In Season 40, the Rathma Army of the Dead Necromancer is one of the strongest options for solo Greater Rift pushing. The returning Light's Calling theme makes it particularly entertaining, because Angelic Crucibles can add a Sanctified Power that continuously assaults nearby enemies with Army of the Dead. Combined with the set's usual cooldown mechanics, the result is an exceptionally powerful character built around commanding skeletons, maintaining Revive minions and delivering enormous bursts of physical damage.
It is not a completely effortless build, however. Rathma rewards careful positioning, proper equipment and an understanding of how its cooldown reductions work. Simply putting on six green items and waiting for your skeletons to do everything is unlikely to produce spectacular results. Fortunately, the basic idea is easier to understand than the equipment screen initially suggests.
How the Rathma Army of the Dead Build Works
The modern Bones of Rathma set revolves around two important abilities: Army of the Dead and your permanent undead servants. Command Skeletons provides a steady stream of attacks, while Revive supplies additional minions and defensive benefits. The Rathma set allows minion attacks to reduce Army of the Dead's cooldown, turning what would normally be an occasional devastating ability into the centre of your entire combat rotation.
The goal is to keep your undead companions active, command your skeletons against suitable enemies and repeatedly unleash Army of the Dead whenever its cooldown becomes available. The build becomes particularly dangerous when the proper Legendary items multiply that damage and control effects activate Krysbin's Sentence.
Season 40 adds another layer through Angelic Crucibles. We covered the return of these heavenly consumables in our Season 40 Light's Calling overview, but Rathma is one of the clearest examples of why their return matters. The correct Sanctified Power makes Army of the Dead an almost constant presence on the battlefield rather than something you occasionally summon between long cooldowns.
Best Skills and Runes for Rathma Necromancer
For solo Greater Rift pushing, the following setup provides a strong foundation. It combines reliable damage, cooldown management, crowd control and enough mobility to prevent the Necromancer from spending the entire Rift face-down on the floor.
| Skill | Rune | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Siphon Blood | Power Shift | Essence generation and damage amplification through Funerary Pick |
| Command Skeletons | Frenzy | Accelerates skeleton attacks and supports cooldown reduction |
| Bone Armor | Dislocation | Defensive protection and stun for Krysbin's Sentence |
| Army of the Dead | Death Valley | Main burst damage with useful enemy grouping |
| Blood Rush | Potency | Mobility and temporary defensive protection |
| Revive | Personal Army | Additional minions and damage reduction |
For passive skills, use Rigor Mortis, Final Service, Rathma's Shield and Grisly Tribute. Together they provide useful control, survivability and additional healing from your minions. Rathma's Shield is particularly valuable when dealing with dangerous encounters, although it should not be mistaken for permission to stand directly inside every explosion on the screen.
One important detail is that Fate's Vow grants Army of the Dead the Unconventional Warfare rune effect through its Legendary Power. This is why Death Valley remains a useful selected rune even though the build benefits from Unconventional Warfare as well.
Best Gear for Rathma Army of the Dead
The preferred setup combines five pieces of Bones of Rathma with two pieces of Captain Crimson's Trimmings. Ring of Royal Grandeur, equipped through Kanai's Cube, reduces the number of pieces required to activate the full Set bonuses. This combination is particularly useful because Captain Crimson converts Cooldown Reduction and Resource Cost Reduction into offensive and defensive benefits.
| Slot | Recommended Item |
|---|---|
| Helm | Rathma's Skull Helm |
| Shoulders | Rathma's Spikes |
| Chest | Rathma's Ribcage Plate |
| Gloves | Rathma's Macabre Vambraces |
| Boots | Rathma's Ossified Sabatons |
| Bracers | Bonds of C'Lena |
| Belt | Captain Crimson's Silk Girdle |
| Pants | Captain Crimson's Thrust |
| Amulet | Squirt's Necklace |
| Ring 1 | Krysbin's Sentence |
| Ring 2 | Convention of Elements |
| Weapon | Jesseth Skullscythe |
| Off-hand | Jesseth Skullshield |
The Jesseth weapon combination is essential to the build's damage potential. Command Skeletons activates its offensive bonus, making it important to direct your skeletons toward enemies rather than simply allowing them to wander about. Krysbin's Sentence supplies a powerful damage multiplier against controlled enemies, while Convention of Elements rewards timing your largest attacks during its Physical damage cycle.
Squirt's Necklace provides another substantial offensive bonus, but there is an obvious disadvantage: taking damage can quickly remove its benefit, and the amulet makes incoming attacks more dangerous. Rathma is therefore a build where good positioning has a measurable effect on your damage output. Standing in poison while admiring your skeleton army is not recommended.
Kanai's Cube and Legendary Gems
The recommended Kanai's Cube powers are Funerary Pick in the weapon slot, Fate's Vow in the armour slot and Ring of Royal Grandeur in the jewellery slot.
Funerary Pick turns Siphon Blood into an important source of damage amplification, especially against individual enemies. Fate's Vow strengthens Army of the Dead and provides the Unconventional Warfare effect, while Ring of Royal Grandeur makes the Rathma and Captain Crimson combination possible. Remember that Season 39's additional Cube slot is no longer available. Season 40 returns to the standard three-slot arrangement.
For Legendary Gems, the recommended combination is Bane of the Trapped, Gogok of Swiftness and Zei's Stone of Vengeance. Bane of the Trapped rewards crowd control, Gogok helps with Attack Speed and Cooldown Reduction, and Zei's increases damage according to your distance from enemies. If survival becomes a problem, Esoteric Alteration can replace Zei's for a more defensive approach.
Use a Diamond in your helm for Cooldown Reduction, Topazes in your chest and pants for Intelligence, and an Emerald in your weapon for Critical Hit Damage. When enchanting gear, prioritize Cooldown Reduction, Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage and useful Area Damage rolls. Cooldown Reduction deserves particular attention because it improves both your general rotation and the effectiveness of Captain Crimson's Set bonus.
Best Angelic Crucible Power in Season 40
This is where the build becomes especially interesting. Season 40's Angelic Crucibles can Sanctify eligible Legendary equipment, granting Ancient-level attributes and one of three class-specific powers. For Rathma, the ability to look for is the Army of the Dead Sanctified Power, which continuously attacks enemies within 50 yards using Unconventional Warfare.
The effect operates independently of your manually activated Army of the Dead, meaning the regular skill remains useful for carefully timed bursts of damage. It is a splendidly excessive combination, and very much in keeping with Diablo III's modern approach to character power: if one enormous supernatural army is effective, perhaps two would be even better.
Krysbin's Sentence is an excellent candidate for Sanctification because its attributes are important and obtaining a near-perfect version can take considerable farming. Jesseth Skullscythe and Jesseth Skullshield are also possible candidates, depending on which equipment piece you most need to improve.
Remember that you can equip only one Sanctified item at a time. The power is randomly selected from the Necromancer's three available options, so obtaining the Army of the Dead version may require several Crucibles. Do not spend all your resources repeatedly rerolling a perfectly usable item before the rest of your equipment is properly assembled.
Greater Rift Pushing Versus Speed Farming
Rathma is particularly impressive when pushing challenging Greater Rifts, where enemies survive long enough for the build's powerful damage multipliers and controlled bursts to matter. Your priority should be maintaining skeleton activity, refreshing Revive and Bone Armor when necessary, and coordinating Army of the Dead with crowd control and the Physical cycle of Convention of Elements.
Blood Rush provides the mobility needed to escape dangerous attacks, while Bone Armor's Dislocation rune can stun nearby enemies and activate the stronger effect of Krysbin's Sentence. The build benefits from approaching enemy packs carefully rather than charging straight into them. Necromancers have never been famous for enjoying direct physical contact with angry monsters.
For Nephalem Rift and lower Greater Rift farming, the objective changes. Raw damage becomes less important once enemies die almost immediately, and movement speed becomes more valuable. Rathma can be adapted for faster clears through alternative skill choices and mobility-focused equipment, although players interested exclusively in rapid Torment XVI farming may find other Necromancer builds more comfortable.
It is also worth investing in the permanent seasonal Altar of Rites. Movement bonuses, extra materials and automatic loot collection make repeated farming considerably smoother, while the later offensive improvements help when progressing into more demanding content. If you are still working through the Altar, our earlier coverage of the Challenge Rift Cache problem explains why planning ahead for that particular sacrifice is important, especially for console players.
How to Get Rathma Gear in Season 40
One important detail for anyone starting a Necromancer this season: Haedrig's Gift does not provide Bones of Rathma in Season 40. The Necromancer's free seasonal Set is Masquerade of the Burning Carnival. If you want to play Rathma, you will need to collect its pieces through ordinary farming, gambling and Kanai's Cube upgrades.
Begin by reaching level 70 and establishing a functional farming build with whatever equipment you have available. Use Greater Rifts to improve Legendary Gems and collect equipment, spend Blood Shards on missing armour pieces, and upgrade suitable rare weapons through Kanai's Cube when searching for essential Legendary powers. Once your Rathma equipment and Jesseth weapons are ready, begin shifting toward the Army of the Dead setup.
There is no need to chase perfectly rolled Ancient versions of every item before testing the build. A complete collection of the correct equipment with reasonable attributes will usually accomplish far more than several individually impressive Legendary items that have nothing to do with one another.
Is Rathma Worth Playing in Season 40?
For players who enjoy Necromancers and want a serious solo Greater Rift build, Rathma is an excellent choice. It combines the class's traditional undead army with enormous burst damage, and the returning Angelic Crucible mechanic gives it an additional source of destruction without requiring an entirely different playstyle.
It does have weaknesses. Cooldown management matters, the optimal equipment combination requires some farming, and careless positioning can turn an otherwise impressive Rift attempt into a sudden visit to the resurrection screen. But those limitations also make the build more interesting to master than some of Diablo III's simpler farming setups.
Fourteen years after its original release, Diablo III continues to offer builds capable of filling the screen with more supernatural violence than seems entirely necessary. We recently explored whether Diablo III remains worth playing in 2026, and Rathma provides another rather convincing argument for the game's continued appeal.
The Necromancer once needed an army because fighting alone seemed dangerous.
In Season 40, the army mostly exists to make sure everyone else is in considerably more danger.
Sources: Blizzard's official Season 40 announcement, Icy Veins Rathma Army of the Dead guide, and Rathma gear and Legendary Gem recommendations.
