[2.4] NEC Kitava's Detonator (work in progress) Build Guide

The idea is to use Kitava's Thirst helmet to auto cast utility skills, notably Desecrate because it bypasses cooldowns. Since we are a Necromancer, Desecrate creates 5 corpses (instead of 3). Other utility skills could include Immortal Call, Molten Shell, and Blade Vortex with Power Charge on Critical Support.

Triggering Kitava's Thirst requires spending at least 100 mana all at once on a skill. Not life (blood magic), not energy shield (Eldritch Battery), not getting hit (Mind over Matter) and not 99 mana.

It's difficult to even link up a 100 mana skill. Dominating Blow is notoriously expensive, but most other skills need lots of help. We can use the Fevered Mind jewel to get 100% increased mana costs.

I've experimented with two routes to do this, an attack and a cast:

Molten Strike + GMP + LMP + LGOH + Multistrike + Concentrated Effect gets over 100 mana with a Fevered Mind jewel as an attack.

Detonate Dead actually increases in mana cost each level, so it gets easier to break 100 mana at later levels. My level 19 DD + Spell Echo + Life Leech can get over 100 mana.

Recuperating all that mana is another problem.

Attacks can use Poacher's Mark curse for mana gained on hit. Also, Viridian jewels can roll mana gained on hit. Warlords Mark gives life and mana leech. A Gemini Claw gives a fantastic +14 mana gained on hit (but otherwise claws suck).

Spells have much less to work with, just mana leech support or warlords Mark.

There's always a mana flask, but it stops working if we ever top off on mana.

The damage scaling I'm using is one The Scourge, which makes all "minions deal increased damage" on the tree and gear to also affect my damage. This gives about 250% increased damage, which scales Detonate Dead among other things.

For spell route, Doryani's Caralyst is amazing.

For attack route, a Gemini Claw with +27% attack speed and some elemental rolls seems best.

For defense, I don't have much except tri-curse Enfeeble + Temporal Chains + Warlord's Mark. I am working on slotting in a high level Cast When Damage Taken + Bone Offering + Immortal Call.


The worst part are bosses. They take forever and only the attack build kinda works because of the huge amount of life gained on hit. Sometimes Vaal Detonate Dead works like a charm but not if there's a other boss afterward or you have no souls or boss is fire resistant.

Might need some kind of alternative plan for bosses.

I am unsure of the tree but I have spent 30 regrets moving things around.

I have spent over 400 chromatic orbs so far, to the point that I now have 4 Kitava's Thirst and two different 6link body armors PLUS an uncooperative Cospri's Will so I can experiment.

Videos soon.

Pros
-Uses new uniques from Essence league 2.4, fresh!
-Damage scales automatically with monster levels
-Utilizes the 3 strongest defensive cursed with high effectiveness
-Automated in many ways, including charge generation
-Hexproof no problem if using Cospri's Will
-Whirling Blades for movement, fortify, and culling strike
+Epic Vaal Detonate Dead explosions that lag the game
-Jewels are cheap to buy because "minion damage" + "fire damage" + "ignite chance" seems like a bricked jewel
-Different kind of Necromancer build (I play lots)

Cons
-Kinda expensive to start (Fevered Mind 40c, Doedre's Damning 10c)
-Can't be a starter build due to high mana cost requirements
-Need everything to come together at same time, can't graduate slowly into build
-Complex mechanics require meticulous links and mana reservation math
-Curse Immune things easily kill you (Bearers, Lab traps, Boss Totems)
-Significant RNG component between the 30% Kitava's Thirst proc, the variable corpses Desecrate creates, and crit/ignite chance
-Corpse-matters Rares like Avian Wretch barfers, undead raisers or exploders can wreck you with your own corpse generation
-Needs leech to work
-Eats tons of chromatics because of Cospri's Will
-You have to "aim" and can't spam skills because "whiffing" a spell that doesn't hit a target wastes 100 mana or consumes a charge and you won't leech. I call this "%#^* out for Harambe" time because you can't do anything else until you regen 100 mana.

coming soon

Bandits
-Normal Oak for +40 life
-Cruel Alira for +5% cast speed (spell build) or Kraityn for +5% attack speed (attack build), or kill all if your spell build 1-shot everything
-Merciless choice. Alira for power charge (if using PCoC + Blade Vortex) or Kraityn for Frenzy charge (Blood Dance boots) or Oak for Endurancr Charge (Warlord's Mark). Alira is more DPS for bosses while Kraityn is DPS for clearing, Oak is survival.

Ideally you will be running around with all charges up. They will fall off during a long boss fight, but you can still generate power charges there.

Spell version

Main spell is Detonate Dead. It requires a corpse which come from fallen monsters or the Desecrate skill. Necromancer's Desecrate creates 5 corpses instead of 3.

Detonate Dead explodes a corpse for 6% of its life in AoE fire damage plus some flat fire damage. So we are a fire damage build. DD has 5% crit chance wherein it ignites enemies with a burn fire dot (damage over time).

Detonate Dead is not a "spell" instead is a "cast". This means that "spell damage" and "critical strike chance with spells" do NOT work.

Things that do work:
+% Fire damage
+% Elemental damage
+% Area damage

Using The Scourge unique claw, we also get
Minions deal +% increased damage

You can get minion damage in extra ways now because of Essence of Fear and Bone Helmet implicit, but I'm using uniques in those places so I get minion damage from the passive tree and from jewels.

I have about 200% increased minion damage (becomes 270% after a hit)

Funky jewels like this are great:
+Minion damage
+Ignite chance
+Fire damage


When linking Detonate Dead, you must get over 100 mana cost. The annoying part is that DD increases in base mana cost each level. I got so annoyed by this I just bought a level 19, 20% quality one for 10c so I don't have to redo my mana multiple times.

DD can work in a 4link which gives some flexibility in gearing/chromatics.

Detonate Dead
+Fire Penetration (140% otherwise fire resistance owns us)
+Life Leech (130% super helpful if you like to be inside packs like me)
+Increased AoE / Concentrated Effect (swap in and out for bosses)
+Controlled Destruction (maybe, I don't have a 5link yet)
+Spell Echo (we create enough corpses that this gem works here)

You can use Mana Leech as a link if you aren't using Warlord's Mark, especially as you get geared up and level up gems. It's got increased leech rate on it too. I did this until I got my Cospri's Will.


Desecrate

The 2nd skill required to deal damage is Desecrate. We get 5 corpses instead of 3 from our ascendancy. You want a leveled up Desecrate so that you get the highest level monster corpses you can, up to level 100 at 19/20. The quality bonus is 1% increased cast speed, which is huge because we cast this all the time and Kitava's Thirst is nerfing our cast speed by a huge 15%.

We use 2 Desecrates: one in Kitava's Thirst and the other somewhere else. The Kitava Desecrate does not need quality because it's never cast. Kitava will bypass the cooldown. I don't believe it consumes a cooldown of your manual cast one. The manual Desecrate needs lots of quality!

Desecrate has 3 charges and a cooldown. You will want to aim so you don't waste charges putting corpses where they are useless.

+Spell Echo
+Trap + Cluster Trap

I don't use any links here because I can't fit it in, but there's options for additional corpse creation.



Vaal Detonate Dead

This is our Vaal skill of choice that makes great use of all the corpses we create. Clears out a Strongbox easy and even beats Beyond Bosses because they spawn only among tons of corpses. It requires 96 souls so it's the most expensive Vaal skill so don't waste it. This won't always kill map bosses - I make sure to lure the boss to a pile of corpses I made, drink my Atziri's Promise flask, and hope the poison stacks help.


Whirling Blades

This is our movement and positioning skill. We can forgo a Quicksilver Flask if you feel this moves you fast enough (I do). We are wearing The Scourge which allows us to use this skill. Put Whirling Blades into the Claw itself so the support gems also help the Spectral Wolves it summons.


Whirling Blades
+Fortify (strongest damage mitigation in the game, buff lasts 5s)
+Culling Strike (for boss meta killing anything -10% life. Also Culling Wolves! The quality bonus gives attack and cast speed which is sort of like a Faster Attacks support)

You can use Faster Attacks if you like but I prefer Culling Strike with Atlas's boss-centric goals,


Abyssal Cry / Rallying Cry / Enduring Cry

I honestly haven't used this in any other build. It stacks extra slow so we have a theme there. Cospri's Will makes this automatically poison. It can cost 100 mana by itself with Fevered Mind. I will try Rallying Cry as well which is probably more what we want with its damage and mana regen (damage helps the wolves too!)


Cast When Damage Taken (high level) + Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Bone Offering

This is another defensive layer. We don't want this to trigger all the time because it eats our Endurance charges and corpses. I will try dropping this setup to use Flesh Offering manually for clear speed, and maybe a 4link Spectre works like Avian Wretches. We already have the minion damage allocated...

Helm


Kitava's Thirst

This helmet has a 30% chance to cast its gems when you spend 100 mana. (GGG is trying really hard to incentivize "mana" builds, previously Zerphy's Last Breath). It bypasses mana costs and cooldowns of the gems.

It's like adding 4 more links to your main skill, but only 30% of the time.

We make sure that our main skill costs 100 mana or this helmet is a waste. Furthermore, some utility skills like Abyssal Cry can also cost 100+ mana and trigger Kitava's Thirst.


Cospri's Will

I have never used this chest but it's very impressive. Without it, we must use a Doedre's Damning ring to get our 3rd curse (doable).

Hexproof not longer is a problem.

Automatic poisoning is unfortunately not capitalized on much. It's usually a godly mod. Abyssal Cry automatically poisons now. We can use Atziri's Promise to give our elemental damage some chaos component which will poison.

The main downside is the low drop chance and it eats hundreds of chromes trying to get red and blue sockets.



The Sourge

A new Necromancer-centric unique that lets "Minions deal % increased damage" apply to you. This is a general damage buff that applies to attacks, spells, and even Detonate Dead. Most of our minion damage comes from the tree, ascendancy nodes, and jewels. The Scourge has the biggest minion damage buff in the game with +70% upon hit (spell or attack or DD works).

Since it's a claw we can Whirling Blades with it. Spectral Wolves on kill is pretty weak. If we socket in Culling Strike, the quality bonus gives attack and cast speed and also makes Spectral Wolves have Culling Strike. I use Whirling Blades + Culling Strike + Fortify.

We could add some minions to the build but I haven't tried yet.