Rathma Skeletal Mages Necromancer Skills and Runes

Active Skills
Grim Scythe Cursed Scythe Skeletal Mage Singularity 1 Devour Cannibalize 2 Land of the Dead Frozen Lands 3 Command Skeletons Freezing Grasp 4 Simulacrum Reservoir
Passive Skills
Extended Servitude Overwhelming Essence Final Service Life from Death

The basic rotation of this build involves rapidly building up Essence through generator attacks and Devour, doubling it up with Simulacrum Reservoir, and then emptying the entire reserve with a summon of Skeletal Mage Singularity. While your resources will constantly shift between full and empty, never neglect to sic your melee minions on a target with Command Skeletons — this will eat up some Essence, but will be vital for your success. Finally, activate Land of the Dead whenever it is up for a major fight — this dominant cooldown will all but guarantee your success.

The primary damage dealer and focal point of Rathma set builds are the Skeletal Mages. Their relatively short 6 second base duration will be nearly doubled with a combination of Extended Servitude and Circle of Nailuj's Evol, and their base damage — multiplied by the Circle of Nailuj's Evol extra summon, Rathma 6-piece and the Jesseth 2-piece. The rune of choice is Singularity, whose unique property consumes your entire resource reserve for 3% extra damage per Essence spent. This results in 1860% extra damage per full resource dump on a reasonably equipped character — a staggering damage difference to the other Skeletal Mage runes.

You will have a secondary damage dealer in the build in the face of Command Skeletons, but it will not be focused on through gear and its impact on overall DPS will diminish as you increase difficulties. They fulfill an important role as procs of the Jesseth set ( Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield), so do not neglect to set them on a target every fresh fight. You will add some crowd control on top through the Freezing Grasp rune, providing you with regular procs of the worn Krysbin's Sentence.

In order to maintain this massive resource demand, you will devote three active skill choices to Essence upkeep.

Your basic source of Essence will be a generator, and while theoretically all of them will do the job, in Season 22 we recommend Grim Scythe due to its ability to spread curses for the extra damage multiplication of Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang, which is stored in the season-specific 4th Cube slot. Traditionally, this slot would be occupied by Bone Spikes; it is safer with its longer range vs. Grim Scythe's melee, and is a single cast vs. Siphon Blood's channeling. Add to that its highest base generation augmented even further by Reilena's Shadowhook, and it becomes a no-brainer. You have a significant freedom in your choice of runes; our default recommendation is the short stun of Sudden Impact for another proc of Krysbin's Sentence (see this build's gear page for more information).

The second source of Essence comes from consuming Corpses — a unique Necromancer resource that is generated largely through combat. You will be using Devour with the Cannibalize rune to double dip on bonuses — Health and Essence restoration. Note that due to the skill's lack of casting animation, you are free to spam as much as you need. While you can keep the rune on Devouring Aura for convenience, that is best left for the lazier, speed farming variation.

The final source of Essence generation depends on Devour, but empowers it greatly. Land of the Dead supplies you with an infinite amount of Corpses throughout its short duration, allowing you to replenish Health and Essence almost instantaneously. During its uptime, you will be able to get the maximum number of Skeletal Mages, all at their maximum power — for a great boost of damage. Note Land of the Dead's massive cooldown and try to save it for key fights like Elites and the Rift Guardian. The rune Frozen Lands will ensure the powerful Krysbin's Sentence proc on all enemies on the screen for even better damage output.

Your final skill slot will be used for Simulacrum Reservoir, another one of the Necromancer's longest cooldowns. The Simulacrum summon will mimic your secondary skill ( Skeletal Mage, in this case), and will double your Essence reserve through the Reservoir rune — an immensely powerful effect with the Singularity rune in mind.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through the Passives.

As previously mentioned, this is a Skeletal Mage-centric build and everything that augments or extends their power is priority; thus Extended Servitude takes a firm slot in your passive selection for the 1.5 sec. Mage duration increase.

Following a similar logic, to empower the Singularity rune you will be taking the flat Essence increase of Overwhelming Essence.

To play to the strengths of your equipped Reaper's Wraps and the constant spam of Devour, Life from Death will provide you with a consistent supply of Health Globes. This will greatly improve both the rate and the average power of your Singularity summons.

Final Service is the Necromancer's approach to cheat death passives — a chance to evade a lethal outcome once every 60 seconds, along with a 10% healing proc per minion consumed in the process, nicely rounding out your passive selection.