Simulacrum Cursed Scythe With Bane of the Stricken

Necromancer
#1

I use my Sims for extra damage with their Cursed Scythes when pushing Greater Rifts and I have Bane of the Trapped at Rank 100. But I am wondering if Bane of the Stricken is actually better cause the Greater Rift Guardians take me about a whole minute to slay and I gotta spam the Scythe nonstop till the health bar drops to zero. The uncapped stacks of Bane of the Stricken are tempting me… please note that I can breeze easily at Tier 100 with my current build but the bosses are taking for ever. They take the most time of all monsters to slay on my timer even the elites. It’s annoying.

So would I be better off using BotT or BotS?

#2

We are talking about the Lod necro poison scythe build? Bane of the stricken, simplicity’s strength and legacy of dreams should be your gems. If you are struggling with the boss that is your indication that you should use stricken in general. 1 min for rift guardian is not that long by the way for pushes. Have you tried to maybe leave a pylon untouched just for the boss ? You can stack some strickens and then spawn a new pack with nemesis bracers and group them up to kill the boss with area damage.

#3

Yes. That is exactly the build I use right now. It’s breezing through anything on Torment XVI, even Elites and Bosses, as if they’re made of wheat against my scythes. The only thing I don’t use in the recommended build are Ancient Parthan Defenders, Leoric’s Crown, Stone Gauntlets and Illusory Boots. Instead, I use Andariel’s Visage, Nemesis Bracers, Saint Archew’s Gage and Steuard’s Greaves. I have poor armor and defenses, so I have Unity equipped between the follower and me, as well as Rubies incrusted in my sockets. All my set is Ancient or Primal Ancient, and they are upgraded Intelligence through Caldesan’s Despair. I never die at all. Not even during my Greater Rift pushing. But my attack power is rather dreadful… against those stupid Guardians.

I have LoD and Simplicity’s Strength already. All my Leg Gems are updated to Rank 100 so far.

So I take it you reckon Bane of the Stricken is actually my best bet, over Bane of the Trapped?

#4

Well, allow me to go a little bit off-topic, but this build is designed and destined to be a high pushing build. And a superb one. It is not very optimal for lower content (aka Normal rifts, T16, bounties, speed Grs). You made some alterations and gave more emphasis on speed and there is nothing wrong with that but wouldn’t you prefer to play a speed build that has 3 times the speed of this and still can one shot the entire screen if you are not pushing?? I know that i will do that in the next season and have this build only for pushing. Anyway, that is your choice alone, you should play it however you like it. But overall for that content i believe bane of the trapped is still of some value. Also if you are doing bounties with groups, unity pretty much becomes worthless cause there is no one to share the damage with.

Andariels Visage is a pretty good choice for helmet even for pushing so that was a good call. Make sure you get poison damage there as well. It can be even more important than the socket in very high GR. Nemesis are also amazing in slot even for pushing cause if you are almost at 99% of the rift you can just leave one pylon after the boss spawns. You will first stack a few strickens on the boss and after a while you are gonna activate the pylon and spawn some extra enemies. If you group them up the area damage will come into the equation and you are gonna kill the boss faster. Overall it will give you faster progress inside the rift. But ancient parthans work well too.

The stone gauntlents - ice climbers combo will make you a beast if toughness is needed. For pushing i would never take them off. As you probably noticed, this is a super tanky build (thankfully) and you can imagine on high pushes having this damage mitigation, on top of everything else, will make you a monster. At some poing you are gonna have to make a decision. You can probably cube the illusory boots to get on top of monsters if you chose to wear depth diggers. Or if you want to wear golemskin breeches to get extra toughness you have to cube depth diggers. Both options work fine.

For this kind of choices usually there is no simple answer. You have to make the adjustments as you see fit, cause you are the one playing it and you alone can know what is this small detail that you are missing. Is it a bit of damage? Is it a bit of toughness? Does not being able to walk through enemies cost you deaths?

To answer your question directly, in your place, i would chose bane of the stricken.
(Note: This build is not a natural Rift Guardian killer like Crusader, or DH impaler so stricken is probably even more essential here)

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#5

Ohhh thanks for the tips! Much appreciated.

I think I shall give it a try, then.

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