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Bone

The Bone guide

Written by MrLlamaSC for Icy Veins, shown here with his permission. Read the original on Icy Veins· Skills and items link to their pages.

›Introduction

The Bone Necromancer tackles a large variety of monsters by mixing the Magic damage of Bone Spear and the Fire and Physical damage of Corpse Explosion. Additionally, thanks to Bone Armor for Absorbtion and Bone Prison for crowd control, the build is extremely safe and great for a beginner. The biggest downside of the Bone Necro is a slight lack of damage early on during leveling, until more levels or skill bonuses have been acquired.

›Bone Necromancer Skill Build

  • 1 point to all prerequisites

  • 20 points to Bone Spirit — Main single target damage dealer, required

  • 20 points to Bone Spear — Main damage dealer for small or lined-up groups of monsters, required

  • 20 points to Bone Prison — Synergy and useful for very large crowds of small monsters, required

  • 20 points to Bone Wall — Synergy, required

  • 1+ points to Corpse Explosion — Great for clearing groups of monsters and removing corpses, required

  • 20 points to Teeth — Synergy, required

  • 1 point to Bone Armor — Prerequisite for Bone Wall and also useful for Physical damage Absorption, required

  • 1 point to Amplify Damage — Useful for increasing Corpse Explosion damage and that of party members, required

  • 1 point to Decrepify — Useful for additional crowd control, optional

  • 1 point to Clay Golem — Can be very helpful for tanking and slowing dangerous Unique monsters, optional

  • 1 point to Golem Mastery — Increases tankiness of your Golem, optional

  • 1 point to Summon Resist — Increases Resistances of your Golem, optional

›Bone Necromancer Stats Discussion

The following section discusses how many attribute points should be allocated to each of the primary stats.

How much Strength Does a Bone Necromancer Need?

Enough for gear — For a Trapsin using a Spirit Monarch, this will be 156 Strength as that is usually the highest Strength requirement for commonly used gear. If choosing to use another shield with lower Strength requirements, then just adjust your Strength to that value. This number always changes based on the gear you are using, though, so make sure to always double check the requirements for each piece of gear you have as well as how much Strength each piece will provide once equipped.

How much Dexterity Does a Bone Necromancer Need?

Enough for Gear — Dexterity is great for increasing Block Chance, particularly with Homunculus, but if you are not planning on investing points to max that out, it is often not worth taking any additional Dexterity, as the return on Defense is very low.

How much Vitality Does a Bone Necromancer Need?

Everything else into Vitality — 250+ points. Every excess attribute point should be allocated to Vitality, as long as you can meet the Strength and Dexterity requirements of your items by the time you wish to equip them. Not only does this increase your Life total, but this also increases the chance for Healing Potions to crit, doubling their healing output. Further, additional Life reduces the chance that you will be put into hit recovery.

How much Energy Does a Bone Necromancer Need?

Nothing — Allocating attribute points to Energy in a final build is universally considered sub-par for almost every character due to the widespread availability of Mana Potions. While leveling, if you find yourself struggling with Mana you can allocate a few points to Energy that you can then remove with a respec later on.

›Bone Necromancer Mercenary

You can either hire a Defensive (Holy Freeze) or Offensive (Might) Desert Guard Mercenary in Act 2, Nightmare difficulty, depending on whether you want to slow monsters for added safety or improve the overall damage of your Mercenary.