Trag'Oul Corpse Explosion Necromancer BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points
Below, we detail the items and gems that you should use for your Trag'Oul Corpse Explosion Necromancer in Diablo 3 and why. We also list your paragon points and Kanai's Cube items. Updated for Patch 2.7.3 and Season 26.
Best in Slot Gear and Alternatives
Your base armor equipment will consist of the complete
Trag'Oul's Avatar set, taking five
of the six available Trag'Oul pieces and mixing it with the craftable Aughild's
Authority set. Rolls-wise, this is a Cooldown Reduction-centric build first and
foremost, but it also takes advantage of Skill and Area Damage rolls on gear.
Trag'Oul's Claws are a particularly roll-heavy piece, with their ability to
roll double Crit stats, plus Cooldown Reduction and eventually Area Damage
(replacing Intelligence as its fourth main stat). You can focus fully on
tankiness on
Trag'Oul's Hide and
Trag'Oul's Stalwart Greaves, while
Trag'Oul's Scales and
Trag'Oul's Guise have to balance offense with
their mainstat rolls (Skill Damage on the former, Crit Chance on the latter).
As mentioned above, you will be adding two pieces from the craftable
Aughild's Authority set: Aughild's Search, plus one more piece of your
choosing between
Aughild's Power,
Aughild's Rule and
Aughild's Spike. This set increases damage dealt while reducing damage
taken, with additional benefits against Elites with its 3-piece bonus. The
example in the gear table below will use
Aughild's Power, and we generally
advise you to use that particular slot, since the shoulder can roll numerous
valuable stats for the build — and crafting it yourself gives you a lot
more control over the quality of the rolls of the piece.
You will be taking the Jesseth Arms
set — Jesseth Skullscythe and
Jesseth Skullshield
— for its vital damage multiplication effect when you use the active
component of
Command Skeletons. It also has the added benefit of
automating the skeleton's active attention during a given engagement, removing
a bit of the micromanagement aspect from your runs.
Dayntee's Binding has a simple, but very valuable effect on your build;
it reduces incoming damage in half as long as you have an enemy afflicted by
your Curses. This is a trivial requirement to fulfill as you either use a
combination of
Cursed Scythe plus
Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang, or
manually apply
Decrepify
Borrowed Time.
In a Corpse Explosion setup, your jewelry will be dedicated to the
DPS staples
Convention of Elements and
Krysbin's Sentence.
Convention of Elements will provide a massive damage increase during the
Physical cycle of its rotation, with an improved uptime compared to other classes,
due to the Necromancer's three element rotation.
Krysbin's Sentence is a
Necromancer-specific item that amplifies damage as long as your enemies are
afflicted by a crowd control effect (ideally hard CC for the maximum damage
multiplication).
The Johnstone is a cornerstone piece of the build, since its
post-
Land of the Dead damage multiplication to your
Corpse Explosion
enforces the rigid rotation of the build, as described in the
Skills page and the Desired stats and
Breakpoints section just below. Pair it with
Krysbin's Sentence for the
damage multiplication against targets affected by Crowd Control (tripled bonus
for hard CC, hence the rune
Frozen Lands on LotD), and a
Convention of Elements for the damage boost during the Physical cycle of
its rotation.
Captain Crimson Variant
There is a notable gearing variant for this build that leans even further
into damage dealing, but loses on toughness. It replaces the craftable Aughild
set with the craftable Cpt. Crimson set, and by necessity shifts some of the
equipped pieces around. In this variant, you will be equipping
Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle, plus one more piece of your choosing —
either
Captain Crimson's Thrust or
Captain Crimson's Waders —
to attain the Cpt. Crimson CDR-scaling damage bonuses.
Use Lacuni Prowlers in the freed up bracer slot, as their innate IAS
bonus will help you reach the breakpoints outlined below. Note that this variant
loses you the toughness from
Dayntee's Binding, and only makes up about
33% DR via the Cpt. Crimson RCR-scaling damage reduction.
Desired Stats, Breakpoints and Other Notes
For Offense stats, try to obtain Corpse Explosion % bonus on the Shoulders
and Chest (maximum of 30%), Physical elemental damage on the Amulet and Bracers
(maximum of 40%), Crit Chance and Crit Damage within a 1:10 ratio (ideally over
60% and 450%, respectively), and Area Damage of 90% (Paragons, Shoulders and
Gloves). Cooldown Reduction is a massive focus in this build, with a breakpoint
of 53% CDR for the 48 second cycle of Land of the Dead (burst on every 4th
Convention of Elements Physical cycle). At 61%+ CDR (with
Gogok of Swiftness), you will be able to reach a 36 second cycle (burst
every 3rd
Convention of Elements Physical cycle). The former breakpoint
gives you more time to form pulls and frees up space for Area Damage stats,
while the latter offers more straight burst.
Attack Speed improves the frames per animation spent on
Corpse Explosion, allowing you to fit more
The Johnstone-empowered
detonations while inside the effects of the Physical CoE cycle (240 frames). The
highest reasonable breakpoint you can aim for is 2.33+, which requires the
replacement of
Devour for
Skeletal Mage
Skeleton Archer, the use
of one IAS gear roll (i.e. the innate roll on
Krysbin's Sentence),
socketing a
Gogok of Swiftness, Paragon points, and the use of an
Enchantress for her
Focused Mind buff. This will get you to 9
Corpse Explosions empowered by
The Johnstone while the Physical
cycle is still active.
It should be noted that competitive results are more than achievable without focus on increasing Attack Speed at all. This is simply an endgame consideration to keep in mind.
If you opt for a Reilena's Shadowhook-scaling version of this build
(outlined in the Skill page) instead of the basic
Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang
version, you should aim to get Maximum Essence in your weapon's stats. This will
not be mandated by the table below.
For Defense stats, aim for a life pool of 800k-900k; dropping as much as
you can for offense as you grow accustomed to the build. You will mostly sustain
through skills — Blood Rush
Transfusion,
Dark Mending, the
base
Leech effect applied by
Cursed Scythe, and
Devour
Cannibalize (if you run it).
All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat, Intelligence.
Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item with stats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are main stats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and is unable to be rerolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for a stat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. Perfecting Secondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case for discarding an item, except where noted.
Slot | Pieces | Stat Priority |
---|---|---|
Head |
|
|
Shoulders |
|
|
Torso |
|
|
Wrists |
|
|
Hands |
|
|
Waist |
|
|
Legs |
|
|
Feet |
|
|
Amulet |
|
|
Ring #1 |
|
|
Ring #2 |
|
|
Weapon |
|
|
Off-hand |
|
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.
Paragon Points
In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally this is
done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, but if
your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that you cannot
replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simply subtracting
your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as you comfortably can into
Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality if you feel yourself lacking.
Points in Maximum Essence are only necessary if you play the
Reilena's Shadowhook-scaling variant, in which case max it out with
priority after Movement Speed in your Core section.
In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Crit Damage, Crit Chance and Attack Speed in that order. In Defense, prioritize Armor, then Life %, then All Resistance, and finish off with Life Regeneration. In Utility, build up Area Damage and Life on Hit first, then finish off with Resource Cost Reduction and Globe Radius.
Slot | Paragon Points |
---|---|
Core |
|
Offense |
|
Defense |
|
Utility |
|
Gems
Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it is
its own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You will be proccing this
gem consistently during your burst cycle via
Frozen Lands.
Two viable gems can be socketed in your second jewelry slot.
Gogok of Swiftness will add survivability while scaling both Attack Speed
(faster
Corpse Explosion breakpoints) and Cooldown Reduction (less
Land of the Dead downtime. Alternatively, you can use
Zei's Stone of Vengeance — a distance-based multiplicative damage
increase which, despite its wording, grants its first stage benefits at 0 yards
instead of the listed 10. Despite its counterintuitive application, this is a
very competitive and viable bonus.
Introduced in Season 4, Bane of the Stricken occupies the third and final
jewelry socket in Greater Rift progression. Building up your damage
multiplicatively in prolonged fights and with a level 25 bonus specifically
targeting Rift Guardians, this gem is designed to assist AoE heavy builds in
their struggle against single target, high HP enemies. Corpse Explosion
Necromancers are no exception.
Slot | Gems |
---|---|
Jewelry | |
Helm |
|
Torso and Pants |
|
Weapon |
For more information about gems, please refer to our guide on gems.
Kanai's Cube
At the cost of including Grim Scythe
Cursed Scythe,
Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang packs your build with value: it guarantees the
application of all three base Curses, and self-sufficiently multiplies damage
against Curse-afflicted targets. This slot is interchangeable with
Reilena's Shadowhook depending on your choice for damage scaling in the
build.
Grasps of Essence is a cornerstone legendary for the build, which
provides a 1,000% independent damage multiplier to
Corpse Explosion.
In order to use both Trag'Oul's and Aughild's sets (or Cpt. Crimson's, should
you choose to alternate the setup) without losing their maximized bonuses, you
will have to use the Act I bounty cache legendary Ring of Royal Grandeur.
This legendary ring reduces the required number of worn set items for set bonus
completion by 1.
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.
Follower
The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is the
Enchantress due to her cooldown reduction buff from
Prophetic Harmony, as well as the
Focused Mind attack speed buff.
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.
Legendary Potion
The preferred potions for this build are Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid
(allowing you to break down Waller affixes that impede your positioning) and
Bottomless Potion of the Tower (whose Armor-increasing properties complement
the naturally high All Resistances stat of Necromancers). Pick whichever you
feel helps you out the most.
Changelog
- 14 Apr. 2022: Guide reviewed for Season 26.
- 08 Dec. 2021: Guide reworked for the CE pushing meta; added Season 25 recommendation.
- 22 Jul. 2021: Added S24 Ethereal recommendation.
- 01 Apr. 2021: Added follower recommendation.
- 19 Nov. 2020: Added S22 Cube recommendation.
- 02 Jul. 2020: No changes required for Season 21.
- 12 Mar. 2020: No changes necessary for Season 20.
- 22 Nov. 2019: Reviewed for Season 19.
- 23 Aug. 2019: Item recommendations have been revised for Season 18.
- 12 May 2019: Guide was reviewed and approved for Season 17.
- 18 Jan. 2019: Added suggestions for the baseline Ring of Royal Grandeur for Seasonal characters.
More Necromancer Guides
Builds from Other Classes
This build is presented to you by Deadset, one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players. Deadset regularly publishes video guides on Youtube and streams on Twitch, where you can see how this and other builds play out in practice.
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