[3.23] Raskoril's Impale Dancing Dervish Necro

Preface: This build is heavily inspired by CaptainWarlord's Dancing Duo build from 3.7. As he stopped updating the build and subsequently vanished from the internet I have made significant changes each patch, and thus consider the build my own now.



This build utilizes The Dancing Dervish as a summoner as opposed to support for Facebreaker or Hollow Palm. This build is all about going fast, FAST, FAST.

## 3.23 Changes ##

This patch is...not great. While there are definitely going to be advantages with the Wildwood Primalist ascendancy (our only real option), the loss of the Carrion Golem helmet enchant is *immense*. We also lose the reservation efficiency from Ashes, which forces us to either Anoint Charisma or sacrifice a jewel and a couple extra points for a small cluster. Losing alt quality gems with no transfigured replacements are smaller hits all over the place that won't feel great. This doesn't kill the build, but rather limits the already low ceiling of damage. 10m+ dps should still be very attainable, which is plenty for most content.

#UPDATES#
Perfect Dancing Sword is an IMMENSE spectre for this build, but it is slow and can die easy. Convocate often.

Hulking Miscreation is an IMMENSE spectre for this build. Bottom text.

Charms give a lot of power, and utilizing these we can use our auras without the walord amulet or with Ashes post-nerf as well as getting back some golem buff effect. These were 1c each.


Post 40/40 summary: This league was better than I originally expected. A slow start from several nerfs that led into some huge power made available this league was a bit of a rollercoaster, but in the end we ended up with more power than previously attainable. However, this does not change the fact that each league it gets harder and harder to eke out what is needed to complete all content and challenges from the Dervish. This is the most fun item in the game for me, and it seems unnecessary to truncate its power constantly when the ceiling is so low. I will be elaborating more on this in the near future.

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POB:https://pobb.in/0T94pXo42Vjn
(the damage listed in PoB will be significantly lower than actual damage)

PROS
+FAST
+Fairly low budget, with high budget options available
+Minion build, so easy playstyle
+Mandatory items are common, and league start is viable
+Can run most content with budget gear
+Low budget excels at clearing, high budget is comfortable bossing
+All map mods
+No 6L required

CONS
-Fairly squishy
-Minion build, so boring for some
-Lower damage ceiling than popular minion builds
-Flask piano

The Dancing Dervish

This is what the build is all about. What appears to be a mediocre two-handed sword is actually a pair of minions that come alive for as long as we maintain rampage. The sockets do not need to be linked; all socketed gems support the Dervish. The minions themselves are simple: they target whatever they can see, and spam cyclone as long as they see enemies. They are also nearly indestructible, with them usually not even getting scratched anywhere outside of PvP. When rampage ends they vanish.

--How does the build work?--

The Writhing Jar and Brutal Restraint

This is our engine, our startup, our sustain, our lifeline. We take three of these for convenience and comfort (two when we have Brutal restraint), but it is possible to sustain in most situations, if not all, with two. Once we enter a map we pop our flasks a couple times to pop some worms out, wait a few seconds, then press one flask every second or so. As our support minions kill the worms we quickly enter rampage, spawning our swords. We then activate our other flasks giving us speed and phasing. Once our startup is complete (taking just a handful of seconds on average) our game plan is simple: we run headfirst into and through packs of monsters while our swords melt everything in our wake. When we are able we drop one of our flasks and take Brutal Restraint with Balbala and allocate The Traitor using the socket just underneath Mind Over Matter. This allows us to sustain all of our flasks much more easily, especially for pinnacle bosses.

Bossing typically involves just dodging mechanical elements while the swords work, casting curse/offering if you have it, and standing near the boss if possible. It's that easy.

Brutal Restraint also seems to want to give us extra dexterity, which is really great for freeing up suffixes on gear.

Why Necromancer?
Originally we used Ascendant, but after the damage nerf in 3.15 and the passive masteries from 3.16 we utilize the Necromancer. With the advent of flask masteries we don't need Pathfinder anymore, and the endurance charges and stun immunity from Juggernaut lose their value now that we use Steelskin (negating utility of the charges). Originally we took Necromancer for the +gems, but now we take Commander of Darkness for some decent damage and lots of resists, freeing up suffix slots on gear for attributes or minion speed crafts. This has the secondary utility of making it much easier to keep support minions alive. We also get a significant boost to defense by way of 50%+ block chance through Mistress of Sacrifice and Glancing Blows. Playing as Necromancer also means a smoother leveling experience, as a Witch is much more league-start friendly than a Scion. There is a popular Occultist version which is also very powerful, but Occultist has little to offer this particular build as our damage is all physical.

--GEARING--

Beyond the sword and flasks most of our entry level gear is very basic- just grab stuff with life and resists, and picking up jewels as sockets become available.

Body Armour

Any body with a decent amount of armour, life, and resists will serve for all content. If you don't feel like buying one you can just grab an Astral Plate and slam an Essence of Greed until you get a couple resists, and hopefully an open suffix. The Guatelitzi modifier is very good if you can buy a chest with it. There are a variety of useful eldritch implicits, such as block chance and aura effect. A 6 link is not required. BALLER OPTION: Hunter influence for that dank %offering effect and %life. 6l to maximize your Vaal Haste.

Helmet

Beyond life and resists we prioritize +level of minion gems, and with an Elder base we can get minion life. An ideal endgame helm is crafted from an 80+ Elder Bone Helmet base (obtainable from the divination card Nook's Crown or Dark Dreams) with +minion gems, minion life, and resists/dexterity. There are many ways to craft this, but I personally just spam bound+pristine fossils at the base until I get the prefixes then craft whatever resists I need. If more currency is available we can finish the craft by locking prefixes and using a veiled chaos orb, which allows us to have two hybrid resists. We do not want Minion Damage here, as it makes our supports far too squishy now. BALLER OPTION: Corrupt for +2 minion gems you scoundrel.

Belt

A Stygian Vise is the clear choice, with %Reduced Flask Charges Used. Life and resists are high priority. Bench craft %Chance for flasks to not consume charges if you have enough resists. Darkness Enthroned is BIS if you can manage the resists elsewhere and sustain flasks. BALLER OPTION: Fertile Catalyst, close your eyes and Hunter slam t1 %life.

Rings

Early on we just use rings with life and a lot of resists, and bench craft minion speed if possible. As soon as we can we swap in unset rings to make room for more gems. Make sure one ring has an open Suffix to beastcraft Aspect of the Spider on it. BALLER OPTION: Redeemer slam minion damage.

Amulet

Early on we will likely be using this to cover some str/dex requirements, as well as the usual life and resists. +1 physical gems is a generic mod now, so getting that may also be a viable choice. Anoint Replenishing Remedies, you will fall in love with the extra survivability. Do NOT Anoint Ravenous Horde- our swords have Onslaught built in and this does nothing for us. When we are able it is recommended to get an amulet with reservation efficiency with Pride/Determination, which is a Walord modifier. If you cannot find one for sale you can craft a Warlord amulet (preferably dex/str base) with bound fossils, or use Essences of Woe to help with our high Dexterity requirement. BALLER OPTION: Ashes of the Stars. This amulet gives us so much, although the price is going to make it the most expensive piece of even the highest budget version of this build. The +gems buffs our supports survivability, the damage we get from our golem, and benefits any other active skill. The quality is TREMENDOUS, as it gives us more buff effect from our golems and life for supports. Since the removal of Reservation Efficiency from Ashes in 3.23 using it will require either anointing Charisma or swapping an abyss jewel with a small cluster with Uncompromising.

Boots

Grab some boots with a decent movespeed roll, some life and resists as usual, and Dextery if you can. Voidwalker is a decent budget option if starting later in the league, and offers some added tankiness with the ability to avoid damage completely. BALLER OPTION: Grab your Grand eldritch currency and get ready to slam Brittle Ground and Golem Effect. I personally use armour from gloves/helmet over golem effect, but I die a lot.

Gloves

Some gloves with decent armour will help with defenses and make colouring easier, along with our usual fare of life and resists. Craft on %minion damage if you have an open prefix or use Essence of Fear. This is a good spot to fill in Dexterity. BALLER OPTION: Grand Eldritch currency for Minion damage and effect of marks.

Flasks

In addition to our worm flasks a requirement for this build is the Quartz Flask. This allows permanent Phasing, which allows us to smoothly run through packs of monsters and (usually) not get hit. I don't remember WHY this is, but supposedly has something to do with monster turn speed and action time or some other weird mechanical interaction. The flask also gives us some spell suppression, which is nice. Our fifth(fourth when we get The Traitor) flask slot is usually reserved for a Quicksilver for the extra speed. It is highly recommended to have Bleed/Ignite (preference) and Freeze immunity between these two flasks. Situational flasks can be very important for certain endgame bosses, and can easily be swapped into our fifth slot as needed.
BALLER OPTION: Bottled Faith. This is our only DPS option for flasks, and it is significant. Swap it with your Quicksilver/Quartz flask for big bosses.

Jewels

Ghastly Eye Jewels

This is where the bulk of our power comes from. The absolute priority stat on these is minion movement speed. After that we try to get a decent flat phys to minions on them, then life and minion attack speed or conditional minion damage as you can. Try to get at least one instance of minion taunt and minion blind across these jewels, as shown in the above examples. Our minions hit so often that just one instance is enough for permanent taunt/blind. With the advent of 6mod corrupted jewels dropping it is also possible to get additonal mods we can use, such as resists, attributes, minion accuracy, ailment avoidance, etc. BALLER OPTION: Get as many implicits as you can through Corruption for Movespeed, Aura AoE, Reduced Reservation of Skills, etc. Become fully poison/ignite/stun/etc immune through stacking modifiers.


Uniques

Fortress Covenant is a powerful option, but has had it's rarity increased in 3.20 and may not be viable anymore until late game. We take one of these and place it in one of our clusters. Threshold jewels in clusters have their radius deactivated, so we get none of the penalties and all the the benefits. BALLER OPTION: Fortress Covenant with CB implicit is wonderful.

Cluster Jewels

On a large cluster we want 8p with Rotten Claws and Primordial Bond. Four our third notable we make use of Feasting Fiends on one of the clusters to keep our minions healthy, and on the other we can use Vicious Bite (expensive) or Raze and Pillage (our supports ignite enemies, causing our swords to deal increased damage). Early on taking a jewel with extra passives is okay if you are on a budget and, again, feel safe sacrificing the life nodes. Extensive testing has shown this build does NOT benefit from Renewal unlike other builds that utilize Discipline. Our swords are nearly invincible, but almost never at full life. BALLER OPTION: Possibly one of those 12p 35% clusters? I haven't actually tested it, but I assume it's better.

--PASSIVE TREE EXPLANATION--

Mostly standard minion tree, with a few modifications. Minion damage and maximum life are the name of the game, as well as bonus spectres, reservation efficiency, dexterity/strength, and jewel sockets.
Masteries are:
Minion Offfence- 20% increased effect of offerings, +250 minion accuracy, minions overwhelm 20% PDR, 30% increased minion aoe
Minion Defence- 40% CDR on Convocation
Life- +50 max life
Flask mastery- life/mana flasks gain charges every 3 seconds
Reservation- 30% Increased Area of Effect for Aura Skills


https://pobb.in/Al4KVKq7H93D

--BANDITS AND PANTHEON--

Kill all the bandits. We need the passives.

For our major god Lunaris is a solid choice, as we are almost always surrounded by enemies (our worms count). Solaris can be swapped in for bosses as needed.

For our minor Ryslatha is most useful for maintaining flasks. I would not recommend any other.

--ASCENDANCY--

Commander of Darkness -> Mindless Aggression -> Mistress of Sacrifice -> Plaguebringer

--GEM LINKS--

DD Supports: Melee Physical Damage - Brutality - Maim - Impale - Minion Damage - Minion Speed

Sometimes it can be difficult to get 3R1G2B on the sword:

3R2G1B: Culling Strike instead of Minion Speed.

4R1G1B: Pulverise instead.

Reroll until you get one of these three colour combinations.

The progression for this changes from Minion Speed to Critical Damage if we have AG with Kingmaker and Fearsome Force, then ultimately to Predator when we have room for both Predator supports (the ability from the one in the sword is disabled on Rampage).


Helmet

-Initial Setup: Raise Spectre - Carrion Golem - Minion Life - Meat Shield

-Endgame: Carrion Golem - Animate Guardian - Raise Spectre - Empower

Our spectres and golem serve no purpose but to start our rampage, buff our swords with frenzy/power charges, debuff the enemies, and potentially absorb damage, so our priority is keeping them alive. Once we have a helm with +gems we can reasonably keep our spectres and a budget AG alive. Empower further buffs their survivability, as well as the damage from our golem.

Body Armour

Bone Offering - Vaal Haste - Steelskin - Increased Duration
Separately: Dread Banner - Generosity

There is flexibility with the two linked red sockets here if the colours on your body armour make swapping Dread Banner with other gems easier for you, such as Flame Dash or Desecrate. We only put offering and curse here after we have the unset rings to support the extra sockets. If you manage to get a 6 link here it will substantially increase the power of your Vaal Haste by supporting it with Generosity and Increased Duration.

Boots

Raise Zombie - Feeding Frenzy - Minion Life - Meat Shield

These guys really don't want to exist, but they are the best way to apply feeding frenzy for us so we do what we can to keep them alive. Endgame you can drop Meat Shield or Minion life and/or Meat Shield for the Abyssal Socket or another gem, such as Convocation.

Whatever doesn't fit will go into our rings, along with Pride

Gloves and Rings

We have some flexibility here, as the rest of our gems don't need to be linked. Since we want an armour base we try to get at least two red sockets for at least two of Pride, Determination, and Vulnerability. We also use Flame Dash, Convocation, and Desecrate. Fit what you can in your gloves- the rest will go in your rings. If you've managed to get a double curse setup with your Animate Guardian you will want to use Poacher's Mark instead of Vulnerability, which will now be on the gloves of our AG. When we have the extra socket available we will have a second Predator support to use Mark Prey.

--TRANSITION TO ENDGAME--

Tier 16 maps and Pinnacle bosses are fine on a budget of a few divines, but to really push the build we need to invest more. An Animate Guardian with Gruthkuls for regen, Kingmaker for both offense and defense, Southbound with Vulnerability on hit (NO other curses!), Windscream with life regen enchant to enable two curses so we self cast mark instead of vulnerability, and recently buffed Leer Cast (higher damage then %phys taken helm now) is good once you can get your AG life high enough (24+ gem and preferably Divergent). Crafting a sword with the %physical modifiers enchant is harder now with the price increase of divines, but not impossible. Combined with the other BALLER options we find ourselves with a hefty amount of damage, somewhere in the 13m dps range for me currently. Be warned! If you do incredibly dangerous content your AG will almost CERTAINLY die at some point (Uber Atziri LOVES eating AG). Don't use it until you can afford to lose it.

--LEVELING--

Good news! Leveling as a scion sucked, but leveling as a witch is great! Just take your favourite minion skill (Absolution is BONKERS) until 59 and you're ready to go. It's that easy =)
[insert graphic of passive tree with incremental steps]
[insert PoB with leveling and endgame trees]


--HOW TO PROGRESS THIS BUILD--

Our main focus early on is levels to give us access to more jewel sockets, and then buying/upgrading jewels to scale the speed and damage of our swords. A cheap 9-11p cluster early on just to fit in more jewel sockets and minion damage nodes can make a huge difference for our damage. The next significant upgrade is our helmet, as an Elder helmet with Minion Life allows us to use an Animate Guardian in addition to our spectres and golem, especially when linked with Empower. Level 21 for each of these gems is also important if accessible to keep them alive. Early on we should be searching for better cluster jewels in the chance we find a good one for cheap- particularly an 8p with Primordial Bond. A Warlord amulet with Pride/Determination Reservation will allows us to use Aspect of the Spider, which is very good for both damage and survivability. One of the biggest upgrades we can do at this point is Awakened Brutality and Awakened Melee Physical Damage. These upgrades are minor until they hit level 5, and then they are HUGE- they typically mark the transition between killing pinnacle bosses and EASILY killing pinnacle bosses. Around this time we should also look into six linking our chest to get the most out of our Vaal Haste(be sure you have enough reservation efficiency!), as well as a Bottled Faith, and getting a Hunter Stygian Vise with %life. At this point the last big upgrade is Ashes of the Stars. It's a pretty hefty investment, and accounts for more than half the cost of the high-budget version of the build, but it does a LOT for us. After this the main thing left to do is to maximize our jewels, get level 21 gems (and/or 23 quality) and eke out as much chaos resistance as we can with the suffixes available. At this point of optimization I have so far been able to dish out around 13 million Shaper dps. This is by no means extraordinary, but more than enough for most content.

--BUILD SHOWCASE--

Simulated league start red maps (garbage gear, low level, low level gems, no AG, etc): https://youtu.be/Tf4CxHuMIpQ

3.14:
Sirus (deahtless): https://youtu.be/ypXkgsEoF_g

Maven (deathless): https://youtu.be/6GkDiP1X8Ro

3.17:
Rare Elderslayers invite (deathless): https://youtu.be/IWyR51p-39U

Rare Exarch invite: https://youtu.be/-4RZIkrm968

Rare Eater invite: https://youtu.be/V9sAUOwTgWI

3.19
UBER Shaper: https://youtu.be/QSbvwp0YuEA

UBER Cortex: https://youtu.be/q-eoja3Ajcc

UBER Eater of Worlds: https://youtu.be/c5ChtGy5p2E

UBER Maven: https://youtu.be/sstWaLBf54o

3.22
80q+ The Feared: https://youtu.be/yjvw6eZvpnA

3.23
League start video with time stamps. Choppy recording =/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP3Xumkb2-0

Expedition farming strategy: https://youtu.be/gwBZipkqv7A

83 Sanctum (no relics): https://youtu.be/WzIfnPuHXdE

UBER Cortex: https://youtu.be/10BJ9k6KSgA

UBER Shaper: https://youtu.be/0Igy0etqu2Y

UBER Eater of Worlds: https://youtu.be/MJkq03ikIlY

UBER Uber Elder: https://youtu.be/RIYoKx9BErg

King of the Mists: https://youtu.be/To5WJ2y-Zt0

Elderslayer farming strategy: https://youtu.be/fkvLBXq295Y

--FAQ--

Q:Why don't you play Chains of Command or [insert other minion skill]?
A:I've tried them, and I just find it more fun to play something different.

Q:Why don't you use Hollow Palm/Facebreaker?
A:These are melee builds, and I don't like melee. Neither do the devs :^)

Q:Why don't you use Triad Grip/Doryani's Prototype/etc?
A:Because 30+ impales a second sounds cool.

Q:Why do I keep dying?
A:Positioning is important! If you feel to squishy to run through packs you can try strafing them instead. Make sure to have Steelskin on left click and use Convocation often!

Q:I can't find cheap cluster/ghastly jewels like yours.
A:They don't need to be exactly the same! For clusters I have made it to 40 challenges with a 9p that just had Primordial Bond, and for the ghastlies you can just pick up jewels with at least three relevant stats for as little as 2-5c every league.

Q:I don't have enough str/dex to equip my sword/gems.
A:You may need to take the 30 attribute nodes temporarily before you can acquire gear with enough attributes. Don't forget the crafting bench!

Q:What kind of psycho plays the same build 17 leagues in a row it isn't even good?
A:I do, and all my 40 challenge trophies and uber kills disagree =)

If you have any questions, ideas, feedback, please let me know here.

reserved

From all the dervish builds i think this one looks like the most solid one,cant go wrong with phys impale.Probably gona start out on 3.15 with this as well,tried the pooison one and its kinda bad on dmg,since its dot.Kinda torn between dervish start and the jugg instability sentrys ,but this looks way more league startery than that.

I gotta say, with the nerfs to the build survivability and damage this feels really terrible endgame. This is by far the worst experience I've had playing, and while I will continue to improvise and try to work it out I simply cannot recommend this build to anyone in its current state. I'll still be playing it of course, and will update the guide if I discover any changes that might make it more viable to the public.

Does it still feel terrible :P

I intend to update this guide after the patch notes release because I got the build running again as a Necromancer, but they just posted they are reworking the Dervish and we'll see if the build is possible after this.

do you have an idea of when that may happen? I am definitely looking to start with your build with the new rampage changes to the weapon

"

sekushiiandee wrote:

do you have an idea of when that may happen? I am definitely looking to start with your build with the new rampage changes to the weapon

Pob has removed the swords so I cannot get accurate numbers, but I managed to get to level 92 and 23 challenges with beating sirus and the four new bosses by the end of day three. I will update the guide when pob is fixed.

In the meantime Bellabong has a very good and updated guide for her occultist version, which will feel very different from mine. I've heard people using Bella's build and even Bella herself saying it doesn't feel good for some content after the AI rework, but it should at least give you an idea where the build sits at. I will say that my experience has definitely been far better than anyone else I have heard from, but I don't think that is because my build is better.

my chaos dervish cry in 3.17 😥

Since they keep messing with the sword this league I wasn't planning on updating the guide, but honestly this is the best the build has ever felt and now that I am done with the league I will try to update the guide this week for those interested. It will definitely be focused on a higher budget than previously (15-20ex).