Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer BiS Gear, Gems, and Paragon Points (2024)

The build includes the complete set bonuses of the Bones of Rathma set, taking five ofthe six available pieces and mixing its powers with the craftable CaptainCrimson set, which adds its own angle of damage mitigation and damageamplification to the build via scaling from resource cost- and cooldownreduction, respectively. In order to take advantage of the full powers of bothsets you will have to, naturally, use a Ring of Royal Grandeur in theCube to lower the required amount of worn set pieces by one.

Rolls-wise, this build relies greatly on Cooldown Reduction and Area Damagerolls, with a minor investment in both Resource Cost Reduction and AttackSpeed to reach certain quality of life thresholds, as described in thebreakpoints section below. Rathma's Ribcage Plate, Captain Crimson's Thrust and Rathma's Ossified Sabatons can bededicated entirely to Toughness stats. Cooldown Reduction should be present onboth Rathma's Spikes (alongside Toughness stats) and Rathma's Macabre Vambraces (alongside Crit stats) to match the steep CDRdemands of the build. Rathma's Skull Helm is another immense source ofToughness with its massive Intelligence and Vitality rolls, but as usual— it should also feature Crit Chance.

Another set dedicated to summoner playstyles will occupy your weapon andoff-hand slots; the Jesseth Armsarmaments, Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield.Their massive damage multiplier fits squarely with the Command Skeletons-wielding nature of the build, cementing theirinclusion in the build. The innate Attack Speed roll on the Jesseth Skullscythe is quite helpful, as it brings half of the requiredIAS to the build by itself. A nicely rolled Jesseth Skullshield will bemuch harder to attain however, as a great one will include Crit Chance,Cooldown Reduction AND Resource Cost Reduction, with a potential godly rollcoming with Elite Damage increase on top.

Your jewelry slots are best spent on a thoroughly damage-orientedtriumvirate. Krysbin's Sentence is a Necromancer staple that multipliesdamage against soft crowd controlled enemies, and amplifies it even furtheragainst hard crowd controls — a multiplier that will be under yourcontrol with carefully timed use of the Bone Armor Dislocation activeeffect. Convention of Elements is a timing sensitive damagemultiplication staple that will bring massive burst during the appropriate (inthis case, Physical) elemental cycle. Lastly, Squirt's Necklace addsanother massive damage multiplier, albeit with a hefty drawback — itsloss when you take a hit, plus a hefty increase in damage taken. This glasscannon favorite necessitates careful play and positioning to minimizepotential threats to your Necromancer.

Lastly, Bonds of C'Lena is a Rathma-dedicated bracer that provides yetanother damage multiplier for both skills that the set revolves around; inthis case, you will be taking advantage of the Army of the Dead portionof its powers.

In your Offense stats, strive to obtain Cooldown Reduction on all the gearpieces that are able to roll it (Weapon, Off-Hand Shoulders, Gloves and bothRings) with the exception of the Amulet, as you will lose other, more valuablestats. Attaining Resource Cost Reduction can be considered gravy on top, but aroll on the Off-Hand or Shoulders can be considered beneficial. As previouslynoted, you should make a minor investment in Increased Attack Speed in orderto reach the 1.6 APS breakpoint of Command Skeletons, since the Army of the Dead cooldown resets hinge on their attacks as well;thankfully, two items are sufficient, and both come naturally on desired itemsin this build — Jesseth Skullscythe (and remember, weapon attackspeed rolls are multiplicative in nature) and Krysbin's Sentence. AreaDamage will benefit the build, but can be hard to fit due to the already widespread of beneficial stats.

For Defense stats, aim for a life pool of 700k and above, which should beattainable with a traditional spread of Vitality and Life % rolls on gear, aswell as a generous helping in your core Paragon points section. This build isrelatively squishy (like many Necromancers are) and will benefit from at leasta single Life per Hit roll, i.e. on the bracer.

All augmentations on gear should be done with your main stat,Intelligence.

Note that the stat suggestions below portray an ideally rolled item withstats listed in relative order of importance. The first four of them are mainstats, and the latter two — secondary stats. If your item lacks and isunable to be re-rolled into the primary stats outlined below, especially for astat higher on the list, strongly consider its replacement. PerfectingSecondary stats is mostly a case of hyper-optimization and is not a case fordiscarding an item, except where noted.

To help you with farming the gear you need for your builds, we have two veryuseful guides that you can access by clicking the links below: a Salvage Guide tohelp you quickly check whether or not you can safely salvage a piece of gear anda Legendary Farming Guide to help you efficiently farm legendaries and set items.

The former Season 28 theme, the Altar of Rites, has been revised andre-added to Diablo 3 as a permanent character progression mechanic. — Forvirtually all builds and players of all skill levels — from casual toadvanced — we recommend progressing through the Altar tree using the pathoutlined below. The suggested path is geared towards maximum quality of lifefirst, then amplifying damage, and then mopping up the tree with defensive andedge case utility nodes.

Note that while they require reaching them with a Seal, Legendary PotionPowers are not part of the Seal cost system; Potions unlock with a separateresource called Primordial Ashes, obtained from salvaging Legendary or Setitems of Primal (red bordered) quality. Upgrade them as soon as possible, andin 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 Powersin our dedicated Altar of Rites Mechanics guide.

In the Core section, max out Movement Speed to the 25% cap. Normally thisis done by dumping the first 50 Core Paragon points into Movement Speed, butif your boots have an imperfect roll with Movement Speed as a stat that youcannot replace, adjust the necessary point investment accordingly by simplysubtracting your roll from the 25% max. After that, dump as much as youcomfortably can into Intelligence, but feel free to invest into Vitality ifyou feel yourself lacking in toughness. Adding to Maximum Essence should notbe necessary.

In the Offense section, max out Cooldown Reduction, Attack Speed, CritChance and Crit Damage, 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 CostReduction and Globe Radius.

Bane of the Trapped is a potent source of additional damage, as it isits own multiplier in your total damage calculation. You will attain itsbenefits from the gem's own level 25 property when in melee range (as youswing Grim Scythe, see Skills page),as well as the Bone Armor Dislocation stun and the myriad forms of crowdcontrol spread by your follower.

Your second jewelry socket will be taken by Gogok of Swiftness, whoseIncreased Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, and scaling Dodge bonuses allbring massive value to the build.

You face some choices in your third and final jewelry slot; our baserecommendation is to go all out on damage with the inclusion of Zei's Stone of Vengeance, which is another separate damage multiplier thatscales your DPS based on distance from the enemy. If you decide the build istoo glassy to be fun to play, you can swap this slot out for a protectiveoption like Esoteric Alteration or Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard,which should make at least Squirt's Necklace maintenance not that big ofa pain.

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

Although other options are present (such as scaling your damage aroundEssence via Reilena's Shadowhook and around Poison with Nayr's Black Death), our base recommendation as the most well-roundedoption is the Siphon Blood-dependent Funerary Pick. This itemskyrockets the viability of Siphon Blood as an Essence generator,providing a massive 300% damage multiplier against affected targets, anddouble that against singular foes. It also amplifies the effects of the Power Shift rune and spreads its buff to all of your skills, resultingin a near-omnipotent Essence generation skill.

Another cornerstone legendary of the Army of the Dead build, Fate's Vow brings a sizable additive damage increase (hence theincentive to exclude skill damage rolls on gear, as it falls in the samecategory) to this skill, plus granting you the highest base damage rune, Unconventional Warfare, for free.

As previously mentioned, in order to take advantage of the amalgamation ofthe Bones of Rathma and Captain Crimson's Trimmings sets together, you willneed to complete their bonuses with a Ring of Royal Grandeur in thejewelry slot of the Cube.

The Kanai's Cube can be used for much more than simply extracting Legendary powers from items. Pleaserefer to our Kanai's Cube guide for more information.

The seasonal theme for Season 31 will be completely flexible slots forKanai's Cube, which means you can use anypiece of gear in any slot of the Cube.

• Weapon Slot: Funerary Pick
• Armor Slot: Reilena's Shadowhook
• Jewelry Slot: Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang

Gear-wise, this Season's power necessitates that you make the followingchanges:

• In your jewelry, replace Convention of Elements for Ring of Royal Grandeur to maintain the full 6-piece Rathma set bonus.
• Replace Rathma's Skull Helm with Fate's Vow to free up space inthe Cube.

The recommended follower for this build during solo GR progression is theEnchantress, due to her increased attack speed bonuses (helpfulfor the attack speed breakpoint-reliant methods of dealing damage in thisbuild) via Focused Mind, as well as the cooldown reductionbonus from Prophetic Harmony and damage reduction from Powered Shield.

For more information regarding followers, we advise you to read our FollowerGuide, which contains detailed advice for choosing the skills and the gear ofyour follower.

Your recommended potion is Bottomless Potion of the Unfettered, whichrenders you immune to Crowd Control effects for a brief time after consumingit — valuable bonus to a build that lacks means to break away from CCoutside of straight up evasion via Blood Rush.