Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer Nephalem Rift Speed Farming Variation

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 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
Frailty Aura of Frailty Command Skeletons Frenzy 1 Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish 2 Army of the Dead Dead Storm 3 Blood Rush Potency 4 Revive Personal Army
Passive Skills
Fueled by Death Final Service Dark Reaping Blood is Power

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 rune on 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 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 the additional help of Messerschmidt's Reaver, your main source of damage — Army of the Dead 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 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 Aura of Frailty and the occasional pop of Bone Armor Harvest of Anguish for the speed boost.

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 is still the centerpiece of the build, but you should alter its rune to the character-centric, destructive AoE circle of Dead Storm, which fits the lightning-fast destruction in standard rifts very well.
• 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 aspects, and you should add a movement speed angle to it with the rune Harvest of Anguish for the purposes of rift speed farming.
• Blood Rush 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 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 Aura of Frailty.
• Your passive lineup will be spread evenly between sources of utility ( Fueled by Death for the additional speed and Blood is Power for the Cooldown Reduction) and defense ( Dark Reaping for the reliable source of health and resources 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. Most of the jewelry choices will remain the same, with Squirt's Necklace and 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 in solo play, and the pickup radius enhancing powers of Avarice Band when partied up (you attain the Avarice Band worn by your follower in solo play due to the Emanate mechanics).

Note that while you might have 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 on your character, and wear the Goldwrap belt for additional protection. Of course, this means that you drop the Cpt. Crimson set.

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.

Keep 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 in your second jewelry socket. Finish the legendary gem setup with Boon of the Hoarder, which — in conjunction with Avarice Band, and potentially Goldwrap as well — will keep your pockets full and your speed boosted as you clear the rift.

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

Both Fate's Vow and Ring of Royal Grandeur remain cornerstone pieces of the build and are firmly affixed to your Cube setup. 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.

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 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 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.

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.

Your recommended potion is 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.

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).