Hi Reddit,

Generally my posts on this subreddit are limited to discussing mechanics and build concepts. This is the first time I've shared a build and I wanted to for a few reasons.

• It's a different take on the Cast when Stunned MF build. We go Necro!

• It uses what I think is a pretty cool damage setup that I've not seen anyone else using anywhere on poe.ninja.

• It's been a lot of fun play!

Quick disclaimer: Yes, the build has a mageblood, I put it on at lvl 97, less than 24 hours before making this post. The only major change to the build without Mageblood is using flasks with the "gain 3 charges when hit" mod instead. Otherwise its quite similar. The belt DOES add more survivability, but mostly I got it for my next character.

So, why go Necromancer?

Short answer: Block. Also, because I have an annoying compulsion to be hipster and try to subvert the meta in some way, often to my detriment.

Long Answer: The tanky MF builds are using recovery mechanics like those found on Defiance of Destiny and the Petrified Blood, Immutable Force + Bloodnotch Combo together with large amounts of damage mitigation to become almost immortal to small hits.

I thought to myself, why not also add in max block + life on block to the mix? So that's what I did. This build runs the Surrender Shield with over 400 life recovered on block. This is superior to a 5% of life on block because we have a small life-pool. We have 77% true attack block and 75% true spell block. This is on-top of the before mentioned combination of items.

Just to clarify for anyone who isnt aware, a blocked hit can still be a stunning hit, so going block does nothing to harm our interactions with stun.

Ok, well that seems fair enough, but where are you getting your damage from then?

I'm glad you asked! ...

You didn't? Well that other guy did so I'm answering for his sake.

So Black Zenith is an item that exists, right? You might remember it. I've always loved the concept of the item, but had never really found a skill worth socketing into it, until now. Enter Cremation of Exhuming, the PERFECT spell for Black Zenith and the other reason we go Necro.

For those unfamiliar, the Black Zenith gloves have the following lines:

• Socketed Projectile Spells deal 150% more Damage with Hits

• Socketed Projectile Spells have +4 seconds to Cooldown

• Socketed Projectile Spells fire 4 additional Projectiles

• Socketed Projectile Spells fire Projectiles in a circle

• Socketed Projectile Spells have 80% less Skill Effect Duration

Let's breakdown why this is so perfect for Cremation of Exhuming:

• First, its a projectile skill, so it will gain all the benefits and downsides these gloves provide. This skill creates a corpse explosion (assuming a corpse is nearby) everytime it fires a projectile.

• It also scales its damage EXTREMELY well with additional projectiles, of which the gloves provide 4. This doubles the projectiles it fires as well as the number of potential corpse explosions we can set off.

• Unlike the other versions of Cremation. You can only have 1 active volcano at a time so having a cooldown isn't such a drawback.

• It has a base duration of 8 seconds, so with some duration scaling we can get the skill to last almost 4 seconds, which is equal to its new cooldown. This means, as long as we are getting stunned, we can have essentially 100% uptime of the skill. This is another one of the reasons we go Necro, the 40% skill duration on mistress of Sacrifice is invaluable.

• And the best part, the wording of "Socketed Projectile Spells deal 150% more Damage with Hits" allows the corpse explosions to benefit from this insane damage multiplier.

We also have a 6-linked DD of chain reaction, which is nice to help clear stragglers and apply the combustion resistance debuff. Sometimes it will annoyingly consume corpses before Cremation gets a chance to, but mostly its fine.

My current setup has 2 support gems for both Cremation and DD that both provide no damage. Cast when stunned & Item Rarity. Damage is still plenty to clear juiced t16s with 6k+ wisps, abyss, beyond and harby.

This setup has been optimised for juiced mapping but I'm pretty confident you could use the interaction with Black Zenith and Cremtion of Exhuming to setup a very competent bossing character, but I've not looked into this yet at all. I suspect you would also use a beefed up Unearth rather than Desecrate and self cast both it and Cremation.

All this said, I'm not here to tell you that you should play this build or that its any better than the meta builds, like Chieftain Fulcrum, for example. It's probably not, they are meta for a reason. Just a reminder there is always more than 1 way to skin a cat.

Now, I'm not about to showcase an entire map, they take too long. But here's a couple snippets so you can see the build in action and the PoB too. Only like 4k wisps in this showcase sorry, just what I got at the time. Can't be arsed recording another.

Showcase 1

Showcase 2

poe.ninja here

Pobb.in here

Notes:

• The damage in Pob is kinda meaningless... I've put in a VERY conservative 47k corpse life, but I'm sure it's more as I'm using corpse life charms and a TWWT jewel with corpse life. Cast when stunned also bases the damage off of max trigger rate, which is also pointless.

• Pob also suggests our effective hitpool is infinite, this is obviously not true and block seems to really skew Pobs calculation here.

• The build is still able to be one-shot but its very rare from my experience and is normally because I've taken a "reduced physical damage reduction" alter. Side note: I had taken one prior to the showcase videos, but as you can see, it normally handles them fine.

• I run a That Which Was Taken jewel that lets me generate both frenzy and endurance charges and they are always up while mapping. If I get alters with the "reduced defenses per frenzy" mod I just remove the jewel for the rest of the map, never seems to hurt my survivabilty or ability to clear.

• I've ran juiced maps with VERY unfavourable mods, like -max res or reduced armour and block chance, and it stills holds up fine 99% of the time. I generally run my maps at 20% delerium, but im sure it could do higher. I might need to think about swapping out item rarity support at that stage, though.

That's about all. Thanks for taking the time to check out my build!