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Nekros Prime

PUPPET MASTER | SP

by last updated 3 years ago

40

Death's new master. Featuring altered mod polarities allow for greater customization.

3 VOTES
3 COMMENTS

ITEM RANK

30

60 / 60

APPLY CONDITIONALS

ENERGY
190
HEALTH
370
SHIELD
555
SPRINT SPEED
1.1
DURATION
100%
EFFICIENCY
100%
RANGE
100%
STRENGTH
100%
ARMOR
135
Damage Reduction
31%
EFFECTIVE HIT POINTS
1,277
Guide
3 Comments
Nekros Prime builds
Builds by Lminith

PUPPET MASTER | SP

PUPPET MASTER

This is the Puppet Master build, and as the name hints, this is focusing around Shadows of the Dead and its augment [Shield Of Shadows].
This is a [Looter] with a lot of scaling, survivability and support.

If you liked the build and the details give it visibility by voting.


[Nekros] PLAYSTYLE DETAILS

Always have Desecrate (3rd skill) active get used to glance at it during mission to make sure it's always on, specially if fighting corpus units due to their disruptions.

Focus on killing useful mobs, the Shadows you spawn through Shadows of the Dead (4th skill) are based on what you kill, if you kill a Nullifier or Ancient Healer you'll likely summon them for your cause.
The Shadows die slowly, you can recast 4th to [Regen] all your current Shadows and summon additional ones if lower than cap, this cast is faster and you can do it mid combat.
If you're on a long mission do not forget to update Shadow levels, to do this let the Shadows die and look for a safe location to summon more. These new Shadows will be different mobs and have higher level.


LOOT

Your desecrate unlike other loot skills works not on a by enemy ratio but by body part. To make the most out of this I recommend to always have weapons that deal high slash damage because these weapons can slash body parts and each part gets one desecrate.
If you're farming resources together with friends ask them to use high Slash damage weapons for this reason.
[Nekros] + [Khora] are great together because of this, Khora's Strangledome not only has the added loot from the augment Pilfering Strangledome, it also slashes bodies.


AURA

Aura forma is advised to swap auras as party needs, default should be [Corrosive Projection] to allow faster kills and more loot.
If you're farming mostly non armoured or party has other means to strip armour there are other worthy aura mods mentioned below to help party.

I've often seen people run [Rejuvenation] but imo this is a mistake and I never understood since I always have my health full unless I'm afk and party is killing too far for the vacuum to collect orbs.

Worthy Mentions:
Enemy Radar - see where mobs are, their path and their spawns, increases range of other radar mods
Brief Respite - support party with shield gating
Growing Power - the extra Str allows for more DR from Shadows and helps party


ARCANES

Arcane Pulse and Arcane Energize
Since this is a support build the idea is to support your team mates with Health and Energy.
There are other options more self oriented be it combat or survivability, but let's face it, if you're playing a [Nekros] is for the loot, that's your role. If you do your role and support your party nukers everyone wins (beware, they might love you and start to stalk you ;P )

Worthy Mentions:
Arcane Aegis - shield gating
Arcane Avenger - extra base critical chance
Arcane Grace - extra health regen for safer afk
Arcane Guardian - extra damage mitigation
Arcane Eruption - added layer of crowd control when you take an energy orb


MAIN MODS

[Despoil], [Equilibrium] and [Health Conversion] are pretty much self explanatory and have been the base of Nekros for several years so I won't go into details. If needed I'm sure some other older guide has.

Adaptation/[Rolling Guard] instead of STR mods.
STR mods increase your DR from Shadows but this is capped. The default STR and the number of Shadows you have already put you close to the max, you can even [Reach] it if you summon Shadows that spawn creatures on their own.
Thus [Adaptation] is always stronger than higher STR.
Instead of having 90% DR you can have 90% * 90% DR.

Note: For Solo Steel Path you might want to swap out [Adaptation] for [Rolling Guard]. This is mostly because on start you have no Shadow Minions to spread aggro or give you DR and [Adaptation] DR starts at 0 just like [Health Conversion].
[Rolling Guard] is a safer playstyle for active play allowing you to roll before an engagement makes it easy to start your shadow count even if it was a level 9999 enemy.

[Umbral Vitality]
Well, sentients are becoming more common and there is no drawback besides some extra capacity.
If you don't have it use [Vitality] instead, it's necessary to have a big Health pool to keep Desecration with [Despoil].

[Stretch]
The higher the range the more you Desecrate.
I'd love to have higher range (and I actually have other builds on WF with more range) but this is meant to do harder content, going for extra range needs more mod slots or swapping this for [Overextended], but doing so reduces your survivability. Less STR = Less DR.
To help I have [Cunning Drift] on Exilus slot.

[Primed Continuity]
This is really important for builds around Shadows because otherwise their health depletes too fast making it useless.

ARMOR AND DAMAGE RESIST

[Shield Of Shadows] Breakdown

It's common to see people running higher Str on [Nekros] because the Augment [Shield Of Shadows] gives DR based on the Shadow Minions you have and based on Str. This as a cap of 90% DR meaning that it never goes above that. Seeing the information on the skill saying you can have max 7 minions players assume that they should go for 12% DR per minion since 12 x 7 = 84.
This is a mistake. Because you can actually have more than 7 minions, in fact it's common to have around 10 minions, due to a simple fact, Shadow Minions that spawn Shadow Minions.
I've had a few times 14 minions, but that is hard to sustain. So with this information lets run down some values.

STR | DR/Shadow | Shadows Required

  • 100 | 6% | 84% DR with 14, 90% DR with 15
  • 115 | 6% | 84% DR with 14, 90% DR with 15
  • 144 | 8% | 88% DR with 11
  • 155 | 9% | 90% DR with 10
  • 170 | 10% | 90% DR with 9

These are important Str values due to available mods. To [Reach] these values you only have to use [Umbral Intensify], [Umbral Vitality] and [Power Drift].
[Nekros] will always run [Vitality] or [Umbral Vitality] because it needs high HP for survivability and as a pool for the [Despoil]. [Umbral Intensify] reaches 44% Str alone and can go to 55% while adding extra HP with something that we already run, an HP mod. [Power Drift] is an exilus and there aren't many options for [Nekros] there, the other being [Cunning Drift].

Yes there are other Str mods, but [Nekros] doesn't have a dump stat, so he wants to avoid drawbacks that he has no mod slots to deal with, he doesn't have many mod options running two augments already.

Looking above you can see that all these options have pros and cons, going for one extra mod to give a bit more DR from Shadows might be counter productive because instead you can run a survival mod that helps you more.

[Health Conversion]

[Nekros] armor will always be 1475 (125+1350) there are always health orbs on the ground and and it takes 3s to lose a stack of 450. Having 1475 armor means that you have 83% DR from that alone. Adding the [Shield Of Shadows] DR (which we are capped at 90% DR) we can go up to 99,98 DR.

If we calculate a 100% Str, 6% DR per minion and have for example 10 minions giving 60% DR... 0,17 x 0,4 = 0,068
This means 93,2% DR and a free mod slot and exilus slot to use still.

Slapping an [Adaptation] we have:
0,17 x 0,4 x 0,1 = 0,0068

Reaching 99,9932% DR with 10 minions on 100% Str.
[Adaptation] has the same 90% DR potential, but it's flaw is that it requires time to build up, and that's where [Health Conversion] and Shadows come.
[Health Conversion] allows you to face tank without moving not losing armor as you take the health orbs on the ground and stacking [Adaptation] resistances. Shadows give extra aggro, DR and crowd control immunity.
The build is filled with synergies between frame skills and mods instead of looking at mods in the void.


PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

As I explained on the breakdown above, I opted for alternate means of survival instead of focusing more on the Shadows + Health Conversion. My years of experience playing Nekros solo and party and problematic situations allowed to reach this min-max setup.

[Nekros] is a frame that builds up, it requires a setup and keep going from there, it requires momentum, this is the most critical thing, when you have Ancient auras giving you +90%DR and nullifiers around you... where's the hard mode? Well, the "hard mode" is losing your setup.

Example:
You're farming with someone else, really high levels on a surv for hours, if the host disconnects due to some random issue you lose all your Shadows and buffs, you have to setup from 0 versus high level, breaking all your momentum, and you don't want to extract cause your friend may be able to rejoin. If your build relies too much on Shadows DR and [Health Conversion] you have issues when you can easily be one shot (well now it's easier with shield gating, but still, you get the idea).

So I opted to have a higher range with Cunning Drift since +15 Str wouldn't change DR, and not use Umbral Intensify and going instead for Adaptation/Rolling Guard.
If you what a Nekros build reliable to use on any content without any flaw this is it.


SKILL SWAP

This depends on what you use your [Nekros] mostly and the people you party with so what I can do is give insight on useful skills to have in no particular order.
I suggest swapping the 1st or 2nd.
The 1st allows you to instant convert an enemy with low HP to a shadow minion.
The 2nd allows you to use for a panic button and armor strip.

Worthy Skill Swaps
Roar - extra Damage, extra DR before recasting shadows
Null Star - extra DR on health
Radial Blind - AoE stun and blindness
Dispensary - more orbs and ammo
Elemental Ward - hp/armor/reload...
Smite - knockdown and dmg 35% max hp, but armor reduces it
Silence - AoE silence and stun
Lull - AoE sleep
Larva - AoE stack mobs
Tempest Barrage - utility to reduce many nullifier bubbles at once
Breach Surge - extra damage and crowd control, but best used on higher str frames

Have fun playing [Nekros].

For suggestions or questions write on comments. I'll try to reply or someone else might.