Mechanical Defensive Functions
Karen does ZERO self damage. She is completely reliant on 4 different minions:
You cannot cross the street without your friends, so stay near them. We utilize strong rolls in our base gear (Revenant Plate, Burial Mask, Plated Gauntlets) for armor and endurance in order to mitigate damage. We also utilize Dread Shade in the Martyrdom 1/1. Which is also why we also attempt to scale PrefixVitality for this purpose, this is because significant amounts of vitality (in this case the build has about 28 on average rolls) which will cause Martyrdom 1/1 to give US and OUR MINIONS 700 armor. Add this to our existing ~2500 armor, and we begin to mitigate about 50% (give or take) of incoming damage. Whatever damage we do not mitigate is reduced by our endurance which in the build is ~56% @ 335 HP.
We also MUST be able to recognize high damage mechanics and avoid them manually. We are not in the position of having kissing sessions with the packs, we let our undead friends do this for us. To top off our defenses, we are also putting our SuffixCritical Strike Avoidance at 100% to avoid any unnecessary one shots. We also utilize our Summon Wraith as cannon fodder to ago packs as well as put between YOU and Incoming enemies OR projectiles. This, is the most difficult (not that difficult) part of the build. We also use the Ribbons of Blood to give our minions significant amount of regen from their minions attacks.
Mechanical Offensive Functions
Like said above, we do 0 damage ourselves. We are completely reliant on our minions to do the light, medium and heavy lifting. We will need to have all of our minions up, if at anytime they start to fall, you will need to backtrack into already cleared area and recast. We do not scale critical strike chance (on purpose) for our minions in this build. We also utilize a well rolled Death Rattle to give a strong critical strike multiplier, try to find it with a low roll in the increased damage taken. We always need to keep our army together, this is where they shine. The overwhelming amounts of shred from Aegisfall 8/8 from a minimum of 11 (up to 17) minions maximizes this effect. Since we scale significant amounts of Minion PrefixPhysical Damage, in this build the average rolls will get to about 1250% as well as Minion PrefixDamage Over Time which is also why we specialize in PrefixShared Bleed Chance On Hit AND PrefixShared Physical Penetration With Bleed we start to head into serious damage for our minions. Add this to 100% chance to crit with average roll of 275% base multiplier. This does not include the bleed nodes for Summon Wraith with Sanguine Spirits 1/1 , Serrated Scythes 5/5 and Dusk of the Living 3/3. This also does not include the Summon Skeleton nodes Sweeping Strikes 5/5 and Dread Phalanx 1/1 which add 140% MORE damage modifier. For the Summon Skeletal Mage, we use Grey Merchant 3/3 and Forbidden Arcana 1/5 which again add more damage modifier and crit multiplier. For our Summon Bone Golem he is our tank that we will be applying Dread Shade to. We keep him and ourselves AND minions up with rolling nearly all defensive skills, but don't count him out for damage either.
Minion Defensive Mechanic
Since all of our minions will be having high damage with high crit chance, we scale them all to life-steal. Hunger 5/5, Marrow Tap 3/5, Dawn of the Fall 3/3. They will almost always be just fine if scaled with the intel and life modifiers. If they do die, just re-summon, it's a necro build.
Easy Engagement/Difficult/Boss Fight
All engagements are the same, there is no difference to how you approach a fight.
1) Summon all summons.
2) Dread Shade your Summon Bone Golem
3) Play dodge ball
Golem can usually survive 2 round of dread shade. Make sure to refresh him from time to time in order to make sure all minions are getting the defensive buffs from him with Amalgam of Primalists 5/5.
