Necromancer Corpse Explosion Build With Inarius Set
Introduction
Basing itself on the skill-agnostic, melee-ranged powers of the Inarius set and stacking a bunch of empowering and synergistic legendary items, the Inarius Corpse Explosion Necromancer provides a powerful and visually striking playstyle that relishes on exploding cadavers. The base one presented on this page is the Greater Rift Solo Pushing Variation, but this build also has a Nephalem Rift Farming Variation; follow the link above to the respective alterations.
Quick Reference
Skill Setup
The basic skill setup of the Inarius Corpse Explosion Necromancer is displayed below. Read the dedicated Skills page for detailed information on choices, alternatives and build customization.
Active Skills |
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Passive Skills |
Gear Setup
The required gear setup for the Inarius Corpse Explosion Necromancer is listed below. Check the Gear page for detailed information on choices, alternatives, gemming, Kanai's Cube and Paragon distribution.
- Helm:
Inarius's Understanding
- Shoulders:
Inarius's Martyrdom
- Gloves:
Inarius's Will
- Chest:
Inarius's Conviction
- Belt:
Dayntee's Binding
- Pants:
Inarius's Reticence
- Boots:
Inarius's Perseverance
- Bracers:
Ancient Parthan Defenders
- Amulet:
The Johnstone
- Ring 1:
Krysbin's Sentence
- Ring 2:
Convention of Elements
- Weapon:
Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang
- Offhand:
Lost Time
Altar of Rites
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.
Legendary Gems
- Legendary Gem 1:
Bane of the Trapped
- Legendary Gem 2:
Gogok of Swiftness
- Legendary Gem 3:
Bane of the Stricken
Kanai's Cube
- Weapon Slot:
Nayr's Black Death
- Armor Slot:
Grasps of Essence
- Jewelry Slot:
Wisdom of Kalan
Season 35 Theme — Eternal Conflict
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:
Legendary Gem Considerations
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).
Equipment and Skill Flexibility
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).
How to get this build going?
In this section, we will briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.
If the Inarius set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.
From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When
successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475
Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350
Arcane Dust, 125
Veiled Crystals, 35
Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache
material:
Khanduran Rune,
Caldeum Nightshade,
Arreat War Tapestry,
Corrupted Angel Flesh, and
Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to
extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this
build with the items recommended below.
Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge
Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired
set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x
Forgotten Souls, 10x
Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into
another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces
of a desired set before you have it assembled.
In order to assemble an Inarius Corpse Explosion Necromancer, you should:
- Gather the full 6-piece Inarius set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Shoulders, Boots, Pants, Gloves, Helm, and Chest. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Shoulders) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
- Gamble or upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Gloves for
Grasps of Essence. Gambling on a level 1 Necromancer is a great way to get
Grasps of Essence for the Cube, as they are the only legendary glove in the gamble pool at that level. The chance to acquire them through gambling and crafting is also pretty high at level 70. They are a build-defining piece for
Corpse Explosion Necromancers.
- Upgrade rare One-handed Swords to get
In-geom; doing this on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords. Then, upgrade rare Two-handed Axes for
Messerschmidt's Reaver. Both these items are a massive boost to your farming due to the massive
Land of the Dead cooldown.
- Upgrade rare One-handed Scythes for
Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang and rare Two-handed Scythes for
Nayr's Black Death. These are damage-scaling items that will take the build into GRs and allow you to progress the build on the leaderboards.
- Gamble Belts to get
Dayntee's Binding and
Goldwrap; both are cornerstone protective pieces that will keep you safe in GRs (the former) and standard rifts (the latter).
- Gamble Boots to get
Steuart's Greaves for a massive speed boost during farming.
- Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific
Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful sets in (Aughilds) as described in the Gear page. Bounties will net you the craftable set recipes to begin with, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you
Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
- While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare
Jewelry is also possible;
Krysbin's Sentence,
Convention of Elements, and
The Johnstone will all bring massive damage bumps to the build, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of
Briggs' Wrath,
Unity, or
Oculus Ring and
The Flavor of Time for your Follower.
Changelog
- 03 Jun. 2025 (gear page): Added Season 35 Eternal Conflict killstreak recommendations.
- 03 Jun. 2025 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 35.
- 03 Jun. 2025 (this page): Added Season 35 Eternal Conflict killstreak recommendations.
- 20 Jan. 2025 (gear page): Added Season 34 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 20 Jan. 2025 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 34.
- 20 Jan. 2025 (this page): Added Season 34 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 22 Oct. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 22 Oct. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 33.
- 22 Oct. 2024 (this page): Added Season 33 advice for 4th Kanai slot.
- 10 Jul. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 10 Jul. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 32.
- 10 Jul. 2024 (this page): Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (gear page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 31.
- 10 Apr. 2024 (this page): Added Season 31 advice for the unbound Kanai's Cube slots.
- 10 Jan. 2024 (gear page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 10 Jan. 2024 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
- 10 Jan. 2024 (this page): Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
- 13 Sep. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (gear page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
- 22 Feb. 2023 (this page): Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (gear page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (skills page): Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
- 26 Aug. 2022 (this page): Added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
- 14 Apr. 2022 (gear page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 14 Apr. 2022 (skills page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 14 Apr. 2022 (this page): Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 03 Dec. 2021 (gear page): Thoroughly reworked for Season 25.
- 03 Dec. 2021 (skills page): Thoroughly reworked for Season 25.
- 03 Dec. 2021 (this page): Thoroughly reworked for Season 25.
- 19 Nov. 2020 (gear page): Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 19 Nov. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 22.
- 19 Nov. 2020 (this page): Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (gear page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (skills page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 12 Mar. 2020 (this page): No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 22 Nov. 2019 (gear page): Reviewed for Season 19.
- 22 Nov. 2019 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 19.
- 22 Nov. 2019 (this page): Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019 (gear page): Reviewed for Season 18.
- 23 Aug. 2019 (skills page): Reviewed for Season 18.
- 23 Aug. 2019 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 18.
- 12 May 2019 (gear page): Guide was revised for Season 17.
- 12 May 2019 (skills page): Guide was revised for Season 17.
- 12 May 2019 (this page): Guide was revised for Season 17.
- 18 Jan. 2019 (gear page): Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
- 18 Jan. 2019 (skills page): Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
- 18 Jan. 2019 (this page): Guide was revised with additional recommendations for Season 16.
- 20 Sep. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 15.
- 14 Jun. 2018 (this page): Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 14.
- 27 Oct. 2017 (this page): Minor changes for Patch 2.6.1.
- 26 Jun. 2017 (this page): Guide added.
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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.
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