Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer Greater Rift Speed Farming Variation

The Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer can deal reasonably well with Greater Rift Speed Farming, with strong and reliable crowd control at his disposal and massive burst damage with some timing involved. 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.

During lower tier Greater Rift farming, the balance between defense, damage and utility can be shifted to favor the latter two aspects of character building.

Active Skills
Siphon Blood Power Shift Command Skeletons Frenzy 1 Bone Armor Dislocation 2 Army of the Dead Death Valley 3 Blood Rush Potency 4 Revive Personal Army
Passive Skills
Rathma's Shield Final Service Rigor Mortis Grisly Tribute

When you are Speed Farming Greater Rifts, your playstyle should at least partially reflect the circumstances by focusing on massive pulls, generic bonuses against enemies and chaining pylon effects.

Similarly to the base build, you should call upon your summons and maximize their numbers as soon as possible — all 7 Command Skeletons and the 10 Revives — so you get the most out of your Rathma set bonus and chunk the massive Army of the Dead cooldown. With proper Cooldown Reduction optimization, you should have two activations of Army of the Dead within a single Convention of Elements rotation. One of them needs to be during the Physical cycle in order to burst enemies down, while the other will be auxiliary damage, mopping up stragglers and setting up Oculus Ring spawns.

You will maintain a considerable distance from the enemy — letting the minions tank and distract your enemies, and biding your time for a Bone Armor Dislocation activation when the Physical CoE cycle comes around. Once you get a good hit on an densely packed monster pull, retreat to safety with Blood Rush to maximize your Zei's Stone of Vengeance bonus, which is based on distance. With both bonuses taken care of, you can unleash the Army of the Dead Death Valley nuke and enjoy the devastation.

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 burst down enemies quicker takes precedence.

• Army of the Dead is still the centerpiece of the build, and you should maintain its rune to the pulling effect of Death Valley for the excellent battlefield manipulation.
• Command Skeletons stays in the build as one half of the summoned army necessary for the Rathma set bonuses. The preferred rune continues to be Frenzy, for the hastened resets of Army of the Dead.
• Revive is also a mandatory inclusion in a Rathma build, and you should run the helpful damage reduction aspect of Personal Army.
• Bone Armor stays in the build for its damage reduction aspect. You should also keep the Dislocation rune to have a reliable Krysbin's Sentence proc under your control with its active stun effect.
• Blood Rush Potency remains in the build as a vital repositioning and movement tool throughout the Greater Rift.
• Siphon Blood stays in the build for the massive damage scaling against affected targets provided by the Cubed Funerary Pick.
• Your passive lineup will be spread evenly between sources of utility ( Rigor Mortis as a reliable source of crowd control, and Grisly Tribute for the pet-based life per hit bonuses) and defense (with the once-per-minute Rathma's Shield invulnerability procs, and Final Service for a cheat death failsafe).

The build remains firmly rooted in the combination of the Bones of Rathma set (5 pieces) and the craftable Cpt. Crimson set (2 pieces), their full set bonuses attained via a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the Cube. You will also maintain the weapon and offhand combo from the main build — the Jesseth Arms set, Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield. Generally, even the jewelry choices will remain the same — all out offensive powers with Squirt's Necklace, Krysbin's Sentence and Convention of Elements boosting your DPS.

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.

Both Bane of the Trapped and Zei's Stone of Vengeance remain valuable, independent damage multiplication gems for the setup. Your third legendary gem slot should be altered to Esoteric Alteration for the massive, unconditional defensive bulwark it provides.

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

The Funerary Pick, Fate's Vow and Ring of Royal Grandeur all remain cornerstone pieces of the build and are firmly fixed to your Cube setup. Funerary Pick provides incomparable damage scaling against targets affected by Siphon Blood. Fate's Vow brings a massive additive damage increase (hence the incentive to exclude skill damage rolls on gear, as it falls in the same category) to Army of the Dead, plus granting you the highest base damage rune, Unconventional Warfare, for free. Ring of Royal Grandeur grants you the full bonuses of the Rathma and Cpt. Crimson sets mixture.

The recommended follower for this build during GR speed farming is the Enchantress due to her increased attack speed bonuses (helpful for the attack speed breakpoint-reliant methods of dealing damage in this build) via Focused Mind, as well as the cooldown reduction bonus from Prophetic Harmony and damage reduction from Powered Shield.

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).