Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

Last updated on Jul 10, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 39 comments
1.

Nephalem Rift Speed Farming

The Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer can deal reasonably well with Nephalem Rift Speed Farming, with reliable AoE damage and great mobility offered by the combination of Blood Rush Blood Rush and cooldown resetting items. 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
Left Mouse Button Frailty Icon Frailty Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty Right Mouse Button Command Skeletons Icon Command Skeletons Frenzy Frenzy 1 Bone Armor Icon Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish Harvest of Anguish 2 Army of the Dead Icon Army of the Dead Dead Storm Dead Storm 3 Blood Rush Icon Blood Rush Potency Potency 4 Revive Icon Revive Personal Army Personal Army
Passive Skills
2.

Adapting Rotation

When you are speed farming regular rifts, parts of your playstyle will adapt to the lowered challenge and focus more on speed and utility.

This build alteration uses the Dead Storm Dead Storm rune on Army of the Dead Army of the Dead for a consistent destructive force centered on the character, allowing for precise obliteration of priority targets and jumping from pack to pack with close to zero downtime.

Similarly to the base build, you should call upon your summons and maximize their numbers as soon as possible — all 7 Command Skeletons Command Skeletons and the 10 Revive Revives — so you get the most out of your Rathma set bonus and chunk the massive Army of the Dead Army of the Dead cooldown. With the additional help of Messerschmidt's Reaver Messerschmidt's Reaver, your main source of damage — Army of the Dead Army of the Dead Dead Storm Dead Storm — should be up at all times, feeding kills into its cooldown resetting powers and forcing you to jump from pack to pack with Blood Rush Blood Rush as quickly as possible to maintain the streak. To facilitate that, you will be running two additional low maintenance skills — the passive curse of Frailty Frailty Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty and the occasional pop of Bone Armor Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish Harvest of Anguish for the speed boost.

3.

Adapting Skills

Most of the skill and passive selection will overlap with the base Greater Rift progression build, with minor adaptations to accommodate the purposes of a Physical damage-centric build.

  • Army of the Dead Army of the Dead is still the centerpiece of the build, but you should alter its rune to the character-centric, destructive AoE circle of Dead Storm Dead Storm, which fits the lightning-fast destruction in standard rifts very well.
  • Command Skeletons 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 Frenzy, for the hastened resets of Army of the Dead Army of the Dead.
  • Revive Revive is also a mandatory inclusion in a Rathma build, and you should run the helpful damage reduction aspect of Personal Army Personal Army.
  • Bone Armor Bone Armor stays in the build for its damage reduction aspects, and you should add a movement speed angle to it with the rune Harvest of Anguish Harvest of Anguish for the purposes of rift speed farming.
  • Blood Rush Blood Rush Potency Potency remains in the build as a vital movement tool, taking you quickly from one pack to the next to maintain the Messerschmidt's Reaver Messerschmidt's Reaver kill bonuses.
  • In order to allow you to focus on simple movement from pack to pack, your final skill slot will be dedicated to the passive culling powers of Frailty Frailty Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty.
  • Your passive lineup will be spread evenly between sources of utility (Fueled by Death Fueled by Death for the additional speed and Blood is Power Blood is Power for the Cooldown Reduction) and defense (Dark Reaping Dark Reaping for the reliable source of health and resources and Final Service Final Service for a cheat death failsafe.)
4.

Adapting Gear

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 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 Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield Jesseth Skullshield. Most of the jewelry choices will remain the same, with Squirt's Necklace Squirt's Necklace and Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence providing valuable damage multipliers. Your final jewelry slot will vary between solo and group play, with the pulling powers of Briggs' Wrath Briggs' Wrath in solo play, and the pickup radius enhancing powers of Avarice Band Avarice Band when partied up (you attain the Avarice Band Avarice Band worn by your follower in solo play due to the Emanate mechanics).

Note that while you might have Nemesis Bracers Nemesis Bracers on your follower and attain their powers from the Emanate mechanics in solo play, you might want to have them on your character during group play. In order to do so, you can place them in the armor slot of the Cube and wear Fate's Vow Fate's Vow on your character, and wear the Goldwrap Goldwrap belt for additional protection. Of course, this means that you drop the Cpt. Crimson set.

4.1.

Season 32 Theme — Ethereal Weapons

With this Season's addition of Ethereal Weapons as a theme, your ideal weapon during any form of speed farm runs will be Blackhand Key, which offers a unique and powerful source of hard crowd control as you curse enemies in your path (immediate Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence proc and renders enemies helpless for farming), on top of a slew of synergistic stats and skill bonuses. It needs to be rolled with the weapon power of Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang and will ideally have the Final Service Final Service passive. Pair this Ethereal weapon with your best legendary phylactery — Lost Time Lost Time is simply used as a placeholder here. Learn more about Ethereal weapons in our Ethereal mechanics guide, and read up on how to farm them in the Ethereal farming guide.

Slot Pieces Stat Priority
Head
  1. Intelligence
  2. Socket
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Vitality
  5. Crowd Control Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Shoulders
  1. Intelligence
  2. Cooldown Reduction
  3. Area Damage
  4. Vitality
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Torso
  1. 3 Sockets
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Wrists
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Physical Damage
  4. Life per Hit or Vitality
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Hands
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Critical Hit Damage
  4. Cooldown Reduction
  5. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
  6. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
Waist
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. Life %
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Legs
  1. Intelligence
  2. 2 Sockets
  3. Vitality
  4. Armor
  5. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
  6. Physical or Lightning Resistance (Secondary Stat)
Feet
  1. Intelligence
  2. Vitality
  3. Armor
  4. All Resistance
  5. Pickup Radius (Secondary Stat)
  6. Health Globe Healing Bonus (Secondary Stat)
Amulet
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Physical Damage
  5. Melee or Missile Damage Reduction (Secondary Stat)
Ring #1
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Attack Speed (on one ring)
  5. Cooldown Reduction (on other ring)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Ring #2
  1. Socket
  2. Critical Hit Damage
  3. Critical Hit Chance
  4. Attack Speed (on one ring)
  5. Cooldown Reduction (on other ring)
  6. Life per Kill (Secondary Stat)
Weapon
  1. High Weapon Damage
  2. Intelligence
  3. Socket (preferably from Ramaladni's Gift Ramaladni's Gift)
  4. Increased Attack Speed
  5. Cooldown Reduction
  6. Maximum Essence (Important Secondary Stat)
Off-hand
  1. Intelligence
  2. Critical Hit Chance
  3. Cooldown Reduction
  4. Resource Cost Reduction
  5. Elite Damage Increase
  6. Maximum Essence (Important Secondary Stat)

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.

4.2.

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).

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.

5.

Adapting Gems

Keep Bane of the Trapped Bane of the Trapped for its valuable damage multiplication powers, and add the consistent, speed farming-oriented damage increasing and damage reducing properties of Bane of the Powerful Bane of the Powerful in your second jewelry socket. Finish the legendary gem setup with Boon of the Hoarder Boon of the Hoarder, which — in conjunction with Avarice Band Avarice Band, and potentially Goldwrap Goldwrap as well — will keep your pockets full and your speed boosted as you clear the rift.

Slot Gems
Jewelry
Helm
Torso and Pants
Weapon

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

6.

Adapting Kanai's Cube

Both Fate's Vow Fate's Vow and Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur remain cornerstone pieces of the build and are firmly affixed to your Cube setup. Fate's Vow 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 Army of the Dead, plus granting you the highest base damage rune, Unconventional Warfare Unconventional Warfare, for free. Ring of Royal Grandeur Ring of Royal Grandeur grants you the full bonuses of the Rathma and Cpt. Crimson sets mixture.

For Standard (T16) Rift Speed Farming, few other items bring as much value as the cooldown reduction staples in the game. Place Messerschmidt's Reaver Messerschmidt's Reaver in the weapon Cube slot to enjoy a snowballing effect as you mow down monsters around you, feeding into the instantaneous resets of the Army of the Dead Army of the Dead cooldown.

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.

7.

Follower

The recommended follower for this build during standard rift farming for keys is the Enchantress due to her numerous utility bonuses, allowing you to smooth out your speed runs even further.

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.

8.

Legendary Potion

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Tower Bottomless Potion of the Tower, whose Armor-increasing properties complement the naturally high All Resistances stat of Necromancers (due to Intelligence scaling Resistances) for optimal survivability.

9.

Changelog

  • 10 Jul. 2024: Added Season 32 advice for ethereal weapons.
  • 10 Apr. 2024: Guide reviewed for Season 31.
  • 10 Jan. 2024: Revised guide for the permanent addition of the Altar of Rites, and added Season-specific Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Added Season 29 Paragon Cap and Gearing recommendations.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Added Season 28 Altar of Rites recommendations.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Guide revised to reflect Funerary Pick changes, and added Season 27 Angelic Crucible recommendations.
  • 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 08 Dec. 2021: Added Season 25 Soul Shard recommendations.
  • 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
  • 29 Mar. 2021: Guide added.
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