Necromancer Mechanics

Life Force

Life Force is the resource Necromancers rely on in order to access their profession mechanic - for Necromancer, for Reaper, and Shade Skills for Scourge and for Harbinger.

Life Force you accumulate is stored in your Life Force Pool, the size of which scales with Vitality.

Necromancers gain 10% of their Life Force Pool from Deaths of nearby enemies, allies, or various entities while not transformed by a Shroud, and through the usage of selected skills. For a full list see here.

The most notable traits that give or affect Life Force generation or total amount you may encounter in our builds are:

• increases the amount of Life Force you gain from all sources by 10%.
• increases your total maximum Life Force by 20%.
• makes your Marks Unblockable and generate 3% Life Force when triggered.
• gives 15% Life Force upon entering .

Death Shroud

While in , you gain 33% incoming damage reduction and your Life Force will behave as your effective Health, however you cannot be healed.

ends when your Life Force is depleted either by taking damage or over time (3% drain per second), or upon manually casting , and goes on a 10 seconds Cooldown. A minimum of 10% Life Force is required to enter .

While in you lose access to your utility, heal and elite skills, and your weapon skills are replaced by:

• deals damage
• sends out a claw to a target. If a target was hit you may Shadowstep to it using the flip-over skill
• Fears your target
• Gain Life Force as you strike enemies around you
• Bind your enemies to you, Reveal them and apply Torment. If they stay within range, Immobilize when this skill ends

Reaper's Shroud

The Reaper specialization replaces with which allows for a more offensive use of Life Force compared to core Necromancer, while still getting its incoming damage reduction.

As with , entering replaces your Health with your Life Force, and drains it by 4% per second.

In all your skills are replaced by:

• cleave foes around you
• Charge towards your target while dealing damage and destroying projectiles. Blind foes at your destination
• Gain Stability, and 66% incoming damage reduction, which you may consume with to Fear nearby foes
• Strike and Poison nearby foes
• Deal damage and Stun a single foe. Deals increased damage to enemies below 50% and 25% Health

Sand Shades

Scourge uses Life Force to control the sands, inflicting devastating conditions on foes and supporting allies.

Scourge cannot use their Life Force Pool in place of their Health, but they can use it to generate a solid amount of Barrier to shield themself from incoming damage, and to be able to command Sand Shades and use Shade Skills.

The effects of Shade Skills happen around the player, always affecting them, as well as around every Sand Shade currently manifested.

Scourge Shade skills are:

• Manifest a Shade at your desired location, inflicting Torment
• Convert a condition on nearby allies to a boon
• Grant Barrier to nearby allies
• Fear nearby enemies
• Gain Barrier while pulsing damage and conditions. This skill counts as a Shroud for all related traits

Harbinger Shroud

Instead of using Life Force in a protective manner, Harbingers gain access to highly mobile and offensive which does not replace their Health with Life Force. Harbingers also afflict themselves with Blight to further reduce their survivability in exchange for more damage.

Every second spent in will drain 5% Life Force and apply two stacks of Blight to the player, which can also be gained through the usage of Elixir utility skills and stacks up to 25 times. Blight heals the Harbinger for a small amount through , gives a passive damage increase through the traits or , but reduces the Harbinger's Vitality by up to 37.5%. Some skills consume a set amount of Blight to enhance their effects, otherwise it fades out over time.

While in all your skills are replaced by:

• Send out projectiles that explode on impact and inflict Torment in an area
• Fire a volley of projectiles that inflict Torment
• Dash to your foe to deal damage in an area. If you are at or above 5 Blight, consume it to double the damage and inflict Torment
• Leap to a location and Daze enemies. If you are at or above 10 Blight, consume it to double the damage and inflict Torment
• Float enemies in an area around you. Gain Life Force for each hit

Utility Skill Types

Wells

Simple pulsing Ground-Targeted AoEs.

• Heal yourself and pulse Healing to allies. Notably can be traited with to also Revive
• Pulse damage and convert enemy boons into conditions
• Pulse damage, Blind and Chill
• Stun Break yourself. Pulse Might while converting conditions on allies to boons
• Pulse damage and inflict Vulnerability

Signets

Signets allow Necromancers to enjoy passive effects, which they can temporarily forgo in order to perform an attack or action.

Corruptions

Necromancers use these to corrupt both themselves and enemies with conditions or otherwise control them.

• Cleanse all conditions off yourself; Heal for each, but gain Vulnerability.
• Inflict Bleeding on yourself and your target while granting Might to nearby allies.
• Inflict yourself with Weakness; create an area that Blocks Projectiles and inflicts Weakness and Poison on enemies
• Inflict yourself with Poison; corrupt your target's boons.
• Inflict yourself with Vulnerability; spread your target's conditions to nearby enemies.
• Inflict yourself with Bleeding; create an area that pulses devastating conditions to enemies.

The trait in Curses is often used to reduce Recharge of these skills, while also adding an extra self-inflicted condition to each, which usually the Necromancer then sends to the enemy through various means, leveraging the otherwise would-be-negative effect instead.

Minions

As a Necromancer you are able to raise various minions to aid you in battle. Each gives access to a unique ability.

• ( ) Heals you on attack; sacrifice this minion to Heal for a larger amount.
• ( ) passively Cripples; command to Immobilize.
• ( ) summons 2 minions; command to kill and explode one for damage (two uses).
• ( ) stationary minion; command to teleport to it and Poison nearby foes, killing it in the process.
• ( ) command to Blind, Chill and Weaken an enemy and gain Life Force.
• ( ) Cripples on attack; command to charge, Knocking Down and Launching enemies, dealing large amounts of Breakbar Damage scaling with the enemy's size.

Spectral

Manipulate spectral energy to influence your Life Force and cause various effects.

• Break Stuns and gain Protection; accumulate Life Force when struck by enemies.
• Pull and Chill enemies in range, gain Life Force for each hit.
  • Note: This skill targets enemy entities, no matter if damageable or not. Each hand fired is a projectile blockable by targets in its path. It is possible to hit a single enemy multiple times, resulting in high Breakbar Damage, even when there are no apparent targets in sight.
• Break Stuns and gain Swiftness; repeatedly consume conditions for Life Force. Recast to end the effect early and return to your initial position.
• Create a ring that grants Protection or inflicts Fear to allies or enemies that cross it. Each enemy affected gives Life Force.
• Assume the form of a powerful lich, replacing all your skills, dramatically improving Vitality and Precision and repeatedly gaining Stability, as well as Life Force when this effect ends. Your new skills are:
  • Send claws to damage enemies.
  • Fire a projectile at a random enemy, applies Cripple and Vulnerability.
  • Launch a wave to Fear enemies. Recast to Shadowstep to it.
  • Repeatedly summon unstable horrors that explode to deal damage after a few seconds if not killed.
  • Siphon health from nearby enemies over time, gain stacking Vitality each hit.

Shouts

Shouts can be used by the Reaper specialization. All shouts deal damage to nearby enemies and get louder stronger in melee range.

• Heal and gain Life Force for each enemy hit. Melee bonus: More Life Force.
• Convert enemy boons into Vulnerability. Your next few attacks will be Unblockable. Melee bonus: More Unblockable attacks.
• Summon a horror and additional horrors for each enemy hit, which absorb damage for you as long as they're alive (25 seconds max). Melee bonus: Extra horrors. Note: Cannot summon more than five.
• Chill enemies and transfer a condition to each. Melee bonus: An extra condition transferred.
• Break Stuns. Weaken enemies and gain Might per enemy hit. Melee bonus: More Might.
• Chill and Stun enemies. Gain Stability, Might and Fury for each hit. Melee bonus: Quickness, higher Stun duration.

Punishments

Punishments are skills given to Scourges. They support allies and usually inflict enemies with conditions. All Punishments convert enemy boons into Torment.

• Give Barrier to yourself and lower amount to allies nearby.
• Leave a trail where you walk. Allies stepping through it will gain Swiftness and Stability, while enemies are Burned.
• Gain Life Force per enemy struck. Grant Might and Fury to nearby allies.
• Shadowstep a short distance, leaving behind a portal for your allies to use. Grant Barrier to anyone passing through the portal for the first time.
• Strike an area, Poisoning foes and granting allies Barrier, Regeneration and Aegis.
• Create an area that pulses Might to allies, and Slows and Burns enemies.

Elixirs

Harbinger specialization unlocks access to Elixirs.

All Elixirs give the player boons, before being thrown as an AoE, applying conditions to enemies struck. Their damage and condition duration is doubled if used above a certain Blight threshold, which can be gained (among other means) by standing in the impact area.

• Heal yourself and gain Regeneration then throw the elixir to gain Blight and inflict Poison in an area.
• Gain Might and Fury then throw the elixir to gain Blight and inflict Weakness in an area.
• Gain Swiftness and Quickness then throw the elixir to gain Blight and inflict Cripple in an area.
• Gain Resolution and convert conditions on yourself into Life Force per condition converted then throw the elixir to gain Blight and corrupt a boon on enemies into a condition.
• Stun Break and gain Resistance then throw the elixir to gain Blight and inflict Blind in an area.
• Gain every boon for a short duration then throw the elixir to gain Blight and inflict every damaging condition in an area.

Harbingers are able to share the positive effects of their elixirs with allies through the trait .

Trait Lines

Spite

Spite focuses on improving strike damage and gaining self Might.

Curses

Curses offers an improved use of corruption skills and condition transfer. Curses has 3 noteable traits for condition Necromancer builds:

allows additional condition transfer.

Improves the usage of corruption skills.

Highly improves the usage of scepter and Condition Damage.

Soul Reaping

Soul Reaping offers a high damage increase for both power and condition Necromancer builds through the traits , and while drastically improving Life Force generation through the traits , and .

Blood Magic

Blood magic focuses on siphoning health from enemies and supporting allies. The most noteable trait in this line is which allows you to pull downed allies to you and revive them quickly.

Death Magic

Death magic focuses on personal defense and making use of minions. The main use of this traitline is to build up Death's Carapace stacks.

Reaper

The Reaper elite specilization typically focuses on dealing power damage. Reapers gain a decent amount of self-provided Quickness through the trait .

Scourge

The Scourge elite specilization can focus on dealing condition damage while supporting their allies.

Harbinger

The Harbinger elite specilization can choose to focus on heavy condition dealing with the traits and , power damage dealing with the traits and or Quickness boon support with the traits and .

Breakbar Skills

Deals 232 Breakbar damage from the Launch and 200 Breakbar damage from the Knockdown. Despite what the tool tip suggests, the duration of the knockdown is 2 seconds and not 1 and thus deals 200 defiance bar damage. An enemy with a defaince bar can be hit multiple times by the launch as the golem travels through the hitbox for additional Breakbar damage, making this skill incredibly strong.

Can Pull up to five different enemies in 1200 Range. This skill can affect the same target up to five times if casted inside it's hitbox depending on how many targets are around. That makes the skill deal massive amounts of Breakbar damage on boss encounters like Samarog.

Life Force Generation

Here's a list of most skills and traits that generate Life Force.

* These skills generate additional Life Force per enemy struck. Example: 8% + [ 3% ] * means 8% life force plus 3% per target struck