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June 25, 2022 Post a Comment

Unkillable Necro - Detonate Dead Necromancer Build Guide (PoE Sentinel 3.18)

League Starter
Clear Speed
Boss Killer
Uber Elder
Ranged
HC
Uber Awakener

Archnemesis League Disclaimer

Whilst the build has undergone some changes, it should still be very playable. I however want to stress that this build has lost A LOT of its power and now just is a regular, average build.
You probably should only pick this build if you're extremely interested in playing a Detonate Dead build.

Introduction

While I personally would have never considered the possibility of Detonate Dead being a viable skill outside of some special shenanigans, this build in particular caught my eye during one of the Shopify races that was organized by someone in the community. When I saw how insanely well this build was clearing maps and killing bosses, in a Hardcore private League with every single extra damage modifier enabled, I immediately knew I wanted to share this with you guys!

Luckily for me, Waggle and me have some history so I immediately hit him up and asked him to elaborate a lot of the mechanics behind the build, as I obviously needed to understand everything there was to know about interactions before being able to transfer over this knowledge and write it into a guide. The build originally was played by another Hardcore resident in PaakHC which this build was undeniably based off of. After getting through all of the hurdles I had to take to understanding all of the ins and outs of this very special build, we have arrived at the point where I present to you a build guide that offers enough damage to very comfortably clear the highest tiers of maps and bosses while getting over 11000 effective HP Pool.

Important to note is that at the time of writing the profile of gear I used was gear being used in a Hardcore Solo Self-Found race that had been going on for Six Days. While I'd argue that the player in question most likely has a better understanding of how to acquire gear in Solo Self-Found than the average player, that should go to show how acquirable all of this is even for you! If you're looking for a very tanky build that packs a decent chunk of damage and clear speed, this is what you should be reading about!

Build Summary

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ Strong bosser with amazing clear
+ Requires no uniques to function whatsoever
+ Therefore SSF viable – Leaguestarter viable
+ Loads of HP Pool / Block Chance to make for a smooth playstyle

Cons

– You don't use this build until after act 10
– Pretty heavy on buttons to press (2 Button Build + Warcries)

Map Modifiers to be Avoided

No regeneration is incredibly annoying to run, as you're relying on life/mana/es regeneration quite a bit. If you insist on doing it anyhow, you need to bring an Enduring mana Flask to fix your Mana Regeneration. Otherwise Elemental Reflect is a no go. Even though the Corpse Explosion part of Detonate Dead is unable to be reflected to you, the lesser spell part will definitely still kill you. If you're running Physical Reflect maps, that's fine, but you have to either un-socket your Wave of Conviction or swap in a Level 1 version of the Gem to not die to its reflect.

Echoes of the Atlas Expansion Updates

While Echoes of the Atlas is trying to nerf Necromancers Summoners hard, they unintentionally hit Detonate Dead as well. Worry not though. The nerfs are immediately turned into buffs when we consider the return of the Primal Crushclaws and Blisterlords as Spectres. First of all though, the build lost 20% Increased Maximum Mana from Essence Glutton, which implies that you're going to need about 70 more maximum Mana on Gear to make up for this lost amount of Mana. However, with the return of Harvest League, gearing up will be made a chunk easier than it was in Heist League. Therefore, I think the small "nerf" to Essence Glutton will easily be made up by a single Mana roll on gear somewhere. As per post Ritual League, Crushclaws & Blisterlords are replaced with Heist or Delve Spectres now for optimal damage.

If you look at the damage the build puts out in a vacuum, it has lost about 8% of its damage due to the nerfs to Corpse Pact and all the small nodes you pick up in the Ascendancy.

The build overall will be stronger than it was in Heist League, as it will be easier to get all the gear together and you will have higher HP corpses to explode, vastly increasing your damage output.

Playstyle, Mechanics & Strengths

Since Detonate Dead scales mostly off of the monsters it detonates, you're looking for ways to create monsters with as much Health as possible since the corpse detonation is based on monster Health. This is why many people are confused when they see Detonate Dead players run around with spectres that initially seem useless. The underlying story here is that those specters, while seemingly random, are specifically summoned because they have a really high % increased Heath modifier. If you have certain monsters as spectres the Desecrate gem will add those spectres to the monster pool significantly increasing the average Health your detonated corpses will have, thus vastly increasing you damage output.

Comparatively if we're looking at random monsters we encounter in the game, the average increased life modifier you'll find is around 80%. If you target summon specific spectres, you can go up to as much as 750% (or more in specific scenarios). This equates to a 500% more damage multiplier for Detonate Dead and Vaal Detonate Dead and obviously is an important part of your damage. Additionally, Necromancer scales corpse life by quite a significant amount and you're picking up increases to your spawned corpses' Health in the tree as well making it so Detonate Dead has such high base values to go off of that you really don't need any damage on gear.

So since the damage we deal mainly gets taken care of by spawning incredibly tanky corpses, what do we do with gear & passives is the million dollar question. The answer is fairly simple, we become an unkillable tank. The means through which we achieve this are a couple of layers on top of one and other. Again, I feel like this is worth mentioning again, all of the builds stats are based off of gear that was acquired in 6 days of playing Hardcore Solo Self-Found (by an exquisite player however) but the build fairly easily reaches about 6300 Health. On top of that, it uses the Mind over Matter keystone and around 2500 unreserved mana to further increase that Health Pool. Lastly, it also runs about 2000 Energy Shield which gets sustained by Necromancers Essence Glutton. This effectively comes down to just over 11000 maximum Health Pool to play with which is then further amplified through a bunch of mitigation mechanics.

First of all, without any spectacular gear the build reaches around 70%/68% block and spell block chance (effectively meaning you're not going to get hit 70% of the time) and life on block through Bone Offering. This means you're automatically regenerating Energy shield, Mana and Life and don't have to worry about doing any of that manually.

This build honestly puts out some of the most ridiculous defensive stats you have ever seen. While being able to take maximum hits that are in the 20's of thousands, it rivals builds that are absolutely broken that bring stuff like 90% All Elemental Resistance, a ton of Auras and whatnot such as Aurastackers or Low-Life Golemancers. Those builds are most definitely getting nerfed while this is easily flying under the radar and probably wont get hit for a while. For a build that brings those defensive numbers, its damage is unrivaled. It does sufficient DPS not to feel slow on almost any endgame boss, one-shots literally everything but the boss in maps and kills that boss in a couple of casts all while being on day 5 SSF gear.

Passive Skill Tree, PoB, and Gem Links

You can find an optimized Path of Building here. Every build I release will use the community fork of Path of Building, which is maintained and updated in a much more regular fashion than the original one. You can find PoB's Fork, by LocalIdentity, here.

If you are not comfortable with Path of Building, we also have a Tree on the PoE Website for you. Do note that this does not support Cluster Jewels and some specific unique jewels and it is highly recommended you install Path of Building to follow builds most optimally.

More information about the Passive Skill Tree, as well as all the Gem Links can be found on our dedicated page.

Passive Skill Tree, PoB & Gem Links

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheons

Our Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.

Ascendancy, Bandit & Pantheon Power Page

Gear Summary / TL;DR

A lot of this is explained more in depth in the Gear Page, however we will provide you with a basic idea of what gear you're looking for in this short summary.

Gear Page

Our recommendation:

Item Slot	Item Name
Head	Energy Shield Based Helmet with Life, Mana & Resistances
Amulet	Citrine Amulet with Life, Mana, Energy Shield & Resistances
Chest	Hunter Chest with Increased Effect of Offerings, Life, Ailment Avoidance and Life as Maximum Energy Shield
Gloves	Energy Shield Based Gloves with Life, Mana & Resistances
Boots	Energy Shield Based Boots with Life, Mana & Resistances, Ailment Avoidance and Movement Speed
Belt	Stygian Vise with High Life and Resistances
Rings	Vermillion Ring with High Life, Mana and Resistances
Weapon	Rare Sceptre with Fire Damage, Fire Damage as Extra Chaos, Cast Speed and Trigger Mod
Shield	Energy Shield Based Shield with Life, Fire Damage as Extra Chaos, Spell Block, Life and Ailment Avoidance

Questions & Support

I made it a habit to check all comments in my guides on a daily basis. Obviously, there might be occurrences where getting a reply might take longer but I really do try to get back to you as soon as possible. I prefer you making remarks, suggestions or asking questions that way as it allows others to read through the comments, providing them with a potential answer to their question, without having to wait for me again. If I have somehow missed your question, you can try reaching me on our Discord.

If you enjoy my content to such an extent that you'd like to support me and my work, I have a Patreon you can check out. At no point should you feel pressured to contribute, but if you do, your support means more to me than you will ever imagine.

Leveling

Even though we are very adamant about trying to give you a leveling experience that lies as close to your endgame playstyle as possible, we will recommend you to use the standard leveling setups until after act 10. Detonate Dead just doesn't function that well until you have all of your stuff going. For more information about leveling, we refer you to the following guides:

Our step-by-step leveling walkthrough, which allows even more experienced players to save time and speed through the leveling process.
Our guide to Unique Items for leveling, which helps you gear up your characters for the leveling process.
Our beginner leveling guide, which answers many of the questions new players might have and will set you on the right path.

Getting to Brutus & Merveil

For starters, create a Witch in whichever league you want to start. If you want to make use of the Onslaught Support you'll need to make a Scion to quickly run to town and store one as Witch doesn't get access to this gem until act 3.

Pick up an Explosive Trap from the vendor to start your journey and go to kill Hailrake and clear Mud Flats. Set up the following links after Mud Flats:

Frost Bomb
Onslaught Support

Explosive Trap

After killing Brutus, you will be adding an Added Lightning Damage Support to your Frost Bomb.

Level 12 and Onwards Setup

From level 12, after killing Merveil, you'll be setting up for your road to level 28. You should be breezing through content at this point as these skills are really strong while leveling.

Storm Brand
Added Lightning Damage Support
Controlled Destruction Support
Elemental Focus Support

At level 28, swap your Storm Brand for Armageddon Brand as it scales better with the passives you are picking up in the skill tree.

Credits

Massive credit goes to Paak and Waggle for letting me write about a build they created and tweaked in the first place and helping me out figuring out what exactly was important information to pass along and how specific mechanics in the build interacted.

Questions

FAQ

What spectres can be recommended ?

Honestly, this is best manually checked on websites that include Corpse increased % life modifiers. As of 3.14, the best Spectres for Life are Stoneskin Flayers and Lithomancers from Primeval Ruins in Delve which have 800% increased Life. Before you get your hands on those, Rusty Crushers & Auto-Enforcers (found in Tunnel Heists) are the easiest to get very high health spectres. For the best and most optimal minmax though, you should pick them up!

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Source: https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/unkillable-necro-detonate-dead-necromancer-build-guide

Gauthier Strater