Hello and welcome to the build guide for a Poison Necromancer
This build is for pure poison, you will not need to use corpse explosions, minions or teleporting. It can clear any area of the game without problems.
For anyone tired of seeing the same old Enigma addicts "poison" necro guides, this one might be for you.
Skillpoints are fairly easy
20 in all 3 poison skills
20 in lower resist.
Thats roughly 90 skillpoints, 1 into Bone Armour. The rest is your choice but I chose to invest 1 point into summon resist and the rest into Flame Golem as he can get through the walls in act 5 and can actually kill stuff with the lower resist curse.
Things that are important for the build:
Faster run walk is essential.
You wont get maximum resists if you take all the items with the most + skills so the Circlet is where we go for +2 instead of +3 magic, replacing the helm for a rare offers more potential than replacing amulet or rings.
You dont need any FCR. Poison Nova hits enemies and lasts for 2 seconds. Any extra casting does nothing, it doesnt even refresh the duration of the poison.
Do not have any other sources of poison damage! If you have revives/mercenary running around doing poison damage it will delete your nova damage on those enemies.
Gear, good options and best in slot:
Helm:
Good: Shako, +3 pb magic Circlet
Best In Slot: +2 necro skills 20+ @resist 30 FRW 2os
(if you bought a 20fcr 2sk circlet someone saw you coming, its trash)
Amulet:
Good : Mara, +2sk crafted, +3 pb magic
Best In Slot: Crafted 10FRW 2sk @res teleport charges. Without teleport charges the best in slot is a 3pb 100 life magic amulet.
Body Armour:
Best In Slot: Bramble runeword. Im not going to list good choices here, the only option for a poison necromancer is Bramble, not only does it completely fix your poison resist when using a sunder charm but the 25-50% poison skill damage is way beyond what other options can offer.
Gloves:
Best In Slot: Trang Gloves for the 25% poison skill damage, again no other options are good.
Belt:
Good : Trang Belt.
Best In Slot: Arach for the +1 skills. Trang is often used and is convenient for the cannot be frozen, its completely fine as most people including myself will feel the cannot be frozen does roughly equate to a socket or ring slot. Only use Arach when you have a really good offhand.
Rings:
Good: Rare for resists, Raven for cannot be frozen if not using Trang Belt.
Best In Slot: SoJ/Bk uniques for the +1 skills.
Offhand:
Good: Trang , Rare, Rhyme runeword, Splendor runeword. (only make runewords in offhand with +3 to poison nova)
Best In Slot +6 nova Magic with 2 os. Trang is effectively best in slot but only until you get Deaths Web, once you have Deaths Web you will be giving monsters around -130 to poison resist (-100 is maximum) without Trang offhand meaning the extra -25 from Trang offhand is for nearly all enemies effectively useless just like the extra -30 you are already doing (55 from dw, 60 from lower resist and the rest from poison facet jewels)
It is at this point where having an extra +4 to poison nova means more than -25 res. If you dont have access to Deaths Web use Trang offhand.
A Rare offhand with +5 to Nova and big @resists can be a great option and can allow you to use a +3 pb magic Circlet.
Weapon:
Good: White runeword +6 magic wand +5 rare wand.
Best In Slot: Deaths Web, the only option once you can afford one. Dont be fussy with the -res stat even a lowest possible roll of 1pb sk -40 is still going to outclass any other option by a long way. Any Death Web is going to make the build very playable.
Boots:
Best in Slot: Rare or Crafted with 30 FRW and resists (usually lightning resist) Try to get 75 total resists from your boots. The FRW is also important.
The aim of this build is to get enough poison nova damage from one activation to one shot all regular unique and champion mobs, on killing mobs it will gain life and mana removing the need to use potions for anything other than emergencies (another reason why Bramble is great)
Once you get about 10k Poison Nova damage you will be able to one shot everything in the Chaos Sanctuary for example, it makes for a pretty fast uncomplicated build to clear basically any area of the game, even the highly resistant Maw Fiends from act 4 can be one shotted when cursed and other poison immunes like Maggots can be one shotted without needing lower resist.
The more poison damage you get the safer the build becomes so its always best to get more damage once your defenses are stable.
Skillers should entertain FRW and FHR as well as life. Small charms should be used exclusively to sort out resistances, the 5@res ones are best, make sure all the space for Grand charms is kept for skillers and a Poison Sunder charm which is essential.
Torch and Anni should focus entirely on good @resistances rolls, this build does not require high strength or block, we use FRW to actively avoid damage
This build can even get to around 16k Poison Nova damage, it is one of the best builds for doing the gloam trick and then clearing the entire game as nowhere is off limits to this build (areas with exploding dolls are of course still quite dangerous due to the fact that a poison nova will likely kill them all at the same time, on the other hand if your speed is fast enough its a safe way of killing the dolls compared to many but the necromancer has low physical resistance so be careful) , the rate at which you will actually kill mobs is very high
I always said that if someone wants to make a character that teleports around killing bosses surely the Sorceress is the one to go for, if you made a poison Necro with Enigma it would just be a much worse version of a Sorceress with far less damage and like so many other build guides it is effectively a hybrid build that relies on other skills to work like Revive and Corpse Explosion because the Poison Nova by itself is really crap.
Poison Nova is actually strong when you invest into it properly and make an actual poison Necromancer.
Mercenary: Merc is largely unimportant, theres nothing that will enhance your poison damage, Infinity doesnt reduce poison resist.
Good options for a Merc can be act 2 with prayer, Act 5 for a good meat shield and the very under rated Act 1 Cold archer that can use a Vigor bow. Just make sure they dont use any gear that has +poison damage.
If you want to have fun and use the poison dagger skill, a Mercenary using Faith or Hustle is a good idea, however the poison dagger is a bit of a meme because of attack rating issues. Still it is nice to one shot Diablo with it while you run around going ehehehe
Dueling: Make sure to have access to Fire Golem to finish off players that are on 1hp.
Budget/Starter
This build can be an effective league starter but it is much slower than a cold sorc.
This build can operate on budget gear but it wont feel great until you get to about 9-10k damage, the main difference is the speed of clearing, once you can one shot everything it becomes fast.
Full Trang set actually works with Poison Nova! The really really bad FCR makes absolutely no difference to Poison Nova so Trang set is a fantastic place to start, recommended for low budget.
All sockets should be for Poison Facet unique jewels, make sure to use +5 to poison skill damage ones. The only exceptions to this is use of a Cham rune in the Circlet to allow 2x SoJ rings and Arach and possibly an Um rune/ @res jewel (Diamond in offhand) to fix resists
If you love playing the game and farming all the creatures this can be a good build, Baal runs are easy solo.
Will edit if I have forgotten anything, any questions welcome.
D2:R