Pure wizard is the better necromancer for most of the game, but at level 12, spores 6, necro 6 is best.

Depends largely on how you define best necromancer but imo there's never much of an incentive to take Necromancer Wizard past level 6, so definitely a multiclass.

6 Spore Druid / 6 Wizard (most popular and gets you the most undead)

6 Cleric / 6 Wizard (fewer summons but you get access to aid which is fantastic on summons and you can grab spirit guardians, as well as level 6 features)

4 Cleric / 8 wizard (same as above but you trade level 3 spells, a channel divinity charge, and level 6 subclass features for more wizard prepared spells and a feat)

6 Swords Bard / 6 Wizard (fewest summons of all of these but you can attack alongside your summons with extra attack, without sacrificing the quality of the summons)

To add to awspear's recommendations:

Wizard 6/Cleric 4/Spore 2: same deal as wiz 8/cleric 4, but trades a feat for sporekeeper armor access.

Oathbreaker 9/Wizard 2/Cleric 1: control undead generally gives higher quality "summons", many of which Aura of Hate can affect. Div Wiz guarantees your control. Can buff summons with Crusader's Mantle. Cleric 1 for produce flame access.

If you're on PC and don't mind (tedious) cheese, you could also outfit the Skele-squad with Shadow Blades, which makes them hella strong and aura of hate-able.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/THN3IAbyiO

Oathbreaker 6/Wizard 6: Necromancer 6 gives stronger summons and makes their damage meaningful w/o cheese. Can drop an Oathbreaker level for Cleric 1.

Trickster 3/Wizard 6/Cleric 1/Spore 2: A good sign I should leave the kitchen. Main draw is using a cheesed mage hand to hold Phalar Aluve, get perfect positioning d/t invisibility, and not die d/t sanctuary. You could already do that with the Oathbreaker holding PA, but this tricky friend also gets skill expertise

Necromancy wizard is a great subclass. I imagine Larian will nerf the whole zombie army aspect of it a bit but hopefully it should still feel strong. It is possible to use exclusively necrotic spells but I would advise not doing that. Not all the necromancy spells are the best options and if you did go for wizard you'd wanna pick up stuff like Fireball, haste, disintergrate, chain lightning ect. You could still focus mostly on necromancy spells. A necro wizard is all about undead minions.

Circle of spores druid will be in the game and is also a great option for necromancy though.

If you go necro wizard here's my view of the necro spells. The great thing about wizards is scribing which means you don't have to be super selective about picking spells so you could also pick up weaker/more situational ones if you wanted.

Chill touch: This is a pretty great centrip as it stops enemies from regaining hit points and gives undead disadvantage. It's situational but these aren't uncommon situations and healing enemies are the worst.

False life: great in tabletop but in tbe EA there's so many ways to heal it feels a bit useless. Maybe it will be stronger in the final version of the game. It gives temporary HP which is generally great in 5e but again there are so many potions and other ways to heal in the EA.

Ray Of Sickness: the problem with this one is that con saves are common as is poison resistance. It's still a good spell sometimes and has good damage.

Ray Of Enfeeblemeng: Situationally great if you manage to successfully use it against an enemy that hits hard. It takes concentration though so it's more for like bosses or just strong enemies.

Animate Dead: Bread and butter of a necromancy wizard. It's a great spell and necro wizard gets more use out of it so for them it's an amazing spell. As I said I'm unsure how necromancy wizard will be implemented as it can get pretty nuts in 5e but you get more/stronger undead with this spell as a necro wizard. I'm sure they will keep that, they might put more limits on it than 5e does.

Bestow curse: the issue with this one is the touch range. It already requires concentration and gives the target a save every turn. Situationally it could still be useful but I don't see myself using it much.

Vampiric touch: Pretty good, you do damage and heal yourself. The down side is that it's touch range and you have to concentrate (which is harder at touch range cos of checks). Still you can use it multiple times it's a great thing to pull out if you get pinned down.

Feign death: I mean this one feels more like a spell for role-playing/story but it's in the game so maybe there will be uses for it. I've never used it.

Spells they have said they are adding

Circle of death: It's considered weak because other comparable spells do more damage but it does have a huge AOE and necrotic is a rarely resisted damage. In tabletop it also has a component cost. I'd probably cadt other damage spells more but this one isn't as bad as some say. Plus a necro wizard benefits from killing enemies with necro spells so that's another reason to use this. Create undead: Pretty good, stronger undead Eyebite: good spell the sleep and fear effects are useful.

I didn't see Blight on their list but they said the list wasn't everything, if they implement that it's decent single target necrotic damage.

Sadly Death Cleric isn’t an option, because Death 1/Necro X is one of my favorite combos in DnD 5e

Necromancer subclasses so far are spore Druid, necromancy wizard, oathbreaker paladin. That’s basically the official subclasses that I’m aware of the deals with undead. And yes it’s entirely possible to exclusively use necromancy spells.

Kinda wish we go full Lich Lord like in Pathfinder and kill the "good" companions and res them as minions.

There's a School of Necromancy Wizard I imagine that'll be your best bet

Mods will include everything and more eventually.

Most gear for it is the Weave Set with Sporekeeper armor if you do the Spore Druid Necromancer. There's two kinds of builds: Max Summons, and Thematic. Max Summons leans more into Spore Druid, and has more non-undead Summons. A 6/6 Necro Wizard - Spore Druid gives more Undead, but fewer base Summons.

Early game, Reverb gear or anything that increases spell save DC.

Core Items are Circle of Bones in Act 2, Armor of the Sporekeeper (If you go straight Spore vs Wizard and Staff of Cherished Necromancy in Act 3.

Honorable mentions are gloves of Dex, death do us part ring, and ring of Exalted Marrow. Abyss Beckoners also an option

And is there a certain amount of levels you need before the build will function well enough?

6 Necrowiz is the bare minimum for it to function and, from what I can see, the max that you should invest in the class. You have several options after, depending on some factors:

• 6 Necro 6 Spore: INT caster and ultimate deadlord kinf of vibe. You will have several summons at your disposal and an infinite meat shield. If your bring alongside you a War Cleric with Aid, Phalar Aluve and Crusader's Mantle, they'll be suddenly doing a LOT of damage and have a fuckton of health.

• 6 Necro 6 War Cleric: squishing in the same build the concept I was talking about before. Goes quite hard with Wyll's Rapier being able to squeeze a bit more melee damage. You might want to take Resilient: Con.

• 6 Necro 6 Swords Bard: Archer with its own little army to defend him. Good because Swords Bard is broken.

• 6 Necro 6 Vengeance Paladin: your resident Lich King build. Start Paladin for heavy armour proficiency, then take Wiz. You'll be a INT based spellcaster. Obviously good with Helmet of Arcane Acuity + Band of the Mystic Scoundrel and the many good enchantment spells you'll have access to with the Wizard's spellbook, just not Command as it'll scale on your poor Charisma. A bit MAD, gets better if you are ok with Elixirs or just not care about spell casting and just smite, smite, smite. Also you'll have Shield, so you'll be absurdly tanky.

• Camp casting is very valuable for a necromancer. For early game never leave home without Longstrider and Aid on your minions. Mage armor and Warding bond are options as well.
• Get the Illithid power Shield of Thralls asap. On multiple team members. A minion with Shield of Thralls is a powerful stun grenade. And you can prepare it before the fight, so it doesn't cost actions. Move it close to an enemy boss and then detonate it with AoE attacks. Works well even against Ansur the dragon.

Wizard necromancer, there's the abyss beckoner gloves or whatever they're called in the Zhent hideout, which are really good late game, when you'll be summoning ghouls and flying monstrosities

Is necromancer painful to run in terms of having to set up between rests and managing lots of characters/making fights take for ever? I wanted to try it but seems like it will be a grind. Similar for throwing characters they are super powerful but pain in the ass with clunky throw/return mechanics.

Three classes can be used mono mixed: necromancy wizard, death cleric, or spore druid.

They are all viable. I enjoyed making a 6-6 death cleric/necro wizard but it is challenging to manage the casting stats. I chose to build wizard as the prime class and rely on INT.

It's fun. Experiment with what each class gives you.

If you want a pure build, then 12 Death Domain Cleric or 12 Spore Druid fits this need.

If you want to multiclass, then 6 Death Domain/6 Spore Druid is pretty fun.

In general, you'll need to buff your summons and debuff your enemies during combat. Otherwise your summons will just run towards your enemies for 2 turns and then waste another turn by missing their attacks. Or they'll just die in the first turn.

6 wizard buffs the animate dead spell. 6 death cleric buffs necro damage spells. Spore druid has weak zombies that can create it's own zombies.

If you want lots of pets, go for 6 Necromancy Wizard and 6 Spore Druid.

If you want to cast spells, go for 6 Necromancy Wizard and 6 Death Cleric.

If you want melee combat, go for 7 Oathbreaker and 5 Death Cleric or Spore Druid.

6 necro/6 death cleric. Use ghouls, as they are immune to the madness effect of Abyssal Beckoners, essentially making your summons resistant to everything but psychic. Upcast aid gives them even more extra HP. Meanwhile, you're walking around with necrotic spirit guardians and dropping inflict wounds or vampire touch as applicable.

Its a pretty fun build, but ladders will make you hate life.

For my necro/dk dark urge playthrough I’m doing oathbreaker + gale as necro. Aura of hate from oathbreaker with his minions & gale’s minions. Like warcraft 3 death knight aura

Wizard has a subclass dedicated to Necromancy while Sorcerer doesn't. Wizards get more mileage out of a single Animate Dead.

Out of curiosity, what kind of items for Necromancy did you come across? I wanna make one too

Wizard and it's not even close. Wizard has an entire subclass devoted to necromancy. At lvl 6 you can animate a second corpse and your undead add your proficiency bonus to their damage rolls.

Wizard subclass literally named Necromancer?

Spore Druid and necromancer wizard

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/tragoul-death-nova-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/lod-death-nova-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/rathma-army-of-the-dead-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/lod-corpse-explosion-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/inarius-death-nova-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/lod-poison-scythe-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/masquerade-bone-spear-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/inarius-poison-scythe-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/inarius-corpse-explosion-necromancer-guide

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/lod-skeletal-mage-rat-necromancer

https://d3.maxroll.gg/guides/pestilence-corpse-lance-necromancer-guide

Next season (S27) rathmas for rgk in group play and trag'oul for solo or in comb with support barb. Guides for these are on the Maxroll.gg website.

Rathma Army is going to be really good in S27.

I made a novel build. It's LoD CE CL SoJ.

Trag Fang Grasps of Essence Corpsewhispers Aquila Andariel's Johnstone Lacunis Lost time Krysbins or CoE (best rolled) SoJ Steuarts Blackthornes Vigilante

Common sense on stats but CDR>all as this is a speed build and very thirsty for cooldown. With perfect rolls you can get +100% to all 3 Necro elements. It doesn't matter which one, just pick the same for all 5 elemetal slots.

Cube: Messerschmitt Leoric Your leftover of CoE/Krysbin's

Gems: Obviously diamond in helm and emerald in weapon Your choice on body/legs Bane of the Trapped Legacy of dreams Gogok/Molten Wildebeest/Stricken/Zei

I use the Molten Wildebeest as my primary source of life is life per second since I do a lot of blood stuff as a Necro. Not sure how Stricken would work as it's a speed build so it shouldn't come into play.

Abilities:

Blood rush Metabolism Gets us around quicker and bleeds us more to proc Blood is Power

CE close quarters Most powerful base damage of the skill

CL Brittle touch Stack up crits and also misc damage with leftover corpses if LotD is down

Bone armor thy flesh sustained A good -20% health to push for BiP and also stacks with MWG to give you life per second in the range of 400k+ if you prioritize it as a defensive over vitality and life%. Combined with taking armor as your secondary defensive, the shield is very powerful and your bleed skills won't hurt you and will heal instantaneously.

Frailty aura

LotD frozen lands

Passives:

Stand alone Spreading malediction Final service Blood is power

You can run this with zero vitality if you use Molten Wildebeest Gizzard. Your vit stat will be 147 while your intelligence is in the tens of thousands and you'll be fine.

I’m playing for the first time in a long while, most likely wrong lol but I’m having fun. Just hit paragon 90 and have been relying on minions and curse. 15 minions, Iron Maiden spam, blood nova for oh shit/heal and army of the dead. Steam roll through most everything. I know it’s not optimal but I enjoy

Im doing ok in T2 with a minion/shadow build. So many dark corpse explosions its unreal, for me I struggle with wanting an all shadow mage or have all my minions out. Currently I have a total of 14 (counting bone golem), its pretty fun but struggles in a lot. Farming for ancestral eq on T2 is annoying

Don’t follow the build they currently have as s tier for shadowblight on mobalitics. The non uber build is shit. I’m redoing my build to p4wnyhof mobalitics build tomorrow and hoping for a better outcome

I highly recommend the Minion Necro build.

Word on the street is Shadowblight, Shadow Mage, and Bloodwave are S tier.

Stack warfare and only have enough necro to unlock your spells. When you can't stack more warfare you start doing huntsman and scoundrel. Put the majority of your points in Intelligence and Wits, with a few points in memory.

I like doing it on Sebille with elemental affinity for free action points. Savage sortilege is a must later on.

Beware the build is ridiculously overpowered when you get to about level 12 or so and becomes ridiculous after that. I oneshot the decay beast and Alice Aliceon with the build.

It's really weak in Act 1 though.

I like picking up Slaine's sword or the other +1 warfare sword. Drop 1 point into strength, 2-3 points in constitution (to use shields) and funnel the rest into int.

Corpse Explosion and teleport are probably your best two skills. Otherwise, just level warfare because necro skills scale off of warfare. Making an Elf a necromancer is amazing because flesh sacrifice creates a blood pool at your feet, synergising with elemental affinity.

What does the rest of your party look like? Necromancers synergize best with physical parties (huntsman, warfare, scoundrel, etc)

High INT is best for necros, but high Warfare is needed. Ideally you'd use a 1h weapon And shield. Take some CC skills (battering Ram, battle stomp, chicken claw from poly, etc). You'll do shit damage, but the being able to CC any enemies your front liners missed is invaluable.

Act 1 necros are rough, they don't have enough skills to reliably do damage. Usually I start my "Necro" characters as full summoners with a point in Necro for the debuff skills. Summon your Incarnate on blood surfaces for increased phys damage

By Act 2 I respec to Necro (enough to cover skill usage) and VERY high warfare. The increase phys damage of warfare will increase your Necro skill damage

I do a pure necromancer. It’s rough early on with limited skills, but get a point in pyro and combine a pyro book and a necro book for corpse explosion and you’re on your way. A point in hydro to get blood rain is also important. The rest of your points go into warfare.

Equipment wise I like hammer and shield. It does less damage than a staff or wand, but the shield gives a decent attack with shield bounce as it does not scale with STR while the hammer is good for battle stomp. Ideally you defeat Dallis at the gate, and then on the ship to get her hammer and shield which are perfect for a necromancer.

In my current party, my Necromancer moves second after my glass cannon Ranger. Between the two of them, the battles are usually over before the other 2 get a chance.

My Necro cheatsheet

You do NOT approach the gate at level 2. Instead you take the ladder to the right. That way you can gather party members and get to lvl 5 before you engage her. It’s still tough but it’s doable. Since I’ve fought that battle a few times, I now skip it by dropping a barrel of death fog. It kill’s Alexander and she flees with his body.

Rathma + Jesseth mage build is pretty good, you can get to GR80 pretty quickly.

Pestilence set still tops for now, looks like. Much different playstyle.

​

Might want to look at a Legacy of Nightmares build for next season, that might be amazing with the new buff.

I've played a cold-based Rathma + Jesseth build all season and it's really fun.

I topped out at about GR75, so it's not as able to push as singularity mages, but it's also easier to play, in my opinion.

Yep I think I’ll be running a Necro next season. Thank you all

Yes it’s a solid build. It fills two of the four spots in the current meta for high level, speed GR grinds, and is a very capable solo GR progression build. It will fall slightly behind pestlance on solo GR but not by enough that it’s not viable. Some 4 man groups will carry a rathma for progression, however the current meta favors an Inarious thrones RGK.

Any rathma build guide will point you in the right direction, however the jesseth variation, although easier to learn and play, does suffer from a lack of survivability at higher GR’s. You’ll eventually want a bone armor / scythe of the cycle variant to push with.

Mages right? It’s one of the good builds from necro. Usually there is always something better. But singularity mages is fucking great.