So, you want skeletons?
This build was inspired by Kluga’s pre-expac Cthonic Necromancer (http://grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?p=414094). Briefly, Kluga’s build contained 4 key elements – the Black Scourge weapon (to create up to 3 Black Scourge temporary pets on enemy death), the Will of Bismiel amulet (which creates 3 Void Fiend temporary pets on command), the Raise the Dead ability from the Revenant constellation (which spawned skeletons on enemy death), and the Chaos Strike ability from the Riftstone component for mobility. It is a melee build that binds the Demolitionist’s Fire Strike line to Raise the Dead, and relies on Soleal’s Witchfire and Summon Hellhound for the heavy lifting in a Fire/Chaos build. This is not an OP build, but rather what he called a “roleplay build” which seemed effective (and fun!) enough for a non-serious gamer like myself.
Not being someone with all the gear in the game but being aware of this build, when I dropped a Black Scourge just prior to the expac (and having a Will of Bismiel in my stash) I knew I had to try this out with the Necromancer/Occultist Cabalist class. I expected a few problems though. I suspected the Cabalist would be short of health and defence, there would not be enough skill points to max Raise Skeletons, Blight Fiend and Hellhound, I would lack the Fire element for Flame Torrent (because the Cabalist seems to specialise in Vitality damage instead) and it would be impossible to bind Raise the Dead to a basic attack skill so it would be difficult to find something else with Fire Strike’s immense damage potential. But once the expansion hit and I started with a Necromancer, I noticed that Crate had changed quite a number of things in my favour.
Current Build http://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYP5ErZ. This is at level 85 – the skills are where I’m headed (without current gear bonuses shown), but equipped gear is current. Some of the gear, like the Golemborns and the Sash are there entirely for resistances, but the rest is the best I have though I’m sure there is better stuff out there that I’ve not yet found.
For starters they seemed to overhaul the Dying God constellation into a chaos/vitality line that supported pets. Initially I wanted to use Tree of Life and the new Ishtak constellation to help solve the suspected health problem, and unlocking Dying God would happen automatically if I did that. I later realised I could not have Dying God, Tree of Life, Revenant and Fiend with only 55 points, so Tree of Life had to go.
But the expac change to Revenant/Raise the Dead is the real game-changer. I have used the Revenant constellation before, and the skeletons have a primary weakness – when fighting a major boss that doesn’t spawn adds the toon is on its own, which is a bad place to be for a pet master! But now Raise the Dead no longer triggers on enemy death. Instead it’s 10% on attack. This alters the view of this build utterly. Now I could play as a melee-caster hybrid with a single point in Bloody Pox to spam Raise the Dead AND it was no longer vital that the toon had to be able to kill things (though I still wanted to), so the reliance on a high-damage, high OA melee build was gone. The pets raised by the constellation also scale with player damage bonuses, so the vitality damage bonuses from Dying God would be more effective for them. The vitality resistance debuff from the Necromancer’s Spectral Binding completes the picture. Between these and the other spawns I earned the 18 pets achievement on Steam. 
Devotion Path:
Chaos
Jackal (remove Chaos)
Vulture
Revenant (bind to Bloody Pox)
Gallows
Order
Lion (remove Order)
Staff of Rattosh
Remove Jackal
Panther
Crane
Lizard
Ishtak (bind to Master of Death)
Dying God (bind to Curse of Frailty - not Bone Harvest because you don’t want the self-bleed all the time)
Fiend (bind to Raise Skeletons)
Order
I took the build in stages: Max Raise Skeletons, then get Undead Legion to +3 spawns. Then get a decent sized Blight Fiend before taking Occultist and pushing for the point in Bloody Pox in time to complete the Revenant constellation. The next target was to take Necromancer to 50 and max Master of Death while putting in a few points to the two pet lines while ignoring Occultist until it became necessary to get Blood of Dreeg. A few points to get Spectral Wrath going (I stopped when the skill was at 8 which seemed most efficient) and then went for Curse of Frailty for the Vitality debuff. In truth, I hardly ever remember to cast Curse of Frailty, such is the speed the pets wipe things even early in Ultimate. For a long time I used Siphon Souls instead of Bone Harvest for the heal, but ultimately that was the wrong choice and Bone Harvest is far more effective.
I didn’t intend to full clear all areas prior to Ultimate – just the essentials and the side quests that didn’t need a lot of work or were on the way to devotion shrines. I cleared Loghorrean at level 42 (having died once in act 1) and finished Malmouth 10 levels later. There wasn’t a single hiccup or difficult mob through the entire thing, so much so that it was only when I got to the Master of Flesh on Elite that I found something truly challenging. I have honestly never self-built a toon that was this effective through the original game content.
I added what I felt was 1 key piece of gear to the build when I found it – Combat Medic’s Mark. I didn’t have anything better at the time, but quickly fell in love with its ability to keep my pets alive, and I’m having a hard time letting it go now. Although they dished out the hurt they seemed to have poor health, especially the Necromancer skeletons. For a long time I didn’t have proper armour until I dusted off Devil’s Cage Hauberk – the special ability that holds enemies in place and gives a -50 DA debuff has proven extremely effective even though I’ve since found Fiendmaster Raiment which is way better for my pets but forgets that the toon is melee.
Elite Malmouth was difficult. It was the first time the build stopped wiping the screen of enemies in seconds, and boy did I have a lot of deaths dealing with the Master of Flesh. I’d killed it so fast on Veteran that I didn’t know it had a breath weapon that could kill all my pets and the toon in one cast (despite 60% aether resist and 12k health), and I didn’t even know there were 3 stages to the thing! But once I worked out how to avoid the breath attack entirely (eventually!) the other stages didn’t matter. Because I could resummon the Skeletons (3 at a time), Dirge of Arkovia’s Skeletal Servant, the Void Fiends and my Blight Fiend, and Bloody Pox would churn out a new skeleton every few seconds instead of never in a boss fight pre-expac, I could easily move around the room without danger while they took the boss out for me. Which they did, and very quickly too now that it couldn’t wipe them out with a single spell anymore.
Once I was into Act I Ultimate it was back to mowing down everything in sight. For a build that I didn’t expect to be OP it sure is impressive. But I’ve a long way to go yet.
It took me a long time to unlock Fiend’s Flame Torrent and bind it to Raise Skeletons for two reasons. I didn’t think the damage would be all that impressive without Fire damage bonuses, and right up until late Elite the pets melted everything so fast that Flame Torrent didn’t have time to both trigger and deal damage. But from Elite Crown Hill on, and into Ultimate, the enemy mobs have enough health to stick around a bit longer, and Flame Torrent is almost certainly effective now.
I eventually made one change to the core gear. Will of Bismiel, which has served me extremely well, had to go when I dropped a Mythical Sovereign Ruby of Domination in the Flooded Passage. I loved those little guys for their support in large melees, but this is just way better.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve this build or what gear to look out for as I make my way through Ultimate, please let me know. I’m truly surprised how effective the build has proven to be (except for the first stage of Master of Flesh, where the deaths were entirely down to the player and not the build).
And for those who got here, thanks for reading this essay-length post!
