Level 86 Raise Zombie Necromancer^3.24

Notes

Leveling in general:

Look for rares with life, res, chaos res. If you have any leveling uniques feel free to use those. I.e. Tabula Rasa, Goldrim, Seven League etc. 

Leveling Skills:

Levels 1-8 (Skills are listed in order of importance. i.e. if you only have a 3 link you would run Summon Zombie + Ruthless + Minion Damage etc)

(Use Fireball/Rolling Magma + Arcane Surge until level 4)

Summon Zombie + Ruthless + Minion Damage + Summon Phantasm + Faster Attacks + Added Fire Damage

Summon Holy Relic (Reason for running this is to help with minion sustain. Early game minions are really squishy).

Smite +  Faster Attacks / Regular Melee Attack (if League start and you do not have access to Smite)

(This is to trigger summon holy relic. You are going to be squishy so don't just stand in melee range. Trigger Holy Relic when needed and then get out of melee)

Levels 8-18 (Skills are listed in order of importance)

(Vaal Summon Skeletons if you have access to it)
Summon Skeletons  + Minion Damage + Ruthless + Melee Splash or Faster Attacks or Added Fire Damage

Vitality - Precision - Clarity (If you have spare sockets)

Levels 18-33 (Skills are listed in order of importance)

Summon Zombie + Minion Damage  + Melee Physical Damage  + Ruthless + Faster Attacks + Added Fire Damage

Summon Holy Relic

(Vaal Summon Skeletons if you have access to it)
Summon Skeletons  + Minion Damage + Ruthless + Melee Physical Damage

Purity of Elements- Vitality - Precision - Clarity -  (If you have spare sockets)

Levels 33-Mapping
(If you have access to a 6 or 5 link put Carrion Golems and Zombies in the same link. If not run 2 4 links with the same priority on support gems)

Carrion Golem + Summon Zombie + Melee Physical + Minion Damage + Multistrike + Brutality

(Vaal Summon Skeletons if you have access to it)
Summon Skeletons  + Minion Damage + Maim + Feeding Frenzy

Raise Spectre + Meat Shield + Minion Life (Use Carnage Chieftains get them from Act 2. Host Chieftains get from Act 6).

Mapping:

CHECK MAIN SKILL SETUP FOR SKILL LINKS

End game setup

Low Budget Animate Guardian Gear: Dying Breath Iron Staff + Leer Cast Festival Mask + Belly of the Beast + Southbound (curse implicit vulerability or enfeeble on hit) + Windscream

High Budget Animate Guardian Gear: Kingmaker + Leer Cast Festival Mask + Garb of the Ephemeral + Southbound (curse implicit vulerability or enfeeble on hit) + Windscream

Low/Medium Budget Setup

Your first upgrade should be a max reservation efficiency Saqawals. The 20% mana reservation really helps with running all our auras.

Once you upgrade your animate guardians gear, you need to edit the custom modifiers in the configuration tab. I have already added the low and high budget effects. You just need to remove the space in whichever piece of gear you're upgrading.

Beast Craft Aspect of the Avian in any open suffix on rare gear.

FAQ

Q. Why no dash?
A. We are socketed starved until we get the Hungry Loop set up. We don't really need the dash because we zoom with Haste, Vaal Haste, and Spectral Leader.

Q. Why Ghost Reaver over Zealot's Oath?
A. We get a lot of leech from Bone Barrier and our minions. Having the regen to energy shield is not fast enough unfortunately. With the Instant Leech node, this makes us constantly have energy shield as long as we are hitting something

Q. Why Maata's over Convoking Wand?
A. Maata's gives us an insane amount of damage. Giving our minions 9% base crit is huge. We eventually replace the Maata's with a Convoking Wand, but in order to replace Maata's we need a pretty heavy investment wand.