that's right it's your boy today we are creating the ultimate the official Army of the Dead Necromancer death knight in balers Gate 3 right off the bat to let you guys know this build will eventually have three different paths to take option A being a mix of melee and Caster with three Feats option b being more melee focused and option C being full-on Caster with smites as secondaries which is my personal preferred way to play this build I will be referencing my previous build the Vengeance Paladin and the original death knight as this build is a spin-off of those and I recommend being level seven and ready to respect before starting this build links are in the description of course this is going to be a bit different than my usual build videos and that's just simply due to the nature of this build specifically and the fact that half of it is similar to its two predecessors I would also like to preface this video by stating the importance of the necromancy of th as it gives you a free four fend summon in act three three I won't mention this but a couple more times so make sure you take note of it also I've come up with a Spore Druid death knight which I will dub the fungal KN so be on the lookout for that in the future it must be stated that you cannot start raising Undead on your own until you unlock level three spells which is at Caster level five with that being said I highly recommend you refer to my original Vengeance Paladin build just mentioned for the first six levels as this build's theme does not come online until Level seven however that is only if you want the necromancy part of the build as early as possible otherwise you could simply level up Paladin and oath break for the control Undead spell and maybe up to five for extra attack and then go into wizard I highly recommend going for the early neck romancy route so you can make the most of it during act two which is a blast and is exactly the route that I will be describing in this video as always pick any race but real ones know human is the only correct Choice you're ability points are going to entirely depend on how you want to play this version of the death knight hearkening back to the options I mentioned earlier do you want to feel like a true Commander sit back and obliterate everyone with spells while your minions get nasty or do you want to be more melee oriented in the middle of battle alongside your Undead for the purposes of this video and because my last death knight was an absolute unit I'll be showcasing and mainly talking about the option C version the true Army of the Dead Death Knight prioritizing magic over melee while the minions do minion stuff so officially getting into our stats we'll set strength to 16 though you could drop this to 14 in favor of Dex because Dex is going to be our sacrificing stat I say this because we will be increasing initiative through gear and you'll have to sacrifice either strength intelligence Charisma or a mix of those to raise your decks Constitution at 13 is just fine setting up the resilience feet later and allowing us to set our intelligence to 17 in preparation for The Hags hair wisdom at 8 and charisma at 12 alternatively you could leave intelligence at 16 and have your decks at 10 or 12 if you also lowered strength the Charisma if you can't get the hags hair don't worry you'll do just fine with 18 intelligence in the final build this is what I will be doing for my build as I already used The Hags hair for Charisma on the character you're seeing in these clips but do note maxing your intelligence at 20 is recommended to make the most of your spells ignoring the hag's hair my final build stats came out to 16 strength 12 decks 14 Constitution 18 intelligence eight wisdom and 10 Charisma level one your first level is Paladin yada yada and we just went over the starting stats so I'm going to immediately move on to level two and three here we quickly multiclass into wizard for five levels for our three can trips we absolutely have to take bone chill poison spray and Ray of Frost for Ultimate Death Knight flavor don't ignore your ray of frost either as it is one of the best can trips and make sure to look for gear that mentions the chilled condition and others that enhance your cold spells more on that in a bit at level two wizards select necromancy and unlock Grim Harvest this is a passive that simply heals the death knight whenever he kills an enemy with a spell for twice the Spell's level and Thrice if it was a necromancy spell with these first two levels in a wizard we have eight level one spells to learn Death Knight theme spells consider Ray of sickness which is a must in my opinion burning hands ice knife of course and false life chromatic orb fog cloud and grease fall somewhere between thematic and just normal but some other spells to consider are long Strider one of the best Buffs in the game and doesn't use a spell slot when cast out of combat magic Missile which synergizes particularly well with grim Harvest as I tend to use this spell to finish enemies with low HP and for this one I'm going to recommend find familiar because for some reason I just see this death knight walking around with his little crow buddy level four and five for our next two wizard levels you'll be able to learn four level two spells a can trip and you'll gain your first feat now because I made Darkness a major factor of the last build I'm not going to focus on that for this one although do take note taking darkness and using any of the gear that gives you blind immunity is going to be powerful on basically any character also if you to take pallet into five don't take crown of Madness unless you really want it because you'll unlock it later with an oath breaker along with Darkness but we'll talk about those last levels in just a bit with that being said some thematic level two spells to consider are scorching Ray M's acid Arrow Ray of enfeeblement and blind the only non-thematic level two spell I'll recommend is Misty step but by this time you should have a misty step scroll so just learn it that way for the can trip I like acid Splash just to make the death knight more disgusting for your feet take ability Improvement to raise your intelligence to 19 or 20 if you've already attained The Hags hair there will actually be some concentration spells that really fit this death knight which is why I left our constitution at 13 just in case you want to have more success with those spells you can easily take resilience Constitution and gain Proficiency in its saving throws take note we will also have advantage on concentration saves through gear level six and seven so moving on with two more levels into wizard we'll unlock four level three spells to learn and some more necromancy the Matic level three death knight spells to consider are vampiric touch which is basically a necessity for theme and can be abused considering our Grim Harvest passive stinking Cloud which I think deserves more credit because not only is it gross it literally prevents creatures from doing anything until they escape it Fireball of course fear bestow curse wait bestow curse plus power power word kill on a major act three boss just a thought and don't worry about anime dead you'll unlock that for free at level seven wizard 6 with the undead THS buff which gives you an always prepared anime dead allows you to summon an extra Undead whenever you use it and also gives your summons bonus HP equal to your wisdom level and bonus damage equal to your proficiency bonus I know I'll be crucified in the comments if I don't mention haste here but yes it is true haste is a level three spell and you can learn it here as well although I do recommend having another party member haste your death KN if at all Glyph of warding is an honorable mention just because it's one of my favorite spells it's one of the best and I don't care if I recommend it in every build I ended up taking vampiric touch stinking Cloud Fireball and fear in that order level eight at level eight we hop back into oathbreaker unlocking all of our smites again our fighting style and a level four spell slot which you can now use to cast skeleton Squad or zombie Battalion which are versions of your anime dead spell that raise three Undead instead of one or two typically you would only be raising three by upcasting to level four but with the undead THS buff you immediately get access to four Undead which is absolutely atrocious for your fighting style take great weapon if you prefer to melee more or take defense as it increases your AC by one making you just a bit harder to hit which means easier to keep concentration I tend to prepare command and wrathful Smite to fit the theme level nine at level nine we switch back over to wizard raising that to level seven and giving us two level four spells to learn here you could take conjure Elemental but the death knight is satisfied with his Undead plus we will have the mobra fiend soon as well seeing as how we're approaching act three by this point and with that being said blight is a must have for the death knight with a disgusting 8 d8 necrotic damage and ice storm for our second spell fire Shield is a another good option but is probably better for melee focused level 10 through 12 at level 10 I present to you a fork in the road a Divergent path with three different routes to take option a wizard 8 oath breaker 4 the only option given you three fats sacrificing extra attack in the oath breaker's darkness and Crown of Madness spells with this you'll gain two level four spells to learn and you can take any of the Spells we've mentioned so far one level four spell slot two level five spell slots and the oath Breakers Channel Divinity abilities alongside hellish rebuke and inflict wounds the latter being particularly useful considering Grim Harvest three fats means we can not only take resilience Constitution but we can also take alert as well so we can make our turn much earlier though you can still get some decent initiative bonus through gear which would help make up for having only two fets in the next two options remember that dual wield is always an option to reap the benefits of two stabs option b would be similar to option A this one leaves wizard at seven and takes oath breaker to five this would see you gain the same one level four spell slot but only gain one level five spell slot as well you also lose out on your third feet however you do end up with the oathbreaker level five spells being crown of Madness and darkness alongside extra attack which alone can be worth the sacrifice to some people and is most likely the option you'll take if you're playing a more melee Focus is death knight option C sees us completely abandoning oathbreaker at level two and leveling wizard all the way to 10 with this you are fully focused on being the commander of your army unleashing your disgusting power and only using your smites as secondary this route sees you gaining a can trip which I like blade Ward especially with the quick spell gloves one level four spell slot as usual two level five spell slots and one level six spell slot for heavy upcasting or learning any level six spells through Scrolls especially Circle of Death which you've seen used a few times in Clips throughout this video you also unlock the final subclass feature of necromancy with inerd to undeath this gives you necrotic resistance having any necrotic damage you might take and makes it so your maximum hit points cannot be reduced for level five death knight spells I can see planer binding or dominate person I think those fit very well thematically as the death knight is so commanding and Powerful at this point Point people and demons alike fall under his control otherwise for more destructive abilities you have to take Cloud kill or even consider cone of cold of course conjure Elemental is always fun I've tried all three options and option C is probably my favorite so it's the one I will recommend the most followed by option A and then option b for the final build this is the complete list of spells I think are thematic to the death knight and others I think are just useful enough that they need to be mentioned as you can see see this is one of those builds where you really can't go wrong any which way you cut it and I can see people wanting to play this specific build in different ways which is why I tried to offer some varying options I'm eager to hear everyone's thoughts in the comments and definitely let me know how you would make the build better as there is always room for improvement and some of you guys come up with stuff I've never even thought of before and it's one of the things that makes these videos so much fun for me gear obviously being a death knight I'm going to recommend all the same gear from the previous build especially if you opted for a more melee focused build but also some new gear to enhance our casting capabilities first things first you can completely drop your two-hander for a staff as many of them come with some insane Buffs and would be much more useful to this build in any two-hander going this route I would also recommend the use of a shield for the same reason along with raising your AC I'm going to be honest guys there's so many combinations you can make because the Death Knight has various Avenues of Destruction whether it be poison fire cold or anything else with that being said here is a quick overview of some gear that I'll recommend but just before that if you'd like me to go further into detail let me know in the comments and I will make a full video dedicated to just that as this video would be twice as long if I were to do so and it would basically be two different topics at that point anyways for example morning Frost and flicks chilled when you deal cold damage which gives you double cold damage on that Target pair that with the snowb burst ring which create Circles of ice around targets and suddenly you're a busted Frost dek with an army of Undead how could I forget to mention the winters clutches gloves and the cold brim hat inflicting and crusted with frost whenever you deal cold damage which gives them disadvantage on Deck saving throws which is their ability to dodge your area of effect spells on top of that it can stack and cause them to become Frozen steal Cazador staff wo and gain a free blight use once a day more free healing and gain a plus one bonus to spell save DC and attack rolls add keth rck Shield to that now it's a plus two for both throw the fist breaker Helm on and now it's a three for the DC and you get a plus one to initiative or even hood of the weave for a total plus four spell safe DC and attack rolls I mean there's so many options and I could go on and on but I digress you can screenshot these for future reference and I will briefly list them off don't forget to check out the gear section of my original Death Knight video as well fist breaker Helm hood of the weave gibbus of the worshipful servant for Advantage on Con concentration saving throws circle of Bones which I mentioned in the previous video but it's especially good for this build having a lot of damage that your summons take with the undead Ward Aura cloak of displacement help keep concentration flesh melter cloak is particularly RP friendly Icarus gloves or ioris gloves deliver noxious fumes when you inflict acid damage quick spell gloves Winter's clutches gloves hor Frost boots or maybe VAR Coco snowburst ring poisoners ring the staff of ch chish necromancy is a perfect staff to use at least once per day as it comes with the life Essence ability after you kill an enemy you gain this condition and can spend it to cast a necromancy spell without expending a spell slot so you could cast Cloud kill or something ridiculous for free on top of this if you leave it equipped creatures have disadvantage on saving throws against your necromancy spells currently you can continue to cast necromancy spells for free at will as long as you keep enabling the toggle passive this may be patched out in the future but oddly enough I believe it was patched in during patch 4 something to note and something that makes this staff actually insane and possibly one of the most busted weapons in the entire game finally I'll recommend the cryp Lord ring which gives you create Undead the much stronger version of animate Undead that gives you ghouls I know this guide was a bit different than usual but this build almost demanded to be explained in its own way and I do thoroughly hope you enjoyed if you like the build or found the video helpful in any way make sure to subscribe for the next one and maybe consider joining us on the live streams and I just want to give a shout out to everyone who has supported me so far shown love and been a part of the channel Purge evil reached over 1,000 Subs 2 days after Thanksgiving and is now around, 1300 at the time of recording this video I truly appreciate each and every one of you and I just want to say thank you for stopping by and until next time Purge evil yet ground in my palm but I ain't put it on yet ground in my palm but I ain't put it on yet ground in my palm but I ain't put it on yet ground in my palm but I ain't put it on yet