Alright folks, today I gotta spill the beans on what FINALLY worked for my Necro climb this season. Been banging my head against the wall, trying different setups, until I stumbled onto this Viper + Etched thing. Sounds weird, but holy cow does it pop off.
Started like always, running my usual bone spear setup. Hit a hard wall around GR 120. Felt squishy, felt slow. Kept getting swarmed before I could even cast anything decent. Needed a change, bad.
Heard some whispers about Poison being strong this season. Figured, why not? Dusted off my Trag’oul’s stuff – full six-piece bonus, gotta have that.
Step one was swapping in the Vipers.
Threw on that Trang-Oul’s Carapace chest piece. Then, gotta double down, found a well-rolled Trang-Oul’s Girth belt too. Boom, full Poison power boost on.
But here’s where the magic happened. Dug deep into the stash, found this dusty Etched Sigil source. You know the one – it auto-casts your secondary skill when you spend essence with a primary. Sounds clunky, but I paired it up.
Skills got a total revamp:
- Primary: Blood Siphon (with the Hemostasis rune for essence). Gotta feed that engine.
- Secondary: Poison Scythe (that’s Trag’Oul’s Avatar). This bad boy gets spammed FOR FREE by the Etched Sigil while I’m just sucking life!
- Essence Spenders: Bone Spirit (Life and Death rune for big poison burst) and Army of the Dead (with the Blighted Grasp rune). Etched Sigil flings Bone Spirit like candy.
- Essence Generator: Blood Siphon doing double duty.
- Curses: Frailty with the Aura rune – everything near me just gets weaker, easy.
- Movement: Blood Rush (with the Metabolism rune for quicker escapes/positioning). Gotta keep moving.
Gearing took some finetuning. Had to squeeze in Captain Crimson’s belt and pants – needed the cooldown reduction and damage reduction desperately. That meant losing the Poison Scythe gloves, but it was a necessary evil for toughness.
Cube wise:
- Weapon Slot: Maltorius’ Petrified Spike. Makes Bone Spirit absolutely disgusting.
- Armor Slot: Requiem Cereplate. More max essence = bigger Bone Spirit nukes. Also helps with survivability when consuming corpses.
- Jewelry Slot: Ring of Royal Grandeur. Lets me wear both my six-piece Trag’oul and the two-piece Crimson set.
Paragon points? All the usual suspects – max movement speed first, then dumped everything into max essence, cooldown reduction, crit chance, crit damage, and area damage. Defense tab got resistance and armor, dumped the rest into vitality.
Gems were straightforward:
- Bane of the Trapped – more damage to slowed enemies, duh.
- Bane of the Stricken – essential for pushing those higher GRs and chunking the Rift Guardian.
- Zei’s Stone of Vengeance – gotta play keepaway, and the extra damage from range is huge.
First run was… chaotic. Gotta admit, felt weird just holding down Blood Siphon and watching Poison Scythes fly out constantly while Bone Spirits randomly launched everywhere. Took a minute to get the rhythm. Positioning is KEY. You aren’t standing still facetanking. You’re hovering at the edge of packs, Blood Siphoning the closest mob, cursing everything, and letting the automatic Bone Spirits and Poison Scythes melt things. Pop Army of the Dead on elites or dense packs for massive poison bursts.
Once I stopped trying to force it like my old build and just rolled with the poison auto-spam madness? This changed EVERYTHING. Cleared GR 120 like it was nothing. Jumped straight to 125, still smooth. The constant poison damage stacking, the random giant Bone Spirit hits, the toughness felt solid finally. Season theme buffs just pour gasoline on this poison fire.
Is it perfect? Nah. Sucks against single targets until Stricken stacks kick in. Gets a bit dicey if you get trapped by waller/jailer. You gotta keep moving and manage your cooldowns (Blood Rush & Army). But man, for plowing through rifts and dominating grifts with minimal finger cramps? Hands down the strongest Necro flavor I’ve touched in Season 30. Give it a whirl, get messy with the poison, you won’t regret it.
