[3.11] Brittleknee’s SRS Necromancer - Reliable, Beginner-Friendly. All content. Harvest Ready!

Pros
This build can do all content. Every bit of it. Bosses, Mapping, Labs, MF, you name it.

• Bosser - Has cleared all Boss content including Red Elder, Shaper, Uber Atziri and Uber Elder.
• Mapper - No ‘Dead Mods’ to speak of. You can run anything. Reflect, no regen, no problem!
• Magic Find - Achieves ~60%IIQ with 6k HP, capable of farming up up to T15s comfortably.
• League Starter - While some necessary uniques are somewhat expensive, with patience this build is a viable leaguestarter.

Cons
This build does have some weaknesses that should be addressed.

• Damage Halts - Bosses with powerful AoE (Phoenix, Shaper) can wipe out your SRS with a single ability and thus halt your damage. This is especially true if you favor Ruthless over Empower. It then takes time to get the rolling wave of skulls going again.
• Ramp-Up Time - It does take time to build up 20 skulls, especially after the nerf to Mistress of Sacrifice. Sources of cast speed plus the increased duration of SRS makes this a bit smoother.
• Minion Build - This is a summoner build. There is no leech, or life gained on hit, no endurance charges, and only a modest amount of life regen in order to help negate the life cost of SRS. Your only defensive layers are a moderate eHP and your ability to move fairly quickly between a extremely quick shield charge and flame dash together. You cannot plant your feet for long periods of time or face tank anything. You have to stay on the move.

As an all-inclusive build, capable of all content with just minor tweaks to gear/passives here and there, this is the perfect build for those who like to focus on just one character at a time. With experience with new league markets, it's possible for this to be a strong league starter as well.

Primarily a bosser, but can be played both as quickly or slowly as you are comfortable with. The goal is to get a ‘rolling wave’ of SRS by casting a few skulls, using a movement skill, then casting a few more. Over time you’ll master the ‘feel’ of sustaining the SRS wave, as well as have a better grasp of the aggro range of the skulls and how to best chain them through packs.

Like other summoner builds, you do not want to be ‘in’ on the action. Apply EE, maintain Fortify, and then keep your distance. High movement speed allows for easy evasion of choreographed mechanics and a high-ish health pool in end-game gear (~7.3-7.5k eHP) allows you to live through the stray hit here and there.

This build was born in Harbinger, and is an iteration of Huy's SRS necromancer, though almost completely unrecognizable at this point. The two builds have gone two very different directions. The inspiration for creating the build was the vision of a character that could do everything in the game. I picked up the build at the end of Harbinger, and have played it as my main in quite a few leagues since. I love this build, and I wanted to make sure the guide remained updated and relevant.

A lot changed in the last two years. Things that I couldn’t have foreseen without actually playing the character through the gearing process. This guide is my attempt to share with you all everything that I’ve learned so far, some of the problems I’ve run into, and how I decided to solve them.

Ascendancy Skills
While leveling, pick the Ascendancy skills:

• Mistress of Sacrifice (The Labyrinth)
• Mindless Aggression (The Cruel Labyrinth)
• Unnatural Strength (The Merciless Labyrinth)
• Commander of Darkness (The Eternal Labyrinth)

Above is a recommended order, but Mistress of Sacrifice and Commander of Darkness can be interchanged based on preference.

If you are wanting to be more tanky, drop Commander of Darkness for Bone Barrier.

The extensive written leveling guide is Live! Check it out here!
This is for brand new players who would like to be guided through the entire leveling process.

Major:

• Soul of the Brine King - Make sure you get the bonus effects from the Divine Vessels.
• Solaris is also acceptable.

Minor:

• Soul of Ryslatha - When on low life with pantheon, this provides nice recovery/survivability but becomes insane when coupled with Blood of the Karui.

In Act 2, Kill ALL THREE Bandits to receive two passive points from Eramir.

Elemental Equilibrium
Elemental Equilibrium is an amazing damage boost for this build. SRS uses physical and fire damage, and we add additional cold damage through Hatred. This leaves lightning as the remaining element to proc the effect, and this build includes three different ways to do so. EE lasts 5 seconds at a time and can be refreshed as needed to keep 100% uptime.

You will know when EE has been properly applied to an enemy by the Pink/Purple/Blueish spell affect at their feet, which is seen below:



You will also see a written confirmation that EE is both active and attuned to the correct element when you see “Vulnerable to Fire, Vulnerable to Cold” listed on the mob’s affixes. With trash this may be hard to see, but with rares and bosses, you should be able to see this on mouseover targeting. It will look like this:

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The first way we apply EE is through Orb of Storms, which can be taken very early on in the levelling process, allowing players to start dealing tremendous amounts of damage early on. Orb of Storms is a Cast-at-Player lightning skill, which leaves an area of lightning damage which will continually apply EE a to mobs within its effect. Later on, we'll switch to Storm Brand, though OOS is great to keep on hand for a plant-and-cull AoE effect to leave on bosses.

The second is through Shield Charge, which takes advantage of the ‘Adds x to x lightning damage on Attacks’ affix found on jewelry, or which can be enchanted on jewelry by Elreon when he reaches level 6. Shield Charge will deal Area of Effect damage at the end animation of the charge in a circle in front of the player. This AoE damage will apply EE to any mob affected by the AoE damage it causes, therefore allowing you to blanket a tightly packed mob group with EE all at once.

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Necromantic Aegis
Necromantic Aegis is the other passive skill this build utilizes. It removes all bonuses provided by modifiers on the equipped shield and applies those modifiers to the player’s minions instead. This includes implicit modifiers such as armor rating, chance to block. In the case of Lycosidae, the ‘Hits Cannot Be Evaded’ passes directly to minions, thus negating any accuracy requirement whatsoever. In Path of Building this was shown to be an absolutely astronomical increase to DPS, far more than any other shield available, including Victario’s Charity.

Grip of the Council
These gloves are best in slot for damage, due to the fact that they are in essence, a mini-hatred buff. By equipping these, your minions deal an additional 20% damage as cold. Unlike some uniques, they also offer a balance of other stats, including modest life, cold resist, and some strength. While these can be very expensive at the start of a league, they quickly fall in price and are easily obtainable within a few weeks for more frugal players.

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Blood of the Karui
This potion is extremely powerful when combined with Belly, Ryslatha’s Pantheon, and passive tree nodes. It has the ability, when at low life, to heal you 8410hp over 1.67 seconds. This provides a tremendous amount of survivability, plus the instant heal to full life at the completion of flask effect is quite nice.

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The Covenant
This chestpiece completely solves the mana issue that plagues SRS, once and for all by having ‘Socketed Gems are Supported by Blood Magic.’ So, instead of using mana to cast SRS, you use life, and with what life regen is build into the passive tree (and maybe Stone Golem if needed), this is easily sustainable.

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Victario’s Charity
This Shield allows your SRS to maintain Frenzy and Power charges on themselves, which is quite the DPS upgrade. This way, you will not have to worry about keeping the Charge Monkey Spectres alive and can just focus on killing things!

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Careful Planning
Easily solve the Dexterity requirement most Summoners face with one simple jewel. Careful planning, when socketed in the jewel socket west of the witch starting area, provides a total of 114 Dexterity if it is a +24 Roll.

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Chestpiece:
Summon Raging Spirits, Minion Damage, Melee Physical Damage, Empower, Elemental Focus, Elemental Damage with Attacks

Helm:
Cast when Damage Taken, Steelskin, Increased Duration, Precision (Lvl 1)

Gloves:
Orb of Storms, Curse on Hit, Elemental Weakness, Flame Dash

-OR-

Orb of Storms, Culling Strike, Flame Dash, Portal (If you have Curse on Hit Gloves)

Boots:
Shield Charge, Fortify, Faster Attacks, Carrion Golem

Main Hand:
Desecrate, Flesh Offering, Storm Brand

Shield:
Generosity and Hatred, Unlinked Vaal Haste/Haste.

No need for a mana flask! Use whichever other Utility flask you prefer, such as a Basalt, Stibnite or Granite!

Your priorities for stats on Abyss Jewels should be:

• 1. + Life (40 or Greater)
• 2. Minions deal x to x Physical Damage (converts better than Fire)
• 3. Minions Deal x% Damage when using a Minion Skill
• 4. Resists or Attack/Cast Speed

This character didn't end up as heavily geared as my last few, as I was working on other characters this past league. However, she will be the blueprint moving forward.

If I had had more time and money, I'd have gotten her a +1 Covenant and 21/20 Gems, and better Abyss Jewels.

Aspect of the Spider
For now, Aspect of the Spider has been chosen over Aspect of the Avian. It is more reliable and has a defensive aspect that cannot be overlooked. Due to the Changes in the Tree to support the change to the Covenant Chestpiece, you will have to both Craft a Mana reduction helmet as well as craft/purchase a Shaper Amulet with 5% Reduced Mana Reserved to make up for the fact that we no longer go all the way over to Charisma on the Tree.

Delving
I’ve been tinkering with a Delve-specialized Tree and have included it for consideration. It is not yet field tested. You can find that here: https://pastebin.com/wDQn0CP7
It changes over to Zombies & Spectres and gives up back some block.

Boasting 8k Life, 13k Armor, Bone & Flesh Offering with Stun Immunity and Endurance Charges, I have for your consideration a THICC version of the build that stays true to the original build's core ideals. The damage on the high-end of this loadout is also not inconsiderable. Its around 7.5M sDPS.

Empower vs. Ruthless

The Ruthless plus Empower debate was a common one on Huy’s guide and I wanted to just take a few moments to write a bit about it. Yes, when you plug it all Path of Building it is more damage. If what you want to focus on is the most amount of damage, then by all means use Ruthless.

Since we’re pure SRS, some thought should be given to their survivability. If you go Ruthless and drop Herald of the Flock and Puppet Master in lieu of more gem sockets, you will end up with SRS that die very quickly. Even with both passives, Ruthless without a +1 can mean your SRS can be wiped out instantly by any powerful AoE.

Here’s an example from a T14 Plateau after changing out to Ruthless EVEN WITH a +1 Belly. Watch how fast the AoE drops the skulls:
Shaped Plateau

So, it shouldn’t be much of a stretch to see that losing the extra health from the SRS losing total level could complicate things. Without Empower there’s no way to really move to the ‘final’ tree with the 8 jewel slots for maximum damage. Things like Shaper and U-Elder wouldn’t be possible due to how fast the SRS would be taken out by AoE damage.

Either way, you can choose for yourself what works best, but that’s my official 2 cents. To me, I’ll take the hit in damage for better minion survivability.

Survivability

With the ability to exceed 7.5k eHP fully geared, this build has the potential to take some hits. While being somewhat ‘tanky’ you should never put yourself directly in harm’s way. This build is meant to live through spike damage and rapidly replenish lost life through our life flasks.

There are a few things to remember when playing to maximize your survivability:

• Life. When purchasing rares, remember +Life is very important, as the higher the base +Life, the more you get out of all your various multipliers, from your passive tree, to jewels, to Belly.
• Resists. Cap your resists, and get chaos at least to 0%
• Fortify.Ensure 100% uptime on Fortify. All you have to do is hit. Aim for outliers to the pack. Charge quickly to the boss, then through them to their backside. Shield charge + Faster Attacks + Flesh Offering gives you plenty of mobility. With finesse you can maintain your fortify and minimize the danger you put yourself in to do so.
• Flask. If you’re pushing into higher content and are having a difficult time, work in a Basalt Flask and use it accordingly. Keep a Basalt of each element type (Heat, Dousing, Grounding) to use depending on boss damage or map mods. Even Dabble with a Rumi’s if you’d like. Find what works for you.
• Jewels. Yes, perfect jewels will cost anywhere from 2-6 ex. However, don’t be afraid to, early on, if your damage is good but you’re dying, to invest in some resist and life% jewels without the minion damage. You can potentially get two resists and max life %. These are usually substantially cheaper and can be a good placeholder until you can save up for or craft a gem you’re looking for. Likewise a high health, resist, and %minion damage Abyss Jewels will be substantially cheaper than the Life, x to x phys, %minion damage jewels.

Edit:
After being featured so kindly by LNB, there are a lot of new people playing the build that may have never tried it otherwise. Similarly, there are a lot of people playing Summoners who haven't before. I feel like I need to clarify a few things here to keep repetitive posts from happening:

• 1.) This is a summoner build. There is no leech, or life gained on hit, no endurance charges, and only a modest amount of life regen in order to help negate the life cost of SRS. Your only defensive layers are a moderate eHP and your ability to move fairly quickly between a extremely quick shield charge and flame dash together. You cannot plant your feet for long periods of time or face tank anything. You have to stay on the move.
• 2.) This is a pure SRS build. Other minion builds will include meatshields such as zombies, have a tree capable of equipping Baron, have defensive spectres, or have the benefit of having specialized minion jewels and and can scale back tree-investment and focus on block (golemancers). SRS are non-leashed minions that don't taunt, cannot aggro, or body block. They can blind only with the addition of a Ghastly Eye with Blind on it.
• 2.) If you are actively trying to gain levels especially in the 90+ range, understand that this may take certain sacrifices like rolling maps more carefully in order to avoid bad situations before you find yourself in them. You may also have to specifically avoid certain legions on the battlefield the same way if you see them spawn and know they are particularly deadly by trying to keep your distance from that side of the battle field. Similarly, knowing what mechanics that are one-shotting you (like Vaal guys ground burst) adapting a more defensive playstyle like moving every moment you possibly can to keep them from casting directly under you may be necessary.

I will create updated bosskill videos soon. Until then, here is a collection of kills from a while ago.

https://www.twitch.tv/collections/SMjjL484FxV9Eg

Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/brittleknee
Twitter - https://twitter.com/brittlekneetv
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/brittlekneetv
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/brittlekneetv/
Discord - https://discord.gg/36mXkFq

People who have made this dream possible are:

• iHuy - For answering all my questions when I was a newer player, for talking through some ideas and theorycrafting when I was more experienced, and for wishing me good luck on this journey of mine to strike out on my own.
• Touchnova - For all of the hours of helping me with my design work. From my logo to my forum banners, his work has been professional and super clean. I cannot recommend him enough for any and all graphic design needs.

I’d also like to thank all of my followers as well as subscribers, in addition to those of you in-game on the forums who have helped me work on this build and recommend things to try and content to write. You’re all legends!

13 March 2020 - Updated for 3.10 and am adding a Tougher Version of the Build.
5 Sept 2019 - Update for 3.8 Blight, which featured a heavy minion rework.
7 Jun 2019 - Massive Build Overhaul, Dropping Support for Belly and Shavronne Variants
10 Jun 2018 - Build Guide is Live.
29 Aug 2018 - Preliminary Delve Update Done. PoB Updated.