MMoexp: Why the Poisonous Necromancer is PoE2’s Most Deadly Build

October 31, 2025, 08:09:57 AM

Path of Exile 2 (PoE2) is already shaping up to be one of the most ambitious ARPGs ever created, building upon the decade-long success of its predecessor with new classes, mechanics, and a reimagined campaign. While the game introduces entirely new ways to approach combat and character progression, one thing remains the same: the creative freedom of builds. Among the many builds circulating in the early community discussions and previews, few have earned as much praise as Bor Mage’s Poisonous Necromancer — a sinister and surprisingly elegant powerhouse that blends poison damage, minion synergy, and tank-like durability into one cohesive, deadly package.

Whether you’re looking to dominate endgame bosses or melt enemies across sprawling maps, this build offers a perfect mix of control, scaling potential, and survivability. Let’s take a deep dive into what makes this build stand out, why it keeps receiving buffs, and how it embodies everything Path of Exile 2 is trying to achieve.

A Legacy of Death and Decay

The Necromancer archetype has always been a cornerstone of the Path of Exile experience. In the original game, Necromancers thrived on commanding undead armies — summoning skeletons, zombies, spectres, and golems to do their bidding while layering defensive curses and auras. But Path of Exile 2 redefines what it means to be a Necromancer. It isn’t just about overwhelming enemies with hordes of minions anymore; it’s about how those minions — and their master — interact in the thick of battle.

Bor Mage’s Poisonous Necromancer build takes this philosophy to its logical extreme. Instead of relying purely on traditional summoning, it merges poison-based damage-over-time mechanics with minion-triggered effects, turning every action into a chain reaction of toxic destruction. Enemies don’t just die — they rot from within.

What Makes Bor Mage’s Build So Effective

When you look at top-performing builds across the community, there’s usually a trade-off: massive DPS with low defense, or near-invulnerability with low damage. The Poisonous Necromancer manages to blur that line. It’s one of the rare builds in PoE2 that maintains a near-perfect balance between offense, defense, and single-target efficiency.

Let’s break that down:

1. Offense: Scaling Poison and Minion Synergy

At its core, this build revolves around stacking poison damage — a form of chaos-based damage that scales over time. The key advantage here is how poison can be applied through both minion attacks and player-triggered spells, creating overlapping sources of damage that amplify each other.

Minions — often spectral versions of decayed warriors or corrupted golems — act as delivery systems for poison effects. With the right ascendancy choices and passives, each minion attack inflicts a lingering toxin that stacks exponentially. The result? Enemies simply melt, even bosses with thick layers of resistances.

Bor Mage’s approach to gearing also enhances this synergy. By focusing on items that increase chaos damage over time multiplier and minion attack speed, he ensures that poison stacks build up quickly and stay active for longer durations. Add in support gems like Unholy Might, Withering Touch, or Deadly Ailments, and you get one of the most efficient poison applications in the game.

2. Defense: Layered Survivability

One of the biggest challenges in ARPGs like Path of Exile is staying alive in high-tier content. Damage is meaningless if you’re constantly on the floor. That’s where Bor Mage’s defensive layering comes in.

The build integrates block chance, armor, energy shield recovery, and minion body-blocking mechanics to create a near-impenetrable shell. Minions not only deal damage but also act as frontline defenders, intercepting projectiles and drawing aggro away from the Necromancer.

Through clever use of skills like Bone Armor and Offering abilities, the build provides bursts of mitigation and healing whenever needed. Players can comfortably stand their ground against waves of enemies, relying on poison’s natural ramp-up time while staying protected.

It’s not uncommon for experienced players to describe the build as “unkillable” in most endgame scenarios — an impressive claim considering how brutal PoE2’s encounter design has become.

3. Single-Target Damage: The Boss Killer

Poison-based builds often suffer against bosses due to their need for time to ramp up. But this Necromancer turns that weakness into a strength. Through minion-triggered stacking, poisons quickly reach hundreds of stacks on single targets, resulting in massive bursts of chaos damage over time.

The synergy between Plague Burst and Essence Drain-like mechanics ensures that even if minions are momentarily destroyed, their residual poison effects persist. Against bosses like Uber Atziri or the new pinnacle encounters introduced in PoE2, this consistency becomes a huge advantage.

Baylor’s detailed Path of Building (POB) setup shows that the build’s single-target DPS ranks among the top across all tested archetypes, even rivaling meta contenders like Elementalist Ignite or Assassin’s Trap setups.

Ease of Leveling and Accessibility

One of the reasons Bor Mage’s build has earned such widespread acclaim is its smooth leveling experience. Many endgame builds in Path of Exile demand a tedious, fragile leveling phase before becoming viable. This Necromancer, however, shines from the moment you start.

Players can begin by summoning basic minions and using simple chaos or poison spells. As the campaign progresses, passive tree investment naturally transitions into the full poison-minion synergy without the need for expensive gear swaps or currency-heavy respecs.

By the time you reach early endgame maps, the build feels complete — powerful, safe, and visually satisfying. It’s no surprise that community veterans recommend it to both newcomers and hardcore players aiming for high-tier content.

A Build That Keeps Getting Buffed

Here’s the part that truly cements the Poisonous Necromancer’s reputation: it keeps getting stronger. Over multiple test patches and balance updates, the build’s core mechanics have seen subtle but consistent improvements.

Poison Damage Scaling: Recent updates increased the scaling coefficient of chaos-over-time effects, directly buffing this archetype.

Minion AI and Responsiveness: One of PoE2’s biggest improvements is smarter minions that react faster and position better — a major win for this build’s DPS consistency.

Quality-of-Life Enhancements: Features like automatic minion resummoning, improved visibility of debuff stacks, and smoother targeting make it easier than ever to play high-skill builds like this.

The end result is a setup that’s not just strong but future-proof. Every iteration of PoE2’s testing seems to push this Necromancer further into the spotlight, and there’s no sign of that slowing down.

Community Praise and Baylor’s Guide

No build becomes iconic without a solid foundation of community testing and expert refinement. Much of the Poisonous Necromancer’s success is owed to Baylor, a veteran theorycrafter and build guide creator renowned for his detailed explanations and highly optimized Path of Building (POB) files.

Baylor’s guides are structured to help every type of player — from casual explorers to endgame conquerors — understand exactly how to gear, level, and scale their characters. His written guide and POB file for this build cover everything from early skill gem setups to the intricate late-game cluster jewel combinations that push the build into god-tier territory.

What’s especially impressive is how the guide remains accessible. Even if you’re new to PoE2’s more complex systems, Baylor’s step-by-step breakdown makes the learning curve manageable. He also keeps his guides updated, ensuring that every patch change or buff is reflected in the current version.

It’s this level of support that keeps players coming back. As one community comment aptly put it:

“You don’t play a Bor Mage build because it’s easy — you play it because it makes you feel unstoppable.”

Honorable Mention: The Holy Relic Build

While Bor Mage’s Poisonous Necromancer dominates much of the spotlight, another Baylor favorite deserves mention — the Holy Relic build. Though not as toxic in nature, it shares many of the same qualities: smooth scaling, strong defenses, and incredible synergy between player and minion mechanics.

The Holy Relic build revolves around summoning a divine orb that pulses with holy energy, healing allies and damaging enemies in waves. It’s a slower-paced, more methodical playstyle compared to the frantic poison stacking of the Necromancer, but it’s just as deadly in the right hands.

Baylor has hinted at updating this build for PoE2’s latest patch cycle, and if history is any indication, it’s likely to receive just as much praise.

The Bigger Picture: Why Builds Like This Matter

Path of Exile 2 is more than a sequel — it’s a reinvention. Its goal is to modernize the ARPG experience without losing the depth that made the original game legendary. Builds like Bor Mage’s Poisonous Necromancer highlight exactly why that balance matters.

They show that complexity doesn’t have to come at the expense of fun, and that mechanical mastery can still feel viscerally rewarding. You’re not just pressing buttons to see numbers — you’re orchestrating chaos, commanding death, and watching enemies crumble in clouds of green rot.

In a game world that rewards experimentation and risk-taking, builds like this stand as proof that style and substance can coexist.

Final Thoughts

The Bor Mage’s Poisonous Necromancer is more than just a strong build — it’s a statement. It demonstrates the creative potential within Path of Exile 2’s revamped systems and the dedication of its community to perfecting the art of the build. From its elegantly balanced offense and defense to its ever-improving design, it embodies what makes this series special: endless theorycrafting buy POE 2 Divine Orbs , mechanical mastery, and the satisfaction of watching your enemies decay beneath your feet.

As PoE2’s release approaches, one thing is certain — when it comes to dominating Wraeclast’s new era of chaos, this Necromancer isn’t just surviving. It’s thriving.

ElkArte Forum

MMoexp: Why the Poisonous Necromancer is PoE2’s Most Deadly Build

October 31, 2025, 08:09:57 AM

Re: MMoexp: Why the Poisonous Necromancer is PoE2’s Most Deadly Build

Reply #1 – November 01, 2025, 06:17:34 PM