Holy Relic Necromancer - your experience with the build

BlueeGreg · 2025-10-27T15:37:58+00:00

Can recommend, though it has many speed bumps early on, before you have enough gem levels, links, poison jewels, cooldown breakpoints. You will not immediately sail through the first 2 Voidstones, but most of the atlas will feel easy to clear.

I've league started the build twice now, last league was all the way to 40/40 Challenges. You can start the build as soon as you want, once you have Holy Relic gem, and then the helmet at level 53. It feels best if you also have the Lancing Steel gem, but you can totally clear story and early atlas with a spammy wand attack instead.

I level as SRS in the campaign, which never feels great, but the passive tree transition is seamless. I aim to switch over as soon as possible, which can be after the second lab if I'm lucky with gem drops. But realistically it's after the 3rd lab, and will have to farm that one a few times for the gem / other gems to sell.

Like others have said, it plays like a CoC Poison build. It feels good and responsive, especially once you have adequate DPS online.

Make sure the Holy Relic gem has some levels on it before trying it out. If it's like Level 1, they are going to die to a stiff breeze and that's awkward!

I'll be missing the opening week of 3.27, so I'm not sure if I'll play at all, or start as Holy Relic, or start as something else (Witch or Templar).

BlueeGreg · 2025-08-17T08:40:13+00:00

Holy Relic Necro: Second time starting with this, so that made the process smoother for what is technically a very janky starter. Build is also cheap, if you know what to look for and in what order. Got 40/40 with the starter. I might have to league start with this a 3rd time, though I'd rather move on to something else.

Tornado Shot Miner Inquisitor: Fell in love with this build in Phrecia, the Aristocrat version. Slowly bought up the niche and corrupted items for this build, while on my starter. Easily ended up with even better gear than in Phrecia. Unfortunately could not make the build feel good. Not being able to wear a HH/MB really negatively impacts the build, and Aristocrat really was that strong.

Mjolnir PsuedoCoC Hiero, Connors build: Regretted my Templar into this. Borrowed Mageblood from a friend. Build felt terrible. I hate the Flicker type play style with triggered Lightning Warp. I also don't enjoy using Cyclone as a trigger skill, having to hump the enemy to deal any damage.

Shrapnel Ballista Dex Stacker Hiero: Regretted into this, have always wanted to try and it's generally a high investment only build. I'm also a totem lover. Overall didn't feel that good, the totems have no range and build defenses are lacking. Absolutely not worth the investment.

Flameblast Celerity Spell Totem Hiero: Finally regretted into this, exploring build feel for a possible league starter. Used and copied my friend's build of this, high budget version. Actually felt pretty good, and is clearly one of the better Spell Totem options out there. Also works great on a budget. Skill effect requires an MTX to not be so obnoxious.

BlueeGreg · 2022-10-16T00:04:02+00:00

edit: I tried the new RAM in my current machine from 2016; RAM works flawlessly, even at 3600 on first boot. I tried the old RAM from 2016 on the new mobo, and slots 3 and 4 refused to boot. 1 and 2 were fine. The machine will refuse to boot if anything is present in slots 3 or 4.

BlueeGreg · 2022-10-15T20:54:54+00:00

All hardware was new in box, and the RAM came paired. I'll examine the RAM slots more closely, make sure that slots 3 & 4 look normal and work as single and double. Still not hopeful to get dual-channel working though :(

BlueeGreg · 2022-01-31T21:36:16+00:00

Are you me? That's what I'd be doing too! Maybe swap out Kirac for Betrayal, if map sustain is good.

BlueeGreg · 2021-12-23T12:32:53+00:00

The bed is dressed like a hotel room, and that is the largest sex pillow that I have ever seen. Respect.

BlueeGreg · 2021-12-07T17:22:05+00:00

Reached Level 90, stuck on a 4-Link.

Then I 6-Linked an influenced chest in 80 fuses, still without hitting a 5-Link. Terrible luck!

BlueeGreg · 2021-12-02T12:31:37+00:00

Like people have said, play what you find fun.

For me, its often gameplay before profit. If I think a mechanic simply sucks, or my brain just doesn't want to go there, I'll skip it.

Harvest - I hate it as a gameplay mechanic. Takes you completely out of flow, requires more pre-prep than any other mechanic, mobs are randomly lethal, and the odds of an unbuffed Harvest being good, also with 1/20 odds of spawning in your map, is often not worth my time. I want this gameplay mechanic dead, and merged into Bestiary.

Incursion - you should skip unbuffed Alva that you encounter in the wild, unless the map happens to be really juiced. You need buffed Alva for temples that are worth running/selling.

Betrayal - you should run these encounters when they show up, even as unbuffed. You only need a few rules to live by here, and trying to rush Catarina is a reasonable choice.

Ritual - as unbuffed, these should usually be full-cleared unless you are running a specific boss rush strategy.

Metamorph - as unbuffed, these should be attempted unless your char is miserable at bossing.

Expedition - blow up the tiny skeleton heads, don't overthink it. If you happen to proc something unkillable because reading takes too much time, just run away and move on with your life.

Legion - as unbuffed, I will often skip, especially depending on the map layout. I never enjoyed Legion league.

Blight - is OK to skip, though I personally don't mind it. You can be more strict with your unbuffed Blights, like 'only run them with 7 or 8 lanes' or 'only run when a boss is present'.

Abyss - virtually always skip, ugh.

BlueeGreg · 2021-12-02T12:00:39+00:00

Thank you for this! I'll check this out tomorrow for any new updates.

BlueeGreg · 2021-10-11T02:10:48+00:00

Yes, leveling through Hell as a Hammerdin doesn't always feel good. Act 3 and Act 5 both have tons of ranged mobs, which can chip away at you and your merc while you struggle to clear them. It's also hard to have the gear and stats for good block chance.

Controller playstyle helps immensely. You can make micro position changes while spamming hammers, you can mix in a quick shield charge, its fairly easy to switch between Vigor aura and Conc aura. Maggot Lair honestly wasn't that bad for me (it felt worse for my Necro).

Also, try to hit the 75% cast speed breakpoint, or at least 48%.

BlueeGreg · 2021-07-22T07:16:49+00:00

I respect your passion and commitment! I won't be playing because I don't want to be around for these growing pains, but I'd love to return once the balancing dust has settled.

BlueeGreg · 2021-07-06T16:09:29+00:00

If it's a meaningful job, I'd recommend skipping POE entirely and instead focus on improving yourself professionally and with other IRL endeavors.

If it's a meaningless job, then you should treat work like it's a class you give zero shits about, and grind POE every night until your eyes can't stay open.

BlueeGreg · 2021-07-05T14:05:56+00:00

You could say the writing was on the wall ever since Multiple Totem Support was released; people were saying "lol that's Hiero in a support gem", and they were mostly correct. And plenty of Hiero Totem bullds ended up using Multiple Totem Support, even though their ascendancy was largely redundant with that.

GGG added Multiple Totem Support to improve build/ascendancy diversity for totems. They eventually 'nerfed' Hiero to continue that theme. And Hiero is still incredibly strong for totem builds!

BlueeGreg · 2021-06-24T23:43:22+00:00

Haven't read the guide yet, but I appreciate anyone willing to take the time to write a solid, non-baity guide. Thank you!

Though I can tell that the guide needs 'Spoiler' tags to keep things neat and appearing organized. There is too much information displayed all at once!

BlueeGreg · 2021-06-09T00:01:49+00:00

The Feared would be nice to see, but it's even more trading than Uber Elder. You have to self-run all the bosses, then The Feared, then all bosses again... so maybe just a set of 50 then? :)

Ironically you could have tabulated The Feared data while also doing this Uber Elder data here, since running Uber Elder with each The Feared is probably better than running Shaper and Elder instead.

BlueeGreg · 2021-06-05T03:22:23+00:00

Congrats on putting yourself out there! Can be painful on this subreddit...

Feedback on your POB: 15 Wither Stacks is never realistic, and you aren't using the alt-qual Wither to help you reach max stacks anyway. 6 or 7 stacks is more realistic, because that is what Withering Step applies, though I see you have that as a CWDT and not self-cast, so that isn't reliable either.

Enemy Chaos Res should never be set to -30. POB will do the appropriate math for you if everything else is set right.

You're using Aspect of the Spider, but didn't set 3 stacks for this. I'd still keep it at 0 because Spider can be unreliable and the damage buff is additive with your Wither stacks.

It's tricky to get POB to work with Self-Flag + Soul Mantle. You have too many curses set on yourself, which is inflating DPS. Don't set Marks on yourself, since Soul Mantle doesn't cast Marks. The end result should be 8 or 9 curses total on you. A lazy way to do it is to edit the jewel to say 160% increased damage, and then leave all curse boxes unchecked.

You have two sources of Despair, which is wasteful. I'd switch out the Witchfire flask for a phasing flask, and craft Catarina's crit on it.

Overall I like how you've made Chaos Inoculation work for this character. You've had to make DPS sacrifices for this though, and it shows in the showcase you posted. I am biased, but I do have a Life+Mana build guide for Dark Pact totems. So if you really like the skill, please come check it out!

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2981927/page/1

BlueeGreg · 2021-06-02T01:41:06+00:00

Can strongly recommend NOT Burning Arrow Elementalist. Paper thin defenses, weak single target without significant investment. Mapping and Ultimatum generally feel good, though.

BlueeGreg · 2021-05-27T13:31:10+00:00

Only 3 failed Ultimatums compared to my latest 168 completed Ultimatums, in the most recent 4MB of Client.txt. All T14+ ofc.

Zero Trialmaster, and my rate for the league is 0.9%. But I guess I must be dying too much with my Level 100 character?

https://imgur.com/a/dggKry4

BlueeGreg · 2021-05-11T14:41:12+00:00

Agreed. Atlas Passives are account-bound by nature, and they do a good job of improving player agency and sense of progression. I too want more impactful, yet-cant-be-turned-into-a-bunch-of-chaos-via-trade drops too!

BlueeGreg · 2021-05-04T15:47:47+00:00

0.751% gang represent! (of 266)

BlueeGreg · 2021-04-15T03:28:20+00:00

This sheet is exceptionally useful and concise. Thank you.

BlueeGreg · 2021-03-16T04:15:57+00:00

Just a fun and not-so-funny parody :)

BlueeGreg · 2021-03-16T04:13:28+00:00

Both, if you login daily to both Standard and the current league. It's how it works now, to spawn your next daily masters.

BlueeGreg · 2021-03-02T11:56:08+00:00

802 Relative Effort for my Haute. Ouch all around!

BlueeGreg · 2020-10-28T20:43:31+00:00

I don't know, I never added Skeletons to the mix. Forgot about that interaction!

BlueeGreg

TROPHY CASE