[3.8] Undead Army - 4Spectres & 11Zombies & 2Golems & 12+(52+)Skeletons | Budget | All Content

Easy to level up
High damage
Easy boss kill (seconds for shaper/uber lab)
New players friendly
BUDGET!
CUSTOMIZE!

May run out of sockets and need two ring sockets
Not as fast clear as attack/spell builds in general
Hard to do physical reflect maps and no regen maps (but you can!)

You could start with those gems and you should be able to get all in act 1:
Raise Zombie
Phantasm Support
Summon Raging Spirit (SRS)
Minion Damage Support
Melee Splash Support
Summon Skeletons
Flesh Offering

Link them as you think is proper and get those in act two to improve your minions a bit further:
Faster Casting
Minion Speed Support
Melee Physical Damage Support
Deathmark Support

You will be able to clear maps and go ascendancy quite fast with those above.
Don't worry if you cannot fit everything inside, normally a 3-links for SRS or skeleton will be enough, put all other gems in sockets and level up with it, and they can be a bonus, for example having zombies in a single socket and you will have few zombie companions with you all the time :)

Get Raise Spectre and Summon Carrion Golem as soon as you can so you can start leveling up the gems, but you don't need to use it until later.

After you reach Cathedral Rooftop in act 5, you could start raising Kitava's Herald as your spectre.

From this point, your minion damage would not be a problem and you could swap out SRS if you feel lazy about standing summoning it all the time. However, you should start to worry about your elemental resistance and prepare for act 6-10, get a goldrim if you can and it will protect you from quick deaths from elemental.

Start collecting Essence from now, especially look for Greed, we will be using it to craft our body armor at some point.

Get essence worm and put Haste or Vaal Haste inside, which will make everything smoother.

Stats on gears does not matter too much before finishing act 10, it's nice to have some life/mana/resistance but not required. Find gears with more sockets and links, your minions will kill enemies before they can even touch you!

lvl 34:
POE Planner: www.poeurl.com/cACN

lvl 58:
POE Planner: www.poeurl.com/cACQ

lvl 75:
POE Planner: www.poeurl.com/cACR

lvl 94:
Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/pwLx3LZM
POE Planner: www.poeurl.com/cACL

Main Skill 1 (Weapon):
Vaal Summon Skeleton - Minion Damage Support - Feeding Frenzy Support - Melee Physical Support - Multistrike Support

5-link is totally fine and I'm still using it as 5-link till now (still dont have the luck to fully link it!). You could link Main Support, Melee Splash Support, Empower Support as the 6th link as you like, and they all use red socket!

Main Skill 2 (Body Armor):
Raise Spectre - Summon Carrion Golem - Deathmark Support - Minion Damage Support - Melee Physical Damage Support - Multistrike Support

6-link is required for body armor, it is easy to craft our own using the Essence of Greed that we collected before! Just buy a 6-link body armor with strength, and use the essence on it. It will be a bonus if it has two or more good roll on resistance, but remember you can always scouring it and essence again!

In fact, I am still using the body armor I created when I was around lvl 80, and it gives me enough stats for end games already.

Other Skill (Helmet):
Raise Zombie - Meat Shield Support

You could choose to add either Minion Damage Support or Minion Life Support to it, after all zombies are here to protect you!

With the 4th socket, I am using vulnerability so in some situations when I get bored, I could actually curse my enemies and give a hand to my minions!


CWDT:
Cast When Damage Taken Support - Steelskin - Enfeeble - Convocation

You could swap Steelskin with Molten Shell if you have nice amount to armor, I am too lazy to stack up my armor so I'll just go with Steelskin!


Movement and others:
Leap Slam - Fortify Support
Flesh Offering
Desecrate
Haste / Vaal Haste
Clarity / Vaal Clarity

You can add a Faster Attack Support to Leap Slam, but the attack speed is sufficient to me with the effect of both Flesh Offering and Haste

Put those two auras in your ring sockets, especially Haste has to go in Essence Worm, otherwise you will reserve too much mana for MoM (Mind over Matter)

Weapon: Femurs of the Saint
This is one of two uniques for this build, but for sure you could use convoking wands introduced in 3.8 instead if you do not need all the minions fighting along with you!
But! If you take a close look at this weapon:
1. It gives you +2 level to minion gems, along with decent 80% minion damage increase.
2. With EACH skeleton we gain 1% blocking chance, so with Vaal Skeleton, you will have more than 50 skeletons at that time, and your attack blocking chance will reach as high as 70% (including staff basic 18% blocking chance)! That will be huge defense boost up
3. With EACH zombie, we gain 0.6% life regen, so that's 6% life regen increase with 10 zombies, another assurance of life since necromancer usually lack of life gain.
4. With EACH spectre, we gain 30% mana regen, that will immediately boost your mana regen (120% mana regen increase for 4 spectres we have!) and works very well with clarity. And with nice mana regen, another safety for having MoM and you will never worry about consuming mana!

I bought a 80% increase minion damage one with 1 chaos, and use less than 200 jeweller's to make it 6 sockets, then around 40 fusing for 5-link. I would say that's a very cheap price for this piece in the end game considering you can finish all the content with it. Plus you could always get a 6-link when you get really rich!


Body Armor:
Buy a 6-link armor (~50chaos for mine) WITH STRENGTH, and craft with Essence of Greed, you will get a nice armor very quick with less than three essences. (Plus those essences are cheap!) Look for mana and resistance, probably armor if you insist!


Helmet:
It may be hard to get a very decent helmet, but there are many nice cheap ones out there in the market. Ideally you would have enchanted helmet (expensive) for your minions, but bone helmet (rather cheap) is also good enough.

Basic stats you are looking for are life/mana/resistance, but there are something special for minions: +# minion gem level and +1 maximum number of skeleton/zombie (craft).

I get my helmet with 90 chaos, but I'm certain that if you can cover resistance somewhere else (belt, boots, gloves, amulet), you will be able to get life - gem level - max number with cheap price.


Other:
For all other gears, just look for life > elemental resist > dexterity > mana > mana regen.

You will be facing issues with lack of dexterity, so make sure you can cover it through out your gears! Normally you can look for tier 1-2 life and a ~30% elemental resist with good dexterity and craft another resist on to it, mana and mana regen will be great bonus for MoM

Make use of Ghastly Eye Jewels, any stats for minions will be bonus, and it's pretty easy to find few good ones yourself, remember to look for life on the jewel for survivability.

NECROMANCER!
Mindless Aggression - Unnatural Strength - Mistress of Sacrifice

You can choose the last one as you like. Personally I prefer Commander of Darkness for covering elemental resistance for me and my minions, but any other choices would be also good in different situation with your own play style!

KILL THEM ALL!!!

Major God: Lunaris
Minor God: Gruthkul or Tukohama

Haven't got time to record any, will do it later