This is a long overdue remake of my Grim Reaper build, The endgame build will now have 2 variations:
- Vitality Blade Arc + 14x Skeletons + 1x Skeletal Servant
- Uroburuuks Reaping Arc + 14x Skeletons
A lot has changed since the old version of this build. The Guardian of Death’s gates now inflicts base vitality dmg instead of physical and the build is much more beginner friendly and no longer needs to shift from physical to vitality later in the game. The Grundleplith tail got modifiers to field command in a recent patch, so this build can be ‘online’ as sword & board version already in Act 1, meaning both player and pets can focus on vitality dmg from very early regardless of how much progression the player has on relics and gear. A budget build using this weapon will also be presented below.
PERFORMANCE
This one of my strongest hybrid pet builds, normally I aim for SR30 in 5-9 min as reasonable for a meme concept like this, but this build can easily do SR32 within that timeframe as well. The Uroboruuk version can show similar performance, it has stronger support skills to make up for not having the skeletal servant, but without this extra tank pet will require more concentration from the player.
GAMEPLAY
For this build I maintained the same criteria as for my other post-1.2 hybrid pet releases:
-Gameplay should be similar to a normal (panetti) build with ‘player-scaling pets’ because pets die very rarely.
-Button count is low, I try to keep it around the same button count as top20 builds with 8 or more ‘easiness’ score.
-Leveling is very straightforward, build is ‘online’ very early, no conversions or rare items needed.
-Useful items will be in the loot pool at all experience levels, can be played SSF or beginner without stash.
-Green items are only single rare.
VIDEO
ENDGAME BUILD - Blade Arc
ENDGAME BUILD - Reaping Arc
BUDGET BUILD
NOTES
There does exist a purple upgrade for the Grundlplith’s tail, the Howl of the Wendigo, however be aware that there also exists a lower level version of the Guardian of the Death’s gates. So you may already have this weapon before the mace becomes useful. For the shield you will be able to find many ‘meme’ alternatives: Lichguard, Dreadguard, Spiriteater Bulwark.
Relics
If you are a beginner or playing SSF, I recommend aiming for the blade arc version of the build, the Skeletal Servant relic is easier to get and more commonly useful on other necro builds as well. These are the development paths of the relics:
Build 1: Specter => Mortality => Dirge of Arkovia
Build 2: Gluttony => Torment => Necrosis => Uroboruuk’s Reaping
Devotion
For this build I recommend following the grim tools setup from very early without much deviation. This means: Bat → stag → panther, this will give access in the midgame to many valuable resistances from staff of rattosh and Ulo. Put 2 points in nighttalon or crane to get additional elemental and poison resistane if needed. Optionally you could also use bull rush instead of panther in the early game and switch them later.
If the lower level version of the Guardian of Death’s Gates doesn’t drop and you play longer with sword & board, then use the viper instead of Kraken to bridge the 3x tier 3 constellations and you can get an extra tier 3 node.
Leveling Guide for Hybrid Pet Skeleton Builds
Optimizing Gameplay
When it comes to hybrid pet builds I take a bit of a different approach with Skeletons than I do with any other pets.
Skeletons are by design more squishy and intended to be respawned regularly and therefore the button is used more often, this makes it harder to design a hybrid pet build in such a way that its playability is still on par with regular builds. For this reason I mostly use skeletons ‘standalone’ during the leveling process and only add the skeletal servant when it becomes available later in the game. The skeletal servant matches best in terms of damage types and innate resistances. Keep in mind that if you add a blight fiend with very little point investement then it isn’t much more valuable than just adding one more skeleton and if you invest a lot of points in the blight fiend then it is hard to have enough left over for the other requirements of your build.
Skeletons specialize in inflicting damage and can do enough for an endgame build without additional pets, however they will never taunt enemies so when you do a skeleton build you should always make your character a bit tankier than with aggro pets. For this reason skeletons match well with melee builds since they want to be tanky anyway.
Starting at level 1
At the start of the game I like to aim for having exactly 6 skeletons, because this allows me to summon all of them in 2 casts. So first I recommend to put 6 points in undead legion and at least 8 in the raise skeletons build, after that I am ready to start investing in the skills of the hero. I use a component skill to attack as long as I don’t have sufficient investment.
For hybrid builds it is very valuable to be able to summon more skeletons per cast, but there are very few items that can do this and most of them are only useful for a specific skeleton build like ‘melee + fire dmg’. Therefore the item I almost always want is the Ascendant Cowl which gives you enough for any build and also has increased odds for a pet related affix roll. The only downside of this item is that ist uses the head slot and can block important enabling items for many different builds. If the head slot must be used for something else it can still be a valid approach to make the skeletons tanky enough so that they never die in too high numbers and you can keep up with only 3 resummons per click.
Hidden Skeleton Stats
There is very little info shown on the stats of skeletons in game, by default they all inflict physical and vitality dmg, but the upgraded version also inflict other dmg types with their abilities:
Skeleton Archers - Deathbolt - Inflicts Pierce dmg
Skeleton Mages - Fire shard and Fire nova - Inflicts fire dmg
Revenants - Undead aura - 8% Health reduction and additional vitality dmg
Generally speaking you want to focus on vitality if your build doesn’t convert anything. The pierce dmg is not interesting enough to focus on. Since skeletons come in large numbers they can focus on bleeding dmg since any item that adds flat bleeding dots to pets will add it to all of them.
These are the most important innate resistances:
Skeletons: 50% Cold, 50% Vitality, 15% Pierce, 24% Physical, 50% Freeze
Skeletal Servant: 33% vitality, 25% Pierce, 25% Physical, 500% Trap and Sleep
It is also noteworthy that skeletons have only 424 armor, while the skeletal servant has 1941. This means the servant can benefit well from a skill like field command, but for regular skellies you need much higher %armor to get a meaningful amount which only the will of the crypt skill can provide. The cold resistance on skeletons is pretty useless, since it won’t change having to build up elemental resistance from zero. The Will of the Crypt skill also gives you 50% vitality which is useless since you will likely already max it out with whatever you pick up along the way. So basically all resistance buffs except vitality are useful and in the midgame I recommend getting one green armor piece of each prefix/suffix:
Taskmaster… - Aether and Chaos
…of the Wild - Elemental
…of Caged Souls - Bleeding
Poison Resistance can only be gained from specific items or augments or from devotion. The easiest way to get some poison if you need it urgently is to park 2 points in ‘Crane’ constellation.
Healing Skeletons
If necromancer is not combined with Occultist, Shaman or Inquisitor then your class has no build in mechanic to heal skeletons. This means in most cases the Tree of life devotion will be obligatory in the endgame to keep them tanky enough to survive in deep SR. If you want to heal skeletons earlier your only option is the Apothecary’s Touch Gloves, I wouldn’t say these are obligatory on lower difficulty levels, since by nature Skeletons are not tanking pets and intended as frequently respawning trash.
You can look for any items of the Apothecary set to drop. It exist on all tiers (normal, empowered and mythical), so the total amount in the pool is 12 items. If the gloves don’t drop, but you get another item of the set, you can try to transmute it into the gloves with Eldritch essences. The mythical gloves will have the strongest heal so you want to upgrade later if you only have the weakest gloves. Ofc when you finally have enough devotion points for the tree of life, you should drop these gloves for something more offensive.