TABLE OF CONTENTS
Bone Necro Build Introduction
The Bonemancer is a popular build, and is amongst the most favored ones for PvP. The primary attacking skills are Bone Spear and Bone Spirit. It is simple to play, but in order to shine expensive gear is required, so i wouldn’t suggest it as a ladder starter. The build is not a good fit for hardcore either, as necromancers tend to be quite fragile, but is fun to play with if you like casters, and can kill monsters from a far distance.
Bone Spear and Bone Spirit both deal magic damage, so immunes can only be killed via your Merc or by your Iron Golem. Bonemancers require an enigma to move fast, and it also comes handy by teleporting on magic immune monsters. They are a good fit for single boss farming, but are not efficient against big Mobs. The game can be soloed in high-end gear, except for Uber Tristram and Uber Diablo. You should use an Act2 Nightmare Defensive Mercenary in order to gain it’s Holy Freeze Aura, and equip him with an Insight in order to overcome any mana issues.
Pros and Cons
|
Pros
|
Cons
|
Suggestions
Playing solo: The primary attacking skills can take out most monsters and the Bosses. Have a Merc and an Iron Golem with as high damage as possible to deal with magic immunes.
Playing in a party: In case you want to please party members, cast an Iron Golem from Insight to have meditation aura. Use a nightmare act2 merc to have Holy Freeze aura, and you can also utilize an Infinity weapon on it to help out your party.
Survivability, Hardcore: The Bonemancer is fairly fragile, so i don’t suggest it for hardcore. Make sure to always have Bone Armor on, and have your belt stacked with Full Rejuvs. Have 75 all resists, and try to avoid physical attacks. Wearing a Stormshield and Crown of Ages or a Verdungo Belt are good options to improve your physical damage reduction. Get a Call to Arms as secondary weapon as soon as possible to boost your life. Use a Raven Frost ring if you want to avoid being frozen. Make sure to walk instead of running, and use teleport for movement if you can afford an Enigma.
Damage output: Damage output is average, however you can attack enemies from a very far distance with Bone Spirit. Bone Spear can potentially one-hit monsters if the skill level is high enough.
Where to farm: The build is mainly fit to perform Boss runs.
Magic Find: If you want to farm Bosses, a Bone necro is a great option, as you won’t have to make big compromises on gear to achieve high Magic Find %. Make sure to have 7% Magic Find SCs and a Gheed’s Fortune in your inventory.
Budget: The build is not budget friendly as it requires an Enigma and other high-end gear to really shine.
Mana/Life: Meditation Aura from your merc’s Insight should solve your mana issues, otherwise use potions to recover life and mana. You can also cast an Iron Golem from Insight.
Movement/Mobility: The character moves very fast with Teleport in case you have high faster cast rate items, which will help with spell casting aswell. It doesn’t have fast run speed, however it won’t be necessary, since most of the navigation is done via Teleport.
Ubers: Unfortunately the build is not designed to deal with Ubers.
Skill panel: You can spam any skills by holding down the shift button and clicking simultaneously. For the left skill panel, i suggest using Bone Spirit (F1) and Bone Spear (F2). For the right skill panel, use Teleport (F3), Bone Armor (F4), Battle Orders (F5), Battle Command (F6), Amplify Damage (F7) and Town Portal (F8).
Mercenary: Use Nightmare Act 2 Defensive Merc for it’s Holy Freeze Aura. Equip him with an Insight Runeword.
Leveling
During leveling, our aim is to maximize damage output for quick progression, have decent survivability so you won’t die frequently, and have decent movement speed.
Skills: Put a skill point on Bone Armor and have it casted at all times to help your survivability. Use Teeth, Corpse Explosion and Bone Spear for attacking as you progress. Put a skill point on Clay Golem, Golem Mastery, Blood Golem and then Iron Golem. Put a point on Amplify Damage in order to kill magic immune monsters faster via your Merc and your Iron Golem.
Stats: Have enough strength and dexterity to be able to wear useful gear. Put all the remaining stat points on Vitality.
Useful Gear: Lore Helm (Ort-Sol), Bone Armor (Sol-Um-Um), Stealth Armor (Tal-Eth), Smoke Armor (Nef+Lum), Spirit Sword, Spirit Shield, Ancient’s Pledge Shield (Ral-Ort-Tal), Rhyme Shield (Shael-Eth), Trang Oul’s Set items, Peasant Crown helm, Moser’s Blessed Circle shield, Nightsmoke Belt, Boots with % Movement Speed.
Important breakpoints
How it works: Each second in the game consists of 24 frames or “ticks”. Your breakpoints decide how many frames it will take until you can attack/cast a skill/recover from a hit/ block a new hit.
| Faster Cast Rate | Faster Cast Rate in Vampire Form | Faster Hit Recovery | Faster Block Rate |
| 0% – 15 Frames | 0% – 23 Frames | 0% – 13 Frames | 0% – 11 Frames |
| 9% – 14 Frames | 6% – 22 Frames | 5% – 12 Frames | 6% – 10 Frames |
| 18% – 13 Frames | 11% – 21 Frames | 10% – 11 Frames | 13% – 9 Frames |
| 30% – 12 Frames | 18% – 20 Frames | 16% – 10 Frames | 20% – 8 Frames |
| 48% – 11 Frames | 24% – 19 Frames | 26% – 9 Frames | 32% – 7 Frames |
| 75% – 10 Frames | 35% – 18 Frames | 39% – 8 Frames | 52% – 6 Frames |
| 125% – 9 Frames | 48% – 17 Frames | 56% – 7 Frames | 86% – 5 Frames |
| 65% – 16 Frames | 86% – 6 Frames | 174% – 4 Frames | |
| 86% – 15 Frames | 152% – 5 Frames | 600% – 3 Frames | |
| 120% – 14 Frames | 377% – 4 Frames | ||
| 180% – 13 Frames |
Faster cast rate effects the re-casting speed of both teleport and your attacking spells, so reaching higher breakpoints will help your mob clearspeed. Aim for at least 75% FCR.
56% FHR can be reached by wearing a Spirit shield and and FHR boots or charms with FHR.
Build versatility and modifications
Due to the many synergies of Bone Spear and Bone Spirit, there aren’t many skill points left in order to make build modifications. You can put points on curses if you want to help out your party. Life Tap can be beneficial for survivability, Lower Resists will help the casters of your party and Decrepify helps both survivability and melee damage output.
Survivability and Hardcore tips
Survivability can be boosted by a variety of items to help you survive difficult situations.
Useful skills: Bone Armor is your primary defensive skill. You should have it up at all times.
Useful items: Call to arms is the obvious secondary weapon of choice due to it’s Battle Orders and Battle Command skills, which can increase your life tremendously. Stormshield for shield can be used for increased block rate and physical damage reduction, alongside a Verdungo belt. Harlequin Crest Shako can be utilized as well. If you want to make yourself almost immune to elemental damage, use Guardian Angel armor to increase your maximum resistances, and for elemental damage absorption, The rising sun amulet (fire absorption), Dwarf star ring (Fire absorption), Hellmouth gloves (fire absorption), Wisp projector ring (lightning absorption), Thungergod’s Vigor belt (lightning absorption) or Raven Frost ring (cold absorption) can be used.
Defensive requirements:
To have high survivability, i suggest the following:
- Have 75 allresist on Hell. Items that can help are Annihilus, Hellfire Torch,Shako with Um rune, Stormshield with Um rune, Mara’s Kaleidoscope, 5 Allres Small Charms, 15 Allres Grand Charms
- Dexterity is useful for having higher Chance to Block
- If your Character is Hardcore, having 50% Physical damage reduction is a must, and wear elemental damage absorption items. Wearing Guardian Angel Armor for 90% allresist is suggested, and upgrade as many unique items as possible for higher defense. Reaching the 56% FHR breakpoint is also suggested. Have your belt stacked with Full Rejuvenation potions.
Skills
|
Necessary / Useful skill tree points |
Poison and Bone Skills
|
Curses
Summoning Skills
|
|
Attacking Skills |
Bone Spear (20 point) Bone Spear should be used as your primary attacking skill, as it has higher damage then Bone Spirit. | Bone Spirit (20 point) Bone Spirit is your primary PvP attacking skill as it has a very far range and follows your enemies. |
|
Synergy Skills |
Teeth (20 point)
Bone wall (20 point)
|
Bone prison (20 point)
Bone prison should be used for trapping enemies in PvP against characters that are unable to teleport or against monsters to immobilise them. |
|
Other Active Skills |
Teleport
This is our main skill for movement |
Bone Armor
Bone Armor should always be casted for better survivability. |
|
Call to Arms Skills |
Battle command (CTA) – Always use it if you have a CTA. Make sure to cast it twice. | Battle orders (CTA) – Always use it if you have a CTA. It provides immense Life and Mana boosts. |
Stats
Strength ► Just enough to be able to wear your items. With Hellfire Torch, Annihilus, Enigma and stats on other items you might not even have to put stat points on it.
Dexterity ► Just enough to wear your gear. Consider putting extra points on it if you aim for better survivability and Block Chance.
Vitality ► Spend all your remaining points on it.
Energy ► Don’t spend any points on it.
You can re-stat your character by the quest reward of Akara’s Act1 Den of Evil Quest, or by using Token of Absolution
Item setups
Ladder starter setup
◆ Cost-effective build to start out at a new ladder season ◆
Helm: Magic Circle with +2 to necro skills / Peasant Crown
Amu: Any amulet with + necro or all skill
Weapon: White wand / Suicide Branch / Wizardspike / Spectral Shard
Switch Weapon: none
Shield: Spirit
Switch Shield: none
Body Armor: Bone
Belt: Trang Oul’s belt / Nightsmoke
Rings: Any ring with useful stats like fcr, resist, allresist, life
Gloves: Trang Oul’s gloves
Boots: 30% FRW boots with additional resists
Charms: Any charm with +summon skill, +poison and bone skill, life, mana, resist or FHR
Mercenary Type: Nightmare Difficulty Act 2 Defensive (Holy Freeze Aura)
Helm: Tal Rasha’s helm, or any helm with 3 Perfect Amethyst
Body Armor: Treachery (Eth bugged armor base preferred)
Weapon: Insight in an elite two-handed ethereal Polearm
Advanced setup
◆ Decent dps, fast movement speed, good for PvP ◆
Helm: Harlequin Crest Shako (Socket it with Um rune)
Amu: Mara’s Kaleidoscope
Weapon: Heart of the Oak Flail
Switch Weapon: Call to Arms
Shield: Spirit
Switch Shield: Spirit
Body Armor: Enigma
Belt: Arachnid Mesh
Rings: 2* Rare rings (10% faster cast rate, possibly with life and resists) / Raven Frost / Stone of Jordan / Bul Katho’s Wedding Band
Gloves: Trang Oul’s Claws
Boots: Waterwalk
Charms: Annihilus, Hellfire torch, Magic Grand Charms (+1 to Poison and Bone skills), Magic Small Charms (with +all resistances, or +life)
Mercenary Type: Nightmare Difficulty Act 2 Defensive (Holy Freeze Aura)
Helm: Guillaume’s Face (Ethereal base is preferred, socketed with 15% IAS jewel)
Body Armor: Treachery (Eth bugged armor base preferred)
Weapon: Ethereal The Reaper’s Toll (socket it with Shael+Amn) / Insight in an elite eth polearm
Top tier setup
◆ Decent dps, clear and movement speed, one of the best overall builds ◆
Helm: Harlequin Crest Shako (Socket it with Um rune)
Amu: Crafted Amulet with +2 to necro skills, 20 FCR
Weapon: Heart of the Oak Flail
Switch Weapon: Call to Arms with +6 to battle orders
Shield: Spirit with 35% FCR
Switch Shield: Spirit
Body Armor: Enigma
Belt: Arachnid Mesh
Rings: 2*Stone of Jordan
Gloves: Magefist
Boots: Waterwalk
Charms: Annihilus, Hellfire torch, Magic Grand Charms (+1 to Poison and Bone skills and +life), Magic Small Charms (with +all resistances, or +life)
Mercenary Type: Nightmare Difficulty Act 2 Defensive (Holy Freeze Aura)
Helm: Andariel’s Visage (Ethereal base is preferred, socketed with 15% IAS + Enhanced Damage jewel)
Body Armor: Fortitude (Eth bugged armor base preferred)
Weapon: Ethereal The Reaper’s Toll (socket it with Shael+Amn) / Insight in an elite eth polearm
Magic find setup
◆ Awesome Boss MFing build ◆
Helm: Harlequin Crest Shako (Socket it with Ist rune)
Amu: Magic amulet with 40-50% Magic Find
Weapon: Heart of the Oak Flail
Switch Weapon: 6*Ist socketed Crystal Sword
Shield: Spirit
Switch Shield: 4*Ist socketed Monarch
Body Armor: Enigma
Belt: Upgraded Goldwrap
Rings: 2*Nagelring / Magic rings with 30%+ MF
Gloves: Upgraded Chance Guard’s
Boots: Upgraded War Traveler
Charms: Annihilus, Hellfire torch, Gheed’s Fortune, Small Charms with 7% Magic find (and also @all resistances if possible)
Mercenary Type: Nightmare Difficulty Act 2 Defensive (Holy Freeze Aura)
Helm: Andariel’s Visage (Ethereal base is preferred, socketed with 15% IAS + Enhanced Damage jewel)
Body Armor: Fortitude (Eth bugged armor base preferred)
Weapon: Ethereal The Reaper’s Toll (socket it with Shael+Amn) / Insight in an elite eth polearm
