Necromancy DPM Advice
> Necromancy DPM Advice 
This channel will go over general damage output lessons, ability prioritisation, crafting a rotation, a learning path, common mistakes, and tips and tricks.
> Ability Prioritisation
⬥ Generally, high damaging abilities should be prioritised and used more often than low damaging abilities.
⬥ To compare abilities, use RS Analysis' Necromancy Page, and add your gear.
Note: This does not give an ability rotation, only a damage comparison chart. It does not consider Ability Cooldowns, Adrenaline, Necrosis Stacks 
, Residual Souls 
or any specific PvM encounter.
> Building a Necromancy Rotation
⬥ Similar to other styles, a typical Necromancy rotation uses the strongest basics available to build adrenaline, and spends it on the strongest available thresholds, ultimates or special attacks.
• To achieve this, we must think about the following key considerations:
⬩ Ability Cooldowns
⬩ Adrenaline
⬩ Conjures 
⬩ Necrosis Stacks
⬩ Residual Souls
⬩ Boss HP and phases
• If these considerations are well accounted for, you will be able to improvise rotations effectively.
⬥ In addition, here are more specific fundamental concepts which are key to high DPM Necromancy rotations:
1. Maximising Conjure 
uptime during rotations and prioritising using Command Ghost 
a. empowers the Vengeful Ghost to apply the the Haunted 
debuff to its target for 4.8 seconds per hit, causing the target to take up to 10% increased damage from all attacks (capped at 20% of the commanding player's ability damage, applying to all styles).
⬩ This also increases the healing capability of the ghost.
⬩ This synergises best with abilities which either hit under 200% ability damage per hit or hit multiple times, such as Bloat 
, Volley of Souls 
and Death Skulls 
⬩ This indirectly increases damage dealt by Split Soul 
via increasing the size of each hit.
⬩ This also increases the damage dealt by poison 
, reflect damage, typeless hits from 
, god book procs and other sources.
2. Using whenever possible if the Necromancy Zuk cape 
is owned.
a. with is the strongest Necromancy ability and does not require any prebuilding of stacks which use up global cooldowns. It bounces up to 6 times (hitting the main target 4 times).
b. without is still a very strong ability, but it costs 100% adrenaline rather than 60% and only bounces up to 4 times (hitting the main target 3 times). It should therefore not be the priority and should be only used when you have excess adrenaline.
• See the 'Ability Mechanics' section below which covers the mechanics of in more detail.
3. Ensuring that Living Death 
, , Invoke Death 
and Threads of Fate 
are used in the most optimal situations.
4. Prioritise the use of Touch of Death 
, Soul Sap 
, and auto-attacks 
as follows:
a. > > outside of
b. > = (decide based on the situation) within
> Aura Choices
⬥ Both Mahjarrat Aura 
and Supreme Invigorate Aura 
are extremely useful depending the situation
• Mahjarrat provides 5% damage
• Supreme Invigorate provides 10% adrenaline reduction on Ultimates allowing for more high damage abilities to be used.
⬥ Vampyrism Aura 
and 
can also be used while learning or for more difficult content, and both synergise well with .
⬥ It is worth checking individual boss guides, as the best choice of aura is often content dependant
Equilibrium Aura 
does also have use cases in which it is best in slot
⬥ Early game before you have access to crit chance buffs such as 
, 
, and 
⬥ Late game AFK content
⬥ Some poisonable content when used alongside a ranger using bik arrows
This aura does function best with different perk setups, so be wary of using it without the research in relevent guides.
> General Living Death Rotations
The following unlocks are assumed:
⬥ Ring of Vigour 
or its passive effect after the Extinction quest.
⬥ Igneous kal Mor
⬥ Omni Guard 
and Soulbound Lantern 
are used.
Keep in mind the following:
⬥ These are only suggestions to work from, and will not necessarily be applicable at all bosses or situations.
• For boss-specific rotations, see their respective guides.
⬥ Conservation of Energy relic 
is highly recommended for adrenaline refunds from and .
> 1) Rotation: + + + 
(Prebuild) → 
→ → → → 
Beginner Rotation without Residual Souls
(tc) + → → → → → + (same tick) → → → 
→ → → → → → → → → → → → →
Rotation with Residual Souls
(tc) + → → → → → + (same tick) → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → →
If struggling to use the Adrenaline Renewal on tick, please see the Common Mistakes and Tips section within this guide for an explanation. Alternatively, wait an extra tick before casting the first so that you have enough adrenaline to cast it.
Notes:
⬥ Following this rotation, will be on a 12 second cooldown ready to be used again. This allows you to get three within the , with an additional use of before and an addition use of after .
⬥ Split Soul can be used mid rotation if it cannot be cast beforehand.
• Divert 
can be useful to ensure that your adrenaline doesn't fall too low during the due to using a global cooldown to .
• If gives excess adrenaline, may be useful (as it is very effective during ).
⬥ If using , use one ability earlier and weave in , 
as adrenaline allows.
For specific rotations, please see the relevant boss guide.
2) Rotation: + + (no )
⬥ This rotation would be mostly similar to the above, however after using , basics will have to be used to build to the first .
• This will result in only two casts of within the .
⬥ This rotation will be required at some bosses, such as TzKal Zuk 
if using on Har Aken 
or the Ambassador 
after spinners if using at the start of the fight.
3) Rotation: Outside of +
⬥ Outside , , or should be treated as higher priority.
⬥ For longer phases, → and then using Death Spark 
procs by weaving between , and will be strong.
⬥ Command Skeleton has higher priority outside of as and basics are weaker.
⬥ Volley also remains extremely strong as it is not affected by Living Death , and Flanked Soul Strike 
can be strong in some encounters (such as Solak 
and Nex Angel of Death 
).
⬥ This can also be a good time to use as it synergises especially well with and .
4) Other Variations
⬥ While other variations are not listed here, feel free to ask in #pvm-help, and if you think it's worth listing open a suggestion to add it here!
> Important Ability Mechanics
Living Death
⬥ transforms the player into a skeletal Death form for 30 seconds (cooldown 90 seconds) and provides various buffs and cooldown resets to certain Necromancy abilities during that time:
• generates 2 Necrosis stacks per use
• generates 6% extra adrenaline
• deals 50% extra damage (multiplicative)
• has its cooldown reduced to 12 seconds
⬥ Additionally, upon casting , the cooldown of and is reset, allowing for their immediate use.
Death Skulls
Ability
⬥ The damage of each bounce of will be 100% of the initial hit, so if the initial hit is a critical hit, the remaining hits will also be critical hits.
⬥ The speed at which Death Skulls will bounce at depends on the distance of the target the Death Skulls is aiming for: when bouncing 0–5 tiles away, there is a 1.2-second (two game ticks) delay per bounce. When bouncing for the full six tiles, there is a 1.8-second (three game ticks) delay per bounce.
⬥ Using Death Skulls again while the skulls from a previous use are still bouncing will not override nor cancel it out; a player may have more than one active Death Skulls at the same time.
⬥ The ability can be enhanced by wearing the igneous Kal-Mor cape; wearing it reduces the adrenaline cost of Death Skulls to 60% (from 100%) and causes it to bounce between two additional enemies (from four to six).
⬥ This results in hitting the main target 4 times with or 3 times without.
Targetting
⬥ When Death Skulls is selecting a new target to bounce to, it looks for all potential targets within 6 tiles of the previous target, and uses the folowing prioritisation:
1. Monsters which are not immune to damage
• If there are multiple monsters in range, the one with the highest life points will be selected
2. The player (no damage is dealt to the player)
3. Monsters which are immune to damage
⬥ If there are no new targets within range of the previous target, then Death Skulls will stop bouncing.
Bloat
⬥ Bloat deals 135%-165% ability damage on hit, and applies a damage-over-time debuff to the target that hits 25% of the initial hit in 1.8-second intervals since the initial hit.
⬥ This will last for 19.8 seconds.
⬥ If the initial hit is a critical hit, the damage over time hits will deal corresponding damage.
⬥ If the initial target dies while still influenced by the effect, it can spread to up to nine enemies at most a game square away who will then attack the player and suffer from the Bloated debuff for four hits. The debuff can spread even further if the affected enemies are killed quickly enough with other enemies nearby.
⬥ If you have spare adrenaline which you wont need for , is usually the strongest single ability to use. It can do over 28,000 total damage in a max gear setup (without ) over its full duration at the cost of only 20% adrenaline.
Skeleton Warrior
⬥ The Skeleton Warrior deals 22%-28% necromancy spirit damage every 3 seconds.
⬥ It generates 1 Rage stack with each attack, and each Rage stack increases its damage by 3%. This is capped at 25 stacks, or a 75% damage buff.
⬥ empowers the Skeleton Warrior to perform rapid hits (every 0.6 seconds) for 6 seconds.
⬥ This is very efficient to use pre boss fights or between phases, as it will allow the Skeleton Warrior to stack Rage quickly.
⬥ With Spirit Pact 3 
and four or five pieces of the First Necromancer's Equipment 
, will be able to naturally stack to 24 or 25 Rage stacks over its lifetime without .
⬥ If the encounter lasts long enough to obtain 25 stacks, each cast of (no matter how many Rage stacks you have when it is used) will be almost equal to outside of (assuming the Skeleton is able to attack optimally).
⬥ In addition, will add an extra 7 attacks per use, which will be approximately 70% of the damage of outside of . This makes it very strong if the encounter lasts long enough, as it can be often casted before the fight, and will also extend the duration (and healing) of to make up for the drawback.
Spectral Scythe 
⬥ Spectral Scythe should be avoided for all single target encounters due to its very low damage and very high adrenaline cost. It can however be used in Area of Effect (AoE) scenarios if you have spare adrenaline, or is on cooldown.
• Cast 1 costs 10% adrenaline and does AoE damage in a cone (similar to 
).
• Cast 2 costs 20% adrenaline and does AoE damage within 2 tiles around you (similar to 
)
• Cast 3 costs 30% adrenaline and does AoE damage within 2 tiles of you (similar to 
), with damage increased by 1% per 1% missing life points on target
⬥ Casts 1 and 2 have a 25% chance to generate 1 per hit
Blood Siphon 
⬥ This should only be used in scenarios where a boss has many minions and healing is useful, such as at 
within font 3 (as it will heal a large amount). This can otherwise be discarded as an ability.
Soul Strike 
⬥ This ability consumes a to cast, and it will stun and bind the target for 5t (3s). It also does a small amount of splash damage to enemies within 1 tile of the target.
• This is useful where a stun is required, such as for or challenge waves.
• The splash damage can be used to apply to the target and to enemies directly next to the target.
⬥ Aside from the above applications, should only be flanked, which increases it from 150% average damage to 390% with 
.
Deathguard Special Attack
⬥ This special attack costs 25% adrenaline, consumes all Necrosis stacks, and has a 30s cooldown shown on the debuff bar.
⬥ deals 405%-495% damage to the target, increasing both the minimum and maximum hit by 40% per necrosis stack consumed.
⬥ This special attack also stuns and binds the target for 4.8 seconds.
⬥ As this ability has a cooldown and costs adrenaline regardless of stacks, it is best to use it on high necrosis stacks.
⬥ Usually it will be used outside of , as necrosis stacks inside should be used on boosted
Omni Guard Passive Effect - Death spark
⬥ Each generates one stack of
⬥ Upon reaching 5 stacks, the next is empowered to deal double damage
⬥ Stacks are lost upon switching mainhand, even if it is to another Omni Guard
Omni Guard Special Attack
⬥ This special attack costs 30% adrenaline and has a 1 minute cooldown.
⬥ deals 360%-440% damage to the target.
⬥ The special attack also instantly readies the Omni Guard passive, allowing for the next to deal double damage
⬥ For 30s after use, the following abilities also ready death spark immediately: , , and
⬥ This effect is lost upon switching mainhand weapons
⬥ Usually this is used outside , with the goal to optimise the number of empowered over the duration
> Advanced Strategies
You may also wish to utilise advanced strategies within your rotation. An examples of these are below.
1) Bouncing Death Skulls
⬥ If done correctly, can be bounced between targets (including targets which aren't 6 tiles on either side, such as AoD Pillars , Kerapac Clones 
, Solak Roots 
)
⬥ There are multiple ways to do this, including visual in smaller teams/solo.
⬥ One way to do this is to:
• Cast 5-6 tiles distance from the initial target,
• Wait an odd number of global cooldown cycles,
• 
towards your next target during the last global cooldown cycle.
⬥ Another way to do this is to:
• Cast at 3-4 tiles range,
• Use two abilities (i.e. → ),
• While you are still in your global cooldown, towards your next target.
2) Smoke Cloud 
⬥ Casting smoke cloud with a Necromancy weapon equipped incurs a full global cooldowns and as such can be inefficient over using a damaging ability, as Smoke Cloud is a small buff based on Necromancy's crit system.
⬥ Smoke Cloud can instead be casted losslessly by unequipping your mainhand necromancy weapon if the auto attack cooldown is ready (such as before a fight), or if you wait for 1 tick after the end of the global cooldowns from a Necromancy ability.
⬥ Typically, this would look like this:
(Pre Fight - Lossless) Equip 
+ 
(1t before ) → on tick + +
(During Fight - Lose 1 tick) → equip and wait 4 ticks (or until you can use ability plus one tick) → + + +
3) Threads of Fate
Often useful on any boss with many adds or minions, such as:
⬥ Angel of Death 's four mages (Umbra, Glacies, Cruor, Fumus);
⬥ Arch-Glacor 
's Glacytes;
⬥ Beastmaster Durzag 
's Chargers;
⬥ Elite Dungeon monsters or TzekHaar Monsters;
⬥ Rise of the Six Bosses 
;
⬥ Solak 's arms and legs;
⬥ Telos 's golems 
; and
⬥ Vorago 
's Scopulus 
or Vitalis 
.
You may wish to utilise Threads of Fate to use Soul Sap to stack many Residual Souls , to easily stack souls for . This will synergise well with 
for a large heal.
Please note that Invoke Death used before Threads of Fate will apply Mark of Death to all targets hit with the next ability.
4) Off-Style Mainhand Swapping 
This allows access to strong non-Necromancy abilities.
When using Necromancy, you are able to switch your Mainhand weapon while keeping the lantern on to keep conjures alive. This can be used to cast abilities such as:
⬥ Greater Richochet with Caroming 4 
casted with a one hand mainhand crossbow .
(Typically with Hydrix Bakriminel Bolts (e) 
) can be strong when used at bosses such as Nex 
, as its Mages have a soft hitcap (i.e. higher hits do reduced damage), so multiple smaller hits are more powerful. In addition, the adrenaline generation from can be useful.
⬥ Seren Godbow EOF Special 
casted with a one hand mainhand crossbow .
This can be used for large monsters (such as Raksha 
or Telos in P5) to deal a large amount of damage where adrenaline allows, and other abilities may be on cooldown.
5) Despawning and Resummoning Conjures Early 
⬥ This can be used on phase transitions (where you might not be able to do damage) to refresh Conjure timers.
⬥ This would typically be done by equipping an off-hand weapon (such as the Enhanced Excalibur ) to despawn Conjures, then requipping a lantern then using Conjure Undead Army .
⬥ However this does reset the Rage stacks of the .
> Common Mistakes and Tips
Basic Ability Prioritisation
People may assume that, in , should always be ignored in favour of , as generates two Necrosis Stacks .
This can depend on adrenaline, but some common ability combinations are contained within the table below.
This shows that can have priority over even during for longer encounters, especially if used for or a stacked . This however depends on the scenario.
In addition, this shows that and can mathematically line up to be very similar damage ranges during and as such the opportunity cost of a mistake is less. The general basic ability priority of > > will be the best option in most scenarios, inside and outside of , especially where has been used.
Adrenaline Renewal Timing
⬥ Using adrenaline renewal on the same tick as lets you + → → .
• This requires Ring of Vigour (can be passive), Conservation of Energy and either Fury of the Small 
or Supreme Invigorate Aura .
• This allows you to get up to 3x in .
How to do it:
⬥ Use followed by quickly.
• Consider having the keybinds adjacent.
• Learn the proper timing, DO NOT spam click.
⬥ Do not queue - This prevents you from using on tick.
Video example:
Note: You should see 24% adrenaline on cast tick rather than 20%.
⬥ The proper input timing of + after using an ability can be affected by ping due to the RuneScape's global cooldown and tick system.
⬥ Watch the global cooldown incurred by the ability (1.8 seconds, or 3 game ticks (0.6 seconds each)).
• If good ping, input + when the divider or light reaches green.
• If bad ping, adjust as needed and input prior to green.
> Related Channels
For information on Necromancy Abilities you can refer to #Necromancy Abilities. This guide will refer to rotations and DPM advice rather than what each ability does.
If you have any questions about Necromancy DPM, please feel free to ask in #pvm-help.
See #revolution-bars for a list of revolution bars.
See #Necromancy for recommended gear upgrade progression from early game to t70.
See #Necromancy for recommended gear upgrade progression from t70 to best in slot.
See #eof-specs for information on any other Necromancy Essence of Finality specs .