Controls & Hero Skills

The Necromancer is no general hiding behind the lines. Your weapon skill cuts enemies down into corpses, Teleport slips you out of encirclements, and corpses are yours to detonate or devour on the way to becoming the Reaper. This page covers the controls and skills the hero uses directly on the battle screen. Summoning and Rally are covered in Commanding the Legion, and the level-up cards you pick during a run in Floors, Combo & Grades.

Controls at a glance

Action	How	Good to know
Move	Drag the sigil on the left side of the screen.	Push it only slightly to walk slowly.
Attack	Hold the attack sigil.	Auto-aims at a nearby enemy and keeps firing.
Teleport	Press the Teleport button.	A short leap in the direction you’re facing.
Corpse Explosion	Tap, or hold and drag to aim.	Every corpse inside the ring detonates.
Reaper button	Press it.	Switches between Absorb, Reaper Form and Sustain as the situation changes.
Summon slots / Rally	Tap, or drag and release.	Explained in detail on the Commanding the Legion page.

Movement and camera

The Move sigil is fixed on the left side of the screen. Push it all the way to walk fast, or just a little to walk slowly.
The camera follows you automatically; there is no zoom or rotation control. Walls and pillars that hide the hero turn translucent.
You can’t move while stunned or during the brief moment you chant a summon.

Attacking

Aiming rules

You fire continuously as long as you hold the Attack sigil. There’s no need to tap repeatedly.
It automatically aims at the nearest enemy within range. Enemies hidden behind walls are never chosen.
Once you lock onto a target, you keep shooting it until it dies or leaves range, even if a closer enemy walks up.
Seal statues are valid targets too. If a statue is the closest thing, you’ll shoot the statue first.
With no enemy in range, you shoot in the direction you’re facing.

Shooting on the move

Every shot starts with a brief charge while a magic circle glows under your feet. You face your target while charging.
Early in the charge you can still walk slowly, but your feet plant just before the release. Holding Attack while moving makes you stutter-step with every shot.
If you’re hit mid-charge, a nearly finished shot fires immediately; otherwise it’s cancelled. A cancelled shot costs you nothing — you can fire again right away.

Weapon skills

Your equipped weapon decides how you attack. Every weapon carries one of four skills, chosen at random, and that skill is also your attack’s element.

Skill	Element	Base effect	How it flies
Hellfire Bolt	Fire	Briefly stuns what it hits.	Flies fast and straight.
Frost Spear	Freeze	Slows what it hits.	Pierces every enemy in a line.
Abyssal Orb	Dark	Targets take more damage.	Drifts slowly, lodges in an enemy and circles there.
Sanguine Needle	Bleed	Deals damage over time and heals you a little on every hit.	Rains down from above the target.

Skills grow stronger in three tiers based on the weapon’s grade: T1 on C and B, T2 on A and S, T3 on SS and SSS weapons.
The skill panel in the item window shows each tier’s keyword, and locked tiers show the grade they need, such as “Unlocks at Grade A”. Tap the panel to read all three tier descriptions.
Transmuting a weapon at the smithy keeps its skill, and the skill’s stage rises with the new grade. The Smithy

Hellfire Bolt

T1 Knockback Ignite: The target staggers slightly, and embers burst forward in a fan from the impact, burning enemies standing behind it.
T2 Wall of Fire: On top of T1, flames linger where the bolt hit and keep burning anything standing in them.
T3 Delayed Detonation: The bolt embeds in the enemy and explodes a heartbeat later, catching everything around it. If that blast kills the target, a free Corpse Explosion — no corpse, no cooldown — goes off on the spot.

Frost Spear

At every tier the spear pierces all enemies in its path. It stops at walls.
T1 Piercing Chill: Every enemy it pierces is slowed.
T2 Shatter Freeze: Every enemy it pierces freezes in place for a moment, and ice shards burst out of the first one hit, slowing those nearby.
T3 Frost Nova: Pierced enemies freeze, and when the spear’s flight ends, a Frost Nova erupts where it pierced its last enemy, freezing the area and leaving slowing ice on the ground. The more enemies you pierce in one throw, the wider the nova. If the spear ends by hitting a wall, there’s no nova.

Abyssal Orb

The orb lodges in the first enemy it hits (or where its flight ends if it hits nothing) and circles there, repeatedly damaging enemies inside its ring and making them take more damage. When the orbit ends, it collapses into a single point and explodes, and corpses sometimes appear where caught enemies stood. An orb that hits a wall first simply vanishes.
T1 Void Anchor: The basic behavior above.
T2 Void Pull: Drags enemies inside the ring toward its center. Bosses can’t be pulled. The orbit lasts longer and the collapse hits harder.
T3 Void Collapse: The longest orbit and the strongest final collapse.

Sanguine Needle

Blood spikes fall one after another from above the target. The first lands dead center, the rest scatter around it, and the last spike strikes hardest. With no target, they fall ahead of you in the direction you’re facing.
Even a spike that misses bursts where it lands, dealing damage and bleed to nearby enemies.
T1 Crimson Rain: The basic behavior above.
T2 Exsanguinate: More spikes fall. When the bleeding piled on an enemy grows large enough, the wound ruptures: it deals all the remaining bleed damage at once, spreads bleed to nearby enemies, heals you a little and fills your Reaper gauge.
T3 Crimson Hunter: Even more spikes, and every hit releases a blood bat that hunts down enemies.

Extra effects from weapon grade

From grade B up, your projectiles grow larger.
A Hellfire Bolt of grade S or higher pierces enemies.
At the top grade, SSS, your projectiles split into smaller ones every time they hit.

Teleport

Pressing Teleport makes a short leap in the direction you’re facing. While walking you face where you walk; while attacking you face your target.
You can’t pass through walls — you stop in front of them.
The leap is shorter while you’re engaged with an enemy in range.
It has a cooldown; pressing it too early shows the line “Shadows bind me.”
You can’t teleport while stunned. With the runeword Crimson Veil, you can teleport out of a stun. Runewords
When you teleport, enemies near the spot you left drop the attack they were winding up and pick a new target. It’s a good way to dodge a melee blow that’s about to land.
For a short moment after teleporting, Corpse Explosion deals bonus damage.
Gear options can shorten the cooldown or grant a shield when you arrive.

Corpse Explosion

Input	Result
Tap	Centers on the corpse nearest to you and detonates every corpse within the ring.
Hold and drag	Time slows and the aiming ring follows your finger. Corpses that will blow are highlighted; release to detonate there.
Cancel	While aiming, drag back onto the button or to the very bottom of the screen and release.

Each corpse in the ring explodes on its own spot. Enemies standing among several corpses get caught many times.
The tougher the enemy was in life, the harder its corpse explodes. Elite and boss corpses make powerful bombs.
When you drag to aim, you can detonate corpses far away from the hero.
The cooldown depends on how many corpses you detonate. The more you blow up, the shorter it gets, and detonating a huge pile at once makes it ready again immediately. Blowing up only a few corpses makes a much weaker blast but a short cooldown, while a well-stocked pile also hits harder.
If the ring you dragged holds no corpses, it fails with “No flesh to burn.”; if you tap with no corpse near the hero, the ring just shakes. While on cooldown the button shows the time left, and it can’t be used while stunned.
Detonated corpses are gone — they’re the same corpses you use to summon and to Absorb.
Rite line gear and some gear options and runewords increase the blast’s power and radius, leave corpses behind, or make a spot explode a second time.

Absorb and Reaper Form

The Reaper button appears the first time you kill an enemy on the second floor and stays for good.

Fill the gauge with Absorb. While the button reads Absorb, pressing it pulls in and devours every corpse nearby, and each one fills the Reaper gauge. The gauge is shown on the button; with no corpses nearby, nothing happens.
Transform when it’s full. When the gauge is full, the button’s label changes to Reaper Form. Press it again to transform; the whole gauge is spent.
Swing the scythe with the attack sigil. While transformed you slash with a scythe instead of shooting. Keep holding the attack sigil to keep cutting.
Extend the form with Absorb. During the transformation the button becomes Sustain. Press it to devour nearby corpses and add time, though the form never lasts longer than its full starting length.

Ways to fill the Reaper gauge

Absorb: Devour nearby corpses. This is the main way.
Altar of the Reaper: Fills the gauge instantly and lengthens Reaper Form until the floor ends.
Sanguine Needle: At T2 and above, every rupturing wound adds to the gauge.
Gear options: Some options increase the gauge you gain from Absorb or lengthen Reaper Form.
Summoning and Corpse Explosion do not fill the gauge. Absorbing during Reaper Form adds time instead of gauge.

While in Reaper Form

Your first and second slashes dash through the target to its far side, cutting everything along the way; the third leaps up and crashes down in front of it.
Each slash hits many enemies at once and is far stronger than your ranged attack.
Your weapon’s element effect (stun, slow, bleed, vulnerability) still applies, and your weapon skill’s effects (Wall of Fire, the orb’s collapse and so on) also burst from the scythe at regular intervals.
With no enemy in range you’ll see “No soul to reap.” and won’t swing. You don’t start attacks while moving, so stop next to your enemies to cut them down.
The time left is shown on the Reaper button. When it runs out you return to normal. You can still Teleport while transformed.

Off-hand skills

Equipping an off-hand item activates one of four skills automatically — no button needed. Which skill you get is rolled at random for each off-hand, and its tier follows the same rule as weapons (T1 on C and B, T2 on A and S, T3 on SS and SSS). Off-hands drop as loot like any other gear and are equipped from the inventory. Gear & Loot

Skill	T1	T2	T3
Blood Orbit (Bleed)	Circling Thirst: Blood orbs circle the hero, damaging and bleeding enemies they brush past.	Saturate: One more orb joins, and each orb swells stronger with every hit. When you take damage, the fullest orb bursts to heal you.	Bloodletting: A fully swollen orb shoots toward the nearest enemy, piercing everything in a line, then reforms.
Umbral Effigy (Dark)	Afterimage: A shadow of you stays behind where you walked, and nearby enemies attack it instead of you. It fades after a while.	Creeping Dark: Enemies around the effigy are slowed and take more damage.	Collapse: When the effigy fades, the void bursts, pulling nearby enemies in and damaging them.
Cinder Brand (Fire)	Ember Brand: Every few ranged shots, a nearby enemy is branded and bursts a heartbeat later. If it dies first, the brand still explodes where it fell.	Spreading Flame: The explosion passes a brand to a neighboring enemy. Brands that spread this way don’t spread again.	The Pyre: Keep blowing up the same ground and a long-burning pyre rises there.
Rime Ward (Freeze)	Warding Rime: A ring of frost around the hero slows every enemy inside.	Hoarfrost: Enemies that linger inside the ward freeze, and you take less damage while the ward holds.	Backlash: The ward stores the damage you take and, once enough has built up, releases it all at once, damaging and freezing nearby enemies. Until it recharges, only the slow remains.

Umbral Effigy doesn’t make new shadows while you stand still. Teleporting leaves one behind instantly at the spot you left, holding back the enemies chasing you.
Cinder Brand counts your ranged shots. Scythe attacks in Reaper Form don’t count.
Blood Orbit and Rime Ward shine when enemies crowd around the hero — good picks if melee enemies surround you often.

Practical tips

The basic flow is shoot to make corpses → summon → detonate or devour what’s left. Summons get first pick of the corpses — Absorb swallows the ones you could have summoned on.
Save Corpse Explosion for when corpses have piled up. It hits harder, the cooldown shrinks, and with a huge pile you can fire it again right away.
In a pinch, release Attack, push the joystick toward your escape route, then Teleport — and fire a Corpse Explosion as soon as you land for the bonus damage.
Reaper Form is best when enemies are bunched up and corpses remain nearby, since Absorb can stretch the form.
Abyssal Orb creates corpses with its collapse, feeding your summons and explosions, while Sanguine Needle heals you on every hit and is great for staying power.
Auto-Hunt uses these skills by the same rules. For tips on leaving the fight to it, see Auto-Hunt.

Common mistakes

Running away while holding Attack. Your feet plant on every shot. Let go when you flee.
Wasting Corpse Explosion on a few corpses. The blast is much weaker. Wait for them to pile up.
Pressing the Reaper button and nothing happens. There are no corpses nearby to devour. Press it near corpses.
Moving the whole time in Reaper Form. You don’t slash while moving.
Teleporting into a wall. You stop in front of it. Remember that while attacking, you leap toward your target.
Transmuting a weapon to change its skill. Transmute keeps the skill; to switch elements, find a weapon with the element you want.