S-TIER | BUILD NECROMANCER VORTEX SKELETON MAGES (@BigDaddyDen76) | SEASON 12

LEVELING | ENDGAME | PIT PUSH NECROMANCER

Build Overview

The Necromancer Vortex Skeleton Mages build harnesses the power of God Slayer's Crown, the mythic helmet that pulls all nearby enemies toward you when you apply crowd control. Combined with an army of shadow arc skeleton mages and ice wolves automatically summoned by runes, this build turns your character into a true passive destruction machine.

The concept is simple: your Raise Skeleton continuously fire shadow bolts, your ice walls and curses trigger the God Slayer's Crown vacuum, and everything gets pulled into you to be destroyed. It's one of the most relaxing builds in the game — you literally just move around while your minions do all the work.

This build is especially well-suited for players looking for a stress-free gameplay experience, including those with hand mobility issues or who simply want to farm in chill mode. It remains strong in T4 and in the Pit thanks to massive shadow damage multipliers.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Recommended Gear

Helmet — God Slayer's Crown: This is the cornerstone of the build. When you apply crowd control (ice walls, curses), all nearby enemies are pulled toward you and take up to 40% increased damage. Try to get a GA on Elite damage and Masterwork this stat to the max to melt Bosses.

Chest: If you have the Shredder mythic, use it for shadow and death synergies. Otherwise, a chest with Aspect of Hardened Bones works perfectly and improves your skeleton survival.

Pants: Automatically summons an army of ice walls. Combined with God Slayer's Crown, each wall triggers the monster vacuum, creating a permanent vortex around you.

Gloves: Key piece that transforms your skeleton mages into arc mages with a burst effect and up to 100% bonus damage. Every 6 attacks, they trigger a devastating AoE explosion.

Boots — Aspect of Occult Dominion: The +2 extra minions directly increase your DPS and barrier generation frequency.

Bracers — Blood Moon Breeches: Up to 50x damage to cursed targets. Since your minions passively apply Decrepify through the 7% chance on shadow bolts passing through targets, this multiplier is always active. Look for a GA on the damage modifier and Masterwork it.

Weapon — Aspect of the Damned: Up to 55% bonus shadow damage against cursed enemies. A sword provides CHD, but a dagger could be superior thanks to nearby enemy damage (since everything gets pulled to melee range) and higher attack speed to accelerate your mages.

Shield: Always use a shield for the weapon damage buff. Temper skeleton mage double attack chances on both the shield AND the weapon — try to land a Tempering crit to maximize the percentage.

Jewelry: Sacrilegious Ring automates Corpse Explosion, Corpse Tendrils and Raise Skeleton. Look for a GA on Lucky Hit chance. The second ring (Great Feast Ring) boosts minion DPS. The amulet should be Tempered with skeleton mage damage and commanding minions.

Necromancer Vortex Skeleton Mages — Build Variants

Quackx Ring Variant (increased DPS): If you're pushing deep Pits and need more damage, replace your second ring with a Quackx Ring that increases your damage by 100% when you consume resources. In that case, add resource generation chance to your Lucky Hit chance to fuel the mechanic.

Dagger Variant: Replace the sword with a dagger to benefit from the 50% nearby enemy damage (since God Slayer's Crown pulls everything to melee range) and a faster attack speed that accelerates your mages' casts.

No Mythic: If you don't have the Shredder mythic, simply use Aspect of Hardened Bones on the chest. The build remains very strong in T4 without any mythic thanks to massive crowd control and shadow multipliers.

Gameplay Tips

Rotation: There's no real rotation to speak of. Simply move through the monsters. Sacrilegious Ring automatically activates Corpse Explosion, Corpse Tendrils and Raise Skeleton. The ice walls trigger on their own, vacuum enemies via God Slayer's Crown, and your mages destroy everything.

Attack Speed: Make sure you have at least 100% total attack speed to fully activate the Cult Leader Paragon node. Note: the attack speed from Kalan's Edict doesn't show on your stat sheet — add it manually (40%) to verify you're hitting the threshold.

Blood Mist: Use it as a survival button when in danger. It also generates corpses, allowing you to manually cast Corpse Tendrils to group monsters during difficult Pit runs.

Bone Prison: Cast it then cancel it quickly to trigger the damage buff from Kalan's Edict for a few seconds, increasing your mages' DPS.

Book of the Dead: Sacrifice Reapers for the extra shadow damage (shadow build). For mages, take the extra shadow bolt to maximize Wither procs (20% chance for 400% damage). Sacrifice the Iron Golem for CHD.

Bloodied Seals: Use Bloodied affixes at your discretion. Rampage (2% Intelligence per kill streak) is especially powerful for this farming build.

Arbre des Talents

Mercenaire

Necromancer Vortex Skeleton Mages — Paragon and Glyphs

The Paragon board starts with Essence for base shadow damage, then progresses toward Cult Leader — the key node that requires 100% attack speed to be fully activated. Dead Raiser then boosts summoning damage.

Flesh-eater was buffed to 60x bonus damage for 8 seconds after consuming a corpse, which Sacrilegious Ring does automatically. Wither offers a 20% chance for 400% bonus shadow damage — that's why the extra shadow bolt from Book of the Dead is crucial to maximize procs.

Finish with Amplify for Elite damage and overall damage percentage.