INTRODUCTION

Nekros is one of the few frames that can utilise and maintain Gloom at or just near the slow cap of 95% while at low duration/efficiency. This is due to the synergy of desecrate, [Despoil], equilbrium and energize which can generate tons of energy even while Gloom is active, provided you can kill enemies fast enough. This allows [Nekros] to effectively lock down maps while staying near full energy all the time. Terrify also has some synergy with this build as Gloom slows down the rate of running away to a crawl (basically achieving what the augment does), while the high strength benefits armor strip to approximately 53%. You can even add in the augment [Creeping Terrify] to add an 80% slow that multiplies with gloom to hit exactly 99% slow!

There is an extra layer of survivability afforded by shield gating, catalyzing shields/[Rolling Guard] and optional shield [Regen] from [Brief Respite], with soul punch giving you max shields in 2 soul punch or one terrify, for any stray bullets that enter from outside the slow field.

If you prefer a traditional tanking style Nekros, you can use this variant: https://overframe.gg/build/219927/

This build shares polarities with the Tomb Raider Petrify Nekros build: https://overframe.gg/build/212485/

Why replace Shadows of the Dead instead of Soul Punch?
This is mostly personal preference, but Shadows has a very long animation and consumes alot of energy just to create some mostly unnecessary fodder allies that draw enemy fire, which isnt even that useful when enemies are slowed by Gloom. In addition, Soul Punch can ALSO convert enemies into Shadows even with when Shadows is subsumed over AND heal them to full by just soul punching when the max shadows have been reached. You can convert by either 'marking' an enemy you want to convert with soul punch then killing them OR casting it on an enemy below 25% health to insta kill it. If you prefer to recast shadows instead, just subsume Gloom over 1.

**Update 2023: Due to armor strip changes, Terrify is now an excellent AOE armor strip that also acts as hard crowd control. The usual issue is that terrify makes enemies run AWAY, which is often detrimental to kill speeds. However, Gloom completely fixes that by slowing them to basically a stand still (even more so than [Creeping Terrify]). Since we now spam Terrify alot more to strip and kill enemies, as well as use it to shield gate, I chose to remove Blind Rage from the build and rely on external strength sources such as Molt Augmened and Molt Vigor or even Madurai/Zenurik to allow you to hit slow cap.

PLAYSTYLE

  1. Tap 3 to activate Desecrate and keep active at all times. Kill enemies with this active to generate health orbs which are converted to energy by [Equilibrium].
  2. Tap 4 to activate Gloom and keep active (can reactivate gloom after 250 kills and using operator ability to hit 95% slow cap)
  3. Cast 2 when surrounded by groups of enemies to crowd control them, fully strip armor and reset shield gate as needed, gloom makes them not run away like usual
  4. Cast 1 on heavy units when low on health (<25%) to instant kill them + spawn a shadow. Usually I tend to spam 1 while shooting heavy enemies since it is onehanded and has a quick cast animation. Killing an enemy within 3s AFTER you soul punch will also spawn a shadow. Once you [Reach] 7 shadows, casting 1 and killing with then heal all current shadows to full health instead.

Here is a sample video showing some shield gating (cast 2 to refill shields immediately after getting hit), the health/energy regen from equilibrium, the insane slow of Gloom and the hilarious 30-40s downtime from Arcane Eruption:

Here is what happens when you combine Gloom and [Creeping Terrify]:

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
Duration affects gloom drain, shadow decay and terrify duration but is not overly important to invest in, nor should it be completely dumped. Keeping this neutral to positive is fine (100-155%).

Efficiency
Energy economy relies on desecrate producing health orbs (which have been buffed to 50) and [Equilibrium] which converts each orb to give 55 energy. You could go 45% efficiency but this will make terrify cost alot more and gloom drain alot faster, which overall makes the build feel less comfortable to play. I would suggest playing around with efficiency to a level that suits your playstyle, but I find 100% the most comfortable.

Range
This is flexible and down to preference and tileset. Having too large a range on a map with small rooms may mean you slow enemies in other rooms or scare them away from you before you even see them. Having too small a range on large open tilesets may mean you won't be affecting the distant enemies at all. I find 175% is a decent range for most circumstances.

Strength
To hit the 95% slow cap of Gloom, exactly 272% power strength is needed. [Umbral Intensify] + [Augur Secrets] + Molt Augmented + Molt [Vigor] hits exactly 273% strength. Terrify only needs 167% strength to full strip. If you don't have or want to run Molt Vigor, you can swap Umbral Intensify for Precision Intensify instead.

If you get more external strength such as Madurai/Zenurik/Grimoire/Archon Shards etc, this means you could drop augur secrets for flexible options such as Creeping Terrify, Augur Message, Rolling Guard.

Arcanes

Flexible slots
Exilus:
If you don't own [Primed Sure Footed], [Preparation] in exilus is the next best thing since it allows you to start a mission with max energy which means you can activate gloom straight away. Other exilus options are [Power Drift], [Handspring], [Vigilante Pursuit] e.t.c, depending on your preference

Catalyzing shields and augur secrets are flexible slots for any of the following:

Augur Message/[Primed Continuity]: Helps with gloom drain, terrify uptime and shadow decay time
[Creeping Terrify]: This gives an additional 80% slow that MULTIPLIES with Gloom giving a 99% slow, which is totally unnecessary but fun for a meme. Add in cold procs and you get 99.8% slow which is basically complete time freeze.
Streamline: Helps with gloom drain and terrify cast cost
Rolling Guard: Optional, helps status cleanse and provides i-frames (although you are already status immune from 3 and have i-frames on breaking 3)

Archon Shards
TWO amber cast speed shards - amazing for making terrify cast very fast, and if you want to keep Shadows instead of Soul Punch
THREE crimson strength shards - replace [Augur Secrets] for a flexible option like [Creeping Terrify], [Streamline], [Augur Reach] or [Primed Continuity].

ARSENAL

For maximum looting with desecrate, we want to use weapons that divide enemy bodies into 2 on kill. This allows you to have two chances per enemy to generate loot.
There are TWO main ways to achieve this:

  1. Non-DOT raw or physical damage on a weapon with >50% innate slash bias. This just means the weapon has >50% proportion of its physical IPS damage components as slash, which can be modified by +slash mods but is NOT affected by elemental mods. You can then mod raw damage on like viral, corrosive, radiation etc depending on the enemy you face. Since [Nekros] has armor strip, raw viral damage modded weapons are typically the way to go. Note, kills via SLASH PROCS (aka BLEED PROCS) will NOT split enemies, so be careful not to use high slash status weapons like weeping wounds modded nikana prime etc.

Examples of good raw damage moddable weapons with >50% slash bias include:

  1. [Amalgam Ripkas True Steel] forces enemies to be 'gored' on death, meaning they will be split from kills from ANY source including bleed procs, AOE damage, raw damage and even ability kills eg thermal sunder. Note, sometimes if your final hit is on the head or a limb, the split body part may NOT be desecrated. Overall this is the most flexible method allowing you to use very strong high KPM primary and secondary weapons to bisect enemies, eg [Torid] Incarnon, [Ocucor]. Amalgam Ripkas also has bonus to increasing shotgun reload speed, so you can pair it with a strong shotgun for maximum synergy: