Support Necromancer Skills and Runes

Last updated on Jan 10, 2024 at 09:00 by Deadset 11 comments

On this page, we explain how to choose and use your skills when playing Support Necromancer in Diablo 3. Updated for Patch 2.7.7 and Season 30.

Active Skills
Left Mouse Button Death Nova Icon Death Nova Blight Blight Right Mouse Button Blood Rush Icon Blood Rush Metabolism Metabolism 1 Devour Icon Devour Cannibalize Cannibalize 2 Land of the Dead Icon Land of the Dead Frozen Lands Frozen Lands 3 Corpse Lance Icon Corpse Lance Brittle Touch Brittle Touch 4 Frailty Icon Frailty Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty
Passive Skills
1.

Rotation

This build assumes a leader position in the group, scouting ahead of its support and DPS companions and preparing the battlefield for the coming onslaught. Your primary role is to create health globes for the Support Barb to pick up, which is done via the interaction of Land of the Dead Land of the Dead (cast on cooldown), Devour Devour (spammed throughout the run) and your Life from Death Life from Death passive. Due to the Pestilence 2-piece mechanic and the permanence of your LotD, you will also be spreading the Crit buff of Corpse Lance Corpse Lance Brittle Touch Brittle Touch across the battlefield automatically — however it is vitally important to do 2-3 manual casts on priority targets (elites, champions) to ensure maximum value of the Crit increase ASAP. As you move through the rift with Blood Rush Blood Rush, try to afflict as many enemies as you can with your Frailty Frailty Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty radius. Last but not least, spam your Essence spender (i.e. Death Nova Death Nova) in density in order to proc Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac for faster LotD resets.

2.

Skills and Runes

The most important aspect of your build is the ability to maintain permanent Land of the Dead Land of the Dead due to high Cooldown Reduction and Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. In conjunction with Devour Devour and the Life from Death Life from Death passive, this will generate a massive amount of health globes across the battlefield. As the Support Barb trails behind you, his high pickup radius will consume those globes and feed them into the Reaper's Wraps Reaper's Wraps of the LoD Singularity Necromancers, helping their Singularity Singularity summons and survival. To further help your DPS teammates, you will be using the rune Frozen Lands Frozen Lands to proc their Krysbin's Sentence Krysbin's Sentence rings. You can alternate your Devour Devour rune between the survival-oriented Cannibalize Cannibalize , and Satiated Satiated when overpowering the content.

Corpse Lance Corpse Lance brings the other half of your contribution to your DPS teammates; coupled with the Brittle Touch Brittle Touch rune and your heavy focus on increasing attack speed right alongside CDR, this skill will guarantee critical hits on affected targets. Note that while Corpse Lance Corpse Lances will be spread automatically via the Pestilence set 2-piece, you need to be proactive against elites and manually apply several casts on them (depending on your attack speed optimization — see this build's gear page for more information).

You have a number of viable Essence spenders to fulfill the role of an Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac proc — however keep in mind you are mostly looking for reliable AoE that minimizes aiming in speeds, as well as any extra utility you can glean out of a rune. To that end, Death Nova Death Nova Blight Blight's damage reduction properties and Bone Spear Bone Spear Crystallization Crystallization's increase of attack speed are the two preferred options.

With scouting ahead of the pack being a crucial aspect of your playstyle, it should come as no surprise that you will utilize a movement tool in your arsenal. Due to the heavy CDR focus on gear, Blood Rush Blood Rush will have almost no downtime, even less so when you take advantage of the double charge mechanic of the Metabolism Metabolism rune.

Last but not least, you will be spreading the culling debuff Frailty Frailty automatically across the battlefield, courtesy of the Aura of Frailty Aura of Frailty rune. Notice the rune's pickup radius synergy, and strive to obtain as much of the stat in your gear secondaries as you can.

3.

Passives

As previously mentioned, Life from Death Life from Death is the cornerstone passive of the Support Necromancer playstyle — providing a constant streak of health globes for your DPS' Reaper's Wraps Reaper's Wraps as long as you spam Devour Devour and keep up permanent Land of the Dead Land of the Dead.

Far tougher than its DPS compatriots, the Support Necromancer nevertheless lacks the innate 30% Damage Reduction of melee classes. On top of that, LotD uptime and health globe generation hinges on you — so to prevent mishaps, take the Final Service Final Service cheat death.

Blood is Power Blood is Power is the Necromancer's take on passives such as Evocation Evocation and Beacon of Ytar Beacon of Ytar — along with the significant drawback of needing to lose your health reserve equivalent to trigger it. Since it counts off pre-mitigation values however, this passive will trigger from the very flow of gameplay (constant, high damage hits) in any meaningful Greater Rift difficulty. With an overarching goal of permanent Land of the Dead Land of the Dead, Blood is Power Blood is Power finds a deserving place in your passive selection.

Compensating for your scouting role in groups and the distance you create to your party at times, Eternal Torment Eternal Torment ensures permanence of the Frailty Frailty affliction on enemies you have passed through once.

4.

Changelog

  • 10 Jan. 2024: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 30.
  • 13 Sep. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 29.
  • 22 Feb. 2023: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 28.
  • 26 Aug. 2022: Skills and passives reviewed for Season 27.
  • 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
  • 08 Dec. 2021: Reviewed for Season 25.
  • 22 Jul. 2021: No changes required for Season 24.
  • 01 Apr. 2021: No changes required for Season 23.
  • 19 Nov. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 22.
  • 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 21.
  • 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
  • 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
  • 12 May 2019: Guide was archived for Season 17 to reflect it falling off the meta.
  • 18 Jan. 2019: Information was reviewed and approved for Season 16 with no changes required.
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