[Build] Necromancer SW

[Atruya]

Introduction
The Necromancer SW is highly based on Shadow Veil. You turn this CA into a buff and never turn it off. From the safety of the shadows you bring forth your minions. Nether Allegiance for the skeletons, Rallied Souls for the fallen victims and Skeletal Fortification as stationary turret. You boost your minions with Augmenting Guidon. And when there is some free time, you'll happily kill enemies with Spectral Hand. All without getting hit. Ever.

If you think using Shadow Veil forever is blasphemy, you might want to hit previous in your browser and forget that you ever entered here. This build is nothing for you.


Attributes
This build makes the SW a form of caster. That's why we're going full Stamina. We'll use the additional runes to boost our CA's, not the attributes. If you feel you're too fragile you could add a bit of vitality, but I never felt the need to.


Skills

Level 2: Astral Lord Focus (max)
Reduces regeneration times, allowing us to read more runes. Also allows for higher combat art levels and grants modification points for the Astral Lord aspect.
Keep this at character level.

Level 3: Astral Lord Lore (max)
Increases our damage with Spectral Hand, as well as that of our Skeleton minions. Also grants modification points for the Astral Lord aspect.
Also keep this at character level.

Level 5: Concentration (75)
Allows us to use a second buff, and a third one when this skill reaches level 75. This way we can use Nether Allegiance, Shadow Veil and Reflective Emanation. Also reduces regeneration times.
Add points till it reaches level 75, then don't bother with it anymore.

Level 8: Hafted Weapons (5)
We need to choose a weapon. Spectral Hand is based on the damage of your weapon and hafted weapons seem to have the highest base. This will unlock the weapon specific bonusses.
Bring it to level 5 to unlock 2nd tier offensive skills.

Level 12: Speed Lore
Increases attack and defense values and lets us run faster. This skill does increase Spectral Hand's damage, while Tactics Lore doesn't.
Add some points here when you feel like it.

Level 18: Malevolant Champion Focus
Our only way to gain modification points in the Malevolant Champion aspect.
Add just as much points here to get enough modification points.

Level 25: Armor Lore
Without this, we can't equip good armors. Reduces regeneration times on top of that.
Add in a point every now and then.

Level 35: Toughness
This skill gives damage mitigation and additional armor for all damage types.
Leave it at one at the beginning, but spent some points here later on, so we don't die in one hit on the rare occasion.

Level 50: Constitution
With more hit points we can take more hits. It also increases the effect of health potions (because they are percentual based). At mastery it also allows our hit points to regenerate during combat.
Also this skill can be left at 1 early on, but add some points later on. Get at least level 75 for the combat regeneration.

Level 65: Free
Can be added to your own liking. Examples are Combat Reflexes, Spell Resistance or Blacksmith.


Buffs

Nether Allegiance
Our main conjuration CA. The skeletal minions keep damage away from us, while dealing good damage at the same time. Only downside is the AI of the skeletons, which is rather buggy at times. Reactivate the buff when skeletons are stuck.
Add in as much runes as you can without going into the penalty regions too far. (Astral Lord Focus)

Mods are Additional Skeleton > Additional Skeleton > Improved Armor. (112)

Shadow Veil
In the beginning a mere CA for emergencies, but later on a legal form of godmode. With the right modifications this CA becomes a permanent buff, which we wont deactivate under any circumstances. If you take the Fade modification (020), it will have a 100% chance not to deactivate when casting magic at level 25.
Read 25 runes and it wont deactive anymore. Some bosses are said to be able to deactivate it, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Keep your distance and happily cast away with Spectral Hand.

Mods are Increased Stealth > Spell Detection Radius > Buff. (121)

Reflective Emanation
Will be our third buff later on. This CA will reflect any form of damage with the right modifications and gives that protection to your minions as well, even the resurrect ones. A very good reason to get 75 Concentration.
Add in as much runes as possible without ruïning your regeneration times.

Mods are Reflect Ranged > Reflect Spells > Affect Party Members. (222)


Combat Arts

Spectral Hand
Our main attack CA. Spectral Hand has all the abilities you could wish for. It hits regardless of obstacles and hills, on one hand it is regarded as magic (has the chance not to deactivate Shadow Veil and is boosted by Astral Lord Lore, but not by Ancient Magic!), on the other hand it is regarded as physical combat (therefor it is stronger when you use stronger weapons).
It is recommended to read just one rune and let your weapon boost it.

Mods are Increased Damage > Critical Chance > Double Hit. (221)

Rallied Souls
Our second conjuration CA. Enemies who are killed by your skeletons or Spectral Hand can be resurrected to fight by your side. You can create your personal army this way.
Keep the regeneration time under 5 seconds.

Mods are Armor Bonus > Resurrected Live Longer > Increased Damage. (112)
This focusses on very strong minions. As alternative you can go for large armies:
Increased Range > Increased Amount Resurrected > Corpes Infect Others (221), but I never tried it. I rather cast it more often and obtain stronger minions.

Augmenting Guidon
Our main support CA. Increases attack and defense values drasticly, to improve our minions. Keep the regeneration time around 20+2 seconds.

Mods are Increased Attack/Defense Value > Increased Experience > Increased Attack/Cast Speed. (122)

Skeletal Fortification
The tower wont to nearly as much damage as Spectral Hand, but it attacks fast and works all by itself. That's why it is a good addition to our build. Not as effective at smaller groups of enemies, but good to place during boss fights or at huge mobs.
Read as much runes so that the duration is as long as the cooldown time plus the regeneration time.

Mods are Increased Firing Rate > Any you like > Extra Projectile. (1*1)

Belligerent Vault
Just a nice CA for shortcuts and speed, one rune is all you need.
Mod it for the extra jump range, then leave it alone. (100)


Play Style

You'll always stay in Shadow Veil and Nether Allegiance is always activated.
At small groups you let the skeletons attack while you attack with Spectral Hand. At the end of the fight you cast Rallied Souls a few times to increase your army size.

At large groups you place Augmenting Guidon and Skeletal Fortification at strategic places, while spamming Rallied Souls.

At bosses you place Augmenting Guidon so it'll boost your skeletons at close range and you at long range. You keep up Skeletal Fortification and you attack with Spectral Hand.

[Chareos Rantras]

Very nice guide,

I saw a Mounted SW owning quiet some big mobs with this kind of build, will try it soon .

One question: does the Intelligence attribute affect the damage of spectral hand?


cheers!

Chareos Rantras

[Atruya]

I don't think it does. Strength does affect its damage, since it's based on attack value.

[DragonsbladeUK]

I have been trying to find a decent Astral Lord build, and i thought this 1 might have worked, but at lvl 30 I was struggling, and christmas island was a total wipeout. Sure I could hide under a viel, but the skellies did about 9 damage to the ghosts. after about 20-30 mins to get to the first boss, I tried to kill the boss for about another 20. The adds that he cast took the skellies all there time, so the boss never got a hit. There was nothing I could do to help. When I tried to help with RE, I wiped out in 1 hit!
It was silver, but all my chars have managed to make it through the whole of the island, with only 1 death on a high elf!

Maybe this build will excel later in life, or maybe my equipment sucked bad.
Not sure if you planned to have a trader alt to lvl with this 1?

[Atruya]

Yeah, christmas island is the only place I've ever had trouble at. The ghosts seems to be immune to everything in the Astral aspect and my melee was not so impressive.

But everywhere else, this build is a blast.

[lifeform]

You can use frenzied rampage with impunity from sv.

[Colif]

I might make this next, I have been meaning to make a Astral lord sw, especially since game loves giving me all this gear with rallied souls on it. Sure, the character will need to get to 110 to use alot of it, will start tomorrow.

Christmas island will soon become less of a problem given its disappearing next patch.

I would have thought ranged would be a better choice for weapon since it works without breaking shadow veil after lvl 25?

[malevolence]

Great build Atruya , thanks a lot , I might try this SW Necromancer hehehe

Cheers

If Spectral hand is based in weapon damage , why not picking Pole Weapons ? they do a lot of damage

[Atruya]

It's a matter of preference. I really like the special SW axes, and I think they have the highest damage, so I took that. Taking pole arms won't destroy the build though.

[Colif]

At what lvl should you have 21 points in shadow veil? I assume its around lvl 30 as otherwise you have to dump a lot more than 21 runes into it to get to 21. I went with your advice and went hafted, given I have a character with a bank full of axes, it made sense. I had never tried spectral hand before, stereotyped into a certain sw build.

I see the skeletons still go to sleep and need to re summoned sometimes. This also happens with doppelgangers. I assume they cannot die in our place like doppelgangers? Phantom deaths are not wanted.

[Qwalen]

For the ghosts just socket fire in your weapon and use spectral hand and they will be no more. Will be fun to see how you manage with this build above lvl 100 when the mobs really do some damage and kills of skeletons in a few hits. good luck!

[Colif]

Its a very relaxing build, once you have shadow veil at a reasonable level, a big difference from my normal sw style. Makes me think though, it seems there are only 2 workable combinations of sw trees. you either do Death Warrior/Malevolent Champion or Malevolent Champion/Astral lord. The 3rd combo seems less likely but maybe I am just not thinking about it the right way.

I understand the concern, it was a long fight just killing Terus but I haven't tried the Skeletal Fortification yet so that might have been part of reason.

[gord111]

Ascaron needs to enable US players to add more character slots so I can try this build.

I feel so limited

[FrostElfGuard]

I tried this build out in SP v2.34.2.

My character was level 34 when I completed the main quest line in bronze.

I found I often had some trouble coming out of Shadow Veil by clicking on attackers... and a few of the bosses can uncloak you.

It made getting lost under the Seraphim island much easier to deal with than it would've been with any other character.

Quite liked it.

[Geekster]

eh just a note how is it possible for speed lore to increase damage on anything it's not a damage skill its just atk defence and run speed so its a bit odd u write it does increase damage :P