[2.4] HC viable capped Block/Spell Block Scorching Ray Necromancer

Required gear - (you can level and play white to yellow maps with rares in all slots and no unique flasks, you wanna go into hard modded yellow maps or reds, you gotta get these items). Stone of Lazwar is your friend until you get Rathpith.



A "Socketed Gems deal 30% More Elemental Damage" helm or a "Socketed Gems deal 30% more Damage over Time" gloves are what you will be using until acquiring a six linked chest and level 4 Empower. A level 3 Empower with Iron Will or Faster Casting as the extra link will do more damage than this helm setup, but the mana cost goes up as well.

Your links are Scorching Ray + Controlled Destruction + Elemental Focus + Rapid Decay

poeurl.com/RDJ - Endgame tree, some notes, the 3 point jewels will only be invested in when you can acquire 3-4 mod jewels that fit your build, until then spec into w/e else you see fit. Same for the Minion Damage nodes, they do nothing until you get Scourge claw. Bandits are Oak, kill all, kill all.

Jewels you're looking for have these mods :

* Life

* Minion Damage (only after acquiring Scourge)

* Fire Damage

* Damage over Time

* Spell Damage

* Spell Damage while holding a Shield

* Increased Damage

Cast speed or resistances are not bad either.

So why Necro ?

With the help of our cool looking claw Scourge and a level 1-20 Clarity, Necro gives us :

* 30% duration

* 85% increased damage with an additional 40% for 4 seconds every time Bone Offering is used

* 20% all resist

* 5 corpse per cast Desecrate

* 13% to 29% cast speed depending on Spirit Eater proc

* 5% to 21% increased attack speed for our Whirling Blades/Shield Charge

* OFFERINGS AFFECT YOU


Because of how netcode works, we cannot fully automate Desecrate and Bone Offering, when used in the same CWDT combo will proc in the same frame and BO will have no corpses to use. To circumvent this we need two CWDT setups, and an additional self cast BO for Hardcore safety in difficult fights or precasting Bone Offering before a dangerous boss.

Links :

* Whirling Blades/Shield Charge + Fortify + Faster Attacks

* CWDT (leveled as much as possible) + BO + Increased Duration + Golem of your choice

* CWDT (level 1) + Desecrate (don't over level it, we don't care about corpse level) + Immortal Call (we get almost 1s long IC due to all the duration we have, with no endurance charges) + Increased Duration

* Clarity + Enfeeble/Temp Chains + Blasphemy

* Orb of Storms + Increased Critical Strikes (this is what you use against bosses or hard to kill enemies, it procs EE and Elemental Overload, almost doubling your damage), due to all the duration we have it lasts a very long time.

* Bone Offering + Increased Duration

You have 2 more gem slots left assuming you have a 6 socket chest and didn't bother to get socket rings, i suggest you get some Vaal skill, Vall Lightning Trap or Vaal Haste + Increased Duration, w/e you feel like.

When you switch to a 6 link and move your main skils there those 2 extra gem slots go away, so you will have to do some modifications.

Playstyle is you run in, hit mobs either with Whirling Blades/Shield Charge or Orb of Storms to proc Scourge's bonus (not really required vs trash), BO will proc when needed, keep your Rumi's up every pack, with both Rumi and BO up you are capped on both block and spell block and get 600 life on each block, basically trivializing 99% of content. For harder to kill mobs drop Orb of Storms and use your Witchfire Brew flask.

Rest of your gear is rares, get Opal rings if you can afford them, prioritize life and also strength on gear, especially if you wanna use Iron Will, you're gonna need some Dex for some of your gems as well. Bone helm will give you free 40% damage once you get Scourge, so that's a bit easier to get than a uber enchant.

Alternatively you can keep your 4 link Essence crafted setup and instead of aiming for a empowered 6 link use a Kaom's Heart, how ever you will have to do some gem squeezing to fit that in, but with a Kaom's, level 90 and proper life jewels you're looking at close to 7k hp on a capped block character. In this case though you really need a level 21 gem if you wanna do top content like Guardians (although i did all 4 guardians with level 19 gem) or Shaper.

Although i died pre 90 in HC i did test all tier 14-15-16 on SC, some of them with crazy ass mods and build did very well. Guardians are pretty easy, only one that's not comfortable on the build is Hydra, she does the only 2 things build is bad against, degen and 1 shots (but fight is also decently easy for someone experienced with it, which i am not). Same for Shaper, damage is good, not amazing, but good, as long as you master the fight mechanically build is viable even in HC.

Thanks for putting in the effort of making the post. Its always nice to see different perspectives and ideas for builds.

And here I thought I came up with a unique build for Scorching Ray. Was googling info on automating bone offering and found this. Even named my character ScourgingRay. My tree is a little different than yours, but nothing overly drastic. I not only took potency of will for increased duration, but also took exceptional performance. The burns last long enough that I could probably drop faster casting from my 5 link and and put everything into an essence crafted helm or gloves, as you suggest, and achieve higher DPS, will try tonight after work.

Only a few days into breach and don't have a scourge claw or into high tier content (lvl 83 running T8's due to RNG), I can say the damage and survivablility are good. For the overwhelming/ swarming of breaches, blasphemy + temp chains and orb of storms + knock back gives the breathing room to let them burn down.

Thanks for sharing, saves me the time of writing up a guide later on. :)

Could you please post your current (or last used) gear? I'm interested in your jewellery choices.

"

Vierhon wrote:

Could you please post your current (or last used) gear? I'm interested in your jewellery choices.

This was the jewelry, but only the opal ring was proper gear, rest was leveling stuff that needed to be upgraded, but since rip came never got around to doing it

Would it be worth it to drop Iron Will support for e.g. Increased Burning Damage and run Repentance gloves? I mean, on paper it looks to really sum up as more damage.