INTRODUCTION

This is a shield gate oriented [Nekros] with active playstyle for general steel path looting and endurance.

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/

UPDATE 2025
I have removed Gloom and [Despoil] as these are no longer really needed. Gloom doesn't affect eximus enemies and [Creeping Terrify] slows enemies too. Since we are able to pick up health orbs now at full health while [Equilibrium] is equipped, without [Despoil], and eximus now have gauranteed health orb drop, [Despoil] no longer really adds that much benefit.

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. Cast 2 when surrounded by groups of enemies to crowd control them, fully strip armor and reset shield gate as needed
3. 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.
4. Cast 4 to summon 7 shadows simultaneously, or heal all 7 shadows if they are low on health.

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:

BUILD SPECIFICS

Duration
Duration mainly affects the rate of health decay of shadows. The base duration of Terrify is so long that you shouldn't really need to invest much duration for this. Duration has no effect on Soul Punch or Desecrate.

Efficiency
Energy economy relies mainly on desecrate producing health orbs (which have been buffed to 50) and [Equilibrium] which converts each orb to give 55 energy. You should adjust the efficiency to your playstyle, with 45% efficiency being fine if you are not casting as often and just using AOE clearing weapons and up to 130% being necessary if you have a cast heavy playstyle. If you drop [Blind Rage] for [Transient Fortitude] you will need to add more strength to ensure you hit the strip threshold on terrify (167%).

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
Terrify only needs 167% strength to full strip and shadows damage/health are affected by strength. Otherwise soul punch and desecrate are not affected by strength.

Arcanes

• Molt Augmented/Camisado - increases strength to help hit full strip breakpoint. You could add strength shards for this instead.
• Arcane aegis - filler arcane that helps refill shields passively making you periodically immortal (particularly to eximus attacks)
• Eruption - energy orbs produced by desecrate can knockdown enemies in 30m range

Flexible slots
Exilus:
If you don't own [Primed Sure Footed], [Preparation] in exilus is great 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

[Creeping Terrify]: This makes terrified enemies 80% slow so they don't run away from you as fast, making them easier to hit
Rolling Guard: Optional, helps status cleanse and provides i-frames

Archon Shards
TWO to THREE amber cast speed shards - amazing for improving the cast of terrify and shadows
TWO tauforged crimson strength shards - allows you to hit 167% terrify full strip threshold without conditional boosts like molt augmented

HELMINTH

You can subsume over either 1 or 4 depending on if you [Hate] the animation of 4 or spamming of 1 more, as both are capable of producing shadows.
1. Nourish : Nourish boosts energy generation further, applies viral damage bonus to both your weapons and your shadows and creates radial viral procs on taking damage
2. Pull : Pull with [Greedy Pull] augment is a great way to group enemies and simultaneously increase looting speed since it pulls loot straight to you so you dont even need to go pick it up

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:

• Phenmor
• Miter Incarnon
• Dread Incarnon
• Tenet Flux Rifle
• Soma Incarnon
• Boltor Incarnon
• Braton Incarnon
• Kuva Kohm
• Pyrana Prime
• Vasto Incarnon
• Dual Toxocyst (requires +slash mod)
• Nearly all good slash melees (just mod for raw viral) eg [Nikana Prime], [Kronen Prime], [Hate] incarnon, [Gunsen Prime], [Praedos]. ([Dual Ichor] requires a +slash mod).

2. [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:

• Strun Incarnon
• Boar Incarnon
• Phantasma
• Felarx
• Tenet Arca Plasmor
• Cedo
• [Phage]