Guide CE Necromancer - Cow Runs

Corpse Explosion Necromancer / Cow Runs
NOTE: This build is focused on cow runs but can be used for all content.

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Sample Video
Here is a short video for 3 runs that I made, out of practice, but still a decent time.

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Welcome to my CE Necro guide for cow runs and viable for all content. I've been asked quite a few times about my build so I decided to make a guide to be more accessible for everyone.
It takes me around 3 minutes with going for the wirt's leg, open cow portal, kill all the cows, pick up all the items and exit the game.
The idea behind this build is to play safe, never teleport inside a pack of mobs only around them, cast bone wall in order to get packs of mobs closer. You should always cast bone wall at the center of 2 or more packs of mobs in order to get them close faster. After you got few packs of mobs you can start casting Amplify Damage, wait for your mercenary and iron golem to kill a monster so you can use Corpse Explosion until all monsters are dead and you can move to the next packs of mobs.


Stats Allocation

• Strength: Nothing / Enough to wear gear
• Dexterity: Nothing / Enough to wear gear
• Vitality: Everything else
• Energy: Nothing

Skills Allocation

Curses​

• 1 to 20 points Amplify Damage ( you can go max points and have a huge radius or just enough to cover your screen, is up to personal preference )

Poison And Bone ​

• 1 Teeth for synergy
• 20 Corpse Explosion
• 1 Bone Armor ( remaining points )
• 1 Bone Wall ( remaining points )

Summoning ​

• 1 Clay Golem for synergy
• 1 Blood Golem for synergy ( remaining points )
• 20 Iron Golem
• 20 Golem Mastery
• 1 Summon Resist

Remaining points
You have three options here:​

• Allocate points equally between Bone Wall and Blood Golem
• Allocate points to Bone Wall until max then the rest to Bone Armor
• Allocate points to Blood Golem until max then the rest to Bone Wall

Necromancer FCR Breakpoints

FCR Frames
0% 15
9% 14
18% 13
30% 12
48% 11
75% 10
125% 9

Necromancer FHR Breakpoints

FHR Frames
0% 13
5% 12
10% 11
16% 10
26% 9
39% 8
56% 7
86% 6
152% 5
377% 4

Equipment Setup 125% FCR & 86 FHR Breakpoints
The goal here is to reach the FCR Breakpoint 125%, which means you will need to combine your equipment in order to obtain it.
For starter, you can use the following combination in order to reach 125%FCR
Hoto 40FCR +Spirit 35FCR + Gloves 20FCR + 1x Ring 10FCR + Belt 20FCR = 125%FCR
You can use the following combination in order to reach FHR Breakpoint 86%
Spirit 55FHR + Shael in Helm 20FHR + 3x 5fhr small charms = 90%FHR
Spirit 55FHR + Templar's Might 20FHR + 3x 5fhr small charms = 90%FHR
Spirit 55FHR + Shael in Templar's Might 40FHR = 95%FHR

Heads
Rare Coronet - 2 to Necro / 20 FCR + other mods like 2sockets/str/dex/life/mana/allrez etc.
Shako - Socket with whatever you are missing on str/dex/life/allrez.

Shields
1st Hand: Spirit Monarch - 35FCR or enough to reach the 125FCR Breakpoint.
2nd Hand: Spirit Monarch - Random FCR

Weapons
1st Hand: Hearth of the Oak ( HOTO ) - 40 all resists if possible.
2nd Hand: Call to Arms ( CTA ) - As high you can get.

Armors
Templar's Might - Socket with whatever you are missing on str/dex/life/allrez.
Enigma - The best you can get.

Rings
NOTE: You will need to combine the rings depending on what you are missing.
FCR Ring - 10 FCR + any other mod like str/dex/life/allrez.
Stone of Jordan - For mana.
Bul-Kathos Ring - For life.

Amulets
Mara's Kaleidoscope - 30 all resists if possible.
Rare/Crafted Amulet - 2 Necro / 20 FCR + other mods like str/dex/life/mana/allrez etc.

Gloves
Trang-Oul Gloves - 2 to Curses / Cold Resists.
Magefist - Mana Regen / +1 to Corpse Explosion

Belts
Arachnid Mesh - There are no other good options here.

Boots
NOTE: Use whatever boots suit you better
Marrwwalk - For strength, dexterity, mana regen.
Waterwalk - For life, dexterity.
Sandstorm Trek - For life, strength.
War Traveler - For life, strength, magic find.

Inventory
NOTE: Skillers are not that important with this build so is better to focus on small charms.
Necromancer Torch - Any stats you can get.
Annihilus - Any stats you can get.
Small Charms - Any charm with some life+any other good mod / all resists charms+ any other good mod / magic find charms etc.
Key
Tome of Town Portal
Tome of Identify

Mercenary
We will be using Act 2 Mercenary Offense (Nightmare) with Might Aura
The only item you need to have is ETH Infinity and to be able to reach a decent IAS Breakpoint for the mercenary, any other item can be changed to whatever you think is good to improve his damage and survivability or reach other breakpoints like FHR/CB.

Weapons IAS Breakpoint

Giant Thresher & Thresher
IAS Breakpoint
0
8
22
42
75
142

Colossus Voulge & Cryptic Axe
IAS Breakpoint
0
5
11
22
35
56
89
147
292

FHR Breakpoints

Town Guard (Act 2 Mercenary)
0
5
9
14
20
30
42
60
86
142
280
1480

Infinity in ETH Giant Thresher
Gulli Face socketed with any 15IAS jewel
ETH Bugged Treachery
Highlord Amulet
Carrionwind Ring
ETH Draculas
ETH Goblin Toe
ETH Verdungo



Iron Golem
The Iron Golem is very strong with this build and you don't have to worry about him dying all the time. I did all the content with him and he never died once.
NOTE: Summon the Iron Golem from an eth insight weapon so you will have meditation aura at all times.




Happy cow hunting.
Cheers.

 

Hmm, I sense a personal conflict here...
I understand you're not satisfied about his build but your paperwork so far was only criticism.
Maybe he didn't want to post a superexpensive/pvp/godly build. Maybe it's his way to help ppl around. Maybe it's enough for start.
However, we appreciate experienced players like you
Make your own great build and post it here.
Till then, keep CONSTRUCTIVE dialog please.
Good luck

 

@Leviathan, as @Tzutzu79 suggested, you should take this in private although it appears that @Atox tried to contact you already but you ignored it. Your very first post on this forum, except the ironman registrations, is basically a hate post full of insults (I'm talking about the initial post you made in this thread before it was cleaned by moderators, where you end up questioning someone's children IQ? How can you believe that this is not extremely insulting for a person?) towards a GM because apparently, he did not provide you starting gear within 30 minutes over a year ago when you whispered him. I'm not sure why would you even consider that's a GM responsibility because it is not but you claim he instantly whispered you back to make a game when you challenged him to a duel when in my opinion that was obviously a reply to your initial message of requesting starting gear. Have you considered that was the time he got back at the PC, about 30 minutes later as you claimed? Just because someone is online in-game it does not mean he is also at the computer and is watching chat 24/7 in order to reply instantly to every single message.
Regardless, it's silly to make a vendetta out of this for over a year just because the guy wasn't fast enough to provide you with gear, gear that's not even his or anyone else's responsibility to provide.
Every GM and active player out there has provided free items to other players for years now because they like to help and not because they are obliged to, there is even a forum thread where someone can ask for starting items although most of the giveaways are being made in-game so do me a favor and end this nonsense personal vendetta because you have been ranting in several posts by now that we had to clean due to quite some serious insults and your only argument behind the insults was reducing the run time by half of a minute when the guide doesn't even specify a fixed amount of time but an approximation. If you are unable to do so then you don't have to reply to these threads, feel free to contribute with your own guides in this case.

 

It is a good suggestion @zirzius, I will add it to the guide.
Thank you.

 

Useless is insight Not Infinity, coz you can play without mana aura and golem will not die if you make him with Eth tomb reaver 3s shael 2xamn then ias dmg res and Leech.

 

Please take a moment and read my guide, the golem will never die that is why you put points in him. I did all the content with him up to 8players game and he didn't die once. If you have something to add about the guide that is constructive feel free to do but please keep this thread clean form all these nonsense comments and use edit function.

 

Hi Fatty, btw im not sure necro is best class in d2..imo java is best just need for start best pierce, ias and dmg.. if we talking about Best equip who knows me , know im doing java cow tm- phoenix- griffon- infi-ring double leech-55ias-block on 2-2.5min P8.. but its my opinion , if someone need ill make here post with javazon detaily equips for any budget .
Regards

 

I already have magefist as an option in my build, didn't know that they give hidden sk to CE.
Golem already has alot of hp, I maxed iron golem for defence purposes and you will still have points left for blood golem. Thx for your suggestions, much appreciated.

Thx for sharing your build, I think that for cows you will lose some speed. At the end of day we all play our own style. I like the detail on your merc, is a good suggestion and I will do the same for my guide. Thx for the input, much appreciated.

Switching beast for hoto just for merc, for me is not worth it as it will have a loss in fcr and my goal is 125%FCR. There are other builds like summoners that will benefit from it for sure. I have enigma or templar as armor so there is no need to run and the secondary weapon is cta+spirit for bo. Video suggestion is good and I might add a video for demonstration purposes in the upcoming time.
Thx for your suggestions, much appreciated.
Cheers

 

Having to summon skeletons you can lose some speed, that is what I found when playing with summons. If you still get under 3 min runs then will be fine. Hope this answer your question.