(S13) Kripp's SHADOW WARRIOR Necro!

Build Overview

This is only a rough framework, as all systems changed in D4's Lord of Hatred expansion and many parts of the build are subject to change this week.

We make all minions do Shadow damage and turn them into Darkness skills. This homogony allows us to stack +Darkness skills on gear to buff all minions, and also allows the Darkness charm bonus to fully activate (the minion set sucks). On top of this, Bloodless Scream makes all Darkness damage chill and freeze (perma freeze everything), while providing a x3.5 multiplier to all damage. This item is one of the most broken items this season.

BIG BREAKTHROUGH = USE AZUREWRATH CHARM (for clear)
BIG BREAKTHROUGH #2 = Dominate Glyph (Overpower) is 10x stronger than any other glyph

Strengths and Weaknesses

Play from level 1
Strong continuous progress through Torment tiers

Must deal with minion AI

Equipment

HelmThe Undercrown

Chest armorAspect of Disobedience

GlovesDeathgrip

PantsBlood Moon Breeches

BootsAspect of Hewed Flesh

AmuletAspect of Reanimation

Ring 1Hellbent Commander Aspect

Ring 2Pact of Bone

WeaponBloodless Scream

OffhandEmpty

Equipment Priority

Chest aspect - this does not work from the Shadow Mage damage over time option, but it DOES work from the Darkness 2 set. Do not use this until you have at least Darkness 2 set charm bonus. You can also use Heavenly Strength Aspect which gives DR when using a 2 hander. This is better for bosses as your DR stacks may drop from Disobedience, but offers less DR.

Using the new Transfigure Amulet Aspect Cube recipe, aim to get Expoit Aspect as the second aspect on your amulet. If you get Hewed Flesh, use Exploit on boots. Void Aspect can also work in place of Hewed Flesh, but is not as good.

Heir of Perdition should beat all but the very best rolled Undercrowns, but can be hard to acquire if unlucky.

Good Rune combos:
Nagu + Gar for 8 or 10% crit (altnernates)
Igni + Kry for Vortex to help clump (optional)

Shadow (or ALL) damage multi multiplies with Vuln damage multi, which also multiplies with Crit damage multi. Try to get some of each but note that Crit damage multi comes in much higher values.

Amethysts for Weapon sockets

Drop Locations:
Helm is from Duriel
Scythe is from Asteroth
Pants are from Asteroth
Gloves are from Grigoire
Ring is from Harbinger of Hatred
Azurewrath is from Bartuc (Infernal Hordes with 666 spend on boss). You use any Ancestral Azurewrath with 3 other unique charms in cube to get Azurewrath charm
Red Blessing is from Butcher Boss

Talismans

Talisman Priority

You must have a 6 slot Talisman

Aim for all charms to have +3 minion OR +3 darkness skills (they are functionally equivalent for this build)

For the Unique slot, use Azurewrath for big pops for clear, and Red Blessing for hard content and bossing. You are able to swap charms in the middle of Pit to clear boss faster

Skill Tree

Available

5 (0)

Spent69 (9)

Leveling Path

Skeleton Warrior and Mage should get the first points.

Points in the Golem are relevant because they improve the strength of the aura upgrade node.

Do not spec into curses if you are not using Bloodmoon Breaches.

Blood Mist over Corpse Tendrils is a good choice as well as Tendrils was nerfed in regards to its pull effect.

Points in Army of the Dead are not very useful. These points do NOT scale the minion buff node like they do for other skills -- but there's nothing else useful to take at the end.

I like to spec a baseline Blood Mist to swap out over Blight for bossing.

Paragon Board

After Paragon 220 or so, you can replace Scent of Death with Bloodbath (if you also have all uniques for the build to enable Overpower from Curses from Pants). You then use the Warrior Glyph in this board and Essence in the base.

Mercenary

Varyana's Bleed is paramount to surviving. Besides Fortify, it is your primary way to recover health. It is actually pretty good when using 25 minions!

How it Plays

Spam Sever to dash around quickly.

Initiate monsters with Skeleton Warrior command or Golem command.