Necromancer Corpse Explosion Guide

Viability / Purpose of the Build

Corpse Explosion is one of the best mapping skills there is (imho). It clears the whole screen from early to endgame.
Since Season 12 removed the Line of Sight requirement for Corpse Explosion, Desecrate still needs it, so keep that in mind.

Watch the video guide here - Nothing in this video has changed for S12

Skills

See picture for skills. Max Corpse Explosion, Desecrate, Revives and Amplify Damage. Can choose to put the rest of the points into Blood Warp, Bone Armor or Blood Golems.

文件:PD2 necromancer corpse explosion skills.jpg

Attributes

Get str/dex for gear, rest in vitality. You can prepare for a Darkforce Spawn which needs 106 str.

Gear

Early game you can stick with 75 FCR, but mid and endgame prioritize 125 FCR. Season 12 added FCR on Large Charms, use these to get the needed FCR breakpoints early.
Since you don't need to snapshot anything you can have Call to Arms with Lidless on swap.

White Corpse Explosion wands can be found at vendors early on, but Season 12 added Magic/Poison/Fire damage on Wands, so you could shop a +3 Poison and Bone/+3 Corpse Explosion wand with (up to) +20% Fire Damage.
+3 Poison and Bone Skills (Venomous) Items can be shopped and at level 60. Gambling +3 skill items can be done starting level 65 (because of the possible -5 ilevel).

Early Game Gear

This gear consists of a white/regular 2 socketed +3 Corpse Explosion Wand with White runeword and white/regular 2 sockets +3 Corpse Explosion Necromancer shield with Splendor.
Best spots to find these bases is big density areas like cows or flayer jungle. Preferably no MF and a low filter strictness. Luckily for Corpse Explosion you can shop it at Drognan in Act 2. Only look at the 2 socket bases, skip the Yew Wands as they can only have 1 socket.
Add a +3 Poison and Bone amulet and you end up with +12 to Corpse Explosion. A Wormskull, Magefist and Spirit Forge armor can add another +5.

Check out THIS LINK for the early game skills and gear.

Mid Game Gear

Midgame we can go with an upgraded Skull Collector staff, Shako, +1/FCR armor like Viper/Atmas and random Arachnid Mesh. Biggest damage increase will be an Infinity on your mercenary, so you want to make this as soon as possible. You can choose to keep the A2 mercenary or swap to A4.
Instead of the staff you can also use a random Deaths Web and Darkforce Spawn. Easiest way to increase damage is plain Poison and Bone Grandcharms.

Check out THIS LINK for the mid game skills and gear with Skull Collector. Slams would be sockets, +1 all skills, life/mana after kill and use fire facets for more damage and Ist runes/Perfect Topaz for MF.

Check out THIS LINK for the mid game skills and gear with Deaths Web and Darkforce Spawn. Slams would be sockets, +1 all skills, life/mana after kill and use fire facets for more damage where possible.

End Game Gear

This is where we end up, +1 Deaths Web, +1 Darkforce Spawn, 3 Socket 15% Ormus all socketed with Fire Facets are a good base. A -15 Fire Kiras with 3 Sockets is a good options as well.
For 125 FCR you might need to get either a +2/20FCR circlet or FCR slams on rings/Deaths Web if do use Kiras.
If you manage to get a decent Mang Songs you need less FCR on gear but you will need to find other spots for MAEK/LAEK/Resists.
Socket fire facets where possible to maximize the fire damage.

End-Endgame you can chase the Unicorn. Maybe you craft or find a rare wand with +5/+6 to Corpse Explosion or the Necromancer shield with +5 to Corpse Explosion. But good luck finding those and then slamming +1 AND getting two sockets.

Check out THIS LINK for the end game skills and gear with Poison and Bone Skillers.

Check out THIS LINK for the end game skills and gear with 3% Fire Charms.

Skillers vs 3% Fire Large Charms

Initially is best to start with Poison and Bone Grand Charms, at some point the 3% Fire Large Charms will do more damage but this is dependant on your gear and how much +skills you have.
Issue with Large Charms is missing out on resistance Small Charms, so there is no real way to tell which you should use.

Advice is to keep two plain ones and check when upgrading gear if the two Large Charms are more damage overall than the Poison and Bone skiller. Try to keep your resists up too ofcourse.

Mercenary

Act 2 for is ol' reliable. Early on give him an Insight polearm. Try to upgrade to an Infinity as soon as possible.
Act 4 Dark for Amplify Damage is nice early even though you have Amplify Damage yourself, give him an Insight or Memory staff, Stealth armor and another piece of gear with 10fcr for 75fcr.

Leveling

Although I would rather do Clay Golems or Mages/Revives as a season starter, you can start as CE and go all the way to endgame.
Get all the 1 point prerequisite skills like Bone Armor, 1 point Clay Golem as you work down to get Blood Warp. 1 point in the prerequisites to be ready for Revives at 30. Dump Amplify Damage until lvl 6 and go full Corpse Explosion. Then Revives.
Then you can finish Amplify Damage and Desecrate.

Farming

Early game gear can easily farm T1 maps like Sewers or Royal Crypts.
Midgame gear can farm T2 maps like Ancestrial Trial and River of Blood.
Endgame can basically farm any T3 map as long as it doesn't have Fire and Physical immunes.

Patch Notes/Changelog

Updated for Season 12
Created for Season 11

Acknowledgments

TDL (and lots of other people from the Discord) Clark Griswold for the leveling path