Haunted Visions and Krysbin's Sentence.

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 Zei's Stone of Vengeance as a universally useful damage multiplication gem in the build, but should replace Bane of the Trapped for Boon of the Hoarder for the Avarice Band- Goldwrap synergy during farming runs, and drop the Greater Rift Guardian-oriented Bane of the Stricken for the generic damage increase of Bane of the Powerful.

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

For your weapon slot, you can run either Messerschmidt's Reaver (solo normal rift farming) or In-geom (group normal rift farming) as your cooldown reduction powerhouse; both will work exceptionally well with the build.

Tucked away in the Cube, Krelm's Buff Belt will provide you with a considerable and consistent speed boost throughout your runs.

In the base suggested setup above, you will have to slot the Ring of Royal Grandeur in order to maintain the 6-piece Masquerade bonus while enjoying extra utility legendary powers.

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.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered, which renders you immune to Crowd Control effects for a brief time after consuming it — valuable bonus to a build that lacks means to break away from CC outside of straight up evasion via Blood Rush.

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).