spend energy to cast minions/gloom -> minions kill enemies, healing from gloom -> desecrate for orbs -> arcanes proc to regen resources

90% damage reduction and status/cc immunity through shield of shadows,
85% slow through gloom,
100% armor strip+cc through terrify,
scaling damage from minion weapons

flex slots:

• rolling guard is nice, but unnecessary. my second choice is primed continuity/streamline to reduce upkeep costs. rolling guard helps the most when you have no shadows up (and the invuln covers the cast time)
• you can cut despoil because health orbs are giving you 55 energy, but it's less consistent
• stretch: if enemy density is high enough, desecrate doesn't need the range, and gloom just drains energy.

notes:

• shards: cast speed, strength, max hp/energy
• a healing operator arcane makes arcane blessing better than arcane pulse
• subsume quiver instead of gloom if you want to afk
• toggle gloom as necessary -- it can prevent you from killing things at range and sustain minions you want to replace
• you can just park nekros at an objective like an excavation and go do something else as operator. doing this turns off gloom
• as of feb 2024, gloom, despite being an ability that heals you, does not trigger archon intensify
• arcane steadfast is better than arcane energize if spamming terrify
• [Panzer Vulpaphyla] + [Synth Deconstruct] spawns a lot of health orbs, so for endurance runs where smeeta dies, panzer is the next best option

optimizing desecrate:

• kill with slash for more desecrate procs
• use the amalgam ripkas true steel mod for increased dismemberment to all weapons
• take 2 farm nekros with khora + gova for maximally efficient farming
  • desecrate can't do more than about 3 corpses per second
  • molecular prime reduces the corpse timer from 15s (corpus/grineer) or 5s (infested) to 3s
  • strangledome does slash dismemberment. hydroid doesn't scale as well
• about petrify + ore gaze:
  • petrified corpses can't be desecrated more than once, so you get about the same amount of loot in practice unless running 300+ nekros strength
  • ragdolled enemies are no longer considered petrified; khora/hydroid/nidus/etc will interfere
• saryn's miasma deletes corpses almost immediately, and saryn mains are usually too stupid to know this
• black energy color minimizes desecrate/shadow screen real estate