[3.9] Pure Phys Skeletons & Friends Necromancer — Beginner/SSF/Budget Build

Well Patch notes happened https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2784310

And here are the nerfs. Some are pretty significant.

Raise Spectre
Raised Spectres are now level 31 at gem level 1, up to level 76 at gem level 20 (previously level 80 at gem level 20).

Raise Zombie
The number of maximum raised zombies you can have at gem level 20 is now 6 (from 7).
Zombie behaviour while idle and near the player is now less chaotic.

Spirit Offering
Repeated, rapid casting of Spirit Offering was far too efficient as a means of protecting and recovering Minion Life (and player Life through Mistress of Sacrifice). This still provides valuable protection for minions without it being significantly better than almost every other tool available.
No longer grants a portion of the minion's maximum life as Energy Shield.
Now grants +20% to Chaos Resistance at gem level 1, up to +30% at gem level 20.

Summon Carrion Golem
Now causes your Carrion Golems to deal 5% more damage per non-Golem minion near them (from 8%), up to a maximum of 50% (from 80%).

Summon Skeletons
Damage dealt by minions at all gem levels has been lowered by approximately 40%. This change isn't visible on the gem as it is a property of the minion itself, and does not affect Skeleton Mages or any other non-basic Skeleton minions summoned by Vaal Summon Skeletons.
The number of maximum summoned skeletons you can have at gem level 20 is now 7 (from 8).

Feeding Frenzy Support
Now gives minions from supported skills 25% chance to grant Feeding Frenzy to you on hit at gem level 1, up to 44% at gem level 20 (previously 25% at all gem levels).
No longer causes minions from supported skills to deal more damage while you have Feeding Frenzy.

Necromancer
Bone Barrier no longer grants Elemental Resistances per minion. Increased Life and Energy Shield Recovery per minion is now 2% (from 3%), capping out at 20% (from 30%).
Commander of Darkness now grants you and nearby allies +30% to all Elemental Resistances (from 20%).

Crafted Modifiers
The Veiled modifier that grants +1 to you maximum number of Summoned Skeletons and Raised Zombies can now only be unveiled/crafted on the helmet slot. It can no longer be unveiled/crafted on body armours.

Fossil Crafting
We want crafting to be a way to get great items, but not the only way to get the very best items. Fossil Crafting in particular was the only way to obtain a large number of very desirable mods. We've done away with all Fossil-exclusive mods except those found on Faceted, Bloodstained and Hollow Fossils, and moved a number of them to other sources. These mods can still be obtained through Fossil crafting, as long as the base item also fulfills the mod's requirements.

Fossils can no longer craft any prefix or suffix mods that cannot be obtained elsewhere, with the exception of those granted by Faceted, Bloodstained and Hollow Fossils. Implicit modifiers (such as the one which changes an item's vendor sell price) remain. The following mods have been relocated, while all others can no longer be obtained:
On Boots: +2 to level of socketed Fire Gems (now from Warlord's Influence), +2 to level of socketed Cold Gems (now from Redeemer's Influence), +2 to level of socketed Lightning Gems (now from Crusader's Influence), +2 to level of socketed Chaos Gems (now from Hunter's Influence), +1 to global level of raised Spectres (now from Elder's Influence).
Helmet: Nearby Enemies have -x% Fire Resistance (now from Warlord's Influence), Nearby Enemies have -x% Cold Resistance (now from Redeemer's Influence), Nearby Enemies have -x% Lightning Resistance (now from Crusader's Influence), Nearby Enemies have -x% Chaos Resistance (now from Hunter's Influence), Nearby Enemies take x% increased Physical Damage (now from Elder's Influence), increased effect of Fortify (now from Crusader's Influence).
Body Armour: Socketed Attacks have -15 to Mana Cost (now from Warlord's Influence), x% increased Aura Effect on you (now from Redeemer's Influence).
Quiver: x% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on hitting a Rare or Unique Enemy (now from Elder's Influence).
Belt: Increased Chaos Damage (now from Hunter's Influence), increased Physical Damage (now from Elder's Influence), increased Elemental Damage (now from Shaper's Influence), increased Energy Shield from Body Armour (now from Shaper's Influence, and now a Prefix), chance for double Armour Effect when hit (now from Elder's Influence, and now a Prefix).
Rings: Fire/Cold/Lightning/Physical/Chaos leech modifiers can now exclusively be found from special elemental Delve encounters.
Weapons: Socketed Attacks/Spells deal x% more Damage (now found from Shaper's Influence), chance for Poison/Bleeding inflicted with this weapon to deal more damage (now found from Elder's Influence), chance to Intimidate on Hit (now found from Hunter's Influence), Auras from your Skills grant increased Damage to you and Allies (now from Redeemer's Influence).
Jewels: Damage penetrates 1% Fire/Cold/Lightning/Elemental Resistance (now from Corrupted implicits).
Glove, Amulet and Shield Fossil-exclusive modifiers can no longer be obtained in any form. Existing items will be unchanged.

Well what does that all mean for this build? I was hoping to follow this in 3.10. However due to the nerfs I am not sure if it is viable anymore. Someone with more knowledge please help a guy out as to how ruined is this build. From what I am seeing we are loosing 2 Zombies and 2 Skellies. Plus the main damage, the Skellies are loosing 40% base damage. We are also loosing some of the damage boost from our wands I don't see much change from the ascendancy and the golem I feel is not a huge nerf.

Is it really that bad of a nerf when we get impale and/or double damage on the passive tree now?

From what I experienced, the nerf to ascendancy won't hit us hard. We were overflowing with resistances as it was. I sacrificed most of the resistances to cap chaos res.

The nerf to desecrate is pretty bad. As it was a good part of our tankines .

The damage nerfs well meh... -1 skelly , -1 zombie that was idle anyway, -40% damage on skelly's and well the -15% from feeding frenzy are a tad bad.


The baron doesn't affect us.

The Chest enchant is meh, place resistance there and swap it on the helm that's it.

Will have to test it in 3.10 but the nerfs look pretty bad as they hit like everything :)))...From ascendancy to items and gems.

WIthout someone knowledgeable taking over this build it is dead, with these nerfs it will need some tuning and viperesque has quit to work for GGG

I.e. someone that knows what they are doing needs to clone the first post and tweak it for 3.10

Hi!

Guys, i've ruined myself having this build from 0 to reocketsky in standard (museum league). Now for sure i need some clever guys to fix it after that poisonous gift ggg give it to us.

Greetings,

I played a close version of that build 2 leagues and half (The half was meh but enjoyable).

Here is my take on the shitty, lazy, half thought nerf. (I am sorry, I do not have any other qualification about it, and I know GGG does not care about what I write). Feel free to correct me if I am wrong with any of those takes. I am not here to "splash" blind knowledge, but to learn. Here are my points in no particular order:

- Feeding Frenzy is useless now. Replace with another DMG skill. That change is geared 100% to have minions supporting self-cast. And we all know self-cast has a huge issue since the Winter Orb nerf to the ground. I have no idea who had that brainfart.

- Multistrike was 50% useless with vaal skellies. Now that Vaal skellies are untouched, Multistrike will be a bad idea I think. Vaal skellies will be the main damage on bosses, while normal skellies will still do enough damage to clear maps.

- The Baron change has no consequence on us because zombies are not the main damage but a way to leech life. At the end we will end with a little bit less zombies but more room to our skellies to hit the enemies. I think it is just an annoying change that add RNG to an item that had only one attribute dedicated to the God of RNG. This is a lazy way to make a change. >>>>>>A question here: IS the +2 level of socketed minions gems still on the helm??????

- Because of Shaper's touch nerf, I think that the ES/Ci version of this build will kind of suck now and it will need a HUGE investment.

- Carrion Golem was not a damage dealer, but a support minion with a little bit of damage. I used Feeding Frenzy on it. I will replace it at the beginning with culling then later when my AG will have Kingmaker, I will advise.

- Il will now be a bitch to do the lab ASAP. it will take a long time to kill Izarius with normal skellies. (Vaal skellies reset when we enter the map for those who did not notice.)

- AG will need a "life" support skill or you will have to take some life/resist for minions on the tree IF you do not equip him with the costly armour. The risk of it dying will be greater.

- Spectres just got better. Well...The choice is better.

- We have been spared!!!! Impale/generosity/dread banner still rock!!!!

- We have been spared also with the ascendancy. There is an impact. I was expecting a massacre, we just got decimated.

>>>>>>> Someone enlighten me, I am not a master crafter: Will it be harder or not to make a 1h with + 1 minions and trigger socketed spells and other minions modifiers? If so, maybe it will be time now to use 2 1h (still some block chances) or a 2h staff.

Conclusion: It will no longer be the walk in the park build while watching your favorite Simpsons episode. You will have to play a little bit more attention to what is happening. Also, I think Minions speed will be a more important factor. I need to test it to see. I could not afford Awakened Multistrike and used multistrike. Awakened Melee Splash is a big no no now. I will go away from those gems and use a "good old" damage gem. I plan also to test Femur of the Saints to see if it can be a good damage and defensive boost.

Also we will not have an issue with the Delirium fog and the metamorph map bosses because we will be able to get up the vaal skellies on the metamorph boss and get them up 100% of the time in the fog.

Thank you

On paper, this looks as bad as it can get. The Feeding Frenzy nerf will really hurt. I'll still give the build a try come the next league. But, again on paper, the build looks dead.

We'll see.

I just want to thank the OP and to everyone who contributed their input and ideas to this build. I've played it during the last two leagues and it was very enjoyable. The damage did get a bit insane so the nerfs are not surprising.

I do hope the build is salvageable so others can still enjoy playing as a Necro.

I dont get why you say FF is nerfed, doesnt it still give you the buff? you slot it with the golem or zombis and the skellys still benefit from the buff? at least i read it as the gem doesnt have the " minions supported by this gem have 25% more damage" and the buff still working as before.